Quilt Guild

Today was the last regular meeting for this year of the guild that I have belonged to for 3 years. Since I'm somewhat quiet, it has taken me this long to really get to know some of the ladies. I love this group....they are so helpful and encouraging. The next meeting witl be a potluck in June to vote on the next year's officers. I won't be able to go as I'll be recuperating from my surgery, but my name is on the ballot for secretary. There are two of us, so it's not a sure thing. I would look forward to being an officer and getting more involved and becoming even more acquainted with members. We'll see.

And since no post is complete without a photo, here's my layout for LOAD for today. The prompt is to use emphasis. And the whole subject of LOAD is 'back to the basics'. So my layout seems rather plain, but it is basic and speaks to Eli's growing sense of independence.

Two things

First I want to give a shout out for Big Picture Classes and Stacy Julian. She's offering an new and revised version of her Library of Memories. And she's offering it FREE to alums of the previous LOM classes. That class revolutionized how I scrapbook, how I keep track of photos and how I organize my albums. So I'm a big fan and will be taking the new class which starts in June - just in time after my hip surgery.


Second, want to post this layout I did for a challenge at Cocoa Daisy, which is my favorite kit club. I've tried several over the years and it's the best around for me. The challenge was to do a layout of a visit to a theme park or a fair and use flags on the layout. Humm....I haven't been to either in many years, but I remembered these darling photos of Eliana from her first time skiing at Whistler. Found a sketch in my folder....sorry, but I didn't save the source. When I was sorting through patterned paper a month or so ago, I found this lovely snowflake pp and set it out for a snow layout. Perfect for these photos. The strip on the left is from my bits and pieces drawer and was the perfect blend of colors - I even punched the circle embellishment from that pp. Made the flags from some hatpins from a past CD kit and some leftover cardstock. None of the journaling cards I had would work, so I made my own by tracing around one from Making Memories. Really happy with how this turned out.

Want to encourage all you scrappers out there to make use of your scraps and older pp. It's a real money saver.

By the way, Eliana is only 22 months in the photos and LOVES the snow.

Design team

Poor neglected blog...sigh. Seems I have been too busy with other things, but a recent design team call for Cocoa Daisy - my favorite kit club - brought me back. I don't think I've ever applied for a design team and probably stand little chance of making it, but if I were ever on one, I would want it to be Cocoa Daisy. I love their kits and have since about 2007.



So, yesterday I got busy and made a layout of a recent telephone conversation with Eliana who is going to be 2 years old next month. She's fascinated with the phone and loves to talk. Her language skills are improving every day with new English and Spanish words. Yes, she's bilingual thanks to her mother who is a bilingual teacher in an elementary school. Eli's babysitter is also a Spanish speaker. I'm not, but I've learned quite a few words over the past year. But I digress.



I really wanted to document Eli's current pronounciations, especially of my name which has gone from Nana, to ammy, to gwammy now. She's the light of my life.



So here's the layout.

Smile

this layout was a response to a post on Write. Click. Scrapbook to go through an older stack of patterned paper and sort out what you wouldn't use. In the process I found this older pp by BoBunny that was perfect for the photo of Eli I took a couple weeks ago when Greg and I took her to the park up by them. The sketch is from another site, The Studio Challenges. The two tags I used to frame the photo are from K & Co and the sticker letters are from ADORN it. I have no idea where the other embellishments came from. So glad I found this pp and was able to scrap this sweet photo.

LOAD 211 Day 3

I'm loving this month's LOAD. There are wonderful layouts in the gallery to provide inspiration and the prompts are also interesting. Today's layout is a totally different type of design - not one I do very often. It has lots of embellishments - I had a kit from Basic Grey (Olivia) that had lots of fun chipboard and papers that I loved. So, here it is.

I love these photos of Greg, Sara and Eli that were taken when they traveled to Denver for a family gathering.

LOAD211

Started today. I love LOAD - love the prompts, the 'lessons', the work of the other participants, and the lovely comments that I sometimes get. I had a meeting this morning so didn't get started on this until after lunch. Very simple - two colors of cardstock, some buttons, and some letter stickers. I love this photo of one of the pelicans that wandered throughout Mykonos town. They were huge - at least 3 feet tall from feet to top of the head. This will be part of my Greece travel album.

Christmas 2010

I'm trying to get some of the Christmas photos scrapped. This is Eli with her dollie that mama and dad-o gave her. She loves dollies, but seems to have a fetish about taking all the clothes off. This time she put them in the washer - and even knew the right buttons to push (not strong enough to close the door tightly enough yet). She then took her dollie in and wrapped her in a blanket. Such a good little mama.
There are lots of other photos to put on paper, but haven't gotten that far yet. Christmas was so much fun with this little one who didn't understand about the wrapped boxes until she had unwrapped, with some help, a couple. She kept getting distracted and played with each thing before looking for another. So, we had a leisurely morning. Next year may be a different story all together.

Favorite 10 in 2010

I created 118 layouts in 2010. That's plenty to choose just 10 that I liked the most. Really it made it far harder than if I had created fewer. So, here they are. They cover the gamut of style, subject and photos. I think I can begin to see a common style.

There you have it. I look forward to creating many more layouts throughout 2011.

Greece

Ten days in Greece was fabulous. If I had to pick just one photo to remember it by, that photo would be this one. This was one of four old windmills on a hill above Mykonos town. It was quite a hike up there and the wind blew really hard - easy to see why they were built up there. The white cement building with the blue door is very common in this part of Greece. And the rocks at the base cover the island. I think I'll use this as the title page for me album about my trip.

Scrapping Old Photos

Since I'm an alumni of Library of Memories, I have joined an on-line group that receives a weekly challenge and has a gallery for us to post our layouts. So, when the challenge was to scrap a school related photo, it was a good time to go through some of the older photos and try to find a 'first day of school' photo. While I remember taking them most years, I couldn't find very many of them. This was the best of the lot. I think I'll add some journaling at the bottom right about how Sara loved having these photos taken and Eric hated it and only did it because I asked. Perhaps that's why there are so few.....he left early on the first day.

Backpack Love

I've had this photo of Sara on my scrapbook desk for a couple months. I must have taken it out for something and then not used it. In any case, when I printed out the photo of Eli, I had an inspiration. Two little girls, two backpacks. Mother/daughter. Definitely fodder for a layout.
These papers came in a kit from Cocoa Daisy sometime this summer. Yesterday I was doing some organizing in my craft room and found the kit. These papers were perfect for the photos. The rest went together rather easily. I love when that happens.

Tutu Cute

It's been quite a while since I've done any scrapbooking. The summer seems to be centered on the garden, not indoor activities.

But, I did a bit of straightening up in my craft room yesterday and found this sheet of Hambly paper and it seemed perfect for this photo of my grand-daughter, Eliana. The other supplies were part of a kit from Cocoa Daisy and were perfect with the photo.

Eli has a neighbor who is just crazy about her, and frequently stops by with little gifts. This particular weekend I was visiting when Gramma Linda delivered this swimsuit. We had to try it on her immediately to see if it fit. Eli was only too happy to show off in her tutu suit.

It's not hard to create layouts with such a cutie to be the main attraction. :)

Better later than Never

It was a vacation for both of us. Sara had just graduated from high school and I was recently divorced. It was 1993. WOW, that was 17 years ago. So why is this album just being finished? Good question.

That crazy photo on the top of the first page? I did that at a CM party in about 1994. It was the first I'd heard about scrapbooking. I was intrigued, but couldn't afford to even think about buying any supplies. Sara was in college and I was working three jobs, and she was working one to help pay for the wonderful school she was attending. So the page about the Hawaii vacation sat in amongst the photos, waiting for me to do something with it.

Life got seriously in the way during the next few years. Fast forward to 2000 and another CM party. I created another crazy page about a trip to Alaska. This time I had the time and money to get started with the basics. In no time at all I was hooked. Completely.

The photos of this trip languished in a box along with other poor quality photos while I scrapped tons of other ones that were more recent and much more fun to use. The thought of creating lots of pages with them was daunting. Then along came Stacy Julian and her fast photo two up album scrapbooking. Ah... a perfect solution to my quandry of what to do with these photos. Finding the negatives and developing another non-heart cropped photo of Sara and me was out of the question....so it was cut from the page and mounted like all the other photos. The circle photo of our first view of the ocean received the same treatment.

This album is not my finest work, but all the photos are in one place where they can be enjoyed and where the story has been told. DONE!

Lots of White Space

I've always admired layouts with only one or two small photos and a couple embellishments and lots of white space. I've been very intimated by them as well. I finally decided that I needed to face my fear of failure and just do it. This is the result. This layout took me longer to put together than much more complex ones. I guess that's because the minimalist design shows all the flaws instantly.

I like how this turned out. I like how the quilt I made for Eliana is really center stage. The background paper by Basic Grey has just enough texture to keep it from looking too stark.

Even tho I now know I can do this, I don't forsee doing a lot of them in the future.

LOAD

Lain Ehmann of Write.Click.Scrapbook is running a class called, Layout A Day. She posts a prompt each day and we take it from there. The idea is to get photos scrapped and use up our stash. I could certainly use all the motivation I can get to scrap on a regular basis. So.....
today's challenge was to document a beginning. It's a perfect topic as I just began my yearly winter/spring garden clean-up. The frost in November left my garden looking worse than usual and it was so discouraging to look out at all the dead and scraggly plants. Yesterday was a warm - 53 degree - day with a bit of weak sunshine. The perfect time to start some of the restoration. After two hours I had filled my garbage can and the garden cart with debris. The stuff in the garden cart was destined for the compost pile and the garbage can mess will be hauled away tomorrow morning. I had hoped for more obvious results, but even a little bit helps. I have many more hours ahead before all is ready for the summer.
I know I did something tho, by the way my muscles were complaining this morning! :)
For the layout: patterned paper: Basic Grey; ghost clock: Heidi Swapp: brad: brad topper by Imaginisce; alphabet: American Craft; unknown journaling block.

A scrap-a-thon

This week I've had the chance to get together two times with friends to scrapbook. I managed to finish 12 layouts and start on a couple more. Every time I get to be creative, it seems I have a favorite. This is my favorite for the week. The photo was taken on Thanksgiving weekend and is so good of all three of them. The 'I love you' in the lower right corner of the photo was an add-on when I had it developed at Scrapbook Pictures. I love how the photos come out when I send them off to SP for developing.

The sketch for the layout came from Pencillines. So many of my layouts are from sketches on that website.

It feels so good to be able to get back to playing with paper and photos and all the goodies I've been hoarding. I'll save the other layouts for another post.

I'm on a Roll

Even tho I'm home with a cold, I still have enough energy to scrapbook. That's a good thing since I have a million photos and almost as many supplies. This layout was done from a sketch on Pencillines.
If you've never checked them out, you should - they post a new sketch every Sunday and have several designers create a page from it. The photos were taken on Eli's 4 month birthday in a lovely park in Portland. The patterned papers were from this month's Cocoa Daisy kit. Really like how it came out.
I have another layout almost finished using last month's Cocoa Daisy kit. I'm definitely on a roll!

Using the Cocoa Daisy kits

During the summer I did very little scrapbook-ing as I spent so much time in the garden. I'm suddenly overrun with supplies from my monthly kits. Yikes! So I've been on a scrapbooking binge. At the rate I'm using papers it could be next year sometime before I've caught up with them.

This layout has photos that Sara took of Eli on her 4 month birthday. She has quite the variety of expressions. At first, I thought I would put descriptive words in the pp blocks, but decided the photos are too cute to draw attention away from them. So, here you are you doll baby in all your happiness.

Ali's class as BPS

I'm taking the 'Yesterday Today' class at Big Picture Scrapbooking for the next 12 weeks. The layout below is the first of the weekly layouts we will do in class. I love how it turned out. One of the best things I learned this week is how to scan older photos so I can enlarge and use them. The photo on the right is of me in Brooklyn, NY in front of my grandmother's brownstone apartment where we lived while my father was in Germany during WWII. I'm 2-1/2 years old - notice the high top brown shoes and the wooden doll buggy. Cool stuff.

Bad Blogger

I'm a terrible blogger. It's been ages since I added anything new. So here's a layout I started a couple weeks ago and finished today. I used a Becky Higgins sketch and just cardstock and few pieces of a Pink Paislee patterned paper. The photos really don't need anything else.