March Project 12

I waited until the last minute to get this posted.  Hello, my name is Erica, and I'm a procrastinator.  :)

Anyway, when I started my layout this month, I had no idea what paper or embellishments I wanted to use.  None.  I spent probably an hour looking through the tons of paper I have and getting "kits" together. Then another hour trying to decide which kit to use.  I almost gave up.  I went back and forth so many times my brain got whiplash.  Finally, I decided that I wanted to use a cute Dear Lizzy paper from her 1st line with little Easter eggs all over it.  I based my color scheme off that paper and just went with it. 

 

Now, you may ask, all of this based on that one little strip of egg paper?  But, there will be an 8x8 insert about Easter that will have quite a bit more of that paper.  Well, it will when I get it done.  :)   

My layout turned out a little greener than I thought it would, but since it's March, I was okay with that.  

I hadn't really planned on doing the confetti pocket behind the title, but once I started stitching the vellum down, I thought it'd be fun.  I like how it turned out, but I didn't like all the punching.  My hand started to hurt after a bit.  

Once that was done, I started trying to decided what letters to use for a title.  And what goes better with green then gold?  So I finally got to use my gold glitter thickers! I love, love, love these!

In the other pockets I scrapped about St. Pat's Day, going to my nieces birthday and Becca's first solo attempt at spaghetti.  She loved it btw.  

The top pics are from the last storm Indiana threw at us.  It's almost spring and we get 8", the most we've had all winter, dumped on us in a day.  Of course we had a snow day, which the kiddos loved.  Even Jon got a snow day, so they had some fun outside.  

Our Spring Break was this month.  We try to hit the zoo every spring break.  It was really cold this year, but the kids didn't care and Becca had a blast!  

The last pic is what the kids came down to Easter morning.  I used a pre-lined card for my journaling and am now seeing that the lines were a bit close together.  I got all my journaling in this block, but it's not so easy to read.  I might have to redo that one...we'll see.

I will post the little insert when I finish it and show how it looks all together.  

Thanks for stopping by  :)

Done with March

The month and the kits :) 

I got two more pages done with the Gossamer Blue kit this month bringing the total for this kit to 6!!  This month's kit was so fun with all the bright colors.  I had a blast using it!

Page 5

I meant to journal all this before I actually took the pictures, but got a little ahead of myself.  It will basically say that we stopped for a bite to eat on our way out for my birthday and got silly.  That tends to happen a lot with us.  Love it.

The only thing I added to this were the red letter stickers and the glitter Thickers.  The rest all came from the kit.  :)




Page 6

 

So, I know Lent is over, but I wanted to do a page about one of the things I gave up.  I had this pic from a get together (we always have too much candy) and knew it would work great with the bright colors from the kit.  The design came from a Marcy Penner sketch I'd seen awhile ago.  Not sure when, I just know it was hers.  Once I'd decided to split the page like she did, I knew I wanted to add in the ruffle using the tissue paper packaged with the kit.  I think this might be a thing I do...try to include a ruffle on one of my pages every month.  I love ruffles and I might as well reuse the tissue paper.  Lord knows I have enough here already and don't want to just throw it away.

So, there you go.  I can't believe how many pages I got done this month!  And I thought I did good last month.  I wanted to show off to my family, so I hung them all in the dining room.  Maybe that should be another monthly tradition.  :)

It's really a lot of pages.  Happy, happy me!!

Thanks for stopping by :)

Neverland was a hit kit!

I have done three more pages and a card with the Studio Calico kit.  Giving me a grand total of 7 projects!!!  WooHoo!!!  This kit just kept giving me ideas and inspiration.  It didn't hurt that I am in love with all the Dear Lizzy and Amy Tangerine lines and the SC paper was super cute, too.  Enough chit chat, onto the pages.

#1

I know I've talked about this before, but I added in several things to all the pages from my mountain of supplies in the basement.  What's the point of it being there if it's not going to get used??  On this page, I used the fun Amy Tangerine rub-ons.  I added them to pattern paper and onto plain cardstock which I then painted with watercolors to match the page.  I also used my watercolors on the camera at the top.  It was previously a light gray camera, but now has a lovely pink outlook on life.  I used the mask again on this page.  I thought I would have trouble using it, but it went ok.  Then I added in some sanded cardstock triangles, some washi tape and some gems and enamel dots.  I'm glad I finally got this cute, cute picture scrapped!

NUMERO DOS

The subject of this page is one I'm sure you'll see lots of, my favoritest bridge in the whole world (with the Golden Gate a close second, we share a birthday :) ), the Mackinac Bridge.  Every time we are in the vicinity of Mackinac, we HAVE to stop and get pictures.  I've had this 5x7 sitting in my photo box for years thinking I was going to frame it, but this is a more fitting home, I think.  I really wanted to use that skyline paper from  the Amy Tangerine Yes, Please line, but couldn't think of any city pics off the top of my head.  So, since the buildings are something awesome and man made and the bridge is too, I though it would work well together. Hence the title, Modern Marvel.  And then because I'm me and my page just felt too linear, I sewed on some ribbon ruffles.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

This was my page and card combo.  This Seeing Double Two Peas challenge really made me think about how I was creating visual triangles.  This concept was in the back of my mind, but I didn't always pay too much attention to it.  I used color and shapes to make the triangles.  You'll  notice I paid close attention to this on all three of these pages.  Also, using the scraps from a page to make a card always makes me happy. This was a win win challenge!

I had to add a little pocket on the back of the page for the journaling.  I wanted to write it directly on the layout, but once I had penciled it in, it just didn't feel right.    

This was the last page I used the mask on.  I sprayed some cardstock with different color mists.  I cut out a few of the arrow shapes and sewed through the middle of them.  For the card, I mirrored those shapes with stickers and hand cut pattern paper arrows.

Now, I just have a couple more pages to make with my Gossamer Blue kit before I can open up my new kits.  Well, I'll confess that I did already open the Spencer kit from SC.  It came the other day and I just wanted to drool for a second or two :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Two more...sorta

So when I was venting (whining) about my time frustration before, I had completely forgotten about a page I'd already done for Gossamer Blue.  Silly me.  So I'd actually done 3 from Gossamer Blue and two from Studio Calico.  No need to get all crazy at all, huh?

Here is the one I didn't post:

 

I had fun using my watercolors on this page.  Lately, I want to use them on every page!!  This was the sketch challenge for March and one of the other Gossamer Blue members used mine for her scraplift for March, too.  :)  Thanks Heather!!  Check out her awesome blog here!

And here is another one from the Studio Calico kit. 

 This page went pretty quick for me until I had the main block done.  Then I just thought something was off.  And I sat and stared at it for almost an hour.  *ugh*  Finally, I decided that it needed a border and my sewing machine came to the rescue.  I didn't want to cover any of the beautiful paper up, so the stitching added just enough of a border that your eye stays where it's supposed to and not wander off the page.

Can I just say, by the way, how unbelievably happy I am that I can now use my sewing machine.  I don't do it on every page, but if I want to now, I can.  I don't have to rely on my craftier friends.  Only the slightest bit of anxiety remains when I start the machine.  Yay me!!  Let's hear it for overcoming weird fears!!




That's it for now.  Until next time :)

Pages noticed!

Hey!!  I have some cool news to share with you.

One, a page I did for All Ready Memories was featured on the My Scrapbook Art blog!!

So excited to get that message.  They will search the Two Peas gallery for inspiration pieces.  The post is all about mason jars and I had used some on my page.  The other projects are super cute, too!!

And two, one of the pages I submitted for the Glitz Guest designer contest was featured as a cute entry.  

I didn't win the spot, but they liked it enough to put it on the blog.

Then, some awesome friends of mine pinned it.  I was surprised to see it when I logged onto Pinterest. Made me smile all over my face :)











Oh, oh...then I went along for the Glitz Uncharted Waters blog hop and randomly won an Uncharted Waters prize pack.  EEEEE!  I was so excited for that!  I started jumping up and down and the kids thought I'd lost it.  So, my time spent has paid off.  I think I will not be whining for awhile.  :)

Thanks for stopping by :)

Use it or lose it

So far, I've not gotten as many pages done with my kits as I would like.  I've done four, two from each kit, but I want at least four from EACH KIT EVERY MONTH.  That was my challenge to myself when I signed up for these kits.  If I was going to spend the money, I had better use the suckers! If I don't reach my goal for two consecutive months, I am stopping the subscriptions.  I couldn't justify it, you know?

 I keep getting trying to add more and more projects on top of what I already intend to do.  I want to do it all, but I just can't.  Well, not and actually have a life that includes coming out of my basement.  I keep seeing so much inspiration on blogs and in the galleries and wonder how people find the time in their days to get it all done.  If I focus on creating a project, the dishes suffer.  If I try to catch up on blogs (or blogging), Becca watches Umi Zoomi for longer than she should.  If I stay up late to get my creativity out of my head, the next day I suffer, from lack of sleep.  How do you make it all work??  I'm sure there is a lot of advice out there on how I could manage my time better and how to do five things at once, but I think the solution is extending the number of hours in a day.  That wouldn't mess up the rest of the world or anything and would really help me out.  Okay, okay, maybe not.  Maybe I should learn to prioritize my projects, maybe it'll be okay if the dishes sit for a little longer, maybe it'll be okay if everything doesn't get done right this second or even today. Maybe I should stop stressing about it and just live.  Oh, wait.  There.  See?  If I ramble long enough, I can usually answer my own questions.

Now that I am done with my whining, I will post what I've done so far.  I had tried with the 1st kits to use only what was sent in the kit.  With these kits, I am adding things in left and right.  What's the point of my stash if I can't use it??

 Here are the layouts from the Gossamer Blue kit:

This 1st page is one of the two I entered in the Glitz design contest, using mostly what was in the kit.  I also posted this one already, but it's fun and pretty.  :)

 

This page was based on a member scraplift challenge.  So fun to browse through what everyone had posted and see all the amazing talent!! I chose a layout by Jill Keller.  She has great layouts.

Here are the layouts for Studio Calico:

So, this kit came with a mask and mist.  The mist I was okay with, but the mask is a little challenging for me.  I NEVER use them.  Don't really know why, I definitely like the results.  A little messy, just like me.  :)

I started thinking about how modern/cool/hip the masks design was and immediately thought of this pic of my brother.  You know, since he's playing Magic and it's so cool.  (sarcasm alert!!)  Though, who am I to judge when I have thousands of pieces of paper in my basement?  I wanted the layout to reflect the mask, though, hence all the geometric shapes and bold patterns.

There you go.  I will post the others as soon as I can get them done.  And I am going thru and doing a small spring cleaning in my scrap area and will show where I work soon.  

Thanks for stopping by :)

Glitz and Gossamer Blue Challenge

I was so excited when I heard Gossamer Blue and Glitz were teaming up for a challenge.  I loved the Glitz product included in the March kit and had been drooling over all the gorgeous Glitz papers and embellies I'd seen on Two Peas.  So, when the challenge was announced, I was definitely in!

I used some stuff from the kit, some things I'd purchased and a few things from my stash.  I came up with 2 (YES 2!) pages to enter in the contest.  I was thinking I'd just do one, but, well I'll explain that in a bit.  Here is the first page.

It all started with that saying..."You can never have too much happy".   It just hit my life right on the mark.  Yes, we have bad days, but they are majorly outnumbered by the good.  My life is good and I am happy.  And when Becca was born, it just added a whole new heap of happiness onto my already full happy plate.  So of course I needed to use pictures of her on the layout.  I found these pics from spring last year and thought they went perfectly with the colors in the papers.

 I used a couple Glitz papers and some My Minds Eye (in the March kit) for the background.  Then I cut out lots of cute little embellishments from the papers and used the Glitz giant rhinestones (LOVE THEM!).  I added a Dear Lizzy die cut (happy), MME wood banner and enamel dots and a couple wood veneer arrows from Studio Calico.  Here are some close ups of the embellishment clusters.

 For the wood veneer pieces, I changed the color to match the woodgrain in the papers by adding some Tim Holtz distrees ink.  I knew I wanted to use those pieces and was just lucky that I had an ink that matched.


Now for the second page.

I'm kinda lovin this.  :)  So, as I was going through and using different papers from the 8x8 Glitz paper pack, I noticed how cute all the strips were at the top of the papers.  I needed to use them!!  I used a couple on the 1st page, but set a bunch aside to use later on.  I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with them.  Then I saw this and this on Two Peas and was totally inspired.

I knew, too, that I wanted to use up some of my Thickers on a long title.  I had to dig a bit, but I think these ended up working well.  I hope I did the math right.  :)  I used an older picture, but it was what I had sitting on my desk, so in it went.  This whole page was a kind of wing it and hope it works.  And, just so you know, sewing on the pages still gives me crazy anxiety, but I'm learning to cope.  :)

 

Well, that's it for now.  I'll post some more projects I did for All Ready Memories, soon.  Oh, and of course all the new stuff I'll make with my Gossamer Blue and Studio Calico kits.  Hope I can use them up before the next ones get here.

Thanks for looking :)