Halloween: Part 2

For my Halloween night layout, I used more photo-sleeve pages. There were a lot of pictures I wanted to use and this was the simplest, most effective way to include them all. 

 

The picture of me with both kids was taken landscape. To make it fit the portrait sleeves, I cropped and matted it, adding some patterned paper and journaling to balance it off.

The background for the title and journaling pieces on the next page came from the same sheet of paper. The title was cut from my Cricut (All Mixed Up cartridge, one of my favourites), all other elements are stickers, with the bat being matted and cut out to help it stand out better. All paper and stickers are from my seemingly endless Basic Grey Eerie stash.

Each year, Kelsey, Cole and I design our own pumpkins and Scott cuts them all out. Take a look at the first photo. Can you guess who designed each Jack o'lantern?

Halloween: Part 1

Here it is, nearly Easter, and I'm just finishing up and posting layouts from.....last Halloween?! Thankfully, I see scrapbooking as a fun, creative process instead of a race, otherwise I might be feeling like a bit of a failure right now. Not so! After Halloween comes very little else, which means I'm nearly done my 2012 album and will soon be moving on to 2013. Yay, me!

Before 2011, my Halloween decorations were pretty sparse and much of them cheap and cheesy-looking. Sad, really, considering Halloween has always been one of my favourite holidays and we even hosted costume parties a few years in a row. Two years ago, I found some cute witch signs on clearance and scooped them up. Then last year, Kelsey wanted to decorate the porch and house but I was just not in the mood. It confused everyone.

For my birthday, I got cash to be used towards new Halloween decorations in an effort to refresh my excitement. At first, it didn't work. Then, Kelsey and I found some a-ma-zing deals at Michael's for a flower arrangement and some fun add-ons. And some Snoopy/Woodstock wind socks (say that five times fast!). And some funky, glittery owl candle holders. It took a few visits and some clever sale and coupon coordination, but I got it all!

 And then there was the super-funky zipper owls. I saw them first at Winner's. Then I saw the same ones only bigger at Carleton Cards.....for 75% off.....AND they had a matching pair.....AND they had a co-ordinating crow....AND I only paid for the three what the crow alone would have cost me regular price. BOO-YA! Guess who found their Halloween spirit!

I really wanted a layout of my pretties, and it came together pretty easy using a photo sleeve page and more of my Basic Grey Eerie collection. Even the title just 'happened.' Then came the journaling. What is it with the journaling lately?

I wanted to talk about my shopping spree, about getting out of my funk, about how much I loved all my new decorations....and the old ones that didn't get trashed. All that talk just won't fit on the little journaling card I allotted myself. Had I just used photos of the new stuff, it would have been soooo  much easier! Anything that's a pumpkin in the photos below is old. The ugly, angry Jack o'lantern on the bottom right was Scott's from before I knew him. It's practically an antique!

 

I'm already excited about decorating next Halloween. The Christmas lights we got for the porch glow in both multi-coloured and all purple so they can be used for Halloween too. Not to mention, we'll be at Disney during their Halloween season. I know I won't be getting any deals, but you can bet  I'm coming home with some Mickey-rific Halloween souvenirs!

Seriously, I Overcame Writer's Block for This?

I love fall. It's generally cool, dry and bursting with beautiful colours. Seeing our street, our neighbourhood in fall is quite stunning. That is why I love this photo so much. That is why I made this layout.

 

This layout was a fun, technique-heavy project. To start, I used a couple of maple leaf die cuts as masks and sprayed yellow, green and red mists (a mix of Glimmer Mists and Mr. Huey's if I remember correctly) in the top right corner of my base cardstock. Next, I outlined the negative space in pen and cut out the inside. On a scrap piece of cardstock, I blended the Distress Inks  Orange Marmalade, Aged Photo and Barn Door, spritzed with water and splattered a few drops of Aged Photo reinker (which I'm not totally happy with, but whatever....). Once dry, I pop-dotted it to the back of my base cardstock to create this effect:

I used the pieces I cut out as well; inking them the same as the inside of my leaves in the upper right, but crumpling them after spritzing with water. The result was very realistic-looking fall leaves. This time I avoided the blackspot effect.
The title was cut from my Cricut, inked, misted and then roughly outlined in pen.
After all that work, the only thing left was the journaling. The layout sat for a week or more while I tried to figure out the wording. It was all too.....wordy. For some reason, it was of great importance to me to mention our street name, to mention that I'm facing downtown but it just wouldn't flow nicely. Finally, it came to me:

Yep, all that thinking, scribbling ideas, scratching them out, scribbling more, thinking more, shaking my head and leaving it til later just to end up perfectly happy writing it all out in point form.

More Fun With Ephemera

Back in September, Kelsey and I went to see the musical, Wicked at our local theatre. It was amazing, and I couldn't wait to start on the layout. But with 3 gift albums to start almost right after the show, plus all my other silly, boring old responsibilities, wait I did to start it and wait I did to finish it too!

Originally, I wanted to use paper from Graphic 45's Magic of Oz collection but I waited too long to search it out (I'm seeing a sad trend happening in this post....). There was nothing left at the one LSS that carries G45 and selection online was sparse and too expensive to ship. Instead, I used some of Basic Grey's Eerie collection I had in my stash and I'm quite happy with the results.

 

The background was created on a lilac cardstock base, covered with silver and purple paint and Slate Glimmer Mist, all blended together with my brayer. It took a couple of tries on each page to get it just right. I left it overnight to dry, which turned into something closer to a week. By then, it was good and dry!
The first bit of ephemera I used was a casting change insert. I inked it up with a couple shades of green and used it as part of my journaling card.

The other bit of ephemera I used was the program, which doubled as my title. I stuck it down whole, adhering the back page to the layout and then added two photo turns to hold down the pages. Embossing the photo turns with red glimmer powder gave them a little more pop and significance to the play.

I added a couple more red glimmer photo turns to the other page to give the layout balance. Above them is some vintage ric rac in purple and green, wonderful green brads Sondra made  in a brad swap from ages ago (these were the last 3 I had left), some stickers from the Eerie collection and all finished with a Stickled circle detail.

In the top right, is a sticker of a witch flying in the moonlight, framed by green spiderweb paper, with the webs Stickled.

So there it is. A layout that took forever to make, ended up nothing like I planned and yet somehow became exactly what I wanted.