Good Stuff

This is one of my favourite pictures taken so far this year. Cole was sitting with me while helping Scott with some of his birthday scratch tickets when Scott took it. I changed it to black and white to blur a vein showing on my forehead and to neutralize the bright, busy background. I'm glad I did, the black and white photo allowed me to have some colour fun with the layout.

All of the patterned papers are scraps. The circle is a combination of patterned paper, stamped and embossed black cardstock and some trim I found in my latest bag of thrift store ribbon. The paper ribbons were made from the UPC strips on the bottoms of the patterned paper and outlined in black ink. The colours were just too pretty, and perfectly coordinated, to waste!

Out of This World

I think I had as much fun creating this layout as my guys did creating their Lego UFO! It started off with a trip to the LSS. I debated between an outer space line by BoBunny and A Boy's Life by Echo Park. I would have loved to mix the two together, but the greens clashed and the BoBunny line had space monkeys throughout it that I just wasn't happy with. I also preferred the versatility of the Echo Park line, knowing I'd get more bang for my buck with the scraps.

Because I wanted to use the negative space for my title, I made it with my Cricut Design Studio to get the spacing and alignment just right. I pop-dotted it onto the layout for some added dimension.

All of the other die cuts are from my Accent Essentials cartridge. I sanded around some of the elements throughout the layout for more depth, interest and because I bought the Core'dinations cardstock for BOTH colours!

And finally, the journaling. I'm getting back into the habit of journaling and labeling more. After all, one of my favourite parts of scrapbooking is telling the story!

Snow Fun

It is a beautiful, spring-y day outside, I've already kicked Cole out to ride his bike and enjoy the sunshine and I'm blogging about a winter layout? What can I say, it's been such a mild winter I can still look back on it fondly!
This layout is chock full of the new goodies I got on my most recent scrap shopping trip. The snowflake strip was fussy-cut from new BoBunny patterned paper and I found the Glimmer Mist in the discount bin, although I honestly didn't expect it to work on this layout (that's like a double-score, isn't it?). You can read about our day on the very cool, oh-too-perfect-to-pass-up snow tube journaling card.

The pictures were taken by the Tube Park staff which I purchased at a ridiculous price I wouldn't have paid if it weren't such a special day for us. I'll never do it again, as I had to bug them to let me check the pictures from their computer (um, really? People pay you for pictures they don't first look at to be sure of the quality?), then bug them to email the pics to me days later (instead of the half hour I was promised) and then continue to bug them because one is still missing and will remain missing since I got tired of arguing with them.

As much as that all ticks me off, I got the best picture out of the bunch that shows all of us together on a day that was very important for me to capture. I'll take the good out of it and just accept the rest as a lesson learned.

Same Trip, 3 Different Layouts.

For a special year-end treat, Cole's grade 4 class went to Niagara Falls. Although unsure if it would be such a treat for me, I volunteered to supervise. I'm really glad I did. My group was a pleasure to accompany (an advantage to being the mother of one of the class' prominent "problem children" I guess....all the other kids they give you are the good ones!) and I got lots and lots of really great photos.
Over the summer, I've slowly worked on the layouts from our trip. So much happened that day, I couldn't possibly make a single layout about it! Because each moment I wanted to document was so different from the others, it resulted in layouts that were in stark contrast to one another.
The first layout I did as part of a challenge on the MMM message board. It's from Bird Kingdom, where we were witness to so many beautiful, exotic birds as they roamed free through the aviary. This was kind of scary for me, as birds aren't particularly kind to me. But I minded my business, snapping their pictures and they minded theirs, posing and preening for me, and we got along famously.

The second layout features pics of Cole, hamming it up and goofing around while we waited for lunch. The colours are more vibrant and the whole layout more playful, taking cues from the background, his slithery souvenir and Cole's fun-loving mood.

And finally, a layout about the Falls themselves. I got the opportunity to take a whole lot of pictures of the Falls throughout the day. Another reason why I enjoyed my group so much; they were very happy to take their time, soak in the scenery and take lots of pictures too!

To me, the shots I got had a very aged quality to them. Likely just the water and spray playing with the lighting, but it worked nicely with these patterns from a K&Co. paper pack I had.

In my album, the opposite page to this is 4x6 sleeves showcasing more of my favourites of the Falls and the impressive skyline.

And there you have it; 3 very different layouts showcasing equally different parts of a wonderful, memorable day!

Double Inspiration for Double Trouble.

I quite fancy this layout of mine. Maybe it's the subject matter, maybe it's all the wonderful product, maybe I'm just so happy I got this picture and captured this story. Then again, maybe it's all three!

Ok, a little info about the product first. I love, love, love Bo Bunny's Double Dot line! This is the second or third layout where I've used it as the background paper. The colours are yummy and the patterns are perfectly neutral (or maybe it's more understated and distressed) for backgrounds, matting or diecutting/paper piecing.
Then there's My Mind's Eye Stella and Rose. I've been drooling over this line for a while and finally broke down on my last shopping trip and grabbed my favourites, two of which I used on this layout.
And the matte for my title? That's from the Simple Stories line, which just started showing up at my LSS's and I'm assuming is a new company. This matte was from a sheet of flash cards. So far, I'm really liking their stuff!
Now, you can see Double Trouble in the picture; that would be Scott and Cole. But the double inspiration I'll have to explain a little. See, this layout has inspiration from two different sources. First off, I used this Pagemaps sketch from waaaaayyyy back in November of 2009 to get started:

I've used my sketch book a bit more lately, as I've been having troubles getting started on some recent layouts. My Pagemaps archives have been particularily helpful!

The second bit of inspiration would be in the title. Last month, Lora did a blog post on using her Dymo label maker and mine has been on my mind ever since. This just seemed like the perfect place to add a little Dymo magic!

Oh, and something that is just all me: "finger painted" inking in the background of the title block.

Supplies I Can Recall: Paper - BoBunny, My Mind's Eye, American Crafts, Simple Stories. Stamps - BoBunny and unknown stars. Twine and Paperclip - Making Memories. Button - Basic Grey. Ink - Ranger/Tim Holtz Distress inks. Fonts - Cricut and Dymo. Ricrac ribbon - superdooper thrift store find.