Monogram

Hi there! I'm home!!! I don't think I've been this excited to be done with traveling. It was just too much, in too short a time frame. Lesson learned. But I'm home now and was pretty much over the jet lag as soon as I got back. Huzzah!

I haven't scrapbooked anything all month. But I have such a back log of projects, there's still plenty of blogging to be done. Here's a page I made a few months back, it was for a prompt from the Studio Calico Bright Ideas class, taught by the lovely Nicole Samuels (she has a Creative Live class coming up you might want to check out. Nicole's a great teacher!)

In my Start Fresh workbook, I keep a list of stories I want to tell. Urijah's list has had this idea for awhile now. It's the story of his name and its pronunciation. I realized a few years ago that he has 3 J's in his name, and they're all pronounced differently!

I thought the Monogram prompt from the Bright Ideas class was the perfect prompt for a story about his name. I used a Simple Scrapper sketch for the page design.

I love these photos of him. They were just cute and colorful. He's the snazziest lil dresser. And clothes where I get a lot of my color inspiration when it comes to page design.

The red popped so well and I knew I wanted to use it on the page. I also knew it wold be hard to directly color match the specific shade. When that happens, I tend to use a lot of the same shade of color so inevitably somewhere in there, your eyes will think that it matches. That stripe down the side is washi tape from an old Studio Calico kit.

cheers & besos,

Work Trip

Happy Saturday every body! Man, I have just not been on top of this whole blogging thing. I've had this layout done for over a week now but just haven't sat down to blog about it.

Oh well, I'm doing it now!

It's a layout =) Huzzah! Y'all know I've been missing working on those. So a couple of Sunday's ago, I churned out 3 pages. I used another Simple Scrapper sketch for inspiration. AND, I got more mileage out of this UK die cut file from my Bright Ideas (old Studio Calico class) files.

I'm a very lucky girl, in that my work sends me to places like the UK for business. This trip in particular was a whirlwind wheels up, bag always packed kind of week. I rarely slept in the hotel two nights in a row. I tried to instagram at least a photo or two in every city I was. 

For the page, I used a fabulous natural background paper from the new Studio Calico Color Theory paper pack (I bought 2!) I also added some contrast using a black and white striped paper for my die cut.

2 layouts shared, 1 more to go! I'll be back in a few to share that with you. In the meantime, I'm taking it easy this weekend. Putting away the old to do list and just planning to do what I want to do and now what I have (or should) do.

Here's to just living the life!

cheers & besos,

2013 Travels

Hiya! I want to share my latest page with you. It's my first for the month of February. After a full week of traveling at the beginning of this month, I was ready to be back home at my scrap desk.

This is something I whipped up late Sunday night on a whim. I was wanting to get crafty but wasn't really in the mood to get to the Valentines card I needed to make. So instead I flipped through my latest edition of Spark magazine (its part of the Simple Scrappers membership) for inspiration. There was an absolutely fabulous travel page that really caught my eye, so I decided to make my own version of it.

There are some similarities between mine page and the original one: the circle photos, die cuts in the middle of the page, bits of paper along the top and bottom, the "I am here" and geotag stamps. But that's about it. I more or less lifted the concept.

For the past few years I've been making a wrap up page of my travels for the year [2012 HERE] [2011 HERE] [2008 HERE] and it just so happened that all of my travels in 2013 were here in the US and also in the UK. I liked the tie in so I made a page featuring just those two countries and a blue/red/pink/gray color scheme.

I started out with a blank sheet of white cardstock and did some stamping and scribbling with a pencil. I also dropped some gray mist splatters to help fill out the page a bit more.

I layered patterned paper and die cuts together and added dimensions by roughing up the edges of the paper before gluing them down.

There are lots of bits and pieces, lots of embellishing on this page: baker's twine, brads, punched shapes, heat embossed geotags and some paper labels.

I punched all of the photos with a circle punch and adhered them down with foam squares to give them more dimension. And then added bits of patterned paper to the top and bottom of the page to finish it off.

I really like how this page turned out. I also like that it's nearly all stash stuff that's really old! The only new things I used were the airplane punch and the tiny Heidi Swapp stamps. All of the patterned paper was from my scrap drawer and I finally used those blueprints stamps! Plus I get to mark something off the old to do list. Sounds like a win-win-win to me =)

cheers & besos,

LBD: Brunch with Lauren

Happy Friday yall!! Oh geez...that was a too much enthusiasm. After last night's escapades I kinda can't believe I had the energy to muster even that!! =)

But I digress....

Today I wanted to share another Little Black Dress Kit layout with yall!

I used a sketch from my old Bright Ideas class for this layout. I had a lot of photos I wanted to share on one page. So lining them all up along the edges was the best way to go.

I left a few of the "boxes" open and added some patterned paper and die cuts for embellishing. The tea cup is in reference to Ms. Lauren's favorite song. She howls with laughter whenever we sing "I'm a little tea pot short and stout..." and move her arms to the words in the song. It's the cutest thing!

I added some of the great fringe for more texture. In pink of course, since we're all girls :)

I created and die cut my title using the Silhouette and added some glittery Thickers atop for dimension.

And with just the littlest bit of stamping, I was done!

cheers & besos,

Forever & Ever

They did it! Kim and Eric got married last week =) I'm so so happy for both of my friends. 

The lovely couple met in high school but were only friends then. They stayed friends through and after college. And nearly as long as I've known Kim, I've also known Eric. He's such a great guy. I love how much history they have together. And also too, how much history my circle of friends has with him. Eric may have been Kim's friend first, but it didn't take very long for him to just be another of the group.

I'm not gonna lie it was a bit scary when they first started dating. I loved them both so much as individuals and didn't want either to get hurt. Thankfully, all my worries were unfounded. Because here they are today, married!

I made this fairly simple page with the help of a Bright Ideas prompt. The prompt was to go big, with either your title or your photo. I opted to do both!

This is the first time I've ever edited a photo like this. But boy, was it so easy to do thanks to the help of this quick video.

I die cut the title using my Silhouette and backed it with some watercolored cardstock. It was so quick and simple, but completely high impact.

And after all of the months of planning, the wedding has come and gone.

To Kim & Eric! May they have a lifetime of happiness together.

cheers & besos,

Gondola

Happy Friday yall! It couldn't come fast enough for me, even with the Monday holiday. 

I've been running myself ragged these last few....well this entire year actually. I feel like I haven't really had a minute to breathe! Which is why I'm sick. Of course. 

Itchy throat, wheezy cough, headache. Blah. It's been the story of my life these last few months.

So I'm taking a day to rest, nap, sleep. Oh and blog. But just this one quick post!

Sharing some Italy pages, made using Bright Idea prompts. This is a total departure from my usual style and I'm still not very sure I like it. But it's made, so I'll slip it into my scrapbook.

I used the Map challenge sketch for this double page spread and tried to keep it as simple as possible.

I journaled directly onto my photo, placed the title there and added just a bit of embellishment.

Then I used washi as a border for my print. I wanted to give it a bit more weight, so I added that fabulous red shipping tag behind to balance it out. The color is so perfect, no?! 

I also channeled my inner Matt Wilson for the "subtitle". We weren't exactly in Rome but still in Italy!

cheers & besos,