Bags & Tags

Are yall tired of Christmas posts? Or Christmas in general? I hope not because I'm still enthused! Despite the fact that every last minute I'm at home means I'm working on projects. I am very very ok with this. It's only Christmas once a year =)

I made these gift bags and gift tags for those Ohio ornaments I blogged about earlier this month. I bought this great kraft wrapping paper at Target a few months back and used it to create these little gift bags simply by folding it in half and machine stitching along two sides.

Since these are going to Matt's family, I knew I wanted to use this great vintage photo of him and his sister for tags. I printed it black and white and used it as the base of the tag. Washi tape along the top adda a pop of red and I added a twist to these great Ali Edwards gift tags by printing them out on a transparency. I didn't want to cover up any more of that oh so cute photo.

It's something cut and small and festive. And it guarantees I won't be showing up empty handed. We're off to visit them in Ohio tomorrow. Excited for my (hopefully) white Christmas!

cheers & besos,

Brunch Invites

I wanted to do something different this year. Instead of giving my friends presents, I wanted to give them an experience....so to speak. We brunch semi-regularly. Everyone loves to eat and hang out. Chat and catch up. So I decided this year I'd take everyone to brunch. A first annual "Brunch on Us".

I put together these glorified invitations so they'd have something to open up. I had next to no time to make them. Actually, we were late to lunch because I was literally working up to the minute trying to get these done.

To be perfectly honest, I had no concept of what I wanted to do when I woke up that morning. I originally thought I'd put together micro mini books so I pulled a variety of photos and compiled them together for printing. But I liked the grid so much together that I decided to keep it.

And the cover, it was cut with my Silhouette. This "quote" rattled around in my brain as I was putting together the photo collage. So I thought it'd be perfect sentiment for my invite. Which is all about us being together anyhow.

I really quickly (and I mean really quickly) created the inside in PSE. But I like how it turned out. Maybe there's something to be said about not having time to second guess yourself.

I'm pretty sure my friends didn't know what to think of idea. But they liked the invite itself! They'll come around and we'll have more happy times in 2014.

cheers & besos,

Superpower #2

Elephants are my favorite animal. Did I ever mention that? It's true. I love them. They're adorable and kind, intelligent and emotional. In my opinion, the best animals on the planet (aside from my kitten of course). They also have long memories. Which made them the perfect representation for one of my superpowers!

We all have superpowers. I have exactly two. Two things that I'm better at than the average person. And one of them is my memory. 

I was pulling out of a parking spot the other day, paying attention to my driving but otherwise zoning out. I must have been remembering something because it struck me as one of those "there you go again" moments. One of the times that something very old and totally random popped into my head. You see, my superpower even surprises me at times.

And I thought to myself, I need to make a page about that.

Here it is and I have to say I'm in love with my ellie! Isn't she gorgeous?!

As I was sitting there thinking about the page I would make, I knew that I wanted to have her pieced together from different patterned papers. Don't know why, but I knew that's how I would make her.

I purchased an elephant cut from the Silhouette store and edited & sliced it up into a bunch of pieces using the Silhouette software. I tried to make sure that most of the pieces were smaller than 2x2in so that it'd be easy to put down a bunch of 2x2in squares on the cutting mat.

I had just visited Archivers and grabbed a few sheets of the new Printshop line. So I was dying to cut into it. They have nothing to do with the theme of this page, and that's 100% ok with me. They're just so pretty all together!

I hand wrote my journaling directly on the page AND created my own custom cut with the help of my iPad and the Noteshelf app. This was the first time I had ever tried it and I love love LOVE how it turned out!

I opened up a blank sheet in the Noteshelf app, hand wrote "memory" a few times, saved and sent the photo to my e-mail, opened it up and traced it with the Silhouette, and then cut it out. It takes a few steps and is a bit more time consuming. But I think it's totally worth it. I'll never have to buy words again!

Let me know if its something you'd like me to create a tutorial for. Happy to do it!

And thus my love affair with the Silhouette continues. If you haven't bought one yet, you just might need to add it to your Christmas list!

cheers & besos,

Starting Points

I start pages a bunch of different ways.
Some times its because I want to scrap a particular photo.
Sometimes its because I want to play with fun product. (Or because I bought something and then felt guilty for not using it.)
Some times its for a challenge.
Some times its with a story in mind.

I started this one, because I wanted to use those awesome teepees on a page! It may have been why we made a teepee that day ;) But that page isn't about teepees. It's about Urijah and his play habits. With his autism, he tends to play alone, quietly in his own little world. It's part of what makes him, him.

I wanted to make a fun, colorful and playful page. The real jumping off point was that ombre washi. It's where I pulled the majority of my colors from and then I threw in some black and white. Loved the tribal look to that Glitz Design patterned paper. The background is very lightly stamped with one of their awesome rolling stamps. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to add more triangles.

What starts you down the road to making a page? Is it a story? A photo? Some fun product? I'd love to hear =)

cheers & besos,

Love you Wild

This page is best viewed in bits and pieces. Maybe not all at once. There's a lot going on here I'll admit.

I had these cute photos of Mac that I wanted to scrapbook but didn't know quite what to say about them other then, "hey! here's a cute kitten." Somehow along the way, I figured out that I wanted to talk about how she's my first baby. The first little thing that I've ever had to take care of on my own (without mom or dad). Hence the title that I created with the help of my Silhouette.

My Silhouette got a lot of action on this page. For some reason, I got it in my head that I wanted to use ovals for this layout. It's a shape I don't normally scrapbook with so I decided to try it out. I searched "oval" in the Silhouette online store and came up with these designs. Cut them out of my favorite white cardstock (white Bazzil orange peel in case anyone is curious) and then layered them over my photos and one of the Wildflower journaling cards.

I really had no intention to include any deer on this page about my kitten, but the sentiment on the journaling card was too good to pass up. I had to include on this page about my wild little kitten whom I do love dearly.

There's yellow in the photos but not much in the collection. So I painted a rough square in the middle with this vibrant yellow color. I like that you can still see the arrowhead design through it.

I didn't realize it at the time, but afterwards considered that I had channeled my inner Wilna for this page. Roughly this particular page of hers.

The final bits were adding gold washi as landing for my journaling spots. I printed them on more of that orange peel cardstock and hand sewed them to the page with a few stitches of embroidery floss. I thought they needed some color.

This was another idea I've had floating around in my head. Tacking something down and letting the rest of it float. I'm talking about a lot of envisioning and picturing in this post. I think its the product of being away from my creating desk for so long. I had time to imagine these pages beforehand.

I added another deer at the bottom, anchored by a strip of gold washi tape. If not now, when else would I use it? Along with her name and the date. Viola!

Like I said, a lot to take in and a lil crazy. But I love it all the same. I also love how versatile this collection is. I didn't use many pieces; my background paper, a journaling card and that sticker. And yet it still mixes flawlessly with the rest of my stash.

Don't forget to comment if you wanna win it! Just a flower and your e-mail will do =)

cheers & besos,

Monochromatic Birthday

My birthday was last Friday! Oh my birthday...that whole day went by in a blur. I planned a fun party for my friends and asked if everyone could wear wigs! I thought it'd be fun to celebrate the last birthday of my 20's with something fun and crazy.

We took some great group photos of us in our crazy fun colored wigs. Obviously, I really wanted them to stand out. So I took on Jennifer's left-brained Color Challenge from Art + Science and only worked with neutrals. 

It was soooo hard! All I wanted to do was add in neon pink! But I refrained. And I think, the page came out the better for it. Instead, I used a lot of black and white elements plus gold and a touch of gray.

Us in those wigs definitely became the focal point!

Lately, I'm absolutely loving digital elements. And Two Peas is giving us some completely fabulous options! And of course, since black and white has become such a big part of my scrapbooking, I'm loving all of the October releases!

For this page, I incorporated some fabi printables and a freebie die cut from a few months back. (Snag it now!! They're available again for just a short while)

My Cameo cut the freebie die cut perfectly and I used it as a mask with some Heidi Swapp Gold Lame Color Shine (my favorite!). It didn't mask very well in certain parts, so I drew around the shapes using my black pen--on the white parts--and my white pen for the darker parts at the bottom.

I also finally got to use my new Pebbles Alphabet Stamp.

Oh, and about the background paper, I created this background of black and white photo strips in PSE and printed it out on white orange peel cardstock. All the photos were edited using Rad Lab. Heck all of my photos are edited using Rad Lab!

I had fun making this page. I had fun this night! Be prepared to see this photo and others like it over and over again. It was just so fun =)

cheers & besos,

Hello 29

Well I'm not there yet, just a few weeks away. But I wanted to share this page I made as part of Hello Story...which is almost over and makes me so sad!

This was for our numbers week and is a very close imitation of Ali's layout, except I condensed it down into one 8 1/2 x 11 page. 

Like last year's page, I made a list of 29 things about me at 29. I used a recent photo of myself and pilled a bunch of my favorite product onto the page.

Here's my list:

1. My boyfriend is Matt. 
2. My favorite color is yellow. 
3. My favorite sweet is Riesen. 
4. My little brother is 28 (eek!). 
5. My Mama is 50 & my Papa is 51. 
6. I have a kitten; her name is Mac. 
7. I live at 2121 Tannehill in Houston. 
8. My favorite city in the world is London. 
9. My nephew is 4, he lives in Katy with his Mama. 
10. I drive to the transit center and ride the bus to work. 
11. My favorite book is East of Eden by John Steinbeck. 
12. I’ve been listening to Taylor Swift on repeat in my car. 
13. My favorite TV shows are New Girl and The Mindy Project. 
14. I'm lately obsessed with neon, Project 12 and my new iPad. 
15. My best friends live in Fort Worth, Japan and New York City. 
16. Traveling is my favorite thing to do, I've been to 25 countries. 
17. I have new work playmates. Keely has been so fun to have around. 
18. Looking forward to visiting Louisiana, DC, Ohio and possibly Nashville. 
19. I’m applying for new jobs. It’s time for me to move on to a new challenge. 
20. I work at the British Consulate-General as a Business Development Manager. 
21. I make cards and scrapbook pages and am hoping to join a design team this Fall. 
22. My favorite movies are Pride & Prejudice (Drama) and I love you, Man (Comedy). 
23. Visited Wales, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Chicago and Los Angeles for the first time this year. 
24. My little Jetta is on her last leg, which makes me sad. And nervous! I can’t afford a new car. 
25. I have all of my grandparents still, Nana & Popo, Lipa and Grandpa. I wish I saw them more. 
26. This year is my 10 year reunion for high school and 5 year grad school reunion. Time has flown! 
27. Only 2 of my besties are married (Sarah and Kim). Kim got married this year; I was a bridesmaid. 
28. My favorite season is Fall. I love this time of year, my birthday, the holidays, scarves, boots and tights! 
29. Currently reading, the 5th Game of Thrones book. Recently read Bossypants (twice!), The Corrections, and Life after Life.

I'm hoping to put together a list of goals for my last year of my 20's soon. First on the list though, throwing myself a fab party! That's coming up next week. And I'm excited!

cheers & besos,

Handstitched Cards

What's with all of my married friends being born in pairs?! Kim and Eric are born in June. Susie and Gus (and now Lauren) have August birthdays. So it's more coordinating cards from me! (See K&E's travel birthday cards here)

Lately, I'm loving a neutral background with pops of color, mixed alongside a bold graphic design. So I custom made a boy and a girl version using paint, mist, black and white washi and stamps.

For Susie's card, I was inspired by the Mama Elephant Photo Challenge again. I love the white with the pops of pink and black. And instead of the yellow as in the inspiration photo, I used gold.

Tim Holtz Distress Paint is pretty awesome. The dauber makes it so easy to smear across a stencil. This pink is Picked Raspberry. It's so vibrant IRL (and in this photo thanks to RadLab). 

To back the sentiment, I used a few date stamps and gold brilliance ink to create a text block. I wrote the word "happy" on a scratch piece of vellum and poked holes where I wanted them over the text. Then I stitched through with black thread.

For Gus' card, I knew immediately that I wanted to create an argyle pattern. He's a sock guy and so that pattern just seems him to me. I used my Silhouette to cut a diamond out of scratch paper and then used it as a mask for the blue blocks (that's Distress Paint in Salty Ocean).

I traced more diamonds with a pencil and poked another round of holes. This time I stitched them in teal and finished the card off with tape and a die cut that was misted with Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Bronzer.

The "Happy Birthday" stamp is by Papertrey Ink, a set I had totally forgotten about but still completely love! Might need to place another order with them sometime soon, they have the best stamps!

Happy belated birthday Gus! And happy early birthday Susie! The month of the Cruz celebrations is almost complete =)

cheers & besos,

She

Hello Story has been one of my most favorite classes! I'm loving these story structures, and for the most part, I'm keeping up with the class. Here's a page made with last week's prompt. It's about the places I've been. 

It took awhile to build that list on the left hand side there, and it isn't even complete. I had to delete a few of the repeated places to make sure I had room for all of the cities. But I'm so glad I have at least a good start of a list all in one place!

I typed this up in PSE and printed it onto vellum before adding it to my page. I like that you can still see the cloud paper underneath it.

I was originally going to make an 8 1/2 x 11 page and so I printed the photo that wide. But then I grabbed this gorgeous paper and knew I wanted to show case as much of it as I could. So it stayed 12x12.

At the very beginning, I had this vision of a line of embellishments along one side. I dug into my stash of October Afternoon Travel Girl and Basic Grey Carte Postale embellishments to place along the line of the Freckled Fawn London Underground tape (eek, I love it a ton! but it looks like they don't have it anymore which is a total bummer)

I added my title directly to the photo using Photoshop Elements (font: Windsor Hand). It's this title that's part of the Hello Story prompt which is about 6 word stories.

I loved this totally random photo that I snapped while we were driving to Austin (note: I'm in the passenger side so definitely NOT driving!). I love the movement in the photo. I love the selfie that's not me smiling at my phone. I love the landscape. I love the reflections (I'm big on reflections!) It's a special photo that so perfectly conveys this title of adventure seeking.

This is part of a series of "She" layouts I've made. Here are two other layouts [She] [She]. They are some of my favorites. I think its the words. And really, most of them are about travel. It's my absolute favorite thing to do!

cheers & besos,

Gordoughs

Hi hi hi!! My first free weekend in forever has been so lovely. We went to a party on Friday but after that, we had nothing planned. And it's been heavenly. I cleaned and scrapbooked and later today have a friend coming over for a cat date. Huzzah!

So I was able to get caught up on classes this weekend and make a few pages. This is layout is inspired by a Toolbox prompt and also the Mama Elephant Photo Inspiration challenge. Here's the inspiration photo, isn't it fab?

I love the white with the pops of color. I only ended up using the pink and substituted white for silver, but you can see where I was going with it =)

This is a mixed media piece inspired by my Toolbox class. As soon as I saw Celine's video, I knew the foil look would be perfect for this page about me and Tara at Gordoughs. We had to take a photo in front of the airstream! Airstream...foil tape, the perfect representation!

Mama Elephant stamps are rapidly becoming some of my favorites! And I LOVE the Bling set. I mean, the set had a $ sign it! How could I not use it, seeing as Tara's nickname is T$ [read T-money]. I heated embossed a few of the sentiments in white on vellum and stapled them to the foil part of the page.

Lastly, I broke in a pack of Elle's Studio die cuts. It was one of their exclusive kits and I'm so happy they made their way onto a page! They were the best shade of pink, a perfect match for Tara's shorts and also for the photo challenge.

I have one layout done and few others prepped and ready to be put together. Loving that I have time to scrapbook again!

cheers & besos,

Lauren's Pages

A special little lady turned one last week. For her birthday, I contributed a few pages to her scrapbook. I spent a happy Saturday making these for her. It was fun to just play with my stash, no rhyme or reason, no challenges or assignments.

Find more Lauren pages here =)

cheers & besos,