scrapbooker for hire

finally, something worth posting.

Instead of being responsible and taking advantage of the long weekend to do homework and study ridic ulous math ematical proof methods, I scrap booked.   This is a picture from our Louisiana trip. Somehow this little girl from an apartment in the city became a lover of every where and every  thing outside. She kneeled there for awhile and just pulled up the weeds. The friends we visited lived in the forest next to a lake so, needless to say, there was no shortage of nature. Of which Terrance loved every second of. =)

Products: Rusty Pickle patterned paper, alpha stickers, chipboard photo corners and leafs and rubon.

The journaling on the page is about what she's been up to recently: talking like it's going out of style and saying the cutest thing ever like,  "Is k Joe?." Like, are you okay, Joe? Because we ask her if she's okay when she stumbles and falls or whatever and so, being the sweetest thing ever, she asks other people if they're okay. The other day we were at the store and there was a baby in a shopping cart crying and when Terrance saw and heard him she looked at me square in the eyes and said, "Is k mom? Is k?"

"Yes love, he's okay." 

"Is k mom? Is k?"

Awww, she's just so stinking sweet!

These are two cards that I whipped up for mother's day. One is for my mom and the other for my bff's mom, who is like a second mother to me. =) All products on them are by Rusty Pickle, with the exception of the itty bitty alpha stickers, ribbon and the brad.

Both of these pictures of the babe are from the new house. We were there the other day for the home inspection and she passed the time collecting rocks and playing soccer by herself. Not because we don't want to play with her but because when we do she laughs so hard that she falls over every five steps. So, for her own good, we sit out every once in awhile.

 

an update, part 2: new projects. beware, this is a photo heavy post.

I finished this several weeks ago. It's a congratulatory layout to myself for finally finishing my Associate's degree last December. The layout is a Rusty Pickle project and features the School Daze line along with the Starry Night 12 x 12 chipboard. Both of which are a couple of my personal favs and can be picked up at the Rusty Pickle book this weekend at Portland CKC I also used their new alpha stickers for the title but, as a mask rather than actual stickers. Scroll down to see what I mean.
This technique is really simple, really versatile and really cool. First, adhere the stickers to your layout (card, mini album, or whatever other project you're working on) as you normally would. *Don't push down on them too hard though, because you will be picking them back up and you don't want them to tear your paper.* Once they're down simply trace around them with any pen of archival quality and when you've finished that you can fill them in however you desire. 

Mine are scribbled in from side-to-side to match the feel of my layout. You could easily do anything and everything else from polka dots, to tiny dots, zig-zags, BOLD, or leave it as just an outline. I've also used these same alphas as masks here. The difference is that I first painted the chipboard shape white, then put down the sticker masks and then painted over them and the entire chipboard shape with the blue. Cool, right?

This next project is the only thing that I've accomplished all month (and I mean February when I say that because I have yet to accept that it's already March of 2009, holy sheep shit). One of my very best friends, Mandy, whom I've known since the 4th grade and is like a sister to me is pregnant. Yay! Oh, and her birthday is on Friday. So, in lieu of both of those things I spent a few hours in my scrapbooking room creating this for her.

When I decided that I was going to create this I went through my stash and pulled out all things that would be journaling friendly. Any thing with any sort of resemblence to lined paper was fair game. The idea was to have some sort of line on every page so that she could write everywhere. It was the best way to utilize the already limited space that I was giving her for keeping track of such a momentous occasion. Now that it's complete I don't think it's big enough for a pregnancy journal but, it's gorgeous and one-of-a-kind and I think that those totally make up for the lacking pages.

Because this Rusty Pickle album is spiral bound I was able to easily remove it and work on each page individually. I also embellished a few random tags, a transparency and a pocket and turned them into pages by cutting out the small binding holes using my exacto knife. *I'll point them out to you through out, they all turned out great and I love what they add to the journal.*

 

She's already about 12 weeks pregnant, maybe a little bit more and the beginning of the journal includes pages where she can record how it's been so far and then there's a spot for both her and her husband to each journal their thoughts on the experience thus far.
*there's the first tag that was added.*

 

There's a monthly divider for each month and then a few pages of actual journaling space for the month. Weirdly though, I missed the month 4 pages when I took these pictures so we have to move on.

You'll also notice that there's no rhyme or reason to this journal at all, as far as colors and coordinating goes. The pages that make up the spreads usually match but the journal as a whole is very eclectic and was literally pieced together. *there's another tag.*

 

I think the month 6 is my favorite spread, I love the color combo.

*There's the transparency that I added. It's actually just one of the 4 x 6 My Minds Eye overlays. I stamped the "blossom" on using Stazon, the permanent marker of ink pads.*

 

 

*there's another tag.*

*This pocket was added and is actually a page from one of Rusty Pickle's 3 x 3 albums which will be available in the Rusty Pickle booth at CKC this weekend.*

The journal concludes with a spot for a snapshot of the new babe. I meant to add a bit of embellishing to the photo mat but totally forgot to before I photographed it and then taking the picture made me remember to do it. But then I forgot again and boxed it up already so it's stuck like this. 

And that's it. One custom made journal for my very best friend on her birthday.

Thanks for looking/reading and have a great rest of the week! 

Oh, wait, one last thing. If you are heading up to Portland this weekend be sure to check out the booth for some awesome products, great deals and lots of inspiration! And if you have time, take a class: the ones being offered are listed on the Rusty Pickle blog.  

And no, I won't be there. With only two weeks of classes left I'll be at the library studying this weekend...or if the weather permits, we'll skip town and head to the coast for an awesome day of beach combing.

I am a scrapbooker for hire. If you're interested in me creating a similar journal/project for you please don't hesitate to contact me using the link at the top of the site.

happy valentines day, early.

Love is in the air and on all the store shelves. I've been inspired for days and finally found some time yesterday to sit down for awhile and get something done.

I played with brown and pink paper lines from Rusty Pickle: White Chocolate Bunnies and Chocolate Kisses. I also used a few chipboard shapes, rub ons, butt-ons and bling to make these cards complete.

They're cute, right? They can be all yours just for leaving a comment. And, along with the three cards & matching envelopes I've put together a coordi-nating prize pack full of Rusty Pickle papers, buttons, chipboard, rubons, stickers and bling. Here's the catch: you have to introduce yourself to me. 

Seriously, I'm calling all of you lurking readers out. =) I know people read my blog (because the little stats thing that I've attached to it tells me so) and I want to know who you are. Are you a regular? Is it your first visit? What's your name, where are you from, do I know you in real life, do you have a blog that I can read? Yada, yada, yada...the point is that I want to know who my readers are and I'm okay with bribing you all to find out. Just please, don't make me beg. 

You'll have until Monday night to leave a comment to be eligible for the prize. =) 

Thanks so much everyone and I can't wait to get to know you all. (Or, hear from you again if you do leave me comments already).  

Here are pictures of the goods that you'll win: a complete 12 x 12 Lil Chubby chipboard alphabet, Lucky flourish rubons, alphabet stickers, a variety of chipboard pieces, buttons, bling and 10 sheets of patterned paper.

Oh, and the winner of the tags and the Rusty Pickle RAK from my last post was Pam. Yay!  I'm not sure when the RAK will go out but, I'll get the tags in the mail to you sometime next week.

That's it for now.

finally, i have something crafty to share.

I swear that this girl was blessed with the most fantastic cowlick. A majority of the ones that I've seen are in the most horribly wrong spot and doom a girl to years of bad hair during middle school and high school.

Products used: Rusty Pickle alphabet stickers, chipboard shapes, patterned paper, jewels and journaling stamps. Worldwin cardstock, misc photo corners.    

Terrance, not so much. She's got it in just the right spot for her to have "sweeping bangs" for all of her days, as Whitney so fiercly wished for while T was inutero. Seriously.

Whitney thinks that my husband has a big forehead, which she commonly refers to as a five-head. Really though, he doesn't, he's cute and perfect and totally four (not five) headed. =) Because she thought that the big forehead gene would be passed on to baby T, all throughout my pregnancy she insisted that when Terrance was old enough I give her "sweeping bangs." Meaning, her bangs would "sweep" across the forehead from one side to the other all the while giving her a fashionable look and covering up the atrocious five head.

Well, I'm proud to say that Terrance came out a normal four-headed girl. Weirdly though, she got the sweeping bangs. Some biological super power must have agreed that it'd be a good look for her and made it so. =)

On a side note, Christmas was great and I am so ready to ring in the New Year. Not that I really will in any sort of "partying" manner. I'm lame and will probably be sleeping when the clock strikes twelve. Joe will be playing Call of Duty 4 on Xbox live. It's going to be epic.  

a baby is on the way and a new layout.

My sister called a few hours ago to let me know that her water had broke and she was on her way to the hospital. Yay! And I just now got off the phone with her husband, they're at the hospital, she's in pain and did not want to talk. I told adam to keep me posted! How exciting, Terrance is going to have a sweet little baby cousin. =) Oh, and have I mentioned that they (Whitney, Adam and Gunnar) are going to be moving back to my side of the state in the Spring? Well, they are and that throroughly made my entire year when she told me!

And, here's my layout that was inspired by the journaling challenge on 2 peas. It said to use 1 word to sum up 2008. I, instead, used 1 phrase: deadlines & due dates! 

products: Hambly pp, Bazzill cs, Tim Holtz grungeboard and distress inks, Heidi Swapp chipboard alpha, Doodlebug sticker alpha, My Minds Eye diecut calendar, misc pens.

Journaling reads: from January through December I was enrolled in 13 classes for a total of 44 credits and maintained a 3.52 GPA. I completed 3 projects a month for Rusty Pickle. I was a contracted scrapbooker for the last 3 months of the year. I was a wife and a stay at home mom. Needless to say, I was busy! This last year, my life more than ever, has revolved around a calendar and the circled squares - deadlines and due dates.

The background of this layout is just a plain white sheet of cardstock. I used a straight edge and pens to draw the journaling and accent lines. I used distress inks and Tim's ink blending tool to create the subtle color on the background and really love the way it turned out.

Thanks for looking and Happy Sunday!

coasters and a matching box.

i stole some pictures off of my bff's myspace (most were taken with a cell phone), touched them up, printed them out and created these fun coasters for her.      

fyi: i'm super pissed.

i have a laptop that's less than 3 weeks old and the sd slot is suddenly not working.  LAME. therefore, i can't share the project that i just finished. *sigh* why do i always get the cart with the squeaky wheel?

something that's really exciting though is that  my sister is in labor. she's 37 weeks and 16 days away from her due date. a month ago her baby was 6 lbs and by now he's obviously more than ready to appear. 

i called her earlier and she told me that she's having lower back pain AND menstrual like cramps AND every so often it feels like she has to take a huge crap. yep, she's in labor. she kept saying, "we'll see." and i'd say, "i'll bet you $5 that you're in labor." and she'd laugh and say, "we'll see." and then i'd ask her some other tell tale answering question and when she answered it correctly (with a symptom that indicates labor) i'd say, "yeah, you're in labor." and then she'd say, "we'll see."

she's so sweet. and cute. and beginning the most wonderful part of her life.

at the baby shower that all of my scrapbooking women threw for me when i was pregnant with terrance, my sister had created an "advice box" that the women filled with theirs. my favorite one came from a wonderful woman named Kelly Meier and it's worth sharing:

"Time passes quickly, keep momentos of all her firsts. They are open books and we are the ones to guide and help them to write on their pages. Love, kiss and squeeze her all the time (even when you are mad at her). Allow her to explore and test her world. She will be more willing to step out and take risks. Also, let her be loved by others, she will learn to be comfortable with people and trust in mankind. Lastly, accept her perfect little self with all her wonderful personality traits, even when they may not be your favorite. She is a precious gift. Enjoy every moment that you have with her."

and just for fun some earlier layouts of terrance:

 

 

   

better late than never.

because I really suck at printing pictures of Terrance off and sending them to friends and family, I've   decided to do it for christmas. meaning, i'm making gifts (coasters, albums and some simple frames) that all have pictures of her included.

today I started the box for a coaster set and took pictures as I went.

I started with a square wooden box that I found at a craft store (4 coasters were included). After painting it I used a mask, distress inks and the ink blending tool to create a background pattern.

I outlined the pattern using a white pen.

I stamped the flourishes and added the quote.

Once the flower outline was filled in with white paint I embellished the center with a button and rhinestones. Next, I traced the stamped flourishes with black stickles.

My final step for tonight was to adhere the trans-parent embellish-ment and large brad with diamond glaze. 

Tomorrow, I'll use this to "flood" the top of the box and create a super thick and shiny top coat and it's going to be really, really cool.

 

remember this?

A few months ago I posted this and said that the pages would house the stack of photos  I have of Terrance doing the cute and funny things that she does. And while I had really great intentions of doing it and keeping up with everything, months had come and gone and I still had the stack of photos and an empty album. A few weeks ago I glanced at on in my shelf and got inspired to just do it, and I did although, not in the way that I had originally planned. 

Journaling reads:

"Terrance, this book is dedicated to you my sweet heart little girl.

Terrance, I have to be honest.  When I was pregnant I had the best intentions of keeping up with your scrapbooking once you were born.  But then, you were suddenly here and I hadn't even completed my pregnancy pages (and still haven't almost 2 years later).  Then you were  month old and I hadn't even scrapbooked the story of your birth. The fact was that I was getting farther and father behind by the day and there was no end in sight.

Almost a year and half after you were born and with my continued failure to properly record your infant memories, I decided that I'd make a small album that I could easily paste 4x6 photos in, jot down a quick note and consider the memory scrapped. It was a good idea and a project that I eagerly started but, once I decorated the cover I set it aside and left it empty and forgotten about. I was again failing at keeping up with recording your everyday moments. The truth is that I so badly wanted to create some sort of chronological album for you but refused to work on anything for you unless I could do it from start to finish. Don't ask me why, I don't even know, it's just how I am when it comes to scrapbooking.

Last night, though, I finally came to the realization that I am not a chronoligical scrapbooker, that there will never be an end to your memories, and that no matter how good my intentions are of eventually being able to sit down and play "catch up" and rightfully, by date, arrange all of the wonderful photo I have of you AND journal about them, it will never happen.  There, I said it! You will never have those first year, moth-by-month, milestone layouts--NEVER! And I'm so sorry, because I really wanted them too but, what you will have is a compilation of my absolute favorite photos and my accompanying thoughts from that time interval. I'm pretty sure there will be no exact dates as to when you ate your first solid food, although, I do remember it was apples (which you loved and you were around 4 months old) or when you said your first word (mom). But, like I said, you'll have my memory of it and maybe a few other random thoughts. 

So, here's the deal with this book: It'll be an ongoing journal about you, narrated by me. It'll always be out of order, as I plan on adding to it whenever with whatever photo I've found or recently printed. But, I do promise that I'll do my very best to at least include some sort of vague reference to month/year when I can remember to do so."

I included that picture of me in labor at the hospital because when I found it, I was astounded at how round my face is in it. I always remember thinking when I was pregnant that my face wasn't gaining any weight. Uhm...note self, yes it was! Also, it was the only picture that I had of myself pregnant already printed so, I used it. =)

My mom fell in LOVE with T when she was born. This is one of my favorite pictures of them and because I had it on hand, I used it. The pages following these ones will be journaling from my mom. She'll be here for xmas and I thought it'd be nice to have her write something to Terrance.

And, speaking of my lovely mother, it's her birthday on Sunday, December 7th and I got her this gorgeous bracelet. I found it at a great local store called Spencer's Alley. Their website really doesn't do the store justice at all. It's a giant store with teeny aisles lined with hand made delights that range from furniture to jewelry and everything in between.  It's full of antiques, nick knacks, patty wacks and gorgeous holiday themed items in every style from country kitchen to classy and elegent. To sum it up, it's like a giant treasure chest in every sense of the word. 

And, an added bonus is that it's right next door to Stampin' Cat Studio. A great little shop bursting at the seams with all of the latest and greatest stamping products, including this guy's. So, if you're going to follow along with Tim Holt'z 12 tags of Christmas and need a local retailer, Stampin' Cat is it.

Alrighty, that's all I got and T should be waking up soon.

Have a great day.

i'm a little tired this morning.

Mandy (BFF since the 4th grade) and I stayed up late last night playing Yahoo Canasta.  It's a variation of our favorite card game (hand and foot) and is what we settle with doing since we live across the state from one another and can't really stay up playing rummy and listening to the same Tim McGraw cd all night while taking swigs of bad whiskey and chain smoking  cigarettes.

After losing terribly, or rather "looseing" as the person we were playing against kept saying, I went to bed at 1 a.m.  and for some reason unknown to man, Terrance decided that she wanted to get up at 4:30-ish a.m. to have her morning juice and banana.  I'd be lying if I told you I didn't put up a good fight that consisted of me begging her to lay back down and go to sleep.  It was to no avail.  We were up by 5.  And at 6 she thought that it was a good time for her to go back to sleep.  Me, not so much.  I'm already up.  I made myself some coffee and reached for the chocolate milk (to make a mocha) and decided that today I was going to shake the jug really hard.  I like the foam it makes.  And on the second full swing shake (I meant business) the lid popped off and chocolate milk went everywhere.  Including all over the inside of my fridge because, let's face it, I was so eager for that chocolately foam that I couldn't wait to close the door before I started shaking.

So, the much needed morning caffeine had to wait.  I had chocolate milk up to my eyebrows and everywhere within a 5 foot radius of my toes.  *sigh* Fast forward 15 minutes: I've got fresh, clean PJ's on and my floor is not as covered in chocolate milk.  What I can say?  It was way too early and I was way too sleep deprived to properly clean it up and I decided that the inside of the fridge could wait a few hours for a thourough wipe down. 

Moving on.

Along with the few hands of online cards I played lastnight, I also accomplished some scrappy things.  The first being a layout with that cute picture of T from my last post.

The circles here create a large pocket that some journaling and extra photos have been tucked into. 

Products: Rusty Pickle - White Chocolate Bunnies and Popstar patterned paper, buttons, lace, tag and rubons;  Making Memories - chipboard and sticker alphabets; Prima - flower; Maya Road - ric rac


And a lovely detailed shot of the title. 

One thing that I often do (and you can see here) is color rubons.   This one blended in with the stamped image on the tag too much so I couldn't leave it black.  I used my Uniball Signo white pen and just traced over it which made it more noticeable. 

*For a large view, click on the image.*

And, the other thing I started is this little album. 

I've decided that I have way too many pictures of T doing cute stuff and am hardly able to keep up with full page layouts.  So, this little album will house snapshots of her being her super cute and hilarious self and bits of journaling from my POV.

Products: Amerian Crafts patterened paper, Tim Holtz grungeboard alphas, Making Memories alpha stickers, Prima flower, Heidi Swapp jewels, My Minds Eye die cut

The cover is all that I have done, but I have a small stack of pictures waiting to be put in here.  I'll post pictures of the inside layotus as I complete them.

p.s. This lace stamp is my favorite.  Notice I used it on the tag in the layout above? 

Finally, T and I went out the other night with Katina and Brayden.  We had dinner at Red Robin and then made a quick stop at the Children's Place where I picked up this cute beanie for T.

And I've decided that I need a new camera.  I've had mine for almost 4 years and it's becoming obsolete.  It only has 5 megapixels and the grainyness of my photo's is really starting to bother me.  That and the fact that it's getting harder and harder to snap the pictures that I want. She's too fast and my camera is too slow. 

That's all for now. 

Happy Friday!