Love Will Keep Us Together!

My parents are celebrating their 40th anniversary this year -- wow!  I was looking through some pics and found some from their wedding, so I thought I'd play a bit.  I came across this challenge at Scrap It With a Song that was just perfect -- get inspired by The Captain and Tenille;-)  The sketch is from Pencil Lines and is for the design team application.  I'm not getting my hopes up, but I loved this sketch and thought I'd give it a try!

Peggy and Gary, August 21, 1971

                                    

   

 Supplies: Paper, My Mind's Eye; Letter Stickers, Making Memories; Flowers, Prima and other; Assorted ribbons and brads

HMITM Challenge #165

I'm trying to get back into actually making scrapbook pages.  I've been making tons of cards, mostly using kits and such.  They look cute, but they don't require much thought on my part.  That has made it difficult to get back into using pics and pages.  So, I started scouring the challenge blogs and found this fun one at How Much is Too Much.  I'll admit that it took me quite a while to settle on pics and papers to use, but once I started cutting and sanding, I felt like I'd found my spark again:-)

Here's the finished product:

Hidden journalling: My 1st trip to Portland was a whirlwind.  Luckily I was here for 2 weeks:-)  Eric took me everywhere -- Mt. Hood, Gorge, Newport, downtown, Japanese Gardens, Pittock Mansion, plus many more.  If he was trying to sell me on living here, it worked!  I fell in love with him, his family AND his city:-)



The challenge was to use:
~ 2 pics: These are from my 1st trip to see Eric in Portland.  
~ at least 14 hearts:  (I have 16!  I used 13 across the bottom since our 13th anniversary is this week, then 3 heart brads as accents.)
~ an arrow: I turned the hearts on their sides to mimic a row of arrows across the bottom.
~ mostly red and brown: I took this literally and only used those colors;-)
~ a flower: yep, I've got 2!
~ ribbon: of course!  It wouldn't be finished for me without ribbon somewhere;-)

I'm noticing that my last few layouts have used a lot more white space than I normally use.  I'm liking this look!

Finally got some prints!

2011 Project Life is still going strong.  I do love having the kit this year and Eric has already asked if I wanted to get it again next year:-)  Um, of course!

I know I haven't posted layouts recently.  I've been keeping up with my writing and picture-taking, but I'm only printing pics once a month or so.  Here are weeks 2-6 :-)

Week 2

Week 2 New camera and getting organized

Week 3

Week 3 Trip to Kansas

Week 4

Week 4

Week 5

Week 5

Week 6 Met Alter Weiner, Holocaust survivor

Week 6

Week 7 Sick and snow

You may have noticed my new toy, the Sizzix Big Shot.  I've been having fun cutting and embossing with it.  It took me years to figure out which tool I wanted and I've played with this one quite a bit recently and really like the cost and versatility.

I've been busy making lots of cards and I'm fixing to start on a scrapbook for Eric about his sailboat that he refurbished and lived on before we met.

That's all for now:-)

Great layout idea!

Since I'm doing Project Life this year I've joined the message board over at Big Picture Classes.  This is such an amazing group of people who offer encouragement and TONS of ideas!

Ellie has shared her blog with us and she recently posted about a cool addition to her PL -- a 6x12 layout!  Check it out here!  It's pretty awesome and makes me want to try it soon!

I'll be posting updated pics soon -- I was in Kansas last weekend, so I haven't printed pics in a bit.

And the winner is...

Thanks to everyone who left such wonderful comments on my layout!

Congrats to Leslie -- you are the Scrapbook Challenges Blog Hop RAK winner!  I've send you an email requesting your address :-)

Leslie said...

Love the colors you used and those pics are too cute!

Project Life -- Week 1 complete!

I am so excited to have 5 pages in my Project Life album done!  Yep, 5!  "How did you get 5 pages and it's only January 9?", you may ask.  Well, the 1st is the title page, so that was a gimme :-)  I wanted my weeks to run Mon-Sun, since that's how my life runs -- Monday begins the school week, so Monday is day 1 as far as I'm concerned.  But, I didn't want to skip the 1st 2 days of the year, so after reading some advice on the (fabulous!) Project Life Message Board, I decided to do a layout that served as a bit of an introduction.  I included info about current faves and prices, as well as current pics of us, the house, etc.  Then, of course, I have my "real" 1st week:-)  I'm absolutely loving the simplicity of this project kit!  You may notice that I am adding some embellishments here and there.  What's nice is that I don't feel compelled to add to it, I just did it because I had time and thought it'd be fun, but it may not be an every week occurrence.

Want a peek into my album?!  Here you go!

Title page

Intro page 1

Intro page 2

Week 1 page 1

Week 1 page 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking:-)  Have a great week!

Scrapbook Challenges Blog Hop and RAK!

As you might have noticed, I haven't done many scrapbook lo's lately.  I've just been in a funk I guess, but I have been making lots of cards.  Thankfully I've snapped out of my rut thanks to the Blog Hop over at the Scrapbook Challenges Ning!  They've got a fabulous sketch and lots of amazing designers sharing their take on it.  There are tons of prizes, too, and you're invited to play along. 

Start the hop here at Pamela's blog.
Click here to Hop On to see what other members have created and to get details on how you can participate!

Here's the sketch:

 

Or if you prefer a 2-page layout:

 

Here's my take:

Materials used: All paper from Creating Keepsakes "Just For Fun" kit; 

letters and velvet brad - Making Memories; 

crushed velvet ribbon - American Crafts; flower - Prima

 I've also got a little surprise RAK for someone who leaves a comment on my little bloggity blog:-)

I hope that you decide to join in the fun!

So far so good

Well, I'm 4 days into 2011 and Project Life and so far I'm keeping up!  I really do love the simplicity of having the cards ready to go and just having to write my info for each day.  I can get them done in just a few minutes.  I plan on taking some time each weekend to add a few embellishments to the previous week -- I do love me some ribbons, brads and flowers!

Pictures coming soon!

1/1/11

Happy New Year! Today's date just makes me happy for some reason! It's fresh and new and uniform:-) I love it!

I've always had good intentions for this blog, but then life got in the way. Not this year! My word for this year is: Create. Part of that includes "creating" this blog and creating things to share here.

I'm very excited to get started on Becky Higgins' Project Life this year. Some of you know that I tried my own version last year using file folders. Well, I made it through April, then had the kidney stone incident and everything fizzled. I've always loved the PL kits, but thought since I had so much stuff in my scrap room that I could come up with my own 'kit'. I found that I was easily overwhelmed and longed for something to keep me focused. "Shiny things" distract me;-)

So, I used some Christmas money and bought the 2011 kit and it arrived on Thursday. Wow, wow, wow! Plus there's an awesome message board where everyone is meeting and greeting and sharing fabulous ideas and past experiences. It's a goldmine of info! And then, there's Becky, of course, who is constantly making videos and posting cool stuff on her blog to get us ready. Can you tell I'm geeking out a bit?! Just a tad;-)

In fact, I'm so motivated for 2011, that I'm actually going back to 2010 and working on that project, too! I spent yesterday printing as many pics as I could find from last year and then went back through my Facebook profile (yes Eric, there IS a positive reason for Facebook!) and took notes based on my statuses and comments. I picked 3 sketches and will just use those so I don't get overwhelmed. Some weeks may not have a ton of pics, but I'll fill in with movie posters or book covers (FB helped with those, too!) and things that were happening in the world.

Whew, that's a lot of words! I'm a reading teacher with an English lit degree, so I tend to ramble;-) Here's to a great year!

Happy 2011!