Swim Layout

I spend A LOT of time waiting to watch Esme swim.  The team has been a wonderful experience for her in so many ways - exercise, skill, friendship, routine, independence, and discipline.  I am so glad she gets to be a part of it and so grateful for her team of awesome coaches. 

I am trying to scrap more this summer and would really like to get back in to going to crops as well.  I love seeing how other people work.

Ecotarium Layout

I haven't been scrapping as much as I would like to lately.  I have a lot of demands on my time and my desk has been so cluttered, it's demotivating.  But I want to get back into the game so I'm organizing for fifteen minutes a day and then making time to scrap.  Just finished this layout using a mix of very new (WeRMemoryKeepers For the Record) and very old (K&Company Dinosaurs) supplies.

Instagram Mini Album

Sometimes during these busy weeks it's easier to sneak in time to do six by six layouts than full twelve by twelve, so I've been concentrating on my Instagram Mini Album.  To make it even easier, I've been using all the new BasicGrey Fact & Fiction supplies that my wonderful husband and daughter got me for Christmas.  The album won't be super matchy, but it will coordinate throughout with a certain color scheme and feel.  Here are the first seven pages.

2013 and What's New

I'm beating the post-Christmas blues by spending lots of time with my family and working hard with my Girl Scouts!  Here's what's new around here:

• My sweet husband is our city's Girl Scout Cookie Sale Manager for the first time ever.  It's pretty awesome to see him working this way, but stressful to see him get stressed when people are unresponsive.
• I feel so lucky to have a job that I love, working at the museum.  I haven't been working as much as I'd like lately, but hoping now that Winter vacation has passed things will pick up.
• I started a Girl Scout troop at our local Boys & Girls club.  I have girls ages 9 through 13 and we've only had one meeting so far, but it was fun and it will be a different experience for me to be with older girls who have not had a previous Girl Scout experience.
• I haven't been scrapping a ton, but I have made good progress on my new mini album made entirely of my Instagram photos.  (I got a tablet for Christmas and was so excited to finally join the world of mobile devices!)  Esme has been scrapping with me a lot and I love it.  I gave her my extra Instagram prints and this is what she made:

• This week we start Robotics!  I attended training on how to coach a FIRST Lego League competitive team but I still feel a little unprepared.  The trainers assure me that soon the girls will be teaching me what to do.  Definitely happy to be offering more STEM activities for Girl Scouts.
• I love having an instrument that I can play.  I haven't quite gotten to it every day, but my autoharp has definitely been getting use since its purchase in late October.  At the moment I have a touch of laryngitis, but I hope to get back to it full force once this wears off.  
• I can't wait to get back to the beach this summer.  On these cold days when it gets dark so early, I think even more about the night we had a fire on the beach and how late it stayed light.  That's my favorite time of year!

Loving Grid Layouts

I have been working harder to give weight to certain pages in my albums. It can be hard to balance having 100 adorable photos when they are of a not-particularly-significant event in our lives, or when I have similar photos year after year of the same activities. I have been turning more and more to grid-style layouts, where I can get lots of photos on a page.

For this page I wanted to include lots of photos because I am looking back at a time that my daughter and my entire Girl Scout troop was so much littler! Half the layouts I've pinned on Pinterest seem to be grids as well.

Girl Scout Camp Layout

We are so happy that our daughter has had such positive experiences at Girl Scout summer camp these last two summers. The photos from last year were so special to me I had a hard time scrapping them. I wanted the feel and look of the page to be bright and expressive. I finally took the plunge and did the layout today:

I am pleased with the result - I used products from a wide range of companies including Jilibean Soup, K & Company, Echo Park, Colorbok, Doodlebug, and American Crafts.

Scrapping with Mists

Thanks to Shimelle and her Glitter Girl videos, Esme has been super into scrapping lately and that means I have been getting a lot done too! Recently I was lucky enough to participate in a local scrapbook store's tag sale, and I made over $100! I bought all kinds of goodies with my gift certificate, including six new bottles of mist. I got Mister Huey's, Glimmer Mist, and Dylusions. I am finally catching up and learning how to incorporate these onto my pages. Here is a page I did recently using them:

I also busted out my Fiskars texture plates for the wood grain paper on the right. I dry embossed and rubbed with ink to add a little more texture to the page.

Red Sox Mini Album - A Gift for My Brother

My brother has done a ton of work on our house, from resealing toilets to hanging doors, and really wanted a special way to say thank you to him!  He is a huge baseball fan and luckily I was able to get some Red Sox tickets for a song!  We loved having a special night out with him, and then this album was the second part of his gift.  I'm posting a few pages to give a sense of the whole album.

I purchased the round, chipboard album and a 6 by 6 Authentique collection at the nearest local scrapbook store.  I also went to a local sports collectibles store to score some supplies.  The cover is made from printed packing tape - only $1 with purchase at the second store.  I used Stickles to jazz it up a bit.

I covered a couple pages completely with a photo.  My favorite place for processing is Costco, both for quality of prints and for price.  I was so touched that my brother made this such a special night for my daughter.  When he arrived he told her it was a night she would never forget.

Esme was really spoiled this evening - she got to try all kinds of Fenway snacks, plus Charles let her use his binoculars to watch the game and made sure to explain everything that happened as the night went on.    Using the collection of papers helped to make this a super fast and easy album.  I also used navy blue paint on the edges of every page for a cohesive look.

I tried to throw in some fun doo-dads to help document the night even if I didn't have photos of a particular event - Charles had given us the complete background story on, "Sweet Caroline," so I wanted to be sure that was included.  Even though we could see the game easily from our seats, it was hard to photograph the players so I included some baseball cards too.  I made sure to get the very common ones, so that my brother wouldn't be too concerned that there were holes punched through them.  

In additional to the red and blue patterned paper I threw in a fair amount of green and white, from baseball stickers to gingham ribbon, and even a bit of sparkly felt.  Esme doesn't realize how lucky she is, but because of Charles she actually go to go down on the field at Fenway Park!  I just gave Charles the album a couple weeks ago.  I new he liked it, because he proclaimed it a Home Run!

Adult Time

 

Our daughter is away at camp, and my husband had the first four days of this week off!  We had a wonderful time together.  We shot off some fireworks in our yard, went out to eat, went and visited a waterfall, swam in the lake, read together, listened to music, went to a city fireworks display, went out for ice cream, etc.  Time alone with him is extra precious to me because most of the year we work opposite shifts and don't see each other very much.  It can be very hard - I spend a lot of time missing him.  So four uninterrupted days together was such a gift!

That said, we really missed our daughter too!  He went back to work on Thursday and lucky my best friend, Lisa, was there to help me beat the missing-Esme blues.  She met me at a scrapbook store that is equally distance from our houses.  Time with Lisa is also very precious since we live an hour and a half apart.

Here's the layout I did - these photos are of my niece around this time last summer.  I have been hoarding some 6 by 6 paper pads so I broke one of them out for the patterned paper on this one.  I also used Doodlebug stickers, BasicGrey rubons, and a Simple Stories bingo card.

Doing this page made me remember how much I love scrapbooking!  I love all the clothes-line pages that are popular right now and really wanted to do one of my own.  These are some older pics - special to me because they are of Esme and her godparents.

I used my Slice for the title and dug deep into my camping themed materials for a mix of embellishments. I have had that Pebbles tag forever, waiting for the perfect layout.  The sticker that says, "savor," was from a scrapbook store in Connecticut that went out of business at least 5 years ago!

Officer Awesome

I have had these photos printed and ready to go forever!  My nephew is obsessed with fire fighters, police, EMTs, etc., but I'm afraid in this costume he looked more like one of The Village People!  I used one of my brand new Martha Stewart border punches that I got from my sweet husband for Christmas, and a die cut from the Travel USA design card for my Slice.

Back to Scrapping - Be Mine

I'm not sure if it is just weeks, but it certainly fees like months since I have scrapbooked, and the last few days I've realized how much I've missed it!  Not only because I love the tactile experience, looking at photos, etc. but because it is the one time a week that my best friend, Lisa, and I have completed devoted to spending time together.  Last night I got to break out several items I'd collect at tags sales or received for Christmas and did a couple pages.

This set of photos is one of the first sets I've had printed after using filters on Picnik.  They have a very soft feel.  They are from Valentine's Day 2011 and it is amazing to me how much Esme has changed in that time.

Hurricane Irene & Making the Most of this End of Summer

Hurricane Irene came and seems to have gone without much fuss here. As far as I can tell, we didn't even lose any branches from our four gigantic Norwegian Maples. I'm very sorry to hear about troubles others have had along the seaboard, and hoping that my friend Lisa, who lives in a flood plain, is doing okay.

I LOVE summer!! It is my favorite season - swimming, vacationing, but most of all, time with my handsome husband EVERY day! We normally work opposite shifts, so being able to spent a couple hours with him every evening is a real luxury. That bring me to why I HATE back to school. I don't mind going back to work myself too much, but I hate our most-of-the-year routine, and it weighs heavily on me this week that next week I'll have to say goodbye to him except for Fridays and Saturdays for the next nine months or so. Sigh.

I did get a chance to go and scrap with my friend Jennifer this week, sans daughter, because my husband was home. I have wanted to scrap with her all summer, but this was pretty much our first chance, so I took it while I could get it. I did this layout:



Are you sad to leave anything behind this summer?

Dreams of Winter

If it wasn't for the heating bill, I might actually love Winter. I love take snow photos for sure. These photos are of Esme and the kids next door - she is usually reluctant to play in the snow on her own, but they lured her out many times this Winter.



I loved doing this layout because I got to use so many OLD supplies. It is amazing to me how much stuff I have in my scrap room, and it is amazing how quickly it is becoming out of date! A good reason to get scrapping and use it all up!

Mergers

In an effort to streamline my life, I have decided to merge my blogs. Before my family discovered Facebook I had one for sharing photos with them, I had one for ramblings, one for crafty projects, and one to share about homeschooling. Instead of trying to do an okay job with each, I think it would be easier to do a good job with just one.

Here is one of my new recent layouts -



I am loving grid layouts right now - I love the busy look, and this is a way to fit a lot of photos onto one page. Are you a scrapbooker? If so, are you more streamlined or busy?

Taggy Collagey Layout

Despite a busy schedule lately, I have been sneaking in some creative time whenever I can. I've mostly been scrapping and makihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifng ATCs.

I have also fallen in love with Pinterest, and my favorite layouts I see there are the busiest ones, covered with lots of tags and collage elements. They inspired me to make this:


Thanks for stopping by!

Keeping Busy

I have been staying very busy lately, between work and Girl Scouts and my daughter's birthday and just general stuff that needs to get done! I have not had as much creative time as I would like, but I have certainly been taking a lot of photos for use when I finally do have some.

Now that I am several weeks in, I can tell everyone that starting a Facebook group for local scrapbookers was one of the BEST ideas I ever had. I would highly recommend it for anyone who would like to make some new scrappy friends, and have the opportunity to get together and crop. What started as me talking to a friend has grown to a group of 57 women and counting. We've planning several events including local crops and even an overnight at a campground, with the hall rented for cropping.

I also love having a challenge every week - this layout is from a sketch challenge from a couple weeks ago.

Challenges

There are sooo many challenges for scrapbookers out there, it's hard to sort through them all and decide which ones you'd really like to be a part of. A friend and I are planning to offer challenges every week to our new local scrapbooking group, so I guess for me that's a good a place to start as any! If you have a challenge group you really like, please link me, cause I'm looking for some more inspiration!

Here is my layout for this week's challenge - from a sketch posted by my friend:

Time for it all.....

I really wish I had time to scrap a page every day, make more cards, paint a lot more, and still be an effective homeschooling mom and Girl Scout leader, as well as work an adequate number of days at my job. As it is, I'll have to settle for doing some of those things. I was really pleased with how quickly this layout came together - these photos were from my brother's family's Christmas card.


This week I am hoping to travel to my bestie's house (about 75 miles away) and spend the night actually scrapbooking with her IN person! It's been soooo long since we could have time together that was about us, and not just running the kids from place to place.

Finished Layout - Best Boy

A friend and I have been going through old scrap magazines and pulling out pages for inspiration. When I looked through my enormous pile, I realized that what I like most is pages with A LOT going on. I love busy layouts!

Some friends and I recently started Pioneer Valley Scrapbookers - a group for local scrapbookers. We used to be part of a really active crop group that was great, but it pretty much fell apart over time. This way we can chat with people locally about our favorite hobby, and hopefully maybe even start up a crop or two. I made this layout for the first challenge.