A neat idea, link to tutorial & FREEBIE!!

First, I have to apologize for neglecting to post anything recently. I'm not going to make excuses about how busy I am since I'm sure every other person out there has their own version of a busy life too. Needless to say, I haven't been struck by the inspirational bug in awhile.

Anyway, I am working on getting my books current for my trip home to see my family this summer. I am current on my digital work and Scrapbooksplease has a free shipping sale starting tomorrow!! I am working on a few more traditional layouts before I'll consider myself done. Right now I have some adorable pictures of my 4 year old and her friends. I decided on using butterfly themed embellishments, I'm not sure why, but I have a nice variety. Some of it are pieces of a belt that broke (some tooled leather butterflies and some metal butterflies), butterfly iron-on patches and shrinky-dink butterflies I learned to make at Girl Scout camp. Did you know you can recycle #6 plastic to make shrinky-dinks?? It's so awesome -- I never actually made shrinky-dinks before camp last weekend so chances are even the store bought ones would amaze me. So to get back on track, I needed a way to tie the butterflies to the friends on the page. I came up with this quote:

"Friends are like butterflies: each one is different, each one is special, each one is beautiful." Now, how to get it onto my page in a neat and interesting way??

Wouldn't it be cool to make my own rub-ons? Thank goodness for Google and Bing, I was able to find a tutorial on how to do just that! Check out the tutorial here. And here is my wordart freebie for this quote.

You can download the freebie here. I actually included 7 different versions of this quote, with printing them to make my own rub-ons in mind. You could certainly use them on digital layouts and cards as well. Please enjoy them, and note that if I used another designer's piece as a stepping stone, I tried to include their name in the name of the design -- sorry if I didn't get you, not all my stuff has names on it.

How to display postcards in a scrapbook album & Cluster Frame Freebie!

I have been working away on my scrapbooks trying to get caught up. Christmas is coming and I try very hard to have the books ready to take home to show to my family back in Nebraska. I had a lot of fun with the vacation album from our family trip to the Black Hills this summer. I bought an 8x8 album and printed wallet sized photos for the pages. Then my main souvenirs were postcards. I agonized about how to put the postcards into the album without using page after page in the book. One day at the dollar store I found acid free clear document envelopes. They were perfect! I was able to put the postcards into the envelopes, sometimes without any trimming, sometimes with just a tiny bit, then I was able to "stack" them.

In each envelope I put 1 postcard, or if I had a lot of them, as I did at Mount Rushmore, I put 2 in (be sure the back one will be upright when you flip it up), then I cut a piece of coordinating cardstock to go above the postcard(s) in the envelope. I used the cardstock because I didn't want to put the brads through the envelopes without something to strengthen the "hinge" joint. I didn't use it as a titling option, but this would definitely be a good place for it! Then to make sure the postcards were placed straight onto the album pages, I measured and punched holes on the cardstock background paper - and if it wasn't very strong, I backed it with a stronger cardstock just in case - that way they postcards wouldn't be hanging on the page protectors. Here is what my finished pages looked like:

I had a lot of fun with it, I hid journalling and souvenirs under the postcards and on my favorite layout about the scenic drives in the hills, I put a picture of my girls sleeping in the back seat of the truck, their mouths wide open in exhaustion. It's a fun surprise and too funny to let them forget. I did learn 1 lesson though. When on vacation, journal every day on your postcards so you don't have to do that part when you put your books together! I didn't do it this time, but believe me, I will next time!
So anyway, that took care of my memories. So what to do for the girls? Well, when I was printing my little wallet sized photos, my printer ran out of blue ink and a bunch of pictures printed pink-tinted. I left them in the pile of clutter on my desk and forgot about them until the end of the project when I was cleaning up and planning to move on to the next big thing. Then it occurred to me that I could use them and have fun with them! So I found some pretty paper, black with pink and blue butterflies on it and I scrapbooked the pictures that featured my younger daughter. The journalling reads, "The best vacation memories are rose colored." I'm proud of it, a mistake that turned out really sweet!
For my other daughter I had to do more. I wanted to do a digital layout for her because she took so many pictures herself on the vacation - she earned her digital photography patch for Girl Scouts on the trip! But rather than make page upon page of vacation pages for her, I thought I'd put together some cluster frames and put the best pictures of her and taken by her on the trip. Here's one of them:

If you'd like to use some of these frames for yourself, you can snag them below. There are 7 in the set. I made them to fit a 12x12 page.

To Download Frames, click here.

Freebie Baking Overlay

Another freebie, yay!

I started a new scrapbook album and I decided that the title page should be a recipe scrapbook page with pictures of me making cookies with my two girls. But, how to scrap it and make it look really special -- my title pages are always very detailed and I put a lot of thought and work into them. Knowing that I wanted to scrapbook the recipe, I decided to print a recipe card that would look retro and really very fun. Here is what I came up with:

I found the graphic of the "chef" online and then I spent 2 days searching for a 1950s retro frame. I could not find one! So I experimented with the warping tool on my photo editor and came up with this frame. I think I accomplished my goal. To finish off the effect, I downloaded fonts from daFont mainly the title font called, Fontdiner.comSparkly.
Here is the .png file that can be used as an overlay for a digital page or printed on paper for traditional scrapbooking. I printed mine on 5x7 tea-stained paper. I was trying to make it look well worn and a little shortening/butter stained like my mom's recipe cards always were.

Click here to download. Please leave me some love if you like my work, and please enjoy!! Also, feel free to try my cookie recipe, we love it at our house!

A fun idea for a page

I am trying very hard to catch up on my traditional books. I am working right now on last summer's trip to Nebraska. I had so many great pictures (I took pictures, both of my sisters took pictures and my niece took pictures), but only wanted to do 1 2-page layout, also, some of my sister's pictures were pixelated when I printed them. So I chose the best pictures and had to scrap the rest. But now that I'm almost done, I needed a space filler. The title of the page is simply "Nebraska" so I came up with the idea of using an outline of Nebraska as a frame for a picture collage. This is what I came up with:

I cropped the pictures tight and tried to get as many in as possible. Then I use simple white lines to outline them. I then used my photo editor's instant effect option to great an embossed look on the white lines and the black outline of the state. I really like it. I'll cut it out and mat it in paper matching the rest of the NE layout. I will post it when I finish.

Journal Card Overlay Freebie!

Hi all! I have been working hard on getting my traditional scrapbooks up to date, and is it hard! I'm working right now on a self-portrait layout. It has been interesting to say the least. I had bought some little journal cards at the scrapbook store for this layout but they were on a yellowish card stock, and that didn't work with my color scheme. I used the purchased cards as an inspiration for these overlays. I tweaked them to reflect my personality a little more as well. They can be put onto blank card, paper or tag .pngs or you could print them onto paper and use in a traditional book. I hope you like them.

Please leave me some love if you download them!
Click here to download!

Brainstorm of the century!!!

Okay, so as you all know, I'm a traditional scrapper as well as a digiscrapper. I'm pretty current on my girls' books, which are digital, but I've let myself get behind on my traditional book, the one I keep for myself. Right now I am working on a layout from last summer's 4th of July. I was really impressed with myself when I decided to try sewing my pictures onto their matting, and then I was really pleased when I tried adding some star shaped sequins. It all turned out so cute! Then I sewed large arcs onto the background, finishing each one off with a mix of sequin stars, hoping for a whole "fireworks" appearance. The next big idea was that I took 1 inch plastic letters to and added rhinestones in red, white and blue. Thank you tons to my friend, Raynette, who told me to go buy stickles to fill in the gaps. It turned out soooo cute! But I was stumped for what to add to the layout to give it a finished look. I considered the torn box from sparklers, but it didn't work for me. I then thought of using black cat fireworks to add a really authentic pop (pardon the pun) to the page, but I was honestly worried about the black powder in my book. I'm not super particular about acid-free, but I don't want my book to explode if it gets slammed shut! So tonight I realized, why not make my own fireworks?? Here's the result, what do you think??

I cut red paper into strips about 4 inches long and 1 inch wide. Then I rolled them around a hemp cord "fuse" and finished it off with double-sided tape. I think they look great, here are the layout pages:

The First Family Tree is done!

This is the tree I designed for Lola. She's a princess, so I thought she deserved a pretty pink tree with cherry blossoms. I think it turned out okay. I am working right now on a layout for Sis and when I was copying names into Lola's tree, I realized the tree I wrote out for myself is messed up. I considered buying another 2 page set like I did last time, but I think I'll just make one on the computer. It gives me more freedom, although it is labor intensive.

I finally got my scrapbooking supplies in my office (or should I call it my studio?) organized. I don't have shelves to put all my boxes on, but I think it'll work for now. I even sorted all my metal jewelry pieces and odds and ends. I have some cool stuff, it's just a matter of knowing where it is when I need it.

I managed to get my big family page done as far as I can. My dearest friend sent me some dried flowers to use and I added the tiny playing cards I tea-stained. It's in the book and looks finished, but if my father-in-law ever finds his dad's tackle, I have places it can be added. I need to figure out a way to explain the significance of each item on the page, but there isn't room on the page itself....maybe some kind of pull card on the back??

Who's going treasure hunting? We're going treasure hunting!

I thought of a fun activity for the girls and I to share this summer. We call it treasure hunting. We look for anything that might be interesting while we are walking to the park or in the yard or out on walks. Today we found pieces of wood, pieces of rusted metal, pieces of plastic and feathers (they blew away before we got home.)

We decided to save them up over the summer and make a scrapbook page at the end of the year. As you may have guessed, I'm not really very rigid about the whole "acid-free" thing. I hope when it's done I can post a picture. It'll be really great with journalling about our treasure hunting adventures.