More National Scrapbooking Day/Week

I really think we need to have National Scrapbooking Day once a month, or at least once a quarter.  What a great way to get me motivated to get some serious scrapping done!

The projects I'm sharing today I've been working on/conceptualizing all week.  They are primarily for the Basic Grey challenges that closed yesterday (no worries, I was trying to get to bed so I just linked my flickr photos to the challenges), but there are so many great challenges going on out there, that I have bundled some others in too.

The other thing that I love about NSD is that it's a great way to do some stash busting, I broke out some really old Basic Grey for the layouts.  I'm going to give you some of the basic supplies I used in the descriptions, but in the interest of time won't provide the detailed list.  If you have specific questions, just shoot me an email.

This first layout is for Kelly Noel's grid challenge.  I'm also going to link it up at Shimelle's for the Scrap with Squares challenge.  I lightly drew the grid with a pencil and then stitched over the lines.  The papers are from the Basics, Oxford, and Max and Whisker lines.

The photos are from this past Christmas.  My nephew Collin thinks Ellie is the best thing ever, and she was just cracking him up at lunch.

The next layout is also from Christmas, a cute shot of Carina and my sisters.  I'm using this week's Elle's Studio sketch, and this is for Shannon Tidwell's Patterned Paper Circles Challenge, Els Brige's Leave White Space at the Bottom of the Page Challenge, and Waleska Neris' Fussy Cutting Patterned Paper Challenge.  This one is also going to be linked up at Studio Calico for the Five Different Patterned Papers challenge as well as Shimelle's Fussy Cutting Challenge.

The papers are BG Basics, Jovial, Oxford, and the green which is kind of a watercolor painted type pattern didn't even have a collection name to it.  I used my Creative Memories Custom Cutting System to create all the circles.

Finally, a card for Joy Taylor's card challenge.  I'm also going to link it up at Studio Calico for the Stamped Patterned Paper challenge.  This was the perfect final challenge since I needed a Mother's Day card for my MIL. 

The flowers are from CTMH's Card Word Puzzle set, and they are stamped on one of the Paper Cottage 6x6 prints. The sentiment is also CTMH, Say it in Style, the twine is Trendy Twine, and the sequins are from Neat & Tangled. I also accented the flowers with some Liquid Pearls.

 

I've got more projects underway....still a couple more days until all the challenges close.  Hope you are having a great weekend!  We went and got my early Mother's Day present today....new hockey skates (the wheeled kind) and shin pads.  Probably not what you were picturing, but I am pretty excited about it!  

Complementary layouts - start of the Hungary/Romania album

Andrew commented several weeks ago that I had not yet started scrapping the photos from our anniversary trip last summer.....gulp.

So, I ordered up the first set of prints, and I used NSD to motivate myself to get working on them.

I've always created stand alone albums for our major vacations.  They tend to be a little different than my normal layouts.  I like them to be more of a travelogue.

- I keep a journal when we are on vacation, with copious notes and the layouts have a LOT of journaling.....my goal is that it's almost educational for the reader (and a good reminder of the place/culture/history when I go back and read it).
- I like to keep and include all sorts of paraphernalia/ephemera from the trip....not sure how easy it will be to incorporate that stuff this trip because the language is so different and almost nothing was in English that it's hard for me to figure out which receipts go with what at this point.
- I like the album to be somewhat cohesive.  In the past I've used a particular collection throughout to tie it together.  I don't anticipate doing that for this album, but I did decide that I was going to use white cardstock for the base of each of the layouts.
- There are a lot of double page layouts.  Where the layouts aren't specifically double  pagers I try and make them complementary, like with this pair.

This first layout is of the Citadella in Budapest, situated at the highest point in the city you get an amazing view from there.  The Citadella itself dates back to the Hapsburgs, although the monument which is now called the Statue of Liberty was actually erected by the Soviets and called the 'Liberation Monument' when they gained control of the region following WWII.

I was unable to take a shot of the entire monument because of the height/short distance to the railing in front of the monument, so when I got the photos I decided to create a collage out of them.  I've done this before, but usually more of a panorama with several photos where you end up with a long rectangle/strip.  I decided to just leave the photos in this kind of funky shape because I like the lines of it, and it left some natural areas for journaling.

After I finished that page, the next location to document was the Hungarian White House.  This one is a bit more 'square'.  Since I want to have a cohesive look when you open up the book, I used the same supplies from the first page, but not all in the same way.  The mist that was used for the splatter on the first layout was randomly misted on some white cardstock to create mats for the photos as well as a background for the title.  I reused the SC paper from the first page as well as the vellum, and the same thickers, but in white.  To add some contrast and accentuate the idea of 'white', I colored the top of the 'THE' thickers with a black Spectrum Noir marker.  I would have just used the black ones, but I was out of Ts.

 

Here's what the layouts look like side by side. 

 

 

I'm going to link up the Citadella page with 2peas Focus on Photos challenge and the White House page with Shimelle's scrapbooking with mists challenge.

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock:  CTMH - White Daisy and Pacifica cardstock; Studio Calico - Classic Calico Vol 3 paper; Recollections - Vellum
Other:  Dylusions - London Blue spray; American Crafts - Black and White Amy Tangerine Sketchbook Journal Foam Thickers; Spectrum Noir - Pure Black marker; Pigma - Black Micron Pen; Tombow - Mono Adhesive; Creative Memories - Photo Splits

 

 

 

 

Dear Carina

This is the first of my National Scrapbooking Day layouts.  I created it for a bunch of challenges:
- Big Picture Classes Challenge #5 - Create a layout about someone/something you love
- Echo Park Paper Challenge #2 - Layout of Love
- Creating Keepsakes - Use 10 or more embellishments
- Shimelle - Journaling in a Letter Format

I'm mostly using Echo Park's This and That collection, and I thought I would create a layout to hold a love letter for Carina.  I've been supremely bad about journaling for Carina since she turned one, which was oh, about a year and a half ago.  So I used one of my favorite photos of her from last summer and wrote her a little note about the things that I love about her and tucked it into that cute little Maya Road envelope.

And here's the list of embellishments that I used (10 plus one for extra measure):
1) October Afternoon Woodland Park Washi
2) Neat & Tangled Gold Sequins (I added some of these to the closure of the envelope to dress it up a bit too)
3) Maya Road Kraft Envelope
4) The Twinery - Gold Shimmer Twine
5) Echo Park This & That Chipboard Accents
6) Echo Park This & That Decorative Brads
7) October Afternoon Holiday Style Flower Sack flower
8) October Afternoon Woodland Park Tidbits
9) Webster's Pages Girl Land Mini Messages Sentiment Stickers
10) Amy Tangerine Muse Thickers
11) Machine Stitching

This was one of those layouts that I fussed with a bit more and took a bit more time with, but I'm so happy I did.  It was a labor of love, I'm so glad that I took the time to do this one!