The Grand Canyon

We took a road trip to the Grand Canyon earlier this month...and this is the resultant scrapbook page. I know, it looks like I just arranged photos on a page, but I forgot to add text on the large photo for the title. And then I didn't know where to place an embellishment that wouldn't obscure the photos, so I just left it plain. The layout is based on a sketch from Cathy Zielske's Design Your Life class that I had signed up for at Big Picture Classes a while back. The idea was that she would go over design principles, you make your own layouts based on her sketches, and then you should end up with a reference album of sorts. I could never keep up with getting the photos printed and doing the weekly assignments. But now, we have a new used photo printer so I was playing around with it. I still think it's difficult to edit and print your own photos. If anyone has any tips, please share! The skin tones still look a little red to me in print. I tinkered a little with free actions from the Pioneer Woman for PSE. Usually I use boost and slight lighten to try and get the skin looking light and yellowish on screen. I use an inexpensive colorimeter to supposedly calibrate the monitor and the color management settings with the printer and a program like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, (for which I downloaded the 30 day free trial), but I can't say that it's making a difference, or maybe I'm not using it correctly. Whatever the case, I've just been printing tiny test prints prior to printing the final.

Technically, the sketch was in landscape orientation and there was supposed to be a title along the bottom of the largest photo, which might look better with an enlargement of the Grand Canyon, but I picked a photo of my kids instead :)

Sidenote: As a little kid, I thought the chawan-bowl haircut was funny, now here I am, cutting my daughter's bangs like that.

Well, that's about it for now. I think that layout took me so long because I had the hardest time deciding which 4 photos to use from the entire trip, and then trying to edit and print everything at the appropriate size as well. OK, only 2 more layouts left to do from week 1, then 11 or so more weeks to go, oh boy.

Preschool Graduation

This is the scrapbook challenge sketch over at TGF this week.  I used it to scrapbook my son's "graduation" from preschool.  The school called it an "Aloha Party" but my son couldn't participate cause we were going on our trip the same morning as the party.  I was hoping his teacher could change the date of the party but she didn't so I was a little sad that he'd be missing kind of a milestone event.  Well, he didn't seem to mind too much because we were going to Disneyland after all and his friends still gave him leis and small gifts on his last day.

This turned out kind of wild for me.  I was inspired by not just the layout but also this DP that had an apple tree and the alphabet on it.  I would've used it for this layout but the tree was too big so I thought I'd make my own and then I thought of that book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom with the coconut tree (my son really likes the book too).  So that's why I made another coconut tree with die cut letters climbing up the tree.  The big arrow and the bracket are stamps from TGF's Spotlight Kit. 

The leaves are PTI felt just handcut.  The black letters (on acetate) and grass are rub ons that I bought from Peachy Cheap.  I made the trunk of the tree by stamping the lines (that remind of washi tape) from TGF's Spotlight Kit repeatedly on the brown paper and then handcut the trunk out.

I used TGF's Grad Ian and put a little lei on him.  Cute, huh?  I glued on each confetti flower so good thing I didn't need a lot.  I liked that this was a digital stamp so I could reduce the size a little.  The date is also rub ons.  The kraft cardstock is a die cut from Quickutz that I got from Die Cuts r Us when they were having a really great sale.  The die is supposed to fold into a mini album.  It's so cute!

Thanks for reading.  Hope you're enjoying the summer!

Imagine, Believe, Magic

Here's a layout from TGF's newsletter challenge.  I've been staring at this challenge for at least a couple weeks now.  And here I am waiting til almost the last minute to complete the scrapbook page.  Well, while we were at Disneyland, my kids got a lot of autographs from the characters so I decided to make a page with one of them following the layout above. 

Isn't Peter Pan's autograph so humongous?!  Man, I had a hard time fitting that in some where.  I had to use my Never Ever stamp set.

I also used PTI's tab die cut to make the tabs and stamped the sentiments from the Never Ever set.  I also found some feathers (while cleaning my storage room).  It was originally pink but I colored it red with my copic pen to match Peter's.  It's attached to a small green felt circle.  I had to put felt in some where.

I did a little bit of paper piecing with the girl.  Her dress, book, hands, hair and ribbon.  Overall, I didn't quite feel the completed page.  It's okay but I think that huge autograph is bugging me.  But I'm glad I started scrapbooking the autographs.  My kids will be doing some pages on their own.  Hopefully, I can just stand back and watch them and not take over. 

Well, thanks for reading and have a great day!

Mouse Ears

Edit:  Awww, I didn't win but I think it's still super cute!

I thought I would participate in this week's scrapbook challenge over at TGF too.  Above is the layout to follow.

Here's my interpretation of the layout.  Because we had such a fun time at Disneyland and the kids still can't stop talking about it, I thought I'd better start scrapbooking about the trip.  So this page is solely about their new mouse ears.  They each got different hats and my older two got to pick their own ear styles and patches too.  You can click on the picture above to see their hats close up.  I put a description of each hat in the colored circles on the left.  I traced the large black Mickey ears from another Disney srcapbook set and the letters are die cut.

These are my kids represented by TGF stamps and wearing their mouse ears.  I love the way these came out.  My daughter was made with Ruby's head and Stamping Anya's body.  I left the message on the shirt the same since my daughter likes stamps too.  I used Cuddle Anya's hat as a template and kind of just trimmed it to fit.  The ears are circle punches that I colored with my silver gel pen.  I glued some bling and a gold tiara on the front.  My older boy is made from Happy Day's Oliver and Dress Me Ian's body/clothes.  I put Mickey's head on his shirt instead of the skull.  My son's hat was a lighter blue so I just colored it with a darker blue and put some glitter to match.  His ears are also circle punches and I drew in the mouse heads.  The little one is from the Oh Baby set.  I just turned his beanie into a mouse ear hat.

All the hats and my littlest one's ears are cut from felt.  That is my new love--felt.  Especially from PTI.  It cuts so nice and clean compared to ones I bought at Walmart.  Hahaha.  I can't wait til they come in new colors.

Thanks for reading!  Have a great night!

To my middle child

Hi!  So sometimes my older son exhibits middle child syndrome.  He wants to be the baby and wants more attention.  While I was making scrapbook pages of his big sister, he asked me to make a page for him, a prince page since I made a princess page for my daughter.  Sigh.  But I told him not a prince page and came up with a different idea inspired by TGF's Farm Fresh Friday Challenge Get Sentimental.

I got some photos of him printed out at Costco.  They are from last Christmas when his kindergarten class was performing.  They are some of my favorite photos of him because they capture his expressive side.  He does love Justin Bieber!  He'll watch Justin Bieber's videos on You Tube and sing along but he is still shy.  I'm trying to get him to join his school chorus in the 1st grade.

I used American Crafts stickers for the title and stitched together the puffy felt heart using MFT's heart dies and PTI felt.  I hand cut the u from felt too.  I also inked up the edges a bit.  I also curved the stitched imaged from TGF's Sunshine Kit to make the circular border around the photos.

I used the boy image from TGF's Sweet & Toxic.  I added Stickles to his wings.  It's okay for guys to have glitter, right?  Just some simple coloring and done.

I decided to use the sentiments in a letter to my son.  The ones that are matted on red are from TGF stamp sets.  The others are my own handwriting.  I just free hand cut these out.  I didn't try to make them super straight or perfectly matted.

Here's a list of the stamp sets I used:  Oh Baby, Sweet & Toxic, Panda Friends, Happy Day, Forest Friends, Just For You, Special Autumn, My Guy Ian, Grandparents, Spotlight, Sunshine, Creepin, and Roll Call.

I showed the layout to him this morning and I think he likes it though he thinks the Sweet & Toxic boy is scary.  Haha.  I don't know why but my kids think the Creeper line is scary.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Happy Day Beach Day

Edit:  Yay!! Found out my layout won!  So very excited!  Makes me want to craft some more.  If only there was more time in a day.

Wow, long time no post I think.  I was trying to finish up some projects when I realized that this beach themed scrapbook challenge at The Greeting Farm was ending today.  Normally, I don't do many scrapbook pages but I just got this super cute sea life themed paper yesterday from All That Scraps.  So I dug out this old picture of my daughter dated 2004--not even a digital print! 

I used the photo as the backing and made a shaker box filled with sun confetti and and beads.  I also punched out some of the cute faces of the sea animals and put them in too.  The "sun" at the top has a starfish in the middle and is covered with a dome epoxy sticker.  I think it's supposed to be a sunflower from the Hope and Grace stamp set but I like to use it as a sun.  I die cut the yellow felt flower with PTI's Beautiful Blooms die set.

I altered Hope/Grace (I still don't know who is who) with Dress Me Anya's body and changed the bathing suit to match my daughter's one.  I stuck on some letter stickers inspired by one of the sentiments in Oliver & Amelia's stamp set "Happy Day."  I stamped it in the bottom right corner too.  It might be difficult to see.  I was only intending to stamp it once to complete my journaling but it was a little too high so I stamped it a few more times to make it look like it wasn't an accident.  But I still like the way it turned out.

I think I'm beginning to like scrapbooking like this.  Before I wanted to scrapbook events only in chronological order which is why I kind of stopped because I haven't even done my kids' first years yet.  It's kind of how I like to clean too--I have to follow a certain order, my desk, crafting table, then bathroom, then the kitchen, etc.  I know I must have some kind of disorder, hahaha.  I'll try to scrapbook more random events.  Well, thanks for reading.  Have a "Happy Day!"

Our very own ...

Princess!

Hi!  That princess would be our daughter.  I used her one year old studio photo (taken by Owen & Owen Photography) for TGF's Royalty Contest Week 3.  It's a sketch challenge.

But I thought I'd use the sketch as a layout for a scrapbook page.  I had to stretch it a bit since my page is 12x12.

My mom bought that cute little princess dress for her and most of the baby jewelry she is wearing in the photo.  I love that dress.  I still have it. 

I thought Princess Anya #3's dress was really similar to my daughter's one with the bow on the front and decided to use her.  I recently bought all the princesses including the original one.  Yes, I didn't have that one yet but when the 2 new ones came out, I had to get them all!  Sigh, they are so adorable!  I added rhinestones (that I colored with my copic marker) to her crown and stickles on her dress.

I printed her name out and added all the rhinestones around it, not individually though.  That would have been tedious but used the ones that are all linked together and just wrapped it around.  I colored these rhinestones too.

This is my handmade bow embellishment.  I used some sterling silver chain and beads from my jewelry stash.  The tags are PTI's Tiny Tags dies.

Closer up.  I haven't made jewelry in a while and I had a hard time wrapping the wire.  It takes some practice.

I love this part the most.  I had made this ring years ago as a pendant but never got around to giving it away so I used it as a ring for the ribbon.  It is a sterling silver ring that I wrapped with SS wire and Swarovski beads.  Added a stick pin here and on the ends of the ribbon below the photo of my daughter. 

It's hard to believe my daughter will be 10 this year.  That was fast.  Another 10 years and she'll be grown up already!

Also entering this in Paper Sundaes Challenge #73--Girly Girl.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!