Morgan's layout

The most recent addition to my family is my beautiful niece Morgan. Her arrival also meant I needed to scrap a new page for my Mom's family scrapbook. Going along with the pink kick I seem to be on, I mainly used Authentique blissful for this layout.

Items used on this layout are:

• Authentique Blissful
• Icons
• Headlines
• Euphoria paper
• Distinct paper
• Happiness paper
• Authentique Uncommon "Original" paper
• Ranger Stickles
• My Mind's Eye So Sophie Clever "family ties" frame and "celebrate" journaling card
• My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart twine

Wood Block Picture Frame

For Mother's Day I followed a tutorial I saw on Scrapbooksteals.com by Brie Pinales.  The project was so much that I made one for myself, my Mom and my MIL. I just finished mine today and love it! I used my current favorite collections For the Record by Echo Park.

I started off by going to Lowe's and having them cut an 10 foot long 2"x8" board into foot long pieces. When I got home I sanded the rough edges and then gently washed them with a wet rag. I bought spray paint by Rustoleum and sprayed all sides of the board. I think it took 2 solid coats with dry time to get the look I wanted. After letting them fully dry overnight, I started Mod Podging in the morning. I used Gorilla Glue to attach the painted knob on top and my hot glue gun to attach the flowers and magnet. For the ribbon on bottom I used a combo of spray adhesive and Aileen's tacky glue. I am not 100% satisfied with how the ribbon dried so I think I will try a different medium next time.

May (calendar)

I know that May is almost over, but Dave was teasing me about not having done a layout for the calendar this month. Since I had so much fun doing to the masculine layout with feminine papers and embellishments, I decided to do it again!

In this layout I used:

• Authentique Splendid "Majesty" and Journey "Voyage"
• American Crafts City Park "Heritage Park" paper, City Park "bits" tags, City Park "remarks" dimensional stickers, Thickers "By The Yard"
• Fancy Pants It's the Little Things "Spring Fever" paper
• Echo Park Playground alphabet stickers
• My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart twine
• We R Memory Keepers Crop-a-dile, Sew Easy floss

Layout challenges

I will admit that I am slightly in love with layout challenges. With my boys who haven't let me sleep in over 2.5 years, I sometimes fall short in the creativity department. Challenges are good for me b/c there are usually fantastic layout samples plus I get to see (and get inspired by) the layouts that the other challenge participants submit. This blog post is mostly going to be a reference point for me to list the various layout challenges I have come across. I have not participated in all these challenges, but hope to start broadening my horizons. Since I am relatively new to the online scrapping community there are only a handful that I know of and here they are in no particular order.

• My Mind's Eye bimonthly challenge (two times/month)
• Scrapbooksteals.com Mid Week Mojo (every Wednesday)
• The Paper Girls Challenge Blog (first and third Monday of the month)
• Authentique Monthly challenge (first Saturday of the month)
• Lasting Memories Layout Challenges (Every Sunday)
• Basic Grey Weekly Challenge (looks like it is not every Friday but most)
• Crate Paper monthly color challenge (1st Friday of the month)
• Kaisercraft Saturday Sketch (every Saturday)

That's all I've got for now. 

My Mind's Eye May Challenge #2

This is my first time entering a layout for My Mind's Eye monthly challenges. I have MME paper and embellishments up the wazoo so I have no idea why I waited this long to enter one. I loved this challenge b/c it was to create a boy layout using seemingly feminine papers and embellishments or vice versa. Since I have two boys it seems like I am always reaching for the blues, green, and browns. This challenge got me reaching for the pinks which I rarely ever use. I chose one of my favorite photos of my handsome hubby and it was perfect b/c it is almost completely grey. The pinks look fantastic with the lack of color in the picture.

In this layout I used the following:

1. My Mind's Eye
   • Lost & Found Two papers from Blush, Rosy, and Breeze
   • Stella & Rose Trim
   • Stella & Rose journaling card
   • Stella & Rose frame
   • Lime Twist journaling card
   • So Sophie journaling card
   • So Sophie We Are Family Stickers
   • Follow Your Heart twine
   • Quite Contrary Journal Spots
2. Little Yellow Bicycle- Fresh Print Clothesline lace cut cardstock
3. Colorbox Chalk inkpad dark peony
4. Tim Holtz mini staples

June (calendar)

This year I bought a DIY calendar from Archiver's. In a perfect world I would have had all the months completed by now, however, my world is busy and messy and definitely not perfect. I really like the way this page turned out plus I found a use for the pink Thickers that have been collecting dust on my shelf!

For this page I used:

• Crate Paper- Lemongrass collection Citrus, Lime, and Orchard paper
• The Paper Studio - Oasis Floral paper
• American Crafts- Thickers
• Fancy Pants- Summer's End die cuts
• Ranger Stickles
• Echo Park - Playground alphabet stickers
• 
  

Turquoise #3

For this weeks mid week mojo, Scrapbooksteals.com has created yet another great sketch for me to play with.  I chose a picture that I have wanted to scrap for awhile now. When we were in Kyoto, Japan we were on our way to temple when we got caught in a torrential rainstorm. We hid out under an awning until the rain let up a bit and it felt great. Japan in August is hot and humid so the rain was a nice reprieve.

For this layout I used:

• Little Yellow Bicycle - Decorative edge cardstock, paper flowers, and chipboard stickers.
• Basic Grey - Pyrus die cut shapes, and brads
• Echo Park - Note to Self cardstock
• American Crafts - Campy Trails paper
• My Mind's Eye - Indie Chic garland
• Recollections floral embellishments
• Ranger diamond stickles
• Ditto Glimmer spray