Blinging It Up with old friends!

This Summer, after 3 years, we visited family and friends in our hometown of Seattle. It was a trip long-overdue. Many of our friends and some of our family had not yet met our 2 year old (1 1/2 years at the time) daughter. This was also our first plane ride with a small child. That is a separate story itself;)

We enjoyed our adventure, and are anxious to return; and, while we had a long visit, it still wasn't long enough to see everyone:(

I am sure that I am not alone in being behind in scrap-booking. I need to practice scrapping in some sort of chronological order! I do a few pictures from this year, a few from that, and here and there. A friend suggested that I start at present time and alternate attacking the past. Sounds like a perfectly-wonderous plan! Have I done it? Hmmmm....well, TRYING.

While at a Yankee Scrapper Get-away weekend this Summer, I completed (or mostly completed in some cases) the following layouts from our Seattle trip:

Last Summer, I bought this album from Scrap It Simple at the Creating Keepsakes Convention in Manchester, New Hampshire. What I LOVE about this album is that the pages are attached with velcro, making it BEYOND easy to add pages! This album will host our daughter's toddler years.

This layout was started before the weekend get-away, and still not finished! I am awaiting an enlargement of a photo for the right page. Additionally, trying to find what balances and finishes the layout.

The following layouts show pictures of some of my closest high school friends, and their first time meeting our little girl. What an awesome feeling to share her beautiful spirit with them.

This is a simple layout with plain card-stock, chipboard letters, and photo corners.

This layout was time-consuming but gratifying. I used Tim Holtz Ranger Paint dabbers on the sun-shaped and tree-shaped chipboard die-cuts. I embossed atop of the butterfly chipboard die-cuts with Zing. All shapes were coated with Inkssentials Glossy Accents. Glossy Accents also applied to the letters that were cut with the Cricut. Heidi Swapp decorative cardstock. All cardstock edges decorated with paint dabbers. Again, I used photo corners to accent the pictures. Lastly, a little bling to finish it!

Here is another layout with Heidi Swapp decorative cardstock, and some fun chipboard letters. The bling used here was Tattered Angles Glimmer Mist! Oh, and check out the pretty faux-velvet ribbion!

As can been seen on this layout, I was loving the Zing embossing powder (accenting paper edge and die-cut shapes), Heidi Swapp decorative paper, colorful photo corners, chipboard shapes, Inkssentials Glossy Accents, and Tattered Angles Glimmer Mist!

A fun note about this layout, is that I created it before I knew what pictures would be added. After adding pictures to this pre-designed layout, I simply cut-out letters with a Cricut, and I used colorful photo corners to hold the pictures.

Simple and sweet describe this layout--plain cardstock, Cricut die-cut letters, photo corners, and a little gem-bling. Check out the butterflies: gift from a sweet friend:)

What do you think?

Any suggestions?

Do you have any similar layouts or techniques you have used?

Happy Crafting,

Tracy

Updating AND ATC's

Here it is Wednesday 2 February 2011, and I haven't posted in several months. No longer will I make promises I can't keep. My only 'promise' is that I will do my best to update my blog as I have time. Additionally, I will apply this to my life outside crafting. Keep life simple. Give routine a try. Only do what is in the realm of the POSSIBLE. This doesn't mean I will not stretch my comfort zone in creating, cooking, crafting, and trying new things in life. Rather, it is about being real, being me without stretching me too far--so far that I drop from stress or fatigue. Isn't this something to which we can all relate?

Sadly, our ATC group hasn't met in several months. I am hoping to re-start it in the near future. I miss all the ladies, learning from each other, and sharing our lives stories.

Here are a few of the last ATC's that I created before our hiatus.

I think our theme for the above ATC was monochrome. Pink is my favorite color, and I love edgy images like this one by Stampotique. The title is, "Never Stop Sparkling." I thought it was funny and ironic to place that sentiment along with the image of this very EMO looking boy, who, by the way, I think is adorable.

For this ATC, I embossed with Zing, used lots of glimmer mist, Ranger's Rock Candy Stickles, AMuse ribbon, and a little bling to finish it off.

The theme for this ATC was, What is Black and White and Read all over.

I would say this ATC isn't truly finished. It was more of an experiment with technique. I placed a brass stencil on top of newspaper, painted gesso over it, removed the stencil, and allowed the gesso to dry overnight. After, I distressed and inked the edges, sprayed glimmer mist all over it, added ribbon and a little bling. Finished. Or, as finished as I was able at the time. Just couldn't think of anything to add/change. Ideas?

There it is. ATC's updated.

Scrapbook layout updates to come.....