There's no place like home ... except of course the MALL!

My daughter LOVES to shop. She certainly doesn't get it from me. It must come from her grandma (my husband's mom). I snapped these photos of my daughter at the end of December when she simply H*A*D to go to the mall. As she said "Mom ... Bath and Body Works has lip gloss on sale for $3.00. It's normally $7.50! I HAVE to go to the mall!"

That girl cracks me up. And yes ... I went shopping with her. She's not taking me all the way into her world of shopping ... but I can survive at the mall. I still sometimes have to let her know how much shopping I can bear to do on a particular day. Sometimes it's simply that we're going to ONE store and that's it. Sometimes I can do more. It all depends. So I guess I'm still not a real shopper yet. (The big stuff has to be saved for Grandma!) Ha!

So ... scrappy friends ... tomorrow is Pixels and Company's grand opening. It's gonna be BIG!

FYI, I created this page using all digi goodness that can be found at P&Co!

credits:

Robin Meierotto's "Sweet Life" kit

Creashens' "Euphoria" paper pack

Karla Dudley's "Painted Edges"

Karla Dudley's "Frame Essentials"

Scotty Girl Designs' "Fastenating"

Gina Bursett's "Snippy Alpha"

Karen Funk's "Simple Stitches"

Font: CK Storybook

A Digi Re-Do: Made of Awesome Page

I created this page the other day using photos of my son. Have you noticed that I really like using large photos on my pages? I was happy with the page in its original form, but after I looked at it for a bit I felt like it might look better if I made a couple of little “tweaks,” so I gave it a try.

While I really liked the large blended focal photo of my son and the smaller blended photo, since those photos were lying on a base of black chalkboard paper I thought I’d try changing those photos into something that made the photos look more like they were drawn with chalk.

I played around with a Photoshop Chalk and Charcoal filter on each of the photos and I really like the effect it gave. After applying the filter I needed to play around a bit with the masking to get the photos to look the way I wanted them to on the chalk paper but it was a fun little change. With the smaller framed photos without any effect used on them, I thought I may as well go with the fun chalk look. It’s digi so it’s fun to play!

Hmmm ... I do like the large photo with no effect as well. It's hard to decide. (I haven't printed yet so I can still change my mind! LOL!) So … what do you think? Which look do you prefer?

NEW PAGE:

ORIGINAL PAGE:

Credits:

Gennifer Bursett (Pixels & Co.): Made of Awesome

Simply Tiffany Studios (Pixels & Co.): Artistic Photo Masks

Last chance $1 sale at Pixels & Co.!

This is it. There are only two more days left to grab the loads of brand new $1 kits at Pixels & Co. And hold on to your hats. In just a couple of days you can check back for Pixels & Co.’s grand opening celebration!

Come and visit!

 

Hanging with the Cousins/Siblings

I just realized I forgot to post this page. I started scrapping it ages ago. (A couple months at least.) I never finished it and completely forgot about it. I ran across it the other day and added just a couple of finishing touches and called it done. Just thought I'd share - it was an afternoon/evening spent at my sister's house hanging out with the cousins/siblings. A good time!

For this page I used:
Simply Tiffany Studios: Barely There Brushes
LivE Designs: Creasers
Splendid Fiins: Splendid Template 5, Very Krafty Mixed Bag, Very Krafty Neutrals, Evidence Date Stamps, Delicious Berry Blue, Brilliant Full Collection and Keaton's Closet Alpha.

Hmmm ... looks like a lot of product by Splendid Fiins. I LOVE her designs!

A football adventure!

My daughter and her friend had an opportunity this fall to go to the Minnesota Vikings football game ALL - BY - THEMSELVES. {No grownups! How cool is that for them?!} They were so excited! Friends of ours have two season tickets and for this game it was their daughter's turn to go. Her Dad was traveling so she got to bring a friend and she chose my daughter. They had such a great time and I think felt pretty grown up being able to go to the dome all by themselves. Pretty big stuff for these girls!

Thankfully I don't go anywhere without my iPhone so when I dropped my daughter off I was able to snap a few quick photos of the girls getting ready to go. Love that!

Now ... on a digi scrapping note, I got Karla Dudley's Everyday Storytellers Templates today. Can I say I'm in love? I adore the acrylic pockets and stitching. So fun! 

The full list of digi supplies I used for this page are:

Karla Dudley: Everyday Storytellers #3 Templates; Remarkable kit (recolored); Kraft Essentials (grey kraft paper); Jumbo Sentiment Card (the "Adventure" wordart)

Katie Pertiet's Type Inspiration 090812 (the "Whole Nine Yards" wordart)

Robyn Meierotto's Word Art Thanksgiving (the handwritten "Football")

2013 Project Life: Week 4: January 20 - January 26

Four weeks done in 2013 for Project Life already. It's going fast. So far so good! My Sunday morning timeslot for putting together my pages seems to be working for me. This week I put a few photos and quotes in my shell weekly page. You know, instead of being a timesaver that ended up just kind of confusing things. What I put in didn't end up being where I wanted it to be and I had to move them around and stuff. I don't think I'll do that again.

I've been using the Momento app on my iPhone where I've been jotting down notes and quotes and stuff. It pulls in my social media posts (so far only Facebook). I've really liked that. I think I'll keep up with that.

I'm sure, as I go along I'll fine tune the Project Life process, but so far that's what is and isn't working for me. I know I love Project Life so far and I really love the end product of so many of our daily memories scrapped on two pages. So I'm thrilled!

FYI ... for these pages I used all product from Pixels & Co. (Great stuff!) I used Gennifer Bursett's Made of Awesome kit, Simply Tiffany Studio's Contextual Template Cards No. 2 as well as her Blending Cards, Celeste Knight's Bright Journalers and again this week I used Wild Blueberry Ink's Photo Tabs No. 2.

That's it for now. Here where I live the roads are yucky. It's cold and snowy and a lot of freezing rain. I'm not looking forward to getting out on the roads tomorrow. Wish me luck! Have a great week!

An Everyday Happy Moment

I love scrapping every day happy moments. It's the stuff that I really do want to always remember!

Now for you scrappers .. I used Mye de Leon's absolutely GORGEOUS Simply Me kit. I just loved it. The colors were so pretty! FYI, if you're looking for Mye, she's now at the new Pixels & Co. digi store. Love that place!

Made of Awesome

Let me tell you that when I asked my son (who was soon to be turning 16 years old when I took these pictures) if he would go out in our back yard and snap a few photos of him he didn't hesitate. He was totally open to the idea. I was a bit surprised - and quite pleased. What a great kid! (When I ask my daughter that sort of question she's all for it. With him I'd expected it to take some coaxing. I love surprises sometimes!)

Simply Tiffany Studios Artistic Photo Masks (Pixels & Co.)
Gennifer Bursett's Made of Awesome (Pixels & Co.)

Photobooth Memories

This page was fun to put together this afternoon. I enjoyed digging through my digi stash and pulling bits and pieces from bunches of kits. Sometimes I'm a kit scrapper (and create a page using just one kit). Other times I like to do some searching. Scrapping is fun both ways.

For this page I started with a Peppermint Twist template from Simply Tiffany Studios. I changed it up a fair amount (which is what templates are for, right?! ... the great basic design and then time to play!) I've really enjoyed scrapping with Karla Dudley's kits lately so most of the stuff I grabbed and use on this page were from her kits. So ... here's what I came up with this afternoon ...

And the official supply list is:

Simply Tiffany Studios: Peppermint Twist Templates

Karla Dudley: Ashbee, Life Recorded, Album Cards, Sunkissed, Remarkable, Digi Essentials

Ardent Sparrow: Life Unscripted Cards

Paislee Press: Photobooth

One Little Bird: Boardwalk

Katie Pertiet: Postage Stamp Mega Pack

Homecoming: What's more important? The game or hanging out with friends?

I put together a page about our my daughter celebrating homecoming for our high school this past fall. She had a great time and I loved how "into" the whole thing she was. School spirit ... it's a good thing. I've had this page sitting on my computer started but not completed for a couple of months now so I thought I'd finish it up today. My 2012 album is coming together!

I created this page while I was taking Tiffany Tillman's brushwork class at Renee Pearson.com. I'd really recommend the class BTW. She had so many tips and tricks to share with us! I also used Katie Pertiet's Open Up Frames No. 2, Lori Whitlock's Office Oriented papers and elements (awesome, awesome kit!) and some altered word art from Echo Park Hybrid's Touchdown kit.

2013 Project Life: Week 3: January 13 - January 19

I just finished up putting together week 3 of my 2013 Project Life layouts. It sure is fun to document so many of the "everyday moments" of life!

To create these pages I used Design by Dani's Snap Happy Kit and Everyday Amazing journaling cards as well as Gennifer Bursett's Mo Awesome elements and Photo Journalers Vol. 1 and also Wild Blueberry Ink's Kraft Photo Tabs 2.

August 2012 - Monthly Recap

Really ... this is it for the night. I've done a LOT of digi scrapping today. I met up with some local friends from the J*S website and did some scrapping and then, when I got home, I found myself with an empty house for a couple hours so I finished up a few more pages. It felt good to create so many pages! My final page for the night was a recap of a variety of photos from last August. It's fun to put together the mish mash of random photos that otherwise wouldn't be scrapped!

I created this page using Becky Higgins' Turquoise Edition Project Life Kit, Karla Dudley's Essential Stitches and Katie Pertiet's Date Monogram.

Evidence of Everyday Life ... the good stuff

Evidence of Everyday Life ... 

This is the good stuff.

Digi Stuff: 

Splendid Fiins: Evidence Date Stamps and Hot Mess

How Does Your Garden Grow? (Our 1st time ever container vegetable garden)

At my daughter's urging we had a container vegetable garden this past summer. It was our first try. She's wanted to have a vegetable garden F-O-R-E-V-E-R, but for those of you who know our house and our neighborhood ... that is just not an option. We have WAAAAY too many trees and too much shade. So ... we tried a container garden this year. We could just put the pots where we had sun. It was awesome! We had so much fun with it.

(In hindsight - as I scrapped this page - it sure would have been nice had I taken a picture of the full garden at the END of the season when everything had grown big instead of early on when everything was just a baby plant. Hmmm ... next year! LOL!)

For this page I used:
Simply Tiffany Studios Artistic Photo Masks (Pixels & Co.)
Gennifer Bursett's Mo Awesome Papers (Pixels & Co)
Katie Pertiet's: Collagable LT No. 10 and Summer Words (Designer Digitals)
Jodi Lee's Vintage Floral Texture Set 4 (Jessica Sprague)

A Summer of Projects

These pages were super fun to put together. It's fun putting together pictures from a range of dates and events - of course with a singular theme. These clearly were about some house projects we (OK, more so my husband) did this spring and summer.

My journaling reads:

We did a bunch of house projects this spring & summer. The projects ranged from getting new chairs for the living room to completely redoing the family room (walls, furniture, . . . everything), to painting the outside window trim, to replacing the railing. Lots of stuff!

I’m absolutely thrilled with our new living room chairs. They’re so incredibly comfy and I adore the fabric we chose. At first I worried the fabric might be too funky but I worried needlessly.  It’s awesome and to me the chairs give the living room a library like feel. (I practically live in them!)

We also decided it was time to “bite the bullet” as they say and redecorate the downstairs. (It hadn’t been painted since we finished the family room 16 years ago and we were tired of it being the home for all the “dead and unwanted” furniture. We picked out a leather reclining sofa and two reclining chairs with wood arms. We love it all! Again, it’s kinda funky fabric but I adore it too. After choosing fabric for the furniture we picked out coordinating paint colors and Scott painted the family room. We’re thrilled with the way it worked out and spend a ton of time downstairs now! Yay!!!

Along with the new chairs and sofa in the family room came a new TV stand and bookcases for the back wall. Assembling the TV stand and bookcases was a complete joy for Scott. He just loved it. Just kidding! Assembling the new TV stand took into the wee hours of the morning, and then there were the Ikea bookcases. Don’t get me started. We love the finished bookcases but we did not enjoy the chaos of shopping at Ikea and assembling all those bookcases was not a treat for Scott. Of course he did it. He’s awesome like that! Note, I sure do appreciate all that Scott does!

To create these pages I used:

Katie Pertiet's AMAZING Filed Layered Templates
Echo Park Hybrid's Fall Fever (wood paper)
Lori Whitlock's Office Oriented (paper)

Cousins make the best Friends

I created another page today using Splendid Fiins' product. It was a super quick page ... I just wanted to show off a fun photo I took of the cousins this past Thanksgiving weekend. I sure do love these kids!

For this page I used:

Splendid Fiins' Mixed Bag Epoxy Stickers, @ the Office paper pack 2, Evidence label stickers, Brilliant full paper collection and Classic Album Set

I also used Katie Pertiet's awesome word art from a Bracketed Sentiments kit

Digi scrapping IRL with some local J*S friends

I spent the day today scrapping IRL with some local friends I met from Jessica Sprague. It was great fun - and it was productive too! Love it!

This is the first page I completed today. It was about my daughter getting ready to start middle school. It was fun for her. She sure does LOVE middle school!

I used a bunch of Splendid Fiin's stuff to create this page. I've gotta tell ya - I love Splendid Fiins' digi designs!

I created this page using:
Splendid Fiin's:
Evidence Date Stamps; Evidence Polaroids; @ the Office paper packs 2 and 3; Go Big Template
The fonts I used were Rough Typewriter and Adler

July 2012 Recap - Random Snapsnots

My random snapshots - monthly recap pages - for 2012 have been moving right along these last couple of days it seems. I intended to sit down at my computer and make a list of pages I still wanted to scrap for 2012 and found that I was finished with pages for July so I thought I'd do that monthly recap page tonight. (Maybe I'll make that list tomorrow!) I created so many pages for July I only needed a 1 page random snaps page. Cool! It's fun putting these random pictures together.

For this page my digi supplies used were:
Becky Higgins Project Life Clementine Edition

Karla Dudley: Life Recorded (captured wordart); Digi Essentials (stitching)
Design by Dani: Hootenany (cupcake)
Splendid Fiins: 2012 Calendar Card
Katie Pertiet: Word Strip Labels
Echo Park Hybrids: Woof (dog tag)
Fonts
Very Fine Serif & Toadfrog

Recap for June

These summary pages sure are fun to put together!

Supplies on these pages:
Design by Dan at Jessica Sprague: Everyday Out Lout cards; Everyday Eclectic Cards; Boy Crazy papers; FaLaLa
Splendid Fiins 2012 Calendar Cards
Karla Dudley: Digi Essential Stitches

Monthly Recap - May 2012

Here's another of my monthly recap pages for my 2012 album. I create "recap" pages after I've finished scrapping any other individual pages for that particular month. I found that I've always got other photos that I like, and that tell a story, that haven't been included in my family album on an individual scrapbook page. So ... I create a couple of recap pages. It's been fun. I seem to really be drawn to the Project Life format so that's what I've been using for 2012. (I did recap pages in 2011 as well, but used a completely different format).

So ... this is my May 2012 recap:

For these pages I used mostly the awesome designs of Splendid Fiins, including: A Little Birdie Told Me cards, Camera Love cards, Look At It cards, 2012 Calendar cards, Grey Skies Volume 1 paper, Very Krafty Mixed Bag paper. I also used a Becky Higgins Project Life template as well as Karla Dudley's Essential Stitches.

Tech Support (Reason #7,563 I love Digi Scrapping)

Reason number 7,563 why I love digi scrapping ... (yes I love random numbers)

... because sometimes,when I finish scrapping a page and I save it as a final JPG I realize that I already scrapped those very same photos with essentially the very same story. At that point I'm a little frustrated with myself for not remembering that I'd already scrapped those memories (giving myself a break, I could have scrapped those photos quite some time ago - you never know!). That's where the joy of digi scrapping comes in. I take a deep breath ... remind myself that I like the design of the page and I simply need to find some different photos that I can essentially display in that "digi frame." 

That's what happened to me with this page. I saved my "Night Out" page to final tonight, I looked at my 2012 "to be printed" scrapbook page folder, and then realized that I'd already scrapped those very same photos. (Deja vu ... this happened to me about a month or two ago ... darn!)

So ... I had these photos of my son being tech support for my husband. It warmed my heart seeing my guys working together on a computer issue. (It made me realize my son really is growing up so fast!) ... So I plopped these photos in my page, changed up my journaling and voila ... I've got a new page!

My new (current page):

My oopsy page:

And ... since this is a new post, the supply list again, is:

Karla Dudley

Remarkable (paper)

Life Recorded (circle tag, circle wordart, today overlay)

25 Days of Summer (bracket tag)

Clear Essentials (screw)

Audacious Designs

Everyday Celebrations (stitching)

Fonts

Very Fine Serif & Zapfino

Night out with the grownups!

Hmmm. The name of my post ... yes. I did say grownups. That probably means we don't get out as often as we probably should. Ha! (Maybe I need to make that a belated New Year's resolution!)

Anyway ... back in November - the Friday of Thanksgiving week - as we were between holiday celebrations with my family and my husband's family we had Friday night free. We were going to do a family thing and go to a movie with the kids and their cousins and my sister, her husband and my mom. We could not, for the life of us, come up with a movie that everyone could decide on. So ... we decided we'd just make it an adult night out. The kids were all more than happy to stay home without us so it worked out just fine. We went to the movie The Life of Pi - in 3D. Awesome awesome movie. I went to it with no preconceived notions about it at all. Love that! I only had my iPhone with me so I didn't get any great photos, but at least I got these pics - grainy as they may be!

So, fun night out ... fun page to put together!

FYI, for this page I used a bunch of fun stuff from Karla Dudley who now is at Pixels & Co. For this page I used papers from her Remarkable kid, a circle tag, circle wordart and today overlay from her Life Recorded kit, a bracket tag from her 25 Days of Summer kit and a screw from her Clear Essentials kit. I also used Audacious Designs' Everyday Celebrations stitching and the fonts Very Fine Serif and Zapfino.

A Thanksgiving Celebration

My cousin invited the family over to their house to celebrate Thanksgiving the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was great fun hanging out with my cousins and their families!

For you digi scrappers, for this page I used:

Design by Dani's Birds of a Feather kit

Carina Gardner's Essential Stitches

and the font Very Fine Serif

2013 Project Life: Week 2: January 6 - January 12

I scrapped Week 2 of Project Life this morning. I love it! It's so much fun. I think I'm really going to enjoy it!

For now I've decided on two things to help the pages go together fairly quickly. I've decided that I'm going to, in large part, try to stick to just ONE digi kit per week (this week I used Becky Higgin's Clementine Project Life kit). I like the idea of using a different kit every week. I don't think I'll get bored that way (I don't want to use the same kit all the time). AND then I don't have to think about searching my entire huge digi stash for other cards and things that might work on my page. Of course I might dabble in other stuff a little bit, but largely I'll just use one kit.

I've also decided on a time to put together my pages. My weeks end on Saturday so my thought is that I'll try and put my page together every Sunday morning. So far so good. OK, it's only been 2 weeks but I'm still going to say that!

It was a fun week. One of the huge things this week was how very many games of card we played this week. "Barbara's Gin" was huge. We pretty much played at least a game or two every morning before school and then again after school and then oftentimes at night too. It was fun.

One of our family Thanksgiving celebrations this year

I just got around to putting together some pictures from a Thanksgiving celebration we hosted at our house this year. This celebration was for my husband's side of the family. We had kind of a big group - 31 people and 2 dogs. It was lots of fun and great fun to see and hang out with everyone!

For these pages I used:
Crystal Wilkerson's September 2009 Paper Collection and Fall Wordart
Patti Knox's Epoxy Extravaganza Thanksgiving
Fonts: Very Fine Serif & Impacted

January Jumpstart Challenges at Pixels & Co.

An awesome new store opened up in digiland this January. Pixels & Co. Some of my very favorite designers have made their home over there. Check 'em out. They're at www.pixelsandcompany.com

Pixels & Co. is having daily jump start challenges during the month of January. I was inspired by the January 5th jump start and here's my take on the page:

For this page I used a largely a bunch of kits from Karla Dudley - one of the designers over at Pixels & Co. Here's my list:

Karla Dudley: Right Now (paper); Ashbee (washi tape); Digi Essentials (stitching); 2011 DHD Blog Hop (tag & love overlay)
Katie Pertiet: Simple Spots 3 (good life button - recolored)
One Little Bird: Storyteller (camera button)

Now ... also to mention ... on January 7th Pixels & Co chose one of MY layouts for a challenge. How fun is that? I'm enjoying the pages I've seen that were "jump started" with my page. FYI, mine was a page I created in 2011. If you want to check it out, click here for the details of the January 7th challenge. This is my layout:

A Hard Core Gamer

My son preordered and waited for AGES for the release of the Call of Duty Black Ops 2 game (it came out in mid-November - he saved for and bought this fancy edition himself). Didn't we all? Ha! Just kidding! Was he ever excited about it's release. The night before it was officially released he really (truly!) hoped that I'd go to the store at midnight and pick it up for him. While I'm a nice mom (I think!) I didn't do that. (Besides it being midnight - eek! - I also wasn't going to let him game in the middle of the night - PLUS it was a school night!) I did pick up the game as soon as I got off work and brought it home for him. He was thrilled to have his game so quickly.

While I did want to scrap a page about his happiness over this game ... I also wanted to include that while he can be a crazy gamer (most teen boys are I think), he was super sweet as well. The night after he got it, even though he could have been playing his game, he offered to show me how to play. Let me tell you, I am completely clueless on how to use a PS3 remote. COMPLETELY clueless. We spent about a 1/2 hour (maybe even an hour) of him patiently showing me the basics. It was fun ... but more than that ... I really enjoyed hanging out with my son and having him teach me how to run his game.

He sure is a great kid!

My supply list for this page is:
Simply Tiffany Studio's 25 Days of Summer
Karla Dudley's Stamp Sheet Boy, Digi Essentials and Clear Essentials (I LOVE her essentials kits!)
Karen Funk Simply Boyish Elements
Design by Dani's Boy Crazy
and Katie Pertiet's Basic Twills (recolored)

It was a pretty quick page to put together yesterday ... and while I completely enjoyed making my Days of December album ... it was fun to scrap something completely different!

Days of December: Calendar & hand journaling pages

I decided at the last second that it would be fun to include - at the end of my Days of December book a couple of extra pages. I included a page that showed our calendar for the month. I took a screen shot of my iCal on my Mac (I redacted that because I knew no one really wanted to read that!). I felt it showed a glimpse of our real life. Also ... I really like to see my family's handwriting (particularly the kids - since their handwriting changes more). Since this is a digital book, I just created a blank page that I intend to have the family write on. I'm going to have them write whatever they feel like. Anything they write will reflect them the way they are now and will be a treasure down the road! I'm almost done with my book ... I only have the cover and spine to finalize!

For these pages I used: 
Karla Dudley: Heart of the Holidays
Mye de Leon: Vintage Christmas
Katie Pertiet's Linen Buttons Polar Mountain