Morning routines

My daughter and I play cards together before school every morning. We enjoy our morning routine!

Karla Dudley's Muse kit was perfect for this photo. I love the soft colors and awesome textures! 

Credits:

Muse | Karla Dudley

Frame Essential Collection | Karla Dudley

Life Recorded (tag) | Karla Dudley

Today Brush Collection (daily routine) | Karla Dudley

Made of Awesoe (recolored washi tape) | Gennifer Bursett

Real Life | My daughter's bedroom

This is real life. My daughter's bedroom on a normal day. Sometimes it's cleaned up (not often!), but when it is spotless (OK, lets just say "clean"!) it really doesn't last long. I get it. Life gets busy.

It's this normal everyday kind of stuff that I really want to document. The little things that we otherwise might not remember. Might not remember ... hmmm ... I remember my bedroom as a kid being pretty darn messy at times. I remember seeing a photo of my bedroom when I was a kid. Stuff was everywhere. I even remember a lamp laying on its side and me not feeling like picking it up. Try as I might this morning I could NOT find that photo. Darn! If I could have found it I thought it would be a perfect addition to this page. A then and now - messiness through the generations - kind of thing. Oh well. I remember the picture in my head and I've told my daughter about it. (OOPS ... maybe I shouldn't have told her about it. Maybe that's why she keeps her room so messy. Doubt it!)

Happy Saturday!

Credits:

Frame Essentials Collection | Karla Dudley
Life 365 Buttons (living life) | Karla Dudley
Life 365 Alpha | Karla Dudley
Clear Essentials (staples) | Karla Dudley
Ashbee (camera) | Karla Dudley
Karla Dudley's Everyday Font
Simply Me (note paper) | Mye de Leon
Tween kit | Splendid Fiins
Stamped Circle Punch (real life) | Splendid Fiins
Make a Mess Painted Mask | Splendid Fiins

This kid cleans up good!

I love this kid. He surprises me sometimes!

Credits:

Layered Looks Add On Pack Template Kit | Simply Tiffany Studios
Elemental Frames volume 1 | Gennifer Bursett
Skinny Sitches | Scotty Girl Designs
Euphoria paper pack (white paper) | Creashens
Kissed by the Sun | Wild Blueberry Ink
Soccer Buddy (string) | Gina Miller
Evidence Date Stamps | Splendid Fiins
Thrift Store Grab Bag (yellow button) | Kitschy Digitals
Candy Pop (metal button) | Lisa Sisneros
Dapper Dan (thought balloon) | Design by Dani
Gabbi (teal button) | Shabby Princess
Love my Boy (tag) | Pink Paislee

My 2012 Album is on order at Blurb! (Blurb vs. Shutterfly)

Yay! I'm so excited. I officially put my 2012 "Year in the Life" family album on order at Blurb today. How will I be able to wait until it gets here?! I really do wish I had it in my hands right now!

I've ordered a couple of books with Blurb now and have been really happy with their product and their customer service. They're my new go-to company for album printing. I've always upgraded to their premium paper but this time I thought I'd try their top of the line "Pro Line Pearl Photo" paper. It's really heavy (140#) and cost a bit more but I was thinking it would be even more durable and I was anxious to see what the photos/scrapbook pages look like on that paper. I'll let you know what I think when my book arrives.

Background ... Until I switched to Blurb I'd been doing my printing of my bound books with Shutterfly. I've been happy with Shutterfly as well but Blurb books are just a bit easier to create. Another BIG thing about Blurb is that I'm not limited on the number of pages I can print in a book. With Shutterfly I'm limited to about 105 pages. Blurb books can be huge!  One thing to note though  (that I just found out as I created this album), there is a page limitation when you use the Pro Line paper - but that limit is 240 pages. Not so bad. I did have to take a couple of pages out of my book to accommodate the 240 page limit, but not very many. My album sizes seem to get bigger every year so who knows, I may have to break up my books again next year. We'll see how it goes in 2013!

Anyway ...  I just just wanted to share my excitement with you! I'll post again when my album arrives and let you know what I think about such a big book and whether the additional expense for the Pro Line Premium paper was worth it!

And ... a post from me just wouldn't be right without a photo, so I'll share with you the front and back covers that I designed. I created the back cover last night (it's pretty simple but I still like photos on the back) and the front cover I shared a couple of weeks ago ... but I'll share it again!

Back Album Cover:

Front Album Cover:

Supplies for the back cover:

Take Note (paper) | Karla Dudley (Pixels & Co.)
Photography Quotes Wordart Set 1 | Jennifer Valencia Photography (Pixels & Co.)
High Key B/W Photoshop Action | Jennifer Valencia Photography (Pixels & Co.)
Family Element Cluster (frame cluster) | Kayleigh Wiles Studio DD

Supplies for the front album cover:

Take Note | Karla Dudley
Worth Repeating No. 6 | Katie Pertiet
Frames | Katie Pertiet

Digi Scrapping with Friends (& a new kit at P&Co!)

Isn't life grand? I've met a bunch of really great people through digi scrapping websites, including at www.JessicaSprague.com. I got to know these awesome women through the forums and galleries and then eventually a bunch of us met in real life (IRL) at Spraguefest this past September. It turns out several of us live really close to each other and we've now starting to schedule IRL scrapping days at each other's houses. How fun is that?

One of the women in this picture (Lisa) and I were both on the creative team (CT) at Jessica Sprague but this past fall J*S disbanded their CTs. That was a sad day, but we're back together again on the CT at the awesome new digi site ... www.PixelsandCompany.com. It's such a great opportunity. There's so much talent (and so many cool people) hanging out over at P&Co! 

So ... back to scrapping details! Karen  Funk (@ P&Co) has an awesome kit coming out on Friday . It's called These are the Days and it's full of wonderful warm colors and fun elements. I used that kit (and a few others from P&Co) to create this page last night. (see list below) 

Credits:

These are the Days | Karen Funk

Storyboard 1 | Karla Dudley

Teenage Dreams (# tags) | Erica Coombs

In Good Company (rubberband tie) | Agnes Biro

Clear Essentials (staples) | Karla Dudley

A Picture of You is a Poem without Words

Just because I love this photo ...

For this photo I used Jennifer Valencia's High Key Black and White Photo Action and and her Photo Quotes Word Art. The stitches are from Scotty Girl Design's Skinny Stitches Shapes coming out Friday.

Credits:

High Key Black & White Photo Action | Jennifer Valencia Designs
Photo Quotes Word Art Set 1 | Jennifer Valencia Designs
Dream On (Black Paper) | Mye de Leon
Date Stamps 2 | Scotty Girl Design
Skinny Stitches Shapes | Scotty Girl Designs

2013 Project Life | Week 10: March 3 - March 9

Oh, what a week.

Digi Supplies:
Take Note | Karla Dudley 
Life 365 Framed (Happiness is this) | Karla Dudley
Photo Tabs 2 | Wild Blueberry Ink

Mousepad Gifts (Does this count as hybrid?)

I wanted to share with you a couple of mousepad gifts I made for my mom and for my mother-in-law and father-in-law. I thought they'd be fun "little somethings" to share with them.

If you're interested in creating a mouse pad, I had mine printed at Costco. They have a full page template design option for you scrappers (or for someone who wants to include a full size photo for their mousepad.)

Helpful tip if you design a mousepad at Costco ... They indicate that their mousepads are 8-1/4" x 9-1/8" inch. That size did not work for me. Through a little trial and error (this time I was smart and did my trial and error to determine size BEFORE I designed the entire thing! ... I guess you CAN teach an old dog new tricks. LOL!) The size that worked for me was 7.5" tall x 9.127" wide. (See below.)

NOTE ... the images above are what showed on the preview screen at Costco. When I got the mouse pads back they were trimmed significantly smaller than this. (Maybe this wouldn't have happened if I'd have kept the exact size they gave ... I'm not sure though because the Costco previews were the images I posted above.) While I'm really happy with the quality of the images on the mouse pad I'm a bit disappointed that the sides were cropped off so much. If I make a mousepad again I would definitely leave a LOT more room around the edges. (For my images on the left and the right, the images were croppped right up to the frames and the top and bottom were also cropped right up the frame.

Credits:

Vintage Findings paper pack | Jen Alysson
Photo Frames & Staples | Katie Pertiet
Moments of Special (celebrate happiness) | Vinnie Pearce
Stamped Brushes (family) | Carina Gardner

A love of gaming!

This is definitely my son right now ...

Credits:
In Stitches Template 4 | Robyn Meierotto
Take Note | Karla Dudley
Stamp Sheet Boy | Karla Dudley
Life 365 (Buttons | Karla Dudley
Carousel (tape) | Shabby Princess

Having fun with some resort cleanup!

When we were up at the resort over the 4th of July this past summer a giant storm (and I mean GIANT storm) passed through the area. At one point my son and my sister went out to pick up some of the tons of fallen branches. I think they enjoyed the clean up at least a little bit! It was a beautiful day ... who wouldn't love being outside on a beautiful day? (... and I liked getting pictures so add that to the mix!). While my son and sister picked up branches, my daughter went out and drove the golf cart to drop off all the branches (she hauled a few branches too). I took pictures (that counts, right?!) so it was a family project!

Credits:
It's a Start Template | In the Making Designs
California Girls | Gennifer Bursett
Life in Color (stitching) | Julia Makotinsky
Big Chipboard Frames | Lisa Sisneros

2012 Album Cover for Blurb!

I got up bright and early this morning and put together this page for the cover for my 2012 album that I'm going to print at Blurb. I was looking at the cover I'd designed for one of my prior year's albums and on that book I had used a family photo along with individual photos of each of us taken during the year so I decided to do that again this year for my cover. I've got a bunch of family photos of us this year but I thought it would be nice to use one with Great Grandma. (The photo was taken when we were celebrating her 95th birthday!

Credits:

Take Note (paper) | Karla Dudley
Worth Repeating No. 6 | Katie Pertiet
frames | Katie Pertiet

Just Because I love this photo ...

I'm sharing with you tonight a page I created just because I love this photo. I used all P&Co products, including a couple of awesome new products released at Pixels & Co. today ... Karla Dudley's Take Note kit and Robyn Meierotto's In Stitches Template 3.

Credits:
Take Note | Karla Dudley
In Stitches Template 3 | Robyn Meierotto
Stamped Favorites | Wild Blueberry Ink
Leathers Katy | Gennifer Bursett

I can do it. I know I can!

I created this page to showcase my determined daughter. When she wants to do something she's gonna give it her all. This time it was her determination to learn to eat with chopsticks. I love that about her!

I also created/designed this page with a couple ideas in mind: To participate in one of Pixels & Co.'s March Challenge and to use the awesome Dream Big collab kit that came out today (Friday 3/8). (Love that kit!)

The March design challenge was super fun. I chose the executive level design challenge which meant: (1) I used their provided template, (2) I used chevrons in three different ways (I used it in a patterned paper, on a piece of washi tape and on a brush), and finally (3) I rotated the template AND used three different patterned papers. Fun!

Credits:

Dream Big Collab | Simply Tiffany Studios & Traci Reed

Hello Love (ticket) | Karla Dudley

Life 365 Frames (This is so you) | Karla Dudley

So Happy Together (chevron washi tape) | Karen Funk

March 2013 Design Challenge | Pixels & Co.

Study Time

Credits (all at Pixels & Co.):

Window System Collection One | Simply Tiffany Studios
Opposites Attract (cards) | Karen Funk
Card Love (Capture the Everyday) | Karla Dudley
Co-Curricular | Gennifer Bursett & Audrey Neal
Leathers Katy (leather arrow) | Gennifer Bursett
Check It (card) | Gennifer Bursett
In Good Company (leather string) | Agnes Biro
Office Tags | Gennifer Bursett
Made of Awesome (chalkboard paper) | Gennifer Bursett

Dude, you're so flippin funny!

I sure love this kid. He makes us laugh every day!

Credits:

Nillie | Karla Dudley

Storyboards | Karla Dudley

Game Time (A collab by Tiffany Tillman and Traci Reed)

Tiffany Tillman and Traci Reed are coming out on Friday with an awesome collaboration kit called Dream Big. I had a chance to scrap with the kit tonight and I absolutely love it! I may just scrap another page using it tonight!

Anyway ... check it out at Pixels & Co. on Friday!

Credits:
Dream Big Collaboration | Simply Tiffany Studios and Traci Reed
Clear Essentials (staples) | Karla Dudley

2013 Project Life | Week 9: February 24 - March 2

Week 9 Project Life ... check!  I've said it before, but I'll say it again. I really enjoy Project Life!

It was a good week!

Credits:
Becky Higgins Project Life - Turquoise Edition
Becky Higgins Project Life - Clementine Edition

Gone Camping ... a camping journal photo collage

I'm getting things done this morning. (And I'm patting myself on the back for doing it too. Ha!)

I've been having issues with my beloved iPhone. It's worked well for all the various things I like to use it for EXCEPT that for the last week I couldn't hear phone calls. Kind of a problem not to be able to make phone calls on a cell phone so I scheduled a Genius Bar appointment for Friday night (As my husband commented, some people like to go out for dinner and drinks on Friday nights - we go to the Genius Bar.  Ha!) Long story short, they replaced my iPhone and I had to restore it from a backup. Turns out I've been syncing my phone to iTunes but that's not a backup. Oops! Thank goodness I backup to the iCloud so I could restore from that.

So ... long story didn't turn out that short. (Sorry!) I spent time last night restoring and cleaning things up and looking through my reminders and sticky notes and noticed that I've had several things pending for MONTHS. One of them being creating a photo collage for my camping journal. So ... I'll share with you the photo collage I created this morning.

(FYI ... I created TWO other things this morning but I can't share the other thing yet. Probably in two weeks. Surprise. Surprise!)

Credits:
Gone Camping | Julia Makotinsky
Fix It (screw) | Bohemian Art

An Intro to my family album!

A couple of weeks ago Katie Pertiet came out with an amazing layered template that I thought would be perfect for an intro page to my family album. It was so pretty. Whatcha think?

Over the years as I've designed my album covers and intro pages I've kept some consistency. I always call it "A Year in the Life" and then I include my kids ages over the year along with a family picture taken during the year. It's kind of nice to not to have to think about some things when creating the cover and intro pages. So this is the intro page to my album (the first page you see when you open the book). Now I need to design the front and back covers. I'm getting so close!

Credits:
Euphoria papers | Creashens
Enjoy the Moments LT | Katie Pertiet
Spring Awakenings (border stitching) | Julia Makotinsky

We heart reading (my mom, my daughter & me)

I was looking through my 2012 photos and ran across this photo of Lauren reading. I always loved this photo of her and used it in my photo-a-day book as well as on a random snapshots page for 2012, but this is different. It reminded me of a photo I knew I had somewhere of me reading "way back when" (1974). Then, looking at some old photos, I came across this photo from 1973 of my mom reading too. SCORE! I simply HAD to scrap the photos together!

Mom ... when you read this post I had some random thoughts. First off I thought of how many more pictures I take now-a-days than we took back when I was a kid. (Totally makes sense with digital prints vs printing all those photos.) It also made me wonder why, almost 40 years ago, you took a picture of me reading. It's such a random moment. (For me those are some of my favorite moments to scrap!) Thanks for taking that photo! Looking at the old pictures reminds me of the couch we were sitting on - how long we had it and how scratchy it was and how cool it was at the time! And, I think, (even though I can't tell for sure zooming in on the picture) that I was reading a Beverly Cleary book. Random memories, aren't they?

Digi credits for my page:
Berenstain | Karla Dudley
Frame Essentials | Karla Dudley
Clear Essentials | Karla Dudley
Simple Stitches | Karen Funk
In Good Company (brush) | Juliana Kneipp
Barely There Brushes | Simply Tiffany Studios

So Like You (shopping with Grandma) (Pixel's & Co's March Company Stash)

I took a peek at Pixels & Co's Company Stash for March (a set of coordinating kits) and I was in LOVE. The colors are fabulous! (The blues and greens are absolutely gorgeous!) I created this page Wednesday night to showcase this photo I took on my iPhone of my daughter and my mother-in-law when we were up north shopping one weekend late this summer. I wanted to document their shared shared love of shopping - something that I definitely do NOT share with them. I'm glad they have each other! Love it!

Here's a full list of credits for this page. Check out the Company Stash this month. It's amazing!

Pixels & Company's March Company Stash kits:
Lucky Bums template | Simply Tiffany Studios
Lucky elements | Robyn Meierotto
Lucky patterned papers | Robyn Meierotto
Dare to Dream elements | Karen Funk
Enchanted element set | Deena Rutter
Taylor page borders | Ardent Sparrow

Framed Essentials | Karla Dudley
Head Over Heels elements (string tie) | Creashens

My Daughter: A Pastry Chef in the Making

My daughter has had a love of baking and cake decorating for years now. She's really quite good at it. She makes such beautiful and delicious treats. Lately she's been focusing on cupcakes, but she makes pretty much anything. LOVE that! Whenever we go somewhere or when we have people over for dinner - the dessert is something that my daughter always takes care of. 

I thought it was funny, we went to a Superbowl party and the host of the party requested that Lauren make her Red Velvet cake (everyone loves that - it's amazing!). Of course we said YES ... she'll make that. Then we realized she was going to be out of town and was only going to get back an hour or so before the party. That meant that I would have to make the cake, so what did we do? We didn't make Red Velvet cake that's for sure. That's my daughter's job. She's awesome!

FYI ... my son and husband love to cook too. My husband can make anything (not so much desserts though) and my son ... he can cook too but he specializes in hot wings and jambalaya. 

I sure am lucky to have such good bakers in my house!

Credits (all Pixels & Co.):

Neutral Basics papers | Mye de Leon

Everyday Life Sentiments | Karla Dudley

Everyday Storyteller Templates | Karla Dudley

Chalkboard Quotes | Crystal Livesay

Ruby elements (string tie - recolored) | Ardent Sparrow

Green Lights Ahead (epoxy button) | Karla Dudley

An end to piano lessons ... scrapping the good and the not so good moments

Three and a half years ago my daughter decided that she really wanted to learn to play the piano. She was so excited about it. I loved listening to her play the piano! Well ... fast forward to this past November. My daughter is a teenager now and life seemed to be getting in the way. She was not enjoying practicing the piano at all and my husband and I were turning into nags. Well ... her piano teacher noticed as well and talked to her about it. My daughter thought about their conversation and decided it was time to quit. I was pretty disappointed but I understood where she was coming from. This was supposed to be something she was doing for fun - not a chore. Who knows, maybe she'll play again some day. (I hope!)

So ... I decided if I really want my scrapbooks to show our real life, I need to document the good and the not so good. (This doesn't really count as a bad moment, but it was a disappointing event.)

So, here we go ...

Credits:

Layered Template 4 | Scott Girl Design

Start the Music | Julia Makotinsky

Evidence Date Stamps | Splendid Fiins

Simple Stitches | Karen Funk

Rain (gems) | Amanda Dykan

I want to remember ... my son who loves Minecraft

My son is a typical teenage boy. He's pretty darn crazy about video games. I'm not a gamer so I don't totally get his obsession for video and computer games. I guess I do "get it" a bit ... I'm pretty attached to my Photoshop and my laptop. LOL! Nevertheless ... this is my son right now and I want to remember this!

I created this page using a variety of awesome digi products from Pixels & Co. Here's a full list of credits:

Torn Bits 3 (frames) | Creashens
Stamp Sheet By | Karla Dudley
Album Cards (rubon "Epic" wordart) | Karla Dudley
Kraft Essentials (paper) | Karla Dudley
Life 365 Buttons (everyday you button) | Karla Dudley
Clear Essentials (staples & stars) | Karla Dudley
Digi Basics Neutrals (papers) | Mye de Leon

November 2012 | Monthly Recap

This is it! This two page spread is the last I needed to complete for my 2012 album, now I need to glance through my photos and see if there are any more pages I want to scrap for the year and that's it. Then I can print my 2012 book. Yay!

Credits (all at Pixels & Co.):
Nillie | Karla Dudley
Clear Essentials (staples) | Karla Dudley
Digi Essentials (stitches) | Karla Dudley