Kiss and Tell Scrapbooking

RIP Ally the Hamster

 
Ally the Hamster lived three times longer than predicted and one year longer than her brother Hamsty.

She survived an air freshner incident; being dropped and/or lost more than a handful of times (thankfully the dogs weren't very interested in her); getting completely flattened-out-smushed once; and getting bullied by the late Hamsty.

She was always friendly, and only bit a little bit and with good reason.  She made trips to both of the kids's rooms, enjoyed scrapbooking, and was even the star of a kindergarten show and tell.  She and Hamsty were the subject material for almost all of Mac's writing and drawing from 2008-2010. 

We'll miss the noise of the wheel all night long.  We'll miss saying "hi'" when we walk by the bar on the way to the guest bathroom or gym.  We'll miss putting her in that clear plastic ball to see what she'd do. 

Allison was actually home sick from camp today.  Charlie stayed with her this morning and then we switched and I came home from work this afternoon.  I noticed that Ally the Hamster was laying on her side with her feet sticking out of the cage, not typical hamster behavior.  So Allison and I blew on her a little bit and she seemed to perk up.  Then I went to yoga and later after I got home, Mac found her and came up to tell Allison and I that Ally was gone.  When Hamsty died, the kids cried for hours.  There were no tears tonight, but sweet goodbyes and one last pets and a bit of wondering if we could now get a bunny (um, no!).   The kids and I all said prayers for her and hope that there's a giant wheel waiting for her in heaven.

Goodbye Sweet Ally Hamster.  She's in a box in the freezer in between the box of Edy's Tangerine Popsicles and right next to Hamsty - who's been waiting there in a similar box for a year so we could bury them together.   

A funeral  and proper burial is planned for this weekend. 

RIP Ally the Hamster.

Scrapbook Therapy & Father's Day Layout

This morning I just turned on the ustream video & started rolling without a plan and not many - any - words.  Just me making a scrapbook layout.  No plan.  Here it is:

 

What came out was this:

 

A sort of Father's Day card to my Dad who passed in 2003.  I found a picture he took in June 1988.  This page came about organically.  I had the paint chips from a recent trip to Home Depot with my daughter, I saw that technique of the hearts on Pintrest; I wanted to use some map paper and happened upon a map of my childhood home - Maine.  Lately I've been wanting to plan a family trip to Maine to show my kids where I grew up.    A few days ago it was Father's Day.  All of those emotions that I haven't given voice to came out on this page.  Scrapbooking is therapy.  It is a mediation for me.  It it a way of getting the stuff on my mind and heart out and lets me let go of stuff that is making me sad, or at least it gets it off my, I don't know, it just makes me feel better after I'm done.

Journaling:  "Wishing I could rewind time & space:  I wish I could take my kids back in time and space to the day that my Dad took this picture of a deer in the road on his land (probably) or at my grandparent's camp turned homestead Smuggler's Cove.  Bangor or Calais, Maine - in June 1988 with my Dad.  The last summer I lived with him before going to college in Florida.  I wish I could rewind for a minute or a day to Father's Day 1988.  - I miss you Dad.  Katie - 6/2011."

 

Flickr Slideshow

 

My flickr slideshow of scrapbooking layouts.

Ustreaming Again & Scrapbooking Page Inspired by Pintrest

Lately, when I've been hitting a scrapbooking rut, I'll look on Pintrest for inspiration, tonight I found a page called "Best Friends" by Gudrun Loennecken on her Embrace Life Blog and I made this page:

 
I even ustreamed while making it - here's the link:

 

.  Ok I'm off to watch Miss USA, I think I forced Charlie to watch it for so many years that he actually likes it now and he's out there watching it by himself, Ok bye.  :)

Scrapbooking Injuries & Whip Up A Page Wednesday

I actually pricked my finger with a needle while making this layout and found myself wondering why there was red ink on the buttons because I didn't have any ink out - and then realized it wasn't ink - my thumb was bleeding!  So I stuck a bandaid on and kept on going - all in the name of scrapbooking craftiness.  Here's yet another page about my daughter and her favorite doll:

 
I was inspired by Lisa Dickinson's Whip Up a Page Wednesday click here for the link to her blog.

Ode to Ferris Bueller & I Love It When

 
This scrapbook layout was inspired by a Two Peas in a Bucket Challenge with the journaling prompt "I love it when"  and my "fill in the blank" ?   I love it when I find that we have one more day on our Disney Passes and one minute we're getting ready for school and work and the next, we're in our mini-van on the way to Disney World.  Its good for our hearts & souls to take a Ferris Bueller style skip day every now and then.

Plus!  Those journaling spots on the right are from the new K&Company Smash Book line - love that line!

Pink Lemonade and the Summertime List

Inspired by another Color Challenge at the Big Picture Classes Blog - this 12x12 scrapbook layout is based on the Pink Lemonade Color Scheme:

 
There have been some really cute Summer Lists on Pintrest - especially that one on the chalkboard with the colorful chairs in the foreground.  I haven't figured out which wall in my house to paint with chalkboard paint yet, but in the meantime, I did hang this layout in my kitchen:

 
I should probably add "clean up the giant pink girl mess" that you see in front of Dandy in the living room, but that reminds me of another Pintress word photo that goes something like "Please excuse my messy house, my children are busy making memories."   That also reminds me that I should probably photograph those clusters of pink girl stuff that are all over the house because they too are temporary, and someday, I'll probably miss them.

I did get the chance to go shopping at my local scrapbook store Whim So Doolde and the middle of that layout is a piece of Crate Paper patterned paper that looks like vintage girl book spines - so cute.  I got a bunch more patterned paper today and some things from the Ditto line and some other yummy embellishments from Sassafrass and Basic Grey.  Yay.

Monochromatic-Ally & Storing Scrapbooking Embellishments by Color

 
I saw a challenge by Wendy Smedley on the Big Picture Classes Blog to make a monochromatic layout and I made a double page 12x12 layout of my daughter for a post-bound album I'm working on for her.  It was easy because the background paper was already color-blocked.  The page took much longer than I normally take to make a page, however, because I used lots and lots of rub-ons.  Creating this 2 page spread was a fun way to get into my color organized embellishments.

 
And that's how it looks in the book - I put it towards the front of the book & I like this layout because it takes Ally from when she was a tiny baby (look at that one in the top left of me holding  her up - she was only about a month old then) an the lower right photos are very recent.  Ahh how time flies.

So how do I decide whether to store embellishments by color or theme?  If the theme is dominant then the embellishment gots into a themed embellishment bin but if it is more generic then it goes into the color bins.  I like having two systems.  I was born under the Gemini sign afterall ;)  Katie.

Clean Room Scrapbook Page & Using "Cultural Memorabilia" on a 12x12 Scrapbook Page

I used "cultural memorabilia" (the odds and end stuff and bit and pieces and labels and such) on a layout of my son's room.  I thought it was appropriate because the colors matched up and so did the themes of the tags and they also represent some of the stuff that I was going through when I was cleaning my son's room.  I did use the circle punch on a couple ofthe items.

 
The Scrapbook Layout:  Last February I went on a cleaning binge and completely cleaned and organized my son's room.  The basic structure of where stuff goes is still in place, but his room currently has a ton of my of Little People toys from when I was a kid in the 70s - so its a mess but its sentimental for me so I'm sort of ok with it - for a few days anyway.

Journaling: "Feb 2011 Big Clean Up:  Psst.  Hey Mac :  Just wanted to remind you that you got the major benefit of my urge to clean & I worked really hard for a week totally organizing your room.  I hope you love it & keep it clean ok?!  Love Mom."

Since these photos were taken we put in the Ikea lego desk and Mac spends a lot of time there:

 

Event / Holiday Scrapbooking & Scrapbooking Product Organization by Theme

Sometimes, I just want to make a page about an event or holiday; despite my love of the Simple Scrapbook philosophy of scrapbooking the everday / routine stuff / little things over just scrapbooking the big events.  I tend to take lots of photos of the big events and holidays and when I go to scrapbook them, typically I like to use a bit of themed scrapbooking supplies - especially since I KNOW I have themed stuff in my scrapbooking stash - but in the past with my organization by color, I've had a hard time finding the themed stuff quickly, so I decided it would be good to keep the themed stuff together. 

EASTER LAYOUT:  I just made this layout using my new themed scrapbook supply organization and I was able to find the bunny patterned paper in a snap.  The Page:  The photos from Easter this past year were less than awesome, the lighting was bad, my son refused to put on a shirt, and the kids were on fast forward finding eggs and didn't want to stop and give me a cheesy smile.  But I did take a bunch of photos, so with less than awesome photos - I decided to go with lots of photos on the page.  Allison thought the layout was "AWESOME!" and she looked at it for a really long time.  I think the kids do enjoy layouts with many photos - even if the photos aren't perfect.

 
SCRAPBOOKING ORGANIZATION BY THEME:  Since my recent scrapbook room re-organization, I was able to find Easter themed patterned paper really easily.  I think that color organization is great, but for super themed scrapbooking products, I like to organize them by theme.  My themes-storage right now include:  

Baby

Birthday

Calendar

Christmas

Easter

Fall

Family

Girly

Home

Nature

School

Spring

Summer

Travel

Vintage

Wedding

Winter

I used old medium flat rate mail boxes from the office and cut them in half and I'm loving this system of storage, here's a peek:

 
I still store most of my paper and supplies by color, but for item that are highly themed, these theme bins are awesome and make making mini-books and event scrapbooking really easy.

How do you organize supplies & what do you have the most trouble finding when you are scrapbooking?

 

4 Scrapbook Pages Completed During One Episode of The Bachelorette

Monday Night, armed with Counterfeit Kit Club and my Ikea Scrapbooking Cart, I made 4 scrapbook pages during one episode of the Bachelorette.  Here are my pages:

1. Zero Cavities:  On this 8.5x11 landscape page I used Tami Morrison's trick of letting the stuff go off the page and I slipped this into a 12x12 page protector so the overhanging  paperstrip could fit:

 

2. Strike a Pose:  This layout features my daughter's latest picture pose which apparently she learned from Bugs Bunny - she's been watching my husband Charlie's old VHS tapes of Bugs from the 80s & they include 80s style commericals - seriously hilarious. 

 

I can't seem to find the particular pose even with Google - but apparently Bugs Bunny was hypnotizing Elmer Fudd and Ally thought that was pretty neat - she did this pose in almost every picture taken on our recent trip to Disney World.

3.   BFF Club:  Ok, I didn't want to post pictures of Ally's friends so I retouched her face over her friends's faces & that bottom turned out seriously funny because of the angle of Ally's nose on her friend's face.  This layout (in real life without the retouches) shows Ally's three BFFs from this past year:

 
I guess you'll just have to trust me that her friends are adorable too.

4.  Happy When It Rains:  I used to love that song when I was in college and these older photos of Ally from 2009 reminded me of that song - because Allison is literally happy when it rains because it gives her a chance to use one of her many umbrellas - she's got quite a collection of them.

 

4 scrapbook pages in 2 hours?  Maybe scrapbooking away from my computer is a good thing.  I have a tendency to surf the scrapbooking web blogosphere and not get a lot of scrapbooking done - but take the scrapbooking process away from the computer and I can get pages done seriously fast.

Counterfeit Kit Club & Shared Scrapbooking Spaces

Here's my take on the Counterfeit Kit Club Challenge for June:

 
Here are some of the details:

 
The amazing thing about putting your own scrapbooking stash into a kit and photographing it is that it gives your old stuff the illusion of being new stuff and I'm always amazed to discover all the cute stuff I already own.  It sort of makes me thing we (as in someone else - not me) should start the counterfeit fashion club so we could repurpose our old clothes and have "new" outfits - if anyone runs with this let me know because I'll be so on board with that.  Ok, back to scrapbooking:

Click Here for the Burlap and Buttercups link to the original kit.

Click Here for the Counterfeit Kit Club Challenge for June 2011.

The BEST thing about the Counterfeit Kit Club Challenge is that I actually took my kit out of my scrapbooking room and put it on my cute little Ikea Cart and rolled it out into the dining room / family room (our entire first floor is an open floor plan so its like one gigantic room) so I could do scrapbooking while we watched the catastrophe of a show "The Bachelorette" - it is so horrible, but somehow we are still watching.   So here's what my set up looked like (and yes that is a princess tent on the left - and no, that's not the only tent we have in the living room - we also have a boy's tent set up - it's almost summer after all) :

 
Isn't Dandy Boy the cutest? 

Ok so the other best part of having a scrapbooking kit, bringing it out to the family room and not letting myself go back to the scrapbooking room for more stuff ?  I got 4 pages done in 2 hours!  I'll post those tomorow.

Where do you scrapbook?  Do you get more done at home or at a crop?  I have a scrapbooking room that my 7 year old daughter and the rest of the family have full access to; but lately I've been wanting to come out of the room and back into the family space.  Nancy Nally talks about how she did this on The Paperclipping Roundtable Podcast #70 "Non-crappy shared scrap spaces."    

:) Katie.

 

 

It's My Birthday! & Kayak Kid Layout

Somehow New Year's Day and my Birthday hold a similar place in my head - both days seem like good ones for making resolutions and resetting goals.  So my goal for this blog and my stories blog?  Post every day this year.  I'd like to make a scrapbook page a day or at least post my progress on minibooks etc.  I'd like to make blogging and writing part of my daily routine.   So here's my page of the day:

 
This one was based very loosely on the Sketchy Thursdays challenge. 

Journaling:  (quotes about kayaking on the left): 

"Voyage upon life's sea, to yourself be true and whatever your lot may be, paddle your own kayak."

"You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, and find your element in each moment."

"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea."

"Whereever there is a channel for water - there is a road for the kayak."

"Those who would find solitude must not be afraid to stand alone."

"A man (or boy or Mom) of wisdom delights in water."

"It is a good thing to have an end to journey to, but it is the journey that matters in the end."

The Story:  "May 2011: Mac's 2nd Day in his own kayak.  We went to Dot Island and then all the way to Gulfport!"

We did a lot of kayaking that day! 

Library of Memories Community Weekly Challenge: Favorite Daily Things

I am getting excited for Stacy Julian's Photo Freedom which starts up again tomorrow.  Tonight I checked out the Library of Memories Community and did this week's prompt / scrapbooking challenge which was "It's THINGS WE DO week. Start by photographing an object that each person in your home uses on a daily basis. Now, go to your things drawer and find something to scrapbook."  So I found a picture of each member of my family with each person's favorite daily thing: