In the Hospital

This is a pair of layouts I created to tell the story of our hospital stay when Gunner was born.

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 This first one is very plain, but the photos are so meaningful to me that I really wanted to keep it simple. There's a bunch of text below the photos that I've blurred out, but otherwise, it's as you see it.

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 The second one turned out much more interesting- at least I have more to say about it: First, the footprints were done with this carbon copy type thing that keeps all the ink off the baby- very interesting. However, the ink rubbed off and smeared when you touched it. So, I scanned the image and reprinted it on acid free card stock. I hope this will preserve them nicely.

The second cool thing on this layout is that I used a borrowed mirror stamp to get a second seahorse facing the other direction! it worked very well and was much easier than I imagined (although I'm not sure what exactly I imagined would be hard about it).

First Days Home

 This spread, also for Gunner's baby book, is all about those first few days at home.  Even now, barely more than a year ago, I've forgotten the crying and fatigue and I just remember how sweet he was (and is).  Babies sleep so much those first few weeks- that in itself is a miracle!

Again, I'm branching out here with so much pattened paper, but given how much I have in my cabinet just waiting to be used, it seems only logical to try to incorporate more.

My favorite part of this layout is the journaling block on the left side. My digital blurring makes it loose a lot of the detail (and almost makes it ugly!), but it's the large stamp from the Stampin' Up! 'Notably Ornate' stamp set. It's a really beautiful stamp!

The big dream tag was something in my sister's stash, although I redid about 6 things on it, so maybe I should have just starter from scratch on it instead of destroying a tag!

Also I'll point out that every page in this baby book has something ocean-y on it. I'm hoping it'll tie the whole book together while allowing for a lot of variation from page to page. I guess I'll have to wait and see how it works out!

Coming Home

Here's another single page layout I did for Gunner's baby book. This is from the day we brought him home from the hospital.

I'm usually not one for so much pattern in my paper, but I love how this one turned out!

That piece at the end of the word "Adore" is a Tim Holtz fragment. I used glossy accents to apply a piece of paper to the back of it that I had stamped to match the shell to the upper left of "Adore."

(As always, my journaling is digitally blurred to keep my hubby feeling safe from the cyber-stalkers.)

Nice to Meet You!

I've been working on Gunner's baby book and I've gone outside my norm and done a few single page layouts instead of all spreads.  Here's the layout about NJ meeting his new baby brother!

(As always, click on the photo for a larger version)

I love the little green tag you see here. I made it by covers some chipboard with a scrap from the quilt my mom made Gunner. I have quite a few scraps from his quilt and I hope to add more when ever I find ways.

More Mother's Day

Mother's Day

Mother's day is barely more than a week away so I've been working on a few cards for all my moms!

Positively Splendid

I just love giveaways! Check this awesome one out! Positively Splendid is giving away an Epic letterpress!

Challenging

My sister's mother-in-law got a nice big stack of scrapbooking paper at a garage sale for a great price, and was nice enough to bring it out at Christmas. She let us pilfer through it and swipe whatever we wanted from it (she's very generous like that). However, buried among the beautiful stuff was several sheets of this seriously funny paper covered in pink poodles! After several comments back and forth about how nothing good could come from this paper, someone suggested that we all take a sheet and accept the challenge of making a card from it. I think the only rule was that the poodles had to show.

Here's my answer to the challenge. I was quite impressed with myself, making a passable card with such crazy paper and even including an adorable pun on the card until I saw Deanna's card. You MUST check out her card too! It's OMG cute- chic even! She was on such a good role that she even made three more!