Sand Dunes

This next layout I did in Photoshop Elements first, thinking maybe I'd start doing more digital scrapbooking. However, it ended up feeling a lot like work instead of creation. I guess I view my craft stuff more like art... So, I printed the photos and did it all traditional instead.
I used an idea from Paperclipping to cut the flower on the background paper and tuck the photo under it (bottom right close up). Then I used a third piece of the background paper to add some extra flowers so I had a visual triangle. Looking back, I wish I'd made my visual triangle a little less symmetrical, but I'm still learning!

San Diego Memories

This layout is about our first trip to San Diego after moving back to the west coast. It was a great trip and I love remembering the magic that the coast held for me back then.
I modeled this after another Becky Higgins sketch. She advocates sketching out your layouts prior to printing your photos and a book I have of hers provides a lot of sample sketches to help you with ideas. I've been enjoying this plan-before-you-scrap method, although I don't know if I'll stick to it.

I actually did some stamping on this layout. I do a lot of stamping for cards, but don't tend to stamp for scrapbooks- who knows why... Anyway, I stamped the title with a new set of two-step letter stamps and stamped the sea shells and then cut them out.

Hiking in Arizona

I'm in a blogging mood, so I thought I'd share some of my latest scrapbook layouts. I've been working on scraping 2006, so these are all from way back then...

This one is from our first spring here! I started with a Becky Higgins sketch and adapted it as needed. I used the Cricut to cut out the letters and I really like the clean simple look. However, I did have one problem: I had printed the small 2 inch square photos, 6 to a 4x6 print. It turns out that 4x6 prints are always a little smaller than 4x6, so I ended up having to cut them all down smaller so there were all the same size.

Mother's Day Cards

I made a big batch of Mother's day cards again this year! Last year I sent out 6 (to my mom, 2 grandmas, my mother-in-law grandmother-in-law and sister), but this year, I added my sister's mother-in-law, because she's like a grandma to my boys. Plus I made a few to sell in my etsy store. I really got on quite a roll and it was a lot of fun!

Now if only I would sell a bunch more on etsy so I could buy more supplies!

Happy Birthday Hubby

I just realized that I hadn't ever uploaded a pic of the card I made for my hubby's birthday. It was a while ago- let's just pretend I was waiting so all you strangers would have no idea when his birthday is- he'd like that! ;)

Ok, so I shamelessly copied the design from an idea book and traced/drew the deer onto vellum. I free handed the "to my" and "wonderful" based on a font I saw in a book. The only stamps on the card are on the three blocks at the bottom- the two designs and the word "man."

You'll all be happy to hear that he deemed it a manly card as well!

Christmas Layouts

Each year I try to add two more years to my Christmas album- the current year and the next oldest year. So this year, during the Christmas season I worked on 2001 (shown at right here- click to enlarge). I used some of the new Martha Stewart paper my sister got me for Christmas.

Now I'm working on 2009. At first, I wanted to keep it to one spread (two facing pages) per year, but as we all get crazier with our digital cameras I find myself having a harder and harder time keeping each year down to one spread. In fact, I think 2008 has 3 spreads plus 2 more spreads of all the photo cards people have sent! So my new goal for 2009 is to limit myself to two spreads plus 1 spread with all the photo cards.

It seems like each year more people switch from a traditional card to a photo card. I love the photo cards- for many of our friends, it's the only printed picture we have of them for the whole year, so I'm determined to keep them. However, I don't really want to end up with more than half my album being a collection of photo cards. So, when a friend showed me Ali Edwards' solution, I was in love! Of course, I had to add some white space to be happy and I couldn't quite stand to cut off people's faces, so here's what mine turned out like this year!

Here's some previous year's Christmas spreads in case you're interested!
2006
2007
2008a 2008b

(click to enlarge photo)

Onesies

Last month a wonderful friend of mine threw me a small baby shower. It's so great to get together with friends and she did a really great job! My favorite part was the craft she had at the end. She brought out a bunch of pre-washed onesies, iron on patch sheets, buttons, and fabric markers and had everyone decorate one! I made a little seahorse onesie and loved it so much that she brought me all the leftover supplies a few days later and I made some more and several shirts for my two year old! I guess technically you're supposed to sew around the edges of a patch, but I think that sounds like too much work, so we're going to try it without- I can always sew around them later, right?

Love it or Hate it???

Here's another that I really went back and forth about even posting. I can't decide if I love it or hate it... It's weird- I make and make and sometimes it works and other times it just doesn't. I wish I had a method to my madness so I really liked everything I made....

I think now's an opportune time to switch from card making mode to scrapbooking mode...

Pocket of Presents

Here's another tracer. I traced the pocket a few times so I could free hand it onto the blue paper and then I free hand drew the gifts based on a separate stamp set (that I also don't own). The yellow gift is a stamp I do own- it has some stickles on the bow and is attached using a dimensional.

I think it made another cute birthday card!

Birthdays for REAL Men

Ok, so in spite of my sister's insistence that the latte cards are perfectly appropriate for men, I had my hubby pick out some stamps from the catalog that he thought were more appropriate. It appears that he thinks serious stuff is best for men... because these are two the stamps that he picked.

He also picked a bunch of hunting type stamps with really intricate, life-like nature scenes, but then, I'm tracing this stuff with a marker, so that wasn't gonna happen. Maybe I should actually buy some of those...

(As always, click on any photo to see it larger)

More Birthdays

Ok, back to making cards for adults. I seem to be on quite a roll with this tracing stuff! These are made from a fun stamp set that I've always been tempted to buy. The base is one stamp and then you can add a cupcake top or a handle and steam! They're really very quick and easy to trace. After making a few of each, it occured to me that it would be very easy to make a variety of mug shapes.

The cards are all on a yellow base with a black layer and then a layer of the fun circle paper. I printed the words on a light blue coordinating paper (the back of the circle paper actually) using the computer. I had to use some glue dots to get them to stick down once I had the swirly paper clip on. The steams are all out of vellum and have some stickles. The stickles made the vellum curl pretty bad, but I found that if you did the stickles prior to cutting the steam out, it wasn't as bad...

When I made 4 of the latte cards I assumed that would be great for guys or gals, but my husband seems to think that they're a bit too fru-fru for real mean! Hrumph! What do YOU think????

Camping Birthday

One last camping card before I move on...

The signs I made up after seeing something similar is a stamp catalog. The lantern is free hand drawn, based on a catalog pic. The bee is stamped in craft ink, embossed and cut out and then attached using a dimensional. The lantern is 'hung' using some poly twine stuff.

More Camping

I have this paper that looks like a photo of a forest. I bought it a long time ago, thinking it would be nice for a camping card or layout. However, I can't ever seem to find anything to use it on. Continuing on my camping theme, I was determined to use some of the tree paper. So, here it is. ha! I guess I really just hid it! oh well.

The tent is traced onto vellum from a catalog pic. The other images are stamped on. The string is sewn on by hand using a yarn needle.

More Boy Cards

I wanted to continue the look I got with the pirate cards, but do something more campy (I like to encourage non-criminal adventures, after all). However, I couldn't find any stamps that fit the bill. So, I just free-hand modified some images to make them work.... But I spent so much time on the drawing, that I didn't spend quite enough time on the embellishments... maybe I'll find just the right thing to add to this to give it the balanced look it needs....

Currently, the image is drawn on, then colored in using my watercolor crayons and a blender pen. The boy is drawn on vellum and colored with pencils. The tag is just written on, copied from a font I liked and secured to the card with a small black brad.

Birthday Boys

So now I'm on to doing some birthday cards. I made this one for my cousin's son. I think I should have taken the picture on something other than a black background, but it's too late now! The card's been mailed!

While I was on a pirate roll, I also made this one for my nephew. I did an inside to this one as well- the map kind continues from the outside to the inside...

I used more of the tinted vellum and a bit of Stickles for the sparkle.

I don't actually own any of these stamps. I did some tracing from pictures onto the vellum and then, once I'd traced it a time or two, it was pretty easy to draw it free hand.