Project 12 – August 2011 and last 2 BIF pages

Posted on September 3, 2011 by daydesigns

Just a couple of scrapbook projects to share with you tonight. I’m trying to do so many things right now that my personal scrapbooking has fallen by the wayside. The layout a day portion of the MotherLOAD marathon started on September 1st and I have completed … let’s see … oh yeah, 0 out of 3 layouts so far. Maybe I can go 0 for 26!!

But today I did manage to do my August layout for Project 12 and upload the pictures I took earlier of my last two pages for the Big Idea Festival over at Big Picture Classes. So, here goes …

August 2011

I tried to keep as true to the sketch as I could (it’s a challenge for me when you’re only allowed to use 3 pictures!) I also stared at it for a long time trying to decide if I needed to add anything to the white space on the bottom of the page but eventually chose to leave it as it was. I couldn’t think of what it needed so decided it needed nothing. Oh, and here’s the sketch we were given.
And finally the close ups. 
The left hand side.
The right hand side.

The journalling and title block. Everything on this layout was kept as simple as possible, including the journalling. Just a quick recap of the month’s highlights.
Okay, now the last two pages of my Words to Live By book for the Big Idea Festival (for the previous pages see this post and this post.)

Embrace – I talk about what I want to remember to embrace.
It’s opposite my Moment page so I kept the colours consistent and since there is already a picture of Greg and I in an embrace, I didn’t feel the need for a picture here.

Play – I have probably thousands of pictures of the girls playing but I took this page in a different direction. I took all the scraps from the previously made pages of the book and played with them to create this. The journalling talks about how this scrapping obsession of mine is my way to play. Something I am realizing is really important to do every day – play with your kids, play with your toys (whatever they are – computer, bits of paper, Wii, etc) and play outside.

Okay, that’s all I have for you tonight. Marley is off at a Giant’s game with a friend so we are trying to find ways to make the other two feel like they’re not missing out on anything. So far that is taking the form of watching a little Chopped on Food Network and Star Wars III on SpikeHD – Greg has control of the remote, can you tell? 🙂
School goes back in 2 days … we’re ready. Are you?
Posted in challenges, layout, Project 12, Scrapbook | 3 Comments

Today

Posted on August 20, 2011 by daydesigns

Today was hot. The first truly hot day all summer I think. There’s only 2 weeks left of summer and NOW it decides to show?! Sheesh!

Ah well, better late than never.

Today seemed quite busy. We took the kids to Splashdown in the morning (thanks for the passes Karn!!) – only leaving when LC had a meltdown over being forced out of the hot tub. I’ll post some pictures at the end of this post but first I want to post my latest crafty endeavours. Bear with me or scroll down – your choice!
🙂

First up, Project 12 for July.
Here’s the sketch.

And here’s what I came up with.

I’m not totally happy with it. It feels unfinished somehow but it was too hot in the craft room to keep working. Plus, dinner wasn’t going to make itself! (If I found a genie in a lamp, I think that’s what I would wish for … someone to make my dinners.)

Here’s the left hand side.

And the right hand side.

A close up of the journalling/title block. I saw a tutorial (I think it was on my upline Sandra’s blog) on how to make these pleated paper ribbons so I gave it a shot. LOVE IT! And so easy. You really have to try it!

I wanted to bring attention to the little picture I had of Paige riding her bike without training wheels so I framed it in yellow. That sort of was the jumping off point for all the yellow accents on the page. Originally I wanted to include a picture of Paige on a bright yellow waterslide but it didn’t work with the layout (one too many pictures if you can believe that!) but I think I had yellow stuck in my mind. Anyway. I like it. It adds a touch of sunshine to the summer themes.
Next we have a little project I’ve been working on this week for Big Picture Classes. They’re running their Big Idea Festival right now (check it out here) and everyday you are emailed an inspirational word. You can also download and print a 6×6 template to use. Here’s my mini book so far.
The cover.
I bought this album last year at Clipper Street’s garage sale. It’s wooden with inner pages made of what looks like recycled paper. Very raw. I glued the striped paper onto the front (cutting around the hinges) and then taped the rest in place.

To go with the feel of the album. I have been printing all my templates on kraft cardstock. This is the title page template that they gave us.

Day 1 – Share. The journalling talks about how we are always telling the girls to share, how they sometimes hate it but how they also love it. Marley is actually now in her own room after 7.5 years of sharing with Paige. So far so good. It will be interesting to see if she misses Paige’s company. Last night she had some trouble getting to sleep and at one point stuck her head into her old room to check on Paige and LC. Thankfully they were fast asleep!

Day 2 – Wonder. I accidentally made this the wrong way so had to paste it into the book portrait instead of landscape. Oh well. I may have to do more like this to make this page look intentional! 🙂
The journalling here talks about the strides Paige has made this summer in conquering some of her fears. I added to the title to make it “I Wonder if it will last?”
The second page and more pictures of Paige and LC on the swing ride at Sun Fest this year.
Both pages together.

Day 3 – Less. Here I talk about my efforts this summer to use or lose my stash.

Day 4 – Give. A picture from the ceremony at the Cenotaph to honour those fallen fighting in Afghanistan.

Day 5 – Enjoy. The journalling talks about how we enjoyed a fun trip to the water park at Granville Island and how all 3 of them were enjoying it in their own way. Usually there is one child freaking out about something but this time, they were all happy!

The second page of that.
Both pages together.
So now we are ready to show you some pictures from Splashdown. How different from the day pictured above! Marley and Paige were excited and having fun on the slides – despite chattering teeth as the water was super cold! But after the first slide, LC was not having fun anymore. Once she hit that cold water it was all over for her. She did love the hot tub though. As I mentioned in my opening, she had a tantrum when we pulled her out of it!
Greg is still experiencing some discomfort so didn’t want to go down any slides with the girls, and I … well, let’s just say the less people see of me in a bathing suit, the better and leave it at that. As it was I had to parade around in my suit once or twice when the girls wanted some added reassurance at the bottom of some slides.
Starting out. Marley was under strict instructions to take care of LC – something she excels at. Seriously! Sometimes I think she does a better job of mothering that child than me!!
Whee! This is fun!
Hmmm … maybe not. This water’s cold!

Nope. I am definitely NOT having fun now! Let me off!!
And that was where LC and the waterslides parted company.
After some more waterslides, Paige and I ended up in the hot tub. I got out when I saw that Marley was about to go down the inner tube slide. 
That’s her!

Hitting the pool at the bottom.

Freezing cold but loving every minute!

Warming up in the hot tub.
Well, so far tonight Marley has come down once to give a SITREP on the other two which was completely unneccessary as Paige had already come down herself to complain that LC was turning her light on and off and it was keeping her awake. Sigh. It’s only night 2 … it’s only night 2 ….
I am off to see what trash I can find to watch on the TV (after switching the laundry first.) Greg seems to have left it alone for a bit – ran out of soccer and football games to watch I guess. 🙂
Have a great weekend everyone!
Posted in challenges, LC, Marley, Paige, Project 12, Scrapbook | 2 Comments

MotherLOAD Week 7

Posted on August 18, 2011 by daydesigns

I received my weekly MotherLOAD email this morning … we’re into week 8 now. Hmmm … I finished the layout for week 7 yesterday … Oh well. Life has been busy and taken a turn for the crazy(er). While I have been spending hours in my scrap room/office, it’s mostly been reading up on Stampin’ Up! stuff, trying to figure out their site and learning about the fine art of Direct Sales. Ugh. Not sure I’m really cut out for all this cold calling and stuff but I’m doing my best to give it a shot.

But back to Week 7 … we were to create a layout that conveyed a theme or emotion without using words. Here is mine, can you guess what my theme/emotion is?

If you guessed “play” you are correct!
Ways this says play: bright colours, diagonal placement of the circle elements (putting things on the diagonal suggests movement – there, my interior design training just paid off!! LOL!) and the circle elements themselves. Marley said they look like bubbles and while that wasn’t the intention, she’s right. This also adds to the playfulness of the layout, don’t you think? I didn’t add a title because I didn’t feel it needed one. Sometimes, I think you can get away with no title. Let the pictures and your journalling speak for themselves.
And speaking of journalling, here’s a close up of mine.
Products used: Cardstock – Bazzill (yellow) and scraps (white); Patterned paper – Bella Blvd and AC; Cicles – punched with my Cuttlebug (it’s for sale on Craigslist if you want it!) and the Nestabilities circles. 

For week 8 Lain is talking about Inspiration and how we can get overwhelmed with our inspiration – too many ideas, too much product, too many photos. Check out this great post from layoutaday.com about burnout.  It is so timely as I’ve been feeling overwhelmed and not in a scrapping “mood”. Since doing all those Apron Strings challenges in July, I’ve barely scrapped anything. I’m falling behind on my MotherLOAD work, I’ve printed the pictures for my July P12 layout but done nothing with them and my OLW … well, the less said about THAT the better! Earlier in the summer I signed up for Big Picture Classes Big Idea Festival so now I’ve got more projects that aren’t getting done. Yes, I suppose I could be a teensy bit over stretched! 🙂 Add to that the fact that I’ve now signed up with Stampin’ Up! and am trying desperately to learn all I can about the company, their products (I’m mostly familiar with them already thank goodness!) and the business of being a demonstrator for them. It’s a ton of stuff firing at me at the same time. No wonder I’m feeling overwhelmed!

Anyway, I’m going to try and get into my craft room today to do some scrapping – if the girls will play nicely! I had an hour to myself last night to get some sales calls made and the promise of another hour tonight to make some more, so I think I can put aside the crafting business in favour of the crafting business for a bit. Wish me luck!

Posted in layout, MotherLOAD, Paige's Baby scrapbook | 2 Comments

MotherLOAD Catch up.

Posted on August 12, 2011 by daydesigns

I’ve been doing my MotherLOAD assignments but I’ve just plain old forgotten to post them. Whoops! I’ve also been SUPER preoocupied with other stuff that I am hoping to post about soon. I’m just not sure yet what form that post will take so stay tuned …

Back to MotherLOAD. I last posted about Week 4 where the theme was “use what you love, lose the rest”. Week 5 we were talking about cutting corners – not literally, but in a more “scrapping faster” kind of way. We had taken notes about our usual scrap process in Week 3 and now we were to revisit those notes and find ways to shave off time. To be honest, I’m not sure where I’m wasting time. I’ve gotten into the habit of pre-printing a whole stack of photos at once so when I want to scrap something, they are ready to go. I do sometimes spend forever picking my papers – trying to find the “perfect ones”. So I can endeavour to make decisions faster there. Harkening back to my Embracing Imperfection workshop, I can embrace what I have and use it. Perfect or not. Oh, and through the process of using my old stash during Apron Strings July challenges, I now am more intimately acquainted with my stash so digging through it to find the right papers doesn’t take nearly as long! I can also get bogged down in photo and embellishment placement but if I find I’m having trouble, I know that turning to a sketch can be a real life saver.

Lain challenged us to create a layout in only 30 minutes. Set a timer and go for it! I created this.

When I’d finished I actually had to check my phone (I was using it’s alarm clock) to see if I’d set it correctly as I was sure I’d gone over the 30 minutes but the alarm hadn’t gone off. Clearly something was wrong with my phone! But no. It took me 29 minutes to complete this!

Products used: Cardstock – Bazzill; Patterned paper – DCWV Nana’s Nursery Baby Girl stack; Journalling tabs – Jillibean Soup Journalling Sprouts Circle in Brown and Colorbok Sticky Journal Stax Pastel Baby; Alpha’s AC Thickers Stroll Glossy letter stickers and Jewelry Box Chipboard number stickers; glitter embellishments – from stash, manufacturer unknown.

In Week 6 we started focussing on Journalling and the challenge was to start our layouts with the journalling. Plan for it from the beginning so as to ensure there was enough room and that everything else supported it. I was so inspired I actually made 2 layouts (I’m a keener that way!) When I was looking at the stack of photos from our trip to the PNE in 2009 I knew I wanted to include a page about it in Paige’s album but most of the pictures were of Marley on rides. What to do? Make two pages!! One for Paige’s album and one for Marley’s. I started by writing down my journalling for both in my new notebook dedicated to such things (another Lain prompt) and then transferred it to some Basic Grey paper which I cut out on my Cuttlebug.

Here’s the layout for Paige.

Products used: Cardstock – Bazzill; Patterned Paper – Nana’s Nursery; Scalloped cardstock – from stash; Alpha’s – EK Success Sticko dimensionals Large Black Foam; Butterflies, hearts and circles cut out with Marvy punches from scraps of Nana’s Nursery and black cardstock; Flowers – Heidi Grace dimensional flowers Day Dream Believer; Word stickers – Bella Blvd Sunny Happy Skies and Plastino; brad – from stash.
And here is Marley’s.

Products used: Cardstock – from stash; Patterned paper – Echo Park Dots and Stripes and Bella Blvd Sweet Celebration’s Stardust, Hello Beautiful’s Borders and Blocks (the B-side) and Swing Into Spring’s Rainbow Ribbons; Arrow – Basic Grey Element Stickers from Sugared; Labels and stickers – EP Dots and Stripes, Bella Blvd Plastino and Firty; Punches – EKSuccess Open Scallop and corner rounder.

Well there you have it. The other thing I wanted to share with you today was my continued efforts to reorganize my scrap space. While the girls were at Granny Camp and Greg was laid up recovering from his “procedure” I got busy in the office. Greg and I actually share the space but I think I am slowly pushing him out! 🙂 As my stash takes up more and more room, his computer gets more and more hidden. If my new business venture (hint, hint, hint) takes off, he may have to leave altogether so we can claim that office as a tax write-off. We’ll see.
Anyway, here are some pictures of the new space.

A friend of mine was getting rid of all her scrapbook supplies and I snapped up this paper rack and the Clip It! display. I love, love, love being able to see all my cardstock and my most used papers!! I also love how the new arrangement has opened up the space. Even though the amount of stuff remains the same in there, the new configuration allows for much more ease of access. Always a good thing!

I used to have to move this 3-drawer unit all the time to access the lower shelves of one of my bookshelves. No more! Now I can grab alphas as I’m working or rummage for ribbon to match my project. The added bonus of having all those tempting rolls of ribbon effectively hidden from LC is AWESOME!!!
I managed to get all the stickers and rub ons from my bin onto the Clip it … now the bin has another use!!

This is where I moved my bookcase to. I used to have all my final Interior Design project boards tucked into this corner but they are destined to find a new home somewhere else. Currently they are still hanging out in my living room … but soon I will move them! Maybe the garage. Maybe the bedroom – where the giant vase with all my rolls of drafting paper and old projects went. The boxes in front of the big bookcase have (from the bottom up) fabric and other sewing supplies for when I get my sewing machine fixed and start sewing again (HA!!!), old scrapping supplies that will be going to Paige’s kindergarten class, and miscellaneous “stuff” that is still waiting for a permanent home.

Take a close look at that middle box. It used to hold my stickers and rub ons. Can you see what it holds now?

Oh, and a view of Greg’s little corner. Yup, it pretty much looks like this on any given day. And nope, the mess is not mine!
Well, thanks for tuning in again. I’ve got a big day tomorrow so I’m going to head to bed now. I will try to get back on here on Sunday and let you in on my little secret. Until then, have a great weekend!
Posted in layout, MotherLOAD, Paige's Baby scrapbook, Scrapbook | 1 Comment

Apron Strings Day 18 – 21

Posted on July 30, 2011 by daydesigns

Okay, this is it for the Apron Strings Out With the Old, In With the New Challenges! Four last layouts.

I’ve had a ton of fun rediscovering and using my older papers and embellishments. A HUGE thank you to Lori for the kick in the butt to scrap and scrap and clean out my stuff. I found that since I’ve been actively working with my supplies I have really learned which products I like to work with, which styles I like to do and, more importantly, which I don’t! As I’ve been “forced” to use some older product I’ve made the decision to get rid of it if I’m not completely loving it. Paige’s kindergarten class is going to be getting a large box of stuff in September that I have decided I no longer want to play with!

So without further ado … Day 18. The challenge was to select your oldest non-Christmas kit and pair it with your most recent Christmas-time photos. She gave us a sketch too.

I made it into a one-pager again.
Journalling reads: “They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, these pictures are priceless to me so I guess that means there aren’t enough words to express how they make me feel!! After years of avoiding mall Santas because of Paige’s fears – this year we finally did it. Thank you Paige. I am so, SO proud of you!!”

Oh, and don’t you just love my Christmas ornaments? Some circles cut on my Cuttlebug with some glitter added plus hand stitched strings and a Martha Stewart bow sticker. Easy peasy!
Supplies used: Cardstock – Bazzill; Patterned Paper – American Crafts, Craft Fair – Myrtle O’Seam and Marge Memmingway and from a la Mode – Crepe; Bows – MS Grosgrain Bow Stickers; Alphas – Sassafras Chocolate Glitter Alphas; Border punch – EK Success.

Day 19’s challenge was to try a Classic-style layout, paired with an older kit of your choice. What is Classic? Well it doesn’t mean boring, it means timeless – clean lines, traditional-styled patterns with an updated feel. Look for clean lines, crisp designs and a more muted palette.

There was no sketch for today but I used one from Day 5 as my basis for the above sketch. I figure my usual style of choice is classic so I didn’t do anything special here. The papers are basically the same ones from the previous layout. I had them all out on my desk and I loved them so much I wanted to keep using them. So I did.
My layout, my rules!!
Some close ups – first the left hand page. 
And the right hand page. 
The titlework. 
And some of the embellishments. 

Products used: Cardstock – Bazzill; Patterned Papers – American Craft from Craft fair, Nancy Knitley, Mona Trimenez, Alice Stitchensen, Faye Needleworth and Myrtle O’Seam and from a la Mode, Sorbet; Alphas – AC Thickers Sprinkles Glitter letter stickers in white and Thickers Roller Rink Glitter letter stickers; Punch – MS Bubble Bath; Ribbon – MS piped nylon 3/16″ Camelia Pink.

Day 20’s challenge was to use a Christmas/Winter themed kit with non-Christmas/Winter photos. Add in some of your newest soft embellishments (ribbon, felt, etc.)

The sketch she provided was this one – which I again adapted to make a one-pager.

I swear to you these are Christmas Themed papers! They are from the Dear Lizzy line that came out last year. My newest, soft embellishments are the ribbons and the fabric flowers which, I’ll be honest, aren’t all that new but since my absolute newest ones were all cupcakes … these will have to do! Again, my layout, my rules!! LOL! Oh, the alphas are the foam ones which are both really new and very soft. So there!

Products used: Cardstock – extra refill sheets cut down to size; Patterned Papers – AC Dear Lizzy Christmas collection; Alphas – mini ones are from Echo Park Wintertime Alpha sticker sheet, title alphas are AC Thickers Sprinkles glitter letter stickers in white and Thickers Delight Foam letter stickers; Ribbons – Craft Essentials in Cranberry and My Minds Eye Lush Blue ribbons; Brads – MME Lush Decorative brads in blue; Flowers – AC Greenhouse fabric flowers; Butterfly shapes – cut out on my Cuttlebug with Spellbinders Nested Butterfly dies; punch – EK Success Large Edger Scallop Daisy; bling – from a friend.

Day 21’s challenge (the last one – boo hoo!) was to use an older kit containing paper with trees of some kind, pair up the older kit (or papers if you don’t have a kit) with newer round embellishments and newer tags. The sketch she gave was this one.

Which I flipped around and turned into this.
The left hand side. 
The right hand side. 
And some close ups of the details. 

Lori said she wanted trees! 
My older papers with trees are Bella Blvd and my newer round embellies are the bling which are new-to-me from my friend Sandra.
Products used: Cardstock – from stash; Patterned papers – all from Bella Blvd’s Sunny Happy Skies collection; Alphas – AC Thickers Patchwork Fabric letter stickers; Flowers – cut on my cuttlebug with Spellbinders Big Scalloped Circles; punch – EK Success Open Scallop, sticker embellies also Bella Blvd.

Okay, that’s it, that’s all! My family is chomping at the bit to get going to a bbq so I’d better post this and log off. To all my fellow Canadians, have a wonderful BC Day long weekend!

Posted in challenges, layout, Scrapbook | 2 Comments

Apron Strings Day 17

Posted on July 28, 2011 by daydesigns

I’ve been attending to other things the past few days so haven’t been creating in my scrap room (other things have been afoot that I will share in due course!! It’s gonna be good!!!) But tonight I sort of forced myself to start this weeks challenges for Lori at Apron Strings.

Monday’s challenge was to: Use the following color scheme found in an older Apron Strings kit (if no kits, use your older papers) then add some of your newer silver or glittery embellishments.

And she provided yet another awesome Becky Fleck PageMaps sketch. 
And here is what I came up with.

Sorry about the quality of the picture – it’s dark out now and my lighting is terrible.
Some close ups. 
At the last minute I did the outline doodle around the picture grouping and a faux stitch here around the title spot.

Don’t you just love my banner? One of the American Crafts papers I used had these rows of banners on it so I cut out the six different colours and then glued them all together.
The “newer silver or glittery” is these little brad-like things. They definitely fall into the new-to-me rather than the new-from-the-store category as my good friend Sandra was kind enough to give me a whole lot of embellishments she’s getting rid of. (She’s a HUGE part of the “things afoot” I was talking about earlier … but you’re going to have to wait for more details!! I’m mean that way!)
Products used: Cardstock – Bazzill; Patterned Paper – AC, Craft Fair – Ethel Dartsmith, Alice Stitchenson and Myrtle O’Seam, a la Mode – Sorbet and Crepe, and The Goods – Trimmings; Alphas – AC Delights Foam Letter  Stickers; Embellishments – AC Dear Lizzy Bliss Patterned Chipboard Shape Stickers, Colorbok Metal Dots.

Thanks for stopping by. See you soon. Tomorrow is Friday and I will TRY to get a personal post up for all my family clamouring to see pictures of something other than scrapbook layouts. But I make no promises! I’ve got 3 more challenge days to complete (four by the end of tomorrow), laundry to do (didn’t I just DO laundry?!) and a visit to one of Marley’s friends to pay. She fell off the new playground at the girls’ school Monday night (remember when I was rejoicing that Greg had taken the girls to drop-in gymnastics … yeah, not so much!) and broke her arm quite badly so Marley desperately wants to see her and cheer her up. And sign her cast – which I think she is secretly envious of!

Off to bed now – g’night!

Posted in challenges, layout, Scrapbook | 2 Comments

OLW July and MotherLOAD Week 4

Posted on July 25, 2011 by daydesigns

I managed to convince Greg to take the girls to the drop-in at Delta Gymnastics (thanks Colleen!!) so while I have the house to myself I thought I’d better post about  the work that went on in my craft room this weekend. And today. But mostly over the weekend! 🙂

First up, was One Little Word. At the beginning of July I got caught up on the past few months of homework assignments (see this post here) and I’ve been working on July’s assignment all month. Let me explain. The task was to pick 9 songs that comprise a soundtrack of our Word as it applies to us right now. This was tricky for me. I love music and music can generate such a wide range of feelings in me. Greg and I have mostly widely differing tastes in music! He likes the new, edgy Rock/Alternative stuff (with a healthy dose of the 80’s and 90’s in there too – gotta keep those highschool memories alive!) while I tend towards more Rock/Pop/Country genres. It may be jouvenile for me to rock out to Miley Cyrus or Britney Spears but it gets those happy hormones flowing and that’s really what music is all about for me. Plus, the girls “get it” too so we can dance around the house together!

My word is Release and when I Googled “release” and “song titles” all I got was a huge long list of various artists album and/or song release dates. Which I kind of figured was going to be the case. So I went to plan B. I opened up iTunes and pulled up “most played” and went shopping for the tunes that spoke to me. Out of my list of 17 or so, I slowly worked on narrowing it down to 9. Then we were to make up little canvasses using our song titles and some lyrics from the song which spoke to our word.

Here’s what I came up with … initially.

And then in the divided protectors.
But imagine my horror to notice while editing my photos that I misspelt a word on my #7 tag!
Gasp!
I quickly redid it and here are the close ups.

1. Hung Up by Madonna
2. Don’t Stop The Music by Rihanna
3. Come What May from the Moulin Rouge Sountrack

4. Raise Your Glass by P!nk
5. Don’t Speak by No Doubt
6. F**kin’ Perfect by P!nk

7. Uprising by Muse
8. Intervention by The Arcade Fire
9. Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey

Ali asked us to burn our soundtrack to a CD and put it into the album. On my soundtrack are 2 bonus tunes. They are The Landlord’s Walk and Nelson Mandela’s Welcome to the City of Glasgow by Blair Douglas. Both of these are purely instrumental (rockin’ bagpipes and drums mostly) so I figured it was safe to add them as I couldn’t exactly do the lyrics part of the assignment! They speak to my Scottish roots and always bring a smile to my face and a skip to my step.

I found this transparency in my stash and love the words on it. They really evoke everything that I want to invite into my life right now.

And here is the finished spread.
Everyone is back now and bugging me to put them to bed so I will continue this shortly …
Okay, girls are in bed, SYTYCD Canada is on the PVR, life is good.
For Week 4 of the MotherLOAD Marathon we are focussing on using what we love and loving what we use. Don’t those two things go hand in hand? I haven’t done the photo assignment yet which is to take a picture of our favourite ritual but I’ve done the other two assignments.
First up is the layout assignment. We were to dig out that paper or kit that we’ve been saving for a “special” layout and JUST USE IT!! I’ve been hording an entire set of Little Yellow Bicycle’s Zinnia collection waiting for …. not sure what. So, as per instructions, I broke it out and got busy. Here’s what I came up with.
I chose some pictures from our trip to Whistler for our 4th anniversary when Marley was 21/2 and Paige was 5 months old. See her there in the Snuggly? So cute!
But I digress.
When I pulled the papers and put them with the pictures I really wasn’t sure how it was all going to come together. But in the end I love this!
Here are some close ups. First the left hand page. 
The ‘Beautiful’ is an acrylic accent (from one of the many embellishment packs I have for this collection) and the rest of the title was cut out on my Cricut.
The right hand page. 
The quote along the bottom was actually like that in the paper and I loved it, so I cut out that strip and used it to frame the pictures along the bottom. They call the green accent in the top right corner a photo mat but I used it for my journalling.
Some more close ups of the embellishments. 
 
At the last minute I added the ‘love’ and the number 4 (which is the only thing NOT from the Zinnia collection). I figured since it was our 4th anniversary and we were a family of 4 at that time it was fitting.

These are little fabric stickers and I originally just put them on the paper but it looked too flat and you could barely see the purple ‘love’ one. So (in one of those many embellishment collections) I found these acrylic flowers which I popped up with foam dots and voila! WAY better!

I created these little felt flowers from (you guessed it!) a kit! LOL! Then I added the acrylic leaves.

A closer look at the title work. I put it on top of two journalling stickers to which I added the dates of the weekend.
Okay, the final thing for this evening is the homework assignment. We were to put together 4 “snack packs” which we apparantly will be using later during the Marathon part of this class (yikes!)
Here they are!
Want to see them up close?

Some felt flowers, some little journalling tags …

some bigger journalling tags …

some buttons, some butterflies …

and finally, a rosette.
Can’t wait to break them out!
All right, now to focus on the dancers on my TV right now.
Thanks for checking out my little blog. Remember to leave some love, you never know when it may come back to you!!
Posted in layout, MotherLOAD, OLW - One Little Word | Comments Off on OLW July and MotherLOAD Week 4