just words + photo tells a story

Its amazing, when you remove all the other worries (what goes here, what matches this. etc) how easy it is to focus on your story. After all isn't that the reason why those of us who scrapbook do it in the first place?


To follow along or read more about this, visit one of my fav scrapbooking blogs here.



The challenge was to use just one other embellishment (or none). Since I speak about the pillows that my mom made in the story I added a small piece of the leftover fabric we used for the red pillow shown in the photo. I thought it was a nice addition. Plus every time I go look at the page I reach out to touch the fabric {its a soft. light weight, corduroy}.

The journaling was done in MS picture it! {can also be done in ms word}, letter stickers for the words "favorite spot" and The fabric is on the page using "zots" small, flat, round, adhesives.
strip of patterned paper is from Websters Pages, pink lemonade.

a slide show

Short and sweet for today.

One addition to the sidebar on the right. A slide show tentatively titled, Making stuff :: handmade mini album. Click on it to see all the pictures and captions.

Inspired by this: All week long one of my favorite sites is exploring a great scrapbooking topic...."words + photos". She will do such a great job with this...And I think following along all week will feel like I'm taking one of her famous classes!! Someday, someday. So I am looking forward to the creating her articles will surely inspire.

Like the make a mini album/book challenge.

The handmade mini album is based on an article from her most recent newsletter and on her blog. The challenge was to use stuff {scrapbooking supplies} you already have. The pages are easy to move around and you can easily add extra pages or add other fun things you can punch a hole in.

April Page

"U Play"

Fall Day pictures. With the April Page Challenge papers from local scrapbook store.

Drawing from the colors of the solid paper and the stripes I went with these late fall pictures of the kids that I like so much. I wasn't really finished with the page here -- I was moving the chipboard "U" around and various little cut up words -- and I decided to look at it from a different angle. I turned in the finished page last week but never took a picture of it....so here it is almost finished. It doesn't show the journaling which was done on a strip of paper, labeled with a file tab and then tucked behind the photo collage at the top left corner.

I might have mentioned this before - but I thought picking up papers that someone else had chosen was going to be difficult but instead the opposite happened -- it simplified the process {for me} by removing the overwhelming "hmm, which papers go with these?" I found that it makes you stretch your creative thinking until you use all the pieces of the set. I might not have paired the textured blue with the stripes and orange -- but I learned to go with it and I liked the color combo after all. All in all very fun to work with.

These papers are from the April Page Challenge at one of our local scrapbook stores. {The Paper Garden.}
Double-sided paper (stripes/light green) is from Webster's Pages -- all their stuff is so beautiful.
Included were : orange and brown cardstock and textured blue paper {don't know manufacturer} and a large chipboard U
Photo collage was done at home on my Epson printer {only my third try at this -- I see a few mistakes here and there but I still like this one alot. Photo collages with many photos take practice -- I need more practice} I filled in the empty spots in the collage with the patterned papers.
I added the little boxes with the words "play" and "fun" and the date in the photo editing software.

Paper in the Mail + first communion

This was mail from a while ago....love it when there are papergoods catalogs to browse through.

I'm sure I intended to post this pic along with the inspiration it lead to, but I find that I never did that. We have been preparing the two older kids for their first holy communion so I had the idea to make our own invites, favors, thankyous, etc. I have had a lot of creative time {luckily} for that sort of thing. Just sharing a few pics of how the invitations turned out. Completely inspired by the invitations in the Paper Source catalog {the one pictured above}. The rubber stamps came from a Fancy Pants clear set {the butterfly} and Kodomo {the cherry blossom branch}. The strip of blue Asian paper is wrapped around the invitation and is from Hyatt's Art store here in Rochester.


































That was yesterday! It feels good to finally see it through -- months of prep, special books, special activities, shopping for the special gown, "dressy clothes" for boys, classes and one shaky rehearsal later -- but it all came together - beautifully.
The ceremony went just as beautifully as ever, even the weather cooperated for us as we made our way into the church. I was very proud my two.

The morning of I scrawled a few notes for myself as I reflected on the day ahead {with the intent to read it to our guests as Grace -- but I spaced and completely forgot to bring the paper with me.....duh...then at the restaurant it seemed every detail had to be run by me....so again -- spaced -- and I feel real bad about that}

"dear lord, we want to take this moment to say thank you for all your blessings today. thank you for blessing us with this delicious food; with beautiful sunshine, blessing us with beautiful children and allowing us to be blessed with the company of our family and dear friends. please care for those who were not able to be here today. amen."


On to the goodies... the favors being prepped...a couple of days ago.




















and finished...you can find these cute small cardboard boxes in the wedding supply section at the dollar store {yes! the dollar store, one pkg of 12 for $1.00} They were the perfect size.














And finally, there is always at least one blurry picture that captures my heart.....in this one she is sweetly smiling for the picture taking aunts and cousins, but she is dying to take the dress off. "PLEEESE mommy can I change NOW?" she says in front of some of the guests {who of course think its so cute} But she looked so pretty...I stalled as long as I could...and I managed to hold of the change of clothing until after dinner and the cake....she did wonderful and eventually didn't want to take off the dress at all.
sigh. they are so cute. I wanted the moment and the day to last forever.

Swirly Paper reminded me of Snow Flurries

I've had very little time to blog lately, but still capturing little moments with the family with my ever present camera. Trying to keep on track with some home projects really cuts into blogging time. boohoo.

I finally was able to scrapbook a little in March. A local scrapbook store, The Paper Garden, offers its customers a monthly "page challenge" mini kit for purchase ($2.25)and then you get to play with the contents, bring it back before the end of the month and they nicely offer a 20% discount on any purchase you make that day. Oh, and then they post it up in the store. That was a thrill to see :)

These papers (red swirls and blue swirl) are from imagination project and the brown cardstock is from worldwin. The mini kit also included two pieces of ribbon that you could use on the project any way you wanted. It was really fun to use papers that someone else had chosen ---- the colors totally reminded me of hot cocoa and rosy cheeks and swirly snow flakes in the winter sky --- hence the winter day pictures that I had already taken back in Feb 07 really fit that theme. I turned one of the flowers that was cut from the blue/white swirl paper into a little embellishment by using glitter pens and glaze pens to bring out some detail. Then I used some pop-dots to "pop" it off the page a little.
Totally looking forward to coming up with something for the april page challenge. It includes papers from Webster's Pages and a chipboard letter. If you're in the Rochester area and love pretty paper you should stop into this scrapbook shop.

Hope it won't be too long before I post again :)

Later, Bye

Places for Creative Inspiration

Day 12 over at the 21 day challenge at Twopeasinabucket.com...I skipped yesterday, but the quotes are always so motivating. I don't know what it is, the snow on top of more snow, kid activities, the sick lil'guy or what, but whatever creative intent I had over the last two days has been zapped.
{I guess I'm doing something creative right now....I love updating the blog, I just try not to let it get too obsessive. It seems to fill a little creative need to write and share creative thoughts. Whether through words, photography, doodles, cards..etc. So today I made a little time for me}

While blog surfing....some real cool sites that I've been going back to

Music: Pandora Radio - just type in your fav song or artist and it automatically compiles a song list similar type songs. (found this on the 2peas site message board) cool. Its free and you have to register, but its pretty quick and painless I'm sure its been around awhile but I just discovered it! I've been playing it in the background.

A new stamping company to love: The Unity Stamp Company. Reeeeally pretty designs. Not available yet though. Great samples on their blog. I always hope that these new companies with fresh designs are available locally, but that is not always the case. I'll never figure out why our local scrapbooking, papercrafting, and/or rubberstamping shops don't carry these beautiful new lines that are appearing lately....they just seem to stick with the industry standbys. Of course you can probably find them online for sure.....but I always try to find it locally first.

Cool Design Inspiration: Rebecca Thuss. {also found this on the 2peas message board} just a glance through her beautiful portfolio gets the creative juices flowing. From one of the photos I had an idea for some favors for our kid's first communion coming up this spring. She has this under "weddings" but its such a versatile idea it could work for any event you need some simple favors for. They are presented beautifully in bowls or platters decorated with berry wreaths of some sort. Inside are little packets filled with teas for the guests to take home. You can't see every little detail, but it is enough to get the ideas flowing. Once I saw that I thought it would be an easy one to do and instead of teas I'm thinking flower seed packets inside {keeping with the spring time theme}

other big news {well for me it is :) : our daughter's 2nd grade artwork has been chosen to be included in the a district wide Art Show. That is this afternoon. They will exhibit grades 1-5 and 30 little artists per school are chosen. Can't wait to take some cute pics. Its always so cute to see the little artists standing near their awesome creations. This is very cool since her brother was in it last year. They both get to share the glory in each other's creative spirit!
A good mommy moment!

quickly she posted

Okay, the days are getting longer and I am so waiting for spring. Hence, the new banner with my favorite spring things....flowers, rain, and bare baby feet :)

I sidetracked a little in March -- here we are on day 6 but I haven't updated with my start of a "one week at a time" scrapbook -- it is one of my personal goals to get that started. Of course that is inspired by something Ali has done in the past. Like so many of her ideas/projects this one has inspired a whole bunch of neat ideas to capture the everyday moments in our lives. The days go by so quickly sometimes....I was reviewing old photos {from 2002} and I just had to stop at some of them and relive that moment just briefly. So good. There are some days when I just feel like I take so many pictures -- many more than I will ever use in an album -- but then I remember what it feels like to go through all the little odd ball ones and smile.

The rest of this week I have been following along with the 21 Day Challenge over at the 2peas site. Its a journal challenge for 21 days, make {or break} a habit. They are on day 6. I haven't posted anything on that site but my thoughts have gone into a new art journal. I am really enjoying the process and a side goal is to keep it from getting too complicated. Because I tend to over complicate -- that is one habit I'd love to break. But my challenge entails actually making the time in my day to do what I love to do --be creative.