A few more old layouts

Hello again!

Here are two more layouts I have done in the past year or so.

Sometimes while you sleep, I watch you dream
This layout started out as a page for Arabella's nursery. I found the paper on sale (and cannot remember who makes it) and it matched her nursery decor perfectly! I created the entire page and then had to think of what I was going to call it. Before Arabella was born, a friend of mine gave me a book called "Sometimes." It took me several months before I had the courage to read it because it's just one of those books like "I'll love you Forever" that make you cry everytime. Well this book did not disappoint and had me in tears. It's all about a mother's dreams for her new baby girl, and spans that little girl's entire lifetime...even after the mom has passed away. The title of this page was one of the lines from the book that really struck a chord with me and tugged at my heart strings. However, after I finished placing the last thicker, I decided that the page was better suited for several memorable pictures of Arabella sleeping.



SOURCES: Patterned Paper:  American Crafts – Heatwave > Tangerine Tidal Wave, Bo Bunny – Kiwi Double Dot, Miscellaneous. Tags: Debbie Travis >Paint Chips, Studio G>Baby Stamp. Border Punch: Martha Stewart Edge Punch>Scallop Dot.  Letters: American Crafts – Thickers > Nutmeg, Miscellaneous

 

I ran out of green Thickers for the word dream but it turned out for the best! Instead I used some white foam Thickers and embellished the edges with a little Stickles.  Then I added a little vellum flower and button at the end of it for an extra bit of whimsy! I love how ethereal it turned out!

The baby tags are actually made out of paint chips! My sister-in-law, Claire, first introduced me to crafting with paint chips a few years ago when we got together one October to make adorable paint chip pumpkins. Since then I've used paint chips in a few of my scrapping projects! These tags I had originally made to adorn a bunch of baskets I had bought to organize her closet. I had a few tags left over so I repurposed them for my scrapbook page and added a "Baby" stamp to each one.

Now for the actual nursery layout:

 A Work of Heart
This layout is one of the few that started with a title and progressed from there. Once again, I incorporated a few odds and ends that I had used in the process of decorating the nursery. I really wanted to capture the makeover in this layout and had a hard time choosing photos for the before and after. If I were to do it all over, I would have left room for more pictures (as some of you may remember, I'm horrible at printing the photos on time for scrapping days so usually I make a layout with a few photo ideas in mind and add the pictures later) and I would have invested in a brown pen for the journalling instead of trying to use the gel pens I had to (not very successfully) create a brownish colour.  Thanks again to Kelly for helping me with the ribbon flower!



SOURCES: Cardstock: Bazzil Basics Paper. Patterned Paper: Daisy Bucket Designs-In The Meadow > Chloe, Celeste & McKenna. Stamp: Autumn Leaves – Freestyle Alphabet. Letters: American Crafts –Thickers > Giggles


I had found a lamp I loved at HomeSense that matched my nursery bedding perfectly, but it was a little too short so I bought a few hat boxes for it to perch on to add some height. The only problem was, the hat boxes were very beige and not much else in the nursery was (asides from the carpet). This problem was solved when I found a spool of ribbon from Walmart that matched my nursery colours perfectly and knotted it around the handles of the hat boxes to incorporate them into the colour scheme of the room. The left over ribbon was of course added to my scrapping supplies and came in very handy for the ribbon button on this page. After several accordion folds and scrunching the ends all together, I hand sewed it until I was satisfied with how the petals spread out. I finished it off with a button!

I wanted to make the word "heart" stand out but couldn't find a Thickers that I liked for it, so I went in search of my stamp collection. Using an alphabet stamp from Autumn Leaves, I hand stamped the word onto white cardstock and then coloured the letters in using a green Copics marker. Next I slowly (painstakingly) cut out each letter. It still needed something extra so all of the letters got Stickled!

That's all for now!

The many faces of Arabella Grace

Here is one of the first layouts I scrapped of my daughter. Thanks to my friend Kelly whom I "borrowed" the idea and title from after seeing a layout she did of her niece. Arabella is only a few weeks here and I just loved all of her little expressions so I thought I'd capture a few of them.

SOURCES: Cardstock: Bazzil Basics Paper. Patterned Paper: BasicGrey-Sultry > Uptown & Fashionable. Font:  Smiley Monster, Pea Mee-Mee, Pea Stacy's New Doodles. Plaid Scalloped Frame: Miscellaneous Flowers: Handmade using Cuttlebug 2x6 Flower Die & Textile Embossing Folder

The title of the page I printed off on white cardstock and then coloured in the Arabella Grace with a green Copics marker.

The "sweet" is one of the many doodles that I LOVE from the font Pea Stacy's New Doodles that you can get for free from  Kevin & Amanda. I printed it off and then garnished it with a cute plaid scalloped frame from a box of miscellaneous scrapbook embellishments that I picked up a few years ago at HomeSense. The pink paper ribbon behind was a remnant I found that was created from practicing with a border punch.  I added a green strip of paper to it as well and drew on a few stitches.

The flowers I made out of Vellum using my Cuttlebug. I cut them first using the 2x6 Flower Die and then embossed them with the Textile embossing folder. I love the look of lace it created on the flowers and how you can see the hints of pink and green through the vellum. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Spring Flowers

Hello all, sorry it has been so long. These past few weeks have been very emotionally challenging for me as I have had to deal with several pieces of bad news. But thanks to the love and support of family and close friends, I feel like I am over the original hump and hopefully on the road to sunnier days. In the midst of all of this, I had a friend over last week who brought me a beautiful bouquet of tulips and irises to brighten my spirits and my home. Once they were in full bloom, they were just too beautiful to resist trying to get a few good pictures of them, especially as I am in the process of planning out my Spring photo wall. I thought I'd share a few in the hopes that perhaps they will bring a little sunshine your way!

Enjoy! And thank you so much Stacey!!!

The Paper Mixing Bowl: Recipe #1

Here is the layout I did for the Paper Mixing Bowl Recipe #1 Challenge. The first recipe was for Devil's Chocolate Cake:

When I first looked at the recipe, I had no idea which pictures I was going to scrapbook on this page. However, this was quickIy determined once I read through the directions and saw that I was supposed to journal about “a special moment in which something I hoped for happened.” 

When I was pregnant for my daughter Arabella, I had bought a little knit hat on Etsy in the anticipation of her arrival.  When I was about 8 months pregnant, my sister took a few pictures of this hat which she had loving placed in the shape of a heart over my baby bump. Three days after Arabella was born, my sister photographed it again, only this time she had propped it gently on Arabella’s tiny head while she was fast asleep on my tummy.   These four pictures that my sister had taken of Arabella were very special to me. They encompassed the gratefulness and love that I was feeling at that moment in time…a moment that I had prayed for and dreamed of for so long. I had been blessed with this tiny precious gift of life, Arabella Grace. 

SOURCES: Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper. Patterned paper:  Cosmo Cricket –Gretel (red paper), SEI- Alpine Frost (background paper). Twine: Jillibean Soup. Fonts: Title Artistamp, Stamp Act, Stampede & Freebooter Script. Flowers: Handmade

I had a very frustrating time trying to find the perfect letters for my title.  Originally I was going to use my sister-in-law’s Silhouette to cut out the title but due to technical difficulties I had to find another option.  I couldn’t find anything I liked at the local scrapbook stores, so I decided to get adventurous and design something in Photoshop.  For “Arabella,” I started with a block of colour and then added a wood grain pattern. Next I added my stamped style letter in a dark brown and then texturized the entire thing. The last step was to add some “ink” to the edges using a brown paintbrush, print them all off and cut them out.  I’m quite happy with the results! For “Grace” I simply found a script font I liked and then added a thicker stroke to it in dark brown so that it was easier to cut out and also blended a bit into the background of my page. 

For the flowers, I made a few using coffee filters which I had stained either with a tea/coffee mixture or for my one flower, a coffee/hot chocolate mixture (I was inspired by the main ingredient of this recipe!).  The other flowers I made out of remnants of the various papers used in this layout.  I finished the flowers off with coordinating buttons in a variety of sizes and colours.  A bit of chocolate twine and a few more buttons completed the page.  

For the journaling aspect, I used a leftover coffee filter that I had stained using a mixture of coffee and tea. 

Thanks for stopping by!