My First Board Book

And it's done! My very first Board Book. Sorry for the delay in getting up the new pictures up but work must come first (keeps those bills paid). This beautiful Grandeur Board Book (Kaiser Craft) from Lil' Lambs Boutique, was very easy to work with. I'm sure this will not be my last one.

Here's the quick story behind this project. The Moms in my neighborhood all get together, twice a month, for Bible study. We are currently working on a Bible Study about parenting our children. Every week, we pray over a new aspect of our childrens' lives. I thought this would be a great cap off to the study and an additional reminder to continually pray for my girls day in and day out.

The whole book is done using Basic Grey Eva collection. The front page is where I added my dimensional Primas, so they wouldn't get crushed inside the book. The flourishes are Grunge Board from Tim Holtz Idea-ology, which I inked with Distress Ink (Peeled Paint) and then sprayed with Glimmer Mist for the shimmer. Throughout the book, I used Crackle Paint to give it a worn effect (you can see a close up in the Sneek Peak post below).

If your pages seem to have a lot of blank space because of a solid background, then sewing or doodling (if you don't care to sew) is a great way to break up a sea of solid color. All the flowers on this page were punched out and made by hand. A very sweet lady, on one of the scrapping boards I frequent, posted this wonderful tutorial here on how she does these types of flowers. I added additional white accents in my solid flowers for highlights.

Don't forget to make use of your pattern paper for die cuts as in the pictures above. They make wonderful accents for board books.

If you don't have a sewing machine, no worries. You can always hand sew on your projects like I did above. I used a circle template and a paper piercer and punched holes all the way around the template. Embroidery floss works great on scrapping projects. I picked up some Slate colored floss and hand stitched my way around the circle using the pre punched holes. If you want a thicker thread or are uncomfortable sewing anything but straight lines, then hand stitching is a great alternative for you.

I used the Martha Stewart border punch here. I love these punches. And if you don't get your corners perfect, don't worry about it. Use your design to cover up any blatant corner problems.

Another Martha Stewart border punch on this page (Arch Lattice). I really like this one.

Finally I picked up the sewing/doodling technique here again to fill out some of the less embellished space.

Thanks for taking a look and go try a Board Book today!

Promised Sneak Peaks

Here they are...sneak peaks of my current work in progress. Tammy sent me this wonderful album by Kaiser Craft. Love the scroll work front page.

I have a couple more pages to finish up and then put on the finishing touches, but here's some peeks until I finish.

Here's an interesting tid bit of info: I grabbed my Eva paper from Basic Grey, scratch paper and a pencil and sketched the entire book (front to back) all while watching March of the Penguins. Aren't baby penguins just the cutest!

Does anyone else out there sketch out all their layouts before they do them? It must be the logical/mathematical part of my brain kicking in, but I cannot start a layout without sketching it first. I can never seem to just throw something together like some many amazing scrappers do. But if it works for me, I'm not going to change it. What kind of scrapper are you? A free spirit or sketch artist?

Blog Candy Pitstop

If you like blog candy, well here's a chance to get some. Michelle, over on her blog, is giving away quite a bit of booty!! She carries a nice selection of stamps as well. Hop on over....take a gander.

Happy Anniversary

So today is my twelth anniversary. Whew, I cannot believe how fast times flies and the pounds add on....aie yie yie. I'm in the midst of working on a chipboard album that I received from Tammy at Lil' Lambs Boutique (which by the way, the Shoppe is having some MAY-JAH sales this week, I kid y0u not). I hope to get some sneak peaks up tonight or tomorrow. But for now, I thought I'd throw up a very vintage looking photo of hubby and me on our wedding day. Since I couldn't wear the wedding dress on the motorcycle, I switched to this outfit. Hmmm, I may just have to search for some Graphic 45 paper and distress the heck outta this puppy. :)

Little Yellow Bicycle comes up with a winner!

Most often I will choose my photos and then find paper to match. But every once in a while, the papers will choose the photos. Here's a new layout using the Fresh Print Traveler paper kit from Lil' Lamb's Boutique. These photos happen to be 10 years old and just sitting in my photo box. Then along comes this line of paper and it's a match made in heaven. Ha ha.

This layout is one of my closest friends' wedding day. She'll be celebrating her 10th anniversary this month. Woo hoo. That's a new diamond, right?

Here are some close ups of the individual pages. For whatever insane reason, I have snubbed the fancy machines that cut fonts and I still do this crazy stuff myself with my swivel exacto knife. Keeps me sharp I guess (Oh man, was that another bad joke??). All the flowers and leaves were cut out from some of the Fresh Print Traveler paper. They made excellent embellishments. With all this great paper, I may never deplete my Prima stash.

Just wanted to point out here, that I changed the color of the blue flowers. They were bright blue and just did not go with this paper at all. A little "Faded Jeans" Distress Ink from Ranger and now you have a great match. Just because you don't have the right color flower doesn't mean you have to go out and buy new ones to match. Did I just say that? Recoloring them is a money saver tip for you. Just invest in a set of the Distress Ink pads and you can change pretty much anything.

One more money saving tip, because we're all in the same dreary economy. One of my favorite punches is the Threading Water punch by Fiskars. However, sometimes I want a bigger scallop with the same look. I have no idea if they sell a punch that is bigger but look at what I happened to find on a package of scrapping supplies. YES! A bigger scallop! So I cut off the product wrapping carefully and use this for a template to create my own big scallop border. Always watch what your supplies are wrapped in; you'll never know when you can use it on your next layout.

Happy anniversary my dear friend!

Enter a new dimension with your scrapping.

So, we currently have this "Think Outside the Box" challenge for Lil' Lamb's Boutique and I started thinking more about how I made my layout below. I thought I'd show you the original photo, a quickly photoshopped layout using the original photo and then the finished layout. You can see a huge difference.

Oftentimes, so much background clutter can really compete with the subjects of your photos. At the very least, it might preclude you from using a particular photo, because it does not match the theme of your layout.

Here is the original photo: We have toddler toys in the background, furniture and part of Daddy. This picture doesn't scream meadows full of flowers to me, but I do love the picture because I think it's so cute of the girls. So how do I scrap this?

Well, I could stick to my plan and force the photo into my theme and add flourishes and flowers to take out some of the background clutter. (Do forgive the photoshopped version of this below. I'm definitely not an expert, as you can see). But here, it now seems the focus is on the embellishments, instead of the photo.

However now, after carefully cutting the subjects out of my photo, a whole new world of possibilities opened up. My girls could be anywhere, in any theme I want. There is no extraneous clutter competeing with the rest of my layout.

So, next time you're going through your photo box and you keep passing those same unscrappable photos by....stop and think...you might just be able to cut them into new ideas. Try it and let us see those layouts.

July ~ Think Outside the Box Challange

I think it's time for a new challenge. How often do you really think outside the box when you're scrapping? Do you get bored with the same formula? Well, why don't you try our challenge at Lil' Lambs Boutique to help get your creative spark going.

You can find all the details here at the LLB Blog. Below is my design team example for the challenge. Intrigued yet? Well get going...



The design above was created using Doodlebug Design's Cherry Jubilee Paper kit from Lil' Lambs Boutique. Excellent summer papers.

Happy Birthday America!!! The land the I love...

Happy birthday to the USA! Be safe everyone and have a wonderful day.

So here is some more from the Webster's Pages Deluxe Kit "Cherry Pie" from Lil' Lambs Boutique. The colors are bold and so easy to work with and this line is perfect for 4th of July layouts. This is my daughter and my friend's son for their first 4th of July. They didn't know quite what to think and definitely wanted no part of the fireworks. But they loved sucking all the juice out of the watermelons.



It's a little hard to see but at the bottom corners, I've added the Idea-ology Photo Corners (also found in the Deluxe kit). They really set off a page.

Webster's Pages - Simply Scrumptious

If you have not seen the new line of Webster's Pages, you must take time to look at them. They are just delicious. I can't wait to do more with this line that I received from Lil' Lambs Boutique. Below I grabbed one of my favorite pictures of hubby and I and put these papers to work.



I'm not sure if I can ever just leave plain cardstock alone. After cutting the scallops into the dreamsicle cardstock, I got the itch to just add some ink. If you want to create your own subtle patterned cardstock, it's very easy. I created the border below using a Heidi Swapp Mask, Ranger Distress Ink and a common every day make up sponge. Use just part of the mask like I did if you are just looking for a border. Ink your sponge and then brush over the mask lightly to create your border.



Don't worry about a little overlap. It just makes the overall look even better. I added a spritz of Glimmer Mist to the paper which gives it a nice sparkle in the light. And there you have dressed up cardstock to enhance your project.