Do NOT scrapbook when...

A word of advice. Do not scrapbook when you are tired and upset. Trust me it doesn't bode well. I was working on a page last night (actually a two page spread) but I was really tired and I messed it up. I had it all set up the right way, and I glued it upside down. I also forgot I wanted to stamp a background on the cardstock. So...I had to readjust my plans and hope it comes out as well.

It's a page of our families first picture. Which would also be my first son's first baby picture. I decided to do a vintage page, so I aged the pictures in PSP5 to give them an old vintage feel and printed them out. I am still working on it so I'll show it off when I get it done.

I've been playing with the Martha Stewart circle punch and I love it! It does some really cute designs. I love it!

Wyatt

I need to get better pictures of my stuff, but I just keep forgetting to do it. Anyways a new favorite page. This is my Wyatt when he was about 6 months old. I made the tags myself and used ink drops to add a bit of brown to the sides. This wasn't a really technically challenging one the only hard part was making the square cut out around the outside. But it came out wonderful!

Items Used:

Stamp Markers
Dew Drop Ink Paper Twine
Paper Studio Cork Alphabets
Jolee Lion Stickers

From My Mind's Eye Boy Crazy Collection
Washi Tape
Enamel Dots

Martha Stewart Punches:

Scallop Dot
Studded Heart
Random Puppy Stamp from Pat Catans

Tim Holtz Configurations

Tim Holtz Configurations

This is SO awesome! It has a book feel to it, and seems to be made out of "wrapped paper board". Amy who owns my local scrapbooking store did all kinds of amazing things with this. Remember the Tim Holtz buckle I was telling you about? She used it to "buckle" in a picture accordion in one of the larger boxes. She painted the whole thing and put a larger picture on the front of her son. She used hitch fasteners to hold in a cute picture flip book, and this cute little locket (3rd picture down) and used index pictures inside it. Oh, did I mention the little boxes are movable  Yah, if you don't like the way they are there are 4 different ways (at least ones that are shown on the packaging) to arrange these!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this...I wanted 3 of them but they flew off the shelf so I'm trying to decide if I'm going to make ONE for all 3 boys or wait and get 1 for each. If I do one for each, it'll be a lot of products to use on them so I think I may do just one.

But I do know this is going to be an involved project so I won't be doing anything on it until we move so I have plenty of time to get it done and I don't ruin it in the move! I just wanted to show you this and tell you a bit about it because out of all the free stuff...this was my favorite!

Give Away!

What an amazing afternoon, and such wonderful stuff! I got a ton of stuff and saw some really awesome things that I'm adding to my shopping list!

Here's all the things we got to see and some we got to take home!

 Modern Romance by Webster's Pages 
How pretty is this set! Omgosh I so want the whole modern romance set! The cameo frames are gorgeous  Trust me everything looks so much prettier in real life!

Tim Holtz Shattered Collection
It's Tim Holtz...what else do I have to say really? It's really nice looking paper, I can see doing a whole lot of things with this! I got the whole shattered collection 12x12 paper book from the giveaway! The only downfall I see of this collection is there is only ONE paper of each color and if you are like me I always buy two in case I screw up the first one or it isn't enough for my project.

Tim Holtz Findings Buckles - now these things are totally cute, I tried to get some but unforutnally she only had a few because the shipment didn't send enough...and people were greedy! She had used this in another thing I'll show off in a few to "buckle" a picture accordion in.

Time Holtz French Industrial Paper This is such pretty paper! I love it, and again I wanted this but people were greedy!

KellyCraft Get it Straight Laser Square Ok so I'm not OCD enough to want this, but it is pretty cool! It makes sure all your stuff is in a neat line if you are one of those people who want it nice and neat and perfect. But at that price, I'll pass and use a ruler!

Farmhouse Fair Skies Holy shit (excuse my language) but this is such a CUTE collection! We all about DIED when she pulled it out! I was lucky enough to walk away with some chipboard and some lovely flowers! I was going to get some of the paper but I wanted to wait on that because there were other things on here that I just HAD to have!

Day To Day This is such a cute clean collection! I love the soft colors and I was lucky enough to walk away with the note snippets!

Crate Paper Maggie Holmes Collection Beautiful! Amazing! Want it all! Gosh just look at this pretty stuff! I got the lovely amazing clothepins...and I plan on adding this to my shopping list!

Graphic 45 French County Collection Again, on the shopping list. Lovely! Got the wonderful chipboard tags! One of the lovely ladies made this amazing book with the Graphic 45 Easel she cut circles out in each on to show a picture or an Establishment on the next page. It was totally cute!

Prima Doll Stamps asldjfasldkfjflajsdf!!!! If you could see these in real life you'd be at a loss for words too! Once again this was one of those "we bought enough for everyone but only 15 came in" and I missed out on them. BUT (there's a but!) I did order 6th one down for now and I can't wait for it to come in! I have some awesome ideas with this one so keep an eye out for those!

We R Memory Keepers Envelope Cutter! Again, not enough came in..greedy people...need I say more? But this is another thing I pre-ordered and I can't wait to get it!! I really suck at making envelope's they always come out crooked and messed up! So this should help a bit!

Teresa Collins He Said/She Said and Memories Collection Such soft and pretty colors! I wanted this whole thing but hubby gave me a budget or I would have bought this all out! We got to have the pretty folders and the borders!

GCD Pure Bliss I wanted this whole set! Again, soft pretty colors and lovely embellishments! We got the lovely paperclips!

Exciting Week!

I'm totally excited for tomorrow! A few months ago my Mother in Law, Sister in Law and I signed up for our local scrapbooking stores version of "Oprah's Favorite Things". Amy, the owner is going to be showing off all the new scrapbooking stuff for 2013 she found at an expo and we are ALL walking away with them! I can't wait to see what's new and I can't wait to get a chance to try them all out! I will be taking pictures and as many notes as possible on things I don't know how to use and I'll be showing everything off for the next couple of days after that! So tune in for some awesome things coming to my blog this week!

Circle Edge Punch

Circle Edge Punch

Omgosh I'm super exited for this tool! I just love punches and to be able to punch in a circle thrills be beyond belief! 

If you don't know anything about it check out this video to see how it works and what you can do with it! Meanwhile I have to wait until the 14th to get this and as SOON as I get it I'll show you it!

Price wise it's a bit $$ but since I use punches so much it was worth it. The best deal I've found so far was on HSN for a total of $71 (including shipping) but the plus side of HSN is you can make 3 payments of $20 for it (the first payment is like $31 the other two are $20). This kit includes the main tool plus 3 punches.

Now the reason it's a good deal is because each punch is $19 and at Amazon the price for the starter tool is $35 and you only get 1 punch with it. So if you bought separately you'd pay $75 plus shipping which is a total of $83. As I'm writing this the starter kit at amazon is sold out so it doesn't qualify for prime shipping so that's why I included the price of shipping with the amazon quote.

If you find a lower price please let me know and I'll update this so people know where to buy it cheap!

*Disclaimer: Hunny, if you are reading this I'm sorry I bought something but I just couldn't help myself LOL!

Next Project!

This is a picture of youngest Wyatt at about 6 month's old, in possibly the most adorable outfit known to man kind. He look's totally adorable in that little hat! These picture are gonna be my next page!

So it's time to hunt up paper and embellishments to complement these pictures! Any suggestions are helpful!

I'm defiantly sticking with blue and oranges as the main colors with some striped paper, and I'm going to try and find lions to put on it. I also hoping to find something that looks pleated or try doing it with paper to go with the pleats on the hat. 

Layout Jealousy!

Starting today I'm going to randomly post layouts that make me jealous. These layouts are amazing, and stunning and one's you just can't stop looking at!

This first one is from Bee Cee Creativity who did the Let's Get Sketchy sketch and color scheme challenge. 

Where do I start with this one? Gosh. First of all, I just love the soft colors! They work so well together and really bring out the colors in the picture. I just love how simple this looks, it's not crowded and full of stuff that doesn't belong. Every piece has a place!

So Kudo's to Bee Cee Creativity for doing such an amazing layout!

McGill Flower Punches

McGill Lily Flower Punch

So I went to Pat Catan's today to browse (not buy, unfortunately ..) and I ran across this WHOLE area of McGill flower punches. I was blown away. I wanted to buy the WHOLE set so bad I think I was drooling. To make flowers in any color you need/want sounds awesome. I'm always leaving off flowers because I can't find the right one in my stash to do the job. The only downfall is the price of them. So I'm going to keep this on my shopping list of things I want to buy in the future.

My question is: Has anyone tried it AND does it work as awesomely as it looks?

And as a side note:

I wanna thank my 15 views so far! I hope if you were one of those you enjoyed what you read! Keep coming!

Martha Stewart's Circle Tool

So today's post is about Martha Stewart's Circle Tool

I bought this at Pat Catan's when it was on sale or I probably wouldn't have bought it. It's a neat tool but It's really kind of hard to use. It's almost impossible to create the smaller circles as it moves easily. It doesn't have anything to keep it steady. I may add some felt or something to the bottom to keep it steady.

So when you open the back of the hand tool you'll find 3 tabs with blades at the end. As you can see from the picture there are tiny blades with circle tabs on them. The circle part is what you hold and you slide the blade into tool in sideways. CAUTION: You will cut yourself if you are not careful. I wasn't paying attention to which way it was snapping off and it slipped and flew up and sliced my finger. So try to be very careful with this part, pay close attention to which way it slides in.

Once you get that part done, you insert the blade into the slits on the size you want. You really have to get it in there good or it won't cut. You really have to find the right "pressure" when making the circles. Too hard and the circle will slide across the page. Too light and you won't cut the paper.

So was this tool worth it? Not really. It's really hard to use, I'd rather use paper punches because at least I know the circle will cut evenly and won't slip and make an oval. My next shopping trip I'm investing in large paper punches and putting this tool away.

Sew Easy

So my first blog post is going to be about...

Stitching...

*Insert groan*

Now now, it's not that hard anymore...really! They've come up with this awesome tool that makes it so much easier...no more lugging out that sewing machine. I never had one so I don't know what that would be like but I can imagine that it would be a pain in the butt.

As you can see from my layout up there (one of my favorites!!!) there is stitching on the sides. I used the *Sew Easy* tool to do this. You can find this in just about any store it runs for about 9 bucks and comes with one head and needles (which btw are dull head needles not sharp ones). Now you can get a more expensive version of this for around 29 bucks. But I bought it all separately because the mat isn't big enough especially if you are doing 12x12 pages. You need a mat or the piercing won't happen. It's soft and cushy to make sure the plastic knob like things pierce through.

So to start you'll need:

1 Sew Easy tool
1 Needle (included with tool)
1 Sew Easy Mat
and head of your choice
Sew Easy thread (*Note- I have yet to use other thread for this, but I imagine if it'll go through the hole easily it will work just as well*)

Now it seems easy so far but alas there is a problem. It doesn't run straight easily. If you want to go in a straight line you'll need a "guide" to follow. I used my 12" paper cutter (martha stewart one) to line it up and use the edge to "guide" the tool. It works pretty well and it only went off course a little bit.

Now another interesting addition to the Sew Easy line is the Sew Easy Circle Tool. This nifty little thing takes you from lines to circles...but again it's not as easy to use. You have to be very careful when using this. It will move while you are going in the circle but I found if I take a Zot and glue it down temporally then it stays pretty good (the zot will take some paper off when removing it so use an embellishment or something to cover that up).

With both these tools you have to press HARD. If you find that some of the holes didn't go through if you see an indentation you can use the needle to press through (just make sure you have the mat under it).

Then once you get your holes punched you just thread the needed and sew away.

I kept the backing to all the heads, because each one does more than one design and the back of the heads shows each one that you can do with that specific head.

So to sum it up:

• Use a guide!
• Press HARD
• Keep the backing to the heads
• And have fun adding sewing to your scrapping!

In the beginning....

A blog...hahaha...Not sure why I'm doing this but I thought I should have some place to show off my scrap pages and give some insight on products I use and some tips and tricks. I'm not an expert on anything but I think I can give enough to help someone.

I am a mother of 3 wonderful boys. They are my life, and I really enjoy making pages for them. It's fun to try new things and have these beautiful memories for them later in life.

I started scrapbooking wayyyy back in 2002 after my first son was born and I suffered from Postpartum Depression and turned to crafting to give me something to do. I fell in love instantly. I started simple and grew from there. I'm doing things in my pages I couldn't imagine doing back then. I browse layouts and read up on techniques and try them myself, sometimes it's successful and...well the ones that don't you probably will never see.