Peepathon online crop

Our message board held a Labor Day "Peepathon" online crop, with 25 challenges. I hosted one, and was able to complete 13 other challenges (2 were a selfie challange, and  clean up challenge)

My sample for the "Fall papers on a non-Fall themed project"

Back to School challenge:

Specific SG/Create Magazine sketch:

On the Grid challenge:

Any SG/Create Magazine challenge:

Oldie But Goodie (use your oldest supplies) challenge:

True Colors (monochromatic) challenge:

Old, New and a Brew (combine old and new from a specific list) challenge:

Say Goodbye to Summer (back up and order photos and create a layout that sums up your summer):

STAMPTASTIC! (create a stamped background) challenge:

Let's Get Scrappy (use only scraps) challenge:

Disney: Anything Goes challenge:

Project Life 2014, weeks 1-13

I wasn't entirely sure I was going to do Project Life again this year; I still haven't completed last year's album and am not feeling a pressing need to work on it very fast. I like it when it's done, but it's somewhat time consuming (determining photo size and placement, printing photos, picking a 6x6 pad, cutting everything, journaling, decorating, etc)...basically killing the original concept of easy. Then again, I did easy (4x6 photos and plain journaling cards) and didn't like it any better.

In January I stumbled across a Youtube video of someone who had given up PL the previous year, but for 2013 decided to drop her photos into the Collect app (which puts a photo with a few lines of journaling all on a 3x4 card--although you can print them as 4x6) and just go with it. I found this immensely satisfying, as I take most of my everyday photos with my iPhone and I loved that I could do my journaling at the same time. Interest in PL renewed...for a few weeks. I have just had the hardest time with inspiration and mojo this year; the 50 Layout Challenge is really the only thing getting me to scrap right now, and I'm usually the last one to post on Saturday night, just before the deadline.

This week, I decided to pull out PL and get caught up. Thursday night, I spent an hour importing the Collect cards and dropping them in to the PicFrame app (changing it from 1:1 ratio [square] to 4:3 ration [rectangle]), then transferring them to my computer. After that, it was just printing them on my little photo printer. (As an aside, Sams Club and the Selphy totally mess them up, but my A646 works like a champ).

Friday I spent about an hour in the morning choosing cards for each week and then worked on it for a few minutes here and there until I had 11 weeks done by 9pm. With the Design F page protectors I am much more ok with saying "I only have enough photos for one page this week". As I type that it sounds silly, but I know that I would not be ok with doing that for Design A. I guess it's just one of those quirks.

Anyway, weeks 1-13; with some journaling still needed for week 1 and a photo in week 2.

Week 1--will do the journaling on my typewriter...as soon as I go buy a new ribbon. Cards are from PL Jade.

Week 2- The 3x4 cards are from PL Kraft and the 4x6 are cut from a MME pad.

Week 3-The 3x4 cards are from the PL Dear Lizzy Polka Dot Party mini kit and the 4x6 are cut from the Fancy Pants Memories Captured pad.

Week 4-The 3x4 cards are from PL Cobalt (which I ended up not liking as much as I thought I would and sold 2/3 of the kit). One 4x6 is from Cobalt and the other is from a paper pad.

Week 5-I decided in the interest of time to just use cards (no paper from 6x6 pads because it takes some time to look through 100ish paper pads). This was probably my easiest spread, since there were only a couple cards and they were pretty enough without help. All cards are from WRMK Simply Happy.

Week 6. This is probably my favorite so far. The cards are PL Kiwi and I love the bright happiness of it. I added in a few things cut from the AT Plus One paper pad for fun.

Week 7. This one took the longest. Cards are from the PL Maggie Holmes kit, except the 4x6 on the right side. Turns out, I don't actually like most of the 4x6 cards, so I cut some stuff from the coordinating 6x6 pad. The Mint Heidi Swapp ink pad actually matches the MH greens pretty well.

Week 8. Entering the one page phase. I was so tired with Jacob not sleeping that I didn't even bother to take pictures most of the time and didn't want to fill it in with fake pictures or too much decoration. I think they all turned out well, though. Cards are from the PL Blush kit.

 

Week 9. One of the quicker ones. Cards are from PL Jade (which I am fast running out of) and the yellow banner is cut from a PL Seafoam card (the other kit I "had" to have and ended up not liking). 

 

Week 10.  I'm not usually fond of putting the week somewhere other than the 4x6 spot, but Design F is somewhat limiting if you have a 4x6 you want to use. I could have cut this one in half though. Cards are from WRMK Notable.

 A close-up of the letters, made with plain chipboard colored with a Bic Mark-it marker.

 

 Week 11--After I got weeks 10 and 11 done, I realized I had completely left out any pictures and mention of our trip to Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (fair, food, rodeo and concert), so I'll do an insert for that.) Spring Break...we did a whole lot of nothing, as evidenced by the daily card, lol. Cards are from PL Dear Lizzy 5th and Frolic.

 

 Week 12--This was the week I really wondered if I wanted to give up on PL, since I only took 3 pictures. Alas, there were other notable things and now I'm kind of enjoying it again. Cards are from PL Honey, which is one of my favorites (I actually bought a second box during Black Friday sales since I'm almost out and think it would work good for a Disney album, if we go).

Week 13--my favorite title card. I had a ton of photos from this week, but generally from 2 events--the bluebonnets and Brandon's birthday. Since I plan to do actual layouts for both events, I stuck to a couple pictures, thus just a one pager.

 

 

Caught up until this week now :)  I'll probably try not to let it go so long in the future, but I think a once a month session will work fine.

 

2014 in 2014 total: 502/2014

Studio Calico "Planetarium" (May 2013)

First impression of the kit: good. Several patterns I would have bought. Not excited for the resin stars or the clear sticker strips. Always love when we get labels.

Items (from my stash) that appeared in the add-on kits: green acrylic letters.

 

Since I figure that the resin starts would be the hardest items for me to use, I tried to make sure I used those early.

 I don't know, it seems kind of lacking but I don't know what else I want to put on there.

 Meh. I did use up another of the MH fabric frames, though.

 Added in a sheet from the DL 6x6 pad to tone down the pink and a few embellies from the same line.

I like the layouts, for the most part. Impressed with how many full/partial titles I got out of the wood veneer letters, and I still have half the container left.

100 projects total: 37/100

Citrus Twist: Home is Where the Heart Is, LOAD 2/17-2/24

The sneak peeks of the January Citrus Twist kit made me nervous, since it seemed all I could really see was the Crate Paper chipboard accent sheet, the floral paper and the pink ribbon. Ummm..really not my thing. But...all together, I really kind of liked the kit and I ended up with 8 layouts, the most of any of my kits so far. And I'm still ahead on LOAD, because no one needed me this weekend. Really. Rick took over the bedroom/TV and worked, Brandon took over the living room/TV and played on the xbox between chores, and Jacob was content with his computer and an occasional bubble bath, leaving me to play. It felt weird.

 

The kit:

 

 

(February 17). When I first took everything out of the box, my eyes settled on the Dear Lizzy house paper and the Echo Park title strip. As I was playing around with it, I got the idea to cut out some of the houses and see what I could do with them. Then I thought maybe I could ground them with the pink ribbon. Then came the green swatch, and then the gray to tone it down a little. It was looking a little disconnected and very pink/green, so I used the inker on a new Ali Edwards house stamp and tucked them behind. I kind of like how they look. I don't do a lot of fussy cutting, or cut-out stamping, or even a lot of misting, so this was something new for me.

(February 18). This doesn't even look like something I made, right? LOL. I loved the floral pattern because it was just so pretty, but I never would have bought it because more than likely it would sit in my stash for a couple years before I sighed and gave it away. Being in the kit forced me to use it. This was a self-portrait I took with my ipod on my birthday, so that made the "theme" of the layout easy. The rose ribbon didn't come in the kit, but since it was sitting on my desk and matched, I figured, why not? If I'm gonna go girly, I might as well go really girly. :) I had taken out several of my embossing folders samples and was going to use the swiss dot one on some of the pink cardstock, but liked the white better and just used...my sample. Ooops. Sprayed it with some green glimmer mist, which I ended up really liking.

(February 19) Complete change of course! The green is seen in the first layout, but the stripe is the backside of the floral pattern and the red hearts is the backside of the teal days of the week page. I was waiting to figure out what I wanted to do with this photo, so once I opened my Silhouette program to look at my phrase/title options, everything fell into place. The "adorable" tab is left over from the CT November kit. I have a ton left and will be using them up forever, I think.

(February 20) This little quote card is also from the November kit and fell out of my baggie when I was getting the tab for the last layout. It reminded me that I had some Instagrams I had taken early on and hadn't even printed out yet, so I grabbed the blue chevron paper to add to the "blue" theme. Then I saw the "3" on the chipboard sheet and wanted to use it but had to find out ways to balance out the pink, so that's where the banner, washi and strip of pink patterned paper from my scrap pile comes in. The arrow was part of the stamp set and stamped with the chalk inker. I'm really loving those inkers.

(February 21) Another girly layout, can you believe it? The pale stripe paper is the backside of the Dear Lizzy house paper and I knew I wanted to somehow use it. I also knew I wanted to use some more of the floral chipboard pieces, so it just kind of evolved from there. I even used some MM ribbon from my stash :)  I tried to take an ipod self portrait each month last year, and it feels a little good to get a few pics of me in the scrapbooks.

(February 22) Not sure I like the monochromatic look. I was going for a no matter the time (days of week paper) or the place (strip of city map paper), we're still in love. The manila card is actually a February flash card; not sure why I don't really use them as they are. I had already completed my January PL pages by the time I got to this kit, so it seemed like a good base for my title, if nothing else. "Crazy" is from a Pink Paislee stamp set (weird story: I ordered it from 2peas last year, but didn't open it until a couple months later. When I did, I realized that the "newsflash" stamp was missing and had been replaced with a heart stamp and then the package was resealed. I guess somebody really wanted that stamp). And yep, I know my N is upside down. I wondered why it was upside down in my box, and after I stamped it I remembered that that stamp was manufactured upside down and I was trying to remind myself of that. Obviously that worked well!

(February 23) Still needs a photo! I want either a photo of the 4 of us or to make a Diptic collage of pics of us. Can't decide. Again, I wasn't thinking and used an embossing folder sample on the layout. Also used was one of the stamps from the Studio Calico January PL kit.

(February 24) I thought I was done, but this leaf pattern (the back of the green dot paper) made me think of birds. Which had me looking at the bird chipboard piece, so I printed out a pic from last spring (Rick yelled for me to grab my camera and pointed out a baby bird on our fence behind the garage).

 

Thoughts on this kit: I didn't expect to, but I really loved this kit and enjoyed working with it. This was really the first time that I played with misters, even though I have several from October Afternoon. And (insert embarrassed smiley face here), I actually liked it enough (especially the glimmer mist with glitter in it) that I used my Michaels 25% off everything coupon to buy 6 bottles of the Heidi Swapp Color Shine that they carry at Michaels now.

Citrus Twist October kit

Last month I decided to sign up for the Citrus Twist monthly scrapbooking kit. I had been looking at joining a kit club for awhile, but was torn between a few, and finally made the decision. I loved their previous kits so I signed up for a six month block.  I tried to post a pic of the October Kit, but it's just not working, so it can be seen at www.citrustwistkits.com under past kits--October Blue Skies.

I took a bag of photos, this kit, and a few others, and that was my entire plan for the crop I just went to. Very different than what I usually do. This is what I came up with:

 The chipboard letters were not part of the kit, but I decided to try and use them up, since I've had them forever. I used the Prima inker from the kit to quickly "paint" the letters; it worked pretty well.

 The manilla tags were also an addition to the kit.

 

Thoughts on this kit: The color palette isn't really "me" so it made so sense to me why I loved it so much, but I did enjoy playing with it. I still have a ton of stuff left, but I'm simply tired of playing with it, LOL. The rest will probably end up being used for PL cards or cards.