More Snow!

I thought I'd share a recent LO I made at the Winter Crop the Scrap Room had a couple weekends ago that also showcases some snow pictures since we are getting more snow today! These pictures are from the first big storm we had in my area in January and it dumped about 20 inches on us in a little over 12 hours! It was a lot of snow and also the first time our kitten had seen snow, so I had to get some pictures. I love how well the layout went together with the Basic Grey Jovial line and I love the cute snowman with a cat on him. The perfect embellishment!

Materials Used: Basic Grey 'Jovial'  Dec. FOTM kit with add on PP kit from The Scrap Room, EK success border punch, Martha Stewart Snowflake punch, American Crafts Thickers alphas, Zig journaling pen in 005 & 08 Black, Storybook Cart. for Cricut (die-cut for title), January Pagemaps sketch.

 Hope everyone stays safe today on the roads here in the Northeast!

Heritage Scrapping

  This past year I really got into tracing my genealogy. I love finding out about my ancestors and where they came from. My mom has a cousin that has been doing genealogy work her entire life so I had a lot of information that I was able to get about my maternal side without doing a lot of work. What saddens me though is that not a lot of photos have come down through the generations and the stories have been forgotten about these people. Sure, we are able to trace where they lived but finding out what they did, why they did it and such has long been lost.

     A big part of why I scrap is to preserve these stories and memories so future generations will be able to enjoy them. So, last week I dug out some older photos that I had scanned in from my father's family and scrapped them. I made sure to write down the important details on the layout itself and I may include a note on the back to include more details. I was able to use up some older & newer kits from The Scrap Room while doing this and I loved finding paper that would match the story and also some embellishments from my stash. All I have to say is I love Tim Holtz stuff! :) These were all created while we were having our Winter Crop at the Scrap Room and my next post will include my projects to help get your creative mojo going!

     I had an older picture of my father with his brother and father and I really wanted to scrap that along with some pictures of my uncle and father. My grandfather passed away when my father was young and we don't have too many pictures of them together so this one is special. This is the layout at the top of the post. I think I did it justice with an older kit from The Scrap Room, My Mind's Eye's 'Little Boy Blue' kit with some added embellishments from other kits and a 7 Gypsies velvet flower that was perfect for this picture. Then I scrapped a couple of pictures of my father and his brother when they were little on a one page layout. My uncle passed away when I was in high school and I know this relationship was special to my father so I wanted to capture a page about the relationship and not so much about each individual picture. I used a current kit from The Scrap Room, Fancy Pants' 'So Happy Together' line, along with some Hero Arts flowers and embellishments from some older kits that I had.

This last layout is one of my grandma and I when I was little. I had to convert the picture to black & white because it was a weird orange/brown color that was not too pretty.I hand stamped the heart borders on the top and bottom with a Heidi Grace stamp and cut the hearts using my cricut. This is also a current kit from The Scrap Room, Cosmo Cricket's 'Circa 1934' line. The tag has some hidden journaling and with all of these heritage layouts I also included some stitching (love using my sewing machine on layouts) and American Craft's Thickers alphas...another favorite!

     Hope this inspires you to scrap some older pictures and preserve those memories (and pictures!) for future genealogy buffs like me!

Some More Christmas Layouts....

My mom and I spent this past Monday scrapping together at her house. There is something about being away from home and all of the usual things that can distract you from scrapping to really motivate you to get some work done! While there I finished up these three layouts with some of the Dec. kit from The Scrap Room's FOTM kit. Then, I got sick all week and never got a chance to take pics of them....until now! After sleeping most of this weekend I am feeling a little bit better.

Before & After
A layout about my husband and his infamous overeating at Christmastime! Or, rather any time at that! He talks about his mother's Prime Rib it seems like every day in December until the day arrives when he can eat it....and eat it all he does! Look at the size of that thing! I'm surprised he can move afterward, but that is exactly what he does....he moves to a chair to take a nap :)

Materials Used: Basic Grey 'Jovial' FOTM kit with add on embellishment and PP kits, 'Jovial' embellishments bought separately, Doodlebug alpha stickers, Colorbox Chalk ink in Creamy Brown, Zig Journalig Pen in 05 Black

Holiday Fun
A layout about my little brother and how much fun my nieces have with him when we all get together. He is like a kid-fun magnet and they are drawn to him! Sometimes it gets a little rowdy, but I think he has a problem where he can't say no to these two cuties!

Materials Used: Crate Paper 'Snow Day' FOTM kit with add-on PP and embellishment kits, Inkadinkadoo white gel pen, Doodlebug alpha stickers, Zig Journaling pen in 05 Black, Colorbox Chalk ink in creamy brown.

 Present Time
Opening presents on Christmas is just more fun with little kids around! Watching these two tear into gifts really gets you in the mood for Christmas! This layout will go in their album which I plan on giving them when they are older. 

Materials Used: Jillibean Soup 'Christmas Soup' FOTM kit with add-on PP kit, Jillibean Soup Alpha Stickers, Zig journaling pen in 01 & 05 Black, Colorbox Chalk Ink in Creamy Brown, Martha Stewart Border Punch. 

There are many more Christmas layouts to come...including a 2-page spread for Christmas day/night at each parent's house and of course.....my nieces with their Star Wars helmets on that we got them!! Those are some funny pics! Thanks for stopping by!

Make A Wish

Wow! I have not had as much time to scrapbook these past few weekends! My nieces spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday in MA with my family so it was a fun and busy weekend. We had sleepover duty Friday night and it was a blast! The girls were great and we all had a good time with them. Then my husband and I did some family visiting on Saturday and my Mom's birthday was yesterday. Good thing I took today off of work to relax and have a girls day with my Mom (an extension of her birthday). She chose to have a scrap session at her house so I can't complain! :)

Here is a card I made quickly yesterday for my Mom's birthday. The only creative thing I did all weekend! I was lucky I still had some Teresa Collins 'Celebrate' paper scraps from a  kit at The Scrap Room. These papers are gorgeous and I love how easy it was to whip up a birthday card!

Well, have to pack some scrap supplies for our impromptu scrap session! Hope to have some more pages to post later! Hope everyone had another great holiday weekend!

Ahhhh.....Christmas is over!

Phewww.... Christmas is over and I finally have some scrappy time to myself again! Never mind that the downstairs looks like Christmas exploded with packages and such that my husband and I dumped on the floor. Cleaning can wait...I need some scrap therapy after the holidays! :) I also need to get into my December kit from The Scrap Room...it's almost January and I haven't even made one LO with it yet! Not until last night that is....

With a lot of snow coming down last night and blizzard conditions outside, my husband was called into work to plow and I hunkered down to create at least one Christmas LO. Amazingly, I have already printed out all of my Christmas pictures! Since all of the kits from TSR were holiday themed I really wanted to use them in some Christmas LOs.

This first LO I made is about my Mother In Law's love for all things Christmas and especially vintage Christmas items. I love going around her house and taking pictures of the holiday set-ups that she has, most of which are displayed year round. I wanted to document these on a LO so that future generations will know where these items came from and a little bit more about my Mother In Law.

Materials Used: Girls Paperie Dec. FOTM kit with add-on PP and Embellishment kits, Cosmo Cricket alpha stickers, Fiskars scallop scissors, Colorbox chalk ink in Creamy Brown, Zig journaling pen in 05 Black. 

I just love how vintage the paper from the Girls Paperie Tinsel & Twig collection  looks and it went so well with the theme of my LO! I am very pleased with the end result. This is a lift of Melanie Call and a LO that she provided for the Ideas Gallery at The Scrap Room.

The main photo is actually the front of a flip book that I created to showcase more photos of her holiday displays without creating a LO that would be too busy. The brads hold the book together on the side and when taken out of the page protector you are able to flip through the decorations. Here are the pics underneath:

Hope everyone had a great holiday and I hope to do some more scrapping this week!

Fire Academy Gradute

My little brother recently graduated from the Fire Academy in MA and the whole family went. This is the first of many LOs from the day we had there, including touring the buildings used to train the firefighter recruits and the ceremony itself.
This is a picture of my brother and his Fire Chief that was taken outside of the building after the ceremonies. The lighting in the ceremony was horrible so I was happy to get a good pic of my brother and his chief outside. The picture went so well with these papers from the Sept. Doubleshot kit from The Scrap Room. I love Jenni Bowling and her embellishments and this was the first time I got to use some of her papers.Sadly, they were not double-sided but they were fun to work with anyway!

Materials Used: Sept. Jenni Bowlin Doubleshot kit, Thickers alphas, Cosmo Cricket alpha stickers, pewter brads, twine, Tim Holtz Grungeboard, Sizzix embossing folder, Distress Ink in Red Barn Door and Black Soot, Colorbox Chalk Ink in brown.

I had a great time turning these papers into two banners that run across the top right side of the page. I used pewter brads in the corner of each triangle and used twine to 'hang' the banner on it. A fun challenge this week on The Scrap Room Blog is to use pop dots on a layout and I used them all over this one! The first place was on the banners themselves, to give them more dimension.

I also used pop dots on the title banner that I made. Once again I used twine to 'hang' it on and I also used staples to attach the pieces to each other. I love how this gives it more texture.

I had a blast finally using some Tim Holtz Grungeboard I bought over the summer. I ran it through my Epic six and dry embossed some stripes onto it. Then I used Distress Inks in Red Barn Door and Black Soot to color the stars I had cut with my Cricut. I added some buttons and twine to the largest star and then clustered them together, adding some pop dots for dimension.

 This is the final kit from last month's Scrap Room shipment and it is just in time since I got my new kit yesterday! I'll have to see what I can come up with for it!

Keep On Flying Without Wings

I got this great pic of my niece over the weekend and I just had to scrap it ASAP! Sometimes, a picture just screams at you. I started perusing the internet for some good old fashion MOJO inspiration and I found it in two places. The perfect sketch was at Pagemaps in their October sketches and the perfect title was at Scrapping The Music .  I also had the perfect papers for the pic with my September Doubleshot kit from The Scrap Room.  The LO is one I will give to my niece when she is older and it basically says that I love her personality and I hope she keeps on enjoying life. :)

Here is the final product:

Materials Used: Sept. LilyBee Design Hello Sunshine Doubleshot kit, Thickers alphas, Cosmo Cricket sticker alphas, sewing machine & cream thread, Martha Stewart butterfly punch, Colorbox Chalk ink in brown, Zig journaling pens in 01 & 05 Black, floss.
I love the colors of the LilyBee Designs 'Hello Sunshine' paper! They are so vibrant and were so much fun to work with.

I had so much fun making these little butterflies and sewing them onto my page. I love the effect that stitching them on gives and it really wasn't all that hard!

 As a final embellishment I used some of the paper from my kit to make a large circle flower that I hand-cut and then used scissors to fringe the edges. I love how 'bohemian' it looks and it adds the perfect touch to my page.

Well, that's all for tonight! I hope to have some more work to show you by the end of the week!