A Little Late to the Darling Dear Party......

To be quite honest, I was not too stoked about SC's Darling Dear when it was released.  I really thought that the the colors and patterns were just not me at all.  Boy, was I wrong! LOL. 

Recently, I sat down with Citrus Twist's March Kit, which had several pieces from Darling Dear, and looked through some instagrams I recently had printed.  The reason I went to my instagram pile was because they have a more vintage look to them, much like the Darling Dear collection.  And these next three layouts absolutely blew my first opinion of this line away......

This is an absolute fave layout......these pics of Allora absolutely captured the happy little girl that she is.   They were snapped on my iphone and run through Instagram.  I kept the page fairly simple, just to let them shine.  The confetti was a fun addition, mimicking the the bokah print on Allora's shirt.  And if anyone wants to know the technique behind the confetti--I simply punched a piece of patterned paper using this punch directly over the layout and then glued each little dot down with a glue stick pen.  Tedious, but worth it.  

The next two are layouts I made using sketches from Citrus Twist.......

The picture in this one, featuring my brother, sister-in-law, and my kiddos, is actually an instagram printed in a Polaroid format from Persnickety Prints.  This is a new service they are offering and in my last order I included a few.   I was really pleased with how nice they looked.



This final layout came together super quickly and I kept it super simple.  I had originally experimented with large drops of white mist on the paper, but had not liked the results.  I think I should have shaken the mist more before applying because the drops left a bit of a water ring around the droplet that never disappeared, even after drying.  

So there you go--I absolutely <3 Darling Dear after working with it.  LOL.  (Which, by the way, is one of my reasons for loving kits--they take me out of my comfort zone!)

Michelle

Love....

This next layout features a picture I have been holding onto since October.  It is an absolute favorite because it highlights the relationship between my husband and oldest daughter.

Seriously the sweetest thing watching these two walk hand in hand during a fall hike :-).  Love, love!  And this has totally inspired me to try to get more moments like this one photographed.  

I chose a beautiful spring palette for the layout courtesy of Scrapbook Circles' April kit.  I am not a subscriber, but when I saw this kit I knew I had to have it.  The colors were just absolutely me.  I also used their April Sketch.  The sketch called for three photos, but as I was perusing my pics this is the one that popped out at me and I made the sketch work--the larger photo filled the two stacked photos and the diecut filled the third. 

Michelle

 

Austenland by Shannon Hale......

Um, seriously??  Austenland??  Like Disneyland??  Honestly, a whole world dedicated to the works of Jane Austen would be a dream come true.  I would totally book a vacation there.  Probably a solo one though, since no one else close to me shares the same sort of Austen obsession I have.  LOL.

So after I finished daydreaming about empire waist dresses, long walks in the garden, and Colin Firth....er, I mean Mr. Darcy, I started and quickly finished this book, Austenland, by Shannon Hale. 

This book had been on a list of possible reads for a little while, however when reading an older People magazine, I came upon an article talking about the new films featured at Sundance.  "Austenland," based off of the book,  was one them.  So I quickly downloaded the book and read it.  And it was a funny, funny book. 

The book starts out with Jane lamenting over her terrible luck with men and wondering if perhaps she needs to accept that there just is not a Mr. Darcy out there for her (what?!) when an aunt leaves Jane a 3 week vacation to Austenland in her will.  What occurs next is just simply a whole lot of fun.  Written with an Austenesque plot, the book borders on predictable, but it is utterly entertaining as modern day Jane navigates the Regency Era.  Really, who has not imagined themselves as Lizzy Bennet???  A must read and definitely a must see when the movie comes out this summer (August 16th).

Michelle

Our Girl is Fabulous & We Adore You......

In a recent post I talked about my new philosophy/process in attacking kits and here is another example of me doing just that----2 layouts, done back to back, using the same kit.

Just to recap, each week I am pulling out one kit, printing out pics, and committing to doing 2 or 3 layouts.  The rest of the week, I bounce around using whatever product I want.  The end result--making a dent in my "little" kit stash.

For these two layouts I pulled out my February kit from Scraptastic and these are the layouts I came up with......

First off, LOVE the honeycomb patterned paper from Glitz!  Seriously, it looks like I did a lot of work here!  

I am not a newbie when it comes to layering up my butterflies, but for some reason it never occurred to me to layer them with vellum until I saw this layout.  

I have never loved a paper as much as I love the floral patterned paper from Glitz (Cashmere Dame line).  Honestly, it is so pretty.  And of course I am hoarding the little scraps of it that I have left.  LOL.  

And a close-up of some tiny details--thread, hearts punched out of AC's glitter tape, and the lovely pink washi tape.

Wishing everyone a great weekend!

Michelle
 

Hello Baseball....

Good morning!  I am finally recovering from a long weekend of baseball and birthday festivities as well as catching up on a giant pile of laundry that built up do to a dryer deciding it did not want to heat up anymore :-).

Here is a layout I finished a few weeks ago using SC's add-on Hook.....

Such perfect colors for a boy layout!  Really loved the background patterned paper--made all the colors pop right out!  And really, why they waited this long to come out with enamel dots is beyond me--they are so much fun!

Very happy that I snapped this pic of my son during a scrimmage......as I sat in the stands that night watching him play, I was blown away by how much he has grown since last season.  He is 12 and he is really starting to look...manly.  My little boy is almost gone and in his place, is this man-child.  He has also really asserted himself as a leader among the boys and it makes me so proud to listen to him talk to his team mates.  I am a very proud mama.

Michelle

New Scrapping Strategy...Big Brother, Treasure This, and Smile Allora

I have loads of kits because that is how I like to scrap.  However, I recently began to feel a little overwhelmed by the number I have.  I definitely use my kits, almost every layout I do comes from one, yet I am soooo slow to kill them.  

As I was thinking about this problem a few thoughts came to mind.  First, I scrap with bits of paper.  It is not very often that I use huge chunks of patterned paper at a time.  Second, I jump from kit to kit, often taking a picture and matching it to a  kit's color scheme.  So you can imagine why I don't often max out a kit.  

At the same time I was thinking about how to tackle this, I came across another blogger's post that mentioned Shimelle's class The Perfect Collection which tackles the task of getting your money's worth out of a collection or kit.  I was already a fan of Shimelle, so I took the class.   Her style is definitely different from mine, but the strategies she proposes for tackling a collection/kit are certainly universal and easily apply to my style.  

What I have come up with initially is that I need to focus on one kit at a time and scrap several layouts using just one kit.  Now I did not want to take the joy and freedom out of jumping around through my lovely kits, so I set a goal:  Pick one kit a week, do 2 to 3 layouts with it, and then use whatever else I want for other layouts.  And so far this is working and I have killed my Neverland kit from Studio Calico.  **Disclaimer:  Have not included Neverland's add-on Hook in the killing--this kit was purchased with my son in mind and will be using it on Hayden specific layouts throughout the next month or two or whenever he blesses me with the opportunity to take his picture. 

Another strategy I am taking is to sit down with a kit and my computer and print out several pictures that will go.  By doing this in a batch, I am ready to take on the kit and make a dent in my stash.

Here are the final three layouts I completed using Neverland, making my total five layouts.  (The first two were blogged in a previous post.)

 

My oldest and youngest--love them!  This one was atually made last and I took some leftover strips, cut them down to sizen and layered them.  Super easy and simple. 

A closer look at the title.....actually raided an older kit for the woodgrain alphas (from So Cal.)

My fave layout out of the bunch.  Just bits and pieces of patterned paper (can you see why it takes me awhile to use up a kit?)  Also some pieces from SoCal.

Loving my daughter and her toothy grin!  I swear, she just turned one and has a mouth full of the cutest teeth ever!  (Now something went amuck here with the misting template--it moved and I did not notice until I was all finished putting this together.  Oops.)

By giving just this one kit some special attention I was able to put this kit to rest which is a GREAT feeling.  Love knowing that I am actually putting my money to good use :-).   

Michelle

This.......

Being a constant browser of scrapbook galleries and Pinterest, I occasionally feel a bit overwhelmed with all of the ideas running through my head.  One of the ways I take step back is to use a sketch.  It's relaxing. No pressure. And ends up being a lot of fun.  

This next layout is based off of the Sunday Sketch for March 31st over at Citrus Twist Kit Club using their February kit.....

This was an absolute delight to put together.  Really it was!  LOL.  The patterns in this kit are super fun and full of whismy.  (I really just wanted to say whismy, sorry if I am geeking out.)  The paper with the triangles (from Pebbles) had been one that I had been coveting and was super excited to see it make an appearance in the kit. 

Not a terribly techniquey layout, but still one that I looked at several times during the day with a smile on my face.

Michelle

Very Fancy......

Happy April!!  I personally LOVE April.  It is much more springy than March and the weather is moody--Lovely, sunshiney days mixed in with glooming, grey days.  April also offers up loads of photo potential too.  Warm days at the park playing like crazy; baseball games; daffodils and tulips;  and birthday's too because both Bodie and Allora celebrate in April. 

So here is my first share for April, Very Fancy, featuring my little Maleia and her fancy lip-glossed lips.....

 

For a March Challenge at Gossamer Blue, we were asked to scraplift a layout by another club member.  I chose to lift this layout by Katie Rose73.

 

What I took from her layout, was the circle background.  With that in mind, I pulled an add-on kit from March that went really well with the colors in the instagram and went to work.

 

I punched several circles from two papers and played around with them.  I knew from the get go that I wanted to stitch a few circles around one of the circles, so with that in mind I played with the ratio of pink to floral circles and decided that I really liked the impact of just having one contrasting circle with the stitching and embelishments bringing your eye instantly to the pretty MME paper.  (And this why it takes me so long to kill a kit-I usually scraps with bits and pieces at a time!)

 

Sweet and simple.  Very me at this moment.

 

Happy Saturday!

 

Michelle