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Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Birthday Card

I made a birthday card :)


The "Happy Birthday!" stamp is from Brown Pigeon, but it doesn't seem to be available online anymore.  I bought it at the SF Bizarre in December.

The "postage stamp" card was made using the Sentimentals cartridge in CCR.

Thank you for looking. 

Monday, February 24, 2014

Disneyland 2001 Album Redo Series (#6)

I had some more time this weekend to scrapbook--yay!  (boo, if you are bored with my Disney pages :D )

Here is the before layout of Tarzan's Treehouse (formerly known as the Swiss Family Treehouse).


On the new layout, I actually journaled about some of the meltdowns of our trip.  It is funny because after all these years, I am the only one that remembers the stories.


After taking the first picture on the left, my kids began fighting (and yes, mom took a picture).

A close-up--you're welcome--ha ha ha.


The journaling says, "Seconds after posing for a nice photo, the kids started fighting.  Why should the Happiest Place on Earth be any different than at home?".

The journal card on the second page says, "It had been a long day and he wasn't riding in a stroller.  It was no wonder he wasn't happy about climbing the rope and posing for this photo".

I could have left out the photo of them fighting and not said a word about my son being mad in the rope picture (because you couldn't even tell), but I think the stories add to our fun "real" trip.  I was happy to use two of Amy Tangerine's roller stamps on the journal cards--one says "Real Life" and the other says "*The Truth".


I really don't tear my paper any more, but when I was thinking about this layout, I remembered I had some bamboo paper from CTMH, so I dug it out, but there wasn't much to use and it was torn, so I made it work and tore the blue paper on the opposite side to tie the two pages. The mats on the left side are burlap.  In the corner, I punched a Mickey Mouse silhouette using the burlap as well (I don't recommend trying to use a punch on burlap--it didn't work out too well).

Even though I mainly used the Simple Stories Say Cheese line (again!) I was happy to pull in old products like the Close to My Heart bamboo paper and some Creative Memories bamboo letter stickers that I have had in my stash forever!

You will be happy to know that I just put my deco scissors into my "donate to the Girls Scouts" box :D

Thank you for looking!

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Vintage Crocheted Coaster

After a brief hiatus from crocheting (for no reason other than to focus on scrapbooking), I finally crocheted a coaster for myself to use in my craft room.


I found this vintage pattern (via Pinterest), so I thought I would give it a go.

It was fun (and easy) to make and it will save my table from those dreaded cup rings.  I swore I'd never make doilies or any type of cozies (well except for coffee cup cozies), so if I ever make a cozy for the toilet paper rolls, please put me in a home :D


Thanks for looking.


Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Disneyland 2001 Album Redo Series (#5)

Yes, it is another Disneyland layout.  Sorry for all the same subject posts, but because of this mess...


...I cannot get to any other of my projects.  (Please don't judge me--ha ha ha…this is the last of our summer garage clean out!)  I suppose I could go through these boxes instead of scrapbooking, but what fun is that?  Plus, if I don't complete this album now (I think I am halfway done), I won't ever finish it.

(I will have to plow through those boxes before March 15, though because I will be going to the Scrapbook Expo and my rolling tote is in the corner of that mess :D )

Onto the layout...

This Dumbo layout was inspired by a layout on TwoPeas (which is no longer a website).  I loved the brown, mustard/gold, blue color combination.  Then I thought--hey can I add grey, too?  Off to Pinterest I went and found that yes, gray (grey?) would go with this combination.

Almost perfect shades that I wanted to used...Although, I would have used the colors anyway, but I like to see I wasn't going too far off the spectrum :)

Here is the layout that had 3 of the 4 photos before:


*The other photos are included in other aspects of the album now…except that last photo…Like my Pooh sticker on the Jungle Cruise?  The photo came out super dark so I think I am going to leave that out of the album.  The "heart" photo…I was able to lighten it, but it was pretty grainy.  It did get placed on another page…how can a Disneyland album be complete without a picture of the kids on the Carousel???  And I totally cut it out of the photo originally!  (I will share it later.)

And now for the after:


I love this photo of my son...he was about 4 1/2 here and was so tired.  Then I found the cutest vintage Dumbo (via Pinterest) and it was so perfect!  Dumbo has the same sleepy eyes and my son is wearing my husband's hat that has a brim is too big for my son's head...like Dumbo's ears :)

Thank you for looking!

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Disneyland 2001 Album Redo Series (#4)

Since the only thing on tv this past week has been the Winter Olympics, I have been very crafty :) 

I completed the new Title page for our 2001 Disneyland trip using the Simple Stories Say Cheese line again.


I originally shared my "before" title page in my first Redo Series post.  I really liked the Mickey ear hats and I wanted to do the same thing.  Plus, the two photos I had on the original page were the perfect photos to start the album.

So here is the Before again.


Yes, I used the same layout format.  Just subtle things make it much more appealing to me the second time around :)

*I had to take these 2 photos off the previously redone page and I took 2 more off that page and added 4 others.  I am not sure if I will post the new layout look later or just switch out the layouts in my original post.

The Disneyland title and the new hats were cut out with my Silhouette Cameo.  I was so excited that I figured out how to do it…I have had some trouble using the trace and cut feature, but this time it worked--yay!  The original hats were hand cut!!!  I love technology so much!

Thank you for looking :)

Monday, February 17, 2014

Disneyland 2001 Album Redo Series (#3)

I had some time yesterday so I wanted to complete another page of my 2001 Disneyland trip.

I pulled the 5 photos of the parade we watched.  (This was pre-scrapbooking days so I really didn't take too many pictures--which seems so odd now!)  At the time, I owned an APS Canon camera which used a cartridge to hold the film.  Once developed, the film is kept inside the cartridge.  So when I decided to redo my album years ago, I took the cartridge to my local Wolf Camera (I miss that store!) and had them reprint the photos AND make a CD of the photos for me.

As I was trying to figure out my page, I was kinda sad that they were so dark since we were in the shade…then technology stepped in.  I used PhotoShop to lighten my photos that I had had copied onto the CD.  Not only did I lighten the pictures, I cropped and removed tree branches and my hand from a couple of the photos.

Here is a comparison.


The photos on the left are the ones printed straight from the camera.

My only complaint is that the sky was no longer vibrant.


But you can now see Pluto, Goofy, and Chip and Dale!!


See, now you can see Belle, too! (Well kinda)

I've learned a lot since I began scrapbooking--like, you don't need to scrapbook every photo.  You can see in the first comparison photo that I didn't lighten the last photo.  Also, I did not use the Hippo photo above, even though I cropped, lightened, and reprinted it.

Now for the before layout:


Gotta love my awesome cut-around-the-photos on the bottom :)

Now the after:


I used the Simple Stories Say Cheese line.  It was only a 1-page layout because it will be the last page of my album.

As I was trying to complete this layout, I really wanted to know the title of the parade.  And again, since I wasn't scrapbooking at the time, I didn't have any memorabilia from my kids' first trip to Disneyland.  A quick (well not so quick) search on Google and I found out it was the "45 Years of Magic" parade!  I LOVE TECHNOLOGY!!!

I didn't know how lucky we were to see this parade at the time.  The 45th anniversary was actually on July 17, 2000, but the parade was still running when we see it almost a year later (July 1, 2001).

Thank you for looking :)

Sunday, February 16, 2014

A Tourist in Our Own Town

…well sort of…

We live about an hour south of San Francisco, but we visit the City a lot.  Even though we take day trips there, I have yet to scrapbook our trips.

This past December, while at the SF Bazaar, I found the cutest Zigzag City Guides for Kids.  Even though my kids are 17 and 18, I figured I could use the cards to scrapbook our past trips.

Well, when I finally opened up the package a few weeks later, I notice there was a card about a Disney Museum--wha-what?  I didn't know there was a Disney Museum so close to me!  The pack of cards also made me realize that there was so much in San Francisco that I've never seen or done before!  I mean we always go to Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 and we have gone to plenty of San Francisco Giants games, but I've never been to the Exploratorium and we've never taken the kids on the Crookedest Street…and I have never been to Alcatraz!!!  I know, right…where have I been living, under a rock? (no, pun intended :D )

And so the challenge began to visit all these places and more--my bucket list of sorts.

In January, I invited my mom and two nieces to take a trip with me and my daughter.  The Museum is in the Presidio (which is another City Guide card and is pretty big so we will have to take another trip just to see that whole place).

The museum was a bit different than I expected, but interesting for 4 of the 5 of us (my youngest niece is 5 and I think she was kinda bored…good thing she was free).  The museum is actually called The Walt Disney Family Museum and it is more about the history of his life and how he started out in cartoons, then movies and finally it showed his journey to create the Happiest Place on Earth.  

Each month, they play a different movie and in January, they were playing Mary Poppins which we all loved…I was so excited we were going to get a "free" movie with the cost of admission.  It had been so many years since I seen that movie--I remember singing all the songs (I might have even had the Mary Poppins album!), so it was a big surprise that it was sssssooooo long!  I didn't realize it was a 2 1/2 hour movie!  Again that is a bit long for the 5 year-old, but the rest of us enjoyed it.

Since we went, I have been wanting to do a layout and I finally got a chance this past week.


I realize it is a bit busy!  I struggled over it for a few days then I was like--it is what it is :/ (The pictures themselves aren't as grainy as they look in this picture.  I took this photo with my iPhone in low light to reduce the glare from the page protectors.)

I used the Simple Stories Say Cheese line and I cut out the silhouette of Mickey with my Cameo.  I tried to cut the "The Walt Disney Family Museum" logo with his face on the Cameo, but I couldn't figure it out…then I thought to myself I can just print it, duh!  So I printed it :D

The girls took a picture with a black-and-white cutout of Walt and my daughter made them black and white posted it on Instagram with #backintheday.  I had to use it on my layout.  The bottom left is a bad picture of the girls and my mom in the theater waiting for Mary Poppins to start.  There was a picture of a mural by Mary Blair.  I took a photo of the floor near the bathroom because it was so cute and colorful!  There was a bench from the park where Walt would sit and watch his daughters play--the place where he thought up Disneyland.  Then there was also a 13 foot scaled model of Disneyland towards the end.  Kinda a lot to fit on 2 pages, but it had to be done.

Since the City Guide cards have information on the back, I was trying to figure out how I was going to place them in my album.


The arrow sticker says "Lift".


Look!  Hidden Journaling :D  This was a bad attempt at cutting through the page protector.  I guess practice makes perfect :D

Thank you for looking!

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Paper Collection...

...aka Paper Hoarding!

My craft room organization has been going on for some time, but I really like my paper storage and don't plan on changing it.  I've had these Michaels cubes (turned sideways) and Cropper Hopper paper holders for some time.

The cubes are housed under my work table which is easy to get to and works perfectly.



So what do I have in there?

1. 8 1/2 x 11 Cardstock (mostly Recollection brand)
2. 12x12 Cardstock (Some Bazzill, CTMH, DCWV, and Recollection)
3. White & Black 12x12 & 8 1/2 x 11 card stock (Recollection brand)
4. Dear Lizzy, Maggie Holmes, Basic Grey, and Recollection paper packs
5. More paper packs (Amy Tangerine and DCWV) and some water color paper 
6. 8x8 paper pads (DCWV and Slabs)
7. more 8x8 DCWV pads and some 4.5x6.5 DCWV pads
8. 6x6 paper packs (Simple Stories, DCWV, and Basic Grey)
9. Christmas papers and pads
10. More Christmas, Halloween papers and some Valentine's packs
11. Disney papers (missing from photo) and Basic Grey papers (lots!)
12. Assorted CTMH paper packs and cardstock
13. Miscellaneous papers (sorted by lines--Love, Elsie, Rusty Pickle, etc.)
14. Miscellaneous papers (sorted by themes--baby, school, sports, etc.)
15. 12x12 DCWV paper packs and Slabs
16. 12x12 Michaels Slabs

As I am typing this, I am realizing I have a lot more than I remember.  I also have 3 more 4.5x6.5 paper pads in my Ikea Raskog cart!  But I am going to focus on the Slabs in this post.

What are Slabs?  180 pieces of thin paper that Michaels sold in a pack.  Now they sell "Paper Pads" which are a bit thicker paper (but not much).

When I first started scrapbooking, I was constantly buying the Slabs when they would come out…with the weekly coupons, it seemed cheaper that way…but I never used most of it--so it wasn't cheaper!  

A few years ago, one of our nieces asked for donations of craft supplies for her daughter's Girl Scout troop, so I took 2/3 of every Slab and lots of cardstock to her.  Well since then I still haven't used any of the Slabs!  (ok, I used 2 sheets on one card I made for my friend's mom, but that is it!)

Lately, I've been going through all my supplies and setting aside items in boxes to donate to a local Girl Scout troop--preferable a Brownie troop since I was a Brownie so long ago :D

So I will finally be donating the remaining papers from the Slabs 1-6


At least that was the plan…except for Slab 3 which I was never going to donate because I plan to use that paper when I finally complete our Honeymoon (to Mexico) album.


But then as I looked through the papers, I wanted to keep Slab 6 as well since it has always been my favorite Slab.  (Maybe I will only keep half of it.)


Then, I took out a few more papers from the other Slabs.


Shhh!!!

I actually thought I had sworn off paper packs a long time ago, but within the last year, I have been collecting American Crafts paper packs from Dear Lizzy (3 pads), Amy Tangerine (2 pads), some Recollection pads, and yesterday I added the Maggie Holmes pad!!!  eeekkk…I have a problem.


I so need to used them up and stop buying more paper!  

I am waiting on 2 deliveries though--one contains 50 sheets of Bazzill (got it for cheap through Blitsy) and the other contains Simple Stories Say Cheese line (again got a good deal).  

And I am drooling over the Amy Tangerine Plus One paper pack…and then that is it…I will quit paper! ;)