How To Make The Memories Last

Life sure has a way of getting full, and getting busy, and getting away from us doesn't it?  That is exactly how it has felt around our home for the past several weeks, ever since February to be exact.  The combination of going back to work part time, after 8 years at home, and 3 kids in 16 competitive dances with our Dance Studio made for a fun-filled, jam-packed, constantly on-the-go last 4 months.

My Moments In Between Album needs some serious catch up.  I decided that since I am 12 weeks off schedule that I would start with the most recent week, and work my way back from there.  Maybe.  Another thought I had was that, ultimately I would prefer to have each week chronologically documented in my album, but NOT if I start to feel burdened by getting it all done. I have all my photos organized and ready to go, but if I don't ever make it back the the 2nd week of March, I've decided that I am going to be okay with it.  Documenting our life as a family is so much more about "the moments in between" that it is about any rules I'm tempted to make about the process.

Left side

Here is a snapshot of our week: June 8-14, using craft supplies from the Scraptastic Club June This Life Noted Kit. From hijacked iPhone selfies, to Dance Recital and Year End carnival, a friend's Art Show for her students, to Eden's 11th birthday, and even a little home "tattoo" session, it's all here, documented to last.

The sweet encouragement note I received from my friend after performing with my Adult Tap group, just had to have a place in this weeks pages.

Right side

I intentionally include a lot of handwritten journaling in my album, I think it really adds a personal touch for those who may enjoy looking at these snapshots of our life long after I'm gone.  

Adding details like stitching to my pocket pages makes them feel more like me, I like the dimension, and visual interest it adds, just like in my regular scrapbooking pages.

I love that Eden filled out her own "right now" card listing a few of her current favourites.

Because there was so much going on during this week, there were many photos to fit in.  To get them all in, I added a little insert (using some Simple Stories page page protectors) especially for Eden's birthday photos.

Not pictured here, is the second insert I added that hold the Dance Recital program from the last performance.  I think it will be fun to look back in a few years and remember the dances they did this year, and the friends with whom they performed.

It's weeks like this that make me wonder about putting together another Shutterfly photo book like the ones I did here, of our trip to Steamboat Colorado a fews years ago, and a Summer one I created back in 2009.

I've been thinking especially about putting together a Dance specific book. I literally have hundreds of photos from this year alone.  Three competitions, and 3 recitals in 2 months naturally result in a lot of photos of each of the girls in all of their Dance costumes, performing, and candids of them hanging out with their friends pre/post performance.  I really think they deserve a special place all their own.

I'll have more Moments In Between pages to share with you all soon.  Until then, thanks so much for stopping by today friends. Pin It

Because of You

I finally used up this background paper I have been hoarding for at least 2 months.

Of course Isabelle is not the only young lady in our lives making in wonderful, and beautiful but she does happen to be wearing a colour coordinating shirt in this photo.  After several silly shots (to come on a later layout), we finally managed to get a natural looking shot of this girl just before leaving for her Hip Hop Duo Dance at Competition.

I love that the acetate letters of the Let's Go Collection barely show the adhesive through them.

So many great pieces in this collection, it was hard not to include a little bit of everything on this layout.  That's actually how the layout came together.  First, I chose the background, then the photo, and then every little veneer piece, and paper tag that I wanted to incorporate on the layout.

I don't think my urge to layer, and layer this fabulous little tags will ever die.  The pops of colour peeking out, and teeny phrases on several elements are just addictive and must be used with abandon I say.

Thanks for stopping by today friends! Pin It

Capture Life

This is the first layout I've ever created using only stickers as the bulk of my embellishments.

The Capture Life sticker sheet is packed full of colourful charming stickers.

Echo Park collections may not come with a lot of 3-dimensional elements but they sure make up with that with the number, and variation of stickers they include in their sticker sheets.

I used a lot of 3D adhesive to pop various stickers off the page, giving the page my usual layered style look.

I liked the look of that label maker sticker and decided to add a little more to it, using it as my journaling.

You can grab the Capture Life Collection for yourself here in the Paper Issues store. You may want to also check out the July Swag Bag, it's full of fun elements to add to your projects.  

If you use code:SHERRI at checkout you'll save yourself 20% on your entire order.

You can also check out our newest Issue right here.  Linking up could earn you a fabulous Echo Park prize pack.

Thanks for stopping by friends!

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Ephemera Accents

I decided to challenge myself with my most recent layout created with the Scraptastic June kit. The challenge was to create a layout using zero patterned paper (with the exception of the background sheet), only the add-ons from both kits, and mostly the gorgeous ephemera Heidi Swap, and Crate Paper ephemera pieces.

Also added some washi tape from the Add-On Kit

One of the things I love most about the Crate Paper ephemera pieces is that they are opaque allowing you to use regular adhesive without the adhesive showing through, making them quick and worry free to adhere.

I think the Oh Darling bows are adorable.  The bulkiness of them, however scared me from using them on my layout.  The solution was simply to remove half of the clip using adhesive on the remaining side and sticking it to the layout that way, problem solved.

Adhering acetate pieces can be tricky.  Here I've used a couple different techniques you can see with the butterfly that I've layered the acetate one onto a die cut shape butterfly, allowing me to use regular adhesive once again to adhere it to the page.  With the acetate pieces I used brads to adhere them to the page.  Efficient, cute, and effective.

These packs were so jam packed with pieces that I have a ton left over, despite using so many on this one layout.  I'm hoping to incorporate more of them into my Moments in Between Album.

Thanks for popping in today friends! Pin It

You & Me

Just had to document a quick little coffee Belle and I had a couple of weeks ago.  I used the new Cloud 9 Collection to do so.

We made a little stop at Tim Horton's to celebrate her 2nd last orthodontist appointment.  July 15 can't come soon enough for this girl, she's even got a countdown running on her iPhone.

I just love the look of white on white, and the pops of colour in this collection make it even more fun to design tone on tone layouts.

I am so happy that Albert & Veronica to decided to create flair for their new collections, as you know I'm a sucker for great flair buttons.

Using minimal patterned paper, also allows me to easily mix and match remnants from my stash helping me to try and use it up, something I think we can all use a little help with right?!  This little Fancy Pants pocket was perfect to hold my journaling tag, and matched so nicely with the rest of the collection.

I pulled out my neglected Tim Holtz blending tool, some pink distress ink, and my old Pink Paislee stencil, and went to town dressing up my naked cardstock. I really love this like, and sure would love to know how to layer more ink, and gesso on top of it.  Maybe one day I'll actually break out of my "clean" box, and go for it.

Thanks for stopping by today friends! Pin It

She's A Star (and a free cut file)

For weeks I had this idea for a welded start background in my head.  It took an evening to finally figure out exactly how I wanted it laid out, and then another few weeks to actually use it.  It's kinda how it goes during Dance Competition/Recital phase of our lives.

I do love the way it turned out, and as I was creating it, I knew this would be the photo I would use it with, backed with some Doodlebug vellum.

The photo is of Théa at the end of one her days at the Canadian National Dance Championship. She won a few things that day, including a judges choice award for her Hip Hop Solo, 2nd Place for said solo, and 2nd place for her Hip Hop Trio.  It was a good day for this kid.  The hidden journaling says all that.  The title is less of a quote of my personal opinion, and more a direct quote from none other than Mr Sean Cheesman himself when we attended a Dance Conference where he taught last november.

I thought perhaps some of you may like access to this fun background too.  Here is the background.  

I've also created the internal offsets for you too if you're interested.  You can find both here in my Dropbox.  Please use to your heart's content, I'd love it if you would simply link back to me though.  Enjoy!

Thanks so much for stopping in today friends!

ETA: as requested here is a V2 version of the file (I hope it works, as it was created in V3).

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Something Wonderful

I am loving the new Wonderful Collection by Teresa Collins.  I think it's the colour combination that I like best.  If you were to look through my most recent layouts you would discover that I scrap a lot of pink, aqua, white, cream, and yellow.  This collection has all of those colours, but also has bold reds, and blacks.

Aren't those enamel shapes the best?  I especially love the chevrons.  I need more of them in my life.  And that striped paper, just begged to be made into a giant chevron, I wish I would have ordered two pieces of that one.  In hindsight I see that the sticker journaling is a little hard to read along the bottom, it reads "they make me so very happy".

Still loving pinwheel emebllies.

I just love this photo of the girls.  So often we get asked if they are twins, and here I can see why people may think so.  I loved this costume, and this Jazz routine!

Love the collection too?  Use my code to save 20% off your next Paper Issues order.  Or any Paper Issues order for that matter, any time.

Happy shopping, and thanks for popping in today! Pin It

Inspired by Pinterst

Happy Tuesday friends!

I had this Pinterest inspired post up at Scraptastic yesterday, and thought you all might find a little inspo in it too.  Check out this photo.

Source 

With so many hard angles, and contrasting colours I thought this image would make a perfect springboard for a layout (or even card) design.  Here is what I came up with using the image as my inspiration:

 
I used my Silhouette to cut chevrons into my 12x12 cardstock, and backed each one with co-ordinating patterned papers from the kit, I added a few extra chevrons in various places to create a little more dimension and fullness to the layout.

I like to use my sewing maching to achieve the flipped up sides to the chevrons, but the same look can achieved simply by using very narrow double sided adhesive.



This photo is of Théa, and several of her Kick It friends just moments after they performed their Tap Small Group number at a CanDance Competition in Regina back in April.  It cracks me up to see all that "character" oozing out of them in this shot.  The did an amazing job with the fast paced, very technical choreography they were given.  This is one of my favourite dances of the hundreds (well okay maybe that's a slight exaggeration, though it felt like it at times with all the driving back and forth to class and outside practices, haha) they learned this year.

My friend Susan joined me in the Pinterest challenge.  Please hop over to the Scrapstastic Blog to see her take.

Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by, Pin It

My Love

Finally broke into my box of Adrianne Looman goodies she sent a couple of weeks ago.  I also received these cork flair buttons from {aflairforbuttons} last week.  I seriously love these buttons. I could use them over and over again on layout, after layout.

I have been dying to try out these quilt like squares I've seen around the scrappy world for a while now.  What I really wanted to do was cut each 2" square into 4 pieces and sew each one onto the cardstock.  But for the sake of time (which seems in short supply at this time of year around here), I decided to do it this way, by only cutting each square in half on the diagonal, and overlapping them onto colour coordinated papers.

I really like the way the white & cork combo grounds the multi-coloured themes of the patterned papers.  This layout makes me happy, it was a nice date night with the hubbs just last week, great food, good conversation, and a few laughs as always.  Makes me happy to document it with pretty papers and flair.

Thanks for popping in today friends! Pin It

Goofballs

Happy June friends!

Today, I have one last Scraptastic Club May Kit layout to share with you before I move on to the June Kit.

These 2 have never known life without one another.  They are the bestest of friends and I just love that.  They couldn't be more different, but when they're together everything just works.  Did you have a friend like that growing up?  

I showed the layout to Belle before it was titled and asked what she thought it should be titled. She came up with Goofballs - fitting.

Loved, loved this flower cut file created by Paige Evans for Studio Calico (no longer available).  I just know you'll be seeing it on a 12x12 layout yet too.

I have just loved this kit, so many great Pink Paislee Switchboard embellishments.  I'm going to be using them up for a long time to come.

Thanks for stopping by today friends! Pin It

Bring on the June Kits

Feast your eyes on what Scraptastic is shipping for June.

This Life Noted Kit

I've gotten so behind on my Moments In Between Album, really hoping this kit will help me get back on track.

 Best Day Of My Life Kit

This is the kit I chose to go with, love all the brights.

Best Day Of My Life Add-On Kit

I think the Add On Kit is even more exciting than the main with all the Crate and Heidi products.

Sail Main Kit

I would be all over this kit if I had some nice sunny vacation photos to scrap.

 Sail Add-On Kit

How darn cute is that lobster veneer piece?!?

 June Wood veneer pieces

Did you the wood veneer pieces are also separately?  It's so handy especially since they are exclusive to Scraptastic. 

Best Day of My Life stamp set

I am in love with the label maker looking stamps, so awesome!

Sail stamp set

Love that sweet summer quote.  I think that need to go on a card.

You can see all the kits & their content lists here, as well as all the other Add On items available here.  And you can get subscription info here.  These are such fabulous kits, they are jam packed, and always filled with the latest and greatest in scrappy goodies.

Happy shopping friends! Pin It