LOAD 513 Pages from Days 18-20

The days of May are flying by thanks to LOAD 513 (Layout a Day). I am still loving the challenge but must admit that this weekend I sort of hit a wall. The prompts are getting more difficult for me. fortunately I seem to have an endless supply of photos, so as long as I can keep the creativity flowing for 10 more days, I should be able to complete the month on schedule.

First up is a layout I did for Day 18 where the prompt was Jealousy (as a motive for crime). I didn't quite know where to go with this one, so I ended up journaling about my relationship with my cousins who grew up in the same town as I did and who seemed at the time to "have it all." It was a bit of a stretch...but overall, I like how the layout came out and I am glad that I was able to scrap this photo since I don't see my cousins much any more.

The prompt for Day 19 was based on the best selling Sue Grafton novel A is for Alibi. I used a play on words to capture some photos from my father's side of the family...the Almy's. I am so glad that my father found these photos. I was close to his Uncle and Aunt growing up and remember them fondly so having a photo of them before they passed is great. And he was even able to find this rare photo of HIS grandmother (my great grandmother Almy)...so that was an added bonus. I am loving how I am able to capture some of the family history and preserve it so my kids will know about their ancestors when they get older.

Today's post (Day 20) was about Suspense. Again, I struggled to find a photo that would capture the essence of the prompt. But then I thought about anticipation and this shot popped into my head. We've had a somewhat difficult year this year and so I was more than eager to end 2012 and welcome in the New Year. So the suspense of finding out what 2013 had in store was the perfect way to document today's prompt.

Now for those of you folks who are sick of seeing scrapbook layouts...have no fear. I have a couple of cards coming up this weekend since I am participating in the Operation Write Home Memorial Day Blog Hop! And if you check back in later in the week keep your eyes posted for my first ever giveaway! I've got some great cardmaking goodies to giveaway to one lucky reader.

Thanks for sticking with this long post. Have a great night!

 

LOADs of Layouts

It's late and I am wiped out...but I am now so very far behind in posting the layouts that I've done for Layout a Day (LOAD 513)....so here's a quick glance at what I've been up to this week.

I am hoping to find some time in the craft room to get some cards made. I am going to be participating in the Memorial Day Bloghop for Operation Write Home, but only if I get to work on some samples. Make sure you stop by the hop because there are going to be lots of great cards for viewing and some blog candy along the way (including here on my blog).

Thanks for visiting!
 

Happy Mother's Day

Just a quick note to wish all of the mother's out there a very happy Mother's Day. Hope you are loved and appreciated today.

Here is a quick card that I made for my mother. She is an avid gardener, so I knew she'd like this one. The inspiration came from this card on Pinterest (gotta love Pinterest when you need some creative assistance.) I wish I had thought to stamp and emboss the Mom sentiment in white...I think it would have stood out more...but hindsight is always 20/20.

Supplies used: Patterned Paper from My Minds Eye (ooh la la), Garden Soup cartridge for Cricut,
 Paper Smooches Graffiti alphabet stamps, Marvy Punch for flowers and button brads (Recollections, maybe?)

 

10 Days Down...21 to go

We're on day 10 over at layoutaday.com (LOAD 513) and I am really enjoying getting back to scrapbooking...and I am finding it easier every day. The gallery of other people's layouts is so impressive. There are over 2,000 layouts to browse through and the talent is stellar.

Here's what I've been up to:

Day 6--Red Herring

This was a tricky prompt...but luckily the photos I have from Disney's Agent P's Worldwide Adventure worked great since the game was about following clues to try to find a villain.  This was fun when it all came together.

Day 7-- Why?

I chose to create a layout about my son's unfortunate allergic reaction while at Disney. Not sure why this kid has such bad luck. He always ends up injured, hurt or sick...no matter what we do. So this was a fun way to make light of what could have been a real bummer on our vacation.

Day 8-- Colonel Mustard

I decided to go with the color of the prompt today since I really didn't have anything else appropriate. Great to get the Thanksgiving layout completed and it came out better than I feared it might.

Day 9--Aww, shoot

The prompt today was another "weapon" prompt. Luckily I hadn't scrapped the photos from Frontierland in Disney yet...so I had one to play along with. I went a little crazy with the layering and the circles. It's a hot mess, if you ask me, but at least it looks different from my normal style.

Day 10--Study

Today's prompt encouraged us to think about studying or learning, or the library, or books. It's fun to see how everyone interprets the daily prompts. Such variety of topics from the same prompt. I scrapped some photos that my friend Cynthia took this winter for her photography final project. I don't often like photos of myself, but she did a great job and they deserve to be preserved.

That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

 

More Layouts from LOAD

Just a quick post to show what I've been working on the past couple of days. I am having such a blast with Layout-a-day's LOAD 513. The daily prompts are so creative and they really help me narrow my photos down and look for the stories that I want to tell. So here's where we left off:

Day 3-What's Cookin' Hot Stuff

Been wanting to scrap a story about my family's ridiculous obsession with Yorkshire Pudding. Back in the days when my grandmother was alive, there was far more drama in the  cooking process. But thanks to my mother's trip to a restaurant in Maine, we have found the perfect recipe and the perfect pans. The Yorkshire Pudding (or popovers) come out great every time.

Day 4--Greed

The day's prompt encouraged us to scrap about greed. Some people told a story about their collections/obsessions. I chose to use the prompt to tell the story of our Christmas morning surprise for the boys. 

Day 5--And Then There Were None

My story about the closing of my sorority house at the University of New Hampshire.

Thanks for popping by!
 

I'm Still Here...and the LOAD Fun Has Just Begun!

So I mentioned in my last post that I was going to be focusing on scrapbooking for the next month as part of Lain Ehmann's Layout-a-Day (LOAD513). We're on Day 2 and I am loving it! Each night at 12:00 midnight, Lain sends out the prompt for the next day. I have been staying up just to get the prompt, which gives me the whole night to dream (or lie awake planning) what I want to scrap the next day.  Although all the prompts relate to the board game CLUE in some way or another, the first two prompts were fairly open ended, so it was just a matter of figuring out what and how I wanted to tell the stories. 

For Day 1, the prompt focused white, after the character Mrs. White. So you could scrap about something white, use all white or just white space, or perhaps scrap about the characteristics of Mrs. White the CLUE character. I chose to scrap about the white winter that we just wrapped up. Here's my layout.

Day 2's prompt had to do with a weapon. My weapon of choice was my paper piercer and I used it to create the border lines as well as the hand-stitched heart embellishment on the page. This layout was particularly special to me because it is one of the only pictures I have of my Nana (my father's Mom) and I. She died at a young age when I was only 3 years old and I wish I had had more time to get to know her. She apparently liked to collect things and was especially fond of gadgets...so I think of her often when I am in my craft room and using one tool or another to complete a project. I think Nana would have been proud (or slightly aghast) at the array of products I've amassed.

Lain has also challenged her Facebook followers to join her this month in a Use It Up Challenge....to use older supplies from our stash. So many of the items on both of these layouts are older and I am thrilled to be putting them to good use. I won't bother listing all the products I've used, but if you have a question about a particular product, just leave me a comment and I'll get right back to you.

For those of my viewers who are not into scrapbooking, I am going to combine posts every few days so you can skip right past them if you are looking for card designs. But if you've been neglecting your scrapbooks like I have and want a fun way to motivate yourself to dive back in make sure you stop by Layout-a-Day. It's a LOAD of fun! 

Gearing up for LOAD 513

Although I have been focusing on card making and my art journals lately, my first paper craft love is with my scrapbooks. I have been keeping them "religiously" since my oldest son was born almost 12 years ago, but in reality I have been scrapping my whole life.  


So needless to say, I am super excited to be joining Lain Ehmann and hundreds of other scrapbookers for LOAD 513.  As the site explains, LOAD is "31 days of brand-new video prompts and lessons, guaranteed to bust you out of any scrapbooking rut, bring a smile to your face, and make your hair shine." (There are only a few spots left for LOAD 513, so sign up here today if you are interested in playing along).

Now as a newcomer to the LOAD phenomena, I am not really sure what to expect, but when you sign up you have access to a Flickr group specifically set up for LOAD 513 and the discussion topics and the people in the group have been super gracious with their advice and their suggestions of how to make the most of the experience. 

Old scrapbooks tucked away in the attic

I have to admit, I am a bit anal about my scrapbooking. My books are a chronological representation of our lives. And although I hope to complete some pages in my current book during LOAD 513, I'm not sure there is a lot to investigate about my son's fall soccer season or the traditional holiday festivities, which are next in line for scrapping.  And I want to make sure that I take full advantage of the creative daily prompts that will come as part of the LOAD process. So I have been gathering a smattering of photos....old favorite shots of my boys, my baby photos, and even some old scrapbooks that I through together before this was even really a hobby. Look at this box of old scrapbooks that I found in my attic today. I am calling it my Pandora's box (I'm not quite sure what to do with it, and I am almost wishing I hadn't gone looking for it in the first place).

My early scrapbooks were a combination of really bad photos and magazine sayings that I seemed appropriate at the time). Here is a sample of a page featuring me and my best friend from college. Check out the sunburn I was sporting in the middle photo, what was I thinking? 

This page isn't as yellowed and worn as some of the others, but it does beg the question, what do I do with all of these older books? Are photos of people that I don't keep in touch with (and some that I don't even remember) worth saving? Do I spend the time to pull the photos out and scrap them correctly or is it okay to throw them away if they don't have any meaning to me anymore? I'd love to hear what you do with your old photos. 
 

What a Difference 3 Years Makes

Just a quick post to pop on and say hi. I don't normally post personal things on the blog, but since I actually have people who are following it, I felt obligated to explain my absence. 

It's been an unbelievable week. The kids are home from school and my husband Michael took a few days off this week to spend time with all of us....thank goodness. 

The bombing at the Boston Marathon on Monday left us all a little shaken. Three years ago Michael ran the Boston Marathon as part of the Dana Farber Team. He finished his race in just over 4 hours. He wanted to finish it in under 4. He turned 50 this year...and I know that a piece of him would have loved to run it one more time...just to see if he could. Which got us all to wondering this week, what if...

• he hadn't gotten diagnosed with lymphoma in 2011.
• he didn't have to go through chemo this year.
• he had decided to run just one more time.
• he broke the 4 hour mark.
• the boys and I were at the finish line cheering him on.

There are many things that I am grateful about on a daily basis. But I never actually thought I'd hear myself say that I am grateful about his cancer diagnosis. For this one moment though, I can honestly say, it might have just saved his life.

I am hopeful that soon my mojo will return and I'll be back in the crafting mode. Until then, my heart hurts for those affected by this great tragedy and hope that the healing can begin for all of us soon.

 

OWH Midweek Throwdown Starring....Me!

I am so excited that Jan from Operation Write Home selected one of my cards for the inspiration for this week's OWH Midweek Throwdown theme of Stripes. So even though I already played along for the inspiration card...I wanted to put together another card for the challenge.

Yesterday, I saw this great card made by Cristina Kowalczyk featuring big bold stripes inspired by a beach towel. I loved the look so much that I used it for my background for this card. Taking Cristina's lead, I created navy stripes out of Bazzill cardstock and adhered them to a white panel of Neenah Solar White. To make mine slightly different, I embossed the bottom 1 1/2 inch strip with the small dots folder from Cuttlebug and tied a red ribbon at the top of the embossed panel. It looked very nautical now and the dots reminded me of raindrops.

The image is a digi stamp from Some Odd Girl called Puddle Hopping Tia. She is so adorable and I colored her in primary colors so the whole card has a bold, cheery feel. The sentiment is stamped and heat embossed from Everyday Expressions by Paper Studio (my go to sentiment stamps lately).

I love how she turned out and can't wait to see what everyone else creates over at the OWH Throwdown. Hope to see your creations there. 

Muse Challenge # 10 and a CAS Card that was Neither Clean nor Simple

I don't know what has happened to me...it's like all my creativity dried up. I haven't posted in 10 days because quite honestly, I haven't created anything in that long. On Monday, the gals over at Muse: A Card Making Club posted a new challenge (#10) from Ardyth Percy-Robb that I hoped would spark some creativity. Her CAS card is to the right.  It's fun, its simple, and I couldn't wait to see what everyone else would come up with for samples.

When I looked at the card, I immediately thought to reverse the images...placing white circles on a background. And since I've been playing with my spray mists a ton lately, they seemed like the perfect backdrop.  But you'll see below...it took me several attempts to get just the look I was going for. And so the process was anything but clean and certainly wasn't simple, either. Ugh!

Emboss resist technique

Initially I tried the emboss resist technique. Using an embossing pen, I traced circles in various sizes and then heat embossed them in white powder. But I don't think that my embossing pen has enough liquid in it and the circles seemed faded. Overall, not a bad look, but just not what I was going for. Also, I wanted more white space on the card to mirror the clean look of the sample. So I kept on playing.

Wrong sentiment size,
not loving the colors

So for the next attempt, I decided to ditch the embossing idea and instead stamp circles in gesso AFTER I applied the spray mist. Because I wanted more control over the mists, I held the spray bottles closer to the page, which kept the splotches more contained. This wouldn't have been a bad card, but you can see that the spray mist breached the lines separating the sentiment and the sentiment stamp I chose was just way too big for the lines. And in the end, I just didn't love the colors that I chose. So attempt #2 was a fail in my eyes.

Better color and sentiment size,
but not enough white space

Trial number #3 was by far, my favorite color combination. So I was getting closer....but I went a little spray happy and forgot to leave enough white space. Not quite done yet. At this point too, I was pretty committed to the ribbon flanking the top and the bottom of the sentiment panel as it was the only way to hide stray spray marks that leaked into the strip.

So here is the "final" card. It has most of the elements that I was going for. It has more white space (although my purple spray doesn't always cooperate and tends to get off course). It has the colors I love with a bit more purple than attempt #3. And I chose to mat this one with a purple background for a layered look. The ribbon color is a bit off though...picky, picky.

Final card for submission

The good news is that in addition to finally having a card to submit for this week's Muse challenge, I have a number of other "failed" attempts that have been salvaged and will make nice cards to send to someone else (who doesn't know what I was trying to do) or possibly to add to my box for Operation Write Home.

And since my hands are already covered in purple ink, I might as well keep playing. Who knows what else I might come up with.

Thanks for stopping by.


Supplies: Neenah Solar White Card base, Tattered Angel's Glimmer Mists, Gesso, Everyday Expressions sentiment stamps by Paper Studio, Ribbon by Offray.