PTI February Blog Hop and a Sketch Challenge

Today I have a layout that covers two challenges!  I always love it when I can multi-task, don't you?

It's the 25th of the month, which always means Blog Hop time at Papertrey Ink!

Nichole challenged us this month with this:

Pull out your letter stamps and alphabet dies and create something monogrammed!  It can be a gift for someone special or a treat to keep for yourself!  You could monogram a set of notecards, stationery, coasters, journals, home decor or anything else you can dream up!

You can see the details of the blog hop and participate over on Nichole's blog - here.

So, I dream of scrapbooking - during the day, during the night - most of the time, it's on my mind.  Even though I spend a lot of time making cards or doing 1,000,001 other things - scrapbooking was my first love, and the love to which I will always return.  

As usual, I'm behind in my scrapbooking - this time, almost a year.  I created a title page layout for my son's 1st grade scrapbook.  Here it is:

PTI Supplies: New Leaf cardstock, Block Alphabet, Seeing Stars, Simple Circles border dies

This is his Spring picture from around this time last year.  It's one of my favorite he's ever taken, so I wanted it highlighted on the title page.  I kept with the monogram theme with which Nichole challenged us by adding his initials in the stars as part of the title.  I even researched monograms and found that the common format for monograms for males is to use their initials in order of their names.

(Does anyone else think of Major Monogram from Phineas and Ferb when they hear the word "monogram?"  Ahh, the life of a mother with a boy!)

To continue with this scrapbook means I have to reverse time and start scrapping the summer of 2011.  I'll get there.  I need to just focus on doing some clean and simple layouts and not get too bogged down in design and embellishments.  After all, they are for me to enjoy, right?


For the layout, I used this sketch from the Core'dinations blog, which is new to me.  I discovered it when I was perusing one of my crafty friend's Pinterest pages.  Thanks, Kristin!

Click here for details!

Since it's a title page, I have no journaling, so I just left that area blank. 


Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

I'm Finished

I finally finished my son's per-kindergarten scrapbook today.  It took a long time, and I had a lot of memories to relive while working on it, which has been fun.  This one took longer than normal because I was completing Project Life at the same time for his Kindergarten year, so this one kind of took a backseat to that.  When I told him I had finished his pre-K book, he said, "That's great, Mommy!  Now you can get started on 1st grade!"

Relentless.

This book is 42 pages long, and on 30 of them are some type of stamping.  That makes me feel like the money I've spent on all my stamps is justified.  Just what I needed.  May spend more now.

Many of the pages I have blogged about, and you can see them if you click on "layouts" in the labels.  Here are the last few pages that I haven't shared. 

I usually have a layout for each month and then throw in special occasion layouts too.   This one is from May 2010 - some of my favorite pictures of my silly boy.  (He had his bike helmet on in the backyard while drawing with chalk.  Safety first!)

 We are a two party system for birthdays, which I'm trying to avoid next year.  Here are the layouts from his parties. 

And finally, I always seem to do the cover layout for each album last.  I think I wait to find a really good picture for it, and this time I chose his school picture.

I framed his picture with sentiments from "Simply You" describing everything is is to me.  A lot of sentiments applied to him.

That's it.  All done.  He's just finished 1st grade, so I better get busy.

Pre-K Graduation

Super Stars, Teacher's Apple stamp sets, Angled Labels die (PTI)

This is a layout I've been working on in my head for awhile, and had most of it mapped, but having the time to complete it was the challenge.  I was going to die-cut some stars for this layout, but instead thought I would give the Make-It Monday challenge a chance, and just stamped right on the patterned paper.  

Yep.  Right. On. It.  

With shaking hands, because I have been looking for the same piece of patterned paper at my Archivers store, and they don't have it anymore.  So, this was a challenge for me. 

I'm almost finished with my son's pre-K scrapbook, so I can move on to his 1st grade book.  (I did Project Life for his Kindergarten year.)  Hopefully, you'll see a couple of more layouts soon!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

First Rangers Game

Wow!
Sorry for my long pause in blogging.  I was running low on time and effort last month, apparently.  Ending the school year, planning for summer, and working on finishing a stack of books got in my way of scrapbooking and cardmaking.

I'm committed to finishing some layouts.  I'm behind in my scrapbooking and have a few layouts in my son's pre-K album to complete and all of his 1st grade year to work on.  Looking forward to reliving those memories!

Here's what I did today:

All-Star Team, Have a Ball, Mat Stack 3 stamps, Mat Stack 3, Layerz, Seeing Stars, By the Numbers, Fillable Frames Block Alpha dies, Woodgrain IP (all PTI), Corrugated Letters (Jillibean)

This was my son's first time to go see our beloved Texas Rangers play. As you can see, he had a blast.

Thanks for dropping by My Happy Place today!  Don't give up on me; I'll be back!

Notebook Cover

My sister teaches third grade and was recently at her campus retreat.  One of the tasks at the retreat was to scrapbook a cover to slip into their clear binders.  What did she do while all the other teachers scrapbooked their covers with the provided supplies?  She texted me and told me I was going to make hers.  She's 5.5 years older than I am and has bossed me around for over 30 years.  Besides, in her words, I "needed something to do."

So, I did it.  Just like any little (younger, much younger) sister would. 

The list of stamps and supplies for this project is lengthy, but I will tell you that I was very, very (did I say VERY?) excited to see that Lawn Fawn stamps were being sold at my local Archivers.  The sets weren't even out on display yet.  They were in buckets ready to be processed.  The sweet ladies at Archivers told me to go ahead and look through them to see what I wanted.  I got two sets (to start off).  One set was the FABULOUS Smitty's ABCs.  Wow!  I love how they line up with each other and how there are mulitple letters so that you can just stamp ONE time.  LOVE THAT!!  (Honestly, I didn't notice that until I started to use them on this project - then I was even more excited about this set.)  I'm submitting this project to this week's Lawnscaping Challenge which is to use distressing. 

 I used ink to distress each of the panels below with PTI's Tea Dye Duo. I'm also submitting it to Wee Memories challenge this week which is to use more than 4 colors!   Click on those links above to play along with the challenge. Both have fabulous prizes this week!

Here's the cover my sister made me make:

Patterned Paper:  Bo Bunny Learning Curve Collection

Smitty's ABCs are right in the middle.  I love the font, and again, they are so easy to line up.  I used a lot of Hero Arts and Papertrey Ink on this.  Supplies are listed below each picture.

Here are some close-ups:

Lawn Fawn Smitty's ABCs, PTI Sending You, Beautiful Blooms & TANL dies

HA Playful Animals, PTI Merry Little Christmas and CanvasIP

HA Playful Animals, PTI Merry Little Christmas and Sunshine IP, Fiskars punch

HA Froggy, PTI Cloud die and Polka Dot IP, Stampabilities Wave Border

HA Playful Animals, PTI Vineyard IP, Simple Circles and TANL die

Oh, this was fun to make and I loved combining so many of my supplies.  Made me feel justified in buying them all.  Thanks for visiting My Happy Place today and looking at so many pictures!

Dying Eggs

I can see the end!  I'm almost finished with my son's pre-school year scrapbook, which is a good thing because he's going into 1st grade in a couple of weeks!  The end of his scrapbook is May - his birthday.  I'm in April now and worked last night on a CAS layout for Easter.

Here it is:

I used the colorful stripes paper from Echo Park's Sweet Summertime collection, and stitched the pieces to a piece of Harvest Gold cardstock from PTI.  Can you see the stitching?

Then I used my Fiskars Grass Punch on some New Leaf cardstock to create the grass for the rabbit.  The rabbit and eggs are from the set "bunny4Easter" from Stamps of Life.  I colored the bunny with Aquacolor pencils, blended with a Dove Blender, and then added some glossy accents for dimension.  I adhered the body of the rabbit down, but popped the ears up.

Here's a close-up:

I have about 4 more layouts left.  Some of them may be double pages, so it may take a bit.  I'll share here as I can!

For now, I'm submitting this one to the Wee Memories challenge this week.  Jenny challenged us to use no less than 4 colors in our projects.  You can read details and submit your projects here.  

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

May Papertrey Pages Challenge

This month Beth challenged the forum members to use something released from PTI during March or April.  So many wonderful stamps and dies were released in those two months, that I imagine it would have been difficult to decide had I not already had some pictures on my table to scrap.  But, of course, here I am waiting until the last of the month to work on the layout.  That's probably why I don't like my layouts too much lately - I'm in a hurry to finish them.

I'm still working on finishing my son's Pre-Kindergarten scrapbook. Do all children get obsessed about certain things during their childhood?  My son is-was-and-always-will-be obsessed with dinosaurs.  It has been a fascination of his for years.  During his Pre-Kindergarten year, he became obsessed with space and planets and learned more about them than my 6th graders know.  He still loves to study and learn about them.  At the time these photos were taken, he was truly obsessed.

Here's my layout:

To follow Beth's challenge to use recently released products, I used the Out of this World die and stamp and the Simple Circles set from the "Boy Basics" line that PTI came out with in April.  The circles were punched out and then stamped to resemble planets.  Isn't my son's spelling wonderful?

Here's a closeup: 

I purchased that glittered black cardstock just for this layout so it would twinkle a little in the light and look like outer space. 

That's all from me today!  I need to get some other pictures printed so I'm ready for the next challenge and hopefully will get busy before the end of the month.

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

A Layout For...

Papertrey Pages Monthly Challenge!

Beth (babiestwo) over on the PTI forum started challenging the members to create scrapbooking layouts using our PTI stamps, dies and anything else around.  She gave me the opportunity in March to challenge everyone, but we didn't get around to finishing our projects.  So, this month we are continuing our challenge by USING STITCHING ON OUR LAYOUTS!  The stitching can be by machine, hand or even faux-stitching.

I live in Texas where Spring wildflowers bloom like crazy.  It is not uncommon to see cars parked on the side of a major highway, kids climbing out and plopping themselves amongst the flowers so their parents can take pictures.   We do it every year. 

Here's my layout for this adventure from LAST year.  (I'm a year behind in my scrapbooking.) 

I cut some Echo Park Little Boy paper, Orange Zest and Simply Chartreuse cardstock into 3x3 squares, then secured them with a little adhesive to a 12x12 piece of cardstock.  After fighting with my machine for about an hour, I finally figured out that I hadn't threaded the needle correctly.  I don't know where my mind was.  (Actually I do, but that's another topic.) 

I sewed a zig-zag stitch to mimic a quilt.  Love the look!

I matted the pictures with white cardstock to help them stand out a little.  Otherwise, in front of the awesome patterned paper, they kind of blended in.

The tag was cut from the Tag Sale #3 die, and I stamped the title with Practicing Creativity's Carved Loved letters (small but super-easy to line up.)  I masked it when I finished and then stamped some flowers from Life in Orange Zest, Enchanted Evening and Color Box's Sky Blue.  Adding a knot with two ribbons was a final touch to the title tag. 

The subtitle was cut from the Double Ended Banner die and again stamped with the same letters in Enchanted Evening.  I had to use a little bundle of wildflowers cut from Larger Than Life and stamped from stamps in the set.  The green twine is from Martha Stewart, and is pretty sweet!

I hope you like the layout!  You can join us over on the PTI forum if you want to participate.  We just have fun together and "force" each other to get busy on our layouts!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

P.S. Here's a picture from THIS year's adventure.  Hopefully, I'll it in a layout before this time next year!

Papertrey Pages February Challenge

The challenge that Beth gave to forum members this month was to create a layout with these parameters:

1. Your page(s) must celebrate a birthday or anniversary.
2. Your page(s) must use a Papertrey stamp set, preferably a birthday or anniversary set. (Flowers, of course, work on any kind of page!)

Of course, I have had ideas floating around in my head for the whole month, but didn't execute them until the day before the end of the month.  I've got to get more on the ball in March!

My son turned 5 in May and I hadn't scrapped his birthday party yet, so Beth's challenge was perfect for me.  This will be his last page in his Baby Book!  I can't believe it!  I'll have to do another layout for his yearly scrapbook, so this gave me some ideas.

Here's my layout:

Have I told you how much I love Echo Park paper?  I do.  I especially love the Little Boy line which is where the plaid paper comes from.

I started the layout by stamping the baseball images from PTI and stamped the letters in each ball to create the title.  After stepping back to take a look, I decided there was room on the title block for the 5 and love the shape of the number from the die set. Then I did some faux-stitching with a white pen around the edges.

I mimicked the stitching on this panel and then popped it up next to my son's cake pictures.  I love the look on the boys' faces...they just really want some cake, huh?

After adding the smaller pictures on the right and the "Little Boy" sticker, I decided that a few more details were needed.  So, I die cut some stars in cardstock and some more patterned paper from Echo Park, added some buttons and twine and placed them in sort-of a triangle.

I know that Beth will have a fabulous layout, so you should go check her blog out.  She does wonderful work. 

Thanks for dropping by My Happy Place today!

All Papertrey Ink supplies (unless noted):
Stamps:  Have a Ball, Think Big Favorites #1, Big Birthday Wishes, letters from Carved Love (Practicing Creativity)
Ink:  Pure Poppy, True Black
Cardstock:  New Leaf, Stampers Select, Pure Poppy, Enchanted Evening
Patterned Paper:  Little Boy (Echo Park)
Dies:  Seeing Stars, Fillable Frame #1, By the Numbers
Other:  New Leaf, Enchanted Evening, & Pure Poppy buttons, Rustic White Twine

GYSO #5

This week's sketch at Get Your Sketch On was perfect for last year's February layout!  I had just a couple of pictures for this month, and most of them were focused on Valentine's Day.  Here's the sketch and my layout:

 

The bottom right picture had to be included.  My son was working on addressing his Valentine's and was a little irritated at my picture taking.  Luckily, I caught that one just in time.

Remember, my goals for the year are to use more patterned paper (on cards and layouts) and to use more stamping in my layouts.  This one fits into those two goals!  The larger heart is from Practicing Creativity's "Carved Love" set and all the other stamps are from Papertrey Ink's Tiny Treat Valentines!  I colored in the images with my Bic Mark It Markers!  The striped paper is from Echo Park's "Little Boy" line.

Here's a detail shot:

Come play along at the Get Your Sketch On challenge - all the details are here.  The prize this week is from The Pink Cat Studio.

I'm submitting this to my blog group's, The Paper Dolls,  challenge from a couple of weeks ago.  Laurie Beth challenged us to use felt and a die-cut.  Even though this isn't a card, I think it fits the challenge.  You can play along with us by seeing the details of the challenge here.

Papertrey Pages January Challenge

Beth challenged the forum at Papertrey Ink to a layout challenge that goes like this:

Christmas is over, and I have been doing baby pages in primary and fall colors, so...
You must use 3 items in Spring Rain on these pages- that means
paper, ink, buttons, ribbons, brads, glitter, etc etc etc.

 

As usual, I waited until the end of the month to complete the layout.  I kept changing my mind about which pictures I wanted to use.  I finally settled on my family's kite adventure from last March.  My son finally got the hang of flying a kite with the help of Daddy, and he was really pretty good at it.

Here's my layout:

All the patterned paper is from Echo Park's Walk in the Park.  {love}

The title is cut from Mat Stack 5 die and matted with Spring Rain paper.  Then I stamped the title with letters from "Carved in Love" from Practicing Creativity.  I embossed some kites from Up, Up and Away (PTI) and attached Rustic White twine for tails.  I popped those on the mat and popped the mat as well for some dimension. 

The three Spring Rain products are:  cardstock, buttons and brads.  I was going to use ribbon, but GUESS WHAT!?  I don't have any Spring Rain ribbon.  I'm a little embarrassed to admit that.  

Here's a detail shot:

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place today!  I hope to have more to post this week, but it's not looking too good. 

GYSO #4

This week's sketch at Get Your Sketch On was great!  I'm so thankful for this new challenge site - it sure is inspiring me to get some layouts done.  I feel like I'm in a groove now and can hopefully finish my son's pre-K scrapbook soon!  I missed my self-imposed deadline.  

Here's the sketch Bree gave us:

If you remember, two of my goals for this  year were to use more patterned paper and to stamp more on my layouts.  I only achieved one of those on this layout, but don't worry, I have another idea I'm hoping to work on this weekend, and it involves stamps AND paper!

Here's my layout:

My son has a long-standing love affair with DINOSAURS, so you can imagine his excitement when his class went on a dinosaur field trip last March.  One of the other mothers that went on the field trip snapped this picture and emailed it to me.  His face is priceless.  (You can click on the picture for a larger view.)

You can play along with this week's challenge at Get Your Sketch On by clicking here!

Thanks for dropping by My Happy Place!  I hope I have more to post soon!

GYSO #3

Seriously - I love this new scrapbook challenge site!  It has enabled me to get some pages done that have only been scrapped in my head. 

Here's this week's sketch at Get Your Sketch On:

I scrapbook a month at a time, so this is a layout from last March of my son and his soccer ambitions. 

A lot of different companies are represented here.  The patterned paper and letters are from a kit I purchased after Christmas from K & Company. The soccer balls are stamped from Papertrey Ink's "Have a Ball" set and punched out with a 1-inch circle.  The letters for "March" are from Practicing Creativity's newest set, "Carved Love."  I just received it in the mail! (Thanks, Courtney!)

Before securing the photos to the layout, I stitched around the edges of the photo mats to mimic the stitching in the patterned paper.

You can play along with this week's sketch and see all the other submissions by clicking here.  Keep 'em coming, Bree! 


Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

GYSO #1

I'm so excited about a new scrapbook sketch site!  It's called "Get Your Sketch On" and this week they have their first challenge.  Here's their challenge for this week:

I have a two-page layout for this one.  I scrapbook photos from each month and jot down funny things my son says.  Here's October:

and the facing page:

 

All together now:

Thanks to this new site, I'm hoping to get some great sketches to complete last year's book!  Come along and play with the sketch yourself!  You can find all the details here!

Thanks for stopping by My Happy Place!