paper camellia kit

I recently had the chance to work with Paper Camellia's December Main kit, it was filled with Amy Tangerine's Stitched collection! I loved how they paired it with some of Heidi Swapp's wood embellishments and that pink houdstooth paper, love that combo! I didn't even trim the wood birch edge from the houndstooth because I loved that combo as well!

The first layout has pictures from about 3 years ago of Elsie. It was a kindergarten animal dress up day. Sorta a DIY costume day and we pulled from what we had. The second layout are my two older teens. Just needed Caleb in the mix and I would have had all 4 in one post! Next time 🙂

Head over to the paper camellia blog where they're hosting a giveaway! Happy almost Friday! 🙂

December 4, 2014 0

December Daily 2014

It's been SIX YEARS since I tackled a december daily! And even then I only made it to day 18. Sigh. Here's the book from way back when if you wanna take a peek. (here and here) I noticed I didn't even take photos of the second half of the book I made, ugh! I have to say that when I dug it out, I oohed and aahed at the memories I recorded and am so happy I did so! I had little kids back then, this will be fun to document the holiday season with 3 teenagers!

I am also using a black faux leather album like Amy Tangerine. We decided when we were together that we were going to tackle this this year. Though she's been rather faithful, I'm not surprised! I'm going the simple route with a little modern look for the cover. Old school KI memories lace paper yup!! I've hoarded so many goodies over the years, this is going to be a mesh of old school supplies and bits of current!

First page, DONE! Little pocket of journaling about how I learned to snag chocolate advent calendars when I see them in Trader Joe's in OCTOBER now because they sell out and then I have to search high and low for marginal chocolate calendars. I think once the calendar is consumed, it might be cute to tear out some of the pockets and include it around here for visuals.

The hardest part of keeping up with the december daily in my opinion are the photos. It's darker out which make for harder indoor photos, the pressure to DO something to take photos and then to print photos. I am going to give myself a pass on all that this year. I'm just gonna do what I can do, because really, it's been SIX years. Gotta ease back into this thing :)

December 1, 2014 1

gratitude, documented.

I am thrilled to be contributing to Shanna Noel's Gratitude class she is teaching at Studio Calico. Join us Nov 1 to make a little album of thankfulness!

I am constantly grateful daily. I have an amazing husband who after 16 years, still brings butterflies. I am humbled by the people our children are becoming. Our extended family who are our biggest cheerleaders, our friends who make us laugh and stand by us daily. I don't want to forget any of it. Why not jot it all down and put it in a cute book while I'm at it? 🙂

In the spirit of gratitude, reminds me I need to purchase this. SO TRUE, right??!

October 29, 2014 0

halloween on her mind

October 9, 2014 2

amy tangerine’s new line *stitched!

I was so thrilled to be able to play around with Amy's new line with American Crafts, STITCHED! It's whimsical and fun- check out the line here at Amy's blog. Love all the handmade looking touches as well as the pretty word phrases. Sigh.

Funny sidenote, I made these layouts weeks apart, and when photographing them at the same time, I noticed I tucked in the phrase, wonderful things do happen, to both tops of the photos. Apparantly that's my go to move and my go to phrase. Oh well, different pages will be in each girl's books. Done! I also can't believe I've been holding on to that photo of Elsie since she was 18 months old. She's 8 now. WHAT!?

October 1, 2014 2

Blog Tour from Stephanie Howell

The lovely Stephanie Howell sent me an email with this fun blog tour going on. I guess it's been going on awhile but I've been a tad out of it so it's new to me! 🙂
Here are the questions she's asked. Feel free to copy and paste the questionairre and post on your blog as well!

        1. What am I working on right now? Mentally, LOTS! 🙂 Physically, I'm trying to order as many pictures from our last trip to Hawaii as I can so that I get an album going with fresh memories.
        2. How long does it take me to create a project? Not more than an hour. 40 min is usually my sweet spot.
        3. What are my favorite things to create with at the moment? They are still my go to supplies, patterned papers and brads. But since the last time I've created years ago, these enamel dots have emerged and I think they are quite addicting! I'm also intrigued by these mini screens that Amy used. (There's a little collage of pictures down in the post!) So interesting!
        4. How does my writing/creating process work? I'm usually either inspired by a memory or a photo and from that I choose some papers and embellishments to cutesify it 🙂
        5. How do I become inspired and stay inspired? I was actually uninspired for about 3 years. That's when I took my little scrapbooking hiatus. I stopped buying, looking, and making. I needed an actual break. Then I flipped through my albums one day, and nearly cried at all the memories I was able to jot down. I went to a few scrapbooking sites, I was inspired. I missed it all. The making, the community, everything. Slowly but surely, I'm reaching into it again. Happy to be creating again.
        6. What is my signature style? Simple, white space and embellished clusters.

Thanks for tagging me, Stephanie, it's been fun to think of my creative process in a fresh way! Comment here if you decide to participate in this blog tour, I'd love to read your answers! 🙂

September 29, 2014 2

scrapbooking for someone else

I always thought I wouldn't be able to scrapbook for other people. There's just something so intimate and personal about making pages, that I didn't think I could pull it off, nor did I ever have a desire to. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when Amy shows me this wedding album she's making for her BFF. There's this many photos left and we have this many weeks to finish it. Jamie enters panic mode. There's about 10 minutes to leave Amy's to get onto LA's nightmare of a freeway system and pick up Elsie from school. Luckily BFF has a gorgeous color scheme, which all the pages will coordinate with. I dig through Amy's super large stash of supplies and grab things that fit within the color scheme. It was like a game show where you had this little bit of time to grab all you needed before the bell rang. (Got to use lots of Shimelle's new line which matched sooo perfectly!) I whip out these pages and my heart is happy.

My first ever Project Life spreads. I now see how this system can be addicting!

And these 2. I am the most proud of these layouts because A: they are reception photos (wedding photographer speaking here) B: they are 2 pagers C: LOOK HOW MANY PHOTOS I MANAGED TO GET ON THESE SPREADS! I'm inserting the hand clapping emoji here!

yeah that's 18 photos. yessss!

I made more layouts for her but didn't photograph them. And I really am proud of them all. I am so excited for Amy to give her the album. 🙂

The only way I could see tackling a project like this is to be able to grab the color scheme supplies (papers, letter stickers, die cuts and just a few embellishments) and just use from that stash only. It reminded me of an article I wrote for Creating Keepsakes back in 2007 about making so many layouts from a handful of supplies. Not having too many overwhelming options is the key :)

September 8, 2014 0

Boyhood

Chris and I saw the movie, Boyhood, a few weeks ago. We were amazed at what they pulled off, filming the same boy, spanning from age 6 to 18. Of course it made me think of my own boys and their own stories they are living. I felt for the mom (Patricia Arquette, love her!) and nodded my head in agreement as other parental situations would come up that I've been through. Good soundtrack, solid acting, thumbs up.

The photo was taken in 2009 by our fave photog Jonathan Canlas. Journaling today, Aug 2014. Not scrapping as much has taken off the pressure to create immediately with new photos and new supplies.

Some notes while creating for the first time in years. 1. Don't try it after sitting in traffic for many hours previously. Mind is already mush and cannot make creative decisions. 2. Brads and black lines around the layout edges are my forever. Did I just date myself?

August 28, 2014 5

creative options, literally!

Sometimes unexpected doors open just when you least expect them to! I am happy to announce that I've joined the Amy Tangerine team and will be working with her. I've been around all my scrappy favorites for a few weeks now and it's been such a great feeling. I truly have missed it and am like a kid in a candy store, seeing all the new stuff I've missed out on! There will be pages to share in the future but for now, a little video that my girls helped us out on with the Creative Options systems! :)

August 20, 2014 2

goodbye :(

It's embarrassing that there's one entry between the post where I said hello with the 2peas screenshot from March, until now. And now we as a community are saying goodbye to 2peas for good. Today's the last day of it's doors being open and I find it so very sad. When I first heard the news a few weeks ago, my heart broke. I wrote a few blurbs on my instagram and facebook, I screenshot my profile and imported my pages to their new location at scrapbook.com. I started to read other member's goodbyes via their blog posts. As I poked around their site for the last time today, I can't help but be so proud of the time I spent there. The wonderful people I met, the places I've been to, the many doors that were opened for me through 2peas. My kids are older now, I don't share a whole lot about them online, my instagram is private. I crave a little privacy for them. But I also look back on the few years I haven't scrapbooked and I cringe that I haven't recorded as much as I had the 10+ years prior. I flip through my books now and am so grateful to have captured so much. Memories that I have already since forgotten had they not been jotted down on my pages I love so much. Now the only thing left is to get back on the saddle and begin again.

Thank you 2peas for what you have done for the scrapbooking community. Your efforts and time have been appreciated by me and my family. xo

I got to play around with these goodies the other day. It was fun. I need to have this kind of stuff in my life regularly again. 🙂

July 24, 2014 1