Rough spots through the years, SOS Nov 2019 Pick a Side Challenge

I selected the right side of the sketch for the Pick a Side Challenge on SOS's site.
The pocket from the layout gave me a nice place to hide the journaling for some tough times in life that yoga, nature and friends have helped me get through. I did a hand cut scallop edge since I lack the scissors and embellishments with those. My oldest elements are the die-cut half circles and hearts that have been glammed up a little with paint and adhesive/glitter (also from an old scrapbooking expo from San Diego days). I am loving the Bo Bunny brad sets found at Tuesday morning this year.

I had fun finding a font on Pinterest and ended up doing a hand letter job it since my printer is temperamental and doesn't handle 12 x 12 paper. It is called Lemon Drop from TheHungryJPEG.com.

SOS September 2019 Challenge

Here's the inspiration and requirements of this month's first creation from SOS. The cartoon they used was School House Rock. I took the book theme from school and used a book embellishment and wrote about books I've recently listened to during my commute.

The dog photo is a placeholder for a print I'd like to order that maps my usual route to work, but I try to do quarterly photo uploads and ordering these days to make sure I don't have a mountain of photos collecting dust before I can get to them.

I liked the colors of the School House Rock logo and tried to pick colorful pops of paper to use. I've been working my way through my orange alpha stickers for years now...ever since I learned to use negative space to stretch the value and waste less materials.

SOS June 2019 Challenge: Spongebob inspiration

The Cartoon challenge information can be found here 

I had a fun time trying out the color clustering that I've seen in so many layouts lately. Lucked out having the yellow color and square requirement be together in one paper. Then a dash here and there more of yellow throughout the page. Happy to use the golden paper to complement the yellow and represent the sunny day and shine off the ocean. Loosely used the layout sketch to make a few groupings of squares and have the notched ribbon shapes. 

May Challenges: CSI Scrapbook cases 281 and 282 Curious Pets and Favorite Things

Case 282: The Cat Lady Illustration 

On my green/orange Mr. Curiousity page, the elements I took from the illustration were-stripes from the wallpaper, fuzzy sticker (Dollar Tree for the win), loose color inspiration. My dog loves investigating everything in the house and his ears hear everything. It's usually the first thing that people say about my dog when we walk by THOSE EARS! A long time ago in a scrapbook magazine I had read about cutting out the negatives for the alpha stickers. I still try to do that now to be thrifty and toss less in the trash can.

This other page that goes with Mr. Curiousity uses the elements from the illustration of textured paper, diamond shapes (also wallpaper in the "scene"), and the inspiration sketch given this month (maybe this is a new feature of the challenge or a special occasion!)  gave me the use of a large circle on the page and 3 cluster of square/rectangle. Instead of using a calendar for the journal inspiration, I did my dog's to do list.

You can find the CSI challenges for May here. 

Case 281: The Travel Theme hand-drawn illustrations

For this case file, I opted to still do the favorite things journaling prompt but not make it travel based. The elements the case used were wood, labels, stamp, type writer. The illustration also had hand drawn items and a lot of neutral white space-so I tried using stickers with a similar feel and putting the 8.5 x11 neutral over the busy floral pattern. I miss those American Craft sticker books for the hand drawn stickers, I found them at a scrapbook show years ago.

April Challenges: CSI Case File 278 and Pinspiration for Fashionista page

The challenge post 278 can be found here .

Used the inspiration word of travel for a collage about getting caught in the rain for several vacations with the same friends. The elements used are solid cardstock, globe, circles, triangles, glasses and a cloud. I was excited to use a few stickers from when I went on the Alaska cruise back in 2009 from the scrapbook kit. 

Whether a new or experienced in scrapbooking, give yourself permission to be "behind" in scrapbooking. You could make a whole layout or an album with similar pictures you've not yet printed or used. I tend to make one album on Shutterfly or Snapfish per trip, but have not yet lined up all the trips I took with this group of friends. 

Related ideas to this page: 

• How you have planned trips over the years, 
• How you feel about rainy days/why, &
• What you and your friends are known for

In the same theme of "now and then". This page is also some pictures from back when my sis was in a fashion show. I'm eventually going to make a companion page about how my grandma also did modeling back in the day. I got inspiration for the design from this blog called Scrap Sweet Scrap. I still want to ask my sister for some of journaling to fill in-who asked her to do the show, a funny moment or her favorite piece she wore. 

Happy to use up some papers from when my aunt gifted me with the striped more feminine papers as she has two boys and continue to use the hearts from the punch out shapes friend gave me many years ago. They are so handy to have since I don't own many punches these days with all the moves I've had in the last 4 years. 

Recycling food jars & yarn scraps

I am currently attempting to make crafts only with items that I already have at home due to my pending move next month. Also to budget as the first month moving somewhere always has the most costs! Can never have too many organizational containers, right? Well...we shall see. 

Items needed:

Clean glass jar with lid (I soaked jar in water to get the label off too)

Leftover bit of yarn (I think I had about 2 feet left)

Decorative baker's twine

Fine glitter 

Sheer Glue

Toothpicks

Scrapbook paper (about 3"x 3" and 2"x"2 square is what I used for a salsa bottle, you may need to adjust to size of jar)

Animal or bauble to decorate lid

Circle punch/cutter to fit within lip of lid

8 x 11 paper, mat or newspaper (something to catch the glitter)

Safety pin

Charm

Hot glue gun

1. Spread the glue thinly, all over on the back of the scrapbook paper with a toothpick (because putting it on with a brush ruins them-can't get the glue off), then adhere to the jar.

2. Wrap the yarn around the neck of the bottle until it covered the amount desired, putting tension on the yarn to keep it taut and applied glue to the ends of the yarn. 

3. While letting those parts dry, work on the glitter explosion of the lid. Thinly and as even as possible spread glue on the side and lip of lid using the toothpick. Put the paper or mat down to catch the glitter, then sprinkle on the pixie dust to the lid. 

4. Let lid dry (wait at least 10 minutes). While waiting, cut the circle to fit within the lip of the lid. 

5. Once lid is dry, spread glue on the back of the circle and then adhere to lid. If there is a gap between the glitter and circle, you could use decorative baker's twine to go around the perimeter of the paper circle and hide the gap-just using the toothpick to put dots of glue around before you lay down the twine. 

6. When the glue on the yarn is dry, attach the charm using the safety pin.

7. Add the animal or other bauble on top of the lid using hot glue. 

Materials:

Floral paper-Recollections 12x12 pad "Neon Blooms"

Coral paper-Craft Smith 12x12 pad, Pinks and Corals

Baker's twine-Darice

Safety pin-Tim Holtz

Sheer glue-Rubber Cafe

Fine glitter-Rubber Cafe

Wooden charm-Amy Tangerine

Llama-unknown, received as a gift from my friend as a keychain.

February Scrap our Stash (SOS) Pick a Side Layout Challenge: Throwback summer page and time crunch tips

I'll keep the momentum going to get an "ancient" project completed (my summer photos from college years. This is the cover page). Scrap Our Stash posted a great Pick Your Side challenge this month. I picked the right side sketch and rotated it.  

It also required: 

1) Use of two different alphabets (I used Coluzzle template and letters/negative space from stickers I got back in San Diego Scrapbook expo days (sometime between 2008-2012 I think) from a class I took.

2) Striped paper. Had this one in my stash from San Diego days as well!  

We beat the heat in many different ways-lake visits, trips a few hours away to the beach, pool time and naturally, ice cream--though I don't think I've scrapbooked about ice cream in a long time-high school perhaps? I think it might be time to! Funny to think of heat when I'm rummaging in the closet to grab my thickest sweater right now, but I think we long for change after some time.

Have you ever scrapbooked or done a project about a food you like? Last week I professed my love for coffee. I have also seen some tongue in cheek Christmas cards online from singles with cutesy "couples" style photos taken with a favorite food-like gazing lovingly at a burrito or photo edited person-sized bottle of Budweiser getting an arm around the "shoulder".

The other two layouts I made are not tied to any challenges but inspired by a couple layouts found on Pinterest. And used the same paper/paper theme as this page above.

Really been wanting to try out the hexagon one for sometime now, and liked how the dog-biting wake page turned out. One of my favorite memories of our childhood pet. In scrapbooking these photos that I lack notes on or don't remember much about that particular trip, it was fun to journal about how my dad got into water skiing in general & what kind of food we would pack for a typical day on the lake.

So, if you're behind on your scrapbooking or just getting started, that's ok. It can be a nice twist to scrapbook about an event that occurred awhile ago to compare to what's happening now, or you might focus on something different closer to the event compared to months or years later.

The Creating Keepsakes (CK) magazine from May 2005 that I paged through for ideas, gave some good advice for scrapping when you have a busy life.

• One response was to look for the time in the day/week when you have creative energy and calmness (is it early mornings? the weekend afternoons? and shift other tasks to times that you have lower energy (like autopilot chores you can do)
• Another response was including (if you have them) your children in your scrap space to spend quality time with them AND get some of your stories told! I like to use it as an excuse to get friends together in person or on the phone (let's catch up and work on something creative together!) Like exercising, sometimes having a person you promised to do something with helps with follow through! 
• One person said organizing your supplies to find things faster --> complete pages faster
• CK also said, have out the photos you want to work on to give you ideas during the week, or put items you are starting on under a piece of plexiglas to protect it.  I used to pull out one sheet protector and hang it on my wall with a thumb tack, tossing in the photos and colors or embellishments I wanted to use as a visual reminder that I had a page in the works.
• As an occupational therapist, I would say, you can try to break down your page making into more manageable steps. Maybe one day you go through photos you want to tell the stories, another day you find layouts that would work for these photos. You could decide to do a small album that just uses one 4x6 photo per page and you have less space to worry about adding a lot of embellishments and design, use a same couple of layouts or color theme throughout the book.
• Perhaps look for a product or technique you'd be excited to try to get you to carve out some time. It seems like "fusing" right now is popular on Pinterest (I haven't tried this and don't have the heat tool) and splattering paints. I like the mini-clustering effects too. 

Thanks for stopping by! Let me know how you incorporate crafting into your calendar! 

CSI: Case No. 273 & 274 Love Letter and Documenting Alaska

Continuing on with the rest of the challenges for this month on CSI (Color, Stories, Inspiration) website, I took up case no. 273 in my Smash book.

My inspiration came from the case files to use pink and green, paint (the arrows), and a love letter format for the journaling. Happily I used up a brad that has been in my stash from the Scrapbook Expo days in San Diego and did not waste the twine scrap by putting it in the title. I had a fun time professing my love for a beverage. 

The last case for this month I decided to feature photos from Alaska. The chilly temperatures made me think of this challenge even though we went in September, not exactly what we think of as winter in the US. 

I drew from the inspiration photo/hints by using the following older items as the prompt encourages us to use : 

1. snowflake paper and red velvet-like flowers from my Christmas card rounds in 2016 as it was COLD and rainy during our Alaskan cruise, 
2. flower punched paper from Yanny many years ago, 
3. scone stickers from 2009 or 2010,  
4. white textured paper from my aunt likely sometime in the 2008-2012 range, 
5. the red and green color scheme, 
6. ribbon (new item) and flowers like the lady's wreath,  and
7. stamped images. 

Reader questions:
1. If I was to come visit your city, what coffee or tea shop would you recommend I hit up?
2. What is a new interest or past-time you started because of a vacation experience?

CSI Scrapbook Challenge Case No. 272

Clicking through some of the Scrap Our Stash designers and members' blogs, I came across a beautiful and fun page with a winter theme that was made from a challenge in the CSI scrapbook challenge website which gives an inspiration photo/artwork and then clues to incorporate elements into your page and journaling ideas. I had stumbled across this once before but never got around to participating.

I gave it a try since I had a creative block with some photos that I wanted to tackle in a layout from two different times I was in Utah as part of my states, countries and California cities album. One visit was in summer and one was in winter so I wasn't sure how they would go together. But this February challenge from CSI Case No. 272 gave me a tie in: the plaid pattern as part of the design went with the winter feel for my snow pictures and I happened to wear a plaid pattern when I was hiking for the summer trip.

I used the same design proportions of patterned paper to plain, grabbed some brick red paper for accents, and added in some dots as snow falling like the inspiration piece. I cut a bit of fringe around one photo to show warmth like the scarves as we indulged in a pizza-cookie that day.

I didn't end up doing any of the writing prompts from the challenge but I could write about it now, today's is "if you could do today over, would you redo anything? " The only thing I can think of is that I would get one of my weekly phone calls out of the way and applying to another job on my list, otherwise felt productive:

• calling the help desk to try to get access to a job board, 
• fixing a warming soup for dinner, 
• picking up some fresh produce for the rest of the week, 
• putting gas in the car,
• exercising the dog, 
• singing with the Smule app, 
• and responding to an email for a phone interview. 

But the night is still young-perhaps I can get one more thing done besides yoga to make my headache go away.

February Scrap our Stash (SOS) Saturday Morning Cartoon Challenge: Scrapbooking a city I've lived in

Instead of watching the Superbowl or even the Puppy Bowl, I am spending time preparing for a job interview and digging into my scrapbook supplies once again. SOS posted a Popeye inspired layout and the requirement was also to use the given layout sketch for inspiration, and include paper with hearts or use at least 3 heart elements.

I am happy the green and black colors from the dino and dog pictures go with the Popeye graphic. And the hearts to show new love to a city I previously knew little about and was even hesitant to go.  

Questions for the readers:
1. What city have you gone to and been pleasantly surprised by? How long do you think a person needs to spend there to "see it"?

2.  Have you come up with a clever trivia night team name before? 

3. What are 5 things that made you laugh or be in good spirits about this week?

A New Year, a New Endeavor Among Many

Much like last year, I start off the year without employment. Last time was due to studying for my boards, and this time it is because my contract ended in November.

I have time to scrapbook for now, so I'll savor what I can from having all the extra time rather than dwell on being anxious about my future. I am actually making a post for this blog I set up 4 years ago! I intend for this to be a place to capture my crafts, particularly scrapbooking and upcycled items.

I have been doing my best to be thrifty and use up my current stash because I have been moving several times over the last 18 months and do not have the space to have my dream amount of supplies (a whole room, naturally!)

I came across Scrap Our Stash website, and it helps give me inspiration for page layouts and as its name says, use up my existing supplies! The challenges for January are about using Super Friends logo and stars, and "pick a side" (of a two sided layout) plus use flower embellishments.

Right Side: Foods of Carmel!  I went ahead and made both sides of the challenge since I had enough pictures for a multiple page spread from this trip to Carmel. 

Left side: Flower embellishments AND flowers in my picture. Nailed it. 

Super Friends Challenge: I was inspired by a string and flower punched/die cut embellishment on Pinterest but my flowers only had 6 petals so it came out with a different pattern than my inspiration pin. Happy it came out different to fit this challenge! I did some angled lines to imitate the Super Friends rays background. Also this wedding is that of a SUPER friend.

Prompts to get your creativity going, based on this post:
1) Share with me food related craft project you've done or want to do?  I'd love to get some new ideas/have craft accountability buddies.
2) What are you most glad about from your last vacation?
3)  What emotions have you had at the last weddings you've been to? Why?
4) Have you hand-made anything for a wedding ?