ScrapHappy

30-Minute Thursday!

Happy Thanksgiving! But surely you can steal 30 minutes while the turkey is cooking and the boys are watching football to create a little page... :)

The most time-intensive part of this whole layout was finding the numbers that looked good! I started with the photos. None of them was particularly terrific on its own, so I decided to use all three together. When pictures are so similar, I like to position them in a straight line. It just makes more sense somehow. I wanted the one of Callie looking straight on to be the focus, so I knew I wanted to tilt it.

Because she's wearing an orange shirt, I didn't want to ignore the orange... but I also didn't want to do a Halloween page (even though she was helping carve pumpkins when these pics were taken). So I went with the green background and then went through my stash of patterned paper to find something with green and orange... this Paper Salon paper was perfect!

Once the two pictures on the left were adhered, I went to the tilted pic. I wanted a little "something" to call it out more, so in came the photo mat... and since I scallop whenever possible, I scalloped the mat. It also helps break up all the straight lines on the LO.

Next was the title -- I loved the idea of counting how many days old Callie is. I originally intended to include a journaling list of all the things she's accomplished in 1143 days... but that idea went out the window when I couldn't fit it in. So I dug numbers out of my stash (this took the longest!) and then added the words.

The page needed something on the lower part to balance it, and I decided a little splash of orange would be good. I stamped the date, stuck it on the page, and added the bling because you can never go wrong with a little bling. Rounded the corners and I was done. :)

Your challenge: Do a page using numbers! Winners from last week... I have received a couple of requests to extend the contest one day because of the holiday... so I will! Winners tomorrow! Now go eat.

30-Minute Thursday!

It's that time of the week again...

30-Minute Thursday!

Note: Objects on the screen are straighter than they appear.

This page started with the paper. I love this paper! It's from Reminisce, and for some reason it just makes me smile. I had a sheet of it sitting on my table, and when I pulled my photos out to start leafing through for some, I came up with these two. It's a little busy, but I think that by separating the pattern from the photos, it makes it work. At least that is my story and I am sticking to it!

So... I don't like to use straight PP for the background of the page, so I grabbed some blue cardstock that helped dilute the pattern as well as pull in the blues in the photos.

Once the PP was mounted on the background cardstock, I went with a straightforward photo placement, again because the background pattern is so busy already. Next, I wanted to mount the photos on cardstock to give them a little "breathing room," so I picked an off-white for that. I needed a little something to pull in the blue, so I found the Doodlebug paper frill in my stash and slapped that on there.

The embellishments were a bit harder. SIMPLE was the key -- nothing to make the page any busier than it is already. I am not one to use many pre-printed cardstock tags, but this one that said "Dad & Me" was perfect. I mounted that, used the coordinating "boys" circles (that I mounted on slightly larger pieces of pink cardstock), wrote my journaling, and voila! Finis!

YOUR CHALLENGE: use a pre-printed embellishment, something with a word or quote or...??

Last week's winner... Heather M! Heather, send me your address so I can get you some goodies.

Our other participants did a wonderful job...

Amy (scroll down)

Sockiepuppetsmom

Ingunn

Stephanie

Jen McG

Nicole

Melita

Kylie

30-Minute Thursday

You know, I still have THREE unclaimed prizes from our first 30-Minute Thursday, and it seems to me that if you don't claim them in a week from the day your prize was announced, you just might have to sacrifice it! SO if you took part in 30MT #1, you'd better go back and check to see if you won. Because time is a tickin', ladies!

Here's what I've got for you this week:

This one pulled together really fast. I started with some old photos of my two older kids, flipped through a couple of magazines for designs using two photos, and decided on this placement. I picked the yellow cardstock because of the yellow in Ben's shirt and Kinsey's bib, and then grabbed a cool piece of patterned paper I had lying around, just waiting to be put to good use. Since the pattern is so bold and colorful, I didn't want to try to bring in another pattern, so I stuck with the solids -- teal for the scalloped strip, browns for the title circle and photo matting and journal strip.

Once I had the photos in place, I wanted to add some roundness, so I traced a CD and cut it out for the title block. Then I traced another and cut it out slightly larger with pinking shears. A quick look at the clock told me I had over 15 minutes, so I decided to stitch a border on the circle. I pulled out a template and marked the holes with a paper piercer, threaded some floss, and went to it (this as you can imagine was the most time-consuming part of the layout).

After it was stitched, I added the title (simple!) adhered the circle to the page, and cut and positioned the journaling blocks. A minute to go! I decided we needed some more red on the page, so I dug through my box o' buttons and found a few that would help tie the whole page together.

Voila!

materials: Patterned paper (Cloud 9) + scalloped blade (Fiskars) + floss (DMC) + alpha stickers (American Crafts) + buttons (Foof-a-la) + pinking shears

Your challenge: Create a 30-minute page using older photos. You decide what "older" means! That was really the genesis for this page.

LAST WEEK'S WINNERS:

Nicole

Jenna

Etta

Leslie

Ingunn

Kyla

Kylie

JenMc

Abbie

Notice anything interesting about this list? You are correct -- that is EVERYONE WHO ENTERED! You can't win if you don't play.

So, if you're a winner, send me your address BY NEXT THURSDAY and I will get you some little goodies. Send me your address even if you are completely certain I have it (I probably do, but it's quicker this way...)

Now go play.

30-Minute Thursday!

Thanks to everyone who participated in our first 30-Minute Thursday challenge. And the winners are...

EVERYONE!

I mean it. If you took part and posted a link to your challenge, YOU WIN!

Send me an e-mail with your snail mail address and I will get a goodie out to you. It may not be large, but it will be FUN!

(And I leave for CKC-Seattle tomorrow, so it probably won't go out until Monday).

Now, if that doesn't get the rest of you slackers off your duffs, I don't know what will!!!

For this week's challenge:

This page started with the need to create something. I had the urge to scrap, didn't have a ton of time, and didn't feel like creating a "masterpiece" page. I just wanted to get some photos on the page. So I flipped through my pics, found these two, and went to it.

Pictures: Not great, not awful. Self-pics of my older daughter and me being silly. They didn't need to be the center of the page because they were more there to express a feeling rather than to capture a "one-time-only" event.

First, I leafed through some scrapbooking magazines and idea books to get a design I wanted to capture. This is what I found:

When I read scrapbook mags, I dog-ear the pages of designs I adore to make it easy to go back to when I need inspiration. This one was from Scrapbook Trends, and the designer is Kara Henry. I love the look of the strips of patterned paper.

Once I found the design, the rest was really easy. All the PP strips are cut from scraps (I keep all my scraps in a big 12x12 clamshell plastic tote thingy. When it gets too full, I weed out the smaller/older pieces). I didn't have to measure, which sure speeds up the process!   

Once all the PP and cardstock was adhered, I went to the title. "Ooma and Booboo" are names Kinsey made up for us when she was two (I am Ooma, in case you couldn't tell). I was running out of time and knew I wasn't going to be able to add a huge journaling block like Kara did on her page. I also love big, bold titles, and since I hadn't ever done an "Ooma/Booboo" page, I thought that would be a good choice.

The challenge here was finding all the appropriate Doodlebug letters! I started with just orange and soon realized there are way too many "Os" in my title... so I went to hearts. Even then, I was one short! So that's when I brought in the second pack. (Note: these are some of those "self-adhesive" chipboard letters that aren't really...well, self-adhesive. Bummer). This actually took longer than anything else on the page -- finding the correct letters, and getting them to stick!

Once they were on, I had only a few minutes left. I knew I wanted to add SOME kind of journaling to the page, so I went with the single words to the left of the PP strips. I added a few brads, rounded the corners (can't really tell in the scan, but I did!), and called it good!

YOUR CHALLENGE: Scraplift a page in 30 minutes. You can make it as close or as far from the original as you want. Post a link to your creation in the comments section below by Wed. 11/7. PRIZES!!!

A note about scraplifting: There is scraplifting and there is SCRAPLIFTING. Here's my take on it. If you are creating something for my own personal scrapbook, I do whatever works -- down to and including lifting a design from someone else exactly (that's what page kits are, right?). If I am publishing something online -- even just on my own blog -- I always give credit to the original inspiration in the supply list or comments section. If I am publishing something in a magazine, it is my own work. I may have gotten a color combination or a cute embellisment idea somewhere (painting a circle for the background, for instance), but I don't "lift" an entire LO and call it mine. In the above instance, I personally would not submit this LO for publication because I feel it is very close to Kara's. She did the tough work -- I pretty much followed it, even though the two pages are far from identical.

Your thoughts?

 

Welcome to...

Thirty-Minute Thursdays!

I'm happy to announce a brand-new feature just for my time-starved, sleep-deprived readers (which I am assuming is pretty much all of you). Each Thursday I will present a  project (layout, home decor item, gifty-type thing, card set, etc.) that I created in... you guessed it, THIRTY MINUTES! I will provide a lil' commentary on how I created the project, and then challenge you to do the same. We will have a weekly drawing from all participants who leave links to their projects in the comments section.

So, without further ado, our first Thirty-Minute Thursday layout!

I had these three photos from my son's cub scout troup participation in our town's Christmas parade last year. There was no real defining picture -- none was particularly great -- but I still wanted to get them in our album. The Christmas parade is a big deal in our town, and I marched in it more than once as a child, so I wanted to capture the tradition.

I started by flipping through a few magazines for ideas. I found a layout that included a patterned paper background with a cardstock overlay that I thought looked cute. I knew I wanted the page to include elements of the holiday, but not TOO heavy on the red-and-green because of the strong blue and yellow colors in the photos. I decided on a blue background with some other coordinating PPs. I decided to adust it for three photos, and for the use of a few different strips of patterned paper.

I pulled out a couple of sheets of Christmas paper (Stemma), a sheet of white cardstock, and got to work. I cut the white cardstock to size, then began randomly trimming sheets of the patterned paper. I adhered all that, added the photos down the side, and then started thinking about embellisments.

With all the colors, I didn't want to go too overboard with added embellies. I began with the journaling block (from Dude) mounted on red cardstock. I then added the white labels (Avery) and the picture captions and epoxy stickers (Stemma). I decided a red letter title would pull in more of the red, so I created the title in American Crafts Thickers (the longest time I spent on the entire layout was trying to come up with a title I could create out of the stickers I had! I ended up piecing together a "t" from an "f" I trimmed down).

When I looked at the LO at this point, I thought it needed some kind of visual triangle to pull it all together. There was red in the title, the journaling block, and the patterned papers, but none elsewhere on the page. That's when I reached for my trusty brads (American Crafts) and added two strips of three. I feel like that gave a visual barrier on the page that helps bring the eye to the center. And that's it! 30 minutes, with time out for visits from my three-year-old who likes to "help" set the brads.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it: Create a 30-minute layout using three or more photos. Go! Post a link to your entry in the comments section by next Wednesday to be entered in the drawing!