Kindergarten Scrapbook Pages

Hi All,
I am sorry to be neglecting my blog so much lately. I had been feeling so frustrated with my lack of energy and creativity. So to jump start things, I was cleaning up my scraproom and trying to fine-tune my organization. I am having a hard time finding places to put all my stuff. I swear this room is shrinking! LOL (perhaps I am shopping too much too! :) )

So in my cleaning, I discovered that I have 4 bankers boxes full of school memorabilia that I have been saving to put in the girls scrapbooks. I really could use that space better, so I decided to pull out their school books which have been started and not finished, and get caught up on the school pages. I bought these scrapbooks from Creative Memories back when the girls were babies, and my scrapping style has changed so much since I started these books, however, in the spirit of getting caught up, I am not making the fanciest pages.

So here are the pages I made for Mads Kindergarten year. They follow my typical school year formula.

1.) The First Day of School: We always take a picture on the first day with the girls holding signs with what new grade they are starting and the date.

2.) The class composite picture page.

3.) I do a few layouts on various school activities that I may have pictures for. This one is for Spirit Week's Crazy Hair Day.
I always choose only a few really good pieces of artwork/homework to go into the scrapbook. I also use this method of including 8.5 x 11 page protectors into the book for awards and homework pieces. Here I have taped it to the edge of the 12x12 page under the paper. This works well in the Creative Memories Strap-Hinge albums. I have also just cut extra slits/holes to add them onto the straps or posts in my other albums.

Here is is closed :
Here it is opened up:
I had to include Mads drawing of the Human Body in here:

Here is the page with the rest of the chosen artwork: Some times I also use the girls artwork as my background papers in the school book layouts

I have a few more layouts to do to complete Mads Kinder-year. I hope to share them in a another post soon.

Carts Used:

Mother's Day Bouquet cart for the flower in the first layout

Printing Press for the Crazy Hair Day title.

Birthday Bash & Best Friends Patterns on the Imagine for the Banner Pieces.

On 'My Lil Artist' I used all Sizzix dies for the titles and scalloped square.

If you have any questions about my school albums please feel free to contact me.

Thanks for visiting today.

Have a Great and Crafty Day.

Jan

Quick and Easy Cards

Hi All! I can't believe I finally have a crafty post! It has been TOO long. I have been feeling a little like my MOJO had abandoned me, so I spent quite a bit of time just perusing the Internet, you-tube and various blogs and Magazines to get some inspiration and help get my creativity flowing again.

I saw this fabulous idea to use the 12x12 pages that have the ATC sized cards printed on them, as the fronts for greeting cards. I always loved buying these types of 12x12 cardstock, to use for accents on my scrapbook pages. I felt they were really "smashbook-ish" (Is that a word?? LOL) Now I have another great use for them as well.

Here is a picture of the papers I chose to use. It is Fancy Pants Paper. The line is The Daily Grind. I used the DG cards page and the DG Strips page. I found these great papers at the Scrapbook Expo this year.

I also used premade cards from JoAnn's that I have had in my stash forever. It felt good to not only be crafting again, but to be using up some stuff that was just sitting there.

So for the few cards that I made, I just did a basic design, with very little extra on it and no sentiment. I figured I would just put these in my stash, and when I needed a card, I would then add the sentiment and any extra more specific embellishments based on whether I needed a birthday, anniversary, get well, or just a hello card.

Here are the cards I made:

This one was made using two pieces from the strips paper. I just added a light green rick-rack bow to it.

This one I just double mounted the card on a blue and then a cream colored cardstock and added some gem flowers to it.
This one I used a new embossing folder on the dark blue cardstock. It is called Scalloped Dots by the Paper Studio from Hobby Lobby. I then added a few brads in coordinating colors to the centers of some of the scalloped dots and offset my DG Card front.


This is my least favorite of the cards. I embossed the card base using CuttleBug's Script Texture and I lightly sanded it. Then I used a piece from the strip paper and a white bow. Its kind of plain still, but eventually it will get more embellishments.
This one is my favorite one. It is the one I spent the most time on. I stamped swirls on the card base using versamark and heat embossed it with some holographic embossing powder. I mounted the DG card on some cement colored cardstock that I had punched using a border punch. I then cut some flower layers from the Flower Shoppe cart. I cut the Mum2 and Mum 4 in both 1.75 and 2.0 inches in vellum. I stamped some layers using brilliance ink, and I embossed some using Cuttlebug's Swiss Dot folder. I added some bling to the card front.

I really like this DG Card so this card is rather simple. The red plaid paper is from Imagine Best Friends Cartridge. It was a leftover from a previous project. :) I added a small blue bow that matches the blue stripe in the heart. It is so simple, but I just love it!

Here is my last card: I really liked this DG Card too. I just tied a sheer white bow to the card, and mounted it on a piece of vellum that I had embossed using Cuttlebug Stylized Flower folder. I attached the vellum layer to the card base using some silver brads.

All of these cards are really simple, but I am happy with how they turned out, and how quickly I put them together. I have more types of these ATC pages, so I am going to look through them and see about making more cards in the future.

Thanks for visiting today.

Have a Great and Crafty Day!

Jan

My Smash book project - part 1

Hi all. Life has been so crazy here that I just haven't had time to post. I have a few posts that I hope to have up by later tonight or tomorrow.

I am still working on my smash book project. I had grand plans to post my ongoing progress, but as life goes, here we are at the end of the month and I haven't posted one progress post. lol

So..I thought I would share what I have done so far....
I wanted to do a theme of the Month of July. I was trying to give a fairly good picture of what our life is like on a day to day basis here.

I have the book taken apart, as it was easier to rearrange the pages that I have worked on so far. No page is complete yet, as I have to do some journaling on some of the pages.

Here is a calendar page

I have been trying to use up things in my stash, so I have been using stickers where I can. I'll admit, I don't use many stickers anymore since I discovered my Cricuts, and I have a huge stash of them, so I am glad to be using some of those up. I did cut the July 2011 from Nursery Rhymes. I really like that font. I have used it quite a few times.

Here is a page on a family BBQ we had. The top note is cut from my Imagine, I flood filled the stock shape using the Best Friends Cartridge. I printed it on the reverse side of a store-bought printed paper. Instant two sided paper! I love the Imagine for this. The Grill was cut from Block Party Lite Cartridge.
Here is a 4th of July page. I used Independence Day for the title and the firecrackers. The journal tags and diecuts were from Yankee Doodles paper from We R Memory keepers.
Here is some paper from Simple Stories - 100 Days of Summer from Archivers. The felt flower is from my stash from last Valentine's Day. The paperclip I got from Staples. It looks like the ones that K&Co sell as their "Smash" clips, but I got a whole lot bigger package with many cool colors for a fraction of the price.
This is on the playgrounds we have played at this month. I am still working on most of these pages. The embellishments are Jolee's foam stickers that I have had for years.
Here is a page that is going to have some journalling about what we did when the weather was too hot or rainy to be outside. I printed the cloud papers using my Imagine and Best Friends and Hopscotch cartridges. The kid with the umbrella and the Rain title are from Nursery Rhymes.


Here is a record of the weather/temperatures for the month. I added a little Arizona die cut from K & Co. and an arrow cut from Going places. It talks about how phoenix had an actual temperature of 118 degrees. OOh that is hot.
Here is a close up of some of my journaling as well as a news paper clipping about the extreme rain Chicago was hit with. I stamped the arrow.


I will upload the rest of my progress in the next post.

Have a Great and Crafty Day!

Jan

Calling Card for Ohio Circle Meet-up

Hi All! I can't believe that it is July 21st already! It has been a crazy month, and I have been crafting like crazy to get the two Ohio Cricut Circle meet-up items done before today.

Well Here is my Calling Card:


Most cuts were from Camping Critters, except the car which is from Locker Talk. I also used my Imagine and the Best Friends Cartridge to make the patterned paper used for the map.

For the cute deer, I used liquid applique on his belly and tail. When you heat it, it puffs up. I glues two different sized googily eyes on him to match the crazy eyes that are on the animals on this cartridge. I flood filled a large rectangle on the Imagine using a pattern from the Best Friends cartridge. I then cut the map/belly layer out on my E2, so the cut sizes would be consistent. I folded the map to give it some extra dimension.

For the sign I used the shift-cut on page 57 for the base of the sign, and the shift cut on page 56 for the top layer. I then used a small stamp set I have to stamp on Ohio and Illinois..

The Car was cut from Locker Talk. I only cut the front half of the bottom layer of the car, and the font bumper. The wheel is a random circle also cut from Locker talk. I used a regular hole punch for the hubcap. I added a little glossy accents over the headlight spot.

I did emboss the base of the card with the Seeing spots Cuttlebug folder, but you can not really see that, since I didn't take a picture of the back side of my card.

All paper used was Bazzil except the blue layer in front which is DCWV Adhesive- backed paper.

I used Tim Holtz Distress Inks on various pieces to add some definition. I just love using these inks. I am on a mission to collect them all!

I will make another post today to share the magnets I made to trade.

Then I need to get ready to leave for Ohio!

Have a Great and Crafty Day!

Jan

Having Fun Layout

Hi All! I am sharing my layout for the final cartridge for my June Monthly challenge. The last cartridge I had to use was Playtime. It is a Lite Cartridge that came with my Yellow Limited Edition Colored Expression.


The patterned papers were all printed with my Imagine. I used Best Friends and Hopscotch Pattern Cartridges. I cut the Having Fun, the Bug Jar and the Little Girls with the nets all from Playtime. The nets came from a boy cut. I just trimmed the nets from that cut and used them on the girls.

I also used Birthday Cakes on the Imagine to color the circles and the scalloped border and the Bug Hunters title.
Here is a close up of the bug Jar from Playtime cartridge. I cut the jar shape from acetate. I Inked the edges with Staz-on to give it some dimension. The bug jar is supposed to have a grasshopper in it, but I trimmed him off. I then took some tiny bee stickers and colored them black and then used some stickles to give them a fireflies glow.

I am glad I got this month's projects done. I have many projects planned for the next month, so come back and visit me again.

Have a Great and Crafty Day!

Jan