Love the unique things...

Although I don't usually have much free time when I go to a conference, I try to get out and walk around the town a bit no matter where I go.  This time I had a walk built into my daily schedule because I didn't stay at the conference hotel (it was sold out).  But that was okay by me.  I found a lot of really cool things walking around the town.  One of my favorites was a map of the United States poured into the concrete patio outside of the convention center.  I walked by it every day and it really made me think about how amazing it was to be a conference where every state on the map was represented (at least I'm pretty sure they all were). 

But it also made me think about how far away from home I was and how much I was really looking forward to going back, which became the inspiration for this layout.  I used a PageMaps sketch that I had pinned on Pinterest, but my link back to the original pin has a warning and since I've already gotten one virus through Pinterest, I wasn't tracking that one back to give you the source. I tried looking through the monthly PageMaps sketch releases (yes I have them all printed and in sheet protectors in a notebook), but I still could not find it.  So while I don't have a link to this exact sketch for you, I encourage you to go check out PageMaps sketches.  I'm sure you'll find many sources of inspiration.

Since this single page will face the other half of my actual divided pages, I had the same dilemma as yesterday of how to use my quickly dwindling supply of Pink Paislee Portfolio materials.  Fortunately, this sketch, like the other, let me use small pops of the Portfolio papers on a background of plain cardstock.  I used the same ink and paint treatment around the edge so that these pages will all have a cohesive feel.  I have a few more inserts to do and I'll find some way to bring that in on those too.  I also included a reference to the week in my journaling.  One thing I love is that the page this one will sit next to had some red on them from my button and badge, so by using the hearts on this layout, I was able to bring that red across and make it all tie together nicely.  I just love how that worked out.

 

I'm really having a lot of fun with this.  I guess I had forgotten a bit about why I fell in love with scrapbooking in the first place.  It's nice to be reminded.  One thing I realized again is how little embellishing I really do.  I love designers like Shimelle Laine who can turn a pile of supplies that would surely look like a jumbled mess if I tried to use them into something truly amazing.  Their pages look nice and balanced, while I always felt like mine look plain in comparison.

But in the last few weeks of working on this, I realized that I don't really care that my pages are never going to look like all those designers out there turning out amazing work.  I'm happy with how my pages look.  I have a very simple, clean style and there's nothing wrong with that.  This is about making myself happy and I am happy with my simple pages.

Just last night, hubby and I were talking about just how happy I am right now despite all the reasons why I shouldn't be right now.  I thought about it a lot last night when I couldn't sleep because my head was pounding from our lovely change in weather.  I came to realize that I am happy with our quiet little life.  It been nice these last couple of weekends being just the two of us, hanging out together, doing things that need to be done (like laundry, grocery shopping and house cleaning) but also doing things we love (playing in my craft room with him sitting in the next room playing some Xbox game with a manual the size of a thesaurus just so he can find his way home). 

It makes me think back to a quotation I read a while back about needing to stop in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.  I know I wrote that one down somewhere because it was so thought-provoking.  I'm going to have to dig it out and do something with it sometime soon.  But I feel like maybe that's what this last week and a bit has been for me - just taking a little time to just be happy with what I have, who I am and where I am.

It's been a long time...

...Since I did a full layout. I guess I've been in card mode a lot lately. Plus I really haven't much creative mojo or energy lately. It seems like all I do is go to work and sleep. But this weekend, although it went way too fast, I had just had a great time and felt more like myself. We went to an afternoon hockey game yesterday with my parents and had a great time. Today we went to my niece's 11th birthday party. Then a little grocery shopping, some laundry, a little yard work, a new recipe for dinner (Cheesy Potato Soup - so easy and quite delicious) and I even found some time to play in my craft room tonight where I was inspired to do a layout of this great picture of my parents after a long exhausting day at SeaWorld in 2009. I used a PageMaps layout (aren't they fabulous?) for inspiration. I used a piece of Colorbok paper from a pad I found at TJ Maxx (love the great deal on paper there) and a lot of designs from the Silhouette design studio (the banners are new ones this week).

7 years

A couple of weeks ago, hubby and I celebrated our seventh anniversary and my parents celebrated their 48th just a few days earlier. So as an anniversary gift for both of us, the four of us went to a hockey game on the Saturday night between their anniversary and ours, back to the scene of the crime as one might say. Well, not really because this game was in the Rose Garden, not Veteran's Memorial Coliseum, but it was as close as we could get.


I surprised both my parents and my husband with having anniversary wishes posted on the big screen (a big thank you to the Hawks for comping me the posting cost since we were the ones who got married on the ice). Hubby was actually surprised. He said he had thought about doing it but didn't know who to contact. (I do!) It was a fun addition to an otherwise wonderful game.


So on our actual anniversary, I gave him his card and he asked me to make a scrapbook page for it and he asked that I include one of the roses he gave me. So last weekend I tried my hand at drying a rose. I was really surprised how well it turned out and how easy it was to do. Just cover the flower with the drying powder and wait.


I also found the perfect shadow box, but the page design was a little elusive. I have a very clean and graphic style and I just didn't want to do the same thing all over again. I wanted to try some new things. I had this idea about making my own background paper using some Co'ordinations Black Magic paper I bought a while ago. So last night, I played around in SCAL and created a whole page of the number 7 (the number of years we've been married) in Old English Text for the font. I printed a test page using a sharpie and my Chomas Sharpie holder for the Cricut. When I had what I wanted, I switched out for the embossing tip and held my breath. It turned out perfectly. A bit of sanding later and a little use of a stylus to make some of the sevens stand out more than others and I was thrilled with my personalized background paper. It was so not my usual style but I love, love, love it.


But then I couldn't make the rest of the layout come together. I fussed with it until nearly 1 in the morning last night, gave up and went upstairs to watch the last two stories on Five that I DVR'd off Lifetime earlier in the week, hoping that creativity would come to me in the night. Well, that didn't happen, so I flipped through some sketch books (Page Maps and Page Maps 2, plus the Best of Becky Higgins Sketches) this morning but finally drew some inspiration from a sketch from Page Maps from July 2009. (I have just got to add that the best thing I ever did to inspire myself was to buy a plain old notebook and some page protectors and print pages of sketches that I like and put them in the notebook. I have all this inspiration in one convenient place. Wonderful! Although I need to get a bigger notebook now).


What really inspired me was the off kilter nature of the pictures, which I switch to landscape instead of portrait. Plus I didn't want to cover too much of my background so I ditched a lot of the background of the layout to leave more open space. In retrospect, it really looks nothing like the sketch that inspired me, but that's the point. I don't need to recreate something someone else has done, but simply take inspiration from them. But once I had all the pictures in place, it was really still missing something. I put it in the shadowbox and I just wasn't happy. It needed bling. Hubby looked at it and was suggesting things he thought would work to make it all come together. But I really knew it just needed some bling. But the swirly bling I had on hand was black or pearl. Neither would work. But then I remember that I bought the templates for the I-Rock bling. Perfect! I was going to get to do something else I haven't done before as I bought these but had never used them. I was a little hesitant, but once I got started it was so easy to use and it turned out that was exactly what it needed. I'm sure everything is going to have I-rock bling now that I know how easy the templates are to use.


Unfortunately, the glass of the shadowbox reflects too much that I had to take the picture with the door open, but you get the idea.

Charlotte and Grace

I was having trouble with the title for this page. I cut out some letters, but they just didn't look right so I realized the perfect thing was to write the title right on the page. Problem was, I had already constructed the page so I couldn't print them on my printer and my handwriting, well, it's just plain awful. So I broke out my new CriKit pens and found the perfect solution. It's a little nerve-wrecking to simply draw the title on a page that's otherwise put together, but it turned out perfectly.

It was also the first time I have ever stapled on a page too. I don't know why I haven't tried it before because I've had colored staples sitting my drawer for the longest time and it's such an easy technique. I just never thought about it before, but it was on the October 2008 minimaps layout that I scraplifted from and I'm so happy I gave it a try. I had absolutely no feline help on this one at all. It was kitty nap time on the cat post.

Finally Done!

Whoo hoo! I'm done. Ten pages all finished and ready to go with days to spare. I even took some time today to clean up the last of the summer plants out of the front yard. I stared out with a sketch from Nuts About Sketches to do the page for Lee. Then I jumped over to Sketch Savvy for a layout for Ken.Next, I pulled up the December Page Maps to find a layout that truly inspired me to finish Mike's page. So I looked at a few of the past months on Page Maps and found this sketch in the September 2010 .pdfs that was perfect for Doug. Viola! I even had some company from Smoke in my craft room for most of the day. But then I was abandoned for the Christmas blanket.




I guess I can't blame them. Cuddling on the couch sounds pretty good to me. In fact, that's what I'm going to go do.