Scrappy Friday 1/27/12

Can you believe it's already almost February? I think I say that every month. But really. Life is busy around here. Brad and I have both started classes, so we keep ourselves occupied with school work.

I did manage to make a scrapbook page! It's been such a long time since I posted a page. I have made some, I just didn't post them. This particular page isn't my favorite thing in the world, but it works. I think it's the lettering I don't like. I think it looks like a carnival, now that I look at it more closely. Maybe I'll rip off the lettering and try a different font.

It's still my Australia book. When I finish it, I'm not sure what I'll do next! I'm thinking I might just start scrapping some of the stuff we've done around VA Beach, but maybe not. Hmm, I'll have to think on it. I'm also planning on starting a book with my race stuff in it. That one will be kept current, and right now it would have all of three pages (i've only run three races, if you count the one I'll be doing in march). What do other people scrapbook when they've done all the big events?

Part of me wants to go back and re-do some of my wedding scrapbook pages. I've since gotten my cricut and a some neat cartridges. And I'm really not happy with some of those pages.

But until then... I still have a big number of Australia pictures to get finished!

Scrappy Wednesday 6-15-11

Since I started work, I definitely haven't been scrapping as much as I would like. But that's ok. Here are two pages I did a couple weeks ago. Still working on scrapping Australia!

Scrappy Wednesday 4/20/11

 More pages of my Australia trip! These feature the Gold Coast beaches. I kept them fairly simple, but I liked the result. I also made the pages look very different, even though they're from the same event. But I'm ok with it.

I cut the flowers with my cricut. On this second page I used a sticker maker my mom scored at a garage sale for me. It made adhering the flower and letters so much easier. I think I am in love with my sticker maker. Also, I apologize for the weird lighting in the second one. I was lazy and figured it would be good enough. I really enjoy these pages. I really like the look of the blue torn strips on the green background. I used a creative memories tearing tool to get the edges to look decent. I am awful at tearing in straight lines, so it helps me a lot.

Do you ever have pages where you just think "I don't care what anyone else thinks, I really love these pages"? That's how I feel about my green page. Haha.

How are your creative projects coming?

Scrappy Wednesday 4/13/11

Underwater World is an aquarium on the Gold Coast in Mooloolooba. Yes, that's really the name of the city. We also went to some beaches on this mini-trip, but those pictures are for next week.

I thought since they were aquarium pictures, that I would use a background that was reminiscent of Bubbles. Then I decided to stick with the circle theme and make my pictures float around in little bubbles. Maybe that's cheesy, but that was my line of thinking. The lettering was done on the Cricut. The little circles the lettering is in were done with a circle punch. The big circles were done with the creative memories cutting system. Journaling, again, is summarized from blog posts (which you can still go check out!)

Scrappy Wednesday 4/6/11

As the title says, these pictures are from the Australia Zoo (aka: Steve Irwin's Zoo). Here's where I had so many good pictures that I wanted to include, but I didn't want to devote ten pages of the scrapbook to the Australia Zoo. SO, what I did was carefully trim out the parts of the photo I didn't really care about, and then I creatively arranged them on the page. Maybe it's a little boring and lacking in creativity, but it gets the job done, eh?

On the first page, the title is done with some stickers I was given and the "zoo" portion of it was done with my cricut. :)

Scrappy Wednesday 3/30/11

These pictures are from our first couple days in Aussie Land. honestly, dealing with the Jet lag we just had a few semi-boring days trying to recuperate. Also, while we were in the school, I couldn't take many pictures of the students because of the Australian Laws about photos of children. The journaling is a summary of some of my entries from my blog from May 2010. You can go check them out if you're curious. :)

On this page, again, I didn't really use my Cricut. I did use a circle punch and some mats, but that's about it. I think I need to step it up with my cricut again... Maybe I need some more cartridges. LOL.

Actually, what it is, is that while organizing my stuff into the new storage system I discovered a boat ton of stickers and such that I've never used. I was also given a lot of "Australia" stickers as a gift, so I figured I would use them.

Scrappy Wednesday 3/23/11

These are the first pages of my Australia Scrapbook. I was so happy to get started on these pictures. I had so many pictures I had trouble whittling down the number of pictures. In future pages you'll see some creative picture placement and creative cropping to get more on the page. But onto talking about these pages!

I love airport pictures. They just crack me up most of the time. The trip organizer insisted that we show up at the Shreveport airport 3 hours early. Despite the fact that the airport has approximately six gates. And despite the fact that, yes, eventually we were going to end up in Brisbane, AUS, but our flight from Shreveport went to Dallas, TX first. Then onto LAX. So I had to be there 3 hours early, so I missed a vital Church service. And what happened when we got there? We checked in in 20 minutes and then sat staring the rest of the time. But I'm not bitter. ;)

But I did have a chance to get some funny pictures. Especially in the first page where everyone is grabbing some sleep! I didn't get a nap in, but I did read, played with the Roudkovski's kids, and typed away on my blog.

I didn't use the cricut at all on these pages. I just matted the photos, and embellished with a few stickers. But I like the way it turned out. I don't like pages that are too fussy anyway. :)

Scrappy Wednesday 3/16/11

This is the last page in my "Our First 2 Years" Scrapbook! It is finished!

I really like this page. It's simple, but I really love the way it turned out. I cut the lacy background with my cricut, and I cut the lettering. Journal panel, picture. Done! :)

Scrappy Wednesday 3-9-11

This page documents getting our dog, Louisianna! I just love the picture of her with her tongue sticking out because that's just her personality. Haha.

I didn't actually use my cricuit for much on this page. Just the lettering. The yellow boarder thing was cut using the creative memories cutting system. The squares were made with a square punch. The paws are stickers, not sure what brand though (I know, that's not helpful).

Enjoy!

Scrappy Wednesday 3-2-11

 These are from this past Fourth of July. Brad's family came up for a visit and we went to Colonial Williamsburg for Fourth of July. It was pretty fun, but it was miserably hot and there were so many people there! I much prefer Colonial Williamsburg on less busy days. But we had a lot of fun. :)

 I had fun with these pages. I punched the corners on these with a corner punch I have. The blue flower things were actually done with my cricuit. My parents got me these marker things that go where the blade normally would be so instead of cutting, it draws. I colored them in with other markers I had, but I still thought it was pretty cool. I also had it draw the lettering too.

 I have to say these pictures of us in the stocks are probably some of my favorites of the whole trip. I just think they're funny, so of course they had to get their own page!

 I like this page too. I like the circles. I did the wheel things around the pictures on the cricuit. And yes, those are Katy Perry lyrics. I'm quite sure the song wasn't even out for this particular 4th of July, but that's ok. I think I can get away with using them. :)

Scrappy Wednesday 1-23-11

 Ok, story time! (Explained more briefly in the journaling that you can't read on the page) I took lots of fun pictures of our moving process. I had pictures of all the boxes stacked up in our small dining room, I had pictures of people helping us pack up, I had a picture of the moving truck pulling the escape, I had pictures of the new apartment with boxes everywhere. BUT as I was transferring them from the memory card to my computer, in the space of about a milisecond, all got selected then deleted. And I definitely didn't do it! I was so very very sad. Anyway, now I only have one picture from one of the people who helped us move, and it's on this first page. I also put in pictures of how we got the new apartment set up.

\

The moral of the story is to be careful when transferring pictures from memory card to computer. Hope you don't have any disasters like that!

Scrappy Wednesday 2-16-11

 In honor of it recently being Valentine's day, I thought I would post the page I made for Valentine's day 2010. I recently went back and did this page because I realized I didn't have any valentine's day photos. Brad and I usually keep it pretty low key. This year he made me my favorite soup (Chicken Tortilla Soup) and baked an Apple pie all by himself. So of course i had to document it! 

 I think you're starting to notice a pattern here... I make most of the page elements on my cricut. LOL. I liked doing this one because I used the patterned papers and went a little wild this time. Normally I do patterned background, solid mats/other elements. But not this time. Aren't I just wild? HAHA.

 I cut these circles and put different hearts on them to make it more valentiney. I liked the result.

And lastly to make it truly valentiney, I asked "Will you be mine?"

As a bonus this week here are pictures of my new organizational system. I mentioned earlier this week that I  went to Michael's on a whim and discovered JetMaxx storage cubes were 40% off. So I bought three of them. As I was getting all my stuff in the cubes, I realized I would need a fourth, so I ran to Micheal's this afternoon and picked up the fourth one. Here's how I have mine for right now. The nice thing about this system is that it's pretty much completely customizable. If someday I get a bigger room, I can even create a table top out of them or add more cubes. They're stinking awesome and at a good price. I also got those three photo boxes for five bucks (as in all three of them cost a total of 5 dollars). In one I have my cricut cartridges, in another extra photos that didn't make it into the scrapbook, and the other has random odds and ends that needed a home. I cannot tell you how stinking excited I am to be able to have my stuff out like this. It makes it more accessible and makes me much more apt to scrapbook when I only have an hour or two. It really takes a lot of time gettin gall my stuff out of the big tub. NO MORE TUB YAY!

Happy (belated) Valentine's day! I hope you can find creative ways to scrap your Valentine's day!

Scrappy Wednesday 2-9-11

 These are from the actual day of graduation. Most of them are after pics... but there is exactly one of me getting my diploma. I put the program on the page with photo squares so I could, in theory, take it out and flip through it if I so chose. I really enjoy the picture on the bottom right of Brad and I on this page.

 We took so may shots of us throwing our hats. The wind kept catching them and blowing them away.

All the flowers and letters were done with my cricuit. You can't really see it too well in these pics, but the corners of the pictures are punched with a fancy corner puncher thing so they're all cool and stuff. The last one didn't photograph as well because I photographed them in the evening with yellow light (no natural light because it was dark :( ) But it works! Enjoy! :)

Scrappy Wednesday 2-2-11

Can't believe it's February already! Today's pages are from my college graduation weekend. These particular pictures are from the festivities the night before graduation. The Ivy Cutting Ceremony and the Awards Banquet. I had lots of fun with these pages. I just discovered how to do "layers" on my cricut, so that's how I got the big flower thingies on there. They took a lot of time, but I think they look pretty darn awesome! The squared are just punched with a square punch and the lettering are "Spare Parts" Alphabet Brads. Again I incorporated the program from the two events to preserve them. I like to use things like that so I can keep a memento, but not clutter up my life.

Scrappy Wednesday 1-26-11

I was the Stage Right play my last semester at LeTourneau. I played Sue Bayliss in Arthur Miller's "All My Son's". I had such a blast with it. Here are the pages I made to remember it all by. Three whole pages!

 

I took these pictures during our final dress rehearsal. That's why there are no pictures of me! 

 

So, to make it all look authentic, some of the actors smoked tobacco-less cigarettes for the show. We all way too much fun with them, and many of us smoked them to be stupid when we were off stage. Our cast picture on the bottom right features us all with a fake cigarette. Now, to understand why this is so scandalous you need to know that the school is a conservative Christian school. We aren't even allowed to drink or smoke off campus, let alone on campus. So we all thought we were pretty BA smoking these stupid fake cigarettes. I must admit, it was pretty funny. But I guess you had to be there.

I kept the elements pretty simple on these pages. The big flourishy thing was fun to use, so there were an abundance of them. And I had just gotten my cricut so I might have gone a little crazy with them. But I also featured the program and the ticket stub to the show. I like to put actual "scraps" on my pages to keep some momentos. Maybe I'm cheesy?

Scrappy Wednesday 1-19-11

I had so much fun doing these pages! I co hosted a bridal shower for my good friend Bekah. It was more of a lingerie shower, but it was SO MUCH FUN. And these pages were fun to do. Especially because my mom got me the "Fashion" cricut cartridge, and it had a little bra and panty set I could cut out. If ever there were a page that it would be appropriate to put a bra and panty set on, this would be it. So I did. I apologize if anyone feels scandalized by that. You can see the panties up close in the second picture. :)

I've really been enjoying scrapbooking lately. I don't have a very good storage stystem partly due to lack of motivation to spend money on something more sophisticated and partly because i don't have the space. Currently, basically everything is in  tub and when I get the urge to scrapbook, I have to haul out the tub and haul out everything from the tub. Then my entire livingroom floor is covered in scrapbooking stuff. I should take a picture and show you sometime. So generally I go through spurts of scrapbooking and have a few marathon sessions, before I put it all away and bury it in the closet again. I'm hoping to remedy the storage system problem later this spring, but until then I'm hoping to just keep doing a couple pages here and there to get finished with some stuff. This blog is going to help me stay motivated and and on top of things. I hope. If it doesn't, I apologize, but I'm thinking it will. Especially since I'm not doing school this semester, I should have a lot more time and motivation to get stuff out. Anyway, how do you guys organize all your stuff? I live in a small apartment, so obviously having my own scrapbooking room is out of the question (someday!).

Pages!

I have been a busy little Scrapbooking Bee since I finished up my semester and got my cricut. Here are a few of my finished pages. I'm going to spread these out over a couple posts because I seriously have 13 pages. Too many for one post!

 My first page with my very own Cricut!

 I cut the letters and the frames on the cricut. I'm still figuring out the potential power of the machine, haha. So hopefully my pages will get more complicated? The circles I cut using the Creative memories cutting system. I got it as a graduation gift from my Aunt-in-Law (I think I just invented a title) and let me tell you what, I love that system. I have a big border template, the circles, and ovals for it. You should get it too because it's stinking awesome.

I really love the way the easter page turned out. I like the colors and how the flowers I cut on the cricut go so well with the flowers on the background. I've had this 12 X 12 paper for a very long time. I tend to hold onto pages I really like until I find just the right pictures for it. Sometimes I think the paper is too pretty to cover with stuff, lol. I am so weird sometimes. But I am glad I found the right pics for it! You'll notice I tend to keep my layouts simple. It's because I like to put multiple pictures on a page because the purpose of a scrapbook, in my opinion, is to preserve memories. I see a lot of layouts out there were there is only one photo on the page and the rest is just stuff put on the page. Those pages look cool, but I just don't have the time to do one photo per page. I like to group pictures together to give an accurate representation of the event.