Family history albums...

A family history album is one of the most important scraping projects you can do. Since last fall I have been working on a family history heritage album. It started one afternoon when my grandson was spending the weekend with me and we were going through old family photos. My grand parents and parents have passed from my life and with them a many pieces of our family history. It made me realize that so many of the family memories I hold will be gone as well when I am no longer here. If I don't save them for my family they will be lost forever. It's a much bigger undertaking than I had originally thought when you start adding in great aunts, cousins etc. Heritage style layouts have always been my favorite to work on, they seem to be the ones I always gravitate back to. I love all the antique looking bits and pieces that can be added. In a way they are not unlike an antique dresser top fill with assorted treasures. This is another cut using my Expression and SCAL. I love the way that the Expression allows you to cut an entire 12x12 page.

Silhouettes done with SCAL...

This week I have been playing with my SCAL program again. These are a couple of silhouettes I found among the down loaded fonts on my computer. Butterflies and fairies have always been a favorite of mine. The cuts turned out so well I didn't want to waste them so I made cards. Both cards are cut 5 1/2 x 7 1/2.

Die cuts and glitz...

How do you decide which die cuts or embellishments you want to add to your layouts? Sometimes I feel so over whelmed trying to decide. Glitz, fibers, chipboard, textures, etc. which do I want to add? I have so many drawers/binders full of pre-made ones and tools to make them with that it’s hard to remember what I have. I feel a lot of times I could have picked something that would have been more complementary had I just opened the right drawer or looked through my paper just one more time. I have to be careful not to spend so much time putting combinations together so that I never get the layout done. I make many of my page elements with my Cricut Expression cutter using DS (Design Studio) and the forty plus cartridges I have acquired over the past couple years. Although I can most always find what I need on the cartridges and DS I love to use SCAL (Sure Cuts A Lot) and Inkscape. You can take an image break down the layers then save as an SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) file. I am still slow at manipulating Inscape and tend to get frustrated with not being more proficient at it. With practice and tutorials I hope to someday breeze through it. With SCAL I find the ability to use computer fonts a big plus and you can always find a font that matches a cartridge font if you look. Currently I have 2683 fonts & dingbats on my computer. I love the ability to cut available silhouettes and doodlebats/dingbats. Some of the intricate silhouette overlays available are simply beautiful. With SCAL shadowing is so much easier as well. The layouts below are all layouts I used SCAL to add elements to.

Re-working old layouts...

Do you ever go through your old scraps books and want to redo your pages? I know a lot of people say you should leave them because they show how you did things at that time. In many ways I guess that’s true. The progression of your skills is clearly shown when you compare the “back when you started” pages and the layouts you craft now. I tend to take pictures of my crafts and keep them on CD. That way when I give them away I still have a picture to reference back to if I need it. In a way I kind of look at redoing pages like redecorating a house. You want your homes décor to grow with your improved tastes over the years. I know I don't want to invite friends and family over sit amoung those shag rugs and coffee tables crafted from utility wire spools that we thought were “groovy” in the late 60’s and early 70’s. I just want to look at the pictures of them and have a good laugh. I do want my albums I pass down to be something I am proud of. Next comes the question do you or will you ever have the time to redo your pages? Most likely, if you are like me you can hardly keep up with the current photos you take. But for the fun of it, and because my daughter was commenting on how much my scraping techniques have changed in the past five years I decided to try something. I took a layout I did the end of 2005, reprinted the elements from the page and started from scratch. The before and after pictures below are what I ended up with. I guess my tastes have changed. But never enough to redo all my books, maybe just reprint those really special pictures and do another layout with them

After:


























Before:

Kreativ Blogger Award...

I received this award from Susie Sugar this week.















What a wonderful compliment because her work is absolutely beautiful. Thank you Susie. The more links I follow on everyone’s blogs, the more treasures I find. There are days I sit down to just check out a couple of the blogs I frequent and before I know it an hour has passed. It’s like getting engrossed in a good book, my list of saved blogs seems to be growing. Thank you everyone for sharing your creativity. This small list doesn’t begin to cover the blogs I think are Kreative. It is just a few in no particular order I would like to pass the honor to:


http://lovemypaper.blogspot.com/
http://www.amazingpapergrace.com/
http://arkansasmom.blogspot.com/
http://jenny-outofmymind.blogspot.com/

I was tagged today...

by The Memory Keeper. Who by the way has a beautiful blog and I now have Over the Rainbow stuck in my head, LOL!

The instructions for this tag are:

*Go to the 6th folder in your my pictures folder.

*Post the 6th picture.

*Explain the picture.

*Tag 6 people.

This picture is of my youngest grandson, Colton, taken Halloween 2008. I always thought when my kids grew up my costume making days were over. Little did I know it just was passed to the next generation. Arggggggh matey!

http://ruelysicreativecards.blogspot.com/

http://angelacres.blogspot.com/

http://dreamofscrappin.blogspot.com/

http://www.splatpat.com/

http://koalatkreations.blogspot.com/

http://catmillerscreations.blogspot.com/

*********
You've been tagged!

Punch a paper garden...

It's hard sometimes to remember even making die cuts without my Cricut. All the paper shaper scissors and small simple punches sat on my shelf gathering dust. When the Design Studio software came out for Cricut it opened a whole new world of die cuts. With a little imagination and a lot of patience it was amazing what could be made. Then I found a wonderful program called Sure Cuts A lot (SCAL) that turned fonts and dingbats into die cuts. But then as so often it happens, what was old becomes new again. Fiskars, Marvy, EK Sucess and Martha Stewart have put out some amazing punches. Martha Stewart's holiday punches seem to be a favorite and become scarce shortly after release. I love her flower and leaf punches and the embossed button punch is one of my favorites. I hope she decides to put out an embossed flower punch that mimics the Prima type flowers in the future. The EK Success corner punches are another punch I often use. Punches take so little paper that all those pieces I have saved from my Cricut cuts are an endless supply for my punches. My grandmother used to say waste not want not and I'm a firm believer in trash (scraps) to treasures. So as I watched a PBS Jane Austen movie I made flower treasures. They turned out to be just what I needed for the dozen note cards I had to make.

Sometimes you just need bright colors...

My favorite way to spend a cold Sunday afternoon is choose a couple good movies, a warm pair of fuzzy slippers and make a fresh pot of coffee (with Irish Cream creamer). Then head off to spend a relaxing day in my scraproom. I really love to work with K & Company papers. One of my favorite stacks is one done by Brenda Walton. The papers are so warm, bright and full of color. With the next to zero temptures outside right now everything warm and colorful is a plus. So I scanned through my photos and found two just as colorful as my paper choices. I could almost smell the grass and feel the sunshine behind the faces of my beautiful grand daughters. It's been a great afternoon, I just may have to repeat it again tomorrow.

The end of another holiday season...

Well the last ornament and Christmas decoration is packed away for another season. As the years pass the holidays seem to arrive more quickly and pass much to fast. For the amount of Christmas decorations I have accumulated one would think I considered it a year round event. I think after this year I am able to decorate five trees, each in a different color/theme. I do believe there are five trees of different shapes and sizes lurking in my storage loft as well. Mind you I live in a three bedroom ranch that has a one tree capacity if I still intend to accommodate furniture and family over the holidays. I guess for me Christmas decorations are kind of like scrapbook supplies, you will never use them all but you can never have enough.

Black & white or color...

This is the first of my layouts using the new stacks I bought yesterday. The background paper came form the Paper Pizazz Heritage stack. Each year my daughters take all the kids to have their portraits taken together and it always gives me a wealth of ideas for layouts. I have a love of black and white photos, they tend to be my favorite to work with. Color photos I find you have to blend in the basic colors in the photo with your page color scheme while black and white allows you can choose the color the photo makes you feel. For that reason many times I will make my color photos b&w or just add a touch of septa tones . With this layout I loved the colors in the photo and they seemed to tie in well the the paper I had picked to work with. I wish I could say I had a process of how I pick my paper or pictures but I don't. Sometimes I find a photo and work from there. Other times I find a paper I want to use and work form there. Sometimes when the scrapbook Gods are smiling on me I get an I idea that brings to mind a picture and paper at the same moment. I love those layouts that just come together, because I tend to be one of those scrapers that tweaks a page until it feels right.

Never could resist pretty paper...

Over the holidays I made an honest effort to stay out of the craft stores. I really need to use the paper I have on hand and not buy more. Being a member of the Cricut message board and it never fails that someone posts a great sale or a new item just put on the shelves. It's so hard to resist not just checking it out. So into Michael's craft store I go just to look at the new Prima stacks. Bad move because all stacks were 50% off and for a paper addict that can be dangerous. In all I ended up adding seven to stacks to the fifty I already own. To justify this new foolishness I will challange myself to make at least two layouts from each stack in the month of January. I will post them as I complete them.

A little less tweeking and a little more scrapping please...

Day two and I seem to have gotten a large part of the basics down for my new blog. Although I must say I got NO actual scrapping done. It was kind of fun and frustrating all at the same time trying to lay all this out. Next comes adding in some fun gadgets, but that will have to wait for another weekend and a little less coffee intake. My scraproom looks like gale force winds sweept through so I guess I know what I will be doing later tonight. If you are reading this thanks for stopping by.

And the blog begins...

Well it's a new year so I thought I would give something new a try. Today I decided to try to start a blog for my scrapbooking projects. So here goes...

I started out yesterday by sifting though the drawers of my paper scraps and extra cuts of this and that. I never disguard scrap pieces I think might be used somewhere, sometime for something. So now that I am having a bit of trouble getting those drawers to close I figured I should make an honest attempt to use some of them. I did get three layouts done and have another possible three laid out.