Summer hours

I've been seeing a few signs around the town declaring "summer hours" - shorter hours of operation to allow for the absolute maximum enjoyment of our woefully short summers here in the north. I feel like summer hours have hit my scrapbooking room too - who wants to stay inside when there is all that dirt to sink your fingers into out in the garden? Or all those miles to be pedaled on bikes with the kids, all those walking trails to cruise, all those patios to sit on and have some refreshment...even if you can't make yourself sit down and create some papery-gluey-photo-y stuff, you can be inspired by all the sunlight and green and the wonderful feelings summer can breathe into our wintered bodies. And, you can stop by the store and have a DELICIOUS drink at the Canadian Grind and buy some stuff to prepare for the fall and winter :)
Thought I'd share a few layouts.

I was playing around with a corner punch while chatting on the phone one night and saw that i could make a chevron sort of pattern with them. 

I used the Echo Park note to self kit and i TOTALLY LOVE IT all.

and a two pager. I stared at all these photos forever - they are so busy, so i thought they should all be together in a big collage with minimum embellishment. And anyway, there wasn't room :)

Father's Day Kids Class

Join Crystal on Saturday, June 9th, 2012 from 1-2 pm and create a special project for Father's Day. This project involves painting, stamping and using Modo Podge on a wooden mailbox to be used as a birdhouse. This class is $30.00 and all product is included.

Baby's First Year Album

Need to get caught up? Having a baby soon? Just welcomed a new addition to the family? Need a baby gift? This is the class for you! Join Crystal on Thursday, June 7th, 2012 from 7-9pm and create an album to house photos from each month of Baby's first year. We willl be using Simple Stories Baby Steps paper kit as well as Simple Stories All Mixed Up Albums and page protectors. This album is designed for any level of experience. We have also set aside an additional time slot on Thursday, June 14th, 2012 from 7-9pm to work on the album if we do not get finished on the 7th. Space is limited for the class however we have several kits available to be purchased and completed on your own with full instructions and colored photos. Call soon to register or to purchase a kit especially if you would like multiple kits to complete for more than one child. This class is $80.00 for members and $85.00 for non members. Phone Number 250-785-2711 or email sales@unforgettablememories.ca

 

a Princess is born

I loved this Karen Foster patterned paper as soon as I saw it.  It is so pretty and girly. I didn't want to cover up too much of it so I layered everything under and around my one photo.
This photo is from 1998.  The day we bought our baby girl home.  Her two brothers were so thrilled and happy to show her off to their friend; that little cutie sitting between them.

M,y how time flies. Those two little boys are graduating this year.  And one of those handsome dudes gets to take that little cutie, sitting between them, to the prom. She is still as cute as she was way back in 1998.

My layers under the photo include a Jenni Bowlin bingo card, two pieces of packaging from Prima's flowers, a couple of sprayed and misted tags (one I've journaled on), some cheese cloth, a MLYB journal card and some corrugated cardstock. On the photo I've placed a piece of vellum with 3 butterflies punched out of it, and some word stickers.

On to some closeups...

 I tucked a pretty white, sparkly, Prima butterfly under the flowering branch.

I liked the negative look of the vellum so I used this piece instead of the punched butterflies ~ I'll save them for another layout.

My journaling is on one of the sprayed, misted tags and tucked behind the photo.

I love the Prima flower branches.  I used some of the tendrils from this branch for my previous 'Heron' layout.  It didn't make this branch look any the worse for wear. 
I added a few brown, edged with pink, Prima leaves under and around the flowers.  I liked the colours with this paper.

I was in Unforgettable Memories today and they must have just gotten a shipment of Prima because there are loads of new flowers to pick from.  Lots of these flowering branches in different colours and lots of new flower sets, some with coordinating leaves and different sizes.  I went a little crazy so I will be scrapping with lots of pretty flowers for the next little while.

Nature photos

My Dad took this gorgeous photo of a heron in Beacon Hill Park, Victoria.

I used My Little Yellow Bicycle patterned papers, chipboard and notes.

The red and black paper is scraps of BoBunny's oriental Serenity line from the layout I did of my friends daughter in a kimono.

I used my border punch on the black paper. I just love the little mushroom.  It is Prima as are the flowers and foliage. The bling is Zsa.

 I made a couple of random little banners with the chipboard pieces.

 Check out this line, the next time you are in Unforgettable Memories.  It is so versatile.



Those were the days - BoBunny Serenity

I found this old photo of my brother and I, when we were kids.  I hope my children are having as great a childhood as I did. 

Technology was pretty primitive(if it even existed) when I was growing up so we spent most of our days out in the yard.  We had a huge back yard. Dad built us a metal jungle gym to climb on, a flying fox to fly down, a swing (from a tree branch, not a swing set) and we had a mud pit full of Tonka's.  After I did this layout I 'google mapped' our old house.There are now 2 more homes in our old backyard and very little 'yard'.   Progress.

I used BoBunny's Sereneity line for this layout.  It's Oriental themed, but perfect for many different photos.  I love the turquoise. The corner piece is cut from one of the patterned papers I had left over from my last layout.

But I should start at the beginning...

I used a piece of Bazzill dotty cardstock in fawn.  I sprayed my favourite leaf mask with gold glimmer mist. Then I sprayed a diecut alpha piece with green mist.  I stamped a lattice design randomly, around the edges.

And I was ready to start layering...

My Mum wrote on the back of the photo so I used photo corners instead of glue to attach it to the matte.  Unforgettable Memories has a great variety of photo corners, from the traditional black ones, like I have used here, to coloured photo corners, sticker photo corners, chipboard photo corners... Of course the sticker one's will not allow the photo to be removed so don't use them on 'vintage' photos.

The tissue paper is 7Gypsies and the doilie is from My Little Yellow Bicycle.  All came from Unforgettable Memories.

Feeling a little misty...

...but not in the sad way - more in the "spray paint" for scrapbookers kinda way! Have you ever sat down in front of all your stuff and just thought....bleh. I dunno what to do. I need some INSPIRATION. Well, I started out like that the other night. I started this layout:

and i had used some Maya Road mist to color the scrap of fabric i used for the center of the sun. The fabric was ivory colored, which is not a suitable sun color as we all know. So i sprayed it and sewed it:

and started feeling like spraying...everything. I used these two colors:

and decided to mimic rays of the sun in the AWESOME calendar paper I got at the store.I traced it on another piece of cardstock and then cut out every other section to give the "ray" effect. (sorry - i misted FIRST and THEN took the photo - i will be more organized next time.)

I used the blue piece as a mask and sprayed over the scalloped circle piece:

Ok. So then i was misting like a madwoman. I used my homemade mask and sprayed yellow and orange on to a white piece, shifted it over and sprayed again, cut it out, and was left with a giant flower.

Then the mist must have went to my head...i sprayed half the mask on another sheet of white cardstock:

and used that one for a layout too:

i was left with my heavily sprayed mask:

which i put on another sheet of cardstock. Then i didn't like the color, so i flipped it over and used the blue side. But first a photo. It doesn't have much to do with the process, I just thought it looked cool:

I misted the cream colored background a tiny bit, then sewed around all the petals:

 and another layout done:

And here ends the (really long) story of Jen's misting adventures. It's super fun stuff, and you can make a quick impact on a page with just a little bit of it. Try it out if you haven't already and have a little fun with it.

Beyond the Door challenge

I've been working on another April challenge for way too long now.  At Beyond the Door scrap challenges they have the photo below as inspiration. 

I took the black and white from the photo.  Starting with black cardstock I sprayed over my vine mask.  I found a couple of oriental stamps in my stash and stamped with white ink. 

I have no idea what the Japanese character stamps say, but I'm sure they are similar to the BoBunny letters from the oriental line I used.  I picked up these papers and the chipboard sheet last month.  The papers are all double sided and not necessarily oriental 'themed'.  I've used pieces of the black and red on a couple of layouts now.  And I love the turquoiuse. 



I took inspiration from the turquoise squares in the challenge photo but that is what caused me the most problems. The picture is very linear and I'm not. Once I had my photos neatly lined up I couldn't figure out how to keep going.  But I think it turned out all right in the end.  The mini banners on the sides are done with the chipboard shapes and border stickers. I put little gold jewels along the border stickers.

I punched the black border above the turquoise and added Kaiser jewels.

Check out the layout in the store for a closeup peak.

3 Day Weekend Crop

            Unforgettable Memories Foto Source would like to invite you to a weekend crop event taking place Friday, May 4 to Sunday, May 6^th 2012.   What a great way to get caught up with three days of uninterrupted crafting.  This crop event is $120.  You will receive a goodie bag, table space and a guaranteed good time.  On Friday we will be crafting from 1pm till 12 am.  Dinner and snacks will be provided for Friday night.  A continental breakfast will be served bright and early starting at 8am.  You will also receive snacks, lunch and dinner on Saturday as we will crop till we drop at midnight!   After a couple of hours of beauty sleep breakfast will be waiting for you at 8am Sunday morning.  Crop for seven hours, non stop, except for lunch, until 3pm.   Space is limited so sign up quickly!

For the love of banners.

Banners were a big trend last year - and I think they are even bigger this year. I made this layout

with the This&That collection of Echo Park paper. And then I did something I never do, and I made a card! I had all the leftover strips of paper from the layout, and I thought the banners and the general design were so fun, I had to try it again. I am digging all the new stuff from Echo Park. It's the kind of collection where you buy everything and then you kind of don't want to use it all up because it's so...lovely. Any other "collectors" out there? oh yeh - you know who you are!! Crystal has a class coming up using the Note to Self collection, so sign up and use your collection the same night you get it!