Scraptastic Wednesdays: Let it Snow

I almost forgot to post again today.  I seriously don't know where my head is.  That's actually a lie, I know where it is.  It's buried in Kite Tails stuff, as I feverishly prepare to get our new collections out to the manufacturer.  It's exciting and nerve-wrecking and exhausting and fun, and I can't wait for Janurary when we roll the fruits of a years worth of labor out for everyone to see.

Enough about that though, today it's about scrapbooking layouts, and I do have a layout I finished up a week or so ago, and have been meaning to post.  This past winter was a doozy for snowfall, which was ok by Little Man!  He loved being out playing in it, helping daddy shovel the driveway, building snowmen. 

Scraptastic Wednesdays: Love

My little Valentine.  I bought this "Mama's Boy" t-shirt for him when he was just 11 months old, in a size 3T, because it was the only size they had.  He swam in it that first year, so when I put it on him just shy of his 2nd birthday, I was excited that it fit pretty well! 

I rarely have the opportunity to use pinks in my layouts, having only a little guy, so I can't resist the temptation to pile on the "feminine" colors, and even a little lace doily for Valentine's Day!

 Little heart pin details, and a homemade misted Love "stamp"

Hope you're feeling the love, and I'll see you on Friday!

Scraptastic Wednesdays: Build-A-Bear

Finn's Aunt Julie brought him to Build-A-Bear for his 2nd birthday.  This layout was started as part of one of my CKC classes this past April (using some fantastic Studio Calico papers!) and I only just recently got around to finishing it. 

We used these Studio Calico star wood veneers, which I loved.  I misted them with Mr. Huey first, and used the largest to frame Little Man's face. 

The title was made by using stickers as a mask, misting on them, and then removing the stickers.  I used the some Crackle Accents over the reveal, to "puff" up the title a little more.

A little close-up on the wood veneers.

Scraptastic Wednesdays: Birthday Boy

Finn turned 2 in March, and we had a wonderful (small) Curious George birthday party for him.  In April, I found some great Imaginence birthday papers at CKC-Manchester, that were perfect for these photos.  I can't believe he's already 2 (almost 2 1/2 by the time I got around to scrapping his birthday!) but it was so much fun creating these layouts!

The overall, 2-pager

Some red rick-rack screams birthday to me.  I also loved using this "bling string" but made it into a curly-Q. 

How awesome are these name filmstrips?!  I bought a set (came with 4) at CKC on a Friday, and was so nervous I would be too scared to use them, so I bought a second set of 4 on Saturday :)

"Memories" was a purchased title I found at Michaels, "birthday" was made with some red foam Thickers.

The only single-page layouts I ever do are the front and back covers of every album.  This was the last page of Finn's 1 year old album.  Another thing I rarely do is use patterned paper as the background, but hey, I get a little crazy when doing single-page layouts :)  I used some journaling cards I got from Boxer Scrapbooks, rick-rack, fun dollar bin ribbon and Thickers to finish this layout off.  I just love my little Birthday Boy!

Scraptastic Wednesdays: Christmases (In July)

I was majorly productive this past weekend.  And by majorly productive, I mean I got a whole bunch of scrapbooking done.  Prepping meals for the week?  Nope.  Laundry?  Not so much.  I did however get 6 or 7 great layouts done, which for me (the double-page layout scrapbooker) was huge. 

I could bombard you with all of them tonight, however, I like having a bunch in my back pocket for those busy summer weeks where I just run out of time to create something, but still need stuff to post on those Wednesdays. 

The popular vote (meaning the vote from my 1 friend) was to do Christmas in July, so here are the 2 Christmas layouts I got done this weekend:

This one is Christmas morning.  We open presents under the "Kid's Tree" in our loft, essentially the fun Christmas tree that has all the colorful, mismatched, meaningful ornaments on it. The papers are Fancy Pants Tradition.

I used one of the patterns and just cut the tree part out of it.  The "Believe" is actually printed on the paper, I just used my Glossy Accents over the printing to make it look like they were epoxy stickers.  I am loving that stuff.

These photos are from Chrismas Eve at our family tradition:  The Red Lion Inn.  30 years and counting, we've never missed a Christmas Eve brunch there, so it's a wonderful tradition to keep going!  I used the "scraps" from the same Fancy Pants line as the other layout, so that there was some consistancy between the 4 pages.

Close(r) up of the title area.  I used my new(ish) I-Rock tool for all the little cream-colored dots around the circle. 

I kind of like this Christmas in July stuff.  It's fun to look back on all of the festivities, the cool winter photos, the beautiful holiday clothes, without actually re-living the stress of the holidays :)

I will be back on Friday with a pretty rare thing for me:  A card.  Yup, you heard it here first folks. 

 

Scraptastic Wednesdays: Cape Cod

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of vacationing on the Cape.  The smell of the salt air, the taste of fresh clam chowder, the sounds of the waves.  We spent our summers playing mini golf, eating saltwater taffy, swimming in the ocean and reading books in the hammock.  I love that we have a place out there to call our own, where we can go to get away from it all, and I especially love that we will be able to show Finn the same types of summers I grew up having. 

I created this layout as part of my guest design stint over at  Apron Strings.  For this one, I used the papers in their Bigger Than a Breadbox July kit from Cosmo Cricket's Salt Air line, which I've had my eye on for MONTHS!  So glad to finally be able to get my hands on these papers because I just love them. 

How amazing are the colors in these papers?!

I added some glitter to the raw chipboard starfish from the kit, and used a brad to attach it.  All of the other embellishments were part of the Apron Strings kit as well.

I added a journaling tag from the Salt Air line to jot down a quick note.

Last but not least, I used this Page Maps sketch as inspiration for the entire layout!  It utilizes all those wallet-sized photos I'm so obsessed with printing :) 

See you on Friday for at least a progress shot of my next kids craft!

Scraptastic Wednesdays: 4th of July

Well, well, well, look who's Johnny-on-the-Spot and has already scrapped the most recent holiday. 

**Cue applause now**

I'd like to take full credit for being motivated, having a wonderful kit to work with, and a fantastic sketch.  In reality, I can only take credit for the first though.  This layout was made with  one of the fabulous Bigger Than A Breadbox July kits from Apron Strings.  I agreed to be a Guest Designer (when I capitalize it, it makes me feel more important ;) for Lori for the month of July, and thus just HAD to (twist my arm) come up with some things to keep people reading her blog motivated.  Fingers crossed it works!

The stars must have been aligned for me this week, because it just so happened that there was a lovely little 2-sided sketch this week over at Sketchy Thursdays that piqued my interest, so I used that one to give myself the little push I needed to put this together! 

This layout was made using the My Mind's Eye-American Made kit.  Little Man was chowing on some amazing Red, White & Blue cupcakes made by my fellow scrappy friend Melissa (shout-out to Melissa!) which was one of my favorite photos of the day.  The other one which is really meaningful is the photo of Little Man, the Hubs, my FIL and his father.  A 4 Generation photograph can be a hard thing to come by these days, and I love to document as often as I can the fact that we have all for Generations of Siebert Men accounted for :)

I used somr red, silver & blue Stickles to make a faux firework coming out of the top of the layout.  Adds a little sparkle, and makes up for the fact that all my firework photos came out mediocre at best.

I love these banners included in the kit, so I cut the circle one up a little and layered part of it on top of the other on pop-dots for dimension.

I was torn with what to do with the crepe ribbon.  I'm not really very comfortable using crepe (although I bought a metric ton of it at CKC earlier this year!) it's so darn fragile!  I took a piece of the ribbon though, and folded it into a sort of crepe flower, and used the red plastic ribbon embellishments in the center to help stick it all together.  I added a line of silver Stickles along the edge to give it some definition too.

I hope everyone had a wonderful (and safe!) 4th of July this year!  I know we're still cleaning up from the aftermath of our annual party.  My backyard looks like the day after a State Fair...

Scraptastic Wednesdays: Easter

This is a layout I did a few months back when I was a guest designer over at Apron Strings kit club.  Originally I had done it with placeholder photos from last year, but I was able to print the current photos and place them in the layout, so I figured it deserved another shout-out. 
One of my favorite things about doing Easter layouts is the fact that I can use pink!  The mom of a boy, I rarely if ever have a use for pink cardstock, but I can justify it on Easter, so it's fun for me to take advantage of doing these pastel-y colors that normally wouldn't have much of a home in a little boy's scrapbook.

We spend our Easter morning having brunch at this fabulous restaurant in Lake George.  Not only is the food delicious, but given some beautiful weather (which we've luckily had the last 2 years in a row!) makes for some really nice backdrops for photos.  The Easter Bunny was very generous with Finn this year...

It wouldn't be Easter without little cotton tails and some pink fabric Thickers for the title!  It's hard to tell in this photo, but the fabric is actually ribbed, which just adds to the adorablness of these letters.  Did I mention how excited I was do be able to use pink?!

I'm currently working on a really fun project (my hands are covered in mists!) that I'm hoping to finish up tomorrow night, so be sure to check back in on Friday for a peek at it! 

Scraptastic Wednesdays: Taking A Stroll

The weather is hit or miss for the end of March here in Upstate NY, which is when these photos were taken.  After an amazing birthday brunch for my dad, we all headed to beautiful Congress Park nearby, to walk it off and digest a little.  We had a rough winter, that lasted quite a bit longer than usual, so everything was still really brown and kind of yucky looking.  Luckily, at CKC Manchester just a month later, I had the opportunity to use these Basic Grey papers from the Kioshi line in my 'Think Ink' class.  Very earthy papers were perfect for documenting some pretty brown photos. 

So I broke my cardinal rule in that I photographed this at night with poor lighting, so I apologize for the poor photo quality.  The entire layout though, which I was happy with.  It had more "white" space than I'm used to doing, which is something I should do more often.  Pushed me right out of my comfort zone.

This is just a little close-up detail of a sticker & button detail with some ribbon.  Sometimes it's the smallest things that have the biggest impact.

This is my favorite part of the whole layout.  I bought these fabulous little white pockets in all different sizes from Boxer Scrapbooks.  I inked it a little bit to make it "fit in" with the feel of the rest of the layout, and then gathered up all the other photos of the day that didn't earn themselves a highlighted spot in the layout.  I rounded all their edges, stacked them neatly on each other and attached them together with a brown brad in the corner.  Perfect way to hang onto all those photos that document the rest of the story, without having to put a million photos on your actual layout! 

Well it's late, I've been packing diligently for hours, as we leave for Cape Cod tomorrow night right after work.  I'm going to go pass out and dream sweet dreams of the fabulous Hyannis Scrapbooking store that I'll be visitng this weekend.  Happy Scraptastic Wednesday, and I'll be back with more fun on Friday!



Scraptastic Wednesdays: Look Who's 2!

Finnian Cole.  Also known as "Finny" "Finn-Man" "Little Man" "Bugaboo" "Little Bug"  I could go on, I've probably triggered the gag relex in a few of you out there already though.  What can I say, it's an annoying mom (parent) thing :)

2 year old portaits.  It's hard to fathom that this kiddo is already 2.  I know it's cliche, but I swear he was a tiny(ish) little blob of wonder just yesterday.  Now he's a walking, talking, climbing, goofy little guy that makes us laugh on a daily basis. 

I curled up the edges of a couple of Jillibean Soup Green Grid Canvas Flowers and plopped a few American Crafts buttons in the center.  I always hesitate in using anything too flowery on layouts of the Little Man, but these are just too adorable and just masculine enough to get away with it!  I also used some Mr. Huey's Calico White spritzed right on the cardstock to give it a little more oommpf, and help make his white shirt pop!

One of my favorite purchases from the CKC Convention I attended in Manchester a couple of months back, a set of fabulous metal numbers.  Finished it off with some green brads and some orange Thickers, and it's finito!

Thanks for checking in on this Scraptastic Wednesday!  I'll be back on Friday for a fun craft project to give your kitchen, bathroom or kids rooms an easy face-lift, so check back then!