More Scrapbooking

I have been scrapbooking for over 14 years now. I still love it! I shared some pages with you a while ago that I created at a Crop For CareNet. Over at one of my favorite scrapbooking sites Two Peas In A Bucket I joined in on a challenge for the month of May. It's a faux Layout A Day, or LOAD challenge. Basically how it works is that the woman who coordinated the challenge creates a thread in the forum every day with a prompt for the day. It might be a sketch challenge. It might be a technique challenge. It might be a topic challenge. Then you have that day to create a project and post it to the forum. We are on day 7 of the challenge and I've been able to scrap most of the days (except for last Friday, I was so busy getting ready for the baby shower, and Sunday, I was just exhausted!) Yesterday I created 2 layouts (LOs). I have found this challenge has been great for me! I've been able to get really motivated by the daily challenges and I'm putting out some of my best work in a long time! I thought I'd share with you some of my favorites!

This first LO was a 2 page spread that was made for a challenge called Old vs New. We had to choose from a list of new "trendy" items (I chose arrows) and older items (I chose flat stickers). I love how this 2 page LO turned out!

 

 

This next 2 pager was for a National Scrapbook Day (NSD) challenge. The challenge was "Focus on the Photos" and we had to use photo related items on our pages. So I chose photo corners, a camera and Polaroid frames. I thought the stripes going down the paper had a very "film strip" feel to it also. 

 

 

 

This page was made for the "Sketch It Baby" challenge. We were given a 2 page LO sketch and were challenged to make it our own. I chose to use just the left side of the sketch as I needed a 1 page LO to go opposite of a page I had done about the boys. I decided to use papers from the same kit that I had made the other page with so that it would tie in together, but still have it's own look. I love it! 

 

This final page was made for 2 challenges. One was a Cinco De Mayo challenge to use either 5 photos, 5 papers or 5 embellishments on a page. I also used the colors from another NSD challenge: Member Based Color Combo of grass green, navy blue, lemon yellow and soft grey. It's a color combination I don't that I would have ever used but I LOVE how this page turned out. It's my favorite in a while!

 

So that's how I'm trying to get my craft on! If you need some crafting inspiration I highly recommend you check out Two Peas if you've never been there before. It is a wealth of information and a lot of fun! (Oh and I did I mention you can shop there too!??! FUN!!!) And if you come by look me up, my screen name is NKUMomma. Happy crafting!

Hi!

I'm back! Did you miss me?! I can't believe it's been 10 days since I last posted...I guess I've been busier than I thought! So what have we been up to? Well, here's our last week in pictures and video:

Saturday Brianna receives her 1st Communion. We are really excited, although I'm trying to figure out how I can possibly have a child this old! lol- this is the symbol that we made to add to the banner that hangs in the back of the church so everyone knows who is receiving 1st Communion. I think it turned out cute!

Last Monday I was shocked when I received an alert on my phone that there was a shooting at a local high school. As the story unfolded we learned it was one student who walked into his 1st period class, pulled out a gun and attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head. Fortunately (unfortunately??) he wasn't successful. He survived the attempt and is still in critical condition at a local hospital. It brought up all kinds of feelings and memories though as it happened right around the anniversary of the Columbine attack.

My mom picked up this Jumperoo at a local consignment shop for Eli. He absolutely loves it and got the hang of it very quickly!

Micah was walking around Friday night while we were getting ready for a baby shower here on Saturday with a wrench up against his mouth saying "Mustache! Mustache! I got a mustache! Mustache!" It was hilarious...especially with the Handy Manny t-shirt that he was wearing!

Thursday Brianna brought home her ballet costume for her recital this year. I love it! I think it is so beautiful! We have really lucked out...since she started I think her class has managed to have the most beautiful costumes. I can't wait to see her in it on stage! It makes me such a proud mama!

This mess turned into an awesome luau themed baby shower. The mama-to-be loves ukelele music so I immediately thought of a luau when I started planning her shower. It came together perfectly! Everyone had a great time, especially the parents-to-be, which is the most important thing!

Micah made it through his first year of Sunday school. He loved going to "school" and asked all week long when it would be "school day" again. He learned a lot this year and experienced time in a classroom which is really good for him. I'm hoping to get him into preschool next year so it was great training! They had their closing on Sunday which is always a hoot!

And I leave you with one final picture...we wore ourselves out this week and it's not over yet. One more party for Brianna's 1st Communion on Saturday and then we get to rest for a while! While I love throwing a good party, I'm going to be all partied out for a while!

Crop for CareNet

It has been FOREVER since I have shared any scrapbook pages with you all! I have been scrapbooking for 13 years now, and while I still love it I have less and less time to do it these days. So I get very excited when I can get my butt off to a crop and get some work done. Anyone with more than 1 kid will tell you that you will never get caught up, but it sure is fun to try!

A local church here hosted a 12 hour crop this past Saturday with the proceeds benefiting CareNet of Northern Kentucky. My scrapbooking buddy Jannene and I thought "Why not? We like babies!" Plus, it had been almost a year since we had done our last crop together so we were due. 12+ hour crops are my favorite! (We used to go to a 24 hour Crop for the Cure years ago...I miss those!) I get so much when done when I have nothing to focus on besides scrapping. Well, in between the eating, and talking, and eating, and talking, and talking...you get the picture! I was very excited with what I was able to get accomplished at the crop! All in all I finished 12 layouts-some 2 page spreads and some 1 page. Some were multiphoto layouts and some were single photo. Most of them were for Eli, who only had 1 stinkin' page done at 8 months (so sad!!) and a few for Bri and Jonah with school pictures from this year and last year. But enough talking! Here are some of my favorites that I got finished!

As you can see I still use the traditional method of scrapbooking, good 'ol paper, cutters and pens. I know a lot of people are moving to digital scrapping or Project Life, but I enjoy the whole process of the "old" way too much to ever give it up. Plus, I've invested too money in it at this point to change now! I scrap mainly in 12 X 12 now and I love it! 

I just found a program last night that will allow me to scan layouts and then stitch them together so that I can digitally back up my layouts and share them with you! I am super excited! It's a little time consuming because I have to scan each layout in 4 sections to make sure I've got everything on it but it's worth it now that I've gotten it down to a science! 

So that's it! Hopefully I will be able to share more layouts with you in the future!

Do you scrapbook? What are your secrets to keeping up with it?

Valentine's Day "Mantel"

If you read any one of the million and one crafty blogs on the Internet these days you know that one of the biggest trends is decorating your mantel for holidays and seasons. Well, I don't have a fireplace, and therefore I have no mantel. But I'm such a wannabe that I've turned the top of our entertainment center into my "mantel". I decorated it for Halloween and Thanksgiving and loved it so much! It just added some fun to the living room. So I decided I wanted to decorate it again for Valentine's Day. But, we don't have any Valentine's Day decorations. So I decided to get my crafty on and make it happen!

I found a box in the garage that held the decorations for our Valentine's tree from last year. Since we weren't doing that this year I thought the garland and ornaments needed to be put to good use. So I started with those as a base. I added in several projects inspired by Pinterest (where else!?!? lol) and ended up with this:

I LOVE how it turned out! I feel like it's not too much, just enough that when you walk in the room you say "Oh, it's Valentine's Day!" (insert smiles!) Let's take a closer look at each section.

On the left side I have a Valentine's Day Subway Art that I framed in a poster frame from Walmart. I had bought a different frame at the Dollar Tree but it cut off most of the words on the sides. Luckily my mom had some extra frames laying around (never know when you might need a frame for a cute project you found on Pinterest!) I added two Glade Soy Candles I had which I sat on top of two glass candlestick holders which my mom found at Goodwill forever ago! Since I had practically everything already the cost of this project is pennies for the cardstock and the little ink it used. $0.50 maybe! Yippy!

The LOVE art in the center is one of my favorite parts. It started when mom found natural wood frames at Michael's for $1.00 a piece. The wheels started turning and we thought why not use them for something cute? Turn them into a L-O-V-E collage with the heart standing in place of the O. Here's a quick tutorial!

Step1: I painted the natural frames white to make them pop. A quick coat of acrylic paint (which we already had..cost...$0.00!)

Step 2: Using the mats inside the frames as guides, cut new mats out of pretty, sparkly scrapbook paper. (Cost: $0.89, it only took 1 page to cut all 4 mats.)

Step 3: Adhere vinyl letters to the mats. I used my Cricut Expressions and the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge. The vinyl was part of the package with the first Cricut I ever bought. (Cost: well, pennies but since I've had everything for so long I'm chalking this part up as FREE!!) Place letters in frames. (And this is where my computer got stupid and I lost the last 2 pictures of the process...but I think you can figure it out! lol)

Step 4: I added some 3D felt flowers from Jolee's to the top left corner of the L frame and the bottom right corner of the E frame. I thought it added a nice touch and a little pop of color. 

 The right side of the display holds two Conversation Heart Topiaries. But, my stupid computer lost the photos of that process as well so I don't have any to show you. It was super easy though! I just took two Styrofoam balls (two different sizes), attached them to dowel rods (wrapped with Valentine's ribbon) cut into two different lengths. Then we put them into foam floral bases and put them into two terracotta pots. The comes the most tedious part...gluing the conversation hearts onto the balls. It wasn't hard it just took a while. I had to take a few breaks during the process to feed a baby, etc so Steven took over. And I mean he literally took over, finished the smaller ball and did the whole larger ball by himself. He was pretty proud of himself but my stupid computer lost that picture too! (Grrr...I am hating our computers right now! None of them want to work right and it's making me lose my freakin' mind!!!) The final touch was to add a little bow to each dowel rod and put more conversation hearts inside the pots to finish it off. They were super cute! I think this whole project cost less than $10. (Styrofoam balls are expensive man! But I did find the floral foam bases at the Dollar Store. I bought 2 but only ended up using half of one so that part only cost me $0.50 and I have more sitting around for future projects! Yippy!) Here's a closer look at the finished product.

  
I love them! I need to spray them with something to preserve them before I put them away this weekend. Any suggestions on what to use?

One other little touch that I found at Michael's are my Lovebirds.

Aren't they sweet?! They were only $1.99 each AND they were marked down 40%. AND they were in the color scheme of my living room so I just had to have them. I'm thinking they may stay up permantely after Valentine's Day. They're just too cute. They are sitting in the open cabinet on the right side of the entertainment center. In that cabinet we keep a picture frame that holds a baby picture of both Steven and I and then a wedding picture, my wedding bouquet and a family Bible. This Bible holds death notices, birth announcements and has a spot for family history. We don't read from this Bible, it is purely for show (and believe me, we have plenty of other Bibles in the house that can be read from that I don't mind having a pretty one just for show!)

The open cabinet on the other side holds another wedding photo of us with our maid of honor and best man, a custom candle made using one of our wedding announcements and our cake topper. I absolutely loved my wedding and I feel like keeping these things out and visible at all times gives our children a chance to see how much that day meant to us as the beginning of our family.

So here's one final look at our Valentine's Day "faux" mantel. I'm looking forward to changing it up for St. Patty's Day! Happy Valentine's Day week everybody! I hope you have someone to hold onto and love!

You can see the posts that inspired these crafts at Naturally Estes (Conversation Heart Topiaries) and Free Word Art Valentine Printable Cards (V-Day Subway Art).

I am linking this post to Motivate Me Monday over at my friend Kaysi's blog, Keeping It Simple. Look Kaysi! I'm finally posting something :-)