Scrapbooking, Frosting

 

There is no lack of color on this page!  It's bright and colorful just like my daughter.  This page started when I saw this color challenge on paper lovers studio.  The rainbow colors immediately made me think of this paper and I knew I just had to use it.  I also used this sketch from scrap you story.

 

I was able to use up a few random things that I have had.  My favorite is the little cake stamp that I have been holding on to for a long time.  It came from a birthday card somebody mailed to me a while back.  Actually, I looked up the price of stamps and last time it cost 44 cents was back in 2009.

Digital Scrapbooking, Morning Time

I don't do very much digital scrapbooking.  And my digital scrapbooking stuff was so unorganized.  Most of my files were still on my old laptop.  I might have been up at 4:30 this morning organizing them.... 

I have started to work on a making a photo book for my daughter.  It is all about a day in her life as a two year old.  A few weeks ago I recorded her entire day and happily snapped lots of photos and jotted down a few notes.  I hope this turns out as cute as I envision it and I can get it done in a short amount of time.  At least digital scrapbooking is faster for me, so I might actually get it all done soon.  To help jump start this page, I used a sketch from Paper Lovers Studio. 

Scrapbooking, The Beach

 

I made this page for the Paper Girls Beach challenge.  I had to dig deep into my photos for some beach photos.  I finally found these photos of my daughter and I last year.  I got a little chuckle that not one single photo showed her face. Oh well.  It took a while for this page to come together.  I had a very different paper as the background and I kept trying to make that paper work, but it just kept getting worse, so I abandoned it and started fresh with this pink polka-dot paper.  When I was almost done with this page, I went to check what the date of these photos were and I totally had forgotten that they were taken on mother's day last year.  I can't believe it was even warm enough to go to the beach that day!  I totally thought these were taken more in the summer time.

Scrapbooking, Tractor Ride

 

Ahh the warm colors of summer.  I used this color pallet from Scrap Friends as my starting point for this page.  Color challenges are always so tricky for me.  I have particular colors that I like to use and have a difficult time meandering away from them.  Part of it also tends to be that I don't have colors or hues in my stash that the color challenges always seem to want, but the warm colors was one I actually could make do with.

 

I am so happy with how the little pink polka-dot frame.  I traced another frame I had lying around onto some white card stock.  Then I colored it with a pink marker.  Then I took a polka-dot stamp and stamped all around it.  I am so happy with how cute it ended up being.

 

 

I also found this cute song challenge at Scrap Your Story.  I knew I just had to add the ee-i-ee-i-oh.  I didn't want to add old McDonald though because it is grandma and grandpa's farm and that would just be too silly.  I also made another vellum shaker and this one came out really well.  These shakers are starting to become an obsession!  I used washi tape to close it off and it worked out really well.  I didn't feel like getting my sewing machine out so I'm glad the washi worked out so well.

 

 

This page has some hidden journaling and another photo that I love from our little tractor ride.  I wanted to do a lot more, but my little daughter had a bad tummy bug. So, I didn't have much time or energy left to scrapbook.

 

 

Pony Roll Tutorial

 

My daughter has lots of these little ponies that she likes to bring with her everywhere, so I thought I would make a roll so she can bring them with her in something more interesting then a Ziploc bag.  This roll also works well for small dolls.  The pony roll is very similar to my car roll, it just is a tad longer and has a 3-d house.  I mostly just took photos of how I made the house,  so feel free to refer back to the car post for more step by step pictures on the mat itself.

 

Supplies:

1/4 of a yard of green fabric

1/4 of a yard of some fun print fabric

Batting (about 17 inches (I liked the extra inch of wiggle room) by 9 1/2 inches) and some extra batting for the house

6 Pieces of scraps of fabric that are 4 inches by 3 1/2 inches

Felt for house, roads, tree, and water (I used the felt rectangle pieces you see everywhere in craft stores)
Velcro

Bias Tape

Button

Elastic or a hair tie



Step 1:

Cut 2 17 inch by 9 1/2 inch rectangles.  One should be of green fabric and the other a fun print for the outside of your roll.  Cut 6 4 inch by 3 1/2 inch rectangles of fun fabric.  I went for a rainbow effect.

 

Step 2:

Sew the 4 inch by 3 1/2 inch squares together to form a strip with a 1/4 seam allowance. Fold the top down and sew to make a nice hem so that each color rectangle is actually now a 3 inch square (mine ended up being 3 inches tall and 2 1/2 or 2 3/4 wide....they were far from perfect).

Step 3:

Line up the bottom of the strip with the long side of the green fabric and sew. See photo 1. Then sew down the sides of each color square to make nice pockets for the ponies.

 

Step 4:

Make your house and other elements. 

 

The house, Step 4A:

• You want to cut four trapezoids for the sides (Two pieces for each side).  One side should be 4 inches tall and the parallel side should be 3 inches tall.  The bottom will be 3 inches long and connect the short and long side like in photo 2. 
• The back wall will be a 3 (height) by 3 1/2 (width) inch rectangle and you need two pieces.
• The roof is 3 1/2 by 3 3/4 inches and you need two pieces.

Step 4B:

Sew any windows, bushes and other decorations onto your house before you sew the pieces together. 

 

Step 4C:

Sew 3 sides of each of the pieces together (see photo 3) with a 1/4 seam allowance.  Make sure you keep one edge open on each piece!  I made it the bottom on mine and you can tell in photo 6.

 

Step 4D:

Cut batting and put it in each wall and roof.

 

Step 4E:

Sew the back wall and roof together (see photo 4 and 5).  I place the wall piece inside the roof a little bit.

 

Step 4F:

Sew the walls onto the mat.  You can tell how I did it in photo 7.

 

Step 4G:

Glue or sew some Velcro onto the house.  I just put mine on the two slants of the house and on the roof.  I didn't bother with the walls and it seems to be holding up just fine.  Sorry there is no photo.  I didn't have any Velcro at the time I was making this and had to add it on way later.

 

Step 4H:

Sew on a lake, trees, path, bridge, or anything else you want in your pony world.  As you can see in the photo below, I added a tree with little felt apples that can be taken off and placed into the basket.

 

Step 5:

Layer your top fabric (the one with the stuff on it), the batting underneath it, and the outside fabric (the nice side should face the table) to make a nice sandwich.  Yummy. =) Then sew around all 4 side and you can go in about a 1/4 inch to even an 1/2 inch if you have wide enough bias tape to hide it.

 

Step 6:

The part I always forget to do is sewing down the elastic.  To figure where you want it, you have to fold your piece in half and pick a half way between that fold.  Or you could just do it 1/4 from the bottom, but I don't think like that.  Sew it on really well. Ideally it would be sew on step 5, but why complicate things?  =)

 

Step 7:

Now to figure out where that button goes...load up the ponies into all the pockets and fold that roll up.  It will be fairly fat with the house in it too, but it will still work.  Then see where that spot where the elastic would nicely go around a button and mark it. then unroll and sew your button on. 

 

Step 8:

Sew your bias tape around the edge and your roll should be ready for some playing (see photo 8).

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Scrapbooking, Me and My Shadow

 

The page makes me so happy!  I made it for my entry to be on the SWAT design team.  I feel like there are a lot of design team calls going on right now! 

 

I really love these photos of my daughter.  The sun had been hiding all winter and spring and finally on July 4th it came out!  My daughter had no idea what a shadow was.  I wanted the page to have a nod to the 4th of July since that is when it took place, but I didn't want it to be all red, white, and blue.  I found some old paper in my stash (I think it came from and old DCWV summer stack) that looked really similar to the table cloth in the photos.  I knew I just had to use it!

 

Once again I played around with shaker boxes.  This time I cut a star out and made the box behind it.  The box is a little deeper then I expected, so it is kind of hard to see what is inside of it.  One of these days I will be completely happy with how they turn out.   I also made a cute little pinwheel.  I also used a really old red feather that I have had in a box of random stuff from high school.  It even could be from middle school...eek!  I have no idea why I have held on to it for 10-15 years.  Anyways, it worked so well with this page and I'm glad to finally put it to some kind of use.

Scrapbooking, Splish & Splash

 

I created this page for the design team call over on the Memory Nest.  The yellow, blue, and green colors remind me a lot of my childhood bedroom, so bright and happy.  My background paper is from echo park's everyday eclectic. I also used up a bunch of scrap paper bits I had from Amy Tangerine.  I really wanted a frame around the middle photo but couldn't find anything that worked so I made it with just some light blue cardstock, a little misting on top of it, and a few doodles.

 

 

I found the Splish sticker in my stash.  I have had it for years and finally got the chance to use it.  The little blue calendar I made from some plain old blue cardstock.  I also used some misting and some sparkly jewels because they reminded me of bubbles.  I love adding some sparkle to a page!

 

I also added a little stitching with the heart and added a wooden veneer one too.  I have had such a hard time getting my hands on any wooden veneer pieces, but I finally got my hands on some cute hearts and arrows.  No stores by me carry them and all the ones online seem to be out of stock constantly.  I love the look of the raw wood!  I also stamped a few tiny hearts onto the page too.  You can never have too many hearts on a page.

Scrapbooking, B is for...

 

I had these cute summer photos of Moose that I had been waiting to scrapbook.  I just love all the bright colored paper and embellishments.  Well, I found this neat scrapbooking Tic-Tac-Toe challenge on SWAT.  I went for the diagonal and stamped on it, used ribbon, and used 3 different manufacturers (Papers from the take note from doodle bug, playground from echo park, and Sketchbook Bailey's Brush from Amy Tangerine).  Of course I needed a sketch to help bring it all together so I found one over at Scrap Friends.  The only thing was that it was a one photo layout.  So, I turned it into a little mini book to get all the photos I wanted on it.

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The photo of my daughter looking at her bellybutton inspired the title and all the rest of the b words.

 

 

I used lots of different embellishment that I had and a bunch that I made.  The yellow heart was actually my first attempt at a shaker box that didn't come out too well, but hidden behind a bunch of other embellishments it looks a whole lot less weird then it first did.

Scrapbooking, Sprinkler

 

We have had some nice warm weather out and I was in the mood to scrapbook some summer photos.  I found this fun color pallet challenge over on scrapfriends.  I was drawn to the yellows and the hint of blue.  Of course I did this page at night and didn't realize that my blue mist I used was very turquoise.  In the morning while going through my embellishment and papers I realized that I have almost nothing that shade.  I'm going to have to be on the lookout for more turquoise things.  It really is such a beautiful color.  To make up for the lack of turquoise, I had to bring in a lot more orange then I was planning.

 

I had fun adding some stamping to the background.  I also made a shaky thing that I always wanted to try and add onto a page.  It took a few tries to make it work because I was being impatient, but in the end it added a cute fun element to my page.

Scrapbooking, Sew Fun and Mini Sew Fun

 

I made this page for the doodle challenge at the paper girls.  It was a great challenge because I love to add doodles to many of my pages.  I made a few big doodles around the pictures, but you have to look closely for all of my little doodles.  I also really enjoyed the fact that I got to scrapbook a page of Moose getting her craft on.

 

My favorite part of the entire page is my journal card.  I took one of my floss holders and made a really big one!  It came out so cute!

 

I had a few left over photos so I let Moose make her very own scrapbook page.  This is actually the second page she has ever made.  I just love all the glue she used on the page to put down a few paper stars.  It was a very messy project, but it was so worth it.