Monday, January 31, 2011

Cricutless Scrapbook Layout

I wanted to share a layout I did before I got my Cricut about a year ago. This layout uses alot of inking, paper tearing and even some paper burning! This is actually the first and only layout that I've burned paper for but I think it looks really good and adds alot to the look. The title was written by hand with black embossing pens WHICH I SWEAR BY. I think they are amazing and I'm going to have to get another black embossing pen because I use mine so often. They're by Souffle and are called Glaze. The only downfall is that it takes awhile to dry. The brown paper on this layout is actually brown packaging paper that I burnt the edges of with a lighter to give the deteriorated look you see on the layout. The paper is all DCWV- The Far East paper collection. The paper all looked a little too bright and new for what I was going for so I just took black ink and rubbed my paper over the ink pad itself. I didn't use any tools at all. I literally rubbed the paper onto the ink pad. I really love the way it looks over the textured red cardstock because it makes the texture really POP. I hope you like it! Remember you can click on any of the pictures below to view them larger.







Scrapbooking Haul #4

Hi Ladies,
     I put together another haul video for you. I didn't get any super "exciting" treats. But I DID get some AMAZING DEALS. My favorite of everything in the video is my Darice Lock-Tight Storage container. I am not the cleanest person in the world. But I have a love affair with organization. I tend to micro organize. Like when I have to clean any room in my house, I'll start with the drawers and closets. So I'll basically be cleaning for hours and hours and it really doesn't even look like I did anything because once you shut all my immaculate closets it still looks like hell haha. I'm learning to be better at that. Although, I do think my calling in life would have been being a professional organizer. Any of you need help with those closets? I'll come to your house if you come to mine and do the floors, dishes and laundry. (all things I never make enough time for lol).

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Halloween 2009 Scrapbook Layout



So, I wasn't planning on doing anything for Halloween in 2009 and at the last minute my childhood friend Lisa invited me to a house party that her friends were throwing. So, I threw together a completely unoriginal devil costume and wore some amazing shoes that I think bruised my feet for about 2 weeks. Literally, they were blue on the bottom. No joke. Anyways the paper is from the DCWV "The Fall Stack." I cut out the title with Plantin Schoolbook. All of the little spiderwebs were PAINSTAKINGLY cut out by hand to make little photo corners and page embellishments. I have no idea what I was thinking when I decided to do that because literally I probably spent and hour doing just that part of this layout. At least it turned out well. However, I doubt I'll do that again lol. The circles were also cut out with Plantin Schoolbook and I just adhered them off center from each other to make it look more "spooky" I guess. Enjoy :)

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Haul #3

Hi Ladies,
I have another haul video for you! I got some really good stuff. I'm excited. You'll have to comment and let me know where you usually go for good trims and ribbons because I think I overpaid for the ones I got from JoAnn's. I paid 20% off of $1.29 per yard of the ribbon featured in the video (which seemed high to me).

Monday, January 24, 2011

2-Year Anniversary and Ellianna's Birth Scrapbook layouts

Hi Ladies,
     For these layouts I used (almost) entirely things found in the Exscrapaganza kit from 3-birds that I got from one of the shopping networks on tv awhile ago. I love that it has an aged look without looking "shabby chic." Anyone who knows me knows my taste generally is for very contemporary looking styles and I think this paper walks the line between the two genres perfectly. Okay, so for my 2-year anniversary with my boyfriend, Mike we went back to the place where it all began. Andiamo's Italian Restaurant on the riverfront. The food was MARVELOUS and we hadn't been back there since our first date in 2007 so I was so excited. The service there is impeccable so if any of you are around Detroit, Michigan you should definitely check it out. The flowers I cut out with my Cricut. It's either from Accent Essentials or Plantin Schoolbook. The blue paper you see on the pages is actually really cheap colored printer paper. It's really thin but the color matched the pages perfectly and I had it on hand so I used it for the lower layer of the flower and to mat the photos. I used brown shimmer chalk all over the flowers, the title and the blue mats to age the look of the stark blue paper and add some glam. It's hard to see in the pictures but in person it's gorgeous. The chalk really adds alot of the look of everything. The orange brads I just had in my stash. Remember you can click on all of the pictures below to see a larger more detailed view.

     The other page is about my neice, Ellianna Annie's birth. Her birth was the most exciting of all 5 (and counting) of the neice/nephews because I didn't know the sex of the baby ahead of time. So, we all had bets going of whether or not it was a girl (I guessed right!). And when we went into the delivery room there was a little blue hat and a little pink hat SO CUTE** and we didn't even know Rachel (the mother's) name choice until and hour or so after she was born. The middle name was inspired by Rachel's sister who she's really close with, Annie. Anyways, back to the layout. The glittered chipboard photo corners, the stickers, flourishes, "memories", the bracket sticker next to the journaling and all the paper is from the kit. I love how it all came out. It was actually really easy to put together because it was a kit and the hard work was done for me for the most part. And despite that it was from a kit it's one of my favorite page sets that I've done. I never use kits. Part of me disagrees with them because I feel like it's "cheating" on some level. However, if more manufacturers came out with kits that looked as good as this one I might invest more in those. It's the only kit I own and have ever owned because whenever I see the kits in stores the products always look really cheap and yet the kits are way overpriced. So if any of you have any tips on where to find quality kits at bargain prices you'll have to share them with me. I love all of your great ideas and learn alot from my crafting buddies out there in cyberspace. Thanks for stopping by!



Saturday, January 22, 2011

Haul Video #2

Hey! I just made my second haul video...well that's a lie. I actually made the video a week or 2 ago but was messing around with some video editing software so it took awhile to get it up on here. Hope you enjoy!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

MGM Casino Layout

I'm so excited about this layout and the way the ribbon border came out. All of the paper is DCWV. I used white, gray and ice blue for mats. I cut the title out with the Plantin Schoolbook Cricut cartridge and shadowed the letters in gray. I embellished it with some "ice" like clear rhinestones. The ribbon at the top is this gorgeous, rich teal blue color that looks perfect with this cool winter layout. I weaved the ribbon through the paper after making evenly spaced holes in the page using my crop-a-dile. It was a pain staking process but I love the way it looks. I inked the journaling tags with black ink around the edges and used silver brads to hold them on. I used some snowflake stickers that I've had forever and didn't have a page they worked with until now so I was happy I got to use some of those.





Remember you can click on these pictures to enlarge and see more of a detailed view. Thanks for stopping by!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Mike's 27th Birthday Layout

     For my boyfriend's 27th birthday (2 years ago) we got a big group of our friends to go to one of his favorite eateries, Osaka's. It's a Japanese Habatchi restaurant where you sit with a group of people around a large flat grill and they cook your food right in front of you. It's sort of a show because they do little things during the course of cooking the food to entertain the guests. I made cupcakes which I brought with me to share after the meal and sing happy birthday and then we all headed over to a nearby bar to continue the party.




     I really love how this layout turned out. The paper is all DCWV. I used pink ribbon to embellish, baby blue brads as the centers of the fabric flowers and a white gelly roll pen for the faux stitching and date. I cut the circle patterns out of the paper to make photo corners, as well as the striped paper to make photo corners. You can click on all of the photos in this post to view them larger if you'd like. Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Golf Fundraiser Layout

My boyfriend is a golf fanatic and has been trying to get me to golf with him for years. I've held strong and been extremely stubborn though because he refuses to do any of the dorky activities I enjoy, like game night for example lol. But our good friend's father passed away and they have an annual golf fundraiser to help cover funeral expenses and to help support her mother now that her dad is gone so I was persuaded to go. It was my first time out on the course, despite having worked at a golf course in the past *sad, I know.* But I actually didn't do too shabby! My boyfriend was watching me from another hole and was quite impressed with my swing. Now, we won't mention the fact that I had to swing at the ball several times (and miss) before finally hitting it and it going a decent distance and relatively straight haha. But hey, what can you expect. I've never been good at sports so I was happy with my performance. Plus everyone knows that golf isn't about doing well, it's about fun in the sun with good friends and good drinks! The paper for this layout game out great. It's all DCWV. I used a brown Close to my Heart marker for the journaling, some chocolate ribbon to separate the stripes from the grass paper and my Crop-a-dile to add the chocolate brown grommets at the bottom. The "GOLF" at the top were just some stickers that I had in my stash. I don't remember what brand they are.


Niece Ellianna's Baptism

I am so excited for these pages! I feel like the muted gray, green, brown and maroon colors along with the background images and everything just came together so well on here with very little embellishment. The layout is for my niece, Ellianna's baptism last year. The "baptism" cut was the first thing I ever learned to cut out with my Cricut!! My boyfriend Mike just bought it for me a year ago so I'm still learning because I haven't really had the time to fool around with it much. The background paper is DCWV but I can't remember who made the paper with the baby shoes and Christening gown because I've had this paper for about 15 years and just now got around to using it. I knew I kept it for a reason! I didn't finish the journaling because I have to find out how to spell the name of the Church we were at. I used a black embossing pen on the writing I put in there so far. I love those pens; they really add a great effect to pages.



Ashley's in Michigan Layouts

My best friend Ashley moved to Arizona a few years ago but decided to come back to her home town in Michigan to tie the knot. The left page is her wedding shower layout. I used her candy bar favor wrapper, the invitation to the shower and her thank you note she sent me afterward on the page. I wanted an antiqued look so I used sepia toned ink to ink the edges of some of the elements and ink the invitation and thank you note because they were such a bright white that I felt they were clashing with my color scheme. I used burgundy ribbon behind the photos to add some color to what is a pretty neutral page without it. All of the paper is DCWV. The other page is a party her mom threw for family a few days later at her house. Afterward we went to watch some Fourth of July fireworks in Downtown Mt.Clemens which has been a tradition of ours since we were in middle school. Again, all of the paper is DCWV and I added some brown ribbon on the mats to accent.




Monday, January 17, 2011

St. Patrick's Day Layout

So, I finally got around to scrapping my St. Patty's day pictures from 2010. I haven't posted any of my scrapbook pages yet for you despite the fact that I've been a scrapbooker for years and only just recently started venturing into cards. That's because I didn't have a way to stand my pages up to take a good picture of them without alot of glare. But at long last, I bought plate holders! Waaa-hoooo! I bought some a few months ago trying to take the cheap way out and they were only about 4 inches high. I thought they would prop the pages up but when I put them in they just bent backwards so I had to buy the more expensive tall ones. RATS! I hate it when that happens. Anyways, all of the paper is from DCWV's Summer Dream stack. I just started using the paper from this stack and it's so versatile! It may just be my favorite, at least for the moment. I'm known to be indecisive lol. The brown solid paper is actually brown packaging wrapping paper that you would use to mail a box to someone. We re-modeled our bathroom last year and the contractor left a roll of it at our house and being the scavenger that I am, I gripped it for my stash haha. I love the color of it and didn't have anything like it to use. The only thing is that it doesn't really work with adhesive very well and kept popping off my page. I used some liquid and roll on and ended up using two sided tape which finally worked. I did faux stitching around the mats with my white gelly roll pens that you saw in my first haul video  and they worked really well which I love because they were so cheap! I used white ink around the tags and the font is from the Plantin Schoolbook Cricut Cartridge. The 3D stickers were 50 cents from Michael's. A nice little find if I do say so myself :)



Sunday, January 2, 2011

Started 2011 off with THE FLU!

Well, I hope everyone else had a better New Years than I did. I was fine until about 3am when I woke up and found myself running to the bathroom to yack. I spent the entire night hugging the toilet, sweating, shaking and freezing no matter how high I turned up the heat. I don't get sick frequently; and when I do it's usually just a head cold. I actually have a pretty high tolerance for pain too. I'm generally a trooper when I'm sick and still go to work and get things done. This was unlike any sickness I ever remember having in my life. I literally couldn't stand long enough to let the dogs out because I was so weak. I found myself sitting on the floor by the backdoor leaning against the glass of the window only because the dogs had to go outside and I was on the only one home to do it. Today the stomach sickness is mostly over. I'm still a little nauseous but I can eat. The biggest thing is I still have a bad fever and extreme vertigo. I used to have really bad vertigo (the feeling of being extremely dizzy even when laying down) in high school. It was a condition that I had for months nonstop. It went away but sometimes I get bouts of it here and there. Alot of people find it's brought on after having a virus that affects your equilibrium in your inner ear. Anyways, it's terrible. Especially since I have a couple hours of computer work I have to do tonight before returning to work tomorrow. The only good thing about this is that when I hopped on the scale this morning out of curiosity, I happened to lose 5 pounds. SCORE!