Distressed Stickles

I love all things Distress, which is funny since when Distress Inks first came out, I wasn't impressed. That was before I realized how they were different and before they added all the colours (the first round was mostly browns) and now I love them. I love how they all react with water and how you can use them for so much more than just as a stamp pad and reinker (for starters).

With this technique, I coloured clear stickles with two different colour Distress Reinkers and then swiped my paper through it. It gave such an awesome texture and it was easy to match colours to use to stamp (not that I did on this card, but you could).

So Bunny Cute

I'm still getting organized to start Blogging and sharing again, and while I was looking through my photos, I saw this layout just sitting there. I loved it and so am excited to share!

When Nathalie was a baby, I had this froggy coat that I completely loved. I got so many comments on it and it's packed away in my keepsake box. When she outgrew it, I ordered a Bunny coat and she was just as adorable!

I had fun with this layout too. I played with my new (well, they were new when I did the layout) Distress Markers. Sometimes, I just putter and play when I scrapbook and it's nice to be able to relax. Often times, I feel stressed about getting caught up and getting it all done, so it's nice to be able to play sometimes too!!

It's Been Awhile

The title really says it all. It's been awhile. I always have such good intentions about posting, but then life happens and I don't. Or I figure no one reads this, so I don't bother. Then someone will mention a post they saw or something and I think, "I should post again." But, this year, I just haven't.

There are so many reasons really. One is just that life gets in the way. I have 3 kids and I run a business. I sit as the Chair of our School Council and all that seems to take precedence. And I enjoy a clean house (although lately, you'd never know it) and I feel an obligation to feed us. So, all of that takes time. Time I don't get to stamp or scrapbook. Then when I do actually create, I don't take the extra step to share it. My office is separate from my craft room (which is what I want) and so I need to bring my cards and pages in here to scan and then post, so it's one more step in the process. One more thing to stop the flow.

Truthfully, though, I haven't even stamped or scrapbooked much this year. I was feeling a ton of guilt over the fact that I didn't get very much time in my room. And then when I was in there, I was fulfilling obligations: my technique club and my paper pack club. And I enjoyed them. A lot. But I just felt such pressure. Well, I've dropped both of those which was both good and bad. No more pressure which was great, but also, no more creativity since I wasn't forced into my craft room for anything. So, I didn't do much. Add to that the fact that I'm not happy with my organization in there and I wouldn't spend much time in there. I redid my room many years ago and have made small changes since then, but I'm running out of room for my unmounted stamps. I need another shelf. And I don't really have anywhere to put all my Distress Stains and Paints, so they sit in a box. And there are a couple of boxes of stuff that I haven't put away because I don't know where to put them and so it makes it even more cluttered in there.

But it's all changing now. My awesome brother has agreed to help me build some new storage solutions and I'm so excited. We're going to move some stuff around, rip some stuff down and build new shelves. I'm going to have a whole embellishment area and it's all going to be awesome!!! He came over last week and we talked about what we could do. It's tough for him since he has no idea what half the stuff is, but he asked questions and I talked about what I want close and what I don't need access to all the time and so we have a plan! It's going to take a bit as we do one section and then plan out the next, but I'm excited. And I even organized a bit in there the other day and I'm starting to find my groove again.

I did 5 pages last Thursday and Friday. That's a ton more than I've done in months, so I'm pretty excited. I'm hoping to have lots to share too. I'll start with a page I did awhile ago (not one of my 5 recent ones as they are hanging up in my room at the moment), but it's a start right??

I finished to Nathalie's second birthday and so am starting up with Kayla's album now. I left off at her third birthday and she is 10 1/2 now, so I'm seriously behind. She is so excited that I'm working on her album now too!! This is a cute one of her smile. She looks so different now; so grown up. It's hard to remember her when she was little and so it's fun to go back and do these pages now.

Toy Story

I'm back to working on my Disney layouts. Part of me is getting bored and part of me is excited that I might have something scrapbooked within a few months of actually doing it.

I had done a few "boring" layouts and so was looking to do something a bit more creative again and in the end, I do like how it turned out. I'll have to go back to boring for awhile though if I ever want to finish!

Splotted Distress

Today, I want to share an old card. I used the Splotted Distress technique which I love as it gives such a cool background (ink your paper with Distress Ink and then flick water on it and let it dry). I love that I can then use the same colour to stamp and everything will match!

I've had this card sitting in my folder of stuff to share for awhile. The stamp is a Hero Arts one and I just added some rhinestones to the flowers to give it a bit of bling and make them pop.

Donald Duck

I was getting tired of boring Disney layouts, so I wanted to be a bit creative. I figured I'd give it a try with a Donald layout. And in the end, I an really happy with how it turned out. It's pretty busy and loud for me, but it was a nice change putting together different papers. At first, I thought I'd have to do 2 pages because I had 3 - 4x6" photos and I had put Donald's signature on them, but I ended up cutting that part off and went with 4x4" photos so I could keep it on one page.

Hockey Cake

I enjoy making cakes although I would never want to do it for a living or anything. I don't really know what I'm doing, so it takes awhile to make them, although sometimes it's fun to just play around.

Kayla's friend was having a birthday and I wanted to make a cake for her. She plays hockey so I figured a hockey themed cake would be cool. I spoke with my cousin, Debbie, and we found a picture of one we liked. I figured it was way beyond me (well, it was) as it had a figure on it, but Debbie thought she could do it so we went for it.

Well, the figure turned out so awesome and Kayla's friend loved the cake!! And truth be told, I really liked it too.

More Disney Princesses

Another quick post. I just wanted to share what (I hope) is the last of the Disney Princess pages for my Disney Album. I'm definitely ready to move on!!

Cars Land

Cars Land at Disney was insane. The Cars ride had a 2 hour standby wait time at times and it was a 30-45 minute wait just to get a FastPass!! I got some at 10:30 am and they were for after 3:00 pm. But the ride was pretty cool and Disney did a great job building the area. I had a few extra photos, so I decided to make it a 2 page spread.

Winnie the Pooh & Tigger too

I've been working on my Disneyland album and I've been getting a bit tired of the same old boring Princess pages, so I wanted to do a few that involved a bit more creativity. In the end, I was pretty happy with the happy medium this layout ended up to be. I used some themed paper, but just on one side and then worked on being a bit more creative on the other side. They're both pretty basic, but they're done and that made me happy!

Distressed Striped Trees

I forgot to Blog yesterday. Sorry. That's life though. The funny thing is that it wasn't because I didn't have anything to blog, but more that I was actually stamping last night and just forgot. I guess it's not much of a routine.

My friend came over last night and I made 4 cards to submit. I haven't done that in so long and it's been a goal of mine for quite awhile to do it again, so I'm excited. And I wasn't feeling well last night, but still managed to come up with 4 cards that I don't hate (and a couple I even quite like) which was impressive.

I was playing with the Distressed Stripes technique and having fun! It wouldn't be a technique if I didn't manage to stamp my favorite trees on at least one sample card though, so here  it is!

Precious

My new obsession is the Petaloo Flowers. They are gorgeous!! They come with 5-6 per package and if you order red, then there will be a mixture of shades of red that complement each other, so you can use one package instead of needing several. They're awesome!!!

I created this layout and used a bunch of my Petaloo flowers from 2 packages (a pink and a cream) because they coordinated. I also pulled out a bunch of old flowers and just placed them amongst the Petaloo ones until I liked it. The paper is just two coordinating pieces from a paper pack, so that part was easy. I mounted the photo and added the embellishments. It was so quick & easy! The hardest part was just playing around with all the flower possibilities and that was kind of relaxing and fun!

1st Hair Cut

Nathalie's hair grew really quickly. I remember Kayla looked bald forever and yet, Nathalie needed a haircut so much earlier!! I finally got around to scrapbooking that event. She was not impressed, although she was easily bought off with lollipops.

The certificate was so, well, limey that I had a really hard time choosing colours. Lime green is so not my colour and so working around it was quite challenging. In the end, I don't love it, but I don't hate it. It's done though, and so I'm calling it a win.

Disney Princesses

We took the kids to Disneyland this past fall and had such an awesome time. Even little Nathalie was right into getting photos with the Princesses. She'd run up to them with her autograph book and smile happily.

I took a ton of photos in Disneyland, plus the ones we got from the Disney Photopass and the ones Glenn's parents too (they met us there for the adventure) and I know that I want to scrapbook them quickly so that they actually get done and so I opted to buy almost predone paper. This way, for the most part, I can just add the photo and an embellishment or two and it's done. I've managed to whip off 5 pages rather quickly this way.

Here are the ones for Aurora, Cinderella & Tiana. I love the look when I've done a page from scratch, but I had to give myself permission for this album to not be that kind of album. In the end, getting the photos and memories into an album is the ultimate goal and it's OK for them not to be all from "scratch."

Distress Stripes

I saw a variation of this in one of my Technique Junkies Newsletters and thought it looked very cool and quite simple which made it right up my alley. I used my Distress Markers (which I haven't used nearly enough; darn that not enough time to play with my cool new stuff issue) and the Ranger Specialty Stamping Paper. I tried it on regular white matte cardstock and it didn't work at all. If you are going to use the Distress Markers, you really do need to use the Ranger Paper. It has a coating on it which keeps the ink on the surface.

So, you need three coordinating colours of Distress Markers. I started with the middle colour (light, middle, dark) and drew a few lines in a small area. Then I took the lighter colour and drew lines above and off to the side and I took the dark colour and drew lines below and off to the side of the middle colour. By starting in the middle, I was better able to get it centred. Then I took a mini mister with water and spritzed it to spread the colours. You want to work relatively quick before the markers really dry or else the colour doesn't move very well. When it dried, I just stamped a quick image and saying, mounted it and called it done.

Definitely my kind of card and I do think this might be one of my new favorite techniques.

New Year, New Hopes, New Goals

It's the beginning of 2013 and I feel like I'm starting over. Again. Each year, I promise myself I'll stamp and scrapbook more and keep up with my blog, but somehow life always seems to get in the way. I still think it's a lofty and worthwhile goal to aim to do more and so once again, I'm going to try!

I'm almost done up to Nathalie's 2nd birthday and so that's good. I have a few more miscellaneous pages and then her birthday layout and final collages, so not too much. I can see the end!!

I also started working on my Disney album. The pages are pretty simple because, well, I want to actually finish it. I bought a bunch of specific paper with characters on it so I can just throw photos down and the bulk of the decorating part is done. So far it's going well. I've managed to finish 5 pages rather quickly.

I also figured out my scanner, so I'm pretty excited. No more crappy pictures!!! Yeah.

So, Happy New Year!! Here is a layout I did in December. I saw something like it on the internet I think (I've been taking my iPad into my craft room to use to search for ideas and I love it). It's pretty simple, but I really like how it turned out.