My Love

I was playing around in my stamp room the other night and was in a mellow mood. I finished my Bathtime layout and then wanted to start another. I was flipping through a magazine and saw one I liked. The problem was that it was very finicky and so out of my comfort zone.

But I was in a weird zen type mood and not stressed about how far behind I am or how much I have to do and so I just went with it.

I used my "Olivia" pack from Basic Grey so that all the circles would match and coordinate and then I cut some strips from the same paper. I hate to admit it, but it was kind of fun playing with all the circles to place them. I don't know that I'd do it again, but it was fun because I was in the right mood.

Then I stamped the Magenta flourish in black and added a journaling block (from the kit) and a flower. The "my" from the title is out of grungeboard and then I cut "Love" with my Cricut. I really like how the black kind of grounds stuff and makes it pop.

Overall, this layout took me awhile but I like doing those kind once in awhile.

An Anniversary

My parents are celebrating their 40th anniversary in October and we are having a party. I volunteered to do the invitations and so I did two completely different prototypes. One photo type card and then one stamped card. In the end, the photo card won out, but I quite like the stamped one I made. I really struggled trying to get it to be something I liked, but I mostly got there.


I used my Cricut to cut out the hearts and then I stamped a flourish by Magenta. I used my Tim Holtz scallop border die to cut the middle strip. I'm sort of glad that they didn't choose this one though as it definitely would have taken me longer to make and we were pressed for time.

Flourished Hearts

I have all these photos of Nathalie and thought I would just put a bunch of the really early ones together on a layout. I figured I didn't need a lot of journaling (and I had just finished her birth page and wrote enough on that to get me out of journaling for a few pages). I was originally going to copy this one layout in a book, but in the end, it didn't turn out anything like that layout which was fun. Sometimes, I just need to look at something and then I can turn it into something totally different. It doesn't need to look like a picture.

I had a friend years ago who knew a group of guys who lived together. They used to cook for each other and the only rule was that if you made something from a package, you needed to make it look exactly like the picture on the package. I know a lot of people who try to do the same thing with stamping and scrapbooking; they see a picture but don't know where to start because they don't have the same paper or embellishments. I try explaining that it really is just a guideline. Get some inspiration from it and then make it into whatever you want.

I got the pictures arranged and needed to figure out what I wanted to fill in the empty spots. I often find that the hardest part. I get sick of the same embellishments and so I get stuck. This time, I cut some hearts out of chipboard (I love my Cricut; I can cut whatever embellishments I want and I can make them any size I want). I inked them with Victorian Velvet Distress Ink using my Ink Blending Tool and then stamped my favorite flourish (Magenta) in black. I loved them and they looked great on my pages. But there was still empty spots and I was going to cut out a bunch of flourishes, but instead, I just stamped them in the empty spots and I loved it. It's so simple, which I love.

It's been awhile

How does it get to be so long in between posts?? I haven't been stamping much lately. I've done some scrapbooking, but not this week, so I guess I figured I didn't have as much to say. I'll try to fix that. I have tons of card scans, so I'll try to post some of those.

Here is a really quick layout I did of Eric (have I mentioned that I'm almost caught up to his 5th birthday??? Just a few more layouts and I can put his book away and sigh a bit of relief). Eric is very dramatic and I joke that he's my little Drama Queen. I can't imagine him as a teenager. I took this photo and it reminded me of his nature, so I wanted to try to capture that.


It's a pretty basic layout. I matted my photo and then just stamped a little frame with a Magenta stamp. To figure out where I wanted the frame, I just marked the four corners of the photo and then removed it and stamped my frame. I cut out a couple pieces of matching paper using Spellbinders Labels 8, but they seemed to get lost, so I inked the edges in a dark navy ink. I wanted to journal on my one label, so I just measured it and typed it out on the computer and printed it on bond paper. Then, using repositional adhesive, I stuck it over where it had printed on the bond paper and ran it through the printer again and it printed perfectly on my label which I then adhered to my layout.