Scrapbooking « karenika

Quick Name Plates

This is the second November project I did for Pink Paislee.

It’s a little name tag using the cuttlebug and Mistables and some Coredinations card stock. It’s quite simple to do but I still think it looks elegant.

The first thing I did was to cut a piece of Mistables paper and put it through the Cuttlebug using Fanciful Labels. I had several different label pieces.

I then used my distress inks to color the labels lightly so the pattern showed through.

The next step was to cut a small rectangular piece of the special Nantucket Core’dinations Pack. I put it through the Cuttlebug using the Seeing Spots embossing folder. Here’s how it looked at that point:

The next step was to cut the paper so it was slightly larger than my label and sand it so the white in the “core” showed through. So now I had both my pieces ready:

The last step was to ink around the edge of the diecut label piece and glued it on top of the blue one. I then used some Cushies to add the name on top and I was done! Here it is one more time:

If your guests’ names are longer, the set has other labels. You can also use smaller letters and even put the label through your typewriter.

December Daily – Day Three

And here we are for day three. Today was all about visiting Santa.

Here’s the spread:

left side is photos from the crafts and David’s photo with Santa:

right side is some words and the photo with both kids, as you can see Nathaniel was not a fan!

and on the back, I put our family photo from today:

And that’s it for day three.

December Daily – Day Two

And here we are for day two. This one has a bunch of flaps.

The top layer is an ornament I made for My Mind’s Eye. Coming later this week:

if you open the flap and pull back to the whole page, you see the kids reading a book together on the right and photos from building gingerbread houses on the left:

and then if you lift up the little photo on the bottom left you see some journaling and our gingerbread house:

this is from the night of gingerbread decorating we went yesterday.

and that’s it for day two.

December Daily – Day One

Ok I will start by saying I took these photos four times! The light here is not so great and it was hard to photograph them. So there we go:

For the last three years, I’ve always begun my first page with “and so it begins.” It’s my personal tradition and I wasn’t breaking it this year:

the back of the page is a reminder to keep my word at the forefront of my mind:

So then the real day one start with the first surprise of Christmas which was the advent calendars. Lego Starwars for David and Playmobil Santa’s Workshop for Nathaniel. Neither kid expected it and they were very surprised. I put only the first photo in the front of the kids opening their gifts.

and the back is all the other ones I took with numbers showing order of time. And a few words from me.

and that’s it for day one. simple. but a delightful moment captured and documented nonetheless.

Thank you for teaching me to slow down

This is the one of the projects I did for Pink Paislee for November.

A few weeks ago, we went to a local park/zoo as a family. It was a sunny day and the kids ran around and had fun. By the time we were ready to leave the park, I felt grouchy and tired. I just wanted to get home.

But the kids were still having fun and they took their time walking out of the place. After a few steps, I realized they were falling behind and turned around to tell them to hurry up. What I saw was my six-year-old and my two-year-old holding hands and walking from one corner to another slowly and touching each of the painted footsteps on the ground. They were laughing with so much joy that it melted away my frustration and reminded me that magic of life is in these moments.

That’s the focus of this layout.

The full title reads: Thank you for teaching me to slow down. You make life worthwhile.

And the journaling says:
On this particular day, I was tired and ready to go back home and frustrated that you two were taking so long. But then I heard all your giggles and turned around to see you were holding hands and touching each dino footprint on the ground and laughing every single time. It’s moments like this that remind me I need to slow down and appreciate life more. Thank you, my boys.

Details:

Published Scrapbook Trends – July

I rarely submit for publications. But every now and then I get lucky enough to submit and to get accepted. This was one of those cases.

My layout that I made during Ali’s Yesterday Today class in 2009 was in the July issue of Scrapbook Trends. Here’s the cover:

And here’s my layout in the magazine. A super simple one with mostly just photos and words.

Thank you for letting me share.

Wishes

This minibook was for Maya Road early Winter release. It’s a list of my wishes for my kids.

You can see all the wonderful stuff Maya Road just released here.

12 Days of Christmas Workshop Recipient

Thank you for all your kind, kind comments. The recipient is: BeckyR

Becky, can you please email me your Big Picture username and I’ll make sure you’re added to the class?

December Daily 2011 – The Before Pages

As December approaches, I wanted to get ready with my album. My goal this year was to do my version of the Shabby Travel Journals that Mary Ann Moss makes. I signed up for her Remains of the Day class a few months ago, watched the videos and spent a while (much longer than I’d hoped) putting my book together.

Here’s how it looks now. As we get closer to December, I will talk more about some of my decisions and plans this year. I apologize in advance that many of the photos are not 100% clear. My lens is for portrait shots and has a shallow depth of field so it’s not the best to take these kinds of photos. My book has about 80 pages so, after a while, I got bored and just wanted to get it done. 🙂

I also added a movie in the end so you can see it a bit better. Feel free to ask any questions you might have. You are forewarned, there are a LOT of photos in this post:

Here’s the cover. It will likely change a bit but I kept it simple for now.

Here it is without the ribbon:

and the back:

the book has 2 signatures. Each signature has 10 pages that go across so it’s a total of 40 pages per signature and 80 in the whole book. I checked the last 3 years and I average about 75-80 pages each year.

Here’s the first page:

I didn’t put any numbers this year. Wanted to leave it more free form. Some of the pages are photos I took in the previous years. You can see one on the right side of the this next photo.

here are more pages:

here’s one with an overlay. You can’t see it but that’s a pocket so I can put something under the overlay.

and here’s another photo on the left and an overlay flap on the right.

middle of the first signature:

more photos and pages:

and the end of the first signature:

beginning of the second signature:

more of the same kinds of pages with photos and overlays:

some of the pages were coming apart due to my bad stitching so I taped them:

middle of second signature:

and more pages:

and here it is on the table:

And here’s the video I promised. I apologize in advance for my yucky computer fan that would not quiet down:

And there you go. I have mixed feelings about this book but I am grateful that I finally got to try to make one of these shabby journals. Let’s see how it works.

12 Days of Christmas Workshop and a Giveaway

As promised, I am back to talk about 12 Days of Christmas.

This workshop is taught by 12 Big Picture Classes teachers. We each did a layout about some Christmas activity.

Here is how it works:
For the 12 days leading up to Christmas, you will receive an email from a BPC teacher with a photo prompt and a list of supplies to gather. Preparing specific holiday pictures and products as Christmas approaches will help you focus on the present moments and the joyful anticipation in a more thoughtful way—without feeling any pressure to scrapbook right away! Then, starting on December 25th, you’ll get to “open” a new handout each day, designed to guide and inspire you in pulling together pictures and products to complete a dozen different layouts.

You can see all the twelve teachers and sign up if you click here.

I am giving away one seat in the class today. This time I will just ask for anything you might like to see on this blog. Which of the things I post about do you like the most? What’s something else you might want to see? So just leave a comment. I will leave comments open for a week and announce the recipient next Monday (November 21). If you’ve already signed up for the class, you can still be eligible to win and you’ll just get a refund so don’t worry.

You should know all the links to the class are affiliate links and I might get a tiny cut if you click through my site to sign up.

Reclaiming My Time Workshop Recipient

The recipient of the workshop is: Debra

Debra, if you can email me your Big Picture username, I’ll make sure you’re all settled in.

thanks so so much for your kind words and comments. I really hope to see you all in the class!

The Best Decision Ever

This layout is for Write.Click.Scrapbook’s November Gallery. The theme is to scrap “I Remember When…”.

I just love these photos so much I had to scrap them!

Journaling Reads:
I remember the day your dad and I finally decided to have another baby. We were both working hard and unsure it was the best time but we knew David would like a brother and that we didn’t have too much time left to put it off. As I look at these photos of the two of you playing together, laughing and crying I am reminded again that it was the best decision we ever made.

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