Creating my own PL card

I mentioned yesterday that I have not made an investment on project life yet, as I am just starting out and I have "just more than enough" scrapbooking supplies.  I admit that having one of those 3x4 or 4x6 cards handy for an accent or a journaling box is convenient, but I'll wait and see if I am really into it before I jump on the bandwagon.

When I made this layout I wished I had one of those 4x6 cards ready.  Then the four 4x6 could get the square nice and complete.  I didn't have one so I went to cut one out from the patterned paper.  It turned out just as cute as I would imagine:

Normally I would put another horizontal 4x6 picture to the top right corner, but too bad, I only got three pictures developed.  So I made my own Project Life card as a journaling box in this layout.  I like that the patterned paper has two dangling hearts and it looks so naturally like a readily available Project Life card.

The title of the layout is Brunch at The Park.  I've split it to two rows and cut it in two fonts.  "Brunch at" was die cut with Lawn Fawn's Louie's ABCs dies and "the park" with Lawn Fawn's Cole's ABCs dies.  These two are my favorite alphabet die sets.  These alphabets were die cut from two different sheets of patterned paper in the Sweater Weather collection, but I tried to match "the park" with  the same color as those two dangling hearts and "the brunch" with the square in the middle.  Speaking of which, it was actually trimmed down from another sheet of patterned paper with 3x4 journaling cards.

I always love using patterned paper in the same collection - everything is coordinating and that gives the color-challenged me a big relief. :)

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Crafting!

Scrapbooking & Project Life

Happy Hump Day!

Oops it has been a week since I last posted on my blog.  Where did my time go?  Well, a series of off-site meetings at work is taking quite a lot of my time, making crafting difficult.  Then, for the various times I've tried blogging, I could not even log in.  If I was fortunate enough to log in, I could not upload pictures.  Argh!

Anyway, it seems like everything is finally working just fine.  Want to see my first project life spread?  I know that project life has been around (correction: popular) for quite a while but I have been busy in the card-making department and wasn't really paying much attention to it.  Recently I am getting back to mini-albums and scrapbooking and I thought I could give it a try.     I will be honest that I won't be doing it regularly to document my weekly life.  I wish I had that discipline.  But I think I could try this as part of my scrapbooking process.  I did try it out and I like it.

There are just about millions of project life products on the market.  The only one I got was the sheet protectors.  LOL.  You have no idea how much I was resisting the temptation to buy the gazillions of cute products!  As I am just starting out, I'll try to minimize my purchase.  Further, even though I am really interested in many of the core kits and mini kits, I'd love to use my scrapbooking supplies for project life.  For one, haven't I got more than enough for my layouts?  Secondly, I am not too appealed to the rounded corners of the project life cards.

For my first project life spread, I've chosen pictures I took in September and the cutouts from the new Lawn Fawn Sweater Weather collection:

I totally love these cutouts - they are great accent pieces and journaling cards!  I think I'm supposed to put more journaling cards to the 3x4 pockets?  I opted to cut my 4x6 picture in half and put them in the pockets.  Not bad, huh?

After making this project life spread, I also made a traditional scrapbook page.  It is a picture I took in a Vietnamese restaurant last winter.  The story behind this is that as we had no idea what to order, we told the waiter we wanted that "good looking quiche-looking  dish" on the table behind us.  Try say it fast three times and you know what i mean!  I came to know that it is called Banh Khot:

Sorry about the glare of the photo.  I found a new place at home to take pictures but at this new spot I had to use flash.  I hope you could still see the little pancake cups with shrimps.  It was delish and I had to make a page about it!  I've tried a new thing for the background: I cut the patterned paper into strips and pieced them into chevrons.  It was quite a time consuming process but for a page about Banh Khot?  I think it's absolutely worth it!

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!

12 Tags of 2014 - September

Ms. Procrastination is waiting until last minute to submit her 12 Tags of 2014 - September.  Well, have I ever submitted my work early?  LOL.

I am just hours away from the closing of the link so I'll be short here.

I followed Tim's instructions to create the green background, then stamped the cupcake in Archival Ink.  Using the remaining portion of my glossy cardstock, I inked it up with some bright color alcohol inks.  I punched out dozens of circles using my 1/4" punch to create these confetti.  It's fun!

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!

(Easy) Scrapbooking makes me happy

I wish I had all day long to create my scrapbook layouts but I don't.  The only time I get to craft is weekends.  I still squeeze in as much time as possible to craft.  Scrapbook pages can be tricky as they tend to take longer time to finish, compared to cards and tags.

So I must say that I appreciate simple scrapbooking.  Today I am sharing one that didn't take me too long:

I finally figured out a way to take a picture of a two-page layout.  Yay!  But I haven't figured out how to do it without flash to avoid the glare.  Sorry. 

To me, the first step of easy/simple scrapbooking is to print the pictures in 4x6 and 4x6 only.  Every time I develop my photos I upload a big volume without even sorting through them carefully.  Had I spent time to decide what size to print before I hit that "checkout" button, I could have spent days just to print the pictures.  (On that note, I did seriously consider buying a photo printer at home, but thus far it has not happened and I have moved onto becoming interested in other "toys.") 

The next step of easy/simple scrapbooking is to use the pictures as is.   Unless the composition of the picture is truly an eyesore, I tend to keep the picture as is.  The same size of each picture does not add interest to the page and many of you may think that it is equivalent to a boring layout.  But hey, my goal here is to have some creative fun and get my page done.  It's okay for me to have a rather plain layout.  This time I was just lucky that I got six pictures taken from this event, where four of them are landscape and two of them are vertical.  I just simply put them in a symmetrical manner over two pages.  I didn't even have a photo mat.  That's easy (or lazy). 

Choosing the perfect patterned paper and cardstock could be time-consuming because I just have too much to choose from!  I'm glad that I do have quite a good system to organize my paper and so even though I have a lot of paper, I just need to take out what I think would be a good match and confirm that it will work fine with the pictures.  You know, what I have in mind could be drastically different from the reality.

I sometimes do journaling next but this time I added embellishment before journaling.  This is the fun part.  I love adding bits and pieces to a layout!  For a layout like this, I'd keep the embellishment minimum because I'd like the focus to be on the pictures.  There are six pictures and I do want each one of them shine.

Journaling on this layout will have to be quite short.  I want to keep the balance of the layout so I only have two small boxes for journaling.  Well, I'll just have to keep my journaling concise.

That concludes my journey of easy/simple scrapbooking.  I had a fun time making this page and I think years later, whoever looks at this page wouldn't know that it is "easy."

Thanks for stopping by!

Merry Christmas

I am back with another configurations box to share.  This time the theme is Christmas!

It is the cutest Christmas configurations box I could imagine!  This configurations box does not come with the frame.  The frame was actually made with grunge board strips on the side and a decorative edge cut for the top and bottom.  Because crackle paint is no longer available in colors, we used Clear Rock Candy crackle paint as the base then after the paint has dried, we painted distress paint to add color.  I further rubbed some walnut stain on top just to distress it.  It is so cool!  Thanks Richele for showing us all these cool tricks!

She had done a lot of prep work for the class.  For instance, she had dyed the trees in green.  We would have stayed in class forever otherwise.  We embellished the tree by adding snow, stars, ribbon, twines and baubles to the tree.  One of my favorite things in the big middle box is that there is faux snow.  The faux snow is rock candy distress glitter.  It looks like snow more than glitter to me!

To tell you the truth I have made a mistake.  See the word "Christmas" was abbreviated?  That's because I started the word "Merry" too low in the panel, and had I spelled Christmas in full, the two words would overlap and look awful.  This is not what I was hoping for but I guess I did fine when this "creative opportunity" happened.

I know we are months away from Christmas but I have already put this box in a rather discreet area of my home so I can secretly admire it every day. :)

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!

Relax

I am going to be away for a few days, so I won't be sharing any new creations.  But I'll still keep the blog updated.

Today I am sharing a configurations box with the theme of sea.  I put the wooden blocks "RELAX" next to the seahorse to remind myself to slow down:

I wish I had the talent to create something this pretty.  I took a class with Richele Christensen, one of the members of Tim Holtz's Creative Media Team in a local craft store and she showed us all the tricks to prepare this awesome configurations box.

What I really like is that she used the pinecone die to create the corals.  Such a clever idea!  And guess what?  We did put some real starfish into our box.  See the one on the top left corner of the box with the big seahorse?  That's a real starfish.  There's another real starfish in the second box on the left as well.  Next to that starfish is a real sand dollar.  So cute.  Oh, you will be interested in knowing that there are also shells in the third box on the left.  The bottom box on the right has several bottles.  One has sand and one has smaller shells.

Taking a class like this makes me feel the realistic experience in the sea.  I have learned quite a lot of techniques and I had an absolutely fun time with fellow students. 

I have always admired how others prepared their configurations box because I have been intimidated by it.  I am comfortable with cardmaking and scrapbooking, but this is something dimensional and is just beyond my comfort level.  After taking her class, I can't say I am now confident in making one myself, but I am more willing to attempt to make one.  I admit that I'm slow, but let me take one step at a time.  One day I'll be able to make one.  :)

I will be sharing another configurations box while I am away.  Stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Crafting!

Say Cheese!

I am very fortunate that I live in a place where there are several scrapbooking stores.  It is true that online shopping is convenient, but going in to a store and browse and touch all the goodies make a world of difference.  The fact that we could make it a fun shopping trip with fellow crafters is another plus. 

Another thing I like about local scrapbooking stores is that they host classes and workshops from time to time.  In 2014 alone I have taken a few and will be taking more next month.  Again, online classes seem to be convenient that we can watch the videos in our PJs at the comfort of our home, and I like taking them.  However, the human interaction part and the hands-on experience are elements of a live class that cannot be easily replaced.  Need further arguments to be convinced that taking live classes is fun?  That's getting to meet new people who share the same interest.  The camaraderie in a live class is what I truly enjoy. 

In May this year, I took a live class in a local scrapbooking store.  After that, some of us students took a picture and our smiles in the picture really capture the fun and enjoyment we had in class:

I rarely share scrapbook pages on my blog partly due to my frustration in taking a decent picture of the page. Guess what?  The time spent on taking a picture of the layout above is about half of the time that took me to finish the project.  No kidding.

Wait, I totally forgot to add my journaling.  What was I thinking?

This page is extremely simple.  Just paper and paper and paper.  I used the Sweater Weather collection from Lawn Fawn, then die cut the title from Louie's ABCs die set and Quinn's ABCs die set.  The only embellishment, if any, is the stars die cut from Lawn Fawn Stitched Journaling Card die set.  Does this sketch look familiar to you?  It's one of the super sketches from Kelly Purkey!

I wanted to share our smiles with you and hope that you will continue to support local business.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Crafting!