Beauty Shop Shark

Hello! Here's prompt 14 from Design Decisions. Three questions were posed about placement of pictures, words, and other stuff. My choices changed during the process because I ended up writing a whole bunch more than I originally expected. 

The pictures - put the photos on the left side towards the bottom. I matted them together to kinda join them. I don't know how to say what I'm trying to say there. I think y'all know what I mean though. 

The words - I wanted the title and journaling to be close to the pictures. I added a wide solid matte to give me space to write. I wrote a lot more than I expected which changed up decision 3. 

The other stuff - I ended up using less of "the other stuff" than I had originally planned. The embellishment cluster by the title is there because I had some trapped white space due to the need to move the word shark lower and under the P so the pink letters wouldn't run onto the pink background paper. I tried to include a punched label or stamp sticker with each group. Also a card stock heart sticker, puffy sticker, washi, and enamel dots. I think included more of the same stuff in each cluster (more than I used to do) is a big take away from this class. 

About the paper - this is an old Echo Park line called Little Girl from 2010. Because she's playing with her shark, I was looking for some blues. When I studied the pics, I decided to go with hot pink to match her jammies. I kept trying different papers but the stripes seemed to work so I could easily pull together other colors. I added the yellow because I wanted somewhere to journal. I was going to use a light pink heart print but you could only tell they were hearts along two of the sides. The green plaid turned out to be an even better choice though.

Thanks for looking!

Journal Your Christmas - Days 2 & 3

The next two Christmas prompts are always fun ones. Well, the whole thing is fun to be honest but these two are some of my favorites. Day 2 involves signs of Christmas. When I was a little girl, one sign of Christmas was an Advent calendar.

In 2011, Silhouette came out with their Advent calendar. It came with a download card with all the different boxes you could cut out of any paper you wanted. I decided I just had to get it. Elizabeth was 3 and finally ready for something like this. Each year, I've filled up the boxes again and again, much to her delight.

This year, the boxes needed a little TLC. I reglued some. Others I added more adhesive to the numbers. I even reglittered one of the brads - this time with Stickles though!

It brought back memories of making all the boxes for the first time. I still have some leftover bits of paper from the Echo Park collection pack I used that year. I decided to use it in this year's JYC.

Day 3 is about a favorite Christmas gift. This one was harder for me. I wanted to use a gift I gave to my family but couldn't find the pictures. Instead, I chose a very recent gift that is clearly a favorite. I found out my sister was pregnant two years ago. I just love my little nephew Scot. Briton is a great big brother, and Elizabeth loves to play with them both. Finding out about Scot is one of the best gifts ever.

Journal Your Christmas - Title page and Manifesto

December has started! Last year, I finally took a class from Shimelle that I had been debating about for a couple years - Journal Your Christmas (JYC for short).

So far, I've kept up. It's actually harder this year. I don't want to repeat everything from last year so there's a bit of difficulty when the prompts are the same. One goal I have this year with JYC is to use the supplies I already have. I did purchase Shimelle's new stamps. Aside from those, everything else comes from my stash. The album is a red Simple Stories Sn@p album with a red spine. I bought it years ago. I meant to use it last year and couldn't find it. So, this is my year to use it!

For the title page, I used one of the papers that came in it. The stripes reminded me of a candy cane. Since most of the papers I'll be using have a more distressed look, I decided to spray some mist to remove the bright white. Heidi Swapp's Gold mist and Silver Sugar Glimmer Mist from Tattered Angels worked well. I'll be combining gold and silver again this year and wanted to start that from the very beginning.

Most of the embellishments are certainly older ones! They come from a Making Memories pack from 2009! The title page isn't in a page protector so I decided to use the string of Christmas lights. They're rather bulky so work well like this. (I have no idea why, but I can't make this picture larger.)

My first page is my Christmas manifesto. Manifesto seems like a big word for a Christmas album but it fits the purpose so well. This is my statement of intentions for this Christmas season. I want to approach this season with joy again. I want to bake cookies, go see the light displays, and reflect on the real meaning of this beautiful season. I want to do all of those things with my daughter who brings me so much joy and happiness.

Gram Time

Not not your normal Thanksgiving layout to be sure! Shimelle's Design Decisions class had us looking at monochromatic colors for prompt 8. (Just a note for those who have asked, yes, I'll be covering all the prompts - just really out of order!)

Prompt 7 asked asked us to pull some supplies based on the color wheel. I pulled three colors - pink, aqua, and yellow - for a triadic scheme. I misunderstood that I needed all the various choices she gave us. Oops! Monochromatic was easy though. I just pulled all the aqua out. 

I wanted to use some things I'd purchased with great intentions (Bella Blvd Ciao Chipboard) but hadn't utilized. I also wanted to use some things that I purchased on a whim and had clearly lost my mind. The sheet torn from a notebook with the owl was made by Making Memories. It's a great product but I have no idea why I bought it. It's not me. Happily, it fit well here. 

Do you all have that loss of reason moment where you have to have something and then it just sits there? I'd love to hear that I'm not alone! Leave a comment and keep me company in those moments of passing insanity. 

Candy Cane Cutie

So, one thing to know about me is that Christmas is nowhere near to my favorite holiday. I try to postpone Christmas festivities as long as possible. This is hard when dear husband wants to pull out decorations as soon as Halloween is over. He and dear daughter have been getting glares from me as they've been singing Christmas carols for the month of November. However, with that being said, Thanksgiving is over so Christmas time has arrived at my house. The house is decorated outside and the tree is up with lights (no ornaments yet - tomorrow that chore...I mean fun...happens).

Prompt 11 for Design Descisions (see yesterday's post for a link to sign up) by Shimelle Laine is to use complimentary colors. As I looked through photos on previous prompts, this one Christmas photo kept catching my eye. I knew I'd have to use it for this prompt as soon as Black Friday arrived.

Not as many layers in this one as yesterday. I was happy though. I found a pack of Christmas paper while cleaning up a few weeks ago. Remember when Target started selling scrapbooking supplies in their dollar spot? Yeah...eight sheets of paper for $1! Some even had glitter and foil! Almost a decade later, still unused! Aside from the green card stock background, all the papers come from that pack. The Christmas brads were sold along side the paper too. Of course I bought them. I'm hoping to use the rest during Journal Your Christmas this year.

I really like how well the colors matched the photo. The first paper stack I pulled out of Christmas paper (why do I have so much Christmas paper?!) had a more pinkish red. I really didn't like the look.

Normally, I don't like to cut full sheets up for little stacks of layers like this. I'll use scraps, off cuts, or 6x6 pads to make layers. Given how long this paper had been with me and the cost of it, I figured why not.

Gems added a final bit of sparkle for me. I was going to add some mist droplets in white. However, the paper is super thin. I wasn't sure I wanted to see how that might react to something wet. That's also why I used that green card stock. It needed something to support it.

Let me know what you think! I'd love to hear some feedback.

Wild & Free

I'm taking Shimelle Laine's current class called Design Decisions. It's a class that focuses on why we make the choices we do when we scrap. I have to say, it's been eye opening. I have gotten so much out of this class already! There are fifteen prompts total. I've gotten through ten of them so far. One of my favorite layouts is this one of my daughter and niece running around after strawberry picking. 

Wild & Free was a change for me. I used a lot more layers and small bits than I normally do. It really came together well though. I used Simple Stories lines and some bits and pieces from October Afternoon. They're older lines, but blended well together. 

I hope y'all like it!

My Scrapbook Room

I was just looking over my organization posts from way back in 2012. My room was so neat and organized! I miss it looking that way. It's currently a disaster and a half. I really need to get in there and get it fixed up. I will post some pictures when I get home if y'all promise not to laugh. It's embarrassing!

I know this is a short post. I'm on vacation and just felt the urge to blog. So, I'm blogging! I have some more Project Life stuff to share when I get home. Also, I was thinking about doing a kit club comparison. I'm subbed to three different PL kits. It might be fun to see the positives and negatives of them.

Until then!