2014 Wrap up Page

Happy New Year!

Every year I do a layout to wrap up the old year and ring in the new with what was accomplished and what is planned.  This is always a special page for me and a bit of a challenge.  There is a LOT of journaling to contain.

I shop my stash for my favorite papers.  This years choice is the Highline collection from BasicGrey.  I've bought more BasicGrey than anything else in the last year or so. I've loved everything they did. The energy from the bright pink and orange are appropriate for what I wanted to say in my journaling even if my selfie is a little less than energetic :-)

The page has an extra large pocket for the journaling and uses a lot of the stickers from the collection.  I also used some Shimelle cork stickers, some brads, flowers, and trim from Hobby Lobby.

Something I definitely want to do in the new year is use my Silhoutte even more.  So I used an image I already had and cut it for a photo mat.

The rhinestones are Prima.

Here is the process video at YouTube:


Thanks for stopping by today!  I'll have the 2014 Sketchbook with 52 scrapbook sketches out very soon.  It is getting the finishing touches right now.

Heritage Mini Album Pages and Video

My Dad's mini album is complete!  Here are some of the pages.  And the video below shares almost all the pages in the album.  Two are part of the No Photo?  No Problem PDF so I didn't include them.

The Silhouette got a workout on the top page above.  I cut a stencil and used it for the background with light modeling paste.  I cut a baby carriage on the Silhouette, too.

The Trips page is one of my favorites and features the Travel Girl collection papers from October Afternoon.  I happen to have them in 8x8 and the color scheme worked perfectly.

Probably the most momentous decision my father ever made was to start his own business.  It really changed all our lives for the better so the Shop as we always called it got a bit more journaling.

In the pocket for this spread near the end of the book, I have a letter my aunt Linda sent to include with his album.  I put my own letter in the envelope on the Baby Makes 3 page.

And this page is the last in the album.  The photo is from the late 1990's and has always been one of my favorites of my parents.  They were on a cruise.  The background is stenciled by misting through a doily with Heidi Swapp Tinsel colorshine mist.

See all the pages here:


I have a process video that goes with this showing

8 Steps for a Quick, Cohesive Mini

It is available in my May newsletter to newsletter subscribers.  To subscriber, see the sidebar.  It's free!

Thanks for stopping by!

Silhouette Love and Craziness

I know, I know.  I must have lost my craft-loving mind.

One of the LOAD prompts this weekend was to recall how we played board games as a child.  Well, I loved playing board games so much so that I often played games like Monopoly and Yahtzee by myself.  I have no idea how I made Monopoly that doesn't even work well with 2 players into a single player game but I did.  I'd keep a board set up for days on our dining room table.  I suppose I did this more in winter when it was too cold to go outside or over to my neighbors to play.

I had and still have a Monopoly Playmaster which is an electronic device that rolls the dice for you and keeps track of the player pieces. It was quite high tech for its time in the 1970's.  I set it up for the photos and hearing it play "We're in the money" certainly brought back found memories. I think the last time we used this was when Lenny's daughters were teenagers.

SO... I thought it would be cool to create just the grid design of the play board for my layout.  Also it would give me a chance to learn more about the Silhouette software and what it can do and what it can't do.  I have Sure Cots a Lot and so I know the basic ideas.  I spent much of Saturday afternoon and evening figuring out the best way to do this grid and cutting all the pieces.

I decided it would be slightly less crazy to layout one edge at a time and then piece them together rather than try to cut the entire thing at once.  It was and there is at least one error of what square goes where but you still get the idea.  I wasn't going for perfect just a memory jog.

The light bulb, train and question mark (for Chance) are also cut on the Silhouette.

Sunday, I had another LOAD layout all ready to create but just couldn't stop fiddling with the Silhouette.  My mat was getting very unsticky by this time so I figured it was time to try stencils before switching mats.

Please note, you can actually cut through you Silhouette mat!  I didn't have the paper in the right place and the blade too deep and well you see what happened.  That mat still works but is definitely about to go.

I am having a lot of fun so much so that I did a 3 month Silhouette subscription.  Subscriptions are 20% off in their store right now.

Also, I released my new book

No Photo? No Problem!

We don't always have the perfect photos to crop with so the book provides ideas and inspiration when you have a story and a less than perfect photo or no photo at all.

Check it out here.

So I had a fun, crafty weekend.  What about you?  Did you get to play on National Scrapbooking Day?

Thanks for stopping by!