The Magic Number at Disney

I'm still plugging away at all of the Disney layouts from our trip in September. There are so many pictures and stories that I want to tell, that sometimes it's overwhelming!

I love this monster line from Sassafrass Lass. When I saw the playing card with the "tall" monster, I knew it was perfect for this story that I wanted to tell. Finally, Nico was tall enough to go on all the rides that DH and I love at Disneyworld. This was a big milestone for him and us.

I made the huge arrow out of red Bazzill dotted swiss cardstock and sewed up the center just to add some dimension. The black ticket is from MME and the letters are a mish mosh of old painted Heidi Swapp and A-Z Essentials (teal).

My favorite part of the layout is the little blue monster on the lower right hand side. I poked holes in his hands and added string with the #40. I love to add little details like that when I can. It was fun making this, I really love the bold colors and the monsters remind me of my boy.

Until the next post...

Flying Flying Flying

I was browsing through some of my old layouts and these two caught my eye. Probably because they are my favorite color scheme - aqua blue and orange. Actually, aqua blue and anything is my favorite color scheme. It just seems to work with most of my pictures. Maybe it's a boy thing?

This one on top took me forever and a day because I really wanted to use the cloud paper (for the kites) and the sun paper. I finally made it work by combining the October Afternoon clouds, Fancy Pants sun paper and Cosmo Cricket everything else. The chipboard title is old and I painted it barn red. So in just a mere 3.5 hours (ha), voila - one kite flying layout.

And to make up for that kite layout, this one was done probably in an hour or so. I think this is a sketch from somewhere, but I can't remember where I got it from. It may be from amillionlittlethings.com - so thank you if that's where it originated from. And if not, my apologies! I love how it's almost a crisscross pattern. All of the patterned paper is vertically laid and all of the photos/journaling/title are horizontal. It's a cool effect.

All of the paper is from Cosmo Cricket's Lil Man line and the brown alphas are Pink Paislee.

A Swimming Snow Day

I wish, I wish we were doing this....

But instead we are doing this..

I miss the summer. I really do. Winter is not my thing. The snow makes it bearable, but...blah. Back to the layout - it's quick, simple and clean. And I did it today while the great State of NJ tried to dig out from one of the worst blizzards ever.

I love these pictures of the boy and his cousins. They were all born almost exactly one year apart and it's been fun to see them reach milestones one right after the other. This year it was really obvious in my Dad's pool. Each of them brave, but definitely big differences in what they could achieve swimming.

All of the paper is Cosmo Cricket (Snorkel), the wave border is K&CO, the cool spinner is Close to My Heart, the black letters are Doodlebug and the blue are Thickers of course!

A Boy and His Heroes

And I'm back.....! So I got this nasty computer virus that made me pull my hair out and then when it was finally eradicated, I was bombared with work. I usually work on a very part-time basis while my son is in preschool, mostly to give me a life and so I don't climb the walls. But this past month I've been working what amounts to full time hours. I haven't done that since circa 2004 and can safely say that I have a new found respect for all working mamas out there. It's tough to balance the priorities and keep your head screwed on.

I've pulled back to my normal hours - career be damned! And I've been getting to play with fun stuff again. I think it's so much easier for me to scrap continuously - taking a break gets me out of the groove.

I've made two 'alright' pages since and I'm digging into some more. This one is from our Disney trip this year and tell the story of my sweet boy meeting his cartoon heroes. It was a sweet moment from our trip and I didn't want to forget it.

I see a ton of Toy Story pages in my future - the boy is obsessed! Hopefully I'll be able to use those cutesy 3-D stickers that I have around here some where. They didn't work with this color scheme. The "clouds" are once again those nifty chipboard cupcake tops from Maya Road (love 'em), paper is all Crate and the title is old K&Co chipboard.

This is an impossible layout to photograph. It's got a glare from hell and the colors just look dead. And it was my first page out of the gate this year and I'm not really in love with it. Blah. A shame since I love the pictures. My boy looks like Prince dressed as a pirate. I wonder if he'll want this picture for his yearbook someday.

The red paper and wood sign are old Karen Foster, the stripe is glitter textured from Making Memories, flag is Jolee's and the letters are Thickers and Making Memories.

Thanks for sticking with me!

My Pet Dinosaur

Another sketch and another page done in two hours. Hooray! This great sketch is by the very talented Jana Eubanks and was posted over on A Million Little Thing's blog. One of my favorite scrappers and my favorite store - thanks!

The small pictures are from our recent visit to Disney World this past fall. I wanted to capture the story of Nico's first visit to the T-Rex restaurant and the making of his first Build-A-Dino. I didn't have a good pic of him with Spike, so I posed him after we got home. The restaurant was fab, but the lighting was horrible for taking pics.

The paper, dino and tags are all from My Mind's Eye (which I'm in love with). The green letters are Bo-Bunny and the cork alpha and numbers are from Making Memories.

Thanks for looking and for bearing with me during this busy season!

Baby Essential Part Deux

This disappeared from a post entry that I made a couple of weeks ago. Blogger's acting up and I can't get it to post under the appropriate date so I think I'll just stick it here!

This Halloween Sketch

This is my entry to My Mind's Eye Blog Challenge #5. This was the first time I was actually able to use a sketch successfully! I love the idea of sketches, but it's rare that I find a design that works with the size pictures I have or the products I want to use. The only rules were that you had to use 80% My Mind's Eye products and stick somewhat close to the original sketch design. Using MME isn't a problem, since I love almost all of their lines. I added a row of extra small pictures, but I pretty much stuck to the original sketch. This page took me just under ONE HOUR to finish! I think that's the fastest I've ever churned out a page. So a great big thanks to MME for their great products and excellent sketch artist!

The Circus

I was putting away a bunch of layouts when this circus layout caught my eye. I wasn't that crazy about it when I first created it but now many months later, I really like the way all of the photo "tiles" fit inside the circle. I like the bold dark red color. And I love how all of the not-so-great pictures look way better cropped into smaller sizes. Isn't it funny how sometimes when you take a second look at a layout, you see things you never noticed before.

I think I might copy this sketch for a layout that I'm struggling with right now. Maybe expand it into a 2-pager. Now if I could just get my hands on another of those huge circles by Technique Tuesday.

Now on to the supply list. All of the paper is by We'R. The chipboard letters, circus sign and flowers are old K&Co. And the brown scalloped paper is by Crate Paper. I just cut out the middle and lined it up with the circle as a faux border.

Spring & Candyland

This is my son in his Spring Show last year. I can't believe how little he looks in these pictures. He has lost that baby face recently and I miss it.
I love the bright colors and whimsy of Doodlebug Designs and I usually find myself buying entire collections of their releases. This is all from their recent Key Lime line. I love the bold blue and green and I thought that they really screamed "spring."

Love the Doodlebug firefly brad and I decided to highlight it inside of a chipboard circle. I painted the circle with metallic green paint to give it some sparkle. It looks much better in person, but it's hard to photograph!

And this layout is to document the 289 games of Candyland that my husband and I have played in the last year. Nico loves this game and asks to play it over and over and over. Oh, and he's not happy if both Mami and Papa don't play. I have a feeling Santa will be bringing him lots and lots of new board games this year - for variety.
The stripe paper is from Bella Boulevard and it matches the colors in Doodlebug's candy/cupcake lines (border & gumball sticker) . I used the dark chocolate brown and aqua to tone down the pictures a little. The gumball sticker and 2 photos are mounted on chipboard squares by Bazzill Basics. One of the photos is tied up with a bit of bakery string from Martha Stewart. The letter stickers are American Crafts and the journal spot is from My Mind's Eye.
Have a great weekend!

I Had P-neumonia

So after a not-so-brief bout of pneumonia, I'm back! It feels so good to be back in my studio going through old pictures and playing with paper. I'm not a chronological scrapper by any means, so I still have plenty of baby pages to do. I keep a journal so I don't forget the stories behind the pictures and this frees me to scrap what I want when I want.

I had fun reminiscing about my son's babyhood with this layout. I wanted to remember the three most important things that got me through that first year. I took the pictures way back then and wrote out the story. Fast forward 3-1/2 years later and the layout is done!

This "Essentials" layout is a mish-mosh of paper by Crate, envelope by Creating Keepsakes KOTM, stickers from Cosmo Cricket and the animal border by K&Co. They all had the same color tones and I thought they mixed well together.

Peter Pan's Flight

I've started on the Disney scrapbooking marathon and this is my very first page. Nicolas' favorite ride was Peter Pan and we rode it 4 times in 2 days. I wanted to remember this because by the time we go again (2011), I bet his favorite ride will be something along the lines of Tower of Terror.

I had fun with this one. I love the whimsical stripe paper from Bella Boulevard and the glitter alpha from Making Memories. I even dug out an old Jolee's Boutique Peter Pan and threw it on there. A couple of gems scattered about and it's all good.


Two of my favorite things about this layout are the cloud diecut border paper (Crate Paper) and the journaling on the clouds. The chipboard "clouds" are actually from Maya Road's cupcake box. Who knew that cupcakes tops and clouds could be interchangeable! I thought it went nicely with the paper.

Nico asked me if I could hang this layout in his playroom. It's his favorite. This little boy knows how to charm his mom!

The Happiest Place on Earth

I've been away visiting the Happiest Place on Earth! Here a few of my favorite pictures from our trip.....

Nico was transformed into a real pirate on Captain Jack Sparrow's ship. His new pirate name is Roger Daggerskull. He absolutely loved this!

One of Disney's best parties and parade....

Nico insisted on dressing up as his hero, Peter Pan. We didn't run into Peter but Nico had a blast meeting his archenemy.

Our brave boy insisted on going in the Haunted Mansion (twice). He was scared to death...shaking knees and all, but I think he loves the thrill. He wouldn't not take his eyes off the ghosts and look at the camera for anything in the world. LOL.


Meeting some of his favorite movie characters...

It was a great trip and we had such a good time. Now I need a vacation from my vacation because I am exhausted. I came home with a million pictures that I need to start scrapping since the memories are still fresh in my old mind.

I should have some new layouts up this weekend!

Surfer Dude

Hello everyone! Here's a two-page layout I did this week for a challenge. I shot so many photos of my son learning how to boogie board, that I had a really hard time paring them down. I like how quick and to the point 1-page layouts are but I like to mix it up sometimes.

All of the paper and most of the embellishments are from My Mind's Eye Breaking Free line. I love the muted colors and they are perfect for the lovely olive-colored water we have in Jersey. The film strip is a cool overlay from Little Yellow Bicycle's travel line.

This is one of my favorite parts of the layout. I cut up some solid paper to mimic the wave in the Cowabunga die cut. I think that the pearls and jewels add interest and detail to the "swoosh".

Have a great weekend!

He's Torturing Us

This is another page that I did at a crop a couple of weeks ago. It's simple and came together quickly using coordinating papers from Bo Bunny Press and chipboard from Cosmo Cricket's Early Bird line. I love the feminine feel of it without it being overwhelmingly "girlish". It's really a page about me and how I will not miss eating dinner with a cranky, willful 3-year-old stinker. He's usually such a good little guy, but he does not like long drawn-out restaurant meals one bit, even if they are overlooking the Inner Harbor.

The upper left hand corner of this photo looked empty to me. I was at a crop, so printing a better one was not an option. I grabbed some brown floss and my needle and sewed a cross-stitch pattern to add texture and hide that washed out spot.

I loved the colors in this flower chipboard circle but it was a little small for the spot. I outlined it with some colored brads from Bazzill adding a little interest and weight to it.

I have a few more layouts that I really need to take pictures of. Hopefully the rain will hold out, I can get that done this week. Thanks for looking!

A Fear of Dinos

Ah yes, it's Fall in the northeast and it's one of my favorite times of the year. The mornings are crisp and Nico goes back to his regular preschool schedule. This means one full day of scrapping a week for Mama. Life is good!

The moment I saw this dinosaur line by My Mind'e Eye, I had five different pages in mind. Nico loves dinosaurs and has so many books, toys and even T-Rex shoes that I knew I would need all of it. This page is about how Nico has recently developed fears of the very things that he loves the most (dinosaurs, slides, spooky houses). The journaling goes on to describe the who/what/when of his fears and how I feel about it. I thought it was important to mark this milestone in my (usually) brave little guy's life.

This is one of those pages that took me forever to do. As a matter of fact, this is the second version of it. I had it all done and left it on my work table. When I took a look at it the next morning, I hated it and started all over. I don't do this very often, but I also know when a layout is not working for me.

All of the paper, brads and chipboard is from MME's Abby Road Collection. The big green letters are Bo Bunny Press. The grass border is from K&Co's AtoZ line that I got at Michaels. And last but not least is the canvas ribbon from Lil Davis, a company I sorely miss.

Have a great Labor Day weekend everyone!