My First "Thoughtful" Layout

This morning a new "thought" went live over at Thinking*Through*Design: handstitching. This was my first opportunity to be a Thoughtful Girl (TG) over there and I loved it.  I couldn't have asked for a better thought to start with.




This layout took a lot more time than it should have, but I love the end result. The photos are from a photo shoot Noah did for us for our Christmas card in 2008.  Ian was such a ham that day; just wanting to play and play.  Getting a shot where we're all looking at the camera took some trickery on Marlena's part.  I started this layout on National Scrapbook Day (May 5) at a scrapbook store, where I found the ornament paper (fancy pants) and cut it into a die cut.  I loved it on the green cardstock, but I only had one sheet and the store didn't have one that matched, so I had to do some piecing to have it spread across both pages.

Once the ADORABLE photos were down, I wanted a way to replicate the red strip that's on the right page on the left, so after I free handed a border in pencil and punched my holes, I used some of the DMC floss from my cross-stitch days and added a border to the die cut.  One of my favorite ways to add a little something is to hand stitch on lines already on the paper. It's hard to tell in the photo, but the 'string' hanging the ornaments I stitched with a combo of metallic and cream sewing machine thread (and also added a bit of sparkle to the ornaments with some stickles). The pages felt unbalanced to me with all the stitching on the left, so instead of using journaling strips like I usually do, I stitched my journaling lines. Another thing I love about hand-stitching is the ability to vary the boldness of the look by adjusting how many strands used. For each stitching I did, different amounts of strands were used.

To finish it off, I cut the trees out from another Fancy Pants sheet of patterned paper, added the sparkle hearts, and inked over some pinkish/red Thickers to get the color of red I wanted for my title (messy, but I got what I wanted).  The layout is based on a sketch by Allison Davis. 

Make sure you pop on over to TTD and check out all the other wonderful layouts that incorporate hand-stitching.

Recent layouts

Here are some of the recent layouts I've done for issue challenges over at Club CK.

 

This first one was created for a challenge to create a button banner. I had actually done that on the layout I had just finished, so I turned the banner into trim for the tree. I love decorating  for Christmas each year; it's so fun to watch Ian, and now Annaliese, get involved and help. The Santa boots are my favorite part.  I discovered working on this layout that I need more Christmas paper.  Layout inspired by this one. 

Another challenge was to use pink, green, white and black on a layout.  I had just printed these pictures of Annaliese, and knew they were perfect for the challenge. I thought the new This and That line from Echo Park would be great, but the colors were off. I dug through my stash a bit more, and found some paper I thought I would never, ever, use. Of course, it was perfect for this challenge.  I cut the heart out and stitched it. I got to use some of my ribbon stash, too, from making taggie blankets for friends.  

The one I just did for today's challenge was to use a free download from Creating Keepsakes.  I downloaded the ticket and altered it a bit, because I thought it was perfect for a layout about Ian's first time at an amusement park.  He went to Fun Plex with Darrin a few years ago for Darrin's company's summer picnic.  I found this paper online, and was elated when I went to Archiver's and they had it in stock. It worked perfectly for this layout inspired by one by Debbie Sanders.

And this one I made on National Scrapbook Day, not for any challenge, just simply to get the story of Annaliese's first bath told.  I did lots of hand stitching on this to represent the bubbles. I love hand stitching.  I noticed when I finished that it was a rare layout in which I didn't use any patterned paper.











  

Around Here

Around here.. there has been a case of hand, foot, and mouth disease (if you look close, you can see the pimples on her face).  That means two stay-home-days with Mommy. The nice thing is that she doesn't act sick, so we're able to go on wagon rides and play outside. Just can't go back until there are no open blisters (there's a big one on her thigh). 

Around here... the dress-up box is seeing a lot of action. More accurately, the Peter Pan and Spiderman costumes. Sometimes the Spiderman shirt goes with the Peter Pan pants, and then we have Spider Pan. And when Ian changes out of his Spideraman costume, he calls himself Parter Peeker instead of Peter Parker every single time.

Around here... there are lots of "I do it myself." In fact, most of the crying she does comes from when we provide assistance she doesn't want or a toy sharing issue. She pretty much gets herself dressed every day now (though shirts are often backwards and shoes on the wrong feet). She is so Miss Independent, which is so different than Ian at that age. He was, and still is, timid to take chances, and she has no fear.

Around here... we've been trying a new camera lens, and the kids have been very obliging in letting us photograph them.

Around here... there is more building going on. Darrin has promised to make me bed frame for Mother's Day. I'm curious how many will pass before I get it, but I know he at least has a great helper. They're currently working on a cabinet to hide the kitchen trash in.

Around here... our garden is producing. We inherited a plot with strawberries, and it apparently excels at growing deformed ones. 

Around here... Mother's Day was celebrated with frozen yogurt on the deck, and a comparison of tongue colors when we were finished.

Preschool Graduation

Today Ian graduated from preschool in an 11:00 ceremony at a park.  The wind didn't lend itself so well to wearing a graduation cap (that each friend decorated by writing their name and drawing a pictures of himself/herself), but it was still great to watch him and his friends react to the wind and interact with each other.  After the ceremony, Darrin and I were able to eat a picnic lunch with Ian; one of the best workday lunches ever.  The class picture is really hilarious, but I didn't want to take the time to blur out all the faces... guess you'll just have to visit in person when I get it in a scrapbook if you want to see it.

 The graduate before the ceremony.

 Getting called to receive his diploma. 

 Trying to keep his hat on in the wind.  He got to stand next to his best friend.

All set for kindergarten (even though he still hasn't figured out to smile normally and look at the camera...).

Recent Layouts

So I know I haven't posted lots of scrapbook layouts- most of you come here to see updates on the kids, not my crafty adventures- but you'll probably see more layouts on here in the future.  I'm going to be designing layouts for a scrapbooking blog, but I can't say where yet :)  Here are some of the recent layouts. I'm feeling a bit bad Annaliese is being neglected, but I'm trying very hard to get Ian's first year of life documented. I actually have completed his 0-6th month album finally.  Hopefully with get the 6-12 done soon.  All of the layouts were created for the issue challenge Erika hosts over on Club CK.  Without those, I know I wouldn't get many layouts done a week. 

Three Months (yes, it's missing an s. It wasn't when I made it...).  These were taken at Sears for Ian's 3-month birthday, over the course of three different days on Mother's day weekend.  We would get a few shots, but then he would fuss and fuss and we were never able to get him calmed down enough to get pictures taken again that day.  The entire layout uses the line Prairie Hill from Pink Paislee.  I created the flower in the top corner by cutting apart the different diamonds on a piece of paper. The 'weave' effect at the bottom was created by cutting apart a chevron pattern, and cutting the tops flat.Created for the challenge to scrap baby pictures (good thing I'm so far behind with both of them).

Sky High was created for a challenge to use the color scheme grey, white, and yellow. I had the concept for this page in my head for a few days and really liked it, but when I got it on the paper, it looked a bit drab.  The pop of blue was perfect.  The patterned paper is MME On the Bright Side.  I love these pictures of Ian. I remember it being such a fun day outside. 

Love My Boy- I saw this idea in the gallery at Club CK-  I totally lifted it from Heather.  The various MME paper strips are all cut 1/4 or 1/2 inch (my memory fails me...) and just taped on down to the background paper. It makes for such a fun background.  I didn't have much to say about this photo, which is weird because journaling is one of the most important things to me. The journaling for this is written on the green dot strip below the picture, as the challenge was to incorporate the journaling in an element.

 2 Tired Boys- I remember walking into the basement and finding the boys asleep like this, flabbergasted at how Ian could sleep in that position.  This is a really bright page, which I found a bit ironic given the subdued, sleepy content.  The challenge was to create a circle embellishment, which I somehow translated into incorporating as many circles as possible.  I've had this paper in my stack for 5 years, so it was great to finally use it.

Weekend with Family

Last weekend Grandpa Dan, Grandma Diane, and Owen (well, Lacey too) came to visit.  The weather was great and we spent a lot of it outside in our backyard and at parks.  We went for dinner Friday to Lazlo's (my favorite place in Omaha) and followed dinner with a trip to Ta Ha Zouka Park to see the tank and play on the equipment.  We spent Saturday morning at home, playing inside and in the yard.   After naps (which everyone took) we headed to Youngman Lake Park. Here are pictures from the weekend:

Trip to the Zoo

This weekend was a fun-filled one with Grandpa Dan, Grandma Diane, and Owen visiting us.  A post of their visit will follow (way more pictures to filter through), but after they left on Sunday, we headed to the zoo. There was a little boy along super-dooper excited to see the newly renovated aquarium.  While they added several new things, I think my favorite thing was the overall atmosphere changes; it's a lot sleeker and darker, with the different tanks all lit in blue so it looks very cool. They have a new crab tank, lots more jellyfish, eels, and other strange fish. 

Annaliese checking out the new crabs. 

A new, cool fish I don't remember the name of.

Lots of jellyfish on the floor of a tank.

This was very cool. An image of a coral reef was projected on the floor, and then when the kids walked,  jumped, etc, it would react as if they were really in the water, making ripples and splashes, etc. 

Freaky looking eel.

After that, we had to go visit the rest of the zoo. Can't wait to see the other changes they make in this master project they've begun.