It's Almost That Time of the Year Again

I was rearranging my Pinterest boards the other night and realized it's almost that time of the year when I need to pick out a few designs and get busy making Christmas cards.  I don't think I ever posted this card from last year (or was it the year before? - geez! time flies).  I loved how it turned out with the glittery snow on the roofs and the pine branches and gem berries.

Have you thought about what cards you're making this year?  Here's my Christmas board on Pinterest.  It's got a few new posts of things I've found recently.  And here's a really cool sketch challenge blog that I stumbled on a few weeks ago that has really nice clean and simple sketches with tons of samples.  

Enjoy!

Amazing!

Well Gal Pals, I took the plunge and bought the Silhouette Cameo!  I have to tell you it's pretty amazing!  It cuts "like butter" compared to the Cricut.  I was skeptical when I heard it would cut any font on your computer.  But it really does!  Here's a Creating Keepsake font called "Voluptuous" and how it looks in a Word document:

And here's how it looks after cutting it on the Silhouette:

Amazing! Huh?!!  Can't wait for another rainy weekend to play some more.

Val's Alcohol Ink Tiles

What a perfect Fall day to post this picture of one of the alcohol ink tiles Val made in a recent Memory Lane class.  Isn't it bea-u-ti-ful!!!!

She shared her work during our get together last month.  It sounded like a fantastic class.  They took just regular white ceramic square tiles from Home Depot and used alcohol inks and techniques to create these different looks.  Aren't they fantastic?!

Sure do hope they offer that class again.

With Sew Much Love

As a contrast to yesterday's "beginners" page, here's a picture of my latest scrapbook page.  I think I'm starting to find my style.  Much like my cardmaking, very clean and simple, very linear.  The focus is on the story the pictures and journaling tell with splashes of fun with color and patterned paper.

This page is a tribute to my Mom and her amazing sewing talents and the amazing energy and love she had for raising her family.  

Although I don't really like my handwriting, I want to do a few pages that have my own handwriting on them because it feels much more personal.  I found that I loved the handwriting in my grandmother's scrapbook.  Somehow it made me feel like I knew her better.  So hopefully those that read my scrapbooks will feel the same.  But I find I have so much I want to say in the story that it doesn't always work to include the journaling on the page itself.  So the 6x12 pages are really working out nicely.

Here's a shot of just the journaling page.  I tried to include some dates in the descriptions of the clothes to help mark the times.  Since my old photos are dated I had to go to the web to find the general dates for "ponchos", "smock tops" and "bell bottoms".  Now that was a fun ride down memory lane!

The Beginning

I've been going back and photographing some of the scrapbook pages I've made so I can get them posted here as sort of a backup.  This one really tickled me.  It was my very first scrapbook page.  Well sort of. . . .

Even though I kept a scrapbook in high school, it wasn't quite the same as the scrapbooking we know today with all the beautiful patterned papers, sketches, embellishments, etc.  

My sister-in-law decided to be a rep for Creative Memories for a little while and I bought a bunch of supplies from her.  An 8.5 x 11 album, cardstock diecuts and stickers.  

I have to tell you when I look at this page it just makes me giggle with how goofy it looks compared to the scrapbook pages I'm making now.  

Because I switched to 12x12 scrapbooks a few years ago for my "event" and travel scrapbooking, I mounted the original page on some larger cardstock with yellow border trimming.  It wouldn't be a Sandy page if it didn't have yellow on it somewhere - she's all about the yellow :-)

Even though I'm not in love with the page, I love the subject matter.  It was Sandy's birthday and Thoryn and Abby came over to the house to celebrate.  We had such a wonderful cozy February afternoon.  Here's a couple of close-ups which helps make the journaling a little more readable when you click on the image:

It will be interesting as I post other scrapbook pages to see how my style has evolved.  Sometimes it seems like I'm still a beginner but when I look at this page as the beginning and compare it to my latest page (which I'll post tomorrow) I can see I really have grown.

Embossed Border

Hi Gal Pals!

I was catching up on my Gina K Designs videos and saw this one and wanted to share.  As part of my stash busting this year I've been looking for ways to use all my embossing folders.  I thought this technique was really cool.  And I absolutely love the simplicity of this card.

Hope you had a good weekend and today is a good start to a good week.