The Two Peas Crop

Tonight, for the first time, I participated in the crop Two Peas in a Bucket.com hosts every few months, always on Friday nights I normally am at a meeting of my church's small group on Friday nights, but this is Good Friday, so small group did not meet. Making things even better, I got off work at 2 p.m. this afternoon and we had a large combination lunch/dinner after that.. Normally, I'm off work at 5 p.m. and then need to make dinner when I first get home. Doesn't leave much time for me to participate in a 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. crop!

In the past, I have looked at the challenges posted during the crop, then created my own layout incorporating as many as I can, at my leisure. Tonight, I did it before the crop was over (at this time, it still has about 20 minutes left.)

This is what I came up with. I am not sure I like it, but it was fun. I do like the stamped flower background.

The three challenges this time were to use a specific sketch (I've taken some liberties), stamp a background and do a layout inspired by something on Facebook or another social media. The journaling is one of my recent Facebook status updates.

OMG, almost thee weeks since I last posted to this blog! A lot has happened since then.

For one, we've come to the decision that we're not ready to open Scrapbook Junction the online scrapbooking store. We'd have to sell about $150 a month worth of stuff just to break even, and we can't afford the possibility of that not happening. So, maybe someday. Just not yet.

That's forced me to reconsider the purpose of this blog. I have, up until now, posted my stamping projects on this blog and left off those that did not involve stamping. That's because one thing I'd planned to sell on Scrapbook Junction was acrylic stamps. I hoped to get people excited about the cool things you can do with them, and then say "here's where you can buy them." Now, I have to suggest another great website, Two Peas. And it does not have the same stamps I would have had.

I'm going to go ahead and keep doing that for now. Maybe I'll add my non-stamping projects. Maybe I'll go ahead and order from my would-be supplier the idea books I had hoped to sell and start lifting LOs from them, so I can post them.

They are "classics." I mean, some of them are ally old. I was looking forward to showing you some new ways to update the ideas presented. That is, when my budget allowed me to buy more. Even though they've been around, I only have one. Clean and Simple by Cathy Zielske. Love it, but haven't used it much lately.

Another disappointing and unexpected event of late was the death of Bob, my stepchildren's stepfather. He died on March 14 at his home in Ohio. We got along well with him and my husband's first wife, Lynn, as they divorced long ago and moved on. Both Don and I, and our children's other parents, had been married about 10 years. We had seen Bob & Lynn exactly three times prior to his death.

To help the kids (and Lynn) we decided to fly back to Ohio for the funeral. They're grown kids, but still, this death was hard on them. They needed help from Dad, who just last year felt the pain of losing his own Dad.

This trip put quite a kabash on my scrapbooking until today. Death of a close friend is a mojo killer, and Don we needed all the money we had at the time to pay for the trip.

Now mojo is back, and funds for new supplies are back in limited quantity. Here is one of the two pages I did today. It's from our daughter Holly's wedding. The couple with Don is his sister and brother-in-law. I used stash on this one. I only bought new cardstock so far, and I'll move onto some layouts with it tomorrow.

Yes, I'm sharing the one on which I stamped the title! This is in Walnut Stain, my second color of that beautiful Tim Holtz distress ink. My other one is Peeled Paint (not Shabby Shutters, despite what I said earlier. I used the Peeled Paint to "grunge up" my other layout.

Flourishes and flowers

One of my favorite embellishments, lately, has been the flower-decked flourish. Here's how I make them.

First, stamp a flourish. You might even want to do this directly onto your card or layout - if your're brave enough!

You then can cut out the flourish - or not! - and add just a few flowers.

Or you can leave the flourish as it is, and fill in the white space with a lot of flowers, so that just a little bit of flourish shows through, as at right.

Below, left is a layout where I cut the flourish from a separate sheet of cardstock, and adhered it to the layout.

And below is another layout, where I stamped the flourish very lightly onto the layout, then filled the curve in with flowers.

You can use any kinds of flowers you like (well, except maybe real!) and add more embellishments too. On my Salt Lake City layout, I've used silk flowers. These are the ones that are sold on the plastic stems. You just pull them off the stems, and they're flat enough to use on a scrapbook page, or you can layer them as I did on the flowers that aren't on the flourish. I attached these flowers with little silver brads.

On my Father of the Bride layout, I have flowers made by three different scrapbook manufacturers. The fuschia flowers I use as centers on mny of the medium-sized flowers, as well as the other small flowers, are Primas I've had for years. The larger pink flowers are the Recollections line at Michael's. The green and white flowers are by Hero Arts. The collection I bought also comes with brown and green flowers. Those, along with touches of yellow and pink, were the perfect colors for this wedding. I bought them specifically for scrapbooking this wedding, but I've already done almost 20 other wedding pages, so my package hasnearly run out. I've added "leaves" to the white flowers by using a ribbon from the wedding (actually from a present my sweet stepdaughter gave me at the rehearsal).

Here is another card I made for the Winterfest 2010 Challenge at Two Peas in a Bucket. Gosh, it makes me wish I had more stamping stuff! Well, you can never have too many stamps, but what really would have made this card nice would be a darker purple ink. But, with the Primas on it I like it. I tried various ways of stamping these flowers before I decided to stamp the white and light yellow Primas.

I also am using up some really old pattern paper on this. That I have too much of, and many people would say throw it away! But, how can I when ever so often I come up with a good way to use even this stuff I've had since 2005?

My Winterfest creations

I ended up doing two projects for the Winterfest 2010 Challenge linked below. The first was the card I also mentioned below. I posted that card three times before I got it the way I wanted it! Here's my final attempt.

My other project was an updated layout of the "Wine" layout I posted a few posts below. I had already stamped more grapes on it with the lovely Shabby Shutters Tim Holtz Distress Ink. Now I've added some stamped flowers too. This qualified me for the "How Distressing" and "Scrap and Stamp" challenges at Winterfest.

Card directions:

1. Easy version, stamp a flower and glue it to a circular frame that's just large enough to not emcompass some of its petals. If you want to do it the hard way like me, take a small bird or heart stamp and make each one of those the petals. I used a bird, but the Masquerade Challenge at Winterfest has some cute examples with hearts too.

2. Glue that to white cardstock.

3. Stamp sentiment on white cardstock, then mount on yellow.

4. Spray Glimmer Mist on white cardstock (glossy would be fine if you want to stamp and resist something for a different background).

5. Cut your Glimmer Misted cardstock to a size slightly smaller than your card. My card is 4 x 6, so the Glimmer Mist background is now about 3 3/4 by 5 3/4.

6. Glue your flower and sentiment to the Glimmer Mist background, and the Glimmer Mist background to your card.

Layout directions:

1. Stamp grapes with Tim Holtz Distress Ink, Shappy Shutters all over similar green cardstock.

2. Mount photo on white and dark green cardstock. Ink edges

3. Stamp title in brown on light green cardstock, along with one clear impression of the grapes. Ink edges.

4. Glue title block and photo to stamped background.

5. Stamp white flowers with any small stamp and Shabby Shutters Distress Ink. Adhere to layout.

Winterfest 2010

I am a scrapbooker more than a stamper, but one thing I look forward to each year is Winterfest, a weeklong festival of challenges on the TwoPeasinaBucket.com stamping board. Here is a link. http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/mb.asp?cmd=list&forum_id=22&x=11&y=5 Winterfest 2010 began yesterday and continueus through Feb. 28.

Whether you are a beginner stamper or advanced, (or like me, somewhere in between), you should find something in the Winterfest 2010 that inspires your creativity. And I am sure they don't mind if you let several challenges inspire just one card. That's what I'm doing with a card in progress. Check out the Masquerade Challenge, the Stamp on a Doughnut Challenge (don't worry this does not involve fatty food unless you want to eat some instead of stamp on them!) and the Spray-It Challenge. When I finish my card, I'll come back and post it here. That will be this afternoon sometime, I think.

Seven years of Peaing

As of today, I have been posting things on the website TwoPeasinaBucket.com for seven years. I remember why I signed up. I wanted to post a layout. I probably posted 10 more layouts and cards over the next year, if that.

But in 2004, I began to Pea a lot. I had run out of unemployment and decided to take a break from looking further. Don had just begun the full-time job with the Air Guard that lasted until late 2009. I didn't have much money, but I had way too much time on my hands. So, I responded to various threads on Two Peas in a Bucket. We had dial-up internet and there probably were eight pages of new threads a day, back then. It could take me two hours. It could take me all day.

I know when I finally did find a new job, after we moved to Riverside, I didn't Pea that much. When I worked for Starcrest, they usually made us work 10 hours a day. That didn't leave much free time, especially when I sometimes had to ride the bus half-way across Moreno Valley and all they way across Riverside to get home. I seem to recall being more active on a smaller message board back then.

But, another bout with unemployment in 2006, and the death of the smaller message board brought me back to Two Peas, where I have been posting actively ever since. I now have almost 15,000 posts. I also have posted almost 600 layouts, cards, and maybe a few etcs. That title would be higher, but I didn't have a scanner for about 18 months from 2007 to 2009. I received both a new scanner and my first digital camera for my birthday last year (coming up again soon) and so I've had two ways to post things since then. I post on Two Peas and here. I wonder what this blog is going to look like in seven years?

I am loving my Tim Holtz distress ink!

I don't know about this LO, but I just had to do a distressed page with my photo of this truck. I love the distress ink so much, after I took the picture of the LO, I stamped a few more grapes on it.

I've got to get some more colors, all I have is this "peeled paint." Maybe more stamps too!

My sentiments exactly!

I like using my stamps to make cards. In fact, once upon a time, about six years ago, I "gave up"scrapbooking and took up cardmaking as a new hobby. That's when I really got into rubber stamps, and over the next five years or so, invested in quite a few. This "many thanks" stamp was one of them. I paid about $6 or $7 for it, as was true for most of my other stamps. There are a few I paid $1 for, and about three I paid $1 for the whole set.

What I like now about the acrylic stamps is you can buy a whole bunch of them, all in a related theme, usually for just under $10. To me, they stamp just as well (unless you are talking about a fine detail stamp).

Since my "giving up" scrapbooking lasted less than a year, I have amassed a lot of scrapbooking supplies over the years since. I have only purged items once, but I do love to use up scraps of paper by making cards. And I may or may not stamp on them.

I made this one with a heart punch. I only stamped the "many thanks" at the bottom. If I were buying stamps for the first time, I definitely would start with sentiment stamps. It is a quick, easy way to say "thanks," or "happy birthday" or whatever. You now can buy some collections of acrylic stamps that will give you many options, and for less than I paid for two "thank you stamps." I'll even have some of those to sell you soon, but for now check out your favorite crafts store.

Here's the directions for my card. Fold a 6 x 8 scrap of cardstock or thick pattern paper in half. Punch five hearts from a different pattern paper using the "double heart" punch from EK Success. Thread them onto a ribbon, making sure they are all the same side up, unless you used two-sided paper and want the opposite side to show as well. Glue the ends only of the ribbon to the cardstock, as this will allow the hearts to stand up somewhat, giving the card dimension. Write a personal note inside, sign and mail.

Just a pop of color!

I like making cards that have just a little bit of color. Sometimes monochromatic with one "something" in a different color, sometimes the little bit of color is the third color. Here are two cards like that.

Card 1 - Stamp three (or four) of the same image. Adhere all the way across a horizontal card in the same color. Run a ribbon of a different color across bottom.

Card 2 - My stamp is a heart with the flourishes already attached, but you could just as easily make a similar design with an S-shaped flourish, or by stamping two of the same flourish. Stamp the flourish in black. Stamp the heart or another other image in a different color. If you are using the "heart with flourish" stamp, stamp once in black, another time in red (or pink, or ??). Cut out the heart, place on the flourish. Since I was using the same stamp, my red heart had to cover the black heart below it. It didn't do so all the way, so I outlined the heart in red. Problem solved!

The little bit of color in this card is the turquoise ink around the edge. For a different look, you could add more layers of cardstock and more ink for a different look.

I would like to encourage all stampers, and all who want to learn, to keep an eye on this thread by Multi Photo Scrapper at Two Peas in a Bucket. I definitely will be!

http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/mb.asp?cmd=display&forum_id=10&thread_id=2954156

What do you do if you want odd-sized photos?

In creating both of these layouts, I needed to depart from the traditional 4 x 6 format that I could have obtained had I used Shutterfly. What I did was print them at home. It's easy and there is no waiting!

On the first layout, I needed all of the photos to be 5 inches across. Four inches might have worked, but Shutterfly would then require me to print all of them at 3 x 4. It can be done if you put two photos into one print, and then order that as a 4 x 6 print, a process I'm sure from reading this is as clear as mud. It would not have worked on this layout anyhow, as the photos vary in height.

Furthermore, the photos on the second layout are of no conventional size whatsoever. I don't even remember what size they are! However, that large photo is something around 8" wide, a bit pricey if you use an online photo printing service!

Lastly, I have another problem. Grown stepchildren. Ah, that's a nice problem to have, but Josh took that photo on the first layout that I'm in, and Holly took both of the photos in the snow layout. I took these photos off their Facebook walls by opening them and saving them. While the kids don't mind, I don't think I can take the photos off Facebook and send them to Shutterfly. The home printer is the perfect solution!

There are many different programs you can use to edit photos on the computer. I am using Microsoft Picture It! On this program, you open the photo you wish to use by going to "File," then "Open". If you just want to print the one picture, you can print from Microsoft Picture It! Go to File again, and this time to print. This time you will want to see "Select A Print Size." Click on the arrow by "Fit to Printable Area" and change it to "Custom." Then enter the width or height you wish. Only change one. The other one will change automatically, keeping the same scale. If you change both dimensions, you run the risk of distorting the photo.

If you wish to print more than one photo, Microsoft Picture It! has some templates you can use. Click on "print multiple pictures" to see the choices available. You don't have to fill up every spot in the template you use, and it is possible to resize the photos by dragging at the corners once they are in the tenplate. However, it's a bit tricky in this program. I once did so and it took me hours because of the bugs in this system! I was told Photoshop is a much better program for this function. But, with me being the only one working right now, Photoshop is not affordable for us and I make do.

One other option for printing photos any size you want is to size them one at a time in Microsoft Picture It! and then import them into Microsoft Word. Go to "insert," then picture, and then to wherever you saved the picture. You can resize a photo in Microsoft Word much the same way you can a text box. Click on the picture, then "Format picture," then "size and enter one of the sizes, height or width that you want. Again, Microsoft will adjust the other side accordingly, and if you try to specify both, you could distort the photo.

You should use specially designed photo paper, which is available in many stores and soon, on the upcoming website that will be linked to this blog.

I really love this LO!

This is the LO of my step-daughter Holly's wedding ceremony. I wanted to use a white background pape for this, and so glad, it highlights these photos perfect. The embossed hearts are a perfect touch (I bought it that way, from Making Memories. Well, actually from my scrapbook store, Wooten's in Ontario, which I am really glad keeps selling papers that aren't exactly new.)

Of course, I had to use flowers on a wedding layout. The small pink and yellow ones are old Primas, the rest are from Hero Arts. I didn't know they made anything but stamps until I saw these at my other favorite scrapbook store, Collective Journey in Redlands.

This is My Life...: Nook hoppin' giveaway...

This is My Life...: Nook hoppin' giveaway...: "http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c0ed953ef012876b6c667970c"

Life As Lou :: My Scrapbook Nook Blog Hop :: January :: 2010

Life As Lou :: My Scrapbook Nook Blog Hop :: January :: 2010: "http://lifeaslou.blogsome.com/2010/01/08/my-scrapbook-nook-blog-hop/trackback/"

Blog Hop!

I just stumbled upon a blog hop, with the chance to win some great kits from My Scrapbook Nook. Unfortunately, it's over at midnight tomorrow (PST). Blog hops are so much fun for scrapbookers, because you get to look at some great talent all at one time without hunting down each individual scrapper's blog. Just follow the directions, they will take you to a bunch of scrappy blogs! Start at http://lifeaslou.blogsome.com

Christmas past

I also completed an entire LO, start to finish yeserday. This is one of my "just fooling around" LOs, using an old photo from Christmas 2008. This was all our Christmas decor that year. We didnt' have a tree, very many gifts, etc. in 2009 because of Don's unemployment not getting straightened out until just before Christmas, and Don not wanting to spend any money on gifts (other than the wad he spent on the Mona Vie, that is.) He did "buy" me some things that were only the cost of shipping, which was some fairly nice skin care stuff. I bought him some clothes after Christmas.

But, last Christmas was better as far as that goes. And I'm not scrapping this Christmas yet, I'm scrapping November. So, when I'm "just fooling around" with Christmas photos it's 2008 or earlier. I like participating in a couple of challenges on Two Peas in a Bucket. This one combines the Bookmarks and Use our Stash Challenges. I am not sure I like this LO. I added some stuff later, it's a little better. Making all the little squares was fun, but lining them up straight with the photo was hard and I don't think I did.

One thing I do like is the star at the top. Let me share with you how I made that. I took one of the many star stamps I own (in this case, an Autumn Leaves acrylic stamp) and stamped it on thin chipboard. If you have a Sizzix and a strong arm, you can use thicker chipboard in it. I don't think you can use thicker chipboard in the electronic die cutters. I don't have even a Sizzix myself, so I then cut my star out with scissors.

Then I covered the star with little scraps of paper. I used the same K & CO paper as in the rest of the LO, but you could use anything! Even tear up colorful pages from a magazine! Just be careful though. When you tear most paper, one side is going to show a white edge. It might be cool on some projects, but I had too much white on my star for my taste.

Thankfully, that was covered up with the next step - glitter! I put three colors on my star, silver, green and dark red. I used the same scrapbooking glue I use for EVERYTHING, but you could also use Mod Podge or another decoupage medium for this. And if you have Diamond Glaze or Glossy Accents or something like that, it would be cool on top! I may still get some, but I am trying to watch my pennies these days.

I plan to keep blogging about the cool things I learn by doing. The website is going to have lots of cool acrylic stamps, so not long after I get it up and running, I'll be creating a section there with more tips and tricks. Stay tuned!

My first five LOs for 2010

Yesterday, I "finished" the first five LOs of 2010. I didn't actually start someof these LOs in 2010, in fact I may have started a few before Christmas. I believe the ones I did start in 2010 were the Coors Brewery Tour, the Table Mountain Inn and Rehearsal Night. Don was very busy on the computer all last week, and me some, trying to design the website for the online scrapbook store we will have soon. Now, we've sent it off to a web developer, so store is coming very soon.

Right now, and definitely during the first week of 2010 I was/am focusing a lot of my scrapping energy on Holly's wedding. She has been married for two months now, and I'm now "caught up" to the day before her wedding. I'm not totally a chronological scrapper, but until now I have liked to do the current photos as quickly as possible. I think it is because I have a digital camera now, even though I don't take A LOT of photos with the digital. In fact, all of these except the ones at the brewery are from my film camera.

A little bit about each photo. I use Blogger at work and should have rememberd that Blogger is going to upload the first photo you post on the bottom, and the last one you post on the top. But I didn't, so we now have to start this story at the bottom.

Welcome to Colorado - We drove, so this is what we saw when we first came to the state. I tried to do an embellishments collage next to Colorado, but I'm a little challenged on that style. I usually do simple.

Plummer School - This one is in Colorado, but it's the only one from this trip to Colorado going into the vacation album. Everything else from Colorado goes into Holly's wedding album, but this one somehow just doesn't fit in there. We have been on three vacations this year ( a trip to northern California Memorial Day weekend and another trip to Colorado in August), and now that I'm about half way through scrapping the last one, the album is already up to 50 pages. I hope it doesn't go over 60. To make sure I put the wedding-related photos in their own album.

I used HOTP "Heritage Papers" on this LO. I just bought those HOTP papers in 2008, to scrap some history-related photos from that year's trip to San Francisco. I've used them on other history-related photos since then, most recently this school. Don and I love taking pictures of things that are historical. I tied this one into my own life experience though, by journaling about the not-much-newer school where I attended first grade.

Table Mountain Inn - Where most of the out-of-town wedding guests stayed (not us.) I love the paper collection I used on this LO and the "Rehearsal Night" LO. So much embossing, metallic sheen and glitter! It's a K & CO pack I got at JoAnn's, but I think it's rare. It was there next to a Christmas line when I got it in November and I don't think it still is there. I posted a call for LOs with it on Two Peas, but no takers. Anyone who reads this blog seen another LO with it?

Coors Brewery - Just something fun the bride and groom arranged for the out-of-town guests. I've got a picture of them sitting by the glass wall as Don and I are, so I may redo the LO to include that one. I just need to figure out a way to reprint those photos on top a little smaller, and hers (which is on our shared Shutterfly account). I also haven't finished this LO because I need to add at least one more bottle cap. I never much used bottle caps when they were the popular trend a few years ago (OK a few times), but aren't they the perfect embellishment for this LO?

Rehearsal Night - I wanted to use all four of these photos, no more. Four-photo LOs are always a challenge to me. If you put them on one page, you've got a cool LO, but not much room for journaling, and my LOs are usually all about journaling. If you put them on two pages, you have A LOT of room to work with and that makes embellishing a challenge. Lately, I have more often than not opted for the single-page LO. There is so much more I could say about these photos though. Like where this restaurant was. I can't remember the name of it, but I could have found out. It's a Greek restaurant in downtown Littleton, CO. I also could have told you what Joan (my mother-in-law) and Lynn (Holly's mother) talked about. And what we talked about with Josh and Mary. There's some other stuff from that night that I don't even want to blog about so I guess I wouldn't have put it in the journaling either. Having to do with my feelings about being the stepmom. I do love Holly but I was definitely the stepmom. Enough said.

Happy New Year!!

One of my goals for 2010, now being realized just over one hour into the new year, was to start this blog. I actually created it in December and wanted to activate my online scrapbooking store at the same time as this blog. But the scrapbooking store isn't ready yet. I am ready to blog, so here we are.

This will be a blog for scrapbookers. It is especially for those scrapbookers who, like me, make their pages mostly about the stories we want to remember. Many of my pages are a little more than photos on colored cardstock with journaling. It is, though, that little more that gives me great joy to create.

Scrapbooking has been my passion since October 2001, when I made my first page. Except for during one significant break in 2003-04, I've been creating pages on an almost daily basis ever since. I have learned a few things along the way, and I'm eager to share them here. Soon, this blog will have layouts and tips for making yours.

I also will soon be selling supplies, idea books and possibly items to help us get organized. I'm excited about the possibilties that will bring, but until that's up and running, let's dig into our stashes and get scrapping!