Finished Layout: Postcards

Newsflash!

Sometimes, you don't need a fancy layout. Or any layout at all! For this page, I wanted to showcase some postcards that my sister had sent in 2010. She made a New Year's Resolution to send handwritten notes more often, so she sent postcards each month. I saved some of my favorites (including the one featuring her new dog, Olive!), but I realized that they took up an entire 12x12 page.


So I chose a striped paper background that just happened to have similar colors to a couple of the postcards (it's red and yellow, in case you don't see it right away). I didn't need to journal because my sister had explained her New Year's Resolution in the first postcard, which is on the top left of the page. I just slapped them on the background paper and moved on.

Give yourself permission to do this every once in a while! It's quite satisfying!

Finished Layout: West Side Story

Last October, The Husband and I went to SF for yet another Broadway musical. I'm so lucky that he's willing to see these shows with me! I inadvertently dressed in red and black, matching the show poster. What a geek!

All of the materials you see here (aside from the red cardstock) come from the Black and White Power Palette. My favorite part of using this PP is the fact that you can pair it with any color and get a different look every time!


Aren't the paper ribbons fantastic?


Materials:

Black and White Power Palette
Brick (Red) Cardstock

Finished Layout: Christmas Bump!

I love this layout, mainly because it was simple and used my favorite color combination: purple and teal! I used products from last year's Open House customer gifts- aren't they beautiful? If you've never been to my Open House in December, make a mental note right now... there are free gifts for all who attend, and they're fabulous!



These die cuts (there were other words to use: Peace, Love, Faith, and Joy) were adhered using foam squares to make them pop off the page.



And just look at that bump!!

Finished Layouts: Jewel Power Palette

My favorite Power Palette to date has definitely been Jewel. The aptly-named theme is filled with jewel tones that (in my opinion) bring out the best color in my photos, and most closely match my preferred scrapbooking style and "mood" of my pages.

Since the Jewel Power Palette has been discontinued, I did my best to use it up in my 2010 album, which I just completed yesterday (whooooo-hoooo!). Here are some of the layouts that I completed with it:

(It's my photo that's crooked, not the layout!)

Added to the Jewel Power Palette are:
Brown ribbon from the Simply Beautiful Decorative Set (yes, items can be purchased individually- you don't have to order an entire Power Palette!)
ABC Stickers in Swirly White


I went with non-traditional colors for this Halloween layout, inspired by the Christmas layouts that my friend Noey did recently in non-traditional colors. I'm not a fan of Halloween orange and black, and these light jewel tones fit our costumes better anyway!

Added to the Jewel Power Palette are:
ABC Stickers in Sophisticate Brown

(Again, it's the photo that's crooked- not my layout! I can't seem to line up that right side when I shoot...)

I'm highlighting the title here to show that when you run out of a letter on the letter sticker page that you're using, simply use another color! I was out of lowercase g, so I used white for g and y.

Added to the Jewel Power Palette are:
ABC Stickers in Sophisticate Brown and White
Tags punched with the Tag Maker
Squares punched with the Square Maker
Journal box taken from a very, very old CM design (Vintage, maybe?)




Everything here was from the Jewel Power Palette, including those cute ABC Stickers. Each Power Palette has its own set of ABCs, did you know that? Click here to view them all. I'm partial to our Swirly, Simple, and Sophisticate ABC stickers, but occasionally I branch out and use the ones that come with the Power Palettes. I definitely think these worked on this page!

To view all of our current Power Palettes (including the brand-new ones!), click here.

As usual, visit my website or contact me to order!

Finished Layout(s): 8th Grade

I have a traditional 12x12 album of my 6 years of elementary teaching, and I'm very proud of that album. It has every student that I taught in those years, and it's something that I really treasure.

When I chose to change positions and teach 8th grade at Lawson Middle School, I knew I would need a new album. For this one, I decided to switch to a Picfolio Milestones album, just for a change in format. I admit that I had been trying to think of a project to do in a Milestones album, and this one seemed to fit the bill.

Title Page
Excuse the awful picture quality here- the plastic sleeves are thicker than a typical page protector, and I hadn't quite managed yet to get my camera to adjust.

On each page, I had a particular theme, usually related to the school event from which the pictures were taken. Using the Picfolio Album Kits, it was easy to coordinate colors and mat some of the photos (but not all of them- that's not necessary). The best thing about Picfolio? No cropping necessary if you're not in the mood to crop... just slide them in!

All of the pages above were Picfolio Multi-Pocket Pages, but this last one is a Picfolio Large-Pocket Page. It allows you to store the larger items that belong in the album... in this case, I kept cards and letters from my students, as well as some of the large sports photos from the teams that I coached.

And the titles? As usual, I used my ABC stickers by Creative Memories. They're a must!

Finally.... the cover!


I personalize all of my covers through Creative Memories Persona Imprinting, which is the division of our company that does the fantastic cover and spine embossing. More details on this in my next post, so stay tuned....

Finished Layout: Muir Woods

After finding out I was pregnant, The Husband and I decided to spend the rest of the summer and nice weather doing some outdoorsy things that we had been wanting to do for a while.



The first thing we did was head to Muir Woods for a hike over Labor Day weekend. We both love seeing the Redwoods of CA and neither of us had been to Muir Woods (at least, not since our baby-in-a-backpack days, which was definitely how I spent my first few hikes in CA!).



In addition to the hike, we wanted to visit the Muir Woods Cafe, where (rumor has it), the grilled cheese and tomato soup had been featured on the Food Network's "The Best Thing I Ever Ate."



After a brisk hike, we headed back to the cafe for lunch. I'll admit that the grilled cheese and tomato soup were goooood, and just what we needed after a nice little workout!

Materials used:

Jewel Power Palette (for paper, photo mats, title stickers and ABC stickers)

The Jewel Power Palette has been discontinued this year, but you can see all the available Power Palettes here.

Finished Layout: Run San Ramon

Last year, I finally convinced The Husband to start running, and guess what happened? He liked it! He decided to train for his very first 5k race, and the 4th of July "Run San Ramon" race was the perfect event, since it's in his hometown.

Materials:
Cardstock in red, white, and deep blue
Stars punched out with the Embossed Star Maker
Borders trimmed with the 12 inch Rotary Trimmer using the Wavy blade and Small Wavy blade
Swirly white ABC stickers

Finished Layout: Andrea's Dresses

One of my favorite memories from planning my wedding was the dress shopping! I was thrilled when my good friend, Andrea, asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding, and I realized that this would be the first time I would get to experience the wedding planning process since my own wedding!



I don't know how obvious it is at first glance, but those are all different dresses in those pictures... Andrea knew she wanted a strapless gown, and she was able to try on a lot of gorgeous ones!



I was finally able to put some of my Vellum Expressions to use- the ones highlighted in these two pictures are discontinued (Expressions of Her), but there are so many great ones, and they can add a lot to a layout. This page was so much fun to create!

Materials:

Simply Beautiful Tone-On-Tone Paper
Swirly White ABC Stickers
Simply Beautiful Paper Flowers
Vellum Expressions- Of Her

Finished Layout: Valentine's Day

OK, so I realize that Valentine's Day is quickly approaching, and I promise you that I'm not a full year behind in my scrapbooking. I also realize that if I were a year or more behind, it would not be a problem, seeing as many of my customers and scrapbooking friends are working on projects with pictures that are several (or many) years old. But I digress.

Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday, and it's unfortunate that it has been reduced to being called a "Hallmark holiday" or that single women think that they have to boycott it. I've always celebrated Valentine's Day, regardless of my relationship status. It's a great time to show the people you love that, well, you love them!


Scott and I, early in our relationship, decided to ditch the idea of trying to go out on Valentine's Day, and created our own tradition at home. Each year, we cook a nice meal together and watch an old, romantic movie that neither of us have seen (preferably a classic, but we might eventually venture into the nostalgic 80's romantic comedies, we'll see).

In 2010, we actually made it out of the house to see a matinee of the movie "Valentine's Day," because we (i.e. *I*) couldn't resist. Then we bought a copy of "My Fair Lady" and made a great dinner of chicken pot pie with homemade fondue for dessert. It was wonderful!


And the real reason I'm just getting around to posting this layout? I don't like the journaling I did on this one. I tried something new, didn't love it. But I VERY rarely (if ever) re-do a layout once it's done, so I'm leaving it. I love the papers on this one, it's just the journaling that bugs me. *shrug*

Materials used:

Seriously old Creative Memories paper (honestly, don't even ask)
Swirly Brown ABC Stickers

Finished Layout: Tim's Promotion

There is so much you can do with black and white as it is, but when your husband has a black belt in Jujitsu, the Black and White Power Palette definitely comes in handy... on many occasions!

This particular layout did not feature The Husband, but instead featured the black belt promotion of his good friend, Tim. Tim is shown in the above layout, bottom left picture, with his wife, Carin, and they've both become friends of ours.


Scott took the pictures at this demo and ceremony, and I have to say that I'm a big fan of the shots that manage to get the participants while flying through the air (as in the picture above, far right). My photo of the layout skews the perspective a bit, but Tim is not laying on his back in that picture, rather, he's still about 2 feet in the air. So much fun to play with the camera at these events!

This layout used:

Black and White Tone-on-Tone Paper
Black and White Paper Ribbon
Black and White Storybox
Simple ABC/123 Stickers: Black

Finished Layout: Yosemite

I'm taking a quick break from Showcase recaps to show off a finished layout from this summer!

My school trip to Yosemite was such a major event (6 days and 5 nights with 250 eighth graders, to be exact), that I created an entire digital 12x12 album with my photos from the week. I had incredible landscape photos, mixed with fun pictures of the students hiking and having a great experience away from the school campus.

For my annual family album, I like to include everything that took place in sequence, even if I created an individual album just for that event. So I made a 2-page layout with just a few of my very favorite photos from the trip, and here's what I came up with!



My pictures of layouts are never perfect, since I take them while they're on the table and try to crop to show the 12x12 result... but you get the idea! This 2-page layout represents exactly what I enjoyed most about my Yosemite trip.

Back to the Showcase recap next!

Finished Layout: 2010 Title Page

I love making title pages. I usually use fun, fancy paper for the background, one picture (in 5x7 or 8x10 size, something I don't do a lot of in my albums), and a giant title. The title is often the year of that album, since most of my albums are what I call "annual," and I do the majority of my scrapbooking chronologically, without much of a theme. It's just everyday life, in an album.

For the album I just started, I needed to begin with the beginning of 2010, but realized I didn't have any New Year's pictures because... well... The Husband and I rarely party on New Year's Eve. So instead, I found this candid photo of two of my besties, Andrea and Staci, and myself scrapbooking at my place in January. Perfect!

I used White Swirly Monogram stickers, which are a fantastic addition to the Creative Memories ABC sticker line. I also used the paper that I mentioned using for Larry's Retirement Party, which was the New Year's Celebration paper that was a promotional giveaway in January. The photo mats are from Simply Beautiful again. Done!

Finished Layout: Larry's Retirement Fiesta

I'm a big proponent of using what you have, even if they're leftover supplies that were for a different project.

Click any photo for a larger view

For my uncle's retirement party, I wanted to find something that would show the festive and summery backyard event, and I came across some old papers from our New Year's Celebration promotion!


The left side used a fantastic background paper with a confetti blower that I couldn't bear to cover up.


The right side was bright blue with "Celebrate" written in all different languages in the background. Perfect!


I added my favorite title stickers, the White Swirly ABC Stickers. I also used photo mats and a journal box from the Simply Beautiful Power Palette, which happened to match these New Year's papers very well. Done!

And just for fun.... here's a closeup of my sister and her tattoo:

Pretty sweet, huh?

Finished Layout: Father's Day Hike

For the first time in 7 years, I actually got to spend Father's Day with my dad! I wanted to do something fun and unique, so I took my parents and The Husband to my favorite running spot, Nisene Marks State Park in Aptos, CA.

Click any photo for a larger view

Scott and I took the "good" camera (our Canon Rebel) and took some fabulous pictures. When I got them developed, I realized that they were almost all green and brown, and I would need to get creative with the layout colors so it wouldn't be one big green washout.


Enter my favorite Power Palette, Jewel. I've used this Power Palette for many, many layouts because the jewel tones seem to complement any photo. The purples and blues on these particular background pages were surprisingly perfect for the greens and browns in the photos (Jewel isn't all purples and blues... it refers to the jewel tones that it incorporates, including green, yellow, orange, and red).




The decorative ABC stickers that come with the Jewel Power Palette are great, too. I'm not typically a fan of multi-colored ABC stickers, but I think this worked well.


The title stickers are one of my favorite aspects of the Power Palette. I chose "good times" and "a day to remember" for this layout, and finished it off with the Jewel Decorative Paper Ribbon (shown here). I absolutely love how this layout turned out.

*** The Jewel Power Palette is expected to be discontinued in September (*sob*). If you haven't ordered it yet, you'll want to do it now, before the final supply runs out! ***