A Paper Enthusiast

Life in Six Words

So I'd heard about this concept maybe three or so years ago, and periodically would compose my own short story. Life in six words is just that: you attempt to sum up your life in a succinct six words. For someone who never runs out of things to say, endeavoring to say it all in 6 teeny little words is quite challenging, but also very liberating. Whenever I am moved to do so, I spend a while trying to think of exactly what I want to say, something that sums up all of the thoughts and feelings of that particular point in my life. Try it. Pretty soon you'll find yourself with an awesome, meaningful collection of words that act like time machines.

So here, I've used a lot of the new Dear Lizzy collection and the February Studio Calico kit, Daydream Believer. I layered up various patterned papers and textures for the photo mat, tucked the mason jar journaling inside of a mini glassine bag, and collaged around the rest of the page. I just love those painted wooden buttons. I could use another pack. :)

Still need to get started on that Pinterest challenge. I haven't actually scrapped in a couple of weeks. I have time today, so we'll see what I come up with, and hopefully I'll have something to share tomorrow. ;) (don't hate me if I don't, though!)

A thought about Pinterest (plus giveaway)

While I enjoy Pinterest, and I think I've been "pinning" things my whole life, I just haven't had a lot of luck being inspired by it. Today, I think I'm going to adopt a new attitude about it, and WORK for my inspiration. I've been scouring pinterest for at least an hour now, loving everything I see, but not knowing quite how to translate it into paper crafting. So I went the easy route and started looking for color palettes that would be scrap-friendly. This is, after all, my first pinterest challenge I've ever done. :) I'm inviting anyone to play along with me! 

 

Source: photocardboutique.com via lefa on Pinterest

 

Easy enough, right? I think just about every scrapbooker has these colors easily accessible in their current stash. And as incentive to play along, I'll be giving away a spot in Studio Calico's newest online class, Happy Little Moments, taught by the amazingly talented color-genius, Maggie Holmes. I've already purchased my seat in the class and cannot wait to get started! To enter, just use this color palette as a jumping off point for a paper craft, post a link in the comments, and I'll pick a winner next Sunday (Feb 26th) by 6pm cst. Until then, I'm off to start crafting! Have a fantastic week!

 

Dear Lizzy Neapolitan

Went to Archivers and to my surprise and delight, they had some of the newest and cutest Dear Lizzy Neapolitan. I LOOOOOOVE this collection. I love it. I didn't know where to begin. So for this layout, I went with a sweet-hued polka background that I misted a few  different colors (variations on pinks and blues). I matted my photos, and then I got stuck. I don't really like this layout too much, if I'm being honest. Do you ever have that moment? 

So I went for it again, inspired by Jen Jockisch and Rahel Menig, and finally documented a story about my cutest little pupply wompus. 

I love the soft, muted colors that Jen used in her project, and Rahel's star cut outs were perfect for adding little bits of color to break up some of the white space without taking too much away from it. I love all the little bits and odds and ends that went into this layout. 

That's all I have for now. I can't wait to get back into my scrap room and play with the loads more that I bought. :) Also, I signed up for Maggie Holmes' SC class, Happy Little Moments, and bought the accompanying kit (and snuck in a Daydream Believer kit, because it's just so gorgeous and my favorite kit since Candy Shoppe, I just had to get one). I'm so excited about it; it looks gorgeous, and so perfectly Maggie-style. Bring on the inspiration!

So between going to the gym and wanting to hang out with my friends, the time I used to have for scrapbooking has gotten more and more limited. Coming home from work and scrapping for a couple hours two or three nights out of the week was kind of my thing. Now I'm investing that time into my body and my health. It's kind of a heartbreaking choice to make, think Sophie's choice, to have to choose between your physical well being and your emotional/mental/spiritual well being. Scrapbooking makes me so happy, it decompresses me, it fulfills my creative urges, and helps me get to know myself. For me, there's a lot of value in it. But now, I realize I have to put more value on my health, and that has meant giving up some of the time I spend scrapping or hanging out with my friends. My sister and I usually go to the gym together, and we've managed to go about 4 times a week so far. We're shooting for 5 days, but it's surprisingly difficult when socializing and laziness are constant interference. So I'm learning how to adapt. This two-page layout took me a few days to finish, with 30 minutes here, 10 minutes there... but I finished it, and I'm so happy that I was able to do it. For me, it's kind of annoying to be mid-project and have to walk away for a day or two. It's a little sad to walk by and see it sitting on my desk yet unfinished, and having to walk right past out the door to go to work. It's hard to have to come back with different ideas each time you sit down to scrap, and try to adapt them to the project at hand. But I did it, and this just might have to be how it goes from now on. 

For this page, I just grabbed papers and embellishments from out of my stash. It was a little different for me not to work out of a kit or with one specific collection in hand. The process all feels a little foreign to me, but I know that the sacrifice in the end will be worth it.

into the wee hours

My sis and I get off of work at 11pm, and even when we come straight home from work, it's close to midnight before we're actually home. Add to that the fact that when you get off of work, you really just need some time to decompress, which makes going straight to bed an almost impossible thing (unless you're that special kind of tired where you end up sleeping for 12 hours because you've been dead on your feet for the past couple days). So after work last night, we went to hang out with our friend Johnny (you remember Johnny! If you don't, go meet him a few posts back!) for a couple hours, and then came home. My original plan was just to go to sleep, but my brain had other ideas, crafty ideas, that spark of inspiration....

Valerie over at Paper & Cookies posted a layout that was just the cutest! I loved the bright chevron paper and the row of small photos (I would have done the same, but I am lazy and just wanted to work with what I had on hand), and I loved the embellishing along the corners of the layout, so I had this layout brewing in my brain as I tried to go to sleep. I got out of bed at 2am and sat down at my craft space and got to working on it. Do you ever do that? Or am I just crazy? I was up until 4:30 in the morning (I'm telling you - I'm turning into the slowest scrapper ever!) working on it, and just finished up the stitching, and I wanted to share with y'all.

Val, I hope I did your layout justice! I sketched out her layout on a piece of paper, and tried to work with it as best as I could. I used the Glee Club kit from Studio Calico, as well as a few extra Amy Tangerine goodies and some Lily Bee teeny letter stickers. All said and done, it came together pretty easily once I had the photos picked out. (originally I had adhered a strip of plain paper down where I planned on putting the photo cluster, but decided I was impatient and started going through all my photos looking for something that would overlap well. These worked well enough.) As per usual, the title/journaling always takes me the longest. I may end up adding a teeny tiny photo of the Bean in that lower left corner just to kind of reinforce what the page is about. But that's work for another day. With free time to scrap getting a little harder to come by, I'll do what I can when I can. ;) Until next time!!

That lady right there, that's my grandma, mi abuelita, a woman unlike any other. She was a warrior and a rose. I cannot tell you how much she meant to me, or how she's inspired me to be the person that I am. I miss her all the time, because there have been about a thousand situations where I could have bent her ear and gotten her advice, and a thousand grumblings of my tummy where I could have used her AWESOME homecooking. There are so many stories that are not told. So much gossip not shared over coffee. I just miss her.

So this layout is brought to you by October Afternoon (except the light yellow mat under the photo, that's Fancy Pants. The dark yellow photo mat and the plaid border-punched paper under the ribbon - that's MME. And the pink paper peeking out from the border punched plaid - that's Crate.) I used sprINKlers to break up a little bit of that gray stripe (the more I stared at it, the more it started to hurt my eye, so I misted it with the buttermilk and that grey color, and it seemed to do the trick), and then just assembled layers using different papers and punches and ribbons from my stash.

this was my favorite part of the layout, these cute layered flowers. I used a tattered flower die cut and the big shot to cut out muslin and burlap, and layered embroidery thread, book paper, and an adhesive pearl. Sadly, there are no notes tucked in with that journaling card. Now that I'm posting it, it does seem weird, so I think I'll go ahead and tuck in some hidden journaling to finish it off before it goes into my album. See? Blogging actually IS helping!

Anyway, it seems like it's going to be a long week. Today feels like it's going to be nice and rainy, and on days like this, I love nothing more than to take naps and play with pretty papers. I have to go to work, though. Alas. Then I have to hit the gym. Alas. 

Hey, so speaking of the gym, I'm finding it kind of hard to enjoy. I work out with gusto, I know I could give it more if I needed to, but I feel like I leave a sufficient amount of blood, sweat, and tears there on the gym floor. I just don't look forward to it. When does that happen? I keep hearing people talk about how much energy it gives them, and how it's some natural drug, and I just don't see it. I would much rather be at my craft table. ;) I'm hoping it gets there, though, because I know it's good for me, and I do want to be healthier, for the first time in a LONG time (if ever!), so I'm giving it more time. 

I'm just whining. I'm tired. Thanks for stopping by.

drive-by-blogging

I was fortunate enough to have had some time on Sunday to get some scrapping in. I realized that I am turning into the world's slowest scrapbooker. Don't get me wrong, I was never quick by any measure (a layout would take me between 2-3 hours) but now I'm spending a lot more time on each page and it's kind of annoying. I feel less productive. But anyway... I'm about to dash out for work (literally dash, because I only have 2 minutes left before I have to walk out the door), but I wanted to show off a page I made last night. This is made with My Mind's Eye FunDay collection - a collection that I loved in the store but has confounded me in terms of creating anything with it. I love the kraft look, but I'm not so good at crafting with kraft. I scrapped a photo of my sister and I taken on NYE, and I think the photo kind of stood up against the kraft really well. I've got another one to share tomorrow, so stay tuned!