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!

 

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!!