Everyone has a story to tell, here's mine sprinkled with some creative projects along the way.
Thank you for stopping by and I hope you come back again.



Friday, May 27, 2016

"Cracker Barrel" layout

Happy Friday and happy long weekend. What are your plans for this Memorial Day weekend? Are you honoring someone that fought for our rights to freedom? Are you starting the summer season with some BBQ/grilling? Or are you going to chill and do some creating? Whatever it is, I'm sure that you are like me, I will be documenting this year's activities through photos and stories. 

For today's share, I'm showing off a page I created with a scrap challenge over at Scrapbook.com. If you are not a member there yet (it's free BTW) then you should. There are lots of inspirations, free classes, discussion boards to jump into and of course shopping. I've been lucky to have won some and it's always fun to get something "scrappy" in the mail. 

Anyways, the twist for the challenge was to use small scraps. I have been hoarding some paper strips for a while now, you know those ones that come with the paper bar code in the back, and I wanted to bash that stash. Or at least make a dent in it. 

I was inspired by one of my fave scrappers, Paige Evans for this page. I just added the strips as a frame for my photos and then added a few accents, my title and then journaling. This page actually didn't take me that long.

Now if you notice, my angles on my paper strips are not perfect. That can be a total frustration to some, but for me, I'm not really bothered by it. I love the look, the fact that I tried something new and used my scraps so over all I'm pretty happy with this page.

I also used three epoxy stickers from my Cedar Lane sticker sheet. They don't quite match the theme but I wanted to use up the sheet so they found a home in this page.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a comment on how you use your scraps on your papercrafting project, I'd love to know.

Till next time,
Grace

Thursday, May 26, 2016

"Play time with the family" layout

It's another double page spread from me today. This was inspired by a sketch over at the Scrapbook challenge blog (sketch # 204)


There was some white space on my photo so I used that to add my title. and journaling blocks. 



I used some "new to me" stickers from Simple stories for this page as well. I love how stickers, placed in the right spots, gives a page the finished look. 

Thank you so much for stopping by. If you have any questions about this page or any other that you see on this blog, please don't hesitate to leave me a comment below.

Till next time,
Grace

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

"Great Job Son!" layout

Hello my crafty friends. This is the last week for my older kids' school years. I can't believe that we are done with 7th grade for my son and 4th grade for my daughter. Time sure flies. Not sure how the summer would affect my scrapping but I'm hoping to involve my daughter with some scrapbook projects this season too. We shall see. 

Today's layout was based off of two challenges. The first one being a sketch inspiration from the Scrapbook Challenges (sketch #482)


The second one was a technique challenge from My Mind's Eye blog. Their May challenge was to use some mixed media on your page. 

Here's my take on the challenges...

For the sketch challenge, I kept the design in the center of the page but used a horizontal 4x6 photo instead of the 2 vertical ones on the inspiration.  I also used a frame transparency instead of the doily in the example. 

As for the mixed media challenge, I mixed some yellow acrylic paint with textured paste and then with a triangle stencil created that bold yellow background on my cardstock. I loved how it made an impact without detracting from my photo. 

I used some Market Street, Jubilee and Now and Then papers from My Mind's Eye for this page. The frame transparency is also from MME. 

I wasn't liking my hand writing on the frames so I pulled out my typewriter and created my journaling through that. I love the clean look so much better.

So there you have it. Thanks again for stopping by and make sure you swing by again tomorrow for another page share.

Till next time,
Grace

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

"Sky Sox Ball Game" layout

Happy Tuesday my crafty friends. I've been busy scrapbooking some past events lately. Much as I like to document the "story" or the everyday moments, I have to admit that the bulk of my scrapbooks are filled with event based documentation. Are you in the same boat as I am, or is my style of scrapping dying? Leave me a comment, I am really interested as to how everyone else around me document their lives. 
Anyways, this latest page was inspired by a sketch at the ScrapRoom Monthly kit club for their Guest Designer challenge. I love sketches and this one, being a double page spread, was a no brainer to try. 

I initially had these photos on a collage to they are all printed in weird sizes (not your average 4x6 or 3x4). I wanted to seperate them to match the sketch a little better. I love how the shot of the baseball game was the biggest photo, making it easy to tell what the page is all about. 

If you've seen my layouts before, you know that I suck at creating titles. My title page on this layout was no different. I'm telling you, I'm so bad at it! At least it gets the point across. :)

I used two 3x4 cut apart piece from a 12x12 paper of Bella Blvd. The first one was this "hello summer" one and the other is the orange star on the right side of the page.

I pulled out the journaling from a blog post I wrote about this event (thank goodness for blogging) and printed that off on white cardstock. I'm really grateful that I was consistent in blogging up to about 2 years ago. At least I have all of the stories up to that point currently journaled. It's easy to pull up the story when I'm ready to scrap the pictures.

I added some phrase stickers and chipboard hearts, plus some epoxy plus signs as my embellishments on this page.

Thanks again for stopping by. I hope you have a crafty day.

Till next time,
Grace

Thursday, May 19, 2016

"Yum!" layout

Happy Thursday friends. 
Today I’m sharing an 8 ½ x 11 page. This was inspired by the following challenges:



The theme of the page came about from a Scrapbook.com challenge during National Scrapbook day about recipes. I had this photo for a while now because I had wanted to create a recipe scrapbook. I thought that the challenges would be a good way for me to start this project. 

I used a lot of the “Let’s Eat” collection from Elle’s Studio for this page. The papers are mostly from Basic Grey but the little tidbits and flairs are from Elle’s Studio. It was a no brainer to use it for this themed page. Don’t you think?

I decided to do this size since I’m not sure what kind of album I would be using for this project. I figured that the 8 ½ x 11 size is a manageable size and I can buy an album and sheet protectors easily if I use this size. What do you think?

Thank you for stopping by.
Till next time,
Grace


Wednesday, May 18, 2016

"Hard Beginnings" layout

Hi guys. 
This page was inspired by the latest challenge over at the Scrap The Boys blog And it is a sketch challenge. 


I had this cut file and wanted to play with some of my washi so I punched out a piece of circle scrap, covered that up with washi and placed that under the openings of the cut file. It was a good way to create your own pattern paper. 

The title came about because I had typed up a post in the first month of my third child regarding some of the challenges that my baby had to go through. The photo was taken at a different time (than when I wrote the blog post) but his cry caused me to put them together. The title came about because of the theme of my journaling. I like how the arrangement of the photos ended up with a calmer baby. Kinda like how after overcoming the challenges, my baby was A Ok.

I also added stickers and a couple of flair because I had it on my table while I was making this page.

Thank you for stopping by.
Till next time,
Grace


Tuesday, May 17, 2016

"Hello Fun" layout

Hello friends. Sorry I've been MIA on this blog lately. I participated in this year's [inter]National Scrapbooking day and made 5 pages. After that life took over and wasn't able to create anything for two weeks. Crazy, right? Let me tell you, I can't wait till my life can match my creative desires so I can have time to make more pages. 

Anyways this latest page was inspired by the a double sketch from ScrapMuch? blog

This page was inspired by a few challenges during the NSD celebrations. The left page called for two big photos but I used that space to add more smaller photos. I also matted the photos with white paper to make them stand out against the background. The products that I used in this page is from my "newly purchased" stash and it felt good to play wiht new (to me) items. 

Here are some more close ups....






Thanks for stopping by. If you have any questions, please leave me a comment here.

Till next time,
Grace

Sunday, May 1, 2016

"So Good" layout- May *Stick it down challenge blog*

Hello dear friends and happy first day of May. 
Today's layout share is from the latest double page spread sketch from Stick it down blog. It is reveal day at the blog and I hope you stop by there (if you haven't already) to see the other sketches and interpretations of them. 

I found this sketch rather interesting. You can break apart the sketches and use them separately but using the same elements/papers/embellishments combines the two. 

If you wanna see how I created this page from start to finish, click on the video below. 

Here are more close ups...
I treated the left page as if it was a pocket scrapbook layout wherein there's distinct blocks of papers and pictures. I also layered embellishments on open spaces, kind of like what I do with my pocket scrapbooking pages.

The fun part of this page was adding elements on top of the existing grids.


The right side was more loose and it provided me with ways to do layering of papers, especially of scraps.


Thanks again for stopping by.

Till next time,
Grace