Scrapbooking on a larger scale

A few months ago I found a post over on Skrap N' Chat about Storytelling Frames. The original was a guest post by Elizabeth Kartchner on Ali Edwards' blog.

Anyway, I've been planning one of these ever since, and finally this week, with my son away with the grandparents, I re-painted 2 walls of his room and made him his own storytelling wall!



Knowing how little boys are about change sometimes, and how some of them are about moving their things around when they're not home, I told him about it in advance, or at least the idea of it, describing it as a wall all about him and the things he likes, and he seemed excited about it. I even consulted him about what subjects he would like me to include on it. This one ended up more as a collage or mural than Elizabeth K's did, but I wanted to incorporate his license plate collection and his Cars wall decals as part of the embellishment, as well as his Ikea star night light and a hubcap I found him. He's been asking for car parts including hubcaps ever since Christmas time for his collection.



Cars were the obvious subject choice. I used a Kinder Surprise Lightning McQueen for the frame (it was the only one that fit under the glass) and did the tracks with black Color Box ink and one of his Johnny Lightning cars (they actually have rubber tires, which make excellent tracks). The picture is of Antonio a few years ago, showing off his Lightning McQueen collection.



Drawing was another obvious choice, not just as a typical childhood must-have but because it's actually something he's really good at and enjoys. I cut 4 spaces into the frame and put a favourite picture of Antonio drawing, along with various excerpts of different things he's drawn. Narrowing this down was probably the hardest part. I also included a paper plate he'd drawn as another round element, and a clipboard where he can display any drawing he feels like at the moment.

Money and currency is another of his recent interests so it had to find a way on there, with some cut-outs of different Canadian bills and some coins and bills he's collected, and a picture of him getting a $100 bill for Christmas last year.

He also loves flags so I did one with a Canadian flag (left over from Canada Day) and a picture of him on Canada Day 2009.

Another frame has a picture of Antonio swimming, another favourite of his, with 2 of his swimming lesson report cards and some beach rocks. Once I find his old Mont Cascades season pass it'll go in too (I think this pic was taken at Mont Cascades).

One more thing, and this was actually at his request (and my delight), was his newest obsession, Mega Man. For those who never played late 80s Nintendo, Mega Man is a series of super awesome video games which has recently been revived and added on to by the Wii. Mega Man II was my favourite game for much of my childhood and teenage years (oh, it probably still is). and now Antonio has re-discovered it and we're both enjoying playing it together. I had some action figures so I put one in the frame with a picture of him playing. I was skeptical about this at first since you can't find Mega Man action figures anymore and he may not want any of them "on display only" but after hearing he found some in a retro toy store out in BC, I went ahead anyway. If he wants me to take it out later we'll worry about that then.

And that's it! With any luck he'll be happy with it, and if he wants to change it himself, well I guess it's his room. But here it is, as I conceived it, thanks for looking and sweet dreams!~

one more layout

Wow, it's warm. Even with the a/c going and the box fan in front of it. I slept about 2 hours in the last 2 days and am not quite sure what i'm running on now, but at least i felt like scrapping! The latest challenge at Scrap Yourself was really talking to me....



I looooove scrapping childhood memories, though I did have to look thru my pictures for the right idea (a lot of my favourite childhood memories are already scrapped!) then I remembered the one I wanted to do. I had to "photoshop" a little since I wasn't wearing much but it was the memory that I really cared about. I remember a lot of things from my childhood and a lot of it is pretty abstract...but i always looked at things creatively, even then. Thanks for looking! Now go have a swim or something...it's scorching out there!

Sketchy in Summer

Summer is here! Part of me is celebrating, part of me really needs to get out of the house. But instead I've been playing with sketches again, finishing up a few page ideas from the back of my mind. Here are my takes on Sketches 108 thru 110 from Creative Scrappers

Sketch #108


Sketch #109


Sketch #110


What is it about summer that makes me wanna use sketches and scrap Christmas layouts? Not a clue. Anyway I did something surprising...I actually went out and found that rumoured LSS across town and guess what, it was actually open!!! Even though it had been over a year since I last had a really good browse thru a LSS, I was a good girl and stayed almost entirely within the 50% off boxes...that's how long it's been, that the stuff in the clearance bin was actually newer than most of my current stash! Of course I stocked up on adhesive too...can't get enough. Found some awesome double-sided tape that's working beautifully. The ladies were very nice and sweet and we had a great time debating Glimmer Mist...they still didn't totally convince me it's as great as they claim. I did try a few of their suggestions and it did work slightly better but I still think chipboard is the only thing it makes prettier than it messes up. Anyway thanks for looking, gotta run! Sweet dreams~

LSS...how do I miss thee?

Made this page lastnight for Mission 0019 at Mission To Create.


Some of the concepts were a longshot for me...especially the embossed paper, since I have none. So instead I tried an improvised attempt at "faux embossing", which also happens to be a challenge at Skrap N' Chat this month. It's easier to show than explain.


If this were 3 years ago, I could have just ran out and picked up all the stuff for the challenge with no need to improvise. I really miss the LSS. All 5 I used to shop at have gone under, and the last one I heard of is way on the other end of town and has inconvenient store hours. If you'd driven more than 30 minutes out of your way to find a scrapbook store boarded up as many times as I have, you'd understand why I can't get motivated to make the trip to this alleged LSS.

Yes, there are oodles of online shops that boast fabulous deals, which I'm sure are awesome for most. It's just not for me. First of all, I'm a sensory shopper. I don't get inspired by looking at packages of paper on a computer screen, in fact some of the exact paper collections I've been indifferent to when posted online, I've gone crazy over in the store. I have no idea what I want until I see it in real life, let alone how well the colours will really work with my photos. Second of all, inspiration comes suddenly for me. I need instant pictures and instant supplies--waiting for postal delivery just won't do. Third of all, nice scrapbook supplies are not cheap. No matter what the deal, I can't justify paying even more on top for shipping.

Yet would having a local scrapbooking store make me a better scrapper? Some of my best pages came from 2005-2006 when I didn't have the considerable scrap stash I have today, when I didn't spend 30 minutes deciding what alphas to use, but how to make pretty letters out of origami paper and poster paint. So while I do miss eyeballing pretty papers and lovely letters, learning to make do with what you have is much better for the creativity (and the credit card!)

Scrap to Basics

All riiiight!!! My Worldly page was showcased on Scrap Yourself!!! It's so nice to have my scrap mojo back again.

It's midnight, the house is dark and quiet, and I'm highly caffeinated. If I don't get sleepy soon I may have to start another layout....

For now here's a new page I did about my favourite boy.



Made this lastnight. The 3D picture was the challenging part and for the rest I just picked the most glowingly bright scraps from my stash and had at'er with a Sharpie and some nail scissors. Mannnnn was this one fun! I love bright colours against black. Thanks for looking!

Hello mojo!

I don't know exactly where it came from, but there has been a flash flood of scrappy inspiration around here the last few days. Maybe after hauling through those mega-pages from my last post, and then doing that one Creative Scrappers sketch (which I also incorporated into a Skrap N' Chat challenge, as I am prone to do), I finally got the hankering to just scrap a few pretty pages. First of all here's one I finally did for a travel challenge at Scrap Yourself. This was fun to make, though the journalling technique was challenging...I wrote it out on Notepad first, then copied most of it backwards one word at a time so I could fit it on the page right. I even talked my son into biking with me to Wal-Mart this evening so we could pick up the pics while DH was out with the car!



So we have these family friends with 3 sweet kids, the oldest of which has known Antonio since they were babies, and I've used them as scrap subjects before, and felt it was high time for some recent pages:




And there's plenty more in the works. I'm soaking a picture for an experimental technique which hopefully I'll get to work on tomorrow after work, and another few in the ideas stage, with pictures printed and ready to scrap! Now why is it that the most inspiration hits when you have the least time? When creativity flows you have to act on it! Good thing I'm a fast scrapper!

getting sketchy again

Here's a quick page I did today with Creative Scrappers' Sketch 107:



I always forget how much I love the look of sewing and painted edges in my pages. I guess it's a time thing. There's just not enough of it for scrapping these days!

This page has, however, broken my recent multi-pix streak. Seems all I wanna scrap in the last few months has been pages like this...



...and this...



...and this...



Even my one-pagers have been pretty loaded...



Every once in a while my scrapping style will re-gravitate towards using as many pictures as I can cram in there. It's why I originally started using 12 X 12 and I'm constantly on a mission to scrap beautifully using lotsapix. It's easy to create something dazzling with one photo, but come on, sometimes there are 100, and you can only narrow it down so much. Some events just can't be illustrated with a single picture. Yes, you can do multiple pages of one event. I did 26 pages of our vacation to Italy. But even among those, only 3 were single photo layouts. Most had 5 or more per page. It's just how I roll!

That said, it's been a challenge making every page perfect with so many pix to choose from. But then again, why does every page have to be perfect? Why does every page need to be better than the last? Of course we always give it our best shot, but sometimes, it's really more about the pictures and the story than the design and decoration. Gotta keep it fun!

...and so it goes

OK...so I never made it to the end of the week as far as the blogging thing went. I sorta figured I wouldn't, but the week started with such optimism...I'm actually surprised at how far I got with this Week In The Life project. Missed blogdays aside, I've actually finished all the daily pages for the album. The layout design is pretty much taken right from the example on Ali E's product suggestions page, as the actual finished pages weren't yet available for reference when I started printing out pix. I changed the colours and papers, and computer-printed all my journalling on to cards (I knew my own handwriting would never be able to fit everything I wanted in there). Long story short....



Sunny Sunday




Monday Mall Day




Toe-chilling Tuesday




Wednesday. I was a bit anxious today as I always am when I pick up a night shift with less than a day's notice, so other than groceries not a lot got done today.




Thursday. A full day, but fun in hindsight. Worked the night again.




Friday. I spent much of this day panicking over a camera malfunction...that's why most of Friday's pictures were taken with my low-resolution camera phone.




...and finally Saturday comes full-circle with breakfast at Ikea and a night shift at the end.


Thanks so much for looking. And thank you Kirsten and the girls at Skrap N' Chat for drawing my attention to this project, and thank you Ali Edwards for a great idea and cool design inspiration. Sweet dreams~

Day 3

Seems I've forgotten how to rotate pictures on Blogger, so I tried uploading them to Photobucket first. Not sure if it saved me any time. This daily blogging is something I haven't done since 2004 when we lived in Korea and it was my primary form of entertainment and communication. Anyway, here's Tuesday....

For some reason I can't force myself to sleep in past 6:45, so I get up with the guys and watch French cartoons with Tones.
The guys' morning tickle session
The weather has taken a turn for the worse today, so no bike ride for the guys. Tones heads out to catch the school bus instead.
Please tell me those aren't snowflakes I'm seeing.
In the absence of any plumbing knowledge whatsoever, here's my "green" solution to the leaky bath tap.
Definitely a good morning for a hot bubble bath.
Nutella on toast for breakfast again.
Tuesday=waterday
A quick stop in at the bank and Wal-mart before my noon appointment
Appointment done. Now, to stop by home and pack up my m-i-l for her flight home....
Pick up Tones from school. Now we just gotta get Don from work, and it's off to Montreal airport.
Antonio's mismatched gloves. He often wears mismatched socks too. It's just not a big deal to him either way. I love my boy.
Ew. It is snow.
Seeing Don's mum off at the airport
Eeeeeeeek! Wet feet! Wet feet! This is crazy! There was no snow in Ottawa when we left, and Don was in shorts yesterday!
A rest stop in Tim's on the way home warms the heart and the toes.
Well, we're out of pepperoni, the cream cheese is expired, and no nuts allowed in school. I search the pantry for some canned ham for Antonio's sandwich as Don puts together the rest of his lunch.
We've got mail! Don ordered a book from Amazon.com, and a little gift for Antonio earning his half yellow/half white belt in Judo. Bedtime!
This night winds down as many have these past few days with the Jays.
Sweet dreams!