LOs: PAX, Me Thomas

I finished up some more LOs while at my mountain top scrapping get away and thought I should share. I haven't had a chance to scrap with just my stash in a while, so both this retreat and Scrap Pink were an awesome opportunity to do that.


I love this LO. It's so simple and yet it totally works with the busy paper and the photos. Nerdcore, btw is a genre of music (and an entire lifestyle) that's becoming very popular among the video game crowd. Most of the music is video game influenced and a few of the bands have no words to their songs. Very interesting.


I love this LO of Travis. The tag is for journaling, which I finshed up last night. Again the simple LO really pops.


This is my current favorite of LOs. I love the way it came out and the colors of the paper and the photos came together. I also love how "me" it feels and yet looks elegant. The lyrics are from Sugarland's "Already Gone." I love it, the whole thing.


I love this LO. Seriously. And not just because it's Thomas. I just love how it came together. Fantastic.

Read more »

Guest Designer: Ready Set Scrap + Link

I'm the guest designer for the current challenge on Ready Set Scrap!

Make sure you go check it out and participate!

Also, I'm not sure how many of you are digital (or hybrid) scrappers, but this great website Songbird Avenue does a monthly digital kit where most of the proceeds for the kit go towards a different charity each month. This month's kit is way cute and the charity an Animal Haven. Make sure you check it out!

Read more »

LOs: October C2P

Here's the rest of my October LOs from Commit2Paper.


shots of lil brother and I from beach trips to Mrytle Beach we used to take as kids. I supplemented some Bazzil Bling CS for this one.


This one is done on a transperancy. It's back with beige CS for photography purposes, but I'll probaly just stick it right in the album as is.


Shots from Homecoming in high school. The journaling circle is mine from Maya Road.

Read more »

Reader Request: Pink & Navy Inspiration Board

I'm having the worst time deciding on a color scheme. As I was telling hubs-to-be, I feel like there is a wrong answer and right answer and I feel like I can't figure out which is which. I know this is irrational, but us engineers work a certain way and this is how I am.

I had thought about navy and green, but ran into an issue with that (a friend pointed out that the color combo was what she's always wanted and then I felt bad and on top of that I got frustrated with the flower options--which are few and far between).

Now I'm leaning towards navy and pink. Kati over at The Finer Things helped me out with this fantastic inspriation board:

Reader Request: Pink & Navy Inspiration Board, originally uploaded by finestationery.

Kudos to her for her help. Let me know what you think? (As for shades I'm leaning towards darker pinks, more jewel tones (since it's a september wedding).

Read more »

LOs: Scrap Pink

I got a good number of LOs done at ScrapPink in Miami with Amy and Julia. Including the Commit2Paper October kit LOs I finished a few others. I really had a great time digging through some of the stuff in my stash, using some of the things I've collected for a while.

My favorite project of the weekend was my fantastic mini book I made for hubs-to-be. He's got quite the collection of them so far. This one is one of my favorites though.




I love this LO of my friend Kinan and I. It was so much fun to make too. I love the stacked journaling block and the stickles on the rub on at the top.
Little brother and I have so much fun!! I love the way this LO came out even with the photos that don't match, but really this is just so much us.
This LO is so much fun!! I love scrapping BAG from my visit to LA. These photos are fantastic in person and the cardstock is blingy which makes it even more fun with the cut out rockstar-esque paper. The "awesome" is sparkly.
I love this LO! also on the sparkley CS and full of my favorite Basic Grey line, LilyKate. That's mom and I on my 16th birthday. I really just love how it came out. It will go directly into a page protector as is, even though with the scalloped edges it's not 12x12.
A little bit more detail which just shows the chipboard flowers i covered with chalk ink. Pink first then after that dried lightly with the white.

Read more »

LOs: October C2P

Here's my first batch of LOs with the October Commit2Paper kit. This was a pretty fall-esque kit, so a lot of my photos ended up being older shots of family and friends. I did have issues with all the orange, as it's not a favorite color, but it's good for you to push your boundries.

This, obviously, is mom and dad. The picture is a few years old (mom's hair is longer and more brown now, Dad looks the same). I think I'm going to give this one to them for their house (because otherwise she's going to want it).This one was just me playing around with the patterned papers and seeing what came out. Honestly I really like the way it came together.
This page was fun. The photo is the last first day of school photo mom took of us together. The small squares of patterned paper are covered in glossy accents to give them that epoxy feel.
Yes. I was a band nerd. That's my band in high school. And that's only half the band; it was a huge band. I really like the way it came out with the flashy glittery thickers.

Read more »

Finds: Fellow*, Mankind Mag, creative projects

I haven't posted it yet, but the newest issue of James, DECOR FELLOW's online mag, Fellow* is up. Make sure you check it out, as per usual, it's full of fantastic ideas and more. As always, I love James' work.

My other favorite online mag just put up the newest issue well!! Erin over at Design for Mankind has done something spectacular with the newest issue of Mankind Mag, The Feets and Feats Issue. I might have gotten a little choked up at one point. It's truly beautiful, just like we've come to expect from Erin.

I feel like I should have mentioned this last week, but I like to see more of final product before I spring it on you. Ali Edwards is currently working on a week in the life project at her blog (with blog followers tagigng along and doing the project with her). She says it parallels one of the classes she's taught at CKU and similiar events if you've attended one of those before. Personally I'd love to try this project for a few weeks this year, esp with the wedding planning that's getting started. I think I needed to see how things shaped up though before I made a decision. The above link takes you to the entire set of posts thus far.

Read more »

Scrap Retreat Part II: plus inspiration notes

Another busy weekend had by all, but I must say it was a good one. I had scrapbook retreat part II, which was thankfully, only an hour and 15 minute drive from home. My friend Bonnie goes twice a year (in Jan and Oct) up to Jasper, GA with friends from her church to scrap for the weekend in the fresh mountain air. I tagged along because they needed another person to fill up the house. I was a little shocked at how much fun I had. We ranged in age from myself (I think I was the youngest or at least close to it) to women who have children my age. As always I enjoy an infusion of talent, ideas, creativity and style. I love forcing it into one room and seeing what comes out, seeing who changes what to their style, process and more.


Of course I'm always self concious at these things, as I don't truly consider myself an artist. I look at what I do as art, but myself, as a person is not an artist. I credit some of my best LOs to "luck" which I imagine others would probably tell me it's talent. Nonetheless I don't feel like I have that "talent" spark, but perhaps I'm wrong.


What did amaze me about this trip though was how people reacted to some of the things I do on a daily basis that I feel is completely uncreative (or directly stolen from someone else). One example was how I cover chipboard and similiar mediums. I worked on another mini board book this weekend (did one last weekend too) and in order to get the photos or paper to cover the whole board I glue down a portion of the paper and go around the edges with the exacto knife. I typically sand the edges after cutting to ensure a smooth sort of edge. This technique caught quite a few people off guard (most asked about how to get the photos the same size and what i cut them out on). This shouldn't surprise me as Amy had just asked me about the same technique a few months earlier, but still it made me think twice. Where did I even pick up this technique? (I lean towards an old ScrapGoods kit, but I could be wrong.)


I also impressed the masses with my inspiration notebook. The poor book has been abandoned until just recently (when Amy sent me home with a giant stack of scrapbooking magazines). It's a simple enough concept though. I have a notebook that I cut out pictures of LOs from mags that I like, I sketch some other LOs that I like (esp if there are two on the same page front and back in a magazine). I have other sections tabbed out for other topics such as colors, quote etc. I'm planning on doing an "Anatomy of an Inspiriation Journal" post later this week (since people seem interested).

I photographed all the LOs and all but two side alteration type projects from the weekend and as soon as I'm done cropping and uploading photos I'll post them here so stay tuned in.

Read more »

Wedding: Engagement Photos!

We had our engagment photos taken on Sunday afternoon/evening by a good friend of mine Chris Lewis (his website is here and his blog here). We had such a fun time going around Piedmont Park taking photos. We did shots more dressed up and more casual. The dressed up shots are adorable, but you can tell how much more comfortable we are in our regular clothes.

A few of the shots can be found at Chris' blog here: http://blog.cslewisphoto.com/2008/10/07/katy-chris-engaged/

There rest are here. Let me know what you think! I wasn't sure, but now that I'm looking at these I really think I want a guest book that features them. Perhaps. Thoughts?

Read more »

Travel Diaries: Miami

I had such a fantastic time while in Miami with Amy and Julie doing ScrapPink. We got all sort of giggles while listening to fellow scrappers ("My husband thinks Sarah Palin is red hot."), we drank way too much Diet Coke, giggled about married life/soon to be married life and of course we got some great progress done.

All three of us, Julia, Amy and I, pretty much put October's Commit2Paper kit to rest. I got about seven LOs out of the kit. I would have had more, but I wasted some paper trying to make their Cricut work (mine at home is set the way I like it, plus I think their blade needed replacing). Either way though a great kit. Lots of fun to work with. I can't wait to post my results (alas I don't have photos yet, so patience please).

Double bonus I got my hands on November, which I plan on digging into this weekend at another scrap retreat (this one more informal with a friend and her church friends). I'm hoping to make some major progress there. Getting all my IS requirements done sooner rather than later is a major plus because hubs-to-be and I are considering a move to a new apartment at the end of November. My roommate just put an offer on a house (and they took it!) and she's going to be moving out in Nov-Dec territory. We had originally planned to just move Chris in, but the idea of a new (less expensive) apartment that is JUST ours seems so appealing and so perfect we might just have to go for it. Even if moving is a giant pain.

I've also started my first ATC (artist trading cards) for a swap for ScrapGoods (Amy's hosting the swap and had a few spaces left). I've not made them before, but it's kind of fun. There's a little more flexibility and I'm enjoying the smaller medium. My cards will probably be sub-par in comparison, but I'm trying to not let that phase me. Here's hoping though that I actually GET my stuff that I've submitted to the swap. As of yet, I've only had success with one SG swap thus far.

Read more »