Destashing

I am always trying to destash and us as much as possible on layouts. I find that when I start to cut papers and am left with scraps, I create more of a mess because I can't seem to get the small pieces to fit onto my paper racks and they eventually get ruined. So yesterday I hit the scrap room with the intentions of using whole sheets that have been hiding out on the bottom of piles in the racks.

I have been in sort of a transparency overlay state of mind which lead me to this layout.

I used Sandy Lion paper and a Best Creations overlay I have been hoarding for a few years. A couple of flowers, butterflies and Prima e-line pearls. Once I had everything in place I used Crate Paper rubons in the corners of the frame and spritzed the entire sheet with Glimmer Mist. Once the Glimmer Mist dried on the overlay, I took a damp paper towel and wiped away the drops of mist across my face.

Here is a Prima die cut sheet. I love the $1 scrapbooking booth which carries a lot of Creative Imaginations embellishments at the Scrapbook Expo. You probably wonder sometimes how I can stick so much onto one page. Well that is it. I have no love lost when I get a product for $1 vs. $6 in the store. If you ever want me to help you pick up stuff. . . early March and I think August or September are the shows. I can text you photos while at the booth. It's actually kind of crazy where you enter one side of the booth to look but have to stand in line to do so and it's the same line you stay in for check out. Boy do those women get catty if someone doesn't go with the flow. Ok so either I get the products wholesale (like the Prima flowers that are the same ones I always use in different colors) or the $1 booth. So I loaded up on CI's road trip embellishments. Nothing fancy and used a bit of ribbon to soften up a boy's line of paper and colors I don't tend to use very often.

I admit that I recently picked up this Prima sheet. but I used Diamond Glaze (it was so old the bottle cracked and I have it in a Frappuchino bottle) and applied it to all the water spots and puddles. I also hit the Stickles and applied Diamond Glaze over the rainbow once dry. Die cut some Prima pearlescent cardstock and  found some epoxy Mickey heads at the bottom of the closet. Riley is totally into hidden Mickeys plus they went along with the water theme. The orange parasol umbrellas were from Meri Meri (the hand made card company) where I pick up embellishments really cheap. . . think I mentioned that before. If you are local and interested in when they have a sale, hit me up.

I can't really tell you how long I have had this sheet. Maybe two weeks. . . haha who knows. But the Prima felt diecut and red K&Co. glitter letters and flourishes. . . many years. The black, glitter letters are Making Memories and the white flowers are Prima that I inked with distress inks. Queen and Co. music note brads.

Well I think I may have over baked my banana bread muffins in the over. Let me tell you that I tend to underbake by a minute or two. So this should make my mom happy that I have these babies over done. (Wonder if she's reading this.)

Kraft paper kind of mood

I got home and was in a Bazzill kraft paper kind of mood. I used chipboard and cut out the flower shapes on the Pazzles since I had a piece that was an odd size. I contemplated using Stickles but opted for the more difficult teeny tiny bling. Crazy huh? Think I spent an hour with just the glue alone. Paper was old K&Company; Prima flowers, Crate Paper rubons. I really hated to cut the paper because I hate fussy cutting... I know what you're thinking. . . It's not even fussy. The backing on the chipboard flowers was scraps of corduroy. I stitched around the background sheet. Plus there's Basic Grey in the center of each flower. Tomorrow is opening day for Riley's softball team. Guess they are only having opening ceremonies but at least I'll get a picture of her in her uniform. Baseball pants don't even come in her size so my mom had to take them in. You'll soon see. . . have a nice weekend!

Weekend layouts

I did a few layouts on Saturday afternoon. The one above I used watercolors to paint the chipboard. Paper is Crate Paper.

This layout is K&Company. I diecut the big heart then pleated paper to go around the heart and stitched it onto the layout. The hearts at the edge of the photo are paper flowers which are cut into hearts using two petals.

And this one. . . I used old Sassafras Lass and Prima. Didn't pay attention to colors of the flowers since there is always a bunch of things going on with their papers. Looks way harder than it was. I was tempted to burn the paper vs. curling but with my luck I would have been homeless today. Yeah heat and I don't mesh.

Let's use up the brad and eyelet stash!

I am taking the Something for Almost Nothing class which started yesterday at Shimelle.com in an attempt to use up that old stash that keeps getting buried underneath all the new stuff. So the prompt yesterday was to use metal in a layout. I think I do best when there's some sort of challenge issued to me (like at work) than to just pull something out of the air. 

For this I stitched on a piece of wide ribbon (should have been longer) but we all know I don't measure anything. Then I used one sheet of Sassafras Bungle Jungle and a scrap of K&Co.  from the Valentine's collection I had laying on my table from making those little mailboxes. Then from there I used brads from BoBunny and eyelets from Oriental Trading and Making Memories. The metal letters are from We R Memory Keepers and the little "chick" is Meri Meri accents.

As for the SEI challenge this month, so far I made a simple bracelet out of twill and an acrylic heart from Prima. The line from SEI is Doodle Girl and I used Zip Dry glue and the iron ons from SEI as well that belong to the same collection.

And now for giant cupcakes. . . my favorite gluten free HoHos with lots of butter! Secret to my taking over the world, is that I feed them one cupcake but it's actually the size of two! Bwhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahaha!

Disney altered book

I did a Disneyland book this afternoon for my mom's friend who lives in SoCal. We met her (and her daughter and grandson) on the last day at the park. I used Sandy Lion and Pinecone Press paper. Chipboard is also Sandy Lion. There's Stickles, Maya Road Ribbon, K & Company glitter chipboard, 7Gypsies knob, The Cat's Pajamas dew drops, Heidi Swapp stamps, Momento inks, and Lil' Davis chipboard. I used star Christmas tree trim I picked up years ago at Big Lots as well.

I didn't want to fill up the book with photos but put a few inside. Because I won't be completing the book, I didn't want to print up or adhere the photos to a mini album (contained inside the drawer) because you never know how much paper would be needed.

One thing I've learned is that I really need to practice making things for boys or not to want to use flowers. I didn't want to use bling or glitter but I couldn't resist the glitter. Michael says boys don't want to look at this type of stuff but Tony has a sister too. They can share.

Something's missing from this layout

I've had this layout done without photos for a few weeks now. I still can't put my finger on what's missing. The pewter heart brad from Creative Imaginations is the "pull" for a hidden journal card. I popped the arrows using K&Company paper. Chipboard hearts are Maya Road; you can probably even see my fingerprints in the red ink on the white hearts. And the hearts that are color on color were punched from a Fiskars punch and distress inks. Please help me figure out if something is really missing.

Valentine's Day teacher gifts

I can't seem to find photos on the mailboxes I had done last year. I've gone back and forth on what to do for this year. I had seven of the metallic pink boxes left from Target last year but how could I even think of using up my stash? So I went out and bought about 45 of the new pink, red and white boxes. Went to quite a few Targets in the area and no one had them until I hit the one in Colma which was like. . . mailbox heaven. So reason I purchased so many is I'm doing a make and take session and needed them. So no, I'm not that insane. Well yeah I probably am but wasn't yesterday when I bought them.

Since Riley only has two of the same teachers this year, I decided to do the same project with different paper of course. I think K&Company(which I'm not a huge fan of but it was cute and it was on sale at Michael's)  is much better than that DCWV paper I used anyhow. Guess my thinking was that I was giving it away so how cared. Well that paper has hit Riley's scrap box. I even think this was way faster making than last year. I need to make at least seven more. Plus next week probably Tuesday or Wednesday we will make candy, cookies and/or cupcakes to go inside. It'd be much easier if she had classes all on one day (I've got this thing for freshly baked items. . . first day or it's just not good anymore. . .told you I was insane).

I also used Oriental Trading brads and some elastic ribbon I bought at the sewing show last year. Good thing I'm so compulsive and bought a huge roll. Close to My Heart flowers too with extra ribbon scraps. Oh by the way, I finally bought a laptop to tether my camera to. Thanks mom. . . she paid for part of it for my birthday! One shot and I was happy and no going back and forth to keep taking pictures.

De-stashing mode

I've really been in a de-stashing mode. I get tired of looking at the same paper. Maybe it's not de-stashing that I need to do but reinvent how I use product. 1) I am horrible at using up scraps. I am a scrap creator; a mess maker. 2) I get bored looking at the same old thing. Seriously (2) comes probably from ordering a lot of stuff wholesale just to get the discount. My bad. So here's my take on using scraps and recreating a new me/using the tools I have at hand.

I used My Mind's Eye, BoBunny, Pink Paisley, Prima and K&Company. No big surprise there.

Saturday morning layout

Riley stayed over with her paw paw last night so I got up and started scrapping. Here's another fabric layout. I cut the bracket shape with the Pazzles (I just love this bracket and I know you see it all the time from me) on My Mind's Eye cardstock and the fabric. Then I layered striped fabric behind the photo as well as Prima packaging. Put on some leaf ribbon I got the other day at the sewing show and made the fabric flower. Used K&Company fabric brads my step sister Susan gave to me. Then added some accent Prima flowers + bling. Oh and can't forget the Prima canvas tag. It was amazingly quick. Oh and I added some Glimmer Mist to the fabric flower to make the flower stand out from the background.

LOAD layouts

Here's three layouts I did to try to get caught up for Layout a Day. . .

So the prompt for this digital layout was to scrapbook an important moment. It's of Riley playing with her two favorite trouble makers. I used a kit from SweetShoppeDesigns.com and components of a kit from ScrapbookGraphics.com.

This next layout was done off of two drawings Riley did about two weeks ago. She drew daddy and I. All I can say is that at least I was smiling! Oh and had hair. The prompt was to use alphabets in the background. DCWV stack and American Crafts white marker. I probably should have used a medium point.

The final layout was to tell a secret. Honestly it's not a secret because if asked I will spill the beans. Dieting is highly over rated. And if you just learn to bake the buttery goodness like I do. . . you'll make everyone else bigger so you'll automatically look smaller. No dieting! K & Company, Making Memories, Pazzles, CTMH and dots from SweetShoppeDesigns (digi).

Layout 5

Here's my layout for Day 5 of LOAD. I used K & Company paper, Prima flowers and a Martha Stewart border punch.

Other layouts

Used papers from SEI, K&Company. . . I don't doodle but I did this week. If there are die cut shapes, I cut them with my Pazzles.