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.)

Happy New Year!

We spent our New Years at Disneyland. Does that surprise you? I am not usually one for paper piecing but thought it was good cute idea for our Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger photos. The products are from The Sampler's December kit. The beaded snowflakes are from Meri Meri, which is a greeting card manufacturer who has warehouse sales twice a year. You wouldn't believe it but I got a huge bag of them for $0.25. A quarter doesn't buy a person much these days and I sure wish I would have bought all of the bags vs. most of them (haha...didn't know they were a quarter. Thought they were a quarter each snowflake). Ok back to the layout. I used my Pazzles to cut out the snowy branch.

It's been a while

I know I've really been MIA. I have had moments where I've made a few mini albums but have yet to select photos. Do you ever make minis or layouts and not have the perfect photo? Gees I do that a lot. I think scrapbooking is really about keeping myself busy and my mind off of the rest of the world. A huge reason I love scrapbooking is that it allows me to get creative but not be what people typically think of being creative. . . like drawing or painting.

You probably know that I don't really like to take photos with any type of artificial light or flashes. So that's another reason I've been MIA. Just because I haven't been around during the daylight hours. Well since my mom was complaining that I haven't posted recently and (2) I am around today. . . here's a mini (8x8) that I made while watching Diary of a Whimpy Kid.

I know where I got the album. . . Pink Paislee's warehouse sale box kit. The papers are Pink Paislee but they were packaged differently. Maybe it came from there. . . could have been the sale from the year before too. But had this album that isn't really my style. Well the papers aren't either but they matched because of the orange. The problem was I only had 5 sheets of paper from the line. So I chopped them up to create a cohesive mini. I don't generally make any of the pages alike. In this case I had to. The chipboard as well were Pink Paislee. I was going to leave sort of bare. . .simple. Yeah we know that I couldn't resist. I actually added some Crate Paper ribbon, Jenni Bowlin blinged out butterflies, Prima e-line pearls, and Kaiser Craft rubons and tags, flowers and buttons. Well enjoy! Hopefully tomorrow I can put some photos into a bright Bella Blvd album I made. It's kind of difficult to do because we've had such crappy weather this year. . . even for California. I guess that's why I had no issues with the colors in this album. . .because it already feels like we're deep into Fall and teetering into Winter.

Spring mini album

Here is a tag album I created for the XOXO design team challenge for the month of June. The album is a bit larger than 4x6. Each tag was designed and cut on the Pazzles. I used alcohol inks to color some of the bling butterflies. Traced over the Crate Paper rubons to make them black (vs brown). You know the drill. . .Prima flowers, My Mind's Eye paper.

Dollar Tree visit

Riley stayed over night at my mom's house last night. I called this morning thinking she would want to stay all day but she wanted to come home. There went my day to craft all by myself. On the way home we stopped off at Dollar Tree to pick up another box of crayons. Anyways, $58 later. . . yeah I bought quite a few bunches of tropical flowers and these wood plagues. There seems to be a huge Hawaiian theme going on at the store and I had a big light bulb going off since Riley takes hula and Tahitian classes. So here's the first of the wall hangings. They have them painted and unpainted. I plan on using water colors, Glimmer Mist and acrylic paints on the unpainted ones.Outside of the Creative Imaginations paper pack and rubons I already owned, this cost me less than $2 to make.

I generally would use a canvas backing but wanted this to be light. Last month we got another tv and the best part of getting a new tv is the box. Michael cuts them into 12" squares for me. So I punched through it with the Cropodile. The Cropodile also punched very nicely through the wood. I was hesitant whether the paint or the wood would crack but it didn't. Oh and the hula girl. . . she was cheap too at a sale we went to in December  Meri Meri. It was like $0.25 for three. And if you know me well, you'd know that I sprayed the flowers with Glimmer Mist. The Hukilau letters are Crate Paper chipboard. 

You have to keep in mind that these flowers have the base stem things. I cut them or in some cases take them out completely. Here I wanted the stamen. So I cut them and placed Ultimate glue between each layer so the flowers wouldn't come apart over time. I was tempted to use the glue gun but again we have a love/hate relationship where it's more hate and I think it's good for nothing.

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!

House of 3 book

I really didn't think much of this House of 3 book I made in the Heidi Swapp class on Saturday with what we were given. I came home and I really had to add a lot to the book to liven it up since it's a hybrid mini. Luckily I had a ton of puffy and epoxy stickers from Creative Imaginations that went along with the spring color scheme. I also had a ton of SEI chipboard, puffy stickers, and rubons that I got from Scrapdaddy at the latest show. So I really stash busted. There's even an entire sheet of Crate Paper rubons.

I think I'm good with the book now that it weighs a pound. . .

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.