Getting Organized (or so it seems)

Honestly, I was a bit hesitant to show this top picture because it looks kinda messy to me. BUT...compared to what it looked like before I bought these plastic drawers, this is much better! Ha! These drawers were such a good investment! I'm still working on improving these storage areas, but I'm ok with what I have for now. I have lots and lots of scrap paper. Because of doing stamping parties, I have a lot of leftover pre-cut paper. The top 2 sets of drawers are my filing system for different colored scraps that I have. This was a time-saver because now when I want a certain color, I open the white, black, blue, green, red, purple, or orange drawer to find the colors I want. No more digging through boxes to find that perfect color!

These paper holders are great for storing paper and my Creating Keepsakes magazines. I also use the accordian files, but these paper holders are my favorite!

Cards

This is one of the cards we made at my stamping party over the weekend. Both stamp sets (Fishy Friends and Simply Circles) are retiring this year from the catalog. Fishy Friends is one of my favorite sets. Glitter is my best friend; this fish is completely covered in glitter. Ha!

This is another card we made at my stamping party, but this is without the linen thread I had included with another card. The Pines set is also retiring. It's a popular stamp set here in Alaska. The technique I used for this one is called Polished Stone. Directions: 1. Put rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball. 2. Add 2 drops of 2-3 different color re-inkers onto the alcohol that's on the cotton ball. 3. Dab cotton ball on glossy white paper until you get the look you want and let dry. *You can also use a metallic re-inker such as the StazOn colors from Stampin' Up! for a real neat look.

This looks like I got out the handy-dandy sewing machine, but I didn't. *gasp* Ha! This is an example using faux sewing. I poked holes and drew lines along the holes with a white gel pen to make it look like white thread. You can do this with all sorts of colors.

3-D Embellishments

Another way to embellish your pages is with these little accessories. Right now I cannot remember what they are called. Ha! I don't use these a lot, but they sure do come in handy when I'm needing filler for pages.


My sister Amanda helped me pick out the checkers and the cards. I will be using those for my 2006 Christmas scrapbook pages.

This Candyland set brings back some great memories! It's so cute! I also found some paper that had Candyland designs on it.

Chipboard

Chipboard is a "hot" item right now with scrapbooking. I purchased these items from Memory Works. Stampin' Up! also sells chipboard and the new catalog will have more chipboard to choose from. It's fun to embellish pages with chipboard. It's super easy to use because all you have to do is punch out the shapes with your fingers.

Here's a page where I used heart-shaped chipboard. You can stamp, paint, doodle, write, etc. on chipboard.

Multiple Pictures

Putting a lot of pictures on one page can be tricky, but there are so many ways to make it work. After awhile your eye becomes trained to how the pictures will work together. There are ways to put the pictures together so the color flows. There are a lot of different colors in these photos, but they fit together nicely on this page. And then I stamped to bring the colors together some more.

Sometimes you have pictures that go together, but you don't really know how to put them together. For this page I cut four squares of 6x6 paper and pretended like I was making a mini-album. And the colors flow together nicely on this page, too.

Worms! I bought the Stampin' Up! Bugs & Kisses set just for this page. This is another page with multiple pictures.

Water Fun

This was one creative idea I came up with. I made a lifejacket, stuck some pictures inside of it and closed it up. Fun!

Black & White

Black & white pictures are probably my favorite pictures to scrapbook. Often I will take a "dull" picture and change it to black & white and the whole mood of the picture changes.

These are pictures of my three younger siblings. These are some of my favorite pages!

Katie: I took some scraps of paper and put them to good use on this page. I keep almost all of my scraps if they are big enough. Buttons are really fun to use too. Now you can put all of those buttons you've been collecting over the years to good use! Or you can be like me and buy 4 packets of buttons that will last you years. Ha! Also, at the very bottom of this page you can see where I sewed "Katie."

Jacob: This was the very first time I used my sewing machine on paper. I think I've used my sewing machine for scrapbooking more than I've used it on fabric. In the blue square I stamped little words that would describe Jacob. I really like word stamps!

Amanda: This page was so much fun to create! The idea was inspired by something I saw in a Creating Keepsakes magazine. I stamped on all of the flower petals, except for the bold-colored petals. And then I journaled on the stems.

Random Pages

These are pages from 2005.


Here is a beautiful picture of Matthew & Jessica on their wedding day. I love this picture! I did a lot of stamping on this page. It's fun to stamp, color, and cut out the images and put them across a picture like I did with the flowers.

Kraft paper (the light brown) is fun to scrapbook with. I did the journaling by hand. Sometimes I type and print out the journaling. I think it looks nice either way (that is, if you like your hand writing).

This is one of my favorite techniques to do with fishing pictures. I have a card I like to make that's very similar to this. Paper tearing is a necessity for making waves.

My Playground

I am very blessed to have an area of our house just for stamping! This is "the loft." This is where I hide from the world and stamp my heart away. These pictures show what it looks like when it's in use. I always laugh when I see the Embrace Your Space articles in Creating Keepsakes magazines because the rooms are always super clean looking. I think, "Yeah right!" So this is a TRUE Embrace Your Space...Christina style! One day I'll take pictures of what it looks like when I'm not actually using it. When will that be? ???


Shelves are wonderful!

Hmmm...

Sometimes these stamps fall through and land on our steps. The cats are always real curious when this happens.

Cards

Golly, it's been a long, long, long time since I have actually bought a card. I used to be a Hallmark freak! I LOVE sending cards and now I enjoy sending cards that have my own, personal touch. When I sit down to make a card for a friend or family member, I have them on my mind the whole time I'm making it. It's so fun! (And if you are one of those friends or family members that receives one of these cards, I was thinking of YOU!)

Quent told me this one looks professional! Haha!

Love, Fish & Orange Flowers

Recently, I bought some big ole Prima flowers from a lady who sells scrapbooking supplies here in town. I LOVE these flowers! They come in this large round container that sorta looks like a paint can. The flowers come in 2 different sizes and in several colors. From my memory, the colors are brown, white-cream color, mustard yellow, brick red, dark turquoise, and...I think that's it. This is one way to really embellish your page. A lot of the times I think the page looks bare in places, so I stick flowers here and there and it really pulls everything together.

This is one idea I was inspired by. My eyes tell me there's something missing on this page and it's in the top left corner. Maybe a word stamped in black. This was a fun way to use my Stampin' Up! Fishy Friends stamps...and more circles!

With any art form, we experiment. I consider scrapbooking an art. (See, some of you who have had no luck in drawing a stick figure ARE, in fact, artists). Ha! (I cannot draw a stick figure real well either!) This was one of those pages where I kinda goofed. My intention was to stamp only the dark, solid flowers, but I accidently stamped a light flower. But I liked what it did so I just went crazy. Haha! So when you make mistakes, look to see what are the creative possibilities. And if there aren't, start fresh! There are so many pages I have thrown away (after first doing what I can to save of the picture(s) and paper). And you know what, that's ok!

First Attempt

Here are my first attempts at taking pictures of some of my 12 x 12 scrapbook pages, uploading them into our computer, cropping them, and finally publishing them on this blog. You'll notice some imperfections, but I'm not going for "perfect" here. Haha! You can get the basic idea of what these layouts look like. And yes, if you would like to borrow some ideas...feel free. I am often inspired by someone else's creations, so I want to inspire you too. That's why I've created this blog. Enjoy!!


A bit of a fuzzy picture (the pics are clear on the actual page). This paper is super cool. The only stamping I did with this page was little words around the pictures.

I love scrapbooking my kitties! This was some fun paper to use! I'm really into circles right now, too.



Simple, but fun! The pictures really make this page.

Circles, circles, circles!