Sometimes...Change is Good!

     I usually don't do layouts or pages of myself- so this was really stepping out of the box- as so was this hair cut/style/color-everything. I always have cut my own hair- well trimmed it- or had a friend cut it once a year- so I basically have had the same hair style since the 80's..I know that's bad-but was afraid of change.
    So, my daughter came over for the weekend to visit me and she decided- I needed a New ME, (I was also going thru a divorce at this time)-so she called my cousin who is a hairdresser at a saloon and scheduled an appointment (at my cousin house for that day). I didn't have time to even think about it...which was probably a good thing or I wouldn't have done it.

Too make a long story short- which is what style they had decided for me from long to short...so a cut and then low lights & high lights then a trim and 3 hours later it was done. It was different that's for sure- but I liked it. And my daughter took a few pictures during the process- so I decided to scrap a page for ME. I still need to journal on the page. I used all scraps(some very old paper) and made my own punched flower embellies and a Cricut cartridge for the title and scissors and added a silver brad.

This was done two years ago- and now I have my cousin trim and do my highlights every 3-4 months- she won't let me go any longer than that. So I learned, sometimes Change is Good!

Lake Tahoe - a leisure drive

     I'm finally getting to posts these pages I did of my second visit to Lake Tahoe a few years ago, while I went out to Reno for the Women's National Bowling Tournament in the month of May. Lots of big pictures and some memorabilia that was included on these layouts, which didn't leave much room for embellishments or patterned paper.

 I like this first layout that I used part of the map of Lake Tahoe to show the route we took around the lake and a post card and a few ferry tickets that we also went on during our 3 day visit-which is where these photos were taken while on the Ferry. I used a white marker and wrote a description of what the pictures were taken of underneath them.

 More beautiful scenery pictures while we were driving around in our rental car. I believe I used Graphically speaking for the Cricut cutouts  used in this layout- and 8   4 x 6 pictures again, and in the layout below -all of Lake Tahoe- with the simple title  A leisure drive around Lake Tahoe...I really like the paper I found in my scrap bin for this one-perfect -it looks like mountains- but really diamonds.

I have been blessed with....

                                                 I have been blessed with Four of the Best...

      I love this project that I put up in my living room the other day. I already had the four frames of collages done- (which I did about 10 years ago-way before I started to scrapbook) I went thru all the pictures of each of my 4 children and cut them up and did individual  frames( 11 x 14) for  Linda- Cheryl-Brian & Eric. All the pictures were from the time they were born until they were in 8th grade, so about 13 years worth- wish I had some of these to scrapbook now tho- but this will be a special keepsake for each of them in the years to come, when I decide to give it to them...which  might not be for awhile now-  lol. I had taken these frames down about 2 years ago when I was going thru my divorce and thought we were selling the house...but we didn't and I know own the home and thought lets put a few things back up on the walls and found these in the storage room.

I haven't used my Cricut Expression to much to cut vinyl- so this was a fun project to work on. I'm not sure which lettering cartridge I used, but I think it was Lyrical letters- I tend to use this cartridge the most. I also cut out a few hearts in the black vinyl and now I love to go into my living room and just look at all the great memories - and how grown up there are (now 22- 28 yrs. old) The hardest part was hanging all the frames even. Sorry for the glare on the one frame, and I didn't use transfer paper either, so this was a little tricky-but I think I put the letters up pretty straight.

Party Time and more twine

It's Party time in the U.P. and more twine on this layout which, I did for my son Brian's scrapbook. I like to tear paper-as I did again on this page and then punched holes with my Big Bite and added the twine in the three areas- added a few embellies and the puffy alpha's and this page was done. I will be entering this layout also at The Studio Challenges this week for using -Twine

Amazing Acts and colorful

The Studio Challenge this week is to use twine in a creative way...I had to get creative with these colorful and amazing pictures that were taken on a cruise ship. I torn the blue graph paper to resemble the props on this stage and then took twine and strung it along the two pages and added several different colors of ribbon to pull out the colorful costumes of the performers, while they were doing many Amazing Acts- which was a Cricut cut -covered in glitter & added a few rhinestones and hand painted the white on the pictures as mats/borders

Banner for Bear -made with Love

                    Made with Love for my little BEAR- Barrett James born June 23rd, 2013

 Finished and hung in his new nursery this weekend - how adorable is this- and he just turned 1 week old when we put it up- now I did that quick!
First I decided in the papers for the Letters-which took me the longest time- why ? because I have so much paper I wanted to make sure I found the right colors and patterns for this project I had visioned in my head

Then I decided on the size of banners I wanted and cut the chipboard out

I was originally gonna put burlap on the chipboard and then the letters- but I didn't like how it was looking- it was all blending together and didn't care for it- so plans changed and I decided on the plain pearlized cardstock as the background- so I glued that onto the chipboard.

As you can see in the above pic- the letters didn't stand out against the burlap. I used pop dots and inked all the edges in several different colors of ink browns and greens and then doodled or drew faux stitching on all the letters and then found the cutest embossed Bear paper- did some fussy cutting and placed several bears around the letters- oh so cute- I amaze myself with some of my ideas...lol I then added a hand drawn border in brown ink/marker around the edges of the banner found some brown with green polka dot ribbon to tie on - and hung this adorable name banner in BEAR's nursery.....handmade with much love for my first grandchild!

I'm a Grandma- how wonderful it is!!!

 The arrival of my first Grandchild Barrett James on June 23rd at 12:01 pm- 6lbs 15 0zs 19 3/4 in long- how exciting this is...... Here is me holding him for the first time and he is only a few hours old... and he is already opening his eyes and grabbing my Heart!

 

This is our 4 generation picture taken just the other day when he was exactly 1 week old..

Baby Bear, my daughter (new mommy) and my Mom (great grandma) and Me(new grandma) holding the bundle of Joy.

Brag Books for the grandmas

A week before the baby shower I had for my daughter on June 22nd, I decided to make all the great grandma's (4) brag books...not just plain brag books. I went to Big lots and found these photo books for $2.00 and thought -these would be great as the base of my project and save me a little time from making the binder for these 4 books. Then I went to Joann Fabrics which was having the best sale 60-70% off. I found this great paper stack of 48 papers for reg-19.99 for $7.00(what a deal).  Went home and this is what I did with only spending $15.00 for all 4 of them.

I made all of them the same-I work on them like an assembly line-which saved a lot of time- which I didn't have a lot of -since I waited till the last minute to do these- but I finshed them all in 12 hours or two nights of working on them. Lots of inking and cutting of mats.

Each book had 12 pages-so that's 24 sides all together to put all kinds of pictures in . On the inside cover I have an area where they could write down all the grandkids and great grand kids names and birthdates- which in the pic above its the middle top page.

 Here is a view of the different pages which I also wrote in pencil the size of the mat cuts for them to add all there pictures

I was really happy how these turned out and I'm sure the great grandma's will truly appreciate them- in fact I'm jealous- I wish I had made one for ME...figures now I don't have a brag book and this is my first grandchild...Hmmm I think I know what my next project should be!

OH BABY..shower items and decor

I've been very, very  busy getting ready for the baby shower I threw for my daughter a week ago on June 22nd at my home and here are just some of the  wonderful items and decorations I have been working on for over a month.

 Above is one of the gifts I got for the parents-to-be and used it as part of the shower décor to put all the goodie bags in for all of the 45 guests attending. Simple white lunch bags with a embossed green or yellow cardstock and a onesis cut from my cricut and stamp in black ink "welcome little one" and then made a thank-you tag which we tied on with ribbon.

 This table in one of my craft rooms was filled with all the items for decorations....I made a few diaper cakes also- my first attempt-and I like how they turned out. I made a few banners to hang outside with large storks that I drew.

 Another picture of the banners and another diaper cake with I used a few cricut cuts of baby items to put on the diaper cake.

 The morning of shower getting the place decorated. I bought bibs and onesis and hand painted on each of them and hung them on the mantel and in the kitchen area. The gift bags were for the winners of the few games we played. On these I cut out a large umbrella and rain drops and found some soft green papers and put on the front of each back with the saying "From our Shower to Yours" which I did with my cricut machine and put the marker in place of the blade and let it do all the writing for me- first time I tried that also- works great!

 A few more hand painted onesis in kitchen area.

 Diaper cake in kitchen with some handmade streamers hanging from the light- yellow cardstock-some stamps and scalloped punch and these were very simple to make. Below is a close up of the shower bags and the wrapped brag books I made all 4 great grandma's, which I will be posting in the next post.

Well- the shower went great last week and to all of our surprise - my daughter went into labor while opening all the gifts at the shower- so she left in a hurry to drive 2 hours to her home town and doctor and by the next morning  they had a baby boy!!!! So this was quite a weekend for all of us. But, I'm so happy to be a grandma- to our little new arrival Barrett James- but we are calling him Bear!

Some colorful 2 page layouts I have worked on for a friend and finished up her scrapbook album for her- Cruise from Barcelona to Italy. Both of these layouts had lots of pictures to be included and so I thought I would use color to make everything really pop.

 I used my Gypsy to cut the titles out and I used some special  silver shiny glitter  paper for the top layout and some stars, with some black and white polka dot ribbon-plus matted all the pictures with white cardstock. WOW-- 15 pictures on this 2-pager

 Now this bottom layout I used some bright colors of purple & blue and torn the paper and laid it to resemble the pictures of the show that they were attending. So with that, I also added a bunch of colorful ribbons that I tied on to string across the two pages. I didn't matt the pictures, instead I hand painted with white acrylic edges on all photos- I really like how the Amazing Acts 2-page turnout.

Yummy Yummy

Mmm Good.....and Yummy, Yummy
    I wasn't to sure at first how to scrap some pictures of desserts from Italy- but I played around a bit and came up with this colorful and attractive layout- after all-for my friends trip to Italy. I used my Gypsy to weld my titles and make the ice cream cone. Simple colorful alpha pink paper in my scraps and some lavender graph paper (not to distracting against colorful pictures. And of course covered the words yummy in purple stickles and did some colring on the cone and matted the one picture with white cardstock. .It looks Good!

ScrapCabana Retreat - Here I come!

      It's that time again to pack it up and go on a weekend scrapbooking retreat- with my friends!!!! I am getting so good at organizing and packing for these weekends -I have 83 pages laid out to work on this time, which will be amazing if I get them all done- my record to beat is 62- so I will be very busy this next three days. I purchased my ( Crafty Gizmo's) Thirty-one bag the end of January- so I'm excited about using it to carry all my Cricut Expression & Gypsy and all supplies in it for the 1st time. I also went to a garage sale this morning and found these 2 collapsible storage racks for $1.00 each- great find and will be put to good use at my table- saving me more space to work on layouts.
     My 2 rolling carts with 6  12 x 12 containers (=12) are filled with all the embellishments and supplies needed to work on these 83 layouts, my black tote is filled with all the bigger tools like Cuttlebug, big bite, trimmers, punches and tools, and the other container is all my Cuttlebug folders-plus my handy cart which is a life saver to haul all this stuff into the retreat- only ONE trip in which makes it nice. Well- I'm off to have some fun with the girls at the Scrap Cabana Retreat in Aurora, Il this weekend- Michelle puts on a great time at a very reasonable price too- I linked it for more info of these retreats available for 10 months out of the year.. This is my 5th time going to this retreat and I love it!!!!

Challenge Me Happy #47- Name

Oh this is such a wonderful layout I did for my cousin the other day- and just in time for the Challenge of using a name for Challenge Me Happy. It took me long enough to finally do this for her- so she can display it in the baby's (Joshua) room.

I used several Cricut cartridge cuts all with white cardstock(doubled and used pop dots to give a 3-D look) and added a few other embellishments like the safety pins and chipboard sayings. I cut the letters out from a letter (alpha) book and used some blue designers papers in blue gingham and a polka dot, added some baby boy ribbon and was done. 

Happy Birthday MOM

   Just a little card I will be sending my Mom for her Birthday this weekend...she and I both love butterflies, so this is just right for her and it was fun for me to make. I don't make a lot of cards these days so ,this was was truly made with Love.

 I arleady had the colorful Mom paper in pink and green so that's the color themeI used for the other papers. The cute polka dot backing for banner and hand wrote M O M on the flags in black fine marker. Added the cute bows, punched butterflies and then of course, white/clear Stickles. Inked all the edges in a Moss Green.

Added a few butterflies to the inside and my sentiment and it was done....simple and so cute!

Bowling in Reno for Nationals

Well its that time of year again!!! When I go to Nationals for the USBC Women's Bowling Tournament and its in Reno, Nevada- again this year. So, for the past 10 years its a tradition for me to make these small cards for all my bowling ladies that go, which is usually about 80 of us...but this year its only 40- so it didn't take me as long to make this year which is good...I have been so busy with other projects.

The card is about 4 1/2 by 2 3/4 inches and on the inside I have hand written some info that the girls can fill out as they bowl there nine games and then the bottom inside half is where we can put out wallet size team picture- to keep from year to year. The girls just love it and kinda expect me to keep making them, so that's what I did on Mother's Day this year- last minute. Because we leave today to go to Reno and bowl. I can't wait we have such a good time every year.
 I don't remember which cartridge I used for the lettering, but I like it and of course I used 50 states for the Nevada cut, just stamped the bowling pins and then did some doodling and added the year.

Diaper Cakes I made for the first time

Just a few more projects I have been working on for the baby shower I'm hosting for my daughter in June...getting so excited about this new arrival of my first grandchild!!! So one of the decorative items I wanted to have on display was a diaper cake...which are so cute but I have needed tried to make one before so being my first grandbaby I had to give it a try.

 The first one I made I tried to have it look like a toy box which I'm filling up with baby toy items like books and stuff animals, rattles, pacifiers and all those little goodies. I also sewed a receiving blanket and matching burp bibs which is in this basket also lined with many newborn diapers.

 Then I got more creative and made a diaper stroller and but a burp bib as the blanket for the cute lion rattle. I really like how this turned out- especially for my first time at making these- so much fun. I will be posting all kinds of baby shower projects in the next few weeks before the shower- I have a long list of projects to do.

A Graduation card for a Deacon

It's that time of year for graduation's..so I made a card for a friend of mine who's nephew is graduating and becoming a Deacon. And this is what I came up with for her and also will be applying this over at FCCB #160 this week- with the theme of graduations and also TPE199 for a Masculine card

I used the Wild Card cartridge and Heritage for the 4 cuts that I have on this card. I layered several papers and inked all the edges. I found this saying online and thought it was just right for this card.

 

Link up your craft room

I found this blog from Lori A-just this morning and loved it. Craft in Desert Diva's and they have a challenge every other Monday...and today was link up your craft space...which is my favorite place to be. So I am posting the one picture

http://debbiebakk.blogspot.com/p/my-scrapbook-room-updated-9710.html

  with a link to many more of my favorite space... This is just the entrance to one of the rooms- my main area and where most of my supplies are. Since 2008, when I started this little hobby- it has now taken up a little more space for all my supplies- three rooms in my lower level of my home. I am consistently reorganizing my areas...but, this pic is the most recent one that I have taken. I will have to update it again soon. For more pictures you can click on caption or go to my right side bar under pages...my updated scrapbook room to see more and get some great storage ideas.  Happy Scrapping!

Time to make the donuts

Time to make the donuts...this was taken of my son years ago one morning when he was getting ready to go to work...and, Yes he worked at Dunkin Donuts for the summer. As a kid he would always tell people he wanted to be the donut maker- and look at him know. Too funny!  I will be applying this layout over at Lasting Memories to scrap only one photo on a layout...this is pretty simple. I used many Cricut cartridges to do this layout and decorated all the donuts -chalked and added glitter to them. Also used a recipe card to journal on about this event. I'm sure my son will have great memories when he comes across this page in his scrapbook in years to come.

Travel Log 2-page layout

Alot going on in this 2-page layout. Photos, postcards, itinerary-lots of handmade embellishments and journal spots. wow-can't believe I got this all on here- and it still looks good. I just used a plain graph like paper for background -since so much was already going on here and just arranged all the photos and cards to fit.

 I made from cricut cuts all the embellies life saver, ships wheel, lounge chair, luggage and large anchor. Cut out portions of their scheduled cruise and positioned them so they could read them added a few precut words and saying to the page and I was finished - this will probably be the first page in this album of hers