smiles

Hi hi!

Here's yet another "use your stash" layout!  This is old Little Yellow Bicycle stuff, the leftovers of a Kit Club I was in when I first started scrapbooking at the local store Scrapaganza, a few years before they closed.

No cricut, I had stickers that came with this kit club, and I wanted to use up everything I could that was left, so it wouldn't go to waste, especially since it was such cute papers and stickers.

The pictures are of my son, in his first year at different ages. Yes, he has socks on his hands. The poor thing had eczema something fierce, and often had socks on his hands to prevent bloody scratches. Don't worry, he didn't have the socks on 24/7... and he's got very fine motor skills now. :)  And his eczema isn't nearly this bad anymore.

Thanks for stopping by!

What Happens at the Crop...

...Stays at the Crop!!

This is a USE YOUR STASH layout I did with pictures from Scrapaganza's last Favorite Things crop, the summer of 2011. Our theme for the crop was a Las Vegas style theme, including tshirts we had made that said What Happens at the Crop, Stays at the Crop. One of my co-workers, her hubby dressed up as nightclub Elvis, we had lots of fun games and a costume contest.

In August, Cricut Circle members had access to all the digital cricut image sets, and I made as many cuts as I had time to make for pictures I knew I'd want to scrap. At that time, I knew I would be scrapbooking these pictures, so I used the Las Vegas digital image set to cut the dice and the Las Vegas sign.

The diamond background in red was cut using Artiste, and I welded 4 of the diamond backgrounds together to make the background for this layout. I wanted something evocative of playing cards but didn't want to spend the time welding one image at a time... then I found this diamond background on Artiste.

Everything is from my stash, from the scraps I cut everything from, to the ribbon, papers and Charlene's Button Box buttons! :) 

Thanks for stopping by!

Beautiful...

When the store I worked at, Scrapaganza, was open, we had Halloween crops, with costume contests. Since I *adore* wearing costumes, I would show up even if I wasn't working! lol

I took a picture with my coworkers, Alisa and Alicia, and the picture turned out so awesome because we were somewhat color coordinated! I knew I had to do some of my best work for the photo's layout.

I chose to color/pattern coordinate rather than use a halloween theme. Sometimes you just "feel" it, right? :)  This is one of my favorite layouts. :)

Thanks for stopping by,
Michele

October 2011 SSC (the LAST SSC!)

Scrapaganza closed it's doors at the end of November. The October Scrappinista  Scrapbook Club was the last kit I got to design for. I have to say, that after designing for that club, I didn't have the heart to scrapbook for the rest of 2011. All of us staff at Scrapaganza were quite sad to leave.

But our last kit was made of Jillibean joy! I just love Jillibean, and if I had lots of money, I'd buy every one of their collections! The above layout was inspired by one that I saw in Scrapbook Trends. Unfortunately, I can't find it now to say who it was that inspired me. :(  My mother-in-law took my son to Incredible Pizza and did the photo booth there, and gave me a copy of the photo sheet. It had those tiny photos along the end of the sheet of wallet sized ones, and I knew I had to use them somehow!

As a designer, one of my jobs was to show customers how to use the product we sold, and that included "theme stickers". Many people avoid theme stickers when they start to follow scrapping trends, myself included. But when I saw these "Phineas and Ferb" cartoon stickers, I HAD to use them! You see, it's one of my son's (and mine) favorite cartoons, and my son's imagination reminds me of Phineas. So I took the cartoon's theme song and re-wrote it somewhat to fit the photos and used it as journaling with the photos that highlight some of my son's more imaginative summer activities.

My friend Sherry's last visit to crop at the store before returning to her out-of-country home. This is a bittersweet layout, as we'd both been crying just before this photo was taken, and not just because she was leaving. We had both lost a loved one to cancer as well.

This is my "use what is left" layout. :)  Not very exciting but I don't like having lots of leftovers from a kit that I have to store. So I try to use it up!

However, I still had scraps left, and lots of them. So I did this little 4 page mini book with some leftover mini book pages from another project. Sorry I don't have interior pics. It was made to mostly demonstrate that you can use up a kit's scraps. ;)

Thanks for stopping by!

Catching up again! September SSC

I am sooo bummed that Scrapaganza is closing. I had a hard time posting my creations that I made for the store on my blog because of that. Working there kept me so busy creating that I didn't keep up my posts here, then I was too bummed the store was closing that I didn't post. :(  Well, now perhaps I will post more often. We will see! I have to stay creative! I have another job to replace my beloved job at Scrapaganza, but it's not the same.

Here are the pages I created for Scrapaganza's Scrappinista Scrapbook Club kit in September. The papers are all from Kaiser. The first one is Venus Envy, pictures from when my belly dance troupes performed at our local Venus Envy show a few years back. :) I tried out one of those new EK dimensional flower punches... I used it as a border as well as for making one of the flowers. I love that punch!

A picture of my lovely attendants at my wedding! I tried out another new punch, the Anywhere on the Page punch called "Caning".  I like how it looks on this, somewhat exotic. It's not an easy punch to use though, because of the repeating pattern and how intricate it is. But if you are patient and take your time, it looks fantastic!

My friend Penny took this picture of my son at the scrapbook store, and I just love the picture. :)

The 'leftovers' layout... trying to use up my scraps. ;)  My son is only 2 here (he just turned 5!) but he still has a fascination with pianos. I used the Epiphany Crafts punch and epoxies on the little baubles going down the left side.

Thanks for stopping by!

Havin A Blast layout

Fourth of July, 2010!  We spent the day at a friend's house, barbecuing and fireworks.

So this is the last layout I did with the July Scrappinista Scrapbook club kit for Scrapaganza. It was really fun to work with that kit. I loved the colors... I know, they were July 4th colors, but still, I've seen papers I didn't like for this theme! :)

I used my i-Top punches to punch shapes for the "flowers", which also could represent fireworks if you don't like flowers on a boy page. ;)  Anyway, good way to use specialized punches in a new way!

Thanks for taking a peek!

Boot Camp layout

Yep, me again, this time I'm in the Air Force boot camp in 1984.  Yikes!

Another layout using the July Scrappinista Scrapbook Club papers, American Made by My Mind's Eye. I used a sketch from one of Scrapbook Generation's sketch books, which Scrapaganza carries. Love these sketch books! This particular sketch is awesome in that you can get a taste of several different printed papers without using up a lot of them.

I also pulled in some Air Force stickers that Scrapaganza had in stock, and that really filled out the page the way I wanted.

Thanks for stopping by!

1776 1976

Yep, that's me, dressed as a pilgrim for the 1976 July 4th parade. I was in girl scouts and that was our troop walking in the parade.

This is another layout using the MME American Made collection for the July Scrappinista Scrapbook club at Scrapaganza (wow that is a mouthful). Some of the papers in the layout are practically done pages before you even start! I added another layer of paper, then my pictures, and then a few embellishments and it was done.

Thanks for looking!

American Made Boy

Hello all! Long time no see... yeah. I'm naughty. But feeling like blogging so here we go!

This layout, American Made Boy, was created with My Mind's Eye, American Made collection! I love working with MME papers, such great quality cardstock and designs are always awesome. This collection was used for the Scrappinista Scrapbook Club for July at Scrapaganza!

I also used the Daisy Wheel punch from Martha Stewart EK large border punches. I punched the top layer then glued that down to another printed paper and trimmed around the edges, which gives a bunting effect, I thought. Finished the bunting off with a little ribbon.

The star in the background was made using Jenni Bowlin banner stamps on scrap white paper, cutting out the banners and putting them together to make the star. easy peasy. :)

Buttons are from Charlene's Button Box!

Thanks for stopping by!

June Scrappinista Scrapbook Club!

June's Scrappinista Scrapbook Club for Scrapaganza is October Afternoon's 5 & Dime Collection!
What an awesome paper line to work with! I loved it, even though I wasn't sure I wanted another "vintagey" line to work with. This one was awesome!

I wasn't sure I'd like this layout but once I was done, I loved it.

I used Distress stain to wash the title background, using the word "mom" as a mask.

October Afternoon's chalk Sprinklers spray was AWESOME to work with!

Thanks for looking!

Catching up! May Scrappinista Scrapbook Club!

Scrapaganza's May Scrappinista Club kit was BoBunny's Ad Lib collection! What an awesome funky fun line of papers to work with!

The only problem is that I ended up in the hospital on the day I planned to finish using up my kit! Just a bout (first one) of gall stones, so I'm okay. But it was a few days before my vacation to Oklahoma so there just wasn't time for me to do more than these two layouts.

Thanks for stopping by!

Catching up! May Sizzix Die-of-the-month class

I have the good fortune of designing for Scrapaganza's Sizzix Die of the month class! May was my month and we used a die that made these lovely flowers and leaves. The ladies that took the class got to make this layout and the card and gift box below!

Thanks for looking!

Catching up! April Scrappinista Scrapbook Club!

Now for April's Scrappinista Scrapbook Club at Scrapaganza!  This month's adorable papers came from the Neighborhood Collection from Crate Paper! I just loved all of these papers, especially the bees!

The papers really inspired me.

Normally I'm not a big fan of Crate Paper, but I loved the color scheme of this line!

I use paper behind both this layout and the "you are my sunshine" layout above. This one I used a piercer to poke the holes for the butterfly's flight path, and I adhered paper behind those holes to show through. 

Thank you for stopping by!

Catching up! March Scrappinista Scrapbook Club

Hello!  March's Scrappinista Scrapbook Club kit at Scrapaganza was Cosmo Cricket's Circa 1934 collection! This line of papers and embellishments were sooo lovely to work with! But then my favorite colors have always been black, red and white... but an added surprise of yellow took this kit to a whole new level.

The collection lent itself well to cutting up the papers, something I always loved doing!

This page was inspired by Amy Heller on Two Peas.

A little card I did with the scraps.

Thanks for looking!

Catching up! Steamy...

Hello! Long time no see, right?  I didn't fall off the earth, just got really busy! And then I tried an experiment with my kid... no screens for a week. That meant we turned off the TV and computer and found other things to do. It was great for my kid but had the unexpected effect of breaking ME from the computer, and I wasn't interested so much in spending hours online anymore! lol

But I didn't forget my blogs, so I'm trying to catch up now. :)

The layout above was made with BoBunny's Timepiece collection, Prima ribbon and letters and Tim Holtz metals, all purchased at Scrapaganza! This is my friend Sue, in one of her many Steampunk costumes, she was the Fan Guest of Honor at the ICON science fiction convention in Iowa in 2010. :)

Thanks for looking!

Sizzix March class - card

I thought I'd share one of the 3 projects I've created for the March Sizzix Die class at Scrapaganza!
Just a simple card using the circles die to cut pattern tissue for a flower. I found that using punches to cut the pattern tissue seemed to dull the punch rather quickly... not sure why! It just gets harder and harder to punch the tissue. However the sizzix die cuts through like buttah! ;)

Thanks for looking!

Sizzix March class - Party layout!

March is my turn to teach the Sizzix Die class at Scrapaganza!  Since many of our customers are newly Sizzix owners, I thought they might want to add a basics shape die to their stash, so I chose a circles die that has 3 different size circles. Rather than cutting paper with them, since most of us have circle punches that cut paper just fine, we are going to use the die to cut other materials for our Sizzix class projects. This layout is one of the projects the class attendees will make!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supply Organizer!

Have you ever gone to the store and bought some wonderful scrappy goodness only to get home and find out you already had it?
Well after doing that several times, I decided something had to be done! I'd actually had something in mind for an organzier for a long time. Then Scrapaganza, where I work got in a dozen of the Maya Road chipboard notebooks in just the right size for this project, so I created one and taught it as a class!

The paper I used is Pink Paislee Parisian Anthology, so that people could ink it up in the color scheme that best suited their style. We also used Maya Road rose ribbon, pins, Tim Holtz charms and Distress Inks, and I used my cricut gypsy and From My Kitchen cartridge to create sized to fit tabs for the book. We then put some paper between each tab so we could write down our stash.

This little book should fit nicely in my purse when I finally get it back from the store! lol

Feb Scrappinista #5 - Use the scraps!

I am a HUGE fan of using up the scraps. When I get finished making layouts for the Scrappinista Scrapbook Club kit, I always try to find a little time to use up some of the leftovers somehow.
This kit had some fabulous stickers on the sticker sheet. It was very easy to use them on a few cards!

Here I used some of my leftover border rub-ons and ribbon. I just rubbed the rub-on right onto the ribbon, it transfers like a dream!

Instead of adding scraps to your stash, USE THEM UP!

Thanks for stopping by!

Feb Scrappinista #4 - Love

Not a whiff of pink anywhere! :)
This is still the same Scrappinista Scrapbook Club kit from Scrapaganza we got in February. I just didn't use any of the pink stuff. The white paper is actually a chunk that I cut out of the pink frame I used in my 1 year layout. I used my new Bubbles punch-around-the-page punch on it, then wove some black organza ribbon through the holes. Scraps left from the other pages were layered and then I added some stuff from my stash. There are 4 stickers from the kit that I covered with Glossy Accents and allowed to dry, which gives the stickers a whole new look. I really liked this page!

Thanks for stopping by!