Bay Cruise & Pier 39

Well crap. I just realized I rearranged my Photobucket (its organized now!) and broke all my links for all my posts except for the last one. Crap. 

Well maybe one of these days I'll go back and fix them... (ha!)

Anyway. A couple weeks ago I did the first page of this double-pager, and today I finished the second. When we went to San Francisco, we took an hour long Bay Cruise around Alcatraz and under the bridge. 

The first page was for a challenge and I had to use certain things. I don't remember each thing, but the part that created a challenge for me was that I had to use 3 patterns. I have a hard time mixing patterns!! But I think I did really well here, and really like the patterns I chose! I knew they had to be pretty neutral, hence the grays and browns, then I chose the pink to add some color. 

For the second page I followed a random sketch I had saved. Sketches help me scrap faster. So does having the paper already chosen. lol.. Choosing paper is usually the hardest part! 

While typing up the above I realized that I had a few more that I hadn't shared that I actually did before those. 

This first one is extra scenic pictures from the Bay Cruise (I kinda needed to fill a page! lol). So its just pictures of Alcatraz and the Bridge. I chose the papers to go with the next page... 

Pier 39! Same day as the cruise (which left from here) and a lot of fun. We got Zoey an Alcatraz shirt- haha! This page was for a challenge. It was a sketch challenge with bright colors, basically. I like how it came out!

And that's all for now. I'm learning how to accomplish things with the baby now, but I'm finding that I have to pick and choose what to accomplish. Usually housework and things come first, but every now and then I need to forget about all that and get scrappy- for me! 

Hopefully I have something to post again soon! :)

Back At It!

Here's Mr. Wonderful, in case you haven't seen him... 

He's about 3 1/2 weeks old and I've finally gotten in a groove with him and am able to find some scrappy time! He sleeps in his bouncer in my crafty room while I cut, glue and tape away!

Okay, so it's not MUCH that I've gotten done, but its SOMETHING. 

So, still working on our Cali vacation. 

Don't ask me what my thought process was here.... it was a few days ago and I've changed so many diapers since then. Ha!

But its about walking allll the way from Ghiradelli Square to Pier 39, and about how CUTE my husband his with that dog in his hoodie. Nothing about my pirate friend. He's just kinda there... hangin' out.. 

I really shoulda made the yellow strip in the second page an arrow too, but I was being quick. 

I am happy with my framey thing, although I need a cart with a thinner frame. That frame is from the Cindy Loo Cricut Cart, which has a whoooole bunch of frames, but they're all pretty fat! I also feel like I should have had something behind that framed pic. Black strips? IDK.. 

This page was based on a Page Maps sketch. I don't usually do Page Maps because the pictures generally don't take up much of the page, and I usually have so many pictures. But this was a page I only had one picture for, and Page Maps sketches are really nice, so I did it! Plus, on my scrapbooking board we had a challenge to do something we don't normally do. I don't normally do Page Maps, one picture layouts, or big patterns. I think it came out nicely.. I'm happy with it!

This is the sketch it was based off of:

And that's it from this scrappy girl for now! I hope to have more very soon!!

2nd Trimester and the Start of Our Vacation

So I did these pages a couple weeks ago and am just getting around to posting them...

This one obviously goes with the Its A Boy page I posted last time. 2nd Trimester belly progression! 

Its been a little while so I don't remember my inspiration or anything... I know it was for one of the challenges on my scrappy site but I can't remember what thechallenge was now. LOL Oh well..

This next one is the beginning of our vacation to San Francisco! Also page one of a new album so it won't have a "sister page" so to speak. This one was based off of a sketch. The flowers were ones I'd made forever ago and I chose my color scheme based on them. It was a pretty quick page but I like the way it came out. Lacking a title though.. whoops!

And that'll be it for a while! I'm on bed rest now and won't be able to scrap till sometime after the baby comes. I've already been missing my scrappy time! Hopefully I can fit it into new mommy life! :)

Christmas & Baby News

I've got some pages to share!

Sunday after work and after dinner I decided to get some more scrappy time in! 

And next in my pile was my pregnancy announcement!!

I had no idea what I wanted to do with this page. I wanted to do something a little special, a little different. 

So somehow I decided on a circle of buttons! 

The "First Trimester" page goes with it, of course.

I started with the background paper and the brown... and of course the buttons! Ohhh the buttons. That was a lot of hot glue. And I learned how much it hurts when you try to hot glue a button to your thumb nail. 

Ouch!!

The blue I used for journaling and photo borders was chosen because it matched some of the buttons, and think ink that I used around the brown paper. I wish I had thought to use it on the first page though, to border the pictures rather than just doing the little photo corners (which I added after it was all glued down). I should have got both pages laid out before I started to glue. 

Oh well. I do feel like the first page needs a little more something.. but don't know what. And overall I like the pages. And I like that I used a ton of buttons. 

Painful as it was, it was kinda fun!

Then yesterday afternoon I was feeling physically drained and needed some relax time, so I spent the rest of the day scrapping!
Christmas 2012

Nooooot my favorite page. I tried to do a sketch. But I didn't have enough of the strips and I didn't want to cut into new paper just to make a few strips, so this is what I came up with, and it just looks too empty to me. But... good enough!

And finally...

Again I didn't know what to do with this page! But this layout came easily to me, and once I saw the striped paper (which is glittery and shiny), and it was in a pack with coordinating colors, I knew I had to use it! The blue background and the orange are both lightly patterened. The yellow/orange wasn't part of the pack, just one I had that matched pretty well.There will be a page that goes with this one about the second trimester, but I didn't get to it last night. I should have time to do it next week! 

I also made a little trip to Hobby Lobby this week! I really didn't buy a ton of scrappy stuff. Just some albums and sleeves (50% off!), a big tube of mixed flowers and leaves and some Stickles. 

I think that's it. 

But one of the albums I got, of course, is for Zane's first scrapbook. So excited to start that!

Kinda afraid I'll scrap every little moment and he'll end up with 300 albums by the time he's 18.. LOL

Seriously.. 

Christmas Pictures 2012

I got one double page layout done last night. This is our Christmas pictures from last year, taken by my great friend Jenn of Jennifer Rice Photography!

It took me forever to figure out what to do with this page! I don't normally have so many vertical pictures so I knew I wanted to do them in a line like that. Since there were five I knew it would look best to split one between both pages, but I've never done that before and I was so scared to do it! LOL But I did it and I think it worked out. The hearts... I had a sketch saved that had a line of pictures like that with a big heart at the end, so I kinda ran with that idea. I should have made the border around the big heart bigger so it would stand out more. I think the little heart came out great. Then I felt like it needed a little more. I was gonna do Stickles (glitter glue) somewhere but then I thought of buttons. I do like how I used the buttons around the circle pic and the big heart. 

This page was very out of my comfort zone, just with the big pattern on the background paper, the split picture, the big hearts. But overall I think it came out nice and goes well with the pictures (I'm always pulling the colors from the pictures when choosing my paper)! Looking at it now, I feel like I should have had a strip at the top of the pictures as well, or maybe just corners for the pictures on the ends. But still I think it looks good! I'm glad I got to do a kinda girly page... having a boy will make those much less frequent! 

Fall 2012

Well no one is gonna read my blog if I don't update more often.. Sigh. 

Anyway I have got a little bit done since my last update! 

It may be more, but that room has been used as storage quite a few times since I cleaned it out last time. We had a bunch of baby stuff in there and I couldn't do much till I got that all sorted out. It's pretty well sorted now and should stay that way, so hopefully I'm out of excuses!

It is doubling as a guest room, but we don't have a guest right now so that shouldn't matter!

Anyway, here's more, kinda random, pictures from our Oregot vaation. I am so not in love with this page. But the flowers are a new tool that was given to me. I think its called a "petal punch"... basically its a punch and you put them together like that to make little flowers. I inked the edges. I forgot that I have two types of petals and it would have looked better if I had usd them both. Ohhh well. 

I always have to have pictures of the dogs! :)

Before leaving, I had to get some group family pictures. Yes I was annoying and made everyone pose for my tripod! But we don't see my family enough, and the last time we got a group picture of the four of us was at my wedding (2009) so it was long overdue. Hopefully someday we'll have my brother and his family in one too! And my little Zane of course! :D

Anyway I didn't do anything too exciting with this page... maybe an odd color combo but I think it works. The title is stickers..I think they're glittery. 

And now its Halloween. I spent it with my besties and we spent an evening at the bars. It was a fun night! Oh of course we dressed up! This was also the night I told them that I'm expecting! :) It was a good night!

But again I was pretty plain with the page. All the fancy stuff is part of the paper, I just added the purple strips. 

Now this is the arrival of one of my best friends little girls! I put those crown stickers over some info to protect their privacy. I used to blur things out, but I can't figure out how to do that anymore!

Anyway, I already had one of those flowers made, so I decided to make another and spruce it up a bit. Then I got real creative with the Stickles. I never freehand like that. I realize its just a little swirl, but still! I think it came out nice and gave the page what it needed!

And here's the two I did last night. Thanksgiving 2012. I wish I could take credit for that cute little turkey on this page, but it was from a swap I did a while ago. I did add the googly eyes! 

I did make the pumpkin on this page... a long time ago, but still! Other than that, nothing special about this page! See I really need to start getting creative again!

That's all for now! I hope to do more this weekend though! I did print a bunch more pictures and I'm not worried about getting caught up too fast at this point! In fact I don't think I'll be caught up by the time Zane comes, but then you never know! If I get all his stuff ready by the time I stop working (4 weeks!), and he doesn't come early, I could get a lot done next month! 

I got in an afternoon of scrapping this week. I could have done more but I realized I only have 12 (single) pages worth of pictures left printed at the moment, and I don't want to get caught up too fast! LOL. I don't want to print more till I have a decent sized order. So I ended up organizing my stamps and some other stuff. I got a new big drawer set thing so I got to fill that up and now there's less clutter on my craft table! Woot woot!

Anyway, here's the 4 pages I did. Two double-page layouts. 

They're both from our October trip to Oregon. 

On the Take Aim layout, the papers I chose SO don't go with the pictures. For one, its fall and that polka dot paper screams spring. But the pictures were so colorless that I wanted to use colorful paper! Both papers are textured and glittery. The title is stickers. I hardly ever use stickers! My MIL gave me a bunch of scrappy stuff last year, and these felt stickers were in the pile, and they seemed perfect for the page! I really felt like I needed to add something to these pages, but I couldn't find the right thing. Flowers would have made it even more spring-looking than it already is, buttons just didn't seem right. So I left it as-is. I had forgotten how hard it is to stick things to that textured glittery paper though!! I guess there's a reason I don't usually buy that kind! LOL. OH well. The letters will probably come off and I'll have to glue them down. My good wet glue dried up after months of not using it, I don't think a Zig pen will do the trick!

This is more pictures from the same day. We went out shooting and exploring my mom's property and it was such a nice view so we made a little photo shoot out of it. The embellishments on these pages are ones I got in an embellie swap on my scrapbooking forum. It was great to finally get to use them! I always seem to foget that I have them! I kinda love polka dots right now if you couldn't tell! I thought about adding some bees somewhere on this page, but I guess I got lazy! :p

That's it for this week! Maybe I'll have something to share next week too! :)