Santababy

Here's Daddy, holding his little Santababy. Poor babies; they have to put up with grown-ups decking them out in all kinds of outlandish outfits and taking photos for posterity!

The polkadot paper allowed me to continue the pink theme even though the picture is strongly red. The white strips on the right side are leftover trims from other pages. Her hat seemed to be crying out for a white pompom, and the white flower brad fit the bill. I added a little bling on one of the paper strips just for a little something extra. I felt like the upper left corner of the photo needed some interest, so I added a white photo corner, punched from a scrap of white paper. Rather than place it on top of the photo, I chose to slide it underneath. The edges of the background paper are, once again, edged in brown.

Next stop, April in Minnesota!
Immi

Sweet Girl

This is another photo taken in December. It was so much fun to see N smiling and interacting with all of us. This layout has two layers of paper edged in brown, along with a rub-on. I cut the rub-on into three parts (two words and a flower) and placed them to create a triangle. I added some sparkle with little crystals placed on each part of the rub-on.

One of the fun things about a smaller size album is that you don't need to spend a lot of time on each layout. Less room = less work! Sometimes I'm in the mood to spend a lot of time on a layout, but often, especially with a themed album, I'm anxious to get the project done so I can enjoy it.

Happy crafting!
Immi

Mummy

Here is N, dressed in her cute mummy costume that Sooks bought for her. Love the orange hat!

The background of this layout consists of two layers, white textured cardstock layered over a Basic Grey paper. The narrow strips running across the page vertically and horizontally were cut from a very cute glitter paper. The edges of all papers were altered with brown ink. (I love my ColorBox cats' eye stamp in Chestnut Roan for this technique!) I stamped the word "cute" using an acrylics stamp, and that was that! Quick and simple.

What are you doing today that is creative?
Immi

Mommy & Baby

Now we've moved beyond N's very first days. This was taken in Texas as we celebrated Christmas together.

This layout was very quick and easy. I added some brown ink around the edge of the background paper and placed a white word sticker on top of the photo. Nuthin' to it!

If I had it to do all over again, I would have tried to do a little more editing to the photo itself. Mommy's skin is a little green, due no doubt to my very inexpert photography! Even though the photo could be better, it's more important to me to have this recorded rather than obsess over every detail.

Enjoy!
Immi

April Layout

This is one of the easiest type of digital layouts to do, similar to the one I did here. This is called a quick page. Everything is done for you except to add a photo and text. The only change I made beyond that is to add some splatters around the edge. The background layer is locked on this type of page, so I had to make the changes to the top layer which was unlocked. The only quick pages I've downloaded have been freebies. They're a great way to get started, but I don't think I'd pay for any because of the limitations. Since the background layer is locked, any additional layouts I did with this would look waaaay too similar. However, when you get a layered template, you can make any changes you want. You can change colors, papers and the order of the layers. You can turn off layers you don't want to use. Much more useful down the road!

First Year Continued

Here are some more pages of my scrapbook. I'm keeping these pages very simple, so the process is going quickly. For the background of this first one, I used a gorgeous paper I had with a raised glitter design. I put a rub-on on top of the photo, and that was that!

The next page also went together quickly. I combined two coordinating papers, edged in brown. I stamped the word "family" in brown, and added the felt flower to the bottom left corner. I also used a small rub-on over the top right corner of the photo.

Enjoy!

Immi

Siblings

I love, love, love this photo of A & N. This was taken in the morning, while we still had our jammies on. I think Abba was working the camera that morning.

I had a little trouble with this layout. I wanted to use green and pink together, but because of my robe, my patterned papers all looked too busy. (I could have worked around this by converting the photo to B&W, which works well to avoid clashing colors.) The pink paper was originally white textured cardstock. I started with Tim Holtz' distress ink in Worn Lipstick and his ink applicator tool. Wonderful color, but really too strong for the effect I wanted. Next I tried using his Tea Dye distress ink to tone it down, but the brown on top of the pink looked too orange. I added a layer of a Fresco chalk ink (Botticelli Blush), using the direct to paper technique (pressing the ink pad directly onto the paper), but it still wasn't right. Finally, I rubbed Brilliance Pearlescent Orchid over everything. I also stamped flowers in white ink on top. The green was also pretty bright to start with so I toned it down with some of the tea dye ink followed by the Fresco. The stamp in the corner is from a teeny set designed by Ali Edwards. The set has a variety of words, and I combined the ones I wanted onto a single acrylic block, then stamped it in black.

Today

This is a layout celebrating a personal accomplishment. I made this digitally using a quick page, adding text and photos. I printed it on cardstock, using our Epson color printer. This particular layout is 8.5 x 11, which is not the size I typically do (12 x 12).

It's been interesting to watch the changes in page size over the years I've been scrapping. When I first began in late 1998 or early 1999 (don't remember for sure), the only page size available was 8.5 x 11. Later, 12 x 12 became very popular. Now it's possible to find papers and albums in both these sizes as well as 6 x 6 and 8 x 8. With the proliferation of mini books you can bind yourself and other forms of altered books, the sky's the limit now. One of the professional scrapbookers whose style I admire, Ali Edwards, mixes page sizes within albums. It's also popular now to use divided page protectors along with scrapbook pages. The sections can be filled with photos, journaling cards, patterned paper or ephemera. This is an easy way to make use of more photos without doing a layout every single time.

I'd like to encourage you to make scrapbooking about the little, daily things as well as events. The big push today is for us to tell our stories. A scrapbook page doesn't even have to include photos to count!

Happy crafting!
Immi

Grandparents

Here is the second page, featuring the doting grandparents, Abba & Immi. One of the things that's been so amazing to me since becoming a grandparent is how fascinated I've been with these babies. I can hardly take my eyes off them, and could watch them for hours!

This page was very simple. I used a Basic Grey paper for the background, and edged it with brown ink. The saying came on a piece of transparency; I used my Xyron to add the adhesive and backed it with textured white cardstock. The strip towards the bottom was left over from cutting another sheet; I colored and edged it with some inks. Simple!

Happy crafting!
Immi

New Scrapbook

I've started a new scrapbook about N's first year. I'll be posting pages from this for a while. This is the first time I've done anything with an 8x8 format. A while back, I chose the scrapbook as well as some possible papers and embellishments.

Last week I spent some time choosing pictures and sent them off to Shutterfly. When the pictures came in the mail, I decided which ones to use and slid them in the page protectors.

Here's the first page, using a photo taken when she was only a few days old. I love the way the light coming through the window illuminates her precious little face! I layered some textured white cardstock with a watercolor-look paper (edged with blue ink). The rub-on at the bottom of the page is one I've had for a while. The flowers came in a package; they're made from an iridescent fabric. The flower center was punched from a scrap of pink paper.

I think this project will come together pretty quickly, now that I've got all my stuff together. Enjoy!

Immi

The Results Are In

I want to share my very first "from scratch" digital layout. I used one of my freebie papers as the background. I also used a brush set, coloring it with a color I picked up from one of the photos. I experimented with adding drop shadows to the photos. The label at the bottom is another brush, with text added inside. (I realized after I sent it off to be printed that the date should have been August, but I decided I could live with it.) Finally, I played around with some of the default brushes that come with Photoshop Elements to add the color around the outside edge of the layout. This is not an outstanding layout, but I was happy with my first try at building from the ground up.

If you are interested in experimenting with digital, you can find some great free digital products out there to get started. One of my favorite sources is DesignerDigitals. You have to join their online community to have access to the freebies, but they are very generous. They also have a vast selection of items to purchase, as well as some tutorials.

The online printing service I used is ScrapbookPictures. The service is easy to use, and the turnaround is quick. I sent two layouts to be printed, and I'm quite pleased with the way they look. I was concerned that the layouts would look too flat, but that's not the case. I'm not ready to give up my paper, but this is a fun and creative alternative. It's also nice to have a very thin layout to slide into my album.

Try something creative today!
Immi

Paper and Tulle Flowers

Here is an experiment I tried recently and enjoyed very much. I saw a tutorial for this on a website. It involves cutting circles of increasing (or decreasing, depending on your perspective) size from paper and tulle.

The paper circles are layered, with tulle circles in between each layer. The stack is sewn together with a button on the top. I roughed up the edge of each paper circle with a tool containing a razor blade, made especially for such use. This gives a little more texture and interest.

The end result is fun, colorful flowers to use as accents on a card or scrapbook page. AND, of course, I love the fact that I'm using up odds and ends of my stash!



















Happy crafting!
Immi