Blog Neglect!

It certainly has been challenging to find time to scrapbook and keep this blog updated now that school is in full swing! During the week, it's nearly impossible for me to complete any layouts, since I leave for work at 6 am and don't return home til 6:30 pm.  The downside of a 77 mile commute!!  Thank goodness I only have to do this 8 months out of the year! I have been managing to get one or two layouts done each weekend, but haven't been posting them here. Without further adieu, here are some of my recent creations, inpsired by May Flaum's Use Your Stash Class at Big Picture Classes as well as challenges over at Scrapbook Central on iVillage.

Star Wars Fever: This LO feautres my niece Elena enjoying some new and old Star Wars toys on Christmas Day. I used some newer Echo Park paper and stickers, along with some older buttons & journaling spot.

Emily: For this next one, I pulled out by 2001 storage binder and came across these pictures of my best friend's daughter's birth. Dug deep into my stash of patterned paper here, using some old EK Success papers. Also broke out some Quickutz dies and a border bunch.

Visiting Jimi: I am really happy with how this one turned out! I layered some older coordinating My Mind's Eye paper, Thickers, and grungeboard flourishes that I inked up with distress ink.

Greetings from Camp: Finally, this 2-page spread features my nieces on a camping trip last year. Used some Cosmo Cricket paper that I won at a crop a while back.

Thanks for looking!

Weekend scrapping

I've been enjoying the long weelend here at home.  In between a neighborhood barbecue and back to school prep, I managed to get a few layouts done.

The first one is for a challenge over at Scrapbook Central to create a layout based on this sketch by Janelle Richmond. Here is my take on the sketch:

The photos are of my friend's daughter.  All the paper and embellishments are from My Little Yellow Bicycle, purchased a long time ago and never used! The chipboard letters are also quite old.  So glad I've been inspired to use them up!!

The second layout was inspired by a layout from week one of May Flaum's class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking.  I was inspired by her basic design & photo placement.

The paper, border stickers, and purple letter stickers are by BoBunny. Not that old, but still good to use 'em up! The smaller letter stickers are by Echo Park. For the title treatment, I painted some old plain chipboard with white crackle paint, then inked it up with Tim Holtz distress ink (miled lavender and dusty concord), then added the stickers.

Thanks for looking!

A few recent layouts

I did manage to make a few layouts in August, I just never got around to posting any of them! Here they are now, for your viewing pleasure!

This first one if of my dogs enjoying a spring day in the field next to our house. The title doesn't pop as much as I thought it would against the busy patterned paper, but I am calling it good enough!

The next three are for my Newcomers Club.  The 2009-2010 album is now complete and I can pass the reigns to the new Historian! Although I completed these before the start of May Flaum's class at Big Picture Scrapbooking, I really dug deep into my stash for some of these!!

Thanks for looking!

Use Your Stash!

I recently signed up for May Flaum's "Use Your Stash" class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking.  It officially started yesterday, and so far I am loving it! There are no set assignments, just lots of inspiration and encouragement to use all that product I've been collecting/hoarding.  I like that May uses 4x6 photos only, with some occasional cropping...I very rarely print out 5x7 or 8x10, and I have lots of 4x6 pics in my storage binders waiting to be scrapped.  I whipped together this LO last night:

The challenge was to use a neutral background, arrange your pictures, and embellish with items from your stash.  I took longer than necessary to select the patterned paper, but I finally settled on some BoBunny paper from last year. I had already used it on another layout, so this one was made from all scraps. I'm also trying to use up my plain chipboard, so I found some really old Making Memories flowers to use, and painted them blue and green to match the patterned paper. Topped them off with some glittery buttons, added my journaling, and I was done! The pictures are of me and some of my students from commencement last May...finished just in time to start the new school year on Tuesday!

In other news, this morning I woke up to find some happy mail in my inbox...I won a free Ella Publishing book over at Celeste Smith's blog! Yay! It should come in handy for making layouts abouy my nieces.

August? August? Where'd you go?

I can't believe it's September already! I only managed one measly blog post for all of August! Between house guests and weekend getaways and back to school prep, the month flew by!  Here are some of the highlights:

Fresh veggies for dinner:

Minor league baseball games (Connecticut Tigers!):

Parents who dog sit (and the dog that sucks up to them!):

Frisbee:

Travers Stake at Saratoga Race Track:

Doggie photo shoots in the backyard:

 

Phew! What a month! School begins next week, and I will be busy teaching five classes instead of my usual four.  Hopefully I will somehow manage to squeeze in some crafty time on the weekends.  To get my creative juices flowing, I signed up for May Flaum's Use Your Stash class at Big Picture Scrapbooking.  Can't wait for it to begin tomorrow!