The first one is the result of an experiment. After spray misting the background I die cut a few butterflies (SU!, Memory box, PTI) and attached them together with my photo. Next I experimented with a 12×12 piece of vellum. I wanted to tear an opening in the vellum and have the butterflies and the photo peak through. I got the idea of torn vellum from a Scrap 365 magazine and I figured if it didn’t work out I could always discard it. Turns out I really like the result! All soft and curled! Though I doubt I would get the same result if I tried it again.

For my second layout I used a series of photos I took of the kids using the Hipstamatic app. The flag banners were cut from the Echo Park Playground collection. I have used it a ton! I love the bright colors and that the matching is already done for you. Each flag was treated to a little distressing before being attached to the background. To ground the images a bit I added a white border. It’s actually a heart border die. I hid the top of the hearts under the photos to get the look I wanted.

Here’s a close up. I love that Joshua appears to have antlers! LOL

The Scrap-a-thon was really a great deal of fun. I spent a large portion of it learning how to water color with my new Distress Markers. I’ll post those cards next.

Thanks for stopping by,

Sara

It was part of a challenge where yellow had to be the main color. I colored the lite monster with my Copics. The little speech bubble is something I picked up from Scrapfabriken. It made the perfect spot for the sentiment. A fun and quick little boy card.

Thank you for stopping by,
Sara

Here’s a few pictures of the layouts I made throughout the day.

The first one was a “Title Challenge”. “Du har pippi på morfar” loosly translates to “you’re crazy about Grandpa”. That is particularly true of Joshua. The minute he sees Morfar he wants to sit on his shoulders. He doesn’t leave his side willingly. The feeling is mutual and it’s a real treat to watch those two.

The second one was a challenge to do a layout about “Your life in Numbers”. I chose to make a list of 1 through 10. The journaling reads: One husband, Two Children, I have lived in Three countries, I attended a Four year college, Five times a day I prep food (for my little ones), Six Swedish miles to Mormor and Morfar, that is better than the 600+ miles to Grandma and Grandpa, I have studied Seven languages, An Eight day week would be great – more time for crafts, Nine hour time difference to my other home, Ten pair of shoes are not enough.

I literally threw it together in 10 minutes just so that I could participate in the prize drawing. Apparently I do well under pressure since I won! =) Fun!!

The last one was a sketch challenge. It was a struggle, but I had a lot of fun putting it together. Our boys love, love, love to read. We have many Dr. Seuss books and they are real favorites. I found a little quote from “The cat in the hat” to add to my layout.

As I was taking photos of the pages, Caleb wanted to have a look. And to a boy of almost 4 years of age, looking means touching!

I’m sitting here smiling as I type this post. It was just so much fun! To be creative is truly a relaxing thing for me. Though I don’t do it nearly often enough I hope to get better at setting aside time for it. A big thank you to Anna, Malin and Eva for putting together such a fantastic day! And thank you to Helen at Scrapfabriken for bringing your entire store on site for us all to enjoy.

Thanks for stopping by,

Sara

These are the last two card I made.

The first one is colored with Copics and the second one with Prisma Pencils. I distressed them just a bit before adding glitter mist and embellies.

Well, I’ll keep this brief since it is, after all, the night before Christmas…

I wish you a Merry Christmas and Gods blessing as we celebrate the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

Sara

An old cereal box made a great foundation for the cover. I simply cut out a 6″x 8″ piece and covered it with patterned paper. This particular one is from the Bo Bunny “Father Christmas” collection.

The house has been distressed with several shades of green and brown distress inks. A wee bit of glimmer mist on top and a faintly stamped wood grain impression on top of it. I used Antique Linen Distress Stain directly on my stamp for this part. It worked like a charm. It’s a bit hard to see in this picture, but I covered the back of the house with packing tape to cover the windows. I then sprinkled glitter on the sticky side (showing through the front openings) to create that frosted look. The snow marker is a new product for me and I love how it turned out, all puffy and white!

The alphabet stickers are from Sassafrass. To make them pop a bit more I colored around each letter with a brown marker. Then I covered them with a layer of Glossy. It gave them dimension and a pretty shine. I got that idea from one of Tim Holtz’ tags for Christmas posts.

The tree and the birds are PTI dies. After cutting the tree and distressing it with ink, I stamped it with a red flourish (also PTI). By this time I was so into adding lots of fun product that I went over it with red stickles too! I do like how it turned out. The little birds has a layer of Glossy to help them stand out. So cute, don’t you think? And the fence…this is another new Tim Holtz die that I think I will find lots of use for. So fun with the snow on top.

I know I already said it, but sitting down and just playing with all my craft supplies was a blast!! Next up is finishing up the first few days of December.

Thanks for stopping by,

Sara

So far I have cut all my papers (Cosmo Cricket), Die Cut all my page numbers (PTI) and pulled out a few embellishments and alpha stickers that works with my color scheme.

I have also begun to take pictures everyday. I use my iPhone exclusively for this because that’s the only way I’ll get this done. I’m not a photographer so I use what I always have with me. A few pictures have already been uploaded for printing and I hope to see them this week.

To remember all the little stories throughout the day I am using Evernote on my computer and my iPhone to jot down short journaling paragraphs. This is tremendously helpful as I am prone to forget things very quickly!! That’s why I’m so excited about making this album this year. I know that in a few years from now all the details of the boys childhood and Christmases will be fuzzy so Scrapping my memories this way will be valuable for sure.

I hope to post actual pages within a few days.

Thanks for stopping by,

Sara

Since moving to Sweden I have discovered a whole slew of European paper craft blogs. One common design element that keeps popping up are little “piles” of embellishments wrapping around the focal point, be it on a Scrapbook page or a card. Some of my favorite card designers (Dawn McVey for example) also layers die cuts in a similar fashion. Well, I just had to give the “pile technique” a try too. =)

The most important thing I discovered during the creation of this card -  I am playing, really playing with my supplies! And you know what, it’s really satisfying to do so. I am learning so much in the process. What I like and dislike, what works and a whole lot about what doesn’t. It’s a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say. =)

Thanks for stopping by,

Sara

One of the things I really enjoyed this time were the many challenges us participants were presented with. For someone who is completely new at Scrapbooking, it helped to get me started  and keep going throughout the whole day. This particular layout was inspired by a movie poster. I’m afraid I forgot to take a picture of it but the idea is to let the colors, shapes and textures inspire your creation. We also had to use three elements from our welcome kit. Here’s what I came up with.

I just love these photos and I am so happy that I now have the memory of my boys and their tools documented. There’s not a single day that those tools don’t get a serious workout. Bob the Builder and Handy Manny are big favorites with my boys. Well, perhaps it’s mostly Caleb, but baby brother Joshua likes to do what big brother does, so for now they are both tool enthusiasts. =) As for the title…I couldn’t help myself. Those of you that watch Bob the Builder with your kids know that he really says “Can we fix it, yes we can!”, but Caleb’s very serious look made me change it. Don’t you dare question whether he can fix it or not!! LOL.

In this challenge I stretched myself to play with more patterned paper (I’m still a newbie at this) and I used Tim Holtz Distress Stains to create those fun splashes of color. I also found a great stamp set from Inkadinkado with steampunk type images. That corner flourish has little cogs in it! So perfect for my boys. I love to combine stamping with Scrapbooking. It’s the best of both worlds.

Before I’m done I just have to share a few more photos from my iShot That class.

I discovered that I really like Hipstamatic for outdoor photos

I’ve played around with Depth of Field

The PicFrame app, making collages

And more effects than I can count. So much fun!

Thanks for stopping by,

Sara

Believe me I know that professional photography is an art. It takes dedication and practice to learn anything well. But ever since my boys came along I’ve nurtured this wish to be at least a little bit better at snapping photos of them. For memory keeping and Scrapbooking. My point and shoot does the job, but the amount of fuzzy, out of focus and busy pictures in my photolibrary speaks of a need to learn a few things if I want to improve.

Enter the iPhone4. Yes, I’m so excited about this little phone of mine because I quickly noticed I got better photos with it.  And, since I always have it with me I actually take more photos! More memories preserved. So imagine my excitement when I came across an online class called iShot That, a class focused on improving your iPhone photo skills.  So far I have learned about several different Camera apps and this week we will be playing with more photo editing apps.

Please indulge me for just a moment!

I am learning to consider contrast and playing with abstract images.

I’m learning to get close to my subject

I’m learning to catch my subjects unaware and waaaaaaait for the perfect shot. Sitting there on the floor with my phone in their faces while they watched Cars was totally worth it. Look at their smiley faces!

I’m learning to look for strong lines and playing with fun filters. Who knew the fence in our backyard could look interesting?

I’m learning to be creative when photographing ordinary thingsI’m learning to capture everyday moments and everyday things. Very “Ali Edwards” if you ask me. I love how she tells stories about the everyday stuff. Learning to consider taking such shots is great.

All of these things are causing me to look for opportunities to snap a picture. Like this one, captured on a walk with the boys. I saw our reflection and thought it would be cool. I was a bit dissappointed when I couldn’t even see us in the original photo. But with a little bit of editing our reflection appeared. Magic!!

And this one -  a bench full of apples! As if someone put them out there just for me to practice my skilz on. Ha ha. Love this picture.

And last but not least, my sons little feet. Getting close, waiting for the shot when his little toes curled just right. Well, it makes me happy. I want to remember these things. Why not have beautiful photos to go along with it.

Though I’m far from professional, I feel like a total star when I look at what I’ve learned so far. This is for me. Photos to frame, photos that tell those funny stories. Photos that help me remember all those wonderful every day things. It is a big thing to find that I WANT to bring out my camera all the time. =) Yes, this class is a real gift I’m glad to have found.

Thanks for stopping by,

Sara

Here we are wating in line (I’m behind the camera), freezing our little toes off. We had about 15  other stamp crazy ladies ahead of us. =) Behind us the line grew longer and as I learned later, some had traveled as far as from the Netherlands to come!! What?! Fun.

Along with their own stamp line, Magnolia carries a lot of fun supplies. I have to say I really like it. There are not that many stamp/craft stores in Sweden so I’m really happy I live relatively close to this one.

There were workshops to do for those that were interested. Anna and I sat down to learn how to color with Distress refills from one of the Design Team Members. The picture above shows her completed project.

Here’s my work in progress along with the cheat-sheet and my finished image. It was really fun to watch and learn how Camilla colored. She used very little water and that really helped control the intensity of the colors. I definitely learned something new.

At lunch time three very tired ladies were happy to sit down and share some lunch and a cup of coffee.

Though I’ve encountered Magnolia stamps while I lived in the States I never really used them much. Perhaps they are not my prefered style, but they are really fun to color. And the store is full of examples of really elaborate cards and projects that speak of hours of work! I’m very impressed by the artistry involved. So there’s no way I can live this close to the Magnolia Stamp company HQ and not give it a try!! So watch out. =)

And the goodie bag you say? Yes, it was totally worth it.

The first 50 all very generously received a bag full of stamps, flower embellishments, paper, brads and a die that I think adds up to a worth of almost $75!! Seriously! Very generous indeed.

Now that’s two Scraptastic Saturdays in a row…it’s gonna be hard to top that.

Thanks for stopping by,

Sara

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