A couple layouts to share . . .

I'm anxiously waiting for my nice postal lady to bring me all the new Lily Bee goodies from the recent CHA release, but in the meantime I've been playing around with some of the great collections from the last release.  I just adore Lily Bee's "Lovely" line . . . it's one of my all-time favorites.  The picture was taken on my birthday, and the journaling talks about how my birthdays with my girls are so much sweeter than any birthday's I ever had before becoming a mommy (not that those birthdays weren't fun too).  My girls are like icing on my birthday cake!

I learned this great little paper quilting technique from a tutorial by Davinie Fiero.  I used Pop-Art Pink and Ruby Shimmerz Spritz to color my handmade fabric flower. I painted the base of the cupcake with Chocolat Shimmerz paint. 

It's hard to believe that summer is almost over.  Though thanks to severe budget cuts in our local school district, my girls don't back to school for another couple of weeks.  Yay!!  Two more weeks of summer!  Going swimming at my parents' house is one of our regular summer activities.  I have a gazillion swimming pictures from the last 6 or 7 years.  The picture in this layout was taken in 2005 (I don't scrap chronologically, obviously).

I used a sheet of lace cardstock as a mask with Shimmerz Spritz and Vibez to create the background:

Have a wonderful weekend!

Her Laughter

My daughter, Rebecca, has one of those infectious laughs that makes you laugh right along with her.  It's a very hearty, joyous, 'all-is-right-in-the-world' kind of laugh.  I can still remember the first time Rebecca laughed -- really laughed -- when she was a baby.  My dad was making funny faces at her (with googly eyes and full sound effects like only grandpas know how to do), and she broke into uproarious laughter.  With each googly face he made, Rebecca laughed harder and harder.  Her laughter was so powerful that she scared herself and started crying (awwwwww!).   But she soon learned that laughter is a wonderful thing, and she's been laughing ever since.  And I've been laughing right along with her!

Here's a layout featuring a picture of her laughing when she was about 3 years old (she's 8 now).  This is one of my favorite pictures of her, and I finally got around to scrapping it.

This page is based on Prima's August Build-a-Page.  I used papers from Prima's Flights of Fancy and Raspberry Tea collections, along with lots of other Prima goodies.  The patchwork squares were inspired by a similar patchwork design that I saw on a layout by Jenni Hufford. I couldn't resist adding a little bit of crocheting!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Prima layout and paper rose flower tutorial

Hi there! As you can probably tell from looking at my layouts, I have a "thing" for flowers.  I love Prima flowers (of course!), but I also like to make paper roses. Earlier this year I was asked to make a layout with these paper roses for Scrapbooking m.m., the beautiful Swedish magazine.  This layout was published in the May/June issue.  It features a picture of me and my sweet hubby on our wedding day:

Almost everything on this page is Prima.  I used Shimmerz Spritz to color the lace and I painted the Prima patterned paper with a bit of Shimmerz paint to make the colors really pop. 

Here's a close-up of the paper roses:

The editor asked me to put together a step-by-step tutorial for the magazine article, so I thought I would share the tutorial here too.  But first, I have to give credit where credit is due.  I know there are different versions of this rose tutorial on the internet, but I first learned how to make them from a tutorial I saw on Maria's blog (I tweaked my version slightly).  We made sure to credit Maria in the magazine article too.   Thank you, Maria!

Here's the "how to":

1. Punch out three flowers using a 6-petal flower punch.  Of course you can also use a die-cutting machine to cut your flowers.  Fold them along the petal lines as shown.

2. On the first flower, cut a slit down the side of one petal to the center (do not cut off any petals on this one). On the second flower, cut off two petals, and on the third one cut off two petals. Optional: ink the edges of the petals.

3. Fold the flowers into a cone shape and snip off the bottom point so that your flowers won’t be so bulky.

4. Put a little glue onto one of the petals of each of the three flowers and glue one petal over the other as shown.

5. Now you will have the first three outside layers of your rose.

6. Using the handle of a paintbrush, curl the edges of the petals back. For a tighter curl, you can use a toothpick.

7. Your layers should look like this:

8. Stack the three layers in order of size with the biggest one on the bottom, and adhere the layers to each other with glue. Now you are ready to make two inside petal layers.

9. For the second-to-the-last layer, take your 2-petal piece and curl the petals back with the paintbrush handle (or toothpick) like you did with the big petals. Wrap it around itself in the shape of an ice cream cone. Leave it somewhat loose because you are going to be inserting the final petal in the middle. Cut off the bottom point.

10. For the final inside petal, take the one petal piece and curl back the edge, then wrap it around itself tightly.

11. Snip off the edge, and insert it into the 2-petal piece you just completed. Add these final pieces to the center of your rose, adhering them in place with a dab of glue.And there you go . . . a beautiful rose!!!

Give it a try!!

Family Photo Shoot

A few years ago we found the most amazing photographer here in Los Angeles, Melissa Walker-Scott with Lullaby Photography.   Every summer we schedule a family photo shoot with Melissa, and the results are always fantastic.  Melissa knows how to work magic with her camera! Here are some of the pictures from our photo shoot a couple weekends ago:

Melissa doesn't mind if I bring my camera and shoot some photos along with her (though mine never turn out nearly as good as hers).  Here are a couple I took with my camera:

 

Melissa took many more fantastic photos that day, so I'll definitely have lots of great pictures to scrap in the coming months.  Thanks Melissa!!

Time is flying by . . .

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how fast time is passing and things are changing.   My girls are getting older, my parents are getting older, and of course I'm get older too.  I sometimes wish I could freeze time for a little while and keep everything just the way it is.  Or better yet, go back a few years to when my girls were really little . . . like 2, 3, 4 and 5 years old.  I REALLY miss those days, and I'm having a hard time just being in the present.  Do you ever go through that?

I've been in a cleaning frenzy lately, trying to clear out some of the things we don't use anymore and bag them up to give to Goodwill.  Yesterday the girls and I went through some of their toy boxes.  I had a harder time giving things away than they did.  I didn't want to let go of the little girl things like the Pretty Pretty Princess game, the big floor puzzles, etc., even though they hadn't played with them in a long time.  So we decided not to give certain things away until we were ALL ready to let go.  And you know what?  The girls and I broke out that Pretty Pretty Princess game yesterday afternoon and we sat and played it again and again for over an hour.  My youngest daughter and I even dressed up in "princess clothes" while we played!  Hehehehe.  And then we put together a big floor puzzle.  When I woke up the this morning, the girls were already awake and they were playing the Pretty Pretty Princess game together.  I'm so glad they aren't ready to grow up quite yet!

My longing for the toddler/little girl days isn't helped by the fact that I don't scrapbook in chronological order, so I'm often stumbling upon baby and toddler picture I still need to scrap.  Here's a Prima layout I did recently of my older daughter, Rebecca, on her 2nd birthday:   

I can't believe the little girl in this picture is already 8 years old (going on 16 . . . ugh!).

Here's a question for those of you with kids (young or old):  Do you sometimes have a hard time watching them grow up, or are you able to just sit back and enjoy every year as they come?

Summer layouts

Happy Monday!  I have a couple layouts to share today. These were both published in the July/August  issue of Scrapbooks, Etc.  I tend to scrap more simple pages when I do them for magazine submissions and assignments. 

Just a quick post for today, but I'll be back again later this week.

New Prima -- Jack and Jill

It just dawned on me that the summer is half over.  Where did the time go??  Between balancing work and other obligations, I haven't had a chance to do many of the fun things I planned to do with my girls.  We still have a lot of unchecked items on our list of "Fun things to do during the summer," so we better get cracking!   I think we're going to see Beezus and Ramona today or tomorrow.  I used to love the Beverly Cleary books when I was a kid, so I'm looking forward to seeing the movie. 

Here's one of the layouts I made for the Prima booth at CHA.  I'm having a ball with all these new products!  I used the new Jack and Jill line and some of the new crystals, alphas, branches, pebbles and flowers (with a few older flowers mixed in).

Have a great day!!