Better

Hi.  I'm better now and don't have vertigo anymore.  I hope to start scrapping again soon.

Vertigo

Hi.  I'm sorry I haven't been on much.  The doctors tell me I have vertigo and it takes a while to go away.  As soon as I can, I'll post scrappy stuff on a regular basis again.  Thanks for your patience.

Bubbles!

The scrapbooking gods blessed me (again) with pictures that coordinate with the ugly paper I received this month.  I should pay homage to those gods....but to do that I should pay for more supplies.

ok, moving on...

Here is the layout:

I used the red circles (and some ribbon) to imitate the bubble wand; there are 4. The dark blue paper is to imitate bubbles coming out of the wands. There are stickles on the white part of the 'bubbles' and spotted around the LO. I also used the embellie; it is above the title in the lower left corner.

I think this turned out really good.  It's not my all time favorite layout, but I like it.

April uglies

It's that time again.  I received ugly paper and an embellishment in the mail from someone on scrapbook.com that also participates in the 'ugly paper challenge.'  This month I have

Pomegranate and navy bubble paper.  The embellishment is a clear oval (it's kind of hard to see).  I just printed and put away about 300 pics from the last month (yes, i know, i take a lot of pics) so I should have something to make these papers work.

Getting ready

My other home, scrapbook.com, has recently announced the supplies list for their National Scrapbook Day events on May 7th.  I am SOOO excited!  I'm still gathering my stuff despite the event being in one month.

I just hope I can scrap before then.  I'm so excited about scrapping that day I don't want to scrap any pictures I might need.  Yes, that is completely irrational, especially since my boys are always creating new moments for me to capture.  But still. 

Yey for National Scrapbook Day!

Crushed olives

This is what happens when you are constantly interrupted to the point that you leave a layout with wet stickles on the floor after taking its picture:

The little boy featured in the pictures will step on it and remove/ruin the wet stickles.   --insert anger here--

I was able to fix it and this picture will be in the book next to the layout so he will get to hear about this when he's older.   ha ha ha.

Olives

My husband and kids love olives.  I don't.  But I do like how this layout turned out. 

This picture shows the hidden journaling.

Here is how I assembled this layout:

After I selected which color I wanted for the photo mats, I used a pencil to mark trimmer guides for cutting out the space under the picture. 

Then I cut out the main part of the matting that is under the photo.

Next, put adhesive along the edges of the photo mat.  (Yes, I know in the scrapbook world using glue stic ties me to the devil.  But its acid free, photo safe, cheap and only in my books so I don't care what other people use.)

Before the adhesive dries, put the center piece inside the outer edges of the photo mat to make sure they are square.  (the back of my green paper was brown)

I decided to ink the edges of my papers.  I stamped the potential colors on a scrap paper to see which one I liked.  As I was stamping them I thought:  looks good, too purple, too light, no, too light for the green paper.

Then I inked the edges of the main background paper and the photo mats.  After that, I chose the ink for my journaling in the same fashion as the ink.

Next I wrote on the section of the photo mat I had cut out.

Make sure to stop the journaling high enough on the paper so you can't see it.  This will give the illusion of a continuous photo mat.

Add adhesive to the back of the photo mat only.  This gets attached to your main background paper.  Again, don't put any adhesive on the picture, you need that space for the journaling block.

Then add any other embellishments and you are done!  And yes, the green stickles I used are appropriately labeled 'crushed olive.'