Front Cover for Heartfelt Creations Die Storage

I thought I might interrupt this week's posting of the scrapbook pages to show off a little bit of creativity that leaked out around finishing up the scrapbook pages.  The front covers of my Heartfelt Creations storage was so bland and boring I couldn't leave them alone.  Plus, the scrapbooking effort wasn't heavily laden with flowery goodness and I was missing my Heartfelt Creations creativity.  Out busted these blue little beauties.

 The flowers were created with my Heartfelt Creations Vintage Floret stamps and dies.  I used a black archival ink to stamp the flowers and die cut the flowers out.  The swirls come from a couple of different die sets, Spellbinders Floral Flourishes and Sizzix Decorative Swirls.






I now have two books of these stamp and die sets.  With this weekend's arrival of the leaf sets, I may be expanding to a third book. It feels like a good problem to have, but sometimes I wonder if I'm truly just a craft tool junkie.

The Millers

Today includes one of my favorite family photos ever.  A very kind stranger offered to take a photo of all four of us right in front of the fake Eiffel Tower.  Instead of snapping one or two, the stranger snapped quite a few, so I have these series of similar photos and I honestly can't figure which I like best.

I finally just picked one to be highlighted and made this super simple layout leaving the photo the star.

Lots of cheesy smiles as we wandered the town doing the wholesome, free activities.  It's good that my little ones were raised to be tourists from a young age.  They were super happy to stop at each site along the way.

Just a few more pages to the album.  I feel a little like Dory... Just keep snapping, editing, editing...

Freely Captivating

I've got a lot of pictures of scrapbook pages to get through and so I'm going to stop apologizing for the rough job I did of them.  The memories and the journaling are complete, so having these in an album is the most important part.  OK, I'll admit that they are currently sitting in a pile on my coffee table in the front room waiting to finish the photography to get them posted to the blog.  I have committed to getting them into an album at or around the time that the last post is made.  Wish me luck.

I did try to keep things simple.  Hopefully, this sharing is of the kind that make you feel more adequate to the task of keeping up on your crafting goals. 

It's hard to believe that time has passed so quickly- the kids have grown so much.  It really brings to mind what I like most about scrapbooking- the preserving of memories, not just photos.

So, get out those supplies, whittle down the stash and finish a project or two today.  I'm still taking and editing photos... more to come.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen- Brandy's a Winner Again!!

Just popping in today to post a happy congratulations to our one and only Brandy Miller.  She won the random drawing over at the Inspiration Journal blog for the July Monthly Challenge: Happy Birthday America and Other Birthday Celebrations.  Please join me in congratulating Brandy on this happy win.  

Though the win isn't based on her card perfection (it was a random drawing), I like to think that good things come to those who do good things.  The post A Heartfelt Birthday Wish was the honored entry.  I've included the card pic for easy reference below because its a winner to me!

Now, rush on over to the Inspiration Journal and join in the August challenge fun: My Summer Vacation.  It's all about travel and journeys. 

It's Vegas Baby!

These scrapbook pages are literally the result of years of effort.  First, the supplies and pictures went five years between purchase and the first efforts to scrapbook them.  Then, I pulled the supplies together into a container and brought them to a scrap night with Brandy over two years ago.  That night I designed a couple of layouts and began the process of identifying embellishments.  I tend to desire including many of the photos I take during a trip, rejecting the notion that one picture layouts are for me. 

So, these pictures were placed two years ago and just recently the titles and embellishments finalized.  This is what takes me so much time!  You may read sarcasm into that statement- these pages are not highly embellished so I don't really have an excuse for how long it took me to finish.  :)

My kids have grown so much since these photos were taken.  The other thing I noticed is how dark these photos are.  They were taken with one of our early digital point and shoot cameras.  At the time we thought how much better these photos were than the old 35 mm photos.  Now, owning a DSLR camera, I see how ineffective my use of the digital camera was.  I'm still learning so it's interesting to give a pause and see the differences.

The other thing I notice is how dark all of the patterned papers that I'd chosen were.  I didn't look for too many pportunities to counter this fact.  I couldn't think of a better use for these quite specific patterns, so into the book they went.  In the end, it is about creating a book of stories and pictures from our trip that will last and be more personal than just photos in an album.