Scrap Play

Scrapper Scrapper Doo, Where Are You? Scrapbooking About Yourself

I took a look through my biggest scrapbook the other day, and the journey sounded something like this:

Oh, look, there's my daughter!  There she is again!  My daughter!  My daughter!  My daughter.  My husband!  My daughter.  My daughter.  My daughter.  My daughter.  My husband.  My daughter.  My daughter.  My daughter...(continued indefinitely)

I started to wonder, "Where am I?"  Scrapbooking our lives and our stories is important.  We are invaluable members of our families.  Our thoughts, dreams, and ideas matter, and some day our kids will actually be interested in them.  (Probably right after we kick the bucket.)  It's important to stop every once in a while and create layouts about you.  For those of us who are always behind the camera it can be tough, but with a little effort, it can be done.  Here are some easy ideas to inspire you.

1.  Create a list.  What are your favorite movies, songs, books, colors, etc?  Jot them down on a journaling card to create a simple snapshot of what you love right now.  That's what I did for the "Me at 30" layout below.  Another hint: no one's taken a picture of me by myself in years, so for this page I just unmercifully cropped my family out of the picture and blew it up.  Do what you have to do!

2.  When I Grow Up...  Okay, we know you're really grown up already, but we all still have dreams.  What do you want to do?  What would you do if you could pick a new job right now?  When you were six you didn't worry about the qualifications needed to become an astronaut or the growth potential of the cowboy industry.  These dreams kind of secret desires reveal a lot about us.  Plus they're fun to scrap.  (Just think of all the fun cowboy theme stuff I can use...)

3.  What do you believe?  Think about your core beliefs.  What do you believe in?  How do you try to live your life?  What matters most to you?  Create a layout with plenty of room for journaling to share these ideas with future generations of mini-yous.

4.  Scrap your job.  What do you do for work?  What do you like about it?  What skills and talents do you possess that make you successful at it?

5.  Scrap the daily details.  Take a few pictures of ordinary moments throughout the day or week.  What do you use and see every day?  For me it's my laptop (the love of my life), the piles of empty Diet Coke cans (my motivation to get out of the bed in the morning), and the books taking over my shelves and floor (how I keep my mind stimulated).  These seemingly little things will someday remind your children of what living with you was like.

So grab a pen, that rare lone picture of yourself, and your favorite products and get to work.  Put yourself where you belong: front and center!  My design team has, as always, provided some more inspiration to get you going.

Tiffany scrapped her job at Boy Scout camp.

Angela wrote about her role as a mother.

I'm Back! (And with a new challenge / giveaway)

I’m back!  I’m sorry to have been away for so long.  Thank you all for sticking with me!  Among other issues, my laptop just decided to kick the bucket, so I’m now chained to my old, slow desktop computer, but ah, well, what can you do?  Anyway…

 

Today my daughter, niece, sister and I went to Davis Farmland in Sterling, MA.  It’s an amazing place with wandering farm animals to feed, a sprayground to play in, 
and a million other things to do.  My daughter and I even battled the gigantic corn maze for the first time.  Davis Farmland is one of our favorite summer adventures, so I can’t wait to scrap the pictures I took today. 

 

 Do you have a favorite summer tradition?  A trip or outing you really loved this year?  If so then start scrapping!  E-mail your layout to me at scrapplay@gmail.com by Friday, August 13, 2010, 3pm EST and you could win some great products for your summer pages.  I’ve put together a cute kit made of Colorbok Friendly Forest products.  They’re great for summer layouts about camping out, nature hikes, zoo visits, and so much more.  So get to work, folks!

 

In the meantime, here’s some inspiration from my wonderful design team.

Amber preserved her vacation memories in this bright, funky flip flop album:

I love this Disney page that Angela created:

 

Tiffany kept it simple and sweet with her beach layout.  I love the writing in the sand; it's a great idea for an inexpensive page title too!

ScrapPlay's Gone AWOL

I'm so sorry there hasn't been anything new here this week.  Due to my changing work schedule, ScrapPlay is Absent Without Leave until this coming Friday.  By that time I should have a new schedule hammered out so that ScrapPlay posts can resume as usual.  Thank you for your patience and readership!

Ella Publishing E-book Review

I’m a big fan of Ella Publishing’s scrapbooking e-books.  They’re filled with ideas, advice, and inspiration from some of the top names in the scrapbook industry.  So I was excited to see that they just came out with a new e-book titled Time to Scrapbook!:  9 Busy Woman Share 27 Tricks For Fitting It In.  Of course I quickly bought, downloaded, and devoured it, and I thought I’d review it for you here today.

 

 

 

Time to Scrapbook provides advice on how to fit scrapbooking into a busy woman’s life from experts like Jenni Bowlin,Stacy Julian, and Jessica Sprague.  Each expert shares several tips for carving out scrapbooking time as well as one layout about ten things they love right now.  It’s currently o sale for $4.99

What I liked:

I get lots of ideas and inspiration from magazine articles, but sometimes the 2-3 page format doesn’t give me enough information.  That’s what I love about Ella’s e-book.  At eighteen pages, this book can provide many more ideas and tips.  Some of the tips were one’s I’d never heard before and they were all good, sound advice.  The price was reasonable and affordable.

What I didn’t like:

Out of the eighteen pages, six pages were taken up with a cover page, title page, information about the contributors, index, and end page.  These pages together took up 1/3 of the book, which I found disappointing.  Also, if you’ve been scrapping a while and have read many of these experts’ blogs and books, then much of the advice will already be familiar to you. 

Over all:

Ella Publishing gives you what it promises.  This e-book would be great for new scrapbookers or those who really struggle with time management.  For more advanced scrappers, I’d recommend some of Ella’s other e-books, such as Design Workshop or Stretch Your Sketches.

 

Visit Ella Publishing Co. to view their other e-books..

Weekly Challenge and Last Week's Winner

First up, the winner of the new Tips & Tricks magazine issue is Jennybean.  Her money-saving tip was:  "One big way I save money is when I print photos. If I want to use a 2x3 photo, instead of printing wallet size and getting 4 copies for 99 cents when I only need one, I'll take 4 different photos I want to do as 2x3 and put them together in photoshop. Then I can print it for only 9 cents!"

Great idea!  I hate to spend the money for wallet sized prints, they can be so expensive!  Thanks for sending in the idea! 

This week, I have a new challenge for you.  Design a layout using an 8x8" or 12x12" piece of shaped cardstock or create a layout using an acetate overlay.  Go crazy and show me your style!  E-mail the layout to me at scrapplay@gmail.com by Saturday, July 24th, 12pm EST for your choice to win a fabulous kit of scrapbook papers and embellishments.  This week I have TWO prizes to give away!  To get you started, here a few layouts created by the Scrap Play design team.  We also have a guest designer this month!

Steffanie Seiler is our guest designer.  You can view her gallery here.  Here's how she used shaped cardstock:

Angie says she layered her title, a chipboard bird, and some Stickles over an acetate overlay to add dimension.  Here's what she created:

Tiffany say she saves money on die cut cardstock by always tracing the pieces she buys onto plain cardstock.  This gives her a template to create her own pieces! 

Have fun creating!  Remember, you can cut up your overlays and cardstock.  They don't have to be used whole!

Make Your Own Patterned Paper

Today I had a dilemma.  I've had these pictures of Halloween sitting around waiting to be scrapped for almost two years now.  The colors in the photo are very prominent, so I wanted to use paper in the same colors.  Naturally, I couldn't find any that matched!  So finally, in desperation, I decided to make my own!  Now usually I avoid lengthy techniques, but this really only took me about 15 minutes, and it saved these pictures from sitting indefinitely in a pile.  (I dreaded the thought of soon having three years of Halloween pictures to scrap!)  Anyway, here's how to create your own perfectly coordinated patterned patter.

Note:  The masking screens I used are about 5 years old and very chunky.  Today much more detailed, delicate screens are available.  Use those for a more sophisticated look.

1.  Take a sheet of plain white cardstock and adhere a masking sheet with temporary adhesive. 

2.  Choose an ink color and sponge it on the paper (through the screen) with a make-up sponge.  Try for even coverage by blending it well.

3.  Remove the screen and any adhesive that remains.

 
4.  Paint the white spaces with watercolors in the color of your choice.  I used watercolors right from my kid's craft box!  This isn't too high tech.

 
5.  Let your beautiful new paper dry thoroughly before cutting or adhering. 

6.  (Optional)  Use glitter glue or glaze pens to add detail.

 

Two more hints:  Use the darker color for the inking and the lighter color for the painting.  That way you don't have to be too exact about painting within the lines.  Don't get obsessive about perfectly even coverage.  This look is artsy and imperfect by nature!

Here's the Halloween layout I created using my homemade patterned paper.  (It's still waiting for a title in that blank spot, don't shoot me!)

New Memory Works Line Revealed!

Ooh, I just have to share this!  Memory Works just released the first sneak peek of it's new Simple Stories line.  Ele.ment.ary is a beautiful, simple to use, school themed kit.  Ele.ment.ary will be shipping in August.  I can't wait to use it to scrap my daughter's first day of preschool this fall! 

Red, White, and Blue Challenge Winner

Thank you to everyone who submitted red, white, and blue layouts for our 4th of July challenge!  I loved looking at them all.  It's always so hard to pick just one winner.  But today, the winner is Nicole Brenna!  I loved Nicole's color palette of red, white, blue, and green.  It's a lot of colors to balance, but Nicole did it beautifully.  I also loved how she tied in the cute pie themed paper.  I never would have thought of using that paper on a patriotic layout.  Congratulations Nicole!

Money Saving Scrapbooking (+ Giveaway!)

So how's the scrapbooking going? The Scrap Play Blog has been up for about a month now, and I hope it's provided you with some inspiration and ideas.  Today, my design team wants to show you how to create frugal, yet fabulous layout.  I also want to hear from you.  How do you save money when scrapping?  What are your secret tricks?  Leave a comment below sharing your money saving strategy, and you could win the brand-new issue of CK's Tips and Tricks magazine.  The giveaway is open until July 15, 2010 at 12pm EST.

For my American Girls layout, I used a paper saving strategy I talked about in an earlier blog post titled "Stretching your Scrapbook Supplies".   I had made a banner from a kit by Rusty Pickle, and ended up with a bit of red, cream, and blue patterned paper scraps.  I quickly punched a bunch of circles out and threw them into my "punched scraps" container.  Later when I saw this picture of my daughter and I at a Memorial Day parade, I pulled them out and used them as a grid for my layout.  This gave me patterned paper and a grounding design element for only the cost of the background cardstock ($.05).  I inked the edges of the circles and the cardstock, and then matted my photo on a small piece of coordinating cardstock.  ($.05)  The letter stickers and little swirly stars are both from a set of My Mind's Eye alphabet stickers.  (With a coupon they cost $2.39)  I used a couple tricks to add detail.  First, I outlined the stickers with a navy blue Sharpie.  Then I mounted the latter stickers on a scrap of clear acetate and popped them up with foam squares to add dimension.  Total cost: about $2.49.  Less if you consider that I still have plenty of letter stickers left over!

 
Angela created her layout using only two sheets of patterned paper.  She says, "To save money and supplies I cut out the foundation paper behind the photo collage to use on another project.  The collage print was FREE.  Most photo finishing processors offer coupons from time to time for free collages.  I also used leftover paper and created my journal circle."   Cost?  Rub-on title: $0.99  Die cuts: $0.55  Paper: $1.00  Total cost: $2.54! 

Amber said, "For my frugal layout, I went back to what I used to do a lot of, which is paper piecing.  I think many people forget that you can make amazing things with just your imagination.  All I used on this layout was cardstock and I love how fun it turned out.  I always freehand whatever it is I want to use and then cut it out in different colors to piece objects together."

More CHA Sneak Peeks!

Oh my, my!  The CHA sneak peeks keep on coming and boy, are they cute!  I just have to share a couple more with you.

First, up, from Prima Marketing:  I've always loved their elegant fabric flowers, but the new ones they're releasing are simply stunning!  They've added pearls and new textures to their line to create flowers with extra pizzazz!  They've also jumped aboard the doily trend with some little doily flowers.  Now, Prima flowers are a splurge for me, but I think these styles are well worth it!  Prima also has new paper lines, chipboard, and more.  You can see all the sneak peaks here.

   
 
 

Next, are you ready for Christmas yet?  I'm one of those disgusting people who LOVE seeing Christmas merchandise in stores before Labor Day.  My house would be decorated year-round if it weren't for my husband.  So I started dreaming of Christmas trees and sparkly lights when I saw this line by Graphic 45.  Deluxe Edition Christmas past is actually a re-release of a popular previous line, but they've added new papers.  They're also releasing another new line called Steampunk Debutante that you can view here.

Finally, here's a company I've never tried before, Glitz Designs.  I caught this sneak peek and loved the bright, vibrant colors.  Although I love vintage and distressed papers, their muted colors often don't match my colorful photos.  The Scarlett collection, however, is both bright and vintage!  I wish I'd had this line when I scrapped some green and red apple picking photos last week!  You can also catch a peek of their new Love Nest line here.