Sure could use a little...

...Peace, that is.

Man, is it busy around here! The usual holiday bustle, plus some non-holiday bustle, plus plenty of school bustle (the end-of-semester grading binge is officially underway).

So, for a moment, peace:

This was my "personal challenge" line from my Scrappy Chic kit - it's BoBunny and absolutely lovely, but also very busy and glittery...plus the kraft-brown-blue-snowflake combo was a bit perplexing. I tried to find some peace in all that busyness, and I'm pretty pleased with the result. The tree stamp above the title is the same one I used on the ornament in the photo (shall I call it craft continuity? I think I just created a new concept).

It's a little hard to see, but some of the trees have distress stickles on them -- the subtlest of all glitters, in my book. I love those letters -- they're from Pebbles and are perfectly matte.

I kept the busiest patterns to smaller accents, but the glitter definitely still stands out -- in a good way, though. A twine bow finishes it off.

Here's to peace. Have a lovely day!

Hip Holiday layouts

Ok, maybe these layouts aren't hip, but they do feature Hipstamatic photos...have I mentioned lately how much I love taking photos with that delightful little iphone app? It makes everything look festive/artsy/skillful without trying too hard at all. 

I wanted to scrap two very blurry photos of one of Andrew's choirs singing at last year's holiday concert. Here's an explanation of the event:

And here's the whole layout, using Prima's awesome and quirky holiday collection, North Country. It's very un-Prima, which is good for me -- as you know, floral girly stuff and I are not the best of friends (Look! Did you notice I used a flower right smack on this layout? I impressed myself with that one!). I ganked the layout design from a layout in this post, which was based on a layout from Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party class (whew!). Yes, "gank" is a word, though CASE would probably be a better option.

It's a little hard to see in the photos, but I layered some red tulle trim under the photo edges as well as under a Hambly transparency strip -- since tulle is so lightweight, it didn't add much bulk, even though it's all pleated and stuff. Ooh, and speaking of ganking, I totally ganked the title from the musical Mame:

Yet another song to get lodged in your brain. Enjoy. :)

One more layout today, this one featuring some Webster's Pages paper from the Botanical Christmas collection:

Kept it simple, since the Webster's paper is so pretty all on its own. I like that I unintentionally ended up with a visual triangle of trees, though :). My favorite part is the bow, which I made with some ribbon from my stash that I'd had forever:

The bow-y part is made the same way as the one on this card, only with a loop of ribbon instead, and then I just added the short tails behind and the long bit behind the pictures -- 4 separate pieces of ribbon come together so neatly, eh?

A little Stickles on the top of the tree, some alphas from Basic Grey and Studio Calico, and I called it a day! These layouts are out for the viewing at Scrappy Chic, if you're curious to see them in person. They have some great Black Friday (and Small Business Saturday) sales planned, so shop well!

Speaking of "calling it a day," today our second bathroom got torn apart (thanks Dad!) -- it's reno time. On top of that, I made mac and cheese for Thanksgiving, along with a batch of ice cream from this fabulous book -- seriously, this chick has her ice cream science down!! Oh, you know, plus I worked and stuff. Busy day!

Hope yours has been lovely! I'll be back (maybe) Wednesday with my family tags for Thanksgiving. Hooray!

SiSiS: Stuff I Scrapped in September, part two

Hiya and happy Friday!

Today I have three holiday layouts for you -- two Christmas, one Halloween. And since I don't have a ton of recent holiday photos (especially Halloween), I decided to make some more mini-me layouts with the three holiday lines that were part of my September kit from Scrappy Chic, which is where you can find all of my supplies. Check it:

as always, click a photo to see it bigger.

Halloween's up first. I know I have a shortage of Halloween photos for scrapping purposes, but I still went through five years' worth in one layout! These are my first five Halloween costumes -- all homemade, all well-loved (even the crazy-looking clown makeup!). My grandma can sew like crazy; she made all the clothes for her kids for years (that's five kids, people), and when I was little she made most of my special-occasion outfits, too -- Halloween, yes, but also Easter and Christmas dresses, first-day-of-school ensembles, etc. She can still sew, but these days readymade clothes cost quite a bit less than homemade for the most part -- plus she's moved on to (many) other hobbies. But I digress. The page uses Echo Park's Halloween line plus some ribbons from my stash. Aside from photo editing and printing, the whole thing took about 20 minutes. Works for me! Oh, and that princess costume in '81? cut down from a bridesmaid's dress from (I think) my aunt's wedding. And I thought modern bridesmaid's dresses could be crazy looking! Big floral flouncy border, anyone? Oy. Next:

A jolly old elf, indeed. What else could I use with that adorable elfin print (plus plaid, plus snowflakes) from American Crafts? The Thickers are a reflective shiny silver, which is why they look a little odd in the photo -- they sure gleam in person, though! In the 1981 Santa photo (on the left), you will see one of my favorite childhood fabrics: velour. Spiffy! On the right (1982), I'm wearing one of my home-sewn ensembles -- I loved that jumper. Another super-quick page, too. One more? Ok!:

I admit, this one's my favorite. The little photos are from '81, and the papers and die-cuts are all from the Teresa Collins Christmas line (except the big kraft snowflakes -- those are Maya Rd). The paper started out with a white background. Really white. Too white. Mists to the rescue! Some olive, some krafty tan, and I get shimmer, color, and less white. Since you can't see the photos, really, here's a closeup:

The same sewing grandma made me the stocking that year -- it would have lasted nearly forever, except one of my parents' dogs chewed it up pretty well when I was in college :(. On the right, you can see our family's extensive collection of macrame plant hangers in the front window, plus the toboggan that got a lot of use in Hines Park for years (Dead Man's Hill, anyone else?). Let's check out the cluster at the bottom:

More die-cuts (the cream phrase stickers are Cosmo Cricket's new Tiny Type words). That cluster is not hiding a mistake -- I hid my journaling behind it :).

Whoa -- that's a lot of photos! I do have a few more goodies to share with you (the boy pages). Last post, I'd mentioned that I hadn't scrapped much in October. In the past few days, I've made a half dozen layouts plus a couple cards! Whoa! The reason? Partly because I have a new kit to use, but mostly because of an online class I decided to sign up for from Shimelle Laine's website -- it's called Pretty Paper Party (how could I resist?), and it's really inspired me to break into my stash of new and old papers and create away! Thanks to Sue for recommending it -- it is pretty awesome.

All right then, have a lovely Friday!

Don't fear the fuchsia!

...or the lime green, for that matter. I must admit, when I first saw Basic Grey's Lauderdale collection, my first thought was, "Whoa, that's BRIGHT!" And it is. Very. My first instinct was to use black and white photos to tone it down a bit, but then I realized that these photos of our crabapple tree in flower were exactly the right shade of fuchsia -- perfect!

I love this tree. Anyway, I used mostly Lauderdale here -- the flowers and most of the papers (lookie! I used flowers! That doesn't happen too often). 

The Thickers and October Afternoon alphas paired up pretty well for the title. In the detail shot, you can see that the Thickers actually have a bit of dotty texture to them, which I picked up with a line of Kaiser pearls from the ol' stash, along with the dotty canvas flower (BG) and the bubble-wrap stamp in the corners (also Kaiser).

I added some dimension to the big flower with a spiral of tulle. The striped paper and glazed brads are from My Mind's Eye.

I made this page with my Scrappy Chic kit from May -- I admit, I gave myself this line because I thought it was a bit challenging, but you know what? I had a lot of fun with all that color! Not a challenge at all. You can catch this layout in the store if you'd like -- be sure to wear your shades!