Fitting It In

Some weeks I feel like all I am doing is going to work, coming home to the endless piles of laundry and housework and then getting up the next day to do it all over again.

But in all of that I am getting some crafting done. A little bit here and there, squeezed in among all my chores and obligations, there are crafty and creative moments in my day.

Thank goodness for this space and being able to document what I have done. It helps to look back and see that indeed I have finished a few projects.

Love: You Are the Only One for Me

Scrapbooking has been such a positive thing in my life. Through my love of and addiction to this craft I have recorded and documented so many moments and memories that I am quite certain would have been lost had it not been for my layouts and albums. And this has truly remained my main focus when it comes to scrapbooking - to record memories, to tell the stories behind the pictures through my journalling, and to document my life and the life of my family with a little pretty paper thrown in for good measure.

This past week, while working on my layout for the latest challenge at The Memory Nest, I had the chance to not only record a memory, but relive countless others while I was doing so. Let me explain. This is the sketch for the latest Make it Monday Challenge

and as soon as I saw it I remembered taking photos with my now-husband in the photo booth at the mall while we were still dating. They have been stashed away in a shoe box for years, which has always bothered me, and when I saw this sketch I knew this was the time to dig them out and use them for a layout.  So last Tuesday night, after the girls were in bed, Steve and I sat on the basement floor and sifted through the shoe boxes we had each kept full of movie tickets, concert tickets, notes, letters, and photos from our dating days. We laughed at some of the movies we had gone to see, we teared up as we read the notes and letters we had written each other, and we remembered all the fun we had on road trips, at concerts, at parties. It was an incredibly fun trip down memory lane, reliving all the great times we had when we were young and falling in love.

In the end, we found the photo strips that I remembered, and I put this layout together to preserve these photos.

My layout is similar to the sketch, but I had to layer up some patterned paper in keeping with my current obsession.

Look at us - we were so young, just kids.

So now, after 12 years in a shoe box in the basement, these photos will be preserved in my album. I am going to put this page in my 2013 album beside the layout I did of us on our tenth wedding anniversary - as a 'then and now' reminder of where we began and how far we have come.

Yes, a Mushroom

Unable to decide on a large project, and determined to make a serious dent in my stash, I have been working on several small crochet projects.

Today I present to you my smiling crochet mushroom. Yes, a mushroom. Don’t you have one?

The pattern is from this book, which I was very happy to receive for Christmas.

This little guy was fun to make, that is until it came time to sew the top and the bottom together.  It was one of those tasks that should have taken no time at all, but my top kept going on crooked and my yarn ripped three times....so it became quite frustrating.

But all is well that ends well, and my happy, smiling mushroom now sits on my kitchen window sill between my African violet and the unknown plant that Bridget gave me for Mother’s Day last year. 

Another cute addition to my ever growing fleet of crochet friends. They are so fun to make that I really can not stop.

Mixing it Up

I have been doing a little sprucing up around the house lately. Nothing major, just tidying the bookshelves, framing pictures that have been waiting to be framed for a long time, placing candles around to be lit on these dark winter evenings. I always get the urge to do this after Christmas; once all the decorations are put away, the house looks so bare and I feel the need to make it a bit fuller, a bit cozier. 

Shortly after Christmas my sweet husband was in the book store and picked up this magazine for me... 

.....and it the most beautiful magazine I have ever seen. So many beautifully styled pictures, so much creativity, great articles about designers. I have spent many hours pouring over the pages soaking up the inspiration.

I was particularly inspired by this picture, specifically the pillows on the couch. I love the mixing of traditional patterns – the rose pillows that look like something my Oma would have – with the graphic, modern pillows that look like they could have come from IKEA. And I was inspired to try something similar in my living room.

Using some IKEA fabric that I fell in love with and bought a few months back, I made this polka dot pillow and added it to the others on my sofa. 

The fern pillow came with our couch and looks a bit more traditional to me, similar to the rose pillows in the magazine, while my new polka dot pillow is definitely a little more modern; the same could be said about the tulip pillow that I made a few years ago. 

I am not a decor whiz by any means, and I often fret way too much about how things look, but I am slowly realizing and accepting that if I decorate with things that I love and that mean something to me, everything will come together. I love this polka dot pillow, I love the pillows that came with our sofa, and I think they look good together. I may add a brighter colored solid pillow to pull everything together a bit more – maybe a teal pillow. What do you think? I really like the mixing of traditional and modern – it gives things a collected and timeless look and I love that.

I did put my polka dot pillow on one of my kitchen chairs and I love how it looks there.

And while I was out scouring the clearance aisles this past weekend I found these beautiful dinner napkins for a mere $1.50 each – I am going to sew these into a pillow and see how that looks on the couch. Worth a shot for only $3.00.

So in addition to crocheting (projects to show you soon), scrapbooking, and all the stuff that makes up regular life, I have been working on mixing things up in the living room. And I have really enjoyed doing so - making my home, where I spend so much of my time, a little cozier. It has also been nice to get the sewing machine out again...it had been a while since we spent some quality time together. 

Happy Birthday

Just a few days before my daughter's 7th birthday party, I finished this layout of her and her friends celebrating her 6th birthday.

As I worked with these photos, I was struck by the huge amount of growing and maturing that Bridget has done in the last year. I am sure all you mothers know what I mean. Time, could you please slow down.....

I love the paper that I used for this layout - RSVP by Basic Grey. The paper and the coordinating embellishment pack were actually picked out by my girls. Steve took them to the local scrapbook store to choose paper and supplies for me for Christmas - how I wish I could have been a fly on the wall while they were running about the store picking things out, how cute they would have been.

Using some of my paper scraps and some coordinating die cuts, I also made this birthday card.

I am slowly finishing up my 2013 album. I am proud to say that because this is probably the most caught up I have ever been when in comes to scrapbooking. So while the cold and the snow are not my most favorite things, it has given me many evenings perfectly suited to a cup of tea and some serious scrapbooking - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I Love this Guy

Today I am so excited to be featured as the Guest Designer over at The Memory Nest. Here is what I created using the Cut and Paste line by My Mind's Eye.  

What a great line of paper - the colors are very neutral and would coordinate with a variety of photos, and there are so many great patterns. For my layout I chose to use a photo of my husband and I that we took while we were on a weekend getaway to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. Notice how I am happily smiling in this photo, well that was not the case shortly after we snapped this shot – I had a rather spectacular fall while we were hiking down the mountain. Thankfully I walked away with just my pride and my tailbone a tad bruised.

The 'I love this guy' arrow was just perfect for my page and even though it is small, I decided to use it as my title. I am always trying to find new ways to add titles to my pages and thought that in this case a smaller title would keep the focus on the picture; who says a title has to take up lots of space on the page?

Adorable chipboard flowers – I love how they look on the same colored background paper. And did you notice the ombre effect on the background paper?

Of course I really layered the paper on this page, using as many of the different patterned papers from the collection as possible.  I love this layered look.

In addition to my layout I also made this card. Again, I layered the papers and used some of the coordinating stickers and chipboard.

I have really become a fan of buying an entire line of paper with the coordinating embellishments. It makes designing and completing a layout/card so much easier. Until recently, I rarely used to purchase an entire collection, preferring to buy the odd piece of patterned paper and then use something from my stash to embellish. And while I did get layouts finished using this approach, I spent a great deal of time rummaging through my supplies. Having everything coordinated from the get-go is such a time saver. I have not abandoned my stash completely – like that would ever happen – but when I do sift through it, I am most often looking for one odd thing rather than embellishments for the entire page.  The layout and card that I made here came together so easily and quickly because I had everything ready to go before I even started designing. Is buying an entire line of paper and embellishments something you do?

I want to thank Leslie for the opportunity to be the Guest Designer this month. I loved working with this paper line and appreciate the chance to showcase my work.....

Thankful for You

Remember these cards from The Memory Nest's color challenge back in the fall. Well, I used that same paper for the layout I am going to show you today and I am so happy because I finally got to pair it with a picture of my silly girls from Thanksgiving.

I had tried to use this picture for the color challenge back in the fall, but the place I go to get my pictures printed was experiencing 'technical difficulties' and was unable to print pictures for over a week....and my deadline was looming. I was happy to get two free copies of the picture when they were up and running - one to frame for on the hall table, and one to scrap for today's sketch challenge.

Did you know that The Memory Nest now has two sketch designers producing new, never-seen-before sketches? Exciting stuff. This is this week's sketch, designed by Crystal.

My take on the sketch is pretty true to the original design, with a few minor tweaks to fit my larger photo.

I really layered on the paper. I have been experimenting with this technique lately - combining several patterned papers, using small pieces of each, and piling them on my page. I really like the dimension layering gives, and that it is possible to use so many different patterned papers on one layout.

The papers and embellishments that I used on this page are from the Happy Harvest line by Doodlebug Design.

It goes without saying that the work of others on the Design Team is beautiful. I invite you to hop on over to The Memory Nest to see what they have created.