My trip and my new dog

After making a minialbum (8X8) about my Curacao trip I had some pictures and cutouts left over so I decided to make a full size page to put in my annual scrapbook. I had learned to make paper ruffles on a blog I read daily (Life as Lou) and couldn't wait to use it on a page. I think it looks great mimicking a beach and grounding the page. Although I usually make pages using more muted colors and a lot of distressing I think these bright colors and the contrast with black fits the theme perfectly.
To make the page I used cardstock in black and neon colors, bling from various brands and cutouts using the cricut cartridges "Going Places", "Cuttin' Up" and "Doodlecharms".

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As most reader of my blog knows, my newest dog Gunnar was called Earl when we picked him up. This led me to use the name of the show "My name is Earl" as the title for my page, but at the same time indicating the change by crossing Earl out and replacing it with his new and improved name.
To make the page I printed out all of my favorite pictures of Gunnar's first couple of days with us and arranged it into a collage onto the Basic Grey background paper. The borders and letters were cut and ripped out of DCWV Pet pages paper. The letters were cut out using the "Cuttin up" cricut cartridge. I wrote the journaling on white tags decorated with Heidi Grace ribbons and on a Colorbok sticky journaling block. Above the "r" in Gunnar I have a tag cut ou using the cricut cartridge "Going Places". I decorated it with a Making Memories rub on and ribbon, a heart punch-out, crystal stars and doodles as well as a flower brad bought through Oriental Trading Company.

Troubleshooting: Scrapbooking like most crafts are more about troubleshooting and hiding mistakes than anything. I want to share what I did on this layout. Because I accidentally stamped my date upside down on the shaped tag I decided to cover it with a label made with my Dymo label maker. But because I didn't have any other things that were black I added some black punch-out hearts, black ribbon (LOVE) and some black ink to repeat the color throughout the page.

scrap happy

I've been so good this week and completed 2 layouts. I have decided to scrap some of my newest pictures right away to harness my excitement of those pictures. I have also decided to make a monthly layout with some of my faves that tell the story of that month. It is very rewarding to see the completed pages and to be up to date. (Forget that I haven't scrapped most of my pics between 2006-2008)

So here they are *drumroll*

My January layout shows some of the winter activities we did like snowblowing, snowshoeing making a snow-woman and the dogs snowball fetching. It kind of shows how deep the snow is. But really...it's deeper than it looks!!!!

Info for scrappers:

The layout is a combination of various overlapped icy blue and white papers. Most of them come from the DCWV Christmas stack, the dotted paper is from The Stack II (old DCWV) and the light blue paper on the bottom is Paper Loft.

I added a blue velvet ribbon (American Craft?) and made a mock bow with a bejewled brad in the middle. I also made a tab out of the ribbon and added a star crystal from Michael's. I cut out around part of the snowflake in the paper and added a snowflake brad (from Target). Finally I cut out the letters and the flower/snowflake with my cricut machine using the Storybook cartridge. There is a flower jewel from Michael's in the middle of the flower.

This layout shows the cookies I made for Valentine's day, our now three dogs, the scrapbooking party I had with the kids and me being sworn in to the VASA order.

To all my scrapoholics: I printed out the pictures in thin 11 inch "slivers" using scrapbooking software. I ripped the ends of it and glued it to black background paper. I cut strips from a white, mint, and maroon striped paper (Wild Asparagus) and from a maroon and black flowered paper (DCWV, All Dressed Up stack). I tore and placed the strips horizonally along the pictures and vertically on the opposite side together with another cookie pic. I journaled on a tag from Wal-Mart and shapes cut out with the cricut (Storybook cartridge) I used the same cartridge to cut out the swirls and the title. Finally I decorated using bling from Target, Wal Mart and Making Memories

My next project: Gunnar pages

Finally scrapped

People who know me knows that I love my hobby scrapbooking. I try to get pages done, but sometimes it feels as though I can't get to getting. However, I did put together a few pages in the last couple of weeks. I'm quite proud.

This page is all about how much I love taking walks around my property. My Ipod is absolutely a necessity during these walks and I have added the podcasts and music I usually listens to to the page.

As a continuation to the previous page, this shows some of the beautiful plants that grow on our property, that I see on my many walks.

Ever since Obama was elected I have become increasingly patriotic. (So much in fact that I got an Obama-shirt) I just had to chronicle my love and pride for our new president in the best way I know how; a scrapbook page. (FYI. Journaling is the hardest for me and as you can see I haven't gotten to it yet. But at least I left space for it!)