Next challenge

For our next challenge I want you to make a page from your childhood. It has to have those not so perfect b/w photos from way back when we were little. Attach a story to it too. (Waiting for Lora's page, will post SS layouts tomorrow) Sweet dreams...

Scrapbooking party

What a fun day! I don't know about everyone else, but I really had a lot of fun spending some time with friends! Our house is not big enough to hold to0 many people, but our guests were nice enough not to complain (except Sasha).

It feels like I have to write a report after a CHA show. I really wanted to share a few pictures and highlights of the day. I guess I should start with the most important photo - us. Well, it wasn't easy to find a perfect one. Out of sixteen shots taken, this must be the best one:


Is it even possible to take a picture of 6 "girls" who have to much fun?

Anyway, as I already mentioned earlier this was a great day. Even the weather was nice and almost warm. There was a lot of laughter :

And a lot of hugs (not all of those were captured on camera):

There was some jumping for joy:

Some quiet times (unfortunately that didn't last long):

And some loud times (up to six people talking and laughing at the same time):

There was a lot of talking, sharing, laughing, eating, sitting, reading... Some had fun, some had headaches, and at the end of the day some felt reeeally exhausted:

Thank you everyone for coming over! Hope to have more parties in the future.

I will be back with SS challenge later!

Back with another page

I wanted to share a layout with you that I did this week. I like Angelia Wigginton's work and she has a number of layouts done in tilted style. So, I decided to give it a try too. Here is a page about my artists:

I used my border punch by EK Succes with large circles and then cut the top portion off and it gave this border a totally new look:

One of my favorite tips in layout making process involves my camera. It's often hard to deside which paper work best on a page and whether you like it there or not. I always wish I could see them side by side.

To solve that problem, I take a picture of my first option, rearrange items or whatever I'm trying to decide on, and take another picture. This way I can flip through the photos on my camera and really see all the options right before me. While working on this page I couldn't decide where to put journaling. I had a few options. So, I took a picture of them all and chose the one I like the best.

Now, I have to go back and finish my layout for our challenge.

Девочки я вас всех жду в это воскресенье у меня! Берите с собой ваши последние странички или December Daily, у кого что есть и приезжайте ко мне. Если у вас есть какие нибудь вопросы позвоните или напишите здесь в комментариях. 

До встречи!

Favorite recepie

Я решила быстренько поделиться с вами одним из наших любимых рецептов. Он делается очень легко и получается очень вкусно. Что может быть лучше пирожка с капустой и чашечки горячего чая,

когда на улице погода выглядит примерно так:

Для рецепта вам понадобится совсем немного. Сначала готовится начинка. Капуста, морковь и лук тушатся на среднем огне до готовности. Добавляется отваренное куринное филе, мелко нарезанное, соль, перец. Блины (tortillas) начиняются капустой и с двух сторон обжариваются. Подавать можно со сметаной, salsa, или как мы любим - с чаем.

У нас каждое утро начинается с заказа на пирожок. Нет, мы их не готовим каждый день, но некоторые people проживающие в этом доме требуют пирожок на завтрак даже когда его нет.

Но вы не подумайте, что у нас совсем ничего не происходило в уголке искуства. Вот, например один из наших художников принимал участие в scrapbooking. Его легко было определить по таким же наклейкам приклеившимся на кофточку:


Скоро вернусь с более стандартным проэктом в memory keeping.

До встречи!

SS Challenge week 7

For the past week's scraplift challenge we used a page by Kim Watson. I just love seeing everyone's work at the end of the week. This week was no exception. I was pleasantly surprised with results. It is actually so much more fun to work on the same assignment with friends and to inspire each other.

For my page I wanted to use 4 pictures instead of two and as I was drawing a sketch, I thought it looked a little too familiar and I found a page I made before that reminded me of this lo:

That's when I changed my plans and decided to make an 8.5x11 page with two pictures instead. My baby was dressed in a little mismatched colors here. I turned pictures black and white and that gave me a total freedom with color choices.:

Each time I make a page in this format I realize how much I like it, but what's even better is that I always have a choice!

Lora's page has a lot of details. I like how she replaced one of the photos with journaling block. Ruffled ribbon just adds something totally special to the page. Even though she said it was far from her true style, I think it turned out pretty good. Here is Lora's page:

And as soon as I saw this page, it made me smile. This page is so happy. Very cute pictures and little details like bracket or that clip make it so fun. Anka was laughing about pink on boy's page but it totally works here. I love that there's no rules in scrapbooking!

Great job girls! For our next challenge check previous post. I have to start working on that one. Hope you have a great week!

As promised

I have told you before, there was a set of pictures I wanted to use for last week's scraplift challenge. I really liked Jennifer's layout and still wanted to make a page using those photos. I'm happy to finally share something with you. Here is my lo:

I tried printing pictures at home before, but had issues with color (they were coming out way too bright for me) and yesterday I gave it a try again and after searching my options on printer I realized that one of the advanced option choices has been set for Auto Enhance. That's what was making all the difference. I DEselected that option and now the colors in my photos are so much better! I totally fell in love with my printer all over again!

The ledger circles were planned to have journaling on them. When I started writing it, the story happened to be longer than those tags could hold... Yeah... I'm still trying to decide how to fix that. One of the options is to summarize it in one sentence and use the story for a different lo. I still have MANY pictures I love from Canada. I warned you before - you'll be seeing a lot of those.

One little detail I wanted to point out - use a dot from letter stickers to imitate a brad. It totally works.

Now, I will be out of town on Sunday, therefore SS layouts will be posted on Monday, but I'm ready to announce our next challenge. It will be a little different from the ones we did before.

Scraplift Sunday week 8 - make a page about yourself! This week you can use any page for inspiration that you like, but your page has to be about YOU. I know it will be hard. I can't even find a picture of me alone, but we are an important part of our scrapbooks. Your page HAS to include a story! It could be a recent story, a story from your childhood, something we don't know about you, your dream, your goals, a list of your favorites, your typical day at the moment, etc. Good luck!

Can't wait to see everyones page!

When nothing else works

I have been writing this post for 3 days now. Not physically writing but mentally. I was planning and kept changing my plans. Well, to make a long story short I can't really share much today at all.

We, people, get use to good things too quickly. I remember loving my pictures from my old camera at the moment, but now after getting an SLR, my pictures are so much better in quality and I compare my older pictures with these. Whenever I sit down to scrapbook, I tend to pull these most recent photos. This week I made myself use those older photos that are not as good in quality but still captured a moment in our life. To be honest I had a really good start, but couldn't finish it. I didn't like the way it was turning out. Can't share anything from that project...

Then I got my last set of pictures to finish my December Daily. I had so much fun finishing my album, but again, can't share anything since we still didn't have our DD meeting with girls.

There was another fun layout that I was working on this week. It has a complete recipe: design, color choice, concept but all I'm missing is one photo. Had to put that aside for now. No luck there. And finally, I can not share my SS layout because it's not Sunday yet. Well, I'm not done with it either.

So, after reading your comments, I decided to still go ahead and make this post happen maybe just for one reason - to reach my one hundredth post faster.

Since I can't post without a picture I decided to share one of the pages I did for my sister. Yes, I did make a page for Tanya before, but it only happened two or three times. This one was made last summer and for some reason is still sitting in the pile with my pages. All Tanya needs to do here is journaling. I know it's her "favorite" part, but I'm not writing it... Maybe one of you can help her.

And to finish it on a good note, decided to share one of my favourite pictures this winter. These are the ones I like to make pages with:

Hope your days are more productive this week than mine! See you soon!

Scraplift Sunday - week 6

For this week's challenge we used Jennifer Gallacher's page as a starting point. I was planning on scraplifting her layout pretty close, but my first picture choice didn't work because I didn't have them developed. So, I chose another set of pictures but it had an extra one that I really wanted to fit in. After moving them around for a while, here is what I got:

I wish I had that electronic cutter to cut titles out. It took me a while to cut that "lazy" word out with the exacto knife...

I like how Anka's page looks simple and complete at the same time. Her baby is so cute that his pictures are the only embellishments she needs on a page. Love the soft touch the side border adds to this page too. Here is her page:

For the first time Lora stayed true to the original sketch and it worked for these pictures perfectly. I like how she used complementary colors to her pictures. Great spot for journaling too(that was exactly how I planned my original page). And here is Lora's page:

And now it's time to announce our next challenge. For Scraplift Sunday Challenge week 7, I've chosen a layout by Kim Watson. Good luck everyone and I will be waiting for your layouts!

I am very sorry for the delay with this post. See you soon!

We have a winner!

And the prize goes to...

Congratulations Anka! And see you everyone tomorrow for our weekly challenge!

Anniversary and a Giveaway!

My blog turns 1 today! Wow! I went from "How in the world does this blogging works?" to "Yay! I got a comment!" Today I'm writing a post number 73!

Дальше, во избежание лишних ошибок, а также поддерживая стиль в котором была сделана первая здесь запись, предпочитаю писать по русски. Тем более, как известно, все мои посетители (а точнее 3 или в лучшем случае 4) говорят по русски.

Хочу заметить, что год назад моим уголком искуства ещё была кладовка в детской комнате, где стоял срезанный по размерам стол, чтобы закрывалась дверь. Сегодня мой creative corner находится в нашей комнате, что является идеальным вариантом, так как это не далеко от других creative мест, где я провожу много времени, то есть кухни или стирки. Поэтому я часто могу совмещать scrapbooking с другой домашней работой.

Прошу заметить, что у меня возле стола стоит стул не самой лучшей комфортабельности. Это было задумано специально, с той целью чтобы долго не засиживаться. А ещё, потому что я люблю смотреть на работу свысока.
Немного поближе к тому что меня окружает:
Как оказалось, каждый угол нашей комнаты занят чем то scrapbooking related. Например в противоположном углу от стола стоит мой photo printer:
В другом углу комнаты расположены magazine holders с журналами и книгами, и photo boxes, в которых находятся mini albums, CDs с фотографиями, ribbons, и другое. Мне нравится, что они по цвету не мешают декорации в комнате, которая на данный момент в бело-коричневых оттенках:

А в углу за дверью находится одна из самых любимых и необходимых частей нашего хобби - бумага, которой нам всегда нехватает и в то же время похоже что её было бы достаточно чтобы обклеить всю комнату три раза:

Ну и конечно никогда не далеко от моего уголка находится это милое создание, которое часто является вдохновением моих работ, либо оно усердно мешает...

Мне было интересно посмотреть сколько же было сделано страниц со времни открытия блога. Я выложила на стол все страницы форматом 12х12. Нет я их не вынимала из альбомов. Они ещё там не стояли. Я всё собираюсь купить альбомы (3 ring binder).

А также у меня получился целый альбом из станичек форматом 8.5х11:
За это время я сделала ещё несколько страниц для детского альбома 8х8, а также несколько mini albums. Но к сожеланию, в отличии от страниц, ни один из моих мини альбомов пока не закончен на 100 процентов.

В течении прошлого года мне пришлось много раз менять что то на моем рабочем месте, и одна из наилучших поправок, это моя центральная полочка в столе, в которой находятся обрезки бумаги, рассортированые по цветам. Теперь я намного чаще использую эти остатки, чем тогда когда они находились в пластиковых конвертах под столом.

За это время я очень хорошо усвоила одно - лучше немножко сделать сегодня, чем ждать что у меня много времени будет завтра. Ведь много свободного времени никогда не бывает! И я уже хорошо научилась работать в отрывках времени. Хотя, если честно мой creative process даже требует этого. Я люблю сделать набросок и оставить его на некоторое время. Я заметила, что возвращаясь к нему мне легче определить что подходит а что нет, и тогда в следующем заседании я могу приступать к следующему шагу.

Хотелось бы отметить ещё одну деталь, if you are inspired to do a certain page, do it now or at least write something down and stick a note to your pictures to have it when you come back later. Apparently we can not remember everything, аnd by the way, it gets worse when you get older (remembering part).

Ну и по поводу юбилея хотелось что то подарить посетителям этого блога. Как только я свотографирую подарочек, сразу добавлю фото (это скорее всего будет завтра утром). А пока, всем спокойной ночи и новых вдохновений для искуства!

I'm back. Just leave a comment on this post and tell me what do you like about scrapbooking the most. I'll pick a winner on Saturday.

And now it's officially the longest post. Have a wonderful day!

Reason #52

Another reason why I like scrapbooking so much is that my world outside my window might look like this:
... but, I may be all the way back in Canada enjoying a beautiful warm day with my family at the Lake Ontario:

I like this weird color combination lately - blue and pink. Actually this page without pink in it looked a little cold. Hope you stay warm in your imaginary place of your memory!


See you later!

Scraplift Sunday - week 5

For our challenge this past week, we used a page by Susan Weinroth. My biggest problem was choosing pictures, since there were too many that could work for this sketch. So, I decided to double the challenge for myself by making two pages. The first one was pretty closely scraplifted from the original one. I even used similar colors :

The other one was made using mostly scrap pieces from my drawer. (The picture of lo was taken before journaling was added to the page):

I am so happy to introduce another participant of last week's challenge - Anka. I really like the color combination that she used here and her pictures are very pretty. I like her chipboard letters too. Here is her beautiful work:

Lora always surprises me with her twist to a layout. I just love how happy this page looks. Very cute picturess and good job on fitting 5 photos here. Lovely border too! Here's Lora's page:

And now is the time to announce our next challenge. Jennifer Gallacher is a very talented scrapbooker and one of her pages I would like to use for our next Scrapbook Sunday challenge - week 6.

I hope you have a great week and some bits and pieces of free time to get your lo done!