Week's layouts

Today, I feel especially thankful for my family's overall health. Being sick is not fun. I'm not going to complain how bad I felt this week, I just hope it's gone soon. I couldn't even scrapbook -that how sick I was.

Now, I'm happy to share layouts from other girls. I loved them all! Here they are in the order I received them. Anka's "Love" page:

I like that Anka stayed away from blues on her photo and used pink, which made this page so soft. Love all the flowers too. Yes, you can use pink on boy's layouts. Very sweet.

I really like Lora's page this week. Perfect balance of photos, color and journaling. One of my favorite elements are those punched butterflies in a row. Here is Lora's page "I'll always be there for you":

Katya also made a baby page (mine was a baby page too). I like her simple and clean look on the page. I'm glad she took a moment to write those memories down. We tend to think we'll remember everything, but believe me after you get a baby number three, you really wish you recorded it. Love her border of circles tucked under white cardstock. Here is Katya's page:

Thank you for your patience. I hope everyone stays happy and healthy.
До встречи.

Few things

One. I love to be on schedule, but I also like to have more time for family and church during holidays. With that been said, we will have a few extra days to complete our challenge from last week, and have a new one in may.

Two. I received my order from TwoPeasInABucket and am super excited to use my gorgeous new stuff. I love all the papers, but my favorites have to be these adorable dye cut shapes from Jillibean Soup:

Three. TwoPeasInABucket has free shipping on orders over $30. You save more than $8 on shipping. We placed order with my sister and were surprised to receive it two days later. They are great!

Four. May 9th is a National Scrapbooking Day and I hope everyone will set a time to do some scrapbooking that day! Also, there's always a lot of giveaways that day, so check your favorite sites.

Five. It's been a while since I've done a long project so I'm planning on doing a "May Everyday" during the month of May. It is not as complicated as December Daily and doesn't require any preplanning or an end result project - all I want to do is take a picture or two everyday during the month of May. Please join me if you like!

Six. I will upload our challenge layouts during this week as I receive them. Will be back with the first two a little later.

See you soon!

Been waiting for this for so long...

Don't you just want to spend a day like this outside? I do. And then scrapbook it. To remember about it when it's cold and wet and slippery outside. Got to go enjoy it now...

Challenge for week 15

During our first fourteen weeks of challenges, I was trying to figure out what types of starting points actually helped me either start or finish my page faster. Color choice was one of them. I didn't have to spend a lot of time thinking over that choice since the choice have already been made for me.

This week I decided to go back to color challenge again.

(photo courtesy of A Creative Mint site)

A Creative Mint is a very pretty and inspiring site with lots of color inspiration ideas. I discovered it through Melissa Philips last year. I thought it would be a perfect color pallet for a Spring and Easter weekend!

Hope, that you are as excited as I am and I can't wait to see your new creations!

Anya

SS Challenge week 14

I am happy to announce that we have a record number of layouts for the past week! They are not totally challenge related but that is perfectly fine. The only reason we do have challenges is to motivate ourselves to do something creative and to find which starting points work best for us. So, here we go. I loved the chance to use journaling block, and think it adds both interest and design. Here's my page:

Katya made 12x12 layout in similar colors to mine but a little softer or subdued tones. My favorite things about her page are layers, color choice, threaded ribbon and felt flowers that add perfect contrast for the page. Here is Katya's page "Just Me":

Lora's design is so unique on this page, that I didn't even realize that it was 8.5x11 format at first. That is one of my favorite things about her page along with very cute pictures, layered papers and the fact that she was actually able to use journaling block. Here is Lora's Page:

Anka send two pages in this time and told me to pick one. One? How can I pick only one? I'm sure girls wanted to see them both too. Her first page "Love" was done in 12x12 format (I think that's the only one she uses) and I really like her straight line design here. Cutout heart paper overlay, matte for the photo and title have to be my favorite details here:

It has been forever since I wanted to use blue with orange for a beach layout. Anka inspired me to do that! Pages with journaling make me happy. I like her journaling block, photo corners, ribbon with word and Basic Gray stickers on the page. Here is her layout "My treasure":

Will announce our next challenge tomorrow morning!

And the winner is...

I'm back with a quick post today. Just wanted to announce the winner of the prize package. I wrote the names down on pieces of paper, rolled them up and let Liana do the rest...

Congratulations Lora! It is all yours! I will see you all tomorrow for our weekly challenge. Have a good night and a great week!

100 th Post!

Congratulations to me for doing something I used to think wasn't possible and congratulations to you for making me want to reach this number faster by visiting this place! You really do make this journey a lot more fun! And as my "Thank you" I have a little giveaway package for one of you, as I promised. Here is what you are going to get:

A few closeup pictures:

Most of the papers are double sided and these are the back sides of some of them:

My wish for you today: Don't wait until you get a lot of free time - work in in little chunks! Don't expect to be caught up - one page a month is better then nothing! Don't let precious memories to get lost with time - record them. Do it for you, your family and for fun! Oh, and don't forget to share with me too.

Thanks, again. Wish you the best day!
Anya.

SS Challenge week 13

Happy Wednesday everyone! It was a little too nice to be blogging on Monday. And Tuesday... did we even have a Tuesday this week?

Anyway, for last weeks' challenge I wanted to make something special. Instead just making a layout I decided to do a minibook. I had this idea in my mind for a while, and the challenge seemed to be a perfect fit. I knew it would take a little more time to complete, but I was optimistic about it and really thought I might get it done in a week. Well, it didn't happen. I will continue to work on it and share it as soon as I get it done. But I did scraplift a page to share at least something. So, here is my unrelated project:

I used to make monochromatic pages all the time. I was afraid to mix more than two colors together. Some artists are just so good at mixing a lot of colors on a page that still looks good together. Jennifer Gallacher is one of them. So, I just scraplifted her page, repeating colors she had on her layout.

Had a few comments about images being too small, which made it hard to read. I will try to upload images in larger size from now on, unless journaling will be a little more personal.

I have Lora's layout to share with you today. There's just so much I like about her page! Great design, perfect color choice, which gives this page a little vintage look and heartwarming journaling. I like that she included pictures of her parents from different times. But my favorite is hearts stiched right in the middle - which are a perfect embellishment for the theme.

Our challenge for Week 14 was to make a page using one of the journaling spots on a page. Simple enough. I am anxiously waiting for this week's pages! Katya will be choosing challenge for week 16!

See you very soon!

"Changed my mind"

Hello everyone! I have another layout to share with you. I love those that happen very quickly. It doesn't mean that I finished it in one sitting. I still had to leave it, and come back to it later to move a few things around. "Changed my mind" - features a little story that tells you about child's personality.

I wasn't planning on using that "sun" cutout on a page, but my corners between polka dot paper and journaling block didn't meet exactly the way I wanted them. That's when "happy accident" happened:

Had to add this half circle for a visual triangle:

I have been asked a few times to upload larger sizes of pictures so that you could read journaling, but that takes a lot of space. I tried to photograph the journaling spot but the edges were to blurry, which wasn't working either. So, I am including my story typed today:

"Kids love to pick their favorite color or animal. It wasn't the easiest choice for Suzanna, but she finally picked a zebra. It has been her favorite for a while now.

During the summer, we got a chance to visit a zoo at Lake Tobias. We were glad they had zebras and I wanted to take a picture of Suzanna with her favorite animal. I asked her to stand closer and smile for me. She did, but I just didn't see that "happy Suzanna" smile on her face.

On our way back home she said: "I don't think Zebras are my favorite animals anymore. I asked her why? Suzanna replied: "It didn't smell good. And, I didn't really like zebras. I just liked its stripes." Didn't smell good? That's the way to choose an animal! Well, dear, if you start smelling them, I don't think you'll ever pick a favorite one. But that is so totally Suzanna."

Thanks for stopping by.

"Blessed"

Just a quick lo I made, based on Kelly Purkey's sketch. The original sketch was for 12x12 format, but it was easily adjustable for 8.5x11 size. I wanted to stay pretty close to the sketch and still had to move a few things around. Here is my "Blessed" page:

I love patterned paper where parts of it could be easily used for embellishments:

I plan to combine ny next assignment with our weekly challenge.

Hope you can find a few minuted to make something creative today. "Schedule your creative time. This way you get other things done faster. Otherwise, you will spent time here and there and free time will never come." - another advise from Paperclipping. Make a choice to record your blessings.

Till next time!
 

Похож на Сашу

Last week I made a couple of very simple 8.5x11 layouts. I was trying to concentrate on little stories. "Похож на Сашу" was one of them:

Blue papers were by Heidi Swapp that I received for my birthday from my lovely sister. I totally love that paper collection!

I like how circle punches can easily make an embellishment for a page. That's another reason to own them.

Instead of using journaling block, I decided to cut my journaling into strips this time. It added just a little something extra. And, yes I used American letter stickers for my title. Just had to piece them together for the letters I didn't have.

Today, I received first email from Kelly Purkey and loved the PDF of her first lesson! My page is almost done (surprised myself too). I seem to finish 8.5x11 pages faster than 12x12, since I don't feel the pressure to make a masterpiece. My goal is to simply tell another little story, record another tiny bit of our life!

See you soon!

Little changes

Welcome April. We've been waiting for you to come for so long! I hope you wouldn't disappoint us with your weather. Bring on some sunshine, green grass and flowers! Thank you.

I really like the way our challenges push us to complete yet another page. Get one more story down onto paper. Lora's challenge wasn't just fun, it was also very important. I really want to give everyone the opportunity to complete it. So, understanding that most of us weren't able to complete this weeks challenge on time, I would like to extend it for another week. Life has enough stress, scrapbooking shouldn't add any.

Also, I think I've mentioned before that I will be uploading SS Challenge pages on Mondays from now on, since Sundays are pretty busy around here, especially with Spring coming. I do hope to be back on Monday, sharing one of the pages I completed this week.

Scketckbook 3 class begins on Monday, and I will be taking it with Kelly Purkey and other fun people. I hope to get more pages done during this time, and share them along the way as well.

No matter how busy we are, take some time to create, take pictures, write daily observations and be thankful! See you soon.