May is here!

Happy May 1st! For some reason May just sounds so exciting! I feel really thankful for the sunshine today. It just makes everything better. Even everyday routine things are easier to do with a sunshine coming in through your windows.

Anyway, back to scrapbooking now.

When I don't feel very creative I need to change something in my routine - work on a different type of project, reorganize, edit my photos, do some sewing or make a page with someone else's pictures. That's what I did yesterday and it totally worked. For some reason I don't overthink little details in this case and this page came out pretty easy and fast. 

I decided to go with black accents on a page to underline this girls sun dress. And multiple circles in various shapes and sizes make this page a little more playful (they are also a part of this week's challenge at TwoPeas - making a page with circle elements, held by GG Wilna). Loving these challenges lately! 

Stitches and pearls - they seem to get on almost every project I make. Part of the title was cut with Silhouette. LOVE the freedom of choosing any paper color for my title! Never have to change my title because I'm short on letters.

Hope you have a wonderful day! Don't forget to take a picture too.

Challenge at TwoPeas...

Hello! I have made a page for another challenge at Two Peas in a Bucket. One of the challenges there is to scraplift yourself - your own work. I like to participate in challenges, because it gives you a starting point. So I had to pick one of my layouts to repeat it again. I decided to go with one that I remember went pretty easy for me the first time. My new page:

Another challenge for me was combining this many colors on one page. I usually tend to make monochromatic pages, but today I felt like trying to add more colors like Kelly Goree or Summer Fullerton and many others do so well.

And my original layout was done back in September. I like when I can fit multiple photos on a page, so this 5-photo LO was done once again but in a mirror reflection with a few little changes. Here is an older page I scraplifted or you can check the post HERE :  

Hope you give scraplifting a try. Changing colors and pictures make it a different page, well almost. But I'm not planning on having these side by side in the album, so I guess those who will be looking at it wouldn't notice.

Best wishes from our house to yours!

A few cards

Hello. I'm a back a day later than promised, again. Well, blogger has changes the whole design and the way you look at your blog and posts and I should say I'm NOT enjoying it. With the older version it was so easy, and now you have to relearn this whole thing. I know, they probably wanted to do it to improve and make it better, but for now all I see is that it stops me from jumping in and adding a quick post. I guess I'd have to adjust to it. Maybe some day I'll agree that the new version IS better.

If you've been visiting me a couple of times before, you've probably noticed that I don't do many cards. I enjoy making pages with photos and stories more than cards. But last week I decided to make a few cards to have on hand, because I caught myself needing one when I didn't have any ready to use and didn't have time to make one at the moment.

I started with some 6x6 paper pads and made 5 cards using basically same supplies. Chances are they will all go to different people anyway. My main embellishments for all of them were flowers cut out from an Authentique Collection. I purposely made them pretty flat (no pop dots or ribbon), so that they can be easily mailed. Here they are a little closer:

Now I need to mail one of the Thank you cards to a very generous friend of mine!

Hope you have a great day and I'll see you later!

Just the way you are

 Hi. There was a list of challenges last week on Shimelle Laine's blog. One of them was to create a page in four quadrants by Jennifer Gallacher. I did that one, but couldn't submit it, because my computer shut down right before the time for adding a link expired. Oh, well. At least I enjoyed making a page, plus it came out pretty quickly, as any scraplift page does.

I loved these pictures of Katya from last summer. Her love for nature and any living creature is shown in her life and on these photos:

 

I will let her add the journaling here since she is getting a page. I'm sure she has a lot to say. These girls are so good at writing stories. We have opposite problems - if I don't know where to start, they usually don't know where to finish. 

Great day for everyone and I'll see you tomorrow!

11 on 11th

1. Hello everyone! Просто ещё раз хотелось поздравить с праздником всех тех для которых эти слова что то значат...

Picture was found on Pinterest.

2. I have spent too much time on the computer these last few days. I was helping my sister with two photo books, so when the question came about blogging, I just had to say - enough for today. That was the reason for being absent here. Done with books for now - back to blogging!

3. I first saw the idea of this cake in a magazine. A few days later it was all over Pinterest... Well, I figured my Mom and Dad don't visit that site (plus a few more people) so, I just had to make it:

4. Just a fun little reminder for all of you - since it's April 11, it means we should be on the letter K for both alphabets! It's ok if you are behind, but don't put it off for any longer. Remember - one sentence might be enough to tell a story.

5. My little one will be four this August, so I decided she needs to start learning some letters. A few times I wrote some letters in a notebook for her to copy and she seemed to enjoy it. But she was always done faster then I expected. So, to make it fun, I decided to combine her love of photos (she LOVES to look through photos!) and writing letters in one very mini album:

It measures only 3x3. I have printed a baby picture for every letter of the alphabet. Now she can take it and copy letters from this book anytime she wants to.

Yes, she really likes her little book.

6. Just wanted to ask - How come when Spring comes with spring cleaning - one happens by itself and the other one you should be doing? We did a little bit of Spring cleaning in the basement and one spot there really makes me not enjoy cleaning. That's the closet under the stairs. Somehow everything just creeps in there and it's really hard to organize stuff.

Wishing one day we could redo that whole corner into something like this:

I wouldn't mind those floors either :) Again, photo was found on Pinterest.

7. You know how toddlers come up with some funny things or ideas in their head? So, my little one realized (or was told) that everything that I eat -the baby eats. Now, every time I put something in my mouth she asks if I eat this for the baby... First of all - any time you ask me now, I can tell that I haven't eaten anything. For myself of course. And second of all - each time she asks that, I pause and think: Does my baby really need this peanut butter cup?

8. I did make a layout last week. Another one from a week before is waiting for a few words on it. I'm in the process of thinking how to make pages more meaningful. I have more free time on hand right now, so I can let myself make a page just because I want to. In the future, with a baby in the house, I would have to really pick and choose...

This one didn't really have a deep story. I just wanted to make a page, that's how it was born.

9. Thinking about our Easter dinner again (I think I'm hungry), I really wouldn't mind to have some more of this:

I can still smell it... Thank you brother for making this delicious meat for us. Another one of my favorites from that dinner was a broccoli and avocado salad that my sister made. I think I ate most of it. Delicious!

10. Making "плов" for dinner tonight.

11. Well, originally I thought it was the tenth of April, so I had only ten things I wanted to point out today. So this point actually features an excuse for not really having a point.

Thank you for stopping by and have a great day!

"Pink" post...

There were a lot of creating happening here, just not a lot of blogging. Sharing the other page in gray. Gray plus pink. This page has some of my favorite pictures. They were not the best quality (the reason they got printed in b/w), but they just captured one of the sweetest moments.

As you've probably noticed before, I love adding pearls to the page:

I also did another cover for ABC mini book. This one measures 4x5.5 I figured that these mini books will probably be handled a lot so I added cardboard between the top layer and inner paper of cover. Like the result - feels very sturdy.

More pearls...

Вчера мы должны были закончить букву "Б", и сегодня думать о следующей букве - "В" в руском алфавите или "С" в английском. Представить только, за один вечер сколько мы сможем узнать друг о друге! Can't wait!

Всем хорошего настроения и до новых встреч!

"Ну, погоди!"

Добрый день! У меня сегодня русское настроение. Наверное это потому что я себя настраиваю на то, что алфавит в блокнотике буду использовать русский. Надеюсь вы не забыли что с первого Апреля мы начинаем писать по букве в день...

На этой неделе эксперементировала использование серой бумаги на страницах. Мне сестричка подарила целый набор красивой бумаги в серых оттенках. Хотелось определить с каким же цветом серый сочетается больше всего. У нас мнения разделились, хотя это наверное больше зависит от самой истории или дизайна страницы чем от цвета. Так как на первой страничке еще не дописан journaling, cегодня делюсь вторым вариантом - серый плюс жёлтый (с белым конечно):

Этот набор имел пару страниц с разными fun to use"tags and embellishments":

Название вырезано с помощью Silhouette:

Девочки, через пару дней мы начинаем писать на первую букву алфавита! Надеюсь что ваши блокнотики готовы, или хотя бы ваш план. Я проверила наших деток и не знаю, обрадовалась или расстроилась... они уже написали букву "L"... Так и знала, что за ними не успеешь. Ну ничего, мы будем идти своим темпом.

До новой встречи!

Warm up page...

I just looove this time of year! It's pretty, I always seem to have more energy during Spring and it's simply the best! The fact that we can enjoy this in March this year is a huge bonus!

I thought these pictures were cute, so I felt like I needed to share (check the bug on third photo)...
And now back to scrapbooking...

Why do you scrapbook? (if you do) I scrapbook for many different reasons: To preserve our memories; To tell a story; To play with my lovely paper collection; I use scrapbooking as a reward after hard work; or Just for fun!

Sometimes I have a thought that I will carry in my mind and work on for days, before it becomes a layout. Other times, I will sit down, pull a few photos that don't have much of a story to go along, or that have previously been scrapbooked on a different layout, and just create. Because I feel like it. That's what I did last Friday. Just for fun. I just wanted to make something. Stacy Julian calls them a warm up pages.

Here is my warm up page - very simple. It will be added next to the other layout with more photos from the same day:

I love the cluster of embellishments on a page. I know I did this type of embellishing too many types, but there's nothing wrong in repeating what works for you:

Well, I guess I'll share one more thing before I go today. I made this for a friend of mine... Learning from my mistakes - don't add milk and butter to chocolate! Yes, it will be easier for dipping, but it will not harden as good as plane, melted chocolate does. That was a big mistake. Well, sometimes we need to make mistakes to learn from them...

(I meant to say "covered" there... to lazy to go back and edit this photo. I'd rather work on a new page! ) I hope you have a wonderful Monday! Do something creative today - March is a National craft month...

I'll see you soon here again!

PL and a new Layout

Hello friends! I'm so sorry for not fulfilling my promises on time. When I planned to post on Wednesday morning, I totally forgot about doctor's appointment:(( On our way backwe decided to stop by my sister-in-law... And you know how time flies when you are having fun!! Yes, it just flew by pretty quickly... but, at least we have taken a whole lot of pictures! Seems like I might have hard time narrowing them down for our PL album.

A picture of two children holding their hands and both looking so cute right at the camera . It just making me happy! Let's not go into details about how long have these two been this cute....We don't have to go into details, that they were this nice and quite for the first two minutes only... I'm not even going to describe how they looked like on the way home, let's just pretend that these are the two little angels in the family:

Ok, I guess I'll share a layout first (just for Lora :)) that I made last week. Again, old pictures, dark colors, same problems. I had to go really light with paper choice to make these pictures look at least a little lighter. Page"One day..."

The journaling on this page has nothing to do with the pictures. Actually, these pictures were taken before going to the circus.

Used my Silhouette to cut out those flowers that extent onto the photo. It was a good break on the dark line of photos.

And now, let me share the last two finished weeks in Project Life (weeks, that I have my photos printed for) I usually print every 4-5 weeks, even though I really want to print my next two weeks already...

I keep my PL very simple. To me it's still a photo album, but in a more chronological way of documenting and some little notes about our life. I totally mix both languages in the album. I used to do nothing in scrapbooking, because I couldn't decide what language to use. Now, giving myself a freedom of using both languages, I get SO much more done! One more thing: if I don't have enough pictures for one week, I combine them with another week. That's what happened here. (well, I did find another folder with pictures later).

Each side separately:
 

(it's a little hard to photograph pages in page protectors - colors look a little more grey in them)
 

And a week 10:
Close up of the left side:

... and the right side.

And a few more pictures of some little details (sorry, my baby is having hiccups, yea, I had to mention). This menu top was printed, cut out and added to a plain 3x4 card.

For one of the pictures I added journaling before printing photo:

For a couple of others I just added a little strip of paper on top of it:
And also, I need to sent some pictures to our friends. They gave me their business card, so I just added it to the PL, this way I know it's not going to get lost:

Added a tab to the side of it, so I know where it is located.
 

That's it. Very simple, but it surely records our everyday life and moments that otherwise would have been forgotten. I hope your PL is going well, and if you haven't started yet, it's never too late. DON'T wait until January to begin - start with a Spring!

Hope you are having a good day, and I'll see you later!

200th post!

Всем доброе утро! Надеюсь что вы покушали завтрак, а то похоже что те кто не кушает завтрак быстрее раздражаются по мелочам чем те которые наелись. Это был наш завтрак сегодня утром...

Прошлый раз я говорила, что мы уже несколько раз пытались назначить встречу на "DD party". Как всем изветсно, о зиме трудно думать иногда даже зимой. Я люблю снег и зимние праздники но в их сезон. Вы заметили что даже все странички которые я делала зимой были в основном о весне или лете. Поэтому делиться нашими зимними воспоминаниями весной, когда темперетура выше 70 F, немного сложно. Сложно настроиться назад на зиму.

НО, я считаю что встречу мы всё же сделаем. Я предлагаю по поводу наших ДД встретиться в Октябре или Ноябре, а чтобы так долго не ждать, мы в Мае месяце встретимся немного по другому поводу. Надеюсь что экзамены уже закончатся и даже дату подобрать будет легче. А причина будет следующей: мы с вами сделаем еще один mini album! (я уже представила как некоторые из вас начали возмущаться...)

Я когда то услышала идею, о том что люди делали маленькие альбомчики (я имею в виду очень маленькие) о себе. Этот альбом состоял из страниц по количеству букв в алфавите. На каждую букву вы должны придумать слово и написать одно, два предложения о себе. Очень просто. Вот один из экземпляров выполненый на страничке размером 3.5х8 инчей.

Пусть это будет самое простое оформление, но я уверена что у каждого есть за прожитые годы маленькие мелочи которыми он смог бы поделиться с другими. По желанию вы можете добавлять свои фотографии, чтобы сделать его более интереснее, но мы здесь не будем играть на приз у кого моднее получится. Главное записи в этом блогнотике. Я понимаю, что у всех времени в обрез (кроме меня, вы так скажете) и сочинения не были вашим любимым заданием в школе, но всё же я думаю каждый сможет найти по 3 минуты в день, чтобы написать один маленький факт о себе.

Вот еще один экземпляр размером в 4х5 инчей:

Вы можете альбом быполнять на любом языке. Например в Английском меньше букв. Их здесь только 26, когда в русском целых 33:

Хоть в русском алфавите букв на семь больше чем в Английском, на четыре из них не начинаются слова:

Все равно звучит слишком сложно? Я уверена что в вашей жизни есть люди которые очень дороги для вас -дети, муж, родители, бабушка, дедушка... Сделайте этот блокнотик о них. А представьте если бы у вас была целая коробочка с этими маленькими блокнотиками о каждом из членов вашей семьи... Это было бы вообще сокровищем!

И всё же, это проще чем вам кажется. Не пишите много. Не пишите слишком заумные фразы. А ведь сколько мелочей остается в жизни незамеченными... Вот например одна только, не очень популярная, буква З, а столько слов на неё уже можно придумать - зуб... зоопарк... зебра... зима... зимой... завуч... замок... зеркало... забор... зефир... зубной врач... земля... завтра... золото... зелёный... завтрак... И я уверена что если бы вы их читали медленно, вам обязательно вспомнилось что то почти на каждое из этих слов.

Так, я надеюсь что вы с радостью согласитесь учавствовать (даже Ира, и тоже с радостью!) Я даю вам время до конца Марта придумать размер и стиль альбома, а в Апреле мы вместе начнем писать по одной букве в день (Катюша, тебе придётся начать раньше, или писать по две буквы), и тогда мы в Мае сделаем встречу. Мужиков отправим играть в воллейбол, сами пообщаемся а потом пойдём за них болеть.

И последнее, если всех этих убеждений для вас было мало, выбор все же остаётся за вами. Хочу поделиться фото, которое я нашла на Pinterest. Думаю, что оно очень подходит:

"You can choose to live your life with the joy of the front row or solemness of the third row. The choice is yours." Чтобы вы потом не жалели, сидя в стороне на "третьей" лавочке...

Я сделала блокнотик для одного из вас. В нём включены все 26 страничек с буквами Английского алфавита. Всё что от вас требуется это сделать небольшую запись на каждую букву.

Мой первый экз. был сделан на одной из таких же страниц.

В конце вы можете добавить дату и ваше имя.

Это фото задней обложки выполненной в том же стиле и прошитой зигзагом:

Я решила потом все же сделать ещё один блокнотик, из за чего не смогла выставить этот пост пораньше.

Этот размером второго экземпляра - 4х5. Здесь я странички оставила пустыми чтобы дать вам больше свободы с оформлением. Этот можно делать на любом языке, так как буквы не наклеены.

(I could have learned how to cut a preprinted design with Silhouette, but instead I sat there and cut all of these bizzillion petals by hand.) The flower design was downloaded from THIS site.

Так же наклейки для даты и имени на задней обложке.

Экз. рядом с блокнотиком:

Если вы хотите получить один из этих альбомчиков, оставьте комментарий, и ваше предпочтение какой из двух. Я выберу двух человек до среды, а остальные (и я в том числе) будем начинать собирать альбом.

Всё, кажется на сегодня я закончила. Жду отзывов.

А пока до новой встречи!