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!

New paper pack

Just wanted to share a few things. First is a layout I made in 8.5x11 format. I love switching between two different sizes. I used to be a very monochromatic scrapbooker, but now I seem to enjoy playing with color a lot.

This was the first time ever I used a button on a page:

And now I'm super excited to share my new buy. I totally love this paper collection by Colorbok. These colors are so perfect. They look good by themselves and in combination with other colors too. I see myself using them over and over again.

Here are a few of my favorites:

I'm thinking about making a minibook someday with these. Can't wait to play with them.

Thanks for stopping by!
 

Scraplift Sunday - week 4

If you are new to this site, Scraplift Sunday is a challenge we created to make ourselves get more stories down onto paper, to find our personal style, while exploring the work of other artists and simply enjoy this fabulous hobby of creating memories.

So, for this week's challenge, once again we used Robyn Werlich's layout for inspiration. I am a big fan of Robyn's work and in order to understand how she puts her pages together, I made myself copy her work very close. Here is my page:

Close up (You can tell, I had a luxury of using unlimited amount of stickers, thank you Katya):

Девочки, если вы сделали ваши странички, пришлите мне пожалуйста на e-mail, чтобы я могла их добавить сюда и поделиться вашими работами для общего вдохновения.

We decided to announce our challenges here on the blog. So, for our next challenge we are going to be using a page by very talented Susan Weinroth.

There is a lot to be thankful for in our lives and by making a layout I re-live the moment and it fills my heart with gratitude and joy. Even though not all the memories are happy, they are the ones that make our life unique and precious.

If you haven't done a page in a while, do something creative this week!

Playing with stamps

I felt like playing with stamps last night. I made a bunch of butterflies using the Martha Stewart butterfly stamp set and made a layout using them. Butterflies were stamped onto different shades of pink paper and heat embossed with white embossing powder.

These pictures are from 2006, and were taken at Hershey Garden. That place was absolutely gorgeous. As soon as we entered, the first thought that crossed my mind was that it reminded me of Paradise, and we heard the same thing repeatedly from other people too.

I don't make a lot of cards, but sometimes when I get pieces of paper left after making a layout I make a quick card. It saves time by using what you already have, since papers have been chosen for the layout. Here is my card:

I hope you did something creative today!

Scraplift Sunday - week 3

I am so excited to share the Scraplift Sunday challenge with you today, because I'm actually able to show the work of other two participants. For our inspiration we used a layout by a super talented Robin Werlich.

I really liked Robyn's original layout that used it not once, but twice! The first one, I tried to make as close as possible to hers. (Colors look a little brighter in real life) Here is my page:

It's about the relationship between my two daughters - they truly do have the best relationship two sisters could ever have, and I hope that it will never change. That's exactly what my journaling was about (had to stick it on the back).

Since the first page came together pretty quickly, I decided to make one more. For this one, I turned the sketch on it's side and used the pink/silver combination again, since I still had all the papers out and all over the table. Here is my other version:

Now, I'm happy to introduce to you Lora and her work of art. I love how she used the same sketch, but at the same time made it totally her own. Great job! I am a big fan of pages with multiple photos and she was able to fit 11 on hers. Here is her lovely page:

When I saw this girl's page, I smiled instantly - we used the same strips from pattern paper this week! Can you tell we are sisters? Please welcome Yelena and her creation. I love how she used larger pictures instead of smaller ones. Here's the her lovely masterpiece:

I had so much fun this week! The layout for our next challenge happens to be from the same artist. Happy scrapping ladies! Record your stories, create you memories and have fun!

See you soon.

Inspired by color

We took our Christmas Tree down this week. When I placed ornaments back in the box I liked how these colors looked together. So, I decided to make a LO based on this pink/silver color combination.

I've never used a color combination as a starting point before. Everything was coming pretty fast and easy until I got to the journaling part. It's seems that pages that have a story as a starting point are usually the ones that are easier to complete for me.

These pictures were taken 6 years ago, and I loved them at that time. I still love them, but I wish I scrapped them when they were fresh in my mind. Here are some close ups:

Grey flourish was cut out of the pattern paper:

I added this black rub-on to kind of hide the date on the photo (don't you like all of those orange date print on all of you pictures?):

I have already completed my Scraplift Sunday layout, and will be sharing it with you on Sunday.

Happy scrapping everyone!

More sharing

I was looking through a pile of my layouts and found some layouts that I never shared here. Here is one of them. Used some Teresa Collins and Basic Grey papers.

I like how two papers of the same color add depth to the page:

This combination of papers happened totally accidentally. I was cleaning the mess on the table and as I was grabbing papers, these pages happened to look good together. So, I placed them aside, came back and made this layout.

Will be back soon!

Layout making process

Sometimes when I'm working on a page, I like to snap picture of my process. And today I decided to share it with you. I love to see the scrapbooking process of other people too. You can scroll down to see a completed page.

I started by making a background of two different pieces of paper - together they make 12x12:

Added a piece of pattern paper to the top portion to cover white space leaving just a white border:

Added another piece of lighter blue paper (not shown) and glued 4 pictures each a little less then 3x6 to white cardstock:

Added another strip of white cardstock to hold my 2x2 pictures:

I ordered a 4x6 photo collage (with a design in mind), cut photo into two strips of photos - this way I don't have to worry about cutting them to the exact size (one of my favorite design tips):

and added them to the page:

Another great tip, this one I learned from Becky Higgins - place word stickers on a ruler before placing them on a page. This way you can see where exactly you want to see them or make sure they are aligned straight:

When I picked these light grey stickers for my title I knew I needed a dark background for them to standout, that's when I decided to add a brown strip of paper. Here is a look at at the finished page:

That was one of those layouts that I had to0 many pictures to share and no specific story. I do have some stories from Canada and will be sharing some of them soon. We came from Canada with over 400 pictures, so you'll see a lot of those.

Scraplift Sunday - week 2

Title says it all. So, for this week I've chosen a layout for inspiration from the "2peasinabucket" gallery. (Sorry, but I forgot to write the name of the Designer down and if I come across it later I will definitely fix my mistake). Another thing for this week's challenge was that it had to be a winter themed page. Here is my take on it:

I used some pearls on this page, here is a close up:

And some very pretty glittered paper by Me&My BIG Ideas:

I usually find it difficult to make pages in purple palette, but this color choice was based on the colors my kids were wearing and I'm glad with the result.

I wanted to take a moment to say that I'm making a lot of 8.5x11 layouts for a number of reasons: 1 This smaller size canvas is easier to complete. 2 It is less expensive to add more pages and more albums to my library of memories. 3 Convenience of presentation (I find those 12x12 albums to big to share with everyone). That totally doesn't mean that I stopped using 12x12 sizes, it just means that I am totally fine with telling my stories in either format.

See you next time!

Snow. Finishing DD. Foto Friday.

Happy Friday everyone! I know it's the favorite day of the week for many of us, even though I really like Mondays (don't tell my husband).

It finally snowed this week in our neighborhood. We did see some flurries before, but nothing that would make the roofs and streets look white.

I'm making some final steps in my DD. By now I would really like it to be finished. It is getting pretty thick with all the pages in. I used 1.5'' rings for it. One thing I noticed for myself - I like it very clean and simple this year. I'm having trouble adding much of anything on pages.

One more thing for tonight - Foto Friday. An assignment for this week's photo was - SELF. Are you kidding. I barely ever get in the picture, and even if I do, I usually try to hide behind my husband, kids, tree or whatever. Taking a picture of myself... I guess,... well, maybe... I'll try to add a picture here later... not promising.

Week 2 of Scraplift Sunday is coming soon with new projects.

Have a great weekend! 

Scraplift Sunday week 1

My first post for the Scraplift Sunday that happens on Saturday since I will be out of town on Sunday. Well, that doesn't really matter, as long as I get more stories down - that's the whole idea behind it. For our first challenge we used Stephany Dagan's layout for inspiration. Here is my version:

I made mine very simple, 8.5x11 story style I've told you about.

I don't know how much I can do next week since I'm really trying to get my December Daily done. I worked on it for three days this week. I like how it turns out, but need a little more time to finish it. Really want to share it with my family and friends.

Have a great day!

First page in 2011

Sharing one of three layouts I did this week. I didn't want the red in the pictures take over this page or effect the mood, therefore I chose softer color palette. Here are the closeup details, that include stitching (still one of my favorite techniques):


And here is a look at the finished page:

I spent a couple of hours today on December Daily. Will be posting some of the finished pages here as soon as we have date with my friends to share our Daily.

I also decided to join Foto Friday creative photography challenge, that Mary MacAskill and other ladies are doing, and the theme for the first Friday of the year was "goals/resolutions". (It's not like I don't have enough to do, but this challenge will help me appear here more regularly.) So,here is my first photo:

No need to explain anything. New Year - New Shoes - New Goals.

Until next time!

Welcome 2011!

I was happy to celebrate the beginning of a New Year with my family. I love my family and love to spend time with all of them.

I did a lot of thinking on 1/1/11 about what my goals are for 2011. I had too many ideas and now I have to make up my mind on what I should stick with.

The ones I want to share here are scrapbooking related.

1. Project Life by Becky Higgins still sounds very tempting. I checked her digital version and totally loved it! Partially because it can be done on your computer throughout the year and they will ship you a book at the end of the year. No ordering pictures, no writing on journaling cards...

2. I plan on posting HERE more regularly. It is a part of scrapbooking and also, every time I type I learn something. I dread the journaling part of scrapbooking since we speak a different language at home, so I find it a little challenging to write in English. That's where number 3 comes:

3. I would really love to take a journaling related class for scrapbookers. I know I could benefit from it. Anytime Roundtable crew discusses that subject I take little notes and refer to them later.

4. I wanted to add something new to this blog this year. It's one of the challenges we like to share with my sister. Scralift Sunday is what I think we should call it. There are so many talented ladies who've spent great amount of time designing their pages. We can all benefit from it by scraplifting their work. To get more pages done, I plan to scraplift a page every week.

5. The biggest decision was dividing my pages into two different categories: regular pages where pictures take the center stage and a story style - very, very simple. I really want to start recording more stories. For regular pages I will spend more time playing with paper and embellishments as for story style it will be minimal. I even decided to do most of them in 8.5x11 format.

6. Week in a life. I have done it twice. The first time my camera broke. The second time around I did take ton of pictures every day for entire week but never did anything with it. I would love to finish my unfinished project and would like to participate with Ali Edwards again. Sticking with December Daily for sure.

7. Another one of my ideas was to create some kind of Creative Circle to meet at least once a month meetings with female friends for scrapbooking. It is probably the most challenging one, but I have been dreaming about it for over a year now. Just don't feel brave enough to do it.

Well, and this is only scrapbooking related desires... I will share some work soon. Made two pages today. Both were story style. Happy scrapping everyone!