My pick of the week

I love those roundtable episodes on Paperclipping.com. That is so much fun. Like different topics they talk about, people they have on the show, and information they provide. Oh, and Noel is so sweet. Anyway, each time they make their Pick of the Week, I think what would I have chosen? And the first thing that comes to my mind is the item I use every time I create, and I really apreciate it.

My pick of the week is Tombow adhesive tape runner. It is great. Don't know how I used to scrap without it. I heard that dots are better, but my craft stores don't have it. So, for me this is the best. My favorite tool right now.

I have a couple of layouts done, but no camera to take a picture of them. This week I get to experience what life is without a camera... Hopefully there will be another one pretty soon...

Ordinary day...

Today was a perfect, busy, ordinary day. And I really enjoyed it. Even though I still had remnants of cold, and our baby didn't have the best sleep at night, I still enjoyed it. It was the day when whole family was home. It was busy and noisy around here, but I felt blessed. It was beautiful windy spring day that felt a little like fall, and I love fall.

Today I had a privilege to listen to live music, performed by my oldest daughter, Yelena. Today I appreciated Suzanna's patience when her baby sister was messing up her hair. Today I enjoyed hearing Liana's baby talk, when she was pointing at a picture in a book and telling me what she sees. Today I felt lucky to have my husband work on house improvements. Today I was thankful for cool weather which was perfect for taking a walk. Today I was grateful that my children offered help while I was working on these Russian cookies (it seems like this family can not survive without sweets).


There wasn't a celebration here today, nothing special happened, but I felt blessed. Blessed to have a family. Blessed to enjoy another day that the Lord has made.

Count your blessings!

Week in the Life update

I really enjoy this journey called "A Week in a Life". Wanted to share just a few pictures that make up our life. Pictures that otherwise would've not happened if it wasn't for this project.

Pretty much every morning starts with this cup for me. Contents in it vary.

Kids leaving for school:

Bus stop in the morning.

This table is always occupied by something or someone, no matter how hard we try to keep it free of clutter.

This is what I found on a camera after my kids left for school. My daughter was so proud that she was able to take that cool picture like mom likes to do (with blurry background):

Laundry. This is a picture after laundry was done. (didn't want to document before):

Cousins watching their favorite Russian movie "Ny pogodi":

"Count every moment together as a gift" - just heard that phrase on the radio. And this is so true.

Camera problems

Could there be a "better" week to have your flash go dead then the week you are trying to capture your everyday life? Great.

No, I didn't give up, even though it makes things so much more complicated. I literally could not take any pictures inside of the house for three evenings, and not much came out today since it wasn't very bright outside. I didn't want to take camera back it to get fixed, because then I would be left without camera at all. Arrr...

On the brighter side, I have to agree with Ali, that during this time when we make ourselves grab a camera and take just another picture we might get across something like this:

...the connection between these two is incredible. Liana (the baby) will choose her older sister over me any time. This is one of those moments that I wanted to scrapbook about but didn't have picture. Now I do.

New layout

I did this one few weeks ago. Gathered images of our hometown from different sited, since I did'nt have any of my own and made collage. Turned them all black and white (originally was planning on mixing with my old photos of us...) I had this nostalgia about Krivoy Rog, school, childhood... for a while. And working on this layout helped a little. I do have another one on my desk almost done also childhood related. Will be back to share more.

Week in the Life

I am so excited to participate in project called "A week in the Life". I've read all the links referring that subject on Alis' blog. Today I was working on basic design and other little details for it. So far I have decided on:

- making it a 5.5 x 8.5 in size (made December Daily in a similar size and loved working with that canvas size)

- choosing blue as an accent color

- having a transparency for each day instead of devided page protectors (will adhere pictures on both sides, which will have simmilar effect)

-geting it bound at an office store, instead of rings this time (A.C Moore doesn't sell them anymore... made me mad.)

For my design inspiration I used one of the pages from Ali Edwards photo book on Shutterfly and worked it out so that my project will look similar. It was my favorite page in her book. By the way, I'm working on one of those photo albums to give it to my parents as a gift.

I want to keep it very simple. Would love to work with white pages for a change. Hope to share a little bit more soon. Can't wait to get started.

Just a card.

This is a card I did a while ago. Just thought I would share it here. I had to cover wedding gift in scrapbooking paper (I know!) to match the card.

Wedding colors were also pink and brown.

Page makeover

I have more pictures and memories to scrapbook then I'll ever have time to do it, and yet I go ahead and redo a page a did long ago. It was a 12x12 two page spread with lots of dark blue colors.

Here I tried to use more lighter and happier colors to reflect happy kids at their favorite place in the world. All the papers are from Scenic Route.

I used a sketch for this page and got it done pretty quickly since it didn't require a lot of thinking on design. Ahh, I just realize it's still missing a title.

Liliya's visit

Back with another page. I wanted to make a layout about my best friend of school years for a while. I found a couple of pictures from back then and a few more recent ones... Then I decided to make two pages and give one copy to her.

Last week I invited Lilya for a cup of tea and a walk around our neighbourhood, and I gave this LO to her. Now I have to finish mine. Will probably keep picture arrangement the same (since pictures are all prepared in that size, and ready to be printed), would only change papers and colors.


Love my circle punches. It's probably one of my favorite tools right now. This is the fourth page where I used these punched rings. I hope I don't overdue it here... :)

See you soon!

I'm back...

Hi, I'm back. I know I was missing for a while, but that doesn't mean I wasn't scrapping. In fact, there have been some new layouts done and yesterday we had a crop night with my kids and nieces. In one hour everyone made a LO (even though it felt like I did four in one hour).

One layout I wanted to share with you today. When I was making this page I had a camera on my desk, and just for fun I was snapping some pictures along the way. Thought it would be fun to watch how page evolves.

Starting with background papers...


Adding a circle - to have sun effect behind a photo...

First - main picture...

Two more little ones to support a big one...

Adding hand cut title to match colors...

and journal strips around pictures.

And here is a finished page.

I shared this layout at TwoPeas on Monday. Their gallery was overflowing with great pages that day! Wow! So many talented ladies.

Have a great day!

Ready for Spring

After looking at these for a day and a half I am really ready for spring now!


This is a page about our little princess I did last week. I didn't adhere my journaling strip, because it's not final. Wasn't in writing mood. I will put it aside and come back to rewrite it. Hopefully.


And this is a page about our trip to Florida about 4 years ago. I had a layout idea in my head before I started making it, and it came along pretty easy, minus journaling. Again, I'll do it later. Yes, journaling is my biggest struggle, but I'm learning...


And this one was so much fun to do. It's still missing a title and a few words but... I always wanted to make a page about my friends from Odnoklassiki site. Couldn't fit everybody here... Will definitely make something like that again. I used Picasa program to edit pictures and to make a collage. This was the fastest page I ever made. Love that Basic Grey paper from Offbeat collection.

Wish you all the inspiration to get your precious memories on paper! See you later.

Thank you everybody!

I don't like birthdays. My birthdays. But today was one of the best birthdays ever. We didn't really celebrate or went out, but what could be better then:

- It starts with a present from my husband a few days earlier...
- My older sister calls and we could talk about our favorite subject with her...
- I get a package and a gift card from Florida...
- My youngest sisters comes over and brings a box of my favorite chocolate...
- Best friend shows up with a pot of pink tulips...
- My cousin and my best friend of school years calls...
- My sister and my neighbor comes with a present and encouragement for my goal...
- My older child offers to babysit so that I could scrapbook...
- I receive a funny birthday message from a friend...
- My brother calls. His phonecall is present itself...
- I get "Happy Birthday to you" played at orchestra practice...
- My middle child makes a precious card for me...
- I get 6 comments from my sister on todays blog. Had a good laugh...
- My mom calls with best wishes for me and my family...
- I get 12 more Birthday wishes from my friends on Odnoklassniki...
- My older sister gets me a present...

Thank you everybody! That's all we need sometimes. Just a moment of attention. That's why 100 friends are always better than 100 dollars. And here is a picture of my DH's present. Love it!

Thank you again!

Confession.

Hi. I have a confession to make.

I used to think that
- all of my pages had to be done the same size
- they all needed to be either one page layouts or two pagers
- all had to be 12x12 or all 8.5x11
- I thought they needed to share the same style
- have chronological connection withing the album
- and even somehow match color wise...
Not funny, but that's what was holding me back.

Now, I love the freedom of choice and options. I pick a story to tell, decide on paper size and go with whatever feels right at the moment. Ali Edwards played a big part in this changed thinking for me. I love to work on 12x12 canvas, but when I found these adorable 8.5x11 scrapbooks at Kohl's (3 ring binders), this is my new favorite.

Here is a simple layout I made about my mom. I love those old pictures. I don't have too many and that's why they are so valuable to me. I like to turn photos to black and white, especially when originals don't match with each other and to do so here I used Picasa. So easy to use. Actually I love my Picasa more every day. Also used it to fix some cracks on these pictures.

I love simple but I don't remember the last time I could do a page so quickly. Here, I used just a few pictures from Borders. Yes, I learned that I don't have to scrapbook all of them. Just picked the ones I thought will help me tell the story and kept the rest on DVD.

Originally I had a little different design in my mind, but as a part of my scrapbooking process I like to play and rearrange items on the page just before gluing everything down to see other options, and decided to go with this one. Didn't want to put "Borders" for the title, since the big Borders letters are on the photo. Thought that a letter "B" will be just enough.

I do have a couple more pages that still need a journaling for or a title. I will share them later. And here is a sneak peek of what I'm working on right now, almost finished.

Will be back soon.

A finished page. Really?

I'm back as I promised with a page. Even though I couldn't upload my image on that same day, I did finish a page yesterday. It was fun to go ahead and do something without overthinking all the little details.

I went with the first design I had in my mind, first paper choices, gray background (which is very unusual for me) and felt totally fine with that. So, I'm learning. Learning to go from "just dreaming about scrapbooking" to "actually doing it" .

Here is a layout about the last day of summer:


Will be back with some more. I need to learn how to photograph pages. And how to resize them too.

See you soon!

Thanks Ali

She has written so many articles about me. I was reading Studio "A" section in CK magazine of March 09 issue this morning, and felt like she was totally talking to me. Feel totally inspired now, and there might be a page happening today!

"5 common trouble spots" by Ali Edwards. Just a few words from each spots that she covered:

1. Thinking your project has to be perfect. Focus on the story you are trying to communicate rather than attempting to achieve creative perfection...

2. Having too much stuff. You might end up taking all the time you set aside just choosing what items you want to use on a layout...

3. Comparing yourself to others. There's no right or wrong way to scrapbook! Remember: If you are scrapbooking, you're doing it right!

4. Not telling your story with words as well as photos. Journaling is really one of the most important parts of the scrapbooking.

5. Not backing up photos. Make it a habbit to back up your photos, print out the ones you love the most and plan to scrapbook, and burn them to a DVD. It's worth the time and effort.

I will be back with my unperfect layout which carries some dear memories I want to share and remember. Yes, it's that simple. See you later today.