... just Laura

Happy Birthday Cards

I think we all have those certain months where there seems to be an abundance of birthdays, all at once. For us, it's May thru July, with June being the busiest month. Last week was my birthday, along with two of the grandmas and a few cousins. This week is Sarah's birthday and a few family friends. Add in May birthdays and July birthdays, and I need a lot of birthday cards to hand out.

I sat down this weekend and whipped up a few simple cards, and then duplicated them to make life easy. A while back, I had put in a small order from Stampin' Up from a local friend. I choose 4 colors of cardstock, 4 rolls of coordinating ribbon, a few embossing folders, and a few packs of buttons. Figured I might as well break into them, since they've been sitting around for a while.

This first card was inspired by a card in the Stampin' Up catalog. The basic design is the same, with the embossed background paper the large banner with the punched out circle and the star. I only used one large star, since my stamp collection is rather small and I was also keeping things simple.

I backed my punched out circle with a piece of silver glittered paper, and then pop dotted the entire piece over the embossed background paper. I stapled a small piece of the green ribbon for some extra color, and stamped my star with some green ink. The sentiment is an older rub-on from Pebbles. I have tons of those, and they're great for quick cards.

I pulled out the green and pink cardstock for this second card, and used the chevron embossing folder this time. I used a punch for the little pink banner piece, and added them below the blue ribbon.

I went to pull out some older paper flowers, and came across this fun fabric flower that had a lot of pink and blue. I'm sure I've been holding onto that flower for 6-7 years, at least. It felt perfect for this card, and I love the metal button (from Stampin' Up). Once again, I used the rub-on sentiment, and then sprinkled on the tiny little metal accent pieces.

I haven't made cards in quite a while, and it was fun to create these little pieces in no time at all. I might need to do this more often.

Bella Blvd: Monthly Project Sheet - All American

Our new monthly project sheet for June went up on the Bella Blvd blog last week. I have been trying to blog this layout for over a week, and just can't seem to finish the post. I have the attention span of an ant ;)

I was asked to create a patriotic layout with the new All American collection for the June project sheet. I honestly don't take photos on the 4th of July that often, and I've already scrapped the one good set of photos from a Memorial Day celebration a few times. So I dug deep and found these photos from years ago.

I knew I wanted to include a lot of the differet patterned papers in this collection, but Ialso didn't want to overwhelm the layout with so many papers. So I decided to use small pieces of the papers, and create borders along the top and bottom of the page. I cut pieces from most of the papers, in varying sizes and distressed the edges of each piece.

I used the grey grid pattered paper from the Freestyle Sophisticates collection for the center of my page, and added either a border sticker or a border from the patterned papers at the top and bottom of the grid paper. I then started adhering all of the little pieces of paper, tucking them under the grid paper and overlapping them as I went.

I was also asked to use several of the new embellishments on my layout, so I created this fun little cluster on the right side of the page. Three feathers, since I like to add my feathers in groupings on my projects. The paper flowers are all hand cut from the Cute Cuts paper and adhered with pop dots at the bottom of the feathers. 

I then adhered buttons and a crochet heart to the centers of each flower. And I tucked in a few of the stick pin flags to finish it off.

 

You can download the All American June project sheet, including a full supply list and detailed instructions, RIGHT HERE.

CKU San Diego

Carlie Robertson (Close To My Heart), Megan Hoeppner (Creating Keepsakes), Karen Burniston (Sizzix), Me (Bella Blvd), Linda Barber (Lawn Fawn), Kristine Widtfeldt (Close To My Heart), Annette Hardy (Creating Keepsakes)

I spend this past weekend teaching at CKU San Diego and had such a great time. It had been almost a year since the last time I've taught at a convention, and it really nice to get back out there in the classroom. Since I taught at CKU San Jose last year, it was really nice to see so many familiar faces.

Since this was the first time I was designing my own class, I ended up putting a lot of time and work into it over the last few weeks. Which is one of the reasons I've been more absent around here. But all that hard work paid off, as I heard from so many students saying how much they loved the class and the projects, and how they learned so many techniques and ideas that they were excited to try on other projects. If you were there and took my class, I thank you for spending that 90 minutes with me!

And they didn't just get those ideas from my class. We had a fabulous group of teachers (seen in the photo above), with a great range of projects. Two amazing album tracks to choose from, and four fun core classes that everyone took as well. These ladies were so much fun to hang out with and we had a great time re-visiting and catching up with each other (for those of us that already knew each other), or getting to know each other (for those of us meeting for the first time). There was so much laughter shared between us, and so many great stories that I know will make for great memories. 

I had one of my closest friends, Deneen, come along with me. She was looking for a weekend away, and I had a room to share. She enjoyed some quiet downtime while I taught during the day, and joined us at the evening crops. She was even sweet enough to volunteer to help out taking down the bookstore and counting product that got packed up. It was nice to have more time to chat with each other, since we're usually doing little 5-10 minute phone chats inbetween working and family stuff. We stayed up WAY too late each night, and got WAY too little sleep!

And now I'm back home and trying to recover. I was so exhausted by the time I got home, and had to get straight to work on Bella Blvd stuff. Daycare kids were back today and luckily, they took it pretty easy on me, as I was still super tired and not quite my usual self.

There are still three more CKU's coming up, and I'll be teaching at all of them. CKU Louisville - August 8-10, CKU Stamford - September 5-7, and CKU Dallas/Fort Worth - October 10-12. You can get all of the details and register RIGHT HERE. I'd love to see you there, so let me know if you're going!

Kerri Bradford Studio: Seriously? Seriously.

I finally have a new layout to share. Seems like it's been a while since sharing a layout over at Kerri Bradford Studio, as I recently did a framed project, my kitchen backsplash project, and the sports album. Loved getting back to a 12x12 inch canvas.

Meet Devon. He's 10 months old now, and I've been watching him for the last six months. He's adorably cute, and has the most precious little face. On the flip side, he's super clingy and demands my constant attention. Meaning that if I'm not holding him, or sitting right smack next to him on the floor, he screams and cries non-stop. It's a little ridiculous, and it wears on me. I'm not sure he gets that I have other little ones here that need my attention too. Or maybe he gets it, but he is still under the assumption that the world revolves around him.

I am constantly finding myself saying "Seriously Devon? Seriously" to him, over and over. When I've been sitting on the floor with him for half an hour, and I simply stand up and walk a few feet away to get a drink or something, and he immediately starts screaming. All I can do is turn around, look at him, and say "Seriously???".

So when I decided to scrap a few recent photos I took of Devon, this is the first title that popped into my head. The "Seriously" title is from the Design Team Picks kit, from 2012. I used all My Mind's Eye patterned papers on this layout. Some of them older papers, and a few newer papers. I cut the title from a greyish paper first, and then from the yellow and red polka dot papers to layer on top.

I also knew that I wanted to use the cute little polaroid frames from the new Sliders kit. I was working with regular 4x6 photos that I trimmed down to fit, so I sized the frames to fit the photos once I cropped the photos down and focused on just having that adorable little face in the frame.

I went looking for some shapes to embellish the page with, and decided on using some arrows from the Need Directions? kit. The only other embellishments I added were a few stickers and a few simple silver brads.

While I love layouts filled with dimension and layers and texture, sometimes a simple design of paper and stickers is just what I need. I loved sitting down after a long work day and creating a layout in one short sitting, instead of spending so much time making decisions and digging for products that in the end, make for a longer layout design process. 

And I have to give little Devon some props today. We've made a few adjustments on the schedule front, which means that I'm actually watching him a lot more than I was before. We're hoping I can tough-love him out of this clingy phase he's been in for over half his little life. And today was the first really good day we've had in months. I don't want to jinx it by saying more, so we'll just wait and see how tomorow goes. Positive thinking has me imagining tomorrow being a good day too.

High School Sports Album

I have an album project to share today that I spent the last week working on. It's also up over at Kerri Bradford Studio, since I used so many of her Silhouette designs throughout the album.

I recently got a call from a previous daycare parent, asking if I could do take on a sidejob for a friend of his. His friend was looking to put together an album as a graduation gift for his daughter who was graduating from high school last week. I remember talking to both of them, and hearing them both ask "is this something you do?". My first thought (in my head, of course) was "not really", since I don't often put together projects for other people.

But there were a few reasons that I couldn't say "no" to taking on this big project. The previous daycare parent that first asked was one of my absolute favorite familes to work with. If I had a third daughter, Amanda would be her name (their daugher). This graduating senior went to the same high school that Alyssa goes too, and they also went to the same elementary school. Alyssa and this senior played on the varsity soccer team together this past year, and I've watched this senior play in previous years while waiting for the junior varsity games to play. And this senior's dad had saved all of the newspaper clippings from her high school sports years and wanted to do something special with them, and I think that is pretty cool!

This album is almost all newspaper clippings from her years on the high school soccer team and volleyball team. There were only a few photos from "Senior Night" that he wanted to include. These were taken at the last soccer game of the year, where the seniors are recognized and walked out by their familes for their last game. This album is also ALL cardstock and patterned paper. No embellishments or bulky items of any kind. This helped keep the cost down for the parents.

 

Luckily, her dad was great about keeping all of the newpaper clippings organized by year, from freshman year through senior year. I simply went through and put them in order within each year, and trimmed up the chippings a bit more so they were all nice and neat. 

I had decided on using lots of my favorite white grid patterned paper from Bella Blvd for the background pages. It's a great neutral background paper, and I happen to have a ton of it on hand. I lightly misted each grid paper with some tan misting spray. I also used kraft, green, and black cardstock for my background pages as well. Our school colors are green and black (or maybe it's technically green and white), and I wanted to stick with that color theme.

 

When I was laying out the newspaper clippings to get an idea of how many pages I would need, I got a good sense of how they would fit together on the pages. I decided to mix in some 6"x12" pages and some 8.5"x11" pages, as I keep those size page protectors on hand. In the end, I even ended up creating a few custom page protectors (using my sewing machine and then cutting them down to size), for 9"x12" pages, 10"x12" pages, etc.

I made four piles, one for each year of high school, and worked with those four seperate piles through out the entire process of working on this album.

I started by adhering all of the newspaper clippings to my background papers. I stuck with a sheet of white grid patterned paper on the left side of each spread, and then alternated using black, green, and kraft cardstock on the right side of the spreads.

I knew that the decision on where to place the newspaper clippings on each page would really be based off how they fit together, since most had 2 parts to each article (they're almost always continued on another page of the newspaper). I wasn't taking titles or accents into consideration at all at this point. Just adhering the clippings however they looked good on the page. 

I then went through all of Kerri's kits, as well as my Silhouette library, pulling out any shapes (soccer ball, volley ball, and some stars), words, and phrases that I thought would fit in with the sports theme of the album. I created a folder in my Silhouette library for this project and dumped everything in there to work from.

Kerri's new Weathered Door Alphabet kit came at just the right time, as I was short on sports words and had planned on creating some of my own. I have to admit that I have never used regular fonts to make my own words. I love having things done for me, so I was glad to have this new kit to work with. I just love the chunkier font and slightly distressed look of the Weathered Door Alphas, and they have just the right look I was going for.

After collecting an assortment of shapes, I went page by page and choose words and phrases that fit in the space I had on that particular page. I set up four different sheets to work with in the Silhouette software: grid paper, black cardstock, green cardstock, and kraft cardstock. I knew that all of my cutting would be on those four papers.

As I chose a word or phrase, I would place in on the color I wanted to cut it from and size it to fit the space on the album page. I also kept notes (most of the time!) as to what cut went on what page, so that after I ran all four of the pages through my Cameo, I would know what shapes went where. Because believe me, it got really confusing.

Kerri's School Years: Add Ons kit came in really handy for the divider pages, to seperate the years in the album. I made the "freshman year", "sophomore year", "junior year", and "senior year" really big so that it filled up the page really well. I also cut out the actual years that that particular school year covered, by using the Decade 2000, twentyTEN, twentyELEVEN, twentyTWELVE, twentyTHIRTEEN kits. 

I also used shapes from Kerri's Touchdown kit, The Ol' Ballgame kit, A Beautiful World kit, and her Graduation kit. I had shapes and phrases picked out from other kits as well, but didn't end up using them, most likely because they didn't fit the spaces I was working with.

Once I had my phrases and words down, I started adding in small strips of patterned paper. I stuck with just a few patterns from the Making The Team collection from Bella Blvd. I didn't want to make it too complicated, so I chose a few patterns to work with, and used just those and small strips of cardstock as well. I also took out just one border punch, and used that here and there on some of the strips.

I did sneak in some pink patterned paper, but only on 2 spreads in the album. This was for our "Kicking For A Cure" event, which our girls soccer team does each year to support cancer patients and research. The players all wear pink jerseys, and they paint a huge pink ribbon on the field. I thought it was a nice touch to add some pink in for those articles.

My only "embellishments" were the soccer balls, volley balls, and stars. I cut a ton of these shapes from all four of the main papers, and sprinkled them in throughout the album. I ended up cutting some small stars from a sheet of yellow star patterned paper, just to add a touch of additional color.

In the end, I think it ended up being 64 pages, or 32 front and back. That includes the handful of 6x12" pages, and 8.5x11" pages that were mixed in.

I was really happy with how this turned out. The parents were super happy with how it turned out. I don't think they really had any idea that this is the direction I was taking with it, and I love that it was such a fun surprise for them. And I hear that the graduating senior really loved the album as well.

Working on this project has me really wanting to make the time to get Alyssa and Sarah's school albums caught up. And maybe even tackle the 11 years of soccer photos that have piled up!

Scrapbook & Cards Today: Finally Doing The Crawl

I realized the other day that I had never gotten around to sharing this layout that I created for the spring issue of Scrapbook & Cards Today.

I was asked to create a layout with a "baby's first" theme. I had really wanted to do a layout about one of the girls, and one of their "firsts" moments. But that would have involved digging out negatives, getting reprints made, or peeling photos off of layouts I've already made. I decided to go an easier route and use some photos of little Zachary that I had taken when he first started crawling. I have scrapped these photos before, but this way I can give one of the layouts to his parents and keep the other one.

Since this was a baby layout, I knew Bella Blvd's Baby Boy collection would be the perfect match for these photos. I added in a few things from other manufacturers, like these chipboard banner pieces from Fancy Pants.

I used my Cameo to die cut the circle background piece from the measuring tape patterned paper (from Bella's We're Expecting collection), which added some subtle interest to the page. I used a mix of alpha stickers, chipboard alphas, and corrugated cardboard alphas directly over the die cut paper to create my title.

I remember when I used to be completely addicted to my embossing folders. And then I just sort of forgot about them. Funny how I went right back to my favorite style (dots, dots, and more dots) when I finally pulled them out again for this layout.

With as many babies as I have come through my daycare, you'd think I'd have a good idea of when all the big milestones should happen. And yet, I seem to forget all the time. Reading the journaling here, and seeing that Zachary didn't crawl until he was 9 months old, makes me realize he did get a later start than most. Based off the fact that two of my little ones that I watch rigtht now are 9 months and 10 monht, and they've both been crawling for quite a while now. Just a random tidbit that popped into my head as I'm blogging tonight.

If you haven't checked out the spring issue of Scrapbook & Cards Today, it's not too late. You can either view it online or download it, both for FREE, right HERE. It's a gorgeous issue, with tons of fabulous inspiration, so you won't want to miss out on browsing through it.

Bella Blvd: First Dance

I feel like I fell off the face of the internet world the last week or two. Which to be honest, isn't necessarily a bad thing. We have had SOOOOOO much going on, with the school year coming to an end, that there were just so many other things that needed and deserved my attention. So it's been kind of nice to not sit in front of the computer as much. 

I do have some photos and stories to share, and a very big project that I am hoping I can share as well. But for now, I have a very quick layout to share with you, just to get something new up on this blog of mine.

Last weekend, Stephanie (the owner and creative genious behind Bella Blvd) got married. I thought it would be fun to spend the week leading up to her wedding sharing wedding layouts from our entire design team. I asked each designer to create a layout using their own wedding photos. So many of us have used the new wedding collection for layouts, but I know that several of us use photos from friends and family members. So I challenged everyone to use their own photos.

Joe and I were married over 14 years ago. So I had to dig for photos to use. My negatives are all super organized, so I had every intention of getting some reprints made for my layout. However, time got away from me, as usual. Next thing I knew, it was the day before my layout was suposed to be up on the blog (the beauty of being the one to write the blog, is that I can get away with doing projects totally last minute!). I was sick with the stomach flu, but there was no way I was going to skip out on participating.

So I dug out the super simple album I had put together years and year ago, and I found a few photos to use. I tore them right out of the album. I should really get them reprinted, so I don't come across an empty page in the album years from now. But I also know that I probably won't reprint them, and when I come across an empty page, I'll just laugh about how I tore out photos for something else.

This layout is quite simple, and I am pretty sure it's the quickest layout I've put together in quite a while. Sometimes that's just the kind of scrapping I need.

Bella Blvd: Step-By-Step Monthly Project Sheet - Love And Marriage

I've had a very slow start to this week. The stomach flu found me for the second time in a month and a half, and it's had me down for the count for the last few days. So not cool. I'm one that so rarely gets sick, so I'm a little annnoyed to have so much sickness around me and all the little ones lately. Anyways. I had my May project sheet layout go up on the Bella Blvd blog on Mother's Day.

I was asked to create a Mother's Day layout, using the Love and Marriage collection and crochet hearts. Easy to do. Bella's collections are always full of super versitle patterns and designs, so they're not limited to the actual theme of the collection. The wedding collection worked perfectly for this Mother's Day layout.

You can download and print our project sheet, complete with a supply list and full instructions, right HERE.

Bella Blvd: Words With Friends

I'm a little late sharing this layout I created for the Bella Blvd blog, as part of our National Scrapbook Day celebration. There was just too much to share over the weekend, and this got pushed to the side. Might have had something to do with the 12 posts I put together on the Bella blog, just for Saturday.

If you missed it, you should check out the Bella blog posts from Saturday. I challenged all of the designers to create "All About Me" themed layouts and answer a few scrapping questions. I had this idea to do a layout about Words With Friends, the game I'm addicted to playing on my iPod Touch.

When I first started playing, forever ago, I was terrible. I lost every single game. Badly. Eventually, I started actually paying attention to the board, watching the triple/double letters/points tiles, and trying to be smarter about my moves. Don't get me wrong ... most of the time, I'm still just an average player. I lose. A lot. I have plenty of times where I make plays quickly, and without much thinking. But I also get in there and make some smart moves.

And what do I do when I make a great play? I'm a total dork and I take a screenshot of it. At first, I did it just so that I could prove to the girls that I wasn't terrible. They're not easily impressed by their mom, and believe me, these screenshots never seemed to impress them either. But it did make them laugh a little. Most likely at the fact that I felt the need to screenshot it.

When I realized how many screenshots I had started to collect, I knew I wanted to do something with them. I printed out a handful of them to use on this layout, all in a 2x3" size. I went through my stash of Bella papers and dug out some in blue, yellow, and grey, to match the photos of the game board. I even pulled in a bit of green, with the chipboard accents and the green patterned paper and vellum I used for the large circle.

I have created quite a few "All About Me" layouts in the past, but I've gotten away from doing them over the last year or so. This is a good reminder to get myself in the scrapbook albums more, even if it's about something as simple and silly as playing a favorite game.

Scrapbook & Cards Today: National Scrapbook Day

I'm getting a late start to posting a few projects that I created for National Scrapbook Day! Turns out, I never do any scrapping on NSD. I'm too busy blogging about it! First up, there's been a ton of good stuff happening over on the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog.

For my contribution to the NSD activities, I created a layout for the Old & New Challenge.

This is a great opportunity to dig into your stash and pull out some of those older products that you've been hanging onto for years. I think we all have good intentions of using these products, but they sometimes end up forgotten as we collect all the latest and greatest products and enjoy using those items while they're fresh and new.

 

For my "old" product, I decided to pull out some very old Making Memories chipboard alphas that I have always loved. I pulled out one of each letter of the alphabet and arranged them around the outside edges of my page. I had good intentions of painting them all to match my background paper, but when I came across this older sheet of embossed cardstock from Core'dinations, I liked how the raw chipboard alphas created a tone-on-tone effect with the cardstock and decided to leave them plain.

I did want to spiffy up the chipboard alphas a bit, so I used a new-to-me embossing folder, along with my trusty Cuttlebug die cut machine, to emboss each letter with fun polka dots. It gives a nice, subtle effect to the letters.

For my "new" products, I pulled out some of the newest embellishments from Bella Blvd. A few feathers (in white, pink, and navy blue to match), a few crochet hearts (in white and grey to match), and a few fun little stick pin flags. I clustered all of these embellishments together, to go beside the adorable photo of one of my daycare kiddos.

Bella Blvd is the sponsor for my hour, and they are giving away an assortment of feathers, crochet hearts, and maybe even some flags, to one lucky winner. For this particular giveaway, you can leave a comment HERE.

However, you'll want to check out all of the posts from today on the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog (there's a lot of them!), because there some fabulous giveaways on each and every post. All of the giveaways are open until 6:00pm, EST, on Sunday, May 11th, so you have lots of time to get your comments in for a chance to win!

Everyday Storyteller 2: Available NOW

It's here! Everyday Storyteller 2 has arrived and is available to purchase.

I am still so honored to have been asked to contribute to this new book, along with so many amazing designers. I've had a chance to browse through the pages, check out the topics and ideas, and see some gorgeous projects along the way. There's something in there for everyone. Want to know what my topic was about? I wrote about scraplifting your own work, and not feeling like you have to re-invent the wheel every time you sit down to create. You'll have to get yourself a copy of the book to hear more ;)

The Everyday Storyteller idea books help scrapbookers bring their stories to life with simple ideas for memory keeping. With advice for paper, digital and hybrid scrapbooking, each volume includes more than 100 behind-the-scenes tips, tricks and techniques for capturing moments, telling stories and creating memories.

Each Everyday Storyteller idea book contains 80+ pages of tips from scrapbookers like you. You will find incredibly useful approaches straight from the minds of our contributors, techniques they use every day to be productive and happy scrapbookers. Organized according to the phases of memory keeping, the books offer simple ways to improve your entire scrapbooking process.

Everyday Storyteller 2 can be purchased as an eBook, a print-quality, full color PDF instant digital download, for $14.99. Or you can purchase the eBook + Print Book pre-order, adding the 8.5x11 full color soft bound print version, for $24.99 (plus shipping). The print books are expected to begin shipping by May 20, 2013.

Right now, you can bundle both the original Everyday Storyteller and the Everyday Storyteller 2 books together and save. You can purchase both eBooks for only $24.99, or purchase the eBooks + Print Books pre-order for $44.99 (plus shipping).

Click HERE to purchase, or simply click either of the images above to take you straight to the site. 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Kitchen DIY Project

I have a fun new project up at Kerri Bradford Studio today. Usually, I'm all about the layouts and cards. Maybe an occasional altered project, if I'm feeling daring. I decided to branch out for this next one. I chose to turn my kitchen into my next Silhouette project!

A little backstory first. I am a huge Rachael Ray fan, and I record her talk show every day. They did a segment way back last summer (seen HERE) about "quick fixes" around the house, for those types of things that would normally cost a fortune and require major work. One of those ideas was how to do a quick fix on kitchen or bathroom tiles. The idea shown involved these vinyl squares that you could just stick over the tiles you already had. I looked up the site they recommended and there were about three designs to chose from, and they weren't cute. Soooooo. Why not create my own vinyl squares?

{Please ignore the obviously-not-staged look of my kitchen in this three year old photo. Especially the two remaining tator tots on the baking sheet.}

You see, I can't stand my tile backsplash in the kitchen. We bought this house before it had even started being built. And one of the very first questions, on the day we signed papers to get our name on the lot, was if we wanted a tile backsplash. Right along with the questions of whether we wanted the upstairs loft addition (yes), the studio addition over the garage (no), and where we wanted additional outlets and ceiling fan hook-ups. A tile backsplash? We had no clue to be honest, so we said "yes". I'm sure if it was different tile then the counter tiles (which I can't stand either), maybe I wouldn't detest them so much. Everything in our kitchen blends together too much, and the backsplash was just super boring to me.

But now? I don't think it's boring at all! In fact, I think it's a bit bold and I think it has a certain "wow" factor. I've had a few people see it already and they've all said "what IS that?", and they were a little shocked to learn that I had basically "stickered" my backsplash with a whole new look.

I love circles, so it was an easy decision to use the circle background from Kerri's More Background Basics kit. I knew my tiles were 6" square in size, so I just sized my squares to about 5.8" square in size.

In making them a bit smaller than the 6", I could easily fit four squares on a sheet of vinyl. Speaking of the vinyl. I actually used Making Memories vinyl sheets for this entire project. I had a ton of them on hand, from when I designed for them, and they worked perfectly in my Cameo. The Making Memories vinyl came in 12"x12" sheets, and there were 10-12 sheets in a pack (I'm drawing a blank on whether it was 10 or 12).

These sheets came in white and black, so black was the obvious choice. Silhouette carries vinyl in a ton of colors (seen HERE), and it can be purchased in the 12" width rolls as well as the 9" width rolls. So you could easily cut those rolls down into 12"x12" sheets.

Once I had a few sheets cut, I just started peeling and sticking them on. I definitely questioned myself along the way, if I'm being totally honest. It was hard to imagine the final look, with only certain tiles covered here and there.

There was nothing hard about this. I cleaned off the tiles and wiped them super clean. I let the Cameo do all the cutting while I went about other things around the house. I would cut one sheet, then come back and cut another, and then another. I would randomly peel them off and stick them on, as I was doing other things. 

There were times when I couldn't stop. You cover a few, and it makes you want to cover a few more, and then a few more. I would avoid the tiles that involved a little trimming, or removing outlet plates. I'd do all the easy ones first.

I loved that the vinyl was so easy to work with. In doing all of these tiles, peeling of square after square, I didn't have any of them tear on me. They were super easy to line up and stick down. I rarely encountered any bubble-age either. They went on really smoothly.

I have this little angled section of the counter, with a small "shelf" of tiles. I had six tiles that weren't quite 6" square, so I did have to resize a few squares to make them a little smaller.

When I came to some of the edges (by the window, for example), I just made it work. I eyeballed where they needed to be cut, and used my trimmer to cut them down BEFORE peeling them off the sheet.

I did make one more change during this project. We have 2" wood blinds all through our house. The kitchen and family room had the wood colored blinds, and the rest of the house had white blinds. Eleven years ago, I was all about "oak wood", so the wood colored blinds made sense. I'm NOT a fan of so much oak anymore (much to my mother's dismay). I thought it was the perfect time to switch the kitchen and family room blinds over to the white wood ones. It was much cheaper than I thought, and I'm so glad we did it. It's so much lighter in here now.

My mom saw this and said it would take some getting used too, and my brother saw a few photos and said he wouldn't pick something that bold. But I think it really works with the decor in our house. Over the years, I've added in lots of black, whether through furniture, frames, black canvas prints (lots of those!), and decor pieces.

My goal is to take away some of the oak and light wood, and to at least break up some of the neutral wood/floors/counters/walls that seem to blend together.

Confession time. I still have three little tiles behind this frame that I didn't put the vinyl on yet. I didn't want to shock anyone be actually finishing this project 100%, would I? Lol. The only reason that I haven't covered these yet, is because it involves removing a few outlet covers, including the phone jack and the internet stuff. And heaven forbid I unplug that stuff. With my luck, the internet would never come back on. But I will get to it soon, because I hate seeing the bare tiles peeking out from either side of the frame.

All in all, I cut 124 squares of vinyl, using 31 of my 12"x12" vinyl sheets. I already owned the vinyl, so this project didn't cost me a thing. BUT. If I did have to buy the vinyl, and I bought it from the Silhouette store (since the MM sheets would be hard to find these days), I would have only needed 5-6 rolls of the vinyl. So this project would have cost me only $60 or so, which isn't bad at all for a DIY home improvement project.

I still have more sheets leftover, which will come in handy if I need to replace any. I'm thinking the ones behind/above the stove might need to be replaced at some point, since they're bound to get a little dirtier from cooking. I'm actually keeping that area a lot cleaner now, since I'm always checking to see if anything splattered up there. Lol. And the great thing is that if I change my mind at some point, or if I get sick of the look, I just have to peel them all off.

And here's the fun part. I now have over 3,000 black vinyl circles that I can use for something.These are the negative pieces, after peeling off the squares. Each square gave me 25 circles, times 124, is 3,100 circles. I saved them all, even though I'm not sure what I'll do with them yet. I keep saying that I'm going to polka-dot the heck out of something ;)

*********************************************************************

Kerri has all kinds of great stuff over on her blog today, starting with this freebie shape! It's only free for today, so make sure and grab it while you can.

And then there's this awesome sale to get ready for National Scrapbook Day (happening tomorrow!!!). Backgrounds and titles, two of my favorite things, are 20% off thru Saturday.

And to top it off, she has a new kit up as well. Sliders is a fabulous kit full some new and fun frames.

So head over to the Kerri Bradford Studio blog and check it all out! I will also be having another post late tonight, and a few posts tomorrow. Lots and lots of things happening this weekend!

Three Years Later

I've been making a few changes around the house lately. Simple things. Easy things. One of them I'll be sharing tomorrow, in fact. I thought I would share a little peek into something I started a few years ago, and show you how far I have come since.

A few years ago, 3 to be exact, I re-painted my kitchen, with the same green paint that I have in a few other areas of the house. At that same time, I got rid of all of the fake plants that I had above the kitchen cabinets that were covered in about 2 inches of dust. I purchased a variety of frames in different colors and sizes at Michaels (all during a fabulous sale), and displayed them above the cabinets. I added in a few other odds and ends that I had laying around the house for extra decor. 

I took that photo three years ago. April of 2010. I didn't realize it had been that long ago that I stuck all of those frames up there. And yes, I totally put them up there with the cardboard and plastic packing on them. You can see that some of the frames came with those fake "photos" in them (the lighthouse, the flowers, the bride and groom), which I left in there, and some of those frames are even upside down. Classic, right ;)

I did add that photo of Sarah to the black 12x12 frame about 6 months after putting the frames up there. I had taken her out for a little photo shoot, loved that shot of her, and thought it would be perfect for the square sized photo. Sooooo. Six months later, I did add a photo to ONE frame.

This is how that section looks today. The photo of Sarah is in the same exact spot as it was before. I did add one of my Kerri Bradford Studio projects to the white frame (THIS project). You can see that the black frame is out of it's cardboard packaging, and the photo of the bride and groom is gone. I had actually used that frame for a design team project and had to get a new one to replace it. So it's there empty.

This is to the left of the photo of Sarah. The frames are a bit different. I switched a blue frame for the red frame and I believe that's the same black frame, just turned on it's side. It might seem weird to have a pencil drawn photo of Joe from high school displayed in the kitchen. Maybe it's not weird to some of you. This photo was laying around, backed with a heavy mat board, and I finally got smart and put it in a frame. The frame came from above the cabinets, so it only seemed right to put it back up there. Otherwise, I'd have a gap. So that's honestly the main reason it's there. Plus, it's kind of a cool photo. I have better shots of it that I'll have to share.

Three years ago, this is what the left side of the kitchen (above the cabinets) looked like. I got the lighthouse frame right side up, but the black one was upside down. Cardboard and plastic still on the frames.

And here's what it looks like today, three years later. Here's the red frame that I had switched out for the blue in the previous photos. And what's in that black frame? There's that bride and groom again. Lol. At least I took the cardboard and plastic off the frames, even if I still haven't put anything IN them.

This is what the right side of the kitchen (above the cabinets) looked like three years ago. That lighthouse photo sure is popular, isn't it? And will someone please remind me to switch out that ugly light with the gold trim. Ugh. Such a simple fix that will look 17 times better, I'm sure of it.

And here's what that section looks like today, three years later. The small photo of Sarah is gone. BTW. Alyssa totally comments on how there's a photo of Sarah and Joe up there, but not of her. I need to take care of that. I did fill one of the frames, with a digital word art image that I had printed out. In my last photo order from Costco over the weekend (because my photo printer is having some issues), I did have another digital print done to add to that white frame. It's sitting on my kitchen counter. We'll see how long it takes me to climb up there and add it in.

This gives you a pretty good idea about how I do a lot of things in life. Halfway. I don't set out to only do half, and it's not my intention to forget to go back and finish things. I mean, I have been up there at the top of the cabinets a few times over the past three years. I go up there, take everything down, and give it all a good scrubbing. And then I try and remember how to put it all back the same way. But it happens. Life gets busy, there's 57 other projects and things to do and worry about, so I do often get sidetracked and forget.

It's still a bit pathetic. I mean, come on. THREE years, and I've only filled four of the ten frames. I really need to make it a point to finish these and get something up there. I will make that one of my summer goals and will hopefully come and report back with all my fabulous filled frames of goodness!

Everyday Storyteller 2: Blog Hop

Welcome to the Everyday Storyteller 2 blog hop! Everyday Storyteller 2 is a brand new idea book offering more than 100 tips, tricks and techniques for scrapbooking. Go behind the scenes with 33 of your favorite memory keepers to see how they capture moments, tell stories and document their best memories. Sign up for the VIP list to be the first to know when the book is released and receive an exclusive discount.

Each book contributor participating in the blog hop is giving away an eBook copy of Everyday Storyteller 2. Use this entry link to complete your entry form. You must enter by 11:59pm PDT on April 30, 2013 to be eligible. You may enter from each stop. Winners will be contacted directly as well as posted at everydaystoryteller.com on May 1, 2013.

Keep hopping along to the rest of the book contributors for even more chances to win a copy of your own!

Tangie Baxter Kerri Bradford Joscelyne Cutchens Catherine Davis Patty Debowski Lisa Dickinson Karla Dudley Leah Farquharson Karen Grunberg Jenni Hufford Donna Jannuzzi Amanda Jones Mandy Koeppen Riikka Kovasin Kami Leonard Amy Mallory Amy Martin Ann-Marie Morris Celine Navarro Lynnette Penacho Kelly Purkey Krista Sahlin Linda Sattgast Cindy Schneider Wendy Smedley Elisha Snow Amy Sorensen Neisha Sykes Jill Sprott Laura Vegas Allison Waken Crystal Wilkerson Jennifer Wilson

Kerri Bradford Studio: Framed Collage Project

Happy Monday everyone! I had such a productive weekend, and got a TON of scrapping work done. More than I even thought I would, and what's even more surprising is that most of it isn't even due for another week. Anyone that knows me, knows that I never work ahead. Lol.

In case you haven't heard yet, there is a brand new photo template kit up over at Kerri Bradford Studio today! I know how much I love working with Kerri's storyboard templates. I love a good photo collage when it comes to scrapping lots and lots of photos. 

I had been kicking this idea around in my head for a few months now. Well, not this exact idea. The photos I had in mind were of Alyssa's band friends that she's collected this past school year. She did send me copies of all of her photos so that I could try my idea out, but there's a lot more photos to work with (100+), so I thought I would start smaller and go from there.

So I decided to use photos of my daycare kids. Not just the ones that are here now, but a photo of every single child that I have watched over the years. I have created a few layouts that contain a good amount of these kids in one place, but I thought it would be nice to create something that could be displayed out in the open for everyone to see. I think that would help convince any prospective parents to bring their children to me, right ;)

When I first saw Kerri's Storyboard: Instagram Style kit, I knew it would be perfect for this type of project. I chose the template that held 16 photos. I then did a quick count of how many kids I have watched over the years. This was actually fairly easy, since I'm required to keep a "roster" of sorts for the state, which I have been filling out and adding to for the last eleven years. I counted out 35 kids. Which seems like a lot, and yet at the same time, I thought would be a higher number.

Then came the hardest part. Finding a photo for each child. For some of these kids, it wasn't so much finding a photo, but picking just ONE photo. Some of these kids were with me for one year, two years, three+ years. How do you chose just one photo, and from what age to you chose it. What about the ones that came as newborns? Did I chose a baby photo, or one from when they were older?

Then there were the kids from the very beginning. I took tons of photos of them too, but that was before the digital days. I have all of my negatives organized and can easily find what I need. But that's still a lot of digging around, taking the negatives to Costo for reprints, and then they're still not an actual digital file to work with. My scanner only works when it wants to work, so I didn't want to mess with that. Some of those earlier kids I was able to find photos of when they were older, since I've taken family photos for some of them. So even though they might not be the same young faces that I took care of at the time, I'm ok with using a slightly older version of them for this project.

There are three photos on here (the first collage I showed) where I actually took a photo of a photo, from one of my layouts. It didn't work perfectly, but it will do. And sadly, I had four kids that I just couldn't find photos of. I feel bad leaving them out.

I had picked up a poster sized frame that was 12"x36", so my plan was to create three 12"x12" photo collages to fill the frame. Since I ended up with 31 photos, I decided to fill the first template completely, and fill the top two rows of the second template, and the bottom two rows of the third template. I was bummed that I had that one empty square the bottom. And about a week after I finished this project, I got a new little daycare baby. I'll have to add her in there at some point.

    

Just to give you an idea of what my plan was, I created a 12"x36" canvas in Photoshop and copied each of the collages over, one on top of the other. Because I only used the top part of the second template and the bottom part of the third template, once I stacked them up, that left me a 12"x12" section to fill. My plan was to just create something to lay on top of those using cardstock and patterned paper. Keep in mind, I had each template printed seperately. But if you found a spot that would print something 12"x36", you could print something just like this all on one large photo.

This is a terrible photo of the completed project, but it's honestly the best I could get. I even took out the plexiglass, thinking that would help. But I was still getting lot of glare anywhere I went in the house. Hanging it on the wall didn't help. So you'll just have to trust me that it really looks good in person.

I adhered all three of the printed photo collages to the paper that actually came in the frame, just to hold everything in place. I had my collages printed at Costco, and each were $2.99, so $10 for all three of them.

I wanted to keep the paper area of this project pretty simple, since this is going to hang in the playroom (which is really our living room/dining room, so it's right when you walk in the door). I added a sheet of white cardstock that I very lightly misted with pink spray mist. I chose the "If you're happy and you know it ... clap your hands" phrase from Kerri's Happy kit. I wanted something fairly large and I think it kind of ties in with the whole daycare/kids thing. It's a song that plays on about 38% of these toys too, so I find myself singing it quite a bit!

To finish it off, I simply dug out a really old piece of heart patterned paper, a few aqua cardstock border strips, and a piece of brown polka dot ribbon. Easy and not too busy looking. When I get new kids here, and am ready to add a few more to the frame, I can add them right into the templates, since I saved them all as working files. All of the kids are in the order of which they started coming to me, so I would most likely just shift everyone up to make room at the bottom for the new ones. I can always make that paper area smaller as well. 

Next on my list is to find a spot to hang this. I had a spot in mind, and when I hung it up there, it just looked too small, oddly enough. So for now, it's propped in my scraproom. And with the school year coming to an end soon, I need to get working on one for Alyssa with all of her band photos from the year.