stretch your sketches

My Ella Friend Donna Jannuzzi has been hosting a series over at Ella Publishing on how to make the most of your sketches. This was the last sketch of the series and I had the honor of contributing the layout:

If sketches motivate you (I use them all the time!), be sure and check out all of Donna's previous sketch posts. Also, if you are into playing along with the sketch and into prizes, check out today's sketch! You'll find that Lawn Fawn is sponsoring this month's prize! Not only that, but you'll receive a FREE copy of Donna's fabulous eBook, Stretch Your Sketches. Go now!

Happy Monday!

recent pubs

I thought I would share my excitement over a few recent publications in Creating Keepsakes Magazine. I've shared these layouts in the past, but had to pull them down from my blog until now.

In September's issue:

This layout was selected for their "Creativity Heals" column in which people share about difficult times they have gone through and how scrapbooking has helped them process their struggles. I originally created this layout for a faith blog post with Ella Publishing and then submitted it to CK. I created this layout so that my kids could one day read about what I was going through at this time difficult time in my life and how my faith and family got me through.

 This SILLY BANDZ layout was selected for their Reader Gallery. I had fun documenting this fad that my kids are totally into. I tried 4 different adhesives when trying to attach a few silly bandz before I finally hand-stitched them on with clear thread!

In October's issue:

This layout is also in their Reader Gallery (just got my magazine in the mail today!). It is one of my favorites because it focuses on the photos. And  these photos of my kids are some of my favorites! Thanks for sharing in my excitement! Have a great day!

ella everyday life lists

Hey friends! Today I want to share with you one of Ella's recent List It eBooks! The List It Everyday Edition journaling guides make it easier than ever to capture important details about your everyday life RIGHT NOW. Some of the 90 prompts in List It! Everyday Life Edition are standard and universal, others are quirky and unique. But they'll all help you paint a complete picture of what your life is like—your schedule and routine, your goals and pursuits, the people you love, your home and surroundings, your possessions, and more.

You can even watch a List It Video to learn more about these unique and AWESOME printable lists!

This is not something I would normally think to scrapbook about . . . websites that I frequently visit. But I am so glad I had this LIST to prompt me to do it! 50 years from now when I am sitting in my rocker trying to remember what life was like in the days of the internet (because I'm sure there will be something even better by then), I will have this reminder of where I gained some information, wisdom and just plain fun eye candy "back in the day."

This layout with photo strips was inspired by the fabulous Susan Weinroth. 

I simply took screen shots of some of my favorite websites (though I couldn't fit them all in!) and made a collage in PSE. 

Hello to my friends at CHA this week! Hope you are having fun without me! I love seeing all the eye candy you have spotted and shared during the first couple of days!

heritage designer's challenge week 11

We're in week 11 of the heritage challenge I am hosting at Green Tangerines. Only one more week to go!  I have numerous keepsakes just waiting for a home on one of my pages. What’s a girl to do with old birth certificates, love letters, telegrams and ticket stubs? Document them of course!

I love reading my grandmother’s old telegrams that my grandfather sent to her before they were married. They were short and sweet, but you can still feel the love that radiated through them. I created a pocket with this tag to hold the telegrams.

This week, grab something that isn’t a picture and scrapbook it! If your keepsake isn’t flat enough to put in an album, take a picture of it and write about it.

1. Telegrams: Was there a special message conveyed to a loved one? A death announced? A baby born?
2. Letters: What did people write to their loved ones about?
3. Birth, Marriage or Death Certificate: Write the story of that particular person.
4. Ticket stubs: What did people do for entertainment? Did they travel? What were the costs involved? 

These are just a few questions to get you started. Happy documenting!

best of friends

Have you seen this new line from Jillibean Soup? It is one of my faves for sure! The yellow is one of their staples and the blue patterned paper is from an older line--but all the fun embellishments and blue letter stickers are new! This is one of my favorite pictures of the girls taken last Spring and these papers were perfect for it.

I especially love this saying. Totally describes my girls relationship--they really are best friends.

The Green Tangerines April Kit will be out before you know it and I chose a ton of Jillibean Soup for this kit! Perfect for Spring! We start SNEAK WEEK over on the Green Tangerines Kit Club blog on Monday!

Have a great day!

heritage designer's challenge week 6

This week, we are focusing on fun and games. What did people do before the Superbowl was around to entertain them? I grew up in Minnesota where Superbowl and World Series parties were huge! Probably because it was too freezing to do anything outside. My dad was a pastor and on Superbowl Sunday afternoon he would invite the congregation to come and watch the Superbowl at church--on the big screen--via projector! (This was before anyone had big screens in their homes.) 

Was it sports you were into or board games?  Did you play any sports in high school, college, or professionally?  If you weren’t into organized sports, did you enjoy hiking, fishing, gardening or any other outside activities? What childhood outdoor games did you enjoy?

I chose to document part of my dad's childhood. He came down with the polio disease two years before the vaccine was invented. He spent much of his childhood in a hospital undergoing various surgeries. He and the other boys in his wing had to come up with creative things to do for fun!

Have a great Tuesday!

heritage designer's challenge week 3

It's week 3 of the Heritage Challenge I am hosting at Green Tangerines! This week is all about community. The rollerskating rink was one of THE places to hang out when I was growing up. I would spend entirely too much time agonizing over what to wear to a skate day. Usually I ended up wearing the outfit with the most neon colors I could find! What I loved more than the skating itself, was the time to meet up with my friends and catch up on each others lives—this was a pre-email and texting era! 

This week I documented the impact my great-grandfather had in his community. He was the designer and builder of the Community Hall that hosted community dances for years to come. The 1937 building is still standing today, but I couldn't find a picture of it in my files or online. So, I did the next best thing. I snagged a satellite photo of where it stands today. 

If you can't find a particular photo of a location you wish to document, check out this great satellite view website!

Here are a few questions to get you thinking about community:

How did you get involved in your community while growing up? How often did you meet up with people in your neighborhood? How did you keep in touch? How did you support one another when times were hard? What are some fun things you did with people in your community? Were any special relationships or friendships formed out of some of these gatherings?

As always, leave me a link to your blog if you have a heritage layout you'd like to share!

heritage designer's challenge

I am hosting a Heritage Designer's Challenge with Green Tangerines Scrapbook Store for the next 12 weeks. If you are local and want to participate with the product we give you each week, go here for all the details. If you are not local, but would love participating in the challenge, please do!

Each week I'll give you a topic to document with a few questions to get you started. I'd love to see your layouts! Post a link to your blog on my next week's heritage post.

This week, it's all about heirlooms.

My grandmother died a little over a year ago at the age of 92. Nine months before she died, she shared with me the story of this doll that her father gave to her for Christmas in 1926--it was the last present he gave her, as he died three months later. If you'd like to read the journaling, just double click on the image. I took this photo in my backyard on an overcast day (we've had a lot of those lately). I draped a sheet over a chair because I wanted the sole focus to be on the doll--no distractions. I kept my layout simple so that the story and doll could shine.

What heirloom have you been wanting to take the time to document? What are the details surrounding how you acquired this heirloom? What do you remember most about the person who passed this heirloom down to you?

Check back each week for another heritage layout. I'd love to see your heritage layouts! Feel free to link to your blog in the comments of the post.

Happy Friday!

july?

Two more calendar kits have been released today at Green Tangerines . . . one of them mine, the month of July.

You can buy the one page format for your calendar for $6, or for $8, buy the full kit so you can add it to your album later!

Yes, those are hand-stitched fireworks. The tags include a little stamping, faux stitching and glossy accents.

Wanna be in on a little e-mail secret . . . Green Tangerines is starting their Black Friday sale TONIGHT from 5-9pm! Tools, Bazzill and a special paper section will see some great discounts! I have an out-of-town friend and her family coming to visit for Thanksgiving . . . you can be sure I'll be taking her there tonight!

Have a great day!

snagletooth

Saturday she lost her big front tooth . . . this picture was taken on Sunday.

Now she looks like this . . . the second front tooth is hanging on by a thread. I just want to tie a string to it and the other end to a door knob! Did anyone ever actually do that? That was always the story I remember hearing when I was a kid.

In other news, the 12 weeks of Christmas Calendar kit is in full swing at Green Tangerines! I helped in the designing of the calendar pages again this year and one of my layouts was released yesterday along with another page. We are releasing two months per week this year so that you can get them done early if you are sending them off at gifts. Another new thing, you have the option to pay $2 extra to get the double page kit if you would rather not use them as calendar pages and just want a pre-planned two-page kit!

Here is my simple layout that is up for sale this week:

As a single page for the calendar (I'm the month of June).

As a double page for your album.

Check out the other pages on their blog! Go here--you'll have to scroll through the posts to view the past 3 weeks. Only 2 weeks left to go!

celebrate friendship with ella friends

If this is your first time stopping by, don't be shy, check out the ELLA ebook I am giving away . . . comment on this past post by Sunday at 7pm PST for your chance to win!

Today, my ELLA friends and I are hosting a blog hop all about friendship. What is a blog hop you say? It's a chance to check out other gals creative blogs and have fun picking up a few ideas revolving around friendship. Come on, it will be fun! (Links are at the end of this post.)

Who are your "go to" girls? Everyone needs them. They lift us up when we are down and celebrate with us when times are good. Two years ago my favorite scrapbook store, Green Tangerines, held a "Designer's Challenge" on friendship. First up, we had to create a snapshot of seven important friends we'd had throughout our lifetime. I picked friends from high school to present day. The above pictures were all recent pictures (2 years ago recent) that I asked my friends to email me.

Most of the product was from Making Memories and of course a little American Crafts ribbon. I know I saw this "patchwork" idea in a magazine . . . no idea which one. Today I don't love the messy paint that I did in the background, but it does show a trend of the time!

I pulled this quote out of one of my many quote books . . . and I still love it today! Isn't this what friendship is all about?

After we made the title page for our friendship album, we had to highlight each gal in our life and answer some random questions about that particular friendship. I made one layout for each friend . . . but this layout was my favorite. I was completely in love with this line from October Afternoon. I did this layout right after this picture was taken 2 years ago at my 10-year college reunion in Minnesota. One month after this picture was taken of my friend Sarah and I, she and her husband were hit by a drunk driver. She had major injuries including a fractured skull--she almost died.  It made me remember to be thankful for the times I have with my friends . . . life is short. Send one of your friends an encouragement card today! : )

I love looking back in my albums and seeing what I was into at the time. This layout was done shortly after I had gotten into handstitching on my pages. I still do it today and love it! Though I don't do it on every page . . . a bit too time consuming with three kids running around.

Rumor has it that some of these girls are doing giveaways on their blogs as well . . . you'll have to hop around to find which ones! Good luck!

Diana Chen

 Donna Jannuzzi

Francine Clouden

Jenni Hufford

Jennifer Larson

Keshet Starr

Lee Currie

Mary Jo Johnston

May Flaum

Monika Wright

Valerie Mangan

I'll end with one of my favorite verses in the Bible.
"I thank my God every time I remember you." Philippians 1:3.
What friend are you thankful for today?

faith scrapbooking

I'm excited to share with you what my Ella friends (Jenni and Keshet) and I have been working on! We were asked to tackle the topic of talking about faith in our layouts. This statement could mean many things to you at first glance and Jenni did a wonderful job tackling the different angles you can take with this topic. Check out the full post on Ella's blog here. You can also stop by Jenni and Keshet's personal blogs to see more of their cute stuff!

I contributed two faith related layouts. First up, do you talk about life's trials in your albums? For many this may be a topic that is easily passed over because we want to remember all of the good times or we only have time to scrapbook the holidays, birthdays, etc. For me, scrapping a difficult time in my life is very theraputic. Writing about it helps me get all of my feelings out and somehow makes me feel better. And since I'm sharing it here on my blog, my hope is that someone else who may be in the midst of a difficult circumstance can come away encouraged and feel a little more hopeful. Sometimes it's nice just to know you are not the only one out there dealing with stuff, isn't it?

The journaling deals with my health stuff and how it has impacted our family over the last four years. If you are interested in reading it, you just have to double click on it.

I used this sketch from the PageMaps blog. Becky Fleck's sketches are always a treat to work with!

Next, I put together a layout documenting the prayers I frequently pray for my little guy. I want him to know how important the prayers of a parent are and how much he means to us.

Some of you may recognize these products from Becky Higgins Baby Kit, which by the way, you can still get your hands on. I ordered this kit a couple years back thinking I would never have time to scrapbook once I had a third child--I was in panic mode at the time. I will say, it has made things easier . . . I am getting his one year book done quickly (when I take the time to work on it that is . . . there is always new product that is calling my name first!)

This is one of the page protectors that came with the kit--16 dividers. This made it easy to put individual prayers in boxes.

You might notice that I put some of my letter stickers, rub-ons and embellishments on the outside of my page protector. I did this to give my layout a more connected and cohesive look.

If you ever struggle with how to pray for your child or wonder if you are leaving some important things out . . . I highly recommend the book The Power of a Praying Parent by Stormie Omartian. She gives you very specific things to pray for your child and Bible verses to go along with your prayers. Some of them are things that I simply forget to pray for my child. But when I go through this book (frequently) I am reminded--love that!

Be sure and check out the Ella blog today to see the other gals work. And stop back here sometime next week for an Ella giveaway--you will WANT this one!

welcome baby keira!

Just last week, Angie Lucas, co-founder of Ella Publishing brought home her frist child . . . a baby girl! Congratulations Angie and family! Many of us are participating in a virtual blog shower and sending our congrats and new mom advice via the web. 

First tip . . . enjoy this special time. It will fly by.

Second tip . . . take their (your) favorite stuffed animal and take pictures of Keira each month. (This will get harder and harder as they get older!) I picked this idea up from Becky Higgins several years back and have done it with my second and third child--love seeing the changes. Wish I had thought of it with my first! You can see Seth's first and last teddy bear pictures in this post: http://brendajohnston.blogspot.com/2010/07/family-update.html
I'm hoping to do a layout documenting the teddy bear pictures soon!

Third tip . . . record the moments that we as moms sometimes forget to record . . . the crying, the screaming, the drama. This will be fun to show my daughter when she is my age and dealing with a child's tantrum. Is that mean? Maybe, but I think it will help her feel normal as a mom!



I did this layout about three years ago. This is my drama queen . . . really, she's not that much drama. But compared to my other girl who shows not a stitch of drama whatsoever, I have dubbed my 4-year old my drama queen. : )  She does know how to turn on the tears!

Congratulations again Angie and God bless!

pagemaps layout

Pagemaps blog is having a little (actually big) contest this month. Go and check it out! All you have to do is create a layout based on this sketch:

I've been wanting to do a layout about Paige and her horns for awhile now, and this sketch was perfect for the three pictures I had. I love how these pictures show a side of her personality that most people we know don't see! She is so shy in public, but at home she can be a crazy girl!

birthday album

My girls love planning the theme of their next birthday party. Faith, age 4, already has themes picked out through her 7th birthday party. We'll see if she sticks to her plans . . . As much as they love planning ahead, they really love looking at past birthday parties. Because of this, I decided a couple of years ago to pull their birthday party layouts from their personal albums and put all the parties in one album--this way they can find them all in one place.

I made this title page for the album a couple of years ago. Love the Creative Imaginations papers and accents! And painting on every layout was quite the rage a couple of years ago--thus the painted background. This title page was meant to be gender neutral and something bright and cheery. I still love these papers.

Have a great day! 

title page

Still working on the family album title pages. Here is one I just finished:

I saw this layout by Lisa Dickinson the other day and I liked the quick factor . . . I am just trying to get these title pages done so I can move on to some recent pictures I want to scrapbook. Since my local scrapbook store closed last February, I have been trying to use what I have on hand. This is some old Basic Grey paper and letter stickers. I know I will soon be lured into buying new stuff since the store is reopening sometime in the fall! Yipee! This exciting news is almost as good as the birth of my first child . . . hee, hee.

albums

What is your favorite scrapbook album? I am in love with We R Memory Keepers 12x12 3-ring albums. I made the switch from post-bound albums a few years back and haven't regretted it! We are currently in the midst of moving them to a new location in our house. Right now they are housed in my linen closet and we forget about them because they are behind a closed door. My girls LOVE looking at their albums, so I wanted to get them out in the open so they could actually be enjoyed . . . stay tuned for that . . . hopefully I'll have a picture of their new home within a couple of weeks!

For now I thought I'd show you how I label them. I'm a nerd like that . . . I love to see how other people organize their stuff, so I thought I'd show you how I organize my albums.

The black albums are my family albums. I have other albums in different colors that are for each child--they are personality pages or layouts only related to them--I don't duplicate the family albums for them! I'll show you those another time. I came up with a little template in PSE where I put the volume number, family and the dates--and of course a family picture during that time.

On the inside of each album I have a title page . . . I've fallen behind on the title page since I don't make one until the book is filled up. Then I pick out a few favorite pictures from that time period and throw a quick page together. Since I'm trying to catch up with the title pages, I am making them SIMPLE, like the one above. I love that the Collage Press patterned paper has the time and months printed out subtly on it, kinda fun.

We are off to camp again with some friends this weekend. It is smoking hot here, so I am kind of dreading it. Hopefuly we'll survive! Have a great weekend!

haircut layout

When Faith got her real "first" haircut, I neglected to bring my camera . . . something I would have never done with my first child! So, she does not have the first lock of hair or any fun pictures to scrapbook. Oh well, I'm over it. What she does have is a layout about us attempting to fix her bangs that she chopped off right after turning three. These pictures were taken five months after the incident and as you can see, she still looks pretty funny. Oh well, it was a memory . . . one that I'm sure will bring a good laugh in years to come!

I wanted to use the blue letters on this layout, so I sanded them to make them stand out against the blue paper.

These are Scenic Route journaling chips. I love them! So sad that they went out of business. Underneath is a paint chip picked up at my local hardware store. Just adds a fun and unique embellishment. All of the other supplies are from the April/May Green Tangerines Kit. Just an FYI, the owner of Kit Club is taking a three month break from Kit Club while she works on reopening the the store. Kit Club will hopefully be back in full force by September!

Have a great day!

my mind's eye challenge #11

My Mind's Eye has a challenge each month and I thought I'd play along again. There was no particular theme this time, just anything goes and we were to use the sketch below. I tweaked it a bit . . .

All the products are from MME with the exception of the tiny letter stickers which are from Making Memories. The words on the orange circles are cut from patterned paper from MME that is completely covered in boy words. Love that line! (Star Bright That's My Boy). You still have time to join in the fun . . . the challenge ends tomorrow at midnight (MST).

And now for totally non-scrapbooking related stuff . . . We recently changed churches. We switched for a variety of reasons . . . closer to our house, our kids LOVE the children's ministry, snacks and social time after the service (our kids love this too!) and we love the Bible teaching here. We love our old church too and the majority of my friends go there, this is just a better fit for us in our lifestage right now. They too, have a homeschooling group which I checked out last night for the first time. Each month the moms meet to encourage each other and talk homeschooling stuff. Last night was the last meeting of the school year and they had a "social." They played Bunco. I had never played Bunco before and I won! I got a $25 gift card to a local restaurant. Yeah for future date night! Anyway, I had a really great time and met some other gals that were also newer to homeschooling. I came away very encouraged.

Hope you are having a fabulous week!

you've got style

Head on over to Write.Click.Scrapbook. where they are having a "rainbow" challenge. Simply enter anything with all the colors in the rainbow! I thought I would throw in this layout I recently stumbled across. I used a sketch I had seen in a magazine a couple of years ago . . . can't remember which one. I sewed directly onto the photo and around the cardstock mat. Adds just an extra touch that I love!

This is a layout I created last year for Green Tangerines Kit Club. The papers are from Basic Grey and Cosmo Cricket. The large flower is from Sassafrass. Everything else I would have to dig through my stash to look up the vendor. My daughter had done her own hair . . . oh, so pretty! She was so proud!

Thanks for looking and have a great day!