OSnapGonzo YouTube Giveaway

Hello All, today's post is a little different than what I usually post, but Sandy (osnapgonzo on youtube) is having a super generous giveaway (a selfie photo printer!!!) on her youtube channel and is graciously allowing those of us who love to watch her videos, but don't (yet) do our own videos post a response on our blogs. 

The prompt is to share a layout from when we first started scrapbooking, then a layout that represented a turning point in our style and what it was that prompted that change and then a layout of how we scrapbook today. I have shared many layouts from this last year on my blog and on Facebook, but this is the first time I have ever posted on, much less even photographed some of my early, early efforts.  I started scrapbooking as a young teenager. With no money of my own to spend on a lot of scrapbook supplies, re-using what I had was huge for me. I would cut apart bags, use regular colored printer paper, scrounge around the house for whatever I could find.  The layout from that period I am going to share is pretty much put together on a piece of purple printer paper, with the handles of a gift bag and stickers used for my embellishments. I had two pictures on the layout that I used regular tape to adhere to the page. I think this layout is a little over 10 years old, because it is from when I was still in high school.

I really had two really major influences that brought about change in my scrapbooking. 1) I got a job and suddenly had a little more money to spend on my hobby, but we were still newly married and paying off debt so I honestly still didn't spend very much, but I did splurge from a paper pack from Walmart here and there! :) My layouts were still very one dimensional at this point. I hadn't yet found YouTube and the wonderful world of embellishments, so my layouts were still quite simple! I did look at magazines and such, but I hadn't really made a significant change to my style of scrapbooking.

Which brings me to the thing that REALLY changed the way I scrapbook!!!! I found youtube for scrapbooking. I had watched youtube videos for a few years for card making, but early last year I took on the enormous project of organizing and scrapping my mother's entire collection of pictures (i'm talking her childhood, my dad's childhood and all of the pictures that had accumulated since their marriage and having kids!)  Needless to say that after about 30 layouts I was having some serious inspiration challenges. Since I already looked to youtube for inspiration in making cards, I looked up scrapbooking layouts and found Shimelle Laine! OH.MY.WORD…. That woman is an amazing teacher and scrapbooker!  Isn't she!?!?!?! She totally changed the way I scrapbook because she not only gave ideas for layouts but really got me thinking about the concepts of building layouts. Several months later after I had watched everything she'd created on YouTube I also found nicolejones911 and MercyTiara. Nicole and Tracy gave me the push confidence  to just go ahead and cut into those gorgeous papers I had been hoarding, hating the idea of accidentally wrecking a page and wasting it. Tracy (MercyTiara), Nicole and Shimelle really got me thinking about beginning to journal on my layouts as well. From their inspiration, I arrived where I am today with my scrapbooking!

Hope you enjoyed!!! And thanks Sandy for such a great giveaway!!!!

More Valentine's Day Cards...

Hello all, who else is getting snow today? We are supposed to get between 4 and 6 inches of snow in the D.C. area. My entire company got a work from home mandate today (but me, still being in the mentality of the north, even though I have lived here for 5.5 years, lol, didn't even think to check my email!) It was completely clear earlier, but started coming down around 11 and hasn't stopped since, so I am glad that even though I missed the email telling me to stay home, I was able to get home before the snow started! I am very thankful to be working at a company where the owner seems to genuinely care about the safety of his employees. That is a very rare find these days.

Anyhoo, enough talk about snow…. On to the crafty portion of this weather update… ;)  Today I thought I would share a few more cards that I created for the Cards from the Heart Card Drive for the kids at St. Jude's Hospitals (For more info, click on the heart icon in the right panel). I really struggle with age and gender neutral Valentine's cards, so this year I thought I would go with a new approach. First, I scoured Google Images and Pinterest for potential ideas that fit the necessary criteria and pinned them all to a board specifically for this Card Drive. Next, I went through all of my 8x8 and 6x6 paper pads and pulled out pieces of paper that fit the bill of being somewhat valentinesy (I just invented a new word. hah), but still not overly girlie. Then I pulled out all of the stamps and inks that I was going to use. This really helped when I sat down to start working on cards, because I wasn't having to scrounge around in my papers and stamps to figure out what I was going to use every time I went to make a card. In the end, I think my final count was 21, which is about double what I was able to get done last year, so I'm happy with that. Below are a few of my favorite cards of the bunch…

I used a combination of Inkadinkado stamps, Dear Lizzy stamps, and a Crafter's Companion image. I used my Spectrum Noir markers to color in the images and used pieces from a number of different paper lines (Pebbles, Dear Lizzy, Carta Bella, and Tim Holtz), some Tim Holtz twine, BasicGrey letter stickers, Darice layered felt hearts, Darice ribbon, and Dear Lizzy stickers to pull these together. I also used a Studio Calico wood venire open scalloped circle in this first card to frame the image, and simply added a black dash-line around the edge for a little added pop. 

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the finished products. There are some I for sure like better than others, but I think that by limiting my supplies and having a solid idea of what I wanted to do for a number of the cards definitely helped. Just goes to show, that it doesn't have to be red and pink to be a Valentine's card!!

 (This image is by far my favorite! Crafter's Companion has such adorable stamps!)

Having fun with Dear Lizzy's Lucky Charm Collection.....

Hello friends, just thought I'd pop in and share a couple more layouts I created over the last several months, using the Dear Lizzy's Lucky Charm collection that I scored for a great deal at craftydeals.com. I have never bought an entire collection before, but for 22 dollars (including shipping... I had a 10% off coupon for first time order), I just couldn't resist. I have been eying this collection for a looooong time, but just could never justify to myself spending all of the money, but at such a great deal, I finally gave in and got it :) The only thing not from the Dear Lizzy collection are the Enamel Dots, those are from one of My Mind's Eye Cute & Paste collections.

There are just some pictures of hubby and I from the last few years.

More 8 1/2 x 11 Layouts

Continuing on with my wedding shower pictures, below are several layouts that I did from the Wedding Shower that the church my husband is from threw for us. It was a little intimidating for me at first, because I am not a natural "people" person and the idea of being there with so many people I didn't know at all was a little overwhelming, but the ladies were so friendly and sweet and hubby came with me, so we had a great time!  These layouts were done with products from the Dear Lizzy's Lucky Charm Collection. This first layout is my absolute favorite picture of all the Shower pics that I've scrapped! Overall, I've really loved working with this collection and am really happy with how these layouts have turned out. I didn't plan on using the divided photo protectors, but I had them laying around from how I used to store my acrylic stamps before I changed my storage system and thought I'd step out of my comfort zone a bit and try to work with them. In the second layout, I actually cut up the invitation and glued the details down on to a 4x6 card.

I am trying to get better about adding journaling to my layouts. I don't naturally like to right down the inner workings of me, but I've been making more of an effort to capture the memories so I have them for years to come.

Hah, I am finally getting my wedding shower pictures scrapped!

Okay, so I scrapbook in spurts. About every 5 years, the amount of memorabilia I save started driving me absolutely buggy, so I have this obsessive drive to get all of it scrapped and I scrap until I have it all down... and by that time I am waaaaaay over scrapping and another few years pass, lol.

Well, this year I worked on my mom's pictures and decided to get moving on my own as well. I signed up for Shutterfly and as a new user, I got my first 50 photos for free and then 19 cents a photo afterward, so I printed up 150 pictures and got busy! Which brings me to my title, I have finally completed all of my wedding shower layouts from the photos that I got printed, yay, and thought I would share those with you. I used the Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm collection for them. I recently found the entire collection, including thickers, chipboard pieces, stickers, sticker banners, 12x12 paper pad, medium sized patterned paper tags, and die cuts! it was $20.99 with a flat rate shipping, but being a first time user I got 10% off my purchase, so in the end I got the entire collection that would be like 60 dollars in the store, I got for a total of like $22.50(ish). I was so pumped because I have LOVED this collection since it first came out, but refused to pay full price for the products and had renewed inspiration. I have totally loved playing with this collection. :)

Anyhoo, on to the pictures. Today I am sharing the photos from the shower that my best friends threw for me. I pretty much used the Lucky Charm collection, basic 81/2 x 11 card stock I had in my stash, some rhinestones from Studio G and some My Mind's Eye, Cut & Paste enamel dots. Hope that you enjoy! I did something a little different with this set of pictures. I had some photo protectors, so I used some of those for a number of the pictures and picked a few of my absolute favorites to do a complete layout.

This Post Needed a Title.... and a Giveaway!

*** I forgot to add a title to this post, sorry if anyone had any trouble linking to this post!

Hello All, can you believe it's Thursday already??? (For that matter, can you believe its almost the middle of October?!?!?!!?!) Where does the time go?!? I just thought I would pop in and share a project that I whipped up a few weeks ago for my new sister-in-law (my brother's wife). She is in the midst of student teaching, so I thought that she might enjoy some office cute office supplies to stay organized. She really loves canning, so I thought I would use a Dear Lizzy paper from a 6x6 pad I picked up a couple of weeks ago. I also used some old Amy Tangerine papers  from a 6x6 pad a dear friend sent me a year or so ago and Dear Lizzy Fifth and Frolic paper pad, as well as some labels from Heidi Swapp and some October Afternoon Butterfly and small doily stickers. I finished off the projects with some white Basic Grey mini alphas, Q&Co rhinestones and pearls and My Mind's Eye Cut and Paste enamel dots. I used some small flowers that my cousin sent me to finish off the clothespin magnets I made. So that the paper would not peel off the magnets, I used some Modge Podge Acrylic spray to finish them off.

(If you stick with the pics to the bottom, I'm sharing a small giveaway!)

I also wanted to do a small giveaway. I put together a small kit for making Christmas tags and a small card making kit. For a chance to win, become a follower and let me know in the comments and for a second chance blog about the giveaway and put a comment with a link to the post. The giveaway will be open until October 25th and I will post a winner on the following Monday, October 28! I will be picking two winners, one for the Christmas tag set and one for the card kit!