PageMaps and Cricut

Happy Thursday everyone. One day away from Friday! Does everyone have big plans for the holiday weekend? I don't. I think I might be the only one. I would love to go camping and see the fireworks with my family, but my mom and everyone lives about two hours away and hubby has to work the next morning, so it won't work out. We may drive out for a day trip on Saturday, but that's still up in the air. I just hope I get to see fireworks somewhere.
In the mean time I will continue on with my scraps and sketches. Todays layout includes a butterfly cut from the Cricut Picturesque cartridge. It also has a couple of top note cuts from the Cricut Storybook cartridge.

The sketch is from PageMaps page 67. I can't believe I'm still using papers from my SEI paper pack. I guess it was a big pack or I'm just getting a lot of mileage out of them. I guess that could be it since most of the patterned papers are small pieces that I'm using. Once I get all of these pages done with the SEI papers I may have enough to make an entire album with them. Hope you're not getting tired of these colors. I promise to change it up soon. Cindy

Perfect layout for small scraps

I love the way these pages turned out. If you have a lot of small pieces of scraps this is a great way to use them.

I used two full sheets of paper (white and patterned green) for the background and everything else was from scraps. I got out all of my circle punches and a scallop punch. Then I just randomly punched with all my scrap paper. Then I arranged and glued them all down. I used a little bit of ribbon on the bottom of each page to give a little dimension and that was about it. Super easy and looks good too.

The PageMaps 2 sketch is from page 15. Can you believe all of these great sketches? They are awesome. The book also has pictures color layouts made with the sketches, but I find it easier on my brain to not look at them before hand. If I look at the examples I get hung up on the colors they used or the embellishments, etc. If I stick to the black and white sketch I have to use my own thoughts on the colors and such. That's just what works for me though. Everyone has their own way of creating and there's no wrong way. See you again tomorrow with another sketch and layout. Cindy

Another Shower Layout

I still need to do a title and some journaling on these pages, but for now I'm calling them done.

Now that I look at it, there aren't any Cricut cuts on these pages. Hmmm, I'll have to fix that by cutting out a title with my Cricut.

Here is the layout without the pictures.

The PageMaps 2 sketch is from page 65. It was a single 12x12 page that I made into a double layout.
Here is a picture of the sketch.

When I first saw it I was thinking of doing a 4th of July layout, but I'm not up to those pictures yet. Maybe I'll use this sketch again when I get to my July photos. LOL.

Bridal Shower layout

Wow, I am really late at getting this layout posted. I had it finished a couple of days ago, but just got the pictures downloaded to my computer.

I'm taking a  little break from my scrap pile to work on some pictures from last year. I am so behind on my scrapbooking. It's nice that I'm getting so many layouts done, but sometimes I have to pick paper to match the photos. In this case I used a cornflower blue, black and white. Those were the colors for my son and daughter in laws wedding. The Pagemaps 2 sketch is from page 28.

The thing that took the most time with this sketch was cutting all the photo mats to the right size. I wanted to use white for the mats, so I inked the edges to make them stand out from eachother. The heart cuts are from the Storybook cartridge. The scallop circle is also from Storybook. The circle inside the scallop circle is from George.

The pictures are from the Bridal Shower for my Daughter in Law. I scrap in chronological order so that means I am almost up to May 2010. Not too bad, right? Well, I'm also trying to go back to my OLD photos (prior to scrapbooking) and get them out of magnetic albums. Those go back about 20 years!

The font on the top of the page is from the Cricut Lite Cartridge Feeling Groovy. The font on the bottom is one of my new favorites. It is from Quarter Note. I actually bought that cartridge because I liked the font so much. You'll be seeing a lot more of this one from me. Cindy

Irrisistibly Sweet Award

I am so grateful to Karan over at Scrapbooksandpapercrafts.blogspot.com for awarding me the Irrisistibly Sweet Blog Award. Doesn't it look yummy? Thank you Karan.

In order to accept this award I have to list 7 things about myself and then pass the award to 8 other bloggers.

Hmmm, what would you like to hear about me? I'm not all that interesting. I'll have to think about this for a minute. LOL, I'm asking my hubby and son for suggestions and I can't even repeat the crazy things they are saying. I think I will come up with my own answers. Okay, here goes...

1. I work so that I can pay for my Cricut addiction.

2. I love photography, but I'm not very good at it.

3. I think of my baby sister as my daughter.

4. I record HSN Crafts shows so that I can get ideas.

5. I have two sons and my first grandchild is a girl. Yay me.

6. I believe in Dessert first.

7. I adopted a cat for myself, but she prefers my husband :-(

Okay, now I get to pass this award to 8 other bloggers that I enjoy and follow.

1. Scrapinalways.blogspot.com

2. Minialbumcookbook.blogspot.com

3. IcameIsawIcreated.blogspot.com

4. Cricut-scrapbooklayouts-cards-frames.blogspot.com

5. Greengirlscraps.blogspot.com

6. Scrappinsaints.blogspot.com

7. Scrapperdee-rambling.blogspot.com

8. Karen-createdbykaren.blogspot.com

I couldn't wait to post

I added pictures, a title and some Cricut cuts. I'm really pleased with the way this layout looks. The pictures are from over a year ago when my Nephew was turning 8. (I'm very behind) I still need to add journaling on the bottom of the right hand side, but I'll do that later. For now I'm calling it done.

Okay, now I'm off to do some more layouts. Tomorrow I get off work early and should have more time to play.

Pagemaps 2 Layout #6 and Scraproom Update

I'm so excited. I bought my airline tickets for the Cricut Circle Meet-Up in Vegas. I can hardly wait to get there and meet as many Circlets as I can.

For todays post I thought I would do a little update in todays post because it has been one week since cleaning my scraproom and starting my challenge to use my scraps. You can see in this first picture my pile of scraps on the corner of my desk.

This is the view looking into my room from the doorway. I have quite a few jetmax cubes and they are all full.

I got the paper holders from a local scrapbook store that went out of business. Actually my sweet husband went into the store and made them an offer for me. He's the best.

I would love to have hardwood floors in my room one of these days. Not sure I'm willing to take everything out of the room to do it though.

This picture below shows some of the scraps I pulled out of the pile to use on my next sketch.

And this is the sketch I used. It is page 30 from PageMaps 2.

Here is my layout. The right side is from the sketch.  I left off the title and embellishments so that I can personalize it later. I really like how it came out. I thought it would be too bright and busy, but the solid yellow background and white photo mats calmed it down a bit. I'm thinking this will be a birthday layout.

I'm getting anxious to start putting pictures on my layouts. I may not be able to wait for the scrap pile to be used up before adding them. And trust me, I have a lot of pictures to choose from. I'm a year and a half behind on my scrapbooking. These layouts will definitely help get me caught up though.

See you again soon. Cindy

Summery Scrap pages

I love the ways this layout ended up. I tried to follow the sketch more closely and use a bird for the left bottom corner, but when I saw this kite on Boys Will Be Boys I had to use it. I really like how summery and cheerful all the cuts are. The sun is from Doodle Charms and the tree is from Just Because Cards. Actually that tree with the tree swing is the reason I bought that cartridge. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. I have some old pictures of my boys flying kites at my Grandparents house when they were little. I think this layout will be perfect for those. Almost forgot, the clouds are from Stand and Salute. I didn't want big puffy clouds for my summery layout and when I saw these I thought they were perfect.  The red paper is from scraps left over on 3/27/11. The striped paper is from 3/14/2011 and the green polka dot paper on the tree is from 3/19/11.

Tomorrow will be one week since I started this challenge to myself. In honor of my progress over the past week I will post another layout and another look at my scraproom. See you there.

S.E.I Scraps

Are you getting the feeling that I had a lot of scraps on my desk? I was starting to wonder where they all came from. I know I've used pieces of these papers before, but when? How long have they been on my desk? The curiosity got to me and I had to figure it out. For todays layout the scraps dated back to March 14th and 19th when I was making baby pages. Three months ago! Okay, so I don't clean off my desk very often. LOL. I guess a quarterly cleaning is more my speed. I'm not even going to try to kid myself and say that once I have it all cleaned up I'll keep it that way. I know me, and I know I'll end up having anothe pile of scraps quickly. Maybe it's because I love paper so much. I want to see all the pretty colors all the time. Heehee.
Okay, onto my layout.

The green background paper was not scraps, but everything else came from "the pile". All of the patterned papers are from S.E.I. They came in a pack called Chick-a-doo from 8/2003. Yep, I've probably had it that long and hadn't used it. I'm not sure why since I really do like it.
My go-to Cricut cartridge these days seems to be Storybook. All of the cuts on these pages are from that cartridge. The paper tab edges (is that what it's called?) on a few of the papers were done using an EK Success border punch. I also inked just about every edge with my Stampin' Up ink pads and sponges.
The sketch I used is from page 12 of Page Maps 2. It was made for an 8 1/2x11" page, but was easy to adapt to a 12x12" page. Then I added the second page to make a double layout.

Are you following along in my challenge? Do you have your own challenge? I would love to hear about it. Do you sort and file your scraps? Do you save them or toss them? Do you have a tip for scraps? Please share.

Pink and Green Scraps

Welcome to another week of scraps. I hope everyone had a nice Father's Day yesterday. We had nice weather and spent the day at home with our boys, daughter in law and grandbaby.

For todays layout I decided to pull out my pink scraps from the pile. And what goes better with pink than green? This is my favorite color combo these days.

The 12x12 background papers are the only ones that were not scraps. If you look really close you can see that the strip of pink and the pink Cricut cuts are slightly lighter than the background papers. I didn't have the exact same paper in my scraps to make these cuts, but I think it's okay.

The large scallop circle was cut at 3" from the Storybook cartridge in pink and again at 2 1/2" for the inner white piece. The twig looking things were cut at 2 1/2" and also from the Storybook cartridge. The wavy edges on the green patterned paper was cut using a Creative Memories wavey cutter. The sketch for this layout is just a single 12x12 page, so I was on my own for the right side of my double layout.

These Pagemaps sketches are really helping me out. It's so much easier when I don't have to worry about the layout. I just pick papers and go at it. Once I get my stack of scraps turned into a stack of layouts I will go back and start adding pictures, titles and journaling. I'll be sure to post them when they are complete.

I also want to say Thank You to everyone that has left a message for me along the way. I really enjoy reading your comments. I will have another layout posted tomorrow. Cindy

Another Pagemaps layout

Happy Saturday. Tomorrow is Father's Day and we'll be spending the day celebrating with a barbeque. My older son will be celebrating his very first Father's Day which means my hubby will not only be celebrating Father's Day, but also his first Grandfather's Day. Little Khloe turned 6 months old today and is starting to crawl. She's getting cuter and cuter everyday. I love watching her grow and learn new things.

Happy Father's Day to all you Dads out there.
As for my layout today I used this sketch and more scraps.

For my layout I used Storybook for the flower/vines on the right side. There are 3 of them at 4" grouped and welded together. For the butterflies I used Storybook and cut them at 1". The smaller flower/vine was cut at 2". The scallop piece on the left side was cut using a border punch by Stampin' Up.  All of the papers were scraps from the top of my desk except the white background paper.

 More pages to come in a few days. I have a couple in progress, but need to add some Cricut cuts to them.

Progress with my scrap pile

I'm making progress. I really like this idea of using my scraps. I'm forcing myself to use what I have and that's a good feeling. Using the Pagemaps sketch book is also very helpful. I tend to get scrappers block, so using a sketch will jump start my creativity. It will also remind me to use Cricut cuts and embellishments that I tend to forget about. Here is a picture of my first layout and the sketch I used.

For the Cricut cuts I used Storybook for large scallop rectangle cut at 11" and the scallop circle cut at 4".  I used Home Decor for the swirls cut at 3" and George for the circle cut at 3.5".

The sketch is for an 8 1/2 x 11"  single page, but I always make 12x12 double page layouts. I really liked the sketch though so I modified it to fit my needs. I really like how it turned out. I left space for a title and  journaling. I will add those once I decide which pictures to use.  Come by tomorrow for sketch and layout #2.

Cleaning up my Scraproom

Okay, so I've been cleaning my scraproom AGAIN! I've done pretty well and I'm left with just a couple of piles of paper.

These papers are all leftovers from projects. Mostly scraps, but some full 12x12 pieces. I have decided as a personal challenge that I will try to use most or all of these scraps instead of putting them away somewhere. My challenge is to not pull out any new paper other than background pages as needed, until these papers are used up.

To help me in my challenge I picked up a copy of Pagemaps 2. It's full of scrapbook sketches to give me lots of ideas. I love using sketches because I think my pages come out so much nicer. I will pick a random sketch and make a layout with it. I will not add a title. That way I can finish the layout at a later time and customize it to my photos.

As I make my layouts I will post them to my blog along with a picture of the sketch I used. If anyone would like to join me in this challenge I would love to hear about your progress and if you also use sketches. Thanks for stopping by. Come back soon to see my progress. Cindy

Cute baby in commercial

I'm not sure if this will work. I'm trying to embed a commercial with the Wendy's Baby. This is my favorite commercial right now and it makes me smile everytime I see this little girl. Not because she has food all over her face or because her parents are a total mess (kinda gross to me), but because I love this little girls personality at the end when she's moving her head around in joy. Too cute. I'm going to attach a picture of her in case the video doesn't work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJE3296jvcM&feature=player_embedded

Let me know what you think? Bad parenting or cute baby?

Northern California Circle Crop

I had so much fun this past week at the N. California Crop. The weather was beautiful in Rocklin and the friendships made were awesome. We started by meeting for dinner at Chevy's Thursday night. Yummy food and a couple of drinks along with good conversation made for a wonderful evening. The next morning we all met at the Rocklin Ranch House.

We had a Yudu demonstration by Michael at Provo Craft, an eyeglass contest, drawings and a delicious lunch. I know it was supposed to be time for me to get some scrapbooking done, but honestly I was too busy chatting and didn't get anything done.

 I had so much fun meeting everyone. So many faces I see on the messageboards and on blogs were right there in front of me. It was so nice to meet these people in person.

I'm hoping to be able to go to the Nevada crop in September. I'm already missing my new friends, so maybe I'll see you there. Cindy

Circle Glasses

Aren't my puppy dogs cute? I made these Cricut glasses for the swarm and needed a model to see how they looked.

They were such good sports. I did add some pink and some bling to them, but thought my doggys were too manly for the pink version. I'll post pictures of the new version along with the other swarm pictures.

Circle Shirts

This is the surprise I made for my sister. I made t-shirts for both of us to wear to the Cricut Circle Swarm. I had so much fun with these. I used the Cricut Everyday cartridge for the Circle and Baby Steps for the font.

I think they came out perfect. When I download the pictures from the swarm I'll be sure to add some of us wearing our shirts. I hope my sister is surprised and likes her shirt.

More Calling Cards

I think these calling cards turned out so super cute. I made them for my sister. She will be joining me at the Circle Swarm . She is going to school to be a nurse so I added the nurses cap to this adorable little frog from Nursery Tails. I printed and cut all of the images on my Imagine and pop dotted everything. The last thing I need to do is add her information on the back of them and they'll be done. They did take a long time to put together, but I think they were so worth it. Aren't they adorable?

Yourstory project

Well, I actually got out my Yourstory and made something. I think this little brag book turned out so cute. It is full of pictures of my sweet little grand-daughter Khloe. As soon as I finish the decorations on the inside I will give it to my mom (the great-grandma). I used my Expression with the Gypsy for the title. The font is from Hello Kitty.  While my Expression was cutting I printed and cut the other images on my Imagine using the Nursery Tails cartridge. The ribbon is from Stampin' Up. The background was cut using Kates ABCs and then I used the Divine Swirls cuttlebug folder to emboss it.