Fair Time

Hello, long time no post! Life and work have gotten in the way of my crafting and scrapping! Hopefully my next post will be sooner. 

It was just county fair time here in Sonoma County. It is always a summer must for us to visit, to see the beautiful themed flower show, the animals, carnival and fair food!

I also love to check out the Adult Fine Art and Home Art Exhibits, and also the Kids exhibits. 

There are some talented people in our county. 

Almost every year I also enter items in the Home Art Exhibits. It is fun to see my creations on display and see if I won any ribbons! 

Below are a few of my entries this year. 

I entered my smashed penny bracelet, made from my smashed pennies I gather on my travels. I added some bead accents and used my handy Crop-a-dile from my scrap tools to punch a hole in each smashed penny. 

I also entered this little sewing book I made while scrapping at my friend Narda's one weekend. I covered manila file folders with sewing themed scrapbook paper and real sewing pattern tissue. I covered chipboard for the covers and put it all together with my bind-it-all.  

 

I embroidered the little heart for the cover. The photos that will go in the album are photos of my sewing projects that I have given away or were out grown! 

I also made another paper mache figure, this time a Santa with his toy bag on a paper mache book. Santa is molded from styrofoam shapes and aluminum foil, covered in paper mache medium.  

Painted and covered with mica flakes, all set for Christmas!

I entered some cards too! 

 

And of course some scrapbook pages!



My 4th Fervor page even won a blue ribbon!

I had another 2 page scrap book lay out, but the fair crew only displayed one page! I was disappointed they only displayed one side as they were attached together? The judge wrote on my entry, "where's the journaling?"  On the half of the lay out you did not see!

My son Henry entered a Lego creation, as he does every year. He always themes his creation to the Fair theme, and wins a blue ribbon every year he has entered.

Thanks for visiting! Hopefully my next blog post comes a little bit sooner that the last! 

A Little Scrapping and a Few Scrappy Cards

I have not posted any scrap pages in awhile, and since I just finished a few pages I thought I would post them along with a few of my other recent pages. I have a few cards at the end, 

made using my layout scraps. 

This first lay out is about our chickens. They have been busy this spring laying eggs, so we have cooked up lots of dishes to use them up. Creme Brulee, Tapioca Pudding, Lemon Meringue Pie, Quiche, Devilled Eggs, scrambled eggs, and fried eggs. Some of the girls really get cackling when they lay an egg! All pattern papers are Basic Grey.

This layout is about Father's Day, and my son's taking over the grilling duties for dad! A mix of pattern papers, mostly scraps! Crate Paper, Sassafras.

The next three layouts are made from an older paper line from SEI, Dill Blossom.
I love this paper line!
Both layouts are from my trip to Southern California with my sister Lou. The first layout is about the girls day out shopping with my sister and my niece Jennifer. We checked out some great decor stores that day.
And topped it off with a nice lunch in Laguna Beach.


I have been to many of the California Missions, but this trip was the first time to Mission Santa Barbara. In fact my first trip to actually stop in Santa Barbara. I had been through SB many times on the way north and south, but never had actually stopped to see the town or mission.

I had lots of photos of the mission and decided one, two page layout was not enough, so I also made another two pages to hold all the paper and journaling.
 

After I finished these two layouts, I took some of my scraps already on the table and
made these three cards.

The first was cut from a solid piece of the Dill blossom paper. I punched one edge of the card with a Fiskars punch.and added these fussy cut flowers, cut from more of the paper.  The "Hello" sentiment is from Stampin' Up.

The second card uses more fussy cut leaves from the Dill Blossom papers, and I stamped a Close to My Heart sentiment stamp and punched it out with a Stampin' Up label punch.

The last card uses more scraps from Dill Blossom, a border punch from Martha Stewart and a stamp from Autumn Leaves. I colored in the stamp image with color pencils and cut and framed the image with a  Spellbinders die.

Thanks for checking out my lastest craftyness!

A Little Bit of 2011 in Review

I belong to the Jenni Bowlin monthly scrapping and paper crafting club. Each month I receive a box of paper crafting goodies in the mail. Each kit in 2011 contained a calendar Bingo card that matched the month of the kit. They were exclusive to the kit until this year.
About the time July rolled around I was wondering what I would do with them. I thought a mini album would be fun. But I had to wait until December to get all 12 months. Now you can buy the whole calendar set from Jenni Bowlin.

This last week I put the album together.




I started by adhering pattern paper to the back of each Bingo card with decoupage medium. The back side of January became the front cover. The back of February became the opposite page of the January pages and so on. The final page was a piece of thin chipboard covered on both sides with pattern paper. Between each double page spread I inserted a smaller journaling card, postcard or tag. An extra spot for journaling, photos or embellishments.

I printed four photos for each month, except for August,
as I guess I had nothing to take photos of??
I only had two to choose from!
I was busy with work that month, and I guess we didn't do anything
or go anywhere.

I sized and printed each photo for the mini to 2x3 inches. 

I placed the photos on the bingo card, patterned paper pages or on the center tags.
I went through all my word phrase stickers and small journaling spots and used them as accents on the pages. I usually don't use these much on my regular scrapbook pages.

Most of the journaling was written on center inserts.

 

To hold the album together I used my new Bind-It-All. I used just a short 6 post long binding coil, as I did not want to limit my photo or embellishment space. 

I had fun creating this mini, and since I will not get around to scrapping 2011 anytime soon, this will be a quick way to look back on the year.

I have another two mini's I made recently, one using my Bind-It-All again. I never really thought I would use a Bind-It-All, but I found a deal at Tuesday Morning and am loving using it! 

Scrappy Time

Today I am heading to my friend Narda's house for our mini scrappy retreat. She has her house all to herself this weekend and she invited me to come over and scrap. I of course said yes!

I have my car packed to over flowing, but don't want to forget something. We have a little collage project we will both be working on and I have lots of stuff packed for the collage, two mini albums, cards and some scrapbook layouts. I know I will not get it all done, but I will try my best!

Below is one of my latest projects. I needed a backing board for taking photos of layouts, cards and other crafty stuff. One of my favorite bloggers, Lisa Tutman Oglesby, posted this tutorial here, about photo styling. She made a similar photo board and that is where I got my inspiration. I made mine into an easel and only used recycled boards (we have a barn full) to create it.

I used existing tongue and groove scraps already cut to this length. About 20 inches.

I laid the boards out upside down on my table, locking the tongue and grooves together then laid two lengths of 1 x 4 on top and screwed all the boards together. I then added another 1 x 4 attached with a hinge, so I can use it as an easel. 

On the front I added a single strip of tongue and groove to the bottom as a rest for my layouts. 

A good wire brushing to clean up dirt and splinters and I was done. I think I will be adding a handle to the top, at the back, for easier carrying. I can use it flat or pop out the hinge and use it as an easel. 

I practiced taking photos and photographed my little Valentine greeting I display. 

This card was my recent birthday card from my friend Narda. Isn't it beautiful? 

I love having crafty friends!

Since I finished the board I wanted to try it out. And I am going scrapping this weekend and wanted some inspiration so I went through some layouts I have made. 

My hubby after shoulder surgery in his red felt tree skirt cape. 

He could not put on a shirt so I bought this cape as a joke.

My hubby turned 60 and we found this t-shirt in Old Town Sacramento just before his birthday and decided it would be his birthday shirt. I love when I have an easy title to come up with!

I scrapped some older photos recently. This one is two of my nephews back in 1961 or '62.

This photo is my sister Sally playing in the water in our front yard. 

The journaling is a scan of the back of the photo, written by my mom. 

This is one of me and my mom when I was small. I loved to hide behind my mom's big skirts. I used a sketch from Becky Fleck's Page Maps for this LO. 

My nephews Steven and Gregg playing cowboys in our front yard. My little nephew Gregg always was a very dramatic victim. He "got shot" with style! 

Another of my nephews at Christmas. 

My sister Sally and me with our Uncle Chester. He really was our favorite!

The candy aisle at Winco! There is every kind of bulk candy you could want!

Me and my sister Lou (the mom to the boys above). We were out shopping one day and found this card, and each secretly bought it for the other. We had a great laugh that night as we exchanged our cards. We both had no idea we had both bought each other the card. 

My son Henry and my hubby, back in 2000. I don't know what was so funny to Henry,
but I am so glad I caught this grin on film!!

My laundry is done and now I am off to scrap!!! Have a great weeknd, I know I will!

12 of 12 in 2012 February

On Sunday it was the second 12th of the month this year and I am participating in
the 12-of-12 in Twenty12 project. 

On the twelfth of each month, I take 12 photos of what ever is going on that day. This is something more manageable for me than Project 365. 144 photos instead of 365. 

And this is a leap year so it would have been 366!

After I take the photos I am making a two page layout with journaling describing each photo. 

There are photos depicting the simple everyday things like what we had for breakfast, 

what we worked on that day. 

I start taking photos in the morning and continue until evening and then scrapping 

the twelve photos on a layout, Or you can post on a blog, what ever works for you. 

If it is a day with a big event, your photos can all be about that event, 

or like this past Sunday, just around our ranch. 

My two page layout is above, and each individual side of the layout below.

All of my layouts are going in a separate album. The layout below is my title page, 

that I just completed this month. 

I will be making all the layouts for the album from my big stash of basicgrey paper. I am also using the same Quickutz alpha dies for each layout and numbering each photo in Picasa. But the arrangement of the photos and basic grey paper line will be different each month. 

You can see my January 12 of 12 layout here. 

Look for March coming up about mid March!

Twelve of twelve

Project 365 is big with the start of the new year. I have seen lots of posts on blogs, Facebook and twopeasinabucket. It seems like everyone is doing it! I did Project 365 in 2009 and really enjoyed the project. But toward the end of the year, finding new ideas for photos sometimes was difficult. 

I don't have small children so there was not a lot of playtime, school 

and sports photos to fill up my pages. 

But I loved photographing the every day. The simple things in life 

we can easily overlook and forget. 

While on Two Peas the other day I came across the 12-of-12 project. Take 12 photos on the 

twelfth of each month, for all of Twenty Twelve. 

12-of-12

in

2012

I figured I could easily do that! 

So on Thursday the twelfth I got out my camera in the morning and started photographing. I took three  photos in the morning, three at noon, three in the afternoon and three in the evening. Easy peasy!

I was so excited to get this project underway, I uploaded the photos the next day to pick up while running errands on Friday the 13th. 

Since I wanted smaller photos to be able to put all 12 on a two page layout, I made a collage in Picasa, two per 4x6 print, so I could scrap 12 3x4 or 4x3 photos and save on processing. I also added the numbers 1-12 to each photo in Picasa, so I could match my journaling to each photo. 

Last night I scrapped my first 12-of-12 layout for January. 

I used some old Basic Gray papers for the January layout. I have a big stash of Basic Grey, so I may use Basic Grey for all 12 layouts.

Here is my first layout. I hope to remember to post each layout as I complete them each month, ending the photo project on 12-12-12. 

I already will have a change in my house, as I discovered a crack in the mug I took my first photo of for the project.