Fall Fun

Fall is my favorite time of year!  I love the perfect weather (jeans & a sweater, but no coat!), the beautiful colors, the yummy food, and all of the fun fall activities.  Of course, lots of activities means lots of scrapbook pages!  This post will be photos from the apple orchard and playing in the leaves.

But first, an old page that's one of my favorites: my sweet little guy when he was about 6 months old, sitting in a pumpkin.

Seriously cute :)  I had this next collection in my stash for a LONG time, just waiting for the right pictures; "Apple Cider" by Imaginisce.  I love it to pieces!  First I used it for apple orchard pictures:

I broke it up a bit by doing a couple pages with "Free Spirit" by Close To My Heart:

Then back to "Apple Cider" for some photos of playing in the leaves:

We made this next page at my very first CTMH party way back in 2007... I just never had the right pictures for it, so it waited patiently in my stash!  It's so old I can't even remember what the collection is called.

So much fun... and I have yet to get to Halloween! :)

More Potter

I have some fun fall layouts I can't wait to get to, but my posts that get the most hits by a VERY large margin are the Harry Potter pages.  So I shall defer to my audience and post more :)

All HP products are from scrapyourtrip.com.

On to more layouts from my 30th birthday surprise vacation to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, Orlando!

This first layout is just of random Hogsmeade signage.  Nothing super exciting, but I just love that every detail of the park is so REAL.  There is nothing to spoil the illusion that you truly are in Hogsmeade, not in a theme park in Florida.

Next, Ollivander's, including a wand display in the shop window and dusty wand boxes stacked all the way to the high ceiling.  

And of course we can't forget Butterbeer and Pumpkin Juice!

Hagrid's house, Mr. Weasley's flying car, and the Dragon Challenge roller coaster:

One of the best parts of the park is The Three Broomsticks and the Hog's Head.  Amazing atmosphere and excellent food, too!   Who ever would have thought that the best fish & chips I've ever had came from The Three Broomsticks?!?

There you are, Potter people.  Don't worry, there will be more eventually! :)

10-10-10

My little sister got married on 10-10-10... what a fun, beautiful fall day!  When I was stumped as to what scrapping products to use for these photos, I turned to my standby, Emporium by Close To My Heart.  I have used it for baby photos, rock concerts, wedding, Christmas... it is so universal!  For the "pre-wedding" photos I used Magic Moments by CTMH, mainly because it has pink in it and I don't have many occasions to use it, so I take advantage when I can!  Enjoy!

 

Artprize

 I love, love, love, love ArtPrize.  If you aren't familiar with it, here's ArtPrize in a nutshell from artprize.org... check out the website for more info.

"ArtPrize^® is a radically open competition. Open to any artist in the world who can find space. Open to anybody in Grand Rapids, Michigan who wants to create a venue. Open to a vote from anyone who attends."

I took a LOT of photos at last fall's ArtPrize, and narrowing down which ones to scrap was hard.  I was thinking of doing 4 pages, but I didn't want to do much cropping, so it ended up being 6.

My son loves elephants, so he was quite taken with "Elephant Walk".  Also on this layout are a big cow made out of little cows, a giant penny made of pennies, and a loveseat made out of a Cadillac Fleetwood... on which the tail lights lit up and radio played the Beach Boys when it was sat on!

This layout was done with "Cocoa Mint" by Cloud 9 Designs.

 

 

 

 

 

The first exhibit on the next layout is a series of pianos placed all over the city, individually painted and inscribed "Play Me, I'm Yours".  A big hit with kids and adults!  The second was my personal favorite, speed painter Martina Hahn.  She paints amazing canvases on a rotating stand to music in under 6 minutes.  As the music ends, she spins the canvas upright to reveal the finished painting.

For this layout I used "Boom-Di-Ada" by Close To My Heart.

The first exhibit on the last layout is a family of lions made entirely of nails- super cool, and my son couldn't stop hugging them.  I think they reminded him of our black lab.  The last exhibit I scrapped was truly mind-blowing- a mosaic of Martin Luther King Jr made entirely of Rubik's cubes.  The artist twisted each individual cube into the configuration he needed, then stacked them all vertically in an enormous frame.  The contrast between the view of the mosaic from far away (it was displayed in a church) and the up-close view of the Rubik's cubes was astounding.

For this layout I used "Animal Cookies" by CTMH. 

I'm glad there's less than a month until ArtPrize 2011... I can't wait!

Beach

OK, I do a LOT of beach pages.  But there are so many fun summer scrapping products out there, and little kids in bathing suits are adorable.  So there.

I ADORE this collection, "Undersea Adventures" by TPC Studios.  Bright colors, shiny paper, super cute sea creatures, puffy stickers, clear epoxy stick-ons, big brads... hence the 6 pages I couldn't resist doing:

   
When I first saw CTMH's "Caprice" collection in the catalog, I didn't think I really liked it, but after using it at a party I changed my mind.  I've discovered I especially like the colors and patterns for beach pages:  

Here's a couple more done with another favorite collection, "72 & Sunny" by We R Memory Keepers.  

Today's lesson:  if you find truly fantastic paper, like "Undersea Adventures" or "72 & Sunny", it is not possible to make an ugly page with it.  Of the masses of paper in my stash, my "can't go wrong" list is short and sweet, and these two are both on it!

U2360

I have set a new personal record: scrapping photos within roughly 24 hours of them being taken!

I am very lucky to have crossed "U2 concert" off my bucket list! I have been wanting to see them for, oh, 15 years or so.  They are rarely in my neck of the woods, not to mention I could usually buy at least 2 weeks' worth of groceries for the price of one ticket... but I have an awesome husband, and he surprised me with tickets as a Christmas gift.

The photos got immediately scrapped because my date for the concert was also my scrapping BFF... so the next day we immediately printed, shopped for supplies, and scrapped!  All the photos are from her Blackberry, so they are nowhere near the usual Canon quality I'm used to, but they are absolutely worth preserving!

The pages are simpler than my usual style too, since I was not concerned about mixing and matching fun patterns, just about cramming as many photos as possible onto the 4 pages I wanted to limit myself to.  I may have set another personal record there... 21 photos on 4 pages, plus a ticket and a (small) journal box!

I used CTMH's "Emporium" collection, plus a random piece of blue patterned paper and some sparkly things.

So anyway... here they are :)

And to show off my bestie's talent, and show what amazingly different pages can be done with the same pictures, here are her U2360 layouts: