More Wedding

My wedding album is a slow project- since I have to make the prints from negatives, I just don't take the time to plan it all out very often.  I make it a point to plan it out and get everything I need ready before going to a retreat, which I do maybe 2 or 3 times a year.  And then I don't work on ONLY my wedding album... even though I love the products I chose to use, looking at the same stuff for 2 days straight would get old.  Anyway... enough rambling, here's what I got done at my last retreat in November.  All black & white paper and coordinating embellishments (paper flowers, paper frames, and paper ribbon) are from Creative Memories.  Cardstock (black, white, and colors with white core) are from Close To My Heart.  And there's some random embellishments from my stash in there too.

First, me with the parents:

Me with my bridesmaids:

The guys:

And last but certainly not least, my handsome hubby.  I am so lucky to share my life with this man!  (And yes, I still think so 7 1/2 years later.)

I have to admit, sometimes working on these pages feels a bit like a chore... all that black & white gets boring after a while.  But when I look back at what I've done, I love it, and I'm glad I decided to do the entire album in coordinating colors.  "The Wedding Album" is an intimidating project for many... hopefully I've inspired some ideas!

Woops.

OK, so it seems it has been a VERY long time since I posted anything.  I realized it had been a while... I didn't realize it had been almost 4 months.  Oops.  I've been scrapping, I just haven't been posting!  I will try to remedy that and get a little caught up over the next week or so.  So, without further adieu, I give you Halloween 2010.  (I really can't wait to get to Halloween 2011 as we had a costume party and dressed as Toy Story characters... priceless.)

Here's some fun with one of my favorite brands, We R Memory Keepers.  This is their Heebie Jeebies collection.  Coincidentally, I won their Halloween contest with this layout and got this year's Halloween collection as my prize, along with the Sew Ribbon tool, which is AWESOME.   

For this next layout I mostly used the Boo to You collection by My Mind's Eye, with a few other random things thrown in:

I love the embellished circles... a little time consuming, but worth it.

My friend Lacey designed this next awesome layout.  She is an amazing scrapbooking guru, and she runs super fun retreats in Grand Rapids, MI.  Check out her Facebook page "Who Gives A Scrap" (I named it... heh) for more info.  Anyway... adorable winter layout, coming up... this is Close To My Heart's "Wonderland" collection.

I like that this one forced me to crop my photos smaller than 4x4.  I need to learn that it IS OK to cut off feet once in a while.

I very much love this next one- my cute little boy's first haircut.  The collection is "Elemental" by Close To My Heart, and it is a bunch of colors and patterns that you wouldn't think go together, but they do.  I also love that it has no theme, isn't "boy-ish" or "girl-ish", etc... totally neutral and can be used for ANYTHING.

So, there's a little glimpse of what I've been doing.  Up next, wedding pages and a little eye candy for the Potter people.

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!