More Pages Already

I can't believe I already have more pages to post and it hasn't even been a week. If I can do four more layouts before the end of the month, I will be officially *only* two years behind! I could have gotten one of them done, or at least started, if I hadn't distracted myself by going back and reading all my old blog posts. I know, there is something seriously wrong with me. At least I'm doing laundry in the process, so that hour wasn't a total waste.

I find it a little ironic that one of the layouts I did is of the boys first TKD tournament. We had another one this weekend, and it was my first time competing. It was not something I had felt too strongly about ever doing, but decided that if I was going to try it, this would be the one. It was a national tournament that was being held locally, our school being the host. There would be a greater number of competitors among color belt adults, so I had a better chance of being with ladies of my same rank. More irony is that I won a 4th place medal in sparring, when my fear of sparring is what kept me from even trying class for the longest time. I feel like I accomplished something, maybe proved to myself that I could do it. However, I am in no hurry to repeat the experience. I enjoy going to the tournaments and watching my boys compete (they also won 4th place for sparring), but I can't honestly say I enjoyed myself when it was my turn.

Anyway, here are my pages from this past week. Hopefully I'll have more soon.

This one was realizing I could cram the rest of this trip in two pages, rather than four. Lately I've been too lazy to crop photos, but I do like doing less pages.
Papers: Scrap Book Wizard (old stuff), DCWV
Cricut Cartridges: George & Basic Shapes, Lyrical Letters, Mini Monograms
Random stickers from my stash
The white block is just a way to cover my journaling, since I included some personal information that would be better not to post.

Papers: DCWV, Scrap Book Wizard
Cricut Cartridge: Jasmine

Papers: DCWV
Unknown stickers
Punch: EK Success

Papers: DCWV
Cricut Cartridge: George & Basic Shapes
Rub-ons: Making Memories

Papers: Provo Craft, DCWV
Cricut Cartridges: Lyrical Letters, Zoo Balloo

2010 Again, With a Side of 24601

As I was using up the last of my printed photos, I debated what I was going to work on next. Do I keep going in the boys' albums and try and get them caught up (they are a year behind)? Or do I delve back into the family album, which left off in July 2010? Before I find that album even more woefully behind, I opted for the 2010 route. I ordered prints to finish out the year, and right now my unofficial goal is to get "caught up" to two years behind. To accomplish that goal, I need to complete 10-11 layouts (most of which will be 2-pagers) by the end of the month. Not an impossible task, but given my pace of late, a difficult one.

There are the usual added distractions. Not only are we entering "Birthday Season" (both boys with birthdays two weeks apart), plus the other fall activities (I don't know why this time of year seems especially busy for us. Maybe it's just every time of year these days!), I am trying my best to read Les Miserables. It is my all-time favorite musical, which I've seen four times over the past 20 years, and listened to the soundtrack (currently I have three different recordings on my iPod) countless times. I decided it was time to tackle the book, and it has been quite the undertaking for me. I am generally a fast reader, finishing your average best-seller in 2-3 days. When I decided to read Wicked before seeing that musical last year, I was surprised that book took me over a week to finish (and, in case you're interested, it was WAY different than the musical). Imagine my frustration now that I am only a little over halfway through Les Miz, and I've been reading it for over six weeks! Granted, I've read three other books during that time, but still...I was actually a little glad when I found out yesterday they pushed back the release date of the movie to Christmas day. I doubt I'll go see it opening day now, but at least I have two more weeks to get through the book!

I have managed to get a few more scrapbook pages done since my last post. While I was waiting for my print order, I did a couple for my portrait album. These are the 5x7's and 8x10's from the studios that used to be in frames. Rather that try and fit them into the regular chronological albums, I started a separate album just for these photos. They are more simple than my usual simple pages, and I generally only work on them when I've run out of other printed photos. These are fun for me since it usually means I get to look at baby pictures of my boys again.

I should quit babbling and either get to scrapping or get to reading! Thanks for looking.

This is one of those papers from the DCWV Doodlin' Around stack that I thought I'd never use.

Another super fast page with a DCWV paper. This is my niece.

Sketch: Amy Alvis
Papers: DCWV
Punch: Fiskars
Cricut Cartridge: Lyrical Letters

Papers: DCWV
Cricut Cartridge: Lyrical Letters
Punch: EK Success

Papers: DCWV
Cricut Cartridge: Doodle Type

Summer's Over

Once again, I took a summer scrapping break, it seems. It's a little hard to believe that it's been nearly two months since my last post. With the exception of today, it's also been that long since I've gotten any scrapbooking done.

I have managed to become extremely lazy and unmotivated when it comes to scrapbooking. I haven't figured out if this is simply a dry season, or if I just don't have the passion for this hobby I once had. And, like others out there I'm sure, the further behind I get, the more discouraged I become. The boys' albums are just shy of a year behind, and the family album is over two years behind--a new personal record!

I did manage to get a couple of layouts done today, which I copied from the pages that had been sitting on my desk waiting to finally be scanned and posted. Hopefully now that the boys are back in school and we're getting into a routine again, my body clock (or something) will tell me it's time to get back into scrapbooking mode.

The pages I did today used up the last of my printed pictures, so I have a brief sense of accomplishment there. I took advantage of 101 free prints from Shutterfly this week, so am waiting for those to arrive and hopefully get back on track to finally finishing my 2010 album.

I also realized this week that it's probably been a year since I bought any new paper. Of course, we all have more paper than we know what to do with, but maybe a nice, new DCWV stack could get the creative juices flowing again. Hmm...

This may seem like a lot of pages I'm posting at once, but this is two-month's work. In better times, I could do this in a week. I am not going to bother with supply lists on these, since I did most of them too long ago to remember. It's safe to say that most of the papers are DCWV.

I hope to post again before another season changes.

 Same photos, same papers, different albums. It works for me.

 Duplicates again.

 When I realized I had the same number and orientation of photos, I copied again.

 And one more set of copied pages.

No Craft Room at Hogwarts

I am childless this week, which means I should be spending the quiet time scrapping, but once I start reading, it's hard to stop. I decided it was time for my now-annual rereading of Harry Potter, so that squashed any hope of making real progress on the boys' scrapbooks. What is it about Harry Potter that completely sucks me in? The irony is that I never had any interest in reading the books or watching the movies when they first came out (I really am not a fan of fantasy). I only started reading them when Aaron was getting ready to read them for the first time. He was only six at the time, so I was curious about the content. I got completely hooked, and now feel the need to read the books once a year. I also got the complete set of movies for my birthday, which is how we're trying to encourage Caleb to read the books now. We'll watch the movie, then he reads the book and we can't watch the next movie he finishes it (He and I started the movies over again while Aaron and Dad were at Scout camp, though, when I decided to read the books. Don't tell him that I watched Prisoner of Azkaban without him).

I did manage to get a few pages done before we left for PA last week, and did some the other day. I feel ever-so-slightly accomplished, as the boys' books are now officially less than a year behind (but not by much!). I have resorted again to doing exact doubles of pages to move things along.

I have one more day before I need to pick up the boys. Maybe I'll drag myself away from Hogwarts for a few hours tomorrow and see what I can come up with. In the mean time, here are some pages from last summer.

This is the page for Caleb's album. Aaron's is identical, with the exception of there being a photo of him instead on the left.
Papers: (Old!) Provo Craft, scraps
Cricut Cartridge: Mickey Font
Sticker: Paper Studio

Papers: DCWV
Stickers: Bo Bunny, Felt Fusion
Cricut Cartridge: Calligraphy Collection

Papers: DCWV
Stickers: Paper Studio
Cricut Cartridge: Calligraphy Collection

This is another I copied exactly
Papers: DCWV, Provo Craft
Stickers and tags: Provo Craft
Rub-ons: Making Memories

Papers: DCWV
Cricut Cartridge: Lyrical Letters
Sticker: Paper Studio
Punch: Fiskars

This time, I used identical designs, just changed the papers.
Papers: DCWV
Cricut Cartridge: Lyrical Letters
Sticker: Paper Studio

Sometimes you (okay, I) just have to slap down photos and be done.
Paper: DCWV
Punch: Martha Stewart
Rub-ons: Making Memories

A ten-minute page using the Doodlin' Around Stack from DCWV

Scouts and School

It seems like I am getting short bursts of scrapping energy. One day last week, I managed to churn out six pages! It does help when you duplicate previous pages and keep things simple otherwise. Caleb's Cub Scout album is "caught up," in that all the photos I had printed are scrapped. Of course, that only takes me to January of this year, but it does make it the most current album I'm working on. I am slowly trying to make progress on the boys' regular albums. They are both now a year behind, which is better than the two years behind my album is.

And, as if I didn't have enough ongoing scrapbook projects, I seem to have added another one. It's pretty simple, though. I decided that the boys' school pictures would go into their own albums, rather than being part of their regular albums. I have several reasons for this decision. One, I think it will be nice to have all the school pictures in one place to easily watch their growth over the years. Two, it will be easier to maintain these albums from a chronological standpoint. I keep their school pictures in frames until the next year's are taken, so it has been a challenge at times to squeeze those pages into the albums after the fact (when I've actually had their albums current, anyway!). I can be pretty OCD about keeping my albums in chronological order. Once I decided to go through Aaron's albums and pull out all the school pictures (individuals and class photos), I had a time of it trying to keep them in chronological order. The mix of one- and two-page layouts made it more difficult. It seemed that every gap coincided with a two-pager and I had to rearrange and end up with things out of order. A little tough to swallow (some of you can relate, I'm sure!), but I'm happy I decided to do it this way. Caleb's was much easier, since I only had one page to remove--a combination of me being behind and him not having been in school as long.

Hopefully I can get some more pages done soon. Usually posting some to the blog gets me a little motivated. Motivated or not, it gets a little tough in the summer to do any scrapbooking, if for no other reason than one of the boys is camped out at my desk on my laptop on a regular basis. Maybe I'll have myself a mini scrapping marathon next month when they spend some time at Grammy's house. Who am I kidding? I'll be too excited at having the TV to myself and end up watching 18 hours of North and South or some other guilty pleasure TV (that's what I did when they were at Grandma's house last week {hanging my head in shame}).

Anyway....here's the latest batch.

Papers: DCWV, K & Co
Die cuts, rub-ons: K & Co
Cricut Cartridge: Doodle Type
Punch: Fiskars

(I think this was based on one of Amy's sketches, but really I just copied this page from Aaron's album)
Papers: DCWV
Stickers and rub-ons: K & Co, Making Memories

Sketch: Amy Alvis
Papers: K & Co, Paper Studio
Stickers: K & Co

I used the same sketch as above for this one. These are for different albums, so why not? I like how different they look even using the same sketch
Papers: DCWV
Cricut Cartridge: Lyrical Letters

Papers: Provo Craft, DCWV (the background actually had a "Dick and Jane"-type birthday scene in the bottom right corner. I turned it upside down and covered it with the photo)
Stickers: Paper Studio
Cricut Cartridge: Lyrical Letters
Punch: EK Success

Papers: DCWV
Cricut Cartridge: Opposites Attract
Sticker: (maybe) Paper Studio
Sorry for the photo instead of a scan. For some reason, my stitching program kept doing something wonky on this page. I wonder if it had something to do with the graph paper background? I don't know anything about the program so it was easier to do it this way.

Scrapping Scouts Again

Since Aaron has an entire Cub Scout scrapbook, it's only fair that his brother get one, too. I bought the same album and tracked down another Cub Scout paper pad. I still had plenty of embellishments left, knowing that I'd be able to save them for Caleb's album. Then about two weeks ago I was sitting at the pack campfire, watching the boys cross over into the next rank, and I realized that Caleb had already been in Cub Scouts for a year and there were no scrapbook pages to show for it!

My current project, therefore, is getting that album caught up (at least until January 2012, since that's all I have photos printed for). So, with the exception of one "everyday" page I snuck in before I realized I needed to work on the Scout album, that's what all this batch of layouts is. One thing I like about doing the Scout pages, though, is that they go pretty quickly, and it doesn't matter if they all look the same. They are much easier to work with, too, because of the great Scout products K & Co puts out. Some of these pages are literally sticking the photos down and adding some journaling. I don't mind these types of pages, since I think I've said before that my scrapbooking is primarily for memory preservation, rather than artistic expression.

Caleb's Cub Scout album will end up being shorter than his brother's, though. He just crossed from Tiger Cubs to Bear, and will skip the Wolf year. He decided to do this since he is skipping second grade and going into third grade in the fall. He decided rather than staying with his den he started with, he would rather be with the rest of the third-graders. He knows most of them anyway, since he was in a second grade class with them part time most of the year. I'm glad he decided this way, since he will finally be able to identify with one grade (he split his time between two grades for the past two years).

Anyway....(sorry, I get a little sidetracked sometimes) here is a bunch of pages I've done over the past week or so. I know some of these are not much to look at, but my out of town family at least likes to see the photos.

Papers: DCWV, K & Co
Punch: Martha Stewart
Cricut Cartridges: Mickey Font, Lyrical Letters
On this page I used one of my favorite tricks. The green paper is actually from a mat stack, but by putting the white strip across the page, I could "stretch" it to fit the whole page.

Sketch: Amy Alvis
Papers: DCWV, K & Co
Cricut Cartridge: Lyrical Letters
Stickers: K & Co
I used my other favorite trick on this one. I only had one sheet of the yellow cardstock, so I cut it into 3" strips and stuck it to some patterned paper that I knew I'd never use. The other papers just went on top. That's another reason I love these sketches so much. Many of them you can get away with using small amounts of paper.

Sketch: Amy Alvis
Papers: DCWV
Stickers: K & Co
Cricut Cartridge: Alphalicious
I used the same trick on this one. I can use up ugly patterns and conserve my more precious solid cardstock (although a lot of the time I really only have one sheet of a color)!

Papers and stickers: K & Co
Cricut Cartridge: Lyrical Letters

Papers: DCWV, K & Co.
Stickers: K & Co
Punch: EK Success

All Supplies: K & Co
(This one goes into the "at least it's done" file)

Papers: DCWV, K &Co
Stickers: K & Co
Embossing folder: Cuttlebug

Another "It's done" page
Paper: K & Co
Cricut Cartridge: Doodle Type

I'm Back!

After nearly two months, I am finally back to the blog, and with new pages to share. I guess after finishing the Disney album, I felt a little burned out on scrapping and needed a break. I started to get concerned, though, when a month had gone by and I still wasn't ready to do any new pages. That's not like me. Usually if a week goes by without working on something, I start getting a little itchy.

I have kept myself otherwise happily distracted. I've been doing a lot of reading lately. I also finished knitting two baby blankets and crocheting at least a dozen dishcloths. Whenever I do get around to scrapbooking 2012, though, it shouldn't take me as long. I realized I am hardly taking any pictures these days, and most of the ones I am taking are with my phone. I haven't printed any of my camera phone photos yet, but I'm curious to see how they turn out. A few weeks before Christmas, we upgraded to "fancy phones" and I am not sure whether to be amazed or sad that the resolution is higher on my camera phone than on my DSLR!

We do have some picture-taking occasions coming up, though. Aaron "graduates" from fifth grade on Tuesday night and Caleb crosses over to the next rank in Cub Scouts next weekend, so it's probably a good thing I spent some time this morning freeing up space on the memory card.

Here is what I've been working on over the past two weeks. Since I am back to working on the boys' albums again, I am up to my old tricks of doing duplicate layouts. If I have the same set of photos for both albums, why reinvent the wheel, right? Sometimes I'll even do both pages simultaneously, so it really is like killing two birds with one stone.

Doesn't get much simpler. I need to do pages like this sometimes to jump start the motivation. Ignore the big purple slashes. I was just trying to cover up the names and I am not a skilled editor.
Papers: Old stuff from my stash. I think the patterned is Scrap Book Wizard
Punch: Fiskars

Here's essentially doing the same page twice. I used slightly different papers, and rounded the corners on one of them so they're not completely identical.
Sketch: Sketch Savvy
Papers: DCWV
Stamps: PSX

Sketch: I thought I based it on one of Amy Alvis' sketches, but I couldn't find it. I have plenty of links to her blog here, though.
Paper: Paper Studio
Cricut Cartridge: Lyrical Letters

Papers: DCWV
Cricut Cartridge: George and Basic Shapes
Punch: EK Success

Sketch: Amy Alvis
Papers: DCWV
Cricut Cartridges: Mickey Font, Doodletype

Papers: DCWV
Cricut Cartridge: Lyrical Letters
I did both of these the same, only changing some of the journaling, so only posted the one.