Christmas goodies

Wow! From Halloween to Christmas. Can you tell I haven't had a lot of time (or energy) to be creative lately?

Here's some things I'm working on for Christmas:

First, the fleece tie quilts that Kellie introduced me to. Many kids in my life are getting one of these. They are simple to make, although, kneeling on the floor to cut them with my big belly right now is tricky. I need to find some Terps fleece to make one for Ryan and I.

Next up is the containers for Ryan's teachers' gifts. I've had these Chinese take out containers for awhile, but can't stamp or paint on them. Then I got the idea from Paula to do rub-ons. Now they are almost gone! We are going ot fill them with chocolates.

Then, there's Ryan's ornament for this year. I knew I wanted to make him something related to pirates, pandas, soccer, or fishing (all big this year). I saw this ornament in a Bass Pro advertisement...they had the kids make them one weekend at the store. Thought it was perfect!

And finally, some cards. I do not make my own Christmas cards anymore. Too many, and I like doing the St. Jude ones at Target because they are cute and money goes to St. Jude. I do, however, like to make a few to send gift cards in or as thank you notes. The paper is from Archivers, the flowers are Making Memories, the stamps are Stampin' Up (Warm greeting) and Hero Arts (THANKS).

Hope you are getting the chance to be creative too!

Halloween Album

I have long thought about making a few holiday albums where I can document an event that happens over and over every year, and thus, stop documenting it in such great detail in my family album. I have finally done this for Halloween.

Two things led me to this, 1. Creative Memories came out with a really cute orange, fall album, and 2. Jessica Sprague created this album in October's Creating Keepsakes that I could scraplift:

A lot of hers is digital, but I did mine all traditional. Here's how it looks so far:











I was just going to do it for Ryan's (and future children) pictures, but since I named it "Beatty Family Halloweens" I thought I'd go back and see if I couldn't find any halloween shots of me and Scott before Ryan arrived. My favorite is the year we went as University of MD's basketball and football coaches. Both sports were doing great at the time and it was fun to dress up that way.


I had a bit of trouble/am not totally satisfied with how the white lettering turned out. I used Stayzon ink and some clear stamps. Rub-ons might have worked better, but that would have been a lot of rub-ons. I also have done a few extra pages so they will be ready to go in future years (see the last page that says, "pirate" for this year?). Happy that it's done.


BTW: this is also the first time I have used CM's new side load pages. I did these pages front and back on 1 piece of 8x8 black paper each and just slid it in. Worked great! Hooray for CM finally doing this kind of page!

TFL!

An interesting piece on scrapbooking

It will come as no surprise to anyone that I think a lot about scrapbooking. I wonder how it has become what it is today. I wonder (especially since I sell products) what will happen to it in the future, especially if the economy continues to falter.

I do not see it as a frivlous act, I believe in the importance of recording and sharing one's stories. I also love the community it creates.

What I don't know is how I feel about the fanciful celebrity of it all. I mean, do I really need the latest and "greatest" product, paper or embellishment? I like to be innovative and creative (creativity is probably the other big reason I scrapbook. Being creative makes me happy), but do pages need to be perfect to be important or satisfying?

I came across this post today. Be warned, the site from which this comes is kind-of snarky, but they have their purpose. And I found today's post important and in line with my reasons for scrapping. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Clear Cards

Archiver's had a make and take many weekends ago, and one of them allowed us to try making a card with clear acetate (kind of like heavy duty transparencies). I had seen this, too, on Hero Arts blog (lots of great ideas here!). I got sucked in, bought some acetate and stayzon ink in white. Here's the result:


I stamped a variety of flower stamps (all from the same set by Hero Arts) in white stayzon on the clear, then stuck a smaller white card inside where I stamped "Happy Anniversary." This way I can still write a message inside. I also used a little bling in the center of the flowers.
TFL!

Acrylic Albums

Back in August, I attended a class at Archiver's to make an acrylic album. I had only used acrylics as covers and wanted to see what could be done with them in a controlled setting (where someone else had already done the grunt work!). I learned a lot about what can be seen through (like the "Laugh every day" circle that shows through the cover, but is actually on the second page) the acrylic and how to take that into account when creating the album (and when to say, 'screw it, I don't care what shows through!').

Here's how the album turned out:

I thought I was going to use it for pictures of Scott & I, being that we just celebrated our 10-year anniversary, but the album had lots of friend stamps in it. I thought it'd be great for pictures of our college friends from the wedding. While at the wedding, I kept this in mind as I took pictures, and when I returned home, it only took me one morning to print and adhere the pictures into the album.

While at Archiver's that day I bought another acrylic album and decided to use it as an album of Ryan's summer vacation pictures. I had the idea for this last summer and had the papers already, so it was just a matter of printing pictures and figuring how to get it to work in the acrylic album. Because it was smaller, I did not put much thought into what showed through, but did try to line up the pictures/rectangle mats and the journal circles (which were all printed on the computer with CK Journal font).

I also decided to theme it more specifically around the times Ryan got wet this summer.

Anniversary Cards

I have not sent any anniversary cards this summer because I ran out of handmade ones and didn't get out to Hallmark (lazy, I guess). Finally had a few moments yesterday while Ryan napped to make these:


I bought the felt for something else that didn't happen, and then I saw this idea somewhere. Also embossed for the first time in awhile!

Brag Book

I totally stole this from Archiver's. They are so good about letting you take pictures of their samples and they have lots of great ideas!

I have done baby albums in the past for friends who scrap. The idea is they can just fill in the vitals and add a few pictures each month and have a nice coffee table album of their child's first year.

This one is for a non-scrapping friend. It is made of 12 A2 Scallop notes from Archiver's "yours truly" line of stationary. Two more pieces of cream A2 Scallops that I had lying around from another project make the covers. I scored it (with Kelley's score pal, or whatever it's called) for the "hinge," punched it twice with a crop-o-dile, and fastened it all together with pink glitter brads from Hobby Lobby.

I stamped some swirls on each page with versa mark ink, and adhered the "height, weight, milestones, favorites" journal box to each page. These I created myself (for the aforementioned baby album) and if you would ever like them (they are in a word document) just email me!

Some recent creations

When I find a card I like, I make a ton of them, and here's my most recent:





I got an idea for this one at the Paper Source in Georgetown. The card was a letter press card (meaning the image was pressed into the card). I just stamped it. Finally found one of the trendy new scallop punches from fiskars to make the top and bottom borders with. Made these in green, pink, and blue, so now I have a bunch just waiting for people to have babies!



Finally, a page that's been in my head for awhile. Took the picture at Little Georgie's this spring before picking Ryan up. He didn't realized I was sitting there in my car snapping away. The page came together after I found one to scraplift (I'll have to post that later).



I also did a bunch of work on my 2007 family album while away at the beach. Hopefully I will finish that up soon and get going on 2008. TFL!

Much talked about...

So I hosted a crop back in June and it's taken me awhile to catch up with the 3 or 4 other people who have already blogged about said crop. It was actually my National Scrapbook Day crop, but May is just too busy, so I did it when Kellie and I first had a summer weekend available. It was not as large as I had hoped, as a matter of fact, I had to cancel the second day of it due to no interest, but that doesn't matter.

You see, we had a ton of fun that evening. I do not even know all the silly things that were said, but you can check Paula's blog for more of that info. All I know is, people had fun, I sold a lot of inventory, and the chocolate bars were a big hit.
Plus, we did a make and take with the new tag maker. Cute little card.

And Jennifer discovered something else you could do with it. Cut a 2 inch strip. Feed it in from the bottom (as pictured below) and punch.

Then take it out, feed the other end in and punch again. When finished, it make a cute title or name plate.

Mini Albums

I have not done any work lately on my family albums or Ryan's, but I have been busy with other projects. In May I tackled a digital album and loved it. Still doing it from pre-designed pages, but moving things around a little more. I did it for Ryan's class and some of the other parents bought copies, too. Such a nice plus to digital-you can easily do multiple copies!

Then I finally did my little Team Trek album. I've doe a little journal style album all three of the years I have accompanied our juniors on the trip. This one was very easy because I just made it 4x6 and zuttered it together. Didn't have to paste many pictures in, just punched them in with everything else.

I plan to do something similar with all the prom pictures I have of my kids.

Finally, I completed an album for my sister for her birthday of our adventures from her birthday last year. I used a kit I bought last fall and all the goodies in it. She got it this weekend so I can show pictures now!

Birthday bracelet

My mom made me this for my birthday.



A few years back I made her a "Nanny" bracelet for Christmas and I kept meaning to make a "Ryan" one for me. I was so surprised and excited to get it. She even made it a little small, as my wrists are one part of me that have stayed unusually tiny, and she used turtle charms on it! So cool! Thanks mom!

I can finally post this...

I made three special projects awhile ago (with my wonderful zutter). They are envelopes bound together to hold letters to children.

I stuffed the envelopes with pre-printed stationary reading, "A letter from Mom/Dad on your first birthday" from 1 all the way to 18.

Made them for my friends Katherine and Drew (who are adopting, so the usual Baby's First Year album just doesn't work), Kirsten and Rich, and Cory and John (all of whom just celebrated first birthdays with their little ones).

They were so fun to put together and I know that years from now the kids will love them!

Got her game on!

With Scott out of town and a free Friday night, I emailed my crafty friends to see if anyone wanted to come over. Only Carrie took me up on it, and here's some of what we created last night.

I knocked a few more things of my "to be created" list with these cards:

these were based on some cards made by a woman at my school (remember Katy? It took a little while, but I found a smaller scalloped square punch).

and these were inspired by the ones Katy made a few weeks ago when she was here. Both are gifts for a friend.

Carrie, inspired by a set of felt letters and doo-dads she had, got her game on with this little album:

All she needs is to put in pictures! What a satisfying evening!