I've Been on a Roll

I made it a mission to work through the entire "It Takes Two" kit, and I think I've done a pretty good job.  I have a few scraps and some bits and pieces left - and I may try to squeeze one more page out of them - or I may just put them in a bin for my husband.  (He likes to make cards for me, and it's easier for him to have his own stash of supplies.)

Warning: the remainder of this post is going to be really photo-heavy.  With that being said, here are the rest of the pages I've created with this kit:

Up first is an 8.5 x 11 layout.  I love the "forever" acrylic piece that came with the kit!

I've been trying to work on my layering skills, and you can see my little cluster of embellishments on this corner of the page:

This second page is also 8.5 x 11, and it features an older picture of my three guys.

I think this piece was my favorite on the entire chipboard sheet:

On this layout, I traded out my enamel dots for sequins.  :) 

Here's a 12 x 12 layout of my hubby and me.  I have trouble with word stickers, but I thought they worked well for the journaling on this page:

The little hearts on this page were cut using an old Stampin' Up! punch.  I'm trying to incorporate more older product and tools...it's not doing any good sitting on a shelf!

Two accordion-folded hearts came in the kit, and I only managed to use this one.  Sometimes larger embellishments are very difficult for me to place on a page...does anyone else have that problem?

This photo is from 2008!  I've had it on my desk forever, and finally got around to scrapping it.

The die-cut heart tag came with the kit, and I added a little hand-stitching at the top to tie in with the red on the rest of the layout.

Anyone else keep little strips of scraps in case they might use it on another layout?  Most of this page is made up of wee scraps.  :)

And here is the last page:

Once again, I'm working on my embellishment clusters:

This tag had a die-cut heart.  I backed it with a little piece of gold-foiled vellum:

I loved the arrows that came with the Crate Paper "Kiss, Kiss" collection.  On this layout, I used both a chipboard and layered sticker arrow.  They make me happy.  :)

You know what else makes me happy?  Sitting down and scrapbooking. 

My Disney Album (Part 1)

Hi, Nesters!  I'm sorry I've been quiet for a couple weeks (I've been dealing with some side effects from my hypothyroidism), but I'm here tonight to share the first several pages in a vacation album I'm creating.

In the spring, we went to Disney World (it was a very generous Christmas present from my in-laws).  While I've traditionally scrapbooked several layouts from our trip (you can see a few of them here), I still had quite a few photos left over (some of which will probably never make it to a 12 x 12 page).  I decided to use a Simple Stories Snap album to scrapbook the rest of these pictures.  I purchased most of the Say Cheese line of products to use in this album - and aside from a couple sheets of older Jenni Bowlin alphabet stickers, that is all I'm using for this project.

This is the album:

It's the faux leather finish (I actually bought this half-price during an after-Christmas sale), and it reminds me of the We R Memory Keepers albums.

For the first page, I used one of the die-cut pages from the line:

For this page, I backed the die-cut card with a second 3 x 4 card for the first space.  The second space on top is another 3 x 4 card.  I backed my photo with a 4 x 6 card to fill the bottom (you'll see this throughout the album as I had most of my photos printed at the digital size).

For this spread, I added a few stickers on the left.  The bottom photo on the right-hand page has a transparency (from the Say Cheese line) on top of the photo.

The card with the 'H" has a small brad in the middle for a bit of dimension. 

On the left-hand side of this spread, I used several stickers (the alpha on top is from Jenni Bowlin).  On the right, I used a die-cut page from the collection and added the white doodling.

Here you can see the back of the die-cut page.  The opposite side has space for 4 x 4 photos (I trimmed mine, but this would be perfect for Instagram pics).

The blank page on the right will eventually hold a pocket with some tickets and receipts from our trip.

On the left, I adhered the photo to the page and doodled a small border around it.  The right-hand side has a few more stickers from the line.

In the top-left corner, I added a brad to the middle of a 3 x 4 card.  I kept the rest of this spread pretty simple.

And here's my last spread (for now!):

As you can see, I'm really trying to keep things simple here.  We're going back to Disney in September, so my goal is to get this finished before then.  

I also filmed a short video walking through the album.  The narration on the video is how I would talk through this album to a friend, so you get a slightly different perspective on the pages.  (And please excuse my voice - my allergies are acting up.)


snap disney album from Dawn Hopkins on Vimeo.

Painting Easter Eggs

Hello Nesters!  Dawn here, with a fun Easter project that is also kid-friendly (a must in my house!).  I've mentioned before that we homeschool, and I'm often on the look-out for craft projects for my boys to complete for "art class".  Here is the result of this past week's class:

A few weeks back, I spotted a bag of paper-mache eggs at Hobby Lobby.  When I saw that they were on sale, I grabbed them for an Easter craft.  

For this project, we used Claudine Hellmuth's acrylic paint (which I think is no longer being produced, but any acrylic paint will work).  I also pulled out my paint brushes, disposable plates, and baby wipes (because my boys are nothing if not messy!).

I divvied up the eggs, and let the boys get to work.  My eldest is currently in a cast (he fractured his wrist), but he still got in on the action.  We put two coats of paint on each egg.

And here are the eggs after the paint:

Can you guess which eggs they left for Momma to paint?  For some reason, those boys didn't want to touch the pink paint.  :)  If you look closely at the above picture, you can see that the eggs aren't perfect.  There is a part of me that really wanted to go back and clean them up, but I also wanted the kids' work to show, so I left them as is.  (Someone please tell me I'm not the only mom who feels this way sometimes.)

Once the paint dried (we actually left it overnight), we went back and decorated the eggs.  Again, you can probably figure out which ones were mine.  My husband actually got in on the action and painted a couple of these (and he doesn't like to craft, so that's a big deal in our family!).  Overall, the project took less than 2 hours (including clean-up) spread over both days. If you're looking for an Easter project, this is a quick one that you could definitely complete before the weekend - and if I know Hobby Lobby, those eggs are still on sale!  

Our eggs are currently sitting on a table in our foyer.  I'll be honest, they make me smile every time I walk past.  

I feel like I need to apologize for my lack of posting lately.  The past couple months have been very rough on my little family, as my two eldest boys have been dealing with some unexpected health issues.  We think things are a bit settled now, and I'm really hoping to get back into my craft room.  

Well, that's all from me.  I hope you have a very wonderful Easter!

Cousins

Hello Nesters!  Dawn here, with a quick page walkthrough.  As a little background...this summer my cousin and her two boys were able to come down for a visit - and I have a ton of pictures from that week waiting to be scrapped.  With the start of the school-year, and vacation, and the never-ending cold that we keep passing around our family, I've been having a hard time fitting in time to sit down and scrap.  (Anyone else like me?  It always seems that my crafty time gets pushed to the back-burner when life gets crazy.)

My husband finally told me to sit down and work on a page - the chores will wait.  (I really do love that guy!)  I happened to have the September "We Are Family" kit from Scraptastic Club sitting on my desk, so that's what I used for this page.

This is actually the kit + add-on (you can see the full contents at the website if you're interested).

I pulled out a couple photos (to be honest, I just grabbed these from the top of the stack) and then selected any paper from the kit that I thought may work (I ended up only using three sheets though).

I narrowed my photos down to two.  I don't often scrap a landscape and portrait photo on the same page, so I chose the two portrait photos and returned the landscape to the pile.

I also started playing with paper placement.  I usually spend a few minutes moving my patterned paper around before I glue anything down.

Once I was satisfied with my paper placement, I inked my edges and starting adhering the paper to my layout.  I added pennants from the die-cut sheet to both sides of my photos and then put a strip of washi tape along the tops of the pennants.

Here is the page with the title and a few stickers added.  I wanted to keep this one simple, so I just added some enamel dots to finish things off:

  
It was really nice to sit down and finish a page.  Now, I just need to motivate myself to complete the three other half-done projects sitting on my desk!  :)

What I Did on Vacation

Do y'all remember having to write those paragraphs back in grade school?  

Last week (and the week before last), my family took a much-needed vacation.  Since I've been sorting through hundreds of photos to send to Snapfish, I thought I'd share a few pics from our trip.

First, we visited Main Street...

Then we met up with these characters...

And my husband got cozy with this goofy guy:

 My boys had lunch with some of the gang from the Hundred Acre Wood...

That last guy liked us so much, he even gave us some dessert*:

We got to see fireworks over a castle:

We even went on a safari to meet up with this fella:

It really is the most magical place on earth!

*True story: while walking through Fantasyland, a cast member approached me and asked if we had time for a story.  We stopped, and she told us that Winnie-the-Pooh went looking for honey, but he found something else, and that he'd like to share his find with us.  She then handed me 5 spoons wrapped in napkins.  A second cast member then walked over with this giant sundae and told us it was a gift from Pooh.  We love you Winnie-the-Pooh!