Day 62: Fairies

I found this great paper by Graphic 45 that has these beautiful fairies all over it. Titled "Once Upon a Springtime", it made the perfect background page for this photo of my daughter.  In order to save the fairies that would otherwise be hidden, I cut out the center part of the paper behind the 8 x 10 photo and rose mat (American Crafts).  I fussy-cut the fairies out and will use them to make greeting cards.  From the text portion of the paper I saved, I punched out four photo corners using a corner punch by EK Success.  In each of the photo's four corners, I placed the photo corner, added two leaves from Jolee's, and a rose from Stampin' Up! I chose to use two blue roses and two dark pink roses because I wanted to pull in the colors from the fairies on the paper.  I wanted the photo to be the focal point of the page, therefore I did not title the page. I simply wrote my daughter's name and the date beneath the photo using a journaling pen from Creative Memories.

Day 61: Boy with Flower

How do you make a scrapbook page for a boy without having it look too girly?

From the time my kids were little, I always told them if they blew on the fluffy white dandelions gone to seed that they could make a wish. We always called them "wish flowers".  I wanted to capture that memory so on Mother's Day 2009, I snapped some pictures of the kids wishing on dandelions.

I used "Cotton Candy Popsicle" by BoBunny for my background paper. The wispy white flowers put me in mind of dandelions gone to seed.  I didn't want to embellish the flowers too much, but I thought the lime green brads (Oriental Trading Company) added a little dimension to the page.  The fuzzy blue letters from Pressed Petals convey the feeling of the wispy dandelions.  The green dragonfly (American Crafts) makes me think of the dandelion flying away on the wind once my son made his wish.  The words (My Mind's Eye) convey all those things we do when we make a wish; we dream, imagine, wish for the impossible.  I used letters by Marjolein Bastien to record the date.  Those letters were great to use as they are half blue and half green.  I tinted the photo yellow and added the writing on the photo at www.picnik.com. I think it is a great way to journal that does not use up other space on the scrapbook page.

Day 60: Rock Guitar Birthday Card

Tonight I made some cards for tween boys that I think they will appreciate receiving on their birthdays.  I used the Extreme Elements and Grunge Rock stamp sets from Stampin' Up!  All papers and inks also by Stampin' Up!

Day 59: March Cards

I have a list of birthdays and anniversaries posted in my scrapbook room and each month I go through my stash of cards I have made and choose some to send.  If I don't have cards for a certain group already made, then I design a card and make a bunch of them so I have them to send out when I need them.  For example, my son was invited to 4 birthday parties in the past two weeks. I had him use the pirate cards I made on Day 19. It was great to have them already made and ready to use.

Tonight I went through the stash and found cards for all the women's birthdays for the month of March.  I need to make cards for two tween boys and some cards for men (tomorrow's project). I made a cute card for a cousin's son using Spider Man paper that was leftover from my Day 1 project.  It was a great way to use up some scraps and he will enjoy the card.

Day 58: In My Daughter's Eyes Altered Record Album & Scrapbook Page

I always get the kids' photos taken on their birthdays at Sears.  I really like the portraits taken by their photographers.  There is one pose they do called "bird's eye" where they have the child lie on the floor and the photographer positions the camera looking down onto their face.  My daughter's eyes really stood out in this photo, which made me think of the song by Martina McBride, "In My Daughter's Eyes", so that is the title of this two page layout.

I printed out the lyrics to "In My Daughter's Eye", cut them into strips, and glued them on to an old record album, which I decorated with flowers.  It is a good way to recycle an old record album, and to include the lyrics in the scrapbook layout.

Day 57: Using Coordinating Papers

Today I was working on a scrapbook page featuring a photo of me and my husband.  In the photo, I was wearing a green sweater and he had on a blue striped shirt, and we were positioned against a black background.  From my paper stash, I pulled out two double-sided sheets (a total of four different designs) of BoBunny's "Abbey Road" collection, which were in shades of greens and blues.  I played around for a few minutes to see which combinations I liked together better.  I chose a paper with an ivory background and blue and green floral print as a frame behind my photo, and a paper with a light blue background with blue, green, and white swirls as the background for the entire page.  A title and a few well-placed embellishments made this a quick and easy page, completed in under an hour. Using coordinating papers makes it easy to combine different patterns because the colors mix and match easily.

Day 56: "What Cancer Cannot Do" Book Mark

Unfortunately, my mother was recently diagnosed with stage two lung cancer.  I am trying to be supportive and positive for her, for my kids, for myself, and for everyone else who loves her.  I found this stamp when I was at Rubber Rainbows yesterday and thought I could make her a card with the stamp.  Then, on my way home, I stopped at Lulu's on Main in Morton, Illinois, and found a great book called There's No Place like Hope: A Guide to Beating Cancer in Mind-Sized Bites by Vickie Girard, so I decided to make her a book mark to go with the book. I almost didn't stop at Lulu's, but I just felt drawn there.  I guess God wanted me to find the book to send to her. Hopefully the book and book mark will bring her some peace of mind on those days when it will be so hard to carry on.


I used card stock, embossing powder, ink, and the butterfly from the "Strength and Hope" stamp set from Stampin' Up! and the What Cancer Cannot Do stamp from Verses Rubber Stamps.  Butterfly ribbon is from Michael's $1 bin and the sheer turquoise ribbon is from Oriental Trading Company.  The color for lung cancer is "pearl", but my mom's favorite colors are blues, so I chose to use blues to make this book mark for her.