Day 213: Baseball Layout

For this baseball layout for my son, I selected the baseball stitching paper by Echo Park Paper and a baseball collage by Little Yellow Bicycle as my backgrounds.  For the left page, I added the ball glove by Reminisce on top of the stitch paper, added a chipboard "baseball" title from Little Yellow Bicycle to the top of the glove, added the team photo, and then added 4 baseball tokens from Doodlebug Designs to each corner of the photo.  For the right page, I selected 3 photos from one of his games, added 2 of his baseball cards (one front and one back), and embellished the page with a chipboard baseball and bat from Little Yellow Bicycle.

Day 212: #1 Soccer Player

Tonight I worked on 2 soccer pages for my son.

For the left page, I used a soccer background from Bella Blvd, the big round soccer ball paper from Reminisce, chipboard embellishments "soccer" and "#1" from Little Yellow Bicycle, and soccer ball stickers from Karen Foster Designs. I think it is pretty self-explanatory how this page went together, so I won't give details about what I did.

For the right page, I used a soccer collage paper from Little Yellow Bicycle as the background.  I selected 3 photos of my son and cropped them to fit inside the postage stamp frames (die and Big Shot machine by Sizzix; black card stock by Stampin' Up!). In the center of the two larger photos, I added a "soccer champ" sticker by Karen Foster. I used my date stamp from Office Max to stamp the month and year around the cluster of photos.  I used three epoxy soccer stickers from EK Success to add a triangle shape to the paper that helps to keep the eye moving across the page.  I added some info about the team, coach, etc., to the words at the bottom of the page with a journaling pen from Creative Memories.  Finally, I added my son's "soccer card" photo to the bottom right of the page and tucked another soccer ball sticker under the left side of the picture, further adding to the collage effect.

Day 77: Take Me Out To The Ball Game

I got my son's baseball layout all put together today.  I used two papers from my stash (manufactures unknown) that looked good side by side as the background pages.  On the left page, I used royal blue title strips from Creative Memories to back my title, "Take Me Out To The Ball Game". I like to use hodge-podge alphabets, which are just a bunch of different styles of letters combined.  This is a good way to use up extra letters from prior projects.  These letters were from Colorbok, Around the Block,  and Buttons Galore, but they all worked together because they were all round and blue. On the right hand page, I just arranged the photos in a pleasing manner, then added some adhesive foam to the back of my son's baseball card to lift it up off the page and add some dimension.  I used some blue Sticko glitter letters to add "June 2009" at the bottom of the page. I will have to post photos tomorrow.  I have to go sell Girl Scout cookies with my daughter.

Day 76: Before the Game Show

It's late and I need to plan out what papers I am going to use for a layout for my son's baseball photos.  I know I have some baseball paper in my stash. ....ummm....NO...I don't!!..l Luckily I do have papers with circles on them.  Baseballs are round, so I will just have to find papers with circles that coordinate with royal blue, the team color.  I find two pieces of paper that work well side by side.  I decide I will use round blue letters to create a title,so I pull out all the ones I can find.  I sort through the photos I took of my son, choose 5 of the best and set those aside to use with the team photos.  Now, off to bed.

Day 67: Soccer Layout

I completed a two-page soccer layout for my son's scrapbook very quickly.  It just seemed to come together! I used soccer ball paper from The Paper Studio for my backgrounds.

My left-hand page just looks like one big soccer ball.  Then I have a horizontal 5" x 7" photo centered 0.75" from the top of the page.  I have two 3.5" x 4.5" photos that I placed on the bottom corners of the larger photo, angling them inward.  I used a soccer ball and a "swoosh" sticker in the space created by the three photos.  I cut a 2" x 12" border from a photo paper of grass and adhered it 0.50" from the  bottom of the page.   I thought the grass title strip tied the page all together, since all you see when you take photos of soccer games is lots and lots of grass! I used a 1.5" x 4.5" "Soccer" border by Laserline in the center of my "grass" strip.  On the left side of the "Soccer" title, I used stickers to spell out the month and on the right side of the title, I used numbers to create the date (these stickers from Creative Memories).

My right hand page is a black background with multiple photo images of soccer balls repeated over and over. I had 5 photos that I wanted to use, but a couple of them were shots from far away, and I wanted to be sure years from now we would be able to see our son, so I cropped out a lot of the background and made really narrow pictures. I angled them off from my longer photos.  I used some epoxy soccer embellishments from Creative Imaginations to add some visual interest, and this layout was complete!

Day 65: Candy Land Layout Assembly

Today I attached all my photos and embellishments to my layout.  Here is the finished product:

 

Day 64: Candy Land Title and Cards

I wanted to place the title "Candy Land" on the first page of my two-page layout, and at first I thought about using some colorful primary alphabet stickers I had in my stash; but then I decided I would really like the title to use the same letters that are on the Candy Land game itself.  I wanted to work on this layout now, and not have to search the internet and then wait to receive something in the mail days from now, or run to area scrapbook stores to see if they had a Candy Land title.  So, I copied the letters on the cover of the game box, reduced the size, printed them out  on white card stock from Georgia Pacific using my HP Printer, and then fussy-cut them for the title.*  I ran the letters through my Xyron adhesive machine. I punched out nine 1.25 inch squares with a punch from EK Success using Real Red paper from Stampin' Up! and attached the letters to the squares. Then I punched out nine 1.375 inch white squares with a punch from EK Success on card stock from Georgia Pacific and attached those to the back of the smaller red squares.  I edged the squares in Real Red ink from Stampin' Up! to make it look like there was another layer of red beneath the white.  I thought there was not enough contrast between the white squares and the white background paper, but I did not have the next larger size square punch, so this was my quick fix.  However, that still didn't give me enough contrast.  I really wanted a red title strip to go underneath the letters, but the only red paper I had was 8.5x 11 inches and my scrapbook pages are 12 x 12 inches.  I have seen where people paint or ink acetate plastic, so I decided to do that. I have a stash of acetate plastic I have collected from product boxes, so I found a piece that was longer than 12 inches, and cut it to the dimensions I needed to make a title strip for my page (1.75 inches wide by 12 inches long).  I inked the acetate plastic with Blazing Red StazOn Ink by Tuskineko and left it to dry overnight. (StazOn ink is permanent on plastic or other slick surfaces, but drying time varies depending on what you are inking, so leaving it to dry overnight was a precaution so I would not smudge the ink.)

I began critiquing the second page and decided that the two matted photos, one embellishment from Jolee's and my journaling block were not enough, and that the page needed more. I decided to copy some of the playing cards and print them out and mat them and then lined them up down either side of my photos.

Satisfied with my progress, I decided to leave this and come back to complete the assembly of the pages tomorrow.

*Advice on cutting out the letters A and D:  to cut out the middle of the letter D: there is a slight separation where the D starts and stops at the top left of the D.  Using scissors with a very small, fine blade, cut along that separation and then cut out the center part of the D, following the inside of the D until you get back to the beginning.   Advice on cutting out the letter A:  make two copies for each A; then cut out the crossbar of the A on one copy and set aside; then cut through the crossbar on the second copy, following the lowercase "n" or upside down "u" shape; glue the crossbar on top of the "n"/ upside down "u" shape.

Day 63: Candy Land Layout Planned

My little boy has loved playing the game Candy Land from the time he was little, and still enjoys playing it, so I wanted to document his love of the game with a layout.  I selected "Bubble Gum Popsicle" paper by BoBunny to use as the background for my two-page layout.  This paper is printed on both sides; I decided to use the white side with multi-colored polka dots.  I thought the primary colors of the dots mimicked the colors in the game board. Since my son was wearing red, I matted my photos on "Real Red" card stock from Stampin' Up! I had purchased a set of Candy Land embellishments by Jolee's to use, so I arranged all of my photos and the embellishments where I wanted them on the background paper.  I will work on this more tomorrow.

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.