Scrap Your Stash BLOG HOP *Practical Scrappers*

Welcome to the Practical Scrappers Scrap Your Stash Blog Hop!  You should have arrived here from Jennifer Haggerty's Blog! A whole bunch of us have gotten together to tackle our mounds and piles of scrap goodness that has been left to the wayside and is collecting dust as new products continually find their way to the front of our scrap desks!

I, personally, have been trying to scrap my stash more and trying NOT to buy as much (but is is SO hard!).  So I try to incorporate a little something from my stash here and there.

But for today, I did an entire page devoted to using my older stash.  It's not new news that I love working with Crate Paper products, so I used up some papers and embellishments from Acorn Ave, The Pier, and Close Knit.

I started by using a stencil and some gesso on the background.  It was a little too white, so I tried wiping it off, and it left a lighter cover, and I was happy with that!  Then I splattered some mists and water colors here and there.

For my page design, I was inspired by a sketch at Skissedilla, and used strips of paper, distressed them, and then stitched them down with a mix of straight and zig zag stitches. Then I used a few other patterns to mat my photos.

The rest was just clustering of embellishments: stickers, chipboard, brads, labels.....all tucked here and there around my photo.

I spent an HOUR looking for the wagon chipboard piece that I KNEW I had seen somewhere before.  And just FYI, if you ever need a wagon, there is one in the Crate Paper Close Knit die cuts (NOT the one on my page), and this chipboard one from Crate Paper Acorn Ave. (and that collection also has one printed on a card and a wood veneer one, too!).

If you would like to see the ENTIRE blog hop list, please go to the Practical Scrappers Blog!

Now you are headed over to Lee-Anne Thornton's Blog!

Stay scrappy my friends!

December Daily 2013

Well, I am no where near done with it, but I am so proud of myself because my goal was to JOURNAL everyday for 25 days and I did it!!!  Now the fun part of just adding in the photos and decorating is all I have to do!  I am sharing some photos of my album that I took around day 6 of December (yes, that long ago and I am just posting).

My favorite part about this process is creating my journaling pages.  On my album I created last year (WHICH YOU CAN SEE HERE), I first started by creating journaling pages and I was able to stick to it.  The photos speak for themselves...they are memories captured in that instant.  But those thoughts and words that go with those specific moments are sometimes fleeting, and the details can get lost over time.  That is why I feel it is so important to focus on the journaling.  I want to remember those conversations and little bits of the day that really make this holiday.

OK, so to my pages:

I started by simply creating a Microsoft Word document with 2 columns and adding in some lines for journaling.  I fiddled with the margins so they would be equal once I cut down the middle.  I printed 13 pages, cut them each in half, which gave me 26 journaling pages.  On each page, I used a decorative border punch on the top edge.  I splattered some Citron (Heidi Swapp), Santa Claus Red (Ranger), and Tannenbaum (Studio Calico) mists on each page.

On the bottom edge of each journaling page, I used some Mod Podge and a dry brush and made streaks of glue with the brush and sprinkled some gold glitter on it and let it all dry.

Finally, I chose 5 colors/patterns of washi tape and added them to the right edge of the journaling pages. Then I used some vellum and paper die cuts from Pink Paislee and stitched them over the washi with some gold thread (and I left the edges of the gold thread hanging, and I love the interest it adds).  Finally, I punched three holes in each page to fit into my album.

For the album:

I used this Pink Paislee "Portfolio" album, which I actually purchased about 3 or 4 years ago because Ali Edwards used it for her DD album (or maybe it was for her Week In the Life, I can't remember).  But it has been sitting in my closet and I thought it was time to use it.  It has some really cool shapes and types of insert pages in it.

I started by covering the outside (which is canvas) with gesso.  I didn't completely cover it because I like some of the raw canvas peeking through.

Then I used a small christmas tree patterned stencil and some Citron mist and sprayed it on the bottom half of the album.  Then I splattered with the Tannenbaum mist, and stamped "Dec 2013" with a date stamp here and there.

It is hard to see, but I took some irridescent punchinella and cut circles out of it. I glued the circles to random parts on the album front using mod podge.

I created a small banner cluster on the top left with some lime green washi tape.

I covered some Studio Calico wood veneer stars with some glue and loose gold glitter and glued them to the album cover.  I also used some of the gold rub on stars of the same shape, but are a lot smaller, and scattered them around, too.

Finally, I added some red sequins, rhinestones from Glitz Designs, and the word "holiday" from a Basic Grey wood pack.  The gold "season" alphas are Studio Calico.


PHEW!  That was a lot of info!  :)

Here is a peek at the inside, not embellished or decorated yet, but you can get the idea of where I am going with this....

I hope you stop back and see my finished project...which should be sometime around NEXT Christmas!    HAHAHAHA!

Stay scrappy my friends!

Even the grocery store can be fun!!...ok, not really...

I HATE going grocery shopping.  And most of the time, it is even worse with 2 little kiddos!  But I am getting better at preparing for the trips.  And YES, you have to prepare!  Thank GOD some genius thought of making this carts that are like cars, and that there are even some with TWO steering wheels!  Brilliant!!

I used the December Gossamer Blue kit and a sketch from My Scraps & More sketch blog (which was post a few weeks ago, but I'm just getting around to revealing it on my blog!).

I have been wanting to use this striped black and white paper for a background, but i wanted to tone it down a bit, so I swiped some gesso on it with a credit card.

I machine stitched a circle in yellow thread to ground the photo.  I cut out a whole bunch of pie charts and cut apart the vellum circles from the stitched garland.

Totally love the KI Memories frames, and had to cut that bright chevron print paper into some arrow strips.  I just LOVE all the bright colors in this kit!