If I'm not scrapbooking I'm thinking about scrapbooking!
Merry Christmas from me in 1972!
This is a formal portrait that was taken of me at Christmas time in 1972. On the back of it my mom had written a note, in my voice, to my Papa wishing him a merry Christmas from me. At the age I was in this picture, I was very excited about Christmas, which I think shows on my face.
I used papers from BasicGrey’s “Jovial” 6×6 pad to create this simple design. The poinsettia and title are files from the Silhouette store.
Oliver's face just melts my animal-loving heart.
This is National Poetry Day in England, but I’m going to celebrate it, too. The Web is international, after all. The theme for this year is “water, water everywhere.” I think I can work with that.
When I looked at this photo of our precious Oliver, the words from Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus popped into my noggin:
“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies.
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell for heaven is in those lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.”
OK, so I didn’t think that whole paragraph, just the first line. But I wanted to give you a little poetic context to my title. This is a reference by the main character to the mythological figure Helen of Troy. Her abduction by Paris was said to be the reason for a fleet of a thousand ships to be launched into battle, initiating the Trojan Wars. My reference to it is actually similar. You see, Oliver was the first cat we ever rescued together (back in 2001). And we blame his being such a wonderful beast for our subsequent foray into animal rescue (our personal war)!
Now you may be thinking to yourself, “Hey Jan, I thought you were gonna use the ‘water, water everywhere’ theme in honor of National Poetry Day.” I did mention ships, didn’t I?
I created this bubbles frame in the Silhouette Studio Designer Edition with the plan to back each circle cutout with patterned paper. All the patterned paper is from BasicGrey’s “Max and Whiskers” collection. Then I designed the title to fit right within the space below the photo. This was a really fun project to design.
So, whether it has really sunk in yet or not, October is officially in the hizzy. And sure that means the changing of the colors, visits to pumpkin patches, wearing cozy sweaters with your favorite jeans and daily pumpkin spice latte splurges. So what? Wait, what am I saying? That’s huge! I love fall. So let’s get to it. Bring on the cozy memories and the subsequent cozy scrapbook pages. I’m ready.
I've been wanting to record these first-grade school portraits for ages, and I finally did it (only 40 years after they were taken)!
To kick off the fall feeling, I scrapped these first-grade portraits of my brother and me taken in October 1973—40 years ago! I made the design more symmetrical and formal than my usual style, as I thought this first school portrait was a pretty momentous occasion and deserved a little pomp. It’s clean, simple and classic…or at least that’s what I was aiming for. 😉
I created this page using patterns from the BasicGrey “Oxford” collection from a few years ago. The title came from a card design I purchased on the Silhouette store (#27104).
My family kidnapped me on my 21st birthday and took me out for a wonderful celebration at the Firestone Inn.
The tenth sketch challenge, which I’m proud to have designed, has been posted at the SCRAP & MUSIC challenge blog! Head over to the site to grab the sketch and play along. This tenth sketch came with the song “Time of your life” by Green Day.
When considering this song as inspiration for a layout, I found my title in the very first line, “Another turning point.” To go along with the idea of turning points I pulled out a photo of my family helping me celebrate my 21st birthday on November 24, 1987.
That was a good day! Fortunately, although Phil and I were attending college at Ohio University four hours away, we were able to be home for my birthday because of the Thanksgiving holiday (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love having a Thanksgiving birth date.). Knowing how much I love surprises, my parents had the evening all planned out and wouldn’t tell me a thing about it. Mom had even put together a special outfit for me to wear for our celebration—from the blouse, to the skirt that she had sewn without my knowing (and fit perfectly), to the shoes!
Everyone dressed up and got in the car, and Dad drove us to the neatest place for a special dinner. It was called the Firestone Inn. I don’t know whether it’s still in business because I haven’t found any mention of it online, but it was so lovely. We had a great dinner, and Dad allowed me to order wine with mine for the first time. 🙂
I had a great time combining a variety of new and old products from a number of manufacturers on this layout. The background paper is from the current BasicGrey “Carte Postale” collection, and it sets the color palette for the whole thing. The other patterns are from older American Crafts, Crate Paper, Fancy Pants, K&Company, My Mind’s Eye and Simple Stories collections. I designed and cut the title using the Silhouette Cameo.
The challenges on this blog involve following the sketch and using a title on your layout with a line from the provided music. Below I’ve included the video as well as the lyrics for this song:
“Time of your life” by Green Day
Another turning point
a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist
directs you where to go
So make the best of this test
and don’t ask why
It’s not a question
but a lesson learned in time
It’s something unpredictable
but in the end it’s right
I hope you had the time of your life
So take the photographs
and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf
of good health and good time
Tattoos of memories
and dead skin on trial
For what it’s worth
it was worth all the while
It’s something unpredictable
but in the end it’s right
I hope you had the time of your life [X3]
Building my whole layout around tags was new for me, and I'm really happy with the look.
This layout was fun to pull together! I gathered four photos of Matt and me just out doing our thing in Austin last December. The north photo is of us waiting for our friends’ wedding to start; the east photo is when we were waiting outside the Alamo Drafthouse before seeing Les Miserables; the south photo is us waiting for our lunch to arrive at Cheddars; and the west photo is when we scored the fireplace table at La Madeleine.
My friend, Laurie, published this cool sketch on her blog and is running a contest with it for her birthday. Isn’t that a great idea? I decided to use the tags as my main focus but configure them a little differently by arranging them in a circle. I’ll tell you, using the Studio Calico cloud background paper with the grid really helped make aligning everything easier. I cut the eight tags out of another piece from the same SC “Here & There” collection and then embellished each. To bring it all together I created a circular title treatment on my Silhouette. I really like my final result, and I would’t have come up with this idea without Laurie’s sketch for inspiration.
Happy birthday, my friend!
UPDATE: The happy news is that I won this sketch contest! Thanks for the Amy Tangerine stitching template kits, Laurie. I can’t wait to use them on my pages. 🙂