Completed Summer Vacation Album - Finger Lakes 2012

Happy Weekend!

I have some friends coming to visit this weekend, and I'm really looking forward to some fun.  I haven't seen them since our vacation in August, and we have some things to catch up on.  And if nothing else, since my scrap room is also my guest room, it was good motivation to clean!

I had a goal of completing the album for that summer vacation before this visit, and I'm happy to report that I made it. I've shown some of the pages here in the past few months, but here's the whole album in order, if you're interested.


Album on Flickr

Sigh.....now if only our weather could be as nice this weekend as it was during our summer trip.  Oh well, I think we'll find some fun, anyway.

I had no intention of making an entire album for the week, but that's what it became - the album is nearly stuffed.  I usually have one album for a year, maybe an extra album for a special vacation or project.  I don't do mini albums or projects, so everything goes in the "big book."  To put it in perspective: In 2010 I used 2 albums, one for the year and one for a vacation.  In 2011 I used 2 albums, one for the year and one for a December Daily.  For 2012 I will end up with 6-7 albums:

--Two 12x12s for the year
--One 8 1/2 x 11 for February's Mexico vacation
--One 12x12 for this vacation album from August
--One project life 6x8
--One December Daily 6x8
That's crazy!  And really I should put my Week in the Life project into its own album, but I just stuffed it into one of the 12x12s.  It's definitely out of the ordinary for me, and I don't want to end up with that many albums EVERY year, but apparently it was a big year for scrapping.

Maybe I'll simplify and do everything 12x12 this year (other than my current project life pages) - I don't know, we'll see.

Have a super weekend!

Counterfeit Kit Pages

Today I'm finally posting some pages created with my January Counterfeit Kit. And before I get to the pages, I wanted to mention info about the CKC blog this month:

• Be sure to link something to this month's Mr. Linky! There's an extra incentive - Cassie owns an awesome scrappy store on Etsy called Paper Issues, and she is sponsoring a $20 Paper Issues gift certificate to one random winner from all those who add to the Mr. Linky.The winner will be drawn at the end of the month.  So get your projects linked up for your change to win! 
• Watch for this month's blog hop on January 25th. It's too late to join the hop, but please join us for some inspiration.

OK, so on to the pages......

I needed to fill the back side of a page protector (cut down from an 8x10 protector). I just used things from my kit (except some scraps and a piece of kraftstock) to fill this awkward space.

I think this next page ended up being one of my favorites of the book. I just love the flower picture. We ate outside on the patio with that beautiful view of the vineyard and lake, just a really nice place to be.  I  like how the colors on the page added to the colors of that picture: 

And I couldn't show three pages today without including the dog, could I? 

Again, mostly items from my kit. The sticker sentiments in my kit didn't have what I needed, so I covered the saying in the middle and used it for the background of my title.

I used Stickles to hide the not-so-great edges of that oval I cut to cover the sticker.  It also worked to hold those tiny little letter stickers in place. These little sticker letters are so cute, but the adhesive is never really very good, is it? I decided to name the phenomenon - Alphabet Drift.  Ever see it?  You spell a word, turn around, and find the letters have drifted - down the page, up your arm, across the desk, etc.  Alphabet Drift. Look it up - I bet it's in the dictionary.

I used a Zig Glue Pen in spots across the page, and then sprinkled sequins over the sticky spots.  Pretty simple way to use loose sequins, as long as you don't mind the work of corralling those little boogers back into the jar.  After my experience, my work with sequins may be short lived.

I don't know if it's my kit, the new year, the cold weather, or the pending visit of friends, but I suddenly feel the draw of my scraproom like I haven't felt in quite awhile. Wish I could bottle the motivation I'm feeling right now.

Finally Friday!

Happy Friday!

It's going to be a long weekend at our house, but anywhere is better than work for a couple of days, right?

Junior's Rally competition is Saturday and Sunday.  Practice has been limited these past few weeks, so it's a bit like taking a test without studying.  You know you won't do as well as if you had studied, but if you can just pass it you'll be happy :).

We will move to our first Level 2 trials, which means OFF LEASH courses. I had a nervous stomach pang just writing that sentence. It's a big move in this world of dog stuff.  I vow to keep a good attitude about it as it's happening, though - even if we don't qualify, it will be good experience for any "next time" we might decide to try.

My only other goal for the weekend is to have Crystal get to watch us in the ring. Poor Crystal hasn't been able to watch a single trial, because Junior spends his whole time trying to find her in the crowd if she's there.  He doesn't get distracted if she's not in the venue, so she has to leave.  This time we're going to find a way for her to watch, even if that means setting up a video camera or dressing her up as a potted plant.

Remind me of all this pep-talk when I come back on Monday and complain about how tired I am!

But today I'm thinking of more relaxed times and showing the rest of my completed Finger Lakes vacation pages. It was fun to relive vacation for a few days this week!  I am not done with the week's pages, but this is the end of my work so far.  I used my October Counterfeit Kit for these pages, too.



Our rental house is a bed and breakfast during the off season, so there was a lot of furniture on the porch. That made it a great hangout spot for reading, spontaneous wine and nosh plates and the occasional nap.

Everything came from my kit except the title letters.

I decided to journal right on the pictures on this page. I just wanted to put all the pictures of the house on this two page layout so I could tell that story all at once.  And I am in love with MME Enamel Dots. Such a simple little embellishment, but the pack I purchased worked perfectly with the colors in my kit papers this month.  I went through the whole pack.

Since I posted all these vacation pages out of order, I loaded them all into Flickr here. If you'd like to see them in order, that's the place to do it.  I will keep adding pages until I'm done with the whole week's stories.

Have a great weekend!

Thursday Tried and True Pin: A 1-Page Sketch

My tried-and-true pin for this week is a sketch.  It was perfect for some pictures from our vacation, another page using my Counterfeit Kit.

This sketch came from Scrap That Baby. I was surprised to see the content of that blog (all about scrapping kids under 4-years old), since the 3 pictures I had used for my page were actually baby pictures, too.  That might not be quite as much of a coincidence if you usually do kid pages, but I rarely have pictures or stories of babies. Just a happy coincidence, I guess.

And here's my page. Sorry for the white box faces - need to keep baby private, since he's not mine :). We took this vacation with my friends from college, and baby is the newest, cutest addition to the group. We just haven't had a lot of kids within our group, so the baby was passed around and squeezed and cuddled quite a bit.

Finally used the stars and buttons from my September kit, along with some other Jillibean circles and letters.  The woodgrain paper is from my kit, and the other Simple Stories and Jillibean papers are scraps from previous kit months. I inked the edges of the circles with red, yellow and blue inks but then topped those colors with a brown ink so they weren't so bright.  The red dots are Want2Scrap, and I've been using them like Frank's Red Hot Sauce lately.

So, another Pinterest success story for me! Want to follow?

More Kit Pages - Summer Vacation Pages

I mentioned yesterday that there may be some new eyes here in the audience. So in case any of you haven't heard, the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog is looking for new Master Forgers! 

If you're interested in learning more, click here to see the announcement.  It is a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to the inspiration that comes when new people, new projects and new ideas are added to the team!

Today I have more pages made with this month's Counterfeit Kit.  These are all from our summer trip to the Finger Lakes in New York:

I mentioned yesterday that I ran out of paper for my kit this month.  So I added in some scraps from previous kits to do this quick page. I made the "hit the road" tag with an unuse stamp I have had forever. Glad I thought to finally use it!

The end of my one sheet of paper that inspired my kit this month - that striped paper is an older American Crafts paper, and I love how it has so many colors I wouldn't normally tie together.  That allowed me to get away with pink buttons, red hearts, yellow/green enamel dots and turquoise cardstock. I think :). It's a real hodge podge of colors, not my usual style, but I loved this picture (I know it doesn't look like much here - I cut out a friends face and it looks pretty dark, but the actual picture is much nicer), and didn't need much journaling.

Another page that didn't need much journaling. Used some scraps from my kit for the flags and added in the Amy Tangerine stuff like I mentioned yesterday. When I was done with the page, I didn't like all that wide-open black space on the page. Since it was a Coordinations cardstock with a pink core, I decided I should let some pink show through. So I scored random lines around the page from the back and then lightly sanded the lines to let the pink appear.  It's easier to see the pink in person. I liked that it just sort of filled the space without having to add more papers or embellishments.

That's it for today.  I have several more pages to show this week, so stay tuned!

October Counterfeit Kit Challenge #2

First, I'd like to welcome any new readers and followers!  We had a 2Peas thread last week for people looking for new blogs to follow, and I posted a link to this blog.  And then I didn't update for 5 days - oops!  That's not very inviting, is it? But I found some other great blogs to follow and still need to go back to the thread and check out a few more. 

Yesterday I did not post my Challenge #2 (to take a photo of a project in a new or unique way) with the rest of the Master Forgers, because my entry is a bit of a stretch for the guidelines.  Rather than taking a picture, I scanned several pages to post this week. 
 

Does anyone remember my "Romney the dog" comment?  This is the picture that sparked that little family joke.  Junior's crate was wedged pretty tightly into the car for our summer vacation. He barely fit and was nearly relegated to the roof (no we would never really do that). We are not - I should say CRYSTAL is not - what could be called "light packers."

                          
I posted these two pages earlier this month.  Just wanted to show the scanned-version.

It's not a new or unique idea to scan pages, but I haven't done it for awhile. I do not claim to be a great photographer, but the time of year really gets in the way of taking layout photos at all.  The summer is firmly planted in the past around here, which means I now leave for work in the dark, and soon it will be completely dark by the time I get home, too.  That doesn't leave many options for nice, bright project pictures.  So I thought it might be a good time to talk about how I scan projects to get better page pictures on the blog.

Last year I read this article about using Paint to stitch scans together.  I do not have any fancy software to stitch scans or edit photos, so the Paint option was right up my alley.  Paint is a free program that comes on most desktop computers, which met my minimal-technology capabilities.  I used the instructions in the article, combined with some trial and error for the version on my own computers, and ended up with a method that works well for me.  In case it helps anyone else, here's what I do:

• I scan my layouts on a copier and can scan up to 11x17. If you only have access to 8 1/2 x 11, that's fine, you'll just need to scan your page in more sections in order to get it all on the glass.  With 11x17, I am able to do just 2 scans and stitch in one place.
• Consult your own scanner's instructions to determine how to access your scans.  In my case, my scans are sent to my email as a pdf.  I open that pdf, save as, change the file type to jpeg, and then save.  I then end up with each page saved as its own jpeg image.
• I open the first image to work with.  I have a general order I use for editing. 
  (1) I flip/rotate the image as needed.
  (2) Then I select Stretch/Skew and reduce the image by 50%. That step may not be necessary for you; When I do this process on my laptop, that version of Paint allows me to View, Zoom, and then select a smaller size like 25% to view my whole mat.  My work computer doesn't give me that option, so I have to reduce the image size in order to easily work with the image.  It also makes the image a manageable size to upload to my blog and other sites.
  (3) I select (ctrl+A) the full image and then move it as needed to remove space from the left and top of the image I want to keep. Once it's in a good place, then
  (4) I make sure there is some white mat space below and to the right of my image, so when I paste the second scan onto this image, it will have some space on the mat.
  (5) Now I save the image but leave it open. 
  (6) And then open my second scan. Usually I'm just trying to use this piece to obtain the bottom inch or two of my page, but I look for a good place to make that cut - maybe the top of an element or something with a line that helps me mask the stitch location.
  (7) Repeat steps 1-3 with the second scanned image.  Then I either select all (ctrl+A) or use the select tool and grab the piece I want, and copy the selection.
  (8) Go back to the original image and paste the second image.
  (9) Drag the image into place so it blends with your first image. Once you have it in place, click elsewhere on the mat to set your new image. (Note: Don't click off of the image until you are happy with its placement. If you do it by accident, go to the menu and click Edit, Undo, and try to paste again).
  (10) Go to the leftover white mat space on the right and bottom of your image and reduce it.  If you don't do this step, the white space will be saved with your image.
  (11) Save your new image!
  (12) Sometimes I stitch a two-page layout into one image. In that case, I just repeat the process until I'm happy with the final image.

I know it's not fancy, but it works for me! And now that I have the hang of it, it really only takes a couple of extra minutes while I'm putting a post together.  I won't use it all the time, but it's a good option to have for the next few, very dark months to come. 

One last page for today.  My kit for October is running on fumes, with just enough for our Challenge #3 later this month.  I had to add in some paper and looked for more options with pink.  I happened to find the Michael's Recollections brand of an Amy Tangerine line when it was on clearance for $5. I decided to pick it up just for the vellum and cut-outs included in the stack, but the paper ended up being perfect to mix with some of my kit for some additional vacation pages like this one:

See where I stitched it? About half way down the page. I should have just stitched the bottom couple of inches to avoid the dark spot, but I was in a hurry and didn't notice how dark that section was.  I'll live with it :).

I'll pick up the pace around here and be back every day this week with more pages for this month.  Thanks for visiting!

October Counterfeit Kit Challenge #1: Quilt Inspiration

Hi Everyone!

Today is my first day back to work. Bleh!  I really turned a corner last week and feel quite a lot better now, and I've been a productive little scrapper over the past few days.  But now it's back to reality, and again I say, bleh!

Before I get to the challenge, I want to make sure everyone sees that the Counterfeit Kit Challenge is looking for new Master Forgers!  In case you didn't see the post, check here for all the details.  When the announcement for new team members was posted, I was reminded of how I felt when I joined the group last year.  It has definitely lived up to the excitement, and I can't wait to see some new faces in the group soon!

OK.  So onto business.  Today we're showing our Counterfeit Kit projects for Challenge #1 - to let quilts inspire a page. 

I recently noticed this paper from Basic Grey Clippings and used it as inspiration for my project.

Here is my project. I cut 1" squares from all the papers in my kit and used them to make some simple square-pattern
borders throughout my pages.  I used a long chain on the left, a short chain behind the title, and another piece
behind the journaling on the second page. 

I also used this red paper from my kit. It has been in my stash for a long time, and I not
quilt-like circular pattern to it, so I was glad to use it for this challenge.

The colorful "Woof" came from the paper title strip. It was too cute to not put to use :). The kraft stripe is another paper title strip put to good use.  The large quote card is hiding a big hole in that sheet of paper.  I didn't have a plan as I put this page together, so sometimes I had to improvise and find ways to make it all come together. 



If you complete a project of your own, be sure to add it to the October Mr. Linky at the Counterfeit Kit blog.  Have a great week!