How You Doin'?

Said in your best Joey Tribbiani voice.

So, how are you doing with the Document a Week in Your Life project? Are you doing it? I have to say, I had a super boring, but productive, day. I worked a lot. I talked on the phone — a lot... I don't like to talk on the phone too much. I prefer email. But, sometimes you just gotta. And, that was about it. Now I think I'll watch a little TV.

Here are a couple of pictures from my day:

The phone that I use for work ~

Here is the journal that I'm going to use, and some ideas on how I'm going to lay it out. The journal flips back and forth kind of like the one Tim Holtz showed on his blog here... and it has 28 pages, so I figured 4 pages per day. So that's 8 sides.


My lunch... a BLT with mayo. Not a huge fan of mayo, but a must have on BLTs. Tomato was from my garden.

Since I was super busy with work, I made a quickie dinner of pierogies and kielbasa.
My son is allergic to milk that's why we have So Delicious SOY ice cream. Not the he gets a belly ache allergic, but the he can't breath anaphylactic shock kind of allergic. He's also allergic to eggs and especially peanuts. He's my soy boy.

Here is my big girl doing her evening chore, which she hates... typical almost teen. It's blurry because she didn't want her picture taken, too bad ;)

That's it, that was my day.

How was yours??

Documenting a Week in Your Life

I'm trying to do Ali Edwards Documenting A Week in Your Life. I'm lovin' it. I need to start journaling. I've taken lots of fun photos that I normally would not have taken, ever... I mean, why would you think to take a picture looking out your front door? But, I did, and it's cool, and when I look at this in a few years down the road, the bushes will be bigger, the trees bigger... it will be interesting to see the changes.

Here's a couple of pictures:

The view from my front door:

Sunday afternoon eggs:

A catalog I worked on today (I've got a messy, messy desk):

The grocery store:

And a crazy carrot from our garden. It's supposed to be a mini carrot... holy smokes it's huge:

Fun project and I have the perfect journal for all these pictures. Now the question is, where should I print them? Home or Sam's Club?

Scrap 'n Supply Kit Sneaks

I had fun creating these pieces for Scrap 'n Supply's October kit.





Did you see this? I've started taking pictures already. I'm doing Friday - Thursday. Ali {A} Edwards has put a Flickr group together where you can share your daily pictures. How cool. I've taken a lot already. I need to write down some notes to help me remember what I did on Friday before I forget. The hardest part for me is remembering to take the camera with me. Sounds like a fun project.

Hope you have a great week. Blog ya later.

Fun Stuff

I'll have scrappy sneaks tomorrow, I promise. It was too dark to take photos when I finished my last kit layout.

I have something fun for you to try, tho. Here you can test your color IQ.

Here's what I got:

Hey, it's a good thing that I have perfect color vision, or I might have to retire from my current position! LOL! I'm going to make my DH do this... I hear men are slightly color blind, so I'm hopin' to one up him! ;-) All in fun, all in fun.

(on this test you want to score low!)

Have a fun weekend!

A Whole Lotta Birthday's Going On

September is a busy month for my family. Everyone was born in September... except my dad. He's in October. Emma was the 1st, my mom the 13th, me the 18th, my brother today the 21st. Throw in some friends ~ Theresa the 6th and Amy the 10th... and by the end of the month I'm exhausted. I was so happy to have Emma in September because I love the birthstone... it's a sapphire.

My dear hubby scrapped me a card! It was funny... he asked if he could use my scrap supplies to make me a card.... and my reply? "Absolutely not!" I mean, what if he used my brand new favorite piece of paper? Or that cute embellie that I've been saving? Then I thought, why not let him.... I'll just tell him what he can use. So, I handed him an old CK kit that had more than one sheet of each pattern in it. Here's what he came up with:


Isn't it cute? Not bad for a first timer!! And how sweet that he made me a card. He also baked me a triple chocolate cake...it's so rich, but oh so good. Yep, he's a keeper. (He also admitted that scrapping and card making is harder than it looks!)

Yesterday we went to the in-laws to have more cake... ugh... and she bought a cookie cake for the kids... and we brought it all home. So, I have 2 cakes and a giant chocolate chip cookie.... real good for my hips.

Someone on one of the message boards asked the question if you do anything else crafty, like sewing or what not... and yep, I do. I made this fall wreath a few years ago:


I saw something similar at Michael's and it was $42... this was probably 10 years ago... and I thought, I can make that. I bought all the stuff and put it neatly in a rubbermaid container for about 4 years, then I finally decided to make it. So, scrappers aren't the only type of crafter that buys something then doesn't use it for 4 years.

I decided that I could put up my fall wreath a day early. Tommorrow is officially fall. I love it. Love fall. Love the nice sleeping weather.

Here's my door, in a lovely fall shade of olive green:

I have a farm thing going on... got those ladderback chairs at Goodwill I believe. We were driving by and I saw them sitting outside and asked Matt to stop. He hates Goodwill or any kind of junk shop, but, he loves me so he stopped. They were a strange brown color. I painted them black, and they look cute on our porch. I'm so glad our house has a front porch. Our first house did and I would have totally missed having one. We're in a really new neighborhood, and front porches are rather scarce.

On another note, I spent yesterday evening watching this new HBO show called True Blood based on the book series by Charlaine Harris. We have OnDemand, so we were able to watch the first 2 episodes, and I love it. It reminds me a lot of Twilight. Get my vampire fix before the Twilight movie. I might even pick up the Charlaine Harris book Dead Until Dark (Southern Vampire Mysteries, Book 1). I've always loved romance novels and vampires... what more could you ask for? The new show airs tonight at 9... and the show's creator is Alan Ball who did Six Feet Under... it's funny, witty and sexy. (yes, put the kiddos to bed before you watch the show.) If you enjoyed Twilight give this series a try.

I'm working on my kit... it's so exciting, very fallish. I've made one altered item, one layout and started on a minibook. I need to print out my journaling for that, then I can put it together.

Have a great weekend. Scrap ya later!

Let's talk about titles

Titles, headlines, body copy, mastheads... what it all boils down to is typography. I've had a love for typography for years. Not just the love of fonts. Don't get me wrong, I love fonts.... but I love typography. I love fitting words together. I love taking a headline and making it spectacular. I love playing with fonts to create a logo. I love mixing a serif and a sans serif. I love typesetting!

There's a whole history of typography, which I'm not going to explain in my blog. But, if you are interested, you can look here, or here. And if you want to read about Johann Gutenberg who invented the first printing press, go here.

However, the kind of typography that I'm going to demonstrate, is more of using type in design. How important it is (at least to me) to convey your message in your design... whether it be a scrapbook page, a brochure, a magazine ad or a sign... these ideas can be applied to all areas.

For my example (I'm assuming most of my readers are scrappers) is a simple scrapbook page. Which in and of itself is fine. It gets the job done:

Title at the top, picture centered, journaling below. You've got all the elements that constitute a scrapbook page. However, if you're looking for rocky road or pistachio, what you have here is vanilla.

Let's add something to it... let's play with our type:
By taking our title and stacking it, you've created, rather than a straight line, a visual element. Now it's more like vanilla with a little hot fudge on top. Yummy, but should we add more???

NOW we're talking! Visually any way. See how I used 2 different fonts to visually put emphasis on the word monster. Now when you look at the page, the word monster jumps out at you. It's a force to be reckoned with. This is no longer vanilla! We've got some chocolate covered peanuts in there! Mmmm.

You can do this with any word or phrase to make your titles shine.

Let's try to put the emphasis on another word:
Here I put the emphasis on the word created rather than monster. Doing this takes your layout in a different direction. Your journaling (or body copy) will now most likely talk about how you created the costume for your dog (in this case). In the previous example, you might talk about how your little monster acted on Halloween.

Notice how I took two different fonts ~ the serif (the smaller one with "feet") and the sans serif (no feet) and married the two. They do not fight each other. Sometimes using 2 similar fonts would fight each other. Also notice how I tucked the words "Oh no! I've" into the area in front of the T in the word creaTed. I love to do that. Keeps your title together and from floating around. Helps your eye travel around your title block that you created as well. I did the same thing with the last few words of my title, but used the T in monster and placed it right at the end of the letter D.

If you take out all your thickers and your chipboard letters and play with placement a bit, you'll get the hang of it. Play with your ascenders (b,d,f,h,k,l,t) and your descenders (g,j,p,q,y sometimes z), see how you can tuck things around them... and try not just letters, but even emebellishments.

Now, for the last sample, I threw in some color, to really make this title pop. The layout looked pretty darn good as it was, but, if you know how to use color, well, that's the whip cream on top!
The use of color can also get your message across. I used 2 complimentary colors... I think technically it's a split complimentary, but I'll save that for another post.

Using a darker color (purple) and a lighter color (orange) I was able to soften the boldness of the word created. The word isn't shouting any more, but it's still louder than the smaller words. Just not as obnoxious.

I hope that my little tutorial helped some of you in positioning your titles. Maybe it will give you an idea as to why when you look as someones layout in a gallery that that particular layout really draws you in. Could be the great typography.

Here's some great typography used in these posters.

ETA: the sexy font is Fontleroy Brown, found for free here.

Have a fun day.... go play with your letters!!

(dog photo from iStock)

Hosting Happy Hour

I hope to make it really fun!

See you there!! CK message board.

There's a New Kit in Town....

And I'm on the DESIGN TEAM!! Woo hoo!!!

I'm very honored and excited to be on the new DT for The Scrap n' Supply Shack's new monthly kit club. I should be getting my first kit early next week. I can't wait to start to play with all the fabulous papers that I'm sure will be in there. The DT Coordinator is Debbie Sherman. She has a great scrapping style and great taste. You'll have to check out some of her altered stuff, it's fantastic.

The other team members are April Holguin, Lucy Chesna, Mara Campbell, and Ria Mojica. Congrats everyone. I think this will be a great experience.

Also, if you ever are on the Creating Keepsakes message board*, I am going to be hosting Happy Hour next Monday, September 15 from 9 PM est to 11 PM est. There will be a give away from CK of a book... just think, you could get Ali's mini book for free if you come and play... that's all you have to do!

I hope you will join me for fun and prizes!! SEE YOU THERE!!

*NOTE: it will be on the new beta mb, not the old board.

I'm Hooked

I just finished reading Eclipse. Each book gets better, I hope Breaking Dawn is really good. I'm going out tomorrow and buying it. I just can't wait. I read too fast... I wish I could stretch these books out until the movie comes out.... I'll need another book after this... any suggestions? Maybe I'll get a classic like Pride & Prejudice. I just watched the movie Pride & Prejudice this weekend... twice, actually. I might buy that, too, the movie!

Ok, besides reading, and watching a movie, I managed to scrap a layout for a challenge I hosted/posted over at All Moments Remembered Crop. They hold an online crop each month after they release their kits.

I used the Pencil Lines Sketch for my layout. I liked the sketch, it was by Kelli Crowe.

Some more paper from the kit, it's Making Memories noteworthy. I wasn't crazy about the flowers on the other side.
I cut circles out of felt then stitched around the edges to finish them off.
I went to Michael's Friday evening, and found the Making Memories little letter stickers shown above. I couldn't believe my Michael's had something so current.... AND they now carry Bazill paper. I'm in shock! They also had almost the entire line of MM Passport... but, that was something I had already, because I'm one of those people who just have to have stuff. Oh well, gotta keep the little guys in business, right?

That's about all we did, not very exciting... oh, except for the fact that my car is still at Michael's because it died... a day after we picked it up from the mechanics for the same problem - guess they didn't fix it right. Now we'll have to get a tow truck for it tomorrow. Oh what fun!

Hope you had a great weekend.

Guest DT Layouts

It was really fun to be a guest DT for All Moments Remembered. Since the reveal was Monday, I can post my LO's. So, here ya go:

This one is all Heather Bailey stuff from Autumn Leaves.... and I really loved the paper. The rub-ons are Heather Bailey, the felt flowers are Prima & the clip is Making Memories noteworthy, the new line. The kit has lots of Noteworthy paper, too. I will be using that soon. :)


This paper is from Prima, the Dude Collection. Loved all the Dude paper, great for boys! I think embellies on boy layouts are the hardest, so I took another piece of the dude paper and just cut circles out of it. The circle is cut out from a Cosmo Cricket Hello Sunshine Journaling card. Orange chipboard letters are from Cloud 9 and the blue letters are AC Thickers.


This next layout was a real simple one for me, I didn't embellish like I normally do. It's more of my "work" style coming thru, my graphic design-ness if you will! LOL! I just cut a strip of Cosmo Cricket -Hello Sunshine- Over Easy paper for the half circle look. Then used the Heather Bailey chipboard flourishes from Autumn Leaves. I have to say, this stuff will not stick, even tho it's self adhesive. I had to run a glue stick on the back of these pieces to make them not fall off everytime I lifted the LO up.


The last piece I did for the kit was a card ~ again using Heather Bailey paper. I had done the card with the paper, the big flower and the rub-on over the stamped journaling circle... but, it was just not there yet. So, I let it sit overnight and came back to it the next day. I decided it needed something to pull it together, so I stitched around the edge. Then, I added the rest of the pretty green lace ribbon. (wish I had more of that!). It was getting better, but still wasn't quite there. I decided to use a couple of the green chipboard flourishes that looked like leaves, and boy did that help. I think the dark color helped pop the flower a bit, because it was getting lost on the pattern. Then the final thing I did, to sort of balance the bottom and top because it seemed bottom heavy, was I added the little knot and used a glue dot to stick it to the ribbon.


That's my story and I'm stickin' to it! ;)

Let me know how you think I did in my first design team guest spot ever. I was so nervous. I had to follow the likes of Christine Middlecamp, Stephanie Howell, Karla Dudley and Danielle Flanders... those are big shoes to fill.

Thanks for visiting... have a great hump day!

My Baby is 12 Today

I can't believe I have a 12 year old... how time flies.

Happy Birthday Em!


Have a great Labor Day!!