Jan
Happy Scrappin’!
Happy New Year everyone! Christmas has come and gone… the holiday that people spend months preparing for is over in a flash. We had a lovely first Christmas with our baby girl! We didn’t go overboard on gifts for her because we knew she would be more interested in the bows and wrapping paper. However, that doesn’t mean she didn’t get a lot of gifts!! Between my parents, my aunt, my grandma, Dave’s family, and my siblings, Tori made out pretty darn good!
I am currently enjoying a nice 11 day holiday break from the art center at the university (I’m unfortunately on the last day though 
). It’s been wonderful having so much time to spend with Dave and our little one. I got one scrapbooking day with Kerrie, and was supposed to have one more with both scrap buddies, Kerrie and Andrea but my stomach decided not to cooperate that morning and I was forced to stay home. Sadness!
Until I get some new projects, I’m going to post some photos of a project that I finished about 2 months ago. I apologize for the quality of my pictures- I like to think I take pretty decent photos for my scrapbooking projects, but I have a really hard time getting good photos of my actual pages. It’s definitely a work in progress!
Let me just add that, as of the past 3 posts, you can now click on my photos to get them enlarged… easier to see details now! YAY!
The album I made was for a weekend trip that we went on with our friends Josh and Helen to Baltimore (again) and Washington D.C. If you remember from a previous post, the four of us went to Baltimore for my birthday. Due to some rooms being closed down, our hotel, where we originally had reservations, bumped us to another nearby hotel. We were given a rain check for a free night’s stay within the next 6 months. So in September ’10, we decided to make another venture to Maryland. We went down on a Friday evening and went on a dinner cruise.
I used one of my favorite techniques of tearing paper to give a water effect. I used the Summer Vacation Cricut cartridge to cut out the boat. The font was the upright setting of the cursive font on Opposites Attract. Have I mentioned how much I love that cartridge!? I didn’t have a lot of embellishments for this page, but I don’t think it needed it. The boat and title were enough for this page.
Back to our journey- the next morning, we packed up and headed to my aunt and uncle’s house, since they live pretty close to Washington D.C. The main reason we decided to on this trip was to see the pandas at the National Zoo. In December 2010, they were headed back to China, so we wanted to see them before they were shipped back home. After unpacking at my aunt and uncle’s, we hopped on a nearby metro and headed into the city, towards the zoo.
For this page, I had many different animal pictures and was looking for a different way to lay them out. I used the Keystone cartridge for the title and then used a Creative Memories oval cutting tool for the ‘OO’ in zoo. I used the oval cutting tool to cut two animal photos and made them part of the word. I had this leopard print paper that I really had no idea what I’d ever use it for- lo and behold, I found a use for it! I decided to break up the pattern just a bit by tearing a strip of blue paper and laying it across the two page spread. I was worried that even if the photos were matted, the would get lost on the patterned paper. I think the blue strip really helped. In the corner, I used a bit of a mosaic technique:
I decided to take away some of the excess in the corners, just to give it a bit of a different look. Oh and I’m not sure if you can see my caption or not, but I was totally jealous of the otters! They had a little creek to play in- it was ridiculously hot that day (I think it was around 90) and I was just starting my second trimester, so I was pretty miserable (and Dave will tell you I was pretty grumpy as well)!
Luckily the panda enclosure was cooler and the pandas were hanging out in there, instead of the blazing sun. The female panda was happily eating bamboo while the male was wandering between pens and ended up in the pen with water (of course).
I used the Keystone cartridge again because I really liked the chunkier letters. I also used an extra picture I had to cut the ‘P’ in pandas. I cut out a ‘P’ and used it as a stencil since I wasn’t sure I’d get it lined up right to have the Cricut cut it out. I had some adorable panda stickers that I wanted to use, and I decided to keep the page as a simple black and white motif. I also used my handy dandy technique of using a photo as a pocket for the brochure. I chose this page to use the brochure since it had the adorable pandas on it.
This next page… I think fellow scrappers will either find really cool or incredibly cheesy. We went to the Reptile House because 1) I think snakes are cool and 2) it was a way to get out of the heat (did I mention how hot it was??).
Here’s my Reptile House page:
It’s a snake…. made out of snakes! (oh and various other reptiles and amphibians). I just was tired of always just arranging matted photos on page, so I decided to do something completely out-of-the-box. I know… I’m a wild and crazy scrapper! lol 
This actually was challenging to make. I cut a template out of card stock to help arrange the photos. Figuring out placement of pictures was difficult but also kind of fun. It felt like a puzzle that I had to put together! It took some experimenting to determine how large to make the snake, since I still wanted to make a larger border out of striped paper (so that it resembled a coral snake). Eventually, it all came together and I think it actually turned out pretty cool! It’s different from anything I’ve ever tried and I’m happy with how it turned out.
After the zoo, we decided to head downtown and do a little bit of site-seeing before heading back to my aunt and uncle’s. The next day, we went to the International Spy Museum. We did a really awesome mini spy adventure- we were with a group of people and we had to find the traitor who was selling a nuclear bomb trigger to the enemy. We had to go through a whole set that was made to look like we were in a foreign country- we had to listen in on phone conversations and unscramble them, watch surveillance videos, interrogate a suspect and we had to break into a room and search it for clues. We had to hide in a sewer tunnel and avoid being seen- and run into the back of a van to make a quick get away (and this ALL happened in the Spy Museum!). The sets were all elaborately designed -for instance we entered the “van” by leaving the room we broke into, and go through a door that looked like a pull down door (think back of a UHaul). We got in and our tour guide pulled the door down… the room rocked back and forth to feel like we were in the back of a van. When we exited, we left through a door in the side which dropped us off at another room… so it felt like we actually traveled somewhere different, without actually going anywhere. The puzzles were fairly simple, but it was also designed for all ages over 12. So it was fun for our little group of adults, but also easy enough for younger children to feel like they were solving a mystery. It was really fun (a separate cost from the museum, but worth it, in my opinion). Of course Josh and Dave didn’t think it was challenging enough and that they should have an adult version for 18yrs+, which might be a good idea… but I think we all still found it enjoyable! http://www.spymuseum.org/experiences/operation-spy -check it out… it’s a good time! (only downside- no photos allowed during the experience- big bummer for a scrapbooker!)
I had a tough time figuring out what to do with the photos from the Spy Museum. There aren’t exactly a ton of stickers, embellishments or Cricut cartridges with a spy theme. I had to be a bit more creative than usual.
I used the Cutting Up cartridge for the title. I like the quirky letters for this. I included tickets as the “embellishment” but my favorite part is my magnifying glass.
I had a photo of the air duct that you can actually climb through and spy on people below (super cool) and then made a magnifying glass over one of the spy windows… I made a dashed line to the photo below of Dave, in the air duct, by one of the windows. Dun Dun DUNNNN!!!
There were lots of displays on spying through the years and throughout different countries. There was even a James Bond display.
I made the little “Top Secret” envelope out of white card stock (and hand wrote the “top secret” on it). I used Stonescript for the font and chose an appropriate title for the page, which was, of course, James Bond inspired.
The museum was awesome, but I’ll admit, I don’t have a ton of patience to read every little paragraph by every little display. Dave, Josh and Helen seemed to want to read every bit of what there was to read. I don’t know if it was the pregnancy hormones or what, but I was just fidgety by the end. So I decided to be a spy… and spy on my friends! I snuck around corners, took photos over my shoulder… anything to take pictures without them knowing. I used a couple of common phrases found throughout the museum as my titles:
I made the little spying faces myself… I think they turned out rather cute.
I ended my book with the usual mixture of photos left over. I used Mini-Monograms for the title… I think it might be too busy for the already-busy background.
I really like my mosaic at the bottom of the page though- the pieces didn’t all perfectly fit together, but I still think it turned out well!:
Mosaics are tricky… you have to make sure you’re keeping track of the pieces pretty well. These weren’t as bad since there were clear subjects in them, but if you’re doing this with just a landscape, it can be tough. It is rewarding though, when you get one that works well!
So that’s it for me for now… I sure hope I get some more scrapping in within the next few weeks. I have easily 1000+ photos of Tori that are desperately in need of scrapping… I’m guessing she’ll be in her early teens by the time I finish her baby album… or let’s be real- albums.
Here’s hoping that 2012 is filled with fun, family, friends… and scrapping! 