a new post...finally

I've been working diligently on scrapbook layouts but haven't done much here lately. I've done a few different projects and layouts that I really like. Here is one I did of a photo I found of Rebekah, dressed up as Strawberry Shortcake. This layout actually started out as a tag. I had scrapped four mini-albums, from scratch mind you, about 80 pages plus covers. I was all scrapped out. Jax came over to scrapbook and I finished a layout I had started. When I am burned out like that, I like to pull out stuff and play. That's how the tag got started. Once the tag was done, I couldn't set it aside, I loved how it looked. I saw Strawberry Shortcake and knew they would be perfect together.
I started with a Tattered Angels tag that had some print around the edges. I added inks and stamps and then a die cut of a bird in a cage. The photo doesn't do the tag justice, the birdcage is paper covered with an old lace doily, the bird just paper. Maya Road chandelier dangles hang off the tag. Prima flowers and rhinestone swirl pull it all together. I made the ticket strip with the Tim Holtz ticket die and stamped it with one of his ticket stamps on patterned paper. I think there is some October Afternoon in here as well. Everything is distress-inked, of course.

Enjoy!

stop to smell the sunflowers...

Once again, my favorite subject Eden, smelling the sunflowers. The real point of this layout was to show her hair which I straightened for her. We were watching Dora the Explorer and she said she would like to have hair like Dora. When I reminded her that her hair was curly she was disappointed. So I offered to straighten her hair and borrowed Jessalyn's hot iron. She looks so cute and so much older with her hair straightened. It took about an hour to do her whole head and there were some places that I didn't do too well with because I was afraid she'd move and I'd burn her with the iron. I snapped a few photos to show Rebekah. By the end of the day her hair was just plain frizzy--it was humid and rained and Eden didn't cover her hair well. Oh well. Next time I'll get some hair product and do the job right.

I used Prima's stitched mulberry paper for this layout. It almost has a fabric feel to it. The colors were dead on and I've had it sitting on my shelf for a few weeks waiting for the perfect photos. The turquoise and pink flowers I made by tracing circles onto the paper and then ripping out. I wanted the imperfections. I layered the circles and added some white swirls and dots to the upper layers for interest and rhinestones for the centers. I added a few rhinestones at the end of the stitched swirls too. I didn't do any matting because I wanted as much as the paper to stand alone on this. I used bracket punches and a chipboard "e" for a title and journaling strips and heart chipboard from the same set as the "e". Simple but fun.