Summer Fun!

Hello again! Today I have the digital images of some scrapbook pages I've been putting together.

A couple years ago, two of my children loudly complained that "we didn't even do anything fun all summer" ...and they got a LOOK, and handed our list that we had come up with to maybe do over the summer, and all the things crossed out with a highlighter were things that we had done! Sheesh!

With that in mind, I made a four page layout for my youngest (one of the complainers) of the fun she had this summer. I chose one photo a day (two photos, twice), and skipped some days, including our big trip, and it looks like she did lots of fun stuff to meeee! This does not include countless afternoons out with neighborhood friends, nor a few bigger activities she went to elsewhere without me, that I don't have pictures of. 

I also used a lot of images of the sun to fit Challenge #1 on Splitcoaststampers.com to put the sun or flames on a page. It was a perfect match, ha! 

Supplies:

MDS:

Stamps: Days in December

Paper: Pool Party "mats", Sunny Day DP, "pocket cards" from Persnickety Prints
Accessories: Baja Breeze grosgrain ribbon, knot

2024 September, October & November!

Since I opted to share the calendar covers by themselves, I'm finishing off the whole calendar in this post. 

For September I usually do a back to school theme: 

October is, of course, Halloween themed: 

And then November was all about family: 

And that's the calendars we gave our families this year! 

2024 May & June

Today I have the May and June pages to inspire your creating.

For May, I put the mom's on, and this page has the a few major events.

My kids don't love when I put things in a month it didn't happen, but we wanted a page of our trip to South Dakota, and the paper I chose worked for June best, even tho we went in September. 

then dad's (and grandpa) with their kids for June for my parents.

Hybrid Scrapping!

Hybrid is when you do some digital and add some traditional elements. I definitely did that for these layouts. Yesterday I talked about the convenience of making one digital layout and printing the same thing several times for each person in the family. Today I have a set, haha.  

Perhaps most remarkably- it is of THIS Christmas morning. I almost never scrap Christmas day. Plenty of things leading up to it, but not Christmas DAY. Seriously. I've done three December Daily style books and I skip over the gift opening... ahem. There's too many photos and too many things to deal with and just no. But for whatever reason, I thought doing it this way would get it done for once. 

The photos were put together on a page in the very long retired MDS, and I kept the first photo the same for all three layouts. Then I duplicated the layout, swapping out the rest of the photos so each kid has their own gifts on the page. Once I got the printed pages home, I added two strips of DP (different for each kid), a title strip, and a ribbon, right on top of the printed page! So they're the same pages, but unique! 

Home For Christmas DP (maybe 2015??)

Santa's Express DP (2022)

Christmas Around the World DP (...long retired)

And yes, I stamped it all together too, hahaha. I put a letter on two sides of a block, but still so I could see thru it, and laid it out and got it done! 

Other Supplies:

Skinny Mini Alpabet, Real Red Ink, Real Red ribbon (2016ish)

It's a Small World!

I know a lot of people have intensely strong opinions on this ride, haha... But we were trying to 100% the park and hit everything we could. And this is the kids' first trip so it has to be ridden! haha!

If you look at the very first photo, you can see the sun is still UP. My husband was handed the timer lanyard and told to give it to the person at the entrance. At that time, it was supposed to be a 35 minute wait. It was over an hour, thanks. And dark when we finally got on the ride. And, if you're curious, they didn't update the time, they left it at 35 minutes. We were tired, lol, and did a lot to deal with the long wait. And maybe some of us were rethinking the decision to wait for a ride with a hotly divisive reputation, haha! 

The ride itself, for four of us, haha, was fun. I rode this 22 years before, so for me, I was surprised to see they had added little dolls of the movie characters. I had no idea! And that's what a lot of these photos are of- is the movie characters like Cinderella, Ariel, Mowgli... And then my husband ended up with a good headache after listening to the song thru the ride! 

But to scrap THIS many photos and capture this iconic ride is actually a bit tricky. There's 28 pictures on this layout. I asked my kids what colors come to mind, and what about it. So of course the music, and then we all kind of thought light colors... maybe the pink is the lighting? maybe the blue is the water since it's a boat ride? So I "stamped" the music in yellow on to pink "paper" and then I scribbled the blue randomly over it and this is what I got. It kind of adds to the chaos, and also works really well to me, hahaha! 

B is for Bryce!

This summer we took a small vacation, staying in our own state and lots of social distancing, haha... One of the days we spent in Bryce Canyon. Super handy for a scrapbooking challenge to "scrapbook somewhere we went that starts with B!" You also needed a list, so I made our small to-do list the journaling. My pages turned out really simple because I had so many pictures on there. I was actually worried the DP was too busy, but I kept it anyway. I changed the opacity to 70% in hopes of making it more subtle. For the challenge I used just the first two pages...

but really I made three! There is a TON on there (and I left out some I selected for scrapping- which doesn't total all the pictures we took!) so here are some close ups too! 

This first page is inspired by THIS one. 

This second page is inspired by THIS page.

And I can't find where I saw this quote on a scrapbook page, but I loved it because it is so me, and so true, and so perfect for this layout!

And that is just a glimpse of our day there! 

A is for Aquarium!

Okay, this wasn't MUCH "stamping" like I had hoped, but it is something!
I needed to scrap these pages for my daughter and I found a challenge for scrapping a trip somewhere that starts with A! I still hadn't put this pack of DP away from August, and that was handy because it has a water pattern, and two patterns that I picked that have whales. There sure aren't any whales at our aquarium (we are SO landlocked, haha) but it worked well I thought. 

Supplies:

Stamps: ABC Alphabet Lower (retired!)
Ink: Pacific Point

Paper: Whisper White & Daffodil Delight card stock, Sunshine & Sprinkles DP (retired!)
Accessories: Fairy Tale ribbon (retired!), stapler, watercolor brush

Since it's a three pager, I have a close up of each page for you. There were so many pictures of this day so the title had to be tiny. 

The challenge included hand written journaling and/or a list. I managed to do both! For this journaling tag I used a watercolor brush and Pacific Point ink to add some interest and depth. I pulled up the website of the aquarium to find out exactly what these animals were, and added some incredibly old ribbon to make it more of a tag. I'm really happy with how it turned out! 

Graduation Pages!

I've only had time to digi scrap lately! (I am hoping to stamp today....!) So here's a couple new pages for you. Suuuuper simple again, but the point was to document the event and the weirdness of it all!
Click to see them bigger. 

Halloween Page!

I know, two scrapbook days in a row! It was a good weekend for me, haha! But this is a calendar page too. It's November and I gotta get these calendars done!

This is everyone in my parents family who dressed up for Halloween, so that's who made the page, haha. I tried to follow this sketch that I thought was so cool- the circles on top and all the rectangle space, but since it was me combining a double layout, I couldn't fit all the elements. ...perhaps you can tell I like pumpkins best of the Halloween type images, hahaha...? And I found the quote online. I wanted some kind of text and that fit all these kiddos! 

Supplies: MDS
Font: Cramps

More to come..!

December Page

Since it's Christmas Eve, I'm skipping over to the December page from my parents calendar! I kept the page suuuper simple because there are so many pictures I wanted to fit on there! *grin

I hope you too are almost ready, or ready, to relax and enjoy the holiday! I only have a few gifts left to wrap, and a few treats to deliver and then I think we're set!

March & April

Happy Monday to you!
Are you ready for Christmas? I am so close I can't stand it! It's been pouring rain since yesterday and I'm hoping it turns to snow soon!!

Today I have two more calendar pages to share, from my parents calendar.
First up is March!

Supplies:
MDS: Days to Remember DP, Mis-stitched download, Limited Edition embellishments, Days in December embellishments, Burlap Ribbon download

And now April:
There are a few of these pages that are absolutely packed with photos...I tried hard to get almost every one on most pages, which is easier to do with a calendar topper than say, scrapbooking an event, haha! The April page uses photos from our family Easter gathering. Every year my parents invite everyone over to dye eggs and then go on an Easter Egg hunt. This year the party landed on my parents anniversary too.

Supplies:
MDS: Eggceptional Easter download, Easter Blossoms

Well, there are still Christmas treats to make and presents to wrap, so expect short posts this week from me! :) And pray for snow!

Grand Old Flag

Happy Monday to you! Wonder if I get to relax after this weekend...? hahaha...right...
But, I DID make this page to fit a challenge about the song "Grand Old Flag". The page is all about our 4th of July this year, I got a flag, or eight, and some red and blue, so I'm pretty sure it fits. I know, its a ton of photos for one page, but I still had another "chapter" of the day left that will need its own pages, haha...so this is what I got.

Supplies:
MDS: Land of the Free