Design Principles in Scrapbooking- Part 1 - Balance

For my reveal at A Cherry on Top this month, I decided to do something a little different. I researched the classic design principle of balance and applied it to scrapbook pages, including a sketch.

From the article:

"The purpose of balance is to create a visual display that is pleasing to the eye, so you may find that a lot of these concepts are things that you have noticed naturally already. It helps though, to know what the concepts are, so that when you are looking at an unfinished page and thinking, “something seems off; this needs something, but what?”, you can review the design concepts and they will help you figure out what is missing, or off."

Here is one of the pages that I created for this reveal - showing symmetrical balance.

Head over to A Cherry on Top and check out the rest of the article. These principles are good for all of us to keep in mind.

Boo At the Zoo

Still havent had time to edit these photos - these are straight from the camera. Ok, to be totally fair, I guess I COULD have done it while I watched TV last night, but I decided that I really needed some time to sit and do ONE THING at a time, since I literally couldnt remember the last time I had done that.

Ok, so on to the story! We made some time on Sunday morning for our annual trip to Boo at the Zoo at the Philadelphia Zoo. We go every year as a family and have a great time. It always seems that the weather is perfect and it's a family activity that I very much look forward to.

We had breakfast at the diner on the way there. And I just adore this photo! It was before Ellie had a chance to mess up her makeup! LOL

Yeah, I took the easy way out and bought her costume this year. She wanted to be a cat, and it just seemed silly to make it when I found this one at Walmart online for $9 and free shipping. Although, as of now, she wants to be a lizard next year. Oy! hope she changes her mind.

The cat pose, complete with meow noises (which of course you can't hear)

Awww - arent they sweet!

The cat walk!
The artiste! I had to keep telling myself that we were not in a hurry and I had plenty of time before the birthday party, because she wanted to do every craft, and she was meticulous! Her coloring was so detailed!

Cake Pop Eyeballs and the Family Party

This weekend was a busy one! We had ballet, and a friend over on Saturday night and boo at the zoo and her family party aka her 12 grandparents and great grandparents, no room in our small house for cousins etc. So here are the eyeball cake pops that I made based on a recipe from bakerella.She used food dye pens for the black and red parts, but my food dye pens wouldn't write on the white chocolate. I think it has something to do with the wax content because it kept sort of building up on the pen. So I ended up using tubes of the same kind of meltable candy stuff for the red parts, and the leftover black icing from the cake. They still look pretty good but the black icing doesnt harden, so it made for slightly more messy.
For the pot that they are stuck in, I had a pot leftover from a floral arrangement that I got to take home from a wedding. I spray painted it with hammered black rustoleum, then tied the May Arts ribbon around it and embellished with some SRM stickers, Bella Blvd papers, Maya Road canvas tag and some Twinery Twine.

Seth helped me shove a piece of styrofoam into the pot. floral foam or something probably would have been better, but I had to make due with what I had. I glued the tissue paper to the styrofoam.

Ellie is really into Halloween this year, and I got the idea from a coworker to make a bundt pan cake and decorate it like a pumpkin - would have been sooooo easy. But Ellie wanted a spider. so I went to pinterest. bad idea! I came up with this cute idea to put the spider webs around the edges and the spider on top. Those webs took forever! I had to keep resting because my hand was cramping. Good thing my friend Alexis was over to keep me company.
And the tablecloth turned out pretty nice too. No, I didn't make it, but it is the result of a long and mostly fruitless search for a nice plain but not totally boring tablecloth. I wanted one that was beige with a sort of burlap look, which I ended up finding AFTER I already had this one, and Ellie loved this one, so it all worked out. I got the burlap one too - for fall/thanksgiving.

And this is really what it's all about.
"Look a unicorn!"


The Harry potter robe and accessories, including the wand that she was using this morning to 'open her dresser drawers looking for her clothes'


Hamming it up. oh yes, she is a ham


the money shot

Scrapdango October Reveal part 1

I have to apologize for the photos of these layouts, now that summer is over, I leave the house when it's dark and I come home when it's dark, so I had to either take these inside using my makeshift light box (which is what I did) or wait until the weekend. I think I need more practice using my light box. Oh well, you get the idea, they arent TOO bad are they?

I will take new ones on the weekend when I have light.

First, here is the page that gave me so much trouble. I sewed the two halves together - covered up that mistake with the additional pink circle on the right side, then I sewed all the way around the kraft cardstock - which I wanted to leave unstitched in the middle, then I went to reprint two of the photos that I had sewn through and my printer hiccuped, then my computer crashed. it was like a comedy of errors! I kind of like how it turned out though.

Everything is from the Scrapdango October kit except the maya road canvas tags, the blue buttons, the twine, the kraft cardstock and the SRM stickers. HAHA - that sounds like a lot, but the canvas button, and circle die cut embellishments, along with the alphas and all the patterned papers were in the kit.

My challenge is up too. I am challenging you to try one of these double page layouts with two different background papers. Check it out HERE.

You can see the rest of my reveal HERE if you just can't wait. I will be sharing more later this week, hopefully after I retake the photos.

It's crop weekend!

to create this card - I printed it at 5 inches, in black and white and cut it out, then traced it onto a folded paper, altering the stem a little to make it work with the fold, then I cut the larger oval, traced, repeat.

This is for the Simon Says Halloween Challenge, the Do you stack up Use your scraps challenge, the fussy and fancy halloween challenge and for the Paper issues Halloween challenge. - for you Cassie! thanks!

and there is still some time to play at A Cherry On Top - check out Sara and my challenge - make a pumpkin shaped card! She was nice enough to create some templates, and I used this one. There are more, along with her digi card, HERE.

Halloween Set

I made this Halloween gift set not too long ago and can't believe that I totally forgot to share it! You know how sometimes you make something and just love it? Yep, that is me with this set. I love the elegant look of the wide satin ribbon (which you can't really see that well in this photo). I love the pleated banner - that took me at least 3 tries to get right.

I used Echo Park's Apothecary Emporium line, and some SRM stickers. This is my entry into the Paper Issues monthly challenge, so be sure to skip over there and check out the other gorgeous entries! I also saw a hint that the next paper crafts blog gallery challenge is going to be Halloween, so hopefully I will enter this in that also.

Now, Halloween is coming up, who should I give this to? I know that Ellie would love the candy filled tube, but I don't know if she would really appreciate the card, and I hate to break up the set.

Words on Wednesday

Ok, so I havent done this in a while. Things have been super busy since school started. What have I been up to, you might ask?

Well, seth started his Pharmacy PhD program. Ellie, of course, went back to school and started her slew of activities. We really need to cut her back, but most of them are after school and are a substitution for after school care. I did add ballet on Saturdays though, because she is so into gymnastics and ice skating, and she just loves dance. So I thought it would be a good thing for her to have. She loves it!

I have to say though - don't buy ballet slippers at payless, they are WAY overpriced!

Me? I'm spending more time working out and watching what I eat and just trying to be more healthy in general. I'm also doing couponing and trying to cook more - so we can afford all those activities for ellie.

Today in my couponing I got 5 laundry detergents and a box of tissues for $15 + $10 back in cvs extra care bucks for next week.

Yesterday (or was it the day before) I got 4 dove shampoos and one dove deodorant for $1.75 and $8 extra care bucks (which I used on the laundry detergent today). Why did I do two trips instead of just doing two transactions? Because the coupons that I had brought for the detergent were expired. I am still too shy/embarrassed to bring my giant coupon binder into the store. Plus CVS is literally like a minute from my office, so it's no big deal to go back another day.

And in other news. I am going to try harder to spice up my blog. I hope to add some more free digital stamps - maybe make it a weekly thing - and some book reviews (hopefully biweekly). Those are the first two steps. A monthly tutorial is another idea, but I don't know how to schedule that yet. biweekly will be hard enough to remember. Heck who am I kidding, weekly is hard enough! but monthly I am bound to forget. We'll see. Let me know if there is anything else you would like to see.

New Scrapstreet mag is up!

Did you see? The new issues of ScrapStreet and GingerScraps magazines are out! And my first article as a staff writer is in the GingerScraps mag! I wrote and have a page in the Bootiful You article. There is also an introduction of all the new staff members HERE.
Also be sure to check out all the new calls - due Oct 30th.
but especially check out the call for my new column:

Wall Street. Paper is cheap! When trying to save money, making your patterned paper go the extra mile can help you save big, but we all still want that dimension and/or texture that usually comes from the more expensive elements. Show me your pages where you have used patterned paper to create dimensional elements.

I will be looking for your submissions!

WCMD #3 cake card

For this third card I wanted to focus on the party with cake! The papers, die cut, 3d sticker, and cardboard from the packaging is from pink paislee soiree. I used some clearsnap smooch to make the die cut pop. the sentiment sticker at the bottom is from SRM stickers.

This is for the pink paislee upcycle challenge, the ABC anything goes challenge, and the CRAFT inspiration photo.

WCMD #2 rainbow card

I just love this card! The papers are Pink Paislee mistables, the trim is from Joann, the inks are clearsnap that I applied with the blending tool, and the sentiment sticker is SRM stickers.

This is for the pink paislee mixed media challenge, the simon says anything goes challenge, the fussy and fancy new technique challenge (the ink blending is a new technique for me), and for the pile it on do it for fun challenge - what is more fun that rainbows and birthdays?!

WCMD card #1

This weekend was busy as usual - ballet, soccer in the rain, our local fair, and world card making day. I have been really into cards lately and you know how I love my challenges, so I couldnt help but play along. I also am totally out of birthday cards, so all of the cards I made this weekend are birthday cards. Here is the first card. this is for a few challenges

Oh and for the record, these photos are one of my first attempts at manual mode on my camera, after my class last week. Apparently, I overexposed them a little. :( oh well, try and try again.

for this card I used a tim holtz embossing folder on the american crafts white cardstock card. The papers, 3-d sticker and die cut are pink paislee. The sentiment sticker is from SRM stickers.

This card is for the pink paislee color challenge #1, the crafty creations clean and simple challenge, and the stamping royalty simple challenge.

WCMD challenge at Scrapdango

I made this card for a bunch of challenges, but then I never got around to entering it. So, I thought it would be perfect for my challenge for Scrapdango's mini world cardmaking day crop!

My challenge is to make your card clean and simple. I have been really into that lately, so I thought it would be a perfect challenge.