Basic Grey Weekly Challenge-May 18, 2012

This weeks challenge from Basic Grey was to create a multi-photo layout.  I used to do multi-photo layouts a lot when I started scrapbooking in an attempt to fit as many photos as I could on one page. As I progressed I switched to doing mostly one photo to highlight and keep it simpler.  However I recently got a great photo printer so I can photoshop and size down photos to make them smaller.  I have found that this makes a world of a difference when it comes to multi photo layouts.  When I was printing my photos at CVS and all my photos were 4x6 (or cropped from that) and it was very difficult to have more than 1-2 photos in a layout and have it look good.  Now with this printer I have the ease of manipulating my photos into any size, best Christmas gift ever, thanks Mom & Dad!

Here is my layout for the challenge.  My little niece is just learning to talk and one of her words is "bubbles."  There's a bubble machine on their back porch that churns out hundreds of bubbles at a time and she loves to chase them.

Bubbles!-Basic Grey Olivia

Basic Grey NSD Challenge-Sketch

The second Basic Grey National Scrapbook Day challenge I decided to take part in (going to try to do all of them, we'll see how that works out) was the sketch one. The sketch was created by Valerie Salmon of Got Sketch who I am a big fan of.  This page is of my Dad's birthday using the Life of the Party collection.

My version:

The sketch:

Basic Grey Challenge-Vintage

May 5 with National Scrapbooking Day.  It was also Cinco de Mayo so my priority was obviously drinking Corona while laying by a pool.  Basic Grey put up a TON of challenges on their blog and thankfully gave people through May 11 to complete them.  One of my favorite challenges was to use a vintage collection in a layout. Basic Grey has long been my favorite brand and the first scrapbooking paper I bought was from them.  Since then I have purchased almost every collection they come out with. Needless to say I have a large cabinet full of older Basic Grey product. I decided to use Urban Prairie for this challenge and a series of photos of my niece.  She took my iPhone when I wasn't looking and took a bunch of pictures of herself making funny faces.

Maui Revisited

Maui is like my second home but where I really want to live.  I am very envious of all my friends that live there.  And unfortunately I only make it out for a visit about every two years.  Last April I had the pleasure of taking a long weekend trip over there with some friends.  We saw and did a lot (of drinking) in the four days we were there. I am finally getting around to scrapping this trip.  My goal is to finish this trip before we leave for our next (20 days and counting!).  Here are some of my favorite pages so far.

Welcome to Maui, Bree was a Maui virgin!

Scott is actually smiling (kind of)

An ocean cool off on the way to Hana

In Danoucha's beautiful garden

Koki Beach-My favorite little beach in Hana

Basic Grey Weekly Challenge

Once in a rare while I have time to actually notice and take part in a brand's challenge.  As is obvious on this blog I am a Basic Grey junkie and managed to get this one done before their cut off date of tomorrow. Their challenge this week was to use a punch/punches as a background in a layout.  I went with an arrow punch, I tried to incorporate a swirl one too but it just ended up looking messy.  I used the Green at Heart collection and I sewed through some of the strips of arrows.  I've been really into embossing lately too and finally got to use this incredibly bright American Crafts Zing powder.  The photo is from a trip to Maui we took last year.

Wailua Valley Overlook-Basic Grey Green at Heart

Embossing, punches and stitching

Palm Springs!

Oh Palm Springs how I love you!  You're close enough for a quick weekend getaway and you're weather is pretty much always awesome. Plus you're an excuse to drink too much. My go to spot has turned into the Riviera, thanks to attending a bachelorette party here last year. It has great decor that makes for fun photos.  These pages are from a little girls trip a friend and I took in September.

Pool at the Riviera

 

For some reason every time I go here I drink too much and end up doing a photo shoot in the lobby

I love washi tape!

Class photos

I made some pages for my niece and nephew's 2011 class photos, so damn cute they are.  My nieces is a scraplift from the Basic Grey blog, a Pamela Young design. Her's is such a gorgeous design that I followed it very closely.  I have one other "class photo" of my two nephews in Colorado but that will require a separate post as it is a very special story.

Basic Grey Hello Luscious

Old reliable-Basic Grey embellishments

A corner of flower rubons

Second Grade

Made this beauty with my Silhouette

Love Being An Auntie

Children are the topic and inspiration for many scrappers pages.  I don't have any children of my own (and I don't want any but that's a topic for another day) so my nieces and nephews are my go to kiddos.  I adore them and spoil them and thoroughly enjoy being their cool auntie. This page is me with my two gorgeous nieces, McKinley and Callia.

The idea for this page came from here.

 

My Attempt at Chaos

This layout, using Basic Grey's Marjolaine line, is a bit more "chaotic" and less linear than how I usually do things.  I'm attempting to branch outside my comfort zone a bit and move away from my lines, boxes and strips.  That is very hard for me because I am an organized and clutter free sort of person. But I see all these other amazing layouts out there that have so much more going on and I really admire them. I hope to gradually work towards an amazingly chaotic layout.  I think my favorite part of this layout is the title, different fonts, same color.

And in the best news in a long time I have convinced my husband to allow me to turn our guest room in our 2 bedroom condo into a true craft room.  This is something I've been daydreaming about for the past 2 years.  Our extra room currently serves as an office/guest room.  However we don't have guests all that often so the futon/sofa bed sits unused most of the year.  So I get to sell that bad boy and our current desk on Craigs List and get a much larger desk and storage cabinet and bam, crafting oasis. 

Picadilly!

Another beautiful new line from Basic Grey Picadilly features a rather random assortment of papers with what they call a farmhouse theme but I think doesn't really have a theme.  Non-themey lines that are merchandised with a good assortment of embellishments are my favorite. I love the new wood buttons and metal flowers they've added to their embellishments.  Here's my first layout with it, my husband making a face as my niece fills her "nappy." The lettering is Prima textured lettering, my absolute favorite.  I've started using page maps and sketches from other blogs to fashion my layouts after and used this one from Got Sketch.

Layers!

MJ Turns Four-Basic Grey June Bug

As I've mentioned before I'm a little behind on my scrapping, just started my 2011 book (and still haven't finished our wedding one). I always rant about how perfect Basic Grey lines are and June Bug is no exception.  It's so fun and works for a huge variety of events.  I just used it for my nieces fourth birthday, it worked perfectly with her red dress in the photo. The strips of paper are a play on the current pennant/banner trend and the June Bug embellishments made it easy to add the perfect touches.  The yellow lettering is American Crafts Thickers.

 

Perching-Basic Grey Max & Whiskers

In my mind Basic Grey's Max & Whiskers collection is the perfect pet collection.  The colors are fantastic and, like all Basic Grey collections, it's cute but not too cutesy or themey.

You will soon learn that I am obsessed with my cat Oliver, he's like a child to me. He's incredibly spoiled and I think he's the cutest animal on earth, besides Boo maybe. He has his own album on my facebook page, it's ridiculous really.  So he ends up in a lot of my layouts, this being the latest.  Ollie's favorite thing to do besides eat is perch in high places.  He somehow made it on top of the fridge, I'm still unsure how.

I hand did the small white dots around the edge, I love white ink.

Now That's An Owie

Last winter my nephew (then 6) attempted to do a karate kick off the kitchen counter.  What ensued was a scene that I (I'm kind of twisted) wish I witnessed. It started with him landing in a way that caused his glasses to puncture the skin right by his eye and cause an extreme amount of bleeding.  A loud scream filled the air and my brother-in-law Eric came running to his aid.  My sister followed soon after, the description I got was "spurting blood."  My niece, then 3, didn't know how to handle the scene and immediately panicked and started screaming as well. My sister went to call the paramedics while my brother-in-law attempted to stifle the bleeding.  Now the funniest thing about this whole story is that Eric doesn't do so well with blood.  So as he was trying to stop the bleeding on his son's head he started to pass out. So the paramedics showed up to a scene with a semi-conscious father laying on the floor, a little girl screaming in a corner, a mom trying to stifle blood flow and a little boy saying, "I'm OK guys, it really isn't that bad."

This is my contribution that fiasco:

Basic Grey Hello Luscious

My newest layout using Basic Grey's Hello Luscious line: