Hiatus

I took a week long hiatus from here but that week certainly didn't feel like a break.  I'm pretty sure I drank my way through the long weekend but I also got to see a dear old friend I hadn't seen in a year and buy waaaay too many pairs of shoes with the great Black Friday deals going on (it 2 pairs of Jeffrey Campbells in one day too many?) I then returned to absolute mayhem at work on Monday.  I work for an online retailer so this time of year is nuts for us. I haven't had time to do my usual trolling of my favorite blogs for ideas but I've added some more inspiration layouts to my Pinterest to refer to when I have more time.  Here are a couple layouts I hadn't gotten around to posting yet.

The Fourth-BasicGrey Offbeat

Lap Kitty-BasicGrey Mellow

Cheers-Crate Paper Random

Cute-Crate Paper Neighborhood

Crazy Daisy-BasicGrey Indie Bloom

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.

 

Karate Cuties-Felt Embellishments

My niece and nephew are currently taking karate classes and these photos were taken on the day they tested for their yellow belt.  I have to say my niece's "karate face" is hilarious, my nephew definitely seems a a bit more "disciplined" when it comes to this sport.  I used this sketch from the Sketchy Thursdays blog but not in time to actually submit it, one of these days I will actually have the time to take part in the challenges I want to.

This was also my first attempt at truly making my own embellishments.  I've always loved felt and LOVE Basic Grey's felt flowers.  To make this ones I cut shapes out of cardstock with my Silhouette and used them as a template to trace on the felt.  I stitched the buttons onto the felt.  A good first attempt I think but I'd like to get more detailed next time.  I'd also like to find a thinner felt and maybe try it out with foam as well.

The Jackpot

I am not a fashion blogger nor would I ever try to do that so this will be one of my few posts about "fashion"...or rather shopping.  Like any living breathing female I have a problem with shopping, some (my husband) might call it severe.  If I won the lottery the material things I would buy would be shoes, scrapbooking stuff and bikinis (in that order).  I am a sucker for a good bikini and spend the better part of my summer in one. I also prefer to vacation in places that include a beach and 90 degree weather. One of my (and most girls) very favorite bikini lines is L*Space. The fit is just phenomenal and unlike most bikinis they somehow seem to make my undesireable areas look better.  L*Space bikinis, however, are very expensive, running about $120-$140.  I usually stock up whenever they're on Haute Look and will occasionally splurge like I might have to do for everything below.  BUT I am lucky enough to live in Southern California where warehouse sales from all my favorite brands abound.  Yesterday my girlfriend Jane and I drove up to Irvine for, you guessed it, an L*Space one.  L*Space is all sold as separates with an amazing mix and match thing going on.  Each piece was only $10.  So for $130 I got all this (plus a coverup not shown):

Yes I hang my bikinis, so what?

Despite just scoring 6 new bikinis for the price of one I still want more, sick right?  So I trolled around the L*Space website looking at all the new styles that just hit stores and put together my favorites.  Husband face and I have plane tickets booked to Costa Rica in April so I need one for each day of our 2 week vacation (that's logical, right?).   I think the Desert Heat print is my new favorite, the Twister top is, for me, the most flattering style of L*Space top, I'll pair this top with plain navy bottoms.

My pick: Twister Top in Desert Heat, Taboo Bottom in blue iris

Fringe is on my wishlist this year:

All solid: Dolly Bandeau and Foxy Tab Bottom in dark teal

The Riviera collection, coral and taupe mix beautifully together.

Beverly Bandeau in taupe and Deja Vu bottom in riviera

L*Space also has this awesome new mix & match feature on their site that allows you to pick and choose and see how different tops and bottoms look together, genius!

If you really want to know how obsessed I am I actually have Pinterest boards for both shoes and bikinis.

My fave bikini/beach/photo blogs:
Goldfish Kiss-beaches, bikinis, how tos and great style
Bikini Bird-keeping an eye on all bikini fashion for you
Acacia Swimwear-keep up with the happenings around the brand and their enviable lifestyle
San Diego Songbird-not a bikini blog, but ramblings from a fellow San Diegan beach lover
Sun-Believable-awesome photos
North Hawai'i-Photos from one of my favorite places

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. 

My Furry Little Monster

I just got the We R Memory Keepers Friends Furever line (most of it anyway) and while it's no Max & Whiskers it's definitely fun to work with. If you haven't figured it out already I'm obsessed with my cat, I think he's the cutest most awesome little wannabe tiger on earth. I suspect that he also might be part Egyptian Mau, a purebred cat that the royals had in ancient Egypt (they even mummified them).  I may or may not watch too much Cats 101 on Animal Planet.  We don't have kids so our cat is our spoiled little child.  I take a lot of photos of him and because he's so damn handsome he ends up in a lot of my layouts. One of my co-workers tells me I'm going to be one of those crazy old cat ladies living in a trailer with my best friend (because she loves cats as much as I do) and 16 cats.  Not sure what happened to my husband in that story

I  ♥ Cats, why yes I do

I'm obsessed with paper strips right now for some reason, I use them all the time

Holy Crap, that's a lot of layouts

Quite an exciting weekend for me!

Team Platinum-Yay for bottled blondes-American Crafts Garden Cafe

My favorite photo of 2011-Basic Grey Out of Print

In my opinion Ollie really is too cute for words-We R Memory Keepers Friends Furever

A little bit of a departure from my normal layouts but I'm loving the trees

Friends on Memorial Day-Crate Paper Farmhouse

Scraplifting

I can't quite put a finger on how I feel about scrap-lifting.  I do it occasionally but then I don't feel very good about it because I feel like the work isn't really mine.  I draw inspiration from many different artists and elements out there and admire a lot of them.  But I don't love blatantly copying a page from the artists I admire. I keep a board on my Pinterest of inspirational pages and I'll often go to those when I need help starting a page but I usually only use one element.  However these 2 pages are blatant lifts.

This one here from Donna Jazz (I even used the same collection):

This one is a Kimberly Neddo lift:

Palomar Observatory Camping

Due to our rekindled love of camping husband-face and I have been trying to do more of that.  Two weekends ago we ventured out to Observatory Campground on Palomar Mountain for a little one night stay. We didn't know anybody who had stayed there before and there wasn't a whole lot of information online so we took a gamble and the gamble paid off.  The campground was small, quiet and beautiful. We did an awesome hike up to the observatory at the top of the mountain, websites claimed it was 2.2 miles each way but that's BS, it was way longer than that. Either that or I'm way more out of shape than I thought, but I workout at least 3 days a week so I'm pretty sure the 2.2 mile claim was BS. Some shots from our excursion:

This is Miss Bianca, she is a camping chihuahua (and in case you couldn't tell a doggie model)

Not too shabby a view on our hike up

A Manzanita tree, rad looking (and apparently fireproof)

There was this massive tree filled with holes that squirrels had shoved nuts into, we called it the forest pantry

These plants smelled like weed

Palomar Observatory, I love this photo

The top opens up, inside is the Hale telescope

I got me another box of wine!

Miss B got coooold

Cookin' Brats (yuck says me, the vegetarian)

I love fire, though it took me 3 days to get the smoke smell out of my hair

Morning smolder

Beautiful campground

Lazy Sunday

Today was cold (in my book) rainy and gloomy.  And it was Sunday so I did a few things I rarely do.  1-I wore sweatpants all day long. 2-I didn't leave the house.  After 3 nights in a row of socializing and consuming a few too many alcoholic beverages sweats in my house was all I wanted.  Except it was cold and I hate, hate, hate cold.  Keep in mind I live in southern California so as soon as it drops below 70 I'm cold. As I type this it's 6:30pm and I'm already under multiple blankets in bed...go me.

Anyway, my husband enjoyed his cold day at home by watching football and/or Nascar all day (redneck) and I enjoyed my day doing my favorite pass time and the subject of this blog, creating pages of paper and photos to preserve my memories.

Callia's Smiles, my niece is so effin cute. Bo Bunny Ad Lib

Mr. Baseball, this one might be too simple? My Minds Eye Fine & Dandy

I used this page map from Got Sketch for this one

Photo shoot!  The ladies in Palm Springs for a bachelorette party. Echo Park Happy Days

The bachelorette, this one differs a bit from my usual style but I think it works. SEI Mimosa

This is a lift from a Kelly Goree page, I can't find it on her blog but it's here on scrapbook.com.  I think she's my scrapbooking idol because her style is so much like mine. I love everything she does and especially her use of white dashed lines and have been incorporating those more and more in my layouts. I also used a stamp on this one which I rarely do.  I have this huge collection of stamps but never use them so am trying to incorporate them more.

My sister and her family, Easter 2011. Basic Grey Kioshi

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!