Hi everyone!  I hope that you all had a wonderful Halloween :o)  We had a good time, the girls looked so cute (and scary of course ;o)) 

Okay, okay, on to the scrapping fun!  I have been seeing layouts using corrugated board as a fun and unique way to stamp!  I'm always up for a little bit of stamping, so, I thought I'd try my hand at it. :o)  I simply cut a piece of cardboard from a box I had (I always save the boxes my scrapping products, etc. come in!) and ripped the top layer of cardboard off.  It took a bit of work but finally I was left with a clean piece of corrugated board to stamp with.  I used both paint and glitter to stamp with!  I simply took a triangle face sponge and lightly dabbed white paint onto the corrugated board.  Then I pressed it onto my background paper several times, both vertically and horizontally.  It created a really neat and distressed looking grid.  I let the paint dry and then began creating my layout!  I also used it to stamp onto my clouds - I simply smeared some Stickles onto the board and then pressed it onto the clouds. 

 

 

I really love the way my layout turned out - the corrugated board stamped image gave it a fun, grungy distressed look!  This is an excellent way to recycle some old boxes ;o) 

(Supplies:  American Crafts Patterned Paper, Me & My Big Ideas Patterned Paper, Pink Paislee Patterned Paper, Graph Paper, Heidi Swapp Silhouette Word, American Crafts Glitter Thickers, Martha Stewart Butterfly Punch, Maya Road Office Sheer, Best Occasions Rhinestone Swirls, Gems, Dymo Labeler, Scotch Photo Stickers, Therm O Web Glue Dots, Scrapbook Adhesives 3-D Foam Dots)

Have a great evening everyone!

 

(Supplies: Bling (Heidi Swapp), Cardstock (Die Cuts with a View), Stamps (Fontworks, Junkitz), Stickers (Making Memories)

Hope your day is a fun (and safe) one!
gretchen

I am certainly not a master of digital scrapbooking but I love to play around with it.  Sometimes I try to tackle small projects and this monthly mini calender is one of those projects.  The Days and Ways We Celebrate is a cute little project to try and very simple. 



Each month I only highlight special days of the month.  They don't have to be consecutive days... it just happened to work out that way this month.  Since it is sized 5x7 I can print the pages on my mini photo printer.  I just slip the pages into a regular 5x7 photo album.  At the end of the year I have a special little book of our favorite days of the past year.  Here is a peek at my October page.  I don't have a costume pic of Belle yet so I used a past photo to illustrate how the project looks.  I can't wait to use all the free download kits here at Memory Makers.  Click here to download from their gorgeous and generous offerings. Give it a try!  Enjoy! Love, Melissa

Have a Happy Halloween!!

All supplies by ShabbyPrincess.com  Harvest Spice Kit

Having been an elementary school teacher for 16 years, I learned a lot about the teaching of writing. One of the things that I focused on with my students was that telling stories is often in the details. Rather than writing about a 'large' topic, they should narrow it down to it's smallest parts. I try to remember these lessons as I think of themes for my scrapbook pages and my journaling.

This year's Halloween preparations have been so much fun! My five year old son is more into Halloween than he has ever been. I could do a page that talks about that, but I decided to take some photos that would really tell the 'smaller' stories - the ones that I don't want to forget.

This first photo is of the front porch of our house.

For years, Ryan has been scared of spider webs. But, this year, he finally decided that a truly scarily decorated house needed to have them. We got a bag of fake webs, and he slowly opened them. He had to touch them to make sure that they weren't sticky. A big smile grew across his face as he proclaimed, 'Hey, they feel like cotton!". After that it was a webmaking extravaganza. The fake fibers are everywhere! I can't say I love how they look, but I do know that I'm happy he was able to get past his phobia and enjoy the decorations!

This next photo is of a bowl of glittered pumpkins and cinnamon sticks.

I place it out each year as I'm decorating the inside of the house. It has retained it's smell, even after several years' use. I love the way the pumpkins glitter a bit in the sunlight. So, imagine my surprise when I arrived home from the grocery store recently to find my husband and son using them to create a large skeleton on our living room floor. They'd decided that my sweet decorations could be used as buildling blocks. I do have to say, it was quite an ingenius creation, though.

Finally, this third picture shows one of our hanging 'creepy guys'.

We first bought them last year. Now it has become a mission to find as many different ones as possible. We drive by a house near school that has eight of them hanging from a tree and Ryan decided that we needed to do the same. So, each time we visit KMart or the Dollar Store, we have to look for them. They are hanging from the tree in our front yard now and sway, kind of eerily, in the wind.

These are just a few of the stories that have been playing themselves out in my world this Halloween season. Once I find the time, I plan on scrapping them so that I can keep these little memories fresh. As you go about taking your Halloween photos this year, look around and think of the funny, little events that are happening daily. Snap a few extra shots and start scrapping. Remember, the story is in the details!

Thanks for stopping by~Anabelle

Have you ever sat down to work on a layout and found yourself feeling like you just don’t have the right product? Sometimes I can stare for what seems like hours at my piles of supplies wondering why I can’t find just the right paper, alpha or accent.

I love these alphabet stickers from Sassafrass Lass and I wanted to really use them on this layout.

 

The original stickers had a orange dashed line running diagonally through them and I couldn’t seem to make the orange work:  my solution was to alter the stickers before even removing them from the sheet. All you need to do this is a ruler and a black pen.

 

Supplies Used: Cardstock (Bazzill), Patterned Paper (KI Memoreis), Frills (Doodlebug), Felt accents (KI Memories), Chipboard accent (Maya Road), Paint (Plaid), Crackle (Ranger), Button (KI Memories), Brads (Basic Grey), Die Cuts (Jenni Bowlin), Alpha Stickers (Sassafrass Lass and Pink Paislee) and font (Traveling Typewriter downloaded from the internet)

Have a wonderful week. This week you will find me at my sewing machine working up a fierce Halloween costume for my daughter. I am hoping to share in a few days. Take care :)

Christine Drumheller

For the past couple of weeks my mojo has been pretty much gone.  I hate hitting slumps where I'm stuck in a scrapping rut!  Unfortuately, I come upon one every so often and it takes hitting the galleries and finding some inspiration to help pull me out of it!  Thankfully the gallery here at Memory Makers is full of beautiful layouts!  So, taking Gretchen's lead, I thought I would share some of my favorites!

 

My Dreamer - Carola Tolleson

 

Justin & Kyle, Oct. '07 - Heather Benson

 

Books Fall Open - Fiona Brooker

So, Thank You ladies for posting your gorgeous creations!  I'm off to create :o)  If you're lacking mojo, be sure to check out the gallery here!!!!!

As of late I am totally addicted to inspiration boards! It is so much fun to add your favorite magazine clippings, buttons, atc's, gifts, letterpress, well anything you love and can't throw away!! :) So with that in mind I started to create a new inspiration board to be more interactive with my children to add what is inspiring them at the moment and a place for them to have their most cherished memories as well.  The pictures are two awesome memories a self portrait us on vacation in Nashville, TN early this month and Saadiq on his birthday (Wednesday).  We will add little toys, drawings and lists as time goes on.

A quick and easy way to make a inspiration board is to use canvas as the back drop. Here I used a 16x20 ready to use cavas from a local craft store.  Choose a color to spray paint your canvas, I used black because I wanted the items on the board to pop!  Try to use a quick drying aerosol paint with a gloss finish.  Spray paint in a well ventilated area and let dry the canvas dry. Once the canvas was dry I used a variety of pieces such a chipboard shapes, atc, vintage signage,emo button and photos to start this board. Now we have a place to add family inspiration in our living room!

Here is another example of an inspiration wire that is in my creative space upstairs:

Have a wonderful weekend!

Supplies for Blackboard:

Adhesive: Scrapbook Adhesives 3D Black Foam Squares;Chipboard:American Crafts;Paint: Kylon Short Cuts Aersol Paint; Pattern Paper: Sassafras Lass; Misc: Emo Button (The Dozens Kits), Pins (Polka Dot Whimsy Kits)