A Layout Is Born

Today I am going to blog about how a layout comes about for me. I wonder if it's similar for all of us scrappers? If it is, please let me know in your comments. I'd love to hear how other scrap fanciers come about their creative epiphanies. Ha, there ya go, your $10.00 word for the day ;).

I took pictures of my children on their first day of school, as always, as we all have done and do through the years. I decided to start with Sophia. Her photos came great and she looks just beautiful! I edited it a bit by placing translucent text onto the photo with my Adobe Photoshop program. You can control the opaqueness in percentages till you reach the desired affect. If you can, this program is a wonderful one to have in your scrapping arsenal.

While looking through my papers to choose, the typical back to school patterns just weren't doing it for me. I went for pink black and grey. With Sophia's outfit, it just works. Sophia looks like she belongs in a back to school ad!

I also went into bling overload!!! I used more flowers, brads, and stickles than in any other layout I've done, and I love it. This layout just called for blingtastic! I put the layout into a slide show for you to see all my steps start to finish. I picked the song Love Bug from Sophia's favorite band, The Jonas Brothers, and as she watched the slide show, she was smiling from ear to ear!

Before playing scroll to the bottom and stop the playlist from playing so you can hear the music in the slide show. Without further ado, The Birth of A Lay Out -

I am very happy with the end results! Sophia looks just gorgeous.

Vacation Memories

Here are 2 layouts that I have done so far of our summer trip to Brooklyn. The first is my traditional layout of Santino and my cousin Peter. I love the way it came. The colors are nice and bright, to match the picture!

The second is from our trip to my brother and sister-in-law's home in Pennsylvania. We went to a neat little ice cream shop called the Purple Cow Creamery. The kids had fun putting their faces in the cow cut out. The ice cream was just delicious too! It was a quaint part of Pa., Eastern, right next door to the Crayola factory that we went too.

That place was fantastic, and instead of a layout I'm going to make a mini book out of little brown lunch bags. A technique I saw on Jennifer Priest's site and at Collective Journey, my local scrap book store.

I used my cricut for the title letters in both lay outs. In the purple cow layout I used some new techniques. I used my new glimmer mist in purple and sprayed the white paper. I love that stuff. It is great and what a fantastic and versatile effect you get from it! I also did 2 firsts for me, one the multi photo, and second, no pattern paper! I have never used this many pics in one layout, and I sure have NEVER not used patterned paper. I enjoyed trying somehting different and love the layout.

Now since it's Sunday I am including 2 you tube videos from a very talented gal who edits them on the site. One is Eric, who I like much better than Bill and the other is a dedictation to Godric. Ever since reading the books, I can not abide Bill. Godric didn't have much of a part, but in the show they made it more integral, sadly not enough. His character was great.

First Full Week!

Well we've gotten one full week of school down and are onto our 2nd. The kids are liking it. MaryAnn is enjoying going to Junior High, here in Cali it's called middle school. Sophia is in a combo 3rd-4th grade class, which is fine. She tends to move at a much slower pace than Mare so I am happy that she is where she's at. Of course there is Santino in kindergarten! He is doing just fine. I help on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month and will be going on their 1st field trip to the pumpkin farm on 10/30. I can't wait, great pics always come out of it!

True Blood is heating up big time, getting ready for the finale, nooooooo! I have to wait till stinking June for the next season. What's up with that? Why not March? Gosh not fair, and book 10 of the Sookie series doesn't come till May of 10. Oh patience, I must learn ye. Well, I'll be reading up a storm in the meantime. There are some really good ones out there, of course they're series, cause why have all the answers in one book when I can read 10 of em and then wait with baited breath for 8 mos till the author pops out another that MIGHT answer some ?'s.

Here are the kids on their first day, I will also be doing some vacation lay outs and will put them up when I'm done. They are getting so big, time flies too quick. Some have asked, "what are you going to do now that Sonny is in school." I'm going to have some me time!! I deserve it! Hmmm do you all think John will let me take a pic of him on his first day of College next month? Heehee!

Beautiful Miss MaryAnn-

Simply stunning Sophia

And the man himself - Santino