These ones make me happy

My son has this happy, sweet personality, I hope he will never change.

* Patterned Paper: Pink Paislee - Enchanting (woodgrain), Pink Paislee Fetching (circles), Basic Grey - Mellow (stripes)
* Chipboard Letters: Pink Paislee - Fetching
* Digital Elements: Ali Edwards @ Designer Digitals (journaling block), Paislee Press @ Oscraps (pattern on photo)
* other: masking tape

The layout above was made mostly with the leftover from Celine Navarro's class, here's the canvas I made in her class, finally managed to finish it. I'm going to display it in my craft room.


I don't use rubons much, so I tried to use the ones that came in the class kit as much as I could.


The "e" in the top of the stamp was in the wrong way, which mislead me, don't blame my lousy stamping! :-)

Childhood Memories

Not much scrapbooking done here, I am afraid - I have a couple of half-finished projects plus some ideas but just can't find the time to do work on them.

In the meantime, I'll post another project which I would like to add a couple of pages per month. Childhood memories - my intention is to write random memories, one per page, get between 15 to 30 pages done and them bind it and read it to my children. I am not a story teller, so my children don't know much about how I lived, this is a way to leave a legacy to my kids, the legacy of my earliest memories.

I went for a different format from the usual 12x12. A long 6x12 format will keep it easy to carry and leaf through. The idea is to have it simple in design, flat pages with the same off-white background, keeping the style similar and the same font.

So far I've done a cover page and the introduction.

Here's the cover:


While I was browsing through my photos, I found this very casual photo. What makes it special is that has my childhood home and all the people that lived there, my paternal grandparents, my parents, my brother and I. I've no idea who took the photo.


This page looks very boring, I might add something to it.

The journaling reads:

"Minhas memórias,

I thought I'll tell you two something about my childhood memories.

Since I'm not much of a storyteller, I am not sure if you get to hear about them if I don't write this down.

Besides, I don't really have many interesting, funny stories - what I have are snippets of information, things you might like to know about my early life.

You will see how different my life was from the life you have now. And some similarities too, I hope.

Like you two, we were two children, older girl, younger boy, three years between them. And despite all the differences between me and my girl and my brother and my boy, I can see that some parallels too. The more serious and intense girl and the more relaxed and happy-go-lucky boy.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I fell I am going to enjoy writing this.

I'll write mostly in English, but I'll mix some sentences in Portuguese, and maybe the odd word in Japanese, to add a bit of colour to my story.

Com muito amor, (with lots of love)

Mamãe"

Midsummer MegaScrap

I had the most fabulous time in the Midsummer MegaScrap. I was a great day, Celine is a very inspirational teacher, she is very creative and very willing to share her knowledge. The classes included 3 layouts and a canvas - which we are proudly displaying in the photo below.

Annamarie and Lainey had everything organized, everything went smoothly, discounting the fact that poor Celine had her luggage mislayed by Air France.

Kiki suggested that each one of us brought food and drinks to share. The food was delicious so much better than a bland sandwich or soup. Grea idea, Kiki!


This class was about a photo technique to obliterate undesirable or messy backgrounds - I added patterned paper and rubbons to my layout. My LO is not based on hers, I only used the photo technique. Celine's is beautiful - with random stamping and paint splatters.



This one is about using masking tape as an element in the layout.



I'm now working on the canvas. The third layout will have to wait. I have to find my gesso in the attic or buy another pot.

ATCs for Alisa

Alisa Henry, a.k.a. lagsforlisa in the Studio Calico forum, died unexpectedly last month.

As a tribute to her, Emily Pitts suggested that we each choose a post by Alisa and made into ATCs to be given to her family.

I chose this one:

Posted: Wed, Jun 11 2008 at 11:35PM on True Life Stories > It's so late

Oh, alex, I do that, too sometimes. I break out the old quilts made by my great grandma and we bring out all the pillows (my kids think it is uber-cool to use the euro squares off my bed) and we watch Harry Potter and eat popcorn and M&M’s while lounging on the floor.

-
Alisa

Since it mentioned quilts, I decided to make little paper quilts in my ATCs. I am happy with them, even if they are a bit wonky - cutting 1/2 inch squares aint easy for the likes of me.

Papers I love

Sometimes it takes longer for me to use a paper I love than one I don't love as much. I keep on waiting for the "perfect" layout for my "perfect" paper.

It is an absolute silliness, what's the point of having beautiful papers if I don't use them? I'm working on it - I used one of my favourite papers in my latest LO. It doesn't do the paper justice, but I am OK with that. And I still have another sheet with the same pattern in a blue background left... ;-)



* letters: Rockabye Foam Letter Stickers - Leaf (American Crafts)
* patterned paper: Dill Blossom (Hyssop) by SEI

PaperPlay - my twist

It was my week to set the challenge for PaperPlay. Here's my entry:




These are not meant to be permanent - I glued the buttons into paper with temporary adhesive - so if I ever need a blue or green button, it is only a matter of opening the frame and help myself.

The mini frames were bought in Dunnes around Christmas time for €2 each. The monograms (my and my daughter's initials) were bought in a shop for jewelry makers in Rio. You're supposed to add little diamante studs in each little indentation, I am not sure if I'll ever have the patience.

Pinwheel and "old" photos

I tend to scrap recent photos, they're usually the ones that speak to me, but when I thought of pinwheels for this challenge, the photos that came to my mind where ones that I took two years ago, and never scrappped.

The day was so dark yesterday that I postponed taking a photo in time, but I am still happy with the result.

I've got a new blog!!!!

There was a little mention in a previous post (even got some visitors) but since I manage to keep it going for 3 weeks now, I am going to be a little louder:



Never had much interest in making cards.
Made some special ones for Christmas and the odd one to send to friends, but that was it.
Then two things happened.
An appeal to send cards for charity.
Valentine's Day.
I thought about all the paper scraps I had at home.
Started making cards.
Not one to get priorities right, I designed my logo before I had half a dozen cards under my belt.
And set up a website.

Mami handmade cards.
Elisa.
Obsessed by scrapbooking.
Reluctant cardmaker.
One card a day.
http://mamicards.blogspot.com/



Please take a look and tell me what you think. I need all the help I can get!
TLF

March 09

I really like the idea of doing a monthly summary layout. Put them all together and you'get a quick idea of the what happened when. I'm a bit behind and already find it difficult to remember the facts for which I didn't take a photo. Ideally, I should do a layout as soon as the month finishes, so that I can journal fresh memories.

Anyway, this is March/09.



I matted the photos to look like polaroids, the blank bit is ideal for journaling or adding extra embellishments, but my favourite bit is the title. I meant to write 03/09 with chipboard, but it wasn't working, so I decide to write the month instead. I knew I fluff it if I wrote directly on the patterned paper so I came up with the idea of writing the title on a white sheet of paper. Then I cut it around and stuck to my layout. Leaving a bit of white around the word made it much easier to cut and made the word pop against the patterned paper.