Summer.....

I was hoping for a more relaxed summer this year but so far, its been hectic.  (Last year I traveled for most of the summer and it really screwed with my inner clock....)

I sneak in some time every week now to spark or at least move some stuff around in my scrap room.   I even had a friend over for a couple of hours one Friday and snuck in a 6 hour crop at a store last week.  The only reasoning I'm mentioning it, is because its kind of a big deal for me.  I'm sad over lost time.  I used to have plenty of it and no one to scrap with.  Now I have a group of people and any of them are ready and willing but I have no time.

Anyway, I threw together a bunch of layout bases and have slowly been adding to them.  A piece of flair here, some stitching there.  I have a stack of in progress projects - even a summer mini!!

Here are a couple of layouts that I actually finished this week and I love.

Using some older Echo Park line.  Some of their older stuff is timeless.  I love the patterns.  I've used bits and pieces of this line a couple of times. I'm starting to use up whats left.  

 I love these alpha stickers.  They're puffy stickers from Freckled Fawn.  So cute.  They come in a few colors but black is my go to color right now.  I'm embarrassed to say how many packs I bought.  It's not like I don't have a basket full of AC Thickers to use.

My little cluster of photos.  He was so cute.  My arrow flair (from A Flair for Buttons) points to my favorite one.  I'm not a football fan but this was too cute.  He picked that ball up and knew exactly what to do with it!

I miss this park, the little boy he was turning into, the days of being home with him.  I never wanted to be a Stay at Home mom.  I was forced into it at the time with layoffs so I embraced it.  It lasted until he was 5 and I'm so glad for that time.  I went back to work 3 years ago and now I regret that.  I miss the carefree days in the park and our big backyard.   

Again, an older line of paper from Carta Bella this time.  Usually I don't go with the distressed look but I liked this line.  Simple layout to showcase the photo itself and the memory behind it.  I too this while we sat on the beach in Princess Cays on one of our last big cruises before the kid came along.   I added some flair and the title.  The stamped title is a set from Studio Calico.  They sold a solid set of letters and then a pattern.  This was stamped twice but I *love* the look of it!

'PLAY' flair from A Flair for Buttons again.  I'm so lucky to design with her products!

If you ever want to purchase the set I used or see what she has in her shop, you can click the links and go directly to the set.  If its a generic style (like the arrow) I link you to all the arrow sets.  Happy shopping!

Most of the papers are a year or two old and the pictures are from 2004 and 2009.  Yikes!  I have a secret.  Whenever I go to a crop or retreat, I pack kits.  When I get home, I have leftover kits that I set aside thinking I'll get them done.  Hey, everything is ready to go right?  Nope.  Then something new rolls in and I have to use that.  During a cleaning frenzy, I find those kits and suddenly whats old is new again.  Thats what happened with both of these.  Older paper lines with photos I had ready to scrap.  The only thing new would be the lettering for the two titles.  Everything else is older. 

And last but not least...... coming next week!

I'm SO excited about this!  I love Simple Stories and pretty m much every line they put out.  Having Shelly design flair to go with this line???  Yes Please!

Check back next week for updates or bookmark the {a flair for buttons} blog so you don't miss a thing!

Do Blog Maids exist?

Because I need one.  This place is almost as avoided as my house is.  Poor house.  Poor blog.

My craft room hasn't been touched since October.  I've seriously contemplated giving the hobby up but I'm giving it one last chance.  Don't be surprised if you see a big 'For Sale' sign here in a few months as I clear out the supplies little  by little.  I almost think its inevitable.  I've come full circle in this hobby and my heart just isn't in it anymore.  There used to be a time when I would think about crafting all day and then rush home to spend 5 minutes in here.

There used to be a day I rushed to the computer to order my kits as soon as they were released and then I would wait by the front door for them to arrive.  I'm down to one kit now (from 4) and haven't ordered a thing online in months.

Part of me is hoping that it was the end of the year rush that I felt taking over a new office and having to 'fix' a lot.  Working 12 hour days but still making time for family and never having time for myself.  Then Christmas snuck up on me.  This is the first year I didn't shop.  I literally hit the grocery store up on the 23rd and purchased gift cards for everyone just so they had something from me.

I made these layouts at the last retreat I went to in October.  The pictures have been sitting in my camera for 3 months.  I came across them when I dusted that thing off to take Christmas photos.

The one thing I didn't let die this year was the Elf on the Shelf.  My son loves him and even cried when he left.  I almost felt bad and pulled him out of his hiding spot.....  The Elf may need to make a few appearances throughout the year just to make the kid smile.

I tok a much needed week of vacation the week after Christmas so I have 9 days to figure something out.  I may make something.  My son has 47 Lego sets to put together and nothing is stopping him which means I may have some free time on my hands this week in between a trip to Sea World, skating and other fun activities I may have planned.

All flair buttons are from the A Flair For Buttons Etsy shop.  Run over and grab a set!

First layout uses Simple Stories Fall line from 2013.  I had some scraps sitting around and some pictures so I threw this together.  Wood veneer apples and numbers are older Studio Calico.  (I'm on a mission to use up my older stuff.......)

 Second layout uses October Afternoon.  You know this is old because they haven't released a line in over a year.  This was the Public Library line.  Had to have it, not sure why other than it was cute.  My son has *NEVER* been a reader...ever.  So when he all of a sudden came home with an actual BOOK from the school library, I just about keeled over.  But he loves this series (Magic Treehouse) and reads them all the time.  I can't keep his nose out of them.  He's now an avid reader and realizes that his mother was *gasp* right and that books are fun and have great stories in them.  Shocker.

 A double pager.  I admire all those 2 pagers I see out there but I don't scrap in that fashion.  Every once in a while I can pop one out but it looks weird to me.  And because they aren't 'together' in the album makes them seem like 2 separate pages anyway.   More Simple Stories fall line mixed with some AC Thickers and Chic Tags tags.

 Last one for today.  No Vest.  N's first cruise.  He refused to wear the life vest during the drill and the guy was going to make him wear it. Guess who won?  The crowd was so mad that the drill person was forcing it on this kid.  We tried everything to get that vest on him and at one point, he had it on, but his dad had him by the arms and I had his legs while my mom wrapped it around him.

This and That

I'm cleaning out my room (again).  I started adding some new items that had come in the mail to my already ridiculous stash.  Since moving last year, I promised I wouldn't outgrow my space.  Well, I'm getting to the point where thats happening.  I don't scrapbook enough but I sure like to shop.  Hello, have you *seen* the Halloween lines??  I'm a sucker for some cute Halloween lines.  Frankie and Friends from Simple Stories and Jillibean Soup arrived this week.

So its time to move some of the older lines out and make room for the new.  Clean out those boxes of tags and half used product packages.  Sometimes you just have to cut loose what you know you wont use.  The packs of tags and diecuts you keep reaching for but the items never quite make it to your page...

Or there's the treasure you find that you forgot you had.  In this case, it was a stash of items from Chic Tags.  Some of the original tags from Veronica that were perfect for this layout.

There is a nice mix of products on this page.  I literally pulled items together from drawers, leftovers etc.

Blue/Green Ombre Washi is from a past Studio Calico Kit

Anchor is from Glitz Designs nautical line

Tags are Chic Tags

Not sure where I got the flag at the top.....

Enamel dots are from my collection of dots (I'll have a post up next week about my dot issue)

and of course, a piece of flair from A {Flair} for Buttons Etsy shop.

I used my Silhouette to cut the title from a piece of leftover paper from a Studio Calico kit.  

#hashtag Flair + Coupon

Is everyone enjoying their 3 day weekend?  I am!  Much needed rest and time away from everything.  We are enjoying the last few minutes of summer and getting ready to go back to school this week.

I've had some free time these past few weekends and I've been working on a bunch of little projects.  I threw a few layouts together using older Cocoa Daisy and Studio Calico kits.  I played with Gelatos and flair too.

 An older Studio Calico kit that had a lot of the Simple Stories Daily Grind in it.  I had to have this kit because I loved the bright colors and its sat untouched for however long....  I threw this together quickly to use up a chunk of the kit.  The rest got cut up to make cards for Operation Write Home and 3x4 cards for PL.

 I have a bad habit of printing photos out.  I would go through 3-4 times a year and send 200 or more photos to be printed at Scrapbookpictures.com when they were still open (insert sad face here) so I have stacks of 4x6 prints (sometimes duplicates) of photos I *wanted* to scrap.  I realize now its impossible to scrap every photo and that I've developed into a single photo scrapper.  Unless there are multiple awesome photos from an event or shoot, then I stick to the one photo that speaks to me.  I've slowly weeded out the photos I know I'm not going to scrap and have a very tall stack of photos left.  This was one of them.  I am on a mission to kill as many past kits as possible and as many of these photos as possible before the end of the year.

 This Cocoa Daisy kit was a little scarce in the way of products so I grabbed anything that matched the brown and teal look I was going for and came up with the layout.  Its a good thing I'm slowly moving towards rainbow storage in the craft room because it makes finding things by color easier.

 One more quickie layout.  I tested out my new Gelatos on this one.  I had a Heidi Swapp star thats made from watercolor paper so it absorbs watercolors.  I tested out a technique I saw online and love how it came out.  I need more practice with these awesome crayons but I see them being a new favorite technique to try.

In case you're looking for some {flair}, there is a sale this weekend in the Shop.

You can find the set I used here.  #Hashtag Boy

Once upon a time.....

there was a boy who loved to skate.  He convinced his mother to wait in a very long line in a big arena in downtown LA so he could skate.  He got that chance and he got to do it all alone. 

If you aren't a regular reader of my poor neglected blog, this is the story I'm referring too.  I'm bad about uploading photos off my phone and I've had these for months.  While sifting through my latest flair shipment, I came across this one.

Once Upon A Time....

Mixed with stars.

 Sequins are from Studio Calico.  Flair is from A {flair} for buttons Etsy Shop and the papers are from Crate Paper.  Their latest boy line.

Kit killer

I made a promise to myself when I purged my scrap room before the move.  Whatever I kept, I would attempt to use up.

I went to a weekend retreat in January and got 9 pages done.  Since then, I've completed a few more AND about 40 cards.  I killed 2 Studio Calico card kits from 2013.  Man does it feel good.  I'm not one of those people who puts themselves on a spending freeze.  I could never do that.  I like to buy the new supplies too much.

CHA stuff is slowly rolling out which means its the perfect time to use up as much of the old as possible.

 This is an awesome line from Authentique.  Or maybe Carta Bella.  (I can't seem to find the line anywhere to verify.)

 I added the hand stitching for the title and an Evalicious tag from a Cocoa Daisy kit.

 I stuck a little flair in there too.  

 Anchor and bird are both stitched.  I was trying to tie the nautical theme together.

 This was created with a Studio Calico kit.  I don't even keep track of them anymore.  I used the SC speech bubble misting template to set up the speech bubble area.  I hand stitched around each one and then filled some of them with folded bits of paper.  Words to describe my son at 6 years old are on the outside with hidden journaling inside.

 More flair on this one.  Random bits from past assignments.  I tend to pick up sets because I like 1-2 of the pieces from the set.  I hold on to the rest and sort them by type (see previous post) hoping that one day I find a place for them on a project.  These are from 3 different sets from the shop.