I hope all of you are having a lovely weekend and getting in some scrapbook time. I've been running non-stop since Friday mornen'. It's actually been a great weekend for us. We've been keeping busy and spending lots of time with family. On Friday, Ethan visited with grandma K. (Eric's mom) while I went out for a leisurely lunch at Cafe Latte and did a little shopping at "The Bibelot". It was a very relaxing Friday afternoon, though I had to rush home to meet with the air conditioner repair guy for the tenth time. The air conditioner is still not in working order. We've had some days when it's been working fine and others where it's not working at all. It's been a pain in the rear, but we're managing to find ways to stay cool. The weather's been mild, which has been a huge plus!
On Saturday, we went out with my family for lunch and picked up a few items at Baby's R Us. The store is absolutely dangerous. It's almost worse than Target because the store is filled with every kind of baby product known to man and a parent is prone to buying lots of it for no good reason. I can come up with a million excuses to buy the various things they sell in Baby's R Us. You should see me.."oh look, it's a newer version of something I already have..but this one is so much better! Maybe I should get it...wow, they have a gadget for that? That would make my life so much easier as a parent" Laugh. Then of course, common sense kicks in and I leave the store with only the things I need. I visit the place once every few months. Ethan's been getting so big lately, that we'll soon have the perfect excuse to not shop there anymore. Laugh. It's sure fun to talk about it though..Smile.
Today, we headed up to the Minnesota Zoo with my sister and her family. We got to see the new Russia's Grizzly Coast exhibit. We saw the otters, grizzly bears, wild bores, and more. We had more good times, but navigating the crowds was challenging. Would love to go on a weekday when it's not so crowded. After the zoo, we headed over to my parent's place for dinner. My mother enjoys cooking food for the family, so we shared in a wonderful dinner. By the time we got home, Ethan was ready to retire and so was mom.
In between all the trips, mostly in the evenings, I managed to squeeze in some scrapbooking. I stayed up extra late last night trying to finish up this one layout I've been working on for Prima. It was inspired by a photo I shared with you a few posts back:
Here's the layout inspired by the photo above:
I had a lot of paper I pulled for this project. I have a habit of pulling twenty sheets of pattern paper for one project. I never really use it all, but I like having options. For this particular layout, I didn't want to compromise on my paper selection for the project. Instead, I cut bits and pieces from each sheet to create a small mosaic for the layout.
The mosaic is built on a white cardstock base. I cut the cardstock base first to fit the area below my photo. I then glued the cut pieces of paper in a non-orderly fashion to the cardstock base. I trimmed the excess pieces of paper from the base and adhered it to the layout as shown. Note the repetition of color and pattern within the mosaic...I used nine different sheets of pattern paper to create the mosaic.
I picked up the butterfly while at The Bibelot shop. Similar butterflies can be found at craft stores, gift shops, fabric shops, etc. I adhered mine to the layout using glue dots. It was a bit tricky (I actually tore one of the butterfly wings while attempting to adhere the butterfly to the layout), but worth the effort.
The label was made using a "Heather Bailey" label stamp from Autumn Leaves (find here). I stamped it out on white cardstock paper and trimmed it to size. I adhered it to the layout with a foam core Pop Dot. I layered a KI Memories Bloom Softie (find here) with a Making Memories blue circle label sticker. I then adhered the layered softie and label sticker to lime green cardstock and cut the coordinated piece from the lime green cardstock using Fiskars mini scallop scissors. I adhered the "Bloom" softie to the stamped label as shown in the photo above.
These are some of my favorite chipboard glitter letter stickers from American Crafts. I love the font, color, and size of these letters. They do need a little extra glue to stay adhered to the page, but that's not unusual for "Thickers". The title is adhered to a painted piece of Prima chipboard (which I further embellished with punched holes ("Alligator Punch"), Fuchsia paint, and gel pens). Along the edge of the painted chipboard piece, I applied hand-cut Cloud 9 epoxy ring stickers. I filled in the ring stickers with chalk ink using a soft Lavender Souffle pen by Sakura.
These are KI Memories rub-ons that I applied to white cardstock and trimmed to size. Once trimmed to size, I layered a couple of the trimmed rub-ons onto American Craft Acrylic circles. I then adhered all trimmed rub-ons to the layout as shown above.
Just for fun:
Getting ready to fly out in three weeks. I couldn't resist taking this orange illustrated owl luggage tag home with me while at The Bibelot. I needed a luggage tag that "stood out" from the crowd. The only thing worse than waiting for luggage is not being able to find one's luggage because it looks like everybody else's luggage. Laugh. I'm hoping this owl will help me locate my luggage once it's thrown off the plane..and when I say "thrown", I mean it literally. Laugh. Isn't that what they do to our luggage when it's time to leave the plane?!
Another little item to take with me to CHA..going to carry some photos and business cards with me. I found this a few weeks ago..the turquoise color of this leather mini album is so unusual. I figure I could easily turn this into a mini album at some point. It would be a lot of fun to carry around as a portable mini album:)
No plans for tomorrow. Sounds like heaven. Thank you everyone for the sneak peek links ..keep them coming! Well wishes to all of you! Have a great day :)