A Couple More Layouts

Here are a couple more layouts for the album I am working on for Kurt. There are a lot of layouts remaining but things are coming along. It's fun to see old photos, but boy is this a big project. I am having fun, though.

These were taken in 1978, before Spencer was born. Cyn was such a babe. I miss her so much.



Here are some photos of their beloved cat, Edna. That is Spencer up in the top photo. I struggled with this layout, as I wanted to and did not want to show the kids' handwriting on the Polaroids. So much of a layout's design is dictated by the photos you are working with.

Creating Keepsakes Convention - Portland

So this post is long overdue, but I still want to make a record of my amazing time at the convention. I volunteered for the Friday evening shift and signed my husband up to volunteer, as well. (Yes, I am super lucky to have such a great guy.) We arrived, found the volunteer sign-in table and were assigned to different rooms. We parted to go to our respective assignments. I was a little nervous as I had never volunteered and wasn't sure what was expected of me. But there was nothing to be worried about. I had a blast and as it turns out, very little was expected of me. I took tickets, passed out kits, walked around with a completed sample of the project, and helped clean up when the class was over. Easy, peasy.

The first class I was in was run by Awesome Albums and the project was a cute little acrylic album. Here are some pics:













The instructor was friendly and nice, but a little disorganized and she didn't have very clear instructions (no measurements included). It also irked some of the class participants that there were no photos in the instructions. Apparently, she'd had a less-than-stellar class earlier in the day where people actually walked out. Ouch. That class lasted about an hour and then I went out to the volunteer desk to get my next assignment.

The volunteer organizer sent me back to the same room for the next class, which was run by Angela from the Button Farm. She sells amazing kits with awesome full-color instructions. She was extremely organized and did an amazing job. She even had a Power Point presentation with photos showing each step. About half-way through, I thought to myself, "This is what every class experience should look like." Everyone was having a great time. Everyone was impressed with her. Her project was another acrylic album made using Basic Grey products. It was absolutely adorable and I picked up some nifty techniques I was able to use in the Blue's Clues album posted below this post. Here are some pics:
























The other volunteer that worked with me was super sweet. She was there with her sister, and her sister ended up in the same room as my husband. We were able to direct them to a restaurant afterward.

I had an amazing time, but boy was I pooped. My feet hurt from standing for four hours, but it was well worth it and I can't wait to volunteer again.

The next day, we went to the exhibitor hall, which was not what I was expecting, but was wonderful just the same. I was expecting more vendors of scrapbook products like Prima, Graphic 45, My Mind's Eye, etc. There were a couple of manufacturers represented, like Technique Tuesday and Queen & Co, but for the most part, the exhibitors were made up of small business people selling kits, premade pages, secondary products (i.e. stamps that go with Nestibilities), and retired brand name products for $1. I was there mainly to see the layouts used to advertise each seller's products and there was a plethora of them so I was in hog heaven. It was fabulous! It was like going to a scrapbooking museum. I had been warned by some of the other convention participants that you weren't allowed to take photos and I could understand why. I wouldn't want someone stealing my layout design and making it using other products purchased elsewhere. But, boy I wished I could have preserved them somehow for future reference. They were amazing!!! Maybe next time, I'll sketch them out while Spencer waits in the food court area. I had so much fun looking at all of them, but I was a little overwhelmed by the crowds. The aisles were jam packed. Twice, Spencer was recognized from the previous day's classes and the women gushed about how wonderful he was as an assistant. "Oh, you're so lucky. He was so great!" Don't I know it. I've got a keeper. He is wonderful. But, where was the love for Marieke?

After going through the convention we went out to the Creating Keepsakes booth which was near the volunteer sign-in and spent our gift certificates, which was very fun. I have to say I was a little disappointed by the lack of selection (there were about 10 products to choose from) but was very happy with what I ended up with. I found it interesting they didn't allow you to purchase a subscription with your gift certificate. Oh, well. I got some neat things to try out. See below to view pics of what I ended up with.

My Convention Haul

Here are pics of everything I got. Volunteering for 8 hours really pays. Some were freebies from the instructors (shhhh...they're not supposed to give anything to the volunteers), some were giveaways from the vendors and the rest was purchased with our gift certificates.

FREEBIES FROM INSTRUCTORS & VENDORS





1. Making Memories Slice Apron
2. Acrylic Album
3. Recipe Cards, Prima Flowers, Fabric-Covered Brads, Brown Buttons, A Large Blue Button and Making Memories Ribbon
4. Laser-Cut Sample (Perfect for a card front, I think) They are about 6 x 6 in measurement.





BOOKS







A SCRAPBOOK ALBUM KIT WITH INSTRUCTIONS, RUB-ONS, & STAMPS













EXTRA LARGE FOAM STAMPS FOR USE WITH ACRYLIC PAINT







I was surprised by how large these were. You can kinda get a sense of their size in first photo which shows a hand and arm in the pic. The ones in the photograph directly above are 12 inches long to be used as borders. I'm looking forward to trying these out.

Hanna's Birthday Gift

Turning 2 with Blue

This is an album I made for Hanna's birthday present. It is made using an acrylic album I was given at the scrapbooking convention. I was a volunteer and one of the teachers was very kind and gave it to me for free. (Yay!) Her business is called The Button Farm and she makes fabulous kits with full color instructions.

Here is a pic of the acrylic album:


Hanna's birthday party theme is Blue's Clues. She loves the show.

Working with an acrylic album was a new experience for me, but I liked the end result. There was only one mishap where I forgot you could see through to the other side and I put glue in spots that showed on the reverse. Lucky for me, the glue wiped off.

Here is the album:


















































Here are the details:
I think it's neat how if you plan correctly, you can see some of the items on the other pages. For example, here you can see the red flowers on the scalloped edge which are not on the cover page. I paper-pieced Blue using an image from on-line as my guide.




This is the reverse of the cover page. You can see the bow from the front. (I like how the tag reads, "Party Time," and I included the clock as the flower center. Time. Clock. Get it? Haha.)




This page is where the red flowers have been added. It also has a hidden journaling tag. Below are the close-ups.













I love how I got the part of the paper with red and blue paws.




I used the red flowers from the previous page as backgrounds for the little yellow flowers. I left room below the mat for journaling.



I like this page a lot. I learned this trick from the class I volunteered in. These acrylic albums are perfect for doing this kind of thing (hinges, flaps, hidden journaling, etc.) because there are no page protectors.
The top mat lifts up to reveal spots for two additional photos, top and bottom, so that 3 photos can fit on this one page. It's a great way to add extra storage to an album.




Rachel mentioned she was doing cupcakes for Hanna's friends, so I included a 3-D cupcake here. I thought this page worked well for the cupcake photos because of the stickers which show Blue's friends. I was thinking that a photo or a couple of photos of Hanna and her friends eating cupcakes would look cute here. I often find myself imagining how pages could be used. Who knows if that will end up happening. I like how the added dash of green in the paper goes with the cupcake wrapper and the little green dog. I left this page without a mat so that there was one page where the orientation of the photo wasn't necessarily horizontal and where, if Rachel chose, there could be more than one photo.




I like this page. I punched the balloons out with a punch and added the string with a red sharpie which writes really well on the acrylic (but be careful not to make any mistakes!:-)). I didn't like how the yellow background was so high on the acrylic page so I added a strip of turquoise to the bottom and really like how it came out. I love making mistakes that end up working out better than the original idea.



Here I felt I needed another type of printed paper, but I was tired of the ones I'd already used. I like how this paper ties in the green from the previous page.



On this page, I was trying to use more of the turquoise. It's a little plain but I didn't feel like adding stripes or polka dots to the paper as I'd already done that earlier. This one was a tough one for me and I played with the colors and other papers a lot, but everything I tried just didn't work because of the page that lays opposite this one in the album. So I decided to keep it simple. It feels a little too simple to me, but trust me, it worked better than anything else. Keeping the color palette simple was the best way to go, especially because the epoxy stickers include a pink color and I didn't want to add any additional pink elements.




I wasn't sure is Rachel would want any photos on the back since they might get scratched. I decided to leave it blank and gave her some of the scraps to use if she wants to add a photo mat or something here.