Saddle Up!

Howdy!

I have another 12 x 12 two page scrapbook layout for you today. This layout is about my daughter, who was four years old at the time. She has always been very into animals of all sorts, but around the age of three or four, she became obsessed with horses.

At the time, we were living in Ohio, and I set out on a mission to find someone willing to introduce a four year old to the world of horses. It turned out to be a difficult task! Many of the people who I spoke with don't begin lessons until children are about age eight. We were a few years from there! Then I met "Mr. John". He was an older man, immensely patient, very unflappable and soft spoken. He agreed to take us on!

This layout depicts one of Rebekah's first times riding. We were just giving it a try, to see how she liked it, hence the bicycle helmet instead of a proper riding helmet. The proper riding helmet came later. :)

This horse became Bekah's first love. Dream was her name, and we had to leave her behind for other children to ride when we moved out of state. We have since learned that Mr. John found her another home with a family who have two little girls just about Rebekah's age. It is good to know that she is going to be loved and that there are other little girls to take over giving her peppermints on Rebekah's behalf!




On this layout I used a paper bag that I received when I purchased something in a gift shop. I kid you not....I think I had that bag in my possession for two years before getting to this layout! I knew as soon as I saw it, that it would be perfect for a horseback riding or western themed layout and I tucked it away in my 'idea pile' where things collect until I can get to them.

I have talked before about using the world around you as inspiration for your creations, and this is a perfect example of how I put that into practice. This is also the reason why I don't scrapbook my photos in order....gasp!! I have so many friends (I am talking to you Carol and Joy!) who scrapbook chronologically. I find that if I force myself into that box, then I don't enjoy the process or the outcome nearly as much. I work on whatever inspires me at the time. Sometimes the inspiration comes from a certain patterned paper or colour combination, other times it is a photo, and other times it is a paper bag!



You can see in this photo that I did my journaling on a tag that I tucked behind one of the photos. The photo was adhered using pop dots (otherwise known as dimensionals), allowing space between the photo and the page for my tag to slide in and out.



I used horse themed stickers from Paper House Productions and Flair Designs.



Here you can see a close up of the zigzag stitch that I used to sew the paper bag to the layout. I really like sewing on both cards and scrapbook pages. I find it gives my creations a little lift!

Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to leave me a comment so that I know you were here!

I Love My Hemp Twine!

*I have retaken the photos with a different camera setting*

It looks like I am going to have to mess with my camera settings and retake these photos. I am not happy with how these photos have turned out at all. So, please excuse the picture quality!

This is another travel themed layout (for anyone who knows me, that is no surprise!). The photos were taken on a trip to western Canada....Alberta specifically.

I used my Cricut to cut out the 'Nature' title as well as the other two matching green elements.

I was excited to use some of the ledger paper that I picked up while at CKC Cincinnati in the fall, to create my journaling block. I added an 'O Canada' sticker to help anchor that element. I then wrapped hemp twine around one of my photos to give the layout a rustic nature-ish kind-of-feel. I really love hemp twine for this purpose. It is also great on masculine layouts and cards.

This side of the layout features my main photo. You can see that I matted the left photo twice, so

that the eye is drawn towards it as a focal point of the layout. I then added a couple of vellum quotes from a quote stack that I had kicking around, and some more hemp twine, and I was ready to go!

Stay tuned for some better photos to come.....

I Can Smell the Grapes....

*I've reposted the pics using a different setting on my camera*

I am just realizing as I type this post that these pictures turned out kind of stinky. Hmmm. I think a re-take may be in order!

For now, I will tell you about the layout anyways. This layout features photos of the area surrounding our home where we lived in Switzerland. Our landlord was a wine maker, who also grew and harvested his own grapes. As a result, the property was surrounded by vineyards. Since my daughter was a newborn when we moved to Switzerland, walking through those vineyards pushing a double stroller was the solution to losing my baby weight!

I used my Cricut to cut out the title and the large circle that mats the photo on the above page. A little trip to my button jar gave me the idea for the bunch of grapes on the top right of the page. I hand journaled in white gel pen around the circle to get some of the necessary details in there without a ton of journaling. I just didn't feel that much journaling was necessary on this layout.

The right hand page of my double page layout features a stamp set from My Favorite Things called Meet Me at the Cafe. I used a combination of paper piecing and coloring to fill in the image. I will try and get a better detail photo posted here soon.

I think it is safe to say that stamping on cards is far more common than stamping on scrapbook pages. Because I participate in both the craft of card making and the craft of scrapbooking, I really like to incorporate the two where I can. It can be a challenge at times, because small stamped images can get lost on a 12 x 12 layout. Personally, I like the challenge of trying to make it work, so you are sure to see some more stamping on my layouts in the future!

Stay tuned!