Heidi swapp memory planner for July.

Broke My Hand

So I haven't blogged or crafted since last Thursday because I broke my pinky at the knuckle. So half my left hand is swollen.  I have my appointment tomorrow with a hand specialist. I have been able to keep my etsy shop open because everything it pre-made. I have been able to keep up with my planner because it is mostly just stickers. My hubby has had to take care of the cooking, cleaning our 2 year old, and me. I cant even wash my own hair or scoop my own ice cream. 

First question on almost everyone's mind is always "how did it happen?" I slipped on painted cement steps that had been rained on for four hours. It was at my son's daycare. I had just dropped him off at her house and was going down her steps. I am super thankful I did not have him in my arms. 

I had 3 sets of x-rays, got it set, splinted and sent home with a prescription. I cannot wait for tomorrow!   I get my answers to how long it will take to heal or if I will need surgery.

Here is a picture of my planner dashboard I made from scraps.

Here is my layout for this week so far:

And here is my broken hand:

Embellishments to Paper Ratio and Paper Ribbon

So my mom bought me some bath 3D stickers to use for scrapbooking my son.  I finally had picture of him in a bath that I wanted to use in a layout.  I bought the Me and My Big Idea Baby Boy stack when I found out I was having a boy because I was going to pre-make layouts to slap picture on later because I knew I would be too tired from nursing and taking care of a new life to scrapbook, but I knew I wanted him to have a baby album made by me.  I will do a blog on that some other time.  Back to the embellishments my mom bought.  She is not a crafter so she picks up things not really knowing how I will use them.  Have you had people buy you craft supplies without seeing if it is something you will really use?  That can be kind of frustrating because it may not be your style.  Anyway, I liked the stickers, but I have really been into buying coordinating things.  Like the stickers, cards, and paper are all the same line from the same company.  I usually get a few layout and a couple of cards out of that.  So I have the baby boy paper and I have 3 pictures.  I cut the photos down to 4 X 4 inches for my layout.  I have been loving that size.  I find with 4 x 6's you get a lot of background of the photo that is not important to the photo.  Also you lose quite a bit of space on your page that you could be seeing more of the paper patterns or embellishments. So for this layout I used 3 patterned papers.  The strip paper is .5 inches wide and cut into 8 inches and 4 inches.  The oh boy paper is 1 inch wide and cut into 5.5 and 6.5 inches.  The polka dots are also one inch and 6 inches each but I shortened them when I cut them into ribbons.  Which I show how I do that below.  This layout was complete very quickly since I didn't use much paper and required no punches.  Just stickers and 3 strips of paper.  Very good for a simple and low on supplies layout.

Disney layout

So I had a picture of my son with his mickey mouse stuffed animal and I remembered I did an entire book of Disney for my brother and sister in law for their first trip to Disneyland with their son.  So I knew I had extra paper I didn't use or descent amount of scraps. I could not find them.  I de-stashed a while ago and I guess it went too.  I probably thought to myself we are not going to go to Disneyland, so why keep it.  Just want to kick myself.  I did fine some and it was enough for the one page layout I did last night.

The title was done with Pink Paislee called Fascinating
The paper was EK Success for the boxes of characters and names. The paper ribbon strips I made were from a paper pack I got at Joanns a few years ago.
The strips are 1 X 10 inches
Block is 6 X 6
Names 1 X 6
I did some journaling in the corner because the reason I took this picture was because this was my son's first double ear infections.  And I thought it was cute that all he wanted was his mickey PJ's, his Mickey, and to watch Mickey Mouse Club House.  Have you even scrapped someone that was sick?  How did it turn out?  I would love to see your work as well.

Getting Published

I have now been published in Scrapbook Generation's CREATE Magazine for the second time.  They have a reader's gallery at the end of every issue.  And then they include the layout challenges for the next issue as well.  I have been published in the May and July issue.  Their magazine is great! It usually over 250 pages and always free to download. In the current issue I did a card and the one page layout.  I used my dog for this one.  

Scrapbooking kits

I enjoy creating my own layout, but I also enjoy getting kits.  They help me learn to scrapbook with new techniques or allow me to more worry about the photos than the layout.  The one I am sharing with you is from Scrapbook Generation.  I have talked about them before.  They are my local scrapbooking store.  This was a two page layout get about dad.  It is still available here. I always make my own adjustments.

Speaking of my own adjustments...funny story about at crop I went to.  It was a kit crop at their store.  I was with a friend and telling her an alteration I was making to the layout and another lady across from me corrects me on what I did wrong.  I was irritated, but polite.  Then I made another variation to their layout and the woman who had corrected me noticed, but this time she was like :i'm going to do that too."  I wanted to laugh to bad!

Okay back to this layout.  This layout is not too "matchy matchy."  Like same layout on both sides with slight embellishment variations. The kit cake with everything you see.  It also comes with a layout sketch instruction sheet.  I always keep these in a file for future layout ideas.  You will also get a photograph of the full layout so that you know where the embellishments are placed.  And in almost every kit you end up with extras.  There ones I had from this were enough to make a matching card, so that was a plus!

The variations/alterations I made when creating my layout was the 2 X 2 pictures.  I didn't have any photos that were good for cutting down to that size.  I really liked the lines on the card so I thought I would just use it for some journaling.  Journaling was something I use to really struggle with.  Okay...I still do.  I do not care for my hand writing. I do have a private journal so it is not the coming up with what to say that I struggle with.  I have a problem with the pressure to not mess up what I am writing and ruin the whole page haha! 

I encourage if you do not already to start smudging or inking the edges.  I like to use the chalk ink.  for this layout I chose branch bark.  I also used my Elmer's glue runner on everything.  I decided not to pop dot anything because I felt with all the different sizes of photos it had dimensions.   

I will post other kits I do as well in other posts.  I will try to do ones they are currently selling in case you really like them.

Little Boy Two Page Layout

Paper and embellishments used were all by Echo Park Paper Co. The paper line is called Little Boy by Crystal Wilkerson. I love this line.  It had planes, trains, cars, and boats.  Perfect for scrapbooking a little boy. All the squares and photos are 4 X 4 inches.  The button border and the scallop border are stickers that I split between the two pages. I used pop dots on the car, small train, and boat embellishments.  I left the big train flat.  All the cars were separate stickers so I divided that between the two pages as well. I love cutting paper into "ribbon points."  All you have to do is pinch two corners together and cut at a diagonal toward the rest of the strip. If you haven't noticed I also ink the edges of all my papers and paper ribbons with chalk ink. I print my photos as 4 X 6s at Walgreens because I can always find a discount code for forty to fifty percent off.  Then I cut then down myself centering the photo on what I want with my X-Acto ruler.  You can find the link for that particular ruler in my favorite blog post. I bought the paper at Scrapbook Generation.  You can make purchases from their online store as well.  They are out of this line but they have the new one My Little Boy. I linked the page.  Feel free to ask any questions. 

*I am not sponsored by any of the companies or products mentioned.