Picture Day 2007

Hello, hello!  Yesterday I enjoyed a fun crop day with my friend Anya.  Our last crop day was last summer so it's been a while.  So lovely to chat and craft away together.  And it seems that my stash is now rivaling boutique status, as every item she had forgotten or didn't have on hand and asked me about, I had (and then some).  Oh dear...  At least I can justify using it regularly.

I made two LOs yesterday; wrapping up another class photo.

 Picture Day 2007

I finally found some papers that helped to compensate for the green undertones on my last class photo - I off-set the green with some bold magenta and went with a monochromatic scheme to give it some bold impact, what with all of that drab grey back dropping.  The ledger paper is actually upside down and the black and white flowers I fussy cut with my awesome new Fiskars finger craft knife from the photo mat paper.

Embellishments included some Heidi Swapp primrose colour spray and stickers from Echo Park's Here and Now collection and Simple Stories' Vintage Bliss.

I love these Amy Tan Wish Thickers - they are so versatile and I've used them on so many projects.  I knew I wanted to put the class stats in the box at the bottom but that it wouldn't be enough to fill the space so I cut out some little cameras from one of the EP papers (in an ombre, even) and added some machine stitching to fill the gap.

Final embellishment shot with cute ampersand and glasses.

I'll be back tomorrow to share my second LO from the crop day - I was still tweaking it this morning and I want to make sure it's 'done' before releasing it upon the world.

Picture Day 2010

Hello again, everyone!  So this afternoon at work was field trip day - two hours of skating at the local arena, reliving my youth spent figure skating and coaching 7 and 8-year-olds how to skate.  We had a blast but boy did we come back tuckered out.  I can safely say that I will be curling up extra early in bed tonight once this post is published!  And of course I will need to snag some of the photos the parents took today to scrap later on.

But today we're back to my current series of class photos through the years.  This time it's my class from three years ago, covering academic year 2010-2011.

Picture Day 2010

I decided to return to the Fancy Pants Down by the Shore collection for my background paper; a yellowish/green, blue and white stripe.  I really like how bright and cheery the tropical papers in this collection are and they work really well for children's-themed LOs.  I added in some MME Oxford Lane paper for a photo matte and a Carta Bella Hello Again journaling card and that cute paper chain people border.  Carrying on the camera motif, I decided to use this awesome camera washi tape from Webster's Pages.

I decided to stack up all of the different borders I had pulled, which gave me space to layer the journaling card on the bottom of the page - a nice change from putting it on top again.  I also decided to take advantage of all that white space at the top of the photo and put the title there and bring the embellishment cluster down into the photo - keeping things tight helps to maintain the focus on the photo and leave some breathing room around the sides.

Also related to the camera motif, I added in some View Master reels.  This embellishment cluster combines some washi tape, stickers, spray mist and a scrap of yellow paper I didn't use on a preview project (don't you just love when that happens?).  I also used one of the Hello Again papers - the black sheet with the funky white text.  I cut out some of the words that I felt related to school and sprinkled them in with the embellishments.

And here is my journaling card with stats.  Some more sprinkled words and View Master Slide, washi tape, spray mist and coloured paper clips.  Having recently watched one of Corrie Jones' videos where she used feather accents on a LO, I was inspired to do likewise so I pulled these out from my Studio Calico Sundrifter pack and I really like the effect - a bit elegant but still having a playful element.

This week I also finally got around to scanning my current year's class photo and also the staff photo so I'll be adding those to my next photo order to round out the series.

Picture Day 2012

I guess having taken in my scrapbooking albums to school (work) recently got me thinking about school photos so I decided to start scrapbooking my annual class photos.  We still haven't received this year's photo but I've collected up most of the previous years', although I'm still trying to hunt down the class photo from my first year teaching PYP 3.  I might have to see if the office at work still has old school catalogues that I can scan or perhaps my parents still have one...

Anyway, I started with last year's class.

Picture Day 2012

I used this fun giant polka dot paper from Fancy Pants' Down by the Shore collection and I love how you would never know it was from a nautical/tropical collection.  I decided I would include camera motifs into all of these pages and many of them will also probably include apples - such as this cute apple paper clip I found at the local TGR.

For the journaling, I decided it would be interesting to record some statistics about each class.  I liked Kirsty Neal's "My Month in Numbers" inspiration and have been thinking about different ways to try to work numbers into my pages more and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to start.

Stay tuned for more up-coming class photos...

WIP Wednesday

Is it only Wednesday?  This week was the start of lessons with my new class for the academic year and I'm exhausted.  It's been an extremely rough start to the year, I'm sad to say.  However, the one shining star this week was the arrival of my new 2Peas order - yeah!  I'll see about getting a little video together later this weekend to share with you.

In the meantime, I've started pulling some supplies for a new layout I have planned, although I just discovered tonight that I haven't printed the photo like I thought I had.  Hmm.  I'm not the type of person who makes layouts without the photos - I like to work from the photo first, then choose papers and then finally embellishments.  However, I'm sure I can manage for just one layout and it will be an interesting exercise for myself.

Supplies pulled so far:

Buried on the bottom of this pile you might be able to make out this lovely photo-realistic chalk pastels paper by Allison Kreft for Webster's Pages.  I've been wanting to challenge myself to use this side of the paper for a layout for some time now and this is it!  I've also pulled a number of goodies from my new goodie box - exclusive 2Peas star paperclips (smaller than I had assumed), SC cork embellishments as well as FP cork arrows, Thickers in the funky Kensie font, SC Sundrifter die cuts, CP The Pier stickers, MME enamel dots, labels and tile phrases - just to name a few!

I was really hoping to get started on this layout now but after the day I've had today, I just need to sit and veg for a bit.  Look for an update come the weekend, though (with any luck).

L'Aquarium Barcelona

Happy Midsummer!

Here in Sweden we have been celebrating Midsummer today, although the weather's been a bit off and on and the wind has picked up and chilled down so instead of dancing like frogs around a Midsummer pole, I've been scrapbooking instead (don't get me wrong, though, that Små Gröderna is my favourite of the songs - seriously).

So I decided to break out my new Fancy Pants Down by the Shore collection and pulled out the only photo I currently have of my Easter trip to Barcelona with a friend.

L'Aquarium Barcelona

This photo is actually a 6x8 and it fit perfectly in size and theme with this cute, chubby little whale and swirls.  I wanted to add more depth and dimension to the background paper so I hand stitched over some of the swirls and used blue, green and white mist splatters, then added rhinestones and enamel dots.  To balance the page, I hand painted swirls in the upper right corner, too.  Here is a close-up shot:

I cut one of the border strips and decided to scallop punch it but I didn't want to punch too deeply into the paper, causing it to become really narrow so I came up with this solution:

As you can see, the foam adhesive squares on each side of the punch allows for less paper to be trimmed off during the punching process, while still ensuring a straight punching line.  I'm sure this isn't anything especially new but I thought it was a clever, if simple solution to share.  Once I had my border punched, I decided to cut part of it off and layer the two pieces over each other, which is a bit difficult to see in the photo but it gives a nice dimensional touch to the page.  I also used the narrow off-cut strips, which look like waves, along the top of the photo and patterned paper - I really love when I can use up even those tiniest of scraps.

For the embellishment clusters, I've layered each with my new red stars washi tape and some of the SC Sundrifter imperfect circle wood veneers and a red enamel dot and then a selection of tabs, labels and die cuts.  I also tacked on some of the left-over embroidery floss in waves and loops and used some OA circle letter stickers in an uneven row to mimic bubbles for the title.

And I know you'll never believe it but after I finished prettying up the whale and swirls, I had the worst luck with accidents on this layout.  I accidentally dropped the border stripe with removable tape runner dots onto the photo and to my horror, the dots didn't come off!  This photo, which was printed at the aquarium, has a different finish to it compared to most photos and everything seemed to stick to it.  I managed to scrap (carefully) most of the tape dots off and I doubt anyone will ever notice but I was so cross with myself!  Later something else sticky (no idea what) got on the photo again, but not as badly as the first time and I got that off with more success.  Finally, I managed to smudge the date stamp on the tab by the title and it bugged me so badly that I ended up ripping it off and replacing it with another from my stash (which had been inked in dark brown ink so I had to cut down the edges first so it wouldn't clash).  Sometimes I should just stop while I'm ahead.

To wrap up, I'll share with you one last photo of a little something I currently have in the works: