My Week In Pictures #8

My kids and I at my nephew's 3rd birthday party.

Hello,

February has come and gone,  it seems 2016 is quickly passing by.  As always, my cameras have been busy capturing little glimpses of my family's life and our everyday.  Here are a sample  of the best of this week.

 My little guy loves to sleep atop of the sofa,  especially once the kids are at school, and i bundled him up...  
This is a quick snap of his daily routine.

This little one is the son of a good friend of the family.  Nicholas is 4 months old, and such a cute and good baby.  I try my best to visit them at least once a month, and always end with cards full of pictures... 






This week my nephew turned 3, that means the entire family  got together to celebrate Mattita.  As always i took hundreds of little glimpses of the happy celebration.  

He made sure to blow his imaginary fire.

Here he is being a "Momma's Boy"...  He loves to be in his mother's arms, and she is always willing to cradle him in...

These two crazy cousins are definitely made for each other.  It is nice to see them grow up together and how the relationship is getting stronger each day.







It is easy to see that i love my family, they are my favorite subjects to shoot. This picture by far is one of my favorites;  it shows my autistic little sister lovingly resting on my husband.  She barely smiles for pictures, but always likes to lean on Roger for comfort, and he always willingly lends his shoulder... How i love them both!!

My Hubby and my little sister.   She loves us all in her special way.

And finally,  I had to snap this shot of my daughter and I as we were about to leave and run errands.  It is funny that we both have the same taste in sneakers.  I think it is great, she is just not impressed with that...

We are almost the same shoe size.  She is the one on the right.

These are just  a tiny percentage of the over 500 shots from this week,  yes! i took over 500 glimpses of my life, and they will all be treasured for as long as i can enjoy them...  So pick up your camera, take a picture, cherish the little moments of your every day life.

See you next week!

Together

Scrapbook Layout   - Together -

Valentine's Day left me lots of memories to document.  After seeing a layout from Paige Evans on  Scrapbook.com, I knew that i wanted something similar for one of  my pictures.  So  I venture to create a cutfile;  it took me 2 nights, a few cups of coffee, and some divine inspiration (i thank you Juliana Michaels), but i got it... At the end,  I learned I still need to learn more about my Silhouette Cameo machine, but I got the perfect cutfile.   Here is the link to the cutfile:
https://app.box.com/s/b0ret1bq9gd94xiiz52cderbrfwwq7qv

The cut-out was attached using foam dots so create  interest in the layout
-gotta love the shadow of the cut-out on the patterned paper-

All the patterned paper come from Dear Lizzy's Documentary collection.  First I used the coral-red watercolor washed paper as the mat for the entire layout.  A little bit of texture paste (white) and a polka dot stencil (both from Heidi Swapp) were used to add texture to the layout.  

I enjoy the contrast between the texture paste and the ink splotches.

Once I had the white cardstock cut-out, i traced every letter in different papers from the same collection, and proceeded to attach them to the cut out using foam dots.  I love to see different levels in my layouts.  I cut the picture (black and white processed) to fit within the edge of the letter O.  After all the cut-out was matted, I attached it to the center of the patterned paper mat.

A few pieces of ephemera are enough, as I wanted the detail of the cut file to show.

Once a week, we have a foiling session at home.  My daughter and I love our MInc machine,  and used it to create most of the ephemera for this layout.

I used the leftover foil from another piece to create the butterfly.

If you have seen my layouts before, then you know I love tags,  so I found a way to include them in my layout.  I attached two tags with some gold thread, and glued the thread as a leading line to my journaling.

a few glue dots helped shape the tails of string of the tags.

I enjoyed creating this layout.  I am thinking of framing it to keep it permanently on top of my sofa table... i'll update you on what i decide to do with it..

Please help yourself to the cutfile, just make sure to mention my name if you publish it.  I would love to see what you do with it.

See you soon.

The completed layout.

Materials used:

• Patterned Papers, Documentary collection, Dear Lizzy
• Epehemera -pink circle-,  Fine & Dandy collection, Dear Lizzy
• Ephemera, foiled pieces,  Heidi Swapp collection
• Tag- gold-  Heidi Swapp collection
• Tag -XOXO-,  Recollection, Michaels
• White Texture Paste,  Heidi Swapp
• Polka dot Stencil,  Heidi Swapp
• Color Shine, Black, Heidi Swapp
• Cut-out -cardstock-, white,  Recollections, Michaels

Project Life Layout Week 7

PL  Week 7

Another week has gone by.  Time is really flying this year,  and memories are amounting each day.  So i continue to use Project Life as a means of documenting my family's everyday.  Here is this week's layout.

Still trying to keep with a unified color theme for February.

This week, the cards came from different collections, as i was trying to pop the red in all the pictures.  The top two cards are from Becky Higgins core collections.  The typwriter card and the bottom right card are from Simple Stories Snap collection.  The middle card comes from a Heidi Swapp collection for Project Life.  All the cards worked in this layout since they all had varied shades of red and coral on them.  I added some white cardstock behind the collage of my doggie's pictures.  The simple title and wood veneer are enough to tell the story behind the pictures.

I like to print some of my pictures in black and white.
It helps to balance the layout.

It is the first time i work with this new page layout.  The pocket page protector comes from We R Memory Keepers -I purchased mine from Scrapbook Nerd, they are an amazing Canadian on-line business-, and it allots for 4x4 inch and 3x4 inch cards.  I struggle a bit with the location of my pictures since i was accustomed to the usual 4x6 and 3x4 inch combination pages.  Once again i chose cards with red hue accents to complete the page.  The top card comes from Teresa Collins' Save the Date collection,  the middle left card is from a Heidi Swapp collection,  the middle right card comes from Amy Tangerine's Stitched Collection cut apart pages,  and the bottom card is from an original Becky Higgins Core Kit.

The completed layout... Not one of my favorites.

I am so glad to be keeping up with my PL layouts weekly, though they are a work in progress (not to impressed with this layout) they retell my family's day to day...  See you soon...

 

My Week in Pictures #7

My love for chocolate is well known at home.  So it is no surprise it makes an
appearance on my pictures.

Hello everyone,

Another week has just flown by, and many more memories have been captured and documented.  Here are some of my favorite snapshots of my week...

Toronto was blanketed with 
a bit of snow this week...
Using the whiteness of the
snow created a striking contrast 
to my morning snack.

Capturing life is not about using
your BIG camera all the time.  
It is about using whatever is at-hand 
to capture the moment and feel... 
 Here a sample of phone photography
 -i wouldn't have been able to play in the fresh 
snow, and capture the moment with
the big camera, so my friendly
Samsung S5's camera worked perfectly-










Being at stay-at-home wife/mom has its pros and cons. One of the pros is being able to photograph my daily activities and my surroundings without time constraints... This leads into candid shots of your loved ones..

He is my loyal companion through the daily routine,  so he is a prominent
feature in my photography.

Finally,   one of the best pictures of the year so far - I have already flagged it on this year's catalog-.  This picture came from an outtake in between shooting for my Capture Your 365 challenge.  I was trying to catch my daughter playing with the dog.  Instead, my camera caught the demonstration of love and trust between them...

Having the picture processed to black and white leads your
eyes to the focus of the shot..

I hope you pick up your camera -whatever you have at-hand, and start capturing your everyday.  It will surprise you, what a single shot can capture.  See you soon...

Love Love Love Us

Scrapbook Layout  - Love Love Love Us -

The beauty of a long weekend is that there is extra time in the day to craft, in my case to scrapboook.  I chose this picture of my husband and I for the layout. Since it is all about us on Valentine's Day, I continued using Crate Paper's Hello Love collection for inspiration on colors to use.

To build the heart, i used the Half Heart Cutfile from The Cut Shoppe.  I manipulated the file so that only had one big heart to deal with.  Once I blew it up to fit into a 11x11 inch margin, i chose to cut just one side of the heart and perforate the other half  of it.  At the same time, i cut the words LOVE.. using another The Cut Shoppe cut file called Love Struck.  I made sure that the word fit within the heart's half.

The cut file has three words stacked.  In order to fit them into the
heart, i had to use the left over cut out piece to pick the angles for the cut.

The perforations in the heart make it easy to hand stitch the perimeter.  I used white embroidery thread to create mark the margin of the file.  Also, I added a thin  layer of gesso to the word cut out -since in my original plan they were going to be color with gouache-

A close up of the stitching and word cut out.

I wanted to keep my focus on the large heart,  so i used a bit of gold shimmer paste on the top and bottom border of the layout.  I simply used a palette knife to drag the paste in an inward motion from the edge.  Though it is not visible through the pictures, it adds a sheen to the layout in person.

I only used the paste in small amounts and dragged the knife with some
pressure to stretch the paste along the edge.

To create the other side of the heart, i used the geometric patterned paper from the same paper collection.  I cut around the triangles, and used an ink dabber to mark the edges of each triangle.  Using  a pencil, and the cut-out, the perimeter of the cut half heart was drawn onto a simple piece of 12x12 white paper.  The triangles were then glued within a half inch outside of the marked perimeter.  The cut out was  then attached using foam dots, so that there was a contrast in height in the layout.

I use all foam letters (from my local dollar store) when attaching
larger pieces of paper.  

The picture chosen was printed in sepia tone, since the background layout was busy, all it needed was to be matted on white card stock.  I wanted to pop the picture, so i placed it at the bottom of the cut half of the heart, making sure the width span between the stitched half and the cut edge.  A few pieces of ephemera were enough to complete the piece.  The word cut-out was part of the title, the other part was the word US.  I used large chipboard letters (from my dollar store) for this.  First I gesso them, after i added a layer of gold gelatos, and finally added pink glitter -to match the colors of  the triangles-.

A few tags and ephemera was enough to highlight the picture.

To add a bit of balance to the cut part of the heart,  a few cut outs and ephemera was added using foam dots.  This adds dimension to the piece, and balances the cut-out half of the page.

I fuzzy cut some of the collection's paper to create the decoration for the layout.

Once it was all attached, I debated over adding the journal lines to the page.  A white heart was added to the bottom left corner along with a cut-out heart and a few gel dots.  

I love this layout because of the different layers and dimension on the page, but mostly for the picture of my husband and I.  I hope you like it... See you soon..

The completed layout

Materials Used:

• Patterned papers, Hello Love Collection, Crate Paper
• Cut File -heart-, Half Heart, The Cut Shoppe
• Cut File -words-, Love Struck, The Cut Shoppe
• Ephemera -banner, button-,  Heidi Swapp MInc collection
• Ephemera -tags-, Hello Love, Crate Paper
• Stickers - arrow-, Soft Spoken collection, Me And My Big Ideas
• Chipboard sticker -heart-,  Family Stories,  Simple Stories
• Gold Shimmer Paste, Heidi Swapp collection

LOVED

Scrapbook Layout  - Loved-

Valentine's Day has come and gone, but in my case, it has left me a pocket full of moments to document.  This picture is one of many that i took while my daughter cuddled the baby (our dog).  So i went ahead and build a layout around this picture.

Simple hand stitching to the non-matted cuts enhances the cut's details,
as well as creates texture to the piece.

The cut chosen for this layout comes from The Cut Shoppe, it is called Hello Love.  I used the 8.5x11 inch option for the cut, and blew it up to fit into a 11x11 inch white cardstock.  I proceeded to back alternate rows of the cut with papers from the "Hello Love" collection from Crate Paper.  In addition, using pink sewing thread, the inside of the  non-matted  hearts was hand stitched  -i love adding texture to pieces-. Using foam dots it was attached to a Dear Lizzy's Serendipity collection patterned paper that served as the layout's mat.

The foam dots create lift in the layout, and add dimension to the cut-out.

Using papers from the Hello Love collection, the picture was matted and layered.  The title was created using a simple brush scrip font from the Silhouette store, and cut on gold card-stock.  

A few foam dots help lift the title above the matted picture..

Since the background cut out is very detailed, there was no need to add lots of decorations to enhance the picture, instead a simple tag with some fuzzy-cut pieces was added.

The cut pieces come from different patterned paper collections.

To create a visual triangle to the piece, a small banner and some little flags were added using a paper clip from Heidi Swapp's Memory Planner collection.

The little flags were inserted in the spaces between the papers, hence continuing
the layered look of the picture.

Finally, a few drops of black color shine, gel dots, and some  lines of journaling complete the layout.

I hope you like it, and it inspire you to play around with a cut file.... See You Soon

The Completed layout

Materials Used:

• Patterned Paper -mat-, Serendipity Collection, Dear Lizzy
• Cut File, Hello Love, The Cut Shoppe
• Cut-out , White cardstock, Recollections, Michaels
• Patterned Paper -layers, backing and mat for picture and cut-out-,  Hello Love Collection, Crate Paper
• Cut File -title-,  Brush Script Font, Silhouette store
• Cardstock- Title-,  Antique Gold, Recollections, Michaels
• Paper Cut-outs -on tag-, Hello Love (Crate Paper),  Wildflower Collection (We R Memory Keepers),  Documentary Collection (Dear Lizzy),  Heidi Swapp Collection
• Banners- on picture-,  Wildflower Collection (We R Memory Keepers), Hello Love Collection (Crate Paper)
• Paper Clip,  Memory Planner, Heidi Swapp Collection.
• Black Color Shine, Heidi Swapp
• Gel Dots, Street Market Collection, My Mind's Eye.

Project Life Layout Week 6

PL  Week 6

It is amazing to see that time is rapidly passing by...  We are in the middle of February already, and I am still keeping up with my Project Life album entries.  This week being Valentine's Day and all, I tried to keep most of my cards with shades of red, and lovely quotes.  

It was until I started typing this blog entry that I realize
that I had made a mistake on the week number.  SORRY!!

A common baseball card pocket sheet was used to create last week's layout, so i sized some of my cards to  the 2.5x3.5 inch format for the first page of the layout.  I made the top two cards using the Valentine's Day Recollections collection from Michaels.  For the week card, just a few alpha stickers and a glitter number.  The tag card comes from a Simple Stories Snap Card set;  i fuzzy cut around the tag and attached it with a little staple to a piece of patterned paper -the same used for the week card-.  I also printed one of my e-mails (exciting news coming soon!!!) and added to the layout.

A close up to how a simple banner was added to the layout.

The rest of the cards come from various Becky Higgins Project Life Core Kits that were sized down to fit in the pockets.   Sometimes you can tell the story of the picture by adding phrase stickers directly on them,  as you can see in the picture.  This one comes from a Simple Stories Snap collection pack, but I also like the Mambi  and Heidi Swapp stickers.   It is important to add texture to  layouts, so I attached a small banner -with a mini staple- to the outside of the plastic pocket.  This adds interest to the page, and draws the eye to the page.

The second page of this week's layout.

Fortunately,  most of the pictures of this week had a lot of red in them, so it was easy to match them with the cards.   All the cards come from Teresa Collins' Save the Date collection.  Just a few phrase stickers on the pictures was enough to complete the page.  

The Complete Week 6 Layout.

I hope to continue keeping up with my Project Life entries, so i can share them with you all...  

See you soon.

I Love You 4 Ever

Scrapbook Layout  - I Love You 4 Ever -

Part of the card that inspired this layout.

If you have visited my blog before, you will know that i love to safe-keep pieces of my life.  This  time,  I am using an old Valentine's card (from my husband) as part and inspiration to this layout.  

First I deconstructed the card.  I carefully removed the vellum shaker envelope (it was at the front  of the card), and went ahead and cut the card -along the fold-.  I saved the signed sentiment (it is attached to the back of the layout), and used the rest to mat the envelope to the layout.

A simple design ensures that the picture and shaker envelope are highlighted.

To contrast the card colors, i used papers from Amy Tangerine's Stitched collection.  I went for a soft teal with a world map and little white hearts for the main paper, and a 6x12 strip of the grey triangle pattern paper to center the picture and card pieces.   

Just a few pieces of chipboard stickers and ephemera were enough for this layout

To create a visual triangle for the piece, I added a doily and a sticky note to the back of the card stock.   In addition, a tag and a planner sticky tab were added to the top of the layout to ensure balance on the piece.

The tag and the heart were created from pieces of scrap paper from my stash.

Finally I added a wood veneer for the title and some drops of color shine to complete the  layout.  I hope you like it, and it inspires you to use up old cards or trinkets you treasure.  See you soon...

The Completed Layout

Materials Used:

• Valentine's Day Card - Meri e Meri
• Patterned paper -layout-,  Stitched Collection, Amy Tangerine
• Patterned paper -strip-,  Stitched Collection, Amy Tangerine
• Patterned paper -tag and picture mat-,  Save the Date Collection,  Teresa Collins
• Sticker Chipboard, Flea Market Collection,  Crate Paper
• Paper Cut-out,  Daily Stories,  Teresa Collins
• Sticker transparency, round Chipboard sticker, Me and My Big Ideas
• Wood Veneer,  Recollections, Michaels
• Color shine, tea, Heidi Swapp

My Week In Pictures # 6

My babies enjoying our  homemade Valentine's Day treat .

I hope you all enjoyed a love-full  Valentine's Day!...  It seems, looking back through my week of pictures, that all my pictures last week depicted either my most beloved subjects or most hated chores..

Here is my response to a dreaded

chore, I think is clear enough,

sweeping is at top of the list.

My kids are my most favorite subjects to capture.

Sometimes, I have to bribe them into being part

of the picture; other times (as long as their faces

are not showing) they are willing subjects.  Here even the baby was willing to put his best paw forward.

Having the camera always at hand, ensures that spontaneous moments can be captured forever...

He is her most beloved present.  He is our baby

And to cap  the week off, a few of our Valentine's Day favorites:

My babies in their onesies...

And finally our official Valentine's Day shot:

My husband and I, captured by my daughter...

Remember to pick your camera (it doesn't matter whether is fancy or just the one in your phone) to capture your everyday.  It is satisfying to go back and look at little moments of your life in technicolor.  Enjoy...