My Mom’s Album.

Teresa Collins Vintage Finds Mini Album

So like I said yesterday, we are scrapbooking away this holiday! I am sharing the album my mom has been working on the last two days. We have different outcomes because I cannot add embellishment’s until I’ve added photo’s. Whereas my mom likes to have a finished album and slip pictures in at the end. Here is her “Teresa Collins: Vintage Finds Collection” mini album.

Teresa Collins Vintage Finds Mini Album

Teresa Collins Vintage Finds Mini Album Teresa Collins Vintage Finds Mini Album Teresa Collins Vintage Finds Mini Album Teresa Collins Vintage Finds Mini Album Teresa Collins Vintage Finds Mini Album Teresa Collins Vintage Finds Mini Album Teresa Collins Vintage Finds Mini Album Teresa Collins Vintage Finds Mini AlbumTeresa Collins Vintage Finds Mini Album

And even though we have each made an album already, we have more to play with on our last 2 nights. I am working on a fancy pants TrendSetter Collection album and my mom has some more Teresa Collins papers to play with!

Tell Your Story: Mini Album

For the longest time I have had a creative block when it comes to scrapbooking. Even kits are blah to put together. But since attending Inspiration unlimited 2012 I have been dying to get back into it. The problem was, that there was so many other big projects calling my name. But a couple week’s ago I saw a mini album on Teresa Collins design fb page that I knew I had to make. I even ordered some paper for it! {ps. I almost exclusively shop for scrapbooking supplies at scrapbook.com, and the scrapyard when I get the chance to shop it Calgary!} The paper came about a week ago, and yesterday between naps, I finally sat down and made a new favorite accordion style mini album.

One of my biggest problems in scrapbooking is over thinking. I constantly wonder how my projects could be better. Which results in me never finishing my projects. {I have about 3 half finished TC album kits upstairs still waiting to be glued down instead of half taped together.} But as I sat and looked at Teresa’s inspired project, I realized I simply liked it. I didn’t pick it apart and think “if she added a photo mat here, or an embellishment here.” Which is what I do to my own idea’s but never to anyone else. I recently watched one of her video’s on mycraftchannel.com and she mentioned that for a lot of scrapbookers we feel the need to perfect it, and for her she likes to get it done and down. I really liked that thought, and it was what made me go for it on this mini album.

This is the perfect project for a beginner wanting to get into scrapbooking. I used 4 items total. Scissors, glue, one sheet of paper, and one sheet of embellishment stickers. And it did finish it during Sawyer’s two naps that day. I started with the one sheet of Teresa Collins -Tell Your Story Collection 12×12 double sided- cards. I cut the three sectioned rows horizontally. Then folded each card down in an accordion style. I overlapped two of the cards to connect the three sections.

After that I grabbed 10 of my favorite pictures through out this year {I had enough laying around after all the photo banner’s at Sawyers Party!} Sized them down, and started adding them to each card with sticker embellishments. I highlighted the stickers with a black permanent marker pen. The second card has a picture on a flap, so I can lift it to see some journaling under the photo. (10. things I love about you.) Everything else is glued down flat, not my usual style but since this all fold back down accordion style I needed it as flat as possible.

Then I finished it all up by tying it three times in some left over twine/yarn? Not sure what exactly it is, I used it all over the birthday for the banner’s. But it really completed the feel I love in this album. I think my favorite part is the way the layers come together when it is closed. I love this album, and I am definitely inspired to keep working on my scrapbooking projects now! I cant wait to share more with you soon!

Inspiration Unlimited 2012.

I cannot believe it’s taken me this long to blog about Inspiration Unlimited 2012. It was our first year and it will not be out last. We have already preregistered to go back next year. And I am already counting down the days. I cannot sum this up in one post. There were too many amazing moments to describe.

– My mom visiting and getting one on one time with her, the first time in a year!

– Making lots of new friends.

– Creating some amazing albums and projects.

– Having too many laughs with Lori and Lynn!

– Of course winning the cricut imagine! (which I swear I will get to posting about playing with one day soon!)

– Feeling absolutely, Unlimitedly, Inspired.

Not only did I come away from a 2 day weekend with 3 mini albums, a jewelry project, and a layout or 2. But I also feel pumped about getting back into scrapbooking, after putting it on the back burner during Sawyer’s first year. Which is just in time to make all the projects for Sawyers First birthday next week!

{How I adore you jewelry Class with Kristen Robinson}

Now onto the albums, for all of you who actually care! I always love seeing projects from these events, so I wanted to share ours. Of course the most exciting part for me is that this is a Teresa Collins event. I love her designs and this weekend did not disappoint. Our first album started the weekend off with a bang! We all know I am {obsessed} with taking pictures. So I always LOVE a good album that you can fit as many pictures as possible into. Bonus points for it being so easily displayed as well. We used her ‘Vintage Finds’ collection. Which is a very neutral soft feminine collection. It’s great because it will look great is so many different homes. It has mini page dividers and in between simple photo protectors. So I have over 24 photo’s in this one little mini album. How perfect! I chose to use all my favorite pictures from sawyers first year. {It’s all about sawyer this month, who am I kidding, EVERY month!}

Later that afternoon we had Debby Schuh’s Pocket album. And this is where it gets hard to pick favorites. I love this clever album and cannot wait to make another! In each of these classes the paper is provided to you. I however did not love the paper. But like most scrapbooking paper, it was two sided. And by luck I did love the coordinating back sides. So mine ended up looking 100% different than most of the classes. {I’m a sucker for banner’s, so as soon as I saw that first piece I knew what direction I was taking mine instead.} Inside there is 12 mini pockets. You can fill with notes, journaling, pictures, memorabilia. Debby suggested making another for thanksgiving and having each person write what they are thankful for and each person would get their own pocket. A wonderful memory to look back on! The possibilities with this album are endless. I cannot wait to make another!

We ended the weekend with another Teresa Collins class. The ‘Tell Your Story’ Collection is a big favorite of mine right now. With teal and coral I was instantly in love. Add some white, grey, chevron, and stripes and I want to buy it all! I was really excited when I saw the sneak peek about this album. Its a 6×12 skinny mini album. With lots of prompts to ‘tell you story!’ Which I think many of us leave out in scrapbooking. It’s a beautiful, it’s clean, it’s a simple album. I love it, I can’t wait to fill it. I’ve been dying to finish it these last two weeks, but a first birthday keeps taking all my time!

We also did a class from Stephanie Hunt from Bella Blvd. It was a mini album on steroids. Which is why I have no pictures to show you yet. {I will try to go back and add pictures to this section once I have it finished, because it really is a beautiful project!} I have not gotten any of it finished. It was a big project and good for her to try and make something so ambitious. Her ‘Because of You’ album is such a great idea. It’s a place to add memories. One page for each person in your life who has made you who you are today. You journal a “because of you” for each person. It will be a very emotional album. Something I think I will even learn from after going through everyone in my life. Another one I can’t wait to get to. That’s another great thing about this event. You are thrilled to continue working on these projects long after it’s ended!

So there it is. Finally the Inspiration Unlimited 2012 post. Only took 2 weeks. I know I didn’t do it justice, so if you want to experience it yourself you will have to keep and eye on it, and get on that waiting list asap! Only 348 more days to go until Inspiration Unlimited 2013! Cant wait to do it all again!

I WON!!!

If you know me really well, you know I DO NOT win anything. Ever. Bad luck maybe? Who cares. Not a big deal. And that’s why Last Saturday at Inspiration Unlimited, I thought, there is no way I will win this. That however has never stopped me before on trying. Apparently I have a little bit of my dad’s competitiveness in me. So Saturday night at about 9 they announced a contest using the left over scraps from the album kits they had made for 250 women. I grabbed 3 stacks, I was already crazy in my head. Keep in mind this event was about 45 min’s away from my house. And I have an 11 month old who still won’t sleep through the night. Again crazy.

I started cutting strips with fringe scissors in the car. And spent about another 2 hours cutting. Then came the “uh oh, how do I make this into my vision.” And for a moment I thought I had cut all that for nothing. But once you’ve sat fringing paper for 2.5 hours you dont just give up. It certainly wasn’t perfect and I would have preferred to sew it onto a dress form but I didn’t know if that was cheating since it wouldn’t be 100% paper. Regardless, I hot glue gunned over 100 strips onto posterboard. {And thank goodness I recently lost some of that baby weight!} I wrapped it around myself in one big sheet and finished it off with a flower belt to hold it together.

There was some tough competition. There was 5 winners. 4 won cricut mini’s, and after all of them were announced there was a little part of me that thought it was over because there was no way I won the whole thing. And then they announced my dress as the winner of a brand new cricut imagine machine!  It was all I could do to not to run around like a crazy person. After I sat back down my hands shook for the next hour. I think I’m still in shock. Its a good thing I live here too because I don’t know how anyone else would have gotten it home on a plane! I am super excited to play with it! I’ll be sure to share it when I do, as for now I am still running around like crazy. After not sleeping all weekend we did, a birthday party, a cake and a photo shoot. And it’s only Tuesday!!! Next post will be all the albums and stuff we made at IU! Your not gonna want to miss it. Possibly one of my favorite albums ever made!

So stick around, because I’ve got a lot to share on lissables coming up! And mom goes home tomorrow, so I’ll have nothing but time to blog!

YA RIGHT!

Inspiration Unlimited.

Seems like this Christmas is closer than the last, yet I am getting last years Christmas present this weekend! First my mom is flying in from Canada for a visit. {a present in it’s own.} Second we are going together to the scrapbooking event Inspiration Unlimited. We were supposed to do a Teresa Collins workshop in Calgary in August but it was cancelled. And by chance there was 2 open tickets to IU in Vegas. I have been on the waiting list for IU for 2 years in a row, it’s a very coveted list, so I am thrilled to actually be attending this year!

{Sneak peek’s as some of the classes we are taking}

My mom flies in tonight and we will be going straight from the airport to the Green Valley Ranch, where it is hosted every year. I am part of the fb group for it as well and it’s been an awesome week of positive posts about the excitement surrounding this event. Which is great because I feel like more and more groups like that get negative posts as well and it’s nice to see such a big group of women be nice to each other for a change! We are 2 of a group of 4, myself, my mom and a teacher and owner of my favorite Calgary Scrapbooking store, The Scrapyard. {Located on Canyon Meadows Drive.}

{Pictures from our last big trip to Nashville to attend CKU }

This is not the first, or even second or third scrapbooking trip we’ve taken together. In fact we used to go on weekend retreats all the time back in the day. Our first trip was when I was in grade 9! We would go just for the weekend to Pincher Creek and scrapbook our brains out for 3 days. But by far the biggest and farthest we’ve travelled for scrapbooking is Nashville, TN, for Creating Keepsakes University. {side note: 2009, the year we went, was it’s last year being held.} An awesome 4 day retreat where we completed an entire album and other side projects by various teachers. It was the first time I met and did one of Teresa Collins classes. She was instantly a favorite! Which is why I am so excited about this weekend.

{Clearly I haven’t been scrapbooking lately as all my projects are minimum a year old! }

So don’t expect much action here this weekend but I promise lots of fun stuff to be shared from it next week! Each day starts at 8 am and since hotels were so expensive {Barrett Jackson is in town this weekend,} we are driving home in between. Thus A LOT of driving! And Brandon being the awesome dad that he is, is going to be solo with Sawyer for 2 solid days! So huge thank you to him for that. Super excited! See you all soon!

Scrapping it

I have had creative block when it comes to scrapbooking lately. First its just hard to find the time to be by myself, not tired, nothing else to do, and feel inspired. Secondly I just can’t seem to flow or feel creative enough. And third is that my scrapbooking room looks like a tornado literally destroyed it. It’s a mix of all my scrapping stuff, sewing stuff, baby storage, Brandon’s gear, Brandon’s mini studio. Basically anything and everything is in there.

But somewhere in there I found some time this week where Sawyer was sleeping, and I wasn’t. And decided my scrapbooking calendar was 3 months behind, and I should probably do something about that. So I sat on my bedroom floor and went to it. Two simple layouts. Not feeling inspired yourself? When I am having days like that I use other layouts as inspiration. Both these came from a scrapbook trends magazine. Similar layouts, completely different themes and color, but just enough of a start to my own layout.Don’t feel bad about using other work as inspiration. Your never going to have all the exact same stuff, so it will have your own spin on it anyways. And there is never completely original idea’s, everyone feels inspired from something. In fact if my stuff inspires others I would feel honored and excited about it! (If you do ever copycat me I would love to see it! email me at lissables@gmail.com!) I love having some color and pictures on my calendar finally. So I will share with you March and April. And maybe I get January and May done this weekend!

And something I am still currently working on! I will share this project and some other pinterest inspired projects around my house later this week! Be sure to check back with me!

Thanks for following me at lissables!

Project Life

This year I jumped on the project life bandwagon. Its a scrapbooking project in the simplest way. Basically you pick a core kit in the colors and theme you like. (There is 4) I picked clementine. I wanted the turquoise kit but they sold out within the day I tried to order it! Then you purchase a binder and page protectors. The core kit has cards that fit right into the pockets in the page protector. Then each week you document your activities. You slip in pictures, journal on the precut and designed cards, you can add little memento’s like movie tickets etc. and in the end you have your whole year documented!

How awesome is that! So I started mine. Its been a little hard with a 3 month (almost 4!) baby. I try to do it during nap times. But you can only get so much done. I got an instant picture printer for Christmas so thats helped a lot. Im still behind (probably because I take a billion pictures and cant narrow it down to just a few a week.) Also I need to desperately clean my scrapbook room, I cant even see my desk right now. So thats a little discouraging. But Ive gotten a couple done and I am working on it a bit tonight so hopefully I can share more again soon!

Week One

Week Two

Week three

Im still missing the first half of week 1, half of week 2 (the wedding! waiting on pictures of that) and my title page. Which is finished just needs to have the title added. Which means I have to clean that room to dig out the cricut!

If you want any more information on project life visit Becky Higgins (the creator) Amazon.com also carries all the products, which is nice and easy.

o ya and this year I bought a scrapbook calendar. I have to go back and do January but here is February and I just love it!

Keep being creative 🙂

More scrapbooking!

What good timing to post all about scrapbooking. Later that night as we were leaving to go grocery shopping the UPS guy dropped off a big box neither of us was expecting. I was sure excited to see it was my album back from being published! And with it came a whole bunch of new stuff. The whole paper pack of BoBunny’s new line “ad lib” And a couple other fun things too!

So yesterday I decided I was going to sit down and make a page. I really like it too. Pretty simple and I used only the new stuff! Which made it really fun. It went together within an hour, that might be a new record! The only funny part, and yes I am pointing out my own mistake. I added an embellishment and did not notice that it had a year on it, that did not match the year of the photo haha. So it says 4th of July 2011 but its from 2010. O well! Still cute and thats all that matters!

And I wanted to add another tip I had forgotten the other day, and its a good one! If you are just starting out or having an inspiration funk or just for fun, take a class! They are offered everywhere! And they have been some of the best times with others. First you get to meet other people with the same hobby and usually they are offered in stores so you get to shop! And you leave with a brand new layout or project! I’ve even gone of whole trips planned around scrapbooking retreats. I was lucky enough to go to CKU 2 years ago with my mom where over a couple days we completed a mini album and a 12×12 album! Bottom line they are just fun! I can even point you to one of my favorite stores that offer classes all the time. (for my Calgary readers only, sorry!) The Scrap Yard is located on Canyon Meadows Drive, its a super cute store with great staff and great classes. My mom goes to their album track and its amazing! I’ve done a couple with them too and they are always great and very innovative! Here’s a couple shots of stuff around their store from one of my last visits, projects and classes, make sure you check them out!

So another scrappy post. I’ve also been working on a teresa collins kit my mom got me for Christmas. And I just ordered another one (I do heart her kits more than any others) That should be arriving in the next couple days. So I had better finish this one soon! I will keep you posted. And stay tuned for a weekend of sweet baking!

Lets Talk Scrapbooking

I have put this off lately but its one of my biggest hobby’s. It has its own room in my house. And it needs it. If your into scrapbooking you know its an all in effort. And first you start in the I want to buy everything I see stage. So today I’m going to share a couple little tips and some older and still favorite pages! This is a long post so lets get started

1. Simplify.

You do not want to spend 3 days on one page. I like to think 2 hours is my limit. That’s what I can usually handle. And even that sounds super long when I type it. Your pages don’t have to be masterpieces every time. Sometimes its the really simple ones that are the favorites. And besides its all about the pictures anyways!

Here’s some examples

On this one I wanted it to be a fast and easy page so I added my three favorites stacked on some cute paper. With a sticker caption spot and an easy title it was fast easy and simple.

This one though it may seem not as simple is just the same. Add a picture a contrasting stripe and a few random embellishments, these are just a few different shapes cut out of scrap paper. And then a strip of transparency  makes this page pop!

2. Find inspiration everywhere.

Sometimes I walk through target (or any other store for that matter) and just look at artwork and staged designs. You can pull inspiration from a page from anything. Whether it be just the color combination or a way to make a cool title pop, or a whole page concept.

Example 1.

There was a beautiful wooden frame I saw at a store I could not afford to buy. It was wooden with a small indent cut into the middle to frame a picture. Then it had a quote painted around it. So I went home and made my own out of paper. I used pop dots to give it the dimension and that way my picture in the middle is just like the wooden one! I love this layout because now I have the frame I want but I made it. Plus you can use your own favorite quote and colors!

This one came from seeing a bulletin board of pictures and mementos on a friends wall. I thought how cute to just show a whole life of mismatched pictures to share a story. I popped some up, I stitched some down each one is special in its own way but is all connected.

3. If you cant find inspiration around you take it from a scrapbook.

That’s right I am telling you to copy. Everyone does it. I do too. Sometimes you hit a funk and just need a push. I’m not saying buy the paper take the same photo lay it out the exact same but sometimes idea’s are so great they are meant to be everywhere. And come on if your telling me you have an original scrapbook idea well then your probably Tim Holtz otherwise its been done before and it will be done again.

This came from a wedding layout in a magazine I saw. Strips of paper behind a square photo. Everything on theirs was black and white. I used colors to pop my color photo. Their titles was much smaller over a flower and I decided to stretch my title over my picture to give a bit more dimension.

This one also came from a magazine. They are the best inspiration. I loved the over sized accent, you can use any shape I’ve also done a similar layout with a giant & as the focus. In their layout it was a whole bunch of small photo’s I choose to use one 5×7 and one 4×6. Because their photo’s were small they had them higher on the page with not such a big pattern strip. I also added a strip on the bottom to pull it all together.

Lastly for this point I saw a page I loved as a single page layout. I decided to stretch it into a two page layout. And changed the text to an edging highlight rather than a text box. So stretch a single page into 2 or squish a two page layout you like into a single layout!

4. Last point would be to have fun!

Don’t follow scrapbook rules or whatever someone tells you too. Add stuff to pages someone normally wouldn’t add. Its your pages make them your own. I love to add non traditional embellishments or make titles out of something other than paper. You can even make mini albums out of non traditional fun objects. Like my spool album or a mini canvas album. Just remember these are your memories scrapbook them in a way that makes it special to you!

I love to read so I wanted to really make a page around that. So I grabbed an old book that was on its way out ripped out a few pages and layered them into the pictures. Added a clever title “Get Lost in a Book” And voila a unique page all about reading!

And lastly I wanted to make a page with a unique title so instead of using paper or stamps or stickers, so I decided to hand stitch my title across half of the page. Spending that extra time on it made me really love the page. Plus no one else has this exact look, because its all my handwriting. So its my own unique page!

So I hope that inspires you to be creative with something this week! Maybe I can actually finish some of my on the go projects I’ve been ignoring for the last 3 months! Good Luck everyone and of course as always if you make anything share it with me I love to see what you come up with!