LAYOUTS: October 2010

I can't even tell you how much I love Love LOVE Cathy Zielski's The Monthly template kit. It has made it so easy for me to document an entire month that I've done more layouts since my daughters's been born than I have in a long while. Other than the journaling, the majority of these pages have been completed one-handed while I feed my baby. Got to love digital scrapbooking!

I realized why these work so well for me. I still have a hard time letting go and doing layouts without "meaningful" journaling. For example, I have a bunch of pictures from when DH's aunt visited. Normally, I'd put all those pics on a layout and then struggle to come up with some awesome journaling over a visit that lasted only a few hours. With this format, it's a sentence. "Aunt so-and-so came to visit and meet Baby." That's really the whole story; there's not much else to tell. It's much easier for me to journal about our month in general than it is for me to try to come up with titles and journals for every little thing.

I talk more about The Monthly kit in the post with my September pages.

I used papers and elements from ScrapChicStudios' Beautiful kit and SimpleCleanDigiScraps' Halloween Treats kit.

October Title Page:


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LAYOUTS: September 2010

I love Cathy Zielski's philosophy of scrapbooking and her clean and simple style. She sells layout templates at Designer Digitals (http://www.designerdigitals.com/) including album kits. One of her kits is called "The Monthly".

Here's some posts on her blog about it:
http://cathyzielske.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/05/this-is-one-monthly-you-may-end-up-looking-forward-to.html
http://cathyzielske.typepad.com/my_weblog/the-monthly-system-a-guide-to-the-sets.html

I bought the kit and finally sat down to start using it. I started with September 2010. I now have 8 pages (4 2-page spreads) giving an overview of our September. Even if I never get to scrap the details of all the major things that happened that month, I have this. I love this idea!

My plan is to use a different color scheme/set of papers for each month. For September, I used papers from SongBird Avenue. They put out a kit in benefit of Haiti back when the earthquake happened. Unfortunately it's no longer available, but here's the link to the list of the designers: http://www.songbirdavenue.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=26_23&products_id=59

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LAYOUT: Falling Leaves

Since PersnicketyPrints.com had a sale last weekend, I wanted to finish up some layouts I had waiting to be printed. Mostly they were just waiting on journaling. They were layouts I had done as part of Cathy Zielske's Design Your Life class from Big Picture Scrapbooking.

I got lazy and couldn't really think of anything to say, so for most of them I just found a quote or poem to use for journaling.

This is an 2-page 8.5 x 11 layout, created with PSE 5.0.



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Right Side:

Yummy Flannel = Lots of Diapers!

Joann's had a sale on their flannel -- always a dangerous situation for my wallet. I really restrained myself and only got four:




The photo really does not do justice to their cuteness. I just couldn't get the lighting right to accurately show the colors, especially the purple.

I got 2 yards of the purple and cupcake fabrics, about 1.5 yds of the circle and frogs fabric and just over 3 yards of the green fabric (the latter two were end of bolts).

I didn't think it was that much fabric, really. But when I laid it out to cut, I ended up with 17 diapers -- including soakers for all of them -- and several two-layer wipes. I did have to make three cuts from a fifth fabric (yellow) to complete the set, but if I'd been able to get the full 4 yds of the green that I wanted to, I wouldn't have had to do that. I cut 4 smalls, 8 mediums, and 5 larges, all from the Very Baby Basic AIO pattern. Obviously, using all flannels means they aren't waterproof but I'm OK with that.

I didn't really need 17 diapers, but at least I will have 17 super-cute diapers to add to my stash! :-) I will surely run out of velcro and/or elastic before I run out of diapers to sew!

I sewed the first set of 3 last night. Pictures soon!

Layout: Snowpocolypse

I went to a scrapbooking retreat back in April and actually created some layouts (non-Twilight layouts, even!)

This is a digital layout, created with PSE 5.0. The design is a sketch from Cathy Zielski's Design Your Life class. The class ended at the end of March and I STILL have yet to complete all the lessons.



(still needs journaling, obviously)

Layout: Twilight Pumpkins

I went to a scrapbooking retreat back in April and actually created some layouts!

This is a digital layout, created with PSE 5.0. The design is a sketch from Cathy Zielski's Design Your Life class. The class ended at the end of March and I STILL have yet to complete all the lessons.

Two page layout:


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Layout: My Little Drummer Boy

I went to a scrapbooking retreat back in April and actually created some layouts (non-Twilight layouts, even!)

This is a digital layout, created with PSE 5.0. The design is a sketch from Cathy Zielski's Design Your Life class. The class ended at the end of March and I STILL have yet to complete all the lessons.

Layout: Snow Day

I went to a scrapbooking retreat back in April and actually created some layouts (non-Twilight layouts, even!)

This is a digital layout, created with PSE 5.0. The design is a sketch from Cathy Zielski's Design Your Life class. The class ended at the end of March and I STILL have yet to complete all the lessons.

Layout: 5th Birthday Party

I went to a scrapbooking retreat back in April and actually created some layouts (non-Twilight layouts, even!)

This is a digital layout, created with PSE 5.0. The design is a sketch from Cathy Zielski's Design Your Life class. The class ended at the end of March and I STILL have yet to complete all the lessons.

Two page layout:


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Right page:


(actually, the page splits across the photos on the right page but for the sake of displaying on the web, I cut it in the margin.)

Sewing for Baby

I'm expecting my second child, a girl, in September. Although I've never been a fan of wearing dresses myself, I got hit with the bug to sew some dresses for baby. I still have a few cut waiting to be sewn.

This dress and panties set are actually from the same fabric. One photo used the flash and the other didn't, that's why the colors look different. This is size 6 months.





This dress I actually sewed for a friend's baby. She will be going to a wedding in September. The fabric is just beautiful. I used this as a "practice" dress for sewing my daughter's Christening Gown. Size 3 months.






My baby's Christening Gown. Although in some ways easier than the pink dress above, because this was sized 0-3 months, the sleeves were a bit of a challenge!

Cakes, Cakes, and More Cakes!

This has been the summer of cakes!

First, in May, I made a Spiderman cake for my sister's birthday. I had planned to use the frozen buttercream transfer method but ended up procrastinating so much that I just needed a faster way. So I just did the outline and fill with stars method.



The next three cakes were all for my son's birthday. Yes, he had three parties. What were we thinking?! LOL

The first one was in June for all his school friends. Not the traditional cake decorating I normally do. This is Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting on the lava planet Mustafar. The idea/design came from http://www.instructables.com/id/Star-Wars-Cake-Mustafar/

The volcano is created with a blob of rice crispy treat covered in melted chocolate.


The last two parties were in July on back-to-back weekends (another mistake!). The first one was for family members and my son decided he wanted a Superman cake. This one was done with the frozen buttercream transfer method.


The third and final party was for non-school friends. (He just had so many friends he wanted to invite that we had to split it into 2 parties!) Back to Star Wars, and also using the frozen buttercream transfer method. This time it's Luke and Darth Vader dueling.



Although I enjoy the finished product, I have to admit that I'm happy that I'm done with cakes for the time being!