Back to back weekends at the Magic House

My parents have paid for a season pass to the Magic House (children's museum) for over a year now. I have  many pictures of the place, but while watching my boys exploring and getting exciting about each new discovery they make (and at least one happens every trip!) I just can't help but pull out my camera all over again.

So this spring we ended up at the museum twice in two weeks - once for a relatively normal weekend at my mom's and then the next because my out of state sister announced that she'd be in the area and we drove back.

That equals lots of pictures, though normally I wouldn't have printed as many as I did. The printer bug must have got me. I ended up with way more than I'd normally put into their scrapbooks for the same event in two weeks. Even if some of the pictures do have their cousins in them! 

Now my mom on the other hand? Never, or very rarely prints pictures. And even more rarely does she scrapbook, time has made her into more of a card maker (though it's really her fault that this is my hobby). I decided to share some of those excess pics in the form of a mini album, but she's gonna have to do the journaling about her grandbabies.

The front and back cover chipboard pages are from MME, leftover from another mini album. Almost all the paper is Amy Tangerine and Amy Tangerine Sketchbook. There are some assorted pieces from American Crafts Chap and a variety of Thickers. The ribbons are a big mess of stash, MME, and Pebbles - basically all the oldish scraps that matched. The mini alphas on the front cover are from October Afternoon (blue) and Glitz (pink)

 

The interior pages are banner shapes that I cut out of thin cardboard (the cover from paper packs, though cereal boxes would work too) using my Silhouette Cameo. This spread has lots of room for journaling and in the pocket on the right there's a bunch of pictures matted to paper and held together with eyelets and twine.

 

No picture fun here, but lots of color and one of very few photos of all the boys together. There is a hidden journaling spot under the solo picture on the left side. I also had fun adding a little bit of misting/splatter here.

 

This spread has more hidden pictures. The left side has one picture matted on the front side of the booklet. The right side has two extra layers of the cereal box curved to the edge in descending size, paper covering both sides of each piece. I punched holes through each layer and tied together with ribbon and glued the bottom layer of paper. When the page is flat photos are just offset of each other.

 

 Left side here is really basic again, with the right side featuring several pictures that can be seen by rotating them on the brad.

 

By the time I got to this spread I was nearly out of photos so I didn't have to make any hidden pockets or anything. Just lots of scrappy fun.

Love this back cover! Though I do need to come up with a solution for keeping the Thickers safely adhered. I'm worried they'll get bumped around and scraped off. Any tips?

Homemade Monday: Counting the days

Do you remember as a child, the looooooong wait until something special. You'd nag your mom about how many more days until it was supposed to happen? Yep, she'd get tired of it, then bust out the scissors and a stapler and make a countdown chain. As a kid, mom normally made mine out of construction paper in a color scheme appropriate for the event - Christmas, the team colors, etc.

Well, I'm pretty excited about the Scrapbooksteals.com Crop in October. Right. October. So very far away! I know. But I had a little free time between loads of vacation laundry and set to work using papers that while pretty in this picture I'd never use on a layout about my guys (Princess!).

I had the Scientist help me string it up using holes already in our bedroom. And then I attached this sign to it:

All of the paper in the chain is from MME Lost and Found (I bought one of those HUGE paper packs before discovering Scrapbooksteals). Most of the other pink papers are various other MME collections, I do think a Fancy Pants scrap slipped into the mix too. The alphas are an assortment of PiggyTales Twinkle Twinkle, BasicGrey Oliver and some Target $1 bin. I don't remember where the brads came from, but I do remember they were one of my first SS steals!

You fill my world with color

Paper Girls Challenge Blog issued a new challenge this week and this one was tough for me. I looked at the photo below several times before I finally came up with an idea that seemed to fit my style - I'm not really a rainbow person nor did I feel up to making a mosaic of scraps (which would have been epic had I been up to that level of challenge this week, alas with getting ready for vacation next week there's no time).

So here's the photo inspiration they provided. 

The mosaic was created and made by British artist, Natalie Warne. You can check out her online gallery here.

And here's my interpretation:

I really liked the movement and the colors in the inspiration piece so I started by wrapping washi tapes across a 4x6 card stock scrap. The colors by themselves lacked interest so I finished by putting the black washi in the space/overlapping the colors. That gave a lot of dimension and made it more interesting. Then I cut the corners off and made it an uneven hexagon. 

Scrapbooksteals Turquoise 8 was a launch point for this page but something I really wanted to adhere to on this one was limited color so that my "wheel of washi" would really pop. Lots of neutrals and muted colors with only the ribbon and the photo bringing other bright colors onto the page. 

Materials used: 

Paper Studios Affinity paper and ribbon

MME 6x6 Miss Caroline Fiddlesticks

MME Good Day Sunshine and Abbey Road die cut pieces

MME Lush 2 Orange brad

MME Holly Jolly ribbon

Piggy Tales Twinkle Twinkle 

Fancy Pants Kraft Kuts sticker

BasicGrey Oliver Alphas

Amy Lou font sketched with Silhouette Cameo

WRMK washi

Target washi

ColorBox Chestnut Roan