Sky Captains

I saw this font and gel pen accents in our local scrap shop and had to copy! Apparently the gel pen accents are a lesson you can learn from Creative Memories.  I'd always looked at Don Juan font but didn't like the way the lower and upper case are mixed but actually seeing it on a page I love it!!

Dean is playing Sky Captains with his best mate Mason.

Just one girly one...

Hi! I have organised my scrapping space, and even though this is a blog dedicated to boy pages, I thought I might put this one anyway to show my scrapping area.

It is only clean for about twenty minutes before the paper starts flying and little itty bits of scrap start falling everywhere so I took the opportunity to snap some shots.

I am so proud of my purchase of the cupboard from officeworks and I built the paper thing on the side myself and lifted the keyboard tray so I could slide my unfinished work on it.

The minute I saw that cupboard I know it would make an awesome scrap space.

The font for the title was Calligraphy but I turned the M backwards and squished it up a little. I used Fabulous Finds for the little heart charms... My Xyron ran out of sticker paper one day before this layout... I would have done anything to have a refill for my xyron to make all those hearts!!! It was fiddly!!! I used glossy accents instead. The stickles which link the photos to the main photo is Tiara. I absolutely love that colour!

Now two days later... I have to tidy it up again.

Little Yellow Bus

Dean just loves this bus. It has been on adventures everyday to farms, dinosaur parks, outerspace... you name it, the bus has been there.

I just had to do a page on it to remind him when he is older.

I used Colorcore paper for the blue edge and bazzills for the base. Locker Talk cartridge had the perfect bus shape in it and Everyday Paperdolls for the road. I thought I'd used weld on the Gypsy really well and it even changed colour to red to show welding but when it cut, it still cut mostly seperates. So overlapping them a little more would have been better.

Good Old Plantin Schoolbook for the flowers and the grass. That cartridge which I thought was rather boring at first look, just keeps giving more and more!

The title was cut in Cutting Up!

So cute, so effective, so cheap! Just a few bazzills, a few cuts and you're done! My kind of scrapping.

The first of many Lego Pages!

This page was such a fun page to make.  Even though the little blocks don't look like authentic lego bits, for the purpose of the page it works.  I used the Printing Blocks Cartridge for the block shapes and a single hole punch to make the little lego bumps.

I used cartoon bubbles and I always love using words that match the sounds in words they say. Dean always said 'ooo' for 'you' and couldn't get the 'r' sound very well at that stage. 

There'll be many more "rego" pages to come over the years... so at least this one gives me space to improve on! But I love it! 

Overalls!

I was so excited when I created this page in just over ten minutes. We scrap together as a group every Tuesday night and I remember putting this very simple layout together and celebrating how easy, cheap and awesome you can make a page! I just copied his shirt/overalls, added a couple of buckles and it was done.

Don't get me wrong, I also love pages that take a lot of time and effort but because my boys were never into overalls and this is about the only time Drew would wear them, it is a quick snap shot of his nickname, his clothes and his little chubby cute cheeks. And when I think about my purpose for scrapping, so that the boys and I can remember their full story... this will be just as effective way to tell it compared to perfect pages with lots of intricate detail.

Don't you just wanna squeeze those cutesy cheeks!

Gypsy Fun!!

This week I have been playing with a girlfriends Gypsy and I sorted out a little system while planning pages to maximise paper use. Especially for those pages which use similar colours. Elmo, superman and Toy playing pages always tend to have the same bright colours in the photos, so I pumped out the cutting of three layouts in the one sitting!  

When I was planning my pages, I opened up three layers for plans and then about eight layers for seperate colours. On each page, I used a boring font to label what the page was...

eg.

These were two of my plan pages.

Then as I planned an item and liked it, I would think about what colours I need them cut on and while I remembered sizing/shapes, I would duplicate that shape on the right colour layer.

eg. The above drum shape I wanted a mix of red and yellow, so I pasted them in both coloured layers...

I kept going with my planning and pasting until a lot of the 12 x 12 was used up in lots of different colours.

then when I got home I layed out three background colours, grabbed each of the colours I needed and spent only ten minutes loading and cutting! (Remember to take off the page colour label before cutting!)

Three layouts cut and done ready to be glued!  I know the gypsy page appears to look busy, but you can see everything clearly as the layer you are looking at is much bolder and it was such a time saving way of getting the job done!

My i rock page turned out a little different from the plan, but the same things needed cutting!

The bus page will be shown tomorrow... Its cricut mad!  :)

New i rock tool!

Today I brought home my new irock tool ready to get stuck into a page about Dean I had been planning. Just for fun, a scrapping friend and I have swapped all the carts for the Gypsy for the week so I have been playing on her Gypsy last night. More on some cool tips on the Gypsy tomorrow! The irock is quite a cute fun scrapping tool. I especially liked the idea of the silver rocks that look like nails. 

It is quite easy to use... 

With or without fingernails, its a little fiddly placing them... those tweezers of mine were essential!!! Plus quite a few rocks get stuck together in the jar, so the tweezers can help split them apart if you hold them between your fingers.

But, the results are completely worth it. I went overboard on this layout, but because I wrote the words 'I rock' as a title, it will remind me later in life (when there a new and exciting scrapping tools!) what the 'ancient technology' used to be!

My son makes up songs everyday and he sings them at the top of his voice repeating the words over and over, so I had to get that little anecdote down for him!

Only hold the tool on the rock for maximum three seconds and don't push too hard! All the glue will seep out the sides. My friend Amanda did some ringing around today and found not too many shops stock them in WA, so Inspired Crafts is your best bet. 

 Love creating a bright page out of just 5 pieces of scrap bazzill and

one full page plain blue one!

Crikits Gel Pens

I just love this page. When Scrappy-Go-Lucky first released their Cri-Kits Gel Pens which fit in your cricut, they ran a competition to win a Gypsy.  I had to enter... this was my entry. I love what the gel pens can do... Using them with Sure Cuts a Lot program, I did all the writing and the pictures on the paper, before I cut out the letters. This is my best example of a boy page I think... Because every mummy of boys knows you work all day... and then some!!!  This whole page was created only using Bazills. The Gel Pens can help you create fancy paper that is also unique from anything you can buy in a shop.

The grass was cut from Plantin Schoolbook font and the Titles are from the Mickey Mouse Cartridge. 

I came second in the competition and was thrilled to receive a $100 gift voucher... spent on more cartridges of course!  

I love creating a gorgeous page using just the basics! I used a scalloped piece of 12 x 12 and then sponged across the page using different coloured blues from a Sea Scape inkpad I won at a scrap retreat by Scrap Away in WA. Look what a plain white piece of 12 x 12 can turn into!

Of course the Peachy Keen Stamps had to feature (only two more nights!) and I played with a girlfriends Gypsy to make the Paper Doll and the boat!

*Tip* When using a Gypsy and you want to make all the layers fit together when making complex layered shapes like the paper dolls and boats, instead of resizing and layering, just set the height of each selection to the same number and cut pieces by colours.... like you would do with the Cricut. MUCH easier than trying to overlay and judge sizing.

Peachy Keen Heaven!

OOOOOOoooooppppsssss!!!!! I had a girlfriend come from Perth to scrap with me all day Friday and she brought her massive collection of Peachy Keen Stamps.... and SHE FORGOT TO TAKE THEM HOME!!!! YAY!!!!! (They were hidden under my scrapping table jungle of paper!)

I will be seeing her Wednesday so I have this gorgeous set of stamps to try and pump out lots of critters in the next few days before I have to hand them back! I'm on a mission to create!!!!

The page I did last night is awesome! I will share later today once scanned in. But here is one for now!!!  

I used the whale and seahorse from Create a Critter cartridge, gel pen, chalk and ink as per usual (fairly standard with my work) The waves were from Zooballoo and I just used Fit to Page function on the Cricut to help it fit across. Add in some Stickles and it's done!

I am the kind of scrapper who loves making sure the boys will have photos and pages that mean something to them when they are looking through their albums in 20 years time. It will be good for them to see the fun they had together, the imagination they used and be able to play the same kinds of fun games with their own kids.

But also so I can remember the joy they gave me... my brain is so mushy at the moment, I can't remember where I put my keys!!! These kinds of pages will help me retell their story to them.