Dining Table Scrapper

We've moved!

2012-02-17T14:11:00.000-08:00

I've moved the blog to my domain: smorelabs.com

Please continue to visit and comment. Thank you!

Dining Table Scrapper

2012-02-06T00:57:00.000-08:00

I just realized I never explained why I named my blog "Dining Table Scrapper" (dining table scrapbooker is a mouthful, hence scrapper). I envy those I meet on scrapbook forums. Many of them have craft rooms with crisp white Ikea, Target or Crate&Barrel bookshelves, lined with hundreds of paper, stamps, die cuts, and tons of cute little glass jars full of embellishments.

I don't have the luxury. I have a desk with my computer in the den, which also triples as the family library, and the piano room. There's an Ikea Expedit bookshelf and I have 1 cube of it designated for my scrap stuff storage. Maybe 1.5, since my Becky Higgins Project Life binder is sitting in another cube.

Needless to say, most of my stuff is on the floor. But since I also have a curious toddler, I can't leave my stuff out. Worst of all, I don't have any room on my desk to scrapbook, so every night I lay out everything on the dining table, and put them away before I go to bed.

The situation is not ideal, but I manage. The advantage of having no room is I don't buy a lot, which makes putting together a layout that much faster. I don't stamp, and only use a xacto knife and scissors to cut shapes, instead of a die-cut machine. To show what my dining room and the den look like in the middle of the workflow-

Dining table in action

1.5 cubes for my scrapbook stuff. Good ting they don't stand out too much.


3 small containers to house embellishments

I walk back and forth between the desk to the dining table, and this is about the distance. Not too far but a good mild workout considering I walk between them at least 50 times a night.

Believe it or not, I always clean off the dining table and put all the boxes away. Having a toddler in the house forces good habits. I vow to have a craft room when I retire and move to a ranch; but for now, I am just a dining table scrapbooker.

Love Tissue Papers

2012-02-06T00:28:00.000-08:00

This was a quick and easy layout. I didn't even plan ahead, so no sketch for this time. It was easy because I knew what colors and what materials I wanted to use.

I really liked the color scheme in the photos, so I stuck with soft blue, gray and khaki. I just received a pack of tissue paper and of course I had to use some in the layout! I love the texture and the soft feel it provided. I also used vellum to add some interest, but it doesn't show that well in the photo.

Once the materials were decided, I just thew elements around on the paper until I liked the way they fell, and proceeded from there.

I noticed some layouts are less photogenic than others. This layout is one of those. The texture can only be seen in person.

Supplies List:

Blue Cardstock: Recollections, color unknown (they need to add the color name to the label)

Gray cardstock: Cloud 9 Design, Sparkle

Tissue Paper: Canvas Corp

Washi Tapes: cutetapes.com

Sick - We Are Mixed Media Artist

2012-01-25T23:54:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I saw that some scrapbook manufacturers sell 12x12 burlap for ridiculous amount of money.

I immediately went over to Joann's with my 40% coupon. I bought half a yard of burlap for less than 2 bucks. I also found some other fabrics that looked unique and would be pretty versatile on other pages. My fabric choices were strange enough the fabric cutter asked me what I was gonna use them for. "Mixed media" immediately popped into my head and I wanted to say "for art". I always fantasize about being an artist. But I couldn't muster enough courage before "for scrapbooking" rolled off my tongue. The lady was visibly disappointed.

It was an AHA moment for me though. Scrapbooking IS mixed media! We use paper, fabric, metal, twine, tapes, ink, pen, stamp, digital,... You name it, some scrapbooker has used it in her layout. So next time instead of introducing yourself as a scrapbooker, call yourself a mixed media artist.

Back to the layout. I love how the cream burlap looks against the kraft cardstock. All the soft neutral colors complemented the photos so well. I had better luck with stamping this time, with prima's chalk ink. I realized to apply even ink to a stamp, dab ink onto the stamp, don't drag. Last time I pressed the ink onto the stamp and dragged. Although the ink was applied evenly this time, the placement was funky. Hopefully I have enough random elements in this layout that the stamps will fade in the background, which was my intention to begin with.

Here's the sketch:

Here is the layout:

Close shot of the burlap.


The photos are from different dates, but all from December. I covered up the year part of the smash stamp, and hand wrote the apostrophe to turn the day into the year. It worked out nicely. My smash stamp doesn't have year 2010 anyway.

LOVE the rub-on faux thread line.

I didn't realize I had the word "uncomfort" in the journal until everything was glued down. Well, it's a great lesson to teach my son to always proof read. (I did proof read, twice, but oh well.)

Can't use enough washi tapes in my layouts.

Supplies:

Bazzill Kraft Cardstock

Various rub-ons: Fancy Pants Baby Mine collection

Fiskars Sew easy stamp as top border

Washi Tapes: cutetape.com

Big Doily Stamp: cutetape.com

Burlap: Joann's Fabric utility fabric

Celebrate Failure

2012-01-21T00:20:00.000-08:00

An accounting firm I used to work for had monthly meetings called "Celebrate Failures", where teams shared their failure experiences, like lost engagement proposals or lost clients. The partners explained that people don't like to talk about failures, which is a pity because often times you learn more from them than success. Hence we should gather and talk about failures and celebrate that we learned lessons from them. I thought it was a boat load of baloney, among other things like no open toe shoes allowed, no sleeveless tops, or jeans only on Fridays IF you make a $5 donation.

This layout, my son's first Christmas, reminded me of the term though. I spent several nights sketching various maps on paper and adobe InDesign, before narrowing down to 2 layouts, and finally settled on one of them. I cut up the die-cut paper I ordered specifically for a Christmas layout, for its red and green scallop edge, and glued the parts down. 9 photos of various sizes according to my sketch were printed and cut. I picked out the rest of the pattern paper and embellishments, and was going to glue everything down the following night.

The next day I had buyer's remorse. The more I thought of the layout, the uglier that die-cut paper became. I debated with myself a whole day in the office, and even posted a forum thread on two peas in a bucket for opinions. Everyone told me to redo it. I liked their answers, although I thought it was a waste of all my time and a waste of the supplies, ink and paper. I was going to toss everything and reprint all the photos, fortunately I figured out a new configuration with the same photos. Anyway, here's the ugly layout that I later regretted:


the die-cut paper: Crate Paper, snow day collection. It was my first Crate Paper paper so I really didn't want to waste it.

The red/green die cut paper was glued, but good thing the photos weren't.

I tore the diecut paper, rearranged the photos, and here's the final layout, which I'm quite pleased about-

I wasn't going to make a title, since it's obvious what this layout is about. But the empty space
seemed to call for something, so I used the minimalist style title.

It was my first stamping attempt. Yup I didn't practice first, and this is what happened. Oh well.

Much better, I think, at least at the moment.

I'm so glad I redid it before I glued everything down. Now I know, when in doubt, redo it, the earlier the better. Layouts are to stay with us for years to come, and material costs are just a few bucks.

Supplies:

White Cardstock - Bazzill Avalanche

Washi tape & rubber stamp - cutetape.com

Snow flake stickers - Jolee's

Various brads - My Mind's Eye Lost and Found Two
Paper for most punched circles - DCWV Citrus Stack

B.Y.O.D.

2012-01-19T12:15:00.000-08:00

I'm in the process of doing my son's first year scrapbook. For some reason that most scrapbookers understand but can't explicitly describe, I unconsciously restrict myself to working on first-year layouts only. It's hard to start working on other projects when I set my mind on a project. So I ignore all photos taken past his first birthday and plan to get to them later.

But on new year's eve, my son cracked us up by dragging this heavy and large diaper bag everywhere with him, all day long. As I snapped photos, a perfect tagline formed in my head, BYOD, Bring Your Own Diapers! I knew at that moment I needed to get this layout done, even though it's outside of the first year timeline. It's such a liberating thought. YES, I can do layouts that don't belong to his first year. Just stick it into a separate album, silly!

After I was happy with the photos size and arrangement in InDesign, I switched to photoshop to finish the sketch. That's unusual for me as I rarely use Photoshop to sketch. I felt the need because the background paper I'd chosen had a big owl design in the corner, and I wanted to consider it in the design. I tried to draw the owl in InDesign but failed miserably. Anyhow, This is what it looked like in photoshop:

The owl is just the impression of it, which
is more than enough for sketching purposes.

Very close to the sketch. The title was printed and fuzzy cut.

I made the toothpick flags. They're popular right now but they're so easy to make I don't feel like spending money
on them. It took me no more than a couple of minutes to finish these two.

Supplies:

Cardstock: DCWV Green Stack

Small Alpha: Lillybee Design

Date Label: My Mind's Eye Lost and Found Two

Washi Tapes: cutetape.com

Inspirational Quote

2012-01-18T16:31:00.000-08:00

I'm taking Ali Edwards "Storyology" class right now, and this is the quote she had in her handouts and the video. I thought it's so inspiring for us crafters, writers, or pretty much anyone.

Halloween Layout

2012-01-18T00:05:00.000-08:00

This is a layout I did for my son's first year album, Halloween 2010. He was such a little thing -- cute, obedient, easy going, and didn't know what's going on. He's now one and half years old, but has entered into the terrible two stage since his first birthday. I suppose "terrible two" starts at 1 year + 1 day? Not at the 2 year mark? I know I know, I shouldn't complain because a year from now I'll say the same thing about right now. I know he's still a cute little thing, and he'll only get naughtier as he gets bigger. I love him to death no matter what!

I thought I'd share my design or thought process here, something I long to see on other well-known scrappers' blogs but seldom find. The first photo is my sketch in Adobe InDesign. I like doing my sketch digitally. This way I can print out the photos directly, to the exact size as I sketched. I duplicate-drag (alt+drag on Mac) the photos to a 8 x 10 page and print on a 8x10 photo paper. I can usually fit all my photos in a 8x10 paper. If not, I combine photos from other layouts or just save the leftover for next time.

Sketch in Adobe inDesign

Here's the result, pretty close as planned:

Pretty happy with the little round table I made in photoshop, glued with a 3D foam pop for dimension

The gift tag was done in photoshop as well,and printed on the Bazzill Kraft
cardstock. Hand cut, punched, and threaded.

Since this is my first layout entry, I'd love to know what you think about it? Do you like how I shared the process? Too much or too little info? What would you like to see? I am not the most artistic or creative person, but I'm good in technology and organizing my workflow so I can achieve more in a short period of time. I hope I have something to contribute to the "memory keeping" community.

Supplies:

Cardstock - DCWV Citrus Stack

Photo Mats: My Minds Eye Lost and Found Two &

Bazzill Kraft Cardstock

Gift tag: printed and hand cut with Bazzill Kraft

Rosettes: American Craft Chap Collection

Washi Tapes: cutetape.com