Jason LO’s – hclappyscraps

The Guys, using Mr. Snowman by Mandy King

I won’t say I’m over winter kits, but they’re obviously hard for me to use, living where I do. So I have become a master at throwing themes out the window, or using them in ways that I’m sure my poor designers never intended. I don’t think they mind to much though 🙂

I loved this woodsy paper and I was determined to find a use for it. I’ve already scrapped our only snow experience together. This paper would have been perfect for yesterday’s page, but I didn’t get the kit until after I’d scrapped that already. So I decided to ignore the fact that the trees are covered in snow, and use it for a different outdoorsy page. And I loooove it!

Inspired by- This page by lori, which uses a similar kind of BG paper.

Journaling reads- Jason and John taking photos on the levy. November 26, 2014

Credits: Mr. Snowman collection by Mandy King

Library of Memories album- I think I’ll make two copies and put on in the Louisiana book, and the other in Jason’s album. That’s where I put a similar page that I did a couple of years ago of the two of them taking pics together.

*I am a Creative Team Member. This means that I receive free products in exchange for making and advertising layouts for designers. However, the opinions expressed here are my own. The enthusiasm expressed here is definitely my own. See more of my CT layouts here.

New release day at GingerScraps!

I’m super excited to share that I’ll now be a permanent member of the GingerScraps CT! I guested for them back in November and had a really great time playing with all kinds of goodies! This will mean that Fridays on the blog I’ll have a New Release post with any pages I’ve made.

So here goes!

The first two LO’s are from our Louisiana trip. I’m really concentrating on those photos and stories this month, and I love the focus it’s giving me. I did the same thing last year with our first trip to California, and I made lots of pages. I plan on continuing this idea of a “monthly concentration” throughout 2015.

This page is a reminder to myself to take care of myself when we travel. I get motion sickness on planes, boats, and long mountain drives. And now I guess we can add very long bumpy bridges to the list too.

Inspired by- The red and blue of the kit reminded me of the red coke bottle and the blue of the sky as we crossed the bridge. I had to edit the photos pretty heavily to better match the kit, but I like them.

Journaling reads- Note to self- always, always take Dramamine when going over the Lake Ponchatrain Bridge into New Orleans. Those bumps are harsh!

Credits:
Let’s Party kit (Monthly Mix)
Make It Two templates by Dagi

LOM album- Places: Louisiana

The second LO is the first of what I’m sure will be many pages about St. Louis Cathedral. It’s one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen.

Inspired by- The blues and purples in the kit. I’d originally wanted to scrap different photos, but they weren’t working out. The blue hombre paper reminded me of the sky (everything reminds me of the sky apparently) so I used these instead. Another heavily edited set of photos, but I felt like playing with filters that day, so I went with it.

Credits:
Winter Wonderland collab from the Gingerbread Ladies
Make It Two by Dagi’s Temp-tations

LOM album- Places: Louisiana

And lastly I have a page about a video game Jason has been obsessed with lately. I just couldn’t pass up that fabulous journaling card! I’m sure I’ll be making plenty more pages with this kit.

I’ll be continuing with the Project 52 that I started towards the end of last year, and this is my page for Week One. I’ll talk more about my version of P52 next week.

Inspired by- That awesome journaling card! We call ourselves the Awesome Family, so it totally feeds into our collective narcism.

Journaling reads- Jason and C finally got to play Vain Glory together this weekend. They’ve been wanting to for a long time. Yay for Skype and games with co-op!

Credits: Digital Besties collab by JB Studio

LOM album- All About Jason

Project 52: Week 37

This week I made a page for our afternoon in Boca. I actually made three total pages for that day so far, so I’ll put them all in this post.

First up is the one I made for the P52 challenge. I cannot get enough of LO’s with full page photos!

Journaling reads- The beach at Boca. It had been raining off and on all day so we didn’t stay very long. We walked along the pier and watched some people skimming. I’d never seen that before, It was pretty neat. There weren’t many people braving the drizzles. We walked along the pier and talked. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve taken many pictures so I think we were a bit out of practice. It was great to get out into the world and smell the ocean. I’m so glad we got out and explored. It had been awhile. We really needed that. September 13, 2014

(And now I realize that by “awhile”, I really meant “two weeks” since we’d been to a beach. But it felt like much longer).

Credits: Nature’s Delight and A Simple Love by Simple Girl Scraps

The next page is a re-do of a LO I made with the Project Life app. I like this version much better. They’ll go next to each other in my Coral Springs area album. I used the Midnight PL kit inside the app.

And finally, I had to make a page for the Tesla. I did this one for the template challenge at GS. (Also, I asked Jason if the Valentine hearts and flowers made him feel emasculated in his LO and he was fine with it 😛 )

Credits: Project 2012 February by Connie Prince

That’s kind of a lot of pages for one day, but I was just so happy to have my scrapping mojo coming back that I went a little nuts. It’s all good though 🙂

*Project 52 is my attempt to do one page every week about a “current event”. These LO’s will tell longer stories about an event or theme, and be placed in my Library of Memories system. They are separate from my Project Life pages, which are more of an overview of our week. Here are more of my P52 pages.

Places- His Commute

Now that the busy half of our year is finished (we think), I want to catch up on some of the classes I’ve been hoarding so far this year. Because I love them, and it helps me justify buying more classes right?

One of the year-long classes I’m taking is Stacey Julian’s Inspired Scrapbooking class. It’s like a slimmed down version of the Twelve class I took back in 2012. Twelve totally revolutionized the way I scrapbook and I’ve been using Stacey’s way of gathering inspiration for stories ever since, but I haven’t actually done any of the assignments for Inspired Scrapbooking yet.

As I was listening to July’s video message from Stacey earlier this month, I opened up a file in Evernote and started writing. I came up with ideas for six pages and one blog post that I wanted to do for the Places topic. I hope to share those throughout the rest of July.

Here’s my first page inspired by a Place. It doesn’t fit in exactly with the class prompts, but I’m totally ok with that. It describes Jason’s commute, and how glad I am that it’s finally over.

Journaling reads- When Jason changed jobs, his commute went from 10-15 minutes to well over an hour. The trip from West Palm to Coral Springs was rough, and he made it two years. Sometimes that would mean he’d be out of the house for over 12 hours a day, between working overtime + the commute. I hated that he had to drive so much on the highway. I would worry So Much every morning until he would text me from work, and every evening until he would arrive safely home. I’m so glad that commute is a thing of the past!

Credits: Are We There Yet collab by Just Jaimee and Mommyish

Five Pages | NSD Part 2

Last week I shared five pages from NSD. Here are the other five LO’s I did that day.

Last week I shared my first five pages for NSD on May 3rd. Here are pages 6-10.

This page was way out of my comfort zone. design wise. I love how some people can strategically place bits of paper and tags and small embellishments across the page and make it look natural. I have a hard time doing that. I need clusters or grids. Or maybe even a template, though I’m using those less and less these days.

I was inspired by Heidi Swapp to write five special things about someone, so I did this page about the Little Man. And yes, helpful is spelled wrong. But when Jason pointed it out to me I decided I liked it that way, full of help- like full of win. I am the boss of my scrapbooks and I always put a “wrong” thing in nearly every page. I might have mentioned before, but it does double duty by helping me let go of perfectionism and by being a fun game for future generations. I can see them gathering around a table playing “Spot the eff ups in Crazy Aunt Jen’s scrapbooks”.

Journaling reads-5 awesome things we love about you. You are funny, helpful, polite, smart, artistic.

Credits: February 2014 Storyteller by Just Jaimee

This one was inspired by the shapes in Jennifer Wilson‘s page. I’ve been pinning hexagons forever so I took the plunge and finally made a LO. I’ve wanted to make a page about our favorite tech for years. I took most of these pictures just to make a page one day and found them pretty easily using the “tech” keyword in Aperture.

Journaling reads- My iPod, the little camera, the Logitech remote, our MacBook Pro’s and iPads, and Jason’s iMac were some of our favorite and longest lasting tech gadgets. They have all provided us ith years of entertainment.

Credits: April 2014 Storyteller kit
January 2014 Storyteller alpha by Just Jaimee

This is one of my very favorite pages I’ve ever made. Inspired by Katrina Kennedy. I loved her page so much I straight up copied the whole thing. This was also one of the more difficult pages because of the journaling. Not finding words, but omitting capitalization and punctuation. OMG so hard! It makes it somewhat difficult to read, but I actually like that because some of it is pretty personal. You have to work to read it.

Journaling reads- thirty nine years old and loves being near the water wishes he had more time for video games and comic books binge watches HGTV eats the same thing at every restaurant wants a boat and a motorcycle one day is the hardest worker I know shows love freely and openly to those he cares about avoids conflict whenever possible loves Dos Equis and Abita is a champion snuggler plans every detail so he can afford to be spontaneous craves home cooking after trips opens doors for everyone hardly ever cusses except in traffic is incredibly patient drinks sprite and iced tea holds my hand all the time wants five more minutes needs words likes superhero movies is in desperate need of a space to work misses making music starts planning for the summer ten months ahead of time is a great peacemaker makes me laugh so much is owed a dog someday is master at the long-arm selfie loves walks and swimming watches sunsets slows down to let me catch up leads the way has an affinity for sock goblins has the best heart is generous to waiters rarely complains gets mad on my behalf needs a vacation has the best hands wants to introduce us to the joys of camping is good cop is an excellent analogy maker sees the bright side is a realist hates clutter loves me is awesome

Credits: February 2014 Storyteller
April 2014 Storyteller by Just Jaimee

LO number 9, and I was getting super tired! This one was inspired by the great advice from Maggie Holmes. Keep a journal and use it for your journaling on your pages! That’s something I do for at least half my pages. I almost feels like it’s cheating a little because it makes my pages get done so quickly. I use Evernote and Momento to keep track of my thoughts and page ideas. Then just copy, paste, and poof, your page is 25% finished. I did the journaling for this page last month for My Details. The photo is from a random grocery trip. You can tell I was conflicted. Half healthy food and half garbage 😛

Journaling reads- When we got back from New York last year, I knew I had to make some big changes. I felt like garbage the entire trip and it put a damper on what could have been a fabulous week. I felt like garbage because I was eating garbage. I had been for a long time, but my body picked that week to rebel against me. When we got home, I committed to Eating Clean for a week. It was pretty miserable and I was hungry all. the. time. But the thing is, I actually really love a lot of healthy foods. This was around the time I started my love affair with asparagus. The first week didn’t kill me, so I tried another week. I started feeling lighter, and my heartburn was almost completely gone. On week three I started adding back foods I used to eat like beans and fruit. My body was still pretty happy and I was a lot less hungry. I slowly added foods, paying attention to how the affected my body. I learned a lot from this experiment with Clean Eating. Turns out that this life-long dairy lover can live happily without dairy. Now we go months without buying milk. We’ve only recently started buying cheese again. (My family thinks I’m a crazy person for not drinking milk every day) I don’t eat Clean every day, but eating habits have improved a lot in the last year.

Credits: April 2014 Storyteller kit
January 2014 Storyteller alpha by Just Jaimee

Ok last page! This is number ten for NSD, and a LO request from Jason. He wanted three photos of the progression of the gorgeous sunset we watched on 4/26 in Key Largo. He Never requests scrapbook pages so of course I had to make it! I have a feeling this is a preview of photos that will go on our walls at some point.

I think one thing I learned during this NSD is that the simplest pages can make the biggest impact. I love clustered up pages full of ellies, but some photos can stand on their own, like these.

Credits: April 2014 Storyteller by Just Jaimee

I think this post can be in the running for Longest Post Ever. Damn I’m wordy! That day was so much fun. Can’t wait to do it again next year!

Five Pages | Inspired by Freebies

My scrapping budget is pretty tight right now. Moving is expensive! Luckily I’ve rediscovered one of my very favorite sources for freebies- Quality Digiscrap Freebies. I’ve been super inspired to make all kinds of LO’s. I’ve made a ton of LO’s without spending any money.

Sidenote: I absolutely believe in supporting the industry and I do so whenever possible. (Y’all don’t even want to know how much money I spent on scrapping in January). But every family has times when budgets are tight, and this is definitely one of those times for us.

You can find free digiscrap supplies all over the internet. I think most of us did a lot of freebie mining when we first started out. But that tends to taper off as we keep scrapping. Our hard drives are only so big after all. And the quality isn’t always fantastic. It can be pretty overwhelming to sort through everything that’s out there.

That’s why Quality Digiscrap Freebies is so great. You get a lovely curated list of fabulous freebies. You won’t love all of them, but with at least three new freebies showcased every day, you’re sure to find some great kits and templates to suit your style.

Here are a few of the pages I’ve made using supplies I found on QDSF. Everything on these pages, with the exception of the Becky Higgins template, was a freebie. Most are still available, but some freebies have an expiration date.

The first page is from last year’s trip to the Morikami. Jason’s beer came with the cutest beer cozy ever, a tiny kimono! So being the super sophisticated people that we are, we proceeded to set up little photo shoots with “Kirin in Kimono” all over the park. Hilarity ensued.

Journaling reads- The Adventures of Kirin in Kimono. We met Kirin in Kimono at the Morikami. We had many adventures together exploring the park. We walked in the woods, checked out the koi pond, listened to the Tico drums, and made new friends. We even found Mi-Chan in the scavenger hunt! A fun, relaxing day was had by all. Looking forward to hanging out with Kirin in Kimono again really soon!

Credits:
Celebrate Life by Studio Basic
February 2014 template by Little Green Frog

The second page highlights a silly text exchange between me and my sister. And yes, I told her if she made faces at me that I’d put them all over the internet. 😛

Journaling reads- J got a new phone and was texting me to tell me all about it. We were both excited for the better camera. Then the conversation took an ugly turn….

Credits:
Well Duh, We’re Sisters journal cards by La Belle Vie Designs
Everyday Life flairs by Megan Turnidge
Template by Becky Higgins

As soon as I saw this cowboy themed kit, I knew which photo I needed to scrap. Despite having grown up in Nashville, we are strictly city people. I have never in my life owned a cowboy hat, unless you count my sparkly green St. Patty’s Day hat. But my uncle Mikey actually did once own a cowboy hat, that he used to like to terrorize me with. (See how my mom gave me ice to chew on? That was to keep the screaming at bay). I hated that hat. Well I guess we all have our childhood traumas… which in some cases lead to anthropomorphizing alcoholic beverages (see above).

Journaling reads- This horse on wheels was one of my very favorite toys when I was very small. I used to love it when my mom would take me to Shelby Park to ride around and feed the ducks.

Credits:
Country Strong by Jenn Barrett
Everyday Stroll template by Zollio

So this next page is pure silliness (like the previous ones weren’t). Yes I like scrapping squirrels And no, I can’t spell squirrel to save my life. I mess it up Every Time. But whatevs.

Journaling reads- Jason is the “sqirrel whisperer”. We were walking around the park and this guy came right up to him. He was probably looking for food, but we’ll say Jason has magical squirrel attracting abilities.

Credits:
Go Take A Hike kit by Jadyday
FB freebie template by AK designs

For my last LO, I did a family portrait page. I would like to do more of those this year. I’m usually a “story first” or “products first” scrapper. But I have so many photos that are nice, but don’t necessarily have a deeper story. Most of them are photos of our extended families, especially Jason’s. Which leads to almost no photos in our “family” scrapbooks. So I’m going to add “scrap more family photos” to my ever-growing list of pages to make.

This one shows a picture of Dad and Jeannie, me, Jay, and my mom taken after Jon’s memorial service. I’m sure the church ladies thought it was incredibly tacky for us all to sneak down to the basement and start snapping pics. (and they’re totally right). But I almost never have my whole immediate family in a room together, so I wanted to take advantage of that. Better than doing selfies with the urn right? Though he might have thought that was funny… I hereby give permission to anyone who wants to take selfies with my urn. Just don’t knock me over trying to get that great long arm shot 😛

Credits:
Addiction add-on by Fanette and Mel designs
Fuss Free Freebie template by Fiddle Dee Dee

Okay this is an almost 1000 word post, so I’m going to stop here. Thanks for looking, and be sure to check out Quality DigiScrap Freebies!

Love Me by Ohana Designs and Romantic Scrapbooking class!

Michelle has some lovely paper packs for this month’s Grab A Byte at Scrapbook Bytes.

For my first LO, I made a page about Jason using words from this post I wrote last year. I love it when half the work for the LO has been done for me already 🙂 Well more than half, because I lifted this beautifully simple page by Melanie Louette. Love those sweet vellum hearts! I got the look in digital form by using a Vellum Style by Mommyish.

Journaling reads- You are the best. Best friend. Best listener. Best encourager. Best analogy maker. Best IT guy. Best sunset photographer. Best pancake maker. Best driver. Best planner. Best hugger. Best keeper of my heart. Just the best.

My second LO was inspired by the Romantic Scrapbooking class taught by Noell Hyman. (That was Jen’s birthday present to Jen). I’ve only watched the first couple of videos, but I have several ideas for pages I want to scrap. My “Jason and Jen” scrapbook has the most pages of any of my others, but there are still a few holes in our story that I’d like to fill. And I think this class will help with that.

I did a “How We Met” page a few years ago, but it was kind of an overview. I’d like to do a few pages giving more of the details. One of the suggestions in the class was to do a page about your first impressions of each other, or those first early feelings. So I did a little journaling about what it was like after our first big, day long conversation.

Journaling reads-

Jason and I “met” each other in Second Life, but it wasn’t until we started IM’ing in Yahoo that we really started talking. That first day we talked about all kinds of things. I wish I could remember them all. But what I do remember is that we talked all day long that first day. And that he made me laugh so much. The biggest thing that I remember that day, after hours of talking, walking into my kitchen to start dinner. I thought to myself, “We will be great friends”.

And we are.