Scrapbooking! Yikes!

Yes, I do scrapbook from time to time. Amazing, I know!

This month, I'm the guest designer at Cocoa Daisy. Lucky me, I know! The kit is so super cute. Lots of happy colors and happy patterns. Very pink, but hey, I created three layouts about my family, one about the beach, and even a card!

When I first saw this Pink Paislee paper, I immediately thought of how my kids will swim in the coldest water. They don't care. At first, I was just going with rectangular photos, but then it occurred to me that circles would be so much better.  I dug around the boxes (yes, the house is still in boxes) and found every possible punch under the sun, except the circles. So I called my scrapbooking store friend Stacy, ran over to her house at 9PM, and got her punches. Can I say how much I love living near her? Not because I can bum off her supplies, but because she is the nicest person, who is not only supportive but also funny as heck!

A little sewing, ridiculous quotes from my children, punched out photos, and the whole layout came together pretty quickly.

My kit came with a banner that was numbered to 10. So I had to make a page about the middlest. Who is 10, and who is super talkative, but also shy. Girls loooove him. In first grade, other moms would tell me that their daughters were coming home and saying, "I'm going to marry him when I grow up." I was in between flattered and worried, and wanting those moms to keep their girls away from my baby!

Then this little ode to the good part of living in LA. Sorry for the crazy red. It's a bit more toned down in real life. I just can't seem to get it right, photo-wise.

I've been meaning to create this layout about places we ate frequently back in Philly. In the last month we were there, the kids and I made a point to take photos everytime we went out to eat. Which was a lot. I didn't get all of them in here, and I hope to eventually create a mini-album to celebrate those places and their yummy foods. A little slice of our old life.

And a card! I made a card. My dear friend Kim created this cute ampersand stamp. Everyone loves ampersands. Looking around the kit, I noticed that there were several more. So I gathered them here, added a stitched one, and it's a card, yo.

This was seriously fun. Thank you Ronda for asking me. I had forgotten how much I missed working with a kit.

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Happy Reasons, List One

I have more than four reasons why I'm happy I moved to Southern California. But for today, I'm focusing on these.

BEACH! Need I say more?

Japanese bookstore with a washi tape aisle.

Fresh squeezed orange juice from my own orange tree. And a husband who will squeeze it for me. Although I did bring that husband along. (Don't mind ugly 70s kitchen. It's a rental.)

Women who welcomed me with open arms even though we had just met a few weeks before. (In you case you are wondering, they are Stacy, Suzy, and Lisa.)

I'll be posting more lists of random Happy Reasons. It's better than sad reasons list for leaving Philly, right?

Happy Monday!

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Creative Spaces Winner!

Lorie Ann said...

I love to see how others have set up their creative spaces. I also like to see what products they have. It's a good way to see what I'd like as well =)

Congratulations Lorie Ann! Please email me at milesofpaper [at] gmail [dot] com with your mailing address!

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Creative Spaces Giveaway

ETA: Blogger was down for about a day and a half, and it lost some of the comments. Sorry! They are promising to restore them all, but I don't want anyone to not get a chance to win this special issue. So I'm going to leave the comments open until Sunday night (May 15). I'll be back then to post a winner. Thanks!

Confession time. I'm a peeper. I like to peep into other people's houses, their closets, their makeup bags, and most definitely, their scrap spaces! No wonder my favorite blogs are The Selby, Apartment Therapy, and Into The Gloss. (But don't worry, I won't sneak a peek of your medicine cabinet while I'm visiting. I'm not that bad!)

So, yes, I jumped for joy when Megan Hoeppner told me she was editing a special Creating Keepsakes issue about scrap rooms! But honestly, I had no idea what the issue was going to be like until I got my very own copy this past weekend. It's FAB! Page after page of great rooms and great solutions. No, not every room is the bespoke, out of reach for most of us, kind of rooms. Most spaces are the kind we all have. A room in the house, a corner of the dining room, a teeny closet. I love seeing how others store their stuff. Because let's be honest, we, scrapbookers, have a LOT of stuff.

This issue of Creative Spaces will be up for sale tomorrow, and I have a discount code for you: SPACESBB It’s good for free shipping in the US, expires 5/27/11. You can order it here.

Take a peek inside this issue by clicking here.

Come on, fess up! You are as much of a peeper as I am! So you'll need this issue.

That's a peek of my  room, and I share how to  make the framed typographic art.

Leave me a comment by Thursday, May 12, (9PDT) and I'll randomly pick a winner! I'll post the winner on Friday morning, so please check back!

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National Scrapbook Day (Week)

Yo! Creating Keepsakes and Club CK are celebrating National Scrapbook Day all of this week with challenges and prizes. See what's going on here.

My challenge was up on Monday and it is to use cell phone photos on a layout. Most of us take them. But I'm not sure everyone uses them. I love to use mine. My kids won't pose for my regular camera, but they are perfectly willing to pose for the cell phone. Something about it that feels more spontaneous. And that also means that a lot of the photos are goofy, which is fine by me! Plus I also have the phone with me all the time.

As seen in the May/June 2011 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. Copyright Creative Crafts Group. Posted with prior permission from the publisher.

This layout is one of the ones I posted with the challenge. The photo is from my Onion Ring photoshoot (ha!) It was originally in this month's Creating Keepsakes article about using photos that are not perfect. The original photo was too red. I went along with that, and created a little Warhol-esque collage in Photoshop for my layout. A few other things that I really liked about this layout: all the patterned papers in it are actually upcycled product packaging. The red flowery pattern is from a Cosmo Cricket collection pack, and I punched the butterflies out of the top sheet that has all the patterns printed in little squares. And the grid paper is the backing cardstock of a Studio Calico stamp. I really like reusing products packaging. Trying to be mindful of the three Rs. (You can click on the layout to see it bigger. Also, if you'd like to know, the number and tag stamps are Studio Calico, and the grid stamp is Hero Arts.)

Oh, I'm also hanging out at Big Picture Classes on Saturday, May 7th. You can sign up here. It's free! Hope to see you there.

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And a few weeks later...

Sorry! I meant to come back to post some photos, but I got distracted. With good food, finding my way around, getting stuck in crazy traffic, and people watching. Let's not forget meeting up with Stacy and Lisa for lunch. And the beach. I hope you'll forgive me.

Our stuff is finally coming this week, so woohoo for being able to sleep in my own bed and no longer camping out in the house. I'll be happily unpacking. And thank you all for the lovely encouraging words!

First thing to do in LA? Eat at In-N-Out.

Or find a good boba restaurant.

Maybe even hunt down a Beard Papa for creme puffs.

Uh, yeah, I had one too. Just one though. I was good.

Then, we started our weekly search for the best dim sum in LA (this was 888 Seafood Restaurant, the search continues.) Yes, there they are again, my well-trained Chinese kids who can use chopsticks. Never mind they are crossing their chopsticks. Bad form!

A dim sum bill. Each of those stamps is a dish, it all gets added up in the end.

For Easter dinner,  we found a nice banh mi joint. (Banh Mi = Vietnamese sandwiches, the most amazing sammies, ever!)

And because that was not enough food for us, we went to a Chinese candy store. Amazing for kids and slightly older people too.

Yes, we did something other than eat! Really. We went to Venice beach.

And my kids, who will brave any water temps because they love water. But they can't swim that well. Go figure.

This photo is for Kim. I found a spot to take closer photos of the Hollywood sign. So next time you are visiting, that's where we'll go!

Before I go direct the movers, Creating Keepsakes is celebrating National Scrapbooking Day for the entire week with some great giveaways. I have a little challenge there today, and the giveaway is a full year's subscription to CK mag. Get more info here.

Also, at the Lily Bee blog, we are doing a full week of Mother's Day celebration. Because really, as a mom, I think we deserve it! Which reminds me I should also direct the purchasing of a Mother's Day present. For me!

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