Exciting News!

Hello everyone!

I have some super-exciting news!  I've been asked to join the design team for the Practical Scrappers.  I am so beyond excited. Christine is the wonderful person who keeps it all organized and working smoothly, and she's an amazing papercrafter!  Check out her blog if you haven't already and give her some love.  I was introduced to Christine and the team by my friend Krissy (who I was introduced to by my friend Heather!).  Check out both of their blogs too, because they're both FABULOUS!

I don't have a project to share with you today, but my first project with the Practical Scrappers team is participating in a blog hop that starts Feb. 14th.  The theme is "Use Your Stash" and "Love".  How awesome that I get to dig into my HUGE stash of paper (have I mentioned I'm a hoarder?) and create something around "love".  I think you'll like it!  PLUS, I'll have my first giveaway during the blog hop.  

I'll be signing up for more projects with them soon, so check back and check them out.

Until then, chocolate hugs!

Majken Pullin

Bon Voyage! A Scrappy Time Warp...

You know that time in 1999 when I became a "DOTS" (now Close to my Heart) consultant so I could earn money for my wedding?  Yeah....I did earn money, but I spent my fair share, too (on crafty goodies, of course!).  I couldn't get enough of the stamps, papers, inks, and accessories.  I kept up with my pre-wedding pages somewhat, but then...IDon'tKnowHowButItGotGroupedInAStorageBoxForLater.  It was like the crazy aunt you don't want to acknowledge.  Oh sure, you know it's there, but you repress the thought because: new house.  Baby girl.  Life.

Fast forward to October 2007 where Heather Leopard and a couple other of my friends go to a scrapbooking retreat.  I bring almost nothing except for wedding stuff to *finally* scrapbook!  I get quite a bit done, actually, and am very proud of myself.  Then.....well, you know -- TheWeddingBoxWentBackToItsHideyHole.  

Now it's 2010 on this scrappy time-warp.  Heather and our friends decide to make our own retreat at a local Residence Inn, and we split the cost and food.  I grab my Wedding Box (and a few other projects) and voila....I get a little more done. But...BackToTheHideyHoleItWent.

Fast forward yet again to January 2014, where it's finally Scrapbooking Season.  Heather and I along with Krissy go to a bittersweet Archiver's crop (our last....still so sad....not over it at all....WAAAAH!).  I decide the easiest way to pack is to have specific projects in mind. So out came the Wedding Box O' Stuff.  And as I looked through it I realized I have successfully captured the pre-wedding (showers, bachelorett party, bridal portrait, etc.), the wedding AND the reception.  Success.  Progress.  Memories saved, ready to cherish.  But then my eye catches a Barnes & Noble bag.  I open it.  My eyes gleam.  Because it is....the honeymoon.  With notes. Sidenote:  my husband actually teased me about taking notes on what we did each day of our honeymoon, but wow, I'm so grateful I did!  I never once thought I'd be scrapbooking my honeymoon almost 14 years after the fact, but guess what?  I'm really glad so much time has passed because scrapbooking has come a very long way, my friends.  A looong way. 

So.

My husband and I went on a cruise for our honeymoon.  Wanna see my Bon Voyage layout?  Okay then, check it!

I had so much fun creating this layout.  I used Fancy Pants Designs' Happy Go Lucky collection because the colors were sooo happy, and they called my name.  I wanted to pick up that light blue color and happened to also have two sheets of an older Fancy Pants collection, The Daily Grind.  I loved the hexagons and decide to use most of the hexagon paper on the right page.  But I wanted to carry the shape over, so I cut out a large hexagon with my Cameo, traced it onto the left hand page, and then sewed the hexagon onto the right hand side of my left page.  You can see the top of it here.  

Don't we look cute holding our beers and giggling during muster training?

I love the striped paper too, so I used that in the top border of my left page as well as the banner on my right page.

I mat the photos on the left page with CTMH Colonial White cardstock and the photos on the right in red Fancy Pants cardstock.  To add dimension, I distress the light blue cardstock on the right page and sew along the top and bottom.  Under photos on both sides, I layer CTMH Cocoa cardstock, the ticket patterned paper, and some chevron vellum by Studio Calico.

I use a tag from the Happy Go Lucky collection to journal on, and for my title I decide to cut out "Bon Voyage" on my cameo, except for the "O".  Instead, I fussy cut the hexagons to use as my "O".

After I adhere the title, I sew over the "BON", and then add the Maya Road "love" clip over the center of the "O".  Finishing touches are the arrow stamp and the "Epic" stamp.

I have more honeymoon to show you, but for now, our scrappy time warp comes to an end.  I hope you enjoyed the layout.

Chocolate scrappiness,

Majken Pullin

Inspired Scrapbooking - "Seasons" - Scrapbooking Season

Hello everyone!  I can't believe January is almost over!  Time flies when you are in the midst of "scrapbooking season".  I'm sure you are wondering what that is, so let me tell you.  But first I'll back up a bit.

Toward the end of last year, I decided to take a class with Stacy Julian at Big Picture Classes called Inspired Scrapbooking.  I felt it would be just the pace to encourage me to be crafty since it's one layout a month, and I'm purposely going out of my 2-page layout comfort zone -- I'm going to stick with one-page layouts for the class.  Well, this first month's topic is "Seasons" and we can interpret that any way we wanted to.  Which brings me back to scrapbooking season. My husband has been a deer-hunter since he was a boy, and he's had a lease for many years.  Which leaves me with the kids for almost every weekend between Nov. and the first weekend in January alone with the kids.  I do enjoy my time with them, but I always joke that January and February are scrapbook season because I itch to get back to craftiness!

I was so inspired by the Scrapbook Circle sketch for January, that I did a layout last week about my Cutie Pie, and I opted to use it again on this layout.

I used the January kit from Scrapbook Circle "This Life".  Isn't this fun?  I have always loved hearts, so this worked well for the love of my hobby. I didn't have many photos of me scrapbooking, so I asked a friend to take a few snapshots during our 2-day Scrap Mania a couple of weeks ago.  I started by choosing my papers and how I wanted to lay them out on a piece of CTMH Colonial White cardstock.  I distressed the brown heart paper rectangle and inked the edges of the green and pink papers as well as my photos.  

I cut the title and large heart out using my Cameo, and I did a little sewing along the edges and over part of the title.  I finished the page off by fussy-cutting the "I love to make" tag, and I  adhered wood die cut hearts, Basic Grey pink and red candy buttons, and fussy-cut hearts from paper in the kit to the top left and bottom right.  I punched a few pieces of paper confetti to mix in, and I topped the right photo with the Maya Road heart paper clip.

I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you have a scrapbook season, too...with chocolate, of course!

TTFN,
Majken

Cutie Pie Layout

Hello and happy Monday everyone!

I was one of the lucky ones who had today off for MLK, so I decided to take Friday off to make a 4-day weekend.  Can you guess what I did??  If you guessed "scrapped", you'd be correct! A couple of friends and I booked some time at Archiver's (probably our last crop there....so SAD about my favorite store closing).  We cropped all day Friday, left our stuff overnight and went back for a full day on Saturday.  I got three 2-page layouts done (well the 3rd layout was close to done, and I finished it today).  I'm going to show you this 3rd one first...and it's a cute one because it showcases my daughter when she was about 18 months old.  

 I had a ton of fun with this layout!  The chair in the photos matched the BasicGrey RSVP line perfectly!  And I ADORE purple. I then decided to use a sketch to help get my creative juices flowing.  I chose this Scrapbook Circle sketch.  

The sketch is for a single page, so the 2nd page is from my imagination.  I started with the bokeh/confetti paper because that was my favorite in the pack, and I used it as my base for the photos.  I layered a few of the other coordinating papers to place behind the photos and horizontal strip to make sure I liked the combination, and I misted both sides with CTMH Juniper re-inker.  Here is the left page by itself.

After layering my various pieces, I distressed the edges of the pink striped paper, matted the orange-red polka dot paper and the photos with "Velvet" Bazzill cardstock, and then sewed around the horizontal bokeh/confetti papers in the center of the layouts.

I cut the "Cutie" with my Cameo, and used the alpha sticker sheet to spell "Pie" to complete my title.

I decided to add sequins and gems to complement the misting, and I also added a banner in the top left corner.  I punched out the banner pieces from various papers in the pack, and I used some baker's twine to be the base for the banner pieces.

For the small banner/embellishment cluster underneath the photos, I used two banner pieces and a few stickers from the collection.  I finished it off with some baker's twine, a gem, and a sequin.  

For the coordinating page, I continued the bokeh/confetti paper in the center (with the sewing) and layered similar papers to coordinate with the left side.  I used a large circle cutter and cut a circle to layer behind as well.  An additional banner, sequins, gems, and vellum stickers rounded out the layout.

I really hope you enjoyed my layout!  If it inspires you, I'd love you to share it.  

Enjoy, and may your day include chocolate and scrappiness!

Majken

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

I decided to start the new year with a New Year's layout.  And as luck would have it, there was a sketch that I found on the My Scraps & More Sketches.

Isn't that a great sketch?  Here's my interpretation of it.

I stayed pretty true to the sketch, but I moved the main part down and to the right a bit because I wanted to incorporate some mixed media in the top left corner.  Isn't that a fun one?  See a list of materials below.  

How would you interpret this sketch?

Here's to a wonderful 2014 for everyone!  

Cheers and chocolate,

Majken

Materials used:

• Bo Bunny Woodland Winter paper
• CTMH Pacifica and Whisper Ink
• CTMH Glitter paper
• D1572 - My Life stamp set
• C1561 - One-Way Borders stamp set
• Tim Holtz Weathered Wood Distressed Ink
• Heidi Swapp Bronzer Color Shine

Paxton's 5th Birthday

Hello, hello, and ho ho ho!  We're getting close to the holidays, and I am very happy about that!  I'll be posting some Christmas items soon, but before I do, I wanted to share my layout highlighting Paxton's 5th birthday.  Not sure when he grew up so much!!

Tradition in our family dictates the person with the birthday chooses the birthday restaurant.  In Paxton's case, he saw a coupon come in from Rainforest Cafe, and from that day on, he KNEW that's where we were going.

We enjoyed lunch, and we had the big volcano dessert!  I don't think we finished it...it was HUGE.  We took some photos with the animals and of Paxton wearing his froggy eye hat.  To bring out the green in the photos, I decided to use Basic Grey's Bow Ties paper collection.  The Freeze Tag plaid pattern and Four Square black banner papers worked well.  I started with two sheets of CTMH Colonial White cardstock and after deciding where my photos were going to go, I used the Hazel & Ruby stencil-mask Broadside alpha to spell out "Happy" and the "TH" by the 5 (I cut my 5 with the CTMH Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge) in the top left and bottom right of my layout, respectively.

After the black Glimmer Mist was dry, I cut black cardstock and the Freeze Tag patter at an angle for the top of the left page.  

I layed out the patterned paper strips to see were I wanted them to cross the paper, trimmed them, and adhered them, adding little bits and strips to various places.

Next I used the gold side of the Four Square paper to mat two photos.  I adhered everything down and started to embellish - the fun part, don't you agree?!  I used:

- Heidi Swapp clear-pop tags
- Freckled Fawn Black Arrow paper clips
- CTMH Black buttons, Twilight ribbon, gems, brads, and Color-ready canvas alphas
- Studio Calico Classic Calico 3 Kraft Die-cut Frames
- Miscellaneous stamps
- Maya Road chipboard banners (covered with Basic Grey paper)

After everything was complete, I looked at the layout and decided that the "5" should be added back popped up, so I spritzed it with additional contrasting Juniper reinker mixed with water and used pop dots to adhere it. It's hard to see the green mist in the photo, but it looks really cool popped up!

I hope you enjoyed my layout, and I'd love for you to share it!  Have a wonderful, chocolate-filled holiday!!

Majken

Flag Football Star

Happy fall everyone!  Today I wanted to share a layout of my son.  He just started his first team sport with i9 sports.  We gave him a choice of soccer or baseball, and he said emphatically "football!".  So, football it was.  His team ended up winning the championship.  The boys were so cute doing their runs...from trying to remember which direction to run in to remembering to try and pull the flags when the other team had the ball.  :)

I started the layout before his team won the championship, but i9 is all about participation and team, so the boys were all stars in my eyes...Paxton especially.  So I knew stars would be the main part of my theme.  Enter CTMH's Fanfare collection (now retired -- I have *got* to use up my older paper, y'all!).  I liked the striped paper for my background, but to soften it, I cut two squares of white cardstock to about 10x10 and used my Cameo to cut a few stars out from the right edge of one of the pieces (this machine is so versatile, and I love to make these negative masks!).  I then put the two white pieces to the seam in the middle.  I spread a not-quite 10x12 piece of the light blue patterned paper with the stars and then sewed twice around the rectangle using red thread.  I then sprinkled a few drops of Cranberry and Pacifica reinker to further soften the white and light blue background.

Using my Cricut Imagine and the CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge, I cut out one large and one smaller star from the red paper.  I faux stitched the two red stars with my white pen to bring them out from the background more.  After positioning the main photos, I also stamped the Dr. Seuss phrase from a CTMH set that was part of a special campaign.

I had a few photos that were smaller in size and I couldn't figure out where to place them, so I created a little banner with some smaller red stars.  I loved the effect!

After adding additional stars in various sizes across the pages, some gems, and the title, the layout was complete. 

I hope you enjoyed the layout with these effects, and I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with yummy food, and of course, chocolate.

Chocolate hugs,
Majken