Road trip album - scrapping on the road

I have some questions which is why its not done - yet.

This is the BG chipboard album that I had forEVER.

The size is 8.5 x 9.5 perfect for traveling actually.

I decided to go wild on the cover 

mostly because I could - I used Studio Calico color theory.

I started with pink and then decided I didn't want pink

so I covered it up with blue and green.

Found various stamps and bubblewrap to add more fun and depth.

 I found I love chaotic stamping and decided it was 

perfect for the inside covers.

I used watercolors on the inside - just to mute the stamps a bit.

Inka gold to round it out.

 And then there are these kraft pages & envelope.

And here's the question

which is why we are here - and why I'm dithering about.

I can't decide if I want to do those kraft pages now or on the trip as I go.

I'm also going to include those pocket pages 

too for more photos and cards.

Things to keep in mind - 

I will not have a trimmer with me,

Also with the selphy printer the largest size photo is 4x6.

Then there's the journaling and how windy will I be.

This is also going to be a short trip.

Therefore, if I do the pages early - how will that affect things on the road.

And if I wait, how will minimal supplies affect it.

Inquiring minds want to know.

I have and am a work in progress

I was going to tease and share and then changed my mind.

But just a hint - we're heading out for about

4-6 weeks on an RV trip and I'm making my journal/album

ahead of time so I can scrap our adventures along the way.

Not close to being done with it yet - the desk is a mess so until

it's done........

Therefore, I shall talk about my other work in progress.

Me.

This is toward the end of my battle of 16.5 open.

It was ugly and hard - ain't gonna lie.

If you aren't into Crossfit - they have games to see

who's the fittest in the world.

Five weeks of the worse combinations that can be

thought of are done by everyone in the crossfit world.

You can pay to play to see where you rank

and if your really really good - you get to go regionals

and compete and then to the world.

Or something like that and

then there's me over here in the box just caring to get through them all.

Without dying or crying

-both were close.

 So the workout was made of thrusters and burpees - just

two of anyone's favorite moves. NOT.

The reps for time was 21-18-15-12-9-6-3.

And didn't those numbers strike terror in everyone's heart.

There was a 30 minute time cap and I finished in 25:14.

Totally not bad.

Those two exercises somehow engage every single

solitary muscle, tendon and bones in the body.

I was the last man standing so to speak - but I didn't get smoked.

I finished and am stronger for it.

So just to recap - ANYONE CAN DO CROSSFIT- yes that means YOU

 - no matter what your age.

The hardest part is starting - find a great box, great coaches

and the rest will fall into place.

As soon as my album is done - there's a page coming on this.

Seeing RED

 I love red.

It's my favorite color but you wouldn't

know that by looking in my closet and how

weird is that.

 I kept doing all kinds of hoop jumpin' in my head

 with these photos

because the subject is teeny tiny but in pinky/red

that does stand out against the snow.

 Also I was lovin' the white polka dots indicating a "snow"

thing going on which is in the photo.

And I stole the title from Adele over at Inky Quill.

Yes, yes I did try my own handwriting,

and as you can see I didn't like the results LOL.

 So the paper really works with the photo.

Every now and then I go matchy matchy because well

it just works.

 Therefore I just kept to the red, white and black 

colors going on with the embellishments because I love the look.

Used up some stash, fought with the sissix machine

and became annoyed with those itty bitty

alphas sticking to my fingers

but 

SHAZAM!

Love the page.

Studio Calico, Lily Bee alphas, a Shimelle tag,

 diecuts and punch.

It was all about the heart cutout

The moment I saw this Recollections chipboard onesie hanging 

in Michaels that had the heart cutout

it became about making a shaker box with it.

In full disclosure it took a couple of times to get

the heart on the right side of the right side of the papers.

Right?

LOL.

What's a project without some issue.

I managed to have several.

 Anyhoo,
I am also not the best fussy cutter

nor a cleaner upper with a craft knife either

so getting the edges right was a real challenge.

 Then I dithered about with the pages flipping up.

Do I do the page where its read from 

that direction or do I want people to keep flipping it about.

I decided to roll with the flow however, now that upside

down shaker box was making me nuts.

Always something but I rolled through it.

 Then without thinking it all the way through

I decided a pocket page with tags would be the key.

Surprisingly, they haven't fell out.

Yet.

 So it was odd with all this space as I always

have done my baby albums 6x6 size.

 This is really nicer because bigger photos

can be used. The mats are 3.5 x 5 or 3x5.

 How freakin' adorable is that frog and again

with the tags. This time I put them on the right side. LOL.

 And the back, the end. 

The duck.

So this is the Echo Park Bundle of Joy kit and

I love this kit.

I have used it before but what was cool is that

not all kits are the same- similar though and I was

able to use old/new together.

Hopefully the giftee does not follow my blog.

Chaotic Stamping Reigns

Well.

What can I say - I got carried away.

Really carried away.

Because it just seemed to work.

 I had this paper in my stash forEVER

that had houses on it in a semi-circle and what

do you do with that.

Well I addressed something similar on another post here

but I didn't want to do the same thing.

 Therefore I went into a stamping frenzy because

the paper and the photo were perfect for it.

 I fussy cut out the bikes and well that's pretty

obvious and sometimes you have to roll.

Also the title - I had the HUGE alphas forEVER too.

So, why not add to the chaos.

And kidlets riding their bikes in the hood.

That adds to the chaos as well.

Studio Calico, Dear Lizzy and Stampendous.

All the pages this week were completed on Sunday as
well as a baby album.
Whew!

Mixing a bunch of greens

And I'm not apologizing

because it seemed to work.

I wanted this paper because it wasn't in your face

and I had the shamrock paper which was.

For some reason I whacked a chunk out of the background

paper so the only way to use it was to

cut into 6x12 size.

Love it.

 I fussy cut the shamrocks out because they

were totally adorable and

just used a strip as an anchor.

 The title came in a PL card (again with that I know)

Do you find you get on a streak with something?

Anyway I first cut the words in strips

and it didn't really ring my chimes so I fussy

cut each letter.

Love that result.

I also got to use a bunch of enamel dots too.

Woohoo stash going down.

Studio Calico, Paper Studio, Evalicious enamels.

Project Life card as a title

I got to use my new stamp from my pal Holli again.

I love the fonts on it -so cool

and since the page is going to different places

no worries about overusing it.

I don't think that's possible anyway.

And the chili, again was randomly die cut one day

and slapped in my box for future use.

Note to self: Glue top and bottom together prior to tossing in box.

 I have been beside myself wanting to use this card.

Everybody I know LOVES their coffee and

FINALLY a photo about coffee more or less.

I did have to cut it down - as it had a border of b&w hearts

around it - that I used as part of the mat.

The heart and bow - die cut box.

Just sayin....

 Because I went a smidge crazy with the mats

on the PL card, I decided not to use a mat on the photo.

Gasp. I know.

But it works and still stands out because of Miss Amelia
and friend being posers.

The PL card maybe from Paper Issues.

I try to keep stuff separate but you know how that goes.

Studio Calico for the rest, except for Shimelle sticker peeking out.

Circles- go round and round

I love circles.

They can be fun and happy.

And they can highlight something.

 This is a mix of Shimelle and Basic Grey.

I started the page with the happy photo and then

went digging in my die cut box.

 My die cut box is full of random die cuts

from random scraps.

Sometimes they work - sometimes they don't

but if I'm lazy and they work.

Win-win

 Using the positive and negative on the entire page.

 And then I felt the bottom of the page needed

a little something-something so I used

hearts

already punched from another project

that didn't make it to the page.

I find I'm quite liking the project life cards

for titles and such.

And Lou has such a great smile going on.

I'm also having issues with splattering mist.

How can you splatter wrong.

I can do it.

It either comes out OMG STOP or not enough.

Using a Rescued Page

You may remember this page from this post.

I did rescue it from the garbage because it was to pretty

to waste it even though it annoyed me.

I decided that layers and doodads was the way to go.

And I got to use my new stamp from my pal Holli as the title.

Not to mention an adorable photo to zero in on

so the boo-boos recede into the background.

 It really was too pretty to toss.

Since the pages are going into 2 different albums

for 2 different families it doesn't bother me

that they look similar.

It wouldn't bother me if they were in the same album.

Just need to keep them far far apart LOL.

It's okay to lift yourself even if its inadvertently.

Studio Calico, Bazzil cardstock.

Hippity Hoppity hippity hop

Easter's on the way!!!

Made some simple cards for the grands from

The Paper Studio.

Nothing fancy, little fussy cutting on some and

cotton tails.

Now all I need to remember to do is mail them.

So many cool photos - Break out the pocket pages

I had some pocket pages leftover from the road trip and

finally found where I had stashed them.

Safely keeping them - never to be found again.

Except.

Found them!

 Even after doing an entire album I feel I still have

problems making them snappy.

I think it comes down to actually sticking stuff on a photo.

I really should be over that.

 Of course I did a front and back.

 And because I could I switched things up.

Fun to do - need to do them more to get better at it.

Punching out a background

I used the Martha Stewart go anywhere punch

and punched out this background.

It's actually the flip side of the paper that I wanted.

I then squirted some paint and ran it down the card stock page

and made a freakin' mess unlike Soaphousemama - where the idea

came from.

Because that's how I roll.

Therefore, this paper annoyed me and I started again.

I did pitch it and rescued it because in hindsight its not too bad.

So this is the new version

and of course I didn't think to take a pix of the start.

 However, I punched and painted again and liked the

results much better.

The punch is weird though you have to line it up just right.

Imagine that.

 This time if you'll notice my sewing machine went bonkers.

Somehow all the threads got tangled and I

must say it takes a real talent to screw the threads up in the bobbin.

 Totally love how this turned out.

Well except for the stitching but its part of its charm.

Right?

All Studio Calico I think.

I'm up in the air about the critters.

Could be Paper Issues.

No Amelia doesn't where glasses but she freakin' rocks them.

In her mind all mom's wear glasses.

LOL. Kids.

This page was just too much fun to do

You ever have one of those?

I have actually had a few and I still get a kick

out of it and it still surprises me.

This is a lift of Fiona Paltridge whom I "met" when

we both designed for Off the Rails Scrapbooking.

 This has a bit of texture and stamping.

The texture is what I tried on yesterday's page that

worked out soooo much better here.

I actually used modeling paste instead of ink 

on the stencil.

For some reason - ink & stencils don't work for me.

I know you're surprised.

 I had a blast adding the stamps.

I had to dig around for the music stamp

and added some goodies from Shimelle's collection.

Love how it turned out -

Studio Calico, Shimelle and assorted stamps.

Someone else's selphy/selfie

Love the Basic Grey Kelly Purkey

because purple can be sooooo dramatic

and cool.

When I was young it was my favorite color

and its actually my birthstone.

It just occurred to me I spelled selfie wrong but I'm rolling with it.

Sigh.

I knew there was something wrong and couldn't

put my finger on it.

Till now.

My bad.

And the transparencies are soooo cool.

This sat on my desk for awhile because

being the decisive person

that I am,

I couldn't decide on anything.

Then I decided it was plain and tried to use

some white ink with a stencil on the background.

Sigh.......

but it did add something.

So this is my handsome son who is also

a photographer - more so than me,

and he was messing with dramatic lighting.

Nailed.it.