Friday, January 29, 2010

7th heaven



This is my final page for my January Guest Designer gig at Allyscraps. I love this fun and boyish Bella Blvd. Super Stud line! It was perfect for these pics of the boys devouring some chocolate covered strawberries at our wonderful Mother's Day brunch last year. And I couldn't resist working in a little bit of a "math pun" on this page, LOL!

The sketch I created for this page can be found on the Allyscraps blog. I'd love to see your take on it!

Journaling:
The huge chocolate fountain was clearly the highlight of the awesome Mother's Day brunch at Oglebay.

Friday, January 22, 2010

so happy to be cousins



I love this adorable boy-ish Kaisercraft "Superhero" line, perfect for a photo of my boys and their two cousins. Other supplies include Maya Road's Noah alpha, which I painted, and replaced the "a" with a fun little heart from this chipboard set. Of course I used my new favorite Nutmeg Thickers again, and that cute chipboard snail from the Maya Road Bugs set, just because it seems fitting with "boys" theme of the page.

My sketch for this page can be found on the Allyscraps blog, so be sure to check it out!

Journaling:
Nicholas and Nathan used to be pretty shy whenever we saw them, but as they’ve gotten older that has changed. Now when the four of you get together, you are like old friends! You both love to see your cousins, and it’s so fun to see how you have bonded with them. I hope that you four “Gaydos boys” will always stay connected and grow to be not just cousins, but lasting friends.

Friday, January 15, 2010

38 days, 4 teeth



I had to scrap these pictures of Tyler, chronicling how he lost all four of his front teeth in just a little over a month! I converted the photos to black and white, which worked much better for the page since he was wearing something different in each one and they really didn't go together very well. I used another great line from Fancy Pants - Rough and Tough. Such fun patterns, great for boy pages but versatile enough to be used for a lot of themes!

My sketch for this page can be found on the Allyscraps Blog, along with an awesome take on the sketch from Dana, so check it out!

Journaling:
The dentist saw those four wiggley teeth in November and was sure they would all be out by Christmas. He was close! You held onto that last one as long as you could, but just before New Year's, out it came. You started 2010 with quite a hole in your mouth!

Friday, January 8, 2010

the fruits of your labor



Ahhh, this was a fun page to work on! Not only because I love these photos of my boys and ADORE the rich colors and gorgeous patterns of the Fancy Pants - Trick or Treat line, but also because this is part of my January Guest Designer work for Allyscraps! And if you want to check out the sketch I created that goes with this page, you can find it on the Allyscraps Blog.

As you can see, this line is very versatile and definitely not only for Halloween layouts. Along with the Fancy Pants, I used some of these fun new Nutmeg Thickers. You will be seeing more of them this month, for sure!

By the way, in case you are very picky about the little things, like I am, I wanted to share a tip that I figured out as I was working on this page. Notice how the journaling is aligned? Here is a close-up view:



I wanted it to be justified for very clean, graphic look. However, when I typed it in Word and simply picked "justified", the partial last-line was aligned to the left margin. I wanted the partial line to be aligned to the right instead, so that the "straight edge" of the text was with the photos, and the "indented edge" was with the rounded corner. Here was my solution: I inserted a string of periods, just before the word "the" at the beginning of the last line, until the periods "pushed" the text over to the far right margin (actually, I let it push the text down to a new line, and then deleted the last period). Then I selected the periods and changed the text color to "white" so that they were invisible. Viola! This gave me exactly the alignment that I wanted. Perhaps there's another way... but this worked for me, and I wanted to share it!

Saturday, January 2, 2010

side by side



It's true, it's true... I'm scrapping again! LOL! After a bit of a hiatus while things were crazy during the Fall 09 semester, I've been back at my scrap table recently. This page features Cosmo Cricket's Boyfriend line. It's an older photo, but a memory that I wanted to scrap - the first day that both boys rode the bus to school. It was so sweet how Ryan held Tyler's hand and took care of his little brother.

Journaling:
It's Tyler's 1st day as a bus rider, but I know he's in good hands. Ryan is right by his side the whole time! 8-22-08