Happy New Year! My best wishes to you, my bloggy friends, for a wonderful 2012.
Do you have new year's resolutions? Diet and exercise are always popular resolutions, but I think my resolution for 2012 may be to scrapbook more often. *gasp*
I am an avid card maker! I am a very slow crafter, so scrapbooking a 2-page LO for me can be a 17 hour chore. Yes, I admire you gals that slap together gorgeous LOs in 30 minutes. I wish it came that easy for me. I never intended to start scrapbooking EVER. But a dear friend gave me two beautiful baby scrapbook albums as a baby shower gift nearly 10 years ago before the birth of my twin girls. That was probably the most difficult moment in my life to be gracious...I smiled and thanked her, but in my head there were a few explicative words that are not in my spoken vocabulary. At the same time, I felt guilty to NOT want to scrapbook my two sweet angel girls. Another dear friend, Roberta, helped me get those albums done shortly after the girls' first birthday.
It was at that time that my dh asked me if I would make a travel album of each of our annual vacations. I stifled a groan, but I did want to do this for him and for us. Several months later we moved to Virginia and I got a part-time job teaching classes at a local scrapbook store called Memories. I enjoy teaching and I loved the 40% off employee discount. The teacher "pay" consisted of two identical class kits provided by the Memories designers. One we were required to make for the store to display and keep and the other was our compensation. On occasion I would make both kits at the same time, but not usually (yeah, I am regretting that now.) So now I have a gazillion kits (only a slight exaggeration).
Still, this resolution seems monumental to me. You may know that I did a craft room purge last fall. I survived that despite being really really busy. I was able to donate a lot of stuff, but there is still plenty of stash that I am still hoarding. I need to make space for new product that I know will find its way to my craft room! So this is where my resolution comes in...start using those kits and I will s l o w l y make some wiggle room for new papers and supplies.
In stead of starting chronologically, I started with our most recent trip. I asked dhDH (dear husband Doug Houck) to develop his favorite pictures of our 20th anniversary Alaska trip from last summer. I pulled out the kit from the first class I taught at Memories (summer 2004!) I moved elements around and did not use the coin tags, ribbons, fibers and some other embellies, but here is the left-hand page:
In 2004 the Memories kits did not have 2-page LOs (my personal preference). So I took the other page from that kit and swapped out some papers so the right-hand page would (hopefully) flow with the left-hand page:
As much as I did not feel like doing this, I am pleased that I completed it and I am motivated to keep going! And it only took me 2.5 hours. And I am gonna ask dhDH to help me. I will ask him to develop 6-8 of his favorite pictures from each trip, then I will make a 2-page LO of each trip. One year down, nineteen to go :)
A few years ago this gorgeous tapestry travel album was on clearance from Creative Memories. I snatched it up for this project:
What are your resolutions?
17 comments:
June, I love your vacation layout. What an inspirational post today! I use to scrap, then I got into making cards, so my albums got pushed to the side.
I love that you have your husband involved in choosing the photo's. What a fantastic idea!
My resolution is to pick up my scrapbooking again, BUT, I think I will try to make a card at the same time.
Happy and Healthy New Year.
Hi June,
Great layouts...and you had time to spare for hitting the 30 hour mark. :) Loved your post today. I get so overwhelmed thinking chronologically that it paralyzes me. You have taken a great approach to your layouts. Having dhDH (lol) choose the pictures is a great idea too....takes some of the pressure off...why do we kill ourselves with all this...it's supposed to be fun. You are off to a great start on your resolution. Happy New Year!
Diane
Great layouts! I'm like you and LOs take WAY too long to do so I don't do as many as I'd like. That's definitely a resolution for me- scrap more this year. I'm not going to try to quantify but maybe I should shoot for a page or a spread a week. It's not as much as I'd like but it's 52 events that I haven't scrapped yet. Happy New Year!
yahooooooooooo for you June. Such an awesome resolution and one that you and dhDH can work on together...such fab teamwork! I LOVE seeing your 2 pager...dang woman, you jump right in there. It's been years since I've done a 2 pager...magnificent work!!!!
paper crafting resolutions? I want to squeak in more time for pub subs and more scrapbooking. Obviously, I'm like you and make a gazillion cards...so I don't need any resolutions in that department BUT another resolution is to either actually send out those puppies that I so lovingly make or sell them...essentially get them out of my house:)
Happy Happy New Year June!!!!!
I love your LO's, you are a very talented crafter. Whether it's cards or LO's, just fabulous.
I usually don't make resolutions because they never last long but I would like to craft more this year. I will try and make my way through ALL these pictures I have.
My other resolution is not craft related but related to my family. I need to plan and prepare and save for our move later this year. So much to do so little time. :-)
Thank you for sharing your creations with us each week, you are a great inspiration!!
I am one lucky gal to have you on our DT!! :-) Thank you for your continued support!!!
I loveeeeeeeeeeeee your pages June... and you struggle in the lo dept... I struggle in the card dept... I have NO IDEA what to do with that small canvas I have in front of me called a card...lol!! That is why all my cards are CAS!! lol!! And they take me LONGER than lo's!! lol!! Happy New Year! :):):):):):):):):):):)
Great layouts June! I love double page layouts, and layouts with more than 1 picture on them. I actually started out scrapbooking and went onto card making- and now I have a hard time scrapbooking as I also spend hours just staring at the pages trying to figure out where to put it all. I also want to make more pages, and more 3-D projects as I just love those but find them difficult to do. I hope you and your family have a very Happy New Year! :)Amy
Way to go June ... these are great pages ... Have a wonderful New Year
They are beautiful pages June! I love that your hubby helps with the picture selection! That makes it so much more meaningful when it is a family process! I wish you luck with your goal this year! I hope you get those kits used up (or at least put a dent in them) because it always feels good to use up your stash and make room for new goodies!! Happy New Year to you and your family!!
Amber
LOVE it! Is it bad that I saw your post and was SO excited when it said it was wordy? I SUPER MISS YOU! I am home and going to a movie with my grandma and mom today (Warhorse) but will come home, take a nap, and maybe get some crafting time in.?. I'll call you. :)
Terrific post June!! I don't make resolutions, I try and set goals....seems more feasible that way---reverse psychology on myself of some sort!! One of them is to read my Bible every day this year. The other is crafty--the same as you--to get more paper crafts done this year---maily layouts!!!--instead of doing just cards!!! I'm a SLOW crafter, too, and cards come together easier for me.....but I so want to get some of my books done!!!! I'm really hoping to meet tihs "goal" this year!!!! :)
Awesome vacation layouts June! You did a fantastic job on the layout and design. I am with you- how do these crafters pump out layout pages in 30 min? Wow, that is crazy!
I actually use to do a lot of scrapbook layouts but lately into making cards and other projects that I have gotten away from it. I am also a little obsessed with these challenges, LOL!
Good luck to you on your goal this year:)
Happy New Year my friend and I look forward to seeing more of your lovely creations in 2012!
Sherrie K
http://sherriescraps.blogspot.com
Wow June these are wonderful pages. I really really need to do more scrapbooking. Right now I think my resolution is to give selling a try. That means I will be learning a lot because I don't have a clue as to what I am doing. LOL I set the shop page up tonight and I'll have to see what happens.
You and Doug are so cute. What a fun trip. My DH wants to go to Alaska too. Did you fish? That will be our main goal. LOL
I am looking forward to seeing all your scrapbooking projects.
Hello there dear friend!! Happy new year! Hope 2012 is fantastic for the Houkes!! You won't believe it, but I was asked to scrap our vacay {back around Turkey day} and to do it soooooon! So I scrapped a couple of pages yesterday, it was WONDERFUL!!! This is going to be my year for scrapping. I have too many photos that the kids continue to say they've never seen!!!!
I haven't done a Scrapbook page in years. Maybe I should give it a try again.. I don't know!! Your pages look amazing.. I love them..
Hugs, Linda
oh you are SO GOOD missus! i should make more resolutions and long-term goals, b/c it totally seems to focus YOU... and you get SOOOOOO MUCH DONE!!! awesome!!! i bet that travel book will be FULL by may at the latest! :) :) :) (brilliant to have dh/DH pick the photos... narrows down the choice AND lets you see what he thought the best bits were!!!) ♥
Ahh...June so glad that I was helpful to you with the girls albums...I had no idea that it was such a struggle for you ;} You do awesome layouts and cards and I love how you are setting a goal of completing your vacation album. Great idea teaming up with DH on this project...like that idea SO much! Love that CM album...forgot all about that one...lol
My "goals" this year are to also FINISH some of my older projects as well as to scrapbook more than evah! I'm also participating in some new projects, One Little Word and Scrapbook Life Journal so that I will be working on something every week and not just as one big project at a time. I'm also going to blog less...want to get more done on my albums and art journals! Looking forward to twenty-twelve with all my creative soul sistas ;}
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