Lizzie's Garden

My sister Liz (with the affectionate moniker of "Lizzie Pooh") has a natural green thumb. I was visiting the family at Easter and the yard was in full bloom already, so I had a good time taking lots of pictures for her. My plan was to make a mini-album for her of the photos, but I got so inspired with the "Colors" layout, I kept driving in that direction and came up with a new layout using the same sheets of paper that I cut the strips from for yesterday's design. I used up a few of her prints, so now I'll have to have those reprinted so I can get to that album - I might even use a similar concept for the album design (when I get around to it).

Here are a few closeups of the layout. I used a Martha Stewart punch for the little butterflies. The large white letters are Thickers. The large butterfly was traced on white cardstock and cut out, then journaled on. I have had that variegated ribbon and the little round epoxy letter that I used to spell "Lizzie's" for awhile now, so they are just part of my mystery stash. I wish I had made the "caterpillar" curvy instead of straight. The background dots were made using a Heidi Swapp stamp and some Pebbles Inc. paints.

Thanks for coming over to take a peek! I'm having more visions of color spectrum arrangements, so I'll see where those ideas take me!

Colors of a Mother's Love

I was looking for some new design inspiration, and ran across a layout on Two Peas In a Bucket by HelpMeRonda (see link to her site in my sidebar) titled "Colors" - it just knocked my socks off! I immediately knew I had to scraplift her design, so I did. Mine isn't anywhere near as fabulous as hers, but I hope I did her proud anyway. Since Mother's Day is coming up (heck, isn't every day Mother's Day when you are blessed with kids?), I wanted to do something about my children or about myself as a mom, and since I had this awesome black and white photo of my kids, I knew this was the one. Aldean Tendick, on Simply Scrapping, had a forum post about the meaning of colors, so I used that as inspiration for the color meanings and their relationship to being a mother.

This was great fun to make as well - got to root around in my overflowing paper supply and put together a rainbow of papers to use. Then I just sliced a piece of the edge of each one, arranged them as I wanted, added a few other embellishments and things for variety and interest, and there you have it. I realized as I was laying everything out that I had a bit of a circles theme going, so I just reinforced that a bit throughout. And I had a cool Cosmo Cricket chipboard heart that I painted white and sprinkled with clear glitter - I thought it was the perfect accent to all the color.

Here are a couple of closeups of the top of the layout:

The words on the colors up top are "Love" on the red, "Joy" on the orange, "Happiness" on the yellow, "Growth" on the green, "Faith" on the blue, and "Widsom" on the purple.

Thanks for coming over to take a peek! Now what can you do with a little color?

How I Arrived at the Card Swap

Okay - signed up for a card swap on Simply Scrapping, and needed to get those 10 cards done before the end of April. Mind you, I had a couple of weeks to get them done, but what would my life be without a little procrastination. I am not a card maker by any stretch of the imagination - have only ever made 3 or 4 individual cards EVER - so dug through books and magazines looking for some inspiration.

My friend Janice called me on Saturday to vent about some personal things in her life, and I decided that Janice definitely needed a little card to help lift her spirits. SO, that was my inspiration - I started playing around with a couple of ideas, and came up with this card to send to her.



Then I decided that was a decent start on a design I could use for the card swap, but wanted to use different colors, so hopped on my broom and flew on over to my local scrapbook store, Picture to Page, and found the new Wisteria line from Basic Grey. Picked up some of those yummy papers, along with some fabulous new embossed cardstock and some lavender linen cardstock (and of course some stamps and other goodies), and headed back to the batcave and got to work. This is my design for the card swap:



And a closeup of that embossed cardstock I used - punched out a scalloped square and added some Crystal Stickles to it.



I got all the cards put together (the assembly line technique works really well), got them in envelopes and stamped, and dropped them into the mailbox this morning, so they will be headed to my friend Janice and all my Simply Scrapping swap friends via our friendly neighborhood postal carriers!

Thanks for taking a peek at my weekend's craftiness!

Blog Award

Many thanks to Emily at Through Emily's Eyes for putting me in her Top 10! Emily is such a sweetheart!



Now I need to pass this on, but since I am new to this, I'll have to figure out a) how to pass it on, and b) who to pass it on to.

I am truly honored and humbled though by this award and Emily's generosity!

And I promise to not procrastinate on figuring this out! :)

Why the name?

The Procrastinating Scrapper - why did I choose that name? Well, I'll get to that later - ha! ha! Just kidding. I am a true procrastinator at heart, and in practice (unfortunately). I don't know where that all came from, but it is what it is, so I have decided to own it.

I have boatloads of scrapping supplies that I have accumulated over the past few years. I started scrapping about 5 years ago when I decided to make a little book for my sweetheart for a Christmas gift. Of course, I didn't know anything about it, but took a trip to Michael's, bought a few things, and went to work. My sweetie said that was the best gift he ever received! I do not have any photos of it, but intend to borrow the book back from him soon to take some pics and post them.

Hopefully my skills have improved somewhat since then. I have mostly spent my time making mini-books for family and friends, and did not have the foresight to take pictures of any of them. That's a task I need to get caught up with now that I have this blog and want to be able to share my creations, and hopefully provide some inspiration to others, and get some constructive criticism as well, because I definitely have a lot to learn.

I do have photos of a couple of my mini-books though. I made a gift for my friend for Valentine's Day, and was smart enough to take pictures of it.

The little heart-shaped book also had a box to hold it. These are a just a couple of shots of it - the rest are in my gallery.

I also made a Spring mini-book a few weeks ago, and enjoyed it. I had taken several photos of the spring flowers and wanted to celebrate those photos, and also the birds and flowers that I so much enjoy as Spring sneaks in and the Earth is renewed.

Thanks for looking at my project photos. So what inspires you in life? What makes you want to get into your scrapping supplies and create something?

Latest Project - Book to Hold My Greeting Cards and Letters

Have a stack of cards and letters hanging around in a box or the top drawer of your nightstand (that's where mine have been for the last 5+ years)? I decided to make a "book" to hold all of the special cards and letters given to me for various holidays and events by my most special friend. I had been noodling over this idea for a while now, but was motivated to take the leap by Judy over at Simply Scrapping - she issued a challenge to make a layout or other project using envelopes - ding!ding!ding! - so off I went to take the challenge.

This photo shows the cover of the book (which is about as far as I've gotten at this point) - just wanted to share. Maybe someone can get inspired to make their own, or even better, give me some good ideas to keep me going (you know how us procrastinators are).

I used Prima Artful Cardboard for the base, which I distressed with a craft knife, a brown ink pad, and some Stickles. I then added some small decorative cards that I received in a scrapbook kit recently (A Kiss On the Chic), some Prima flowers and bling, an actual card and envelope from my most special friend, a couple of little Tim Holtz Adage Tickets, rubons from Fancy Pants, the crown from Creative Impressions.

I got the idea for the base from Laura McCullough at A Kiss On the Chic, so thanks Laura!