Y’all I’m Scrapbooking!

I have big news! I will be scrapbooking again because I’m going to be a grandmother! My daughter had her gender reveal party this weekend and we found out IT’S A GIRL! She had me make a few t-shirts for the occasion and as you can see by the picture below she was team boy. I don't think she is disappointed though but more scared that she might have to pay for her raising! *okie thinks her daughter should be afraid, very afraid and then laughs evilly*.

Now if you know me you know I have a ton of supplies to probably complete 500 scrapbooks *okie knows that’s probably not an exaggeration* and now I have a pretty awesome reason to start using some of those supplies I've acquired over the last 15 years or so. 

It's gonna take me awhile to get back in the hang of designing layouts and making them since I haven't done this part of the paper crafting in, well longer than I care to admit! I got this layout designed and I've even cut the SVG elements and will work on putting some of it together this evening. When I get the layout done and make sure it goes together well I will share the SVG. YES, you heard me! I am going to start sharing SVG's again, simply because I like to share. 

So stay tuned because I’ll be posting more on here as time goes on but in the mean time here is the full design I'm going for. *okie hopes she can remember how to do this whole blog thing*

It Comes In Handy! Layout File Available

As many of you know I go through spurts of designing layouts and then I don't get around to using them until much later and the other night it sure came in handy! My Goddaughter Amber had asked if I would help her decorate two 4x6 pages for some kind of birthday scrapbook for one of Chi-O sister's birthday that she and the other girls would be doing and I told her I would help her. Of course in my mind I was wondering what kind of decorations could be used for a 4x6 scrapbook! I had forgotten about the project until Amber came by the night before she needed it, which she is famous for doing, and asked me about it. After she showed me some examples I told her that the pages were 12x12 and the pictures were 4x6 and her reply was "oh I didn't know, but whatever, it doesn't matter". *okie sighs in exasperation* Those who don't scrapbook just don't get it do they?! 

Luckily I remembered the  Party Owl Night Long layout that I had designed back in 2013 that had an owl on it and talked about party so I quickly opened it up in Make The Cut and showed Amber and she said it would work just fine. 

I was going to cut all the pieces and leave them for her to put it together but Amber gets distracted easily and isn't always the best on realizing how much time this stuff takes so I did go ahead and put it together for her and all she had to do was pick it up. Besides, the girl works two jobs right now and time is precious. I will give her props for helping me pick out the paper for the layout.

For the stars I just used a punch because it would be faster. After I looked at the picture I remembered she wanted both of them going portrait but OH WELL TOO LATE NOW and she never mentioned about it being turned wrong. The patterned papers are from Graphic 45 Mother Goose collection and the title is done in some Bazill Bling cardstock. 

Since some may not know *and okie wonders why just the regular joe would know* the owl is the mascot of the Chi-Omega sorority and that is the reason I thought this would work for her purposes. 

I added the ribbon along the bottom as an after thought because it just looked too dang plain without it for my taste and Amber wasn't here to tell me not to use it *okie cracks up laughing*. The yellow and red of the owl are also with Bazill bling cardstock. 

Amber was pleased with the layout but she is really easy to please. 

I am so glad I do a lot of designing of files because I never know when they are gonna come in handy!

Graphic 45 Gilded Lily Layout

I've been working on this layout for the last week and it took so long due to the whole dishwasher saga and I finally finished it last night. I did enter it in the August Challenge on Graphic45's Facebook page and I really don't have any hopes of winning but it did give me reason to use the Gilded Lily paper collection I got at Scraptopia a few weeks ago and got my creative juices flowing again. I have done some crafting over the summer but it seems like it was all for others and nothing for myself so this time I was determined not to do anything else until I finished this layout.

I wasn't sure I would like this paper collection when I saw it online but when I saw it in the store I thought it would be great for some layouts I had in mind. This is a picture of me and my daughter taken about 10 years ago and it is one of my favorites of us. I have had the picture stowed away just waiting for the right combination of colors and designs so I could do a layout and Gilded Lily fit the bill. I used the 12 x 12 and the 8 x 8 pads of the Gilded Lily paper. The only thing of the 8 x 8 was some of the flowers that I did the fussy cutting on. 

The frame was cut twice and pop dotted. I also cut the inner frame and pop dotted it as well. I thought about doing the flowers on the frame but was afraid it would be too thick to fit in a scrapbook. I did double layer the outer frame to give it a little more dimension. The leaves were some I cut with a machine as is the frame that the picture is in. 

The dangling pearls were sewn on with nylon thread and let me tell ya somethin'...nylon thread is a pain in the arse! It kept getting tangled in the pearls and I thought I was going to end up trashing it but I persevered and got it done. *okie wonders which was more tedious...sewing with the nylon thread or cutting out that little frame*

There was a whole lotta fussy cuttin going on at my house this week and I had to wear my reading glasses to do it because if I hadn't then there would have been lilies and roses with half their petals missing!

The little blue flowers are punched out of a material similar to vellum. I used a Perfect Medium brush pen to go around the petals and then added some blue Perfect Pearls. The centers were dotted with Brass Liquid Pearls. I like the softness of the flowers and how they worked well as fillers in a subtle manner.

I added some stamens to the lilies to give them a bit more dimension and just cut a slit in the paper and then on the back I glued a piece of paper over the stems of the stamens so they would stay in place. The curl in the leaves were just done by slightly folding them. 

I'm a little disappointed that you can't really see where I used Perfect Pearls on the lilies, they do at least show up on the leaves a little. Somehow I've never used Perfect Pearls before, even though I've had them for quite sometime, and I was really impressed the with effect it gave on the paper. 

I think I am ready to start getting back into doing some real crafting now and the Graphic 45 challenge was just the thing to give me that boost. Well okay maybe more crafting after I get everything settled with school and my schedule. 

Sweet Summertime - Layout

This is another file I did a few weeks ago and I don't think I ever think about summer without thinking about watermelon.

As a kid I remember my parents having neighbors over for watermelon. We never had enough lawn chairs and people would be sitting on tailgates, cinder blocks, buckets turned upside down or whatever else was handy.

I tried to leave enough room so elements could be moved around easily, such as adding more photos or changing the sizes in the file.



SVG USERS - select all elements and resize to 12x12  if you want the exact size that is in the design.

Beat The Heat - Layout

It seems like so many towns are getting those splash pad water parks for kids these days I thought this would be a good layout for those type of pictures. And we all know it has been hot hot hot this summer but in Oklahoma it is always hot hot hot in the summer.

I'm not sure I'll ever cut this layout and sometimes when I design a layout I dont have any intentions of using it but always feel like someone can use it, or at least I hope they can. I told Carmen one day that I think I enjoy designing things more than making them. It's such a dilemma for me at times.

This is one I think could be embellished even more to be made super cute. Glossy accents would add ice water drops in places.

 SVG USERS - Be sure to do a select all and resize to 12x12 for elements to cut the appropriate size.

Ice Cream - Layout

I love ice cream and have been quite depressed since our stores quite carrying ice cream. Okay that might not be totally true but in my book unless it's Blue Bell it isn't ice cream. I have heard rumors that they are starting production again on a small scale and I hope they expand quickly because a bowl of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla sounds so delicious right now!

Now I have to be honest with you folks and tell you that most of the layouts I'll be posting this week were designed with my friend Carmen in mind. She has the most gorgeous granddaughter and in almost each of these designs I could just see little Kaci's face in the photo areas with her beautiful smile. I have some photos of my own of her and I know I am going to have to make a bacon layout because I got some great pictures of her eating bacon.

Anyway I really loved this ice cream cone I found on the internet and that is what prompted this layout.


SVG USERS - Remember to select all and resize to 12x12 if you want the pieces in the size they were designed for the layout.

Days of Summer - Layout

As promised I am getting the layouts I've designed recently posted this week. I think all of them are summer themed so they might be great for those who are getting their kids back in school and have a little more time to sit down and scrapbook.

The first one is Days of Summer and I think it would pretty much be good for any pictures of summer activities. Of course the colors are only a suggestion and I do the colors on the pieces when I am designing because it is easier for me to visualize the layout that way. If you would like more photos in the layout it would be easy to change the photos and size around. 

SVG USERS - Remember to select all and resize to 12x12 if you want the pieces to cut the size they were designed for the layout.

Celebrating Freedom - 2 Page Layout

I have often said to myself, and probably a few others, that I think I enjoy designing projects more than making them. I love to come up with layout designs, whether the idea is in my head somewhere or if I am putting a spin on a sketch I see in a book or online. This particular layout sketch just screamed "I WANT TO BE PATRIOTIC" to me when I saw it online and so I made it what it wanted to be. 

Here is the list of dimensions for the base and stripes:

• Blue base - (2) 12x12
• Red stripes - (2) 12 x 1.5, (3) 12 x .5, (1) 8 x .5
• White stripes - (2) 12 x .75, (2) 12 x .5
• The photos sizes are suggestions.

The scroll cut is what I will be using for adding my date and journaling when I get ready to cut this layout. 

SVG USERS - Remember to select all and resize to 12x12 if you want the pieces in the size they were designed for the layout. 

Together We Make A Family - Layout

So while digging around in my files I found this layout I made back in January and never posted *okie thinks she should write sticky notes sometimes for her to keep track of her life* and thought I should get it posted in case anyone would want to use the file.

One of my first loves of paper was Basic Grey and while I still love it I have slowed down on buying it because...*okie looks from left to right and then right to left, leans closer, puts her index finger to her mouth and whispers* let's face it, I dont really have much room left for more paper. The papers used in this layout is from their Origins Collection and was probably the first collection I ever bought. 

I wanted to make the tree a little more interesting and stole the idea of using the buttons from my friend Carmen who made me a card years ago that had buttons embellishing the tree on the card. These particular buttons are from the same collection, I believe I have brads for this collection as well. That is one thing I love about collections, being able to have matching embellies and not having to dig through everything to find something that matches. I also thought the buttons were more interesting than cutting a bunch of leaves out of paper...*okie takes a deep breath and ponders for a moment then sighs deeply and hangs her head* okay I'll tell the truth...I was just too damn lazy to cut a bunch of leaves and put them on the tree and branch. Are you happy now? Are you happy that I admit I'm a lazy crafter??? *okie pouts for a second and then raises her head and puts her nose in the air* But you have to admit that the buttons are a very creative idea!

I liked the idea of the title swerving with the tree branch and that took a little finagling *okie is amazed she spelled that word correctly and knows it is correct since spell check didn't underline it* and right now I can't remember exactly what I did to make it curve. I might have adjusted each letter separately and then welded them together. 

I hope someone does use the file because I think it is a nice design. 

If you download please leave a comment of "thank you", "downloaded" or even "kiss my ass bitch" so I know my files are getting used. If they aren't being downloaded then I don't want to go to the time of converting them, uploading them to Google Drive, editing to share and then posting them. 

You Are My Sunshine - Completed Layout

The You are my Sunshine layout was a design I posted back in July of 2013 and it is one I did when I was playing around with the Samantha Font that everyone so loves. I really had a hard time finding pictures I wanted to use when I got ready to cut this layout this weekend. Finally I went to my daughters album that has her baby pictures in it and as soon as I saw these to pictures I knew they were perfect!

The papers are from the Basic Grey Picadilly collection and the main reason I chose it was because of the yellow and orange hues I needed fo the sun rays. I think the dark pattern paper that came in the collection was perfect for matting the photos and I generally don't use a pattern paper fo that purpose because I always feel like it is a waste of beauty to cover it up but I decided to live on the edge this time *okie feels quite proud of her ability to take such major risks in her life*. I did cheat a bit and used the stickers in the collection for the date in the bottom right hand corner.

Here is a close up of one of the butterfly's and a swash from the Samantha font collection. I cut the butterfly out of orange and red and layered it. I used some fine wire to make the antenna and then used my Tim Holtz tiny attacher and stapled them to the white shadow, this way the butterfly covered up the wire and staples. There is mounting foam between the orange and red layers to give them dimension. The body is Black Diamond Stickles. Little story there...I went to use the Stickles and the bottle was almost empty and I kept shaking it hoping to get a little out and it was actually dried up. I was about ready to freak out when I looked down and had a brand new bottle! I told my friend Carmen "yeah people think I hoard supplies but I call it being prepared!". 

I had posted the sun rays on Facebook because Carmen wanted to see what they looked like and my friend Amy said "I can never get those to line up" and I replied "Surely you don't think I did them without a cutting file" to which she posted "I should have known" *okie wonders why anyone would ever try to cut something by hand when they certainly have capable machines to do so*.  I used my white Signo UM-153 gel pen to add some stitches on the rays and the sun pieces. 

Oh the title is glittery because I ran it upside down through my Xyron and then added Doddlebug Sugar Coated glitter. To me that is a lot cheaper than buying $2 a sheet glitter paper. Plus, if you mess up you aren't out as much money *okie hates making mistakes with specialty papers*.

I had made the file available before without the title but the file now contains the title and as promised I have added the download for the SVG version as well. 

Download File Below:

Happy Fall Y'all - Completed Layout

I designed this layout back in September and posted it and cut it when I was doing my first review for the Cricut Explore but I never got around to finishing it up and posting it so thought I would get that done today.

I ended up using some Thanksgiving pictures from 2012 that I hadn't scrapbooked. I find it very hard to make a layout and then find pictures to use since I tend to design around the pictures. 

The maple leaves were done with punches that I have and I always like using punches so I can use up small bits of paper I have.  As you can see I pop dotted the head and wing and then the nose on the crow because of my issue of wanting dimension. The flourish on the pumpkin is what I focused on in my review because of the intricacy and size and it really did cut well. 

Here is the other crow and I realized when I was putting the layout together that I didn't resize the images as big as I wanted them but have learned to now leave my base layer in my layout design for import because I can just resize the whole design to 12x12 and get the true sizes I am wanting in the Design Space software.

Life is...better in flip flops - Layout

Evidently I need to go through my folder labeled "layout" because I have found some in there I have never posted! I get in designing kicks sometimes and then forget about posting the layout for download. I actually did this one over a year ago and I'm sure I was thinking of some vacation pictures when I did it. This will be perfect for some pictures of my BFF Karen and I on past vacations as she is the queen of flip flops! I actually think she moved to Florida so she can wear her flips all year round, but don't tell her I said that!

I'm sure you could change the elements if you wanted to just use the flip flops and title but since I have quite a few beach pictures I decided to use the sand, and a life preserver on this design. 

I decided to use some circle text in part of the title because I get bored with the same old straight titles on scrapbook pages. Thank goodness I can do the circle text in Make The Cut fairly easily. I just hope the dang thing cuts okay because some of the lines are a little thin.

You can download this layout design below:

Love Your Smile - layout

I've almost forgotten how much I love to design layouts! Okay usually I do but last night this one was giving me fits for some reason, it was suppose to be so simple but ended up giving me much difficulty and I blame it on creative block *okie figures she has to blame it on something*.

I know I have some pictures of my daughter when she was a baby where she was smiling really big and I want to use those for this layout. I will be embellishing the layout with some flowers, buttons or something besides just the cuts in the file as well. The colors will depend on the colors in the photos of course.

If you would like to use this layout you can download the appropriate file below:

Precious - A Baby Girl Layout

My friend Carmen is working on some layouts and asked me last night what I had available and while I wanted to smack her upside the head because she should know by now what I have available for download I refrained *okie thinks that is only because Carmen is quite a distance out of arms reach* and went through my list of layouts on my blog with her. She did find some that she liked and downloaded although I'm not quite sure which ones. Since we were talking about some of my older layouts that are no longer available for download because they were done with Design Studio I thought I should do some more geared to baby girl ones because I still have some pictures of my daughter that I need to scrapbook.

I generally like to scrap more than one picture to a layout and I thought this design could easily be adapted for one or more pictures. I liked the idea of the simple title "precious" because that is exactly what baby girls are! I think this could easily be dressed up with some ribbon, maybe a butterfly or some tiny flowers to compliment the daisy cuts.

Maybe I can go through my daughters pictures this week and get this one done myself! But even if I don't I know Carmen will be surprised when she checks her Facebook this morning and sees this one available, especially since I actually designed it for her.

If you would like to make this layout you can download the appropriate file below:

Happy Fall Y'all Layout - File Available

So this morning I was piddling around with a layout design and posted on Facebook asking for suggestions for a theme and a few said fall. I had made these crows quite sometime ago and decided to incorporate them in a fall layout. 

Of course the colors and papers you use are only limited to your own imagination. I just tried to use basic fall colors so I could get an idea of colors I might want to use. The lines are suggested for journaling and are in the MTC file but you don't need to cut those and can ignore them. 

MTC users can get the sizes for the papers from the file but here is a list of sizes for SVG users:

Red (base paper) - 12x12

Off White - 4x8 and 10x12

Green - 8x8

Dark Orange - 4x8

Grey (pictures) - 3.5x3.5

The MTC file has the images sized as in the picture but the SVG file has all the images on one mat so they will need to be resized for your purposes. 

You can download from the links below:

Caught In The Act - Layout

Sometimes you get lucky and catch daily life in pictures that makes a great layout. That was the case for this layout.

I am always telling my daughter "don't feed that to Lucy" as I don't like her having much human food and one evening I was sitting at my craft desk, as I am most evenings *okie thinks every evening* and my daughter came in with a hamburger and french fries after work. She sat in the chair and of course Lucy had to sit with her. Once again I had told her "don't give that to Lucy".

Out the corner of my eye I saw french fries sneakingly being given to Lucy. I quickly grabbed my camera and as I pointed the camera I yelled "Caught Y'all" and the look on their faces was priceless!

The shading on the cuts really made a huge difference on how they looked. I wish I would have cut a few more sesame seeds for the hamburger bun but what's done is done...and it is done.

You can download the MTC file here:
CAUGHT IN THE ACT

Sailing Away - Layout

I have so many pictures to scrap that if I even began to think about them all I would likely have a panic attack and completely give up, as I mentioned yesterday, I don't scrap in order and that might be one reason I don't! This is a layout of me and BFF Karen getting ready to sail away on our cruise last year.

I kept trying to decide what type of papers to use for this layout and looked through several different ones before deciding on Basic Grey Phoebe collection. I decided it didn't need to be nautical themed it just  needed to be something I liked to look at and this collection was it for me.

Here is a close up of the life preserver and the anchor cut. I added some mounting foam on the life preserver and this set the rope cuts off a little bit but not bad enough to really notice or matter.

I know I have some friends who have been on cruises so I am offering the file for the layout that includes all the cuts.

Download File:

SAILING AWAY

Graduation Layout

I am quite ashamed to admit that this layout is my daughter's high school graduation layout and she graduated in 2010! I have told ya'll I don't scrap in any certain order but prefer to scrap what I am in the mood to do at the time and I think this totally proves it!

I actually didn't use any machine cuts on this layout and opted to focus on adding more pictures than more decoration. It was hard to narrow down the pictures but I chose the ones that I thought would mean the most to my daughter. I did use some big silver chipboard letters that I obtained several years ago.

The main decoration is the flowers around the journaling block. I did add a few brads that were graduation theme for flower centers and then one on the journaling area. Not sure if you can see them but there are two that are diploma's and two that are graduation caps.

In order to dress up the pictures I did a double mount and then used various photo corners. I also pop dotted a few of the pictures to help add dimension.

This layout seemed to take me forever and I think it was from trying to decide on what photos to use then double mounting them and then adding photo corners. It is a simple layout but I do like it and when I showed it to my daughter a beaming smile spread across her face.

Naughty Or Nice - Layout

I have to find a picture of my daughter with Santa for this one, I know I have one somewhere in all my pictures, at least I think I do!

I was thinking maybe I could use the list image for the journaling. The layout seems pretty plain and not sure I will use the basic layout as it is but I do want to use the Santa face and the list. The font I used is Santas Sleigh and it is a great font for Christmas projects.

 Download File:
NAUGHTY OR NICE LAYOUT

Christmas Memories - Layout

I have been working on this layout for the last few days and most of the time layouts don't take me this long but this one did! I think it was all the detail in the Christmas tree that was the hold up.

For holiday layouts I usually always like to do two pages so I can get more bang for my buck, or in other words, more pictures in the layout.  I could have used smaller pictures and used more but how many pictures do I need of the kids opening gifts?

In choosing the pictures I tried to get them opening their favorite or meaningful gifts and then of them with their gift from Santa. I am glad I got a good picture of Chuck and Shiane in front of the Christmas tree. I did choose to double mat that picture and pop dot it. I know it's hard to tell in the pictures sometimes how much dimension there is on some of my stuff but most of ya'll know I love dimension!










I was very lucky this year and the kids did the cooking and cleaning up, best Christmas present EVER! My daughter's friend Alicia came over to open her gifts and to have dinner with us so I made sure to get pictures of her for the layout as well.

It made sense to me for me to use a picture of the kids at the dinner table for the big picture. I think in the future sometime Shiane can always look and remember how they cooked Christmas dinner. Dinner was very good by the way!

A lot of Mica and Bling cardstock was used in the layout and I usually don't use so much in one layout but it needed to be festive and special for Christmas. I used various embossing folders to add some interest to the gifts. I was going to use patterned paper but then thought I would like the embossing better.

I did use a few regular rectangles for gifts so I could fill in an area or two without having to make all special cuts. The stack of presents was one from a file from Miss Kates Cuttables, can't remember which one right off hand.

On the title I used Script MT Bold, one of my favorite fonts for welding and cutting. I cut the capital letters in red and the rest in an olive green. On the C and M I used the Divine Swirls embossing folder and for the rest of the word I used Swiss Dots. I added Stickles to the embossed areas. For the date I used Stampin Up Modern Label and Word Window punches.





 
Now for the tree...oh that tree! I found the tree image on the internet and did a pixel trace in MTC. I cut it out of a shade of olive Coredinations and then sanded the "branch" ends for a distressed look. I added pop dots under the branch areas as well.

The pearl garland was totally made by me. I used a curve shape and then added small circles to the curve and then welded. To get the garland to fit right I copy and pasted the first string and placed them where I thought it looked okay. I then welded several sections together at a time so the garland is in about 4 pieces. I was afraid the machine wouldn't want to read all the nodes well if I did it as a single piece. I only glued the main ends down and then a spot or two in the middle so the garland would have a swaggy, loopy look.

The ornaments on the tree are from a Stampin Up Digital Download file called Ornament Keepsakes Kit. I imported the SVG file into MTC and then resized them to fit for the Christmas tree. I could have made the ornaments just solid but I remember my mom having some very old ornaments where the middle "sunk" in and was more decorative than the rest of the bulb so for the ornaments cut shapes out of the middle of the larger ornaments.

To decorate the ornaments I used Liquid Pearls which worked out nicely. I used a silver gel pen to add the "cap" to the ornament. I pop dotted most of the ormanets and placed some where they looked like they were hanging off the branches.

I am making the file available for download but the ornament images will not be included in the file since they came from Stampin Up. The rest of the images are there available to cut.

To download the file for use with MAKE THE CUT click below:
CHRISTMAS MEMORIES LAYOUT