Creative Keepsakes Custom Scrapbooks

Happy Tuesday

Happy Tuesday...it's back to work for me.  Had a restful three day weekend.  Valentine's Day was fun.  Jonas and I visited a friend at the Train show in Long Beach.  It was pretty cool seeing intricate trains of all sizes.  We saw many little and not so little boys with eyes wide open with wonder.  Then we spent the afternoon shopping...bought my first pair of maternity jeans.  We cancelled dinner at Five Crowns...I was tired.  Jonas made shrimp cocktail, ceasar salad, baked potato, garlic bread, and filet mignon for dinner.  It was yummy!  I have a fantastic husband.

I made this card for my niece who's birthday I missed last month...sorry Analia!  I'm sending it to her with a set of cards and some birthday money.  I hope that makes up for it.

I love this Hero Arts clear stamps set.  It comes with three girl stamps and a few sentiments.  They are so cute and I love coloring them in with Copics.  Still learning to use Copics...  I cut out the frames with the Cricut Accent Essentials cartridge. I also added bling to the center of the flowers.

I hope you have a wonderful week!  I'm looking forward to catching up on lots of Scrapbooking.  Zeus, our puppy turns one on the 18th...I need to finish his scrapbook.  And I still have to finish our 2009 scrapbook!  Lot's to do!

Blessings,

Beth

18 weeks and counting...

I'm in my fifth month of pregnancy and it has been an adventure!!  I'm starting to show and that is exciting.  I was wondering when that belly bump would appear.  I'm one of many women pregnant at the school I work at and they have all been showing for a while.  So it's nice to join in.

Here is a picture of me showing my belly bump...I'm very proud of it!

Picture compliments of my hubby!  He's not too bad with a camera.  I'll be scrapbooking this picture as soon as I get it developed.
I did a lot of card making and scrapbooking this weekend.  I finished a 8x8 Disney Cruise scrapbook for a client and I did some pregnancy scrapbooking too.  This double layout is for the 14 week ultrasound pictures.  

I went to my 14 week OBGYN appointment and she was a little concerned about the placenta.  She a very thorough doctor.  She sent me in for a complete ultrasound exam, hence all the pictures.  It was fun to see the baby's hand, a foot, and the baby's face.  

I added a poem that Jonas wrote for me...very sweet of him.  The poem says:

"Soon to be three floating with the moon's magic

No one knows if it's a boy or a girl rumor has it

With love in the air and Jesus by our side

Nothings' impossible, not even a new ride

Now we are one, soon to be two

With Max and Zeus the place is a zoo!

"Onward and upward' so they say

But to be with Beth makes me content for the day

Trouble is round, and trouble is near (no different than any other day)

With the Grace of God there's nothing to fear

With arms we embrace

Embellished with Grace

To behold God's face

And avoid the rat race..."

I used paper and embellishments from Creative Imaginations.  Great and fun paper all about pregnancy.  It has stickers telling you what is happening every month, and paper specific to each trimester.  I am loving this paper and embellishments.   I cut out the title with the Cricut Cutting Up cartridge and stamped the words with a Hero Arts dots woodblock stamp.

I'm considering doing one of those 3d ultrasounds later on in the pregnancy.  Have any of you had one done?  We have to wait two more weeks to find out the baby's sex...exciting!!!

Blessings!

Beth

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's Valentine's Day and I have no idea what is going to happen today.  Jonas has not told me a thing.  He usually isn't that great at keeping surprises secret...maybe it means that he hasn't planned a thing...oh boy!  All I know is we are going to church this morning, but nothing else.  I made him a few cards for today and have left them around the house for him to find.  I like the simplicity of this card.

I cut out two hearts with the George and Basic Shapes Cricut cartridge.  I added red Bazzil string around the hearts.  The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink Simple Valentines set.  This card keeps in line with my new motto...keep it simple.

Quick update on my scrapbook room...it's coming along.  I ordered four Kaiser Craft paper shelves and they arrived on Friday.  I put them together yesterday and filled them with paper.  And here they are...

Now I need to figure out how to organize my patterned paper.  These shelves were fairly inexpensive and I'm hoping to find some sort of file system for the patterned paper.

Hope you have a very blessed day!

Beth 

More Tiny Valentine's Stamping!

Okay, so I forgot my niece's birthday in January.  Bad aunt, bad aunt!  I felt so bad when I realized it.  BUT...to my defense, I have been busy with being pregnant, work, moving, etc, etc, etc...  So to make up for it, I made her a 12 card set using Papertrey Ink's Tiny Valentines stamp set.  I love these stamps!  

I kept it simple...all white cards, colored in the images with Copic markers, used a circle punch, and a scalloped circle punch.  I added coordinating ribbon and stamped the coordinating sentiment at the bottom right of each card.  Easy and quick!  I made all 12 cards while I was watching the Olympics opening ceremony.  By the way, so sad about the luge athlete who died during a training run.  My prayers go out to his family...what a tragedy!

So what are your plans for Valentine's Day?  I used to hate this holiday, but now that I have a valentine...I love it!  Not sure what we will be up to...It's Jonas' year to plan.  Let's see what he does...

Blessings!

Beth

Papertrey Rocks!

I played with my stamps and created this weekend!  I have been so tired from unpacking and no time to play!  I sat down Sunday afternoon in my still mostly unpacked scrapbook room and crafted away!  I made four cards with Papertrey Ink stamps.  It's the Tiny Valentines stamp set.  I love these stamps...they are so cute!

I stamped each image on white cardstock and colored them in with Copic makers. I actually cut out the circles and scalloped cirlces with my cricut.  I used the Mini Monograms cartridge.  I didn't have punches large enough.  Plus, it makes me feel good every time I use my Cricut.  I embossed each card with a different Quickcutz and Cuttlebug embossing folder.  I love how they came out and I can't wait to send them out!  

I will be working a lot this week.  From now until gradutaion, we counselors are busy with Senior evaluations, registration, all sorts of testing, and graduation.  Despite the chaos, I'm determined to stay positive and ward off stress!  Hope you have a stress-free week!
Blessings,
Beth

The Scrapbook Room-The Raw Version

Moving this weekend was long and tiring!  And I didn't move anything.  I cleaned and unpacked.  I got tired pretty fast so I needed to take lots of breaks.  And unpacking is going slow.  I started some unpacking in my new scrapbooking room tonight, but need to spend more time unpacking our bedroom and the kitchen.  I took some pictures of my scrapbook room...its full of boxes!  Very messy, but I am excited to have the room and look forward to organizing it!

 That's a lot of boxes!  How to organize it all?!?!?!

 Well, at least my Cricut and Cuttlebug are unpacked...

 My caddy has claimed it's place on my desk...love the caddy!

Jonas donated these bookshelves for my room.  I envision them filled with supplies.

I have a lot of work this week...upacking and organizing.  Can't wait to share the finished product.  I'm sure it will change around a lot until I find a system that works.  I will probably need to buy lots of shelves and containers to organize everything.  Still trying to figure out exactly how to organize my paper...stay tuned!

Blessings,

Beth

Long Time No Blog

So sorry for the long absence! We are in the middle of moving! The last week or so, we've been packing and today/tomorrow we are moving to our new home. I'm so excited! It's a bigger place and I will have my very own scrapbooking room! I must admit that I was sad to pack up my scrapbook stuff (about 15 boxes to pack it all), but happy to know that I will be unpacking it in my very own work/creative space! Can't wait to organize it all...which means shopping for furniture/organizational supplies! Just read today about a new organizational shelving for Copic markers on Jennifer McGuire's blog...might just have to invest in them. Hope you all have a great weekend and hopefully I'll be set up soon. I miss creating!

Blessings!

Beth

Mickey Ventures

I love Disney and I love Disneyland.  I live about 30 minutes away and I'm sad to say that we hardly ever go.  Once the baby is born, we will have to invest in passes.  I just started working on a Disney custom order.  It's an 8x8 album of a Disney Cruise.  From the pictures, it looks like Disney cruises are awesome. I have not had the pleasure of experiencing a cruise, because I get extremely motion sickness.  Jonas and I keep saying we are going to try out a weekend cruise.  Any ideas of good cruises to try out?  Here's the first layout of the scrapbook.

I used a Fiskars punch to create the three layers of waves.  Each row of waves was a different shade of blue.  The ship and the Mickey embellishment are Jolee stickers.  Actually, I bought a lot of about 11 packages of Disney and cruise related embellishments on Ebay for $9.99!  What a deal!  And will be more than enough for this project.  The Disney title is from the Disney Font Cricut cartridge.  What do you think?

Blessings!

Beth

Kitty Tag

It's been raining all day long!  Like real rain with wind and all.  And, it's supposed to rain like this all week long.  What a treat for us SoCal peeps.  The only thing that is going to be a bummer is when I try to drive to work tomorrow...I should probably leave really early!

Jonas and I spent some more time house hunting today.  We found a place that we really like.  It's not in Rancho Santa Margarita, but it's in a great location, really private, quiet, and roomy.  It will be a great fit for all of us (dogs included).  It's packing time!  I will have my very own scrapbook room!  Yeah!!

I whipped up this tag this afternoon.  It's going to accompany a box of See's chocolates all the way to Tennessee.  I have discovered that See's is only a West Coast thing.  See's are absolutely, hands down, the best chocolates ever!  I sure hope the rest of the country gets See's stores soon!

Simple, yet cute.  I used (play time again!) some new stamps that I bought over the Christmas break.  I used a new Hero Arts Cling stamp.  I kitty and the sentiment came from Papertrey's "Tiny Treats" set.  Cute, huh?  I also used Copic markers to color in the kitty and the scalloped borders around the sentiment.  It looks pink in the picture, but it's actually red.

Tomorrow is my 14 week OBGYN appointment.  I can't wait to see our little baby and how much she's grown.  Pregnancy is such a miracle!

Blessings!

Beth

Cupcake Card

It's been a great weekend.  I went to the Scrapbook Expo in Costa Mesa yesterday with a few gal pals and we had a blast.  Spent way too much money, but found some really cool things and great deals.  Today, Jonas and I went house hunting...that was tiring!  We're looking for something bigger...with two big dogs and a baby on the way, we are bursting at the seams.  And I need a larger scrapbook work area.

I have finally gotten some time to play with new toys.  I made this card with one of Hero Arts new Cling stamps and Copic markers.  I seriously need to take a class to learn how to use the markers.  I hear there are Utube videos about Copic markers.  I will need to check those out.

This Hero Arts stamp is an over-sized cupcake.  Love it!  I stamped it three times.  Colored it in and cut out the top part of the cupcake and adhered it with pop up stickers.  Then I cut out the heart and adhered it with pop up stickers.  I used Stickles to add bling to the hearts, dots, and swirls.  You can't see it that well in the picture, but the cupcake has dimension and bling.  I used an embossed DCWV card (I'm almost running out  of these!).  Cute, huh.  Simple and easy.

Well, we're experiencing a rarely seen phenomena in Southern California today...it's raining!  Well, more like sprinkling, but that might as well be considered torrential rain.  It's a stay at home with the fireplace on for the rest of the day.  And no work tomorrow!!!

Blessings!

Beth