Creative Thinking with Pris- Stamp Your Layouts!

Today is the first ever "Creative Thinking" post at Lasting Memories, and I am the very first poster! Check it out!!

This was a tough challenge for me. Mentally. As a rule, I don't stamp in my scrapbooks. I am paranoid about ink rubbing off on the plastic page protectors (happened to me once!) so I usually shy away from stamping near my precious pics!

I was very surprised to find that I love Love LOVE this layout! Here is how it went:

Despite my stamping-in-my-scrapbook apprehensions, I DO own quite a number of stamps and some very lovely Close To My Heart ink pads (which I use when I {very rarely} make cards).  At first I was only going to use my giant snowflake and 'Barn-Red' ink, but I was soon enjoying stamping and needed to add 'New England Ivy' snowflakes as well. It then evolved, and I ended up stamping "a very merry Christmas to you" on a side-bar piece of paper as well.

I randomly stamped snowflakes, in varying shades (this is the famous "keep stamping till you run out of ink" technique). The biggest problem with this sort of thing, is knowing when to stop. Your page can very easily become over crowded. LESS IS MORE!!

I used my Creative Memories "Tag Maker" punch on a bunch of pictures, and attached small pieces of white ribbon to each one to make them look like Christmas gift tags. I randomly stamped "a very merry Christmas to you" in black ink on this red side-bar piece of paper, and then attached some of my picture tags on top of it. 

I used my handy-dandy cricut and "storybook" cartridge to spell out Christmas Eve with the same red paper, lovely!

This "Special Day" sticker is from Creative Memories, mounted on a white piece of paper, cut out, and then mounted on green paper. I also used several Creative Memories holly stickers to add a little 'something.'

And there you have it... a lovely stamped page!! I just may use stamps in my scrapbook again, who knows!!

 

Be sure to leave a comment letting me know if this was helpful. I would love to see what you come up with!

DON'T FORGET... to link your own "stamped" pages over at the Lasting Memories Layout Challenge. This challenge ends Friday, August 13 at 11:59 EST... so get out those stamps and scrap to your heart's content! For inspiration, check out my Lasting Memories Design Team & Schedule page above... you could be the next 'Top 3' winner! Good luck!

Lydia's Painting

My families Christmas holidays (and any other holiday!) consists of eating, arguing, and playing board games and cards games into the wee hours of the morning. During Christmas 2009, my sister Lydia got 'bored' and decided to paint a picture while we continued to argue and play games. 

I claimed the picture and framed it and have it in my home... for more of Lydia's creations, visit her blog at http://www.hawadaere.blogspot.com/

Holidays Holidays Holidays

Holidays are one of those times when everyone remembers to take out the camera, so usually we have lots of fun pictures from family gatherings and holiday festivities. We all want to remember our favourite holidays with fondness and clarity, so get out those Christmas pics and get in touch with me to start planning your holiday album!
Again I would like to reiterate that layouts can be as detailed or as sparse as you want them to be. In my personal "chronological" albums I try to fit each event into one or two spreads so that it can tell a story as well as be beautiful to look at. I prefer my "chronological" story to remain very simple with not alot of embelishment and more pictures to tell the tale. If I do not have very many pictures from an event, I will try to include memorabilia or a large journaling block to write out my memories of the event. If there is no memorabilia available, I create decorative embelishment to enhance the few pictures I do have. Embelishments should always be ENHANCEMENTS, and not the focus of a page. We are scrapbooking in order to re-live and share our memories with others, not to just see pretty ribbons and paper.
Below are some Christmas and winter layouts from my personal "chronological" album:

The following layouts are from a family Easter get-together:

Don't forget about all those fun times with your realatives and friends... let's get scrappin!