Sweet Boy

l've always been fond of layouts featuring a sunburst design and have been wanting to do one for quite some time.  So when I saw the sketch for challenge #22 (by LG Belarmino) at the Filipino Scrapbookers Challenge Blog, I just knew I had to try my hand at it.

Believe it or not, all the patterned paper that I used  on this page are scraps from a project I did weeks ago (Father's Day ATCs).  The sunburst design is always a good way to use up those scraps, which would otherwise be lying around, and cluttering up my work area. :)

And despite the subdued color palette, the design gives it a cheerful mood.  The hand stitching also gives it a homespun feel.

Materials:  Cardstock (Elit), patterned paper, brads, alphabet stickers, & trim (All About Scrspbooking), pen (Stabilo), and embroidery floss (DMC).

Chubby Cheeks

I haven't done any layouts in a while and I wanted to make one using the sketch for challenge #18 at the Filipino Scrapbook Challenge Blog.  The last entry I made for the challenges was about a month and a half ago.  And now that I'm currently working on moving to and organizing a new craft area, I'm looking forward to getting more craft stuff done.  For starters, it was a lot easier putting this layout together because I already have most of my tools and supplies sorted out (they just need to be put away).

Here's the sketch by Kathleen B. Hernandez for this current challenge:

So my take on the sketch is fairly simple and straightforward, except that I used two photos instead of one in an 8.5"x11" format.  I've had these pictures of my niece for a while now (she's a little girl now).  The journaling goes:  "You're not used to having your picture taken yet, that's why you're not smiling.  But still, you're oh so cute!!!  CHUBBY CHEEKS Jasmine Dana / August 2008". 

Supplies:  Patterned paper (K&Co., DCWV, & Kraft Yard), brads (Jo-Ann Scrap Essentials, All About Scrapbooking, & Simple Joys), embroidery floss (DMC), flowers (All About Scrapbooking & Craft World), die cut leaves (Yellow Violet House).

Tummy Time

It is 9:32pm on Nov. 30, 2012.  Challenge #10 on the Filipino Scrapbooker's Blog is about to end in a little less than 2-1/2 hours.  As of now, I have nothing done.  I am challenging myself to beat the deadline again.  This is a lot worse than the last time as I only got home at 8:00pm, had dinner first and then did stuff online.  So we will see how this goes.

It's now 10:56pm and I'm almost done with my layout.  All that's left is the title and journaling.  It's a really simple page, but I'm having a bit of writer's block.  Not a bit actually, it feels like a major one... well, at least for now.

And so, here is my finished page.  I had planned to use the same set of pictures and papers for the previous challenge, but since I didn't find the time to do it, I used them here.  So I didn't really start from scratch.  The borders were actually cut from paper scraps and glued together a week ago.  I wanted to use them for a card I was supposed to make, but decided to use them here instead.  The papers are from the Everyday Eclectic Kit I purchased from Ms. April Lim some weeks ago.  I wanted to start working on some pages as soon as I got the kit, but this month was so busy.  And that is why I wasn't able to submit an entry for Challenge #9.  November is usually a busy month for me, both due to work obligations and home/family stuff.  But this month has been incredibly hectic, I can hardly wait for the Christmas break!

Materials:  Patterned paper and letter stickers (Echo Park), cardstock (Me & My Big Ideas), pen (Dong-A), button, brad, ribbon, and fabric flowers (All About Scrapbookling), others - baker's twine.

My Shining Star

This is cutting it real close.  I had planned to make this layout about my sister and her baby girl a while ago.  With such as sweet picture, how can I go wrong?  But since I've been so terribly busy with work since September started, the few times I had a moment to spare, I wasn't feeling inspired enough.  So here's to beating deadlines... my entry for Challenge #5 at the Filipino Scrapbookers Challenge Blog.

Sentiment:  "All the dreams I prayed you'd be are all the things you are.  You were once my little girl and now my shining star."

Materials:  Patterned paper (Colorbok), ribbons (All About Scrapbooking), flowers (Craft World, Yellow Violet House, All About Scrapbooking), others - vellum sentiment.

Page Remake: Little One

I did this one, if I remember correctly, back in May (when things haven't gotten so busy yet).  It's just so amazing that this precious little baby is almost a teenager now.  Their family moved away a few months after his christening.  And although we exchanged phone calls, emails, and Christmas cards, and even got to see each other a few times, I must confess that I have to do a better job of keeping in touch.  Time just goes by so fast.  Before you know it, Connor's probably finished college, gotten married, and having babies of his own.  Well, hopefully, not anytime soon!

Supplies:  Cardstock (All About Scrapbooking), paper (Creative Imaginations), flowers (Prima w/ Glimmer Mist), fabric tape (Shallow Grass), ribbon and foam letter stickers (All About Scrapbooking), rub-ons (UBL).  Others - rhinestone gems, frame recycled from first version of the page.

Sweet Sassy Baby

Sweet and sassy... that's our Jasmine!  We all still call her "Baby" because she is the youngest of four siblings, even though she's already 4 years old and that there are two younger cousins that we now also call "Baby" (as they are also the youngest among their own brood).  But I suppose Baby Jasmine has held on to the name the longest by far and nobody has yet decided to call her otherwise.  Perhaps when she starts school next year...

Although these are all group pictures, you can probably tell which one she is - the one with the sweetest smile in the pics on the left, and the one showing a bit of sass in the pics on the right.  She's a very sweet and thoughtful little girl most of the time, but she sometimes shows what a temper she's got when the other kids cross her.  I find it quite funny that the bigger kids are a bit scared of her - they definitely can not push this girl around.

Materials:  Patterned paper (Colorbok), alphabet stamps (Studio G), ink (Versafine Onyx Black), alphabet stickers (Making Memories), border punch (Fiskars), cardstock, and brads (All About Scrapbooking), others - thread.

Girly Girl

Here I have another entry for challenge #3 on the Filipino Scrapbookers Challenge Blog.  On this very wet and gloomy week, I wanted to do something cheery.  And I've been thinking of making a layout about the youngest member of our family - my niece, Danielle Sophia.  When I was planning this page, I was thinking to include a lot of flower embellishments, though I couldn't use anything too bright or bulky, lest they take away from the pictures.  I made the journaling block from a large circle and a bunch of smaller punched circle shapes from patterned paper.  I glued the little circles around the larger circle to create the scalloped border, a trick I've learned from Kristina Werner that she uses when she creates her cards.  I also used the same patterned paper to cover the tiny tags used to spell out "girl".  The last thing I did was some handwritten journaling to finish off this hopefully pretty layout for a pretty little baby.

Materials:  Patterned paper (K & Company), die-cut chipboard shapes (Yellow Violet House), felt flower sticker (Making Memories), ink (black brown Dong-A gel pen), eyelets, letter stickers, felt & glitter stickers, and die-cut flower stickers (All About Scrapbooking).

XOXO Baby Boy

Last Sunday, for the first time ever, my nephew and I joined an All About Scrapbooking event that was held in Sta. Lucia East.  I think I will post a separate entry just for that, but all I wanted to say about it for now was that it was "Ready, Set, Scrap - Baby Edition", and that I spent most of last Saturday getting ready for it.  And that involved having pictures printed out at a nearby photo lab.  So I have a lot of baby pictures left over and I thought that it would be nice to take a break from re-doing pages from an old scrapbook.

So this is a brand new page that I made with the intention of joining challenge #3 at the Filipino Scrapbookers Challenge Blog.  Here is the layout that I'm building this page from:

I made this layout about my nephew (who is now a teenager and already in high school) when he was still a baby.  We were all so enamored by him, being the first apo and pamangkin in our family, on top of being such an adorable little baby. 

It took me a while to figure out what I would use as a large diagonal strip.  Then just this morning, I was inspired by this patterned paper I saw in a video on Kristina Werner's youtube channel.  It had a zigzag/chevron pattern that looked like a quilt.  And then in another video, she makes a card using strips of patterned paper to make a chevron pattern.  So I thought it would be fun to try, and the best part was that I had a bunch of scraps that was perfect for it.  I took me a while to finish the page... with the chevron pattern taking the longest to do.

And just when I thought I was done, I added one last embellishment - the paper flower that I had embossed with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder and attached with a pretty brad.  Still looks simple despite the busy looking patterned paper chevron strip. :)

Materials:  Patterned paper (DCWV), cardstock, paper flower, foam letters, die-cut bookplate (All About Scrapbooking), brad (Making Memories), black blue gel pen (Dong-A), white couache pen (Chaue).  Others - clear stickers.

Page Remake: MAC

Another remake of a page from my US scrapbook.  I actually split one page - of some pictures taken in the summer of 2000 - into two layouts.  This is the first of the two, which is all about the son of another grad student (who is also a close friend), and about how they came to name him Mac.  The pictures were taken at his older sister's birthday in May and at his first birthday in July.  I love making the little banners and how they give the layout a summery feel - to remind us of all the picnics and barbecues we had back then.  I also wrote the journaling by hand and incorporated it into the layout as the string from which the banners were hanging, leaving the page looking clean and simple.

Journaling:  "Mac is such a sweet little boy, the second child and only son of Cesar and Arlene.  Cesar has this neat little story of how they came up with the name: in Gaelic, it literally means "son of"... and since he is the one and only son, it's so him."

Supplies:  Cardstock (All About Scrapbooking and Star Paper Corporation), patterned paper (DCWV), paper flowers (Prima), fabric tape (Shallow Grass), felt letter stickers, flower trim, & acrylic flowers (All About Scrapbooking), black pigment ink pen (Uni), others - lace.

Now I know my ABC's

I worked on this project early in February as a birthday gift to the sweet little girl of a friend from work.  Due to the busy work sched, I was unable to make it in time for her birthday, but I heard that she liked it.  She especially liked touching it, which was so gratifying for me because I specifically picked all the different elements for their textures.  The bright pink post-its are placeholders for the family members' photos: "N" for Nanay (mom), "T" for both Tatay (dad) and Tala (the birthday girl's name, and such a pretty one at that).  I really had fun with this one and was glad that it can be easily finished in one weekend: one day to choose what goes into it (as I have a lot of stuff that needs sorting through and putting away) and another to put everything together.  Here's the finished project:

This was actually inspired by this project on scrapbooksetc.com:

...which I thought would be a great handmade gift for a baby/toddler.  The only difference probably is that mine was made to be touched, instead of being just on display.  I hope the glue holds up :).  Good thing that I used DCWV Adhesive Paper Prints for all the patterned paper, just needed to be cut into squares and then it sticks readily to the canvas base.  Alphabet stickers and many of the other shapes from All About Scrapbooking, the rest are from Craft World, Darice, K&Company, Making Memories, Michael's, Papermelroti, and Yellow Violet House.