White water rafting pages

So here are my rafting pages...




It's always a toss up for me...use fewer photos on the page and have more space to embellish, or use lots of photos and use minimal embellishments. Sometimes I get tired of seeing layouts with just one photo...On one hand, I think it looks nice, it's just not practical. If I were to do one photo layouts on all my pages, it would take me three lifetimes to get everything done...plus that's a lot of pages!!!

Paper: Karen Foster (ripple); Embellishments: Jolee's; Diecut letters (zipeCuts by AccuCut: Recess 1" Font); solid cardstock: Stampin' Up!

Remembering the Flood of 96

Last week, after digging through some old photos, I was actually able to spend some time scrapbooking. I know, hard to believe, but I did get quite a few pages done.

Now these two pages may not be artfully composed or designed using the latest trends in scrapbooking, but they do tell a simple story of an event that most Oregonians can remember...the flood of 96. I felt it was more important to highlight the photos and tell the story of the flood than to come up with great page designs. Plus...did I mention these photos were taken in 1996...um that's like 12 years ago...so I'm just happy to have these pages done!

One day while out collecting sand bags for her back yard, my mom and I took a drive and photographed some of the areas in Portland that were effected by the flooding.

I used a blue velum overlay to convey the feeling of water on my title.

It's hard to tell from this picture, but the top left is of the Willamette River (taken from the east bank) of the sea wall all boarded up. Top right is of stores down town all boarded up and sand bagged. The middle pictures are from the bike path on Marine drive where the Columbia River is just a few feet from the path. The bottom left is an aerial photo of the flooded Willamette Valley and the bottom right is the flooded covered wagons in Oregon City.

Got spam?

For some reason, Paper Capers has been hit by multiple spam comments this week, so I have decided to join the rest of you who have added word verification to your blog. When posting a comment to this blog, you will now need to type in the series of letters and numbers blogger randomly generates. By manually entering these characters, a lot of the automated spam will be eliminated since the comment cannot be saved unless you physically type in the characters.

I have always been mildly annoyed by these word verification boxes, but not as annoyed as I am with all the spam I've been receiving lately...so, sorry for the extra step, but thank you for your understanding...I hope this does the trick.

Ahoy, Matey

Here is a card I made for a little boy named Isaac who turned three this week. He had a fun pirate party, so I used my Ahoy Matey set from Stampin' Up!

The map background is also from Sampin Up!...but it's been retired for a while. I stamped the map on background paper from Karen Foster that looks like crinkled paper.

Of course I had to decorate the envelope too!

Groovy Baby...70's party pages

So first of all, these photos are almost 5 years old...so that's how on top of my scrapbooking I am! I'm glad I waited to do these pages though...how perfect is the Mellow line of paper from Basic Grey?

Okay...I'm a huge Brady Bunch fan, so I had to include them on the invite!

This is the invite I created for said 70's event!

...Now check out my outfit! Far out man!!! My husband totally freaked out my niece with his afro. I think this year we are going to do a Totally 80's party for our 35th birthday.

Red and cream card

I love the combination of patterns in these papers...so I made a few cards using the remaining pieces of paper from my husband's valentine's card/mini book.

stamped image is from Stampin' Up!

Dan's Valentine

Book of Love...
Finding just the right card or gift for my husband can sometimes be tricky. Over the years I have found that special handmade cards can serve as both the card and the gift.

This year I decided to try one of the word albums by Bo-Bunny. Once I figured out how I wanted everything layed out, it was a lot of fun to put together.



Papers used: Foofala (Red, black and Cream), K&Company, Stampin' Up!, SEI(Holly Lane: Mistletoe)
Tab Punch:Stampin Up!
Book Plate: 2 peas in a bucket
Label embelishments: EK Sucsess (Inspirables), Me and my Big Ideas (Husband)
Ink (for distressing edges): Stampin' Up! Cranberry Crisp
Adhesive: 3m spray adhesive
Binder rings: Office Depot
Ribbon and key (not sure)

A Whole lotta love on Valentine's day

Breakfast

Heart shaped pancake w/ whipped cream and a cherry on top!

LunchHeart shaped PB&J w/ heart shaped pretzles and heart shaped melon.

Dinner

Heart shaped pizza!

This is how Natalie's homemade valentines turned out. We made 22 of them!

She really liked making all the faces too.

Fruit Cup Gift Container Tutorial

I made these for Valentine's Day last year as teacher's gifts...filled with hot chocolate mix. This year, we filled them with m&ms.

Start with a small fruit cup with a pull tab top.

Using a safety can opener (that leaves no sharp edges) remove the BOTTOM LID. Wash out container and dry (make sure it's completely dry).

... and fill with candy (or whatever).

Seal up the lid with a thin bead of Crystal Effects or other clear laquer.

Last, cover can with cute paper.

Valentine's by Zander

Last night we cranked out 16 if these babies for Zander's preschool Valentines party today!

The card folds in half and seals with a sticker.

I used my new paper doll dies from Sizzix and Zander added the faces. By the end of it, Zander was so done with writing his name!

I got my Scrapbooking Mojo back!

After months of birthdays and holidays...and just being a busy SAHM, I finally pulled out my scrapbooking pages again! The urge to scrapbook had been building up, but I've always put it off because it tends to make a royal mess of my dinning room table (yes, there is a table in my scrapbook room, but that's a subject for another day).

Saturday, while looking for Valentine paper at my local scrapbook store, I came across some glittery paper and embellishments from K & Company that is perfect for the fairy pictures I'd been dying to start on. There really isn't that much in the way of pre-made embellishments with fairies (unless you want Tinkerbell...then there's a ton to choose from). So I bought the paper, layed it out on the table and presto change-0...looky what I made:

There is another flower stem in the photo (by her head) that I should photoshop out, but other than that, I think this turned out cute. The banner under the picture says "the fairest flower."

Here is a close up of the embellishemnts I put together. The stars are from Natalie's old ballet tu-tu and I added the glittery flower stickers by K & Company.

Here is another page I got done...I even managed to write a caption too!!!

This tag is from My Mind's Eye (bonjour collection). I added the glitter to the letters and dressed it up with more flowers. I have 3 more pages in the wings, but I need to go get more background paper.

How to get more mileage from your 12x12 cardstock

Many of you already do this, but it's worth mentioning as scrapbooking paper can sometimes be spendy. I don't do this when using regular cardstock (unless it's a large photo), but if I'm using expensive paper, I like to get the most out of my paper. For the above layouts I used lots of glittery paper which sells for about $1 a sheet (12x12). I tend to mount all my photos on coordinating cardstock, so rather than have all the back go to waste, I cut 1/2" to 1" borders out from the edge of the cardstock and use the inside piece for another photo. Here's what I mean:

Here is the glittery green cardstock cut to fit my 5x7 photo.

If I cut waway 1/2 inch, I can then use the middle to mount a 4x6 photo.

You can't even tell the back is cut out!

Here is a look at how many photos you can mount with one piece of 12x12. I have one 8x10, two 5x7 and two 4x6 photos from just one piece. If I didn't cut out the middle, it would have taken two and a half sheets of cardstock.

Here is the back where you can see the cut outs.

Don't eat that yet...

I have to take a picture of it!!!

Most people (non-bloggers mostly) think I am a little crazy for taking pictures of food...but when I take the time to make something special — there's gonna be a picture! I read enough blogs to know I'm not the only one who does this, but I still get weird looks when I "pose" my food!

It's all good though, cause I get to share with you all.

Happy Groundhog's Day!

I made this dessert with chocolate cups you can buy in the grocery store and chocolate cool whip. (You could also use a cupcake) The groundhog was made from a Mounds candy bar and mini chocolate chips and other various candies. The "dirt" was made by crushing chocolate grahm crackers. The kids loved em!

Superbowl Super

For the superbowl yesterday, I made a batch of chili in the crock-pot and sandwich roll-ups. We also had corn bread, veggies and other munchies.

Valentine's Playdough

Well, all the snow has melted (except for the giant snow ball in our back yard) and the Oregon rain has returned making me a little stir crazy. Yesterday I was looking for an activity (besides tv) for our kids and I decided to make some playdough. I like homemade playdough so much better than the kind you buy in the stores...and if you've ever tried to get the store bought kind out of your carpet, I'm sure you'll agree with me.

You will need:

1 cup flour

1 cup water
1/2 cup salt
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 tablespoons oil
a few drops of food coloring

Mix the dry ingredients first, then add the liquids and stir on medium heat.

eventually it will start clumping together, so you need to stir it constantly...cause no one wantes to play with burnt playdough, right?

After it all clumps together in a ball, remove from heat and kneed on a table until it cools down. I like to add things to the playdough. This time I added red glitter (for Valentine's Day of course!) Once for my daughter's teddy bear party (3 years old) I made brown playdough and added ground cloves and cinnamon...mmm, it smelled good.

Store playdough in an airtight container in the fridge.

Playdough in unexpected places
Our kids love to go to Chevy's mexican restaurant because the servers give them dough to play with while they are waiting for their food to arrive. I think it's the same dough they use to make their fresh tortillas with...the kids think it's great and it saves me from having to entertain hungry kids!

Also if you live in the Portland area, Peanutbutter and Ellie's (restaurant for kids) makes an eatible peanutbutter playdough to entertain your kids while they wait.