Another Egypt 2-pager

Credits: Mother Nature kit from Scrap Matters except circle stitching which came from Shabby Princess's Urban Kiwi kit.
Download Template #43 here.

Download Template #44 here.

Khan El-Khalili with a single photo template

The journalling on this page is almost exactly the same as this blog post from my family blog.

Credits: Mother Nature from Scrap Matters

Tip: The flowers on the corner of my LO are part of the paper. You could fill my flowers on the template with paper or color them, but it would probably look best if you deleted them, and filled that corner with coordinating flowers or used a paper with designs on the corners already, like I did.
Download Template #42 here.

The Sphinx

I took about 25 photos of the Sphinx in about 5 minutes. :) Before we got there, I thought that seeing the Sphinx wouldn't be all that big of a deal, but I was overwhelmed with the idea that I was actually there. Even my wide-angle lens wasn't enough to get the whole thing in one photo from the side, so I took several photos and then pieced them together.Credits: Mother Nature kit at Scrap Matters except the camel and palm tree which came from the Road to the Oasis kit by Kyra and the cartouche alpha from Suzanne Walker. Here's a link for the alpha: http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=144100

I arranged the template differently since your LO's don't have to fit my photos, and I think this will work better for most of you.
Download Template #41 here.

American #1!

I have to tell you, we loved Egypt very much, but the people who make their money off tourists could be extremely annoying. They didn't see us, they saw dollar signs. It nearly ruined our experience at the pyramids. These guys came and got in our picture and then wanted a tip. So frustrating! When we got closer to the pyramids, some guys helped us with the strollers, then they wanted us to give them $200 for their troubles. Even at the temples, there were men who acted like guides and then after giving you a little information asked for a little tip. Anyway, I had to make at least one page so that years from now we could remember it all. :)

Credits: Mother Nature kit at Scrap Matters

Keep the film strip as is or fill it with paper to coordinate with your own LO.

Download Template #40 here.

Another Pyramid LO

I really like this picture, so I wanted to create an LO that highlighted one photo. I love the contrast between the circles and rectangles. A clean, simple way to create interest. :)Credits: Everything from Mother Nature kit at Scrap Matters.

Download Template #39 here.

The Pyramids!

Here's the page you've all been waiting for. I have to tell you, I had a really hard time making a LO that deserved these photos. LOL Credits: Mother Nature kit from Scrap Matters, except camel which came from Road to the Oasis by Kyra
Download Template #38 here.

Egyptian Museum, Part 2

From a photographer's point of view, the Egyptian Museum was frustrating. I wanted to take pictures so badly! But, we had to turn in our camera before we could go inside. I bought some postcards so that I could scrap some of the more impressive artifacts, but they aren't the best photographs ever. I had to do a lot of messing with them in PSP once I scanned them in order to get the lighting and color right. Oh, well, at least the page turned out good. :)
Credits: Mother Nature kit from Scrap Matters, except Tut tag which I made from a postcard with heiroglyphs. Oh, and I keep forgetting to say that the font that I use for my journaling (my favorite journaling font, BTW) is Font Garden's Jayne Print.

The bracket is part of the Mother Nature kit, but I created the bracket frame for this template.

Download Template #37 here.

Egyptian Museum--2 Page Template

Just a quick post to share a two-pager. Here are my layouts:

Credits: Everything from Scrap Matters Mother Nature kit except Cartouche Alpha by Suzanne C. Walker and the palm tree tag from Road to the Oasis kit by Kyra.

And here are your templates:
Download Template #35 here.

Download Template #36 here.

A new freebie and I've been tagged!

I've been tagged by my friend from BabyCenter, Amanda at Simply Scrapping. Here are the rules:

1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here are 7 facts about me:

1. I love my name now, not too popular, but everyone knows how to pronounce it. I always wished it had a nickname to go with it, though. One of my college friends called me Rick, but it didn't stick.

2. My favorite ice cream is peppermint stick, but it has to be the cheap kind, where the candy has gotten all gooey.

3. Brad, my husband, was my first and only boyfriend.

4. I think a good gift is even better if the person who bought it got a great deal. My mom leaves the prices on presents for me so that I can share in the joy of a good buy.

5. I would bake cookies everyday if someone else would eat them before I could eat too many and clean the kitchen afterwards.

6. I don't like socks with terry cloth in them or couches with buttons. My dad calls me the princess and the pea.

7. I like taking tests, and I miss going to school.

Now, here are seven bloggers that I am tagging:

1. Lori from The Simple Life at Home. She's doing a nice series right now on respecting your husband. She's a good friend too--yesterday she watched my kids for me. :)

2. Laura from My Quotidian Mysteries. I'm not sure if she has time to do this sort of thing since she just had a new baby. But, I also know her in real life and her blog is so good!

3. Krista from Designs by Krista. She probably has no idea who I am, but I've posted comments on her blog a couple times and her freebies are awesome!

4. Shawna from Scrap Stuff with PSP. She also has no idea who I am :), but I love her blog, especially her tutorial section!

5. Jennifer from Zaankali's Adventures. She always leaves such nice comments on my other blog.

Well, I broke the rules, because I can't think of anyone else to tag. :)

Here comes Egypt, part 2:

Once again, everything on this page came from the Mother Nature kit at Scrap Matters. I promise the next page will actually have the pictures you want to see with real Egyptian things. LOL :)
Download Template #34 here.

Finally got back into my groove

I've been waiting to get enough pages done from Egypt before I start posting them, just in case I decided to change my mind about the style or the kit that I'm using. But, I'm feeling pretty comfortable now. I've gotten them about halfway done, meaning I've done 11 pages so far. :) Unless otherwise stated, everything comes from the Mother Nature collab kit from Scrap Matters.


If you'd like to know more about the story behind this page, visit my family blog here.

Download Template #33 here.

A new freebie and sometimes I just don't think things through :)

Last night, laying in bed trying to go to sleep, I realized that the bent photos in some of templates are going to look weird when they're on top of background paper because I left the shadows opaque. So, then I was trying to think what would be the best way for you all to fix it so that it looks right, and I think it would be using an eraser at about 50 % or less opacity to carefully erase some of the shadow area. Sorry! :) I'll keep it in mind in the future if I make another template with bent photos.


While we're on the topic of templates, I'm having scrapper's block with my photos from Egypt. In the meantime, I've been "clowning around" with this little kit. It's so much more fun to create a kit right now than it is to sit down and really think about templates that work for my photos. Hope you enjoy this kit, though. :) I called it Clowning Around because that's what I was doing, and the colors reminded me of the circus. You certainly wouldn't have to use it for circus pictures, but I didn't think it would be right to title it Clowning Around and not include a clown in the kit. Also, the staples are supposed to look like Fastenaters, large staples that are popular in the paper scrapping world. If you don't like the look of the big staples, you could shrink the blank ones and they'll look like normal ones.





Clowning Around kit includes:
4 solid papers
6 patterned papers
4 polka dot ribbons
2 flowers
8 large staples (4 blank, 4 with words)
1 beaded wire
colored dot alpha (multiple dots for each letter for mixing and matching)

Download Clowning Around Papers here.

Download Clowning Around Elements and Alpha here.

Catie's Swim Suit

I'm still working on my Egypt pages, but in the meantime, here's a kit that I've been working on off and on for a little while. It's inspired by my daughter's swim suit. I've learned a lot making this kit. Hope you enjoy it!



Kit includes:
6 patterned papers
6 solid papers with inked edges
6 ribbons (5 solid, 1 striped)
2 wooden frames (square and rectangular)
9 stickers (some puffy, some flat, including a glittery sun sticker)
2 word art stickers
2 patterned paperclips
2 brads

Download Catie's Swim Suit here.

I'm back and it's National Scrapbooking Day!

Well, we got back from our wonderful trip to Egypt on Tuesday afternoon, and while we were at the grocery store that evening, my son started throwing up. Ever since, we've been having a family pukey party. But, we're better now and I'm back with a bunch of templates. I had a creative bug right before we left and made all of these templates for you. I'm planning on making templates to use for my Egypt pictures, but I haven't had the energy think about what they're going to look like yet. In the meantime, here's a bunch of templates to tide you over. Oh, and if you want to hear some of the stories about out trip to Egypt, head on over to my family blog.

First, here's a two pager with lots of photo spaces.

Download Template #28 (side A) here.

Download Template #29 (side B) here.

Next, are two templates that I scraplifted from a talented paper scrapper on BabyCenter. Here is a link to her two layouts. And here is my page that I made with the first one:

A few thoughts on working with this template. I was just messing around when I made the photo mat. I'm pretty sure that you can get much nicer ones, but if you don't have one, you can use mine. :) I used the dots as a guide for placing the gemstones and then deleted the dot layer. You could also fill them with paper or use them to "punch" holes in the paper strips.

I haven't used the other template yet, but I think the template itself looks adorable, so it's bound to be really cute filled with papers and photos. :)

Download Template #30 here.

Download Template #31 here.

Last, but not least, template 32. I just love journalling that follows the lines of the page. :)

Download Template #32 here.

Enjoy. :) And happy National Scrapbooking Day!