The first two weeks of February apparently were filled with purple wearing. I swear I didn’t plan to have both week’s self portraits of me wearing purple. Oh well!

February is always my favorite month. It’s a short month. I get to celebrate Valentine’s with my husband. My new college class started up at the community college so I’m teaching two nights a week again. It’s my BIRTHDAY! Just a great month.

Well, I’ve also been so busy creating scrapbook pages and loving every minute of it. As part of my 2012 year, I am participating in Ali Edward’s One Little Word. This year I really wanted to make it a part of my life and that is why I have been featuring it on my blog at the first of each month (January, February}. Well, as a part of that I wanted to create a layout to document what the word means to me and what I plan to do with it over the course of the year.

On the Kraft background of this layout, I got busy with my paints. I first painted a square and rectangle in brown. I didn’t like that so I painted over it in white and then did some white splatter as well. LOVED that!

Next was grabbing some random scraps from my stash to enhance the various parts of the layout. I used papers from Jillibean Soup {dots and plaid}, My Minds Eye {floral and damask}, Lily Bee Design {photo mat} and Echo Park {journaling spot}. I totally thought that these pictures of my new hair-do by one of my students demonstrated me being “open” to new things.

Check back on the first where I go over what all has happened in February to show how Open I have been.

So this week’s self portrait is literally taken this morning on the way to school/work. I got a new outfit on Wednesday night from Lane Bryant (tank and sweater) after exchanging some stuff from Christmas and felt that it was perfect to wear for my birthday.

Today is the day that I turn 31 and I am feeling so blessed in life. I have a husband who I love and who adores me. I have a supportive family. I have a job that I enjoy working at {for the most part… LOL!}. I have time each week to be creative and express myself through art. I am me!

Tonight we have plans to go have Sushi at a new place and just spend some time together in town. I was able to do a pre-birthday celebration with my parents last night at their house and my dad grilled for me as you can see below. It was so yummy and so worth the little bit extra over my daily allotment of calories.

My brother, who now works at Central Market, grabbed some AMAZING cupcakes for us to share for my dessert. I honestly detest buttercream icing but this was so fresh and smooth it was light and amazing! Totally happy we had extra for this weekend!

One of my students at school is my Birthday Twin so we had to snap a photo today while we were celebrating. My students have been so supportive and I’ve had tons of wishes at work today. So happy!

This weekend I began a torrid love affair with tags {well I don’t think it ever went away} and paint. I pulled out my #8 shipping tags, some paint in various colors and my Distress Inks and went to town!

One of the layouts that I created as a part of this love affair is “Saving Our Money”. I am totally loving it and it documents a story of how hard I work to help stretch our food budget each month with coupons.

This layout came together quite easily and I focused on using a lot of scraps for the paper pieces. The blue strip is the only piece cut from a fresh piece of patterned paper and then going back to the roots and using white as a background was a shocker not only for me but my husband as well.

The tag is totally part of what make this layout. I took step by step photos for you as I went along and so I present to you my Distress Ink and Paint Goodness.

Since creating this tag, I have created several more and hope to showcase them on future layouts. I’ve decided that anytime I want to be creative but am not feeling scrapbooking at that time, I have been pulling out tags to create for future layouts and also creating cards. What fun!

What do you do to keep the mojo going? I would love see your tags if you create any with this tutorial. Feel free to share them.

Yes, that’s my crazy workspace!  There isn’t much of it but it is mine and I like it.  You can  see remnants of my painting from this weekend in the red cup of water with paintbrushes and my big white envelope from the mail that I was using as a palette.  So fun! There is a random sampling of paints that I used this weekend as well as tools.  I ended up creating a lot of tags and can’t wait to share one with you today. I even have a tutorial coming up that I created this weekend.

To the right of my table is my crate that I shared yesterday. You can see it’s a bit more full now. On top of it is my spreadsheet that I created this weekend with all of the layouts for my 2012 album that have happened so far and then I went backwards in 2011. I have a column to mark off when they are done and then a column for extra notes. Let me say, I am TOTALLY LOVING this! I love how I can bounce around but I know what order they are coming in and then I can also somewhat match them up and know when something will take 2 pages versus 1 page in my scrapbook! OCD and Anal- probably but it works!

Now onto the fun stuff! This weekend I was looking at a new blog commenters blog and she had just posted a layout that she created with the following sketch from The Studio Challenges Blog. I was enamored and knew that I had to use it this weekend for another Start to Finish Layout!

The process was to start with a light teal piece of cardstock and paint black circles over the sheet as the sketch shows. I then used white and black paint to splatter across the page. LOVING IT! I had paint EVERYWHERE and it was totally fun!

Next, I punched some 1″ circles from of the papers I was using and adhered them in random spots on the layout to add interest. Now for finishing it up.

I grabbed a #8 tag and inked it up with Brushed Corduroy, Weathered Wood, and Tumbled Glass Distress Inks. I then used some teal paint to paint hearts in random spots. I then spatter painted with hot pink and black. Once the hearts had dried, I used my Uniball Signo White Pen to create some doodling on the hearts as well as my Black Letraset marker. I journaled in the same Letraset marker. LOVE how thick it is and how it pops!

The photo is mounted on the same cardstock as I used for the 1″ circles and the scalloped border at the top. It is part of the My Minds Eye Love Me Collection. I tied the photo off with Pink Sorbey twine from The Twinery. The piece behind the tag is from Tim Holtz Kraft Resist and I used Broken China Distress Stain on it to blend it in.

After I added the American Crafts letter for the title, I went over and spatter painted MORE hot pink over the white and top part of the layout.

So in love of this layout and can’t wait to create more! Thank you for letting me play along with this sketch.

I am always in need of Birthday cards for one person or another and so this past week when Hambo Digital Stamps released the Dragon {I crack myself up!}, I totally had to use the birthday phrase!

I pulled out the Sketch for You to Try from my stack of challenges that I have printed out and was going to make it work. I colored in the Dragon with BG10, BG11, BG13, BG15 and BG18 which I actually pulled for the My Minds Eye wood plank paper in the background. I made him act as my “circle” so that he would be the feature with some twine tied behind him for interest.

The next challenge was the three circles. I decided to pull out three white buttons and tie them off with Caribbean Twine from The Twinery. I did adapt them to pull them near the top to create a balance when I added the sentiment near the bottom of the card.

Next up was the inside. I wanted it simple but to match the outside as well. I can’t leave a dark card empty on the inside otherwise it is hard to write in.

What type of card are you always creating? What types of cards are you looking for but can never seem to find?

I have been on the lookout for the “perfect” storage solution for my Copics {and other markers and writing utensils}. Hubs had received a notification on his Craigslist app that there was a local place that was clearing out various things and as I was interested in one of the metal crates {more on that later}, he went and looked for me while I was working.

While he was there, he came across an AMAZING Dr. Pepper bottling crate from 1970 that I fell in love with when he sent me a picture! {see below}

Well to say it needed some love was an understatement. I gave it thorough washing and let it dry out. The next step was to figure out how to cover the holes in the bottom where the boards didn’t meet all the way. I didn’t want my markers to fall through.

I didn’t want to attach anything to the box as I wanted to preserve it’s history so I had the idea of adding chipboard into the bottom of the crate because once the markers were in the pieces would stay in place. Hubby gladly recycled and cut up a Cheerios box and placed it in the bottom one night while I was teaching at the community college. I came home to it in all it’s glory and my markers organized by the hubs! So thoughtful!

I love how it now looks all finished and I can definitely see I need MORE markers!

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As Google Friend Connect is being phased out by the end of the month, I want to make sure that all of my readers have a way to follow my blog in a way that suites them.

If you are like me then I take the link from the blog and put it in Google Reader to subscribe to all of the blogs that I read. That doesn’t work for all and I know that.

I have recently added a Google+ page for the site and you have the ability to follow along in the right hand side.

Once I found out about Linky Followers, a new program, I joined in on that as well. I have some followers there that are using that for their way to reading the blog. Feel free to join them as many people are using this now instead of Google Friend Connect.

Yesterday, a dear friend asked me about being able to get email updates. I had never thought of that as I don’t follow via email anywhere else. I am happy to announce that I have now set up an RSS feed to email just for you! Simply follow the link to the form below and voila!

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Etsy

Today’s Start to Finish inspiration comes from another 2Peas member, SarahPhalen, and her digital creation “In Serious Thought“.

I loved the lines of this and how simply some scraps of patterned papers could come together and create a layout. I set out to use up some of the scraps that I had laying around from Echo Park’s For The Record Collection. I even included two of the pieces from the journaling spots page in this layout as well.

Once I had created the base of my layout, it was time for me to add some journaling and embellishments. I added three buttons to the side of the journaling block and tied them off with twine from The Twinery. I then added some red rhinestones to the corners of the Documented title block.

The entire layout came together very simply and I now have the story of how Jake came to be a part of our family documented for future generations.

Are you ready for more Start to Finish layouts? I have another one that I finished this weekend to share with you below.

Today’s layout was based on another one that I found on 2Peas by johnmac44 that I totally fell in love with.

The first thing that I did was to rotate the layout 90 degrees so I could accommodate vertical photos. I then grabbed out a sheet of chocolate cardstock. I then layered it with a sheet of distressed cardstock from the Basic Grey Cappella Collection that I cut down to 11″ square.

I then pulled out the yellow polka dots form a sheet of My Minds Eye Quite Contrary. It’s a lovely B side that had umbrellas on the front but gave the right POP to this layout to pull out from the photos. I cut it to 2″ x 11″ and placed it about 2″ over from the left of the distressed cardstock.

The last piece of cardstock at the bottom is a 1″ x 11″ strip again from the Basic Grey Cappella Collection. I then used a die cut circle from the {no longer in print} Making Memories Ledger Paper Pad for my jorunaling that I had wrapped with Mandarin twine from The Twinery. I snipped a bit of the circle in a triangular shape so that the twine could have a place to rest on the edges of the circle. I added a piece of a label sticker from October Afternoon and a red herringbone brad that was in my stash from My Minds Eye Lush Collection.

After adding in my photos, I had to pull up the last two American Crafts Sprinkles Thickers and re-place them down on top of the left hand photo. I then also added some buttons at the top tied with various colors of twine from The Twinery. I also did doodling around the edges and just had fun with that. LOVE how it turned out.

Check back tomorrow for another Start to Finish layout for you to enjoy! Also, have you followed the Pinterest Board yet for Start to Finish? You won’t want to miss this as I continue to add the photos for each Start to Finish as they go live on the blog.

Yesterday I shared with you one of the 8 layouts that I created this past weekend. Today, I am going to be sharing with you another one that I entitled Happy.

I started this layout by finding inspiration over at 2Peas. I came across the layout below by Jenny Evans and fell in love with it.

I started with a base of 12″ patterned paper from the Basic Grey Kioshi Collection that I had in my stash. I then trimmed down the yellow paper to be 8″ x 10″. I also cut an 8″ x 1 1/2″ strip of the blue from the collection so that I could add the punched border along the edge. The top patterned paper was cut to 7″ x 8″. I inked the edges of each piece with coordinating Distress Inks {Spiced Marmalade, Mustard Seed, Tumbled Glass and Dusty Concord}.

I also backed each photo with corresponding cardstock mats to be able to stand out from each other. The journaling spot was leftover from my Making Memories Ledger 8×8 Paper Pad that is no longer in production. The rosette was simply made by cutting a piece teal cardstock down to 1 1/2″ and punching the edge with a Martha Stewart punch. I then scored it with my Martha Stewart scoring board at each 1/4″ before putting it together. The black button was tied on with some Caribbean Twine from The Twinery before being adhered with Glossy Accents. I didn’t think that it was quite balanced or done so I added the brads in the top right corner. The Thickers that I used are an older font called Pajamas. I had never used them but always had them in my stash.

I would love to see your work if you are so inspired by my layouts. I have started a Pinterest Board for all of my Start to Finish Layouts. I am linking the original inspiration and the final layout. I do hope that you will join me.