Scrap Girl

Unfortunately, I had a gift album returned to me.  My grandmother passed away recently and I got the album back that I made for her three years ago for her 90th birthday party.  I plan on going through it this week and picking out my favorite pages to show you.  I’m glad to get it back and I will always remember how much she enjoyed looking through it and sharing it with others.  I also plan on doing some sort of Memorial Page, but am not sure when I’m going to get to that.  I’ve never done one before, but am realizing how nice it would be to do one for those friends and family who go on to their final resting place before me.  Check back later this week for some ideas for making a scrapbook for a memorable event like a milestone birthday.  Happy Scrapping!

I just got a cool template set from my designer friend.  I decided not to change her backgrounds and embellishments and used it like a quickpage to do some pictures from my nephew and father-in-law’s birthday celebration.  You can find this new “Template Duo Set” by Karyn Robinson for cheap at Digital Arts Cafe.  It took me maybe 5-10 minutes to do this layout and that was because I was messing around with which pictures to use.  You can’t get any easier than this!  Check out this two page spread done in no time!

This isn’t necessarily one of my most creative works of art as far as scrapbook pages go, but I just love the pictures and the title is pretty catchy.  For my oldest daughter’s 2nd birthday we went to the zoo with our family.  There really wasn’t a theme for this birthday so I just did the pages to match what she was wearing.  It is really subtle, but can you see a tank top with straps behind the pictures on the first page?  It’s made out of paper, of course and the pink flower were stamped on the blue background to match the pictures.  I just love these sno-cone pictures!  Talk about capture the moment!  Other notable items on the page would be the letters cut out with a Sissix and the flower embellishments also cut with a Sissix die-cutter.  I actually got the title idea from a Clifford book my kids liked called “Winter Ice is Nice.”  I changed it to summer, and there you go, a clever title.

Another birthday party theme we have had at our house was the 6 year old Luau birthday party.  This was a fun birthday party because the kids all dressed in hula skirts and/or shirts and we handed out leis when they walked in the door.  We also did fun beach games like the limbo and a flamingo ring toss.  I really liked the cake for this party because it looked like sand in a beach pail.  It is basically like a trifle cake.  You crush up vanilla wafers for the sand and then layer vanilla pudding, yellow cake, and whipped cream and put the “sand” wafers on the top.  Stick your new clean sand shovel in and add some decorations and you are done.  My daughter really enjoyed scooping out the cake for her friends.  My favorite parts of these scrapbooking pages are the chipboard letters and the flowers I stamped and cut out for some accents.  This was such a fun birthday party theme that I may try to talk one of my kids into using it again sometime.

My oldest daughter wanted a Barbie Birthday theme for her fifth birthday.  I’m not the biggest fan of Miss Barbie, but at least all of the birthday accessories, plates, etc. were easy to find.  With the Barbie theme came the Barbie cake.  I got an idea off of the internet for making the cake without buying the special pan that most people use.  It said to just bake the cake in large and small glass mixing bowls.  It worked great.  After the cake cooled, I just turned over the large bowl for the bottom of the dress and the smaller bowl cake was put on top to make the upper part of the dress.  We found a doll figurine at Michael’s Crafts and place that on top (it had a pick in it just for that purpose).  After some creative decorating, she was done.  Of course,  all of the five year olds were very impressed and I was glad it was over with.  The scrapbooking materials for this page came from a Barbie scrapbooking kit I found at a craft store.  I also used the invitation on the layout as I forgot to take that solo picture of my daughter with the cake.   

When my youngest daughter turned four, she chose to have a puppy dog birthday party theme.  I really like the paper I found to use for these pages.  Her favorite color is red and with the puppies and dog houses on it, who could resist?  The title is made from letter stickers.  I had a lot of fun getting ready for this party.  We painted a big piece of cardboard and cut it out to look like a dog house as you can see in the pictures.  I painted all of the kid’s names on it and we hung it on our front door.  I also made a puppy game using cardboard and paint too, where the kids had to try to toss bean bags through the puppy’s mouth.  I also loved doing the cake because it was so easy.  We just used a round cake and put cupcakes above it to make it look like a paw print.  It was a very memorable birthday.

If my scrapbook album is about a particular subject I like to make a title page for the first page so when people look at it they will know what the whole album is going to be about.  I’m doing birthday albums for both of my girls.  They each have their own separate album just for their birthday celebrations and pictures.  So for each, I had to make a title page.  I scraplifted the idea for part of my oldest daughter’s page from a Stampin’ Up idea book.  I stamped all of the letters and then put the title together like the idea book had shown.  I believe the papers are actually scrap cardstock and a birthday paper kit from our local dollar store. 

My youngest daughter’s title page was made before I found the album and stack paper pads I’m using now.  I did find a birthday embellishment kit I had and laser cut the title at a scrapbooking store.  They both are simple but cute.  Now it is your time to vote for which one you like best!  Leave me a comment, I’m curious to see what you think.

For these pages I carried on my standard birthday layout from the two year birthday onto this page.  I made sure to take a picture of my daughter with her cake.  She had a Care Bear theme and I searched high and low every place I could think of and couldn’t find any Care Bear paper.  I did find some cute 3 year old birthday paper though.  What was nice about this paper is it is double-sided and there are blues, reds, greens, and yellows on the other side to use if you are doing a little boy birthday.  For the title, I tried something different and used a letter template with a black marker to do the lettering.  I also cut out a number three and did black ink on the edge of that for an embellishment.  I wish I could tell you the names and brands of the paper, but I did the pages before I started the blog, so just didn’t think I needed that information.  I have seen the birthday number paper at some major retailers though.

After I completed the first birthday pages, I bought an album from the DCWV scrapbooking line and there was a paper stack called “Pocket Full of Posies” that went with it so I have been using that paper for the rest of the layouts in this birthday album.  This was such a fun layout to do because my youngest daughter is just so cute in these pictures.  I believe I picked out the paper to match her clothes and the cake.  I used my friend’s tag punch and Sissix die-cutter for the title.  I should tell you about the easy cake I made.  She had a jungle animal theme and since she was only two I used some zoo animals from her Little People Zoo set to put on the cake.  That worked out really great and saved us some money on cake.  Birthday celebrations can get so expensive so I try to cut costs where I can.  Enjoy these pages.

Here is an idea for a one-year-old first birthday page.  I chose to enlarge the first birthday cake picture and do the main title on that page.  A friend gave me the baby’s first ribbon that really goes with the page.  I think the stickers and papers are from a Debbie Mumm birthday kit.  It all ties together pretty nicely to make a simple yet decorative scrapbook page that didn’t really take much time.  I have been making it a habit ever since I did this page to enlarge one picture of each of my kids with her birthday cake and use it as a centerpiece for starting birthday pages.  It’s so fun to see how much they have grown since the previous year and what theme or cake they have chosen each year.