Lobster Picnic from 2009

Our plans to go to Maine this summer fell through. Half of my family is up there right now though, and this weekend they had a lobster picnic (or they at least had lobster. I'm not so sure about the picnic part). Anyway, I don't have anything new to show (yet), so I thought I would post a page I did years ago on one of our past lobster picnics. I can't believe this was already 3 years ago!

This also shows how super easy and inexpensive it can be to make a scrapbook page. Seriously, all I did was get some blue paper, some red-checked paper that I thought looked picnic-y (which I ripped along the edges--using a ruler to keep a mostly straight line), and then a big lobster sticker. I cut out the pictures so that they would fit, stuck them down in a haphazard-y fashion, and used my Cricut to make large letters for the word "Picnic." The lobster sticker is the most expensive thing on this page (it cost a few dollars at Michaels).

I'm trying really hard not to be bummed that I'm not in Maine with the family, but instead stuck in Florida (which is quickly turning into one big swamp thanks to Tropical Storm Debby). Reliving these pages is not helping! Here is a sneak peek at what I've started working on to distract myself. I grabbed this ugly tray from Goodwill a few weeks ago. It's going to get a huge make-over (if it will ever stop raining long enough for me to get outside to spray paint!).

Michigan Christmas 2011

I hope no one reads this blog hoping to keep up with what's going on with me and Dave, because if so, you will be getting all our news about 6-12 months late!  That is my average for about how long it takes me to get around to scrapping big events, and since it is June that of course means it's time to talk about last Christmas!

Here is the page I just finished of our trip to Michigan last December to spend Christmas with Dave's family. This was a matter of having lots of pictures I wanted to include, yet I really wanted to keep it to a 2-page layout. So I squished them all in. I also had one random 12x12 sheet of really cute paper covered in penguins. I decided to cut out the penguins and assign each one to a member of the family in a border along the bottom. There weren't 12 different penguins, so some people have duplicates, but I did my best to match according to personality :-) 

Besides that, this is a really simple page and it cost me almost nothing besides a little bit of paper and some stickers along the bottom. Easy! 

Cloudland Canyon

Here is a look at some of the scrapbooking I accomplished this weekend. I got quite a number of small projects done, and it felt good! 

I have been very excited to scrapbook these pictures ever since I got them printed. They are from our mini-vacation up to Chattanooga during Easter. We spent an afternoon at Cloudland Canyon State Park, and it was so much fun. 

Usually when I scrapbook outdoors-y pictures, I tend to go with blue/green/brownish paper, but as I was sorting through my paper stash I found this background paper that I bought for super cheap at Tuesday Morning. Definitely not the sort of thing I normally use, but somehow I thought it worked perfectly. Then of course, since it's Cloudland Canyon after all, I had to add some cloud embellishments. Overall a super simple layout, but it's the pictures and colors that make it fun.

June Birthdays

Yesterday we celebrated my brother Tim's birthday, my dad's birthday, AND Father's Day. (We are very efficient in my family!)

For Tim, our gift to him is going to see his favorite soccer team Chelsea play AC Milan in Miami next month. I made him a "ticket" to the event, and put it in this card.

And as for my dad, I was in Joann's buying fabric for another project, when my mom and I found the PERFECT Michigan fleece fabric. Two of my dad's favorite thing are the University of Michigan and anything with an argyle pattern on it. So how could I pass this stuff up?

So last week while dad was gone at general assembly, I spent an evening making a no-sew fleece tie blanket (I have no idea what the real name is). There are plenty of tutorials online for this, and it's SUPER easy to do. Just a little time consuming. I feel like I tied about 4,000 knots. But it's a good project to do while watching a movie. The trickiest part was finding a surface large enough to work on (I used 2.5 yards of both the front and back fabrics). Here is my dad with the finished project!

As much as he loved his blanket, I know that his FAVORITE gift was the Muether Family Journal that my sister and I write every June and December.

Doctor Who Cross Stitch

This has nothing whatsoever to do with scrapbooking, but I was really excited to finish this project last week and I wanted to show it!

My brother recently got engaged to his girlfriend Anna. I think it was even before they were "officially" dating that I started this project (I want to say it was around November/December), thinking I would someday give it to them as a little engagement present. I got very close to the end, and then I just got caught up doing other things, and did not finish it. Well, when Tim bought the ring a few weeks back, I figured I really needed to hurry up and finish this thing!! (So up until the morning before I gave it to them, I was rushing to finish it and prepare the frame.)

 TADA!!

You should check out the etsy store Wee Little Stitches. This is where I got the pattern. I love all their cute little "Pixel People"--especially the superhero alphabet. I would love to do that one someday! But the one I chose to do this time was the Doctor Who Companions--except I wanted to do only Rory and Amy (and change the hair color so it looked more like Tim and Anna :-) ).

I didn't use all the exact colors the pattern called for, but I have a box FULL of embroidery floss of all sorts of colors, so I just used whatever I had that matched best. That way this project was nearly free! I also tweaked the pattern a little (I made some changes to the Tardis, like adding the words "Police Box" to the top). Then I bought a wooden frame from Joann's and painted it Tardis blue, and finished it off with some Mod Podge.

Here are some more closeups:

It makes me so happy when I totally complete a project!

Wedding Toasts

Here is the latest installment of the Allison/Stephen wedding album. I don't want to share too many of the layouts because I want to keep most of it a surprise for them, but here's just one final sneak peek:

Beth and Teresa did a hilarious toast together, and I wanted to make sure that was included in the album. 

It's hard to tell in the picture, but those are champagne flute stickers.

I cut out all the letters using my Cricut machine. I don't think I could live without that thing! The little blue flower embellishments I found on sale at Michaels.