Easter Trip to Lookout Mountain 2012

This weekend I discovered that I am almost at the end of my pile of photos to scrapbook! That almost never happens! I guess that means it's time to get out and do some stuff worth taking pictures of!

Here is the second part of our trip to Chattanooga last April. The first part was here. I'm not sure where the super cute cars and buildings paper came from (it was a gift), but I love the colors and it just seemed to go with these pictures. The polka dot paper on the sides is actually the reverse side of the patterned paper, which makes for easy color coordination!

We had the greatest visit with Aaron, Megan and their family. I love scrapbooking events with them, mostly because their kids are outrageously cute. You pretty much can't go wrong with scrapbook layouts of kids, in my opinion.

Here is my layout in my new We R Memory Keepers 3-ring scrapbook album. I wasn't sure how I would like the 3 ring look, as opposed to all my other post-bound scrapbooks. I have just gotten so fed up with how difficult it is to add pages to post-bound albums, so I'm giving this a try. So far I really like it, AND these huge albums will last me years!

Chattanooga Lookouts

I've got a new layout nearly complete--just have to finish up the journaling (my least favorite part). So for today, I'm showing an oldie back from 2008--Dave's and my first summer together (married, that is). 

I miss a few things from when we lived in Chattanooga/Lookout Mountain: seasonal changes, tulips and hydrangeas, the mountains, and minor league baseball, to name a few. (But a friend just posted a picture on Facebook of a copperhead snake that he killed, right where we used to live! That is something I do not miss. At all. I pretend that we don't have dangerous snakes in Florida.)

Anyway, we went to two Chattanooga Lookouts baseball games in 2008. We love the cheesy, laid-back atmosphere at minor league games, and you can't beat the price! If only Red Sox tickets sold for $4.... 

So here's the layout of two of our ventures into minor league world. At the first game we got free t-shirts (always a plus to get free stuff!), and the second game we went to with Aaron and Megan (where Dave caught me a foul ball--more free stuff!). At both of these game (about 1 month apart), the stadium lights randomly went out during the middle of play. There was a short delay each time. The second time this happened, Dave got a little bored and decided to take a quick nap on the comfy bench seats. 

As for the layout, it's very simple. Some red, blue and white paper, and stickers (Creative Memories, I think) pretty much make up all of it. As usual, pictures are my main focus, so I included as many as possible, as well as a ticket from one of the games.  

Wedding Cards

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July! We had a very laid-back day. Ate way too much food, watched fireworks from the back porch of my parents' house, and tried to comfort the dogs through all the loud noises.

And of course I did a little scrapbooking! My favorite thing to do on days off :-)

For today, I've got wedding/congratulations cards. This first one was super simple. Beautiful paper will pretty much do all the work for you, and with this card I used a DCWV paper pack. The colors and patterns are so fun and happy, and everything coordinates so that makes it even easier.

For both cards I used the same "Congratulations" rubber stamp, but here I embossed it with white embossing powder and a heat gun.

This second card was a little more time intensive. I used a border punch to create the detail for the wedding cake, and then layered that paper onto a piece of the same size and color paper. You could also do two different colors and I think that would look cool too. Three tiers of that makes a wedding cake, and I added some flower embellishments to the top, a ribbon along the bottom, and stamped it on the side. The background paper is also from a DCWV paper pack.

Here's a close-up of how the border punch looks on the cake.

Thrift Store Tray Make-Over

About a million years ago I showed you a picture of an ugly tray I bought from Goodwill for a few bucks. I have finally finished the make-over. Spray painting in soggy weather really slows down the process, let me tell you!

Here is the lovely "before" picture:

As much as I loved the fact that it says "I believe in snow angels," I envisioned something a little different...

So here's what I did. Starting with my supplies:

Yellow spray paint from Joann's

Primer from Lowe's

Off-brand Mod Podge from Michaels

Foam brushes

Small piece of fabric from Joann's (you could also use paper. In fact that might be easier.)

I forgot to sneak this into the photo, but I also used Krylon gloss sealer:

I started by spraying the tray with primer, then a number of coats of the yellow spray paint. Not sure if it was just the muggy weather or what, but the tray still felt a little tacky after that, so I covered it with some quick coats of the gloss sealer. That gave it a much more finished look and feel.

The trickiest part was getting the fabric to the right size. I read online that fabric tends to shrink just a tad when you use Mod Podge on it, so I was counting on that, but it turns out that mine didn't shrink at all! So my fabric was a little large, and if I ever do this again that's the first thing I would fix. Oh well!

But I measured up my fabric and stitched it along the edges since I didn't want any nasty rough edges showing. I really like the detail the stitching added too.

Anyway, once I was finished sizing the fabric, I just stuck it to the bottom with Mod Podge and a foam brush. Then I covered the top of the fabric with a little more Mod Podge and flattened out any bubbles.

Here are the "after" pictures!

See, the fabric is just a little too big.... 

My husband thought this would be a really good way to bring him breakfast in bed (ha ha), but instead I'm using it to corral all my random scrapbooking supplies, so that they all stay in one place and hopefully keep me more organized!

Overall I love how it turned out, and I want to go back to Goodwill and snatch up all the other ugly wooden trays they had!