New Design

Wow! I'm so excited to share with everyone the updates I've made to the blog. I hate to admit it, but I received Photoshop Elements 6 as a gift from my hubs nearly three years ago. I even purchased two amazing classes from Jessica Sprague to learn how to use the program: Photo Editing: Good-to-Great Workflow and Up & Running With Photoshop - Beginning Digital Scrapbooking.

Sadly, I haven't gone through these self-paced classes yet. So, when I started this blog and I knew I wanted to do some customization, I was a bit disappointed in myself. But, what does any modern, resourceful girl do? I googled how to make a header for Blogger. I found an amazing tutorial on a blog called The Background Fairy! The header you see now is a result of that tutorial and some amazing digital scrapbook kits from Britt-ish Designs. Now that I've accomplished this, I'm so excited to take those Jessica Sprague classes and really learn! This is just one of the things I'm going to do with all of my free time once this final semester is over (SIX more weeks! SQUEE!)

That's it. I'm kinda proud and I wanted to share. Let me know what you think of the new design. Thanks!

Scrapbooking Disney

Life has been crazy busy. I guess that's what happens when you work full time and take 9 credits in the summer. I have been counting down to the end of the semester and the end of my undergraduate program. I'm happy to report that I will be done in a short 6.5 weeks!

In the spare moments I've been following all of the CHA Summer show news. I was so sad all of last week reading all of the tweets from the show and all of the blog posts from the amazing manufactures. I hope to be back soon with a recap of my favorite new products and lines from the show. And in case there was any question, I do rank my love for a piece of patterned paper on how well I could scrap one of my many Disney vacations with that piece of paper. 

While I'm working on that, I wanted to share some more layouts from our 2009 anniversary trip to WDW:

This layout was created using Studio Calico's April 2011 kit, Singing in the Rain. Neither the layout or the kit would be considered my "normal" scrapbook style. I usually scrapbook two-page layouts. I usually use more than one picture. But, I think that's what's great about subscribing to a monthly kit club. You are presented with product you may not normally pick out and you have the challenge of using it in quite possibly a new way.

Here's another single-page layout (crazy, right?) that I did. I was originally trying to go for a softer, more whimsical look for these requisite pictures in front of the castle (Partially because of the amazing layout my scrap genius friend did). The only problem? Each time I pulled out paper with softer color schemes and tones, I was disappointed. Finally, I reached for the Back 40 kit from Studio Calico. I had also purchased the add-on patterned paper for that month. This was back when I first started subscribing and hadn't worked out a system that made sense to me. So, really this layout has paper from the add-ons, but I didn't buy the add-on, just the patterned paper from the add-ons. Make sense? Doesn't matter. All that really matters is that it was chalked full of these bright colors from Echo Park and American Crafts. I held my pictures against the paper and knew this was the way to go.

Thanks for taking a look today. I hope to be back in a few days with a rundown of everything magical from CHA!

Crafty Canvas Project

All of my family lives in Arizona. Sometimes this is good and sometimes it's bad. It's especially bad when I'm reminded how little I get to see my 11 year old niece. Well, it just so happens that my niece is in the Mitten for the summer. She has been staying with her grandmother and visiting with friends and family for the past few weeks. Unfortunately, work and school have limited the amount of time I get to spend with her. I was finally able to pick her up on Saturday. Over a biscuits and gravy breakfast I asked what she wanted to do for the weekend. Shy at first, she finally came clean and said she wanted to back to "that craft store." Turns out, she was referring to Michaels. I had taken her two years ago when she was visiting in the summer of 2009. The fact that she hadn't outgrown the crafting bug made my heart swell. No one else in my family shares my creative tendencies. While we were in Michaels the ideas started spilling out of her... The one that stuck? She wants me to teach her how to make a scrapbook, like I do. Then my heart was breaking. If only we were closer. If only we could craft together more often. We actually skipped the scrapbooking and decided to do some painting instead. We picked up a three pack of 4" x 12" canvases and some paint. Here's what my crafty niece came up with:

I noticed some things about this girl while she worked on the canvases. She is a lot more like me than any of us have ever imagined (my mom is always saying this is so, mixing our names up and such). Turns out, this girl is quite the perfectionist. She was fretting over every dot, swirl, and letter. This is just like me. Sometimes I'm so worried about how a project is going to turn out that I can't make the cut into a piece of paper. I've mostly gotten over this, but it still takes me quite awhile to finish the simplest projects. I don't know how such detail oriented, perfectionist type A's like us get drawn to the creative hobbies. Anyhow, she actually ran of time to finish the third canvas. Her and I are both hoping that she can come back before returning to Arizona to finish her canvas. Rumor has it... the last canvas is going to say Castle. 

Welcome

Hi! Welcome to my shiny, new blog. I'm working on the design and tweaking a little bit still, so please don't mind the pixie dust...

I'll start by introducing myself. My name is Wendy and I love all things Disney and Scrapbooking. I especially love when the two topics intersect and some scrapbooking magic happens. You can expect that I'll be talking about Disney, Scrapbooking, and Scrapbooking about Disney. I might slip in some other stuff, but really these are my passions and I would like to share them with you.

As an introduction, I would like to share with you a recent layout I created. These pictures are from the hubs and my 1st year anniversary trip to Walt Disney World in January of 2009.

I'm pretty proud of this one. I created it using the Lawn Party kit from the fabulous Studio Calico. I hand cut all of those spirograph-looking circles out of the kit exclusive Studio Calico paper. The lanterns are American Crafts stamped with Jenni Bowlin's beautiful inks. My scrap genius friend Jenna had the idea to add a touch of bling to the stamps to give them some dimension.

I pretty much stared at the layout for a good 20 minutes after I finished it. (and hubs wonders why I get so little done at a six hour crop!)

That's it for now. I should be back soon with more Disney layouts. Thanks for taking a look and I welcome any feedback.