Design Team Submission Submitted....Crossing my fingers

Tonight,I sent off my submission to be part of the Two Scrapbooking Friends' Design Team - so now my fingers are crossed that they don't open my application e-mail, take one look at my submissions and keel over laughing.  I submitted my 3D calendars and 3 of the layouts from yesterday's post - November, May and March.

Sean informs me that this is "stupid talk" and that they should be uber impressed - but we'll see.  There are some really talented ladies who have been on the team in the past and I feel as though my "refined amateur" style might be lacking.  "Refind Amateur" is how I answered their question of "how would you describe your scrapbooking style".  I know how to scrapbook, and I do think I am pretty talented, but I'm still in elementary school for sure.


For tonight's project showcase, I am posting pictures of the card book I've been making.  This book has every card we have given to each other, except for one birthday card that I can't find. I find it fun to look back on these cards and it's a great way to store the memories.  Enjoy!

Eek, Time's a ticking...and I haven't started my Christmas projects yet

Well in true Brianne fashion I am freaking out because it is November 24th and I haven't even started the calendar I'm making for Sean's mom.

Now last year I went to the Two Scrapbooking Friends' Winter Retreat so I had 3 whole days dedicated to getting the calendar done.  This year, however, I did not attend the retreat so I still have a blank canvas to work with.


Here is what I created last year - I was really proud of these pages, it took HOURS and HOURS of work to do, but the praise I received on the phone from Sean's mom (she lives in BC so our gifts were mailed out) was worth the blood, sweat, tears and lack of sleep.

The first page when you opened the calendar - I love this background paper, it's just so festive.

January - Pictures from our trip to Lake Louise, AB.  I think this page is my least favourite of the whole calendar.  I must have replaced the items fifteen times before giving up and going with this layout.

February - my favourite is the LOVE in the middle of the page.

 March - I like how this whole page is centred around Janice and her smile.  It was a very simple page, the paper was beautiful so it didn't need much embellishing.

April - this is what Sean and I dressed up as for Hallowe'en.  I have this cute stamp set called 'Life's a Jungle' so it fit in perfectly.  I have a lot of stamps but I don't use them as much as I should.

 May - our niece Cedar is so photogenic that it's hard to decide how to crop the photos.  I love how playful and warm this layout turned out, and the 3D elements I used.

June - a tribute to our fun times up at 'the plot of land' sometimes just a simple title and a border of pictures turns out great.

July - Once again Cedar was my focus - what grandma doesn't love pictures of her granddaughter??

August - Sean, Logan and I took a trip up to Tobermorey and Sean took some amazing pictures, so I highlighted them in this layout

September - a nice, simple layout.  As I am a proud owner of a Cricut, I like to use the background pieces along with the true cut out forms - I like how neat it looks.

October - a scary witch, a big title, some stickers and great paper!

November - this is by far my favourite layout in the entire Calendar.  I found this paper a long time ago, it was shiny and the watch and words were raised a little to give it such an awesome texture. This picture shows Sean's grandpa in his war uniform, and then Sean in the same uniform.  It brought tears to Janice's eyes to see them side by side.  I always keep my poppies, so I put one in the middle and simple wrote out the first lines to 'In Flanders Fields'.

December - instead of the usual Christmas pictures I went with my brother and sister-in-law's wedding photos.  They were married in Mexico in December.
Who isn't dreaming of saying Mele Kalikimaka on a bright Hawaiian Christmas day??
















And now it's time to really start on my 2011 Calendar project - the count is 0 layouts done, 12 to go!

and the Hanging Display is up

Well when I last left you I threw out the teaser of: a curtain rod, 125 8" pant hangers, some ceiling hooks and a ton of paper - and all I can say is TA DA! 
Here is My Paper Display!

I am so very proud of it and it wouldn't have been possible with out my handy Husband!

We had a very busy weekend in Hamilton for my niece's birthday, and not arriving home until 8pm tonight, I had my doubts that Sean would be eager to come up to my scrapbooking room and hang the curtain rod for me, but after giving him the puppy dog pouty lip he marched upstairs and within 15 minutes I was hanging my paper.

Sean said to me tonight, "honey, sometimes you think of the craziest ideas, but they always seem to work out" - thanks to my handy man my crazy ideas work!

My next mission is to start moving my paper out of the bins they are currently stored in and into clear envelopes and bags so I can add them to the display.  I realize that there is only a finite amount of room, and weight my display can hold, but I'm going for broke on this!

Welcome..and here's what I just finished

Hello Everyone - well I'm not sure if there is anyone out there yet who is following my blog, but I'm sure in the near future there will be at least 6 followers of my blog (my husband, my BFFs Katie and Emelie, my dearest cousin Matty, my scrapbooking buddy Stacy, possibly my own mother and my mother in law), actually that looks like 7 followers! Whoop Whoop.

I started this blog as a way to show the scrapbooking creations I have made to inspire you to and in the hopes that one day I'll make it on to some design teams! and of course get some oooh's and ahhh's!

What is a design team you ask? Well, basically it's a team of ladies - though I'm sure men could be on it, just I haven't found a man scrapbooker yet - that share their creative scrapbooking ideas and techniques with us amateurs out there.  In Waterloo, there is a store, Two Scrapbook Friends, that is having "auditions" for their Design Team and I am working hard on putting together my portfolio to send over to them.  Their blog is fantastic, I highly recommend you bookmark it if you are into scrapbooking ideas.

So now on to my work - this week my challenge was to finish the 3D Advent Calendars I was making for my two nephews, Connor & Sam and my niece, Emma. I purchased these blank calendars from Karen Foster Design last year, and have only now got around to making them. The cool thing about these calendars is you can reuse them, the little drawers are about 1" by 1" so they fit little candies and chocolate perfectly.

Here are the first two I created

And the last one

The only thing left to do is to put a big C, E & S on top to distinguish who's calendar is who's.


Tonight's project: create my paper holder.....stay tuned to see what will I create with the following:

• A Curtain Rod
• 125 8" pant hangers
• a gazillion sheets of scrapbooking paper