Tuesday, September 29, 2015

My Style? Week #37



Hi! I'm so happy to be part of the Layout-A-Week Design Team!
My Name is Magda Cortez,  I live in San Diego, Ca. since 2000 OMG! it seems like forever! I'm a retired Civil Engineer and 100% Scrapbooker! 
Today I'll show you my style.. It's not easy to describe my style because I can do  Clean and Simple  or use the new Mixed Media techniques in my next project.. I love butterflies and fussy cutting so maybe you will see a lot in my future projects..

Here is a short video where you can see My Style.






Thanks for joining me today and see you next week with another inspirational Layout-A-Week!!!


Tuesday, September 22, 2015

8 Things About My Scrapbook Style, Week #36

What’s my scrapbook style? That’s always a hard one for me to answer. The best way to define your style is to ask around. My all-time favorite answer was the time someone told me that my layouts are “handmade with love.” I tend to stick with that one. It sounds sweet, pleasant and approachable. For lack of a better term, I want my pages to feel approachable because I want other people to become inspired. Everyone should feel like they can scrapbook too. I will also take eclectic. It is not a bad description as I do a lot of different things on my pages.

Sometimes, I have personal trends or phases. Think along the lines of Picasso’s Blue Period only mine are more like “Christy’s Button Period.” These sometimes last for only a few weeks or into several months. Some fade away and others tend to work themselves into my regular process.  Rather than define my style, I thought I would share a few things I do over and over again. Some are my quirks and I have decided to embrace them. I have learned that embracing your personal quirks and imperfections allows you to relax and then your style just appears over time, as if by magic.



1.       I use a lot of patterned paper. I use it on backgrounds and I cut it up to make embellishments. I do use cardstock, but a patterned paper background is usually my first choice.
2.       I have been known to use found objects on my layouts. For example, I added a cat food can lid and melted Crayola crayons to create Wax Lips. The strangest thing I have ever used on a page was part of a tube sock.



3.       My pages have imperfections and I have learned to work them into the design. I have issues with cutting straight, sewing straight and placing items on my page without them being slightly askew. I have tried everything from templates to fancy cutting systems with laser guides. I still scrap crooked. Sometimes, it’s more off than others. From time to time, a miracle happens and things line up straight. Instead of spending countless hours trying to line everything up, I decided to just relax about it and make it part of my page designs. On We Are Groot, for example, I started off trying to stitch a nice border around the kraft paper bag. The line went slightly askew and the bag started to buckle. I hid it by stitching messy lines around the edges.
4.       Not all of my photos are perfect. Even the ones I use for design team projects. Just because I am a better photographer than I was 5 years ago doesn’t mean I am not using those older photos. I am all about the story and that means occasionally, my photos will not always be awesome.
5.       I love visual triangles. It’s my go to comfort design principle. How many can you spot in the layout above?
6.       If there is a button, it must be threaded. End of Story. If I can’t thread it, I absolutely must cover the holes with something like a jewel. I just can’t bear for there to be floating buttons on a page.



7.       I don’t discriminate between my supplies. I am both a paper and a hybrid scrapbooker. This goes back to scrapbooking with found objects. If I want something to enhance my photo’s story, then I will try to find a way to use it. I love scrapbook supplies (I am obsessed with them) but I am not afraid to use other mediums to create my pages. I also don’t care if a supply was originally intended for a boy’s page or a girl’s page. If it works for my story, it’s fair game.
     


8.I usually create 12x12 layouts. However, I also love pocket pages. I mix both into the same albums. I will make 8.5 x 11 layouts but always stick them onto a piece of 12x12 paper when I’m done. 12x12 is my favorite album size.

      Over the years, I have stopped worrying about giving my style a name. My creative process has quirks. I own them and they are part of the way I scrapbook. I invite you to own your personal creative quirks. Let them take hold, relax a bit, and before you know it, your personal style will emerge.








Tuesday, September 15, 2015

A Glimpse into My Style Week #35

Does anyone really have a set specific scrapbooking style?  I don't even know really what to call these so called styles.  I just create what I like and I follow many people on social media with plenty of different "styles".  I don't follow any specific rules or anything, I just kind of go with what looks good to me.  In the end if you are happy with your own pages, that is all that matters anyways right? Ya.

I would have to say that I think my scrapbook pages have changed so much since my first days of creating layouts.  I will never forget going to my grandmas house for my aunts Creative Memories party and spending like $100 on an order of supplies and albums.  I think I was hooked from then on.  I later branched out from the "rules" of CM that you were supposed to follow and started buying (and collecting) scrapbook supplies from other companies and stores.  

In my early days I have to admit I did not do a lot of journaling on my layouts and I look back and see that it was different in my eyes back then, I think it more just about events on paper to me.  It was just like a photo of each person at a party, to show the event happened.  Over the years, and after having children I have learned that the purpose for me in scrapbooking is more about remembering the emotions or special event, or capturing the character of my children, or the funny things they say.  I want to look back on my layouts and remember that feeling I felt or that special event we went to, or laugh at the funny things they said, or remember my sons favorite toy when he was 2 that I may have forgotten about as the years went by.

Here are a few of my current layouts I wanted to share with you.


This one I wanted to capture that feeling of us traveling to Arizona for the first time for a job interview for my husband back at the begining of the year.  *A fun note : we now live in Arizona because of this and another trip in July for this job. *  When I look at this layout I instantly feel that emotion of our first trip out here and seeing that Arizona sign.  

This is another one of my favorite layouts. I love the color turquoise and I love the pop of yellow paired with it in this layout.  This is also on a 12x12 clear sheet of acetate.  I loved the straight lines of the papers and then the tilted look of the photos.  I turned a few of my photos in black and white and then kept one in color, and it just happened to work out that that photo adds visual color to the layout since the water matches the overall layout.  

This one I wanted a list type journaling to record some of my daughters favorite things at 5 years old.  I made this layout the same colors that we did her 5th birthday party in.  I look at this layout and I remember the party instantly.  

This layout was alot of fun to create.  Instead of creating several different layouts about different things and events that happened last summer, I made one layout with all the fun things from that summer that we did.  It is a great way to record many events at one time.

Some fun little things about my "style" that I tend to go to with every layout :

* I have an obsession with enamel dots.
* I love to use washi tape as a added little pop of something extra.
* I always leave a white boarder around my photos.  
* I love to layer papers 
* One of my favorite things is saving tags from clothings to use on my layouts
* I have to have everything matchy matchy in some way or another.  
* I don't have a problem mixing paper lines, I just go for what matches for my layout idea. 

Well there is a little glimpse into my style of scrapbooking.  I hope you enjoy and thank you for stopping by.  
You can always find me over on my blog RANDOM RAMBLING 


Tuesday, September 8, 2015

An Intro to My Eclectic Vintage Clean & Simple Style - Week #34

Hello! I'm so excited to be here on the Layout-A-Week blog as part of the design team.

I've been married to my husband Mike for 22 years, and we have a beautiful 12 year old daughter who has autism and several auto-immune disorders. I've worked in the scrapbook industry for about 16 years, including as an instructor, blogger, magazine editor, and product demonstrator. Many of LAOW's readers may know me from my websites Scrapbook Update or Craft Critique, or my time as founding co-host of Paperclipping Roundtable.

Even after all of that time working in the industry, I'll admit answering the question "what's your style" is a tough one for me. My style is a bit of a contradiction.

I've been a fan of a clean and simple design style since way back in the days of Simple Scrapbooks magazine - such a fan in fact that I was one of the winners of the only major contest the magazine ever ran, Coolest Albums.

Scrapbooks to Cherish book page

That was in 2004. Even though I was doing clean and simple...notice the background paper I chose, a tiny vintage floral print. Despite that being in the days before vintage was super trendy, I was already drawn to it.

And then full-on vintage - with it's heavily embellished collage inspired pages - hit the scrapbook industry and I had a dilemma. I loved the look of the vintage products, but not the way I was being shown to use them. An important element of creativity (but one that a lot of people struggle with) is having the vision to create what you want, not how you think you should. After some trial and error, I have settled into a style that uses the beautiful products that I love, but showcases them in a mostly clean and simple manner, like in the Instagram layout below from my trip earlier this year to San Francisco.

Nancy Nally San Francisco layout

But despite most of the elements being vintage, you'll notice that a few of the elements (like that chevron paper) are very graphic. Because, frankly, my style is very eclectic despite my love of vintage, and this layout summarizes that nicely.

When I do pocket scrapbooking, often the more graphic part of that eclectic can dominate, such as in this layout from my Frankfurt travel album.


There's a few vintage stye elements - a stamp or two, and some patterned paper - but overall the layout's elements are more graphic. I'm not sure what it is about doing pocket scrapbooking that makes me frequently shift over to the graphic side, but it happens fairly often.

Thanks so much for taking a walk through the evolution of my style with me. I'm really looking forward to sharing more here at Layout-A-Week, and to seeing the work of the rest of the team!

Friday, September 4, 2015

Welcome to the 2016 Layout-A-Week Design Team!



"Nancy Nally is the owner and chief blogger at ScrapbookUpdate.com and CraftCritique.com.  She also freelances for a wide range of companies including Buttons Galore and Cricut, and is the former founding co-host of the Paperclipping Roundtable podcast and has appeared on the PBS television series Scrapbook Soup. Nancy describes her style as “clean and simple eclectic” 

Nancy lives in Florida with her husband, her 12 year old autistic daughter, and a huge cat. "






Bio:
My Name is Magda Cortez living in Encinitas, Ca. I am a Retired Civil Engineer and a full time Scrapbooker..
Scrapbooking became essential part of my  life a few years ago, since then I fall in love with paper.. I love to create Cards, Mini Albums, Layouts and now I'm hooked into Mixed Media, Creativity is my energy and my passion.

I teach in San Diego my hometown, as well as some of the biggest cities in Mexico and all over Spain. Now I been honored to be part of this fabulous design team.. I can't wait to share my creations with you.





Christy is a homeschool mom who loves science fiction and video games. Though originally from Florida, Christy is an expat currently residing  abroad with her husband, son and three striped island cats. She began scrapbooking in 2001. Since then, scrapbooking has become both an obsession and a creative outlet. She always has a camera in her purse and loves to experiment with a variety of cameras (both digital and analog). Currently, Christy is a member of the Traci Reed Designs, Simple Scrapper, Get It Scrapped, and Scrapbook Challenges creative teams. She is a co-host on the DigiScrap Geek Podcast as the voice of a hybrid and paper scrapbooker. You can  learn more about Christy and her creative team work at her website MyScrapbookEvolution.com.


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Hello there. I am the new Layout A Week Design Team Coordinator.   My name is Nicole and I am married to Jacob and together we have 3 children.  Little Jacob is 10, Caleb is 8 and Chloe is 5.  We just recently moved (like less than  month ago recent) from Southern California to Prescott Valley, Arizona.  We are loving our new home and town.  I love to scrapbook both traditional and Project Life style.  I love photography.  I have an etsy store where I make wood signs and many other custom things.  I just love to be creating.  I have a slight Diet Pepsi obsession, and am working on drinking more water.  I am looking forward to working with all these talented ladies on our current Design Team.   

FACEBOOK :https://www.facebook.com/nicole.mantooth
BLOG : http://nicolemantooth.blogspot.com
PINTEREST : https://www.pinterest.com/nicolemantooth/
ETSY : https://www.etsy.com/shop/noticeablyNICOLES?ref=hdr_shop_menu







Ever since I can remember, I’ve been “creative”. Making things came easy to me and I wanted to make creativity come as easily to other people. When I added a dual major of Mathematics to my English Literature major in college, it was because Math had finally clicked for me and I wanted to demystify the how and why of math for others through teaching. It is that same desire to remove the shroud of secrecy from creativity. After 12 years in the craft industry, I have made a ton of useless, but pretty, crap. Really. Now the core of my philosophy is to make things that matter. They can matter in a practical way, like a shelf is a practical solution for storing books. They can matter in an emotional way by making memories and strengthening bonds through a family adventure or by making a connection with others through heartfelt discussions on life’s lessons. How to work better, eat cleaner, live strategically, and create smarter are all at the core of what I work to do every day, in pursuit of happiness and the meaning of life. Yeah, it’s deep. But simple. That’s just JP for ya.



WEBSITE : http://www.jenniferppriest.com/


Make sure you check back each week for our layouts and updates.