Families are Forever {Primary Bulletin Board}

I thought I would share the bulletin board that I made for our primary.  

The theme this year is Families are Forever.  Our goal as a primary was to include the family in our primary more.  One of the things that we have done is to have a family spotlight every week. Each family in the ward brings their whole family into primary (YW/YM, parents, etc.)  They introduce themselves, tell something about their family and tell a spiritual experience they have had as a family.

To go along with this theme I made a bulletin board in the hallway that has pictures of the family.

I love taking a scrapbook layout and making it into a bulletin board.  I took my idea from this layout on American Crafts Studio.

The printable in the top corner is from All Things Bright and Beautiful. 

In loving memory {funeral crafting}

This summer was a difficult one for me.  My beautiful, sweet, caring mom passed away.  She had fought a 5 year battle with cancer... and her body couldn't fight it any more.  I miss her greatly.  She taught me everything I know about crafting, cooking, being a mom... and things I should have learned from her... already kicking myself for not having her teach me how to thread her serger!

I am her only daughter.  So, it was my responsibility to do all the "crafty" stuff for the funeral.  I set this display up outside the relief society room where we had the viewing.  I had found the desk at a yard sale for $2 about a week before the funeral.  I painted it turquoise (her favorite color)... my mom was trendy when she didn't know she was!   On the table we sat things that only her close friends and family would probably know about her.

She loved:

canning

genealogy

her collection of green dishes

"fake" coke

counting and naming cows at the ranch

romance novels

doris day movies

mints

she was born on flag day

Next to the table was my dress form with her favorite shirt... it was her "shopping" shirt.  My mom always wore that shirt when she would leave the house to go to the store or almost anywhere else.

On the left of the table is a frame that I gave her a few years ago.  It hangs in her home right when you walk in the front door.  It has a collection of 4x6 photos of her family throughout the years.

Most of all, she loved her grand kids.   Above the table I had a line of doilies with pictures of her with her grandkids.  They are attached with some chalk board clothes pins that I bought from Pick Your Plum.

That was mostly all we had to do as far as decor... the beautiful flowers that everyone sent were amazing!

My dad asked me if I would finish her scrapbook for her.

What I did, was take the book that we got from the funeral home for the guests to sign.  

I added the pictures from the funeral to that book.

We got a lot of cards for my mom's funeral.  My mom loves to save cards, so I couldn't throw them away.    I decided just to hole punch them and put them on rings to save them.  I took one of the cards that I thought my mom would like and used it for the cover.  I used the design that Maggie Holmes had used for a mini album class years ago as my design for the cover.

In her actual scrapbook, she had a section where she had saved all of the funeral programs and obituaries from loved ones over the years.  I felt that I needed to add her program and obituary to that scrapbook as well.

We were told my mom wouldn't last much longer a few days before her birthday.  So, this birthday was a hard one.... we wanted to give her something special... but not material.  My little brother nailed it... he got several birthday cards and had a bunch of her friends sign them for her.  I got her a flag with 63 stars.  She was born on flag day and she had told me a story about how her uncle would buy her a flag every year for her birthday.  He would get her a flag with the number of stars for how old she was.  Spending time with her was the best birthday present ever.

So, I added this page to her scrapbook as well.  

Now...I need to get back to my scrapbooks!  It's driving me crazy that I'm so far behind!

Summer Scrapbooking

I don't have time to blog any more... I really don't.  But for some reason, now that school has started, I thought I would do a little blog catch up of some of the crafty things I did over the summer.

I love to scrapbook... crafting is fun, but I love to scrapbook.  And every summer, I plan on getting tons of scrapbooking done since I don't work in the summer... but, I have kids to entertain and play with, so I don't get any scrapbooking done... It's okay, I'll get caught up some day:)

Here are the pages that I worked on.  I think I got all of 2011 finished, so I can start working on 2012.

A halloween party I did for my kids.

 The Jubilee of Trees... held the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving... love layouts where I can fit tons of pix.

My hubby's birthday is in December.

Christmas Eve we went to Zion national park.

2 page spread of Christmas 2011

And the very last page of 2011... New Year's Eve

I still really love my little 6x6 albums I make for my kids.  Easy, simple quick layouts.  I don't put a lot in them, but sometimes there's just a picture that I take that needs to be saved... love this little boy.

Lastly, because I do two page spreads, there is always a page at the beginning of the album and end of the album that is a single page.  I try to put our family pix in those spaces... this is from 2009.  I had a few missing holes in some of my scrapbooks.

I've been scrapbooking!!!

I had about a million projects going on a Christmas and just not time to blog. Once Christmas was over, I really wanted to spend some time scrapbooking. I'm trying to get caught up on last year... good luck to me.

Here are a few 12x12 2 page spreads that I've been working on.

A few Scrapbook pages

I just thought I'd post a few scrapbook pages that I made a few months back... before I started on a million other projects and haven't had time to scrapbook. I'm trying to get them all finished so that I can get back to scrapbooking again.
I love the crossword puzzle paper... and I love circles:)

I love it when I get the chance to do anything girly... and with those shorts.... I had a great color palate!!!

School Scrapbook

Here's my daily routine.... I get up at around 6 and exercise. When I get home, I sneak into my craftroom to scrapbook until my kids wake up... or I have to do something else. So, my goal this summer has been to get caught up on my boys' school scrapbooks. When you think about it, that's the only thing you can kind of get caught up on.... because it's the only thing that has a break... real life doesn't really have a break.
Here are some of my favorites. I really like bright colors and have been able to use a lot of them in this album.

I also really love misting and used that a lot in his scrapbook too.
Circles and sewing are also another favorite.
And I really like the "pop" that black gives to pages.

To view the rest of the album, click on my Flickr link on the right.

I am finished with Brenner's kindergarten and 1st grade. He will be starting 2nd grade on Aug. 15th. I am busily working on a mini album for Joren's preschool and will post that when I am finished.

-Anisa

School poster

With all the busyness of Brenner's birthday, I also had to make a poster for his "Starfish of the Week." I love making these. They are always so fun.

I've been scrapbooking

I'm in the mood to scrapbook. I sneak down to my craft room and do a little here and there. Sometimes all I do is pick my papers... sometimes I crop a few pictures, but little by little the pages come together. Here are a few of my favorites...



To see more of my scrapbook pages, check out my Flickr gallery.

Flickr

I have decided to create a Flickr account to upload all of my scrapbooking pages to. I would like for you to view them without having to post all of them to my blog.

You can find my Flickr gallery HERE!

Strike While the Iron is Hot

I have a lot on my plate right now... I'm working 30 hours a week, taking 3 credits online, and I'm supposed to be studying for a Praxis test that I am taking this Saturday! That in addition to being a mom, cleaning the house, cooking dinner, doing laundry, exercising, etc.... But here's the thing.... I'd rather be Scrapbooking!!! I sneak down to my craft room whenever I get the chance... whether it be early in the morning, late at night or just when I can... and I scrapbook. My grandma always said, "Strike while the iron is hot." Do you know what that means? I figure I'm totally in the mood to scrapbook right now... so I'm going to. I'm producing pages that I love and I'm getting things done. Currently I'm working on my Fall pages... so I thought I'd share!!!




I'm still working on a Flickr group of my pics... and hopefully I'll have a reader gallery too!

-Anisa

A new approach to scrapbooking (for me)

I've totally been in the mood to scrapbook lately... so I've been sneaking down to my craft room every spare second I get... usually early in the morning. My usual technique of scrapbooking is to "Scraplift." I almost always get my ideas from someone else. I usually use cardstock as my background, lots of scraps and embellishments. Usually I got straight to my "scrap" box to find the papers I'm going to use on a layout... I very rarely use my full sheets of patterned 12x12. This week I decided that I wanted to try something a little different. I have some 12x12 papers that I have purchased because I love them. So, what I decided to do was to pick my PAPER first, then find the pictures that I wanted to scrapbook. It was fun to do. I didn't scraplift. I used my own sketch. And the result was a couple of pages that were totally different than what I usually do.


So, I need your HELP! Where should I create a "gallery" for my layouts? Should I use an online photo gallery like Picasa or Flickr? Or should I use a scrapbooking gallery like Two Peas in a Bucket or Creating Keepsakes? I want to have a gallery where I display all of the pages that I create for all of you to see, but I'm not sure which would be the best place to display them!

-Anisa

Button/Embellishment Storage

I have been trying to make my scrapbooking supplies more mobile... so that I can scrapbook someplace other than in my craft room. I have always used these divided containers for my button and embellishment storage.

But they drive me crazy!!! I stick them in my craft bag and all the buttons slide around and get mixed up. So, I put my thinking cap on and came up with a solution!!!
I cut a piece of chipboard the size of the lid. Then I cut a piece of batting the same size. Then I cut a piece of fabric about 1" larger around all sides. I then simply hot glued it together and glued it inside the lid of the box.
Ta da!!! It totally works!!! No more sliding around and mixing up of buttons. It is a tight squeeze to close it, but that's okay!!!

To hide the back side of the chipboard, I cut a piece of fabric and modpodged it on the front. Then I modpodged a border of scrapbook paper around the edge and stamped acrylic paint to label what was inside. I'm sure I could have decorated and embellished the outside a little better, but oh well!!! The important thing is that it is totally functional and solves the problem of everything getting mixed up inside!!!

-Anisa