Crazy About Quotes by Sonja McLean

Each year, at our local craft fair, we visit Eileen Mosca's booth. She makes inspirational artwork. Her designs are inspired by Vancouver scenes and her quotes are amazing. Many of her magnets adorn my fridge and I read them nearly every day. A few of her framed prints are in my children's bedrooms as well. I adore her work (and she's a lovely lady also).

My point is, I love quotes. Here are a few projects I made using some of my favourite quotes.


This quote was taken from the television series "Firefly". This wall hanging is made from Technique Tuesday tiles which I've been hoarding for years. It's about 2' long and contains 4 frames connected by jump rings.

Supplies: Technique Tuesday tiles, Basic Grey pp and chipboard letters, Prima swirls and flowers.


This quote is from Lady Gaga's lyrics. Long before I heard "Born This Way" on the radio, my oldest son showed me this video on YouTube. I fell in love with the song immediately. These photos of my daughter posing for the camera while carrying her brother's wooden gun, Dora backpack loaded with toys & wearing a Christmas shirt long after the season, were perfect for the song!

Supplies: Bo Bunny pp, Echo Park & Adorn It letter stickers, My Mind's Eye diecut pp, Purple Onion Designs stamps.



This quote by Herm Albright (quoted in Reader's Digest, June 1995) is one of my all-time favourites. This 4x4 canvas is backed by a chipboard die-cut & magnets. It has a permanent home on my fridge.

Supplies: 4x4 canvas from dollar store, Crate Paper pp, Accucut die and black chipboard, Sojo Designs flowers.

Happy Friday! For all you locals, be sure to check out the Sewing & Crafts show happening this weekend at Trade Ex in Abbostford!

Friday, February 25, 2011 - The 'Scraplifting - It ain't a crime!' Challenge...

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery", so this week's challenge is to pick a layout, project, etc. that caught your eye on a blog or in a gallery - or maybe even something of your own creation that you are really pleased with, and scraplift it!! We'd love to see your inspiration piece and your own take on it so leave us a comment with a link where we can find you!

Friday, February 18, 2011 - The 'It's All About You!' Challenge...

This week's challenge is an 'AAM' (AKA 'All About Me')challenge. For all the scrapbooking we do, it seems that most of us are missing from our scrapbooks. Those of us who scrapbook are almost always the family photographers as well so pictures that include us seem to be hard to come by. We go to great lengths to document everything from the wonderful everyday moments to the milestones of our family members lives BUT we are missing from these pages, in photographs AND in presence or point of view...Sometimes I know I can feel a bit sheepish about shining the spotlight on myself. Not only am I very rarely ever happy with a picture of myself, but I also don't feel as comfortable focusing on myself as the subject of a scrapbook page or project...I'm hesitant to say, "Let's talk about ME now!". However, when I shift perspective just a bit and think about how much I would love to know more about my mother, or my grandmother, as a person beyond the role of mother or grandmother, or - the opportunity to get an inside glimpse of their thoughts or feelings about their role as mother or grandmother - wow! What an opportunity that would be. So then, I think of my children (or imagine my grandchildren) and realize - wouldn't they get a kick out of it? They would enjoy it. As well, how much might I enjoy it decades in the future, being able to look back at myself now? It makes sense, so throw off the cloak of modesty and declare, "Here I am! This is me!" I put the challenge out there for all of us, the family historians/photographers/scrapbookers...treat yourself, and your family, to a page (or an album!) all about you. To quote a well-known slogan, "Because we're worth it!"

Friday, January 28, 2011 - List It Challenge!

TGIF! The kick-off to another weekend - hopefully one that allows for a little creative playtime!

Our challenge this week is to use a list format for journalling. 'Top Ten' list, 'Five Favorite', 'Reasons Why...' - the more I think about it, the more lists I can think of. Lettered, numbered, bulleted, point form - so many different ways to do it. Journalling can sometimes seem like a chore for some people, and sometimes it doesn't come easily. By writing information in a list format, it can ease the seeming 'formality' of writing and maybe make it easier to just jot down a few key points, details, or thoughts. A list-style of journalling can also look very stylistic.

Give this challenge a try, have fun with it, and share the end result with us by leaving us a comment with a url where we can go to take a look!

Winter/Christmas Themed Challenge by Virginia Wong

Well this past week in Calgary was a ccccccc-old! Not just a wee bit cold but frigidly cold...as in cold enough to take your breath away when you walk out the door. I am probably a bit unusual but I'll go out on a limb and say that I actually don't mind winter. Our family participates in traditional outdoor sports to make the winter more tolerable. We ski and skate...and I am an exemplary Lodge-Girl who happens to make amazing lunches (if I do say so myself!!!)  LOL

Here are a few layouts celebrating Winter. (Did I also mention that we seem to travel to alot hills within a 7 hr radius of our home? THAT is how crazy we are!)

Supplies:  Little Yellow Bicycle (alpha, pattern paper, die cut stickers; transparency stickers); American Crafts (journaling pen); Bazzill cardstock

Supplies:  American Crafts (pattern paper, alphas); Prima (gems); Bazzill cardstock

Let's talk Christmas now...every single year, we make a gingerbread creation. One year it is a house, another a train and another is a ginormous amount of gingerpeople cookies.

Supplies:  My Minds Eye (pattern paper, die cuts); American Crafts (alphas)

Supplies: My Minds Eye (pattern paper, die cuts); American Crafts (alphas)


We love counting down to Christmas with an Advent Calendar. Through the years I seem to have started a collection fo advent calendars - here is one of my newest advent calendars.

Supplies:  Kaisercraft (advent calendar); Graphic45 (pattern papers, chipboard numbers); Tattered Angels (glimmer mist)

And I cannot forget Christmas morning!

Supplies:  Fancy Pants (pattern paper, die cuts); Heidi Swapp (alphas)

Thanks for letting me share!
-Virginia

Art Inspiration Challenge by Jo

Hi! New member here! I am so happy to be part of this team ... the members of this team have been inspiring me for quite a while, and I am totally awestruck to be here.


Okay, the Challenge .... I love this inspiration piece by Etsy artist "ccvalenzo". As soon as I saw it I knew which photo I wanted to scrap. The image of a spiral walkway emulates the spiral shape of the background in this photo ... I have been waiting to scrap this photo for about 2 years without knowing what to do with it ... this Etsy piece provided the perfect inspiration. The flowers are diecut from white cardstock and patterned paper and their centers are made from bits of shiny mesh type fabric and glitter topped with Tim Holtz round fragments. The overlay is by Hambly, tape and patterned paper are 7Gypsies and I used two colours of the Tattered Angels glimmer mist. I also gently distressed the large piece of white cardstock by creasing and wrinkling lightly.

Inspiration comes from everywhere ... in this case, a beautiful necklace and it's background ... take pictures of things that inspire you ... surround yourself with items that inspire you ... and have fun scrapping them!

Introducing Our Designers...

Meet Susan Tutt:
I found the great world of scrapbooking 15 years ago when my first daughter was born and I have been addicted ever since. I am a mom to two girls and a boy (14, 11 and 7 ) and wife to a very scrap supportive husband. My family and our everyday life is my inspiration for many of my projects/layouts. I love how scrapbooking has changed over the years and evolved into an art.

A favorite layout of Susan's:




Meet Erica Perkins:
My name is Erica Perkins, I'm the mom of two smart little people and married to a great man that makes me laugh. I wear a lot of hats and one of those is "scrapbooker". Just over four years ago, my bff talked me into going to a crop night, then she invited me to go to a class taught by Sonja McLean. Well, I was hooked. I always collected stationary (paper, pencils, erasers, and other pretty things), so getting to do that again combined with my other interest was a perfect match. I'm a story teller, well, actually I'm a story listener...I love to hear peoples stories. I'll happily share mine too, but I really love to hear about other people's lives. That's the biggest part of this craft to me, the stories. Preserving mine and my family's for my kids and future generations, listening to others share theirs as they put together a project. I love it.

Here's a fav layout of mine. Love Over the Years. I chose it becuase it's one of my newish ones...but more importantly I love that it shows how our lives have changed over the years. It also touches on the reality of our life (it ain't always rosy). It's real, it's my story and it's me.



Meet Cari Locken:
I started scrapbooking in 1997. You know that era - stickers galore, paper dolls, totally cropping and cutting ones' photos into all sorts of sizes & shapes - ah yes! You do remember! ;) My first album was all about me from a baby until the day I got married. I thought it was a work of art. But, oh! how the styles & trends have changed over the years. This hobby has become a love of mine! I must admit that I do something scrapbook related every single day. For me, it's an outlet of my thoughts, emotions, memories and creativity. I love that my children enjoy looking through the albums and reading about completely insignificant events - even though they will remember them now forever because of the layouts. I am thrilled at the many friendships that I've made through this hobby and the various opportunities that it has brought into my life.

A layout of Cari's (as Cari says, "It's way too hard to pick a favorite!"):



Meet Debby Visser:
I am an avid scrapper/crafter living in Chilliwack BC, with my husband who fully supports my scrapping hobby, and our 4 children; 1 girl and 3 boys.
I am the worst morning person, drink too much coffee and love reality TV.
Scrapbooking is my creative outlet and is very much a part of who I am. I enjoy capturing and documenting through pictures and pages the fun and not so fun moments in our lives that we might otherwise forget years down the road. I have been known to grab the camera before the first aid kit!!
I have always been crafty in one way or another. I bounced from craft to craft till I stumbled upon scrapbooking. When my daughter turned 10, I put together an album '10 years with Kimmee'. It was at her party, when someone was going through the album and said to me 'you must scrapbook?'. My response was 'what is that?' Well I found out and have been hooked every since.
My favourite part of scrapbooking – besides the memories I document for my family – is sharing, teaching and learning. I have met so many wonderful people through this hobby that I have learned from; and in return been able to share with! I love teaching, and teach a wide variety of classes, from cards and pages to anything I think I can alter.
I have been extremely fortunate to have my work featured in many print and online magazines, which the kids just love to see themselves in.

One of my favourite layouts is this one of my son Jaxon.



I have it on the wall in my scrapbook room. This one came together kinda by accident. The 2 pieces of pattern paper were all I had left from a kit of Pink Paislee papers, they were just sitting on the table when I dropped these photos down. Those 2 strips were all those cute photos needed.

Meet Jillian Lewarne:
I have been scrapbooking since about 1999. I have always loved paper, office stuff, and crafts. My parents owned a printing shop and I used to scavenge through the garbage cans in the shop for any and all leftover bits and pieces of paper I could get my hands on. They also made rubber stamps so I would hang out in their front office and gleefully stamp away with plain ol’ industrial black ink on reclaimed scrap paper for hours whenever I could! Then, after I had my daughter, I saw an ad in a local parenting magazine for a scrapbook store that just happened to be near my daughter's preschool. The day I walked in there was like coming home! I've been at it ever since.

I’ve been involved with The Inspired Scrapper in some capacity or another since it started in December 2008, and I’ve been ‘at the helm’ here since February of this year. For me, calling scrapbooking a ‘hobby’ doesn’t quite cut it (pun intended!). It’s so much more than that! One of the most enjoyable aspects of scrapbooking has been meeting so many wonderful people along the way – online and in person! I do something crafty/scrappy almost every day, even if it’s just a very simple or quick thing, like jot down some notes or sketches for card/layout ideas. I’ve got a notebook with me everywhere I go because inspiration strikes throughout the day, every day!

A favorite layout of mine:



Meet Virginia Wong:
I ventured into scrapbooking shortly after the passing of my Dad. I wanted a special place to keep all the photos, cards and special notes that I received from the funeral. To date, I have not completed an album on my Dad but that was my first foray into scrapbooking. Things were put on hold for a few months as I prepared for the arrival of my first daughter. After she was born, I just had to take a million pictures and print duplicates for all the relatives. Then all the relatives started wanted me to write a few words about each of the photos. Plus, I wanted to remember all those precious firsts, seconds, thirds and fourths in my own way and that is how I found scrapbooking. I know I am completely smitten with scrapbooking because I google scrapbook stores and events before leaving on any vacation these days. And my husband and girls now save memorabilia for me...they always say, "Mommy can scrapbook this!"

My favorite layout is constantly changing. One of my most recent layouts that I love is titled "Right Now."



Meet Karen Thind:
I am a mom to three darling daughters and have been married for 13 years! I have always loved taking pictures and keeping mementos in photo albums. It all came together with scrapbooking after I had my first daughter. Now almost 8 years later, I still love how creative and challenging scrapbooking is. I love taking the time to focus on the little things in our lives, and it has been great to see my daughters take an interest and start to make their own scrapbook pages!
Choosing a favourite layout is hard. I have some that I love the photo, or I love the story, or some that I love the design, and all this changes quite regularly. Right now I love this one. I just love how springy it feels.