Kerri Bradford Studio » Blog

Before I get today’s goodies, I just wanted to remind ya really quickly that today is the last day of this:

I got a smart phone–okay, it’s an iPhone 5–a few months ago. I am in love over the fact that I have a great camera at my finger tips (finally) without having to lug my big boy around. I love that I have a phone, camera, calendar, music/movie player, etc.,  all wrapped up all into one neat little white and silver package.

And I really love that I can take a great photo and capture every moment when I need to.

Which leads me to today’s page from our sweet Laura. I love Laura’s story about her daughter capturing her many faces. Okay, so she used her mom’s big camera, but the principal is still the same. How many of your kids take photos of themselves with their own phone? And how many photos do they take during school and hanging with friends? I love that they are capturing every moment.

[ Shapes | Storyboard #1 (template), This & That: Love (filmstrip), 'Snapshots' title ]

 
I love how Laura cut filmstrips from different patterns to use as accents on her page–carrying on the ‘snapshot’ theme. It’s awesome! Love it.

Here’s what Laura has to say: 

My youngest daughter, Sarah, had taken these photos of herself, using the remote control for my camera, which was set up in my scrapbook room on a tripod. I didn’t know she took these until I was downloading photos from my memory card a few days later. It’s totally her to ham it up for the camera and take crazy photos of herself. I used one of Kerri’s storyboard templates to arrange my favorite photos and print them out in a collage. The “Snapshots: Capturing Every Moment” title is one of Kerri’s freebie shapes, and fit the theme of my page perfectly. I also cut a few filmstrip frames from the This & That: Love kit from several patterned papers, and tucked them under the top of my photo collage.

I just have to add, Sunday night I was sitting in the back of a large…large gathering of family and friends who’d come to see seven young men receive their Eagle for Boy Scouts. The parents of those boys had commissioned Tracy Aviary to bring an eagle to the Court of Honor. As they brought the eagle out, I was amazed at the amount of cameras popping up from the sea of people to take a photo. I love….love that we are at a place in our society where so many people visually record their lives–that so many people have a way to capture that moment of history.

We live in an amazing time.

 love it.

There is nothing more exciting to me to see these two-dimensional pieces of art I make come to life in wonderful ways. And Laura’s page is definitely one of these wonderful ways! It’s just eye candy!

[ Shapes | inFORMS (Report Card, Score Sheet, Library Card) / Need Directions (quirky arrow) / Say What: 1 ("relax") / Say What: 3 ("Today" arrow, "Insane" title) / Life Additions: 2 ("routine") / Life Additions Weeklies: 2 (days of the week) / A Beautiful World ("green grass") ]

I feel like I am the last person in the scrapbooking world that is NOT doing Project Life. At least, not yet. However, I have a large stash of the divided page protectors and never think to use them. I decided to challenge myself to use one when sitting down to work on my project for Kerri this month. My 16 year old, Alyssa, has been extremely busy these last few weeks with all of her school activities, soccer (two teams), band rehearsals and concerts, and normal, everyday life stuff. I thought I would create a page documenting one of her busy weeks and got busy digging through Kerri’s kits to find a variety of shapes to use. I started with the days of the week … an obvious choice, right? I choose a few arrows, along with a few different words/phrases that caught my eye (“routine” for that everyday stuff, “relax” for that one day she had a few minutes of downtime, “green grass” for soccer). When I saw the “2 Words. In. Sane.” shape, I knew it was perfect for my title, since her week’s schedule was truly insane. I used a few of Alyssa’s photos from her iPod. Since the quality wasn’t that great, I printed them on the cards from the inFORMS kit. Since the photos printed BEHIND the forms, it helped hide the fact that the photos weren’t crystal clear or in focus.

Even if you’re not doing Project Life, I think this is fabulous way to document a week of life! Or anything, for that matter. And I love how she printed designs from inFORMS over the top of the photos! Such a cool effect! And if you don’t want to print over it, try printing it onto a transparency and slide it over your pocket items.

I so need to make a page like this!

Thanks Laura! Love it!

Welcome to day 8 of our little 12 Days of Christmas fun!

It’s been snowing here off and on and it’s sure been finally feeling like Christmas. I’m just hoping that we will actually have snow on the ground Christmas day. Seems like it rarely happens anymore. And *gasp* dare I even wish for it to actually snow during that festive time? One could only hope.:) I’ve just opened my window so I could see the big pine trees out my window with their clumps of fluffy white snow that found a new hone during the night last night. It’s s beautiful site!

I have gotten several requests to turn the ’12 Days’ logo into a free shape.
And you know what I like to say:

Your wish is my command!

Although, I did tweak it so that it would be a little more universal than using ’12 Days’, ya know?

To download it for free–today only–click HERE.

Next item up for today?

Today’s page comes from the loveliness that is Laura Vegas.

[ Shapes | This+That: Winter (snowflake) / December Twenty Five (christmas) / Decade 2000 (twenty seven) / Storyboard #1 ]

I tell ya . . . photo templates are an awesome way to get so many of those precious memories on one page! What a lovely page Laura!

Here’s what Laura has to say:

I came across some Christmas photos from a family get-together, taken back in 2007, that I had never gotten around to scrapping. I had quite a few photos, and wanted to get them all onto a layout, so I picked out one of Kerri’s Storyboard templates to create two quick photo collages. I knew the collages would go side by side, on the two pages, so that it created one large collage across the two-page spread. So I simply turned the template upside down, so that the template design was flip flopped on the second page. I never use snowflakes, being as we live in California, where we just don’t have true “winters” or see any snow. But since the majority of the family was wearing a lot of blues, browns, reds, and lighter colors, I thought it would be a nice opportunity to go with a more “winterey” color scheme and use the snowflakes instead of Christmas trees, presents, or other typical Christmas themed shapes. I didn’t add any journaling to this layout, which isn’t normally something I skip. But I’m not that worried about it, since this is really just a collection of photos from Christmas day, which we know involved family, good food, gifts, and spending time together. 

I love that Laura took some time to scrap some photos from five years ago. I think that often times we scrap what’s current–and that’s great–I think we should. But if we have a moment to go back farther? Do it before those detailed memories start to fade. You think you’ll remember something forever . . .

So, to help you do the same and reach back into the first decade of the 2000 millennium (remember when Y2K was a big deal??), this is the kit on sale today.

Instead of $10, it’s on sale for just $5 for today only.
Click HERE to go to it in the store.

 And HERE are some examples on using it in action.

You know, this is always hit and miss for me. Sometimes I will–like if we go to California or something–and sometimes it just seems to be the same ol’ ‘family gathering’, but with more food, so I don’t think to take my camera. I need to be better about that and I do believe I’m going to make it a goal to do just that in a week.  (holy cannoli…a week!)

And I love the twist that Laura did here. Let’s check it out . . .

[ Shapes | Giving Thanks (words) / Signed.Sealed.Delieverd (envelope) / This+That: Autumn (leaves) ]

Getting little ‘grateful’ notes from everyone is a wonderful idea! It’s something you can keep as a momento forever . . . a little piece of time all tucked into an envelope. Great idea! And I love those colorful leaves too!

Here’s what Laura has to say:

A few years back, on Thanksgiving day, I had asked each member of our family to write down what they were thankful for. I also took a photo of each person. My plan was to create a mini album that had each persons photo and their handwritten paper next to it, and it could be something that we take out each year on Thanksgiving. I have started and stopped working on this little album several times over the last few years (this was from back in 2009), and have just never been able to finish it. I decided that instead of the mini album, I would simply make a two page layout to hold everything. I chose an envelope from Kerri’s Signed.Sealed.Delivered kit, and cut it from two different patterned papers, which I used to hold all of the handwritten papers where everyone wrote what they were thankful for. I love the cursive, handwritten titles in Kerri’s new Giving Thanks kit, and used a few words to create my title and embellish the envelope. I added some simple leaves, from the This And That: Autumn kit to embellish the spread. I cut all of my words and leaves from white cardstock, in addition to the patterned paper and brown cardstock, and layered them together.

And now, how’s about we take a look at another flashback idea from last year. With this gift-giving idea, Laura made a bunch of little cards and put them in a jar to give as a gift. This is a fabulous gift idea!

 ( For more information on this idea, click HERE.)

The one thing I like about creating kits is when I can make things more universal, particularly so that even if you d0 . . . saaaay . . . have a cat and get the Here Kitty Kitty kit, you can still pull phrases and such from there to use on other pages . . . like our little Miss Laura did here!

[ Shapes | Here Kitty Kitty ]

 
How perfect is that title for that sweet little boy?!

Here’s what Laura has to say:

When Kerri first sent me her new Here Kitty Kitty kit, I honestly didn’t rush to check it out since I don’t have a cat. Lol. But just like her A Dog’s Life kit, there are titles in these kits that can be used for layouts that have nothing to do with pets. In fact, the “I’d really rather not be bothered, thank you” title would go great on a layout about myself and how I love my “me” time ;) When I first saw the title “Yes, I really am that adorable”, I immediately thought of my little daycare boy, Mateo. He’s super cute and we are constantly telling him “you are sooooooo adorable”, all day long. I knew I had to use it on a layout about him, using some of my favorite pictures of him.

FABulous Laura, just fabulous!