Kaitlin Sheaffer

You Gotta Have Friends

I fell in love with the Bungalow and Tag Sale line when Kaitlin first showed us all the goodies in the line.  I thought it was perfect for those precious family layouts and family photos.  However, after thumbing through photos for my layout today I realized that they are not only great for family layouts, but also projects about the other family in your life - FRIENDS.

Even though I move hundreds and now thousands of miles away from friends every 2-3 years, they are still such an important part of my life and now my childrens' lives too.  Friends help us to grow as people and are there to laugh until we nearly wet ourselves!

I miss all these ladies (and gentleman) dearly right now and it was therapeutic to sit down and scrap about them to make a pretty layout.  I can hear their laughter through these pictures and am so glad I have them.

I stitched a little envelope out of vellum to hold my journaling for this layout on one of my favorite Ormolu tags. Not something I normally do and happy it turned out the way I envisioned in my head!

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Documenting a Week

 

It's not a Week in the Life week, but I fell in love with Days of the Week Flair and had an idea of how I wanted to use them.  (I know, I know, flair AGAIN from me!)

I snapped a few photos the week that we were getting our house packed out to move.  It's a way of life for us, but for a lot of people moving is a once or twice in a life thing.  When a moving company moves you it's quite a quick and systematic approach for sure!

I just used some Instagram photos I had printed up in wallet size and arranged them according to which day of the week it was in our house.  See? Full to empty in 5 short, short days!  It amazes me every time!

So when was the last time you documented a week? It doesn't have to be a major milestone like our week, but it's fun to see what happens in your family and your house during a 1 week period.  You could even make a mini album using the flair and other odds and ends!

As always, link us up via the Ormolu Facebook page and you could find yourself featured on the blog!

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Oh Flair, How I Love Thee

I have to be the first to admit that I tried out for the Ormolu team several months based on the flair alone! Kaitlin makes such versatile, yet unique flair buttons that I find I have to reign myself in when creating a page so I don't use it them all up.  Each release I have a new love affair with the flair buttons and end up ordering pretty much all of them.  I do love all the tags too, but please don't tell them that mama favors the flair buttons!

  They are perfect as a center to flowers or chipboard, or in this case, as the center to some washi tape turned flower.  The washi tape flower was super easy to  make and I like how it turned out with that black flair against it!

I also love it as a subtle touch next to one of the flappers tags.

And of course it adds a great touch with other embellishments for that extra pop of color or just plain oomph.

Do you have a flair obsession like I do?  What's your favorite, that is, if you can narrow it down to just one line!

 

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Scrapping on a "Diet"

 

Hello from across the world in beautiful Okinawa, Japan!

I'm finally back amongst the creative and living after the big move and finally adjusting our internal clocks so we aren't up for the day at 2 am!  I took the advice of some other wives that have come over to Okinawa and sent myself some much needed items to be ready and waiting for me when I arrived on island and I'm so glad I did!  I sent myself a big box of scrapbooking goodies so that once we were settled I could get back to what I love.

With that said, I obviously couldn't send myself my entire stash of goodies because my bill would be out of this world for sure!  I sent what I thought was necessary to get through 2-3 weeks before the rest of my stash arrived in our first shipment.  I thought it would be more difficult to not have my entire room/stash at my fingertips while I was creating a page, but honestly I found it to be easier in many ways.

I found it easier to not have so many choices.  Crazy, right?!  We all think to ourselves "if I just had that one piece of paper, embelllishment, etc. this would be perfect".  I think I spend more time looking through paper and embellishments to find just the perfect one and less time on actually creating the page and the story!

Sure, I would like to have a couple of my tools here with me, but this has definitely been a make it work period for me.  It wasn't very hard to find another way around the idea that I wanted to use and find another idea fairly quickly with what I had at hand.

This scrapbooking "diet" has been a good one for me to get me back to what's important with this hobby-the storytelling.  The paper and embellishments are pretty and fun to use, but not the heart of why most of us are doing this for us and our families.

Thanks for stopping by and I'm happy to be back!

 

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It's About You Too

 

How many of your pages include you in them?  How excited does your family enjoy looking at those pages you make of yourself?

This is something I've tried to make a conscience effort to do-scrap myself.  I scrap my likes, dislikes, hopes and personality traits.  My girls get excited when they see a page about me in our albums.  They want to know about me (and their dad too), and not just all the cute pages about themselves. I figured what better day to share a page about me than on my 39th birthday! So today I'm sharing this "me" page and would love to see your pages you've made about you. 

 

I used one of the Vignette Circle Tags and stamped on it and really like how it turned out.  I then pulled out a leftover holiday circle tag that matched my papers and finished it with a Fact or Fiction Flair Button.

 

Finally, Kaitlin created these adorable tags to use with a Silhouette and I adore them!  These are cut from the inside of a polaroid image, which you are going to adore!!

 

So share with us your pages about yourself!

 

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Numbers Overload

 

I have a thing for numbers.  No, not a mathematician, but I do love numerology almost as much as I love fonts!  I go very nerdy when dates and times line up, divide evenly or have a pattern.  See? Nerd Alert!

I decided to take numbers to the next level and create a current numbers layout about our life right now.  Since we are a military family, these numbers are constantly changing for us.  Sometimes on a monthly basis!  I used lots of 2 Day Hooray Flappers to show our ever changing family numbers!  In just 2 years this will change yet again, but we've grown used to it all and now even start getting a little antsy when the 3 year mark is upon us at a home.

I know, I know, there is enough going on in one 12 x 12 space to make your eyes go cross eyed!  Somehow, once I started, things just kept going and going and here we are!  I had originally intended on using a small wallet size photo on this layout, but I figured there was enough going on here.

So what numbers make up your life right now?!

 

 

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Confession of a Twine Addict

I started using baker's twine some time ago and was an addict nearly immediately.  I have a serious addiction and it's pretty rare for me to complete a layout without it! Lucky for me that the shop keeps lots of colors in stock and at $2.00 a pop, it's a great deal too! 

I wanted to do something a little different with twine for this layout and instead of tying off a bow or stringing an embellishment, I had fun with it and some mist!

I used a Studio Calico mask and misted it with Mister Huey Sunshine.  After that I took some Ormolu black twine and simply outlined it using my trusty Martha Stewart glue pen (love that pen!).  It was actually super easy and quick.

From there I just layered with some pops of color and added tags that I layered as well.  Love combining tags from various Ormolu lines.

Thanks for stopping by!

Custom Flair

I have to tell you that I have had some custom flair sitting in my Ormolu bin for a while now.  Let's be honest, I've been hoarding it.  I love this flair and should probably get more for my hoarding drawer.  I love the fact that Kaitlin gives the option of not only letters, phrases and images, but also the option of 16 colors too.  So for this layout I busted out the "E" for miss Ella and I'm so glad I broke down and finally used it!

I just love that blue color and it was perfect for these swimming photos with all the blue water and suit!  I simply layered it on top of a Fact or Fiction Dots N Spots, then again on a chipboard ribbon, which again was perfect for the theme of the layout!

I dug into my Fact or Fiction Swatches too and experimented a bit with some rub ons.  They went on like butter I tell you!  I thought there might be some issues with it fully sticking to fabric, but it was not a problem at all!  Love how it turned out in the end!

So I encourage you to dig into those custom flair buttons and use them on your next project!  They are absolutely perfect for layouts and cards too.  If you haven't ordered any you must head on over and grab some up!  They are amazing!

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the beginning of a love story...a challenge

*Edited to add the winner, Gina Lideros! Please e-mail Kaitlin at [email protected] to claim your credit to the shop!

 

I celebrated a birthday last month and it dawned on me that I have almost known my husband for half of my life. My kids know the story...a month after I turned 16, I got my first job at the Papa Johns Pizza in my neighborhood, answering phones and taking orders. My first day, I met lots of the people who worked there, but one cute delivery driver stood out;) Little did I know we would start dating a year later and eventually get married and have babies:)

I have never scrapped this story before, since I started scrapping post-kids, and this is a story that needs to be in the books, don't you think?!

While we were back in our hometown awhile back, we drove by the Papa Johns and showed it to our kids. I took a photo and here is what that turned into:

Some detail shots:

I used the negative cut out letters from the Fact or Fiction Negative Package Tags.

I used one of the Go Negative Package Tags for part of my title and layered pieces of the Line & Letter Fabric Swatches underneath for a little bit of texture. I added some twine, flappers, flair, and tags to embellish and called it done:)

My challenge to you is to scrap the beginning of a love story. It can be yours and your significant other, your parents, your pet, your baby, your child meeting their sibling for the first time...it's totally up to you!!! Link your layout in the comments section here before next Thursday, March 1st, and I will draw a winner for a $5 gift certificate to the shop:)

I shared the challenge with the other creative team members and this is what they came up with:

Here is a layout from Marti of her second son with her third son:)


Here is a layout from Christa about her and her husband:)

I can't wait to see what love story you scrap!!

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Ticket Book Super Mini

 

I was going back and forth on what I wanted to do today for my project/layout/card and kept switching between ideas about every minute and a half! Plus, have you seen the projects this week from the Creative Team?!!  I have a lot to live up to today!

For a long time I have wanted to do something with the Ticket Book because I thought it would make a really cute tiny mini book or project.  It finally came to me as I was flipping through the ticket book - a super mini reward ticket book for my girls.

I used the original tickets as a template and cut patterned paper out to layer and make little tickets for fun things to do with the girls.  PS - "dq" stands for the beloved Dairy Queen that is a mere 1/2 mile from our house!

Once I layered and embellished the tickets, I did a tiny bit of embellishing on the cover of the ticket book itself.  It was fine as is, but just wanted to add a pop of color.  Once I put the blue border down I knew I needed another pop for the title too.

I added a zig zag stitch where the staples used to be and a straight stitch to adhere it all together.  Let's just say that the machine was none too happy with the bulk and the stitching was less than stellar and less than pretty so I grabbed a small piece of washi and put it over the stitches!

After it was all finished I tied it up and it's ready to go!

Voila!  I am a fairly slow scrapper and from start to finish this took less than 30 minutes so I was very happy with that!  The ticket cutting probably took the longest!

 

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