Kaitlin Sheaffer

Olympic Opening Ceremonies

 

Today is a BIG day in our house - the 2012 Summer Olympics begin! We love watching the Olympics, and we have a fun tradition for the Opening Ceremonies - for dinner that evening, we always eat "Food of the Hosting Country" while we watch the coverage. Italy and China were easy, but when the 2010 Games (Vancouver) arrived, I struggled because they eat basically the same things we in America eat. We finally decided to simplify (and cheat a bit) by doing Canadian Bacon pizza. A few months before the Olympics started, I happened to sit next to a Canadian couple during a flight and I quizzed them about "traditional Canadian foods". They humored me and finally remembered a great pastry Canadians enjoy: Beaver Tails (flat cinnamon and sugar pastries). I happened to come across something quite similar to what they described in our local market, which thrilled me! I documented our little party in my layout today. 

I used an assortment of Ormolu goodies from several different lines, and they coordinated beautifully (as usual). The menu is written on a tag, and I used a Bungalow flapper at the top before tucking it behind the top photo on the layout. The GO! Dots & Spots globe was perfect for the layout so I incorporated it as part of the title. 

My twelve year-old has been eagerly anticipating these Summer Games because they are in London! And London = Fish & Chips in his mind. So, we are going to be feasting on Fish & Chips, Bass Beer (root beer for the kids), Eton Mess (meringue / strawberries / whipped cream dessert), and tea and biscuits tonight. Just for the heads up (so you can plan ahead): the 2014 Winter Games will be in Sochi (Armenian Cuisine), and the 2016 Summer games will be in Rio (Carnivale, anyone?)! 

Today is also a bittersweet one for me, as this is my final post on the Ormolu blog. I have been on the Creative Team for more than a year now, and I will miss it immensely! Ormolu is an amazing company and Kaitlin is a joy to work with. I have also enjoyed getting to know my fellow team members - they are all incredible women. I am looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Oromolu - I'm sure it will be fabulous!

 

InLinkz.com

Little Baby Boy

Hi everyone, this is Jasmin and I would love to share a layout with you today! I hope you enjoy!

I´ve used some items from the new Bungalow collection and combined them them with some Fact or Fiction dots and the new Crate Paper line "Little Boy Blue" - I think the colors fits perfectly to this picture of my brandnew little guy! :)

I wrote the journaling on one of the spots and hide it behind some layers, it´s just peeking out a bit, same with the date, which is on a circle tag too.

Happy scrapping!

Love to See You Smile

Hi, Guys!  Happy Monday!  My layout today uses Fact or Fiction Flappers (Man!  I love those flappers.  Every collection!), Fact or Fiction Flair and Dots and Spots and Tag Sale Flair.  I used it with Crate Paper's Little Boy Blue collection.... Again!  But just with little touches of pattern paper.  The colors of Fact or Fiction went so well with this photo I took of my middlest at his birthday party.  

 The photo is totally blurry, but it captured the moment.  I had to use it!  We had the boys' birthday party at a jump house in town.  Noah was sliding down the giant slide.  He was obviously having a great time.  When he got to the bottom of the slide, he looked over at me & just smiled.  It was pure joy.  He was so happy and having a blast with his friends.  It made every minute of planning and crafting for the party worth it!  

I wanted to use the flapper that said "so you", but it just didn't quite fit.  So, I trimmed it down and layered it over the others.  

I have been hoarding this flair.  I've almost used it on every Ormolu layout.  I finally sucumbed and used it!  

 

InLinkz.com

Crab Hunting

Hi everyone! I'm back with another vacation/everyday layout. I tend to not make my vacation layouts too themey so this leans more towards and every day type of layout. Each morning while we were in Kauai my son would go out to the beach as soon as he woke up to look for crabs to catch. Every. Single. Morning. So a layout had to be made!

I've been using 8.5"x11" paper recently and definitely liking the change. It has a bit of a different size and feel than the larger 12"x12".  That Fact or Fiction flapper has been one of my favorites for a while and I've just been waiting for the perfect layout to use it! I also loved the Bungalow Little Labels as a sort of second title. 

I encourage you to try scrapping on 8.5"x11" if you haven't before. It's a fun change! And don't be afraid to use up some of your Ormolu - they are SO fun to layer!

InLinkz.com

Day at the Lake

Hi!  Mandie here bringing you today's post. 

I made this layout about the time we spent on the lake for my husband's birthday this weekend.  It uses items from the fact or fiction collection, tag sale & bungalow.  The pattern paper is from Crate Paper's new baby line, Little Boy Blue & October Afternoon's 9 to 5. 

I layered the tags from Tag Sale with a Fact or Fiction Negative Cut card and a liitle tag from Bungalow.  I LOVE the font used in the Bungalow line.  So, so cute!

(oh!  How I LOVE this piece of flair!  I could use 12 of them!)

 

 

The Tough Stuff

 

Good morning, everyone! Do you scrap the tough stuff, or do you put if off? I am a huge procrastinator when it comes to difficult subjects. I am not good at getting in touch with my sad feelings, but I decided I need to be better about things like this. Today I am sharing a layout that has been seven years in the making. 

We were having portraits taken of our two youngest children. Brendan was almost six, and Katie was eight months old. My father-in-law had passed away when I was expecting Katie so it had been just over a year since his death when we were at this photo shoot. The photographer was amazing - she chatted with Brendan and made him feel very comfortable (he was very shy at that age). As she was snapping this, she asked him what he was thinking and he told her he was thinking about how he missed his grandpa, who had died a year ago. The poor lady nearly cried. It was such a random thing for him to say - we hadn't been discussing his grandpa, so this was completely unexpected for all of us. When I got the proofs from her, I knew instantly which photo she had taken when the conversation occurred.

I have held onto it for almost seven years now. I just didn't know what to do with it, or how to capture the moment. I finally decided to just capture it as it truly happened. As I was photographing the layout for this blog post, Brendan walked into the room and saw it. He didn't remember it happening, but he loved the layout because it gave him a piece of his history back, albeit a sad one. He has now lost both of my in-laws, and he still misses them terribly. But if I had made this a happy layout, or an "all about you" layout, he would have lost a key story of his childhood. This was significant. I am so glad I decided to scrap it like I did.

Do you have pictures you are saving because they are just too hard to scrap? Try to sit down and do just one "tough" layout this week. You don't have to do them all at once, but just one every week or so will get you through the pile of photos that are waiting there. As difficult as it is, you'll be glad you jumped in and did it. 

InLinkz.com

Rawhide Energy Plant

Happy Monday to you! Just a quick little layout to share today...

As usual, I just grabbed my blog post for this field trip and made it into a layout for our homeschool album. I'm so pleased with how well all the Ormolu goodies (even from different lines) coordinate! I think my favorite part of this layout, though, is the dots turned into squares. I saw a friend do this at a crop recently using circles punched from patterned paper and realized that the many Ormolu dots would work perfectly:

I just picked some fun dots, punched a square to fit in the center (this took a wee bit of trial and error but not long at all), scored along the square to fold in those edges, and added them to my page. Yay!

InLinkz.com

hike pena adobe

Hi!  Mandie here with today's post.  This is a layout I made to document a hiking trip at a local park.  I mostly used the Tree Hugger line.  I love all of the adorable prints in this line.... the woodgrains, the little feet, the hearts.  all of it... adorable!  It was perfect for the theme.  I used the Flapper as my patttern paper and lined them up along the sides.

 

I love the way the Flair looks layered over the Dots & Spots.  Totally cute! 

 

InLinkz.com

Let Go

I love how this layout came together. I started with the photos and printed them out first. As I was printing them I was drawn to the pops of yellow the lanters made on the dark blue of the sky. When I looked at my Ormolu stash I looked to find yellow embellishments that would go along with these colors. I was in great luck and across multiple lines! 

Here are a few detail shots:

I love doing letters in the negative now on my Silhouette. Really makes letter spacing and making your title straight and even super easy.

One of my favorite Ormolu flair. I stopped myself from wanting to hoard it and stuck it on the page. :)

It was such a great feeling seeing everyones lanterns float into the sky. I felt that 'This Is Big' is a great caption for this event.

I love these fabric swatches and thought the rocket went well with the theme of this layout.

I hope you enjoyed my layout today! I had a lot of fun making this one. Definately going into my 'favorites' file. 

-Teka

InLinkz.com

Real Deal

Hi everyone! I am so excited to be posting on the Ormolu blog. I LOVE everything Ormolu because each and every one works so well with the layering that I do so often. They are the easiest most perfect accents to add in here and there and go with pretty much any style I'm going with at the moment.

We just got back from Kauai (I'm still in post vacation depression mode) so as you can imagine I have TONS of photos just waiting to scrap. I think it's pretty funny that the first two I grabbed were of our favorite dessert on the island - Jo Jo's Shave Ice. 

I'm craving one right now. My favorite has coconut shave ice over macadamia nut ice cream with coconut cream and shredded coconut. SO good! I think my favorite new Ormolu products for this page were the Tag Sale Fabric Cuts. I love the added texture they give the page without being too much.

Do you love to layer as much as I do? I just can't help myself!

InLinkz.com