Scraplifting and being Inspired by

I am so in love with Nichol Magourik's scrap booking style.  I was lucky enough to be on the  Two Peas in a Bucket Design team with her many years ago.  I love how she gets so many photos on a layout (usually 2 page spreads) and also incorporates die cuts and lots of product.  I find myself printing out so many of her pages to both lift and be inspired for when I sit down to scrap my photos.  

Recently she posted this page on her blog:

  

Such an adorable page that she did for Two Peas in a Bucket's Designer Garden.  All the supplies and instructions can be found on their website at this link: Cuteness here!

Nichol is the master of the Silhouette Die Cutting Machine by Quickutz.  I own the Cricut machine (I actually have the original and the expressions) and about 20 cartridges.  I never thought that I would have the need for another machine but looking at what Nichol does with hers is tempting me.  I decided to try and use what I already have and see if I could copy her ideas by fitting in the products/die cut shapes I have already.

I used the above page for the inspiration/idea map for my page below:

  

I used the Hello Kitty Greetings Cartridge, Hello Kitty Font Cartridge & Accent Essentials along with HK Scrap booking Paper, cardstock and rhinestones.  I did adjust the design to fit my photos on the right hand side of the layout.  I used my journaling box vvertically and made sure the the photos surrounding it had nothing that would get covered up bythe jouranaling box and then blinged it up with the rhinestones.  The journaling will be added in later by hand.

 

 

I added a black border around the clouds with a marker.  The shadow option for these clouds on the Hello Kitty cart was too thick.  I also added a few pop dots behind the smaller clouds.  I loved the birds on Nichol's page but decided to add a Hello Kitty Face in the title, which I probably wouldn't have thought of without thinking about how I could add in a design element that matched my page that were inspired by the birds.

Next up on my Nichol scrap lifting tour are her awesome Disney pages!!! 

I have been finding myself with less and less time to scrapbook and when I do get to sit behind my desk and try to get some memories scrapped, I feel a bit rusty and my creativity mo-jo needs a little help to get going.  I love using other scrapbookers pages and projects for inspiration and I used to be able to use them for pure inspiration, lately I find myself totally scrap lifting totally.  After I do a page or two by scrap lifting, I am able to get a little more creative and mix up my ideas with other scrappers ideas. 

For this page:

 

I used a Becky Higgins sketch to get me started.  The BH book is separated into sections by the amount of photos you want to use and then you can browse through those page ideas to find one that fits your particularar photos and their orientation.  This is the sketch I picked for this page:

  

My photos fit perfectly into the sketch with a few tweaks.  I added an extra one on the left bottom side and trimmed all my photos along the bottom of the spread into squares. I had the photo in the upper right corner enlarged and cropped the photos on the upper left side little larger than the sketch.  I added some die cuts  (swirls and bird) and a title by My Minds Eye and some rhinestones by Kaiser Craft. 

Here is a bit of detail:

 

With some of the supplies I had pulled out to maybe use for the 'sweetness' page, I created this page:

 

I scrap lifted this page from Feb 2009 Creating Keepsakes:

 

I added a whole bunch of misc scrap booking supplies that I have had forever.  This page was so quick and easy and I got down this memory of my daughter doing 'shooter mc gavins' in about an half an hour and the majority of the time was spent digging through my supplies to find the little doodads.

Then with all the scraps left on my table I made this page:

 

For this page I decided to use the scraps of what was left and made them work with my photos and their orientation.  This too was a quick page to create and I think because I restricted myself to what was right in front of me and I loved that I was able to still design something (as simple as it is) without scrap lifting or sitting their with my head on my hands and wondering how to get started.

I haven't scrap booked since the couple of nights that I made these but I have some Disney photos and some pages printed out created by Nichol for inspiration for the next time I have a free night.  I hope it is soon!