Monthly Archives: December 2014

A Very Merry Christmas to You!

A Very Merry Christmas to You!

A very Merry Christmas to you all!

Do you have a favorite Christmas song? Growing up, one of my favorites was Christmas Is. It was on a compilation of classics that my parents had, and that I played repeatedly during the holidays as a kid. (Oh cool, the original vinyl is up on Amazon! Affiliate link)

It is the quintessential 70s Christmas tune. And it seems to repeat itself endless in my head every year. (I don’t need the vinyl, I’ve got the earworm permanently installed!)

The lyrics work as the journaling for the title page of the Christmas album that I sporadically add to when the mood arises.

Christmas Is || noexcusescrapbooking.com

Merry Christmas everybody! May all you wishes come true!

A Moment of Reflection

A Moment of Reflection

This blog has been up and running for two years now. How cool is that?

In the past two years, I’ve published 236 posts. That’s an average of a post every three days. Not too shabby.

The most popular post by far has been the post where I shared tools to help document a Week in the Life. A lot of people have been using it for inspiration for Project Life as well.

The most popular video has been the one that I made about how to cover an old vinyl binder with a large sheet of paper. Definitely NOT my best video. (So much time wasted, and so many goofy errors!) But it definitely has good information in it. My favorite videos are my very first– a start to finish process video, and a tool technique one, where I show three ways to use alpha stamps other than as titles or journaling. Also, the video I made for those who sign up for my email list, about ways to avoid making stamping errors is pretty awesome too. But that one you need to pay me with your email address.

I’ve made one mini-digital supply kit. You can find it here for free! I have plans to make more. I keep getting hung up on the idea that I need to be able to draw. I don’t really, but mental roadblocks are hard to work around sometimes.

I’ve done two full months of cards, in November 2013, and November 2014. I think that qualifies as a yearly tradition now, don’t you?

I’ve talked philosophy, and organization, and my favorite challenge, LOAD.

So many topics! So many posts! Each time I go through the archives I come across something I really like, either from a design perspective, or from a writing perspective.

Go ahead, pick a month from the archive list, I bet you’ll find something interesting!

Moving forward?

I hope to keep giving you inspiration that helps you avoid the excuses that get in the way of scrapbooking.

And for those of you who want to scrapbook but have yet to actually make a page?

I’ve got something coming for you:

beginners guide to scrapbooking || noexcusescrapbooking.com

I’m planning on releasing it on Kindle in January. Hopefully it will be the first of many. How’s that for exciting?

Waiting for Christmas

Waiting for Christmas

Today we have a special guest with us: my oldest son, Ethan. He had to job shadow today for school, and he’s following both my husband and myself around today to see what working is like. Now, without further ado, here’s Ethan!

Hello, I’m Ethan E. Berkey, and I’ll be your guest host for today. Let’s begin, shall we? When my mother told me that I had to make a scrapbook page about Christmas, I first asked her to narrow the topic down. She said I could make the page about Christmas memories and thus I thought. Eventually I thought of something that happens every Christmas – the wait. And lo, I made a page about it.

Waiting for Christmas||NoExcuseScrapbooking.com

MY favorite part of making this page was applying the pictures to the page because I got to use Mom’s moderately large tape gun. I’d rather not do this again because I’ve learned that there’s more to making a page than I’m willing to care about.

Apparently, 13-year-old boys do not appreciate the finer points of scrapbook design. However, this kid is very interested in family history and genealogy, so I know he’ll appreciate all the scrapbooks eventually. Even the ones he makes occasionally. (And yes, he has made pages before. This was the first time I tried to teach him some of the basics of scrapbooking. Ethan really didn’t want to hear it. I probably should have just let him play with the tape gun.)

Keep Calm and Jingle On!

Keep Calm and Jingle On!

Have you heard of Scrapbook Campus? It’s a website about using Paintshop Pro for scrapbooking, run by my friend Cassel, and she’s got some fun freebies for you this month.

For the first twelve days of the month, she’s got templates for twelve card and envelope sets. You can use them with your digital supplies, or let them inspire you to create with your paper stash. You just need to sign up on her website, and you’ll get a link to each template in your mailbox each morning. If you sign up today, tomorrow will be your first email, but Cassel will have a link to all twelve card and envelope templates available at the end of the series.

This is the template I worked with:

ScrapbookCampus-Card06

Isn’t that a lovely base to work with? The four-square is one of my favorite base designs to build pages.

Now, the next question was how did I want to use this? To create cards for mailing? As a starting point for the design of a scrapbook page? How about as a spot for hidden journaling?

Yep, that’s it! Journaling card it is! My next debate–make the envelope to hold the card or not? That decision was taken out of my hands when my printer died on me. As in it will no longer turn on for me. So no printing envelopes for me! I was able to get the card printed however.

jingle card front || noexcusescrapbooking.com

To make the card, I started by choosing four papers from a couple Christmas digi kits. I probably got them from Jessica Sprague’s website, one set was by Echo Park, and the other was by Pink Paisley. Both of them are older and may not be available any longer.

I assigned one paper to each square, and then added text to one, and a reindeer to another.

Then it was time to print it and trim it.

jingle card || noexcusescrapbooking.com

And yes, I did decide to add a paper on the back at the last minute. That was a collage paper that seemed to tie the two sets together.

After cutting it out, I folded it, and added my journaling, and then started to put my page together.

a decorated life || noexcusescrapbooking.com

Since the journaling was all about decorating the house for the holidays, it made sense to use a bunch of holiday embellishments. I even stamped and fussy cut a reindeer to help carry design elements throughout the page.

jingle on details || noexcusescrapbooking.com

One last little idea for you: since I wanted to be able to pull out the card and read it, I added a leftover borderstrip to use as a line to slip the card over. It’s anchored by the brads on the poinsettias and holly leaves. Yes, those brads are functional as well as decorative! My favorite kind of embellishment!

Thanks for visiting! If you like what you’ve seen, make sure you join my mailing list up at the top of the page! there are always some fun ideas floating around here!

Is It December Already?!

Is It December Already?!

First of, all, thanks for joining me with last month’s card frenzy. As soon as this posts, one last reminder for anyone who’d like a card in the mail will be heading out. Hopefully you’ve already signed up for my mailing list!

Secondly, there was a little giveaway for a few window cards, and the lovely Libby Weirs has won that.

30 days of cards || noexcusescrapbooking.com

Thirdly, how can it possibly be December?

Does it feel like December snuck up on you? It feels like it snuck up on me!

What does this month hold in store? Let’s see…

I’m participating in 12 Days of Christmas Cards with Carole Cassel, who has a wonderful site teaching Paintshop Pro for scrapbookers.

My oldest will be putting up a Christmas related post next week, since he’s job shadowing his father in the morning, and myself in the afternoon. How’s that for a school project?

I haven’t done a PL update in ages, so that will be showing up as well.

And a December Daily? Probably not. There’s just a bit too much going on for me to do that as well. I’ll use my PL to capture the holiday memories.

My birthday is this month, and I’ll be raiding my stash for a giveaway.

And, this month is the two year anniversary of this blog, so we’ll be doing a bit of retrospective of favorite old posts as well.

So, this month is busy. But then again, isn’t every month?

What do you have planned for the month?