American Girl Lady Bug Outfit

I am beginning to think I need to change the name of my blog from "Scrapbooking By Bethany" to " "Crafting By Bethany". Ever Since I could remember I have been doing crafts with my Mom. I learned to sew when I was 8 and the first "outfit" I made was for my baby Sister. I was so proud and my Mom tells me it fell apart right after this picture was taken.

 For the next 10 years I got hands on lessons, which at the time I HATED, if it was not right I had to take it out. But from  those lessons I learned, and they made me a better sewer.  I became more careful with my stitches and seams.  It was easier to do it right the first time than take it out and redo it. I then learned to crochet, knit, crossstitch, macramé, scrapbook, cardmaking, you name it I learned to do it. My recent endeavor has been bowmaking. It started when a friend said let's use up some of this ribbon we have from scrapbooking and learn to make bows. I got on YouTube and taught myself to make hairbows (funny craft for a Mom of 3 boys and a Grandson). So I now have 5 times more ribbon than when I started out. Go check out my Bow Page Tie A Bow On. Okay I have gotten way off topic here. While all I have is boys I do have two sweet Great-Nieces that are the love of my life. Cadence is almost 6 and in the full swing of loving her American Girl Doll. My Mom and I needing to stay on budget this Christmas decided we would start making some AG outfits. I got on Pintrest and found all these great sites with FREE PATTERNS! I hit PAYDIRT when I found this one. Okay now again off track.....Back to the Lady Bug outfit.  Now days making tutus go hand in hand with the bows  I decided to Make a Lady Bug Costume for Cay's Doll. This is what a ended up with:





I will post more of our outfits which includes upcycling my Mom and I's clothes.

You Are My Sunshine and So are You and You and You and You....

My previous post was about a layout I made for my youngest son, Benjamin. It was inspired by a layout in Creating Keepsakes and for a challenge in the Cheeky Chics Online Crop benefiting the Oklahoma tornado victims. The Creating Keepsakes layout was made from a kit by Simple Stories. The "sun" and "rays" in their layout  was one piece of paper and not pieced. Not having that kit I had to piece mine.  NOT as easy as I thought it would be,  BUT I LOVED LOVED how it came out. I knew I wanted to remake it for a page for my Great-Niece Mckenley. As I made Ben's page I was thinking this would have been easier if I had stacked all 6 of the color paper ( by Adornit) and cut them with my rotary cutter. After finishing Ben's I started MK's. By cutting them that way I had enough "rays" for 6 layouts. Like an assembly line I lined up the rays, glued them down then came the  sewing.  That gave me 6 layouts ready for pictures. This is the first time I duplicated a page more than once. While each one started out with the basic design each one ended up with a different look and hopefully a unique feel for the person the page is for.

Mckenley's Page (My Great-Niece)

Cadence's Page (My Great-Niece)

 

Jonathan's Page (My Middle Son) 

 

 Matthew's Page (My Oldest Son)

 

 Benjamin's Page (My Youngest Son)

 

You are my Sunshine!

There are some of my sons' pages that I did for them when I first started scrapping that "scream" at me to be reworked. Most of them are in Jon's album, his were the first pages I scrapped. Since I started scrapping in 2004, I have acquired A LOT of tools and toys that have made my scrapping "better". This Page of Ben's was one that I have wanted to rework. These pictures are some of my favorite of Ben and I knew they deserved a better page. I participated in an online crop this last weekend, It was hosted by Cheeky Chics to benefit The Tornado Victims of Oklahoma. One of the challenges was to have a sun in it and have yellow. I knew that was "my call" to rework Ben's page. I LOVE LOVE how it came out. The paper and embellishments are all Adornit . I used a layout from the July/August issue of Creating Keepsakes as a guide. The sun "rays" were not as easy to cut out as I thought they would be. I think I'm going to recreate this for some pictures of my Great-Niece. When I do that one I'm going to stack all 6 colors of papers and cut them at the same time with a rotary cutter. LOL so I will have enough rays for 6 layouts. 

The Original Page

 

The New Page





Little Red Car

This layout is my oldest son when he was 14 months old. The big red car belonged to my Sister-in-law Janie. It is a 1982 Trans Am that was a High School graduation present from her father. At the time she was just dating my brother and we had no idea how important she would become in our lives. The little red car was Matthew's favorite toy.

The paper is Echo Park from their Little Boy collection. The inspiration of the layout was from pinterest. The font is Cricut  Mickey Font welded on the Cricut Craftroom and cut out on the Cricut Expression. I printed 3 of the pictures. The first one I used as the base photo, the second one I cut around the big red car and my son on his car. The third one I just cut out my son on his car, I pop dotted the top two layers. It doesn't show much in the photo but it really makes it pop.