Fun at the State Fair

A few weeks ago, I went to the New Mexico State Fair and had a great time.  I don't do rides, but enjoyed the performers, the food, the shopping, the exhibits, the lights.

After the fair, I was inspired to make a fair-themed mini album.  And what a great opportunity to use an awesome collection from October Afternoon, "Midway."  The colors and the design are spot on. The combination of photo-realistic pages and non photo-realistic (what is the real term for that) was perfect.  I bought this collection a few months ago, not because I knew I was going to the fair, but because it was a great deal at scrapbooksteals.com.  Which just proves my scrapbook purchasing theory - go ahead and buy it, because you'll never know when you'll need it!  Which contributes to my hoard, but I digress.  Super cute collection right?  And I only paid $25 for the entire thing.  Bargain.

From yet another bargain collection, I used a chipboard mini album from Maya Road that I got when I purchased their warehouse sale mystery box a few months back.  Also a great bargain.  For $50 I got over $175 in product varying from albums, ribbon, flowers, metal things, and more.  If there is another warehouse mystery box sale, I highly recommend you go for it.

So, I covered all of the pages of the chipboard in paper, using 3M paper glue.  Sanded and painted the edges and then went to town using all of the fun embellishments that came with the collection.  I just love how it turned out.  So much so that I'm torn on whether I should keep it or give it to my friend for her photos as I originally planned.  What?  It's cute.  There was so much of the collection though that there is enough for 2 albums!  Problem solved.

Hexagons

Still working on two albums at one time of when my sister visited me in NM.  I was feeling in a rut with my layouts and needed to do something different.  Thank goodness for Pinterest, after wasting three hours perusing various boards (and getting hungry looking at all the pictures of food), I found some "Pinspiration" from this layout that used hexagons (are these hexagons?  some sort of "-gon").  Cute right?

And a perfect opportunity to break out my Creative Memories cutting system and use a shape other than the circles.  I mean, I had to buy all the shapes right?  Might as well use them.  This is a great tool, one of the first things I bought when introduced to the scrapbooking world many, many years ago.  It is easy to use, doesn't weight 100 pounds like some die cutting machines, and cuts really smooth.



I used BasicGrey's "Hey You" collection because the colors are really great for the pictures we took in New Mexico - lots of earth tones.  And because I have a slight obsession with BasicGrey.  Perfecto.

 

It took a bit to get it all layed out and to figure out how to cut the shapes for the edge of the paper, but it wasn't too bad and I love how it came out.  Throw in a few random embellishments such as chipboard shapes, ribbon, and a metal title and viola!  One super hot layout! 

The hexagons cut with paper are the perfect spot for journaling or adding some memorabilia.  I'm leaving them blank so my sister can add her own thoughts to the album and make it her own.

The photos are from our visit to the Rio Grande Gorge State Park which is just breathtaking... literally.  The bridge is pretty scary, with no barrier on the side with traffic and the fence going across the gorge being pretty low.  The wind was whipping and my sister and I felt like we were going to be blown over!  Those aren't smiles of joy, those are smiles of "hurry up and get me off this bridge before I die!"  However, the view of the water and the cliffs were spectacular and worth the very (not) dangerous conditions!