Smash Dancing

I had lots of stickers left over from a layout I did using Basic Grey's Oxford line, so I used some here.  This page is about my mad writin' skillz I honed at UT. 

This is a fun (and traumatizing!) story about MJ, a little boy I used to babysit.  I filled in the prompts on the right side and added some fun stickers.



This last one is completely honest and raw.  It's about my journey to mental health.  I think this is my favorite Smash page so far. 

Smashy Smashy!

"Smashy smashy!" is what my sister always says before she cuddles someone...  Since arriving home from Texas 2 days ago, I've been missing my family.  But if you tell them I told you that, I will hunt you down and throw acid on your scrapbooks.

This Smashbook page is special to me because of the journaling.  It's all about learning to be happy by myself and being confident enough to go places alone.  It's very "real."  I sort of hate that word when it's used as a synonym for "genuine," but after this page, I can see the value in using it.  I think the photo I included reflects the feeling I was trying to communicate perfectly.

 This spread is all over the place.  It includes the first photo I took using the Instax camera I got on ebay for $50!  I discuss my love of my friend, Old Paul and my favorite Philly eateries.  My favorite part of this page is the koala sketch done by New Paul.  He included the caption, "Hi Leslie!!  My toots smell like eucalyptus!"  HA!  Koala + Fart Joke = Ridiculously Cool.  It's been proven by mathematicians at Princeton.  Lots of fun memorabillia on this one.  Speaking of memorabilia, I need to do a layout about the funny way my mother says "memrabeeeya" and other words. 

This one just tells the story of the strangest crops ever...  I stuck some packaging from the supplies I bought that day on the page with washi tape.  I also misted a bit just for kicks.

I had tons of memorabillia from my trip to Niagra Falls, so this page was a good place for all of it.  I used a Smash pocket for all of the post cards I picked up.  I used some Smash Pad pages for prompts, too.

Smash Bookin' up in here

Although I haven't been blogging lately, it seems I've been quite the productive scrapbooker these days!  In fact, I've been smashbooking like crazy.  I really like this form of memory keeping.  Unlike scrapbooking, I don't really worry about telling a complete story.  If I don't have pictures, it doesn't matter.  If my pages don't have proper balance or my elements aren't grounded, well, I don't really care.  It's fun. 

This first page is simply about all kinds of stuff I like.  You see a pic of Caroline, a koala a friend cut for me with her cricut, a sale tag from H&M, and all kind of other stuf.  Just for fun, I colored the little doodled bird and the "I like this" bubbles with prisma pencils.  I also used an Amy Tangerine clip.  I love her clips; they're perfect for smashing.  I like how I am able to include all sorts of scrapbooking supplies on my Smash layouts that I like but would not ordinarily put on a regular layout.  I would have a hard time using that vintage cherry card from October Afternoon on a page.  I also love the Smash Pads with their fun prompts and cute icons!

This one is all about my Ikea love.  Yep, Ikea makes cheap crap, but I love it!  You may be picking splinters of wood from your butt for weeks after your dining room chair collapses from underneath you, but at least your room looks cute!  I added pictures from their catalog, labels, and tags.  Besides my love of Ikea design, I also journaled about my love of their instituional, cafeteria-style food.  I don't know why I like their food so much.  I think it reminds me of the food I ate at school as a kid.  Seeing as I was a participant in government provided free lunch programs throughout my childhood, I am perhaps mentally transported to the days when I gorged myself on mashed potatoes that had been not-so-lovingly slopped onto a tray by a beast of a woman donning a hairnet.  

This one is just a page full of black and white stuff that I had fun sticking together.  I used stuff torn from design books and clipped from Studio Calico coupons.  My pages are always colorful, so this was an adventurous departure from my typical style.  I was inspired by the fun animal doodles gracing the page.

I had fun using all sorts of stickers and die-cuts that I would have a difficult time using on my scrapbook layouts here.  I added some labels and tags torn from Christmas gifts this year. I journaled about gift-giving in my family and documented my lists this year. I love how this looks like just random crap jumbled on a page. 

Smashbooks remind me of the first scrapbook I got when I was in the 6th grade.  I thoughtlessly plastered its pages with anything I fancied, saving every little note that was passed to me in class and every receipt from every punk rock band tee I bought during the "I'm a bad girl" phase of my life.  Kind of funny that as hard as I wanted to rebel, I still scrapbooked...  I laugh thinking about my 13 year-old self begging my mama to let me get piercings and dye my hair blue pasting the handmade valentines my grandma made me into a scrapbook.