Garden Journal

Every summer for the past 5 or 6 summers I have planted a garden.  Every year I think I'll remember what I did for the next year, but guess what: my memory just isn't that good!  I finally decided it was time to keep a garden journal. Being a paper crafter, it couldn't just be any old notebook, I decided it had to be pretty and functional.

 I knew I wanted to use Pebble's Garden Party collection for the decorating of my journal. I mean the name says it all; it's the perfect garden collection.  I decided to use a Simple Stories Snap! album for the bones of the journal.  I'm partial to the snap albums, because the D ring (binder style) insides make it easy to add and remove papers, dividers, etc.

I split my binder into 3 sections, and decorated each of the tabs for the sections with Pebbles Garden Party.  There's a sheet of paper that looks like flower seed packets that was too cute not to use on my dividers.

 My first divider is about planning the garden (you can see the sketch of my garden layout above, and I put what exact seeds I planted on other pages)

My second section is about maintenance; monthly to do lists,  pest control, fertilizer, etc.

The final section is for notes about what worked and what didn't. What I want to do the same next year, and what to avoid doing.

The journal is large enough (and sturdy enough) that I'll be able to use it for many, many years.  I'm hoping next year it will make planing and maintaining my garden even easier! 

Do you garden? How do you keep track of everything you do in it?

Supplies:
Pebbles Garden Party Paper (Daffodil, Azalea, Lily, Peony, Petunia, Poppy, Tulip, Rosebud)
Pebbles Garden Paprty Diecut Card Stock Shapes
Pebbles Garden Party Journal Cards
Simple Stories Snap Binder

Happy Little Boys Layout

I made this layout of my happy little boys a while ago and forgot to share it here.

They took skating lessons this winter, and loved wearing the helmets because they thought they looked so cool in them.  I thought they looked adorable, but made sure to keep that to myself. 

I used Simple Stories A Charmed Life for the photos.  I love all the yellow in the collection!

Thanks for stopping by!

Teacher Gifts - Cups and Cards

Our last day of school for this school year is this Thursday!  It feels like I just took (and scrapped) their 1st day of school photos.  Today I finished up my teacher gifts and cards for my kids to take to school.  This year I made some personalized cups and simple thank you cards.
Cups:

and cards:

First up, the cups.

I have a mix of drink cups and coffee cups, but how I decorated them was the same.  They're the type of cup that you're supposed to slip and photo inside of.  Instead of putting a photo inside, I cut out the name of our school's sports teams.  I need to explain, since we live in a small town, for sports where you need a lot of kids (like football) our school combines with another, and they're called the Nighthawks.  When we play a sport where you don't need as many players (like basketball) we don't combine, and we call ourselves the Rockets. Because of this, I put the Rockets logo on one side with their colors, and the Nighthawks on the other side in their colors.  You could just as easily put the teacher's name or school mascot on the opposite side. 

I cut my paper to the correct size by scanning the image into my Silhouette, and had it do all the work cutting out the right sized paper along with cutting out the mascot names (you can see my tutorial on how to scan images into your Silhouette software for cutting here). Since I needed lots of black patterned paper for this project, I dug into my leftovers from Halloween. Yup! I used Pebbles Thirty-one for all of my black and orange paper!  If you don't have lots of leftover paper in the right colors, the Pebbles Basics collection is a great place to start to look for a pattern in the right color. 

 I also needed some cards to go along with my gifts.  To make 6 fast cards, I pulled out my Pebbles Basics Cardmaking Pad and used it for all the bases of my cards.  I cut "many thanks" into white or gray card stock with my Silhouette, and then attached it directly to my card bases.

When that was done, I felt like they needed a little something more, so I used a white gel pen or a gray marker to draw a line all the way around the edge. 

Since we also like to give our teachers gift cards, I used the Avery Elle Simply Tags Love Notes Pocket die to create a little gift card pocket for the inside of the card. 

Now all I need to do is sit down and write some thank yous to the awesome teachers at our school...before Thursday! 
Thanks for stopping by.

Soccer Layouts

Today I have 2 different soccer layouts both made with Echo Park's Goal. 

I don't know about you, but I feel like I have been scrapping soccer team pictures for.ev.er.  Both my boys play rec soccer in the fall and spring.  I feel like everything looks the same, so I was pleased when this colorful, fun collection came out from Echo Park.  They definitely used much more color than most soccer lines, and I love that it's different then anything else I've used.

I kept it simple by layering up some of the matching stickers with foam dimensional adhesive.  Nothin' fancy here folks just stickers, paper, and some metal star embellishments.

Oh yeah, and a little washi tape.  I wanted something up in the top corner, but a rectangular journaling tag just wouldn't work, so I just took my scissors and snipped the bottom into a fishtail.  Problem solved. 

I don't think I like my second layout quite as much, but that's just sometimes how it is. The orange above and below the soccer ball paper is washi tape.  Again, I kept it pretty simple with some stickers, washi, and journaling cards. 

Now I have 2 more soccer team photo layouts to add to the book.
Thanks for stopping by!

Moxxie Muse

I have a fun announcement to make today. I am now a Moxxie Muse (that's what they call their design team).  If you're familiar with Moxxie, you know why I'm so excited to be part of the design team.  If you're not familiar with Moxxie, it is a theme-based scrapbook company, located in the town of Muscatine, IA.  Moxxie debuted at CHA in 2006. Moxxie products are 100% made in the USA, some of them right in Iowa! Moxxie mainly manufactures double sided paper and stickers, but also has several lines that include diecuts, rubons, chipboard, and buttons! Moxxie is owned by Jennifer Wilson.  Now that I've told you about Moxxie, it's time to show you a layout I just made with Moxxie's Child's Play. 

We're blessed to have my oldest son's best friend as a next door neighbor.  A few days ago it was beautiful outside and they were out playing.  I just couldn't help sneaking out there with my camera and snapping a few photos. 

 

I thought the fun play paper would make a great background for my bright and sunny photos. Instead of using a journaling tag or spot on this layout, I just drew some lines right on the patterned paper with a black pen and journaled on the lines. 

  
 I can't wait to share more of what I love about Moxxie with you over the course of the next year.
Thanks for stopping by!

Superhero Training Camp Party

My youngest turned 6 today.  6! We're planning what should be a pretty fun party for Saturday.  We'll have a little over a dozen boys running around our house (hopefully outside, weather permitting) for a Superhero Training Camp Party. Today I thought I'd share the items that I made/altered/paper crafted for the party. If you follow me on my Facebook Page, you may have seen a few sneaks of these.  Oh, and I've found that in the world of birthday parties just about everything has been done before, so if something looks familiar, I'm not trying to copy someone without giving them credit, I promise!

First up is the favor for a little game we're going to call Stomp the Villian:

We will be putting pictures of 14 different villains printed on 8 1/2" by 11" paper on the ground in a circle (think musical chairs style).  We'll play music, and the kids will walk around the circle. When the music stops, each kid must stomp (jump on) a villain.  Then the adult running the game picks a card (I printed all the same villains from the circle onto playing card sized paper) and announces that the villain on that card was captured, "Batman defeated the Joker", or "Wolverine defeated Magneto".  The kid standing on that picture has won that round. He picks up the picture from the ground and turns it in for a pair of villain/superhero magnets (if he captures Dr. Zoom, for example, he'll get a magnet pair of Dr. Zoom and The Flash).  I found glass 1/2 beads and magnets that were 1 1/4" so these are nice and big.

These are the take home favor boxes.  I picked these up on sale months ago.  We've stuffed them with fun superhero favors like candy, stickers, tattoos, pencils, etc. I kept these simple by just gluing on pictures of different superheros to the front...I can hardly call it paper crafting, but I did use paper and glue, so I'm including them here.

I've saved my favorite project for last.

We love doing scavenger hunts for birthday games.  These batsignals will be the prize at the end of the hunt!  These were really easy to make since Silhouette has Batman files in their online store.

I cut the bat from black vinyl to place over the plastic of the flashlight.  They won't shine in a bat shape, but the bat logo makes them look extra cool!

For the tags, I just showed my birthday boy the different Batman print and cut shapes, and he picked out the one he liked.  A used foam adhesive to attach them to black or silver tags, and added a little detailing with a black or silver pen.  Super simple, and so cute!

That's it for today, but definitely not it for the party fun. I'll make sure to share some more after the party is over! 

Life With Water Balloons

Life with water balloons on a hot summer day is beautiful, and I have the photos to prove it.

A few notes: My youngest son's face in these photos is priceless.  Do you see that mischief? He's always up to something!  Also, I'm usually the one who suggest water balloons, because encouraging a little mischief once in a while is a good thing.  Also, I'm really looking forward to some beautiful sunny days like the one in my layout.

The paper is from Simple Stories A Charmed Life.  I was really drawn to the blues and yellows in this collection.  It has a bright but weathered feel, and was a great fit for these photos. 

Thanks for stopping by!

First Photo Ultrasound Layout

Happy National Scrapbook Day! Thanks for coming to check out my Pebbles NSD project. When you're done checking out my layout make sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the list of other Pebble's DT members participating in the hop, and details on how to enter to win the Pebbles NSD giveaway.
For NSD, I thought I'd create a baby layout.  Did you know that I didn't start scrapbooking until my youngest was over a year old? Occasionally I go back in time and play catch-up on photos from before I scrapbooked.  The very first photo of my youngest is a pretty important photo, and deserved a page.

 Pebbles Special Delivery was the perfect collection for scrapping this photo.  At the time we didn't know he would be a boy, but since I scrapped this almost 6 years later, I had the luxury of knowing to do a very boyish page.

 My ultrasound photo was fairly thin, so I used a photo overlay not only as a design element, but as extra protection for the photo.

 I built the rest of the layout from journaling cards.  I added a few extra stickers, rub ons, and embellishments to the cards, but overall I kept the layout pretty clean and simple. 

 Oh! and I can't finish without pointing out those Thickers. They may just be my most favorite Thickers ever. There's just something about them that I love.

Now, I know you'll want to check out what the rest of the team has created for today. Below the sneak peek you'll find each of the designers names.  Just click on a name to be taken to their NSD project.

Tiffany Hood Kim Jeffress Suzanna Lee Marjan Pel Samantha Taylor Holly Gagnon Wendy Sue Anderson Emily Spahn Juliana Michaels Nina Yang Amanda Coleman Wendy Antenucci Eva Pizarro Renee Zwirek Patricia Kumfer Laurel Seabrook Kim Kesti

Don't forget the giveaway: Visit each Design Team member's website and leave a comment. Once you're done, visit Pebbles and enter to win $200 in Pebbles products so that you can get creating on your own!

...and don't forget to enter to win an awesome prize!