Benny Digital Cut File Layout

I'm  blogging over at 17 Turtles today using some of Juliana's amazing digital cut files.  I have a cute little puppy treat container over there. I wanted to show how versatile her files are by sharing a more traditional project using the exact same cut files. So here is my Benny digital cut file layout.

 This summer we got our kids a guinea pig.  To say they love him would be an understatement.  They take good care of him, and he gets plenty of attention.  Scrapping a guinea pig themed page, though, posed a bit of a problem, since you can't find many any guinea pig themed papers or embellishments.

That's the great thing about working with digital cut files: you can customize them to make them what you need.  Dog paw prints and guinea pig paw prints are similar. I knew I could narrow and lengthen the paw print files from the Puppy Love Digital Cut File and the Paw Prints & Hearts Background Cut File to make them look more like Benny's paw prints. 

 You can also get rid of the "puppy" from a tag that says "puppy love", and use just the love part.

Juliana has lots of really great files in her 17 Turtles Etsy store (not just puppy themed ones), so don't forget to check out her store.  If you haven't already, also head over to 17 Turtles blog to check out the puppy treat container I made using the exact same cut files.

Thanks for stopping by!

Halloween Decorating

Every year on Halloween (after we go Trick or Treating during the afternoon at my husband's work) I make a spooky Halloween supper. When I found out that Pebbles In My Pocket was doing this event, I had to jump right in.  I couldn't wait to get my Halloween Decorating done a bit early, and do a practice run for my table setting on Halloween night.

First of all, I have to say I had so much fun putting this all together.  My kids don't really love spooky or gory, so I kept this a little more fun and silly Halloween.

I kept it all cohesive by sticking with a black and orange theme.

How about these cute little pillow boxes? I couldn't decide on just one, so I got the bat ones and the pumpkin ones.

Pumpkin place cards and spider straws make for a cute but simple way to round out the place settings. Throw some orange "pumpkin" juice in a jar, and you'll have some excited kiddos.

For a fun centerpiece, I added my very favorite Halloween candy to a cake stand and clipped clothespin bats around the edge.

I decorated the hutch with some bats and a couple of banners.  The Halloween memory banner is my absolute favorite thing of all.  I love that I was able to mix photos in with the banner.  I printed a picture out from every year that my kids have trick or treated.  It is so fun to see all of their adorable costume pictures in one place. 

A big thanks to Pebbles In My Pocket for all the great Halloween kits.
Thanks for stopping by!

Pebbles In My Pocket Kits Used
Bat Clothespins
Bat Garland
Bat Pillow Boxes
Halloween Memory Banner
Pumpkin Pillow Boxes
Pumpkin Place Cards
Spider on a Straw
Trick or Treat Banner

Birthday Card

My nephew recently turned 11, and I'm sharing the birthday card I made for him over on the Moxxie blog.  Head on over there to see all the details!

Birthday 2 Page Layout

I feel like I've been making a lot of 2 page layouts lately.  I guess I just have a lot of photos I want to squish into 1 place. Today I have a Birthday 2 page layout.

I'm just finishing up on the photos from my younger son's birthday party (so then I can start on my older son's birthday photos!).

I once again reached for Pebbles Birthday Wishes for my birthday scrapping.  I just can't get enough of this collection!  There's so much good stuff, and it looks different every time I use it.

I had to add in some of those red star bursts for this layout.  I just think they look so much like superhero Pow!'s.  Lots of straight lines and simple embellishments help tell the story of my son's party from start to finish.  For example, I put a thank you sticker under the photo of his thank you take home goodie boxes. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great week!

Quick Fall Wall Art

I have a really simple and quick fall wall art piece to share today.  I stumbled across a frame I really liked and thought it would be perfect for switching out seasonal printables. 

I started by finding a fall printable I liked in the Silhouette store.  Then I made a few changes to to the print to make it fit better in my home. 

First, some of the leaves were a yellowish orange color.  I changed those to blue to fit better with the color scheme in my house.  It was as simple as ungrouping the print, clicking on each image I wanted to change, and then changing the fill color. 

I also changed a few of the words.  It originally said "hay rides" where it says "football & corn maze".  I don't think I've taken a hay ride since I was a kid, so I updated the words to something more relevant.  I kept the original font and color, and just change the words and added a little leaf to separate them.
When I was done with my changes, I just printed it out on a piece of patterned paper (that looks like wood grain).  In all this took about 10 minutes, and adds a lot of fun fall flavor to my decor.

Homecoming Parade

If you've been hopping along with the Moxxie Fall Challenge Blog Hop, welcome! If you've just stumbled across my layout today you can find a list of all the amazing inspiration from the talented designers at the end of this post, along with how to enter to win the blog hop prize (Make sure to read the rules this month, you get an entry for hopping along, but you get 3 additional entries if you also join us in our fall challenge).  Here's my Homecoming Parade layout.

My fall layout is about one of my favorite fall things: Football!  My kids' school has a homecoming parade, and I just happened to snap a few photos of them walking in the parade last year.

Since they're walking with a whole bunch of other kids dressed in a similar manner, I decided to use my embellishments to (not so subtly) point them out.

We're big football fans at our house (Go Pack Go!), so I fell in love with Grid Iron right away.  I like that the colors are kept simple, so you can scrap whichever football team you support!

If you're hopping a long, or started here, you can check the list below for all the blogs on the hop:

Wendi Robinson
Samantha Taylor
Amelia Harris
Julie McGowan
Jennifer Taylor
Joan Liddle
Leslie Mitchell
Rebecca Price
Daniella Hayes
Renee Robbins
Amy Allred
Ange Weisbeck
Moxxie Blog

You might be wondering what your prize will be?
If you are picked for our winner you will get this gorgeous Autumn Glory line to create some gorgeous fall projects of your own!


All you have to do to be entered to WIN is leave a comment on the Moxxie blog.
(US addresses only please)
BUT, you can get your name in the hat more than once!
Join our challenge and link back to the Moxxie blog for another chance to win!
Use MOXXIE product in your project and get 3, yes I said THREE, more chances to win!
You will have until the end of the month to enter your project and we will announce our winner on the 1st of Oct.

First Day Layout

I'm sharing a sketch and 2 page layout over on the Moxxie blog today.  I thought it would be fun to do something a little different and share the sketch and layout over there, but then share a second layout here on my blog that uses the sketch to show how different you can make 2 layouts based off the same sketch.  If you want to see the sketch first, head on over to the Moxxie blog by clicking here.  Then you can take a look at my First Day Layout based off of the sketch:

I'm sure I'm not the only one scrapping lots of back to school photos this time of year.  Moxxie's Brainiac collection has been so much fun to use to scrap school photos.  The range of colors is really cohesive, yet manages to be a wide enough range that you can make bold and bright layouts (like my layout on the Moxxie blog), or more subdued layouts (like my layout here).

One of the first places I varied from the original sketch with this layout was the orientation of the first photo. I had a horizontal photo I had to fit on this layout, so I swapped its location with a vertical one on the sketch.  

I also changed up the size of the journaling tag and the photo above the journaling.  

I kept the layering of the embellishments pretty true to the sketch. I just changed up the shape of the embellishments a bit.  

Do you like using sketches? Do you use them a lot, or just when you need to jump start your creative juices?

Now, just in case you haven't check out the second layout and sketch both layouts were based off of, here's a little sneak peek.

Thanks for stopping by!

Caffeinated Cocoa Butter Soap

Way back in July I shared a set of Princess Baby Shower Favors, and one of the favors was some homemade Caffeinated Cocoa Butter Soap.  I figured it was about time that I shared the recipe. 

I created this recipe, because I wanted a soap with a high concentration of cocoa butter in it, and I couldn't find a recipe like that out there. I also decided that coffee as my liquid would would really compliment the lovely natural scent of the cocoa butter. As with all of my soaps, this soap is palm oil free.

The coffee grounds (which are optional), added at trace, make this an exfoliating bar as well. The coffee gives the bar a lovely light brown color. This soap does take a bit to come to trace, so just keep mixing! If you're new to soap making, this is an easy recipe, but make sure you read up on the steps of safe soap making first as I'm only supplying the recipe here, not the details.

Caffeinated Cocoa Butter Soap Recipe
10 oz cocoa butter
8 oz coconut oil
8 oz olive oil
6 oz soybean oil
3 oz castor oil
4.8 oz lye
12 oz brewed double strength coffee (chilled) - reserve some of the used grounds to add at trace

Optional Added at Trace:
 1- 2 Tbs coffee grounds (I used 2 Tbs, and it's a little scratchy for me, but I have very sensitive skin)
.5 oz essential oil (vanilla or almond would be nice with this recipe)

This recipe is 6% superfatted

This soap is great for men or women.
Please don't hesitate to leave me a message if you have questions about this recipe or if you try it.

If you'd like to see how I packaged this soap up for a gift, check out my Princess Party Favor Post.

Thanks for stopping by!