Photo Flips Mini Album

I love using Simple Stories Photo Flips on my layouts, but did you also know you can use them to put together a super fun mini album? Today I'm sharing my photo flips mini album.

I chose the Simple Stories 4 x 6 photo flips, so the size of my completed album is just slightly larger than 4 x 6 when closed.

To put the album together, you literally just stack the pages on top of each other, using the adhesive provided to attach them back to back. 

From there, all you have to do is slip in some photos, paper, and embellishments.  

I mixed and matched a lot of pieces of left over papers and embellishments. There is a little bit of Pink Paislee Solstice and Hey Kid, Fancy Pants Nautical, and Echo Park Capture Life.

You can print out smaller photos or just add one big 4 x 6 photo and  add some embellishments directly on the photo. 

The best part is that this album is completely customizable.  You can add as many or as few photos as you want, since you add the pages.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Trendy Christmas Card

Since Christmas is this week, I thought I'd share a trendy Christmas Card, just in case you're making up some last minute cards to hand out to teachers, neighbors, or the like (or if you're an over achiever and already looking for idea for cards for next year).  I actually think this might be my favorite Christmas card of all of the ones I have made this year. 

If you're a trend watcher, you know we're seeing gold everywhere (in fashion and in paper crafting).  I carried that trend through to my card here with some gold snowflakes and a strip of gold card stock at the bottom.   The snowflakes are from Avery Elle's Noel Stamp set, and besides the gold, I also stamped them in red, pale blue, and pink. 

We're still seeing a lot of vellum (it's such a soft and pretty trend), so I layered a bit of that on my card to act as a base for my greeting.  The "merry" is cut with WPlus9's Hand Lettered Holiday die set, and the "Christmas" is stamped with the coordinating Hand Lettered Holiday stamp set.  Make sure to use an ink like Staz-on when you're stamping on vellum, otherwise your ink won't dry properly. 

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas week!  Thanks for stopping by.

Black Eye

Last January my youngest got a whopper of a black eye while playing outside at recess.  He was running and playing and ran straight into a pole.  I happened to be subbing in the school library that day, and I can still remember the look on the school admin's face when she came to find me to take me to the school nurse.  Poor kid had a welt the size of a golf ball under his eye. 

Since I'm a scrapbooker, I couldn't resist snapping a few pics at home that afternoon.  I just wasn't feeling any paper for scrapping the pictures until I came across Jillibean's Cool As A Cucumber Soup.  It was just the right fit. 

I layered up some banner stickers and used one for journaling.  I kept the embellishments simple with a few cork stars from American Crafts.

Thanks for stopping by!

Gift Card Holders

I'm sharing some super simple gift card holders using Happy Pawlidays over on the Moxxie Blog today, just in time for Christmas gift giving.

December Album

I create a December album every year.  I don't like to call it a December Daily, because some days I don't scrap anything, and some day's I have multiple events (and pages) to do. We have so many events and do so many little fun things, that creating a large album with full pages for everything would take forever.  This way I can just quickly jot down my memories without taking too much time out from the fun of the season. 

This is the second year in a row now that I've used a Simple Stories Snap album for my December album.  I love the versatility of choosing the style of pocket page protectors, and I have fun customizing the cover every year. 

I kept it simple this year.  I'm using We R Memory Keeper's Silver & Gold for my journaling cards and embellishments. I keep the cover embellishing simple, since it won't be protected from wear and tear. You can't really see it in this photo, but I colored all of the silver or gold dots and berries with my Zig Wink of Stella brush to add some pretty holiday shimmer. 

I like to decorate the inside cover just a bit, too. I always add our Christmas card to the front of the album.  Since our card just happened to be a 5 x 7 horizontal card this year, it wasn't going to fit in the 8 x 6 page protector without being turned sideways. I got around that by laminating it, punching a couple of holds in the card, and adding it directly to the album as a page. 

As you can see, some of my pages are super simple. The idea is to just keep up with the memories. 

Because I don't worry about putting something in every day, I don't get too worked up if things get a little out of order.  As you can see, I have a bland space on my right hand page.  I have the space to put a photo of the advent wreath we've been lighting all season, but my boys want to wait and use a photo from the last week of the season, so all 4 candles will be lit.  

 This is my favorite page. It's from my boys' Christmas program at their school.  I've also added a Stkr.it QR code for video of the program.

 I use a little bit of everything to embellish my pages.  Of course, I'm using some of the We R Silver & Gold embellishments, but I'm also using Simple Stories DIY Christmas embellishments, and lots of stuff from my crafty stash. 

How do you scrap your December memories?

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you're having a wonderful Christmas season!

You at 6

I have another layout to share - You at 6 - from when I did my kiddos annual photos this fall.  They grow so fast, and I love capturing who they are at this moment in time. 

It's like Heidi Swapp September Skies was made for my kid's annual photos this year.  When that paper came in, I couldn't believe how well it went with my photos.  Sometimes there's just paper crafting kismet! 

This kid is amazing.  He is goofy and kind, encouraging and energetic.  He loves to play any and every sport, and he still loves to cuddle.  Sometimes he says things that make me wonder what it looks like inside his brain.  This might just be my favorite age yet for him...but I think I say that every year about my kids, because it's just so fun seeing what kind of people they're becoming. 

Thanks for stopping  by, I hope you're having a wonderful week.

Snow Bales

I'm over on the Moxxie blog today scrapping with the new Winterland collection.  Here's a little peek of my Snow Bales layout that you'll find over there.

Come, Let Us Adore Him!

I love Christmas, and I love decorating for Christmas. I really enjoy making pieces that keep the focus on where it needs to be this time of year. Today I'd like to share a home decor piece that I just finished.  Here's my Come, Let Us Adore Him! decor:

I started with Jillibean Soup's Mix the Media 10 x 10 wood plank. Truthfully, I didn't know what I was going to do with it when I bought it, but I came up with this idea really quickly!

I started by cutting the nativity scene from Bo Bunny's Double Dot paper with my Silhouette Cameo.  The cutting was easy, deciding how to adhere my paper to the wood was the tough part. I'm not a big fan of liquid glue. I tend to have issues with the paper warping or wrinkling, even if I use a really thin layer. I finally settled on running the paper through my Xyron Creative Station. So far, it's holding really well, and using the 5" creative station to add adhesive to the back of the paper went really, really quick!

I created the words from a font that I could weld together in the Silhouette software.  I didn't want to have to place each and every letter separately, so finding a font that looked good welded was a must for this project. After adding the papercut outs to the wood, I decided it needed just a little something more, so I sponged on a few stars with a stencil and some white ink (white paint would have worked well, too). 

Thanks for stopping by!

Dashing Through The Snow

It's time for Moxxie's December Blog hop! Our theme this month is Holiday/Winter/Christmas...and of course there's a prize.  You'll find the prize, details on how to enter, and a list of a the blogs to hop to below my project.  Today I have a Dashing Through the Snow layout to share featuring Moxxie's Winterland.

We got a pretty decent snowfall back in November, and my kiddos couldn't wait to go out and play in it. 

It's super hard to tell from the picture, but I used my Zig Wink of Stella clear marker and added gliter to the word "Snow!" on the title.  It's shimmery and really lovely in person.

There's a lot of purple in this line, which is really pretty...but my boys don't care for purple too much, so I minimized the amount of purple by choosing the papers that were primarily blue.  So, even if you're not big into purple Winterland is still an awesome collection!

Now on to what you can win!

Oh just one of these amazing lines!

 For all your furry friend's fun, holiday antics!

This line is perfect for documenting all of that holiday fun, but it's not just for your pets. Check out the awesome projects our designers created with this line, pets or no this is perfect for the holidays!

But if you're not in the market for this fun holiday line you can opt for the gorgeous Winterland!

Details on how to win are below and here is our fantastic line-up of inspiration:

Julie McGowan

Wendi Robinson

Daniella Hayes

Jennifer Taylor (aka JenT)

Joan Liddle

Samantha Taylor

Renee Robbins

Amelia Harris

 Amy Allred

Leslie Mitchell

Rebecca Price

Ange Weisbeck

 To be eligible to WIN all you have to do is comment on the Moxxie blog.
(US addresses only please) 

Extra chances to win include:
  Comment- on any (or all) of the designers blogs
  Facebook- share the blog hop post (let us know by leaving a link on the Moxxie blog)
  Pinterest- pin any (or all) of these wonderful projects (leave a link for each pin on the Moxxie blog)
  Challenge- Enter your holiday project in our challenge! 3 extra entries if you use MOXXIE product! Link directly to your project or project post. (link up using the inlinkz tool at the bottom of this page)

Commenting and Challenge end Dec 31st. 

Winner announced Fri. Jan 2nd.

Free Christmas Printable and Project Idea

A while back I picked up a frame, just because I liked it.  Well, I decided to make a printable to put in it for fall.  From there, I decided I might as well just make a new printable for each season.  I found my fall printable in the Silhouette store, but for my Christmas printable I had something else in mind, so I created a free Christmas printable and project idea to share with you today.

I really wanted to use Isaiah 9:6 - For unto us a Child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government will be on His shoulders; and His name will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  I played around with the text a bit, and decided it would look pretty in the shape of a Christmas tree.

After creating the printable file, putting the piece together was easy.  I just printed it out on a piece of wood grain patterned paper. 

I decided that it needed a little more pizazz after I put it into the frame, so I cut a star from gold Pow! glitter paper and attached it with some foam dimensional adhesive.

Want to print one out for yourself?

You can Click Here to download the PDF file for this printable.

You At 8

I've gotten a bit behind on posting my layouts.  Last month I took my kiddos' annual photos.  I loved how their individual photos turned out.  So many fun ones to chose from that seemed to capture their personalities just right. Today I'm sharing a layout called "You at 8" about my oldest.

First of all, I'm not sure when he grew up this much.  Seriously, he's always been a bit of an old soul, but now he doesn't even look like a little kid anymore. 

I used lots of different paper collections on this layout.  I started with Heidi Swapp's September Skies for the base of the layout.  I don't know why, but I just think that light bulb paper is so stinkin' cute!

I love a good paper printed with words, so I also added paper from Pink Paislee's Bella Rouge Collection (it's currently in the AWDML Brick & Mortar store, and should be showing up in the on-line store any day).  The white and blue heart paper is from Studio Calico's Lemon Lush.  I've wanted to use that heart paper forever and finally had the right layout to use it on. 

My embellishments for this layout consisted of a Project Life journaling card, Thickers chipboard alphas, Pebbles washi tape, enamel dots, and some Studio Calico chip shapes.  So, as you can see this layout is a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, all put together to scrap my oldest at 8.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hockey Layout

I'm over on the Moxxie blog today sharing a cross ice hockey layout.  I'm using a mix of Moxxie papers and a 17 Turtles digital cut file. Here's a peek of what I'm sharing.

Silly Boys

A Walk Down Memory Lane just got Heidi Swapp September Skies (it's in the Brick & Mortar store and will be in the on-line store very soon). It came in just in time for me to scrap the annual photos I took of my silly boys last month.  This photo is what I'd consider an outtake, but I love how it captures their personalities: My youngest being silly while my oldest tries not to laugh.

This was actually the last of 3 layouts I made with this collection. I built the layout from bits and pieces I had left over.  When I build a layout from leftovers, I often end up with lots of small pieces layered on top of each other to build my background, just like I did here. It's a great way to use up scraps and create a layout with visual interest.
September Skies is a bright, fun collection that is really quite colorful. I especially love the mix of navy blue with bright green.  Since I have boys I gravitated towards the blues and greens in the collection, but you'll find shades of pink and orange in it, too.

I created my title from a mix of alphabet stickers and words cut from paper in the September Skies Collection. 

While I created from leftovers, I actually saved this card to put with this picture.  I knew it would be the perfect card to add to this photo of my silly, amazing, happy boys.

Thanks for stopping by!

At 5

Tuesday I shared a layout of my oldest titled At 7.  Today I'm sharing a similar large photo layout of my youngest.  Here he is at 5.

 Just like my At 7 layout, I used my Cameo to cut "Love this Boy" into the photo.  I slipped some Pebbles Special Delivery paper underneath the cut out words.  I love those itty bitty white hearts on that gray paper. 

I layered the photo on some gold dot vellum from My Mind's Eye, which was then layered on a piece of patterned paper from Crate Paper's Notes & Things. 

 I finished up with some simple chipboard embellishments from Studio Calico.  I love those gold cameras, they're so much fun!

Thanks for stopping by!