St. Patty's Day

We usually have lots and lots of kid friendly fun on St. Patty's Day at our house. I'm usually so busy cooking and playing with the kids that I forget to take any photos of what we're doing. This year I at least remembered to take a few photos, and then I could scrap the photos and journal about the things I didn't photograph.

Authentique has a pretty fun Irish/St. Patty's Day themed collection called Lucky. Since my pictures weren't all that great, I made them into a photo collage, so you look at the photos as a group instead of putting too much focus on any one photo.

Adding embellishments to the photos helps pretty up the photos a bit, too. Since the kids are showing off the loot from their leprechaun hunt in their photos, the sticker works well!

Do you do anything special for St. Patty's day. Are you good about taking pictures, or are you like me and tend to get busy and forget?

Thanks for stopping by!

Fun Day Together

I have another layout from our fun day together at the science museum. The best part about having a decent camera on my phone is that I actually end up being in some of the pictures with my kids!

I am a sucker for any paper that has a heart on it and isn't pink, so I scooped up the blue sheet with the big red heart on it from Simple Stories Say Cheese 2. I paired it with a classic polka dot (also from Say Cheese 2).

I had a strip of black and cream striped paper from Simple Stories I Am sitting on my desk from another layout I had just finished. It was the perfect piece to slip behind my blue stripe to ground the layers a bit more.

The alphas on this layout needed to be just right, and I happened to have these fun black and white ones in my stash! The "You are my Happy" journaling card was also in my stash, and is part of Pebbles Home + Made collection.

 With a few layers (new and leftover!), I was able to finish up another layout about our fun day together. Though, honestly, any day out with these 2 is a fun day!
Thanks for stopping by!

Rad Science

My kiddos had a day off of school a little over a week ago. One of our favorite day trips is to a science museum that is about an hour away from our house. There's even a special exhibit going on right now called Rad Science that's all about the physics behind skateboarding. It was really cool, and provided lots of opportunities for fun.

I try really hard to balance my love of capturing memories with being able to put my camera away and lose myself in having fun with my kids. I want my kids to remember the fun we have, not that mom took pictures of the fun that we had. So...for days like this, I leave my big "nice" camera at home, and only pull out my my camera phone here and there. In fact, I forget to take pictures of some things all together! Are my pictures as nice? Nope, but it's a great way to have some photos of the fun and make sure I'm still involved in it.

For this layout I started with some papers from Crate Paper's Boys Rule. The slightly muted colors of this collection seemed just right for skate park science.

I used some Basic Grey Hipster Brads to embellish my layout and to create my title. There is actually a brad that says "RAD" in the pack, so I used it paired with some alphas to make my "Rad Science" title.

I never seem to have enough (or just the right) journaling tags. One of my favorite ways to create space for journaling is to add paper behind some chipboard photo frames and journal inside. If one isn't enough just add a second one, like I did on this layout!

 I almost had as much fun scrapping this layout as I did playing with my kids at the Rad Science exhibit...almost!
Thanks for stopping by!

Moxxie Basketball Layout

I'm over on the Moxxie Blog today with a 2 page basketball layout.

 
Head on over to the blog to see the whole thing!

8 Is Great

I have one last layout from my son's 8th birthday to share. This one is of the family party we had. My son and one of his cousins have a birthday that's pretty close together, so for this party we celebrated both boys. Here's my 8 is great layout.

Keeping with the swim theme from his friend party, my son requested a shark cake. I had a lot of fun making it, and I think it turned out pretty cute! Since there were more sharks front and center on this layout, I decided to reach once more for Bella Blvd's Max paper and Candid Cards.

I also mixed in some Bella Blvd Molly and Lucky Starz for layering.

A few sharks and a lot of Bella Blvd papers later, I think I'm through all of my son's 8th birthday pictures! 
Thanks for stopping by!

Time Well Spent

I'm over on the Moxxie blog today sharing my time well spent layout. Here's a peek of what you'll find over there.

Head on over to the Moxxie blog to see the rest!

Swim Party Layout

When I started scrapping my oldest son's birthday, I went for the Bella Blvd paper right away, because I knew there were some fun papers and journaling tags that were shark themed. I knew they'd be perfect. For my swim party layout today, I found the perfect use for one of the shark journaling tags.

 The fun shark card is from Bella's Max Candid Cards. The paper came from a mix of Bella Blvd collections. The grey chevron is from Daily Chevies, the anchors are from Molly, and the yellow cameras are from Molly.

I added a little bit of washi to the top and bottom edges, and created the title by layering some thickers up with a bit of left over strips of paper.

Thanks for stopping by!

March Madness Family Fun

It's time for Moxxie's March Blog Hop. This month we've all got a bit of March Madness fever. We love watching college basketball, so I thought it would be great to have a bit of March Madness Family Fun (and don't forget to check out the rest of the designers and enter to win the prize. You can find the details below my project).

I used paper and stickers from Moxxie's Basketball winter release to create some fun goodies to go along with our March brackets.

Everyone will get a basketball bottle cap magnet. These were super simple. I just stuck a sticker to the bottom of the bottle cap, sealed the sticker with clear nail polish, and then filled the caps with Ranger Glossy Accents.

The family member with the best bracket will take home the basketball nugget tin. I wrapped each nugget with a little Basketball paper, and then added a simple embellishment to the outside of the tin. Do you like filling out a March Madness bracket?

Check out the rest of this month's sports themed hop:

 Samantha Taylor (you are here)

Jennifer Taylor
Amelia Harris
Julie McGowan
Leslie Mitchell
Wendi Robinson
Renee Robbins
Joan Liddle
 Daniella Hayes
Amy Allred
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 or one of the challenge posts (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 paper-made take on our Sports challenge using the link up below. 3 extra entries if you use MOXXIE product! Link directly to your project or project post.

Commenting and Challenge end March 31st.
Winner announced Wed. April 1st

Princess Mini Album

I have a lot of pictures to share today. I just finished making a mini album for my niece. My sister lives near Disneyland, and decided to take my niece to meet all of the princesses a few months ago. When Simple Stories Enchanted came in to A Walk Down Memory Lane, I knew just what to do with it; A Princess Mini Album.

 It doesn't photograph well, but all through the book, I used my Wink of Stella Clear Glitter Brush Marker to add shimmer to hearts, words, and the castle on the front of this book. It looks a bit streaky on the cover, but in person, I promise it's just shimmery perfection!

 I left some empty room on the very first page for my sister to jot down the date and any journaling she wants to do.

It wasn't all princess meet & greets, they got to see Goofy, too. What also doesn't photograph to well is the shiny silver paper. Anywhere you see silver (like the mirror and hello above, and the VIP below), it's actually a shiny metallic silver. Its so pretty! 

The whole album measures 4 x 6 when closed. Using these measurements made it especially easy to put together, since I could just cut apart many of the 4 x 6 and 3 x 4 journaling cards to build the base of the album.

I bound the whole thing with my We R Memory Keepers Cinch. It's the first time I've had the chance to play with my new tool, and let me tell you, it's so fun! I told my husband he'd better watch out because I'm going to start binding everything now! I have the Cinch that punches square holes, but you can also get one that punches round holes.

Throughout the book I also covered most of the hearts that were printed on the paper with similar sized enamel hearts. It's a great way to add some dimension while working with elements that are already there. 

And that's it! I truly love this line and wish I had more girlie, princess photos to scrap.

 Thanks for stopping by!

St. Patty's Day Card

This Irish girl is ready to drop a couple of cards into the mail for St. Patty's Day. I thought it would be fun to make them from Moxxie's newly released collections even though there isn't a St. Patty's day collection. I mixed and matched green papers from the new collections to create a St. Patty's Day card to share here, and one for the Moxxie Blog.

I grabbed papers from Fun Run, Springtime, and Queen of the Crop for my shaker card.

I cut both my big (detailed) shamrock and the little shamrock I used on my glitter ribbon with my Silhouette Cameo. I filled the shaker part of the card with a few different shades of green sequins from this sequin pack.

I decided to print my greeting from computer since I don't have a St. Patty's Day stamp (I know, that's definitely a hole I need to fill in my collection!). I added it with a few embellishments to the inside of my card.

 Want to see the other card I created with non-St. Patty's Day Moxxie papers? Head on over to the Moxxie blog to find all the details about it...and here's a sneak peek of what you'll find:

Thanks for stopping by, and Erin go bragh!