10 Years Layout

Last week I shared my younger son's layout all about who he is at 8 years old. This week I have my older son and his 10 year layout.

Once again I reached for Fancy Pants Good Fellows to create my layout. It was just the perfect feel for the layouts we took that day.

When I use the same collection to scrap multiple layouts, I try to use different patterns from the collection as my main pieces. I also try to lay out photos differently so the layouts don't look the same.

For this layout I cut the papers at an angle and even ended up turning the photo on an angle. The whole thing ends up having the effect of first drawing your eye to the photo and then moving down the page to the journaling. To keep the whole thing from feeling too chaotic, I kept the embellishments and layering on the page pretty minimal. 

I can't believe I have another year of documenting who my kiddos are done. I love watching my kids grow and learning who they are as people as they develop more and more of their personalities, but sometimes I wish they could slow down just a bit! I'm so glad that I can freeze bits of time in my scrapbook pages.

8 Years Layout

Every year I take my boy's photos. Then, I pick one of my favorites and create a layout with journaling that tells all about who they are at that particular age. It's fun to see how they change and what stays consistent over the years. Today I have this year's layout for my youngest son. Here is his 8 years layout.

For my paper I chose Fancy Pants Good Fellows. I fell in love with the rich colors and brightness of this collection. 

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut some arrows in the background of the the main piece of paper. I backed the negative space with some coordinating  blue card stock. Then, I filled in a few of the arrows with some coordinating patterned paper. 

I love catching the every day, but I also really love these glimpses of who they are. This kiddo at 8 years is pretty amazing!

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!

Washi Tape Cards for World Card Making Day

Are you celebrating World Card Making Day? I had a blast today teaching a washi tape card class to a great group of ladies at A Walk Down Memory Lane.

I hope you have a wonderful day!

Scrapping Boys with Fancy Pants Little Sport

Today I have a layout using Fancy Pant's Little Sport collection. Don't let the name fool you, this collection isn't only good for scrapping sports, it's a great general masculine themed line.  There are a few sports themed papers, but most of the papers are just beautiful, rich plaids and stripes.

Instead of using the stickers and embellishments from the collection, I used some journaling tags (Doo Dads) from October Afternoon and some AC Thickers for the title.

Thanks for stopping by!

2 Page Layout: The Big Raft Lake Fun

School may have started, but I'm still working on my summer photos. 

I love the bright colors and pops of navy in Fancy Pants' Down By the Shore collection. I couldn't resist those colorful little fish for scrapping some sunny photos from the lake.  I layered Down By the Shore up with a few stickers, some enamel dots, a little washi tape and some wood accents.    

Have you scrapped anything with Down by the Shore? I'd love to see it!

Thanks for stopping by.

May Arts Nautical Challenge

Every few months May Arts host a challenge. There's always a theme (this time it was nautical) and a group of ribbons to choose from to create something.  I got to play along this month, and here's what I came up with:

 I created a nautical summer serving tray to use outside during backyard BBQ's.  My favorite element is the red and white anchor that I cut from Solid Stripes 365-2-14 ribbon. There was no solid bottom to the tray, so I cut a piece of cardboard the size of the bottom, covered it in Fancy Pants Down By the Shore paper and added ribbon details. I set the paper and thin ribbon with a spray on polyurethane sealer so the bottom of tray will be water resistant and I can wipe it clean with a damp cloth if needed. 

If you head on over to May Art's Blog today, you'll get to see all of the contest entries.  If you've never played along with a May Art's challenge before, I highly recommend it. They're always lots of fun!

Family Time at School

We always have a few family events at school...I always like scrapping them :)

My youngest couldn't wait for his chance at Doughnuts for Dad. His older brother got to bring Dad to school for it, and now it was his turn:

I happened to have some leftover October Afternoon Woodland Park paper that I mixed with stickers from Simple Stories 24/7 Collection. 

Just a few nights ago we had a family night at school, and my older boy's teacher had these "Kindergarten Favorites" photos of each kid.

Love this photo so much, and I had just picked up Fancy Pants Swagger. What do you know? It was PERFECT for scrapping this photo. Ooh, and that burlap heart? It came from Little Yellow Bicycle's new Naturals Collection.  The collection is full of cork, canvas, and burlap accessories that go so well on so very many projects.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Good Life

I waited (not so patiently) for The Good Life from Fancy Pants to come out.  When I saw the reveal of it, I fell in love and knew I just had to have it. I picked it up immediately from A Walk Down Memory Lane when it came out.  Then it sat, waiting for me to use it as I got busy with other things. Finally! I got to use it, and this line is as amazing as I remember, and so easy to work with.

I especially love this cherry pleated trim from Maya Road.  While pleated ribbon is often a bit more of a girly thing, this ribbon has an unfinished edge and is just rough enough for a boy layout, too! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Not so Mini Album

Today I have what could loosely be called a mini album. It's 6" x 6", so it falls into the mini album category, but I stuffed it so full of photos, that it's a little larger than mini. The whole thing is made from My Mind's Eye's Miss Caroline Dilly Dally Adventures collection. I fell in love with the colors and patterns in this line immediately, and since I had to have almost everything in the collection, I figured it would be put to best use in a large mini album.

I made the covers out of chip board, just to make it a bit sturdier. The blue star piece behind the title is actually an unfinished wood piece that is part of the Miss Caroline line. I used Tim Holtz Broken China Distressed Ink to stain it.

I love when mini albums are interactive, so the photo on the right hand side of the bottom page opens up to show 2 more photos underneath.

 The photo on the top right side flips up to reveal another photo and journaling about the trip.

 My favorite interactive page is the bottom left page. I made little pockets behind the main photo, and one photo pull out from each side (by pulling on the ribbon). The photo on the bottom right spins up around the brad in the right hand corner to reveal another photo underneath.

The journaling/title tags that go with Miss Caroline were perfect for my album, and really helped make everything come together quite quickly. I raided my leftovers from all different projects to scrounge up a few unexpected touches like the layered giraffe sticker on one of my pages, and some fun word stickers to sprinkle throughout the album. It was a great way to use leftovers and enhance the album!

Thanks for stopping by!

First Day and a trick

Alright...I'm having a lot of fun creating with Little Yellow Bicycle's Game On collection (I'll show you at least 1 thing from that collection tomorrow, I promise!), but I wanted to share another school layout. I was editing some photos last night and realized I hadn't share this yet. I finished it about 2 weeks ago already! Shame on me!


My son is such a ham in front of the camera some times. I love the tone of the colors in Off to School by Fancy Pants. If you head over to A Walk Down Memory Lane's blog tomorrow, you'll see another layout with this collection that has absolutely nothing to do with school. The colors and patterns are so great I wanted to see what else I could do with the line.

I also wanted to show you a trick for photographing layouts. A few months back I had one of those head slapping, why didn't I think of this sooner moments. To get good, head-on photos of your layouts, just use Removable Glue Dots® to stick the layout up on your wall, your sliding glass door, or any flat surface. Here's what it looks like when I photograph my layouts (this one's hanging on my sliding glass door.
You still have 1 more day to sign up for my American Crafts giveaway. You can check it out here if you haven't already.
Thanks for stopping by!

More Paper Smooches

Paper Smooches has a SPARKS challenge every month. You can find all the info on how to play along by clicking here.


I've had 2 ideas in my head after seeing the inspiration:


I finally got one of those ideas down on paper, and will hopefully (cross fingers here) have the other one done tomorrow.


Basically, I was inspired by the colors for this one. It's such a pretty blend, that I'm not sure I'd come up with on my own. I was also inspired by the feel. The shabby wood background mixed with the elegant flowers and rhinestones. I tried to mimic the feel by adding pretty pleated trim and an elegant border punch combined with a less elegant kraft background and plaid patterned "Hello".

Supplies:
Paper: Fancy Pants' It's the Little Things (Honeysuckel)
Stamps: Paper Smooches Friendly Flowers
Markers: Copic
Trim: Crate Paper Neighborhood
Tools: Martha Stewart Punch Around the Page Framed Dots

Thanks for stopping by!

Fabulous Felt

Moxie Fab World is having a Fabulous Felt challenge. I ended up with 2 cards for this challenge. When the felt challenge was announced, I immediately thought of making a mustache card with a felt mustache. The card came together quite easily, the hardest part was finding the right greeting. I've seen "I mustache you a question" and "I hate to leave, but I mustache", so I was trying to come up with something else. I finally landed on "mustache-ulations".


This second card came about when I was pricing some new arrivals at A Walk Down Memory Lane this past Saturday, and came across the coolest felt embellishments from Basic Grey. They come in a 6 pack of multiple colors. For some reason my mind decided this yellow and purple one would look really pretty with grey as an accent color. It's a different color combo, but I like how it turned out.


Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday Trigger

It's been a while since I've played a long with a Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger. I often see the trigger and think, "Wow, that's gorgeous!", but I always seem to find myself running out of time to play along. Well, not this week! I saw this trigger and I made time to play along.

Pintrest

My first impulse was to create a dress card and just lift the picture as is. I'm sure it would have been cool, but I decided to try to push my creative juices a little further. Well...even though it's only August, I had this crazy idea that that pattern would make a lovely Christmas Tree.


I not only was inspired by the shape of the layers, but the mix of colors and patterns on the dress. I also loved that the whole dress seemed to be tied together into a cohesive unit by burgundy edging, so I tried to mirror that in my card as well. For my patterned paper, I used Fancy Pants' Tradition Collection. The trunk of the tree is an SRM sticker from Fancy Sticker Sentiments Christmas. I found it easiest to use a bunch of Mini Glue Dots®to adhere all my layers together. If you want to see what other people did with this cool Trigger, you can check out the Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger here.

Thanks for stopping by!

SRM Stickers

I was thrilled to win all of SRM's new stickers (the ones they're debuting at this up coming CHA!). I've only had a little time to play around with them, but it's been a lot of fun. I was resistant to stickers at first, being a stamp girl and all, but when I tried out SRM stickers for the 1st time about 6 months ago, I was hooked. I won't be throwing out my stamps any time soon, but SRM stickers make a really nice addition to my craft arsenal. They go on like butter, and make putting cards together quick and easy.

The above card took all of 5 minutes and a little Fancy Pants Paper.

Even though it's a bit early for Christmas, I think this one (made with Fancy Pants Tradition paper) is my favorite of the bunch.

I don't have a Bar Mitzvah to go to any time soon, but stickers and stamps that celebrate Jewish heritage and beliefs are awfully hard to come by. This basic set makes customizing a card or gift really easy. The "Mazel Tov" strip on the inside is only adhered on 3 sides to form a pocket to slip a check, money, or gift card in. Oh, and P.S. the paper is from My Mind's Eye Lime Twist and is 25% off at AWDML right now.

Finally, I had to show off the stickers in combination with some Glitter Ritz glitter. It's tough to photograph, but in person this card sparkles. The whole cake layer is covered in Glitter Ritz Warm Highlight Glitter. LOVE that stuff!

I just finished scrapping a few photos from our 4th of July fun. I'm hoping to get those up on the blog tomorrow...if I'm not too tired. This very excited (nerdy) lady is headed to the Harry Potter midnight showing tonight! I'll get home way past my bed time, but it's totally worth it.

Welcome Flag

My husband brought me this plant from the local greenhouse, just because he thought I'd like it. He was right, I love it and it looks great outside my front door. I decided it needed a little something, so I made the flag for it from one of Fancy Pant's Chipboard Banners and Pink Paislee's Hometown Summer. The "Welcome" letters are from The Girls' Paperie, and the ribbon is from May Arts.