Haircut Layout

My 8 year old has been asking to color his hair green. He's a really good kid, and it so fits his personality, so we decided to let him. Truth be told, he loves it and so do I. Being a scrapbooker, I had to snap some photos of the process and make a haircut layout from them.

My kiddos have dark hair, so we had to go blond before he could go green. We had a good laugh about him looking like he should join a 90's boy band with the blond hair.

I recently added some Crate Paper Cool Kid to my stash. It was the perfect collection for my fun photos. The colors are rich but a bit muted, perfect for older boy layouts. There's some green in the papers, but not a lot. Just enough to coordinate with my photos while still keeping the focus on that bright pop of green hair.

I chose some denim alphabet stickers from We R Memory Keepers Denim Blues collection for the title. Since the alphabets are fabric, they can be a bit messy, but they have the righ tlook for this layout.

His hair will only be green for about 6 more weeks, but this fun haircut layout will help keep the memory forever. Some day he'll have the pictures to prove to his grandkids that he had green hare once! What's the craziest thing you've let one of your kids do?

Layout with A Lot of Journaling

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.

Often I have layouts with a lot of photos and a little bit of journaling, but today I'm sharing a layout that's the opposite. Today, I'm sharing a layout with a lot of journaling and only one tiny photo. 

 I had a lot of story telling to do in this layout and only 1 small photo, and a bit of souvenir paper. I decided to use large journaling cards from Simple Stories Gold Snap Pack as focal points (as well as give myself plenty of space to tell my story).

I mixed and matched papers from Crate Paper, Ken Oliver, and Bo Bunny that I felt lent themselves not only to the feel of the photo, but the feel of the stories I was telling in my journaling. 

Usually I'm careful to keep my photos the focal point of my layouts, so it was kind of fun to do something different and make my journaling the focal point. How have you dealt with a lot of journaling on a layout? 

Many Uses for the Photo Fuse

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from American Crafts and  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.
It's really no secret that I love my We R Memory Keepers Photo Fuse. It's just that there are so many uses for the Photo Fuse. Today's layout shows two of those ways in one layout.

 On the left hand page of this 2 page layout, I used the Fuse to create a memorabilia pocket and add multiple waterfall photo pockets. The waterfall pockets sit on top of the page protector, so you can flip through your photos without having to pull the layout out of the page protector.

Waterfall pockets are a great way to add multiple photos to a page without compromising on design. I also like to add journaling to the waterfall pockets. My journaling card above is from the Simple Stories Gold Snap Pack. The rest of the paper is from Crate Paper Maggie Holmes Style Board.

I also used the fuse to create a memorabilia pocket for the Belleek Castle pamphlet. You can find a step by step tutorial for using the Fuse to create a memorabilia pocket here.

I mirrored the gold from the journaling card on the left side of the page with a gold title on the right side of my page. I created the "Grand Entrance" title with my Silhouette.

There are so many fun ways to uses the Fuse, these are just 2 of the ways. How do you Fuse? 

Bits and Pieces

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from American Crafts and  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.

Sometimes I build a layout from bits and pieces of paper that are leftover and sitting on my desk. It's fun, because sometimes it makes me combine papers and patterns that I wouldn't normally put together. Today's layout is one of those layouts.

 This layout came together from a mix of Crate Paper Maggie Holmes, Crate Paper Notes & Things, Simple Stories The Story of Us, and Simple Stories Gold Snap Pack. I love how kraft, gray, and gold all make appearances in this layout. I'm not sure I've ever used these 3 colors together, but I know I will again in the future.

Pops of deep pink washi tape help add a bit of color to the layout and keep it from appearing too washed out, and clusters of enamel dots help tie everything together.  

Have you ever tried creating a layout from leftovers sitting on your desk?
Thanks for stopping by !

Explore

I'm fitting in a little blogging and scrapping between swimming lessons and baseball and all that summer fun time! Today, I have another Ireland layout. I'm mixing and matching a bit of paper with this one, playing around with some chipboard frames, journaling on vellum, and using my favorite new stuff: Therm O Web's Deco Foil. Here's Explore:

This is one of those layouts that's so much better in person. It has lots of texture and depth due to the chipboard frames, vellum, and foiled embellishments.

The patterned papers that I used for this layout are from Crate Paper's Notes & Things collection. The soft colors in this collection help set the mood for this layout. Since I used so many textures on this layout, the soft colors also help keep the layout from feeling busy.

I've been using a lot of stickers from American Crafts Shimelle Sticker Book for my Ireland layouts, and this layout was no exception. 

I used some gold Therm O Web foil over the word Explore from the Heidi Swapp Minc Jumbo Words Die Cuts for my title.

I love chipboard frames, but rarely use them to actually frame photos. For this page I used some Simple Stories I Am chipboard frames to frame some gold patterned vellum. 

Finally, I had to add some journaling, so I printed it out on vellum to keep with the soft vibe of the Explore layout. 

Thanks so much 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!

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!

At 7

I take annual photos of my kids every year.  A few years ago I started scrapping one of those photos with a list of sorts of what my kid is like at that age.  Last year I decided to scrap the large 8 x 10 of each of my boys that I hang on my wall for this layout...but that meant I had to wait a whole year (until the next year's photos were ready to hang on the wall) to scrap my layout.  To make sure I remembered what my kiddos were like at that age, I jotted down my journaling for the layout last year and put it in a safe place until I needed it.  This week I'm finally ready to scrap those photos.  Here's my oldest at 7.

It was kind of fun to do this layout a year later.  It's amazing to see how much he has changed, and yet how much his personality and core likes have stayed the same.

I used my Silhouette to cut the words out of the photo, and then slipped a little Crate Paper Notes & Things patterned paper behind the cut out area on the photo.  

I finished up the layout by layering on some embellishments from Studio Calico's Essentials collection.  Keeping it simple helped to keep the focus on the photo and the journaling.

That's if for today.  I'll be back later this week to share a similar layout I made with my youngest son's annual photo.

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.

Grandma's Recipe Album

Now that Christmas is over and this gift has been given, I can share one of my very favorite projects from this holiday season. When my grandmother passed away, my dad copied all the recipes we wanted he to from her recipe box.  For a Christmas gift to one of my family members, I complied Grandma's recipes in an album.   

I started with a Simple Stories Snap Binder.  I like these because they are so very customizable.  As you can see, I set out right away to paper over the cover with some Dear Lizzy Polka Dot Party paper and Crate Paper stickers. 

Inside, I used the included chipboard dividers to split the recipe book up into your standard sections.

I really liked the look of Bo Bunny's The Avenue Recipe Cards, so I chose to use those.  As you can see from the photo above, there are the traditional 4 x 6 recipe cards, and larger, full page recipe cards.

While I wrote most of the recipes onto the Bo Bunny cards, I did copy and print a few of the cards that my Grandma had hand written onto patterned paper and added them to the album that way.  Having a recipe or two in her own writing just feels extra special. 

There's a section for Main Dishes.

and one for desserts.

I included photos of some of the prepared foods from the recipes.  It was a nice way to add some color to the album.

The last section in the album is for memories.  Not standard in most cook books, but fitting for this one.

In this section I left a little card with one of my favorite memories of cooking with my grandma.  I also put in lots of blank cards so the recipient can add her own memories and collect memories from other family members.
To be honest, I kind of wanted to keep this gift for myself.  I love how it turned out, so I guess I'll be making another one for me in the near future!
Have you ever scrapped special recipes? I'd love to hear about it (or see pictures) if you did! 

Quick Christmas Boxes

Sometimes it's a lot easier to add some washi tape and die cut pieces to a cute box then to create something from scratch...enter these Quick Christmas Boxes.

This is how my kid's teachers received their Christmas gifts this year.  I took some store bought boxes that I had on hand, wrapped some washi tape around them (because everything is better with washi tape).

 Added a sticker or die cut piece (I used pieces from Crate Paper's Bundled Up and Echo Park's Tis the Season)

 and hung a die cut shape from some twine to use as a gift tag.

Simple, fast, and pretty cute!

Party Cracker Gift Boxes

I needed a few small gift boxes for some hand made presents my boys made for a few of our family members.  I didn't have any small boxes, so I decided to make my own using some leftover papers from the Gift Card Envelopes that I made and my We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board.  Here are my Party Cracker Gift Boxes.

The box design is not my own. Just Google "We R Memory Keeper's Party Crackers Envelope Punch" and you'll get lots of different instructions on how to make these.  I tweeked the measurements a bit to make the small enough for my needs.  These are actually small enough that you could get 4 boxes from 1 sheet of paper. 

I used a mixture of papers and embellishments from Imaginice's Colors of Christmas collection and Crate Paper's  Bundled Up. 

To be honest, I really don't like wrapping gifts - but making custom packaging for gifts? I can totally get on board with that!

Cookie Cutter Ornaments

One of my favorite things to do at Christmas time is to make Christmas ornaments.  This year I decided to make Cookie Cutter Ornaments using Crate Paper's Bundled Up.

There's not much to say about creating these.  I just took some metal Christmas Cookie Cutters and cut patterned paper to fit.  Then I layered up a few die cut papers.  Add some twine for hanging, and you're all set.
Thanks for stopping by!