December Daily 2014: Days 8 - 12

Hi everyone.  Today, I have more pages from my December Daily album. I am really enjoying this project. I am using a mix of pocket pages and 6 x 8 pages. 

Day 8:

Here I used a 4 x 6 photo and two 3 x 4 cards.  It's really quick and easy to put pages like these together. Love that!

Day 9:

I used the Cozy Christmas collection from Simple Stories for this page about our visit to Barnes & Noble. We always knock out part of our shopping there!

Day 10:

Day 10 is about every day life: putting together a puzzle with Pop Pop. I used Be Different from Fancy Pants Designs for this page. 

Day 11:

Another pocket page. This one documents watching the local Christmas parade.

Day 12:

We don't do something holiday-oriented every day, so those days are the perfect time to to catch ordinary life. Here, I used the Public Library collection from October Afternoon to document my son's love of books and reading. 

That's it for today. Only a few days behind in my December Daily. Not too bad for the busy holiday season!  Wishing you a wonderful week!

Holiday Wine Tags: Fancy Pants Designs

It's over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go - for Thanksgiving, that is.  We are making a few side dishes to take along and, of course, I also wanted to bring a little hostess gift.

The one of the left is for Mom.  She is certainly fabulous!  The one on the right, I am saving for a Christmas party.  While I was making one wine tag, I figured I might as well make another. 

These tags are easy to make. I cut each tag 3 inches wide by 10 inches long. I scored the tag 2.5 inches from the top to make the fold. I used a circle punch for the wine bottle hole. All paper and embellishments are from Fancy Pants Designs, the cute new Fall and Winter lines. 

For the holiday bottle of cheer, I used a patterned paper frame and filled the inside with subway art style paper from the Timbergrove collection. I'm thinking a bottle of red would be perfect for curling up in front of the fireplace on a cold night. 

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today.  To all my US friends: wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

Easy Rider: Fancy Pants Designs

Today, I'm sharing another layout I made with the September kit at My Creative Scrapbook.  The kit was a fun mix of collections from Fancy Pants Designs and Echo Park Paper. 

I love the fun arrow paper and thought it was perfect for this photo of my little one scoot, scoot, scooting along.  I paired the arrow paper with a blue chevron paper to emphasize movement then added a few arrow embellishments for good measure. 

You can find all the details of this kit on the main page of My Creative Scrapbook. 

Wishing you a beautiful day!

Fancy Pants Designs: Layout, Card and Sketch

I accidentally deleted this entire blog post. Aaack!  I am going to try to recover the images now and fix the verbage later. Sorry. 

I'm up today on the Fancy Pants Designs blog with a layout, card, and sketch using the new Fall releases just released at CHA. 

You can see all the details and closeups on the Fancy Pants Designs blog.  

Thanks for stopping by!

PaperHaus Fall Splendor Blog Hop

Hello and a big warm welcome to the Fall Splendor Blog Hop with PaperHaus Magazine!  We are celebrating our FALL edition, which also is our 1 year anniversary. Yay!  I am delighted to be part of this team. 

Above is our Fall cover and you can read the issue using this link.

To celebrate the new issue, we will have a short blog hop each day through Sept. 15.  There are lots of prizes up for grabs each day. 

If you are following along on the hop, you should have arrived here from the PaperHaus blog.  I made a card with a glassine bag gift card holder using the pretty Fall hues in the Memories Captured collection from Fancy Pants Designs.

This collection has such a fun mix of yellow, orange, green and black. I think I am going to use this line to scrap some Halloween photos. I love the way that aqua blue is seeping into Fall and holiday lines this year. Did you notice that with the new CHA releases? 

Giveaway alert:  The cute little flair on the card front is from the Fancy Pants Designs collection, What A Wonderful Day. I received an extra set of this flair and I would love to pass it along to one of you, my readers. Just leave me a comment to enter. 

Today's blog hop is sponsored by Spellbinders and they have offered up a generous prize. You can find all the details on the PaperHaus blog.  

The winner of both giveaways will be announced on Sept. 16.

Next up on the hop is Jodi Baune. I know she'll have something amazing! 

Tuesdays with Cory: Fancy Pants mini album

I love the pretty patterned envelopes that are part of each collection from Fancy Pants Designs. They are strong and sturdy and make a great base for a mini album. 

For this project, I used the envelopes to make a min album about everyday life with Cory.  I chose photos from an ordinary Tuesday and described his typical day when he was almost 2. The title, Tuesdays with Cory, is a play on the popular book, Tuesdays with Morrie. 

The day starts with his favorite breakfast, Cheerios. Cory and his puzzles are rarely parted and here, he's bringing his puzzle to the breakfast table. 

Time for school.  Cory goes to an onsite child development center at the hospital where I work. 

On this particular Tuesday, we had a playdate with Zack.  On pretty days, we stop by the park, sometimes bringing the wagon along. 

Cory keeps a big stack of books by the glider in his room.  Before bed, he chooses a few and we read together, then rock gently and say our prayers. 

Goodnight, sweet boy. The last photo shows the album open.  

I used a mix of big and small envelopes and bound them together with two binder clips.  The big envelopes are approximately 3.5 x 6 inches and the smaller ones are 2.25 x 3.75.  I tucked journaling for each page and a few extra photos inside the envelopes. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope you have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend. 

Isn't She Lovely: Fancy Pants Designs

As a scrapbooker, I mostly focus on my little boy. So anytime I get to play with girl icons and colors is a happy day. 

For this card, I used the pretty Trend Setter collection from Fancy Pants Designs. The silhouette and  flashcard are from the Ephemera Pack. I used pop dots to layer them on the card. 

Here's a closeup:

I hope your week is off to a great start. I'll be back tomorrow with a peek at Project Life. 

My Creative Sketches: Bring Your Own Sunshine

To enter the Little Yellow Bicycle giveaway, please see this post.

I'm not sure if I have ever made a scrapbook page that was predominantly yellow before, but this photo of my little boy offering up some daffodils called for yellow. Yes, it did. 

I love the happy colors in the Park Bench collection from Fancy Pants Designs. It was just the burst of sunshine I needed. The little decorative bags that are part of the new Fancy Pants collections are so cute. The starry bag here was a perfect pop of color and provide a great spot for hidden journaling. 

My layout design is based on the new April sketch at My Creative Scrapbook. 

I followed the sketch pretty closely, but omitted the banner and the vertical strips.  To balance the page, I added small elements to the top and bottom of the right side.  

Here's a side-by-side view of the sketch and layout:

A great prize is up for grabs if you play along with the sketch challenge. You can find all the details here.

Giveaway: There's still time to enter the drawing for the Little Yellow Bicycle prize here on my blog. The prize is from the super cute new Fern and Forest collection.  Details in the post below. Be sure to comment in that post to enter. The winner will be announced on Tuesday.  

Spring Home Decor: Decorated Pail

Oh, I can't believe it's nearly Easter already.  It was pretty sneaky moving Easter up to March this year! But here it is, this very weekend. 

I made this happy pail that can be used as a little Spring decor, table centerpiece or as a gift.  It was super easy to make. I starte with a plain painted bucket from a craft store.     

I used embellishments from Fancy Pants Designs to add a Spring touch to this bucket, using the Park Bench and Trend Setter collections. I decorated the pail with felt flowers, paper tape.  The ribbon is May Arts.  

Inside the bucket are some plastic eggs stuffed with candy, then sealed with paper tape so little hands can't get to them!  I also tucked some little treats inside two glassine envelopes and closed them with cute little paper clips. 

To give the basket some height, I added a gumdrop tube with a Happy Spring sign on top. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. Linking this to Blooming Homestead.

An Introduction: Fancy Pants Designs

Hi everyone.  I hope you're having a good week so far. We are still in birthday mode over here. Cory turned 4 and is determined to have a week-long celebration.  He makes a "cake" every day with his Legos and urges me to make a real one, light the candles and sing to him.  I have indulged him more than once, I will admit. 

Today feels like a little celebration for me too. I have my first layout up on the Fancy Pants Designs blog!  I'm so excited to be part of this design team. 

Here are a few close-ups of my page. 

These pennants are part of a die cut sheet from the Park Bench collection. Just punch them out and stick them on. Easy!  I thought it was fun to layer them and curl the edges a bit. 

All the new Fancy Pants collections from Winter CHA have these cute bitty bags with different designs. I tucked one under my photo and used it as a pocket for a journaling tag.  I usually made my own hidden pocket under photos and sometimes the journaling tag gets stuck in the glue. I love this solution with the bitty bag. No more stuck tags!

My favorite Fancy Pants product might be the stencils.  A few come in each pack and they have different quotes or icons. You can use the stencils as a mask or attach them to your page.  I backed mine with paper, added a few banner stickers and stitched it to my layout. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. You can see all team's introductions on the Fancy Pants Designs blog.

Fancy Pants 2013 Design Team Announcement

Don't you love getting happy mail then hate having to wait to tell it?  It's so hard to hold good news inside!  I have been bursting with excitement to spill this one:  I've been named to the 2013 Fancy Pants Design Team.   Squeee!

Jodi expanded the team and I can't wait to work with all the Pocket Chicks! Here's the full list of the new team. 

I've already been given my first assignment but I can't spill that yet either.  Instead, I'll share a layout I made with Fancy Pants last Fall of my little pirate. This layout used The Good Life collection. I love those chipboard frames. 

The full Design Team announcement is posted on the Fancy Pants blog.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Easy Handmade Christmas Ornaments

One of my favorite things to get into the holiday spirit is to make Christmas ornaments, especially paper crafted ones.  I love that homemade touch on our tree.

This year, I made Christmas ornaments using lightweight chipboard frames, patterned papers and small embellishments.  Holiday paper is of course best for this project but you can also use non-holiday lines for a bolder look.

I started with the new Once Upon A Time collection from Little Yellow Bicycle.  I love the red cardinals featured throughout this line and wanted to spotlight the pretty birds.

To make the two smaller ornaments, I used the “hanging wreaths” patterned paper in this collection and two round frames from the chipboard shapes. 

I pop-dotted the paper and chipboard together to give a little dimension then embellished the ornaments with sentiments and bows from the clear cut shapes. To hang them, I added Peppermint Stick twine from Trendy Twine.

To make the large ornament, I used the Vintage Santa paper in the frame, then embellished it with a tag, a vellum tape pennant and a cardinal from the fabric favorites.

I don't have my tree up yet, but you can get a feel for how the ornaments would look on a Christmas tree in this photo.

This type of ornaments isn't limited to holiday paper.  I also made chipboard frame ornaments using The Good Life collection from Fancy Pants Designs.  This line was included in the November kit at My Creative Scrapbook.

I loved the decorative chipboard in this Fancy Pants line and the way the chipboard frames could be layered.  On each of these frames I layered a plain small frame on top of a larger, decorative one.  I backed each frame with patterned paper then added sentiments and small embellishments.

There you have it: quick and easy Christmas ornaments.  Adding these to Paper Issues holiday linky party and to Tip Me Tuesday.

Simple Cards: My Creative Scrapbook

I think my favorite part of kit work - besides excitedly opening each new DT box - is near the end when I gather the scraps from my projects to make a card.  By then, I know the line I'm working with really well. I know which patterns I like to mix and match and I have a lot of freedom.  The layouts I obsess over are done and there are no photos to edit. It's just me, some scraps, glue and my imagination.

I have a clean style so my imagination doesn't really have to work too hard...Below are cards I made with leftovers from two different November kits at My Creative Scrapbook 

The first is from the Creative kit, which featured the lovely Walnut Grove line from Pebbles:

I admit: I unabashedly love the pennant craze.  I made the "thank you" pennant by folding a sticker around a long toothpick. 

The soft muslin pennants under the vase are Pink Paislee trim.  The bottom row is natural (straight from the packaging) and the top row is misted to match the flowers.  

The second card is from the Album kit, which featured The Good Life, a pretty new line from Fancy Pants. I really loved the colors and the punch of black. 

I thought this card was perfect for retirement.  I used a very simple design, just stitching patterned paper on part of a card, then adding a tag. 

To make the tag, I started with a plain white shipping tag.  I used a zig zag stitch around the edges just for a hint of texture and added a ribbon to cover the reinforcement hole at the top. Then, I added a sentiment sticker and a piece of chipboard that overlapped the tag and grounded it to the card. To finish, I added a couple buttons for bicycle wheels.

My Creative Scrapbook features four different kits each month.  Here's a photo of the two November kits I used.  You can find out more about these kits, including a Christmas special, here.

Thanks so much for stopping by!