Another Day In Paradise: Summer Layout

Hello, everyone!  I'm back today with another summer layout from the August kit at My Creative Scrapbook. 

I took this photo of my son on what we consider the first day of summer. Of course, that's the day after the school year ends. We always do something particularly summer-y on that day. It usually involves water and ice cream! On this day, we hit the pool and had a frosty later that afternoon. 

I needed a spot for my journaling and wasn't sure where to put in on the page. I decided to type out a sentence or two and tuck it in vertically alongside my photo. Even though it's very short, it covers the basics of Who, What, Where, Why and When. Well, not who. But I have only one kid so I know who is in the photo!

The kit I used featured the Summer Sun collection from Fancy Pants Designs and included this cute set of cards. 

I used several of these cards on the layouts I made with this kit. On this particular layout, I used the three circled in yellow. 

The card with the orange strip circled at the bottom is the vertical Take Note card seen above. It was the perfect landing spot for the die cut that reads: Another Day in Paradise. 

The card that says Travel: I tucked that card under the top of my photo.  I used the Hello Summer card at the top of my layout, and layered a few die cuts on top. 

Here's a look at the layout with the cards circled. 

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you have a wonderful weekend! 

Swimming Lessons: Little Fish

Hello everyone. I am back today with a summer layout about my son's swimming lessons. 

After a scary incident last August when Cory fell in a lake while on vacation with my parents, I enrolled him in private swimming lessons. While he had previously been in group lessons, those lessons for young children seemed more geared toward play. I wanted him to really learn how to swim. 

I initially enrolled Cory in a series of 8 private lessons at our local aquatics center. Swimming is a hard skill to learn and it was clear that it would take more than 8 lessons, so we continued with another set of 8 lessons, then another set and another. 

Cory did great in the water. A year later, he can now swim the front and back crawl for 50 meters (the length of an Olympic size pool), can tread water, do a standing dive, and is learning the breast stroke and butterfly.  

I'm proud of him and of course, I wanted to do a layout about his accomplishments. I used the August kit from My Creative Scrapbook, which featured the cute Summer Sun line from Fancy Pants Designs. 

You can find all the kits from My Creative Scrapbook here. Thanks so much for stopping by! 

My Happy Place

Hello everyone!

I went through my son's baby album a couple weeks ago and tried to identify any missing milestones or favorite photos. I had just been introduced to scrapbooking when my son was born and, oh boy, I am tempted to redo a couple of those first layouts!

This is a photo of my son and me that I had never scrapped. Cory is just two weeks old here and we went outside on a beautiful Spring day. 

I used the new August kit from My Creative Scrapbook to make this layout and primarily used just one sheet of patterned paper. The paper is from the Summer Sun collection by Fancy Pants Designs. 

I saw this paper and immediately thought: baby!  I loved the fading soft colors. I cut the paper at the sign post and turned the paper upside down so that I had only polka dots. 

I cut off the blue strip under the bicycle and sewed it to the bottom of the yellow polka dot paper to ground the page. Voilà. Baby paper!

The yellow strip above the polka dots is the reverse side of the same piece of paper. To complete the page, I added a bit of floral paper to the top and a few simple embellishments. 

Here's another look at the layout: 

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you have a wonderful weekend! 

ABC and 123: My Creative Scrapbook Reveal

Good morning!

The summer has flown by and we are just a couple of weeks away from the first day of school. As I gathered together my son's school supplies, I remembered that I had taken a photo of him last year asleep with his favorite composition book. 

Ah, Kindergarten. I loved how excited my son was about going to school and writing his ABCs. He took this composition book with him everywhere, even to bed. 

This was a fun layout to make. I used the new August kit from My Creative Scrapbook, which featured the Summer Sun line from Fancy Pants Designs. The kit included a large, colorful set of alphas and I thought they would be cute to feature in a design. 

I laid the alphas out against a dark background to make sure I had enough room for them all, leaving a spot for my photo. Once I was satisfied with the arrangement, I lightly tacked them down, then sewed across them. 

Here's the kit I used: 

You can find all the August kits from My Creative Scrapbook on its website here.

I'll be back later this week with another layout using this kit. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Top 10 Projects of 2014

I love seeing everyone's round-up of their favorite projects of the year.  Here are mine for 2014 in the order that they appeared on my blog:

Snowman Tag:

First Winter Snow:

I'm Yours:

Valentine Frame:

People We Love, Places We Go, Things We Do:

Another Day, Another Round of Candy Land: 

Fueling Up:

December Daily: Joy

My Elf:

Merry and Bright:

You can see last year's favorites on this blog post. If you did a post on your favorites, I love to see yours. Please link it in the comments. 

I'll be back tomorrow with my first layout of 2015. Thanks so much for stopping by. 

December Daily 2014: Days 3 - 6

Hello everyone. I'm back today with a few more pages from my December Daily. 

Day 3:

Sorry about the glare on the photo. I can't quite figure out the best way to photograph pocket pages.

Day 4:

The pocket cards for Days 3 and 4 are from the Be Merry collection from American Crafts. 

Day 5:

On this page, I used the Good Cheer collection from Elle's Studio. It's an adorable line. 

Day 6:

This cute paper is from the Oh, Deer! collection from Fancy Pants Designs. 

Truth in blogging: we made the ornaments last year, but kept them current for this year's December Daily with journaling that says: We love making ornaments. Cory and I made these reindeer last year and they are still our favorites. 

I think it's perfectly fine to use photos from previous holidays as they all contribute to what make Christmas special to us. 

You can see Days 1 - 2 on this post. 

I'll be back tomorrow with a holiday layout and on Friday with more pages from my December Daily.  

Mini Envelope Valentine Frame

Hello everyone and Happy Valentine’s Day!  

I love re-purposing old frames. Today I am up on the Fancy Pants Designs blog with a Valentine project using a standard 5 x 7 inch wood frame. 

I got the idea to do a frame of little love letters after finding this McGill envelope punch at a thrift sale for $3. It makes the cutest little envelopes. 

I punched several envelopes from double sided paper from the Be Loved collection from Fancy Pants Designs.  It's such a sweet collection. I love the mix of yellow, aqua and grey with traditional pink and red.

The base of the project is the pretty yellow side of the Adoration paper from Be Loved, trimmed 5 x 7 inches to fit a standard frame. I added the mini envelopes I had punched then decorated them with buttons, stickers and ephemera.

After the piece was complete, I added a bright blue bird and a sentiment to the outer frame.  

Here’s another look at the final project.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope your day is extra sweet!

Valentine Sketch, Layout and Card: Fancy Pants Designs

Good morning!  I'm excited today to be up on the Fancy Pants Designs blog with a layout and card for Valentine's Day based on an original sketch. 

Here's a peek at the projects. I used the super cute Be Loved line.  

The card was really quick to make. I used one of the "Title Pieces" that comes with each Fancy Pants collection. These are the title pieces for Be Loved:

For the card, I stitched the "Be Mine" card to some pink polka dot paper and added a chipboard banner and a few buttons. Easy peasy.

 

The layout, sketch and other details are posted today on the Fancy Pants Designs blog. Pop over if you have a chance. I always love to seeing what the design team has been up to!

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you have a great week!

Winter Layout and Tag: Scrapbook Generations Magazine

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure it's the cuteness of snowmen that get me through the cold month of January.  

There's something about snowmen that make me really happy.  We had our first big snow here in North Carolina when my son was 22 months old.  He loved it and we made our first snowman. 

I made these projects using the super cute Timbergrove collection from Fancy Pants Designs and they were published in the inaugural issue of the ezine Create by Scrapbook Generations. 

The magazine invited the Fancy Pants Design Team to submit projects based on sketches by Allison Davis and Debbie Sanders. 

You can see the sketches and the full content here.  I was delighted to be part of this first issue, which just came out yesterday. 

Above is an image of the cover. There are so many adorable projects inside!

Thanks for stopping by. I'll be back on Friday with a layout from Simple Stories.

CHA Winter 2014: Fancy Pants New Releases

In this hobby, one the best things about January is the excitement surrounding new releases at the annual Craft and Hobby Association winter show. 

This year's show started Saturday in Anaheim and is now wrapping up. I am thrilled to be on the Design Team for Fancy Pants Designs and want to show you some of the new releases from CHA that really have me smiling. 

First up is As You Wish. 

I love the versatility of this line. It has a beautiful mix of colors and patterns and is a great, every day collection.  This is my favorite paper in the line: 

How fun is that?!  I'm tempted to just frame that colorful map. It's so cute!

Here are some of the embellishments. I really dig the rich colors. 

Be Different is a terrific new line geared toward boys. 

Plaids, stripes, herringbone and chevron patterns fill this bold line. The collection also includes icons of some of the cutest monsters ever. 

New embellishments this year are library cards and toppers.  They come with each line and look really fun!

The third collection Fancy Pants debuted was a summer line called Nautical. 

Summer photos are my favorite to scrapbook, so I am super excited about this line. It mixes navy, red, yellow, orange, teal and woodgrain with classic coastal icons.  

One of the cute additions to each of the new lines are Brag Cards, perfectly sized for Project Life or other papercrafting projects.  Each collection of Brag Cards includes 12 4x6 cards and 24 4x3 cards. I can't wait to use them!

What did you see at CHA that caught your eye?

Top 13 Projects of 2013: Year In Review

Hello everyone. I can't believe a new year is dawning!  As 2014 approaches, I wanted to look back at my creative projects from 2013 and post a few of my favorites.  I love seeing these types of posts on your blogs and wanted to follow suit. 

Below are 13 of my favorites in the order that they appeared on my blog this year. The blue titles hyperlink back to the original posts and tutorials. 

At The Sea - Pebbles Inc. 

I'm All Ears - October Afternoon

Welcome Little One - Echo Park Paper

Lollipop Tents - Echo Park Paper

Delight - Little Yellow Bicycle

Sailboat Tag - Pebbles Inc.

Silly Amazing Handsome You - My Mind's Eye

The Race - My Mind's Eye

I Fell In Love - Fancy Pants Designs

Tuesdays With Cory Mini Album - Fancy Pants Designs

One Fine Day - Fancy Pants Designs

Toilet Roll Reindeer - Fancy Pants Designs

Shaker Card - Crate Paper

Do you have a favorite among these?

As it turned out, 2013 was the Year of the Pub for me. I had 38 projects in print publications this year including work in Paper Crafts Magazine, Creating Keepsakes, Better Homes and Gardens (specialty issue Make It Yourself), Scrapbook and Cards Today, Scrapbooking & Beyond, CARDS, Scrapbook Trends, Create and Simply Handmade.  Sadly, most of these magazines have either ceased publication or will publish only (or primarily) in digital form in 2014. 

I hope 2013 was a wonderful year for you. If you've written a list of favorite projects from the past year, I'd love to see your post. Please link it in the comments. 

Happy New Year!