Layouts with November kits: My Creative Scrapbook

It's reveal day at My Creative Scrapbook. Yay! I have had the most fun the last couple weeks working with two of the November kits.  I've made layouts, cards and altered items. Up today are layouts.

I made this page with the November "Creative" kit which featured the new Walnut Grove collection from Pebbles. Aqua and red are pretty much my favorite color combination, so you can guess that I just adored this line.

I thought the blues in Walnut Grove would work great with a baby page, so I dug up this picture of my never-sleeping baby. Ayiee, he made that first year hard!

I used the fun arrow paper to frame the page, then played on that theme by adding more pennants to the page.  I embellished a trio of arrow stickers into houses under the photo by adding doors and roof lines. 

Continuing with this kit, I have a layout with photos from a pumpkin patch visit last month.  I loved how versatile this Pebbles line was.  Here, I played on the neutrals in the kit.

The kraft papers in the Pebbles collections have always been some of my favorites. Great, heavyweight paper with subtle designs.  On both these layouts, I used an old fashioned Dymo label maker in addition to the Pebbles' alphas. 

Here's a closeup of the pennants at the top:

Switching to the Album kit, I have a Halloween layout with The Good Life collection from Fancy Pants. This line had a lot of red and black and worked great for these pirate photos of my little one.  I loved the chipboard frames in this collection. I had such fun with them.

Below is a closeup of the title block. It fit perfectly in one of the chip frames.

I also used this kit for a layout of my son on his bicycle, using a red chipboard frame to pop the photo.

Below is a closeup of the tag. I also pop-dotted a few of the white circles to give the page some subtle dimension.

These are the kits I used.  They are so full of great product and both are really versatile.  The album kit does come with a chipboard album, but I opted to use the kit for other papercrafting.

I'll be back this week with more projects from these two kits.  For more examples of the Design Team's work, stop by the gallery at My Creative Scrapbook.

Sneak Peeks: My Creative Scrapbook November kits

Every month, I look so forward to reveal day at My Creative Scrapbook. The kits are gorgeous every time. I don't know how the owner does it! 

My Creative Scrapbook has four primary kits each month.  I worked with two kits for November.  Both kits featured manufacturers that I tend to work with less often and I have to say: I don't know why!  I was grateful to have both of these companies back on my radar.  These were such fun kits and great lines. 

Here's a few sneak peeks of what's to come on my blog on next week:

You can find sneak peeks from all the designers on the My Creative Scrapbook blog.  The full reveals are Monday.   I hope you have a great weekend!

The Bella Buzz: Featured Project

We are hunkered down here on the East coast. I was so happy to wake up to power and heat today. It's cold and rainy here and some areas are flooded. This Frankenstorm is no fun.

But there is a bright spot to today:  the new Bella Buzz is out.

The Bella Blvd newsletters features some amazing projects from the design team as well as some fan projects, including one from yours truly.

My featured project is this one below, which I made with the October kit from My Creative Scrapbook.  My fellow MCS designer and friend, Alicia Giess, also has a project in this newsletter.

I used the Thankful collection for this layout. Even though this isn't a Fall-themed page, the neutral colors of this line worked well with these summer photos.

You can find the link to the Bella Bvld newsletter and giveaway here on the Bella blog. 

Little Girl Lost: A Night in the Woods at Age 7

When I was a child, I loved hearing stories from my parents of their own childhoods. They had such interesting ones. Childhood was different back then. More innocent.  But both my parents were in scary, news-making events as a child that were covered by the national media. 

Today, I'm sharing my Mom's story.  When my mom was 7 years old, her family moved to a new house in the neighboring county.  They lived out in the country down a long dirt road. On her first day at the new school, my Mom took the wrong school bus home.  She got off the bus with other kids at the first stop. It looked familiar - woods, dirt road - but it wasn't the right stop.  Mom knew it was a long walk from the bus stop to home, so she walked and walked and walked.  At some point, she remembered there was a shortcut through the woods and she tried to find the path. She didn't. It was the wrong woods and she was lost overnight.

The story was covered by the national media.  In this photo, which was widely distributed, my Mom is still missing. Newspaper photographers took this photo of my mom's parents holding a photo of her and pleaing for her return.

The story does have a happy ending. More than 1,000 volunteers searched for my Mom and a fireman found her the next day.  His first name was Richard and Mom later named her first born son after him.

I made a layout about this story last year, based on an interview with Mom, which is in the journaling block.

I couldn't blog this last year because the layout was picked up for publication.  It was published in March/April 2012 issue of Creating Keepsakes.  Mom got a kick from the article because the editor's note talked about ways to preserve the oral histories of your "ancestors."  

Here's a closeup of the newspaper article that's tucked under the photo:

Now that I am a Mom, her story is heart-stopping to me. I can't imagine my fear if my little boy were to go missing.  But when I was a kid and Mom told this story to me, it was always as a fun adventure and I loved for her to tell it to me over and over.  One good thing that came from Mom's unexpected adventure were some great family photos and news clippings from all over.  There was television coverage of this too and I hope to recover it someday.

Easy Halloween Décor – Repurposed Frame

I think Halloween may just be more fun to decorate for than Christmas. Less pressure but all the fun and no lights to untangle.

One of my favorite home decor projects is the repurposed frame.  I use an old frame I have around the house or a thrift store find. For this project, I used a black tabletop 5x7 frame and created a Halloween scene inside using Echo Park paper and stickers.

I used the Chillingsworth Manor collection and one of the papers in this line had October written on the B side.  I used that as my base.  To create the scene, I used a large journaling card with a haunted house and big full moon.  I messy stitched a few circles around the moon for a playful touch. Once I had the basic scene created, I added stickers on top of the journaling card.

Since I was putting the scene under the glass of the frame, I didn't want to have anything bulky on the page.  But I did create a little dimension by backing the stickers with cardstock and by using pop dots in a few places.  I also added a little spider hanging from twine, using orange licorice from Trendy Twine.  The playful skeleton from the Echo Park sticker sheet was the perfect ending touch to bring scene together.

Here's a close-up of the bottom of the frame.  This was a fun, fast, Halloween project.  My favorite kind!

Thanks for stopping by. Happy hauntings!

Happy Autumn Days - Sketch Challenge

Every year, the theme park in our state has a Halloween outing for kids.  The park does a spooky event at night for adults, but during the day, it's family friendly. Events include trick-or-treating from park characters and picking your own pumpkin from the patch.

For Cory, any outing that involves the plastic pumpkin is a good one as he associates it with candy.  When we went to the park's pumpkin patch, I tried to convince Cory to leave his plastic pumpkin in the stroller so he could pick a real pumpkin.  But as you can see, that didn't happen.  

For this layout, I used Simple Stories, mostly Harvest Lane with a little bit of Fabulous and Awesome thrown in.  I used paper both from 12x12 sheets and a 6x6 paper pad.  I love the smaller patterns on the 6x6, especially the little journaling cards like the title block, "Autumn Days."  

To color the doily, I used spray mist from October Afternoon.  It gives great coverage and dries quickly.  The kraft leaf below it is from the dollar spot at Target. I just added a little ink and stitching and it was perfect for my page.

Here's a closeup of the embellishment cluster on the bottom left. At first, I had just the tree and fence there and they looked a little lonely. So I added the house, which balanced it more.  For a decorative touch, I added a bit of orange/brown twine around the tree from Trendy Twine.

The layout is based on the new sketch by My Creative Sketches for our monthly challenge. 

The sketch challenge starts today and runs through Nov. 15. We'd love to have you play along and we have a great prize for the winner, chosen by random draw.  You can find all the details on the My Creative Sketches blog. 

Whooooo Wants A Treat? Happy Owl-o-ween!

I'm on a little owl kick but I just can't help it.  I love the exaggerated features, especially the big eyes, and owls are the perfect critter for Halloween fun.

For this project, I used Echo Park's Chillingsworth Manor collection and Trendy Twine's orange licorice to whip up a Halloween treat bag.  This was a really fast and simple project.

I started by cutting a piece of double sided patterned paper 3 x 12 inches, scored at 4.5 inches from either end.  I folded the paper into a tent, stitched across the top to secure it shut, then added a large triangle beak.

The scoring measurements gave the treat container a 3-inch base which fits flat-bottomed treat sacks from Martha Stewart.  I buy the MS bags at Michaels and always keep some in my stash. 

To make the owl's eyes, I used a punch to cut two large circles from black cardstock, covered them with adhesive, then added twine.  To wind the twine, I started by tying a knot and using that knot to anchor the twine in the center of the circle.  Then I carefully wound the twine tightly around the knot and around the circle until all the cardstock was covered.

After I made the twine circles, I added large googly eyes.  I glued the twine circles on top edge of the triangle nose and added a die-cut journaling spot behind the eyes. Lastly, I ran a journaling card through my printer to add the sentiment: Whooooo wants a treat?

You can find more Halloween-themed design team projects on the Trendy Twine blog all this month.  You can also play along! To join the Trendy Twine October challenge, see the details on this post.

Linking to: Tip Me Tuesday.