Sup Santa?

Hey Friends!

I know, a Christmas page, you say? Well, to be fair it is *almost* Scrappy Christmas in July! I just had to get a head start on SCiJ when I saw today's prompt from Lasting Memories. The prompt for today is to create a red & white scrapbook layout in honor of Canada Day - and immediately I thought of doing a Christmas layout.

I used a Page Map from this month:

I wanted to do mixed media, but red mixed media tends to have a bloody look, so I decided to do white texture paste instead of patterned paper. It's a bit hard to photograph, but you can tell a bit below.

How about that large snowflake die?! I got that beaut on sale at the Hob Lob and it's more intricate and beautiful I even expected!

I was using up this foam thicker sheet, but I thought it was kinda fun to leave the A's as at signs and the t was a plus. Lends to the feel of the title anyway.

My boys have had their photo with the same Santa for their entire lives! I love that tradition for sure, and I document it every year.

I hope you'll play along with our Lasting Memorie's challenge this week!

Thanks for looking!

Pumpkin Patch with Lasting Memories

Good morning, dear friends!

Today I'm bringing a traveler's notebook spread I created for this week's prompt over at Lasting Memories. This month is all about Fall Harvest! Scrap about your harvest or favorite plants/flowers/etc.

My spread is about the TWO pumpkins we grew in our yard this year. LOL - pitiful! At least they're pretty.

I love how these Echo Park die cut, Carta Bella stickers and striped paper from CraftSmithCo all fit together so well with my pumpkin photo.

As always I used my Rock Your Notebook custom insert.

I layered a vellum envelope behind the photo with some adhesive cork to pop it off the page.

I cut little notches in the sides of my background paper to keep the twine in place.

Here's the story of our sorry pumpkin patch! haha!

I hope you will play along with this week's challenge at Lasting Memories!

You are my American Dream - Lasting Memories

Hey friends!

Today's last challenge of the month over at Lasting Memories is to use bicycles on your page!

I've been hoarding this gorgeous Carta Bella paper for a while, time to use it!

This is fairly simple for me, but sometimes I have to remind myself it's enough to just have the memory documented!

This was just a quick memory about our first holiday in our new home, the party we had to celebrate, and my sweet boys on the front porch of my dream farmhouse! Perfection #blessed.

I created my own bunting by halving a circle die cut out of glitter paper, and pairing with starred geotags turned upside down.

I continued with the gold foil in my star border and then brought a bit of the bunting down to tie in with my photo.

I hope you'll hop over to Lasting Memories and play along with this fun challenge! The design team has some great inspiration up today.

Thanks for looking!

You’re so Fly - Lasting Memories

Happy Sunday! There’s another new challenge on the Lasting Memories blog today. The theme this month is transportation & today’s challenge is to use a hot air balloon on your layout.

I also have a process video on my YouTube channel - please check it out and give a thumbs up.

I scrapped my son's pre-K graduation. The color palette kinda happened due to the alcohol inks and infusions at my disposal, but I LOVE it!

You know I almost always have to add a bit of glitter! 

Check out the video for how I colored my own Thickers to match!

I have had this Studio Calico paper in my stash for a while, and I"m super glad I finally found a way to use it. I have trouble with full pages of a full photo like this, but as Missy says, don't be afraid to cover it up!

Please play along with us at Lasting Memories!

There are so many ways to incorporate a hot air balloon on your page. If you don't have supplies with hot air balloons - use a cut file! You could also draw or paint one super simply.

I love all the pattern on the balloon. Since the pattern was busy, I kept it to only two colors.

Alcohol inks are super satisfying. If you haven't tried them, treat yo'self! They're fun to use.

I hope you'll play along with the challenge this week!

Thanks for looking!

Love you more than Gummy Bears!

Hello, friends!

Today I'm over on the Lasting Memories blog with this springy layout using the word LOVE for our weekly word focus.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm over this bitter cold around here! So I decided to escape through my scrapbooking and create a BRIGHT warm layout to get away from the cold, at least for a bit.

I picked up this adorable gummy bear paper from an amazing sale from Paper Issues the other day - and it totally inspired my layout!

To add a little masculinity, I embossed some white cardstock in wood grain and hid it behind some paper peeks.

 I grabbed some pocket cards from my stash to tie in the gummy bear colors with expansive yellow paper, and used some colorful alphas to bring them all together.

I used all the Easter outtakes of these two crazy boys for this fun spring layout. I added some random alphas from a dwindling pack to bring the turquoise down the page and tie with the camera. I also embossed this white strip in woodgrain to match the paper peeks.

I love these sweet faces! It's so easy to incorporate the word LOVE on your page, so you should definitely play along with this week's challenge at Lasting Memories.

Supplies:
Gummy Bear paper - pebbles
Yellow/aqua - Illustrated Faith
Cardstock sticker Hearts and alphas - Illustrated Faith
Love puffy sticker - Fancy Pants
White alphas - American crafts
Aqua alphas and orange label sticker - Studio Calico
Lime doily - Recollections by Michaels

Star Spangled Studs

Happy Sunday-Funday!

I hope you are filling your day with fun. Today I'm bring a fun layout for this week's challenge over at Lasting Memories. The challenge is to use stripes on your layout.

I scrapped some 4th of July photos of my Star Spangled Studs, where stripes are obviously a staple for an Independence Day page!

All papers and die cuts beyond the background are from a Pebbles collection. I typically scrap a series of photos of my boys because it's super hard to choose the best photo of these crazy kids.

I used navy ink to stamp some stars & splattered some navy Heidi Swapp shine as well. I spangled the title with gold thickers.

Contemplating packing up craft supplies makes me want to use up my stash! Hence, all the die cuts splattered throughout the page.

I hope you will go play along with this week's challenge at Lasting Memories! I can't wait to see what you all create!

Thanks for looking!

Somebunny is Hoppy - a LM challenge!

Hoppy April Sunday!

Today I'm bringing you a layout created for the first Lasting Memories challenge of the month - to use flowers on your page.

I had so much fun creating this layout with so many textures and layers!

You want flowers? Here's your flowers!

I used some gesso to soften my busy, gray flower paper. Then I sprayed Heidi Swapp shine in salmon and stamped some aqua floers. I used some cheesecloth for texture, along with some avocado bag which reminded me of green Easter grass.

I was generous with my flower placement. I used the same salmon HS shine to color some of my small white flowers to bring out more of the pinky color.

I had a lot of fun with the layers. I used a lot from the Pink Paislee Citrus bloom stack and from my scrap bins!

I have quite a few of these giant alphas I picked up at the SC sale a while back (fingers crossed for another soon this year!) and they're sooo big, I've not even used them yet. I just went with it though. They went well with my pinks and I actually love how it turned out!

Supplies:
Easter egg paper - American Crafts
Gray flower paper - Pink Paislee Citrus Bloom
Green alphas - Amy Tangerine
Pink alphas and flower stamp - Studio Calico
Large flowers - Prima
Small flowers - Recollections by Michael's
Striped washi - Freckled Fawn

Thanks for looking & play along with all our spring themed challenges this month at Lasting Memories!

Autumnal LOVE - a Lasting Memories challenge

This month at Lasting Memories, we have a great Fall Colors Challenge for you - complete with a wonderful prize!

Here is my inspiration for the Fall Colors Challenge.

I had these wallet sized photos leftover from when I printed a bunch to give out at Heath's 3rd birthday party & the fall colors went so well with the theme. I decided layering a bunch of  fall colored paper would work well too.

I love these little ephemera peices by Echo Park!

And now we're preparing for hs 4 year old photos & babe's 1 year old photos <>.

I hope you feel inspired to create a lovely fall themed or colored page & play along with us at Lasting Memories. Check out their blog for more inspiration from the fabulous design team!

Supplies:
Brown cardstock - The Paper Studio
Glitter cardstock - DCWV
Patterned paper - Craftsmith by Michaels
Paper ephemera - Echo Park

Thanks for looking!

All Around Best Bro - a Lasting Memories challenge

Happy Sunday everyone!

My goodness, I cannot believe September is almost over, along with my first month on the Lasting Memories Design Team. Time flies when you're having fun!

Today I have another layout I created for this week's challenge - "All Around". The theme is directions - anything goes. Or you can use circles. I actually used the word Around in my layout.

My sweet scrappy friend/pen pal, Cherylsent me a fun happy mail a while back that had these great 6x6 papers in it. We both have boys to scrap about, so they're perfect.

A few weeks ago, I was listening to Live Inspired and Tracie was talking to Crafty Jen Schow and mentioned that she did a YouTube series where she demonstrated different ways to use her 6x6 paper pads. I watched one of the videos, and it did have good ideas. I'm sure she probaby used them this way as well, I just layered them all behind one another to spread across the page. I actually cut some of the larger bits that were hidden behind layers to paper save.

I have seen this little quote about brothers and superheros pop up in different places, and I knew I wanted to incoporate it into my page. However, while I was designing the page, I really didn't have a space for it. So, I improvise. I just created a 6x8 page, and I plan to mirror against my 12x12 in my album.

I used my Cricut and free fonts from dafont.com to create the page. I have had the chipboard elements for forever - I picked them up from a Scrapbook Clearance store a while ago. They went perfectly with the great superhero papers. I cut the capes from one of the superhero papers.

I super love how the spread turned out. I hope you have been inspired to create with us over at Lasting Memories!

Supplies:
Gray cardstock - CraftSmith by Michaels
Superhero cardstock - Bazzil
Gray alphas - Amy Tangerine
Red foil alphas - Thickers by American Crafts
Superhero Chip board - American Crafts.

Thanks for looking!

The Wild is Calling - a Lasting Memories Challege

Hey hey hey everyone!

Today I'm bringing you my second creation for the Lasting Memories design team and their September directional challenge. Today's prompt is the direction of IN. My photo was taken while I was IN a kayak on a recent camping trip at Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee.

I have been saving this delicious wood grain textured white cardstock that I found at the Studio Calico warehouse sale for just the right page. I thought a beautiful tree photo would be perfect, combined with the Echo Park Happy Camper Collection!

I also created a corresponding 6x8 pocket page with other photos from that weekend. They tell the story of how my husband and I were kayaking, and he had just jokingly called me Pocahontas. So, naturally, I was singing Paint with all the Colors of the Wind, and two bald eagles flew over our heads! It was super cool. Bald Eagles next at Reelfoot Lake, and they take some in when injured.

The yellow photo is a screen shot I took from the Crate Paper Instagram feed. Those trees growing out of the lake are amazing.

Supplies:
Patterned paper and stickers - Happy Camper by Echo Park
Cardstock, wood grain & alphas - Studio calico
Flair - Scrapbook Circle

Thanks for looking & go play along with the challenges over at Lasting Memories!

Natalie means Christmas Day - GDT at Lasting Memories

I am so happy to have the opportunity to be a Guest on the Design Team at Lasting Memories this month. It's a really great Challenge month on this blog, and I hope you all will play along. The theme is "All About Me".

Today's Challenge reveal is "The Meaning of My Name," which I love because I love the meaning of my name! It describes me perfectly. My name means "Christmas Day." I absolutely adore Christmas. I could (and do) listen to Christmas music all year round. I love glitter and sparkle, and what other time of year is more sparkly than Christmas?! The smell of Christmas makes me smile, and I literally just adore everything about the holiday season.

I always knew my name meant Christmas, but when I took a Portuguese class and learned that Portuguese for Merry Christmas literally contained my name in Portuguese, Feliz Natal, I always loved that. So I incorporated that phrase into my paper with my Cricut.

This photo is of my husband and myself last Christmas. For our anniversary in October, he bought me tickets to two different concerts, combining my love of great music, Nashville, and Christmas songs! This is the two of us before we went to one of the shows - Drew Holcomb & the Neighbor's Neighborly Christmas at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. (The dress and no leggings was because it was unseasonably warm - there was a tornado warning!) The other show we attended was a Johnnyswim Christmas at the Ryman. Both super great!

I journaled about my love of Christmas and the concerts on the page here.

Supplies:

Papers, acetate holly - Studio Calico
Fabric tape - stash from garage sale
Name paper - The Paper Studio Off the Bolt

I'm excited for the rest of the month's challenges at Lasting Memories - go play along!