Busy Summer!

This summer has completely flown by & I have so many projects to share.

Today I have a birthday card I made for my Mom last weekend with a sketch & challenge from Die Cuts with a View. I used their Ultimate Tag Stack, which I won in June.

They wanted an added twist of sparkle, so I included a heart shaker pocket of sequins. Let's be real, it's hard to find a project I complete without added sparkle!

Here's the original sketch:

I also have a new page in my Little Summer JOY Traveler's Notebook from last week's lesson, Simple Things.

I love this fun photo of my little dude running through the sprinkler, and really, what a simple, summer moment.

I made the fringe with my Cricut and some yellow papers from the Pink Paislee Citrus Bloom line. I really adore how it turned out.

The sunshine tab was so perfect for the photo & the tag I had made in the technique portion of my lesson, Hometown Tourist. I got this sweet free cut file from the lovely ladies over at Spiegel Mom Scraps.

I'm really loving this Little Summer JOY project! I'm sad to see it ending, but I still a beach vacation with a TN to complete for it! This has been an inspiring summer.

Thanks for looking!

Little Summer Joy - Lesson 3 pt 2

Today I'm bringing you part 2 of Lesson 3 for Little Summer JOY - Get into YOUR story.

For this lesson, I find that I have much more journaling than photos & embellishments, which goes along with the lesson title nicely. I'm telling stories of my boys.

This layout tells about how my smallest is growing & marks the milestone of him finally saying Mama!

I also told a funny, sweet little story about what my oldest said the other day - without a photo! That hardly ever happens for me. But I didn't have a photo to go with the story, but it had to be told - written down and remembered.

I love how happy this baby is ALL the time! I hope he never changes. I really love this prompt to help capture what our lives are truly like right now.

I also recently had a chance to change my traveler's notebook cover up and make it a little more summery. When I bought it, it came with a separate elastic in a bright orange, so I've applied that as a more summery color.

I added a fun star from Freckled Fawn as a slide. I made a tassel at a Happy Planner class at Michaels Sunday and a friend gave me the other tassel. And I switched out my charm to a little camera.

So I first heard of Midori at the beginning of this year and immediately fell in love. I waited patiently for the husband to buy me one for Valentine's day. But in the meantime, I happened to be shopping at Essex of all places and I found Midori brand elastic bands! I immediately snatched them up since they were way on sale & I've been hoarding them away. But I broke them out so that I can fit 4 notebooks in my TN right now. I have my two LSJ, a personal thoughts book I started when I first received my TN & a listers gotta list that I don't necessarily always gotta do - working on it. Haha.

I plan on subscribing to Cocoa Daisy and doing their Daisydori planner in January too. I loved changing up my Traveler's Notebook & I already have big plans to decorate it for our Disney Christmas trip too! Haha.

It's not too late to start your own little summer joy project! And don't forget to share your work with the hashtag!

Thanks for looking!

Little Summer JOY week 3 - Share Your Story pt 1

Hello everyone!

I hope you are continuing to enjoy the Little Summer JOY course! New content was uploaded in the online classroom this week for the paid portion of the class, and it was amazing!

I'm loving Marie's lesson about Getting into Your Story! It's about noticing and documenting the little things that make up your day, which is something I think about a lot with two small children who are growing so so quickly. I don't want to forget all the little things that make up our everyday lives together!

My first layout for this prompt in my TN is the sweetest little photo of my 3 1/2 year old. He has recently shown interest in scrapbooking & I'm eating it up! He came into my office the other day and said, "Mommy, I want to work on my scrapbook." So I jumped to it! I pulled out old papers and stickers I would never use again and instructed him to go get his own art kit, and I set him up a little station in the floor. He's now created two 8.5x11 pages. They don't match and they're haphazard and he used a whole sheet of sparkly turtle stickers on one page because he thought they were beautiful. It's the perfect representation of his little 3 year old self, and I hope he will always show an interest in documenting life!

I wrote about how I attempt to tell his story, but I can only tell my version, and I really encourage him to tell his own version. I know at some point in life it may not be cool for dudes to scrapbook, but I hope he will continue doing something that will encase himself and what he is thinking, doing, seeing at each time in his life.

I wanted to keep the layout simple with muted colors, so as to not distract from the sweet sweet photo! I have an old dictionary I found at a thrift store that I use to tear pages when I need a studious background. :)

Supplies:
Paper - Pink Paislee Citrus Bliss stack
Gray Alphas - Amy Tangerine
White grid alphas - Thickers
white alphas - Studio Calico

Thanks for looking & I cannot wait to see everyone's projects on Instagram! Remember to share them with the hashtag #LittleSummerJOY!

Lots of projects!

Happy Monday, everyone!

Today is a super big, great day! My contribution to the Little Paper Projects Little Summer JOY class goes live today! I'm so so happy to have had this opportunity & I truly wish that you each enjoy my prompt & create magic with it! I cannot wait to see your work & read your stories for my theme - Hometown Tourist!

Additionally, we have a super fun sketch with a prompt over at Scrapbook Challenges. The prompt is to use a hashtag on your layout, which I super loved since I do that quite often.

Do you ever get the urge to add all kinds of whatever you have laying around to your layout? I love texture and adding elements other than paper to my layouts (although they may not be acid-free, sorry scrapbook diehards). I had a plain black plastic bag laying around I had envisioned for a Halloween layout, but this layout needed a little something, so boom, there it is.

I knew I had to combine my red and yellow alphas, so I had to add in the colors somewhere else in the layout for cohesion. I did yellow and red layering papers and yellow staples.

I adore both of these tags. The title is #geocaching. This is a super fun new hobby we have, and I love how it gets us outside and to places we would never otherwise visit. I truly believe it will help us see the world & more of it!

I hope you go play along with both of these super fun projects.

Thanks for looking!

Little Summer JOY - Lesson 1, Part III

I'm loving these celebrations of little things. Although, I'm not sure this celebration qualifies as a little thing... This layout is about how we bought a boat this summer!

We live in a city with a lake, it actually is call "The City by the Lake." So we decided we'd gone long enough without a watercraft in the City by the Lake.

I really admire all the gorgeous layouts I'm seeing online. I particularly love the clean and simple layouts I see some creating. I just cannot seem to get myself to do it!

I see a traveler's notebook as a journal of sorts, and a journal is worthy of my handwritten documentation, no matter how messy. That, combined with the content I want to fit into this tiny vessel and the bright summer color palette I've chosen, means clean and simple is not in the cards for this summer project! So I've accepted it, moving on!

I'm not entirely sure where this adorable paper ephemera is from because I received it in a lovely prize pack from the Stick it Down blog. But, I sure am loving it in my Little Summer JOY book! It works perfectly.

I like to leave some of the little pieces in my book stick off the sides, for a nice, full, chunky look at the end of the book.

Thanks for looking, and it's never too late to start creating along at Little Paper Projects with the Little Summer JOY project.

Little Summer JOY - Celebrating Little Things, part II

I am so loving following along with Alexandria's lesson at Little Paper Projects this week.

I've created another traveler's notebook layout to celebrate the little things.

I know it may be a bit strange because we're talking about JOY this summer, and clearly a death is not JOYful, but it's also a part of life. My Nana passed away earlier this year, and her 70th birthday would have been this summer. So I have documented this day. And although I miss her every day, it is joyful in a way, because she no longer suffering and is in a much better place!

You can see that it doesn't hurt my feelings to make two facing pages distinct from one another, as the red, white and blue was not the color choice I wanted to continue to page two of Celebrate the Little Things.

I chose lots of pretty gold - the foil is a bit hard to photograph.

I love how the sun was shining that afternoon - and the pretty yellow flowers are perfect for a summer birthday.

We were joyful that the headstone had actually arrived just that day - celebrating a little thing! After this I took my family to the park and we played and enjoyed each other, just as Nana would've wanted.

I hope you are enjoying documenting your summer with Little Summer JOY! I am loving it and my contribution to the class is coming up next week! Eeek! So excited & a little nervous. I hope you all will enjoy it.

Supplies:
Gold Heart paper & Pink tags - Studio Calico
Solid Gold Foil paper - DCWV

Thanks for looking!

Little Summer JOY 2016 - the beginning

Happy July everyone!

Today is the day - the start of Little Summer JOY 2016 & I'm so excited!

This is my first time participating in this project, but I'm no stranger to scrapbooking, documenting, traveler's notebooks or mini albums. So, when I recently discovered Little Paper Projects, I knew this project was something with which I wanted to participate.

Not only am I participating, but I'm blessed enough to have an opportunity to be a contributor! I'm thrilled to be a part of this class & I really pray that what I have to offer will be inspiring and helpful for all participants.

**shameless plug**
It's not to late to sign up! Click here to do so & join us! Click through my last few blog posts to hear what the class is all about and the difference between the paid class, and the free version.
**plug end**

So for today, the first day of the #LittleSummerJOY project, I want to share my first few pages of my traveler's notebooks. (yes, plural)

First, I have the covers of LSJ Parts 1 & 2. I've shared them before, but I'm still not tired of them, so sorrynotsorry.

Be a flamingo, friends.

Next is my opening page. I love the idea of magical things. I want everything to be magical and sparkly, so I try to include some whenever I can.

I've left the next opening fairly blank except this joy stamp. You can find a rough index of a LSJ traveler's notebook set up here, so I guess you can consider this my inspiration/quote page? I won't need an index.

And lastly, for today, we have my Summer Manifesto. I LOVE the idea of a summer manifesto, essentially a summer to-do list. It makes me slow down and think about deliberately doing magical, summery things with myself, my husband and my children. I wanted the page to be a little more me, so I went my own route outside of the class offered printable. Although it is still very reminiscent of the printable. I just put tiny washi down for each to do title, then listed my tasks under the labels in a bright, summery pink. The stamped title was fun to make!

And there you have it, the very beginning of what is sure to be a super fun summer project and forever momento of this time in our lives. I hope you all will participate with me. You can make your book as simple or as intricate as possible. You can include oodles of writing and drawings and minimal photos. You can put all photos with one line captions. You can do WHATEVER you want! That's the beauty of this class. So many people will participate and receive the same lessons and prompts, but the interpretation of each and every one will be different and beautiful. OHHH I can't wait!

Thanks for looking!

Little Summer JOY 2016

Y'all I'm so excited I've become involved with a new project for the next couple of months & I would love for you all to join!

My friends over at Little Paper Projects are working hard on their second year of Little Summer JOY - a free class and inspiration portal to encourage making your summer magical & documenting your adventure in a realistic, manageable and beautiful way. I'm so thrilled I have found this inspirational outlet & I cannot wait for the classes to start!

I discovered the traveler's notebook earlier this year, and I have really enjoyed incorporating it into my creative regime for documenting life. I LOVE that Little Paper Products is really focusing on the TN in the #LSJ2016 project. The traveler's notebook is so manageable for any level of crafter. Even if one does not consider oneself "crafty" you can make a TN beautiful. Its simplistic nature is what makes it so wonderful.

And there will be plenty of participants using other forms than a traveler's notebook. Any small notebook or album will work & be gorgeous. It's all about finding the documentation style that is best for you - the style you enjoy creating - and committing to finishing your summer album!

I created my first notebook's cover the other day & I really love how it turned out. It captures the bright fun of summer I wanted to represent.

I'm planning to use my Instax camera to document my summer, but there are so many options to create your summer joy!

Please consider joining FOR FREE over at Little Paper Projects & document your Little Summer Joy. If you are incredibly interested in this project, and wish to take it further, you can sign up for a paid version of the course here! With the paid version, you will receive additional technique lessons, videos and freebies. Use the code save5 before June 30th to save $5!!!

This project is going to be so much fun & I look forward to the MOUNTAINS of inspiration awaiting us over the few weeks. Join the Little Summer JOY movement, and you won't regret it! Remember to use the hashtag #littlesummerjoy so that we can all share in our beautiful creations.