Christmas Cuties

It's the best day of the week, y'all! Happy Saturday!

Today I have another Scrappy Christmas in July page for you. I've really been feeling some 8.5x11 pages lately.

Actually though, the struggle was real with this page. It did not begin by looking ANYTHING like it ended up, which is a good thing! I think it got me out of a scrappy funk, however, so that's great.

The entire page started out as a kraft background. I painted in gold through a wood grain stencil and embossed it with gold, which I ended up loving. But the red, gold and black splatter I attempted were just not working out. So I made an executive decision to just use a bit of the embossed portion as an additional layering piece for my photo on a white background - best. decision. EVER!

I super love how the page turned out after I switched my plan. I used a combination of washi, paper strips, word stickeres and ribbon for the middle strip layer.

Don't even get me started on the difficulties I had cutting these letters with adhesive backing. I would have been better off gluing these skinny little words. I'm tellin' ya, y'all. The struggle has been real in my scrappy world the past couple of days!

I had to work for this one, but I"m super happy how it turned out. I hope you're enjoying some Scrappy Christmas in July inspiration, and definitely search out the hashtag on Instagram too.

Supplies:
Black & gold background paper - Mambi by Me and My Big Ideas
Wood stencil - Prima
Red layering papers - American Crafts
Gold tab paper - Project Life
Typewriter strips - Tim Holtz
Gold glitter tag - Crate Paper
Chipboard stickers - Me and My Big Ideas
Doily - Recollections by Michaels

Thanks for looking!!

Pere Noel - A Scrappy Christmas page!

Hi everyone, hope you're recovering well from the holiday (and hopefully long weekend).

Today I have another Scrappy Christmas in July page for you!

We all know I love color & a good dark background that is out of the ordinary from the "norm" you see around the interwebs these days, so I wanted a dark background for a classy sort of look for my Christmas in Paris page.

We were first to greet Pere Noel in France in Epcot last Christmas. He told us a story & it was so sweet how excited my boys were to meet him.

I layered some dark reds wth black and white scraps for the background of the photo and popped it up. I also embossed these chipboard circles as background elements.

Since the black alphas had gold accents, I used a gold Shine spray to sprinkle gold dots around the page. I also added a gold foil sticker to the photo.

I did a small sewing element along the top and bottom borders.

I strung some sequins as an added element like a little banner. I used shiny red, black, matte red adn some red beads.

The glitter snowflakes brought the red glitter alphas cohesively with the page.

I super love how my page turned out. Cranking through those old Christmas  photos. Scrappy Christmas in July!

Red checked paper - Studio Calico
Chipboard - Maya Road
Black alphas - WRMK
Red alphas - American Crafts
Snowflakes - K & Co
Red polka dot paper - unknown sorry!
Gold splatter - Heidi Swapp Shine
Black cardstock - CraftSmith Co.

Thanks for looking!

Happy Independence Day!

Hello Friends - Happy 4th of July!

Today I'm bringing you a festive layout to celebrate the holiday. I used another wonderful sketch from Stuck?! sketches.

It's hard to take a perfectly square photo, btw!

Here's the original sketch:

This sketch was just meant to be for these photos of my boys I had waiting to be scrapped.

My boys are 3 years and 1 day apart, so all the hand-me-downs are seasonally appropriate. I love to compare the sweet thangs in some special outfits (usually holiday related). This is the first age comparison page I've done of the two of them!? How is that possible?!

I stamp embossed the stars, and filled in the hollow stars with watercolors. Then I went a little splatter crazy.

They're definitely brothers, that's for sure. But they also have their own look too. Lachy quite a bit chunkier too!

I love this Pebbles Americana collection. It just took a couple of tiny scraps for behind the photos.

The ephemera pack is super fun too.

I added a little journaling at the bottom that is not in the sketch. Seems like Lachlan got a little jipped on that beach view too! Haha.

Thanks for looking & I hope you have a great holiday!

Summer Adventures!

Hey hey hey, friends!

I'm super pumped for July because there is so much scrappy goodness going on! It's my month to host the challenges over at Lasting Memories, and I cannot wait to see the awesome pages everyone creates!

I chose the theme of Summer Adventures, because we all know I love me some adventures!

Today's prompt is to create a page about an Outdoor Adventure. Obviously, I created a camping page, since this is one of our favorite activities. I'll share my page along with companion, coordinating pockets pages.

Boy do I love me some Echo Park outdoorsy collections!? I also super love this fun photo I took of my boys on my birthday camping trip weekend. I super love taking pics of moss and mushrooms. I captured this shot right after we found a fun geocache on a rainy hike!

I just had to use these amazing sequins that I felt really went along well with both the Echo Park collections - Happy Camper and The Wild Life.

It was a bit of a stuggle to be happy campers on this trip because we were so pumped for our first camping trip of 2017, and then it was super chilly and rainy, but we made the best of it!

The opposite page is a 12x12 pocket spread of the same trip, with a 6x8 pocket page in between.

The struggle of my life is photographing pocket pages, AIR? But I do super love how quickly they can come together to document your life!

Here's the backside of these pockets:

The rain let up enough for a fire one evening, so that was nice! My son doesn't think it's a true camping trip without some s'mores!

Rain won't stop our hikes (or naps for some!). It was an all around good, adventurous birthday weekend!

Check out Instagram for tagged manufacturers.

Please play along with my challenges this month at Lasting Memories!! I cannot wait to see what these prompts inspire!

Thanks for looking!

Scrappy Christmas in July!

You heard me right, my friends! It's Christmas in July!

It's one of my favorite subjects to scrapbook, so I had already begun thinking of a little blog series for some Christmas in July pages. But then, a sweet friend, Tracey Fox, suggested Scrappy Christmas in July on Instagram and in our Scrap Gals community, and this became a THANG, y'all!

You can find our projects on the Instagram by searching the hashtag #scrappyChristmasinJuly.

I'm kicking off my participation today with a pocket page I created for my Disneyworld Christmas album, complete with a YouTube process video! It's my first process video for pocket pages, so let me know what you think and gimme a thumbs up if you like!

I love a classic, green and red Christmas color scheme. I was inpsired to include a couple white background cards by this great little "merry" card scored at the Studio Calico sale a while back.

Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party is an amazing event! I'm sure you will see more pages about this par-tay this month.

#MVMCP is another hashtag you can search on Instagram for some magical Christmas inspiration. That castle, tho, y'all.

Is anyone else in the Christmas spirit, at least for scrapbooking purposes, yet?!

Stay tuned for a super busy, scrappy month!



Thanks for looking!!

Stay Gold - a JOT mood board

Just a quick post to follow up on my Instagram post the other day using this month's amazing mood board from Jot Magazine.

I had to find a good photo for this gorgeous mood board. A selfie usually can't be done on a 12x12 page in my book, so it got an 8.5x11 layout - a common thread in my work lately!

Here's the beautiful mood board:

A few more details:

Such a fun color combo! Thanks, Jot!

Family Retreat

Hey everyone!

Today, I'm sharing another "rare" double page layout. I created this page with photos from a fall, family retreat.

Here is the left page alone:

And the right page alone:

I used the bag technique again, to house all the extra photos I had.

I really love this cute collection from CraftSmith Co - I feel like mixing the blue into the fall palette is unique.

I still love inking the edges to help things stand out better. Do you still ink? Or no way?

Totally did not plan to make the papers coordinate with my boys' clothes, but hey - it works! I sewed some orange twine into my borders in random spots for added texture.

I cut the glitter title from some cardstock & used some puffy letters for retreat. I seriously cannot get enough of skinny puffy alphas!

Supplies:
Paper - CraftSmith Co.
Alphas - Fancy Pants
Autumn Blessings ephemera - Echo Park
Fall stickers - Me and My Big Ideas

Thanks for looking!

Family Bonding - a LM challenge

Hello friends!

Today I'm bringing you another page I created for a fun challenge over at the Lasting Memories blog! It's apparently Log Cabin day this week, so we're asking you to create a rustic and/or outdoorsy page.

I created a layout about a rustic, outdoorsy adventure we recently had on a canoe-trip gone-wrong.

Lately, I have been loving creating fun watercolor and speckled backgrounds - heavily inspired by the lovely Christin Gronnslett. Check out her work, it's amazing.

I will say, although it looks completely random, there has definitely been a learning curve to this!

I actually cut a title out with my cricut, but then stuck with alphas. It's just so much easier, AIR?

 I need a lifetime supply of skinny alphas, please and thank you!

A few simple word stickers, and my rustic layout is complete.

I hope you will play along with us at Lasting Memories for our last June Challenge. And come back next month for challenges of MY choice! 4 challenges, chosen by yours truly, in the month of July.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies:
Paper - Echo Park
Green alphas - Amy Tangerine
Yellow alphas - Fancy Pants
gray alphas - Webster's Pages
Stickers - Webster's Pages and Echo Park