Six

After finishing up all my 2012 Christmas layouts I declared my 2012 album complete. And yes, it feels absolutely amazing to be able to say that.

I have since moved on to filling in some of the gaps in my 2013 album. I started by going back through my pictures from the year and selecting the ones that I want to scrap. I then spent the better part of a morning at my local scrapbook store matching paper to my pictures, and now I am steadily working away at my pages.

The weather is getting colder, very conducive to staying inside and scrapbooking. I love it!

This page is of the family party we had for Bridget when she turned six. Her birthday is on December 31 and we always have her party early in January once the Christmas madness has subsided.

You may recognize the cupcake paper from my cupcake happy birthday cards. This paper was surprisingly hard to work with on a layout. I kept having to cut the paper smaller and smaller to keep it from overpowering the photos.

The patterned paper is from Bella Blvd., and all the stickers and other embellishments are from my stash. I did a lot of rummaging around while working on this page.

Some page details - look how happy my girl is as we all sang happy birthday to her.

Gosh, I know it has only been a year, but Bridget has grown so much since these photos were taken.

More layouts to come. Watch this space.

BOO!

To celebrate Halloween later this week, I made this cute little card:

Card Base: Recollections; Patterned Paper: American Crafts; Cardstock: Bazzill; "Boo" Sticker: American Crafts; Adhesive: Scrapbook Adhesives

Hope everyone has a fun time trick-or-treating!

Yes, I Made Another Crochet Blanket

Because what else could I possibly make with two large balls of perfectly coordinated cotton yarn?

My Mom bought this yarn for a project that she ended up abandoning in a fit of frustration. Not knowing what else to make with the yarn, she passed it on to me. She was happy to be rid of it from her stash, and I was happy to take it because I knew it would make a great blanket for Bridget's room.

I love the color changes in the variegated yarn. The variegated yarn is called In Motion - an interesting name for yarn - and the pink is Mod Pink. Both are Bernat Handicrafter Cotton.

The pattern is from Lion Brand - a simple v-stitch pattern (click here for the pattern). I have made several blankets using this pattern including Claire's Pink and White Blanket. 

I actually started this blanket while we were driving to Hilton Head Island in August. It was the perfect travel project...back and forth, no counting, nothing to keep track of.....perfect for viewing the scenery along the drive while still keeping my hands crafting. 

When the blanket was all finished, I laid it across the foot of Bridget’s bed. There is something so cozy about a blanket on the end of a bed, it says home and comfort to me.

 Bridget loves it. She says it is perfect for keeping her toes warm at night. 

10 Minute Craft Dash Challenge

I tend to obsess over my cards, shifting things around and playing with the layout and design well after it needs any tweaking. So when I saw the 10 Minute Craft Dash Challenge - the challenge being to make a card in less than 10 minutes - I knew I needed to give it a try.

I began by getting all my supplies out on my table: paper, embellishments, sentiment sticker, adhesive, border punch, trimmer. Then I sat back and thought about the design of the card. When I had a pretty clear idea in mind as to what I was going to do, I started the clock.

Phew, I was sweating. I am not used to working under this kind of pressure. When my border punch got jammed, and my adhesive runner pulled the back off my paper (why?) I thought for sure I was not going to make it. But I pushed through and finished with only seconds to spare.

This is the card I made:

Time to make: 9 minutes and 53 seconds.

What an awesome challenge. It really forced me to focus and get down to business.

I think what really made it work for me was having my materials at the ready before I started the clock and keeping my card design fairly simple.

I am linking up my card over at the 10 Minute Craft Dash Challenge.

Four Fall Cards

This week's crafty challenge over at The Memory Nest is a color and theme challenge.

This is the color palette:

And the theme is Fall.

I made four cards using paper from Echo Park. It was the perfect paper for this challenge.

With Thanksgiving being in the Fall, I made two thank you cards:

One card to wish a happy fall:

And one very subdued, non-spooky Halloween card. 

The work of the other Design Team members can be seen over at The Memory Nest. 

Three Things

Three things that are making me smile on this gorgeous fall day:

The leaves that are carpeting the backyard.

The last bit of color in the garden. I am not sure what these flowers are called, but they sure are pretty - the last blooms of the season.

Planting tulip bulbs. Hopefully the squirrels will leave them be and we'll have some pretty tulips in early spring. I also planted some daffodil bulbs.

What is making you smile today?

Have a wonderful weekend.

Tradition

Every year we get family pictures taken at Christmas. And they always turn out really well which of course means I buy way too many of them. I frame some, give some away, and then scrapbook a few. My layouts using these pictures are often very simple and clean; I want to keep the emphasis on the photos.

See, super simple, but I actually like it very much.

When I was working on this page I began with a lot more patterned paper, but had to keep cutting the paper into smaller and smaller pieces so as to not overpower the pictures. I love the balanced and clean look that I ended up with

This is my last Christmas 2012 page. I am all done scrapping last Christmas. And it feels great to be somewhat caught up...if such a thing is even possible when it comes to scrapbooking.

Thanks for following along as I have shown you all my Christmas layouts. I hope you have enjoyed seeing them as much as I have enjoyed sharing them with you. And I hope they have inspired your scrapping in some way.

Card of the Week: Thanksgiving Thank You

This weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving so I thought it would be fitting to make a thank you card:

For this card I used beautiful fall themed paper from Bella Blvd., textured cardstock, die cut leaves, and a sentiment sticker from Jillibean Soup:

We had a fantastic weekend full of family, delicious dinners, and beautiful autumn weather....for all of this and more, I am so very thankful. 

Card of the Week: Cupcake Happy Birthday Cards

Today I have three fun cupcake birthday cards to show you. Same papers, but different designs.

Card Base: Recollections; Patterned Paper: Bella Blvd; Cardstock: Bazzill; Border Punch: Fiskars; Washi Tape: my stash; Adhesive: Scrapbook Adhesives, 3D Foam Squares

I think they are so fun. Perfect for a child's birthday or for a cupcake loving adult.

Love these cards? I'll be listing them in my shop.

First Lost Tooth

It's challenge time over at The Memory Nest again. I am sure you all have seen the incredibly popular Ombre trend in home decor and fashion - well the challenge issued by Leslie this time around was to use the Ombre technique on a scrapbook layout. A very different challenge indeed.

I was forced to go to my local scrapbook store to find some suitable paper as there was nothing in my stash that would work for this challenge. I know, I had to go to the scrapbook store...how ever did I manage. Once there, I stumbled upon the perfect paper quite quickly. The colors do not fade from light to dark in huge chunks, like is often seen on fabrics, but the dots are all variations of the same color, light to dark, so I thought this paper would work just fine.

I took this picture of my daughter on the day she lost her first tooth. Such a bittersweet moment - she was so excited to have lost a tooth, and all I could think was that I remember when she first got a tooth as a baby....and now she has lost one....she is growing up too fast.

The dotted patterned paper is from Studio Calico. The "smile" definition is a journalling sprout from Jillibean Soup - and I think it fits just perfectly on this page about Bridget's changing smile.

I cut out my title using my Silhouette. The font is Rustler - one of my all-time-favorite fonts.

I love the layered look of this page. This seems to be my go-to technique lately - layer it up, add differed patterns and colors. So fun.

Head on over to The Memory Nest today to see how the other members of the Design Team worked with this challenge. I was so curious to see how others included the ombre technique on their layouts and have really enjoyed seeing everyone's creative work.

Cousins

Working on my Christmas 2012 layouts in one huge batch has been awesome. I pulled out all of my Christmas paper and embellishments and just went to town laying out my pages. Some pages came together rather quickly, while others took a few days to be done. As I worked, I moved from page to page as I was inspired, and in the end this allowed me to get a huge amount of scrapbooking done. That being said, I have nearly depleted my Christmas embellishments and will need to purchase new ones for this year. Tragic, I know.

Today I would like to show you a layout I did of my girls with their cousins at our Christmas Brunch.

This is one of my favorite layouts - I love the patterned paper (from Studio Calico) and all the layering. I love the large tag (made by me) on the side of the photo, and that I used a flower on a Christmas layout. Oh, and the kids in the picture are pretty cute too.

I hope you are enjoying all these Christmas layouts (click here, here, and here if you want to see the other Christmas layouts I have completed.) I have only one more layout to show you (next week probably) and then my 2012 album is complete.

Family (at Christmas)

Today I have a very simple layout to show you - beautiful family photos surrounded by some pretty paper and embellishments.

The patterned paper is from Studio Calico.

With four large photos on the page, I kept my embellishments to a minimum - these are great family pictures and I really wanted them to take center stage. The snowflakes and title are from Silhouette (purchased and cut). Remember, not every scrapbook page needs to be loaded up with embellishments - sometimes, less is best.