Selfie time

Hello friends!! I have a layout to share with you today using some of the Simple Stories Life Documented collection.

 Let me start off with saying how much I love the colors in this collection! Lovely, saturated, navy, red, yellow, gorgeous! Now, with that being said, let me tell you how hard of a time I had with this paper when I originally got it. I was not a huge fan of the floral on the b side, but I really struggle with those sunburst patterns! I finally decided, to challenge myself, and just go with it, and see what happened.

I kept this layout fairly simple, I really wanted the challenge of using that paper as is, no cutting allowed! lol. It was a struggle for me though, so I chose to try and centralize everything into the wood grain circle in the middle. Light layers and embellishing.

The came the time to put a title on...I was lost at first as to where to put it. I knew that I wanted to use these fun Crate Paper alphas..I have had them forever, and NEVER used them! I really like the fun vibe they added to the layout!

Way different style for me...and honestly, I am undecided if I like it, but I LOVE the fact that I challenged myself to step out of my comfort zone, and use up some more of my stash!!


Thanks for stopping in, and take time to create something you love!

A little sweetness

Hello friends! As you all know, I am on a kill my stash quest, so today, I have another layout to share with you, using up some of that loved but unused product.

This layout all started with this paper, "Yellow Umbrella" from the BasicGrey Soleil collection. I LOVED this paper when it first came out, so much that I bought several sheets, which is not common for me, especially with BasicGrey..I usually find their collections harder to work with, but I loved this, so bought several, and they all have sat there ever since. So, I finally decided to pull it out, and use it up!

Deciding to use it was the easy part...making it work, was the hard part! I love a patterned paper background, but usually go for a more soft, tone on tone look...but I just could not bring my self to cut this up, so I started working on my layers, and figuring out where I wanted everything to lay out, then I went in with a little white acrylic paint, to soften up around my photo and embellishment area.

From there, everything just kind of fell into place. I pulled out coordinating supplies..some old, some new, and just went for it.

I added in some black stamping and splatters, since there was the black border, and some darker colors in my photo. I thought this helped to tie everything in together..and I like how it popped against the more pastel colors of the layout.

I found this fun wooden tags at Target, and I loved how well this one fit in. It made a perfect spot for the vellum ampersand! I have tried using that on my past 4 layouts!! Glad I could finally make it work! lol.

I am loving these challenges I have been giving myself...stretching my creativity, and using up some of those harder products I have! This is probably one of my new favorites!

Thanks for stopping in today...have a good one, and take time to create something you love!

Hello 6

Hi friends!! I am back today with a fun layout to share with you. This past year, for our daughter's birthdays, instead of having a big ( and stressful) party..we took each of them out for a day that was just about them! They got to choose they activities, where we ate, what we did, everything...and it was just them, and mommy and daddy! We all loved getting to have that one on one time..and Mommy got to enjoy their birthdays with them stress free!! I am so hoping this will become a new tradition!

So...I have had this fun Confetti patterned paper from Crate Paper, almost since the collection became available...and I was so excited when I got to this photo of our middle daughter, and saw how perfect it went together!

I didn't want to embellish much along the left side...I wanted to let that awesome typography shine! I did however, find a few vellum shapes from some other Crate Paper collections, and I filled in all the spaces between the words with a shape. I thought this was a fun way to add a little more embellishment, without overpowering the layout.

Now, around my photo, I did lots of layering, but I kept everything in tight together as to again not detract from the title work. I wanted enough that it brought your eyes into the photo, but wasn't overpowering against everything else.

I am so in love with these colors!!! For the large wood veneer "6" on this layout, I wanted to color it to blend in more with this pallet.  I started by inking the whole number with a gold ink pad that I have, while that was gorgeous, it wasn't quite the look that I wanted. So, I went back in, right over the top of the gold, while it was still wet, with a Prima chalk ink in turquoise, and it gave me this gorgeous color. It is a little darker than the other elements on the page, but I like how that makes it stand out more against everything else.

Then To balance out everything at the top, I needed another small cluster at the bottom of my photo. This little party hat was adorable, and honestly, I don't use theme-y items very often, so it was fun to use as many of these as I could!

Then for that last finishing touch, I wanted to add in a little embellishment to that top corner. I kept everything very light, most of it is vellum pieces, so it wouldn't detract, or really draw your eyes up, but just so that there was a little more interest in that space.

I am linking this layout up to Clique Kits and there "Anything Goes" July challenge, I have been having fun playing along with them...you can get all the details here! :)

Thanks for stopping in today...have a good one, and take time to create something you love!

I love you

Hello friends!! On my mission to get "caught up" on some of my photos that have been sitting there waiting, I came across this older one and me and the little guy. It was just us this day, the girls were both at school, and we were just having a good time and being silly taking pictures. I happened to get lucky and snap this gem. It quickly turned into one of my favorites, and has stayed at the top of the list.

I really had fun with this one, pulling out some more loved, but unused/unopened goodies from my stash! For the circles behind my photo...I pulled out the embroidery hoop wood veneer from Crate Paper! They were the perfect shape and size for what I had in mind...a little color shine, and mister huey's, and they were the perfect color too!

Then for my title...I really wanted to use this large wood veneer "I love you" from Fancy Pants...adhered it my page, and went to put those finishing touched of mist splatters, and wouldn't you know I got mist all over it...instead of pulling it off, and trying to find something new, I embraced it. I covered up the area, as best I could, and began splattering right on my title. Love the look, and it added more of that green into the layout!

For this layout, I am using this fabulous sketch from Clique Kits:



I am also linking up to their fun Anything Goes July Challenge! Get all the details here!

Take time to create something you love!!

Be Inspired

Hello friends!! Hope you all had a great holiday weekend! Today, I have a layout to share with you, using up some more of my stash. I had an idea with this layout to do it all on the diagonal. I have seen a few layouts here and there lately using this style, and I thought it would be something fun and different to try out!

This is an older picture of our oldest daughter. We were all outside one day, just sitting and playing, enjoying the beautiful day...when she all of the sudden runs inside, and comes back out with her journal and some other scrappy supplies. She plops down beside me and gets busy..I ask her what she is doing, and she says, being outside gives her inspiration..so she wanted to scrapbook. Of course, I had to document this moment!

I wanted to use some fun and colorful pattern on this since her clothes were so colorful..they aren't exact matches, but I really thing that the tones work well together, and it makes the photo pop...I didn't want the patterns to overwhelm the page though, so I cut some triangles, and just went through and placed them in a way pleasing to my eye. Then I wanted some type of border, so I grabbed one of the papers I had used for the triangles, and fussy cut out the full strips to have my top and bottom border.

Then, I just began to fill in spots with embellishment. I tried to stick to the color scheme, and also added in some wooden elements to go with the outdoors type of photo, and meaning.

I layered embellishments across the triangle, to add some cohesion and to bring everything together. I hadn't' measured the spaces when placing my triangles, and with all the white space around them, they really needed something to ground them, and make everything flow together a little more. You can see this here, where I had elements going across and "uniting" several of the triangles.

Thanks for stopping in today, take time to enjoy and create something you love!

11 years

Hello friends! This weekend, my husband and I will be celebrating our 12th anniversary. Hard to believe!
 Last year for our anniversary, we had a nice relaxing day spent mostly out exploring, and just enjoying each other. I didn't get many photos that day, but I did manage to get this one taken, selfie style.

I have held on to this paper from Jillibean Soup for awhile, I knew I wanted to use it with this photo, I just wasn't quite sure the direction I wanted it to take. Finally I just decided to go for it...I pulled out some papers and built from there. Love the way it turned out!

I always seem to struggle with where to place my journaling, so I decided to use one of the open spots to my advantage. Bring in some more embellishing and color, and make a perfect place for my journaling.

I tried to keep some symmetry with the color on this layout. I used the arrow paper as my starting point for the colors I wanted to bring in, then by picking a theme of hearts for my embellishments, I was able to easily go through my stash and find coordinating colored items to spread out.

Then, for this last cluster on the photo, I wanted to build more up on the sentiments, since I had kept my journaling so simple, and really just told about what we did. I found items in that same color scheme, that helped to convey my feelings both for that day, and for my husband, and layered them up for a kind of second journaling section.

Not a lot of paper layers on this layout...a little different for me...but I don't think that I could have made a more perfect layout to celebrate the memory of this day!

Thanks for stopping in today, have a good one, and take time to create something you love!

Halloween in...July

Hello friends!! I'm sure you have all heard of Christmas in July...but have you heard of Halloween in July?? That's the theme of my layout today! I was going through photos, trying to get "caught up", and found these from Halloween 2013, and decided it was time to get them scrapped.

I knew I wanted to play on some of the "traditional" Halloween colors...so I went with orange, green, and black..with a little gray thrown in for good measure. I had a lot of fun digging through my stash on this one.

I have found that when it comes time to purge out some supplies, I have no trouble getting rid of patterned papers, embellishments are another story..I hold on to them FOREVER!! So for this layout, I wanted to challenge myself to use some of those embellies that have been laying around, and make them work for what I needed!
I started with pulling these goodies out:

The flair were the perfect color, and I really wanted to get some circular elements onto this page...the sentiments/designs on the flair however, were not what I needed for this. So I grabbed some stickers, and went to work...very simple changes, but with a little tweaking, I was able to finally use up some of my stash, while making custom embellishments that were perfect for my layout. Here are some pics of the finished flair:

Thanks for stopping in today..be on the lookout for a fun announcement coming soon!!

Have a great day, and take time to create something you love!