December Daily 2014: Days 8 - 12

Hi everyone.  Today, I have more pages from my December Daily album. I am really enjoying this project. I am using a mix of pocket pages and 6 x 8 pages. 

Day 8:

Here I used a 4 x 6 photo and two 3 x 4 cards.  It's really quick and easy to put pages like these together. Love that!

Day 9:

I used the Cozy Christmas collection from Simple Stories for this page about our visit to Barnes & Noble. We always knock out part of our shopping there!

Day 10:

Day 10 is about every day life: putting together a puzzle with Pop Pop. I used Be Different from Fancy Pants Designs for this page. 

Day 11:

Another pocket page. This one documents watching the local Christmas parade.

Day 12:

We don't do something holiday-oriented every day, so those days are the perfect time to to catch ordinary life. Here, I used the Public Library collection from October Afternoon to document my son's love of books and reading. 

That's it for today. Only a few days behind in my December Daily. Not too bad for the busy holiday season!  Wishing you a wonderful week!

December Daily 2014: Days 3 - 6

Hello everyone. I'm back today with a few more pages from my December Daily. 

Day 3:

Sorry about the glare on the photo. I can't quite figure out the best way to photograph pocket pages.

Day 4:

The pocket cards for Days 3 and 4 are from the Be Merry collection from American Crafts. 

Day 5:

On this page, I used the Good Cheer collection from Elle's Studio. It's an adorable line. 

Day 6:

This cute paper is from the Oh, Deer! collection from Fancy Pants Designs. 

Truth in blogging: we made the ornaments last year, but kept them current for this year's December Daily with journaling that says: We love making ornaments. Cory and I made these reindeer last year and they are still our favorites. 

I think it's perfectly fine to use photos from previous holidays as they all contribute to what make Christmas special to us. 

You can see Days 1 - 2 on this post. 

I'll be back tomorrow with a holiday layout and on Friday with more pages from my December Daily.  

Stitched Web: Spiderman Layout

Good morning!  Today I have a layout with a stitched spiderweb that I made from the new My Creative Scrapbook kit. It was a fun layout to make!

I started by adhering the striped paper to the background, then stitched a large spiderweb in the upper left corner. 

I stitched the web freehand. It's a little messy, but I solved that in part by adding some stickers on top. I used a Stampin' Up punch to make the bat. 

Next, I created a multi-layered photo mat, using a mix of papers from the kit. The papers are from the Home + Made collection from Pebbles Inc. 

I added a 6-inch white doily on top of the photo mat. I colored the doily with Night Sky mist from October Afternoon then stitched it down for a little extra texture. 

I added my photo and a few pop-dotted stickers. To complete the page, I added journaling strips, a title and a couple stickers in the corners for balance. 

I think it turned out pretty cute! This November kit from My Creative Scrapbook is so versatile. It's not Halloween themed at all, but it worked just perfectly with this photo. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a great weekend!

Top 13 Projects of 2013: Year In Review

Hello everyone. I can't believe a new year is dawning!  As 2014 approaches, I wanted to look back at my creative projects from 2013 and post a few of my favorites.  I love seeing these types of posts on your blogs and wanted to follow suit. 

Below are 13 of my favorites in the order that they appeared on my blog this year. The blue titles hyperlink back to the original posts and tutorials. 

At The Sea - Pebbles Inc. 

I'm All Ears - October Afternoon

Welcome Little One - Echo Park Paper

Lollipop Tents - Echo Park Paper

Delight - Little Yellow Bicycle

Sailboat Tag - Pebbles Inc.

Silly Amazing Handsome You - My Mind's Eye

The Race - My Mind's Eye

I Fell In Love - Fancy Pants Designs

Tuesdays With Cory Mini Album - Fancy Pants Designs

One Fine Day - Fancy Pants Designs

Toilet Roll Reindeer - Fancy Pants Designs

Shaker Card - Crate Paper

Do you have a favorite among these?

As it turned out, 2013 was the Year of the Pub for me. I had 38 projects in print publications this year including work in Paper Crafts Magazine, Creating Keepsakes, Better Homes and Gardens (specialty issue Make It Yourself), Scrapbook and Cards Today, Scrapbooking & Beyond, CARDS, Scrapbook Trends, Create and Simply Handmade.  Sadly, most of these magazines have either ceased publication or will publish only (or primarily) in digital form in 2014. 

I hope 2013 was a wonderful year for you. If you've written a list of favorite projects from the past year, I'd love to see your post. Please link it in the comments. 

Happy New Year!

PaperHaus Magazine: Summer Issue Blog Hop

Hello everyone and thanks for joining us for Day Four of the PaperHaus Magazine summer release event! The contributors are so excited about this new issue, which has a mixed media focus and spotlights guest artists Anna Dabrowska, Kasia Krzyminska, Nathalie Kalbach and Dina Wakley and has a special interview with Tim Holtz. 

Click on the link under the cover photo to see the full magazine. The techniques and tutorials in this issue will blow you away! 

http://issuu.com/thepaperhaus/docs/paperhaus_summer_issue_4r

In addition to mixed media, the issue is chock full of traditional summer themed work: cards, layouts and altered projects. 

We're so excited about this issue that we have a whole month of fun planned, including a new blog hop each day, June 1 - 7, with lots of prizes. Each hop will last one week, with winners announced at the end of the week. 

Here we are on the Day Four blog hop. If you are following today's hop, you should have arrived here from the talented Ivana Camdzic Stoicescu. Here's my summer card: 

Nothing says summer like vacation. I love this big sticker of the car all loaded up. It reminds me of those long road trip vacations we took as a kid.  I used a mix of manufacturers here: Echo Park Paper, Studio Calico, October Afternoon and Lily Bee Designs. 

Next up is Viva Las VegaStamps, our sponsor for the Day 4 hop. If you get lost or if you want to start at the beginning, please go to the PaperHaus blog.  Comments on this hop are open through June 11. Winners of the beautiful rubber stamps by Viva Las VegaStamps will be announced on June 12 or soon thereafter. 

If you missed the hop for days 1, 2, and 3, there is still time to catch up and to enter the drawing for prizes.  You can find the details on the PaperHaus blog. While there, you'll find beautiful inspiration and tutorials every day this month. Be sure to stop by!

PaperHaus Spring Hop and Giveaway!

Hello everyone and welcome.  I'm so excited today to be part of the unveiling of the Spring issue of PaperHaus Magazine.  

The contributors got together and are hosting a week-long blog hop.  Yes, it's a big hop, but there are prizes at every stop!  The hop runs through March 7. 

Here's the pretty magazine cover and the link to read the Spring Issue. 

I made a card to celebrate! I used the Family Ties collection from Pebbles Inc.  Stickers and buttons are October Afternoon, the stars are Studio Calico and the ribbon is May Arts.

I also like it as a tag.  I made the sailboat from circle and square punches. 

On this stop of the hop, the prize is a Spring flower giveaway plus 5 yards of green and white bakers twine.  The flowers are Prima and Bo Bunny. 

To enter the giveaway, please follow my blog and leave a comment.  You have until midnight March 7 to enter.  I'll pick a winner by random draw and post it on my blog Friday, March 8. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.  If you are following the hop, you should have arrived here from Bente's blog.  The next stop on the hop is Jennifer Grace.  If you get lost along the way, you can find the full hop line-up here on the Paperhaus blog.  You can also find magazine updates on the Paperhaus Facebook page.

Love Never Fails: Bridal Card

One of my co-workers and dear friends is getting married in April.  We are all so excited for her.  We followed triumphs and failures in her love life over the last few years and shared a lot of laughs and a few tears.  But she has found the nicest guy who just adores her and we are all giddy with joy.

I made this card for her bridal shower this weekend.

The background paper and chipboard are October Afternoon.  The sentiment is a Lily Bee journaling card.  I added a doily and a bit of pink tulle from my stash.  A quick and simple design.

I hope you have a great week. I'll be back on Friday with a new card and a fun giveaway as part of the promotion for the Spring issue of PaperHaus magazine.  The magazine contributors are participating in a blog hop that runs March 1 - 7.  There'll be lots of pretty projects and  prizes on every stop!

Support & Encouragement: I'm All Ears

Hello and happy Monday!  Today, I have a card to support a friend going through a rough time.  I used a mix of lines from October Afternoon: Witch Hazel, Woodland Park and Midway.  

The sentiment says:  I'm all ears.  I ran the yellow tab through my printer then stitched it onto the tag. 

I love October Afternoon's chipboard.  They always have fun, whimsical designs. These little bunnies captured my heart right away. I think they'd be sweet on a baby card too. 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a great week. 

A Tag and A Card: October Afternoon

Before we get too far away from the holidays, I wanted to share a Christmas tag and a card that were published in the December 2012 issue of CARDS magazine. Both feature paper and embellishments from October Afternoon.

Up first is the tag: 

I used a bit of burlap and twine to give the tag extra texture.

Here's the card:

The little kraft bag on the front is designed to hold a gift card. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. I'll be back tomorrow with the reveal of the new January kits at My Creative Scrapbook.

Read To Me / Our Handmade Christmas

I hope your new year is of to a good start!  I wanted to share a couple of Christmas layouts that were recently published. 

Up first is Read To Me.

This was published in the December 2012 issue of Scrapbook Trends and features paper and embellishments from Little Yellow Bicycle.  I took these photos Christmas morning 2011. When my little boy, then 2, opened a new set of Thomas the Train books, he immediately went lap to lap and had everyone in the family read to him. I love his love of books.

The second layout is Our Handmade Christmas.

This was published in the Winter 2013 issue of Scrapbooking and Beyond and features October Afternoon. These little felt ornaments hang on my grandmother's tree. I remember sitting by her side as a young girl, making ornaments. It was a holiday tradition to make something new for the tree each year.  She's 90 now and it makes me smile to visit her and see her little tree and the ornaments still hanging that we made together so long ago. 

I was so blessed to have had a grandma who crafted with me.  Her stitches were straight and true. Mine were crooked and tentative but she instilled in me a love for homemade things. Thank you, Grandma.

My Creative Sketches: A Fall Day

In the South, we don't always have a true Fall. Sometimes, we have more of an Indian summer and a mild winter with some falling leaves in between. I long to visit New England this time of year to see what Fall is really all about.

But we do have a pretty vista year-round at the lake house and I snapped this photo of the boys on a visit there in November 2010.

I used Little Yellow Bicycle collections on this page, a combination of Acorn Hollow and Escape. Love how well the two lines work together.  The journaling spot tucked under the photo is Elle's Studio with a little May Arts ribbon stitched on as a pull tab.

Here's a closeup of the embellishment cluster at the top:

This layout was based on the new November sketch at My Creative Sketches. 

We'd love to have you play along and there is a great prize up for grabs. You have until Dec. 14 to link your work.  You can find all the details here on the My Creative Sketches blog.

We also have new two specials to announce at My Creative Scrapbook. First, the November and December kits can be made as a one-time purchase for a gift.  The second special is a new referral program. If a member refers a customer who signs up for a 3-month membership, the member will receive Prima Flowers and an additional gift. Please visit the My Creative Scrapbook blog for details.

Little Girl Lost: A Night in the Woods at Age 7

When I was a child, I loved hearing stories from my parents of their own childhoods. They had such interesting ones. Childhood was different back then. More innocent.  But both my parents were in scary, news-making events as a child that were covered by the national media. 

Today, I'm sharing my Mom's story.  When my mom was 7 years old, her family moved to a new house in the neighboring county.  They lived out in the country down a long dirt road. On her first day at the new school, my Mom took the wrong school bus home.  She got off the bus with other kids at the first stop. It looked familiar - woods, dirt road - but it wasn't the right stop.  Mom knew it was a long walk from the bus stop to home, so she walked and walked and walked.  At some point, she remembered there was a shortcut through the woods and she tried to find the path. She didn't. It was the wrong woods and she was lost overnight.

The story was covered by the national media.  In this photo, which was widely distributed, my Mom is still missing. Newspaper photographers took this photo of my mom's parents holding a photo of her and pleaing for her return.

The story does have a happy ending. More than 1,000 volunteers searched for my Mom and a fireman found her the next day.  His first name was Richard and Mom later named her first born son after him.

I made a layout about this story last year, based on an interview with Mom, which is in the journaling block.

I couldn't blog this last year because the layout was picked up for publication.  It was published in March/April 2012 issue of Creating Keepsakes.  Mom got a kick from the article because the editor's note talked about ways to preserve the oral histories of your "ancestors."  

Here's a closeup of the newspaper article that's tucked under the photo:

Now that I am a Mom, her story is heart-stopping to me. I can't imagine my fear if my little boy were to go missing.  But when I was a kid and Mom told this story to me, it was always as a fun adventure and I loved for her to tell it to me over and over.  One good thing that came from Mom's unexpected adventure were some great family photos and news clippings from all over.  There was television coverage of this too and I hope to recover it someday.

Happy Autumn Days - Sketch Challenge

Every year, the theme park in our state has a Halloween outing for kids.  The park does a spooky event at night for adults, but during the day, it's family friendly. Events include trick-or-treating from park characters and picking your own pumpkin from the patch.

For Cory, any outing that involves the plastic pumpkin is a good one as he associates it with candy.  When we went to the park's pumpkin patch, I tried to convince Cory to leave his plastic pumpkin in the stroller so he could pick a real pumpkin.  But as you can see, that didn't happen.  

For this layout, I used Simple Stories, mostly Harvest Lane with a little bit of Fabulous and Awesome thrown in.  I used paper both from 12x12 sheets and a 6x6 paper pad.  I love the smaller patterns on the 6x6, especially the little journaling cards like the title block, "Autumn Days."  

To color the doily, I used spray mist from October Afternoon.  It gives great coverage and dries quickly.  The kraft leaf below it is from the dollar spot at Target. I just added a little ink and stitching and it was perfect for my page.

Here's a closeup of the embellishment cluster on the bottom left. At first, I had just the tree and fence there and they looked a little lonely. So I added the house, which balanced it more.  For a decorative touch, I added a bit of orange/brown twine around the tree from Trendy Twine.

The layout is based on the new sketch by My Creative Sketches for our monthly challenge. 

The sketch challenge starts today and runs through Nov. 15. We'd love to have you play along and we have a great prize for the winner, chosen by random draw.  You can find all the details on the My Creative Sketches blog.