September Kit Reveal: My Creative Scrapbook

The September kits are here from My Creative Scrapbook and I love them.  I played with the Creative Kit this month, which had a mix of Echo Park Paper and Fancy Pants Designs. 

Here's one of the layouts I made with the kit: 

I took my layout title from that 1980s one-hit wonder: My Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades.  It was by a band called Timbuk 3.  Sorry if I gave you an earworm!

The Echo Park elements sheet included a nerdy glasses sticker. I shaded it with a grey Prisma marker and used it here as sunglasses. 

I loved the way the collections worked together. Below is a photo of the September Creative Kit: 

I'll be back next week with more work from this kit. Have a wonderful weekend!

Sweet Love: Little Yellow Bicycle

When I was a baby, my Dad always called me his sweet love.  He still does sometimes. :)  It was only natural for me to use the same nickname for my son. A new baby is such a sweet love after all. None sweeter!

My son is now 4. He is still my sweet love but these days when we cuddle and I call him one of his baby nicknames, he will say, "Mom, I'm just your Cory." I wanted to capture that tender period when I could call him mushy names without correction. 

My friend took this photo of Cory and me in the backyard when he was 10 weeks old. I used the new July kit from My Creative Scrapbook to make this page. The Poppy collection from Little Yellow Bicycle gave the layout some pretty pops of color and a natural spot to add the journaling.

To ground the page, I added a patterned paper tab across the top, layered with a burlap flower on top. I added some stitching to the leaf to make it poof a bit. 

A little tip: if you like the look of stitched buttons but don't like to stitch them, a white signo marker will do the trick.  It works especially well on dark buttons. 

This is the July Creative kit I used. You can see more work with this - and other MCS kits - in the Design Team gallery.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sneak Peeks: My Creative Scrapbook May Kit

Well, hello, May!  I'm so happy to be in the full swing of Spring with the promise of Summer around the corner. I love this time of year. 

The first of the month brings sneak peeks from the new kits at My Creative Scrapbook. It is so much fun to design for this kit club. 

I worked with the Creative Kit this month.  Here are my colorful peeks! 

I'll be back on May 5th with the full reveal. 

October Reveal: Fair Fun & Gather Round

I love the Fall season and Fall collections. I was so excited to see Bella Blvd's Thankful line spotlighted in the October kit at My Creative Scrapbook. 

I found this line to be so versatile. used this collection for a non-Thanksgiving, non-Fall page.  On a beautiful (hot!) September day, my family went to the county fair.  It was a great outing. I thought my son, age 3, would be most excited about the animals. And while he did love them, what he really had his eyes on - and his heart set on - were the prizes on the Midway. 

I took this trio of photos, sized them to match the "love life" journaling card in the Thankful collection, and used them as the focal point of my layout. 

Since the colors in this collection are pretty neutral, it's easy to use Thankful with non Fall layouts.  Below is a closeup of the page top.  

Of course, this Bella Blvd' line is perfect for Fall themed layouts. I particularly liked the Thanksgiving theme that ran through this aptly named Thankful collection.  It turned out to be just perfect for scrapbooking a collage of photos from our family gathering last year.

On this layout, I numbered each photo, then journaled directly on the patterned paper below the collage. To do so, I first tested the placement of the journaling on regular printer paper. Then, I cut a strip of patterned paper slightly larger than the journaling area, taped the patterned paper strip on top, and ran the paper through the printer again.

Here's a closeup of that cute turkey. It was part of the "Cute Cuts" sheet in the collection.  The heart button is also Bella Blvd and was included in the kit.

Here's a photo of the kit I worked with, the Creative kit.

 
My Creative Scrapbook has several kits to choose from each month.  You can see all the kits on the MCS website. I'll be back next week with more projects with this kit.

We are also giving away this terrific prize package on Monday of papers and embellishments from Webster's Pages, featured in our Limited Edition kit.

To enter the drawing to win this prize (pictured above), just leave a comment on the My Creative Scrapbook blog by midnight EST on Sunday.  We'll announce the winner on Monday, Oct. 8.

Have a great weekend! 

So "Thankful" for the new My Creative Scrapbook Kit

The design team at My Creative Scrapbook is all set to reveal the new October kits on the 5th.  As always, we had with several different kits featured this month and all are just beautiful. 

I worked with the Creative Kit.  Here are my sneak peeks:

Do you recognize the paper and embellishments?  You can check back here or on the My Creative Scrapbook website on Friday for the full reveal. You can find sneaks of all the kits on the My Creative Scrapbook blog.

Thanks for stopping by. Tomorrow, I'll have some Halloween treats on my blog that were super fun to do. 

At Home In Austin: So Happy Together

It was a sad day for me last summer when my cousin, who is like a sister to me and a dear friend, moved to Austin with her two little ones. Her son is the same age as mine and they were the best of friends.  She still has her lake house here and we’ve been lucky that she’s been back often. She is in town this week, in fact.  She is great about sending me pictures, though. I put them on my fridge and in my scrapbook, pages I make for her.

My cousin sent me this photo of her son and little girl by the fence in their yard and I knew immediately that it would be perfect for Echo Park Paper’s So Happy Together collection. 

This is another project I made with the August Album Kit at My Creative Scrapbook. I love these kits!  This particular paper, the background, was a scene paper and I arranged my photo mat on the page to both cover up and incorporate the scene by echoing the flowers in the design.   Actually, I flipped the background paper upside down because that worked best for my design, placing the heavy flower vine on the bottom left to anchor the page and leaving me a spot for a big title block.  

I think the kids look so sweet and innocent in the photo, just chilling with their sippy cups.  The Echo Park sticker, “finding joy in watching you grow,” was just the right touch.

  

Sigh. Babies grow too fast.

Reveal Day at My Creative Scrapbook: Echo Park

Today is the 5th of the month, which means it’s Reveal Day at My Creative Scrapbook. Yay! My fellow designers did beautiful work with the Main Kit and the add-on kits. I worked with the July Creative Kit, which features the sunny happy Hello Summer collection from Echo Park Paper and adorable embellishments from Bella Blvd.

Today, I will show you the first of four layouts I made with the July Creative Kit. This layout features a photo I took of my toddler poolside at the beach last year with his Toy Story figurines. My son went through a stage when Woody and Buzz went everywhere with him, even swimming.

The blue patterned paper here reminded me of pool tiles and made a nice backdrop against the pop of color in the other paper and embellishments.

　

Here’s a close-up of the top of the page.

The words “swim” and “relax” are from the Echo Park sticker sheet. I backed them with cardstock to give a bit of dimension then added toothpick flagpoles to make little pennants.

This is a closeup of the title work:

I love the color and texture that the ribbon added to the page.

Today, I’m sad to say that Woody and Buzz have been cast aside (just like the movie!) and cars and trains are back in favor with my little boy. I’m so glad I captured this sweet moment with his figurines.

Thanks so much for stopping by. You can see all of the design team work with the July kits here in the My Creative Scrapbook DT gallery. It’s swoon-worthy, I tell you! If you’re interested in a kit club or want more information, click here to go to the main page at My Creative Scrapbook.

My Creative Scrapbook also has a giveaway for five new collection packs from Echo Park's sister company, Carta Bella, which was featured in the MCS July Main Kit.  Five random draw winners will be announced on July 17.  To enter the drawing, leave a comment at the My Creative Scrapbook blog here.

June Kit Reveal Day at My Creative Scrapbook

Today is reveal day at My Creative Scrapbook and I’m so excited to share the kit and the first of the layouts I have been working on. I used the “Creative” kit which featured the Sunny Side collection by My Mind’s Eye. It’s such a pretty, playful kit full of summery goodness.

This is a layout celebrating my son’s favorite ice cream man. Earlier this year, my parents bought an ice cream vendor business and my preschooler loves going to festivals and venues in search of his favorite vendor. The top photo shows my Dad handing Cory a free dish of vanilla and the bottom photo is Cory adding sprinkles. My little one is very serious about the sprinkles!

I loved how perfectly the summer theme of this paper fit my photos. This kit has the cutest embellies. This little ice cream truck was one of my favorites. The kit also includes a die cut sheet and I sewed the banners from that sheet down the side for a festive look. The title says: Found A Favorite Vendor.

I have three more layouts to show you with this kit. I’ll be back tomorrow with two clean and simple pages and on Friday with a technique page and tutorial. You can see all the kits and reveals in the design team gallery here.

There are so many exciting things happening this month at My Creative Scrapbook. We are launching two new monthly add-on kits: Dusty Attic and Mixed Media. You can find out the details on the My Creative Scrapbook website here. 

We’re also holding a Prima contest and there are some seriously fabulous prizes up for grabs. (See pic below!!) 

To enter the Prima contest, just answer three questions, which are posted on the blog for My Creative Scrapbook here. 

December Daily Foundation Pages: Part 1

This is my first year doing a December Daily and I am having so much fun with it. December Daily is a concept started by Ali Edwards. Essentially, it is a mini-album that chronicles bits of daily life for the first 25 days of December. This year, Ali teamed up with Studio Calico to offer a December Daily kit and I purchased the kit.

I love the album in the kit. It’s a small, plain chipboard album made by American Crafts with 3-inch rings and 25 page protectors, measuring 6“ wide by 8.5“ tall. It’s a fun size. The kit came with assorted paper and embellishments but I decided to forego most of the kit and instead use primarily Echo Park.

My entry for December 1 looks like this.

　

I followed Ali’s lead and used a calendar page on the right and a decorative element on the left. Here I used 4-inch square pockets to hold introductory elements. The top square says: Welcome December; the bottom square says: The 25 Days of Christmas. To make the pockets, I used a 12x12 WRMK photo page protector that had 9 squares. I cut the page protector to just two squares and punched new holes to fit the album’s rings. I will use altered page protectors like this sporadically through the album.

My entry for December 2 is more typical of what the rest of the album will be: a decorative page on the left, a calendar page on the right and transparent divider in between.

The calendar pages are digital overlays that Ali sells on her website. I'll use these pages primarily for journaling and photos of the day's events or to record a holiday memory. The left side of the spread is a decorative page. On these pages, I stitched a red frame around each page to give continuity day to day.

Here's the foundation spread for December 3:

Throughout the album, I used Echo Park paper and embellishments for the decorative page on the left side of the album.  I primarily used a 6x6 pad of Holly Jolly and Metro Dots and Stripes.

This is the foundation for December 4:

The snowman strip at the top of this page is from Echo Park's 2010 Christmas collection and the snowman at the bottom is a Holly Jolly journaling card.

December 5:

On Day 5, I used a small photo pocket (as I did on Day 1) between the left and right pages of the spread in lieu of a transparency divider. I tucked a journaling card in the pocket and will write my list in December when I get to this day.

A lot of people put numbers on their foundation pages but I haven't added those yet, as I may move the decorative pages once December starts and I wanted to have that flexibility.

You can see my December Daily Foundation Pages: Part 2 here.

Supply list:

Echo Park: Holly Jolly - 6x6 pad, 12x12 collection kit, chipboard, stamps; Metro Dots and Stripes - 6x6 pad, 12x12 collection kit; Season’s Greetings 12x12 collection kit, chipboard, brads; Everybody Loves Christmas 12x12 collection kit.

American Crafts: Album

Ali Edwards: calendar overlays

Hambly: Transparencies

Bo Bunny: ribbon

Fancy Pants: ribbon

Cosmo Cricket: tiny type

Jenni Bowlin: letter stickers

Martha Stewart: kraft tags

The Twinery: twine

Making Memories: Buttons

My Mind’s Eye: Stamps

Ranger Industries: Ink

Sewing Machine: Bernina

Gathered Ribbon Flower Tutorial and Sneak Peek

I'm really honored to be a guest designer for the August kit of Freehand Scraps. The new kit is chock full of yummy goodies, which I can't reveal quite yet. But I can show you a few sneak peeks.  Today, I am going to show you how I used a few products in the August kit to make a gathered ribbon flower.

One of the items in the Freehand Scraps kit is this Crate trim from the "Neighborhood" collection. Love Crate trims! I used the shell-colored ruffle ribbon to make my flower. This trim is perfectly suited for flower making because it has the nice elastic at the bottom, which is easy to run a needle through.

I used orange embroidery thread here so you can see my stitches. The stitches won’t show so you can use any color thread you have on hand. Make sure you tie a good knot at the end of your thread because you will have to pull on the ribbon to gather it.

Use your needle to make long running stitches on the elastic part of the trim. After you’ve stitched the length you need for your flower, use your fingers to gently gather the trim. The ribbon will naturally curl into a circle. You can make your gathers tight or loose, depending on the look you prefer. Once you have your circle, either backstitch or tie a knot in the other end of the thread to secure it. Then stitch the two ends of the ribbon together to hold the circle. Don’t worry about stitching neatly because none of the stitching will show once you add a decorative center.

The ribbon was a little too pink for my project, so after I had gathered the flower, I misted it with Tattered Angels’ “Peach Delight.” I love the way you can use mists to color ribbon and trim.  I always mist lightly first, then again if I want more color. The photo above shows the flower after a first spray with mist.  To give the flower a deeper hue, I misted it again.

The last step is to embellish the center. I used a small circle sticker from Basic Grey’s “Out of Print” collection topped with an adhesive pearl. Both the sticker sheet and adhesive pearls were in the August kit.  After my flower was completed, I used it as a decorative center on a die cut butterfly to mimic the butterfly wings in my photo.

Now you have a sneak peak at one of my Freehand Scrap projects. I'll post the full layout next week. 

Guest Designer for Birds of a Feather Kit Club

I am so excited to be a guest designer this month for Birds of a Feather Kit Co. The July kit gave me joy! It was filled to the brim with summer fun from Cosmo Cricket's "Salt Air" line and vintage goodness from October Afternoon's "Five & Dime." Plus added embellishements from Webster's Pages, K & Co. and Kaisercraft.  I had a really wonderful time playing and creating with all the goodies.



Here is a picture of the kit and the patterned paper add-ons:

 These are the projects I created:

12x12 layouts

                                

Cards

Altered Frame and Mini Album

For more information on BOAF kits, follow the link below and be sure to check out the projects by fellow guest designer, Janet. The site also has a great message board. The posters there are warm and inviting and oh, so smart. It’s a great place to hang out, meet new friends and get some crafty inspiration:  http://www.birdsofafeatherkitco.com/  I just saw a peek of the August kit and it looks fab!