Home for the Holidays: My Creative Scrapbook

Hello everyone!

I look forward every year to welcoming in December and all the accompanying holiday traditions. The best tradition of all, of course, in welcoming home family.

Cory adores his cousins in Texas and it just doesn't feel like Christmas until they are back on the East coast with the rest of us.

I made this layout with the new December kit from My Creative Scrapbook. It features the new manufacturer Photo Play.

Here's a photo of the Creative Kit I used.

You can find more information on all the kits at My Creative Scrapbook on its website.  Thanks so much for stopping by. I'll have other layouts with this kit on my blog this week.

Scrapbooking Thanksgiving: Grateful

Hello everyone!

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is just a week away. I love the Fall season, but it always seems to slip by so quickly and the next thing you know, Christmas carols are playing. 

Before we turn on the holiday music at our house, I wanted to pause for a moment and honor Thanksgiving. I have so much for which to be grateful and I took a few minutes to jot that down on this layout. 

I made this page with the November kit from My Creative Scrapbook. It featured a mix of lines from Echo Park Paper and Doodlebug Design. 

I included a few lines of journaling right under the photo, which I took of the table setting last year. 

Wishing you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. 

The Cutest Pumpkin in the Patch

Good morning, everyone!

I have another Fall layout today from the November kit at My Creative Scrapbook. 

I frequently scrapbook holidays and events a year after they happen, e.g. I 'll scrap Christmas 2014 in December 2015. I like to scrapbook in the same season as the event, but since it takes me a bit to upload and edit photos and I work with designer deadlines, the holiday is often well past. So, I just hold the photos for next year. Thus, I made a layout of last year's pumpkin patch visit just last month, which you may remember. 

In a break with tradition, I'm scrapbooking this year's pumpkin patch visit this year! The colors and icons in the November MCS kit worked perfectly for a pumpkin patch, so I got her done. 

Here's a close-up of the page:

I have a simple style. I most often use a strong 4x6 photo as my focal point. I try to include a bit of journaling on my layouts too, but I didn't here. I handwrote the date (2015) and the title tells where we were. We go to this particular farm each year and other layouts about our visit to Hodges Farm tell a little more of the tradition. 

This November kit featured a mix of Echo Park Paper and Doodlebug Designs. I used primarily Echo Park here. 

This is the kit I used: 

You can find out more about My Creative Scrapbook on its website.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

A Trip To Chimney Rock

Good morning! I'm back today with a vacation layout. 

Chimney Rock is one of the most iconic sites in North Carolina, offering sweeping views of the mountains and gorge. So when my parents bought a new RV this year and wanted to take a trip, the first place we went was to Chimney Rock State Park. 

I took this photo of Cory and my parents at the base of the park in the shade of the trees. 

I used my October kit from My Creative Scrapbook to make this layout. The kit's theme was family and that was perfect for this photo. I don't worry too much about the papers being matchy matchy with my photo. Mom is wearing a pink floral summer shirt and I just ignored that! I used the papers instead to bring out the Fall colors from the photo. 

I wanted to add a bit of strip journaling to the page. I typed a couple of short sentences on the computer, printed them out, then took a small piece of aqua paper from the kit and placed it over the journaling. I used washi to temporarily hold the aqua paper in place, then ran the paper through my printer again. 

I used a paper trimmer to cut the journaling strips then placed them on my layout. 

The bottom third of my layout are just strips of border paper from the kit. Easy peasy. This is from the cute Family Frenzy line from Bella Blvd. 

The border strips give the layout a fun pop of color. 

Here's a photo of the kit I used from My Creative Scrapbook: 

Here's one more look at the layout: 

Thank you for stopping by. Have a great week!

Another Day In Paradise: Summer Layout

Hello, everyone!  I'm back today with another summer layout from the August kit at My Creative Scrapbook. 

I took this photo of my son on what we consider the first day of summer. Of course, that's the day after the school year ends. We always do something particularly summer-y on that day. It usually involves water and ice cream! On this day, we hit the pool and had a frosty later that afternoon. 

I needed a spot for my journaling and wasn't sure where to put in on the page. I decided to type out a sentence or two and tuck it in vertically alongside my photo. Even though it's very short, it covers the basics of Who, What, Where, Why and When. Well, not who. But I have only one kid so I know who is in the photo!

The kit I used featured the Summer Sun collection from Fancy Pants Designs and included this cute set of cards. 

I used several of these cards on the layouts I made with this kit. On this particular layout, I used the three circled in yellow. 

The card with the orange strip circled at the bottom is the vertical Take Note card seen above. It was the perfect landing spot for the die cut that reads: Another Day in Paradise. 

The card that says Travel: I tucked that card under the top of my photo.  I used the Hello Summer card at the top of my layout, and layered a few die cuts on top. 

Here's a look at the layout with the cards circled. 

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you have a wonderful weekend! 

Swimming Lessons: Little Fish

Hello everyone. I am back today with a summer layout about my son's swimming lessons. 

After a scary incident last August when Cory fell in a lake while on vacation with my parents, I enrolled him in private swimming lessons. While he had previously been in group lessons, those lessons for young children seemed more geared toward play. I wanted him to really learn how to swim. 

I initially enrolled Cory in a series of 8 private lessons at our local aquatics center. Swimming is a hard skill to learn and it was clear that it would take more than 8 lessons, so we continued with another set of 8 lessons, then another set and another. 

Cory did great in the water. A year later, he can now swim the front and back crawl for 50 meters (the length of an Olympic size pool), can tread water, do a standing dive, and is learning the breast stroke and butterfly.  

I'm proud of him and of course, I wanted to do a layout about his accomplishments. I used the August kit from My Creative Scrapbook, which featured the cute Summer Sun line from Fancy Pants Designs. 

You can find all the kits from My Creative Scrapbook here. Thanks so much for stopping by! 

My Happy Place

Hello everyone!

I went through my son's baby album a couple weeks ago and tried to identify any missing milestones or favorite photos. I had just been introduced to scrapbooking when my son was born and, oh boy, I am tempted to redo a couple of those first layouts!

This is a photo of my son and me that I had never scrapped. Cory is just two weeks old here and we went outside on a beautiful Spring day. 

I used the new August kit from My Creative Scrapbook to make this layout and primarily used just one sheet of patterned paper. The paper is from the Summer Sun collection by Fancy Pants Designs. 

I saw this paper and immediately thought: baby!  I loved the fading soft colors. I cut the paper at the sign post and turned the paper upside down so that I had only polka dots. 

I cut off the blue strip under the bicycle and sewed it to the bottom of the yellow polka dot paper to ground the page. Voilà. Baby paper!

The yellow strip above the polka dots is the reverse side of the same piece of paper. To complete the page, I added a bit of floral paper to the top and a few simple embellishments. 

Here's another look at the layout: 

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you have a wonderful weekend! 

ABC and 123: My Creative Scrapbook Reveal

Good morning!

The summer has flown by and we are just a couple of weeks away from the first day of school. As I gathered together my son's school supplies, I remembered that I had taken a photo of him last year asleep with his favorite composition book. 

Ah, Kindergarten. I loved how excited my son was about going to school and writing his ABCs. He took this composition book with him everywhere, even to bed. 

This was a fun layout to make. I used the new August kit from My Creative Scrapbook, which featured the Summer Sun line from Fancy Pants Designs. The kit included a large, colorful set of alphas and I thought they would be cute to feature in a design. 

I laid the alphas out against a dark background to make sure I had enough room for them all, leaving a spot for my photo. Once I was satisfied with the arrangement, I lightly tacked them down, then sewed across them. 

Here's the kit I used: 

You can find all the August kits from My Creative Scrapbook on its website here.

I'll be back later this week with another layout using this kit. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Avoiding the Sharks: A Surfing Layout

My family just got back from the North Carolina coast, and, yikes, it was a little scary for this Mom whose young son loves his boogie board. The sharks are circling and two teens lost limbs to shark bites at a neighboring beach. 

I didn't want to make my son afraid of the ocean, so I didn't say much to him. Just tried to keep him as safe as I could: swimming in groups, avoiding the pier area and only going out in mid-afternoon (with lots of sunscreen). 

Success. No sign of sharks and, best of all, I had a cute photo from last summer of Cory with his boogie board. 

This is one of the layouts I made using the July kit from My Creative Scrapbook. I used a simple design with a long vertical strip down one side, very similar to the design I used last month for a different beach photo. 

I loved how bright and sunny this kit was. You can see all the MCS kits here.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend! 

Sweet Summer: My Creative Scrapbook Reveal

Good morning. I hope you had a great Fourth of July holiday. It's always nice to kick back, have a cookout, see old friends, light a few sparklers and raise a toast to our founding fathers. 

The new monthly kits are out for My Creative Scrapbook and they are perfect for documenting the Fourth of July or any other summer gathering. Like this one: 

I designed with the Creative Kit which has a colorful mix of summer lines from Pebbles and Doodlebug.

I'm trying to be a little more purposeful about including visible journaling on my layouts. I sometimes journal on a tag I slip under the photo (I also like that method) but then I have to remove the layout from the protector to read it. 

I took a card from the kit and ran it through my printer to add my journaling. I left a little room at the bottom for my title. I love these fun little cards that are featured in so many collections these days. 

Here's a photo of the cute kit I worked with:

You can see all the kits offered by My Creative Scrapbook on its website.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

The Sea & Me: Anatomy of a Layout

Hello and happy Friday!  I'm back today with a summer layout from the June kit at My Creative Scrapbook. 

This kit featured the Color Chaos collection from Bella Blvd and I really loved the fun mix of colors and patterns. 

I started the page using the pretty blues as my base, cut down to 11 x 11 inches, layering them on kraft paper. I loved the script paper but wanted to make it a bit softer, so I added a layer of vellum on top. It gave kind of a dreamy look, which I liked. I stitched the vellum, script paper and kraft together, then added the other layers. 

I created a photo mat with the star paper, added a photo, and tucked a journaling tag underneath. I added some pops of black to ground the layout. 

Here's one more look: 

Thanks so much for stopping by. You can find more information about the monthly kits offered by My Creative Scrapbook on its website here.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Beautiful Spring

Good morning. I have something a little different for me today. My scrapbook layouts are almost always about my little boy, so I don't often use pink. 

But every once in awhile, I get a picture or two of Cory with a little girl. In this case, it was with his cousin Piper and her brother on Easter Sunday. Yay for pink!

I love the combo of pink and yellow together. I really need to look for more excuses to use it. 

I made this layout with the May Creative kit My Creative Scrapbook. You can see all the monthly kits on their website. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. I'll be back later this week with a mini-album. 

Puddle Jumper & Wave Rider: Summer Layout

We're fortunate to live fairly close to the beach, about a 4-hour drive, and when Spring fever strikes, it's hard to resist the pull of the shore. 

The ocean water was pretty chilly this April day, but it didn't stop my 6-year-old from jumping in. He was particularly anxious to try skimboarding. After a few tips from a fellow boarder, he was on his way. 

The water themed papers and icons from the May Creative Kit at My Creative Scrapbook were perfect for this layout. I used a sheet of blue patterned paper as my backdrop and created waves on top with kraft paper. 

I handcut the waves. Nothing fancy, then stitched them down, creating a pocket in the bottom wave for my photos. 

I tucked a series of photos in the wave pocket and stitched them in place. Then I added a a title and a few embellishments to the bottom wave. 

At the top of the layout, I created a cluster of stickers on a journaling card to balance the page. On the left, I added a shipping tag with a bit of strip journaling. 

Here'a another look at the full layout: 

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I'll be back on Monday with one more layout from this kit. 

Singing In The Rain: My Creative Scrapbook Reveal

Good morning!  

Today is reveal day at My Creative Scrapbook. The new May kit is sunny and happy and, well, a little bit rainy. Yep.  I played on that latter theme for my first layout. 

The May Creative kit featured Echo Park Paper's Sunny Days Ahead collection, which includes images of the sun, of course, but also clouds, umbrellas and rain boots. 

My first layout was inspired by this paper in the kit: 

The front side is adorable, but a little too girly for my scrapbooking my son. The B side, however, was perfect.  It has the text Singing in the Rain repeated over and over. 

The paper made me think of these photos I took last year of my son playing in the sprinklers, fully dressed, at our local botanical gardens. 

The photos aren't perfect. It is hard to capture crisp, sharp photos of an active child. Plus, there was the issue of not wanting to get my camera wet in the spray.  But the photos captured the joy of a child and that's what I wanted to scrapbook. 

I chose a series of three photos from that day and used the Singing In The Rain paper as my background with large yellow circles for a pop of color. 

In the bottom corner, I used a journaling card to anchor my page. 

We actually were at the gardens in late October last year for a Halloween event. So, I wasn't even thinking that my 5-year-old would run through the water spray. It was October!  But, as my journaling says: you can't keep a kid out of sprinkler. 

Here's one more look at the whole layout. 

This is the kit I used to create the layout: 

My Creative Scrapbook offers a main kit, creative kit, limited edition kit and an album kit each month. You can find all the details on their website. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. I'll be back tomorrow with another layout from this kit. A sunny one, I promise!