August calendar page

With August starting tomorrow I figured it was time to make a page for the calendar. I used my new Kiwi Lane templates and love them! I had a great time working with them and now want the entire collection. For the pictures I went back to our Florida trip in 2010. Archie was just over 1 and had such a great time playing in the sand. American Crafts City Park collection was perfect with this layout.  

Products used in this layout:

• American Crafts City Park paper
• American Crafts Delights Swing
• American Crafts Bits decorative tags
• My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart twine
• Fancy Pants Baby Mine chipboard alphas
• Pebbles fabric brads
• The Girls' Paperie Paper Girl Flower Market Velvet
• stash cardstock

Pearl #3 - Scrapbooksteals.com

I love 2 page layouts and this weeks Pearl #3 from Scrapbooksteals.com did not disappoint! These pictures are from our most recent trip to the Children's Museum. We first took my oldest before he could even it up on his own and now he is participating is many of the activities which just blows my mind. He is growing up so fast! My youngest met up with some of the other kids his age from my Mommy message board and had fun playing in the young kids room. Pretty much all he wanted to do was climb. This kid is a daredevil! 

Products used in this layout:

• Echo Park A Boy's Life paper and stickers
• Echo Park Playground alphabet stickers
• Echo Park Note To Self Blue/Navy cardstock
• Colorbox chalk ink
• stash buttons and brads

Birthday Card for my hubby

My husband's birthday is tomorrow so I sat down with my favorite collection (Echo Park For The Record) to make another card. Of course my oldest son told Daddy that "Mommy made you a card" as soon as he got home. No surprises are allowed when you have a toddler around!

I also used a sticker from Stampin' Up that I got on a scrapbooking retreat a few years ago and Sew Thread from WRMK. Everything else is from Echo Park For The Record.

I "heart" U card

I made a card to send my best friend who is entering her 3rd trimester of her pregnancy. I did not know where this card was going when I started, but it took shape quite nicely. I used Echo Park's For The Record line for the entire card except the pearl stick-ons. I am super excited that Echo Park is expanding upon this paper line b/c it is my current favorite collection to work with. Echo Park For the Record 2 Documented and Tailored. Anyway, here is the card.

Paper Girls Challenge #12

I got a little nervous when I saw the twelfth challenge from the Paper Girls Challenge Blog. Mesh. I didn't have any mesh, never worked with mesh, didn't even know how to go about getting mesh. I sat there thinking about it for awhile when I remembered that my husband just recently fixed our screen on the sliding door. Screen material is mesh like. I had my medium and began to experiment. I tried spraying it with mist to leave a cool pattern, but it was too fine and the spray was undefined. Then I tried stamping with it which was a pretty good success. I also sewed the sprayed pieces onto cardstock and I liked that look too. Anyway, I created two cards with my mesh and I really enjoyed the process. Thanks for the challenge Challenge Girls!

stamped mesh on cardstock

Products used on card 1:

• American Crafts Thickers Dolce
• Jenni Bowlin Studio banner stickers
• Crate Paper Restoration collection paper
• Mister Huey's spray mist
• WRMK Sew Easy

Products used on card 2:

• stash cardstock
• Echo Park This & That Charming stickers

My Mind's Eye July Challenge #2

The second challenge from My Mind's Eye for July is about being halfway there. The examples they gave were about being halfway through the year. Since my entire year of 2012 so far has revolved around getting our house sale ready, I thought it was a most appropriate topic for being halfway there. I used pictures I took of our house the day before it went on the market and how it has looked for the last month. Keeping a house sale ready with 2 small kids, 2 dogs, and a cat is no easy feat but I really want to move so we are getting it done. I turned this into a two pager b/c I wanted to get as many pictures as I could into this layout. If I had tried fitting the second story of the house in, it would've been a four pager at least!

****UPDATE**** I just noticed in my journaling that I wrote July 26th, 2012 for the date we put our house on the market. This is going to bug nobody but myself, but we put our house on the market June 26th, 2012. Gah!

Products used in this layout

• My Mind's Eye
• Lost & Found Two Sunshine "Memories" Blossom
• Bohemia Boulevard "My Brother" Stripe/Dark Green
• Lost & Found Two Rosy, Breeze, and Sunshine 6x6 paper pads
• So Sophie "Happy For You" Precious Stripe paper
• Follow Your Heart twine
• Stella & Rose layered stickers
• So Sophie Charming "Possibilities" journaling cards
• Quite Contrary Little Boy Blue "That's My Boy" Daring Dots
• So Sophie Charming "Simple Things" sticker alphabet
• Fancy Pants Summer'e End buttons
• Making Memories Paper Reverie Metallique butterflies
• October Aftenroon rub-ons
• Cosmo Cricket tiny type alphabet stickers
• The Girls Paperie Papergirl Flower Market Paper Route

Authentique July Color Challenge

The colors for Authentique's July challenge took me back to my pink papers. Having boys means I scrap a lot of blues, greens, browns, reds, and other typical boy colors. I immediately thought of blocks and strips of paper and not a lot of embellishments. When I first started scrapbooking I had nothing but an exacto knife, paper, and tape. This layout kind of reminded of those simpler scrappy days before I discovered buttons, twine, ribbon, brads, crop-a-diles, sew easy's, stamps, and punches. Anyway, here is my take on the color challenge. 

Products used in this layout:

• Authentique
• Splendid "Delight"
• Splendid "Richness"
• Splendid "Magnificence" 
• Foundations bi-fold paper
• Freebird Series One theme: Delight
• Uncommon "Distinct"
• Splendid Excerpts 2 sided elements
• Diction stickers
• Petite type square and circle stickers
• WRMK Anthologie Tete-a-tete paper
• Fancy Pants Road Show element stickers

Pearl #2

I just placed a huge order with Snapfish so I had a new crop of pictures to use for this weeks Mid Week Mojo by Scrapbook Steals. I finally got Fletcher's 1st birthday pictures so I decided to scrap a little with them. This layout also let me use the star paper that I have been hoarding for just the right time. I really like the way this one turned out in my humble opinion.

Products used in this layout:

• Simple Stories Happy Day Make A Wish, 100 Days of Summer Journaling Cards
• Cosmo Cricket Togetherness stickers
• The Girls Paperie brads
• Echo Park A Boy's Life stickers
• Ranger Stickles
• Echo Park This & That paper
• Fancy Pants To The Moon Shooting Star paper

Pregnancy Card

Here is a card I made today for some friends of ours who just found out they are pregnant with baby #2. I based it off a card by Ashley Harris in the April 2012 issue of Cards magazine.

Products used in this card:

• My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose Hattie Buttercup paper
• My Mind's Eye So Sophie Living Proof paper
• Authentique petite type square stickers
• Making Memories Paper Reverie gens & brads
• WRMK sew floss
• stash stickers and card stock

Pearl #1

It is time for another 10 week gem series with Scrapbooksteals.com! The layout for Pearl #1 was simple and surprisingly a lot of fun. It utilizes a lot of paper without managing to look busy. This was also my first time using my new Mister Huey's spray mist. The pictures I chose were taken last month of my boys after a long day of driving around looking at neighborhoods for out upcoming move. Now every time we go house hunting they want to go see the water.

Items used in this layout:

• Cosmo Cricket tiny type stickers
• Graphic 45 Playtimes Past Jack & Jill paper
• Simple Stories 100 Days of Summer signature elements
• Mister Huey's spray mist
• Crate Paper Lemongrass collection paper
• My Mind's Eye Kraft Funday paper
• My Mind's Eye Bohemia paper
• Fancy Pants My Family paper
• American Crafts Thickers Goodness
• American Crafts City Park Bell Park paper
• American Crafts Remarks Gazeebo stickers
• American Crafts Remarks Sidewalk stickers

Paper Girls Challenge #11 - Only You

The 11th challenge from the Paper Girls Challenge Blog is all about rub-on's. I pulled out all my rub-on's and a majority of them happened to be wedding related so I went straight to my wedding photos. We had a fantastic wedding photographer and she took a ton of beautiful artistic shots and those are the ones I usually scrap. This time I went to the basics and scrapped a shot of "the kiss". I actually really like how this one turned out.

On the side of the paper is a verse from our wedding dance song "Only You" by Yaz. Although the song is about a break-up, it actually is very fitting for us as we did break up once for a few years but never stopped loving each other. In the end we grew and got even better!

Products used in this layout:

• Echo Park Note to Self cardstock
• Fancy Pants Designs It's the Little Things Spring Fever & Honeysuckle papers
• Fancy Pants ribbon
• K & Co. Classic K McKenna rub-on's
• Basic Grey glazed brads
• Recollections Floral embellishments
• My Mind's Eye So Sophie "Living Proof" spontaneous floral paper
• Creative Imaginations Impress-ons
• Hero Arts pearls and gems
• WRMK Sew Floss
• Colorbox chalk ink
• Cosmo Cricket Earth Love rub-on's
• The Paper Studio stickers
• stash rub-on's (I have no clue what brand they are)

Card for my sister

I made this card for my sister using products that are very uncharacteristic of me, but very apropos for her. Hopefully she has received it by now so I can safely post this without ruining the surprise card.

Products used (from memory as I lost my paper with what I used):

• American Crafts Thickers Tiara and Glass Slipper
• Basic Grey Sweet Threads stickers
• Ditto ink spray
• K & Co. Smash tape
• stash cardstock and flowers

Authentique July sketch challenge (pt.2)

Since I need a separate link for each Authentique sketch challenge I am re-posting my two page layout.

Products used in these layouts:

• Authentique
• Splendid "majesty" paper
• Foundations bi-fold solid paper
• Gathering "together" paper
• Gathering "reminisce" paper
• Gathering "grow" paper
• Splendid icons
• petite type circle stickers
• classic type stickers
• Ranger Stickles
• WRMK crop-a-dile and sew floss

Authentique July sketch challenge (pt. 1)

For the Authentique July sketch challenge I decided to do a two pager. The nice thing is that you can submit as many layouts and cards for the challenge as you want. I find myself doing a lot of pages of my older son b/c I have more pictures to choose from, however, with this layout I found perfect pictures of both boys to do two pages. Yay!

Products used in these layouts:

• Authentique
• Splendid "majesty" paper
• Foundations bi-fold solid paper
• Gathering "together" paper
• Gathering "reminisce" paper
• Gathering "grow" paper
• Splendid icons
• petite type circle stickers
• classic type stickers
• Ranger Stickles
• WRMK crop-a-dile and sew floss

Authentique June Color challenge

The color challenge this month on the Authentique blog uses Driftwood, Calm Ocean, and Persimmon. 

There are currently two Authentique collections that utilize these, or similar colors and those are Gathering and Fresh. I have the Gathering collection so that is what I chose to make this layout. Since we are in the process of selling our house, I don't have a ton of photos to choose from but I really liked these of my husband and son on one of our many trips to the zoo. Here is my take on the color challenge. 

Products used in this layout:

• Authentique Gathering Flourish, Together, Reminisce, Harmony, and Bloom papers, die cuts, stickers
• Authentique Foundations bi-fold solid paper