Craft Squad - Two Page Crafting Layout

I've been so blessed to go to many multi-day scrapbook retreats with some of my bestest crafty friends!! We have so much fun together!! We get a lot done, we rest more (some even take naps😕), and we share wonderful meals together. We love making great memories, while we're scrapping our older memories!!

Have you ever scrapbooked with friends for a weekend? Do you have a special location where you go? Our favorite is Riverside Retreats in Marshall, Michigan. They have several houses situated together along the river, but most are booked for years in advance.

I love this beautiful paper! It's a little crazy with all that I have on the page, but I still love it and all of the people in the photos. I think it works! Wish my photo around the table was a little bit lighter so you could see all of their lovely faces. 

I love all the layers of embellishments. As you see, I used some wallets so that I could fit pictures of the deer family on the page too!

 I am heading off to another scrapbook retreat next week! I just can't wait to hang out with my friends and enjoy another creative escape!

Thanks for stopping by!! Hope you get some crafty time this week.

Happy 7 - Two Page birthday girl scrapbook layout

 Why haven't I posted this one yet? We're getting ready to celebrate our granddaughter's 11th!! Oh well, apparently I'm a few years behind. Shocker!

She is spunky, a little sassy, and a lot of sweetness! We couldn't love her more.

I love seeing the expressions on her face and watching her open her gifts. She looks so young here!!

I added some little details like photo corners, file tabs, washi tape, and mixed some patterned paper, along with layering up some of journal cards and embellishments. The aqua twine seems to tie it all together. 

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Hope you enjoy your weekend.

Birthday Boy - Two Page Scrapbook Layout

 This little man has another birthday coming up next weekend! He will be nine years old!!! One more year until double digits. Not sure how this is possible. We love watching him grow and mature, and seeing where his strengths and interests will develop. This child is so smart! His brain works in a way that mine never has, and it's pretty impressive.

This is a layout from almost three years ago when he was six! I'm usually about a year or less behind on scrapbooking my photos. I do scrap chronologically for the most part. However, I put off taking photos, posting my layouts on my blog, etc. I like the creative aspects of scrapbooking, but the follow up work is definitely not my favorite. I have a pile of layouts I'm working on taking photos of  now (for my blog), but I just ran out of battery on my phone. So, time for a post!!

This is a fun pack of  My Minds Eye "Boys Will Be Boys" paper that I received quite awhile ago as a prize for one of my layouts being published in Scrapbook Cards & Today magazine. There was tons of coordinating boy paper, ephemera and even a cute set of robot stamps. I love all the colors, and it makes it so easy when everything coordinates beautifully.

My absolute favorite part of scrapbooking is figuring out the design of my layout. Where do I want to put my photos? Where will the title and journaling fit best? Also, creating my own title from Design Space. The title above was two different phrases that I merged together and sized to perfectly fit my space on the red banner. Remember when we used to have to attach each letter separately and hopefully get it to all line up with proper spacing and level on the page? Welding letters saves me that trouble. In this example, I wanted the letters B O Y to be separate from each other, but by merging them with the phrase above, I'm able to easily get perfect spacing and to work around the corner of the photo.

I used some of the leftover paper scraps to make banners, and borders to go along the edge of the red pennant. And, the cute little red and yellow robot adds the fun factor to the page. Using a few wallet size photos or cropping to 4x4 helps fit more photos on the page.

Hope you enjoyed this layout of my incredibly smart, handsome grandson!! We are so very proud of him! Looking forward to celebrating with him next weekend.

Waiting for Sunset - Two Page Summer Family Layout

 I've had a crazy busy summer. I've been away on business for two separate weeks, followed by some vacay days. It's been crazy, but mostly good! Hope your summer is going well.

So many fun summer layouts to share with you, so I'm going to get right to it. We had a long family weekend in Holland, MI on Lake Michigan four years ago! I can't believe it's taking me so long to post, but hey...you're probably not shocked.

Ugh...I didn't put the date on here but it was summer of 2018 based on the other layouts I will be sharing later. This paper and journaling tag came from a really cool distressed pack of paper from We R Memory Keepers. The scalloped yellow chevron banner is a paper banner by Heidi Swapp. I love how they match perfectly even though they are different brands. In addition, I added some random paper flowers from my stash.

I love all the people in these photos and the wonderful memories they bring back. Our family dynamics have changed dramatically since then. Sometimes that makes it very hard to post my layouts, but I'm choosing to dwell on the happy memories that I've documented with love. The photos of the kids playing on the beach and the anticipation of the beautiful sunset makes me smile.I really like the way it turned out and seeing all of the smiles of my beautiful family.  

 I have not felt very productive or motivated lately. I need to break that trend! When I get home from work, I make so many excuses to just not do anything, "I'm tired", "My eyes are stressed", "I need to make dinner"...you name the excuse and I've probably used it.  Then I end up doing basically nothing. Tell me all your secrets to change my lazy habits!! :)

This is How I Roll - Police Academy Two Page Scrapbook Layout

 We celebrated my son with a party at his home. We had a great group of people show up to show their support for his new role and sacrifice for the community. I'm so grateful for these photos and the great memories that still linger in my heart from this day. 

Scarlet got into the photo booth and her expressions crack me up! She's so serious!

I used  a lot of different red white and blue patterned paper, and some miscellaneous police stickers. I matted all of the pictures on white to help them pop off the patterned paper. My Cricut did the journaling for me so all can read my thoughts and emotions for this major life event.

Super fun and simple layout. Hope you are inspired in some way. 

Living Nativity - Two Page Christmas Layout

 This is my week for sharing layouts of our Christmas activities. This one was very meaningful and tells the wonderful story of Christ coming to earth!

One of the churches in our area hosts a wonderful live nativity scene. This was our first time going, but hope we can do it again!  The kids that there were lots of live animals including camels! The line was long down the street to get in. Seriously, it was over a mile long, but so worth it.

For this layout, I cut some strips from scraps of Christmas paper that all shared the same color combination and wrapped them with baker's twine. I used a small leftover bit of the red paper to add a little banner on the left to balance it out. The silhouette of  Joseph walking the donkey carrying Mary was straight from Design Space and cut on kraft paper. 

As usual, I printed some of the pics as wallets so that I could use more pics on the page. 

Look at those crazy kiddos!! We adore them and our time together is such a blessing. 

Baking Spirits Bright - Two Page Christmas Scrapbook Layout

 How is it December already? I ask this every year, but I never feel ready to really celebrate the blessings of the Christmas season. How about you? I work full time and don't always feel like getting into a project once I get home from work. I'll blame it on that....but my paycheck helps support our household. We all need to pay the bills, right? I'm super grateful for a job that I love, pays me well, and fills a passion for serving others.

To get me in the spirit, I have a ton of Christmas layouts to share from the last few years. These cookie baking pictures were from 2018. It's been one of our family traditions to make cookies together. It's always a little stressful keeping up with them, manning the oven, and keeping them up to their elbows in frosting and sprinkles, but it has to be one of my favorite Christmas traditions. I hope we will find a way to always make time for this.

I cut the title with my Cricut as well as the wooden baking utensils. Do you love this glitter ric-rac decorative tape? It's fun to pull this out of my stash and use it on my Christmas pages. Look at my granddaughter's expression as I rolled out the chocolate brownie dough!! Priceless!!

The red mixer matches the one in my kitchen. Not that anybody else would know that, but I loved adding it to this page as a reminder. I matted all the photos in white so they would pop off the neutral background. Using wallet size photos, I was able to get 12 pictures on this page and still have room for some design. The only thing missing is the date. Ugh! I do that so often.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. May your Christmas traditions be filled with beautiful family times making memories together.

Trick or Treat Y'all - Two Page Scrapbook Layout

 Here is a fun two page Halloween scrapbook layout from 2019. Hope you get some spooky inspiration as you go into your trick or treating season.

White pumpkins are so pretty. I used this one for my title. All of this came straight from Design Space. I just had to size it to fit the corner of my page. Love the bat and bird on the corner banner detail. 

And for the right side, some spooky bats to add a little balance to the white pumpkin on the left.

The silly faces of my family above make these pages the best. Their are nine pictures here. Wallets help so much to add the outtakes or any other pictures that add to the page without having to be center stage.

Hope you love this page as much as I do! The people in it are my faves!! Happy Halloween Y'all!

Apple Festival - Two Page Scrapbook Layout

 Fall is my favorite, as I'm sure I've mentioned before.🍎🍁🍂 Today, I'm sharing another fall layout from a few years back. This one is featuring pictures from the Kendallville Apple Festival. It was a beautiful day and I have such great memories from being together as a family. 

I am such a sucker for woodgrain paper. Most of the embellishments I used are from a fall stack of paper, including some stickers. I cut the title and swirl with my Cricut. Typically, I'm not a big fan of stickers, but they do make for a quick page that coordinates easily.

I loved the banner on one of the extra paper scraps, so I just cut it out the best I could and slapped it up in the corner. I'm still not sure that I'm a big fan of how it turned out. I added a few word banners which were also from the same fall paper pack.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Hope you have a productive and happy weekend. 

Never Grow Up - Two Page Scrapbook Layout

 It's always a treat to get one-on-one time with the grandkids, one at a time. They are fun together, but it's great to be able to concentrate on each of them separately in a way that makes them feel extra special. These pictures are of our grandson enjoying time with us at the park. It won't be long and they won't want to spend that much time with their "old" grandparents. 😢 This layout is from a few years back.

I love these two fun papers together. They're all boy just like he is.

The numbered washi tape is perfect for a kids layout, and the arrow washi tape plays nicely with the arrowed paper at the bottom of the layout. I added some black and white baker's twine on the date tag and one of the photos for extra texture.

Do you put titles on your scrapbook layouts? It's one of my favorite parts of designing the layout. All of the options in Design Space are so fun to put together and mix and match in my own way. I create and lay it out in Design Space so that I can see what it will look like together and get the sizing correct for the space on my page.

Thanks for stopping by today! Enjoy your weekend!

Play the Day Away - Two Page Scrapbook Layout

 Here's a fun little summertime layout that I'd like to share with you. These pictures are from a playdate with our grandkids. We try to cherish every moment, because the years fly by so fast. Some day soon, they won't want to spend time with their Grandparents anymore. I can't believe two years have flown by since these pictures were taken. How does this happen? (Besides the obvious...it takes me forever to post my layouts!) 💁

I used some paper from a vintage pack to bring out the blues and greens in the photos. The strip of whimsical grass was cut with my Cricut along with the layered title.

I love this layout for multiple reasons....the faces of my grandbabies, multiple wallet size photos, and the colors that bring out the photos. A simple grid style layout pulls it all together simply.

Hope your summer has been full of great memory making!! 

Pirate Golf - Two Page Scrapbook Layout

 It's been awhile since I've posted. I was struggling with a health issue and then away on a work trip in Colorado...more future scrapbook material!! Back at the blogging today! 

This is a fun layout of our sibling getaway weekend from a few years back. We are so blessed that our family gets along, and actually enjoys each other's company! I know it's not like that for everybody. On this day, we were playing some competitive miniature golf. Well, I'm not very competitive at this game, but everybody else is way better at it than I am. 

I love the "realistic" looking and grungy cloud paper as a backdrop to our outdoor fun. The outside paper strips came from the same paper stack, so of course, match perfectly. I cut the title and hat with my Cricut. The hat was a fairly close match to our statue friend's hat. I slightly overlapped the title with the hat to give it a layered and whimsical look.

I think my favorite part, aside from the pictures of our beloved family, is how the red and black pennants set off the colors of the page and ground the layout.

I also used a patterned paper to add a narrow matt around each picture. Wallet size photos help me tell the story with even more pictures, because there is never enough room. The journal tag adds to the graphic look with the black and white stripes.

Hope you enjoy your Independence Day!! May God continue to bless America, the land of the free because of the brave!

I got Published!!

 For the last couple years, I've been stretching myself and submitting some of my favorite scrapbook pages for publication. A few months back, I received the humbling news that another one of my layouts was chosen for their Summer publication!!

I would LOVE for you to check out their summer issue. Please see the link below which will be live for viewing Friday, June 18. One of the perks of getting published is receiving the magazine early, holding it in your hand, and thumbing through it about 100 times. The talent and inspiration is amazing! Oh, and they also send some incredible scrapping goodies as a thank you for contributing to their magazine. 😍

Be sure to check out my layout on page 65 and let me know what you think. I hope that you enjoy all of the layouts, cards and papercrafts that are featured in this issue.

https://scrapbookandcards.com/summer-2021/ 

 

I would love to encourage you to put yourself out there and submit some layouts. Honestly, I tried several different issues and page calls before I was selected. I find it very rewarding. Thanks for stopping by my blog today and checking out the new issue of Scrapbook & Cards Today!!

If you want to see my original post about my "Paradise" layout, check it out here. Note the photo has been removed temporarily for publication purposes.

Birthday Girl- Two Page Scrapbook Layout

 I say this all the time, and it's still true. Time sure does fly when you're having fun!!

This sweet granddaughter of mine is turning 9 today! This layout that I'm sharing is already 3 years old and it just doesn't seem possible. 

We had such a fun time celebrating this sweet girl! Gifts (including a new bike), pizza, cake and ice cream, and shooting some hoops outside. Family is the best!! 

I need to remember to get a picture of me with the birthday girl every year. Mainly because I wish I had even a few pictures of me and my Grandma. I can't find any of just us. I don't even have very many of me with my Mom that I like. Take all the pictures you can, while your loved one is still here to do it. 

I used a light pink card stock and some scraps and stickers from one of my paper packs for little girls. I layered things up in the corner with some pennants going different directions. I used a larger pennant on the left side to balance out the page. Even though my handwriting isn't good, I hope it adds a little personalized charm when she looks back on this layout. The title was put together and welded from a couple of different images in Design Space. Mixing up and creating my own titles is one of my favorite things. AND...it's only one piece to attach to the page....Also my favorite!

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!!! Have a great weekend!

Paradise - Two Page Hawaii Scrapbook Layout

 Long time no post!! Sorry...Trying to get back into the habit of posting my layouts more often. 

Happy New Year!! It's already been crazy. I'm praying for our nation!

I think it's time for some more beautiful sun shiny layouts from Hawaii. We had dinner at a neighboring restaurant  from our hotel. Man was it good. We ate in an open area and watched the most gorgeous sunset! To die for!!

**Scrapbook layout photos removed for publication** See it here on June 18, 2021!!

I couldn't resist using this tropical floral paper, along with some more subtle patterns. I love how it came out. I do love to coordinate my patterned papers! It was almost too pretty to use, but hey...I can always buy more. 😁

They didn't have enough extra menus to let me take one with me, so I asked permission to take a picture of both sides of the surfboard menu, then cut around them and popped them up on my layout. Notice the cute pineapple border! That was the bottom part of the 12 x 12 paper. I love it when the manufacturers print that strip with a coordinating pattern. 

If you ever get to Duke's be sure and share a piece of Hula Pie....oh...my...word!

Thanks for stopping by today. See you again soon!

Baking Spirits Bright - Two Page Scrapbook Layou

 Baking cookies together is one of our favorite traditions. Each year our tribe gets even more creative and enjoys creating their tray of masterpieces together. Even the grands did such a great job. The cookies turn out beautifully.

We made cookies together yesterday, but these pics feature our cookie making from 2018. 

This was the first time making cookies in our new home. What a joy to have an island with space to spread out. Our oldest son's family brought their new puppy, so he added to the cuteness factor! The middle bottom picture (above) is my granddaughter seeing the brownie roll out cookie dough for the first time! Priceless reaction!!

Our family brings us such joy!! I'm so glad that they live within a 20 minute radius and we are able to hang out together about once a week! We are blessed! I know many grandparents are separated by such distances. It may not always be this way, so we treasure the time together.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today and checking out my Christmas layouts. I have a few more to share this week. Hope your week leading up to the celebration of our Savior's birth is blessed and safe.

Merry Christmas - Two Page Layout

Here's another two page Christmas layout from 2018. These pictures are from our celebration with our boys and their families. So precious to me!! It's always tough to fit in all the pics that tell the story. As I've mentioned in the past, wallet size pictures help so much, and they add a little variety to the layouts.

It's fun watching the "big kids" open their gifts too. I try to shop throughout the year to find fun things that are unique and special. Especially for the girls!! Raising two boys was fun, but shopping for these girls is a special joy...something that I looked forward to for so long. So I spoil them a bit!

I love watching the expressions on all of their faces as they open things from each other and from us. There's nothing better. 

This paper is from the same Christmas pack as the last layout that I shared. I love the rich colors and the patterns. The title was cut with my Cricut. I used some Wink of Stella to add some shimmer on the bow and also on the poinsettias that were punched with StampinUp! five point flower punch.

Three different patterned papers that all look great together and help show off the photos. I was able to use 10 pictures on this layout and still add embellishments, journaling, and a title. 

Thanks for stopping by for another Christmas layout! Hope your days leading up to Christmas are productive, fun, and memorable for years to come!!