Two Page Scrapbook Layout - "Home Tour"

Time to share another Key West 30th anniversary layout!

If you ever go to Key West, the Hemingway House is definitely worth your time. We enjoyed checking out the architecture, simple furnishings and décor. However; the six toed cats were our favorite!! They're everywhere. They are very well cared for and quite friendly.

 I framed my title with an arched window and open arched shutters cut from Cricut's Art Philosohy  to look like the windows on the house. How boring would the title have been without the window? 😏 The patterned paper is StampinUp with ribbon from Paper Studio, and green chevron washi from Queen & Co. The StampinUp five point flower punch and bitty scalloped circle punch worked great for the flowers, topped with buttons.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! See you soon.

Two Page Scrapbook Layout - "Just Chillin"

Some of our best times are just hanging out for our designated family night, which is usually Sunday evening. We share something yummy for dinner and then hang out together and play with the kiddos.

 We take turns going to my oldest son's home or having everybody under our tiny roof. I think these pictures are from a few different occasions January/February 2015. Why didn't I date it??

 The paper is from Simple Stories "Snow Fun". The font and snowflakes are from Cricut's Art Philosophy, along with some stickers from Simple Stories. I love the white American Craft ball fringe and rhinestones to accent the snowflakes.

I love these crazy people we call family!! It's such a blessing to realize that my husband and I expanded our family with our two boys, and now they've both chosen that special lady in their life, and we also have two grandchildren. The two of us have become eight! I just can't wait to see what the future holds for these precious little ones!!

Two Page Scrapbook Layout - "Making Merry"

Here's a Christmas Eve 2014 layout of my crazy family. Christmas brings out the "crazies" and the cuties!

 I cut the elf legs from some patterned paper and then popped them up on the page overlapping the pictures a little bit. The paper is Reminisce "Dear Santa" and the ribbon from Tim Holtz.

The title font is from Cricut's Plantin Schoolbook and the journaling tag from WeR "Silver and Gold" collection. The poinsettia is Cricut's Art Philosophy.

 Here's my favorite cuties sitting in front of my Christmas tree all ready for Christmas Eve service at our church. I love them so much!

Be sure to stop back for more Christmas layouts!!

Two Page Scrapbook Layout - "BeYoutiful"

I love the fall, and dislike the fact that it's gone too quickly!! Because it's my favorite, we like taking family pictures in the fall. This little photo shoot was of my son and his precious family.

 Aren't they just the sweetest? I can't get over how time continues to fly by and these little babies are now 4 and 2 years old!

 The woodgrain paper is from Recollections, and the journaling tag is BoBunny "Misc Me". The fabric flowers add a lot of texture. I used a black sharpie marker to add the dots in the center of the flowers to look like the flowers on the paper. The title is from Cricut's Lyrical letters and Jubilee, and Art Philosphy for the bracket map.

Thanks for visiting my blog today! Please come again!

Two Page Scrapbook Layout - "Priceless"

Fun with the grandbabies! I used to do this with my sons, so it was fun to pull a chair up to the sink and let the grandkids enjoy splashing around.

 Any one-on-one time with these two cuties is a precious time of making memories. I wish I had more memories of times like this with my own grandparents back in the day.

 I'm not sure what the discussion was with PawPaw here, but I know it must have been precious. What a joy to watch my dear husband first become a wonderful Daddy, and now a precious PawPaw to these two!

I didn't make any notes on this layout about the materials I used, but I remember crumpling up the red side banners before attaching them just to give it a little more texture. I used my SU punch for the mini flowers and then layered them up with mini brads. The journaling tag was cut with Art Philosophy and the title (Priceless) is from Graphically Speaking.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Two Page Scrapbook Layout - "Priceless"

I'm taking a little break from the California Dreamin layouts to show off our adorable grandbabies. :) These two are too much fun! They keep us young! We love them so much.

 We are so grateful to be near both of our kids and our grandkids! What a blessing to be part of their every day lives. These photos were taken during one of the many times where we watched them for awhile to give their Mom and Dad a well deserved date night. Not sure how we got started with playing in the kitchen sink water, but that was great fun! I remember my youngest loving to do this too.

Sawyer was getting into the action too, splashing around like his sister.

 What great memories from that day. We tried out the tricycle and took a walk around the block with the wagon. It was only March, so it was still a little chilly.

I didn't write down the supplies, but I know the red chevron is washi tape and the cute little flowers are punched with SU triple flower punch. The red banner strip was folded by hand in a random fashion to give it some extra texture. The journaling tag is Art Philosophy and the title die cut is Graphically Speaking (priceless).

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. The next post will be our first stop on the Pacific Coat Hwy (Big Sur) at Carmel by the Sea. See you soon!

Two Double Layouts - "Country Girl" and "Good Times"

Birthday celebrations are the best!! My sons share the same birth date in August, so we almost always find a way to celebrate the day as a family.

 This year, we made the short trip to Muncie to celebrate on Jacob's turf at Ball State. Cammack Station is one of the local hamburger joints with a vintage vibe and yummy food. There were a bunch of tractors on display across the street, so we took our turn posing on them and letting Scarlet turn the steering wheel.

 We got some great shots, even though she wasn't especially smiley that night. She's so adorable with or without the smile. The patterned paper and chipboard embellishments are Echo Park's "This & That". The banner is cut with Art Philosophy and SU's bitty bracket punch.

 These pictures bring back so many memories from the boys' birthday last year. It's always a hoot with this family!

 These pictures were taken inside the restaurant. The patterned paper from SU fit the vibrant vintage theme of the restaurant perfectly. The title is cut with Cricut's "Paislee" with an orange block out shadow.

 The Studio Calico wood grain circle banner just happened to be lurking in my stash. I love it when that happens. I cut the bracket map with Art Philosophy and sliced it in half to use on each side of the collage of photos. The Chevrons were punched out and faux stitched with a fine marker.

I hope your week is blessed and filled with fun family times.

Two Double Page Scrapbook Layouts - "St. Augustine Beach" and "Rise and Shine"

Finally, here are my last two layouts from our St. Augustine trip. What a great family trip. I hope we can do this again sometime soon.

Yes, I packed I a lot of memories on this layout. We had so many beautiful pictures, I couldn't help myself.

 I used My Minds Eye Collectable, Bazill cardstock and a strip of Stampin Up designer series paper. I'm loving the beachy vibe with the greens and blues.

 The burlap flower accents are from Little Yellow Bicycle. I was so excited when I found these on the clearance rack! They stick up quite a bit, but it helped to take off the foam strip and use a flatter adhesive.

I crinkled up the strip of paper used across the center of the page. When adhering it, I purposely let it fold over itself just to add some texture and definition. The title is cut with Cricut's "Jubilee"

 The last layout is features the beautiful sunrise off Vilano Beach right out the door from the beach house we rented. We had to get up pretty early to get these shots. It was the one and only day we saw the sunrise. I'm not going to lie... we went back to bed for a few more hours. =)

 The textured cardstock is Bazill with strips of My Minds Eye, Authentique and Stampin Up. The Washi is We R Memory Keepers and Pink Paislee.

 I used a Close to My heart stamp set for the oval journaling tag and cut the outline and the blue flourishes with Art Philosophy cartridge. The title font is Cricut's Jubilee.

My favorite part is the pair of palm trees cut as a silhouette with Life is a Beach cartridge.

Thanks for stopping by again today!

Two Page Layout - "Together"

Here's another layout with pictures from our trip to St. Augustine. As the journaling states, the best part of this trip for me was having all of us under one roof, just doing life together by the beach, for a whole week!! We made a lot of memories that will last a lifetime.

I just have to point out one of my favorite pictures (bottom left), where my oldest son is hamming it up on the boardwalk when he realized his Dad had the camera out. He is such a hoot! My granddaughter steals the layout, though, with her precious expressions looking out the window.

Loving this Jillibean Soup paper, American Crafts and "Amy Tangerine". The water color looks very beachy and colorful. I used a utility knife to cut around the flower in the lower left corner allowing the flower to creep up over the edge of the picture. A little glue pen and blue glitter really made the black and white sketched flower sparkle. The black title "together" is from Cricut's Graphically Speaking.

The diecut black flower is Cricut's Art Philosophy. I used my label maker with clear tape for the journaling. The brads are My Minds Eye Collectable by Jen Allison.

I really love the artsy look of this page. It's a different style for me, but it was fun. My favorite part is the black diecut accents.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Have a sunny and lovely weekend.

Two Page Scrapbook Layout - "Fun and Games"

When my husband's family gets together for any extended length of time, we end up seated around the table playing games. We're a bit competitive, but mostly it's just about having fun together. Our favorite game to play with a big group is Mexican Trains. Every once in awhile we have to break out the rules to make sure nobody is bending them in their direction. =)

We played together during our Christmas celebration a few weeks ago, but last year, I actually took some pictures with a scrapbook layout in mind. Do you ever do that?

The domino paper is from Pickle Press. Our family is a colorful bunch...a little light blue and red cardstock run through the crimper and some black and white ribbon was just enough to bring out the color in the photos. The file tab was cut with the Art Philosophy cartridge. I used matching teal brads to attach it to the page.

 The title was cut with Cricut's "Nifty Fifties" cartridge. My hole punch came in handy for lots of pretty colored domino dots to scatter diagonally across the page.

I took a bunch of random shots during the game, then made everybody stop and pose while I took pictures of their hands, and the funky domino design. I even took a few of the additional items that we used for the extra trains. (There is never enough trains for each person when we all play.) If you look closely, you'll see my favorite...an eyeball from an old stuffed toy that my grandpuppy chewed up.

 The pop top and bitty stamp is from StampinUp. I ran it through the Cuttlebug to flatten and fold down the edges. I layered it onto a scalloped circle, and added a ticket stamped with the date (Close to My Heart stamp set, cut with Art Philosophy cartridge), and finished it off with a little bakers twine. I loved the journaling tag from Smash. I have no idea what my son is doing in this picture above...LOL! I sure do love my family!! We have the best time together.

I hope this inspires you to gather your family and play some games!! Oh, and don't forget to have your camera handy. Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

 

Double Scrapbook Layout - " Life's Moments"

Happy New Year!! Here's hoping that your 2014 will be filled with more joy than sadness, and more blessings than your heart can hold. We're expecting our second grandbaby in April, and can hardly wait to meet this bouncing baby boy. It's so exciting that we will have another generation to carry on our family name. We're also thrilled for our son and daughter-in-law to be blessed with both a girl and a boy in their family. We had great fun raising two boys, and I always wondered what it would have been like to have a girl. Having a granddaughter to fuss over and spoil has been such a treat for us!

Have you started working on any of your Christmas photos yet? I'm hoping to start working on mine this weekend. Maybe this layout from Christmas 2012 will inspire you in some way. I am honestly not a huge fan of scrapbooking Christmas photos. They tend to look similar year after year. But, last year I actually completed several festive layouts, and was happy with each of them. I find that it's more appealing now that our family is growing and changing again each year with grandbabies and grandnephews. =)

 These pictures were taken with my hubby's side of the family in Michigan. Mark's nephew and niece-in-law have a toddler, and our granddaughter was about 8 months old at that time. Oh what fun!!! I adore the picture of my granddaughter (bottom right) as she spots her face in the mirror on the toy! She couldn't stop squealing and smiling at herself! The patterned papers are Basic Grey's Aspen Frost. The "moments" part of the title is cut with Cricut's Graphically Speaking cartridge. This is my "go to" cartridge when I can't think of a creative title. The word "LIFE'S" was cut with Nate's ABC's cartridge.

The Stampin Up five petal flower punch makes a cute, quick Christmas flower, especially with two layers of red cardstock. The red ribbon is from Michael's. The snowflake border sticker (Aspen Frost) was sliced in half lengthwise for twice the yardage. The decorative label punch comes in handy for journaling.

 What do you think of my tree? This was cut with Art Philosophy. The swirls are cut into the top layer, so the bottom layer shows through. The swirls were to cute to waste so I cut it into pieces and layered them under the punched flowers. I distressed the top layer with ink and used multi-colored pearls from Me & My Big Ideas, then topped it with a snowflake sticker.

I am a huge fan of using wallet prints on my pages! They help to add some variety to a collage. You can even cut them into squares. There are 11 pictures on this layout!!

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. I'm super excited to be scrapping Friday and Saturday! It's been a few months since the last time. Hopefully it won't take me too long to get back in the groove!!

Have a productive and fun weekend!!

Altered Guest Book

My husband's sister and brother-in-law celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in July! What a milestone!! They had a big party in their back yard. I offered my help, of course, and she asked me to decorate a guest book for her, to make some tags for the food, and a few decorations.

I bought a plain white guestbook at Hobby Lobby. First I covered the inside flaps of the book with matching red paper. I stamped it all over with watermark ink in a vintage floral pattern. Sorry, I didn't take a picture of the inside.

I attached some adhesive backed burlap ribbon all the way around the front flap. The ready made flower came from Meijers and I added a corner of burlap behind it as I attached it. The square brad was lurking in my stash and looked nice on top of a small square of fringed burlap. The white scrappers floss tied in a bow with multiple loops, attaches a decorative key.

 

The place cards were made with Stampin Up's Cherry Cobbler paper and ink. I used Close to My Heart's "Frame it Up" stamp set which coordinates with Cricut's Art Philosophy cutting cartridge. This was such an easy project!

I also made a few tags for her wedding party. She wrote each of their names on the tags, along with their role in the wedding, and attached it to their bouquets. These were made with two different SU punches, and then hole punched.

Last but not least, I made a few decorations with cupcake liners, Styrofoam balls, straight pins, and a glue gun.

 

Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you have a productive weekend.