Two Page Layout - "Seasons Greetings"

It's time to start sharing some layouts from Christmases past. If you know me, you know that I'm not a huge fan of scrapping Christmas. In fact, I didn't even do it for years. Now I bribe myself to do it by purchasing a fun new packet of holiday patterned paper. 😄

The Season's Greetings tag was one of my first Cricut Air projects that involved using pens! I think it turned out so cute! I know I was pretty proud of myself! The berries are cut outs to the red paper behind. So fun!

 So then I got sassy and did the holly berry borders. I believe I penned my own leaf accents to tie it in with the tag. Not too hard to do. and I love how it sets off the page.

 My cutie pie grandkids make Christmas even more special! These pics are from Christmas 2017 in our pevious home. We moved a week later! Crazy!! We didn't put up many decorations, but we had the nativity scene, a small tree on our table and a few small decorations that were easily accessible. Do I look stressed or just exhausted here! lol

I hope you are ready to see some more Christmas pages, because I have plenty more to share!! Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

Christmas - double layout

I hope you have enjoyed special moments and memories with family and friends during this season of celebration!  Our time has been full of so many good things. As usual, we've been blessed to overflowing. There were some tough moments as we remembered those special people who we lost this year...a very close family friend, my husband's Dad, and other special relatives. Although, we're missing them here with us, we know that they are celebrating their first Christmas with Jesus. Again, a reason to celebrate!!

Here's a fun layout from our Christmas 2010 with our extended family at my sister-in-law's home in Michigan. Mark's Dad was still with us (center right photo). =)

The patterned paper is from Echo Park and BoBunny. I won a whole stack of great winter-themed paper last year!! It was so much fun using it. I added ribbon around the left side of the layout and added some baker's twine for the center of the bow.

The grid of photos continues on the right side. I added some additional strips of patterned paper on the upper right to highlight the journalling block, then tilted the journalling. The cup of cocoa is a sticker from the same pack of paper. A BoBunny brad tops off the center of the snowflake. The scalloped border on the right was created with Accent Essentials (Cricut).

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!! Happy New Year blessings to you and your family! I promise the blog candy for 10,000+ views will be coming soon!

Double Christmas scrapbook layout - Chillin

Hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas!!

I saved a few Christmas layouts from last year to share with you today. As I was looking at the pictures, I suddenly realized I hadn't titled one of them. How could I forget a title? I'll have to get back to you later this week with that one.

There were not a lot of spectacular pictures to scrap from the small get together with my parents last year. We were kind of partied out at the time.

Here are closeups of both sides. The snowflakes were cut with my Cricut and stickled with a glittery silver. I believe the patterned paper is BoBunny.



 Here's a closeup of the right side.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Keep checking back...I'll be posting about blog candy to celebrate reaching 10,000 pageviews once I figure out what I'm going to give away. I appreciate all of you!!! There are many SB blogs out there and I'm so happy that you choose to follow mine!

Christmas Cards

Merry Christmas week to everybody! Are you ready to celebrate?? I'm getting a little bit more done every day. I can't wait!!
I was not able to make all of my Christmas cards this year, but I did crank out some multiples of a couple of designs. They are so much fun to make, but always more time consuming than it seems like they should be. =)

This card was inspired by a design for an invitation that I saw recently.

Most of the patterned paper is My Minds Eye, Laundry Line. It's all glittery and shiny! Perfect for standout trees. The sentiment is from Technique Tuesday. I splurged on theTPC Studios metal accents with glitter. =) Love the way they added some additional bling to my card.

The second card was inspired by Scrapbooks, Etc. I used a couple of different kinds of scrap paper. These are both from Echo Park.

 

I added a dry embossed background and used glitter paper for my snowflakes, along with the remaining TPC Studio metal snowflakes used on the previously shown card. The sentiment is one I got on clearance last year from Michaels.
And last, but not least is my own design. I was inspired by a tee-shirt! Do you ever get weird inspirations like that? It happens to me regularly, but I don't always have time to follow through on the idea.

Obviously, a very non-traditional color scheme, but I think it worked nicely with the retro look I was going for. I used glitter paper for the dove, which was cut from Sweethearts cartridge (Cricut). The peace symbol stamps are Inkadinkadoo and heat embossed with holographic embossing powder. The retro "peace" sentiment is Close to My Heart. I sponged some pink and green ink around the embossed peace symbols.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I just noticed on my blog stats page that I have surpassed 10,000 page views on my blog!!! Wow! Thanks for all of the views. I believe this deserves a nice giveaway after the holidays!!! =) Hmmmm.... What shall I give away?

Christmas layouts - "The Hunt" and "Joyous"

I'm sitting here at my desk and my hands are ice cold, it's raining outside, and very gloomy. We have the possibility of some flurries AGAIN later in the week. Since I still have several recent Christmas layouts to share, I figured today was as good a time as any.

I recently was blessed enough to win some glorious blog candy. All of what you seee here was made with this great set of winter paper. It was so much fun to work with it and have all of the cute embellishments to match. The majority of the paper was from Echo Park "Wintertime". These pictures were taken when we were searching for the perfect Christmas tree. It's a tradition that I love more and more each year. This year we had to find our Christmas tree earlier than normal since my husband and I were getting ready to head out on an anniversary (25th) cruise the first week in December.

The decorations on the tree were punched out of snowflake patterned paper. All of the accessoreis were included with this great kit of goodies.

We ended up picking our tree from the fresh-cut trees in the barn. We warmed up with hot cider and then went to dinner together at BWW's. I'm so thankful that our kids will still participate in and enjoy these traditions with us even though they're all grown up. I loved the 12 " border stickers on the bottom of this side. Stinkin' cute and easy!

Here they are side by side. I wish I could remember the name of the blog where I won this paper set so I could post it here. Maybe she'll see this post and remind me. I sent her a thank you card, because I was just so excited to get it and her gift was so generous!

The pictures in this second layout were taken on Christmas Eve when our immediate family got together at our house to celebrate with a meal and presents. I love making a special meal and decorating the table for Christmas. Always a litlte stressful to get everything done on time, but always worth the extra effort! I'm pretty sure I burned something a little bit this year, but now that it's March, I can't remember. I guess it's good to have a short memory sometimes. =)

Again, this is all from the Echo Park "Wintertime" set of paper, except the gold ribbon and the metal "Family" trinket which I had in my stash.

I almost always end up with some kind of grid of pictures on my page. It's just the easiest way that I've found to fit in a lot of pictures. I managed to squeeze in 11 pictures on this double layout. Another little trick I use is to order the "true digital" size rather than 4x6. They are just slightly shorter in length and it gives you room for a little bit of paper to peek out behind. These are actually cropped down even a little smaller in length to create room for my title. The only thing cropped out is the distracting backgrounds in each shot. The glitter chipboard letters were also in my stash and I used a mix of the colors to spell out the title.  

Not sure if you can read the journalling, but it's all about the blessings of family and how much we are enjoying our daughter-in-law. She is a treasure and it's fun watching their relationship grow. 

Have a great week...Oh, and keep checking back because there will be some yummy blog candy in the very near future. I need to get a picture of it and figure out the best way to give it away. =) It's so cool, that I bought 2....one for me and one to give away to my fellow bloggers. =) More details soon....

"O' Christmas Tree" layout

Since the weather has turned snowy and cold again, I'm thinking of Christmas past....I finished this layout recently and thought I should share it before summer. =)

Left side:

This is my own sketch. I wish I could tell you the brand of paper, but I don't remember. I did purchase it at JoAnn's, though. The Christmas print ribbon tape is from Me and My Big Ideas. The branch die cut is Cricut's Jolly Holidays. Can you see the shiney snowflakes behind the branch? Here's a closer look at them.

I stamped the snowflake design with VersaMark (basically sticky ink) and sprinkled on clear embossing powder (Ranger).  It turns clear when you heat it up with the heat gun. I thought it added a little somethin, somethin to look at behind the branch. The snowflake stamp is from The Paper Studio.

Here's the right side. The title is cut from Cricut's Winter Wonderland. One of my favorite fancy fonts! 

Hope you enjoy the pictures of our tree this year. It seems each year we pick "the one"!! I think it won't be as good as the year before, but it's always even better. This was one of the fattest trees we've ever had in our living room. It was pretty enormous for our tiny house, but we made room. =)

It's never too late to scrap your Christmas pictures. I hope this inspires you to get 'em done. I still have a few more Christmas layouts to do. Hopefully I can tackle these at the next scrapping retreat. I will also have some 25th anniversary cruise pictures to do....It's so hard to decide what to work on sometimes. The order doesn't matter, I guess. I usually grab what I feel like working on the most at that particular moment...

Also, I'd love it if you take a minute to follow this link and vote for my card on Scrapbooks, etc.

I submitted a picture on their Craft it Forward page and have been selected to be voted on. If I get the most votes, I'm eligible to win a cash prize at the end of the month for me and for my favorite charity. Click here to vote. Thanks everyone!

Merry Christmas!!

Just wanted to take a moment to say Merry Christmas to you! I hope that you and yours will be celebrating together and enjoying every moment.

The angel said to the shepherds. "I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. (Luke 2:10-11)

Thanks for following my blog. I enjoy your feedback.

Paper Secrets Holiday Blog Hop - Welcome!!

Welcome to your 8th stop on the Paper Secrets Holiday Blog Hop. Make sure you read to the end of the post for instructions on how to win a prize from me in addition to the hop prizes from Paper Secrets.

My friend, Jodi, and I recently did a card swap. We both created 4 designs in multiples of 10 and then swapped 5 of each. This gave us each 40 cards in 8 different lovely designs. I'm excited to share all of the designs here with you today. I hope you'll be inspired to try a few!











Don't forget to leave a comment on all 25 blog posts and in Paper Secrets forum for your chance to win 1 of the 3 gifts Paper Secrets is giving away.
http://papersecrets.friendhood.net/blog-candy-blog-hops-f5/paper-secrets-holiday-hop-dec-10th-13th-t1113.htm

NOW for my yummy prize....If you are now a follower OR become a follower of my blog, PLUS leave a comment on this post, you will also be entered to win a prize from me! I'm delighted to be giving away my very first "blog candy"...the Just Because Cards cartridge for Cricut machine. This is a great cartridge for both scrappers and cardmakers!! (shipping to US & Canada only). See images below. Pass this opportunity along to all of your scrappy friends!!

Your next stop will be Brittney Calgary's blog. In case you get lost, you can find a complete list of participating blogs here...