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.

Brithday - One Page Scrapbook Layout

 I'm working on doing a better job of showing up in some of the photos that I scrapbook. The bright side is I can just scrap the ones that I like. But if I never hand anybody else the camera, there won't be any documentation of my milestones in life. I'm grateful that my husband and family think about this. 

I recently celebrated yet another birthday, but this layout is from September, 2018. I'm thankful for every birthday the good Lord sends my way. I'm grateful for strength and overall health, and for a beautiful, loving family to celebrate with. 

Not sure why I didn't put a title on here, but it would definitely be "Older and Wiser". None of us are even close to perfect, but we are all on our way, and God hasn't given up on us, in spite of our daily missing the mark. 

I don't remember the paper that I used, but the vintage look and numbers are very fitting considering I'm kind of a vintage girl! I love owls, and like the way these two black owls set off my black shirt. I added a few mini flowers (SU punch), a tag with the date, washi tape, chevron arrow from my stash, and Cricut journaling.

 Hope this inspires you in some way!! Thanks for stopping by!

Breakfast - Two Page Hawaii Scrapbook Layout

 These pictures represent a beautiful start to a most perfect day! We started at a cute little place for breakfast called Moose McGillicuddys. The restaurant sits right across from the ocean. We sat outside on the deck and enjoyed a gentle breeze and an amazing view! The food was yummy too!!

The patterned paper is pretty bold, but that doesn't usually stop me!! I like the vintage vibe it gives off... like wallpaper. I added a strip of wood grain paper and a petite yellow floral, along with darker decorative tape to anchor the photos and give it some horizontal definition.

I found a small scrap of patterned paper for the pineapples. The title label is popped up off the page, layered with a simple Hibiscus, and covered with Wink of Stella for a gentle sparkle.

So tell me what you think? Is it a little crazy? If you open the picture you can read the journaling, but at this distance it looks a little messy on the woodgrain paper. That may have worked better on a journaling tag in white? Anywho...I won't go back and fix that now. Aside from the journaling, I really like the way it turned out.

Hope you are all having a great week so far!! Fall is in the air, and I'm pretty excited about that. How about you? 

Tropical Bouquets - Two Page Hawaii Scrapbook Layout

Did I mention we had a LOT of rain during our trip to Hawaii. It didn't dampen our spirits too much, though. This layout features pictures from our spouse event. We had a group come in with tropical flowers and teach us how to put together bouquets. We then donated the bouquets to local nursing homes. The ladies seemed to enjoy their time together. And look at these fabulous flowers!

 We had spouses lined up at tables in the open air hallway, as well as in the meeting room. So thankful for our time together! The event was planned during the agent's training time to give the spouses a chance to get to know each other and have something to do while their spouses were busy. I was taking pictures in all of the training break out rooms as well as the spouse event.

 The paper I chose is from a tropical stack that are basically tone-on-tone patterns. This made it easy to start with an uncluttered look and then add my embellishments. This journalling tag has been lurking in my stash waiting for tropical pics!! I like how it looks on here, even though it's from a different manufacturer.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!!

Father, Husband, Protector, Hero - Two Page Scrapbook Page

Happy Father's Day to my favorite fathers. My Dad has been gone for a few years, but I still miss him every year. He will forever be my loving protector and provider! So thankful that I can honor my loving Husband and Son on this special day!! Where would the world be without Fathers to lovingly guide and direct us? 

My Husband is faithful, loyal, true and loving to me and our entire family. He leads by example and will lovingly correct us when we're on the wrong track. He is my supporter, my encourager, and truly the wind beneath my wings. He makes the world a better place and I couldn't be more blessed to call him MINE!😍

 My oldest son is not only an amazing son, but he is also a wonderful Husband to his wife, and Father to our grands. If that is not enough, he is on the brink of graduating (with Honors) from the Police Academy. My son will be a hero/protector to the entire community!! We are chest-popping proud of him! It's a tough time to be a cop! He is faithful to his calling and stepping into harms way to make a difference in all of the violence and unrest.🙌

I adore these colors together, especially for this masculine layout. I cut the title with my Cricut and then used the negative as a stencil to place the letters on my page. The leaf outlines add just a little bit of texture. The hounds tooth navy decorative tape is one of my faves and perfect for this page. I just added a few banners in the corner for balance, and let my Cricut do the journaling for me.

Happy Father's Day to all of the hero/protectors in your life! Let's honor them today for impacting our life. If your Father has already passed on like mine, lets honor their memories today. Even if you didn't have a Dad around, or if he hurt you in some way, take heart! Our Heavenly Father is watching over us and ready to help you.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you". Matthew 7:7 

"For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you." Isaiah 41:13

Royal Hawaiian - Two Page Hawaii Scrapbook Page

Summer weather is upon us, and I hope you are enjoying a little more freedom to get out and enjoy the days. Here in northeast Indiana, things are getting somewhat back to "normal". We're living in crazy times, and it really makes me want to get away on a nice vacation! Hawaii maybe? I wish I could go again... right now...but I will have to settle for the memories from last year.

These pictures are from our first morning at the Royal Hawaiian. The Hubs and I got our first chance to check out the grounds in daylight. We enjoyed a nice breakfast together, and then got down to business with pre-program meetings and pulling together the final details for the rest of the group that would be arriving throughout the day.

 I love this super distressed paper with these pictures. It looks like old paint, pulled back showing older wood beneath. The decorative travel tape and ticket stub ephemera added a little bit of detail, along with the palm trees.

 I tried so hard to find the perfect font for the title that would resemble the hotel sign. This is as close as I could get in Design Studio. It took several tries to get it to cut properly since the font was so skinny where the letters were merged and welded together. But, I finally got it!

I hope this layout inspires you to scrapbook, create, or maybe book a trip to somewhere tropical!! Have a great day! I have lots more Hawaii layouts to share.

A Royal Arrival - Two Page Hawaii Layout

I'm ready for some super sunshiny warm weather. How about you? I think it's time to share some of my Hawaii layouts from our amazing trip last year. It was part work trip, part vaca for us and 100% amazing!  Let's start at the beginning with our arrival!!

One of the perks of my job is to help plan our agent incentive trips. What an amazing blessing this has been for us. Especially Hawaii! We were there 10 years ago, so were super excited to go again.

We had quite a delay in our home town airport, so by the time we arrived in Honolulu it was after 10:30 pm Hawaii time. But because our travel partners are so good to me, they still had their car ready to transfer us to the hotel...the Royal Hawaiian (aka Pink Palace). What a beautiful place!! Unfortunately, you can tell how tired we were from the pictures. Tired, but super excited!!

 We received beautiful leis, chocolate covered strawberries, and beverage cups. Aren't those strawberries almost too cute to eat?

 I think this gorgeous patterned paper was perfect for the photos. I matted the photos on black, added a row of pink decorative tape, and cut leaf outlines to tuck in behind some of the pictures. The leaf outline echos the leaves in the patterned paper. Of course, after I was finished with the layout, I decided to add the little pink crown to the title. You can see it better in the top picture. I thought it was appropriate since we felt like King and Queen! I added a little spark with some Wink of Stella.

I hope you come back as I share more of our amazing adventures. We're just getting started. 😎