Walkway of Lights - Two Page Christmas Scrapbook Layout

Are you enjoying your family traditions this Christmas season? Our Christmas has been quite a bit different this year, but we are trying to continue on with the traditions. I'm not sure if and when we can make this one happen this year.

Many cities have this, but we love the Walkway of Lights in Marion, Indiana. It's a bit of a drive, but we sing Christmas carols with the kiddos on the way, and usually stop for Happy Meals. 

Want to know a secret? I do not enjoy scrapping our Christmas photos! I'm sorry, but it is so true. I don't mind scrapping the traditions so much, but the actual family gatherings opening photos....Ugh! but I do it anyway!! I do tend to take a simpler approach to my Christmas related layouts. This one is definitely simple, but I love the colors, and I'm happy with it and it makes me smile! That's all that matters here.

I love the non-traditional aqua paper and always try to use my scraps like I did for the strip along the bottom. I typically matt each photo, because I love that look and in my mind it kicks the layout up a notch. The title was done by mixing some pieces of titles in Design Space together. That's my favorite thing to do. I cut a few snowflakes and placed them around the page, both on, off, and overlapping the pics. The fancy ribbon on the journaling tag adds a bit of sparkle to draw the attention to the story behind the photos. I could have added some bling to the snowflakes, but really like the simplicity of this as it is.

Hope you are enjoying the countdown to our celebration of Christ's birth!

 

Together - Two Page Christmas Scrapbook Layout

 Here's another Christmas layout. Who is ready for some extended family time? I know I am. My husband's siblings are the best friends that we have and right now, I'm missing them so much.

Love the chevron woodgrain paper, even though it's not Christmas specific. We always gather a few weeks after Christmas because we have some family in retail. Any earlier and it's just too hectic. I found a whitewashed look woodgrain scrap with a large snowflake pattern for a banner to frame the title, and cut some simple white snowflakes to place around the layout. To tie in the blue title, I added blue dots to the snowflake by hand. I am happy with the way it turned out. Nothing fancy about this page, but the pictures are telling the story.

The silly pictures are a requirement with the grandkids and sometimes with all of us. I love their antics!! 

Hope this inspires you as we race into the Christmas season! Enjoy your time with family!

Two Page Scrapbook Layout - "Finally - Dream Home"

If you've been reading any of my posts, you know we moved into a brand new home a year ago. It's been a wonderful experience for us! Something we'd dreamed of doing for a very long time.

 These pics were taken about a week before moving in on December 29, 2017. The moving experience was one I don't ever want to repeat! I hate moving, but moving in sub zero weather is just ridiculous! However, it was totally worth it to get into our new home and start enjoying it.

It's been a fun year of decorating, getting organized and starting some of our own projects that we took on. My husband loves a project (or five). Unfortunately, he doesn't have a lot of time to actually make them a reality, but we'll get there and in the meantime, we're loving our new place and making lots of memories here. 

Thanks for checking out our new place. Stop back 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 Layout - Dogwood Point

Today, I'm sharing another layout from our snowy 28th anniversary adventure in Nashville, IN. This one shows you the beautiful little cabin and the surrounding area in daylight.

 The snowstorm the night before left 10-12" of beautiful pristine snow on the ground. My dear husband had to go out and shovel so we could get out and about. They cabin management team sent their snowplows around to all of the cabins. We were snowed in for awhile and loving it!

 We had a beautiful view of the mountains and could see nothing but trees and snow out the window.

The paper is StampinUp! designer series. The title was cut with Cricut's Lyrical Letters and the snowflakes with ArtPhilosohy. Ball fringe, scrappers twine, and a few rhinestones add just enough bling to this snowy layout. The journaling tag is from Echo Park.

If you are ever in the market for a frosty log cabin getaway, make sure you checkout Dogwood Point. Be sure to stop by my blog later this week to see the covered bridges and the cute downtown area.

Two Page Scrapbook Layout - Nashville, Indiana

This snowy, sub-zero weather makes me wish I had a fireplace. Nothing like curling up to a toasty fire, with your sweetheart. But here we sit in our cute little house with no fireplace. Thankfully, though, the furnace does a great job of keeping us warm, even though we are lacking the romantic ambiance we desire.

For our 28th anniversary, I surprised Mark and rented a log cabin in Nashville, Indiana. Our anniversary is the first week in December. When we left, they were predicting snow, but we figured we'd drive out of it since we were heading south. Little did we know how much snow we were in for.

 If you ever get a chance to rent a log cabin in the snow, go for it! We drove down this long, narrow, snowy lane with the porch light acting as our beacon. Wow! What a great adventure. It was just the two of us in the log cabin perfection!

 The paper is Creative Memories and Jen Wilson. The bold aqua, blue and red snowflakes were cut with Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge. I purchased the title die at an adorable scrapbook shop in town. I backed the log cabin with brown paper to help it show up better on the snowflake paper.

The fireplace was so warm and cozy!!! The next evening, after sweeping it off, we enjoyed the hot tub out in the snow. It took some convincing to get me out there, but man oh man....it was the best.

Come back later this week for a few more layouts from our Nashville, IN winter adventure.

Two Page Layout - "Cookie Monsters"

Whether you are a snow lover or not, there is something about the crisp, clean snow covered landscape that is absolutely beautiful! We got about 6" here in northeast Indiana. It's still very clean and piled up in the streets of our neighborhood since they've been busy plowing the main roads. It certainly hasn't stopped us from being out and about. The Hubs and I have been running around town finishing up our Christmas list. I think we are almost done. =)

It's time to share some Christmas layouts from last year that I have been saving for you! Making the traditional Christmas cookies is usually part of our celebration. In fact, sometimes we make them for Valentines Day, and just because. It's always a little messy, but tons of fun. My youngest son, who lives at home when he's not away at college, still likes to get into the fun.

 The Jillibean Soup patterned paper makes a nice background for all of the colors in the cookies. I can't get enough patterned paper! I cut a large bracket map with the Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge using blue Bazzill cardstock and sliced off a thin portion for the left page, and used the remainder on the right page. The glitter snowflake stickers are from BoBunny and the alpha stickers are Basic Grey.

 I added a length of olive ribbon from American Crafts and a cute brown reindeer cut with the Winter Woodland Cricut cartridge. I added a little blue pearl as an eye for the reindeer, and more glittery snowflake stickers.

 Here are both pages together displaying a total of 7 photos, complete with journaling. I didn't make a note of the journaling tag brand, but I believe it is Basic Grey's Aspen Frost.

Now that Jacob is home on winter break, I'm hoping we can take some time to make some of these yummy cookies! I love all of our Christmas traditions!!

I hope you are beginning to enjoy this season of Christmas, and all of the fun family times that come your way! Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

Two page pet layout "Winter Sprint"

I have really been enjoying the light covering of fresh snow we've received over the last few weeks. Today, it's disappearing again. I enjoy winter for the most part. Everything looks prettier when it's dusted with snow!

Our adopted greyhound loves the snow! These pictures are from a year ago. My son, Jacob, was home for the weekend from BSU. He and my hubby took Riley to the dog park and had a blast. I printed some in black and white for a change. It gave me a fun opportunity to embellish with colorful snowflakes. =)

Left: My favorite picture of them running off into the distance. A great shot!! It looks like Jacob had a head start.

Right:  Riley's tongue tells the story of all the sprinting he did that day. He ran so fast, his coat was literally flapping in the beeze behind him.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!! Are you doing any fun crafting this weekend? I am still hoping to get in a few Valentines cards. I have some ideas floating around in my head. As always, it's more a matter of getting all of my stuff out and just getting started. I can do this!!! =)

Double layout - Snow Fun

Thanks so much to somebody on the Google forum who answered my question on my issues with uploading pictures. Turns out it is a known issue that they are fixing...Until then, there is a work around!! YAY! What a huge help! Thank you Google person!!

Yes, my Christmas decorations are still up. Anybody else??? Maybe I'm the last one in all the land? I hope not. We do love Christmas at our house, we get busy, and well it just takes us awhile. Since the snow all melted away, the reality of all the decorations hanging around is starting to get to me. Maybe this weekend....but no guarantees.

In honor of our melted snow, I'm posting a snowy layout from last winter with our dog, Riley. He is such a good boy. We think he's very handsome too. =) That was his first winter. He's from a dog racing track in Alabama, but he obviously adores the snow!!

I had "snow" much fun with this layout. First of all the paper is a from the We R Memory Keepers, Teen Angst collection. I can't get enough of the grungy, inked- up look. I added nothing to the paper. The snowflakes are texture embossed with a snowflake folder, and swiss dots. I love the texture it added. The centers of the snowflakes are popped with foam adhesive squares.

 

I used two different strips of paper under the picture grid. The top one is red paper strip punched with a scalloped border punch. I wadded it all up in my hand, and then flattened it out and used it for my journalling. The bottom strip was fringed with my Martha Stewart scissors. I cut the long strip into small 2" pieces and then placed them at random so they look uneven at the bottom. I'm not sure what possessed me to do this, but I like the way it came out. I like it with the slightly misaligned picture grid.

Have a great week, everyone! Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

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?