Puppy Love Layout

I managed to eek out some play time last weekend and I focused that play time on the Puppy Love Collection from Doodlebug Design. Combine a love for all things Doodlebug and an adorable new puppy and you'd better believe I'm using that collection up!  I wanted to do a special page of my daughter with our puppy.  This one is a picture of her on the day we picked the puppy up!

I knew I really wanted to use the base paper as I love how unique it is and that it resembles a game board!  I added white to the center and then layered a whole bunch of patterned papers behind my picture.  I embellished primarily with the new "Odds & Ends" from Doodlebug.  These are die cuts which make it easier to pop them up with foam!  I also embellished a whole bunch with the Matte Sprinkles that coordinate with the collection.  I can't get enough of those fun Sprinkles!

My Creative Scrapbook Main Kit Layouts

The Main Kit from My Creative Scrapbook this month was packed with amazing colors - from vibrant to soft it had a combo that can work for all styles!  I loved playing back and forth in my traditional vibrant style and then calming things down a bit with the softer colors!  The kit included pieces from Fancy Pants and some Amy Tan Word Thickers.  Here's what I created!

This first one I used the softer colors - I just loved the woodgrain background and knew I wanted to work that in!  I did some paper rolling on this to add some fun technique to it too!

I loved this base paper from the day I saw it and was so excited it was in this month's kit!  It was very easy to work with by just using one picture and adding in some embellishments!

Another one where I focused on the brighter colors - I wanted to pull in the green as that is a color I don't use a ton of!  I love how it worked with the black and white so beautifully! I also was going for use the Thickers in a bold way!

For this last one I went back to teh softer side and focused on adding some texture with tearing.  I wanted the focus here to really be on the journaling and telling the kids story of change.

If you haven't had a chance yet be sure to head to the My Creative Scrapbook page and check out the full designers gallery! There is a lot of beautiful work this month!

School Decision Time

Just over two months ago our family made a big move to a new state and new home.  Then came time for another big decision....what to do about school.  In my husband's last call we were blessed to have a wonderful Lutheran School.  That made all our schooling decisions easy for the last 8 years.  We knew that each and every day they would be growing in knowledge but more importantly their young Christian faith would be nourished.  Our new church does not have a Lutheran School and so we were faced with the decision for Public School or Home School.

Ultimately after a lot of prayer, the decision was made to go the home school route.  

And here's our why:

Nothing is more important to us than making sure our children have a foundation in Christ. So while it will mean a lot of extra work, discipline, and organization on my part; this is the route we are going.  We're committing to one year at a time and going to take things where the Lord leads us.

Our congregation and community is packed with home schooling families so we have a ton of resources on which to rely.  We also have a lot of people encouraging us and that is always helpful too!  We are getting involved in sports and homeschooling co-ops so that we will get out of the house regularly and get some exposure to extra classes and activities.  Our youngest will be going to traditional preschool too for a couple days a week.  We actually got started with Math and Language Arts a couple weeks ago so we could dive in slowly.  I will admit it has been fun and good for my brain to get back into teaching mode.  I'm especially enjoying Pre-Algebra :).

Scrapbooking Your Trip to the Beach

Paper House has the best products for telling the story about your trips to the beach! I have done multiple layouts over the years using their products and have loved both making them and the end result.  Today I have a new one to share with you highlighting the new Snapshots pieces and Puffy Stickers but I am also going to share with you some older ones too! Let's kick it off with my newest one!

Supplies Used:

• Beach SnapShot Stickers
• Beach Shaker
• Beach Mixed Card Pack
• At the Beach Paper Crafting Kit
• Relax Sculpted StickerRelax Sculpted Sticker
• Cameras Puffy Sticker
• Sunshine Cork Sticker

The new shakers are so much fun!  They are great for layouts, cards, or even stand alone 4 X 4 albums! The Mixed Card Packs include transparencies which is what I used for the "Sun & Sand" on the layout.

I also used the Mixed Card Packs to frame my little guy in this picture.  I love the mint green color added into the mix!  I used a variety of Puffy stickers on this including the "Smile" quote you see here and the silver puffy accents throughout the layout.

Now here's a few more beach layouts to help get those creative juices flowing for scrapping those summer moments!

This was the first beach layout I ever did with Paper House - features lots of their earlier papers and 3D stickers which you can still find at their store!

Fun with my Silhouette Cameo and Paper House products!

Cork matches really well with sand so our Cork'd Stickers are perfect for helping document those beach memories!

This one features the same At the Beach Paper Crafting Kit that I used today!

Puppy Love Layout

Oh goodness - I just realized I never hit publish on this layout.  And it's one of my faves that I have done in recent months!  We just got a new puppy in March so Doodlebug's timing on the Puppy Love line was so perfect for me!  I have been hoarding all my cute pictures until I could play with Puppy Love!  

We took a ton of pictures the first few days and it was fun to be able to capture a lot of them on this layout!  I knew I wanted to work with the newspaper print so I went with skinny pictures mounted on a variety of patterned papers from the 6 x 6 paper pad.  The width was easy to match for each column so I just had to measure each one for a good height!  I outlined each picture with black pen to make them pop a little more.

This collection contains all the different embellishments you could possibly want!  I used Icons Stickers, Odds & Ends, Sprinkles, and the This & That sticker sheet! to do my embellishing!

One of my favorite things to do with the Icons Stickers and This & That Stickers is build little scenes - I was able to do that in all my little areas of embellishing.  It's a great way to add to the personalizing of a layout and it's just plain fun!

The new Odds & Ends have so many fun title options - they make it really easy to create a title that works for your project.  

I have more of this collection sitting on my desk to play with this week - you may even see a process video coming soon for it!

Military Sisters Layout & Process Video

Have you had a chance to check out the new Homefront Girl collection from Paper House Productions?  It's perfect for telling the story of the women back home while a loved one is working hard to serve our country.  Christine joining you today and sharing a layout today from the sister perspective.

The collection includes so many great pieces from tags to cardstock stickers! You can personalize it even more by adding in Cork stickers and overlays from the Mixed Card Pack.

They also include letter stickers so that you can add to and from the saying they already have for you.

How about an up close look at how I created this? I've got a process video to share with you today walking you through the whole thing! I'm new to the process video world so keep your eye out for more to come!

My Creative Scrapbook: August Creative Kit Layouts

This month's Creative Kit from My Creative Scrapbook was filled with color and fun patterns!  Here's the layouts I created with it:

 The papers in the kit are primarily from Photo Play Paper and have a bright, cheery, party theme to them.  I tried to showcase that but also that it isn't just for parties ;).  The ephemera and stickers here are from Fancy Pants.  This first layout is about a dear friend from our last home.  I got pictures with all my close friends there and have been slowly going through and documenting them.

 For this layout I zoned in on the party theme and used some of the fabulous themed stickers in the kit to create a little birthday scene!

This one has tons of fussy cutting!  I cut out all those circles and then kept most of the layout clean and simple from there.  I love those puffy gold stickers!

Back to the party theme and this time I made it for a boy.  This one is about my son's birthday - he just turned six and have a look at that donut!  I had to get those pictures scrapped ASAP because they were just too fun!

Bible Journaling/Coloring Page & Process Video

SRM has released so many great new products to make coloring and Bible Journaling easy, fun, and pretty.  Christine joining you today to share a page that I created to look like a Bible Journaling AND coloring page!

I started off my project by stamping the words I wanted from The Lord is Kind & Merciful set.  Then I wanted to create a background that would mimic some of the popular coloring pages out there.  I used flowers from the The Lord is Kind & Merciful and the Just Believe set to do just that.  Then came the really fun part!  Trying out the new Watercolor Twist pencils!  These are great for this kind of project and super easy to use!  I created a little video to show you just how I used them and the blending pen!

As you can see it's not complicated at all.  And unlike traditional watercoloring, where you have to use water, these will work great for coloring without having to do any extra prep work on your paper!  One tip I have is to keep a tissue or paper towel to wipe off you blending pen between colors.

I can't wait to dive in and play with these more!

Doodlebug Smash-Up Challenge

I have two things that I include on nearly every layout: circles and some shade of yellow.  Doodlebug challenged us to do a Smash-Up challenge and in my project I combined my love of both - I picked to work with Bumblebee for my color and I based my layout on a layout from Mendi that used a whole bunch of circles.  Here's my layout!

I based it on this layout from Mendi:

Mendi used tons of color on hers but I followed her design in using circles, three photos, and a similar background paper.

Our family recently moved from Illinois to Ohio, One of the hard things to leave behind was a disc swing that my five year old had and loved.  He spent hours every day on that swing.  Our new home doesn't have any older trees that could support a swing like that.  I took lots of pictures of my boy on that tree and wanted to document that smile before it faded too much!  These pictures captured some of that joy and since he was outside it was fitting to highlight the sunshine!

I used a combination of Shin-dig Sugar Coated Stickers, Teensy Type, and Icon Stickers from Spring Garden to create my title.

My circles came from a variety of places: Chevron Sugar Coated, Sprinkles Vellum, Kraft in Color, and Petite Prints.  I hand stitched my sun and sun rays and then added in both regular and glitter Sprinkles.  A few little pops of limeade green were all I needed to bring the whole layout together.