Happy Campers

As I mentioned on our facebook chat group the other day, I was sorting through my layouts for 2014 and realized I had done none of my son!! I feel like such a bad mom! He doesn't love to have his picture taken, and I try not to invade his privacy, but at the same time... there are still plenty of things I can scrap about him. I made it my goal to go ahead and scrap a memory of him and some of his friends from his "Great Outdoors" birthday party from earlier this year. 

The Sweet and Simple kit (now sold out) had so many perfect additions for this outdoorsy themed layout. I went ahead and made a custom embellishment too with this cute Silhouette cut file.

One of the things that I just love about Noel: she's always so thoughtful in her kit packing. I know that it was not an accident that I ended up with this adorable tiny "Alabama" license plate embellishment! 

Spring Cleaning!

The Spring Fling Crop on our FB page has been so much fun this week- and full of lots of great inspiration! Make sure to stop by (and you still have the weekend to participate in all the wonderful challenges). 

Friday's Challenge is - Do a little Spring Cleaning! 

I don't know about you, but every month I 

save things from my kits that I want 

"to use later." 

And then I forget about them! 

Today's challenge is about digging up those 

old treasures and putting them to use.

Use 

items from at least THREE old NM kits! 

(If you don't have any old NM kits, then three older 

items). I can't wait to see yours!

This layout uses items from at least 5 different kits, and probably a few more! :) It feels good to use up some of those things in my stash!

Favorite Layouts of 2011

Hello friends! I've had such a wonderful time since I became a member of the design team here but sadly, this will be my last post and inspiration on the layout blog. I'm so thankful to Noel for the opportunity to create with her beautiful kits each month and I certainly won't be a stranger around the message board. I'm a Noel Mignon kit club fan for life! :)

Towards the end of the year I always reflect back on the work I have created and decided that for my last post here I would share some of my favorite layouts I have created with Noel Mignon kits in 2011.

1) January's "Very Virginia" kit -

2) February's "Truly Scrumptious" kit -

3) March's "Delightfully Domestic" kit -

4) April's "Jump & Jive" kit -

5) May's "Mary Ellen" kit -

6) June's "The Bee's Knees" kit -

7) August's "Salt Water Taffy" kit -

8) September's "Study Hall" kit -

9) October's "Sleepy Hollow" kit -

10) November's "Dear Diary" kit -

I'm still working on my December Memories album with the "Mistletoe & Holly" kit so if you would like to see my pages, please keep an eye on my blog. Thanks so much for your friendship and mutual inspiration this past year!

All the best!
Jill

The Birthday Tree

Good morning! When my girls turned one, their grandparents bought them a maple tree that we had planted in our front yard. The plan is to take a special photo every year on the girls' birthday with grandpa and grandma in front of that tree (and you can bet I'm going to document every one!). For this layout I used the gorgeous "Very Virginia" kit for the color inspiration board we had for the next challenge. 

I layered a Hambly transparency, Pink Paislee tickets (with a BasicGrey rub-on on top), a Basic Grey button and brad and some Pink Paislee trim (from my stash). 

Have a great day! I'll see you next week with a project using the September kit! :)

Jill

A few cards!

Hi friends! Sorry for the late post today but I've been a little under the weather with a summer cold. Today I have a few simple cards to share with you using the Jump & Jive, Mary Ellen & Very Virginia kits.

First, a little friendship card with Jump & Jive...

Here's a sweet baby girl card with Mary Ellen...

And finally, a romantic wedding card with Very Virginia.

See you next week!

Jill

A couple things to share!

Happy Monday folks!

First of all, here is the layout I did as part of the winter tag game we just finished.
I love the layout by Kimmy that started it all off!
And I love the layout by Virginia that inspired this layout...

(I used mostly the Very Virginia kit for this layout)

This game really stretched me to make a layout differently than I normally do & I love the end result!
__________________________
And secondly, I have been playing with the Mary Ellen kit!
{there are still a few available}

I was organizing pictures on our computer last week and came across this one from a few years ago.

I love finding stuff like this that brings back a flood of memories!
And you know what that means...
It must be scrapped!
:)

(everything is from Mary Ellen except the Basic Grey chipboard numbers that I pulled from my stash)

Have a great week!!

And don't forget to be checking out Noel's Deal of the Day!

I was pumped to pick up some Stickles & baker's twine last week for a great price!!

:)
gretchen

Don't forget about the latest challenge!!

Now technically this shouldn't be a "challenge" but for me, it is.

The challenge is just to use stamps on a project.

For most people that is no challenge at all.

But for some reason, I don't ever stamp.

So this "challenge" was good for me then!

{well it was good after i finally found my dang clear block!}

And this stamp from the Jump & Jive kit is pretty cool so I really wanted to use it!

And this is what I made...

I think I used bits and pieces from 3 different Noel Mignon kits.
(let's see, most of the paper & the stamp is from Jump & Jive; chipboard alphas from Very Virginia; buttons from Delightfully Domestic; and little bits & scraps from all 3)

I love how well her kits all mix together!

And you know I don't want to waste a single bit!

OK now, if I can stamp so can you!
So come play along with us!
:)

Happy Monday!

gretchen

travel album {before}

Hey everyone! I'm planning a trip to Washington & wanted to have a fun journal/scrapbook/mini-album to take with me to document our trip. Now even though I've made a ton of mini books before, I felt I needed a fresh approach to this one so I took an online class by Ali Edwards and it really gave me some new ideas for this book.

I used bits & pieces from several kits including Jump & Jive, Very Virginia & Office Party (& there may have been another one in there!). I added a few bits from my own stash but the majority of goodies were from the kits. I just grabbed here & there to throw this one together. All of these photos are obviously the before pics. After my trip I'll share with you what the completed album looks like...hopefully with lots of fun tidbits from our travels :)

I started with a transparency for the cover with a white tag on the inside stamped with a fun airplane that I stitched around. Just a note - if you keep the bobbin the same color as your paper (in this case I used brown thread & white in the bobbin) you won't have the thread color showing through on the other side. Of course, if you're a sewer you already know this!

I also added some of that great twine to the white tag...can't get enough of it! Peeking behind that tag is a map that I scanned & printed out on white cardstock. Shhhh...don't tell!! I'm planning on getting another map to add to this book on my trip.

One of 2 Maya Road envelopes in this book. Love them. This envelope I'm planning on using to store extra Instax pics...my new favorite toy :)

Jillibean Soup shipping tag with some more shipping tags peeking out behind that backed with that wonderful Pink Paislee patterned paper that came in the Jump & Jive kit. Just perfect for this book!

You can also see I used some rub-ons from one of the kits (Office Party I think). I absolutely {love} the new Echo Park papers, especially this printed paper...and I love the fact that there's several sheets in the new kit!

Does everyone love that Jenni Bowlin stamp as much as I do??? For most of the pages that were patterned paper I actually cut the paper twice the width that I needed it, folded in half & adhered down to itself. I've found it makes the pages a bit more sturdier than simply cutting one piece of paper.

As soon as I pulled out the Echo Park paper with all of the tags on one side I immediately cut them apart & knew they would work great for this book. I added an October Afternoon travel sticker at the top (I used those stickers in several places in this book).

More of those great Echo Park tags from Jump & Jive along with Elle's Studio banners.

 

I used an envelope template to make that envelope from patterned paper. And that's it! Pretty simple...but it will look so different once filled with photos & memorabilia.

Cards!

Here are a couple cards I did a few weeks ago for the Tool Challenge...I chose a hole puncher (I used the WRMK Big Bite)...

First up I punched holes in the center of each of the circles from the patterned paper and then used red cardstock behind it to sort of give it an accent color... I used the Very Virginia kit...

For the second card I used my hole puncher as my main design and shaped it as a heart and backed it with patterned paper and then added a simple sentiment and the card was finished! I used the Truly Scrumptious kit...

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Scraps + Tool Card Challenge

So when I first read about this challenge, I thought to myself, "Oh dear." Cards are definitely not my forte, and tools? Considering that I debated on purchasing a Crop-A-Dile for a good year, you could say I'm not so much of a tool buyin' gal.

What do I do when I get out of my element? I go to my old crutches: horizontal strips, and my Silhouette machine. :)

This first card is made with a mixture of the Sonoma County and Dear Diary kits. I used a small artisan label shape from another design in my Silhouette downloads to make the nested spot for the sentiment to layer on top of.

And for this card (made with the Very Virginia kit), I did horizontal strips again, but got a little wild and crazy with making one strip shorter and cutting a notch out of the side. On top of that I adhered a cute little birdie on a branch I cut out with my Silhouette machine, and then inked & roughly traced around.

That's my trick when I get out of my box- go to some old stand-bys that help me not feel too overwhelmed, and incorporate it into the challenge so that it still looks like "me." :)