My first layout with "Our Summer"

Hi! It's Gretchen today! As soon as my "Our Summer" kit showed up at my door I could not wait to dig in!
I had to be out of town last weekend for a continuing education course and I totally took the kit with me so I could scrap in the hotel room at the end of the day. Nothing like unwinding after a long day of learning by scrapping with some fun, new supplies!!

Want to see what I made??! :)
This one is kind of a "life update" layout. These pictures of my brothers & their girls were taken back at Thanksgiving and I had yet to scrap them. I used the pictures even though they are several months old but made my journaling current.

I like to do these "life update" layouts every now and then. I make these layouts with journaling about what is going on right now. It's not a layout about an event or an accomplishment or a holiday or anything like that. Nope, it's just a layout about the here and now. It's all about what the subject is doing right now: where they are working, what their hobbies are, how they are spending their time, where they are living, etc. Obviously I don't even worry about making the pictures match the date of the journaling. These layouts are all about the journaling so I just find a picture or 2 of the subjects and make 'em work! This is a great way to scrap random extra pictures you have!
Then I just make sure to put 2 dates on the layout: 1) the date of when the pics were taken and 2) when the journaling was done. I think layouts like this will be fun to look back on in like 10 years or so and remember what was going on back then! :)

Have a great day! And thanks for stopping by the blog!

PL- Our Summer

I'm still enjoying my Project Life album and adding to it throughout our summer. And what better kit to spice up my album than the "Our Summer" kit?! I think it's fun to use Noel's "big kit" in my PL album. It feeds my scrappy needs and has lots of versatility to it! 

I loved these pics from a "Cowboy Night" my mom planned for my kids one visit this summer. They didn't really need any journaling on this page- I've got more pics to add on the next few pages and I will do one big journaling block. These pics already speak for themselves with the editing I did on them with Rhonna Farrer's app! 

Have you heard this fun news? Make sure to swing by our facebook group to join in on the fun! 

Happy Together (with lots of confetti!!!)

Hello everyone!!  Happy Friday :)  I'm excited to share another layout featuring the fun Hello Sunshine kit!!  The bright colors were perfect for this photo of my son & nephew at the pool :)



I loved the oversized chevron patterned paper in the kit, but decided to fussy cut just a few strips and glue them down on a white background.  Then I stitched over them and added some fun paper confetti between each strip.



For my title work I cut the "happy" and "together" words from my Silhouette.  To "dress up" the "together" a bit, I added some colorful brads here and there on empty spaces.  Below the title I added my journaling, typed on vellum and stitched down.



Hopefully this inspired you to grab your own patterned paper & fussy cut out some fun elements to dress your pages up :)  Feel free to share what you come up in our Facebook group - we love to see what our members create!!

My Take on Julie's Sketch

Hi everyone, Cassie here! I'm sorry I'm a little late in posting today-- I've been sick as a dog all week and just now woke up (to put this in perspective it's 11 here in CT.  I can't remember the last time I slept until 11...maybe in college? haha)

I'm here today to share my take on Julie's awesome sketch!  I love the simplicity of it, especially the negative space. 

I stuck with the teal and orange color scheme I keep gravitating to in this kit and instead of making a circle border I used strips of teal patterned paper to create a border and then outlined it with some orange twine

Have a great Thursday everyone and remember to play along (I've loved seeing everyone's interpretations so far!)

So pretty

Good morning!

It's Gretchen & I've got my take on Julie's cool sketch to share with you today. 

As a reminder, here is her sketch...

I pulled out my Beach Blvd kit and made this layout...

A very sweet patient of mine sent me flowers after he was done with his therapy. 

The flowers were really pretty and they came at a time when I was pretty frustrated with some stuff at work. 

So I thought I would scrap them!

*****

I normally kind of stink at layering papers, but this sketch made me do it!

:)

I put my journaling & title in a little bit different places than Julie did on her sketch. 

And I stamped! 

Please take note of that!

What want credit for it!

{in case you don't know, I hardly ever stamp; it's not that i don't like it...it just seems like a lot of work!:) }

I created a "pocket" behind one of the layers of patterned paper so that I could save the card that came with the flowers. 

I made a simple "pull" tab to put on the card. 

Then I was able to tuck the card behind picture & papers for safe keeping!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Have a great day!

Julie's Sketch Adapted for My Project Life album

Julie posted her monthly sketch for us last week on the blog, and it just so happened to coincide with me receiving the new "Our Summer" kit, so I decided to see if I could adapt the sketch to my 6x8 Project Life album. 

One of the first things I pulled out of the kit was the lovely charcoal colored paper. It reminded me of a chalkboard and I knew that bright colors would pop against it. 

I also grabbed a few things from the Hello Sunshine kit- I always love how Noel's kits seem to complement each other from month to month. 

Make sure you play along with the sketch- one winner each month receives a little prize! Plus, it's just great inspiration! You can post your projects to our facebook group. :) 

Classroom Decor

I had an old window painting that a friend have me that I had decorated a few years ago with some scrapbook papers... But in getting my MDO classroom ready, I realized I needed something to hang above my sink area and this would work perfectly! I pulled off the old papers... 

(You can see why I had the original art covered- not my style!) 

And then I covered it with papers from the Boardwalk kit. It's not the most elaborate or original idea, but sometimes you don't need to reinvent the wheel!

I think this will be a perfect happy spot in my classroom! 

Away We Go . . .

Happy Friday everyone!!  I'm popping in to share this month's sketch challenge :)  A simple layout, with a fun border - feel free to get creative!! Although the sketch shows a circle border, you could easily use any kind of shape/object :)



Here is my take on the sketch using the bright & cheery Hello Sunshine kit!!



For my title work I used a mix of a Silhouette cut & those adorable Jillibean Soup mini alphas - love those little guys!!  I also layered up a few elements I cut from the patterned papers :)



I decided to stitch around my photos - such an easy way to make them stand out amidst the busyness of the page.  I layered up a bunch of fun tags, buttons, and brads in the corner and then added my journaling underneath.  My journaling is typed on vellum.  To attach it to the page I ran a quick stitch along the bottom and tucked the top under my patterned paper :)


Instead of using larger, individual circles as the sketch suggested, I decided to go a little punch crazy and make a big mess - HA!  Seriously though, I did make a mess as I was trying to glue these down.  A bottle of liquid glue literally exploded on my page :(  After a quick clean up and a new sheet of white card stock, I was back in!! Love the effect of all these little circles as a border :)



Alright scrappers, ready to get creative with your own border?  Your entry to this challenge is due August 2nd. Once you have completed your entry, be sure to post it in our Facebook group.  One lucky participant will be randomly selected to receive a $10 gift certificate to the Noel Mignon store!!  Can't wait to see your entries :)

Color Coordinating with Hello Sunshine

I've been LOVING the Hello Sunshine kit- how about you??  The kit is so versatile with all the fun and bright colors but I keep gravitating towards using the teals and oranges provided in the kit.  Vibrant orange can be cooled down a bit by using the more subdued teal/aqua color and I just love the result.  Here I chose to use orange as my focal color with teal accents to complement the blues in my photos.  I based the sketch from a layout I saw on the Crate Paper blog last week by Sandy Ang- which immediately caught my eye! I loved the dramatic diamond, the circular photographs, and the twine around the border so I knew at once I wanted to make it my own :)  I don't know about you guys but I love the look of embroidery on layouts but just don't have the patience to intricately hand stitch. This is the perfect way to add thread to a layout, just poke the holes, thread through, and tape it down on the back-- easy peasy!

We are lucky enough to have a huge dinosaur theme park only 15 minutes away that has an AWESOME splashpad-- Charlie had so much fun playing there last summer and I literally had to tear him away kicking and screaming whenever we needed to leave!

There's a giant dinosaur in the entrance (and scattered throughout the park as well), and they dress the T Rex up for the season.  During the summer he/she sports shades, an American flag, and a giant bottle of coke- ha!

I love these enamel dots, they add some whimsy and fun to the title!

Well I hope you love my orange and teal layout- it's been one of my favorites with the kit so far :)  Enjoy your Thursday ladies!

Grown up date

Good morning! 

I've got another layout to share with you using the Beach Blvd kit. This one is all about an evening out at the symphony. My husband got us tickets to the Alabama Symphony Orchestra's performance of the music of John Williams (Star Wars, Jaws, E.T., etc). I knew my dad would love something like this! I called them and on short notice they were able to come into town and go with us. It was a grown up double date for us! 

I was trying to channel my inner Virginia when I making this. How did I do?? :)

To go with the theme of the page, I pulled out some sheet music from my stash and mixed it in with paper and embellies from the Beach Blvd kit. 

This was the first time I had played with the fabric tape from Maya Road in the kit. It's really fun! And I like the messy, ruffled look you can do with it. 

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by the blog today!

Hello Summer!!!

Hi friends!

Well, summer is in full force here. The temp is ridiculously HOT, it's been 103 or higher. ugh! I captured our first week of summer around here. I photoshopped 6 pictures on one 4x6" print. I used up a ton of scraps from the last two layouts using the  Hello Sunshine kit. I had a lot of fun with this layout! I used some old chipboard alphas and masked them in the corner of my layout for a cool watercolor effect.

Thanks for stopping by!!! 

Today 2013

Hello everyone!!  TGIF :)  This week the design team has been sharing projects & creative spaces.  Today I have a simple little mini calendar I created for my craft room using the Hello Sunshine kit.  I am constantly googling "2013 calendar", so I thought it was about time to remedy that and create a calendar to keep at my desk.  The base of my calendar is a small Maya Road acrylic stand.  It originally came with chipboard pages, but I set them aside and simply used patterned papers.  For the cover I used a mix of fun embellishments from the kit.  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE those Jillibean Soup Wise Word stickers!!



As you can see from the side shot, the Maya Road acrylic stand is the perfect base for a flip calendar :)  I created the calendar sheets in Photoshop and printed them out on cardstock.



Below is a pic of all the pages laid out.  I kept them pretty uniform and simple.  Each page had a calendar sheet, a label sticker, the month, and a fun brad to accent.



Now that this mini is complete, I am able to add it to my desk in my creative space :)  No more googling a calendar for me!!! Speaking of my creative space . . . I am super lucky to have a room to house all my crafty goodies.  In our old house I had carved out space in my basement.  I set up a few folding tables and a number of white cubes with drawers from Michael's Arts & Crafts.  When we moved I really wanted to try and have a space on the first floor.  I turned the home office into my crafty space :)  When you first walk in you will see this large fixture straight ahead.  I put together each of those cubes and then attached them to one another to create this larger "cabinetry" of sorts.  These drawers hold all my embellishments organized by manufacturer.  Above the cubes are 2 hutches I purchased from Target.  Here I have my mists stored and several projects I have completed displayed.  To the left is a large, 3-tiered basket purchased from Pier 1.  This holds a number of my Martha Stewart punches.



If you continue to the left you will see another storage unit.  This is an Expedit shelf from Ikea.  I purchased all those magazine-type holders on Amazon.  They hold all my patterned papers organized by manufacturer.  Above are 4 large baskets full of punches.  On top of the unit I have buttons & flowers organized in mason jars.



Continuing to the left is my closet.  My hubby & I put up these wire shelves :)  These shelves house tools, my camera equipment, and a variety of kits.  My ribbon stash is organized by color and hung on some decorative coat racks I found in Target.



If you continue past my doorway and to the right, you will see another storage unit I created with cubes.  These drawers house tools, some generic embellishments, paint, stamps, stamping supplies, cardstock, and my albums.  Up top is my little owl family I snagged from a local craft show & my two typewriters.



Here is a shot of my desk area.  It consists of two large sawhorse desks I purchased online from Target as well as a collection of cubes I put together as an end cap of sorts.  These cubes house my embarrassingly large collection of Thickers (organized my color), 6 x 6 paper pads, and some recent kits.



Finally a close-up shot of my desk.  The tools I use the most are out - my Silhouette, sewing machine, trimmer, and cutting mat.  The other side of my desk is prepped on the shelves underneath with all sorts of art supplies for my kiddos.  They love to come in and create along with me :)



Thanks so much for stopping by and allowing me to share my project & creative space with you :)