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

Layouts with Sleepy Hollow!

I've been doing a little scrapping with the "Sleepy Hollow" kit (sorry, sold out!) and working on my Halloween photos from this past October. Today, I have a couple of layouts to share with you. First, here are my cuties with their "scaredy cat" shirts I got them for Halloween. Halloween will always be cute and fun not scary and spooky at our house. For this layout, I brought out the purple, orange and silver with mist on kraft cardstock. 

And, on this layout, I chose my favorite photos of the girls trick-or-treating for the first time at a couple of local malls. This one is fairly simple but I made a "paper ribbon" border along the bottom of the layout for added interest.

See you next week!

Jill

Scaredy Cats!

Good morning, friends! Today, I have a layout to share with you using Inspired Blueprints Sketch #60 and the gorgeous "Sleepy Hollow" kit. I love using sketches as starting points but for me the end results often end up looking nothing like the sketch. And that's okay! Sometimes a sketch just helps with general placements of photos, titles, journaling and embellishments and other times it's great to interpret it exactly as it's drawn. I love these photos of my girls wearing their Halloween shirts and cute, purple hats I picked up at Target. The patterned paper in the background is a die-cut by We R Memory Keepers. I just inked the edges of it with white Staz-On ink to help it pop off the page and to give it a shabby feel. If  you click on my layout, you'll also see that I machine stitched around the edges of it. 

For the title, I used the Pink Paislee and Making Memories alphabets in the kit. 

I cut out a cute little black cat from one of the We R Memory Keepers patterned papers in the kit and used foam adhesive to pop him off the page. Then, I wrapped the Pink Paislee purple tinsel trim around the edges. 

The little bats are Making Memories metal embellishments (had to use two of them, of course!) :)

I picked up The Girls' Paperie Toil & Trouble sticker book and that's where the journaling spot and black and cream die-cut border stickers came from. 

Have a great day! 

Until next time,

Jill

When in doubt, go with a grid...

I've been trying to scrap all of our Halloween/fall events as they happen, so I can be right on top of it! Plus, for some reason, once October 31st is over, I don't really feel like pulling out all my orange and black stuff. I love scrapbooking with products that I'm in the mood to play with!

My favorite "go-to" design is a grid. I love it because it gives me an easy framework to add all the fun stuff that I like to do! The details are my favorite part.

I had lots of cute photos from our Fall Festival the other night, and the Sleepy Hollow kit was great to whip out a layout to feature them. I also added in a strip of plaid paper from the Sweet Sue kit; I like how it cooled down the bright colors of the layout. To add the fun sparkly trim on the top, I just did a quick stitch with the green embroidery thread from the kit. I love the way it looks like candy and it adds a fun dimension to the project!

Spooky Spider Cards & More with Sleepy Hollow!

Today, I have some Halloween cards to share with you that I made with the Sleepy Hollow kit. I had to make about 15 cards to send to family so I kept the design fairly simple and even got my girls involved in the process! I would have made more of the spider cards but I could only keep the girls' attention for so long. I'm sure making cards like this would work even better for older children. Here's a look at the cards...

For this design, I punched out circles from The Girls' Paperie paper and then adhered one of the crepe paper sentiments in the center. I did some inking and machine stitching and that was all! Very quick and easy but it looks like it took me forever to make those crepe paper flowers! :) 

For the spider cards, I used StazOn ink in Jet Black and made fingerprints with my girls on white cardstock (not textured). I took a thin journaling pen and drew the legs on. I adhered the squares with foam adhesive onto my card. The sentiment was stamped with the Toil & Trouble stamps from The Girls' Paperie. 

Here's two more of the cards in similar designs...

And then I included a photo of the girls in their Halloween costumes this year! I love that I was able to capture their fingerprints and might just make this an annual project! :)

Have a Happy Halloween and don't forget to stop by and pick up the "Dear Diary" kit before it's sold out! :)

Until next time,

Jill

a few Halloween projects

 Hey there! I thought I'd share the projects I did for the challenge this week and a post I did over on the Tips & Techniques blog. First the layout. For the challenge this week we had to create a layout using shades of the same color. But only one color. Eeek!! I will admit I was a bit intimidated by this one. But once I started playing around I found that my layout came together pretty easily!

I used the fabulous Sleepy Hollow kit for this layout of my kids in the pumpkin patch this year. Thankfully I had some pictures that had colors other than orange so that in itself added that extra splash of color. I used an oval punch to create the little pumpkins at the bottom.

Leaving a white border around my photos also helped them to stand out against all of the orange on my page. You can check out the challenge here along with the other DT members' creations. Be sure to share your layouts with us!!

I also created these fun little treat bags over at the Tips & Techniques blog. You can check out the instructions here!

Add a little texture... "Old Baker's Pumpkin Patch"

When I was first developing my scrapbook style (and even now), one of the questions I would ask myself when creating a layout is, "What can I add?"

Sometimes it's as simple as adding another layer of something... texture or paint or whatnot. I try to constantly ask myself qusetions as I create and keep an eye on how it's best reflecting my style and my ultimate idea for the layout.

For this layout, once I was finished, it needed a little texture, so I added some strips of corrugated cardboard here and there, and distressed the edges of the layout. It may be subtle, but I think it adds a big punch. (Created with the Sleepy Hollow kit, with a tiny bit of paper from Sweet Sue snuck in!)

The next time you're creating a layout,
think about asking yourself
what can you add to give it that final touch!

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet!

C'mon, you know you said it as a kid! And if you have kids of your own, you know they say it, too. How do these things get passed down from generation to generation?? My kids came home & said it one year and I just had to laugh :)

Like I've said before, the Sleepy Hollow kit (sorry, sold out!) has tons in it to make altered projects. Sure, layouts are fun. But it's Halloween! So I took the Melissa Frances chipboard shape out of the Office Party kit (also sold out) and decided to make a fun Halloween sign. I'd been saving it for just the right project.

First I outlined the shape onto my patterned paper, cut out, inked it and adhered to my chipboard.

Then I set about decorating it with all the fun goodies in the kit. I also added a spider web (using an EK Success border punch) and some Tim Holtz tissue tape. If you have not played with this yet you need to get some now...it is so much fun!! By the way, when you're adding embellishments to a project like this, it's easiest to let them run off the side & then trim off (as opposed to trying to cut everything to fit before adhering down).

After I had the front all decorated the way I wanted, I cut the fun Halloween fabric that came with the kit into strips and adhered it like a ruffle on the back of the chipboard with a hot glue gun. Believe it or not, I still have a little bit of fabric left over for some more projects.

 

Then I used a Crop-o-dile to punch holes at the top to string my ribbon. Rather than tying a knot I decided to use a hot glue gun to hold down the ribbon in back.

And there you have it! A fun little Halloween sign!