Week 18 of daily life...

Hi again :) I'm sharing another week of day to day life from my album using the awesome new Pack Your Bags Daily Diary kit. This kit is fabulous for travel and vacation pages, but it is also prefect for documenting everyday life. 

As always I begin my pages by choosing colors that will compliment my photos, and selected a mix of kraft and blue patterns with a few pink accents.

 The kraft color creates a nice neutral base and was perfect for creating a simple title card. The washi tape from last month's kit was perfect for this week's color scheme and I used it throughout both pages. 

I continued with the same blue tones on my journal card and used the sticker to tie the card and photo in together.  

I love the fun punctuation filler cards in the kit and dressed these up with some simple stitching. I used pink thread to match the writing on the printed cork and like the way it tied the ampersand in with the cork accent. 

I paired the large alpha stickers with a couple of smaller letters from my stash to create more impact with my title on this photo and used the arrow piece to not only add a pop of color to the pic but also to help anchor the alphas. 

Moving onto the second part of the week, I again used the same colors and similar photo placement across the page. 

I repeated the stitching over another punctuation filler card, this time adding a small title.

I used the same pattern from my weekly title card to fill in the rest of my journal card, using a few accents from the kit to finish it off nicely.

Don't forget that the Jul-Dec Subscription term is due to close soon, so get in quick to secure your kits!

Non-Travel Themed with Pack Your Bags

Good afternoon! Today's post has been a labor of love. Have you ever had one of those projects where everything that could go wrong does? Yeah, that happened to me with this spread. I left it sitting out at my table and my two year old got to it and scribbled on it a little, so I had to make some modifications. And then I ran out of adhesive. And then I couldn't find my paper trimmer. To top it all off? My power went out. Yup.  Sigh. Anyhow, it is done and I love it.

Obviously, the Pack Your Bags Daily Diary kit is travel-themed. I love that it is because I recently did some day trips with a friend of mine who was visiting from Wisconsin, but all in all, we do not travel much. So this week I wanted to challenge myself to use the kit for a non-travel themed page. Now this would be pretty easy if I stayed away from all the travel cards because there are plenty that don't have anything specifically to do with traveling. But to make it a true challenge, I used the travel-themed cards and embellishments but applied them to a normal week at home.

 This was actually an eventful week and covered the celebration of our 7th wedding anniversary, my daughter's fifth birthday party, and Easter. I plan on doing a separate insert for Easter but wanted to include a few of the photos in this spread as well.

 I used the "places to see" card to document our night on the town when celebrating our anniversary. I used the "Oh darling let's be adventurers" to talk about my brave little five year old overcoming her fear of ice skating.

The "Not all who wander" card worked perfectly for my kids exploring the park. After using my typewriter for almost a year, I think I am FINALLY getting the hang of it. I outlined the wood veneer feather in pencil and then used it as a template for where to type. Then I placed the feather and erased the pencil.

If you haven't been able to tell, I've been addicted to gold lately and this spread could not be complete without a touch of gold. I used this lace tape set from my stash to add little gold touches and to unify the spread. I love the extra texture it adds.

I challenge you to use your kit in unexpected ways and not just for those travel pages. Don't forget to join the Facebook group and share with us what you are making. And time is running out for you to secure your subscriptions for the next term, so hurry up and sign up here.

Summer Road Tripping using Pack Your Bags

Hello everyone and Happy Tuesday !!

I was so looking forward to using my new Pack Your Bags kit and it did not disappoint. Last summer was a whopper of a summer. Lots of travel, well that was pretty much all we did. At least it seemed that way.

After school let out last May we took a week break from everything and then it was off to Grandmas house for a long extended stay.

Since we were traveling, this particular week was kind of jumbled with a little of this and a little bit of that. But as we all know that it just fine for pocket pages.

I tried to stay with a few constant colors throughout this spread. The goldish color, the red, and then a little blue here and there. I believe it really works well to stick with a few colors. Besides the colors matched my photos pretty well. That is always a factor for me when I am choosing colors for my spreads.

This is my title card. I started out with a strip of patterned paper on the bottom and then printed my week # and the date on top. The multicolored triangle was cut from one of the 4x6 journaling cards. I think my favorite thing out of this kit are those fun wood veneers.

I made good use of the fun die cut journaling cards this mont. The hello card was perfect to put some patterned paper behind for a more personal look. I went with a somewhat less busier pattern so that the hello could stand out.

Another example of how I used the die cut cards is with those fun parentheses. I chose to break up my page and add some white space in the bottom corner. Simply but cutting down a picture you can add some journaling and make your spreads more appealing to the eye.

My son turned 5 while we were out on vacation at my parents house. We threw him a simple birthday party at a local farm that he loves. More on that later.

This first journaling card was perfect to add the cut out car and a few strips of paper on the bottom. We packed the car and hit the road. It is a drive that I have done many, many times but don't look forward to. Of course we had to get the traditional car photo. That is always a signal that we are really on our way.

Moving on to the second page. During our trip we took several hikes with my dad and the kids. I have lots of memories of hikes with my brother and my dad. So it was so awesome to go hiking with my own kids and my dad.

I really loved this simple but great 4x6 filler card. I chose to leave it plain with the exception of a small arrow.

I created a few journaling cards. This first one I chose to leave plain and loved that it had its own embellishments, plus I already had lots of other stuff on this page. The second card I added a little pen doodling around the diamond and added a few enamel dots. As always I like to add digital brushes to my photos and journaling cards. I added the "hike" as a digital brush to the bottom of this journaling card.

Here is a closer look at the last journaling card. I printed out some journaling on a piece of vellum and cut it into a tag shape.

In this months kit there was a journaling card that had these great creme and blue circles. I knew that I wanted to cut them out and use them as embellishments. That is what I did on this card.

Before the party guests came for the pizza and cupcakes we had a little balloon photo shoot.

That is a wrap for me this week. If you haven't picked up one of these kits you will want to, trust me !! Have a great day everybody and happy scrapping your travel photos.

Happy May!

Happy Monday and Happy May, everyone! I have been falling increasingly in love with the new Pack Your Bags kits, and have a few spreads to show your from my Daily Diary! I was lucky enough to get to play with both kits this month, so I'm using a bit from each kit. It's a pretty sweet setup, if you've got the extra dough to lay out! Seriously. Good.

I used a 6x12 size insert to start. The left side is the front, and the right side is the back.

Here's my secret little journaling, hidden by a tag that I simply attached with a brad. I've been saving that rabbit for a while now...

LOVE this photo of the three of us - a very rare one, indeed. Just added a little typed journaling and one of those adorable feather diecuts.

I can't even tell you how much I LOVE that striped paper from the Daily Diary kit. Like, really, LOVE. And those cork stickers? Nomnomnom...

Here's the other page in the spread. It's a whole lot for just one day, I know, but how could I leave out any of those photos! It was SUCH a great day!

I love the look of stitching over thicker items, like those cork arrow stickers. And that "thankful" stamp is one of my new faves!

One last peek of this spread. Keeping the layers simple on this one. So you know, the rubons stick perfectly to the cork stickers. And don't be afraid to cut those puffy stickers right in half!

And that's all for me today! Be sure to check in on Facebook - we love seeing your creations! And be sure to grab your Pack Your Bags kits soon - they're going fast!

first flight

You guys...I love this month's kit!! Seriously, the colors, the theme, it's all pretty fab!! So fab that I ended up getting both kits so you can be sure to see lots of projects from me using these kits :) 

I also have to confess something...I totally forgot this week the designers were sharing "cut & color" techniques/ideas. I got so excited to dig into the Pack Your Bags kits that I got sidetracked (happens a lot I'm afraid! lol) However, with my future projects I can almost guarantee that I'll be doing some of that!

So here is my layout for this week all about my littlest daughter's first flight that she took last year when we went on our first trip to Disneyland.

That suitcase paper...love, love, love! I told you guys I love this kit!

I had a another idea for this layout but when that didn't pan out I went back to my go to style which is creating sort of a grid of photos & working my embellishments, journaling, & title around that.

I used several rub-ons from the kit (be sure to use some pressure when putting those on!).

You'll also notice that the photos aren't the best (airplane + bad lighting = grainy photos). I've said it before that sometimes I'm totally ok if my photos aren't top quality because I'm more interested in telling the story (which is the most important in my book!)

I'll be back next time with (hopefully) a travel mini for our family's upcoming summer trip!!