Live, roam, Love / Stash scrap

Well its Thursday, so close to the weekend! 

This week has gone by way faster than I expected, but I believe that has more to do with one of my little ones getting sick and then me getting right after! He's better and back at school but it seems that I just cant bounce back as fast as he can, this getting older stuff stinks!

Well I've been feeling a bit better and have been jonsing to scrap, so I got in my scrappy room last night and decided to make a page. It took way longer then it should have, thats for sure lol.

I went in and grabbed my Dear Lizzy, Documentary collection, it made it way easier since I had it all grouped together lol less work for me! I already had photos pulled that I was wanting to scrap so I grabbed this one of my youngest daughter. This was her first visit to the zoo and OMG did she love it!!

She loved seeing all the animals, getting to feed some, whooping along with the monkeys, it was so much fun!

I didn't actually have this picture pulled to scrap with this collection and I'm kinda glad I was sick and I ended up pulling this line, because I didn't even notice in the beginning how these colors went perfectly with this picture. The pretty purple matches perfectly with her shades and shirt and the blues and greens and the pattern were awesome with the water in the background! 

I did a go to design for me, the paper strips down one side and a bit of the same on the other side for some balance. Then I added my picture to the heavier side and started embellishing, adding bits and pieces to the opposite side as well. Something like this usually takes me 30 minutes, something I do when my mojo is low, but this tool me almost 1 & 1/2 hours.

Im ok with that though, I like how it turned out so its all good. I'm really hoping that I'm back up and ready for Halloween this weekend! My kiddos are all looking forward to it so much!

Happy weekend all!

Full of happiness today! / Hip Kit CT

Good morning everyone!!

 I am here to share a layout with you that I made for the Hip Kit club Creative Team using the amazing Hip Kit Clubs October kits! I used a sketch for the inspiration of this layout, Ashley Horton created the sketch and the cut file you see on my layout. 

When I saw the sketch I knew that I wanted to do a sewn circle, because one its on the sketch and I loved it and two because I love sewing on my layouts :) Well to do everything else on my layout I had to first choose a starting point, my starting point was the background and I chose this lovely Amy Tangerine paper from her finders keepers line. As I've said before, Im a fan of patterns, polka dots, stripes, florals, plaids....lol pretty much anything thats got a pretty pattern!

After I used the cut file, I added a a strip of the American crafts Fountain cardstock from the cardstock kit. I love the combo of the orangey/coral color mixed with the aqua/teal color.  I had pulled some of my fall pictures and decided I wanted to scrap these photos from our 1st "camping trip" last summer. All the kids were phsyced to do this, but I wanted to do a dry run and see how it was going to be since we had a one year old that had never been, so we grabbed all of our camping stuff and camped in the back yard, lol. It ended up being a really great night! All of the kids had a blast, including the youngest.

Here is the sketch created by Ashley Horton

If youd like to play along with us, please feel free to! You can go join the Hip Kit club facebook page and see the weekly challenges.

Now to embellish this layout I grabbed a bunch of the Pink Paislee, Cedar Lane embellishment in these kits! I grabbed some from the embellishment kit, Project life kit and the the Main kit

The Pink Paislee ephemera pack is beautiful with all of the cardstock pieces along with the acetate and gold foil pieces! ooohh! Love! And all the pretties went great with my layout! I tucked different pieces under the edges of my photos and around my title. And I cant get enough of those cute puffy stickers, I became a BIG fan of those fast! And I'm really happy that the shaped paper clips are back! All of these different things make great embellishment and make the pages pop!

Well thanks so much for coming by and checking out my layout and I hope that you head over to the Hip Kit Clubs facebook group and participate in the fun weekly challenges. And if you havent already, head over to the shop and check out the great kits, Novembers has so many amazing exclusive products that your sure to love! And stop by Hip Kits blog too and check out what all the other ladies have to share with you!

Popey & Olive Oyl / Hip Kit

Hello everyone, Happy Friday!!

I've been playing with my October Hip Kits this week, loving all the pretty colors an patterns in them. The beautiful florals, polk a dots and stripes!! Love them, I'm a big pattern fan. :) But I also like my white space.

And I like the white space in this layout. I love sewing on my layouts and I didn't want the back ground to be to busy but I didn't want just a plain white sheet of cardstock either, I do that a lot. Theirs nothing wrong with it, but I just wanted a bit of a change up, so I used the cardstock that I backed my picture with and cut it into 1 inch strips and laid them across the page and sewed them down. I ran my fingers under the edges after sewing them down so it can be seen that their there and not stuck down.

After that I added a pice of Pebbles wood grain paper from the Jen Hadfield DIY home line, I also used the opposite side and added a little bit of the pretty floral to the page with cut ends. I remembered I had the beautiful Project life cards, made by Kim Watson. So I grabbed the one that said remember this and placed it behind the photo. 

I wasnt there, this is actually my grandparents. My moms parents. They were so young and so cute together. They were only dating in this picture, but were together so long! I always told them that they reminded me of Popey and Olive Oyl. She was tall and skinny and he was a military man and in good shape, not cartoon Popey shape but in good shape. I just always love this picture of them, caught off guard when someone someone called out to them and they looked back. It just makes me smile.

I added a few bits here and there, a little man and woman from the Simple Stories, We are family wood veneers that were in the kit, a glittery heart and little banner that says love you more from the Pink Paislee, Cedar lane ephemera pack from the Project like kit. And then I used the Elaliciouse navy alphas from the project life kit and titled my page, with an ampersand from the DIY home printed chipboard shapes.
I added a little splash of Heidi Swapp color shine, gold lame, and that was about it.

I was really happy that I found this picture, I love that I can put them in my albums the way I want them to be looked at but can still be kept for my family to look at and ask questions about. My kids never got the chance to meet there great grandpa, he passed away before they were ever born. So to me this and the other photos I have of them are something I always want them to see and ask as many questions as possible, not only that, I want to write down as much as I can remember of all the things we use to do together and the kind of people they were, so that in some way they will know them in some way. That is definitely one of the things I love about this craft!

Ok, lol, Sorry for getting so sentimental, but that's how I get when I scrapbook my grandpa, my grandma is still around, but don't get to see her near enough, but I love that my kids can get to know some about the great man there great grandpa was when her was alive.
Well thanks for reading and checking out my blog. I'll have more this next week with my October Hip Kits, so I hope you come back by to see!! And if you haven't already, head over the the shop and check out the kits and check out the blog too! Tons of great inspiration there!! Have a great and safe weekend everyone!!

Changing your Brads...

I have a Technique post up on the Birds of a Feather blog, helping you use up some of your stash hopefully!! This thought actually came about threw the Victoria Marie no buy facebook page. There are a lot of us out there that are on a scrappy freeze right now, no buying any scrappy goodies. The main idea is to use your stash. 

So I'm here to share a little technique that might help you use up some of your stash of brads. Now I don't know about you, but I have a tone of these, in all different sizes. My problem is that there all in gold, black, white and silver. Now with some of my layouts I would like to be able to use some pretty colors that are harder to find or cost a bunch for a small pack. And I don't always want to pay for that, so here are two really easy ways for you to make the brads work for you.

So the things I gathered to do this are:

My heat gun

A pair of tweezers

Brads

Embossing Powder

Nail Polish

Ok so I'll started with the embossing powder. What you'll need to do is have the embossing powder open and set out of the way, now if your a Klutz like me this might worry you, so I sat my lid upside down on it so I had it covered but easy access. You will also need to hold the brad by the end with the tweezers and use your heat gun to heat the top of the brad.

Once the brad is nice and hot, turn off the heat gun and dip the top of the brad into the embossing powder.

If its not quite hot enough when you dip it you might have to hit it with the heat gun again to get it there all the way and if you use glitter embossing powder it will have to be hit with the heat gun again. But its a fast way to change to color.

Now with nail polish, you have soooo many options!! So what I do is grab my brads and an old nesquik container I have and poke the brads threw the lid. This way for me they have somewhere to sit while they dry.

I paint them the colors that I want. Now I have used to many kinds of nail polish, some of the 60 second dry, glitter and metallic. The 60 second nail polish I usually let thay dry for about an hour, but the rest I set aside for the night, just to make sure there all the way dry.

I love all the options and I hope this helps you use up some of your stash, or helps you match your brads to a collection your wanting to use!

#So Many Blessings / Hip Kit CT

Good morning everyone!! Its Tuesday, so were past Monday!! whoo! The weekend is slowly getting closer! lol

Well I'm here today to share with you a layout I made for the Hip Kit Club Creative team, with the October 2015 Kits and some of the cutfiles that exclusive the the Hip Kit club. Some of the files are available if you are just a registered member but we do have some that are only available to subscribers too.

I used a cutfile from Nicole Nowosad along with a piece of paper from Pebbles, Jen Hadfield, DIY Home collection. I cut out six rectangles and made then slightly smaller then a 4x6 do that there would be a bit of white between each of them, I added some washi paper from Jens DIY Home line under a few of the cut outs and then sewed a few lines threw each card. After that it came together pretty easy. I did a little layering behind the photo with bits and pieces from the DIY Home line along with a card that says Hello from the printed chipboard shapes from the same collection as well. I also used an exclusive Project Life card created by Kim Watson, who also created the fall wreath behind my photos in the black and white paper from the DIY Home line.

After I got all of my cut files adhered down I started adding pieces from Pink Paislees Cedar Lane collection. That pretty feather paper clip, just so cute! The gorgeous acetate tag with gold foiling! And the pretty glittered gold hearts! Swoon!!

This picture was actually taken the first official day of fall this year, its still quite warm here, but not so hot that your dying from heat, but still nice enough to enjoy a nice cool Popsicle from the ice cream truck,lol

Well I hope you come join in on the fun over on Facebook page, there are weekly challenges that are so fun! And swing by the shop and check out the awesome kits!! The November kit is already up to look at!! Lots of exclusives in that kit!!

Happy Memories, Hello Happy- BOAF DT

Hello everyone on this fantastic Saturday!! It's beautiful outside and actually feels like fall!! I hope it stays this time!!

Well I am here to share 2 layouts that I made for the Birds of a Feather DT. I was using the October kit that had a bunch of the Pink Paislee Cedar lane papers in it, so I decided I would use those! I love these papers and they we so fun to play with!

This layout design is something I will do quite often, one of my go tos. I will grab some of a busier print from the collection that I love and cut a strip to either go across the top or bottom, in this case the top. That paper is just so pretty!! Then I grabbed that fantastic, bright blue and cut a strip for the top and bottom. I did like it with both pieces being cut straight, so I grabbed my scalloped punch and went to town,lol. I thought about it for the bottom, but decided against it and I'm glad I did. I matter my photo on some american crafts white cardstock, places a doily to the left side of my photo because I knew I was going to use that card that says Happy Memories and I didn't want to much white on one side. Then I added the little pop of color with the pink ombre paper, I also decided to but a piece of that with my scallop punch and add that to the bottom, this way it wasn't the really bold color down there.

I did add a few pieces of wood grain washi from my stash, it just went so well! I started doing the little embellishment clusters with fussy cut flowers from another paper from the Cedar lane collection. I used a gold camera and heart from Septembers kit, and punched a few circles out with my 1in punch and placed little words on some and a flower on another and used an epoxy sticker over them to make some of my own embellishments, I love those and I got that idea from Adele of Inkie Quille. She has a youtube channel, check her out!!

Now this layout is more plain, but it turned out just how I wanted!! Its so bright and airy. This was on official 1st day of fall this year. We went to the park and had a blast. This is 3 out of 4 or our kids playing football. We had so much fun that day, because we weren't dying from the heat! We played frisbee, basketball, football and on all of the playground equipment. It was just a blast! I cut the pretty doily from a Cedar lane paper from the kit on my Silhouette cameo, placed a few paper strips under the photo, I used the branding strips for the 2 pieces that the Love wood veneer is setting on along with the Happy under the picture, Like I said I love these paper, have to use it all!! The bottom wood gran is actually the branding strip from on the polkadot paper. I liked the look of it so I just cut the 1/2 inch off the top to keep it :) I did a bit of sewing and then punched small little circles out of the paper scraps I had to make the confetti on the page. I also added 2 of those gorgeous, gold feather by Little B with a bit of messy thread behind them. Added the Hello, which is from the September kit 

And that was pretty much the end of it, I loved they way it looked and I could have definitely kept going but I was happy with it. I hope you enjoyed my layouts and I hope you would head over to the Birds of a Feathers new blog and check it out along with the store and look at the kits and extras that are there! 

Hes a thinker / Stash scrapping

Hello everyone, its Friday!!! Anyone else excited?? I'm looking forward to this weekend, were suppose to have a cold from come threw and I'm happy about that, this 99 degrees every afternoon is to hot for fall!

Well, over on Victoria Maries no buy group on facebook there are all kinds of challenges for us participating this month and they main thing is, NO BUYING anything new. Using your stash and what you've been hoarding.

So I grabbed a 6x6 paper pad out of my stash and started playing with it. I had chose my photo 1st this time and then chose the papers. I started by matting the photo on some white cardstock and then layering Basic Grey patterned papers behind the photo. To be honest I chose this line because it has some of my sons favorite colors in it. I kept the photo black and white, even though in color it would have went with everything still,lol. But I think b&w went more with my mood for the photo. And no you wont see any journaling on this page, its on the back for him when he gets older. I rarely journal on the front of layouts because when I journal its usually personal, sometimes I dont mind sharing, but when I have a lot of journaling I do that on the back as well.

Well Happy Friday everyone!! I'm going to go for now, hope to have more to share this weekend! If you need inspiration or want a great group of women to talk to about scrappy stuff go check out the Victoria Marie no buy group and get your stash used up!