Valentine's Advent

I have something fun and special to share today. It's a little different but also a twist on something traditional. For Valentine's Day this year, I decided to make my boyfriend a Valentine's Advent Calendar. 

You see, in each of these little envelopes I added a fun memory of either him or the two of us. My plan is for us to look at one of these every day and remember some really great times.

I used every single paper from (my favorite) January Scrapbook Circle kit. Getting the extra patterned paper was the best thing for my projects this month. I just loved them all so much! And of course, I loved them all together.

Each little envelope is decorated with odds and ends from the kits, lots of love and hearts going on here.

There's just something about tiny things that are so fun and awesome! The envelope is a wafer thin die that I bought from Studio Calico.

I can't wait for him to see it (and for me to see his subtle man appreciation) and get to reminisce about our fun trips and silly sayings. Come on February 1st!

cheers & besos,

On My Mind

Hiya! I'm excited to share one of my latest pages. This was the first page I made this year and it was so much fun to do.

I used a Simple Scrapper Story Starter (releasing in the February Spark Magazine) as the starting point for this page, which is all about the daily things that cross my mind. All of the questions I ask myself in a given day, all of the random thoughts milling around up there.

I picked an assortment of Studio Calico Project Life cards (looks like a lot came from Penny Arcade) and just went to town creating my own configuration on a sheet of Kraft cardstock.

I started with a few cards (the pink Ashley Goldberg abstract and Kraft To-do) and created my color scheme from there. It meant flipping through my 3x4 Journaling Card box and pulling from the pink, kraft, yellow and orange sections.

I wrote a lot about being an anxious introvert. We introverts tend to be thinkers, which can take anxiety up several notches. Night time, just before falling asleep, is the worst. Coincidentally, twilight or early evening is my favorite time to think. When the sun has set and all of the city lights are on, I love driving home and getting lost in my thoughts.

I'm not planning to do much pocket scrapping this year. But I'm excited to make more pages like this, featuring all of these gorgeous 3x4 journaling cards.

De-kitting all but the last several months of kits has helped me to not get caught up in trying to make certain things work (i.e. the whole kit together). I feel like I have permission to just use exactly what I want!

In February, I'm planning to share my scrap space and how it's organized. This may be the first layout I made this year, but I've been doing so much scrapbook organizing and planning. I literally went through everything in my stash (I mean eve-ry-thing) chose to keep only the things I loved. I'm excited to share!

cheers & besos,

Solemnly Swear

I made a process video! It's been about 6 months since the last one. It was definitely time. 

Here's the finished page along with an enlargement of the photos.

cheers & besos,

Shopgirl

I have a dream. It's kind of a big one and one that I've had since I was a very little girl. One day, I want to own a shop. This is not going to happen today, tomorrow or likely even this year. But it's just one of those things I'm going to keep working toward (really it tops the list).

Because I'm a scrapbooker, I scrapbook these kinds of dreams. Here's the layout I made. It's a 100% Simple Scrapper brainchild. I used an older sketch for the design but the story was inspired by one of the January 2015 story starters. [You get access to these via the Premium Membership. Read more: here]

For the background, I hand drew lines and sprinkled in some inspirational words: "shopgirl", "entrepreneur", "owner", "girl boss".

I embellished with flags, buttons and sequins. And of course sprinkled in some gold.

The papers are from the Maggie Holmes Open Book collection. I have a deep and endless love for this collection. It's my absolute current fave. Isn't the chipboard girl too perfect?!

The finishing touch was typing out the journaling and tucking it into this little Kraft pocket.

I so loved how this came out. Maybe because of the deeply personal story I was telling. Maybe because of all of these gorgeous supplies. Really, I think it was the combo of the two. And to think, I might not have even scrapbooked it were it not for the Story Starter!

cheers & besos,

On a Grid

I love a good grid! So much so, I didn't even realize all the grid layouts I've been making lately. Every last one of my January Scrapbook Circle pages ended up with a grid design; grids within grids, a grid of photos, embellishments in a loose grid. 

I made sketches of each of the pages and it totally emphasizes the point. I'm also now noticing how small I've been printing photos lately….But that's a story for a different post.

cheers & besos,

U & Me

This was the last page I made with my All You Need is Love Scrapbook Circle kit. I just couldn't work with a love themed kit and not make a page about one of my biggest loves, my nephew Urijah.

I pulled just an assortment of photos of the two of us. I'm now realizing we don't take many photos together and we totally need to rectify this! 

I loved the kit stencil and wanted to make sure I used it. I've never added modeling paste on top of Kraft before, so I really liked how this came out. It was a fairly quick and simple base to create.

I cut a bunch of rectangles and then punched hearts out of the middle. Then, cut both the heart and the rectangles in half and pieced them back together over white cardstock. You can see the white cardstock sticking out here and there. Believe it or not I actually was going for that look. It makes it feel a bit looser and more home made.

The title just might be my favorite part. I write all of the journaling on Urijah's pages to him. As always every "you" in the text is changed to "U". I like this touch. It makes me smile. The whole time I was working on this page I was hearing Mike Wozawski singing, over and over again.

cheers & besos,

All You Need is Love Layouts

Hiya! I hope everyone is having the loveliest start to 2015. Personally, it's been a slow weird start for me. I feel like I lost a week there. I'm not quite sure what happened! It took me awhile to wrap my head around getting back into the swing of work (you know, the thing I'm paid to do!!!). And its taking me awhile to get back into the swing of scrapbooking and blogging. I've yet to make a page in 2015 but I think today just might be the day =)

Today is also the day when I share some of my latest Scrapbook Circle kit pages. I love love loved the All You Need is Love kit. It was black and white and awesome. I bought EVERYTHING. More patterned paper. Both add-ons (already sold out, so sorry!). And then made a big ol paper mess putting my pages together.

This page was up on the Scrapbook Circle blog this week. I share a tutorial about turning your hand drawn sketches into digital cuts for your Silhouette machine. You can read that post here.

I was also assigned the One Item Wonder challenge on the blog. Tessa asked me to work with the Pink Paislee Washi Shapes that were part of the main kit. That little book was full of awesomeness! I created the Tic-Tac-Toe boards with them and other scraps of paper. And then filled in the X's and O's using the hearts and dots in the little book as well as other hearts and shapes from the kit.

This is without a doubt one of my latest favorite pages. For me it's just so fun! Tessa shared it on the blog last week. You can read the post here.

I also made a new Mac page. I swear, I scrapbook about her every month. No problem with that, she's kind of my baby. I just never thought I'd have so many stories to share! She's one tiny cat with a big personality.

Later this month I have a process video about this page going up on the Scrapbook Circle blog. If those are you thing, be sure to check it out on the 25th!

But that's not all folks! I have 2 other layouts I made with this oh-so-fabulous kit. But I'll be posting about them here individually, since they won't be up on the Scrapbook Circle blog. Check back for that, won't ya?

cheers & besos,

Happy 2015

Happy 2015!!!

I hope you had a wonderful (and safe) New Year's Eve. MT and I went got all dressed up and went for a fancy dinner at a not so fancy place. We love it and it's now become our tradition.

Also this year, I just couldn't get my act together for Christmas cards. So I went with New Year's postcards from Minted. I loved how they turned out!

I hope today is relaxing for you. It's suppose to rain all day so we'll be inside. MT watching TV and me cleaning up the ye old scrap space.

cheers & besos,