Love All

Tomorrow my family and I will sit down to an awesome array of favorite foods, and give thanks for our many blessings. We are thankful for our home, for good health, family and friends. Not everyone is so fortunate. The scrapbook page below is about a favorite church ministry activity, serving a Saturday lunch to the poor and homeless at St. Jude Community Center.

A stencil from the Feels Like Home kit was used to create the cut file for the row of hearts. To give the hearts dimension, the intact inner edges of each heart half were scored and bent upwards, displaying the patterned paper beneath:

A pretty cluster of embellishments sits at the bottom of the page:

Scraptastic's Feels Like Home kit, add-on and stamp set were used, as well as the place setting stamp from the November 2015 Foodie stamp set.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Home At Last

Whew! We have been lucky this year. It's almost the end of hurricane season, and I'm so thankful that we have not had to evacuate for a scary storm. A few years ago, however, a storm named Gustav had me and my family heading north to Jackson, MS. 

This layout is about what we found when we returned home from our evacuation. There was no great damage or flooding in our area, but there had evidently been quite a lot of wind. The streets were so littered with leaves they were green!

Three fabulous cut files help to tell the story, two from The Cut Shoppe store:

and a freebie from the The Cut Shoppe newsletter:

Here are closeups of my page:

Yep, we couldn't wait to get home. As soon as they opened up the interstate going south, we were on it...along with all the Entergy bucket trucks that were heading down to help.

Home at Last!

Always & Forever

If you know me, and you know my scrapbook pages, you'll also know that I love my patterned paper. So it might come as a surprise when you notice that the layout below uses absolutely NO patterned paper at all! That's right...none, zilch, zero, nada. 

Instead, I've filled the ink-splattered center of this minimalist page with die-cut embellishments from the Pebbles DIY Home ephemera pack from Scraptastic's Feels Like Home kit:

Painted chipboard, washi tape, and a stamped sentiment courtesy of Scraptastic's Sentiment Series V.9 stamp set complete the page. 

I can't remember the last time I created a scrapbook page without patterned paper. In fact, if I have, it must have been a challenge...or a dare. ;)

I *heart* Swimming (and why a swimming mile isn't a mile)!

Kevin swims...a lot. Back and forth, back and forth. Laps for practice. Laps during warm ups. Laps at swim meets. 

A few weeks ago he completed the longest distance event he's ever entered, the 1650 freestyle. And he's going to do it again this weekend! In case you're not familiar, 1650 refers to the number of yards swum. 1650 yards is equal to 66 laps in a 50 yard pool. In the swim world, the 1650 is sometimes called the "mile", although a true mile is 1760 yards. (For the full scoop on this distance discrepancy, read Swim-Swam's "How Many Yards In a Swim Mile?")

Regardless, 1650 yards, 66 laps, is a LOT of swimming. Going that distance at a good pace, during a race, is quite an accomplishment. Congratulations Kevin!

The page below takes a favorite cut file and pairs it with a favorite photo of him swimming. Back and forth. Back and forth. ;)

The Any Which Way from The Cut Shoppe, had me pulling out ALL of my blue and aqua scraps:

Add a shiny title, matted photo, and swim-related brads; this page is done! Aren't those arrows perfect?! Back and forth, back and forth. ;)

The Big SIX-Oh!

I love using my digital cutter to enhance my scrapbooking. Today I'm sharing a page whose background was created using the All Heart cut file from The Cut Shoppe. The subtle, neutral background was certainly a great foundation on which to build this colorful, celebratory page. My husband and his twin were celebrating the birthday, and a big one at that! 

Supplies: Patterned paper, journal cards, chipboard stickers, buttons, flair and tag-Fancy Pants, mist-Mr. Huey's, cardstock-Bazzill, Alphabet-Jillibean Soup, enamel dots, and the following cut file :

As you can see from the completed page, I only cut the outer two rows of hearts. Before beginning the cut, I opened up the original All Heart cut file in my digital cutting program and eliminated the inner rows which were not going to be visible anyway. It saved time and wear and tear on my blade by paring down the necessary cuts.

The big SIX-Oh! I think we're going to start counting backwards now. ;)