You & Me

When my mother-in-law passed away a couple of months ago, I was happy to find this photo of her with Kevin, at Grandparents Day 2012. It's such a great photo of the two of them!

Just about everything on this page is from one Crate Paper collection or another.

It all began with a pack of Project Life cards, never opened, collecting dust. Opening it up, I found so many pretty pieces, and used these as layering bits around the picture.

Stickers, tags, flair, and chipboard pieces from other Crate Paper collections accentuate the page. It was nice to use so many hearts and flowers for once!

Photos like this are priceless; I'm glad I was able to preserve it in my scrapbooks. :)

Best Ever

It may at first seem a little ridiculous to even think that I'd ever use a scrapbook paper collection called "Snow and Cocoa". Snow is such a rarity in the deep south. But these papers and patterns are just SO PRETTY! Here I scrapped a Christmas cousins photo from 2015. As you can see, everyone is in short sleeves. Hahaha!

I decided to cut one of the colorful papers into a large heart shape for my page. But I couldn't just let it be. The heart was begging to be fringed. It then made a beautiful backdrop for my photo, a sewn banner, a couple of acrylic snowflakes, "snow globe", flair, and title.

We never know what weather will greet us Christmas morn. Will this year be long sleeves, boots and sweaters...or short sleeves with the A/C blasting? We'll see!

Hello Destin

Since I had already cut into the patterned papers from Simple Stories' You Are Here collection for the scrapbook page shared on the blog yesterday, it was a snap to create a second, coordinating page. The scraps were fit and layered to completely cover my cardstock background, their size and shape dictating the basic look of the page.

I particularly like the "hello" letters from the You Are Here sticker sheet. Cool that they have the same pretty landscape print from the card above them. This IS our happy place!

Several bits and pieces from my stash, including some (very) old S.E.I. alphabet stickers, were used to accent the page. I rooted through my box of "summer" scrapbook stuff for similarly colored pieces. I spy a postcard from an older Simple Stories collection, flags from Fancy Pants, and a checkered brad from who-knows-where.

As you can see, the brad was missing from this first pass in front of the camera, proving that if a page sits long enough on my easel, I'll surely find something else to add! Nothing's safe. ;)

Sunshine & Happiness

Scrapping summer never gets old. Even though we travel but a few states over...and visit the same vacation spot year after year, I enjoy documenting it every single time. Here are several from our crew, enjoying the beach and each other's company:

I love all the color that comes with every beach and travel collection. The papers on this layout are from the tropically-inspired You Are Here collection by Simple Stories.

After sprinkling and smooshing mist on the white cardstock background, the softly colored papers were layered to frame my photo. I then made good use of the hibiscus flowers and flamingo accents off the sticker sheet, clustering them in two opposite corners of my page. The tag cut from one of the patterned papers serves to anchor several of the embellishments.

Such sweet summer memories!

Lunch at George's

Well, I finally photographed this layout. It's been hanging out on my scrapbook page easel for a while, a bittersweet reminder of my years of working with the beautifully coordinated Scraptastic kits. They still put out fabulous kits for those who do Project Life type scrapbooking and planners. But, as I do neither, I said my goodbyes with their last traditional scrapbooking kit.

Here I am with my sisters after a day exploring the shops in beach towns along 30A, and having "Lunch at George's":

I have to say, this was one of my favorite kits! It had so much color, fun embellishments, and little exclusives found no where else. That background paper is to-die-for:

It's been fun Scraptastic! I miss the camaraderie, inspiration, challenges, etc. And now...after the new year...I'm hoping to find another good fit design team. Crossing fingers!

Shine

I had yet to go through my camera photos of Kevin and his date when he came home with the photographer package from his school dance...so I decided to go with it, and created the page below:

It is really a pretty fun photo, with the Superdome in the background. We had noticed the dome was lit blue on the night of Jesuit's homecoming dance. Blue was the order of the day: school colors, Maddie's dress, Kevin's tie. I knew it was prudent to save all those scraps of blue, REAL blue!

On this page, I used two files from The Cut Shoppe: the Tiny Triangles background cut file, and Flocked and Feathered, for my (blue jay) feather accents.

Many of the papers and the star pin are from Crate Paper, the camera transparency is from a Shimelle line, and the cityscape flair hails from an old Scraptastic kit, all pulling together for this pretty special page.

Make Your Mark

In 7th grade, Kevin took the ACT as part of the Duke Talent Identification Program. In 10th, he took it again, to reacquaint himself with the test, get an idea of where he stands, and figure out which subjects or subtests need more work. This spring or summer, we'll try to fit in a prep class...to nudge that score even higher. Whew...funny that it all comes down to a single test. It's time to Make Your Mark:

A bunch of bright and colorful Bella Blvd. paper scraps were pieced together for this page. I knew that this was also a good opportunity to use that fill-in-the-oval paper, along with a couple of school-themed stickers and chipboard.

Coincidentally, PSAT scores came out yesterday, and he's pretty happy. Gigantic leaps from last year's practice PSAT; I think he surprised himself! He also took another ACT recently, but it will be a while until he gets those scores...an agonizingly long wait. Meanwhile, he wants to sign up for the February test. Geesh, I just think he needs to chill. ;)