Layout of the Week - Happy 4th of July

I thought I'd try something festive for this week's Layout of the Week. So in the spirit of the 4th of July, I created a layout with my photos from last 4th of July. I love using large photos in my layouts, so I printed my photo of the kids all decked out for the neighborhood parade as a 5 x 7. I cropped the photo to a 5 x 5 square for the page, since the extra was just my garage in the background. For such a sparkly holiday, I used as much "blingy" scrapbook product as I could.



I love all the diecut paper in the stores now, but couldn't find anything for my 4th of July layout. So I started with Reminisce's Sparkly Stars paper and then thought that it would look great on a bright red background. Next I chose a diecut paper with the bracket shape. I traced the bracket shape onto a thin piece of cardboard and then cut along the lines and created my own stencil for the bracket shape. I traced half of this shape onto the Reminisce paper & cut it out to create a custom diecut for my page. Then I flipped the stencil over and traced half again, so I'd have a piece for each side of my page with the stars facing up.

I mounted my photos on red textured & white shimmery papers from American Crafts. I inked the edges of most of my mats to add a little something extra. Next I cut my titles with the Quickutz die cut system using two sizes (classic & mini) of their Eliza font. I used iridescent metallic paper for the letters. For the final touches on this layout a used a mixture of red, clear & blue rhinestones in star and circle shapes, along with some metallic ribbons.

Here's a list of supplies used on this page:

Red Textured papers from Prizm & American Crafts
Reminisce Silver Stars paper
White shimmery paper from American Crafts
Iridescent Metallic White paper
Dew Drop Brilliance Platinum Planet ink
Ancient Page Redwood & Cobalt ink
Metallic Twill Ribbon in Red, White & Blue
Felt Flowers
Kaisercraft Red & Blue Rhinestones
Queen & Co. Red, White & Blue Star Jewels
Quickutz Eliza Font in Classic & Mini

If you're looking for inspiration check out Sunday Scrappin'!

Much Happier Friday!

It's been two weeks, but I think I'm safe to say everyone's recovered! Delaney is all better and Jake seems done with his coughing. I can't remember if I mentioned it, but the Swine Flu Scare was just that a scare. Delaney's test turned out to be a false positive. Just a "flu-like virus". Of course I'm still coughing, but that's what asthma will do for you, a few more sleepless nights of prednisone & I should be joining the kids on the Well List!

The three of us are off to the zoo for a couple hours this morning or what's left of it! I need to renew my membership so we can check out next Wednesday's free concert. Delaney's gym is closed so she's finally free on a Wednesday evening. And who wants to stand in that huge line to renew their membership. So we're sneaking in a few extra hours checking out the animals today. I can't wait to see how big the "baby" elephant is getting, I'll have to post a photo of him. We have a lucky friend who knows someone who works at the zoo and she just posted photos on Facebook of her kids inside the enclosure with the "little guy", who towers over the kids, of course!

I hope you're all getting a chance to enjoy some fun things in your areas this summer! Of course I'll be stopping by Ann's Virtual Girls' Night Out later to what what everyone is up to! You should check out Ann's Party too! I'll be working the crop at the scrapbook store tonight, so I'll gather as much inspiration as I can to share with you next week! I'm picking up some 4th of July photos at Costco this afternoon so my layout of the week will be in the festive spirit of the week next week. I've got my sparkly, bling-y supplies all set to go! See you back here soon!

Happy 15th Anniversary!

As I type this, little Jake has started screaming his head off in his crib! So I'd guessing he's saying, "Get off the computer, Mom!" In his own way of course!

But I really wanted to wish my sweet husband Dave a Happy 15th Anniversary! I can't believe that it's been 15 years since that day in June when we were praying for the rain to hold off until after our ceremony. That's what you do when you plan to get married outside in Oregon in June. And our prayers were answered, the rain didn't start until everyone was safely inside at the reception with drinks in their hands! These 15 years have certainly been a wild ride, full of ups & downs, very happy times and very sad times. But through them all, I've been thankful that I've been so lucky to have you by my side honey! :)

Better go get that little guy before he figures out how to climb out of his crib! Boy is that monster size margarita I'm ordering in a couple hours sounding awesome right now!

Layout of the Week - Home Sweet Home

When I first saw this paper from My Little Shoebox, my "I gotta have it!" alarm went off! I just knew that I needed to do a page with my house. Of all the photos I've taken in & around my house over the years, there still wasn't a page just showing the front of the house...where we live. The colors in these papers are just so cheery that I knew they'd be fine with any photo I could find of my gray house. The color of our house is something we laugh about a lot. This is the third home Dave & I have owned together. It's also our 3rd gray house! Being people who love color so much that we've painted two of our family rooms dark red. This whole gray thing is somewhat of a surprise for us. One of our friends even remarked that we have the "Skittles" house, when he saw how differently we've painted each room of this very traditional style home. But I guess the gray does point to our sense of looking past the book's cover when choosing such a large ticket item! We bought this house from a close friend, solely for the large backyard. It was just an extra perk that the floor plan works so well for our family. It certainly wasn't the traditional facade or gray color that drew us to our home of almost 5 years. If we could choose, we'd live in a Craftsman style home. But alas none were to be found with a huge yard and a view of all the geese & duck families floating on the pond out back...so traditional gray with black shutters was the way to go!

And having a layout of our home all covered with snow, will always bring us back to the freak snowstorm of December 2008! This photo was from the first day of that storm and the snow didn't stop falling or even melt for two more weeks! I'll have to do an "after the storm" page someday! Delaney was so excited, she struck a "Vanna White" pose in the driveway for this shot!

I love the diecut scalloped paper and used it to set my photo apart from the 2 Home Sweet Home patterned papers I used in the background. And my black shutters came in handy, helping me to spread the color black as an accent around my layout. I used the Cricut's Tear Drop font to cut my address numbers from a piece of Bo Bunny's black dot paper, the shadow is a pink on pink heart pattern which is the flip side of the Home Sweet Home strip paper I used at the bottom of the page (I inked the edges of the strip & scalloped diecut with black chalk.) Next, I mounted two square black buckles from 7 Gypsies on pink twill ribbon from Creative Cafe and a black chiffon flower on a sparkly white brad to complete the embellishing of my page.

The color scheme for this page is a bit out of the ordinary, which is why I love it. It will be lot's of fun to have such an unexpected page in my album! The next time you've got your camera out shooting photos of the kids, take a few minutes to get some shots of your home, yard, kitchen counters (yes, whether they're spotless or full of piles like mine!). Someday you'll love looking back & seeing where you lived at this moment in time! Maybe that pile on your counter will remind you of all those kids' school projects or that today you were making chocolate chip cookies. Whatever is there on the counter will bring back memories of today and that's what our photo albums are all about!

Check out My Little Shoebox's Blog to get some inspiration for your next project using all their cool products!

Layout of the Week - Our Pool!

Hi everyone! I think that our house is finally emerging from our latest round of sickness! YEAH! After missing out on so many things this last week, it feels good to be getting back to normal. I caught the bug after Delaney was finally getting better and then poor little Jakey caught it. He's coming out of it now and we're hoping that it missed Dave entirely! Thanks for all the 'Get Well' wishes this last week! :)


I do have a cool summer layout to get you inspired this week! I love the new summer collection from Cosmo Cricket, it's called Snorkel! I love all the bright colors and bold graphics. It also matched perfectly with all my photos from our backyard pool last summer. We put up a pool out there every summer and really enjoy being able to float around every chance we get. I wasn't sure how Jake would like the pool, it not being heated & all! But he LOVED it, just check out his expression!

In addition to three papers from the Cosmo's Snorkel collection, I used both bright & dark red textured cardstock from Prizm in this layout. For my titles, I used my trusty Diesel font from Quickutz. This time I chose the lower case, to give my layout a more laid back look. I didn't use any extra embellishments on this one, so it's a pretty economical layout. Instead, I followed the cool flowing designs of these papers and trimmed them with my scissors for some custom edging. Give trimming a try the next time you've got a design you love!

Don't forget to join me later, over at Ann's for our favorite Friday party, Virtual Girls' Night Out! Really, it's the only way most of us get to get out these days! :)

Not Such a Happy Friday...

Today's Delaney's last day of second grade. She was so excited that this week was coming! Our school has day camp type activities all week, singing songs together, reading in tents in the classroom, writing camp letters, hanging out with friends. But here she is, lying in bed for the second day in a row! Poor thing, she has the flu. She doesn't have a bad fever, but is weak from being sick & not eating much of anything since Tuesday. She came home sick that day & we headed to the doctor when she complained of problems breathing. It's no surprise around Portland lately to have breathing problems, we've got a lot of pollen and tree fluff in the area around here. So I thought she was just having some sort of asthma problem. I've got it, so I guess it's my fault! :) The doctor couldn't figure out what was wrong and did a bunch of tests and an x-ray. In the end, she did a flu test and guess what, she's got Influenza A....could be related to the swine flu, they say. But we won't know that for sure until after the weekend when the test comes back. She has only had a low fever, 99 or 100, but I guess that's enough. The doctor said it could go away anytime and she's fine to go about normal activities as soon as her fever's gone. So here we are waiting....hoping that no one else around here gets it!

So go ahead, enjoy your Friday...we wish we were! :(

Oh and if you've got the energy, swing by Ann's Virtual Girls' Night Out...the ultimate in "stay at home in your pj's & party" parties!

Layout of the Week - Graduation Shadow Box

My niece Emily graduated from High School last weekend. Although it makes me feel old, I couldn't be more proud of her. When I started considering what type of gift I wanted to give her, I thought it should be something full of memories. I wanted to make her something unique, that would remind her of this special time.

I love shadow boxes, so I decided to create one for Emily. I started out with a plan. I knew I wanted to use her school colors and that I wanted to use a 12" x12" size frame. I chose 12" x 12", so that she could take the paper out of the frame someday and put it in a photo album.

I hoped to find a white shadow box, but could only find a black one. I decided to paint it white, and Dave was nice enough to sand it for me. Then I used some leftover white primer and semi gloss paint from Home Depot. It's so nice when things you've been saving forever finally come in handy! After one coat of primer and two coats of paint, I coated the frame with clear Glitter Glaze from Li'l Davis Designs. All girls just need a little more glitter in their lives! :)

For the inside of the box, I wanted to use Emily's school colors, so I checked with her mom and found out the colors are royal blue and white. I chose a shimmery foiled paper, Hat Toss from the Graduation Collection by Reminsce, for my background. I used the Cricut die cut machine to cut my letters and tags and their shadows out of white Bazzill Bling and royal blue metallic papers. To adhere the letters and tags, I used my Xyron Create a Sticker 250.

I used two double mats, one vertical and one horizontal. It will be easy for Emily to choose two 4” x 6” photos to place on each mat.

I placed a mix of pearls, rhinestones and ribbons on the background to give my creation a little flair. I’ll make a list of supplies at the end of this post.

When I was making the tags with Emily’s name, I made a few trying to get it just right. Since there were extras, I used them on the gift and card. It will be fun for Emily to use these on her dorm room bulletin board.

So if you’re looking for the perfect graduation gift, give a shadow box a try! It’s an easy way to create something your loved one will cherish.

Supply List
12” x 12” MCS Scrapbook Shadow Box Frame
Li’l Davis Designs clear Glitter Glaze
Reminisce Graduation Collection, Hat Toss Foil Paper
Metallic Paper – Royal Blue Paper
Bazzill Bling – White Paper
KaiserCraft White Pearls & Royal Rhinestones
Misc. Ribbons in Royal & White
Royal Felt Flowers
Royal Glitter Brads

Layout of the Week - Balls, Balls, Bouncy Balls

OK, I know I've been a slacker for the last couple weeks! Sorry about that, after everyone was sick, we had a huge garage sale last week! I promise to try to keep up!

Here's the layout of the week I started working on on May 20....

Hi there! Just a quick note to say sorry for not getting a Layout of the Week published last week! We had a lot of sickies around here, starting with little Jake last Wednesday. I think we're out of the woods now. I'm ready to get back to my schedule this week...if I can get all the laundry that's been piling up done!

I LOVE this photo! This was Jake's first experience with grass. On a warm, sunny day, he wandered all around the yard. Then when he just sat down. He reached out to get up and as soon as he felt the grass, he looked back & forth between each hand. We watched as he sat in the same spot for about 20 minutes.

It was so cute to watch him think about what it was that he was touching and how he was going to get himself up. Of course he didn't end up getting himself up, he screamed and we came to his rescue.

While Jake sat for so long, I had the perfect chance to snap some photos of him and his beloved ball. He's all about the balls, footballs, soccer balls, basketballs. This one is one of Delaney's wallball balls. It's the perfect size for him, so he carries it all around when we're outside.

This photo will always remind me of him sitting in the grass for the first time and how he is obsessed with balls. I wanted to do a layout with just this photo to show how important it is to me. I knew the layout would be all about balls. So I looked around the store. I searched for paper with all sorts of sports balls and paper with circles. Since I know I will have many chances over the next few years to do sports pages for him, I chose paper with circles. These papers are from the Celebration Collection from American Crafts. Their names are DJ and Disco Ball. I liked the primary colors and the arrangements of the circles on each paper.

After choosing the printed papers, I chose coordinating solid textured cardstock from American Crafts. I used it to mat my photo and then cut some fun circles from it on the Cricut. I used a small circle (made of smaller circles) stamp from Technique Tuesday and a Versamark Stamp Pad to create a little extra dimension on the circles. Then I arranged them in a kind of hap-hazard / planned way. I like to mix their colors and sizes in a layout like this. I used the Pooh Font and cut my title on the Cricut. And to make application of the letters easy, I ran them through my Xyron adhesive machine. I have the 2.5" one, it's awesome! I find I use it more & more....always being in such a hurry when I'm working on my projects!

I do apologize it's taken me so long to get back to my "Layout of the Week" series. Maybe I should call it "A Layout Every Once in a While!"