IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR

Merry Christmas!  This is my latest project for Use Your Stuff.  Today's challenge was "Anything Goes," so I decided to use one of my favorite sketches of the year created by my friend Bev Code to highlight some of my favorite pictures of my daughter at Christmas.  My daughter has food allergies, so we have to be extremely careful with all baked goods.  Luckily, gingerbread houses are totally safe for her.  She especially loves decorating the houses, however I wonder how many decorations actually end up on the house...Getting to play with candy and eat copious amounts of icing definitely constitutes "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" for my girl.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of Doodlebug Christmas papers I've accumulated over the years.

OH COME LET US ADORE HIM

This is my latest project for Sketches in Thyme using the following design.  Back in March, my daughter had a soccer tournament in Gatlinburg, TN. I had heard about the Your Scrapbook Superstore in Sevierville, TN, and hoped we could take a trip there while in town.  As fate would have it, it was around the corner from my hotel!  I could've spent hours in all the aisles checking out all the papers and embellishments, but alas there were soccer games to be played...This Bella Blvd Illustrated Faith "CHRIST mas Collection" paper was one of my favorite purchases from the trip.  While we are not a super religious family, I loved the manger scenes and the Christmas prints on all the papers.  A few years back, our church did a live Nativity, and I thought the pics of my oldest daughter and her friend playing "Angels" would be the perfect for this paper collection.  I have a wide array of Bella Blvd cardstock stickers, so I used a variety of them to accent the page.

HOLLY JOLLY

This is my latest project for Let's Scrap using the following design.  I'm a little late posting this to my blog.  Between finalizing the semester at my job and preparing for Christmas, I've been a bit swamped.  But as I've always said, scrapbooking is my therapy.  Playing with papers and pictures feeds my soul, and I definitely enjoyed my time creating this project.  I decided to go Christmas with this layout by featuring pictures of one of my daughter's favorite holiday traditions; The Elf on the Shelf named "Holly Jolly."  Throughout the years, Holly Jolly has found herself in a wee bit of mischief.  She's plopped herself down in a poinsettia, taken a joy ride in a Monster High car, toilet papered the Christmas tree, wrapped herself with sport's tape to the Christmas light in the foyer, and built a snowman out of marshmallows on the kitchen table.  (I once caught her online shopping!)  In summary, we've had so much fun watching my daughter be in awe of the Elf on the Shelf.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of paper from the Simple Stories "Oh What Fun!" collection.  

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS MY 2 FRONT TEETH

This is my latest project for Use Your Stuff using the following sketch from my former design team 2 Broke Girls Challenges.  This week's theme is "Christmas is Coming."  I have always wanted to use this baby picture of my daughter, and I thought this project would be perfect to showcase this portrait.  On my daughter's first Christmas, she was teething.  She had her two incisors and her two bottom teeth, but her two front teeth were no where to be found.  She would smile this big toothy, vampire grin, and I was just smitten with her cuteness.  So I decided to use the lyrics of the Christmas song, "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" as the title.  In addition, I used a variety of papers from Doodlebug Design's "Here Comes Santa Claus" collection to pull this project together.

A CHRISTMAS STORY HOUSE

This is my latest project for Let's Scrap using the following sketch.  One of the greatest road trips my family and I ever took was to "A Christmas Story" House in Cleveland, Ohio.  We love Ralphie and quote this movie throughout the year.  So I decided that for this sketch, I would feature some of my favorite pictures from the trip.  To pull the project together, I used a variety of papers from Carta Bella's "A Very Merry Christmas" line.

LOVE

This is my latest project for Use Your Stash.  This week's challenge involved using heat embossing along with gold.  I must admit...I don't heat emboss.  I love the look of embossed projects, but it's not something I typically do.  So I decided to modify the requirements to fit my needs.  I recently found this picture of my Grandparents before my Grandpa deployed to England during WWII.  I absolutely love this picture; #relationshipgoals.  During a recent trek through Michaels, I found the white arabesque lantern embossed paper that I used as the background along with the gold flecked diamond paper.  I started layering papers including a scrap piece of flowered paper from Simple Stories "Beautiful" collection. Then I found a white flower with gold flecks and the vintage letters with gold trim.  VOILA!  My own version of a heat embossed with gold project that used items in my stash.  To pull this project together, I used a sketch from my former design team, 2 Broke Girls, as inspiration.

 

FALL

There is nothing scarier than putting yourself out there.  My family has learned this lesson on more than one occasion this year.  I have always admired my daughters for their ability to try out for different competitive sports.  Sometimes it works out for them, this year it did not for my oldest daughter.  I've told my girls on multiple occasions that they are the strongest, bravest people I know for being willing to put their abilities on the line. In the spirit of my children, I decided to put myself out there again in the scrapbook world.  My former design team "The Memory Nest" is currently on a hiatus, and I knew I would miss being part of this community.  Each DT has their own personality, and The Memory Nest always pushed my creative skills to the limit.  So I decided to put my name and abilities out there again and see if I could possibly join another design team.  CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration is currently holding a DT call, & this was my submission using the following guidelines.  Since the colors required for the layout and theme indicated "fall," I decided to feature some of my favorite fall pictures I took of my brave girls at Niagara Falls, NY a few years ago.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers from Carta Bella's "Autumn Collection" line.

BLACK FRIDAY

This is my latest project for Sketches in Thyme using the following sketch.  This is going live right before one of my favorite days of the year...Black Friday!  I will admit, I'm one of the people who helps stimulate the economy on Thanksgiving night.  Perhaps it's because my husband is a firefighter/paramedic.  Holidays are special, but my girls and I have grown accustomed to making the most of days when he is gone.  So my oldest and I have started the tradition of standing in line at Target to be one of the first ones in the door for the Black Friday sales.  Is there anything we want in particular?  Not really.  We just enjoy the excitement and time together.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers from PhotoPlay's "Mad 4 Plaid Christmas Collection" and Carta Bella's "Christmas Delivery"

collection.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

This is my latest project for Let's Scrap using the following sketch. Being the seasonal scrapbooker that I am, I decided to say good-bye to my favorite patterned paper season by featuring pictures of my girls this past Halloween.  I have absolutely adored all the papers in the Pebbles, Inc. line this year. While I followed the sketch, rather than use all the pictures the layout called for, I decided to focus more on the papers and the embellishments.

HAPPY HALLOWTHANKSMAS

This is my latest project for Use Your Stuff.  For our challenge this week, we were asked to use five different pattern papers on our project.  As I was surfing around on Pinterest, this sketch from my former DT "2 Broke Girls" caught my eye.  This is my daughters and mine favorite time of the year.  When October 1st arrived, my oldest started watching all her favorite Halloween movies.  The first full weekend of October, I came downstairs one afternoon to this...My youngest daughter dug out all the Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas decorations and decorated the mantle.  She looked at me and said, "Happy Hallowthanksmas!"  I loved it!  I'm not sure if we are going to take down decorations as each holiday passes or if we are going to keep everything up until the New Year.  But until then, we are enjoying snowmen mixed with skeletons.   When I was brainstorming this project, I wanted to use different holiday theme paper, but didn't want it to look too busy.  Doodlebug Design is my go to scrapbook paper because I love how all the different lines go together.  I liked how this sketch uses small bits of paper, and I thought Doodlebug Halloween, Fall, and Christmas paper would be perfect to accent this picture of our Happy Hallowthanksmas décor.

NO TRICKS JUST TREATS

 This is my latest (and last) project for The Memory Nest.  I have so enjoyed being a designer for this blog, but all good things must come to an end. I will miss this group and all their beautiful sketches dearly.  For my final project, I decided to feature three of my favorite pictures of my daughter and her best bud picking out and carving their Halloween pumpkins.  I liked how this sketch not only used an assortment of pictures but also papers.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers and ephemera from Pebbles "Midnight Haunting" collection.

BE MERRY!

This is my latest project for The Memory Nest using the following sketch.  It's November 6...I know.  But I love Christmas.  And I simply could not wait to scrap these pictures of my daughter and her best friend last year.  They went to a Christmas Parade that featured horses of all breeds and sizes.  It's a giant, outdoor Christmas festival.  And an added perk....my husband is the Fire Chief of the town where the parade is held which means my daughter and her buddy had the best seats in town to watch the parade!  To pull this project together, I used Authentique's "Colorful Christmas" since the patterns reminded me of the elves posing with the girls.

PLAY WITH ATTITUDE

 This is my latest project for Let's Scrap using the following throwback sketch.  I was instantly inspired by the hexagons.  My daughter finishes up her soccer season this upcoming weekend.  It has been a great experience for her.  Her teammates combined with another team, which made her initially nervous, but overall it has been a wonderful experience.  They've done 7:00 AM penalty kick shoot outs, won a tournament in their age level, and have had some terrific team bonding times.  I decided using some of my favorite pictures from the season would be the perfect subject matter for this sketch that features hexagons.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of soccer theme papers from Doodlebug Design's "Goal Collection" and Moxxie's "Soccer Star" collection.

BOO!

Happy Halloween!  This is a special post for Use Your Stuff in honor of the creepiest day of the year!  In the spirit of Trick or Treat night, I decided to feature some of my favorite pictures of my favorite candy beggars and their furry friends.  Ever since we've adopted our dogs, my girls have insisted that they dress up for Halloween just like them.  One year my big dog was a lobster; another year he was a firedog.   One year my Chihuahua was a Triceratops; another year she was a shark.  I'm not sure the dogs enjoy being dressed up, but they sure have brought a lot of joy to people who come to our house trick or treating! To pull this project together, I used Echo Park's "Halloween Town" collection.

CAPTURED

This is my latest project for Use Your Stuff.  For this week's challenge, we were asked to use this sketch.  I love using sketches.  It takes so much of the guess work out of making pages, and this one did not disappoint. I decided to feature pictures of my daughter and her friends at their Homecoming dance.  Much to my happiness, she actually allowed me to take pictures of her which is a rarity anymore.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of Bella Blvd papers from Illustrated Faith collection.

AUTUMN

This is my latest project for Sketches in Thyme using the following sketch.  Every second week in October, my cousin and I take a pilgrimage to Waynesville, Ohio for our favorite event of the season; the Sauerkraut Festival.  This festival celebrates all things sauerkraut.  You think of the food, this festival sells it topped with sauerkraut.  It's phenomenal!  (If you like sauerkraut...)  Every year there is one vendor that catches our eye.  This year it was the woodworker who made deer and other woodland creatures from scraps of wood.  I had to have one because the deer looked like my dog Penny.  While we were at the man's booth checking out the deer, it started to look like rain so the man sold us our deer at a discounted price.  Which was good because the Cokes (featured also in the picture) were DOUBLE what we typically pay!  Every year we take one picture to commemorate our trip; last year's was a selfie (on the left).  This year was our clearance priced deer and extremely overpriced medium Cokes!  Yin and yang...To pull this project together, I used Carta Bella's "Autumn" collection.

HELLO MY PRETTY

 This is my latest project for The Memory Nest using the following sketch.  I decided to feature pictures of my daughters four years ago during a trip we took to Senoia, Georgia.  If you are a Walking Dead fan reading my blog, then you would recognize Senoia as "Woodbury" or "Alexandria."  It's where The Walking Dead is filmed.  My older daughter and I scheduled a tour with Atlanta Movie Tours that took us to all sorts of locations where pivotal scenes from the series were filmed.  My inner nerd was filled with so much joy seeing all these places!  When we were done with the tour, we explored the city of Senoia.  And even the railroad tracks where my daughter was standing in this layout were in the series.  The tracks led to "Terminus."  To pull these pictures together, I used a variety of papers from Pebbles's "Midnight Haunt" collection.

YOU PUT A SPELL ON ME

This is my latest project for Let's Scrap using the following sketch.  I decided to feature a trip my daughter and I took a few Octobers ago to Senoia, Georgia.  Why Senoia?  Because that's where The Walking Dead is filmed.  We had a blast touring the different places where our favorite show is filmed.  We saw all sorts of cool locations such as the waterfall where Rick told the group they were all infected to the warehouse where Daryl fought his brother Merle in season 2.   The highlight of our trip was our tour guide otherwise known as "Woodchuck Walker."  He was the featured walker in Season 2 Episode 1 where Rick and Daryl had to "pump his stomach" looking for Sophia...He was more than happy to do his best walker pose with my daughter.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of Authentique paper from their "Mysterious" line.  I loved the vintage, macabre look of the paper.  It reminded me of the opening credits of The Walking Dead, so I felt it would be perfect for this layout.

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS

This is my latest project for Use Your Stuff.  The challenge this week features "Breast Cancer Awareness" or use the color pink in the project in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  I decided to showcase a picture of my daughter wearing and holding all sorts of pink.  She loves her Snapchat filters.  It's amazing how she can take a thousand pics of herself a day, but if I try to take one of her, she flips.  So when she does take a selfie that she's happy with, I always ask her to send it to me so I can do things like this...To pull this project together, I used Simple Stories's "Beautiful" collection.  I loved how subtle the pinks where on the paper, and the boldness of the black and white flowers. 

YOU'RE MY PUMPKIN

This is my latest project for The Memory Nest using the following sketch.  I love fall theme paper.  I love it so much in fact that I may have a borderline addiction to buying papers with leaves and pumpkins on them.  When I saw this sketch, I decided immediately a favorite fall picture should be featured using my favorite, newly purchased Carta Bella's "Hello Fall" line. 

HAPPY FALL Y'ALL

 This is my latest project for Let's Scrap using the following sketch.  As I've said in other posts, I love fall scrapbook paper.  Dare I say, I'm a bit addicted to fall scrapbook paper.  So when I saw Authentique's "Bountiful" collection, I knew I had to buy it.  And once it was mine, I knew exactly what pictures to use.  Five years ago when the leaves were at their peak color, my daughters and I did a photo shoot at a local arboretum.  To this day, these are some of my favorite pictures I've ever had made of my children.  I liked how the pictures were placed on this sketch and followed it closely.  Because I chose to keep my pictures in the 4x6 format, I decided to use a decorative placement of squares on the far right instead of pockets. To add a fall touch to my layout, I used leaf tags I found at Michael's in the discount bin; my favorite place to find unique embellishments.

FALL

This is my latest project for Use your Stuff.  The theme this week was "Old and New" which meant use a recently purchased item with something that is older.  Well, that was easy seeing as I buy scrapbook paper entirely too often!  I used a variety of Authentique's "Bountiful" collection to fulfill the "new" requirement.  For the old, I used an older photo taken of my daughters that is in sepia tone.  I love the "antique" look of this picture highlighted against the gorgeous fall colors in the Authentique paper.  Overall, I need to keep the guidelines of this challenge in my back packet.  It was fun going through my photo archives to see what picture(s) I didn't scrap earlier that could be strapped now using a modern product.

PLAY WITH HEART

This is my latest project for Sketches in Thyme using the following design.  My daughter's soccer team played in a soccer tournament this past Labor Day weekend and had quite a successful weekend..  It was grueling...During Saturday's games, the girls had to fight off remnants of Hurricane Harvey coming through our area.  (Which meant super wet fields and an annoying, constant drizzle).  By Monday, the girls were combatting extreme heat.  Despite the elements, her team made it to the final game losing in a heartbreaker.  Although her team were not the grand champions, they played with incredible heart the entire weekend hence the reason for the title. The series of three pictures were perfect to display some of my favorites from the weekend, especially the pics where she is showing off her "hardware."  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers from Moxxie's "Soccer Star" collection.

FUN IN THE SUN

This is my latest project for Let's Scrap using the following sketch.  With summer officially over in six days, I decided to do one last summer time page as a good bye to my favorite season.  In June, my husband, younger daughter, and I went to Panama City Beach, Florida for a mini vacation.  It is our happy place.  The water is a shade of turquoise that I can not adequately describe in a blog post.  Something about salt water feeds my soul.  I call it the curse of living in a landlocked state...I liked how this sketch allowed for the use of several pictures to tell a story which is what I did for this project.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers from Echo Park's "Summer Fun" collection.

TRICK OR TREAT

This is my latest creation for Use Your Stuff using the theme "Fall is in the Air."  I must be honest...I have a slight addiction to buying Halloween themed scrapbook paper.  I can not help myself.  When the new Halloween lines are released from my favorite scrapbook companies in September, I become obsessed and buy entirely too many sheets.  So when "Fall is in the Air," I think Halloween.   This picture combines two of my favorite fall things; leaves and a "scary ghoul."  I'm not exactly sure what my niece was last Halloween, but her face accented by the pile of leaves on the ground was the perfect pic to use with Pebbles scrapbook paper company's "Midnight Haunting" line.

BEAUTIFUL

This is my latest project for The Memory Nest using the following sketch.  Somehow or another, my iPhone is attached to my daughter's iCloud account.  We have tried to fix this multiple times to no avail.  While it can get annoying at times, this picture is one of the reasons I do not want to fix it.  I find random pictures in my camera feed like this one that made me laugh and gasp simultaneously.  The "eyes" behind her are giant wall stickers, and she decided to reenact the wall art.  She was trying to be silly posing for this picture, but I think it turned out beautiful.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers from my Bella Blvd stash.

PROUD OF OUR FIREFIGHTER

This is my latest project for The Memory Nest using the following sketch.  In July, my husband graduated from the National Fire Academy in Emmittsburg, Maryland.  In the fire world, that is a huge accomplishment.  First, you have to hold a leadership position within your department.  Next, it takes four years, two weeks away each time, and a giant research paper every year to earn your degree.  So in honor of his graduation, my girls, in-laws, and I took a pilgrimage to Maryland to watch him receive his diploma.    These are a few of my favorite pictures from the day.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of firefighter themed papers I have saved over the years for occasions such as this one to commemorate his career.