a fun moose adventure {a scrapbook layout with pinwheel flowers}

i recently received my jan/feb issue of creating keepsakes magazine and saw a layout with these cute little pinwheel flowers made from circle punches. i had to recreate those flowers. in fact i was kind of obsessed with recreating them-i had to do it that night. sometimes, i just get the urge to do something creatively and i can't let go of it.
the obsession with those pinwheel flowers turned into this layout:

that's my moosey boy having an everyday adventure in our backyard. he has a lot of those. he loves exploring the area around our playset, finding new creatures {aka ants} to talk to. i think this line of paper and embellishments really brings out the fun and playful feel i am trying to get across with this layout.

here's a closer look at the left side:

you probably can't tell but i used pop dots to pop the main picture {the close up of my son's face} and keep it the focus. i also popped the pinwheel flowers. i used smaller and tighter petals than the one featured in creating keepsakes but i like how mine turned out.

close-up of flowers:

these are super easy to make: you just punch circles and then cut them in half to make your petals; layer your petals with the flat sides facing each other and then use a button or {in my case} a piece of flair as your center. very cute and adds a lot of fun to your layout!

here's a close-up of my right side with the journaling and title:

because i used one line of paper, embellishments, and stickers {Tinkerin' by CTMH}, this layout came together very quickly even with the handmade pinwheel flowers.

i will definitely be making these flowers again! can't wait to try out different variations of sizes and spacings!
what do you think-are pinwheel flowers something you are going to try?

the redesigned december daily {it's now a christmas memories album!}

So yeah. 12 days in and I have kept up with my Dec Daily exactly 50% of the time. Sigh. I knew this would happen. I do have some lovely photos to show for it. {Which will be incorporated into my NEW mini.}

{my son, jackson, picking out a santa hat for his school play}

 {christmas decorations in our family room}

What's the new plan? A mini album of 25 Christmas memories inspired by this blog post by the uber talented Lisa Day. I just wish I'd read that post BEFORE I made my 6x6 pages. Sigh. Those divided page protectors are awesome. Oh well, there's always next year.

In other news, as you all know I'm huge fan of a good deal and there's a new deal site in town. Blitsy is for members only and has great craft deals-$19.99 for the same ATG gun I got at Michaels. {I had to use a 50% off coupon to get it at that price!} Every couple of days they have a new deal posted. Fun stuff!

And finally, I did it. I bought the Project Life Core Kit in Cobalt for 2012!

 {photo from becky higgins' blog-isn't it lovely? can't wait!!!!}

I know what you are thinking. "Christina, you can't even keep up with a December Daily, how on earth will you keep up with Project Life?" Ahhhh,  but I am not planning on taking a picture a day. I'm going to organize my PL album more loosely-more like a week at a time. I take a lot of pictures in a month and letting go of the expectation of taking one picture a day is really what made me want to do this.
I'm a Project Lifer. :)

Happy Monday!

happy 3rd birthday {a scrapbook layout with banners}

Thanks for all of the nice comments on my DD mini. I will definitely share pictures when it's done!
As they say on a very old show my parents watched, and now for something completely different...
I must have cut out and flagged at least 50 layouts with banners this year with notes to myself that say "Try This". But until I saw this paper from Jillibean, I just hadn't found anything that I wanted to try it with. And then I got the photos back from Brody's 3rd birthday and it was BANNER TIME!

Moose had not one, not two, but THREE birthday celebrations. {Fitting, since it was his third birthday and all.} So this layout is a summary of those and has THREE banners {sort of}. :) I used Bazzill Dotted Swiss cardstock for some added texture and Jillibean Spotted Owl patterned paper. I just cut around the shapes in the paper to make my banners. I added some fibers and twine to make the banners stand out a little bit.

I had a lot of journaling, so I added a KI Memories pocket to hold it all and created journal cards from white cardstock. I just punched the number "3" from the patterned paper and added a decorative edge with a border punch. I dressed up the pocket with some fiber from my banner on the left side of the layout and my SMASH date stamp {it's a little blurry but it's his birthday and says 'this deserves a fist bump'-he loves fist bumps right now}.

Can't tell you how pleased I am with how this turned out! I will definitely be pulling out the banners again soon!

the super simple december daily {a mini album project}

I'll be honest, I was definitely NOT going to do a December Daily. It was just too much work. And I knew there was no way I'd remember to take a picture every day.
But then about a month ago, I was in the scrap room and my son was going through the Summer Mini album that I put together using this kit from my friend Monika's shop, when he said, "I love looking at these little albums, Mommy." And I realized how often they look through our little mini-albums. And suddenly working on a December Daily didn't seem like that much trouble after all.
I decided to put together my album ahead of time-I kept things super simple. No fancy binders or overlays. I wanted something the kids can pull out and look through any time they want.

I used kraft cardstock as my base pages. I had purchased a couple of sheets of the Simple Stories 25 Days of Christmas at Archiver's 43% off sale and decided to use that for all my accents. I paired it with a plaid print from Basic Grey's Oxford line.

My pages are 6" x 6". I'm either going to use 4" x 6" photos or since I take so many photos with my iPhone-4" x 4" Instagram photos printed by Postal Pix.

 

I'll add a few extra embellishments once I have pictures and journaling but I love that most of the work is done. Super simple and fast! I plan on either punching some holes with my Crop-A-Dile and adding some binder rings or getting a cheap red binder-just depends on how big this album gets.

Either way, I'm looking forward to starting this tomorrow! :) 

all boys {a scrapbook layout}

Have I ever expressed how lucky I am to be a momma of 4 boys? How thankful I am to be raising a houseful of young men? Recent events in our neighborhood {girls bullying other girls, makes me soooo angry!} reminded me of how lucky I am to be dealing with the non-drama of sports, consuming massive quantities of food, and a lot of random wrestling.
I love being a mom of boys. Of these boys. They are amazing and funny and kind.
And sometimes I need to stop and remind myself of that.

Yup, there's no pink or purple in this house. And that's okay. Because I've come to love the blues, grays, and greens these boys have brought into my life.

he finally loves snow {a scrapbook layout}

I think I may have posted a layout in the post with photos of my little one clearly not enjoying snow. That all changed this past year. I'm not sure if it was the super cool Iron Man rain boots or if at 2 years old he finally figured out that living in Ohio meant we'd be dealing with it on a yearly basis, but this year he seemed to love the white stuff.

 

I was very excited to get to use my Elle's Studio winter goodies on this layout-they match my Jillibean paper perfect!

 

I also got to use an ATC card I made at an Archiver's Make and Take a few months ago-the colors and sentiment were perfect for this layout.

I rarely use my Make and Takes for what they were originally intended for-these are a great way to save money. I keep a little box with all of my M&T's in them. I go through them every now and again to remind myself of what I have and to get a little inspiration. :) 

Happy Monday!

budget friendly scrapbooking {a magazine review}

Let me apologize in advance for the lack of photos in this post-I'll be back this weekend with the snow layout I promised last week.
Today, I want to share my review of a magazine I recently picked up at Hobby Lobby-Creating Keepsakes' Budget Friendly Scrapbooking. First of all, I have a hard time with a "budget friendly" magazine that costs $14.99 retail. Especially when it has about the same number of pages and ideas as a normal issue of Creating Keepsakes. I purchased mine with a 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby-still a little high but not totally ridiculous.

The magazine {I refuse to call it an idea book} was laid out in the following sections and I'll do a quick review of each:
Accent Swap-Good ideas but little to no direction on how to create the accents and each of the layouts had a LOT of product besides the "accents" that were swapped.

Wallet Savvy Organization-I would have like to seen real pieces from flea markets/yard sales made into functional organization pieces. Instead, the magazine showed organzation pieces that were clearly purchased new made to look "old". Show me how to do it not what it could look like.

Planning for Scrapbooking-This article actually made me mad. Because it was such a waste of space. The photo printing chart on page 23 took up the WHOLE page and was completely pointless. The whole article had me scratching my head-long term versus short term investments and using patterned paper for more than one layout...all common sense ideas that most scrapbookers are all too familiar with.

Using Sketches-Again, not sure how budget friendly this one was since the majority of layouts used a ton of product. Not to mention the "Manage Your Budget by Using a Kit Club" story. Really? You pay a premium to have some one else pick out papers and embellishments that go together. There is no way that is budget friendly. It might be a time saver, but it doesn't save you money. You can save money by finding kits with a style you like and buying the paper and elements you can afford. {I have nothing against kits, I have bought them and loved them but it is not okay to pretend they are somehow cheaper when they aren't.}

Keep It Simple Scrapbooker-Finally, an article that actually gave tips on being budget friendly! This article was well written and had a wealth of great info. The layouts weren't product heavy. I knew I could recreate them without spending $5-10 on each layout. I also liked the "One Product, Three Ways" story. It was interesting to see how different scrapbookers used the same materials.

Stretch Your Supplies-Another great article! Loved the cutting guides that showed how to turn one 12 x 12 piece of paper into smaller sheets-just wish they had included more! Loved the practical ideas on what to do with leftover stickers, pieces of ribbon, etc.


Use Your Scraps-This article really should have been the focus of the magazine. So many great ideas that they just barely touched on. Disappointed that they gave so little space and focus to this but loved what little they provided.


Found Item Fun-Weird and out of place. Not worth it's own article.

Overall, I was pretty disappointed. {I would have been down right mad had I spent $15!} Only 2-3 articles were actually helpful in providing budget friendly tips. The rest just seemed like more the usual CK product heavy layouts we see every month, which is fine if that is what you are expecting but if you are expecting to get realistic tips and tricks to help save you money with your scrapbooking-this isn't it. This definitely wasn't worth a $15 price tag. However, if you find it for $6 or less it's worth a read. The Keep It Simple, Stretch Your Supplies, and Use Your Scraps articles deserve a second look. :)

Be back this weekend with a layout! Have a great Friday!

it's your birthday shout hooray {a scrapbook layout}

I recently went to the amazing 43% off patterned paper sale at Archiver's. Let me just tell you that is a smoking hot deal. I got a ton of Basic Grey {mostly Oxford}, Simple Stories, Jillibean, and, of course, my current obsession-Bella Blvd. If they run another one of these, I highly recommend it, definitely worth the trip.
Anywho, I got a chance to do some crafting Friday night and worked on two layouts and my December Daily. {I'm very excited about my DD-I will share that in a couple of weeks!}

I'm sharing my first layout today-Jackson's 7th Birthday. Poor Jackson, we usually are on vacation for his birthday {he's a July baby}and this year we were gone the week before, so we decided to let him open his present early. Especially since his present was a Playstation Portable-something he would definitely enjoy on the 14 hour car ride to Florida!

I used the new Simple Stories Birthday line for this layout. This is all from one sheet of patterned paper and some journal cards! When you figure in the cardstock this layout cost me about $3.00 to make. Nice!

Love these Journal Cards-great for a quick and easy title!

Not sure if you can tell in the picture but that green dot strip is actually a ribbon.
I had some Simple Stories ribbon in my stash that matched the papers and I thought it added a little something extra.

Love this line of products, makes things super easy.
I will be sharing my other layout (a SNOW layout!!) early next week, I also have plans to share my thoughts on a new magazine I picked up last week "Creating Keepsakes: Budget Friendly Scrapbooking"-so check back for that!
Have a great weekend!

escape {a scrapbook layout}

We've been doing a little bit of cleaning around the house and came across a stack of photos from our trip to Holland, MI way back in 2005. That trip was a just a little weekend away but was packed with memories. It took place just about a month after our son had major surgery to remove tumors from a neural tube disorder. So it was an escape for us in many different ways. {Our Jackson is totally fine-he had no lasting issues and is totally on track developmentally & physically-just some scarring from his surgery-God is so good!}
Every time I think of Holland, I think of the beautiful flowers we saw-even in September. So I knew I had to use some floral paper on this layout and some flower accents.

Used those Amy Tangerine letters I love so much and some more of my Elle's Studio goodies.How did I never know about Elle's before? I've placed two orders since I won a package of goodies in August and have wish list together for another order!
{And totally off topic-my hair is ridiculous in these pictures-I had some really bad hair choices there for awhile, sigh.}
I am super excited because my new Canon DSLR arrived at my house at my house today!! Can't wait to get through work and parent/teacher conferences so I can play with it! Happy Thursday!

abc's of me {a little bit about me}

This has been on quite a few blogs lately, so I thought I'd join in on the fun.
A. Age: 34 and 10 months {sigh}
B. Bed size: Queen
C. Chore that you hate: Mopping. Bleh.
D. Dogs: Conan, terrier mix.
E. Essential start to your day: Ice cold Coke and at least one Zac Brown Band song
F. Favorite color: Green but not just any green.
G. Gold or Silver: Silver
H. Height: 5' 3 1/2"
I. Instruments you play: long ago I played clarinet and flute {loooooong ago}
J. Job title: Marketing Manager and Momma {I prefer Momma}
K. Kids: 4, Bryce, Jarron, Jackson, and Brody {aka Moose}

L. Live: Fairfield, Ohio
M. Mother’s name: Patty
N. Nicknames: Christi, Great Lakes, Veronica {from the Archie comics-my blonde friend was Betty}
O. Overnight hospital stays: 5 {all childbirth/pregnancy related}
P. Pet peeves: things that don't match {for example if all of my pushpins are silver and one is white-that white one will drive me crazy}, rain on field trip day, slow drivers on the highway, so many things...
Q. Quote from a movie: "What road is this we are on? Bob's Road?" Twister, my favorite movie, ever. I know just about every line.
R. Right or left handed: Right handed
S. Siblings: 1-the little brother.
T. Time I Get Up Each Morning: Weekdays-6:00AM, Saturdays & Sundays-7:30AM
U. Underwear: Of course, I'm a momma. I have to set a good example. {And ewwwww, who doesn't?}
V. Vegetable you hate: Peas
W. What makes you run late: I plead 4 kids.
X. X-Rays you’ve had: Knees, Ribs, Head, Foot, Chest, more ultrasounds than I can remember {at least 40}
Y. Yummy food that you make: I'm told my pork chops and lasagna are very tasty.
Z. Zoo animal: Penguins and Peacocks. Love them.

There you have it, a little bit more about me {and a layout sneaked in for good measure}.

santa rosa beach 2011 {scrapbook layout-vacation albums}

I miss the beach. I love the beach, it's my favorite place to be. Ever. If it weren't for pesky things like jobs and family, I'd spend all day, every day on a beach somewhere.
Which is funny. Because I live in landlocked Ohio. :/  I'm where I should be, but sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I was supposed to be somewhere else.
Instead, I satisfy my beach craving once a year with a trip down South. This year it was to Santa Rosa Beach {just east of Destin}. So beautiful, definitely a place we will be returning to again and again. The perfect vacation spot for our family-plenty to do {or not do} depending on our mood.
This is the first of many layouts from this year's vacation album.

I'm using Echo Park's Splash line almost exclusively for this album. Excellent for this trip. Love all of the cool letters and extras that come with this kit.

I've been on a total circle kick lately. Just love my circle punches!! Love the look of different patterned papers stacked in different size circles!

 

Instead of a brad, I raided my stash for some fun little clear glitter beach stickers to act as my "brads" for the center of my circles. {These are tiny little suns.}

I added my favorite picture of the boys, some beach scenes and viola! Layout done!

For my next beach layout, a put together a little beach scene with some of the cardstock stickers, since this layout is all about the boys and their sand-castle building. Okay, their sand digging, my kids seem to love digging ginormous holes. 

More circles and I even used the negatives from punching out my circles as a page element. :)

I won't even tell you how long it took me to arrange and re-arrange photos before I got them all on the layout. But it was awhile. Totally worth it.
Now I'm going to go listen to some Zac Brown Band and pretend I'm on the sugar white sands instead of wrapping things up on my 2012 marketing budgets and taking kids to dentist appointments.
Happy Tuesday!

burger farm {a scrapbook layout}

As promised in my last post, I wanted to share a couple of autumn layout with you. Before finding Neiderman Farm here in our county, we used to travel to one of our eastern counties to another local pumpkin patch-Burger Farm. Which was also very cool-lots of fun kids rides and activities, in addition to the traditional hay ride and patch activities.
I used more Bella Blvd paper on these layouts-a couple of things I really loved about this line of paper-the chevron pattern of the B side (so cool right now) and the color scheme. Love the blues and pinks mixed in with the traditional fall colors. Good stuff!
For my first layout, I kept it simple, just added a Making Memories alpha to it.

 

That layout will join a couple of other in the album which include journaling about finding the right pumpkin and riding some rides, so I didn't really need more than a title.

Supplies: Cardstock-Bazzill, Patterned Paper-Bella Blvd, Letters-Making Memories

For my next layout, I added some Doodlebug letters and Bella cardstock stickers.

I love these little Bella alpha stickers...

And the B side of another Bella paper has a really cool wood grain-perfect as a background for a title.

Ummm...can you tell that I'm a HUGE fan of the new Bella line ? ;)

Supplies: Cardstock-BBP; Patterned Paper-Bella; Cardstock Stickers, Small Alpha-Bella; Blue Letters-Doodlebug; Ink-CTMH; Small blue letters-October Afternoon

Be back tomorrow with the beach layout...it's cold and dreary here in Ohio, I need a little sunshine right about now!

neiderman farm {a scrapbook layout with the coolest alpha ever}

Okay, that might be a bit dramatic but as soon as I pulled out the new Amy Tangerine American Crafts Thickers at scrap night, I had about 4 women ask me where I got them. They are THAT cool. I've said it before, sometimes it's hard to tell if you will like something until you see it in person and let me just say these are AMAZING in person.

What? You want to see the layout attached to those letters? Okay. Okay.

It's been very crisp here in Ohio in the mornings and I've had pumpkin patches on my mind. This new Bella Blvd paper is perfect for scrapping our annual trip to Neiderman Farm to pick out a pumpkin and get lost in the corn maze.

That tag there on the bottom is made with cardstock, a Bella sticker and a hand-stamped heart.

I stamped a background on a piece of transparency, used some alcohol inks to get that purply-red color and then punched a heart. Very easy and fun way to add a little extra touch to your tag.

Stay tuned, later this week I have another fall layout to share and a little bit of beach love to wrap up the week.
Happy Wednesday Friends!

Supplies: Kraft Cardstock-Paper Company; Patterned Paper, Cardstock Stickers-Bella Blvd; Letter Stickers-Amy Tangerine for American Crafts; Stamping Ink-CTMH; Twine-WRMK; Blue and Green Cardstock, BBP; Alcohol Inks-Tim Holtz; Pen-Sharpie

a stamped frog {a scrapbook layout with stamping and watercolor}

 I've been busy working on my new blog look. What do you think? I'm still learning my way around backgrounds and banners and such but I'm really starting to like the look of it.
And because I just can't post without sharing a layout...here's a quick one.

 

Super simple and quick, just some patterned paper cut with a Creative Memories wavy trimmer, some Mind's Eye journaling/embellies and  clear buttons. I stamped the frog and used mineral spirits to blend in the color of my watercolor pencils.

 

I rarely stamp on a layout, so this was a real departure for me; but he was just too cute to send off on a card.

Let me know your thoughts on the new blog look-love it or hate it? :)

conan {a scrapbook layout-challenge!}

No, not THAT Conan. {Although, he's cool too.}
Our dog, Conan. Who is actually named after Conan the Barbarian. You see, when we adopted Conan, 13 years ago, he was just 6 weeks old. He had these giant ears and a ton of energy. You could just tell that he thought he was a German Shepard trapped in the body of a little Mixed Terrier.
Conan, or Coney, as we sometimes call him, has been an awesome dog. He's so sweet and gentle with kids and he just loves to snuggle up on the couch and watch Top Chef with me. :)
I realized I haven't really done a layout of Coney, so I knew the time had come to fix that.
Mary Pat had issued a challenge over on the Burlap & Buttercups Blog to use this sketch and some sewing and see what we could come up with:

I didn't follow the sketch exactly, but I stayed pretty close to it. Here's what I came up with:

 

I used the Bazzill In Stitchz tool to make my circles {I'm hopeless with a sewing machine} in three different sizes and colors to match my patterned paper. I made the heart embellishment with a Heidi Swapp ghost shape and some bling embellies.

I have to say I really loved this sketch and used another variation of it on a vacation layout for our beach album. It's really versatile and can be easily adapted for a double page layout.

Lots of layouts to share this week-stay tuned! 

Supplies: Cardstock-Bazzill; Circle templates, thread-Bazzill; Patterned Papers-We R Memory Keepers, Basic Grey; Letter Stickers-American Crafts; Felt Embellies-Sassafrass; Ghost Shape-Heidi Swapp; Bling-Unknown; Pen-Sharpie

brody {a scrapbook layout}

My baby is turning three today. I'm both sad and happy about this. Because he's my last baby. {And at three, technically not really a baby anymore.}He is such a joy to have in our lives. I truly can't imagine our family without him.
I created this layout with a photo from his 3 month pictures (taken by his Aunt Bobbi). It's probably my favorite layout in his baby album. It's pretty simple, just a large 10 x 8 photo, the lyrics to a song I listened to frequently when he was a tiny little baby, and a bit of journaling. I just love it though.

I used a SEI "Chick a Doo-Boy" kit to create this the patterned papers, title and rub-ons, all coordinate.

I actually had 6 x 6 kit in this same line that I did a mini album of his 1st year. I displayed that at his birthday party that year. Might have to do that again this year! Hard to believe this tiny baby is a rough and tumble toddler!

The only thing {besides cardstock} that isn't SEI, is the journaling card-which is from October Afternoon. I originally had a SEI journal card on there but I misspelled 2 words {hello, sleep deprivation!}, so I swapped it out.

 

In case you were wondering-the song I journaled about is "Morning Lullabies" by Ingrid Michaelson. Great song for a new momma. 

Happy Birthday Moosey! We love you so much little man!

Supplies: Cardstock-Bazzill, Patterned Papers, Rub-ons, Letters-SEI, Journal Card-October Afternoon

us {a scrapbook layout using elle's studio}

I was recently lucky enough to win some goodies from an Elle's Studio blog hop. I've been interested in Elle's Studio products for some time but I'm one of those people that need to see something in person before I buy it.

I was super excited when my package of goodies came in the mail. {Just days after I won-those ladies at Elle's are totally on top of things-I was VERY impressed!} I immediately feel in love with everything I received:
Pieces of Life Note Tags
Handmade Layers Date/Place Strips
Owl Love You Forever Scallop Circle Tags

And the other day I had the perfect layout to use two of the three products on. I started this layout as a make and take at Archivers but immediately did the sewing incorrectly {it's supposed to be on opposite corners}. Being the rebel I am, I left it the way I did it and brought it home. :) The imperfection made me remember a photo I had of our little family that wasn't perfect but that was so "us".
 I grabbed it and got to work.

 

Can I just tell you how much I love these scallop circle tags? So sticking cute. And the colors matched my layout perfectly. Love that my journaling becomes a design element.

And here's the other Elle's product-the Handmade Layers Date/Place tag-looks perfect at the top of the kraft cardstock!

 

Lots of scallopy goodness in this layout!!

I loved my Elle's goodies so much, I placed my first order this weekend. I have a feeling it won't be my last. :)

Supplies: Cardstock-CTMH, Kraft Cardstock-The Paper Company, Patterned Paper-Echo Park, We R Memory Keepers, Buttons-CTMH, Twine-We R Memory Keepers, Sewing Template-Sew Easy by We R Memory Keepers, Journal Tags-Elle's Studio

a hair raising good time {a scrapbook layout}

Have I ever mentioned that my youngest son, the one we call the Moose, is a bit of a trouble maker? After 4 boys, you'd think I'd be used to that. And for the most part I am. But this little guy; boy, oh boy. It's not that he's intentionally bad, trouble just seems to find him.
You can pretty much guarantee if he's quiet, he's getting into something. And one particular night he was very quiet.

Now, here's the thing about the Lakes men. They have a thing about their hair. It has to look perfect; all the time. And that requires time and a certain amount of hair product. Our oldest boys are ten and "do" their own hair in the main floor bathroom. They use a product called Garnier Surf Gel. It's sticky. VERY sticky.

Moose has witnessed the boys "doing" their hair many, many times. Moose is also potty training, so anytime he independently goes into the bathroom, we are thrilled. As we were the night these pictures were taken.
Except he wasn't going potty. He was "doing" his hair. With a whole tub of hair gel.

I wish I could say this is the first time this has happened, nope. Sneaky little Moose. It took about a half an hour and a LOT of shampoo to get that gel out. The funniest part? About a week later I got a text from my husband while I was grocery shopping. All it said was "He did it again. Get Hair Gel. And More Shampoo."


Supplies: Kraft Cardstock-The Paper Company: Patterned Paper, Letter Stickers, Embellishments-Echo Park; Twine-We R Memory Keepers