Happy Monday!

Hello!

I hope you are having a happy Monday.

It's going to be a good week...I can feel it!

Last week was a little crummy...the kids and I all had this horrible cold and it left me feeling a little out of it all week, but I seem to be on the mend finally, so that is good.

AND.....

I get to go to my first scrapbooking retreat this weekend!

Nothing but scrapbooking from 12:00 on Friday until late Saturday!

I am very excited......

and a little nervous - I've never actually scrapbooked for that long at one time!

I'm pretty sure I can handle it, though, as long as the 200 pics I ordered from Shutterfly get here in time! I will keep my fingers crossed! :)

Here is a layout I created a couple of weeks ago. I love these pictures of my daughter when she was first starting to really smile. Those first smiles are so precious. Of course these pictures were taken over three years ago now, so they are all the more precious!

For this layout I used the new papers from the Freshprint Clothesline line from Little Yellow Bicycle, as well as some paper from SEI's Juliette line and a lot of different punches! Love my punches!

Hope your Monday is happy!

JAG

Dream BIG!!

Wow - two posts in one day! - that is a record for me!! :)

I have so many fun new papers from My Mind's Eye that I couldn't resist doing their challenge this month. The challenge was to use the song "Dream Big" by Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand for inspiration, as well as use the provided sketch by Anam Stubbington and, of course, My Mind's Eye products. (You can find the details HERE.)

I LOVE this layout that I ended up with. I used the Jack and Jill and Little Boy Blue papers from the Quite Contrary line by MME. I kind of started with one idea and then added a few details at the last minute that created a different look, but I love it!

Supplies: Patterned Papers (My Mind's Eye), Chipboard letters (My Mind's Eye), Brads (Close to My Heart), Journaling spot (Jillibean Soup).

I hope y'all have a fabulous Friday tomorrow - YAY! - it's the end of the week! :)

JAG

A little 'Dear Lizzy' Fun

I just finished my layout for this weeks American Crafts Challenge. The challenge was to create a layout or card using two or more products from their 'Dear Lizzy' line. You can find all the details of the challenge HERE if you would like to play along!

I was way excited for this challenge because I had some Dear Lizzy stuff sitting in my scrap room just begging me to use it, so I was more than happy for the opportunity to do just that! :)

I think it is kind of funny, though, that the Dear Lizzy papers are full of spring colors and fun spring icons, and yet I chose to scrap some of my favorite pictures from last fall. I guess it just shows how versatile this line is! :) For this layout I used several Dear Lizzy Papers as well as some of the Dear Lizzy MiniMarks rub-ons.

Supplies: Cardstock (White: Georgia-Pacific, Cocoa: Close to My Heart), Patterned Paper (Picking Pansies, friendly Fern, Dragonfly Dance, and Beehive Brunch from Dear Lizzy + American Crafts), Rubons (Dear Lizzy + American Crafts), Brown Alphabet Stickers (American Crafts), Chipboard Letters (Thickers by American Crafts), Scalloped Circle and Circle punches (Fiskars and EK Success), Brown Sharpie.

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope your day is fabulous!

JAG

A little bit of scrappin' time!

You may have noticed I took a little leave of absence....I went on a vacation!

YAY! It was fun. My cousin got married so the kiddos and I went and stayed with my parents for a couple of weeks to enjoy the wedding festivities, Easter, General Conference for our church, and lots of time with the grandparents and other extended family! We even survived the 18 hour car ride - thank goodness we had some friends along to keep us company (and keep us SANE)! We had a BLAST!

Speaking of having a blast - I had a blast putting this page together! :)

I caught these pics of the kids a couple of months ago and it really did melt my heart so I had to get this memory down on paper. I love when my kids take care of each other!

Supplies: Patterned Papers (Girl Friday collection from Cosmo Cricket), Cardstock (tan dots from ??, Colonial White from Close to My Heart), Flowers (Prima), Brad and button (SEI), mini alphabet stickers (Cosmo Cricket), Foam letters (American Crafts), Punches (Scallop circle and Apron lace border punch from Fiskars), Brown Sharpie.

Have a happy Wednesday! :)

MME challenge #9 - Blast from the Past!

This is my layout for the #9 challenge on the My Mind's Eye Blog. The challenge was to create a layout with the theme "blast from the past" and to also use the provided sketch by Anam Stubbington. You can find all the particulars of the challenge HERE.

I had a lot of fun with this one!

Supplies: Cardstock (white: Georgia-Pacific), Patterned Papers (Quite Contrary, Oh La La - My Mind's Eye), Mini Alphabet Sticker (Making Memories), Brads (SEI), glitter (Close to my Heart), Cricut (Calligraphy and Accent Essentials - Provo Craft).

For this layout I used MME's new collection, Quite Contrary. I love all of the fun patterns and colors in this collection! I thought the flowers turned out pretty cool - I just punched different sized circles from the patterned paper, added glitter to some of them, and layered them. If you click on the picture it will bring up an enlarged version and you can see all the pretty sparkles. :)

The title of this layout is a line from one of my new favorite songs from Brad Paisley. It says "and I thought I loved you then." Have you heard that song? It's fabulous, and I think of my husband every time I hear it, so it was a good title for this page! The picture was taken of us when we had only been dating a couple of weeks.

Thanks for stopping by today!

JAG

A little Christmas anyone?

Each year at Christmastime I keep all of the Christmas cards and letters that we get from our family and close friends. I have been wanting to scrapbook them somehow and keep them as a kind of journal of all that happened for our loved ones that year.

So the other day while the kids were watching a movie I finally decided to attack the huge pile of cards, letters and pictures and do something with them!

This is what I have come up with:

FRONT:

BACK:

It is a 12x12 pocket page. The front piece is 10x12 and then I glued the sides and bottom down to a 12x12 cardstock. The letters and cards go in the pocket, and all of the pictures make collages on the front and back. I filled in any black space with some simple embellishments. Since I make our Christmas cards each year - yes, all 65+ of them! - I glue that on the front page as well, along with our family picture for that year.
I now have done every year except for 2009, so I've almost got them done!
I think they are quite fun,
What do you think?

Flower Power

Well my friend Becky said I would get addicted to making these paper flowers... it seems she was right. :)

Here are a few cards I have made recently with the flowers:

This first one is for this weeks American Crafts blog challenge. The challenge was simply to make a card using at least two AC products - easy enough!

I used papers from their Letterbox collection. This is such a pretty line of product!

Supplies: Patterned Paper: brown flourish/pink, yellow/blue, green - American Crafts Letterbox); Cardstock (White - Georgia-Pacific), Accents: (yellow button - SEI), Stamp (Sentiment - American Crafts Sentiment Stamp Set).

This next card I made using some of the scraps from a layout I made a couple of weeks ago.
I love that yellow butterfly paper from Basic Grey - isn't it so pretty?

Supplies: Patterned Paper (yellow butterfly, red floral, polka dot - Basic Grey, Ledger print - My Mind's Eye), Cardstock (pink - Bazzill, kraft - ?, Green - Paper Studio), Stamps: (frame - Prima, Sentiment - Close to My Heart), Accents (chipboard button - Close to my Heart).

Thanks for stopping by today!

Have a happy day!

JAG