Love this place!

Oh man, I still love it, but I needed a break from December Daily and 4x6 small scrapping! After going through the Creative team's latest galleries over at Studio Calico, I felt so inspired to get back to scrapping a 12x12 layout! So I did!!

I used Studio Calico's August kit, Summer of '69, to complete the layout, mostly so it would match a page I did awhile back with the same kit. When I saw this layout by Maggie Holmes, I also remembered this layout also by Maggie and used both for the inspiration for my page, especially for those banners!

I bought the palm tree/beach chair/sand cut from the Silhouette online store, added some extra strips of paper, a bit of washi tape, and some journaling to complete the layout.

I am so happy I got to scrap a 12x12 and also a non-wintery theme page! Maybe I should scrap all summer/vacation pics in winter and all winter in summer? :)

December Daily - Day 10

It took me all day on my day off to get around to it, and I do mean all day (I didn't start this layout till past 10pm last night), but once I got started, it came together quickly!

For this side, I knew I wanted to do a "green" theme because of the lack of snow, making the photo look incomplete to me. Also, after cutting out 11 banners from super thick glitter card stock (more like glitter chipboard) I didn't want to subject my Silhouette Cameo to anymore thick cuts, so I just cut a strip of the green glitter paper that came in the Studio Calico December Daily kit, as sort of a "lawn" look. I added the trees and sort of reversed where you'd put a title and journaling so the journaling would show up.

I am hardly halfway through this month, but almost out of sequins!! Geesh, who knew that would be my go-to supply for this project!

Happy December scrapping!

A Christmas Card

It's almost Christmas! The time of year to celebrate the birth of Jesus, Immanuel - God with us! Jesus was the ultimate saver, giver, and healer! I made this card for a woman staying at the Bethany House along with a box of items she might need. So hopefully they will help her in some way, and she will feel the love of Christ.

The only thing I knew I wanted to do for this card was use my manger scene stamp from Hero Arts, so I embossed in gold glitter Zing! embossing powder by American Crafts, which looks even more glittery depending how the light hits it.

The papers were from the 34th Street kit by Studio Calico, including that wonderful piece of gold POW paper. The letters were from the Darling Dear collection also by Studio Calico - and I gotta say, I am a big fan of these! They are small enough to fit on a card or fit a bunch of words on a layout, but they really stand out all on their own!

I hope this holiday season brings you blessings and joy!!

December Daily - Day 9!

Finally day 9 is complete! Ever have a layout or project just sit on your desk and you have no idea how to move it along!? For whatever reason, this day stumped me, even though it ended up very simple. Oh well, time to get day 10 started!

We just took a trip out to Trader Joe's and luckily Chris was a good sport and posed for a photo for me for my December Daily album! The washi tape at the bottom was too wide for the space, so I cut a piece of paper to fit and wrapped it with washi tape. I just added another wooden arrow from Freckled Fawn and we'll call it a day with this side!

For this side, Chris randomly saw they had some Trader Joe's holiday stickers as we were checking out and got them for me! Woohoo! I just threw on some sequins, a stamp, and used an Ali Edwards cut from the Silhouette to round it out.

For a non-holiday themed photo, I really like how these pages it fit in the album and sort of look holiday-ish! Hey, we were feeling merry & bright as we bought our groceries haha!

December Daily - Day 7&8

I thought I'd be way more productive this weekend, but I guess I was too tired to keep up, oh well - I am still determined to get my December Daily album completed before the new year! Day 7 was my Friday off from work, and when Chris brought home Chinese food for lunch, I thought for sure that'd be the highlight of my day! However, I will have some pics and a story to add to the envelope later!!

I just made this simple and added some paper at the bottom, that matched the inside of the envelope on the other side, a vellum number and a sparkly sticker, backed with some washi tape to make it stand out more!

The envelope was a cut file from Marcy Penner for the 25 Days online class at Studio Calico! I used that awesome piece of Echo Park paper to cut it, but first I added a heart from Studio Calico, to the envelope. I separated the image, and used just the inner part onto the envelope, then cut the whole image separately from the glittery paper and made a sort of outline to adhere to the outer portion of the envelope!

Here's the tutorial video from Marcy.

For Day 8, we rang the bell for the Salvation Army Red Kettle drive outside our local mall! This was awesome because some time ago I was telling Chris how I wanted to volunteer more (like in the community), but felt restricted because I don't have a car and don't drive - so Chris suggested we could both ring the bell together!! I have the best husband!!

It didn't feel too cold when we left the house, but after the sun went down and it started to rain and it got windy... yeah, it was FREEZING! Next time (we'll be ringing again in a couple weeks) I am bringing gloves, hat, long johns and whatever else might be needed!

I was able to get some of the images off the Salvation Army blog for this side since I only got the one blurry photo from the actual day.

I have pics printed out for Days 9 & 10 too! We're almost halfway there!!

December Daily - Day 6

Last night I went to the Ladies' get together at church - we ate some snacks, talked and enjoyed a message from Angela! My friend Monica asked me to help with the centerpieces, so I helped make the banner for each piece, using my Silhouette to say "His banner over me is Love" :)

I had some extra silver glitter paper that I had bought to make the banners, and used it to back the right side. I just decided to keep the rest simple.

For the right side I used a matted piece of silver paper so it wasn't too glittery. I bought some glitter ribbon by American Crafts (it's a deeper blue than appears in the photo) and went perfectly with my photo and paper.

Happy December Daily!!

December Daily - Day 5

Wednesdays might become some of the "trickiest" days to complete December Daily layouts for, since Chris and I are both at work all day, then head over to church for the evening bible study. In fact, last night (after having had the previous night's dinner of exquisitely cooked foreign fare), I wasn't in the mood for much, so Chris made me some toast with butter and a can of green beans! On the way to church, I was laughing how we went to such extremes haha! Yeah that's right, I had toast and beans for dinner... hence, I did not take a picture of that (although I guess I could've and it would've been funny)...

So yeah this picture is of my latest order from Studio Calico laid out on half my scrap table - and look closely, you can see this album there! I just added some of those vellum labels by Crate Paper, some twine and a star so as not to leave the photo just "blank" haha!

For the right side, I started out with a 4x6 piece of that colored stripes paper but really couldn't figure out how to keep it intact since I couldn't really journal on top of it, without covering more than I wanted to, so I will save that piece for later, and instead printed out the Day 5 digital download from Ali Edwards. I used one of the Studio Calico "packed by" business cards that came with my kit, and used a label that I typed on. I just added some sequins and embellishments to make that corner less glaringly empty.

Woohoo still caught up somehow!! :)

December Daily - Day 4

You guys, you guys, you guys, you guys, you guys! I have kept up 4 days in a row now!! I almost went to bed for the night, but then got up and figured I could at least do a little something for this layout - and wow, that 4x6 album format makes it so easy - I still only did a "little something" but that was enough to finish the layout! (Oh and sorry for the blurry pictures, the lighting just wasn't working with me!)

Part of the ease happened to be that I had already made that Ali Edwards silhouette cut and already adhered to that wood grain-looking paper, because originally I was going to use it for my Day 1, but ended up not liking it and saved it for another day. It went perfect though with the table in the photos from our AWESOME dinner at a new Belgian restaurant in downtown Rochester called Victorie! So anyway, I just threw a strip of washi tape, added the tile number 4, and cut 2 stars from the star ribbon that I picked out for the other side.

The collage idea was great since I had such a cute photo of my husband outside the restaurant, but it was pretty blurry, so having it printed so small makes it look normal - plus I wanted to include both pics of our food - moules frite (mussels & french fries) and our charcuterie plate! I pulled out that star ribbon from the Central High kit by Studio Calico, since I never found a way to incorporate it into a page, and it worked perfectly to "jazz it up" a bit, ok I hate that phrase but I can't really think of a better way to describe its function... anyway I typed onto a vellum die cut speech bubble, and after messing up, I found that if I used white out then peeled it off, it peeled off the messed up letters with it - woohoo!

Is anyone else enjoying December Daily as much as I am so far!? :) OH and P.S. I am stating here that if I fall behind starting tomorrow, I am OK with that!! I have Friday off from work (and every Friday this month, and the last week of December to use up my vacation time) and so I am A-OK if I fall behind since I can use those days off to catch up! I just wanted to write that here in case anyone now has any expectations haha!