One Little Word Layout

My friend, Ronda has brought back her One Little Word challenge on a smaller scale and I have chosen to take part in its reintroduction. I hope to keep up with each new word she posts.

This month's word is UNLOCK. This word really spoke to me this month because it has been a difficult month for Carter. He is only 9, but he has not ever experienced the disappointment of not being able to do something he truly wanted to do until now. Last year he was nominated for the Gifted and Talented program at school and we found out a couple of weeks ago that he did not make it for this current school year. He was so very upset and as a parent it was difficult to watch him doubt himself and his intelligence. This past week he tried out for the 3rd and 4th grade select choir and did not make it either. Again I had to watch him doubt his abilities and himself. It was so painful to see him so hurt and so difficult to find the right words to encourage and lift his spirits.

For someone who thrives on competition not only athletically, but also academically, it is especially hard for him to feel like he has failed. I know that there are many disappointments that he will face in the future, but I sure hope we don't have to face any in the near future... It is so hard, this parenting thing. All I can do is try to support, encourage, and love him. At such a young age it is hard to explain to him that your self-worth comes from inside and not from what group you are part of. Hard, hard stuff for him and for us, too.

So I used that as my jumping off point for my layout. I also chose to combine Ronda's OLW challenge with Cocoa Daisy's September Sketch Challenge and here is my resulting layout entitled: Unlock Your Potential.

Thanks for stopping by! 

For the Love of CHA- Post # 2

Good Morning! Today I ordered about 75 prints from Wal-Mart and picked them up as I flew through town on the way to the boys swimming lessons. The pictures I printed are from October of last year and include our trip to a corn maze, pumpkin carving, and costume photos. I don't scrap chronologically so it really doesn't bother me that I am just now putting together my Halloween mini in July. If anything it makes me dream of cooler temperatures, which is a very good thing in the middle of July in the South! :)

Of all the pictures I had printed this one is my absolute favorite.

I am not sure how I will top this year's costumes.The boys loved them, they were relatively easy to make, and looked so good on them. I rarely sew, except at Halloween. There is just something special to me about hand making the boys costumes each year. 

Besides a Halloween mini for each year (the past few years I have bought a Halloween mini kit from Cocoa Daisy, here is last years that I am working on now), I also keep a Halloween through the years mini that has an individual picture of each boy in costume and then one of them together. I then make additional, very simple, mini's for both sets of grandparents. 

Besides Halloween, the only other holiday I buy scrapbook products specifically for is Christmas. I would love to say I have accomplished a December Daily in prior years, but it has yet to happen. I do manage to hand make Christmas cards each year and I have a huge stash of Christmas supplies waiting to be used. 

So today because I am feeling the holiday spirit, I thought I would share the products I have spotted in this years CHA debuts. I do tend to be a traditionalist when it comes to the holiday lines I pick up. I like the reds and greens of Christmas and the greens, oranges, and blacks of Halloween. So that is what you will see here as well. 

Let's get started!

Let's talk Halloween first. There are two companies that I think do an amazing job with traditional Halloween lines each year. First is My Mind's Eye. This year's line is a continuation of their Lost and Found line. There is nothing about this collection that I do not like. I think I will end up with lots of these pieces. Here is a picture of the entire line.

The other company is Echo Park. Their Halloween line is called Chillingsworth Manor. 

This is the Collection Pack. All the papers are wonderful, both the a & b sides have very nice designs.

The following two papers really caught my eye. 

I can see myself using these two pages in a variety of different ways. I like the versatility they offer to projects, cards, even some home decor banners. I will have to own them both!

Ok, let's move right onto Christmas. 

The first line that really caught my eye was Simple Stories. Since I have already bought a few of their Mix and Match 6x8 Albums, I was interested to see what their Christmas line would look like this year, in hopes of putting together a December Daily. I do like Handmade Holiday line a lot. Lots of things I can definitely use to document the upcoming holiday season and possibly help me catch up on years past. 

The Collection Kit has a number of great papers in it along with sticker sheets. I tend to buy Simple Stories lines as kits because I end up loving everything in the whole kit. 

These are the pages for the 6x8 Album. These would make great foundations for a December Daily

Love these pockets. These would be great on layouts, cards, Project Life, or in a December Daily.

I also spotted these 4x6 cards. These would be great journaling spots for layouts, PL, or DD, as well as recipe cards for a Christmas recipe album.

Another Christmas line I spotted was from Fancy Pants. It is called Home for Christmas.  Here again it is a nice traditional red and green with some kraft thrown in to give it a vintage-y feel. 

Here are the paper/sticker elements available in the line. I need to look more closely at the papers to determine which ones I really want to purchase. The tape stickers look interesting to me as well. 

These are more embellishments that go along with the line. I particularly like the Mixed Buttons and Mingled Brads. 

The final collection is not as traditional as I like (too much blue in my opinion), but because of the "b" sides of the paper I was pretty excited about the whole line. This line is Lily Bee's Christmas Cheer. I kept looking through the papers trying to determine which one's I could live without, especially because of the blue, but the "b" sides kept jumping out at me. 

I see lots of blue here, but I am telling you the "b" sides on each paper are nice and traditional. I especially love the numbered patterned paper, the dots, and the chevrons. 

These index cards are nice as well. I see lots of different uses for these.

These are some of my absolute favorite alpha stickers ever. I own almost every set since they began making these and I reach for them often. 

I am a stamp junkie, but a very picky stamp junkie. These show a lot of possibilities even after the holidays are over. I really like the vertical list of numbers and the vertical row of dots. 

So it is about 90 degrees Fahrenheit today, which is not completely unbearable, but I think I will wait just a bit longer before tackling some of the outdoor chores around here. I think I will spend the heat of the day working downstairs on some wonderful holiday scrappiness until it cools off outside

Hope you find time to scrap as well! :)

Olivia 

For the love of CHA- Post #1

This is the time of year that all scrapbookers look forward to. The time of year when visions of adding new products to their every growing stash of scrappy-ness is overwhelming...the companies, the products, the loads and loads of new inspiration and ideas that the designers share. It is a budget conscience husbands nightmare. :) It is in fact time for the CHA Summer 2012. A time when companies debut their upcoming scrapbook lines for fall and winter.

I always love to look at all the wonderful things that scrapbook companies are putting out. It not only gives me great ideas for my own layouts and projects, but it also shows what up and coming trends are. I don't buy heavily into trends, but it always interesting to see what is coming and many times you see the trends in scrapbooking also reflected in home decor and fashion.

I always end up with an incredible list of "wants/needs", but I always seem to be able to cut it down significantly before I place orders at Two Peas that would make my dear hubby's head spin. I am also quite lucky that many of the things I like end up as part of the monthly kits that I receive from Cocoa Daisy. Christine does an amazing job of putting together beautiful kits.

I tend to gravitate towards particular companies, rather than lines of scrapbook products. For me it seems that the companies I like put out good products each and every year and that excites me. My post today focuses one company that I have really come to like Studio Calico.  They too have a monthly kit, but since I am already part of a kit company I love and can't afford the time or money to join another, I stick pretty much to their retail lines. Their lines for fall/winter 2012 did not disappoint. Here are the things I am loving:

Yearbook Paper Collection

Classic Calico Vol. 3 Collection

I doubt that I would buy both Collection packs, but I do love the colors and designs of both these lines. I need more time to pick through these papers and decide which ones I need.



I am also digging these embellishments/products from the SC Yearbook Collection.

These pockets could be easily used on a layout, card or within Project Life. I can also see it as a separate piece added to a mini album that has different size pages and pockets.

Love the idea of layering these frames over pictures or as parts of a mini album or layout.

The first washi tape really lends itself to journaling & titles. I will definitely have to have this.

These paper clips would be really cute used on a birthday layouts or with a mini album that is made up of  a list (ie. Top five summer favorites).

These fabric mistables would be a really great way to add more texture to a project without adding tons of buckle. The fact that I can mist/paint/ink them my needs is a huge plus. I will have to have some of these to!

I like the looks of these stickers, but I am not completely sold because it is a whole lot of the same size/same shape stickers. How many projects would I really use these on? This is one of those cases that if I bought them I would end up cutting them apart and sharing with a favorite scrappy friend, so that they would not sit in my stash go to waste. I already have enough products doing that right now!

I also liked these pieces from the Wonderland collection.

I love a good mask. This one is small enough to cover the front of a card or used in sections along a layout or mini album page. It doesn't just scream Christmas either, it looks to have many versatile uses, especially for a mama of little boys who are super stars in her eyes. ;) 

I like the idea of these frames for Instagram pictures as part of December Daily, Project Life, or just layouts.

These journaling cards would be great for Project Life, December Daily, or as part of layouts. I'm always looking for an interesting journaling spot!

Love these wood veneers. Here again, like the fabric mistables, I can add whatever color paint/ink/mist to them and they won't add tons of buckle to my project.

 Finally,

Out of the all the Studio Calico Summer 2012 products this rolling stamp is my absolute favorite piece they have come out with. There are so many possibilities for this stamp. It is going to definitely be part of my stamp collection! I always make sure to add a date to all my layouts and this will be a well used tool.

I was also very intrigued by the Handbook that Studio Calico is putting out, but I just picked up quite a few pieces from the Simple Stories Mix and Match Album System which is very similar in my opinion. I really don't need another mini album to put together considering that I have two bins full of them downstairs waiting to be used. I may pick up a few pieces here and there to add to the Simple Stories albums I am using, but I need to think on it a bit more. I will say that Lisa Truesdell puts together an amazing summer album using the SC Handbook.

I will be back tomorrow with a few more pictures of products that I am excited about from this Summer 2012 CHA debuts. I am also still working on a post about how I store my Cocoa Daisy stamps. I have decided to include how I store all my stamps so I am now in the process of taking more pictures and running my blog post through my head to get it all the lined out.

Later! Happy Scrapping!!

Olivia

A Couple of Mini's

Good Morning! I want to express how overwhelmed and thankful I am over the response to the last post. Crafting with my boys is a precious gift to me. They spend so much of their time playing sports and being rough and rowdy boys, that it is nice to have them slow down and use the other side of their brain. I hope that I can continue to add things to their lives that will develop them into well-rounded young men.

I wanted to quickly share a couple of mini album covers and a few interior pictures with you. The first is a 6x6 mini album that unfolds to form a display. I am taking this album to my parents' house for Thanksgiving. My boys, nieces, and nephew are going to make turkeys to finish the album. I am looking forward to crafting with them and I can't wait to see how it turns out. I got the idea after seeing this card from Ronda at Cocoa Daisy.

Here is the cover:

The interior fold out:

and my finished turkey that I will use to help show the kiddos what we are doing:

I can not wait to finish this mini and give it to my parents. It will make a cute addition to their Thanksgiving decorations and be a sweet keepsake.

The other mini I created was for the boys Christmas Journal. I plan for this to be similar to a December Daily (which I am doing) except that all the pictures, ATC art projects, and journaling will be done by the boys. I know that they will not be able to work on it everyday, but I have created enough pages for them to complete a page for each day of December.

Here is the cover:

and here is a picture of one of the interior pages.

Sorry the photos are a little grainy. It has been raining here in Central Arkansas for two or three days, making it impossible to shoot pictures in a good light.

I have not included tons of details in this post, but I will be back this weekend or the first part of next week to give more details about how I put the mini's together and also post some pictures of my December Daily.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Olivia

5 years of Cocoa Daisy

I have been a happy member of Cocoa Daisy for 5 years. I own every monthly kit they have put out and they just get better and better each month.

I was honored when they lifted one of my layouts for a challenge this September on the Cocoa Daisy boards. I decided as part of this challenge to complete a layout with kits from the five precious years, using the lift as my design. I also used pictures from those years as well. Here are how the layouts turned out.

2007- December Kit "A Winter's Eve"
Ethan's 1st Snow

2008-April Kit "Orient Express"

Snuggle Up

2009-September Kit "Ali's Favorites"

You Did It!

2010-February Kit "Memphis Belle"

Sweet Face

2011-September Kit "Printer's Drawer"

How I Relax

I love Cocoa Daisy, it has a wonderful atmosphere and creative minds always offering great ideas and inspiration. I am blessed to be part of such an amazing group of women.

Catching Up...

Wow it has been a while! The end of last year and the beginning of this year has been very busy and rough on our family. I finished graduate school in December (a huge relief and a huge amount of time regained), then we had a busy Christmas and Anniversary. Throw in a ball tournament and the Christmas break went way to quickly.

On New Years Day, Jess' mom got sick again. After a few days in the hospital we found out that it was time to call hospice. Judy was so touch and go for the next two months and we spent everyday praying that we would have an opportunity to see her and speak to her again the next day. Jess drove many a mile back and forth between home and his parents. She fought hard and finally passed away March 7th. There is so much to say about her, her faith in the Lord, her HUGE fight to live, and the major loss that we feel daily. But those thoughts are precious to me and to our family and this blog, right now is not the place. We are still grieving and living with the pain.

On a happier note, I now have more time to scrap, create, and relax. It is a wonderful feeling. I haven't felt so relaxed for a long time. Cutting and gluing paper is my very favorite "me" activity. I knew I would have extra time this year to do more scrapping so I mentally dedicated myself to a number of things creative.

I am part of the Ali Edward's one little word class at Big Picture Scrapbooking. My word for 2011 is GOOD, which I can honestly say has been a difficult word considering all the bad we have suffered thus far this year. I have really struggled with my word, but I am determined to find GOOD.

I am also more present and active on the boards at Cocoa Daisy, my absolute favorite scrappy place! The community of ladies there are not only inspirational, but they are easy going and loving. I feel very much at home with these wonderful ladies. I am also doing their monthly sketch and technique challenges. Very inspirational.

I am also taking part in the free classes offered monthly through Two Peas in a Bucket. The Garden Girls are quite inspirational and I love the ideas and sketches they offer each month.

The only thing I mentally committed myself to that hasn't happened is this blog. I just haven't felt like sharing. It has a lot to do with losing Judy and my desire to make sure my family is healing and doing well. Death makes us much more aware of how important every day and every little moment is. It has changed me. It has made me more introspective and quiet, less willing to share, but I am coming around. This blog and my creativity in scrapping is so therapeutic and wonderful. What a blessing this hobby is!

I can't leave this post without a few pictures of recent creations:

This first layout was made using some old Bo Bunny patterned paper (basketball) and some discontinued patterned paper from Scenic Route. I loved Scenic Route and I hate that they have stopped manufacturing paper lines. :( This layout was done using Garden Girl Shimelle's 4X6 Photo Love class sketch from February. I love these pictures of Carter. He really worked hard on his free throws this year and his hard word really paid off. He was a very good free throw shooter this year for his Boys and Girls Club team.

The next two photos are of some gifts I made for my best friend, Sarah. We are both avid scrappers and after about 10 years or so we have finally figured out that many times when we purchase items we end up with too many of one thing. Therefore it is not unusual to get little packages in the mail (we live 2 hours apart) with "extras" in it. I love getting scrappy mail from Sarah and she loves getting some from me in return.

On this particular day I picked up some blossoms from Prima at a local scrapbook store and knowing I had too many I quickly recycled some older packaging to wrap them up and send them to Sarah.

The packaging is from some Heidi Swapp and Doodlebug embellishments I bought a LONG time ago. The patterned papers and a few of the other embellishments are from the February Cocoa Daisy kit. Love this kit...so much texture and great colors. The ribbons are from my stash and so are the small flowers and bling.

This little project made me so happy for a number of reasons: I was able to recycle (love that), I used up some new and some older stuff (love that too), and most importantly I shared some of my extra stuff with a great friend (that is best feeling)!

Back soon with some more scrappy goodness and an update on the busy lives of little boys!

Love, O

Sunday Ramblings- Feeling Halloween-y

I finished up a lot of Halloween scrappy things this weekend. Ronda created such a great Halloween mini over at Cocoa Daisy, that I just had to have it. I put my own spin on the instructions she gave and I am very pleased with the results. It isn't hard to believe that it sold out! It was an awesome project!

I wanted to add splatters of Perfect Pearls, but forgot until I had already sealed the cover with UTEE. So I tried to go ahead and splatter the top, even though I was pretty sure that it would just bead up and not dry. Well I was right, so I hit the cover with the heat gun again and the Perfect Pearl splatters sank into the UTEE. It gave a really unique and fun texture and appearance. I am going to use this technique again.

Also with Ronda's Halloween Mini she was nice enough to include additional instructions to use up scraps left over. One of the projects was a Halloween countdown calendar. I used Ronda's instructions and added a magnetic backer to it. I love the way it turned out!

I used the Halloween countdown calendar cut from the My Mind's Eye Haunted Halloween Checklist patterned paper, The Girls’ Paperie: Toil & Trouble: Ghost Story patterned paper, a piece of scrap cardboard, and a small metal sheet that was actually packaging from an old Making Memories magnetic letter set. I painted the cardboard black and glued the Ghost Story paper to it. I then glued the metal sheet to the back of the Halloween Countdown piece of pattern paper.

To finish it off I attached some old Making Memories ribbon and a sheer Halloween ribbon I picked up on sale last year at Michaels and tied a bow. I then attached an orange Prima and black Daisy D's flower. I used a Pink Paislee brad to hold them together and added a few feathers and gems, then attached the flower to the bow with Glossy Accents.

The finished calendar. The boys move the magnet each day as we countdown to Halloween. The magnet was one that was left over from VBS this summer and I attached one of the The Girls’ Paperie: Toil & Trouble Flower Market Crepe Paper to the top of it.

Both the Halloween Mini and the Countdown Calendar got distressed and inked up using Tim Holtz's Distress Inks in Spiced Marmalade and Black Soot.

I also created the Halloween Mini's for both sets of grandparents. This is especially early for me, considering I did not get last years mini's done till this summer. For the grandparents mini's I use whatever I have on hand (they have no idea what is new and what is old with scrapbooking...lol). They just love to get these little albums full of cute boys in costumes. I make both mini's basically the same...a definite time saver!

For this years mini's I used Scenic Route's Salem line. Actually just SC Salem Scrap Street and Salem Webb Street papers. I also used Hero Arts Spider Web cling stamp, various ribbons, gems, and stickles. I added Glossy Accents to some of the designs in the mini's just to give a little shine and smooth texture.

Can't wait to fill these with Halloween pictures & share these with the grandparents!

Covers

Interior pages...awaiting cute little trick-or-treater pictures....


Hope your Halloween week in wonderful!