Cool Stuff

Thought I'd share a few fun finds I've seen lately.

This purse can be one purse or two! This is 2 purses that zip together to make one bigger purse. What little girl wouldn't love this? You could even buy one purse for your daughter and a friend and they could each use one of the small purses.I've had my eye on this watch for quite a while. I love that it is white and would go with everything. Also love the bling and the three smaller circles on the face. I figure it's always good to have a few things on a wishlist. :)Yesterday, I saw these on Diana's blog and loved them. They have a cool vintage style. I liked them so much that I've ordered them for an upcoming Scrapbook Circle kit! Thanks for the tip, Diana! That's all for today! Hope you have a great weekend.

Family Photo Shoot

A couple of weeks ago everyone in my family came to AZ for a quick family reunion. It was the first time in two years that we had all been together.

While everyone was here, we braved the 100+ degree heat and went out for a family photo shoot.

We found a local photographer, Andi, who did a great job organizing us. :) If you scroll down on Andi's blog, you can see a few other photos with our family.

Here are a few of my favorite photos.
We had so much fun being together. Too bad it was only for a couple of days. Let's hope it's not another two years before we are all together again!

No. 1 Dad

Sorry I've been away so long! I've been on a vacation to Austia, Switzerland and Germany with my husband and some friends. We had such a wonderful time. I had hoped to blog while we were away, but we had so little time in our hotel and sketchy internet access, so no blog posting for me.

I'll be sure to share some trip photos soon.

I have one layout that I haven't shared yet that I made with the August Scrapbook Circle kit.
I must say that one of my favorite things in the kit are the little handmade crochet flowers. I did a custom order for the flowers with this etsy shop. She was so helpful. I sent her kit images and she matched the color of the flowers to the kit. Love that.Hope you are having a great start to your week!

Elle's Studio Inspiration

Have you stopped by Elle's Studio to check out all of the new inspiration for July?

I really loved creating with Elle's 4X4 inch paper. They are perfect for adding bits of paper to layouts plus, they would be great for cards too.

Here's a little peek at what I did with the paper. I used my circle punch and punched paper to make a mat around all of my photos. Really quick and easy. For a finishing touch, I just painted a quick frame around all of the paper and photos.For my second layout, I used the Scrapbook Circle Jenni Bowlin Play Date kit.
The huge sun paper was perfect for this layout, I just cut it out of the die cut paper and used it as a huge design element on my page. I also love the "sand" flash card. There is just something about flash cards that make me happy. Funny, but true!

To see the full versions of my pages and lots of other great ideas, stop by Elle's inspiration page.

Thanks for stopping by!

No Training Wheels!

My five year old daughter asked me to take the training wheels off of her bike a couple of weeks ago and I was happy to do it. We were are my parents' house and we had her first try riding on the grass. She was off and riding solo after about 5 seconds. It was so fun to see how happy and proud she was.This layout was made with the upcoming Scrapbook Circle August kit.

Summer Swimming

Here in AZ, swimming is pretty much the only thing you can do outside in the summer. Our kids have been swimming almost everyday this summer. I don't even know how many bottle of sun screen we've used.I decided to use a few of my favorite swimming photos on a layout. These were taken last year, but it still celebrates one of our favorite summer past times.
What do you do for fun in the summer?

Last Day of School

Since school is starting up again in two weeks, I decided that I should get a layout made from the last day of school from last school year.

I snapped a few photos of my kids before their last day of school and printed out a few of them in my recent favorite photo size: 2 X 3 inches.
I've been enjoying Basic Grey's basics line. Here I used one of the lined BG for the background on this layout. Everything else is from the August SBC kit.The summer has flown by. I can't believe the kids are going back to school in two weeks. We went school supply and shoe shopping last week, so we are almost ready!

Happy Monday to You

It's always great to start off a new week.

This weekend my son went to a birthday party and I put a quick card together for him to take to the party.

I love this numbers Jillibean Soup paper.It's perfect for cutting up and using bits and pieces on products. Since the birthday party was for a friend turning 8, the No. 8 was perfect for this card.
Have you seen the first August Scrapbook Circle kit peek? If not, here it is...Hope you have a fantastic week!

Dinner Tonight

When my husband and I were first married, we lived in Tucson. While we were there we made some really wonderful friends. It's now been 10 years since we left Tucson and most of our friends have also moved away. Tonight we got to spend time with some of our old Tucson friends (who now live is Arkansas) and it was great to be together. It's also fun to watch our kids play together.

We worked together to create a fantastically delicious spaghetti carbonara and homemade pizza dinner. I love working in the kitchen to create meals with friends. Such a great way to spend an evening.My friend has made spaghetti carbonara several times and it was fun to watch her throw things together. She wrote the recipe down for me, but everything can be altered to your taste. Here's the recipe we used:

1 lb. bacon, cooked and crumbled
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 eggs
2 cups Parmesan cheese
2 Tbls. parsley
3 Tbls. olive oil
1/2 cup white wine (or chicken broth)
1 box of spaghetti
salt and pepper

Cook pasta according to package directions. While the pasta is cooking, saute garlic, olive oil and white wine. Let steam and simmer for several minutes. Mix cheese, eggs and parsley in a mixing bowl. Drain pasta when it is finished cooking and then immediately pour in egg/cheese mixture, bacon and garlic mixture into the hot pasta. Salt and pepper to taste. Stir everything together and enjoy.

Fourth of July

Today was a great creative day. I got to create for a few hours and finished up five layouts and a card. Not bad for a day's work.

I'd like to share a layout I created with the new Jenni Bowlin Play Date goodies. The photos were taken during the neighborhood 4th of July parade my kids were in. I used my circle punch on the bullseye paper. Circle punches are one of my favorite tools.It was nice to get so much creating done because my sister arrives on Monday with her family from North Carolina. They will be staying with us for a week. My kids are so excited to see their cousins! It's been two year since we've seen them. Looking forward to being with family.

Hope you are having a great weekend!

Only 15 minutes

Today I was able to sneak on only 15 minutes to work on a layout. I pulled out the upcoming Scrapbook Circle August kit. (Can't wait to share more of the kit with you!)

Here is a look at what I've come up with so far. Hopefully tomorrow I will have more time to finish this up.Although there hasn't been much creative time today, I've been very busy. Went to the gym, grocery store, post office, bank, 5 shoe stores with my girls looks for school shoes (no luck!) and out on a date with my husband.

Where do you like to buy shoes for your kids? We've looked at Target, Kohls, Famous Footwear, Ross and Payless. Any other idea?

Making a Travel Journal

Yesterday I put together a travel journal/album for an upcoming trip my husband, friends and I are going on. We are lucky enough to be going to Austria and Switzerland! I'm so excited.

While we are on the trip, I want to have a place to document things that are going on each day. I have created premade albums for other trips and so I knew I wanted to do one for this trip.

Here's a look a the cover.The inside pages of the album are very simple. One side of the page is a plain paper (Basic Grey basic manilla) where I can journal about our day. The other side of the spread is a patterned paper. This is where I will put photos from the day.I will probably print my photos from scrapbookpictures.com in the 2 X 2 inch size. I love this size for travel albums because I can fit a lot of photos onto one page.For now, the embellishments are at a minimum. I want to leave plenty of space for journaling and photos.

One thing to consider if you want to make a travel album is to make the binding with jump rings. This is a perfect way to bind the book because you can easily punch tickets, brochures, coasters and whatever else you collect and just add it to the jump ring.This album is 6 X 9. I chose this size so that I could maximize how I used the paper. The 12 x 12 papers were cut in half, which gave me the height of six inches.For some pages, I folded the extra three inches over like on this page so that it created a flap with more space for photos. I added in an extra page and tied the flap together with ribbon.I made a lot of the pages different lengths to add a little visual interest. For some of the page, I used envelopes. Not only do I love the look of kraft envelopes, they will be perfect for storing things like receipts and hotel keys.This only took me about two hours to put together and I love the results. Now I can't wait to go on my trip and start filling the album up with all sorts of goodness!

The majority of the supplies came from the June Scrapbook Circle kit. I also used the Basic Grey basics manilla paper, 7 Gypsies jump rings and an alpha from Cosmo Cricket.

Happy 4th of July!

We've had a wonderful weekend celebrating the 4th of July. It was filled with a neighborhood parade, 3 BBQs, swimming with friends, a Diamondbacks baseball game and two nights of fireworks. Now I'm ready for bed!Hope you had a great weekend!

Digital template from House of 3 and white scroll from from JessicaSprauge.com.

Summer Challenge!

Elle's Studio is hosting a blog challenge this month and it's all about summer. I got to play along. Here's a peek at my layout, but you'll have to visit Elle's blog to see the whole layout.
The challenge is to create a layout about the best part of summer. Just use at least one product from Elle's Studio and then email them your layout. One winner will receive a $25 gift certificate to Elle's shop.

What do you think the best part of summer is?

Glitzy Goodness

Hello and welcome. It's Lisa here with a few Kismet and Distressed Couture line ideas for you.

First up today is a layout celebrating the 4th of July. Everything on this layout is from the Kismet line. The numbers background paper is one of my favorite designs. I even used it here on another layout. I love that it has the star border and the number font is just perfect.
The Glitzers are a perfect way to quickly add interest to a layout. They have the bling built right into the sticker! Love that.
Next up is a card I made to give with a wedding gift. Ever since I saw the "Mr & Mrs." sticker, I knew it would be perfect on a wedding card. The distressed couture stickers made this card come together quickly. Love the barcode sticker. It's adds a fun design element to the card.The third project I would like to show to you is a card where I combined both the Kismet and Distressed Couture lines. I love distressing the edges of the paper with these lines. Since the designs are a bit distressed, I like to take it even farther and mess up the edges of the paper a bit.That's all for now. I hope you have found some new ways to use the Kismet and Distressed Couture lines.

{Lisa}

Supplies

Be Free Layout
Paper, Glitzers, Stickers all from the Glitz Kismet line. Also used Glitz Round Brown Alpha.

Mr&Mrs Card
Paper and Stickers from the Distressed Couture Line. Red Glitz Frosting.

Happy Father's Day Card
Paper from both the Distressed Couture and Kismet Lines. Rub-ons and Stickers from Distressed Couture and Round Black Alpha from Glitz.