Organizing & San Francisco

If you are here for the Precocious Paper Birthday Blog Hop, please go here.
_______________________________________________________________

I'm happy to be sharing a couple of layout creations on the Glitz Designs blog today!

First up is a page about reorganizing my scrapbook room. A couple of weeks ago I shared on my blog about the process of getting organized and this layout features the results.

I'm loving the bright blue walls and empty space. Perfect for getting the creative juices flowing. This layout features pieces from three different Glitz Designs lines. I think they all work together pretty well!

Next up is a layout featuring one of my favorite photos I took on a recent trip to San Francisco taken while we were riding on a trolley.

When I pulled out the Glitz Love Games stamps to use on this page I wondered to myself why I hadn't used this fun "Hello Badge" stamp yet. I'm thinking there will be a lot of future uses for this stamp.

Enjoy your day!

Reorganizing
Glitz Designs "Love Games" Patterned Paper: Damask, Scorecard
Glitz Designs "Afternoon Muse" Patterned Paper: Banner, Floral, Dots, Carte Postal
Glitz Designs "Love Games" Paper Layers
Glitz Designs "Love Games" Journaling Stickers
Glitz Designs "Laced with Grace" Whatnot
Glitz Designs "Love Games" Whatnot
Glitz Designs Teeny Round Brown Alpha

Hello San Francisco
Glitz Designs "Love Games" Patterned Paper: Scorecard, Poppies, Stripe, Dots
Glitz Designs "Love Games" Peek a Boo Transparency
Glitz Designs "Love Games" Clear Stamps
Glitz Designs "Love Games" Journaling Stickers
Glitz Designs Teeny Round Black Alpha
Other: Mist, Ink and Number Stickers

Precocious Paper Blog Hop

Hello! Happy Monda to you! Today I'm excited to be participating today in my friend Tessa's blog hop celebrating her 30^th birthday. The blog hop is sponsored by her Etsy shop, Precocious Paper. Happy Birthday, Tessa!

Tessa is offering FREE SHIPPING on any US order and a $5 minimum international order. Just use code LABBHFREE at checkout here. The code is valid through September 5th.

Tessa is giving away over $100.00 in product and has 20 designers are sharing projects in honor of the birthday. You don’t want to miss this! You can join us by starting at Tessa’s blog.

If you’ve been hopping along and just came from Windy Robinson's blog, you are in the right place.

Tessa was generous and sent me a few of the products she offers in her shop. First, I used one of the Butterfly Doilies on this card. I love that she has done all of the layer and cutting for me!

On this layout I used one of Tessa's flowers. I love that it's layers of felt and fabric that are sew together and have a simple pearl in the center.

Tessa is giving away a bunch of Precocious Paper giveaways! If you complete the entire hop by leaving a comment on every designer’s post, you will be entered to win the grand prize – the September, October, November and December Samplers! That’s a $54.00! Plus she has other great prizes on her blog!

There are a bunch of new things to her shop as part of the celebration, so be sure to stop by and take a peek. Remember to used this discount code LABBHFREE at checkout so you will receive free shipping and a free thank you gift.

Next stop on the hop is Anna White-Sharman.

Thank you for stopping by and happy hopping!

Fancy Friday Challenge: School Projects

Fancy Pants is starting up a new monthly blog challenge and this month the theme is "Back to School."

You can find all of the details on the Fancy Pants Blog today.

I decided to play along with the challenge and create some little notes that can be put into my kids' lunch boxes.

This was a perfect project for using up some scraps from the Off to School line.

Hopefully my kids will enjoy discovering a little note from me hidden in their lunch boxes!

Playing with Fancy Pants Banners

Today on the Fancy Pants blog a few of us are sharing ways to use the Off to School Chipboard Banner Stickers.

If you have a minute, I hope you have time to stop by and see what everyone has created. Here's a little peek at my page:



Since it's been a month since my last couple of Fancy Pants blog projects were shown on their blog, I can share them with you now here.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Banana Bread and Birthday Cards

Hello!  Hope you are having a great day.

I'm enjoying bookmarking and trying out recipes that I discover through Pintrest. Last week I made this Marbled Chocolate Banana Bread and almost everyone in the family gave it two thumbs up. (Max won't eat anything with bananas, so he wasn't excited about the bread.) That just meant more for the rest of us.

The chocolate was perfectly soft and added a delicious touch to the moist banana bread. There are now a few more bananas turning brown on my counter so that I can make this again.

This recipe is my usual go-to banana bread recipe, but now I've added another favorite to the mix.

Also wanted to share a couple of cards that I made over the weekend. I used my Silhouette to cut the scalloped flower on the first card and then used the negative space for the second card.

The colors on this American Crafts paper are so festive and perfect for birthday cards!

Getting Ready for the Weekend

When the Summer's End collection from Fancy Pants arrived, I instantly thought I these photos I took of my daughter last fall while we were in Boston. The trees in October were gorgeous, vibrant colors of red, yellow and orange. Since we don't get to experience changing leaves here in Phoenix, it was a pretty exciting thing to see the bold colors.


One of my favorite Fancy Pants products are the paper filter embellishments. They are similar to tissue paper and come cut in circles with fun edging with prints on them. On this layout a couple of the are layered together and cut in half so they could be used above and below the photos.


On another note, for a while I was posting Friday Finds every week to share cool things I found around the web and help me keep track of things. But now I'm using Pintrest to organize all of these ideas. Are you on Pintrest? Leave your username in the comments so I can follow you!

Thanks to a find on Pintrest, I'm making this Grilled Chicken Bruschetta tonight. I'm excited to give a new recipe a try.


Thanks for the feedback on the vintage coffee table post. I'm going out on a hunt for one next week so that I can finish up our bedroom makeover. Thought I would share a look at our new headboard and pillows.

The headboard is made from printed burlap attached to the wall and then framed. We kept the white bedspread we already had, but jazzed it up with a bunch of new pillows. I'll share more photos once we're finished with the room.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Together

If you've been reading my blog over the past month, you know that our family had a reunion in Illinois this summer. We traveled from both the east and west sides of the country to get together.

When I pulled out my September Scrapbook Circle Kit, I immediately knew that this U.S. map page was something that I wanted to use with one of our reunion photos.


When the kit was put together, this paper was selected mainly because of the cool orange wavy pattern on the back. But for today, it was the map side that was used.


I used the little word stickers from the kit to show the general path that we traveled to all come together.

Can't wait to share the full kit reveal, but here's a peek for you.

On the Hunt: Vintage Door Coffee Table

This summer my husband and I decided that it was time to redecorate our bedroom. We've been married almost 15 years and our bedroom had just been pieced together with IKEA furnature and hand me downs. It's been fine, but it was time to add a little more style to our room. We even hired an interior designer for help.

One of the last pieces we need to figure out for our bedroom in a coffee table for a little sitting area.

Our talented designer suggested something like this for the coffee table:

It's fine and would go well in the room, but I'm wanting something a little more unique.

I'm thinking about something like one of these:

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

So what do you think? Traditional table or vintage door coffee table?

Now I just need to find a vintage door that I can turn into a table!

Unbroken

I just finished reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand and I'm highly recommending this book to everyone.


This is a biography of Louis Zamperini who had a wild childhood, competed in the Berlin Olympics where he met Hitler, fought in the Pacific in WWII and endured unimaginable suffering at a POW in Japan.

The beginning of the book was a little to slow and detailed for me, but once I got into it, I didn't want to put the book down.

This was very inspiring story about a hero who showed true determination and resilience.

July Scrapbok Trends Pubs

It's always fun to see my layouts in print and this month I had two layouts in the July Scrapbook Trends magazine.



My kids were especially excited to see this page since they are all featured on the page. My daughter had a friend over when the magazine arrived and her friend couldn't believe they were in a magazine. So cute!


Thanks for stopping by today!

Off to Chicago

I've already posted about our Chicago trip here and here and here, but today I just wanted to share a page with some of my favorite photos from our trip on this layout.


This is the sheet of paper that was used for the base of the page. It's the Fancy Pants School Year from the Off to School line. It had the perfect grid design already to go for my page.


The top left corner was left uncovered since I wanted to leave the date we traveled to Chicago exposed.

The photos fit perfecting between the dotted lines. Each square was cropped to 2.75". Everything on this page is from the Off to School line. I love the red/teal/yellow color combination on this line.

Enjoy your day!

Scrapbook Room Makeover

Last month I post about the beginnings of getting my scrapbook room organized. I'm happy to report that progress has been made during the past month.

Before I started, my room was way overpacked with things. Here's a little sampling of what the room looked like everyday.


Stressful, right? Things has been piling up for months and it was time to do something about it.

Here's a look at the new room without all of the clutter. It feels so much better!




For now I'm intentionally leaving most of the wall space blank because it just feels so good to have a minimal amount of distraction/clutter going on in here.

The only thing I purchased was the L-shaped table in the corner. It is so fantastic to now have enough room for my trimmer, photo printer, basic supplies PLUS room to create layouts.


I've been using this photo printer for years and have been really happy with it. 99% of my pictures are printed at home, so this printer gets a workout. Now I don't even have to get up from my desk to print.


My old work desk is now a homework space for my son plus a place for my sewing machine (it's now out of the box, now I need to figure out how to use it!), Silhouette and cardstock.


This basket sits under my desk and has all of my current kits and current products.


Each kit/paper line is stored in a Cropper Hopper Scrap Storage container. I've been using these for years and they work perfectly for storing thing because the top is open for quick access plus there are 3 pockets. One is a deep pocket that holds paper and the other 2 pocket hold embellishments.


This little cube drawer unit also sits under my desk.


The drawers hold mostly of my older photos that are all organized generally using Stacy Julian's Photo Freedom philosophy.


On top of the photo cube drawers is a basket with my tools that are used often.


In one corner of the room I have this cabinet that was created with a vintage window. It was a garage sale find a couple of years ago.


The final wall in my room has a kitchen counter top from IKEA that I found in the "as is" section about 5 years ago. There is so much storage in this unit. The drawers are huge and the 8 baskets hold the rest of my scrapbook supplies


The baskets are a great way for me to organize because I can have similiar items together without needing them to be totally neat. The baskets hold ribbon, adhesives, stamps, paint, ink and stickers.


Hope you enjoyed this tour of my scrapbook room! Notice I didn't show you the closet...that's my next organizing project.

Hope you have a great weekend!