Scrapbook Circle Free Kit Weekend!

Scrapbook Circle is offering a sweet deal this weekend! Start a new subscription with the February Today is Beautiful Kit and choose any past kit to ship along for free. Yes! I really love free stuff.

So if you've been wanting to try out Scrapbook Circle kits (or you've been missing them and need them again!) this is the perfect weekend to pick up two kits for the price of one. Plus, I must say that the March kit is going to be fabulously stuffed with new goodies ordered at CHA plus some cool exclusives. 

Just for fun, I decided to put the six layouts plus eight tags that I created with the Today is Beautiful February Kit into a collage so you can get a feel for the kit. You can see that there are definitely some love elements in the kit, but it is certainly not just for Valentine's Day. 

Stop by the Scrapbook Circle site to check out the February Today is Beautiful Kit and take advantage of a cool weekend deal.  How you have a lovely weekend!

Crafting is My Sanity

How do people happily survive without a hobby? Seriously. With all of the demands with family, work and church, it's so nice to have a craft where I can take time out and create something. When I'm making things with paper it's like I'm giving myself a really big breathe of fresh air.

This week a crafting break was inspired by my Today is Beautiful kit scraps that were in a messy piles on my desk. After making six layouts, there were still a lot of great bits and pieces still left, so I decided to make some Valentine tags for my kids, Ward and a few friends.

White tags that I had on hand were the base for each of the tags. I sprayed a few white doilies with Heidi Swapp Color Shine (Tropicana Teal, Gold and Primrose) and folded those around a few of the white tags. 

It was so fun to stack and layer bits and pieces of pretty paper, glittered embellishments and flowers. My talented friend, Tessa, gave me a sweet gift of handmade flowers and bows and I used those and finishing touches on a few of the tags. 

Once the tags were finished, I decided that it would be fun to tie them with baker's twine to some candy. I was so happy to find these hot pink candy bars at Trader Joe's. I didn't even care what chocolate flavor they were (luckily they were plain swiss chocolate) because I knew the pink candy wrapping would add the perfect pop of color.

It took about an hour to create these eight tags and I'm thinking that was an hour of crafting happiness that was well spent!

Happy Friday, friends!

Love Our Life

There have been many times when I've printed off an Instagram photos and used it on a page. For a fun twist on that idea, I decided to take a screenshot of a photo my husband had shared on an Instagram private message and use that on a layout.

I love how the screenshot not only captures a fun moment with our kids riding bikes in Newport Beach, but it also shows photo comments and little photos of who the picture was shared with. This helps tell more of the story without me actually having to write or say anything. I'm sure over time the interface for Instagram will change is this preserves a little piece of our history.

I kept this layout pretty simple with the focus on the photo, a few embellishments and a bit of journaling. Sometimes I just need a quick and simple page to help me tell the story I want to record. No frills on this one and that works just fine for me.

Layout Supplies /// Today is Beautiful Kit

Watch the Sunset

One our our favorite things to do at the beach is watch the sunset. It seems like right at the last minute clouds like to roll in, but when we were at the beach at the beginning of this year, we scored and saw a beautiful sunset. The photos didn't really do it justice, but I'm okay with that. We still got a family photo with everyone looking at the camera - that's a win for sure.

These fill in tags are one of my favorite things in the February Scrapbook Circle Kit. I love how they give a great starting point for a page concept and at the very least are a jump start for journaling.

On this page, I freehand cut all of the papers except for the polka background. I love freehand cutting paper because it takes away the structured and blocked feel that can sometimes happen when all of the lines are perfectly straight.

With a couple touches of sewing, this layout was finished!

Layout Supplies /// Today is Beautiful Kit /// Dream Big Add-on

Hello Love

Hello Monday! Hope you had a great weekend.

A few months ago I printed out a stack of photos and they've been neatly stacked on my desk ever since. Today I started a layout with one photo and then decided the design wasn't matching the photos, so I swapped the photo for a few wedding photos from my sister's wedding last summer. I love having a few photos printed and ready to go so that when I'm ready to create I'm not spending a ton of time digging for photos.

The design for this layout was inspired by a few paper strips that were out on my desk. This is the 6th layout I've made with the same kit, so I'm starting to get down to having a bunch of paper scraps. It started out with just a few strips under the photo as a mat, but then I decided to play around with stacking paper to fill the whole page.

I love how this incorporates so many different pattens and colors! Sticking with the stacking in the design of the paper, the photos were also stacked on each other. I like how the stacking reminds me of the layers on a wedding cake!

I'm thinking this small paper strip stacking idea might be cool to try covering the entire background of a layout. Might be seeing that idea soon!

Layout Supplies /// Today is Beautiful Kit /// Dream Big Add-on

This Makes Me Smile

Yes! I'm on a roll using my Today is Beautiful February Kit. Love that!  Today I want to share another layout I've put together using that kit. This one is about a little adventure close to home during spring break last year. Hannah and I went ice skating with friends and of course, we had to snap a few pictures while trying to stay up on our feet/skates.

My favorite accent on this page is the giant "ice" hand cut from some patterned paper. It was a last minute addition and I think it gives the right pop to the page. It's a super simple way to jazz up a title and I need to remember to experiment with different variations on this idea soon.

My second favorite accent on the page is the fill in the blank "This Makes Me..." card in the center of the page. I sketched out the idea for this card for the Scrapbook Circle kit and had our designer finish it up. Then the file was off to the printers and delivered a few days later. I love getting to dream up things to use on layouts and then have them become an actual product that is used on layouts. So cool.

Layout Supplies /// Today is Beautiful Kit /// Dream Big Add-on

Cousins @ Atlantic Beach

Last week I decided to take pictures during the process of putting a layout together. I had no idea or plan for page, but thought it would be fun to take pictures along the way. I used the Beatuful Mess PartyParty app to put this together. Here's a look at the process:

I started out thinking that I'd cut hearts out of the 6 X 6 papers and then thought it would be cool to use the outline of each too. It was something different and I'm happy with how it turned out.

This page is about a trip we took to North Carolina to visit my sister and her family for spring break almost three years ago. It seems like a usually scrapbook more recent pictures and it was fun to do some older photos and see how the kids have all changed so much.

When I put this together, I treated each little 6 X 6 section as it's own little page and added just a few embellishments and the photos. I figured the page was already busy with all of the patterned paper combinations, so I didn't want to overdo things.

Now I'm thinking that I want to take this idea of cutting a shape from paper and using the frame with some other shapes. Thinking about the possibilities!

Layout Supplies /// Today is Beautiful Kit /// Dream Big Add-on