K.I.S.S.

**This is my second post for today.  To see my reveal for Artful Delight, please go HERE.**

Keep It Simple Sweetheart, should be our motto during the holidays!!  It can get overwhelming with all of the holiday festivities taking place, and most of the time we sacrifice our crafty time to make it through the month of December.  But there are quick and easy ways to squeeze in some creative time during any busy season in your life.  Here are my two biggest suggestions: grab a Kit or coordinated products and pull out a couple or several rolls of your favorite Washi Tapes.  Then, keep it simple...don't try to over-think what you're doing or worry about if your keeping up with the latest trend or embellishment.  I had fun incorporating two different Love My Tapes Washi Tapes on my layout and got it finished in an hour.

 
I used the Santa Baby Kit from Paper Issues and it gave me quick access to the paper and embellishments I needed, and then I used my favorite LMT Washi Tape as a border at the top and bottom of my layout.  This kit included a few chipboard stars and I thought it would be a good idea to use the Red and Pink Washi to cover the stars, for a different look.  I just placed the strips of tape over two of the stars and then used the craft knife to cut away the excess.  How easy is that...easy peasy, I say!!

So don't let all of the Christmas cheer cut into your craft time!!  Look for fun and quick ways to use your tapes on your next layout.  I'm sure you will be surprised with what you come up with!!

Products Used:  Cardstock:  American Crafts; Patterned Paper:  My Mind's Eye & Pink Paislee; Washi Tape;  Love My Tapes; Spray Mist:  Heidi Swapp; Mask:  The Crafter's Workshop; Enamel Dots:  My Mind's Eye; Wood Veneers:  Studio Calico; Font:  Jolly Elf & Abadi MT Condensed; Snowflake:  Pink Paislee; Title:  Kerri Bradford Studios; Other:  Chipboard Stars, Sequins, Baker's Twine

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

It may be a little late in the game, for that title, but I have one more layout to share with you using the December Kit from Artful Delight.  This definitely won't be my last Christmas layout, though.  I've still got plenty of photos that just made it off of the camera!!  So Christmas might be hanging out for a while longer!

 
I thought it would be fun to make a big title for this layout, so I used one from Kerri Bradford.  I really loved the way it filled in my page.  And I mixed in several fun embellishments from the kit, including the flair button, large snowflake, rosettes, ribbon trims and some of the stickers.  I added wood veneers, spray mist, and a little stamping, from outside the kit.  But I was able to create 5 layouts for the month of December with this kit and I still have a ton left over.  Leeanne, definitely packs these kits with lots of goodies!!

If you are considering Kits for the new year, I highly recommend checking out Artful Delight!  I have had so much fun using these kits, and the one for January is pretty amazing!!  Make sure you head over to see the Scrapbook and Card Kit reveals on the Blog.  I will have my first reveal with the January Kit on the 7th and there will be new Layout and Card sketches for you to play along with, so don't miss it!
 

Creative Scrappers Sketch #241

Happy almost 2013!!  Not quite there yet, but almost!  This is my almost last Blog post for 2012...I will actually have two going up tomorrow...one for Artful Delight and one for Love My Tapes...so a busy end to this year! But back to today!!  :)  We have a fabulous new sketch up today at Creative Scrappers, by none other than the very talented Kristine Davidson!  She is our fearless leader at CS and always creates amazing sketches (and amazing work on her Blog!!).  I have to admit, that when we first received this sketch, I was a lot intimidated.  If you look closely at the sketch, you will see, that it is part of the logo for the new header at Creative Scrappers!!  Talk about pressure.  I did put it off, a little longer than I normally would, but eventually inspiration hit and I ended up loving the final layout!!

I really loved Kristine's sketch as is, so I didn't change anything about it.  I did use snowflakes in place of the stars, to better fit the theme of my page.  And I used a lot of 6x6 paper pads for my patterned papers on this one.  I haven't had any 6x6 pads in my stash until recently and somehow within a matter of 2 weeks, I ended up with 5 of them!  They definitely come in handy, and I might just have to keep adding more of them to my collection!

You are definitely going to want to play along with this one, so come link up with us over at Creative Scrappers!!  You could win from our December Sponsor, Deena Zielger!

And don't forget, to stop in tomorrow and check out my last two posts for 2012!!

Products Used - Cardstock:  American Crafts; Patterned Paper:  Studio Calico & Crate Paper; Buttons & Brads:  American Crafts; Wood Veneers & Spray Mist:  Studio Calico; Stickers:  Pebbles; Fonts:  Eurostile & Scriptina; Washi Tape:  Love My Tapes; Baker's Twine:  The Twinery; Punch:  Marvy

My 2012 Year In Review!

It's almost that time again...time to greet a new year!  We just celebrated a 5 year old birthday for our middle daughter yesterday, I will be turning 38 on January 6th, and our oldest will be turning 7 at the end of January!  Lots of fun stuff going on already as we approach 2013.  But as we look forward to the new year, it's always fun to look back over the passing year.  As I've looked through my work for this past year, I think I've finally found the style that I am comfortable with on my layouts.  It has taken 7 years of scraplifiting, using sketches, looking for inspiration, and finally figuring out how to design my own layouts and get just the "look" that I want.  So, I actually have 13 layouts to share, from this past year.  I chose one from each month, that was a favorite and then added in an extra for December...because I just had to have a Christmas layout in here too!!  :)  Here are my top picks from this past year:
 

 

I also had a lot of scrappy success this year, with several layouts published in Creating Keepsakes magazine and made some new Design Teams...Get It Scrapped, Love My Tapes, Creative Scrappers, ScrapFIT, and Artful Delight.  I have been so thankful for the chances to be published and join the different DT's, because it has given me the opportunity to make so many new scrappy friends.  I consider that to be one of the biggest perks of joining a DT!!  So much creativity and there are so many Ladies on these Teams, that I would not have "met", had I not made the Teams.  :)

And of course, I have to mention my favorite lines/collections from this past year...most of them are on the layouts in this post!!  :)  In no particular order:

Amy Tangerine:  SketchBook and Ready.Set.Go
Echo Park:  Everyday Eclectic
October Afternoon:  Witch Hazel & Midway
Studio Calico:  Yearbook
Crate Paper:  Story Teller
Simple Stories:  Harvest Lane

How is your 2013 shaping up?  Do you have any goals or resolutions you are looking forward to?  I am not one for making resolutions and I don't feel like I have any specific goals that I am striving for this year.  I have been so blessed to attain a lot of those goals in 2012 and I am mainly looking forward to continuing to be creative in 2013.  I don't want to get "writer's block" so to speak and lose that spark of creativity.  I may not serve on some of the Teams I am on now and I may join new ones in 2013...who knows, but I still want to be inspired and have fun getting my memories on paper and in my albums!! 

I Believe in Santa Claus

And I hope you do too, because he'll be on his way visiting all of the kids tonight!!  Santa came early for me, when he delivered my December Kit for Artful Delight!  It was filled with lots of Christmas-y papers and embellishments, that I've loved using on my pages this month. But before I get too much further into the post, I would like to say MERRY CHRISTMAS to all of you, my very faithful Blog readers!!  I really do love reading your comments and I always check back on each post, to see if I have any new ones and read through each one!  And I also love visiting your Blogs and finding inspiration in your layouts and projects!

Okay, so onto the good stuff!!  My favorite thing about this month's Kit, has been the variety in patterns and the traditional Christmas colors, with a little bit of the non-traditional mixed in.  I would say that kind of describes my personality...traditional, with a little bit of non-traditional thrown in!!  :)  I always love scrapping the photos of the kids with Santa.  The girls will go up by themselves for individual pics, but we still haven't convinced the little guy that Santa is a-okay!  He will go up with the girls or all of us, but he isn't having a by myself moment with Santa!!  And I have to say our middle daughter was a trooper for this photo, because she had actually started coming down with sickness right before we went to see Santa.  I asked her if she could just smile for a couple of photos and then we could get home so she could rest. And she did a great job!!

The only extras I used, that weren't included in the Kit, were the wood veneer snowflakes and the White snowflake stickers.  And I did a lot of cutting with my Cameo for this one...the flourish at the top of the page, the Polaroid for my journaling, and all of the letters for my title.  I am sure my poor Thickers are wondering where I've gone, since I got the Cameo!!

Well, that's it for today!  I hope you enjoy all of your Christmas festivities and time with family and friends!!  And make sure you eat lots of yummy holiday goodies!!

Tree Trimmers

Have you been over to Love My Tapes to check out the Banner Challenge for this month?  Tina always does such a great job choosing fun challenges and you even have the chance to win some Love My Tapes goodies!!  Who doesn't love free stuff??!!

I created a layout this month based on the Banner Challenge, just to give you a little more inspiration.  The great thing about Washi Tape, is the ability to reposition it.  I used it to fold over little strips and cut a triangle in each end, to create banner pennants. If it wasn't lined up, I just unpeeled the tape and reset it, until I had it just where I needed it.

I played with different lengths and cut the triangle into some of the pieces and left some of the other edges straight.  To finish off the banner and make it more fun, I added the pieces of Washi Tape over embroidery floss and then mixed in some triangle pieces cut from patterned paper and a couple of buttons.

I always have the worst time taking photos of the kids decorating the tree, because our dining room is painted a Terracotta Orange.  So the color of the photos always comes out looking awful.  I decided to fix that problem by just turning them black and white and I love the effect that it creates with the non-traditional Christmas colors I like to use on my layouts.

I hope you will come play along with us this month at Love My Tapes!!  Make sure you link up your Banner project/layout for the chance to win some awesome Love My Tapes goodies!!

Products Used:  Cardstock:  American Crafts; Patterned Paper:  Echo Park & Recollections; Stickers:  Pebbles; Washi Tape: Love My Tapes; Spray Mist & Wood Veneers:  Studio Calico; Stick Pin:  Little Yellow Bicycle; Pearls:  Recollections; Buttons:  Stampin' Up; Flair Button:  Bossy Joscie

December Daily Part 3

Thanks to everyone who has been stopping by to check out the weekly progress on my December Daily!  For this post, I am behind on my pages for December 18th and 19th.  A little craziness going on, but I am still working away.  My posts for the remainder of my album may be a little more sporadic from here on out, just because we will have so much going on.  I may end up doing days 21-25, sometime after Christmas.  But I will definitely share them, once they are completed.  So here's a look at this week's pages!

 
I will still have several other posts coming up, to finish out this year...Love My Tapes, Artful Delight and Creative Scrappers, so make sure you stop by to check those out.  I may even try to squeeze in a year in review post, if I find a little spare time!!  :)
 

4 Alarm Fun

One of the things I love about Get It Scrapped! is the wide range of topics and trends they cover.  The Team always has a great assortment of assignments to choose from each month. Today, Get It Scrapped! is sharing an article based on Scrapbooking with Red.  You can use color in a lot of ways on your layouts.  Here are a few suggestions:  1) dominating, 2) catching and drawing the eye to your focal point or 3) guiding the eye around the page and/or accenting.

Our local Fire Station held an open house, and we took the kids, to join in the activities.  The color Red, was a perfect choice for this page, because it is a color that most of us associate with the Fire Station and Fire Trucks.  I used Red as a dominant accenting color and used it throughout the clustering and layering on my layout.

If you are looking for more fresh ideas for using color on your layouts, come over to Get It Scrapped! and see the Creative Team's take on using Red.

Products Used:  Patterned Paper:  Crate Paper; Mistery Huey's Spray Mist, Mister Huey's Circl Graph Mask & Wood Veneers:  Studio Calico; Wood Alphas:  Pink Paislee; Thickers:  American Crafts; Stickers:  October Afternoon & Echo Park; Smash Tape:  K&Company; Flair Button:  A Flair for Buttons