Love you Much Valentines

Although I wasn't too sure about the Love You Much bundle at first, I am finding that I absolutely love it! The Candy Lane paper, the hearts punch, the stamps are just too cute. Here is my first set of Valentines I was trying out.

Paperwise, these cards used Close to Cocoa, Pirouette Pink, Riding Hood Red, and Very Vanilla card stock. I also used the Candy Lane DSP which coordinates with those colors.
When stamping on colored cardstock and then coloring, I found that the Close to Cocoa wasn't always dark enough. I also used Chocolate Chip ink for stamping.

I also used the Vanilla taffeta ribbon and Chocolate Chip grosgrain ribbon. The Vanilla hodgepodge also coordinates with Candy Lane. And the birds fit pretty well inside the Designer Label punch. They also fit in the oval punch. In each case, the little heart gets cut out, but the small heart from the heart stamp and punch is a perfect replacement.
Too bad I don't have many people to send Valentines to. Just my boys (and they aren't really too interested. They consider it abit girly)

Valentines pages

I decided to make some Valentines pages. This first page I managed to get the main part planned. Now, I need to scan in some pictures of us through the years. I am going to overlap pictures of us together from our first dates, to marriage, to us now (20 years later). Finding the pictures is the challenge. Usually, one of us is behind the camera or we have the kids with us. I used Close to Cocoa paper for my background and some Riding Hood Red for the scallops (from the scallop punch) Once I find all the pictures, I think this Candy Lane paper makes a great Valentine page. I especially love these birds (no pun intended) We are bird watchers, so it fits in with our lifestyles 100%!

I also thought the Candy Lane, Love You Much and scallops would be great for gathering up my Valentines. Each year, the boys made cards for me at school. Time to round them up and scrapbook them! I made a pocket for each page with Vellum. The vellum makes it possible to see the valentines and still contain them. I used the Love You Much stamps with Chocolate Chip and colored with Riding Hood Red and the punches to create lots of "card candy" for the page. I also colored a Pretties flower with Pirouette Pink and a Vanilla pearl to accentuate the page.

The last touch is to add the Valentines. I found some of the boys old projects. They are precious but not quite archival. Construction paper, hand prints, tissue flowers, poster paints and crayons. Gotta love it and glad I can share it!

Christmas Pages

After gathering up our photos from the holidays, I created these three spreads. I broke each part of the holidays into a unique page but they are connected by the Snowflake theme throughout.

The first spread is Christmas eve at home. This is our first holiday without our oldest (He didn't have leave to come home). Using Baja Breeze and Whisper White, Big Shot snowflakes were layered. The large snowflakes have "ice" rhinestone brads in the center. The corners have Baja Breeze patterned paper from the Country Living Holiday kit. The star layers were cut with Nestabilities. I love that the Big Shot can use so many different products.

Although I used Sizix letters on the Christmas Eve spread, the next two page titles have stamped letters on layered tags from the two tag punches. More personal notations were written with the signo white pen on colored tags. Baja Breeze coordinates so well with Night of Navy, the colored background strip.

For the last spread, I had to change to Pacific Point. The Baja Breeze that captured the light snow in the first pictures just didn't match the blueness of the snow in the pictures of the kids sledding. My husband is such a great photographer, capturing their play's excitement and rosy cheeks. This spread also used the textured Whisper White. I also tried the shimmery white for the snowflakes, which are kept apart from the pictures with the Pacific Point.

Rock a Bye Boy Albums

Besides making an album for my niece, I had some friends who were also in need. Having babies a month apart, it was easier to follow a scrapmap and make them simultaneously.

The album cover, for Brandon, is done in Bashful Blue and Pool Party DSP. I used the Cosmo Fine glitter on some chipboard pieces. What a cutie!

I used the Rock-A-Bye Boy Simply Scrappin Kit and the same layouts as the Rock-A-Bye Girl book for both the boys.

Here's the other cutie, Spencer!

Spencer's album is covered in Certainly Celery. I thought it would go well with all his rainforest decor. Since I had new baby pictures of the boys, I was able to add pictures to the cover and a couple of the pages.

When I first saw the Rock-A-Bye colors last fall, I was a bit so-so. It has high contrast, which takes more courage than I usually have for scrapbooking. It also uses Tango Tangerine.

I am not much of an orange person, leaving it as an exclusively Fall/Halloween thing. But, I have found myself warming up to it unlike all the other orange variations. It also pulled on some blues and greens which I like. Old Olive and Kiwi Kiss went along with it quite well.

I also pulled in a few other colors, like the Brilliant Blue page. It does not pull much from the Rock-A-Bye kit much and uses my old favorite Pool Party again. This is why I stock up on those retiring DSPs. You never know when a project will just call for those old papers, like this project did for me.

To make the Brag Book useful for the moms, I made a spot for monthly development and special events.

To make it easy, I labeled the picture sizes so mom could know the size of pictures to add when appropriate.

I also included a place for pictures with the people. Since I had pictures from the delivery of mom and dad, I had to include those. All they need now is pictures with grandparents, cousins and so forth. So, like the other kit, I included all the parts to finish the page.

The kits have so many frames, and stickers! I was able to get through all the paper (as well as needing more since there were two albums) But there were more than enough stickers to split between the two albums and still have some laying around.

I did also add a few other things, like corners punched for adding to the pictures. I also used lots of buttons- Soft Subtle, Neutral, and Fresh Favorite buttons here and there.

I hope these albums help the girls share images of their new bundles of love with all their friends. We all want to see how they grow.

Presents-Album

Since so many of my friends and family have been reproducing, I decided to make albums for them- Baby Brag books. I remember how little time their is to scrapbook or work on other projects with a little one in the house. And everyone wants to see pictures. So, I thought these would make some fun and useful presents.

I started with the standard 8 1/2 chipboard album. I took the chipboard album and colored it with craft ink. I added some designer paper and Modge Podged it. As some of you may have noticed, I Modge Podge any three dimensional project. I guess I feel it protects it.

Anywho,I took some chipboard and covered it with glitter. To do this, I first checked with SCS to find the best way to adhere glitter. The final decision was to color the chipboard to match the glitter with ink. Then, using the multipurpose glue, sprinkle the glitter liberally. Shake of the excess and it should be set. This is the Fine Cosmo glitter on Ginormous pieces and letters. Of course that needed to be Modge Podged too. All I need now is a picture to fill that flower.

For the album, I started with the Simply Scrappin Kit Rock-a-Bye Baby. The kits come with so many stickers, I split the kit to make two albums and pulled in some extra paper.

For each page, I placed the mat for photos and labeled the photo size. This makes it easy for mom to print out pictures and glue them in. I was trying to make it as user friendly as possible.

The page layouts are loosely based on the album Jaron Winder featured at convention. Although I didn't get to go to convention, another from my group created her album based on his. It was so great I thought I would try it out. Luckily, my upline Patty had the pdf and sent it to me so I could create my own. Its great to have such a wonderful stampin group!

I didn't follow Jaron's layout exactly. I wanted to have the consistency of having pages to feature each month. To do this, I repeated one spread three times, so four months were on each spread. (Notice the months listed on the bottom)

Some pages were also very difficult, since I do not have any of the pictures. Without the pictures, its hard to journal. For pages that are "some assembly required" I included the missing pieces. For example, I including terms and people who might appear with the new baby. All mom has to do is pick out photos and the captions that would match to put it all together.

Although it is a generic pre-made album in a way, it is also customized. I tried to include the babies name, initials, and such through out. All mom needs to add is pictures and its all about her baby.


One thing that is probably very obvious in this album, this is for a girl.

A is for Ashley, my niece's little baby. Hopefully, I can get a big picture to finish the cover and then I can deliver it to her.

Remember our military

One of the Navy Moms on my forums mentioned that a sailor over seas did not receive any cards for Christmas. In fact, her son has not seen any mail for him since he arrived. Sadly, many of our dedicated service people do not have support or contact from those back home. If possible, always send out a care package or a note.

Its late, but I sent out this Christmas card and New Years card to this sailor. I will also look at getting a care package out his way.

If you don't recognize it, the Christmas card is from Deer Friends. It is similar to my earlier card.
The New Year card uses the Under the Stars set and Muirfield DSP with Baja Breeze and Chocolate Chip.

Please remember, whether you support the war or not, make sure to support our troops. Send a card, a package, or at least your warm thoughts!

Retiring the Fall/Winter catalog

With a new catalog coming, it will soon be time to say goodbye to some supplies. The retiring accessories list comes out on Monday. I am eager but also dread what may be leaving us. I just got started using some of the DSP and it will go away! I made this clipboard with the Bella Rose paper. I love this DSP and hate to see it go! But, I am sure I will love the new stuff too. I always do.

At least the colors will still be around. I used the Pacific Point pad directly on this wood frame. Both projects also used the Pretties Kit. Boy, they better not change that! With a house full of boys, I thought I would never use it much. But I am almost out of my second batch of Pretties flowers. You never really know til you start playing with stuff what you are really going to use.