Wishing you Sunshine and Rainbows

Needed a few congrats and good luck type cards for some awesome young people leaving where I work to go off to college. These girls have been there longer than I have and I'm going to miss them!

I pulled out my fav set of stamps from Paper Smooches it's called Spectrum and I just LOVE it!!!

I came up with this card:

(Those pawprints are from Who Let the Dogs Out by Technique Tuesday and are appropriate because we work in a veterinary clinic)

I also grabbed one of my favorite 3x4 cards from the Simple Stories Good Day Sunshine Collection and a sticker from Capture Life by Allison Kreft and came up with this card:

(I was inspired to use the flamingo because one of the girls is headed to Miami for a little vacay before college classes start!)

Sometimes card are so hard for me... I think they look simple but I just struggle... sometimes it's pretty easy... weird.

How about you?

Happiness Looks like this #smile

Welcome to the July 3014 Pep Rally with Clique Kits! If you have come here from Tyra's blog, you have come to the next spot on the hop, if you have just come by today... head on over to the Clique Kits website and have fun seeing what awesome projects everyone made with their Midsummer Nights Dream Kit!

Today I'm sharing the second page of what will be a two page spread in my album, and like this page it features a stack of photos.

The only things on this layout that didn't come with the kit are the gold foil doily and the green fauxnamel dot. I'm just crazy about that bokeh print paper and I had used it on some more photos that go with this birthday party (my godkids had a "shared" birthday party for years because their birth dates are only a few days apart... several years but only a few days) and I had been really conservative with this print because I think it is SO lovely and I wanted to use it on at least one more page... I echoed the previous layout by adding the gold foil doily that I cut myself using my Cameo. I used several stickers from the kit. LOVE that viewmaster sticker that I added to my doily. I also cut apart some of the 2x2 squares and I cut up a 3x4 card to add as journalling spots. I used one of the Open Road pieces of Ephemera, an exclusive printable, some exlusive flair and some of the AWESOME Clique Kits diecuts for accenting as well. I was inspired by another page on the Clique Kits blog earlier this month to just squiggle up some of that amazing teeny tiny washi tape to use as an accent and I just LOVE how this turned out! 

That photo you see is the first of several that are crammed on there by using a photo stack. Here are the other photos:

Thanks so much for stopping by to see my project today! Have fun on the rest of the hop! Here is the complete lineup!

Clique Kits
Gia
Jody
Erica
Lacey
Michelle
Madge
Mariah
Danielle
Alisha
Tyra
Charity***YOU ARE HERE***
Cassandra
Rosann
Tess
Sarah

For the Love of Lemon Pie

I got a kitchenaid mixer this year for my birthday, and I can NOT tell you how much I am loving this awesome kitchen tool. It DOES make a difference. Also, I am trying to USE my kitchenaid because it's fun and it makes things easier. I have gotten a couple of attachments because I plan on making jelly in a couple of weeks and that is exciting also! I had a bit of a virus in later June, it was going around work and on the 22nd I was at home and feeling miserable and watching Food Network, which inspired me to make a Lemon Pie... I think this pie helped me feel better faster!

This photo was made sans page protector.

These items mostly came from the Clique into Summer kit with that lemon wood piece coming from Elle's Studio and available in the Clique Kits Store. I also used some bits I had left over from previous kits like that little Pinkfresh Studios Wood Veneer arrow and those rub-ons from Amy Tan (still in the Clique Kits store I believe). There is also a printable peeking out from behind the photo of the mixer.

I only have a couple more pages of June to share and then I'll get to July. This past week has been really unusual in that I didn't scrap one day. I know, totally weird, I have just been EXHAUSTED. I have a scrapday planned for this week so don't worry... I'm back on my game. My work schedule has been weird for the month of July, I usually scrap more on the days I go in later but I've been opening everyday and can't get in a creative groove like this for some reason. Oh well, I've got my special time planned and can't wait! 

2014 Summer Documented (tomatoes) or ONGOING Pocket Pages

This is a page that I'm slowly getting together. I'm growing tomatoes for the first time on my balcony.(I've just never grown tomatoes before, not just on a balcony, but anywhere.) I didn't think about taking progress shots over specified amounts of time when I planted them, but I'm taking snapshots now as I recognize a "noticable" difference. I'm sure my fb friends think I have lost my mind over being so excited about tomatoes. I am Those tabs are stamped from an Elle's Studio Stamp and then I add the date the photos were snapped (good thing about phone photos, the phone tells me what day I took the photo). The page sitting opposite of this one(right now) is a 6x8 page for a bigger layout but I'll use the rest of the pockets for small progress photos. 

Little Moments... and using photo stacks to pack on the photos!

Photo Stacks are an idea I heard about on a video by Heidi Swapp on her show at My Craft Channel. I have used these on other layouts, but it's been a while. I really like to use these for older photos where maybe the photos aren't awesome and I don't want to feature them in a divided protector, because well... maybe there is a photo or two that I'd rather not have jump out at me when I flip through. Ok, all that being said, here is my layout and it is the first layout I've made this month with my Clique Kits July kit!

I believe these photos are the LAST photos I made with a non-digi camera. I forgot my camera the day we went to Graceland, and only these few photos turned out... I think there were 24 on the roll, but the rest weren't even worth keeping after I printed them. If you notice I didn't worry about anything on the backs of the flips, you could decorate them, but I don't think anyone who is looking through my album will even notice. That triangle 3x4 is a Clique Kits exclusive that I printed on Vellum and I love how it turned out!

There is a lot of white space, but I like it, and I love the  colors of this kit with these older photos. I added in some stickers from the June kit and my fauxnamel dots that are made from Perler Beads that I learned to make in the Summer School class. Also from my stash is the gray washi which is several years old and from My Mind's eye and the viewmaster plastic piece is from the Basic Grey Capture collection. I used the other half last year I think... I also added some tags from my misc scrappy stuff basket and the washi that was used on my kit packaging.

As for storing this in a page protector, I will put this page in a regular protector then carefully use scissors to cut out a slit where the photo stack is, then I will push the stack through the protector so I can flip them up inside the album without taking the page out of the protector. Let me know if that is clear as mud and I can make a video to show you what I'm trying to explain. 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Birthday Cakes

Sunday was spent playing with my A Midsummer Night's Dream July Kit from Clique Kits. Last month I had determined that the best way to get through my kit was to go ahead and have some photos printed when my kit arrived, but I have been working in my snap album so much with the Summer School class that I never got around to that (this class ROCKS btw.) So I went to my album that is just old photos in divided page protectors and pulled out two different events to scrap. This was the second bunch, but I wanted to feature them first. Erica had shared this sketch from Life. Paper. Scrapbook. and I decided it would be a GREAT sketch to use with these photos.

I made these photos about 6 months after I started scrapbooking, but I had still not gotten to the point where I knew what photos I would want to scrap. I wish I had better photos of the cakes, or the cakes with both kids, but these work and I know what happened. I think they are good enough to use for my story and I slapped the journalling on in several places. I had volunteered to make cakes for their birthday party that year and they were to be a castle and Hello Kitty. I think they turned out fine, I'm not sure I could have done better, but the kids LOVED them! That was all that mattered. If you play along with the sketch, let me know, I think it's a fun one. I used mostly items from my July Clique Kit but added, gray cardstock and I cut those gold foil doilies out of a piece of gold paper from Fancy Pants Designs with my Silhouette. Those gold thickers are from Dear Lizzy and are the font Fox. The black date stickers are also from my stash and are by 7Gypsies. 

Reserved Star

These pages are all about the night a group of Star's friends went to Bobby McKeys! We had a blast, most of these folks I had only met once before but we all had a fantastic time! Bobby McKeys is a piano bar with "dueling pianos" they played a ton of things that were not by Billy Joel (and some Billy Joel). They even did a cover of the Game of Thrones theme and Fat Bottom Girls by Queen (those were requests from our table).

A few times they let confetti drop from the ceiling onto everyone there so I grabbed some up to save and stuck it all over the one page... I used the set of Stamps by Shimelle Laine that were exclusive to Two Peas (that I just got) on the side of that layout, that Play flair was exclusive to Clique Kits and came with the April Kit I believe. That polka dot made of sequins came in a Sprinkles box by Webster's Pages, That viewmaster embellie was fussy cut from that very sheet of paper then popped up on foam dots to add a little dimension. I LOVE that photo of Star and myself. Those embellishments are all on top of the pocket page because I had stitched it shut after putting those sequins in the other side and I had forgotten that I might want to put something in the back side. Those word bubble tags are by Elle's Studio and I got those from the Clique Kits store to go with my stuff! OK, whew, lots of wordy blogging for such a small amount of journalling on this page.

Summer Yum

This is the back of Tuesday's post. It is about the first fried green tomato of the year. Some might think this is silly, but food was a focus when I was growing up... food was equal to love, my grandmother would cook my favorite meal when I would go spend the night with her as a child and if I felt bad, my mom would provide whatever my favorite food was to make me feel better. No judgements people, I don't think anyone was saying this was a bad thing back in the day :)

I have both diecuts and 2x2 cards from Simple Stories in these pockets, and a good amount of journalling if I do say so myself. I used sticker, and there is a piece of a stamped image peeking out from behind a photo. It's a stamped image of a lemon slice that I tried to make look like a tomato... a green tomato. Um, there are some stickers, those white letter stickers are from Simple Stories and they came in a previous Clique Kits kit. The flair is exclusive to Clique Kits and I LOVE IT! They may still have some in the store so here is the link. 

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and check out what I've been up to. Let me know what you are working on right now and where to find you.

Happiness is Guest Blogging

Wow! I am LOVING this Simple Stories album that I am working on as part of my Clique into Summer class over at Clique Kits! I guess I have really kind of tricked myself into doing project life and I LOVE it in this small scale... who knew! 

Just before the June Kits came out, Clique Kits invited me to do some guest blogging. This THRILLED me because I have been LOVING their kits, it was very exciting to become a member of a kit club at their Debut kit... and I just can't say enough good stuff about how awesome their customer service is and how fantastic their kits are... I'm loving the exclusives that they offer and they have a private facebook group for subscribers and it's quite a fun group of crafters from all over! 

All that said... I HAD to  scrap my guest blogging spots... the screenshots aren't terribly exciting, but my name is there and I stamped the date using Smitty's ABC's from Lawn Fawn. I used part of the exclamation point as a dash, most of the supplies here are from Simple Stories Good Day Sunshine which came as part of the kit for Summer School (the kits sold out but the classes are fantastic!). There are also some leftover pieces from my stash thrown in. I had most of this page ready and waiting for the final guest post that I did... and when it was done I printed it out, stamped it and slapped it into the pocket then stitched it closed. I did just leave two of those 2x2 cards exactly the way they came, I can always slide them out and add something or not. 

Later this week I will show you an ongoing page that I have started in the book, I LOVE these little pockets... have I said that yet? LOL. That Clique Kits sticker came on something in one of my kits and I held on to it. The star is from Freckled Fawn and came in a previous kit. Those stamps came from the Store at Clique Kits, I think they are in the June Store, they are from Elle's Studio and I'm using them all over this little book, they are SUPER usable on layouts! Fantastic!!

Balcony Tomatoes

This is a super fun layout that came together really quickly. I've been mainly catching up my little summer SNAP album with the events of my summer, and I wanted a 12x12 to go with my little balcony tomatoes. These are the first tomato plants I have ever grown and honestly I'm surprised at how they are thriving. I loaded up this page with things just sitting on my table.

The Thickers on this page have been in my stash for years and I've used them once before, but just look how they match that Amy Tan rub-on! Those tiny black stickers are from 7 Gypsies, the wooden pieces are from Studio Calico and I've had then a couple of years, the little tags are mostly from Elle's Studio and I just think they work PERFECT! That Grey paper is Elle's Studio and the background sheet is a white piece of carstock that I went around the edges with Distress ink. The watercolor paper is a combo of water colors, distress ink and Stamping with Elle's Studio Stamps. Sigh, I just love the results. 

TFL!

The Great Stikeman Karaoke Fun Night

Continuing on my glorious little summer album here, the back of the page with the jellyroll has a selfie of me! This was June 7th. One of the doctors from the Veterinary Clinic that I work for has moved to TX and this was a night where a group of us from the clinic went out to a Karaoke bar and grill to say goodbye... and to hear her sing!

We had a blast to say the least! I printed photos different sizes, used the 4x4 cards as background paper, used one of the strips from the Good Day Sunshine Paper Pack and then used printables that I got for free on NSD, stickers from the sticker sheet, diecuts, stickers from DIY Boutique, Washi Tape that was holding some envelopes closed in my Summer School kit, that AWESOME sequin heart, misc sequins from previous Clique Kits and That cool sun/flower looking paperclip. Wow, there is kind of a lot going on here.

Ok, single gal with no kids... documenting the good times (and really this night was fun but we all ended up in tears saying goodbye...).