Simple Stories: Watching Squirrels

On Saturday, I shared with you my two Simple Stories layouts for this month featuring the Vintage Blessings collection. I had so much creating those pages with those papers that I just kept right on scrapping! Here’s another one made with the same supplies …

WATCHING SQUIRRELS

When we first moved into our house the kids and I enjoyed watching the squirrels in the adjoining forest scurry and scamper around the yard. We even thought they were cute!

Until the next Spring when we discovered they had built nests in our rock retaining walls around the property. It fascinated us at first, and the kids enjoyed watching them through our windows … until we saw the dirt flying out as they made room for their families. YIKES! *THAT* can’t be good! (from then on out, we established a “Squirrel Relocation” program with a trap Haha!)

The “happy home” sticker accenting the circular squirrel photo doesn’t mean *I* was happy with their home … but I think they enjoyed theirs while they were there? Hehe!

I’ve had this gold label in my stash for YEARS! It worked great here to hold the title and I was happy to get it used up!

What kinds of pests do you deal with in your home? We get mostly spiders, squirrels, a few snakes, and the occasional mouse trying to hide out in our garage in the winter time. The first year we lived here we had a tarantula …ICK! But I’m happy to say we haven’t seen one since.

SUPPLIES:

Have a great Monday!

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Simple Stories: Thankful and Grateful

I have fallen head over heels for the new Vintage Blessings collection by Simple Stories! Today I am up on the Simple Stories blog with the following two pages, but I will be back next week to share two more here! I had a lot of fun with this set!

THANKFUL

First up, is a page featuring my sweet family. We were on our way out the door to go to Thanksgiving dinner when I thought to myself, “Hey! Let’s grab a family photo!” We set up the tripod really quick and captured this shot with the self-timer function. It turned out pretty good considering we were in a rush! Ha!

I love mixing patterns and had a lot of fun doing just that on this page.

I began with several strips going vertically on the left side of the page. I tucked in a punched cardstock border in between the floral and dot paper and then added machine stitching, as well.

I then used more patterned paper strips to layer beneath the photo.

I love when I can cut apart the designs on a paper and use them as elements on my page. In this case, I cut out several doilies from the pink Home Sweet Home paper. I used them beneath the floral die cuts to the left of the title …

… and again at the top of the page, layered up behind the tabs at the top of the photo.

I tucked another doily behind the house and tree to the right of the title, too.

I wasn’t sure I was going to have journaling on this page, but decided to add it at the last minute at the bottom. I used the orange and blue chipboard hearts to sort of fill in that trapped space between the title and the journaling and connect everything together.

I sprinkled a few more chipboard hearts around the page (the yellow one to the left of the subtitle … and a couple at the top by the washi tape) to connect all of the clusters together visually.

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This second page makes me itch to get together with my scrappy friends again!

GRATEFUL

Last year, I connected with these ladies through the ScrapGals Facebook group. We all live within an hour of one another and decided to get together for a night of crafting, laughing, and dinner. What a blessing they have been in my life! Each one of them has inspired me in my creativity and I am so grateful I had the chance to connect with them in “real” life!

The background for this page comes from my favorite Snap Basics pack. It’s a set of white and light cream basic patterns (like grids, notebook, ledger, and dots) with various wood-grain finishes printed on the B sides. The Vintage Blessings patterns (and all patterns) look so great against the clean white notebook pattern … I seriously need to stock up on 10 more packs of these babies!

I placed the title across the seam of the two photos and then embellished the left side with flower die cuts and some enamel dots from the Faith collection. At the top of the photo, I layered together a couple of tab die cuts.

For the journaling, I cut this bracket shape from one of the cut apart journaling cards. It had a small cluster of flowers pre-printed on it, but I added a larger floral die cut on top to give it more presence.

At the bottom of the page, I created a little scene with the tree, house, tickets, and more flowers. Wouldn’t it be fun if real houses were available with floral prints on their roofs? 🙂

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I hope you enjoyed seeing my page today … Maybe it will inspire you to pull out some supplies and do a little scrapping of your own this weekend?

Thanks for coming by!

Bella Blvd: Together is Our Favorite Place

My husband has a busy schedule these days, and so I am grateful when we can sneak away for lunch or maybe just spend a little time together running errands. He is my best friend … so doing mundane things can be fun … JUST because we are together.

The photo on this page was a quick selfie we sent our kids when we were all chatting on a group text … but I thought it would be fun to use on a page about how I love spending time with my guy.

Because I had just one photo, I decided to go with a grid design. Dividing the space up and then decorating each section is really fun!

TOGETHER IS OUR FAVORITE PLACE

I used the ADORABLE Bella Blvd. Mind Your Manners collection for this one. (Can I just mention real quick that I LOVE how happy, bright, and cheery Bella Blvd products are?! Everything I create with them immediately lifts my spirits!)

I used the cut apart cards from the Daily Details paper to make quick work of my grid. I matted my photo on a smaller-scaled patterned paper pulled from the 6×8 paper pad and then added a strip of the blue Be A Good Guest Paper across the top of the page.

To jazz up the blue strip of paper, I added the scalloped border sticker from the Fundamentals 12×12 Sticker sheet. I then used some enamel dots from my stash on top of the orange and white dots of the border sticker to give it some interesting dimension.

This card already had a house printed on it, but I wanted it to have a bit more dimension, so I used foam squares to adhere a house die cut from the Ephemera pack right on top. The “Home” phrase is also from the Ephemera pack.

I accented the green quote card with a flower and mushroom die cuts and then sprinkled on a few puffy heart stickers (McIntosh Mix and Punch Mix) on both the house card and this card as accents.

How flippin’ CUTE are the new felt pennant embellishments that Bella Blvd. have created to go with all of their new collections?! I LOVE these things! I cut a bamboo skewer in half and added two of the pennant stickers to the top, tying together the two sticks with a bit of green grosgrain ribbon from my stash.

Yes… our time together is definitely worth “celebrating” with some pennants! Woohoo!

I love the way this page came together! I forget how fun grids can be to work with!

If you ever feel overwhelmed with where to start on a page, or if you only have one photo, like I did for this page … try a grid design! It breaks the page up into bite-sized sections that you can then decorate and treat individually.

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Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Dusting Off the Flower Punches

The other day I was poking through the punches in my stash when I came across all of my flower punches. I thought to myself, “Wow! I haven’t used these for awhile!”

I grabbed some scraps I had laying on my desk and spent the next hour punching, curling petals, and combining shapes onto simple brads.

I had forgotten how much I love making paper flowers! It was a blast!

I even created a couple more flowers with my Silhouette Cameo machine.

Next, I grouped them all together on my desk for a quick snapshot. I loved the way they looked so much that right then and there I hot glued them to a card front.

I stamped out a simple sentiment from the Stampin’ Up Remarkable You stamp set … added a few die cut leaves using the Echo Park Spring Flowers Die … and called it good! Simple kraft colored photo corners finish it off.

I left my little creation out on my desk and have been enjoying it ever since!

What tools in your craft room have you been neglecting lately? Pull them out and put them to use … I’m willing to bet that you will have a great time and remember how much you love using them!

Have a great day!