Coming Soon: Welcome Fall!

         What is it about the holidays that makes you light up inside? Is it the warm colors of the leaves changing? The smell of pumpkin pie straight out of the oven? Or maybe it's the feeling that holidays are just around the corner? Either way, I'm there with you. In Alabama, our fall is very short. Sometimes it feels like our weather just skips from scorching summer straight into toe-numbing winter. The three weeks we get of fall is very precious to me. It recharges my batteries and helps brace my spirits against the coming winter.

          So, I've decided to share my enthusiasm with as many people as possible. For the first week in October, I will be releasing fun fall ideas to kick start your inspiration. I hope you will all stop by to see the goodies and share ideas with me!

On another bright note, I have been chosen as a designer for Papercrafts TV. I am so excited because this is my first ever design team. I'm still anxious to get my hands on their kit and see what fun things I can come up with. Make sure to pop over there and check it out!

Spoiled

It's been quite a week. I've been battling some fevers (I have no clue what caused them). But I'm happy to say that I'm starting to feel better. I usually try to set a goal of 3-4 layouts a month, so I'm probably going to be running a little behind. Being ill has kept me inside and I haven't been able to get out for photo ops. So, I had to dig for a photo to scrap. That's when I remembered a sweet shot of my FMIL and my little Jada. It's such a precious photo. You can definitely feel the love between them. Jada is such a spoiled little teddy bear.

The journaling reads "Since we have moved in with family, you have been spoiled rotten. All you have to do is glance out the window and you have people rushing to take you outside. You have tons of quilts to choose from now and as soon as you empty your water bowl, someone immediately refills it for you. I usually restricted how many treats you could get to only one a week; but here, you have treats stashed every where and all you need to do is walk towards them. When we lived at the apartment, you only had eggs every other month or so. Now that you’re living with Momma Donna, Sundays are now ‘Egg Day’. Sometimes, I feel a little frustrated because I don’t want you to become accustomed to being pampered. But then I just look at you snuggled up in someone’s arms and I realize 'She gives so much joy to those around her. Why not let her enjoy these simple pleasures while she can?'"

I've been looking for a reason to use Bella Blvd's 'Tail Waggers & Cat Naps' paper. It's so cute. It has multiple squares of sayings and wonderful border strips. I decided to use the 'Spoiled Rotten' square. It brought in a very primary color scheme. Behind all the Bella Blvd, I used Bo Bunny's Calypso laugh for the background. It was a solid white with just enough white to soothe the eyes. I also wanted to bring in some texture by using my Fiskars edge punch around the photo.

The little fire hydrant came from my Cricut's Four Legged friends cartridge. I've been dying for an excuse to use that thing cause all the images are super cute! I went around the edges with Tim Holtz's distress ink in Forest Moss. I also used his Coordination pack for all the solid cardstock. Then I popped it up with some 3D squares. I'm really happy with how this came out. It looks so fun and bright.

Home for a Visit - Basic Grey's Wander

Good morning everyone. Got a new project to show you. Over Labor Day weekend, Caleb flew home for a visit. It was so wonderful getting to see him, but it was very hard having to let him go again. I'll be very thankful when he can come home for good. I chose Basic Grey's 'Wander' collection because it had such cute embellishments to go with it and the colors were delicious.

I really loved the cartoon-ish scribbling on all the pictures, so I really wanted to focus on that aspect. I pulled out my ball point pen and drew the border on the background as well as using Tattered Angels mist.

To bring out the scribbling even more, I drew on almost all of the embellishments. I especially love the way it turned out on the stars. It really made them pop.

The jet embellishment was my favorite. Just look at it. How could you not think it's adorable. I really have to give kudos to the designer who made this set. It really lends itself to a lot of projects. It's cute enough to be kid friendly, but the colors are just rich enough to go well with an adult layout.

The embellishments come with 3 chipboard buildings and I originally wanted to use them all. But once I got everything in place, I realized that there was just too much going on. So I removed the other two, but I kept this green one. I absolutely loved the fact that all of the embellishments were self-adhesive (even the flowers). I didn't have to focus on that so much. I could just move them around until I like the results and then peel-and-stick.


I have to say, this is now one of my favorites. I just loved the bold colors and the playfulness of it. The whole 'Wander' Collection really works so well together. It was amazing to see just how easy it was to layer all of the papers and embellishments to get a finished piece. You really can't go wrong with this one. And, like I said, it's a really sophisticated playfulness. So, it's great for a kid or for anyone with no children at all. I hope you enjoyed this layout. Make sure to come back and see me!

Beautiful Brave Girl

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Labor Day. We were very lucky to have Caleb home for a few days but all good things come to an end. He just made it back to Ohio yesterday evening. Well, on to the project for today.

I have quite a few favorites when it comes to scrapbooking. I like Jennifer Perkins, Lady Grace Belarmino, Rebecca Trump, and Lisa Truesdell. This week, my first project was inspired by Lisa. (You can view her online gallery HERE). On a lot of her layouts, she uses scrap pieces of paper to create a border around her page. I love the look it gives. It's a little messy but so streamlined at the same time. I thought I would try it out myself on a page about Jada's spay. I've known a lot of friends with dogs that had been fixed. They all told me that it was no big deal and Jada would be just fine in a day or two. So I took her to the vet with a very naive mentality. I thought she'd be back to her old self the next day, but that wasn't the case. The spay was really hard on Jada. She would wince any time she moved and she refused to drink any water. It took 7 days for her to get back to normal.

I've had these papers from the Paper Studio for quite some time. I had originally bought them to do a layout on my grandmother because her favorite color was pink. The background page is My Mind's Eye's Lost and Found collection. I liked it because it's a subtle pattern that gives a little warmth without being distracting.

The embellishment from 'GCD studios - Melody Ross' was really what gave me the inspiration to dig out those papers. It had the same creamy brown and pink on it. I originally thought about bringing in some more of the deep pink color, but I liked that little punch in the center so I stuck with the light pink instead.

I took one of the coordinating papers and cut out some shapes to fit behind Tim Holtz's Fragments. I inked the edges with Tim Holtz's distress ink in 'Worn Lipstick' and attached them to the back of the Fragments with Glossy Accents. Word to the wise: Make sure you don't have any glossy accents on your finger when you press it down or it will smudge the front.

I used one of Tim Holtz's Adage tickets as well as a lot of lace and trim from my FMIL stash. I have no clue where she gets it all, but somehow she manages to have the best of everything. She's the yard sale queen! LOL. Hope you all enjoyed this layout.

Curious - Basic Grey's Oxford

On the backside of Oxford's prim and deep papers was a quirky green floral paper. How could I resist them? They were just so darn sassy! So I looked through all my 'to scrap' photos and I came across this photo of Jada and the hummingbird. The colors where spot on for what I needed. There's a hummingbird feeder outside our door and Jada can't help but stare out in hopes of catching a glimpse of them. I just happened to snap a couple of pictures and a hummingbird actually stopped in to be the star of the show!

The journaling tag and flowers were all actually from their 'Wander' collection, but the colors worked so well together that I threw caution to the wind and included them. And, of course, I included those ever constant Paper Studio letters. :) I swear, I should be a spokes person for those things. I used a ballpoint pen to create a light border around the edge.

I've seen some beautiful layouts with rolled paper strips and I've been dying to try it out. I think they came out ok, but if I were ever to do it again I'd rub a little glossy accents on the beginning to help keep it from unfurling. I designed and pieced together the hummingbird. He was a lot of fun to make. I hope you enjoyed this. I sure did!

Glasses - Basic Grey's Oxford

I placed an order from Two Peas in a Bucket quite a while back. It was doing great until UPS gave it over to the Postal Service. No clue why they did that, but that bumped me back another 2 days. So I've had this delicious paper sitting on my desk but couldn't finish it for a week! But I finally got my box of goodies today and I'm so happy! I love this whole collection. Since this whole paper line gave me the feel of being in school, I decided to do a page about my love/hate relationship with my glasses. Glasses seem to be a Davis family curse. I thought I had gotten lucky and didn't need them until I was in the 4th grade and everything started getting blurry. I only use them to read and I try to get by without doing that.

The wood grain is the only bit that isn't from the Oxford collection. It's actually from their 'Life of the Party' line. But it just look so great with that red plaid that I couldn't leave it out.

I thought it would be fun to make a mock pair of glasses. I cut out a very retro pair from some of my wood grain paper and backed them with plastic from an old package I had laying around. I'm really pleased with them. Especially the gauze in the middle to add a little 'geek chic'.

On the 'Debate Team' paper there were these cute sayings on them. Well, with how 'brilliant' the glasses make me look, I just had to cut that one out and use it! The edges where inked with Tim Holtz's distress stains in black soot and brushed corduroy. I hope you all enjoyed this. Now (since I finally have my box of goodies) I can go create some more!

Thank you!

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me. I'm still amazed at the year that I've had. I've been scrapbooking since I was very young, but I've only recently began putting my work online. In the short time that I've been on here, I've been embraced by some of the greatest friends that a girl can ask for. Thank you to all the sweet people who have followed my blog and thank you to those who have just taken the time to look at my blog. Every little bit helps and I am grateful for it all.

I was picked for the papercraftstv.com design team earlier this year and now I'm on the short list for Myscrapbooknook.org's design team. I feel truly blessed to be included with a list of amazingly talented people. You should definitely go there and check out the other finalist. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but even if I don't make it, they are still some amazing folks.