Sunday, October 12, 2014

More Catch Up...

 Play, yes they do!  I have a few more layouts that I made over the past two months that I wanted to share.  The top one is the boys, just taking a break from what they do best - play!  This layout is using mostly Heidi Swapp Mixed Company. 
 Although I created a fun mini with my Mother's Day pics, I still wanted to play around a bit and make a special "big" page of that day with my kiddos.  I used a mixture of Heidi Swapp Hello Today and dreamy, with a Project life card or two thrown in.  I also received some artwork that day from the boys that I slipped into the next page of the binder - a better place to keep it and cherish it than just laying around the house!
And I decided to go back to some winter pictures as I felt the cool air begin to blow around these parts to remind myself that we did have some fun during that long, long, long, longest of winters.  I look forward to more snow filled fun this year.  I used the Mixed Company line again here and painted on some color shine in various colors so the background was not too plain.  I like white space.  But I just always seem to fill it up!

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Dreamy Layout

I'm not exactly sure why but I have yet to make a layout with Heidi Swapp's Dreamy line.  Well, the urge hit me and so I grabbed a recent photo and went to work.
I also used some wood veneer letters from Studio Calico and the "adore" from the project life gold value kit.  Seems I can just never leave a plain paper plain.  I used a shape punch in white card stock and made a stencil.  Then I dabbed Studio Calico's Color Theory acrylic paint in mint on in the sextagon shape.  It's subtle but added a great little layer.  Some more mist, stamps, and those cute little gold chipboard embellishments just really added to the loving feel of the page.

See, I have nicknames for my kids.  Pretty sure most moms do.  Dimples and Curly-Q.  They think the names are fun.  They describe the most noticed feature on both of them and I want them to feel proud about the unique gifts God gave them.  Ayden has the best smile.  And he smiles a lot. It's complete with these adorable dimples on either side, and it kinda knocks people off their feet a bit to see that flashed at them.  And Owen, well, those wild curls are the best.   It's almost like his silly personality is just so big that it had to spill out the top of his head. Well, anyhow, I love how this page will let me remember this time with our two adorable blessings!

Catch Up!

Yeah, so the last two months have REALLY flown by and unfortunately I have not posted any of my latest projects onto the blog!  I do post often on Istagram so feel free to follow me there for photos of my current projects.

Our household has kept busy soaking up the last of the warm weather in August with a flurry of trips and other events, including the first day of 3K for our oldest son!  A big change for our family who has been fortunate enough to mostly call our days as our own and to be only subject to my husband's work schedule.  Alas, it is a wonderful experience for our son and we couldn't be more pleased with his class and teachers.

That whirlwind was shortly followed by our little guy turning two!  Gulp.  Two?  Where did that come from?  Well, he had an absolute blast at his Puppy Pawtay!  Seriously, this kid loves dogs and was so very excited to celebrate his day.  I will get around to a post about it but highlights included all his family and little friends, a puppy cake, and puppy dog balloons.  We were blessed with a warm, sunny day that just made it that much better.

In crafting new, with the release of Heidi Swapp's Project Life lines I have begun my own journey into project life.  I have to say when I bought the kits I thought I would just use them in mini albums and layouts but then I decided to give it a whirl.  I. fell. in. love.  Yup.  Love it!  I love how quick and easy it is.  I love that you can just keep it super simple and fast OR you can spend a lot more time on it making it extra pretty.  I especially love that these kits coordinate with the mounds of Heidi Swapp goods I already have.  And as I have stated before, I am in no way just doing one method of memory keeping.  I have my mini albums.  I also have my binder filled with layouts and project life pages.  All mixed in matched.  With barely a two page spread to be found.  I know that might make some people cringe, but I gave up the two page spread circa 2008 so I'm all good with that.

Ok, enough chatter.  Here are a few of my latest layouts to share:
 Using a Studio Calico kit and this awesome yellow Color Theory acrylic paint, I had a great time playing with this super adorable picture of my kids and their friends.  We had a wonderful day at Bay Beach in Green Bay, WI which is a pint sized amusement park.  The kids loved it.  They crashed with blissful smiles later.  I captured a lot of great photos and videos, most of which are in project life pages!  Yeah, see how great it is!  I did a few layouts and put the rest in project life pockets and can look at all the cutie pie pictures together!
 Using Heidi Swapp's Favorite Things and a few items from the Project Life value kit, I captured a few memories about this little guy right before turning two. 
 Also using Favorite Things, I documented an important milestone that happened over the summer.  Potty training.  It was a long, long road filled with many, many battles, but alas, we have moved past it.  Awesome truly sums it all up.
And finally, using Favorite Things, trying out some misting with stencils, and cutting up a journal card for this gold "REMEMBER", I wanted to document these beautiful curls our youngest has.  The are cute, they get wild, and people are always commenting on them.  Since we are not sure if they will stick around forever, it seemed like a good idea to make sure we capture them now.