August project kit "Back to School"

Here is the August project kit for Cocoa Daisy. I created a file folder album to hold all the "stuff" that is a part of your child's school year. It has 6 sections to cover everything from their first day to their report card. The album is based around the fun technique of using an alpha mask with 2 colors of Glimmer Mist (Candy Apple Red and Sunflower). It was a fun album to put together (had a blast spraying ink) and I am so happy I now have Nate's 1st grade year all recorded. Kit goes up for sale August 1st.









I am hurrying along and getting packed to leave to CHA tomorrow!!! Can't wait to see my friends and all the great new product that is coming out. Have a wonderful week and I will be sure to post some pics when I get back!

Happy birthday and a sneak peek.

Yesterday was my little Itty Bitty's birthday!! Zach turned 4 and I have to say he enjoyed being the birthday boy very much! He was so funny when he opened his presents "OH MY, OH MY GOODNESS!!" was what was heard each time he opened a gift. A big difference from the little boy who would NOT open his Christmas presents last year.

This is the birthday boy first thing in the morning:


Zach picked cupcakes instead of a cake for his birthday - and this is him enjoying said cupcake :) (and thank you sooooo much Mom for getting my backside in every shot, so sorry about that everyone):



Now for a little sneak peek at the August project kit "Back to School". I am excited about this one, mainly because I am an "everyday moments" kind of scrapper and events are a bit of a struggle for me to keep up with. So this kit is going to help me record Nate's entire school year! What would normally be a bit overwhelming to record is going to all be condensed into a file folder mini album with sections for his first day photo/school photo, friends, artwork, schoolwork, field trips/sports, and report card/teacher notes. I am going to do one for his 1st grade school year (which was last year) and I am going to start one for this year, so that I can just add to it through the year! The kit also comes with a great alpha mask set from Tim Holtz and TWO bottles of glimmer mist - "Sunflower" and "Candy Apple Red"!! Kits go up for sale August 1st. Well I had better get busy putting it together so that I can show you the finished product :) Thanks for stopping by have a great weekend!

This months design challenge at Cocoa Daisy

I posted this months design challenge "no floating allowed", here is the challenge and the layout I did as an example:

NO FLOATING ALLOWED!!
What do I mean? Well this is a little rule that I follow when I create my layouts and it really helps to give your layouts a nice flow and balance. The rule is that nothing should be allowed to float off on its own. When things are off in "outer space" it is jarring to the eye and the person looking at the layout gets stuck on that little floater. I don't mean that everything has to literally be touching something else, for instance you can have a "trail" of sequins or buttons that lead the eye. There are exceptions, of course, one of which is when you have something along the edge of your layout, I look at that as more of a framing of the layout and can then be by its self. So here is my example, notice how your eye starts at the upper left corner and flows in a diagonal line through the photo, title and journaling and then off the page at the lower right corner. Everything is linked to something else on the layout which leaves no little bits floating off in space. If you remembered what I talked about from a previous challenge about directing the viewers eye then you will notice how the top of the letter "b" points at the bird charm in the photo.



I hope you can join in on the challenge, you have two weeks to complete your layout and post it in this thread.

Have you heard? The deadline to enter to become a Daisy Diva has been extended to August 5th!!! You can find all the info on submitting here.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great Tuesday!

My sketch book is organized!!

I had a minor procedure done last weekend and had to spend some time resting in bed. Well if you know me, you know that it is VERY HARD for me to just sit, I have to be doing at least two things at once at all times! So while I was resting I decided to give my sketch book a good cleaning. Of course one thing led to another and I decided I needed some new tabs, so hey I can do those on my computer while resting, then after I did those it just made no sense to put them on plain paper so I had to create some divider pages.......you get the idea of where I am going with this don't you? I ended up using some special paper from Paper Source that I had been saving for something special, a cute little Anna Griffin bee stamp and some paint to complete my divider pages. I love how they turned out (even added some "coffee stain" stamps to the back of them) and all that organizing really got my mojo going and I ended up getting a ton of layouts sketched! Now just to find the time to create those layouts :)




I am hoping to have a little sneak peek of the August project kit up by tomorrow.
Thanks for stopping by!

DANCE!

I posted this photo of the boys not too long ago and it really is one of my favorites. I love how "in the moment" the boys are and how happy they are just to be out dancing in the rain. Ironically while working on this layout I looked up on my inspiration wall and saw this quote: "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." How perfect is that!! Ever since I did the grid design challenge I have wanted to do a layout with a circle grid in the background. I like how it turned out, kind of loose yet structured at the same time (if that makes any sense).




Most everything on the layout is from the July Cocoa Daisy kit.
Have a great week everyone!

and yet more....

So I decided that the ol' blog needed a little bit of an updating, seriously how cute are those little fish!! If you click in their "pond" you can feed them :) I am also going to make some changes to the banner, keeping my grumpy little rhino of course, just moving it all around so it fits the new format better. So be looking for that real soon.

I have this little card sitting out in my scrappy room ( which just on a side note, is really my favorite room in the house, in fact my niece Mary walked in it today and said "I love this room, it's just so YOU." had to smile at that) any way back to the card. I made this card and a little step by step on how to create it for the Cocoa Daisy newsletter, if you don't subscribe to it, go here right now and sign up!! But because I do love this little card so much I thought I would share it here as well:

While punching out my butterfly die cuts from the June CD kit, I was struck with the idea of using the leftover sheet as a stencil. I created this card by swiping some ink over it and then tracing the outline of the butterflies with a fine tip black pen. You could easily do this technique as the background for an entire layout.



Speaking of step by steps, I posted a little tutorial over at the Cocoa Daisy blog on how to recreate the background on this layout:

Spray mists are getting more and more popular and I have to admit that I am becoming very addicted! In fact I just ordered a bunch of the glimmer mists to play with (I usually lean toward the Maya Mist) but upon Ronda's praise of them I just have to give them another try - so yes Ronda I am blaming you for this last LARGE order of scrappy goodies :)

Here are my July layouts using the oh so bright and cheery kit "Rhubarb Pie" from Cocoa Daisy:


Had to add a couple little birds, aren't they cute!


All I can do is smile about this one :) Never be afraid to scrap pages that are just for you, just for fun! I know that this layout will never be meaningful to my kids some day when they are going through our books but I loved the picture of the wine glass and I had FUN making the page! Isn't having fun a big part of why we do what we do?





This is one of my favorite pictures of my mother-in-law (isn't she beautiful!) with Nate. Whenever she sees the boys she always puts her arms out and says "give me some sugar". The papers and embellishments were perfect for this "story" and of course I had to add some bling to the page as Momma loves her glitz! Love you Mom!



I have to admit this kit stretched me creatively (which I love by the way). I am not used to working with pink so I really had to think a little harder about what I was going to scrap about. Once I started playing though I realized how versatile the papers really are.



I used the kit to create this little card for my MMM blog post, you can read a little more about it here.



Well that is it for now :) I will have that new banner up SOON!! Feel free to leave a comment if you would like to see me add anything new to the blog.

Some scrappy randomness.

The July project kit is SOLD OUT!! And wow it went fast! Thank you to everyone that purchased a kit and if you wanted one and were not able to get one drop Tricia at Cocoa Daisy a note, if there is enough interest she might be able to re-stock it.

I did a daily prompt at Cocoa Daisy this week, all about using a mat to highlight your photo(s). Yes you heard me right a mat - remember when we used them on all our layouts!! Here is my example:


The third Monday of each month I am doing a design challenge at Cocoa Daisy. Here is my challenge/tip and layout from May:
For this months design challenge I wanted to share with you a little trick on how to draw a person's eye to the primary subject or photo on your layout. The first thing we are usually drawn to in a photograph is a person's face/eyes. Sometimes we have a great photograph were the subject's eyes just pop off the page at us, but other times we need to lead the viewer in the right direction. I have found the best way to do this is by using paper strips and embellishments that will point the viewer in the right direction. I have used a few different techniques on the example below. Most people view a layout from left to right, so I started with a bold black photo turn on the left side of my layout pointing into the page. Next your eye goes to the bright red strip of lace paper. The way the lace paper is positioned it does two things: first the width of it highlights Nate in the picture, bringing your eye down to his face and gloves, second the edge of the paper is centered right in the middle of his eye, so that edge of the paper leads you right down again to his face and eyes. The last thing I did was position the title and bee embellishment cluster to push your eye back into the photo, framing his face. I even positioned the bee's wings so that they line up with Nate's eyes.


The challenge and layout for June:
For this months Design challenge I wanted use one of my favorite layout designs: the grid!! No matter how you lay it out a grid always looks great! You can use big squares, little squares, or even circles in a grid pattern. A grid always looks clean and balanced and my favorite part about using a grid - being able to use up your scraps and have a bunch of different patterned papers on one page.



July's challenge is coming up - I hope you can join us this month!

A fun tip that I posted on the MMM blog this week:
An "a-ha" moment.
You know, one of those moments when something hits you square in the forehead and you think "why didn't I think of this sooner!". Well I had one of those moments the other day when I was trying to decide what size circle punch I wanted to use. It seems every time I go to use a circle punch I have to punch a scrap circle to see what the size will be. Not to mention how I am always measuring the circle punches to figure out what size they are.

So my solution (which is really simple) was to punch a set of circles and label them. Now when I need to find the right size circle punch I just pull out my templates and I am good to go.



Well, now I feel all caught up on my scrappy posting :) Have a great Friday everyone!