Halloween Goodie Bags

Happy Halloween everyone!!  I'm over on Maggie's blog sharing some cute little Halloween goodie bags!  It's not too late to make a few for your family and friends!!  

One Little Bird: Project Life October

Are you a One Little Bird fan??  I sure am!  Peppermint Granberg is the bees-knees to me.  I love every.single.thing she creates.  I swear she must have magic in her brain!  The best part about her products is that they make creating effortless.....especially for Project Life.  It's a slide & go kind of process and I love it!  Below are a few sneaks of a new spread I put together using a few of her collections from The Lilypad!  Hop on over to see the whole project, as well as some tips on keeping Project Life fun!!  

Maggie Holmes Design Team: Open Book Canvases

I am over on Maggie's blog sharing a few mini canvases I put together using the new Open Book collection.  This collection is purely magical and I just love every single bit, don't you??  Hope you will stop by and visit me!!

For the Love of Fall & Halloween

With all the fall decorations and Halloween parties in the air, I thought it would be fun to go back through my projects from last year and post them to the blog!  Sometimes I end up doing Halloween/Fall type of projects after the season, and it never really feels right posting them after the fact.  

I just love all of this projects from last year.  It's funny to see how my style has changed, but stayed so  much the same.  I obviously love white space and middle page layers.  Enjoy! :)

Fall Mini Album

Halloween Mini Album

Floral Halloween Headband

Around Here

A little glimpse of our life lately.  Lots of outdoor silliness, pumpkins, football games and yummy fall food.  Hoping all of your days are filled with joy (and pumpkin spiced salted caramels) too!!  Happy Saturday, friends!

Crate Paper: Happy

This week over on the Crate blog is all about Maggie's new collection Open Book.  The collection is beyond perfect and has the prettiest embellishments ever.  The pops of gold and bold black stripes add such a wonderful pop to the softer colors!  Stop on by the Crate blog to see my project for this week, and be sure to leave a comment mentioning your favorite product be entered to win an Open Book prize pack!!  

Here's a little preview of my project!

Guest Post: Capturing the Here & Now

I am so honored to be a guest on Rebecca Cooper's blog Simple As That.  I have been a long time follower of Rebecca and greatly admire her photography skills, as well as how effortless she makes being a mommy seem.  She is a true role model and an example of excellence in our field.  I hope you will drop by her blog and spend a little while with me!

I'm super excited to be a contributor for Studio Calico's newest class Paint.Plan.Play.  I adore Ashley Goldberg and her amazing designs and I can't wait to see what she in store for this class!  I know it will be awesome!  Learn more about this class and join in the fun over at Studio Calico!

PAINT.PLAN.PLAY

We've all experienced it – the frustration of sitting in front of a blank page for hours and still coming up empty. Well, we've got the remedy: cutting-edge artist Ashley Goldberg. Ashley’s come wielding her brush and paints to invite you into Paint.Plan.Play, an “art” class designed for scrapbookers. Grab the paints and brushes you've been collecting and let Ashley help you tap into the creativity you've got hiding inside yourself. 

During the first half of Paint.Plan.Play, you’ll explore core painting techniques Ashley uses every day, then you will transition into putting those new skills to use in several projects. With Ashley’s expert guidance, you will learn how to take control of color, pattern, and text by using paint, collage, and various other mediums to add allure to all your paper crafting projects – from personally designed journal layouts to Project Life spreads. '

Paint.Plan.Play will begin on November 1st.

Week In The Life: A Look Back

Ali Edwards is embarking on her Week in the Life project again next week and I'm torn about how I want to approach this project.  I've participated in her project two of the last three years, and took some time yesterday to look back through my albums.  This project, although tedious and time consuming, is so worth it.  Just flipping through my books from 2011 and 2013 made me want to jump right in and get started.  I took two very different approaches the two years I completed this project.  I don't think I could pick a favorite.  One is jam-packed with photos, words, quotes, recipes, ephemera....and one is much more minimal and clean.  I think my "style" has evolved over the years and both albums represent my personality at that particular time.  

This is a look at my 2011 album.  I used an 8.5x11 We R Memory Keepers album and Ali's WITL digital templates.  Each day includes on large photo, small baseball card photos and one photo collage.  This book is very photo heavy with little embellishments or "fillers".  I did include a lot of words about our "daily life", and while I didn't think much about this when I did it, it might be my favorite part of the book.  I loved looking through the receipts, recipes, tags, etc.  They brought back so many memories!  I also loved all of the words, quotes and lists I included in this album. Those memories definitely fade with time and having them recorded is the best!  As you will see at the end, I used Ali's Daily Sheets, which I highly recommend.  Looking back through our timeline and daily events vs. today's happenings is crazy!

I skipped over 2012 because I felt like our days were pretty similar to that of 2011 and wasn't sure I had it in me to document a whole week.  I picked back up this project in 2013 and took a very different approach this time around.

For 2013, I decided to create ONE Project Life spread and a digital album through Artifact Uprising. I really wanted my album to be photo-heavy and really didn't want to bother with adding in embellishments or extras in my book.  Having it printed and bound was the best decision for me last year.  And I love our little book.  It's very different from my 2011 album and I love that!  So much has changed, but so much is still the same. 

I printed all of my photos in an 8.5x8.5 soft covered book from Artifact Uprising.  I love their books so much (and have printed several more since this one)!

For this book, I started with a recap of our day and one large photo, followed by a few more photos or photo collages (depending on the photos I had for that particular day).  After I had edited my photos, uploading and building this book was a piece of cake.  It took me about 30 minutes from start to finish (which is waaaaaaaay different than the amount of time it took me to do my 2011 WITL album).

I wanted to have something a little more tangible about our week, so I put together a very simple Project Life spread.  I picked one photo from each day of the week and filled the pockets with a title card and then seven daily photos.  I used Ali's Days of the Week script brushes to add the day to my photos.  The middle row of 3x4 cards were filled with some journaling and other filler cards....basically just to make it pretty!

This spread is one of my favorites!  I just love the photos and a quick glimpse of our week!!

I'm still a little undecided on this year.  I think I'll definitely incorporate something into either my Project Life album or maybe a mini book, but I'm not quite sure yet.  I did purchase Ali's awesome WITL kit, so I do have that available.  What about you??  Are you participating this year?  Are you following Ali's lead and creating an album, or are you taking your own twist on the project??  I'd love to hear your ideas!!

Creative Jumpstarts 02

Hey hey!!  Thank you so much to those of you who played along with the very first Creative Jumpstarts challenge!!  I loved seeing your projects popping up in galleries and on Instagram!  You guys are awesome!!  And the winner of the Studio Calico Underground Kit is:   

Natalie - Such a fun challenge! I loved making my layout!

Here’s the link: http://instagram.com/p/t5z_DZCEdg/?modal=true

Congrats Natalie!!  We will contact you shortly!

This week, we are offering up a new kind of twist on a Project Life challenge!  

The theme for this challenge is all about pocket scrapping and the focus is on ONE COLOR!!  Marcy and I talked about it for a while and finally decided yellow should be pretty easy to use.  Yellow can be so versatile and is pretty timeless over seasons, so we thought it would be the perfect color to begin our pocket challenge!  But...you guys...this challenge was more difficult than I had imagined!!  The first thing I did was shuffle through my journaling cards looking for cards that had hints of yellow, or were yellow themselves.  And I came up super disappointed!  It made me realize that I typically begin my pages with my journaling cards and then fill in with my photos, so not having any cards to start with left me a little stumped!!  In the end, though, I just love how the spread turned out and I really love the consistency of the color throughout these pages!  Let's take a look!

I used the typical design A page protector because I already had printed several 4x6 photos that I planned to use for this spread.  Next time, I will definitely be switching up my sizes for something a little more exciting, though!  I'm kind of bored with this style right now!

After I printed the rest of my photos, I began adding them into my spread (which is different for me because, like I said, I usually start with my journaling cards).  Since the theme was yellow, I tried to print photos that went along with the color scheme, although I didn't want every photo to be yellow.   This was a super fun part of the challenge!  I loved searching through my photos for a color, whereas I usually search based on activity or event.  It's always fun to change things up a little!

For the middle cards on my page protector, I used whatever I had in various shades of yellow, as well as some patterned paper that I trimmed to fit into the pockets!  Patterned paper can make an awesome backing for smaller photos. 

I used a 3x4 die cut that I cut with my silhouette and backed the card with some light yellow paper.  I love the way the words really stand out on the card! 

I also found this cute little yellow pocket from a Studio Calico kit a few months ago and popped it right into an empty pocket with some journaling!  I'm not sure I would have gotten around to using this yellow pocket and I love that I had to think outside of the box and reach for supplies that aren't my "go-to". 

I kept the remainder of the spread pretty simple with a few light embellishments (yellow or wood veneer), and then typed up my journaling using my typewriter!!  

Once I got going, this spread moved pretty quickly!  It was the initial decision making that took me so much time!!  Sometimes it's easier to just go with the flow and see where it leads you, rather than obsess over every card and detail, right??

Thanks so much for joining me today!!  Be sure to check out Marcy's awesome take on this color Project Life challenge.  I died when I saw her spread and it took all of my will power not to copy it!!  

We hope you can play along again with this week's challenge!  Choose a color and think create a Project Life spread!  Easy peasy!

If you don't do Project Life, feel free to do a "pocket" take on a traditional layout!!  Just be sure to use just one color!!  Link up your projects here on my blog, as well as over on Marcy's blog!!  And tag #creativejumpstarts on Instagram so we can see all of your lovely projects!!

Our next challenge will be a recipe challenge and will be going up on November 3rd.

Creative Jumpstarts were created by Marcy Penner and Stephanie Bryan to challenge each other with their paper endeavors. Delivered in the form of bimonthly challenges, they encourage us (and hopefully you too) to stretch supplies, think outside of the box and to remain intentional about the memories we capture.  Challenges are posted on the first and third Mondays of every month.  Projects are shared on our blogs and on Instagram using the hashtag #creativejumpstarts. We'd love it if you'd share along with us at either of those places and be sure to tag us (@helloforeverpaperco and @stephaniebryan) if you do!