Featuring Ali Edwards │ April Projects

Hello there, I can't believe April is over, thankfully it went much faster than March, right! So happy the temps are warming up here and we're able to spend more time outside enjoying the sun and stretching our legs a little bit.

I had a great time working on April projects for Ali Edwards and I wanted to share them with you.

First is a pocket page spread that I made with the May SBTM kit. It was perfect to document two fun days in May, a girls brunch and Mother's Day with our friends. I love that pop of bright yellow!

Next up is a Travelers Notebook spread using the April Digital SBTM kit. I loved the daisy print so much I created a custom background to hold my photos. On the left side I adjusted the size of one of the journaling cards and cut a curved slit to make a pocket for my journaling. I just love this spread so much.

Lastly I used the Progress Story kit to create a tag mini album about my daughters first week of distant learning. I used the addon 3x8 tags as the jumping off point for this and created more tags from the jouranling cards to hold the story and photos and I just love how this turned out. I'm really glad I have a memento of this crazy time of distant learning.

Take care,

Pieces of Us │ A Mini Album

Sometimes projects come along that excite me and make me want to dive right in. When Ali Edwards shared a few weeks back that she was going to work on a project called Pieces of Us I was immediately drawn to it. The concept as she explains in this blog post was going to be a week of focusing on images of ourselves so that we could get ourselves into the story and to also focus on all of the things we should be loving about ourselves. I loved the idea and don't usually have any issue with sharing photos of myself. I was surprised as I was moving thru the days that it was getting harder and harder for me to focus on myself and also share about myself as you will see in the journaling I did each day.

After the week was over and I let my feelings sit I knew I wanted to put the photos and words together into some sort of mini album. Once I started working on it everything seemed to gel and I really ending up loving the images and the words that I had written. They were true and honest to how I was feeling at the time and they really helped open my eyes to some of the negative things I have allowed to float thru the air recently. I'm super thankful that I stuck it out and I'm super thrilled with how the mini came together.

Here are the fine details about the project. It's a 5.5" x 7.5" simple folded mini album. I used Bazzil White Orange Peel cardstock for the cover and 65lb. white vellum for the interior pages, and the photos and text pages are printed out at 5x7. The titles are from Ali and she shared them in this blog post. The digital frames I used for the base of my text pages is this set, and the hand drawn florals that I used are from this digital set. The font I used for the headers is Silverline Script and the font I used for my journaling is Marista. All of the other embellishments and supplies are from my stash.

Once I knew how many pages I needed to complete my book I made the booklet and stapled the pages inside the cardstock cover. I used a digital card from the Ali Edwards February Stories by the Month kit as the base and enlarged it to 5x7. I printed the base in color first on my printer and then fed the same sheet of paper into my laser printer so the digital brush title and florals could be run thru my Minc machine. I love how the gold shimmers and I'm always a fan of adding gold bits to things.

I did the same thing for my title page so that the Pieces of Me and floral brush could be foiled. For the inside front cover I dug thru my stash and found this cute Crate Paper tag and created a little cluster. The gold die cut leaves from Studio Calico are carried thru the whole album giving it some cohesive elements.

I knew I wanted the pages to have a uniform feel to read like a story book so I laid out the text pages and just replicated them for each day. I adjusted the size of the digital frame and colored the inside in a soft pink shade and then copied in my text for each day. All of the text I used came directly from the captions of the photos I shared on Instagram as the week progressed. There were two days I added in additional text and you will see that text separated by some dashes. The grey set of word strip stickers had the days of the week on it so I decided to use those to label each photo or text as you will see as you look on.

For a few photos that had extra space in the text I added my embellishments there instead of on the photo and I like how that mixes things up.

Here is a day where I wanted to add in some followup text.

And here on the last day I added in some additional thoughts and feelings about the project as a way to finish things up and add my conclusion.

I really loved how this turned out and I'm so glad that I participated in the project. It really made me think about how I can be kinder to myself and also the importance of sharing more stories about me too. I know that this project is going to stick with me for awhile and I love that.

Take care,

Featuring Kelly Purkey Shop │ September Shop Update

OMG guys, its actually chilly as I sit here and type this!! I'm so happy that its feels like fall! I'm so in the mood after making all of these fall themed projects using the latest kits and stamps from Kelly Purkey Shop. I'm ready to light fires, burn candles and eat all the pumpkin foods I can find.

In the meantime lets get to the projects that I made shall we.  First up was a super fun mini album that I made using the You're Magic mini kit from LifeLovePaper. This kit is sooo cute and I always love Tina's Halloween kits. I use the kit along with cards from the Big Days kit along with papers from the Feels Like Fall TN kit and also the stamps and then stamps from the Pumpkin Spice World and A Walk in the Forest to embellish it.

I wanted it to be an accordion fold so I created the pockets first and then added hinges created with folded cardstock to the back of each page. I covered the front as you will see below and just covered the backs of the remaining three pages with plain white cardstock to keep it clean.

The base of each section is a large tag that I created and stamped with all of the stamps I mentioned above. I then clipped photos and journaling cards to each tag and then tucked them into the pockets. I love things with varying layers so this was super fun to make.

 
This section focuses on the pre Halloween stuff like decorating and the first Pumpkin Spice latte of the season.

This section focuses on a Halloween Movie Night party we had which was so much fun. I adored all the little black banner stamps and the witch hat stamps in the mini kit.

This section focused on carving pumpkins

And lastly this section is all about Halloween itself. So much more to include here so I added in an extra photo strip and three journaling cards with photos and text.

Here is the album all folded and you can see all the tag clusters together. The cover was embellished with items from the Crate Paper Hey Pumpkin line which ties in the with the washi tape that was included in the You're Magic mini kit since it was from that line.

When my stamps first arrived I couldn't wait to play with them so I used several including the awesome Big Days alpha in my bullet journal to dress up my calendar spread.

I really loved the Pumpkin Spice World stamp set!!

The Feels Life Fall travelers notebook kit was perfect for documting my love of Trader Joe's pumpkin foods and fussy cutting all the leaves was tedious but relaxing at the same time.

If you love Halloween don't miss out on the Halloween themed Swag Bag! Its super cute and the metallic elements are so awesome!

I hope you loved the release! I'm off to find some long pants and maybe go grab a Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew!!

Take care,

Featuring Kelly Purkey Shop │ August Shop Update

August is such a big month around here and it feels like a new beginning more so than it does in January. Summer break is over and my daughter is officially back to school which means things start to get hectic again and the lazy days are over. It also means I have a little bit more creative time on my hands during school hours so I had a little extra time to make a special back to school mini album using the Kelly Purkey Shop August kits and stamps.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission if you make a purchase using the links below. There is no additional cost to you if you use these links.

Lets start with that because it was a big-ish project for me this month. Not so big that it took a lot of time, this took about two days to finish, not working full days but it was a fun bigger than normal project for me to make for the shop update. The A+ Mini kit designed by LifeLovePaper was the base and the heart of the album but I also mixed in some of the other cards, papers and stamp sets from the shop update. I won't go into a lot of detail but will call out when I added in stuff from the shop. The album I used is an older acrylic album from Jamaica Makes and I sprinkled in some embellishments from my stash and loved the little postage stamp stickers from Studio Calico.

For the front cover I wanted a bold number so I stamped using the Highline outline and then used the new Dalton lower case alpha. The stamp set that came in the A+ mini kit is so cute and I loved the interchangeable globe stamps.

The today card is from the Love Language Project Kit and so is the document stamp on the left side.

I adored that little pencil stamp in the A+ kit

I used the writing guide stamp as a little road for the bus stamp and loved stamping directly on top of the acrylic star. It worked fine using stazon ink I just had to pat off the top layer that wouldn't dry.

I couldn't let that book stack stamp from the Well Read stamp set go to waste and it found a home on this spread along with the Love Language kit stamp phrase, which was a favorite too. The long paper on the right side is from the Bad Place travelers notebook kit just cut down to 3x8.

I used the Love Language kit stamp set on this spread and loved the versatility of that stamp set and the Bee paper in the Bad Place kit was perfect to tie in her first day outfit tshirt.

Love all the orange on this spread. That people paper is so cute!

The It's Fine stamp set from LifeLovePaper was a favorite this month and you will see it used again down below but I had to make a little embellishment cluster with them for this spread.

And the end, I always sign and date my mini albums, not sure why but I do and its fun to know the date something was completed.

My next project was a travelers notebook spread using the It's Fine stamp set and papers from the Bad Place travelers notebook kit. I poked a little fun at myself and made a list of some things I may or may not be excelling at lately and it was fun to put together. I typed all my journaling on to vellum and then stamped the icons onto pink vellum and cut them out to make little embellishments.

Lastly I made a little insert for my pocket page album about our back to school shopping using the Love Language project kit. I kept the color scheme tight with lots of yellow, orange and blue to tie in the colors of the photos and love the bold impact the stamping adds.

There are lots of other cute things for book lovers in the shop and plenty of alpha stamps so make sure you check them out. There is also a book themed Swag Bag so don't miss that either.

Take care,