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,

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.

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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,

Going Digital with Kelly Purkey digital kits

I really love that Kelly Purkey decided to release her kits in digital form this past month. As you might know the Reading List kit sold out in record time which is awesome but because of that she offered up the Reading List Digital Kit. It includes the digital stamp and the printable cards. This really opened up even more options for using this kit which is so cool. I really hoped to made a mini album with the kit but I just didn't have the time but I did have an hour or so to sit down and make this digital layout that I can slip into my daughters school album.

I used the on my nightstand and the book digital stamps to create my background using the Pattern tool in Photoshop Elements. I then layered several of the Reading List cards on top of each other. I adjusted the opacity way down so they would be slightly see thru. I added the rating card digital stamp to each card and added in the text. I made sure to highlight some of my daughters favorite books from this time period and especially the book she is reading in the photo. I added in a few of the other digital stamps in the areas that were open and needing another little touch. I left one of the Reading List cards blank to add in my journaling and another was a mat for my photo.

You can see all of the digital offerings that Kelly Put up right here. She even put up some of the most popular recent stamp sets which is so awesome.

It was so much fun using the kit digitally that I hope I can continue to share something each month. I can't wait to see what's coming for August's release!

Documenting the school years, where to begin

I always knew I would do some sort of scrapbook for my daughter when she started school.  Its a thought that has been in the back of my mind as I sorted thru the many pieces of artwork she has brought home since she started her first mommy and me class when she was seventeen months old.

The how and when and what is still up in the air but as I sat down the other day and sorted thru the pile of papers I had set aside from her 2nd trimester of Kindergarten it struck me how close she is to finishing the school year.  She only has a few months left and I haven't even come close to starting her album.

My approach to saving things so far is to save things that show milestones, things that show progress and things that I think are just cute.  Clearly I need a better and more vicious editing approach because this isn't even the full year and its enough for one full album.  I'm thinking once the year is complete I can lay it all out and do a better job of editing down.  I will certainly be scanning or photographing all the art I have saved to make a collage or something with it all.

I took a quick look around on Pinterest for some inspiration and there is a lot of if out there.  I particularly loved this album using a Studio Calico Handbook and I really loved the page sketches she shared. And come on how cute is that die cut title page!

source Lisa Moorefield

I also hit the Studio Calico Gallery for some inspiration and saved these projects to my Inspiration Book.  Here are some things that jumped out at me for inspiration.

I loved this album idea from Allison Waken, I definitely take plenty of fashion shots of Simone so incorporating that topic into her album will be a must.

source Allison Waken

I love Nicole Reaves' Project Life® approach to her daughters album and I definitely think that a blend of pocket pages and layouts will be part of my daughters album.

source Nicole Reaves

I love the small scale of this flip album focusing on just one year. Plus I totally love the color palette.

source agomalley

This is a perfect example of what I hope to do with the artwork, I love the smaller scale in the pocket pages. It has such a great impact.

 source Laura Kurz

So that's about where I'm at with the planning phase.  Much to do on the actual production phase but seeing as I have enough Project Life® page protectors on hand I should have enough supplies once I get started. I'll be sure to share when I start which will hopefully be very soon!