Triple Celebration

Happy Monday! 

My first born celebrated another trip around the sun this past week, so when I had a minute, I pulled out his photo box that needs scrapped and decided to scrap this previous birthday! I started by trying to fit these pages into a specific challenge, but that didn't work out, so it's just a layout, ha. But done is done and I think this turned out fun with a bit of uniqueness for me. 

Supplies:
Stamps: Skinny Mini Alphabet (retired)

Ink: Timid Tiger

Paper: Sweet Taffy DP (long-retired), Basic White card stocks
Accessories: Blending Brush

Journaling Font: Courier New

2024 July & August

July is usually one of my favorite pages to do.
This first page, every photo came from the morning of July 4. I also recolored the paper, it's usually multicolored, but I made it all blues! 

The photos from this page below span the year, but I still kept a July look for it.

This time the August trip page did happen in August, haha...

and most of these photos came from a family even in August too! handy!

2024 March & April

Here are the next couple calendar pages for you! 

March: 

And April:

Senior Dance!

It's been a weird week, not going at all how I'd like. So here's another digital layout for my daughter.
 
This is a recent event that was a lot of fun for her. The school hosts a stag event and only seniors are invited. They have a dinner and then a dance.
Most of her closest friends this year are guys, because lets be honest, high school girls are jerks, so we did group pics of these friends! 
Again, I did this in MDS so I could size the photos however I like, and that huge group shot in the middle of the second page that was swiped off social media and thus not super great for printing, haha...

Supplies:
MDS: Pacific Point, Silver Glimmer DP, Silver brads

Journaling font: Colonna MT

Anna & Elsa

When planning our trip to Disney, and in trying to make it as happy as possible, we asked the kids what kinds of things were their top priorities. Was there a specific ride they'd heard of or a treat they wanted to try or a character we really hoped to find...? My husband hoped to try and do everything, but we wanted to make sure the "important" things were done first. Our youngest wanted to meet EVERY character, but Anna and Elsa (from the movie Frozen) most of all. Anna has always been her favorite princess.

On our second day, we spied them here and RAN down the road to not miss them. She was happy to wave to them (which was all we could do anyway...) and stand for a picture but I felt they were really not friendly and were really kind of rude. Kind of like saying hello or congrats or something to that really cool girl at school who is way too full of herself... But my daughter didn't notice so I didn't really say anything.... And we joked that she was set, we could go now. HA.

Supplies:
Stamps: The Snowflake Spot
Ink: Whisper White craft 
Paper: Coastal Cabana
Accessories: White embossing powder, Heat tool
Journaling Font: Frozito

Then on our very last day, we caught a parade, start to finish. This bus was carrying a number of princesses and Minnie Mouse, but Anna spied our youngest, wearing the same dress she was (our daughter has an Anna dress up dress), from a fair distance off, and continued to wave right to her and blow her kisses and gush about her dress and it was SO amazing!!! I was crying happy tears, haha, and I might be right now typing this too... One of my teenagers was taking video and you can hear all of us making sure our little one knew that Anna saw HER. haha... This was easily one of the best moments of the whole trip. 

(One thing that was amusing to me was when we were texting family and friends pictures and how amazing that was, my husband and both teenagers all stated that we thought the other Anna and Elsa were snotty and rude, but no one wanted to complain. mmhmm. They seriously were. Not cool ladies, not cool.)

Later that same day we watched this Frozen parade...which really was just this one float, haha. But once again, that same amazing Anna from a few hours earlier saw our daughter, still in her dress up, and once again, enthusiastically waved just to her. Then Elsa noticed that our girl matched her sister, haha, and she also waved and blew kisses. 

When we left the park super late that night, for the last time this trip, I told the man at the gate that the Anna and Elsa that were in the parades at this park today were INCREDIBLE and should get a raise. And don't you worry, I also let him know that just maaaaybe the girls from the other day at the other park should find a different line of work............ I wasn't any more blunt than that, because I didn't want to affect my daughter's opinion. But seriously. Polar opposites. And the ladies in the parade were truly some of the best moments of the entire week.

MDS Supplies:
Anna:

Colors: Baja Breeze, Brilliant Blue, Rich Razzleberry, Basic Black
Font: Frozito

Frozen parade:
Stamps: Snowburst snowflake, Lemonade Stand snowflake 
Colors: Baja Breeze, Whisper White

Font: Frozito

2023 February Calendar Pages!

It's Saturday again, so here are the February calendar pages our families will get for Christmas!
Again, my in-laws get a calendar just of my household,  

and my parents and siblings get a calendar that has as many of my parents posterity on as many pages as possible. And this page has all of us!

Calendars End!

And here we are, finished sharing the calendar pages! I hope you were at least a little bit inspired, haha! Today has some of my favorite pages this round, so here we go: 
November: 

And December...

On this one below, I asked my 5yr old if it was too pink or still okay for Christmas. She told me "it needed a little bit of gold." I added the thin gold Glimmer strips behind the plaid DP and it worked out great!

Oh, and since I really love how the covers came out, here's that too. I did the exact same cover, just swapped out the photos.

And next week is Christmas!! 

'tis the season!

If you've been reading this blog a while, you know I make calendars every year for Christmas gifts for our parents, and my siblings. Have you noticed a very real issue with shipping?? I ordered photo prints for Christmas cards on Nov 1 and they still haven't shipped.... this has me truly concerned about getting the calendars here on time too! So now it's cramming time! This is the only real "creating" I've been doing lately anyway. 

I counted, and it will work out nicely to share two months worth of pages each Saturday til Christmas. You're welcome, hahaha. 

I make two calendars each year- one for my inlaws that features just our little household, and then one for my parents and siblings that features ALL of us. Which this year, I only cared if I got every grandchild on each page (there are 14). Adults were just a bonus. ha! So here are the January pages: 

And the February pages: 

They really are quite simple, especially this year. I wanted the photos to be the focus, and fitting 14+ humans makes it tricky to not look too busy.
But that's my start! 

Morp 2021

Today I have a brand new digi layout!
This was for a challenge to base a page on the song "Friday I'm In Love" by The Cure. When I read the challenge, I was totally stumped and then I focused on these lines,

Dressed up to the eyes
It's a wonderful surprise
To see your shoes and your spirits rise
Throw out your frown
And just smile at the sound
Sleek as a shriek, spinning 'round and 'round

along with the fact that this event was on a Friday, hahaha, and came up with this page:  

Morp is Prom backwards. It's a girls-choice school dance and totally casual. I feel like I should mention- in spite of the song title, these kids aren't in love. Three of the four girls asked friends, hahaha.
I used the long-retired MDS (My Digital Studio) to make this layout. I totally copied the poodle skirt my daughter wore to this dance, for the pages. (I made that skirt too, and I am sooo not a seamstress!)
I think the page works with the lyrics because they all dressed up, there were tons of the happiest smiles and they had fun spinning for the pictures, haha! Also the round records! 

And here are some close ups for you. I left off sooo many possible photos. I do love when my kids ask me to take the dance pics! 

What are you making this week? 

November Calendars

It's a new week, but I'm just going to finish up these calendars for you!

For my in laws, I hardly ever use this many pictures on a single calendar page. However, all of these pictures come from the party held for my father in law turning 95 this fall, so I wanted to share a lot of photos. I used a challenge to make this page, which is why it feels extra busy- the stripy border, the leave, the brads... but in spite of the "busy" and the lots of pics, I still think it works.

And this is the November page for my parents. I think this might be my favorite from their calendar this year. Love that big leafy swirl and I layered it in three different colors- Not Quite Navy, Cajun Craze and maybe River Rock?? It's been too long since I designed it, lol.

Summer!

Two different months again today.

First up is the May page for my parents calendar. See? there's one of those green pages, hee hee... And a family tree since most of these pictures were taken at a family reunion.

Then for July, we have this fabulous flag image, so I made it red, white and blue to go with it. simple and fun. Love it.

November & December Pages

It's Christmas Eve! Today should be a beautiful day- all the last minute baking, wrapping, and Christmas movies on all day long! What are your favorite holiday movies? We love the cartoon classics- Charlie Brown Christmas, the animated Grinch, Mickey's Christmas Carol, Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman... but also we love White Christmas, Polar Express and my husband loves the Christmas Carol with George C Scott. We usually have a nice Christmas Eve dinner, which we're all looking forward to. AND my husband has the whole day off so I'm excited about that!

This is the end of the 2019 Calendars! (they even say 2019 on them this time, haha!) I love the November pages. The photos are all from the same day- both pages. We did family pictures with my family so the page for my inlaws is just our little family, and the page for my family are the pics we took in between and after!

And the December pages feature last years' Christmas.

And that was that. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas Eve!

Calendar Pages #6

Today I have the end of the 2018 Calendar Pages. The calendars themselves turned out very nicely and of course they were a huge hit for everyone receiving them, and it is always nice to see people appreciating your hard work- that's for sure!

Here are the November pages. I totally focused on family being together for these.

And for December's pages I used almost the same layout.
This first one- all but one shot was taken last Christmas day, 2016.

and this one is a mix of December 2016 and December 2017.

To be perfectly honest, this is getting trickier every year, but I am really glad I do these. I am so happy to share our year with the family and like I said, I know they're enjoyed. It is also nice for me to recap the year, since it flies by so fast...! Not gonna lie- I am also glad I had a chance to do a tiny bit of scrapbooking.

Calendar Pages 2

So the other day when I started these, I totally lied to you. I have scrapbooked since last Christmas, but not a lot. I made a wedding album for my brother and his wife. I don't think I even shared that here, but I made it, and they have it. Same style of scrapping- MDS pages, little to no journaling, lol....

Here are the March and April pages...to remind you that it used to be warm...haha...

I knew I picked green for March because of spring finally arriving and St Patrick's Day, but this is the moment I realized I picked purple for April both calendars too, haha!

Calendar Pages!

The only reason I haven't posted every day this month is because I've been too busy- there is plenty to share and show off, haha! One of the things I've been doing as fast and furiously as possible is putting together the photo calendars I make every year for our parents Christmas gifts. There's a shipping date to consider here, people! And, I get to make two calendars because my mom wants her whole family (from my parents down) on as many pages as possible, and there is no way to do that with my in-laws. The family is simply waaaay too big.

Today I'll share both calendars' January and February. Then I plan to alternate pages with cards and post most weekdays.
I still make these pages in the now-long-retired MDS or My Digital Studio that Stampin' Up! sold a few years back. That means everything you see IS a Stampin' Up! image, even if it is no longer available.I figure, I own the software- I may as well use it! Then I upload the page as an image with a printing company, and that's how we get the calendar.
Also, keep in mind I haven't scrapbooked one single thing since last December when I crammed two calendars into something like a weekend.... to say I was rusty is a huge understatement... hahahahaha!! Some times I've done really detailed pages and added lots of sorts of things. These pages are some of the simplest I have ever made. But I'm still quite happy with how they turned out!

January:

 February:

2016 Calendar Pages

oookay, lets get this wrapped up already! Here are the rest of the calendar pages I haven't shared! Some pages obviously took more time than others, but I like the pictures! It's a good goal to work on next years calendars each month, but at this moment I'm not committing to anything, haha...!

September

October

November

September

November

December