Parade of Pages {You are my Favorite}

Ahhh! Florentine, one of my favorite papers! It's one of those paper packs and accessories that you hate to part with. I want to hoard it forever, but why? It's much better to use it in my scrapbooks to preserve my most precious memories. That's truly keeping it forever! The embellishments that coordinate with these papers are also fabulous. They are perfect for creating "clusters" on your pages!

Parade of Pages {Home}

There's no place like home! We spend a lot of time in our homes and work hard to fill them with our personal touches and captured memories. It's important to snap pics around the house and cherish them in a scrapbook page, because things can & will change over time.

The beautiful Elemental papers were used to complete these pages. My favorite is the Cricut cut chipboard banner in the corner!

Parade of Pages {Frills & Flourishes}

The pages on parade today were inspired by the artists at Jeanette Lynton's Blog. I enjoyed rocking and rolling this big flourish to add interest to the page. I was also able to use up just a bit of this lovely Juniper ribbon, the perfect frilly embellishment! 

Parade of Pages {Celebrate USA}

Today on my Parade of Pages we're celebrating America! and Yes, that's really a pie that I baked in the picture above! It's a delicious berry pie with cherries, blackberries, strawberries and blueberries! Yumm~O!

My pages today have some older patriotic papers and many older stamp sets! Even the "DREAM" irresistibles chipboard was from a promotional kit over a year ago. Like I said though, if I don't use it, then I won't have room for the new stuff! Have a safe & spectacular celebration today!

If you love the Fanfare paper you can get a pack of it paired with the Fanfare Level 2 Assortment. Place an order online July 11-15 of $75 and choose this pairing for free! {a $17.90 retail value} Click here to start shopping!



Parade of Pages {Disney}

Did you hear about the new Cars land at California Adventures? My kids and I just love the movies, especially the tow truck Mater! I need some Disney time soon!

In hopes of making it to Disneyland this summer, I created these pages with some older papers and stickease. Can't wait to see the new attractions and watch the parade of course! These are also perfect for my Parade of Pages this month!

Parade of Pages {Best Friends}

Summer time is the best when it is spent with friends! Today's page on parade is perfect for capturing memories with a friend.

My daughter & her best friend are trying to spend every moment together. They have been in school together for 2 years and do lots of activities together. They first met at church, bowled in a summer league together, make music in band, sing together & played golf for their middle school team this year. They are inseperable, until recently. Her friend's dad is in the Navy and their entire family will be deployed to Japan for 3-4 years. They leave this week on their great journey. These girls are spending every last moment together. I sure hope they can still "face-time" overseas!

Parade of Pages

It's July folks, we are already half way through this year...seriously?! The 4th of July celebrations are just around the corner. That makes me think of BBQ's, Apple pie, Fireworks and Parades!
When my kids were younger, we lived in a great little community where all the children were around the same age. Every fourth of July we'd have a big neighborhood celebration. One of my favorite memories was the Bike Parade. All the kids would decorate their bicycles or trikes with ribbons, streamers, balloons and flags. They would then ride all together around the block in a parade!

My kiddo's are older now, so no more bike parades. Thankfully I have scrapbook pages to remind me of those precious memories. Hey, that gives me an idea...This July I'll have a Parade of Pages!

I've been super busy creating pages for upcoming events. I've been able to get out some older papers that have not seen the light of day and put them to use. Better to use them up now and make room for the new Close To My Heart products coming soon!!

Let's begin with some great "Summer" pages! This layout uses up some older Splendor paper and Stickease. Splendor was one of my favorite paper packs. I wanted so badly to hoard every last piece of it! Now they will be a great backdrop to some fun Summer Photo's.

Come back each day this month to see what pages I add to the Parade. Enjoy!

See Ya Later!

Just wanted to share a card I made for some friends that are leaving us. We met them through our church about 5 years ago. Our kids got along great, in fact my daughter and their's are best friends and having a hard time with the move. Why move then? Their dad is in the Navy and being deployed to Japan. It's a BIG move! We hung out last night and had a few good laughs remembering some fun parties and celebrations we shared. I prefer to keep goodbyes on the lighter side, as you can see with my playful card!

Their youngest daughter is our god child. Her and I were playing dress up lastnight. I'm really going to miss this cutie pie!

Be You

Take a look at this lovely card I created for Ribbon Carousel Challenge this week as well as the Inspired By Challenge #30. It was also inspired by a card I saw on Dawn McVey's Blog. I love the vibrancy of the colors, layered flower, mis-match of embellishments and the distressing.

The challenge of Ribbon Carousel was to do paper piecing. I chose to stamp the flower 3 times and then cut around the petals to give it dimension. Piecing it all back together on the card really makes it a focal point!

This was the inspiration photo on Inspired By. The colors, flowers and bit of polka-dots is what really caught my eye!

Little Birdie Mojo

It's a round or square sketch challenge on Mojo Monday this week. I chose square and I also chose to use the Stamp of the Month which will only be available for a few more days. I was having so much playing with the bird stamp that I came up with two cards. The first is a festive card for the upcoming 4th of July celebration!

For my second card I varied the sketch just slightly and it has a lighter, summer feel.

Get this stamp set before it's too late and don't forget you only have a few more days of Stampaganza also! You can order online here.

i do

It's wedding week on Heart 2 Heart Challenges this week. What does marriage and Heart 2 Heart Challenge Blog both have in common? Commitment! As a Design Team Member for the past 6 months, I have fully committed my time and passion for creating. My term as a DT member has come to an end sadly and this will be my final post as a team member. Don't worry you'll still see me playing along with their challenges though! Enough about that...what's the challenge?!

This week we want to see your creative and elegant wedding or wedding shower projects. My initial thought was to create something in black, white and gray, a very classic color combination. Then I thought of my own wedding {years ago!} where my colors were black and white with a pop of red. The funny thing is that the venue for our reception had crazy neon lights so all my red looked like hot pink and a little orange. For my elegant, slightly quirky, wedding card I pulled in some Tulip, Cotton Candy and Baby Pink. Hope you like it!

Some of the elegant touches I included were fabulous frilly ribbons, sparkly buttons and pretty pearls. All of these embellishments and other products to complete this card are all Close To My Heart.

P.S. Thank you for the opportunity to be a Design Team Member at Heart 2 Heart. I've had so much fun participating in all the challenges and providing inspiration to all who visit. I enjoyed creating along side the other fabulous members. You are all so creative and really kept me on my toes. A special thanks to Mary V. and Haley for your commitment to the blog, it's members and coming up with all the challenge ideas. You girls rock!

Soaking in the Sun

Today I am playing along with two challenges. The first challenge is a new Blog I have been visiting. I have wanted to play along from the beginning, but was unable to squeeze in some creative time. It is the new Close To My Heart Color My Heart ~ Color Dare Blog. This is their 5th challenge and the dare is one of my favorites! Create-your-own Rainbow based on the color wheel!

The other challenge is for Inspired By Blog that had this great photo inspiration this week.

The page I created for these two challenges is from a recent vacation to the beach. I was able to brighten the photo with the surrounding rainbow colors and the pattern is from the inspiration photo. What appears to be a fairly simple layout was actually quite time consuming, but I {heart} the result!



Color My Ribbons

This week on Heart 2 Heart Challenges, Team B was challenged to use ribbon on their projects. They all rocked this challenge and inspired some fabulous creations! I wanted to get to work right away and play along. You can get all the details on the Heart 2 Heart Blog.

While Close To My Heart has some fabulous ribbons, they don't offer it in every color. The solution is to color my ribbon whatever color I desire with the spectacular Color~Ready Seam Binding Ribbon!

First, I cut pieces of ribbon and lined them up with the colors I wanted to use.

Using a sponge dauber for each color, I rubbed the color on the ribbon.

Here is how I used the ribbon for this adorable Birthday card!

Do you just love this little birdie? He's one of the many images on this month's Stamp of the Month. When you spend $50 you can get this adorable stamp set for just $5.

It's also Stampaganza! Now is the perfect time to stock up on those stamps you've had on your wish list, like the Birthday Wishes sentiment also featured on my card. Buy 2 stamps of equal or lesser value and get one FREE. Get more details here.

Don't forget to play along with the ribbon challenge on Heart 2 Heart this week!

My Hero

One last "Dad" card to share with you today on Father's Day! The sentiment is perfect!

I used rub-ons from the Superhero collection and an older sentiment stamp. All product is CTMH.

Happy Father's Day to all those Hero's out there!

Lucky Dune Crew

If you're a thrill seeker, than these pages are for you! This year we celebrated St. Patrick's Day at the Sand Dunes. We ran with a great group of guys and gals and celebrated a Birthday with lots of food and fun! The title is fitting for this weekend, "Lucky Dune Crew", not only because of the Irish Holiday, but because we had no major "break downs". If  your not aware of sandrails, it is in there nature to have constant mechanical issues.

My layout design comes directly from the Magic How To book. I've always loved this design and wanted to use it for something one day. Well, this was the day! It requires a panoramic photo and this one was perfect with all the sandrails lined up.

{All products used are Close To My Heart except a few stamped images on right page from Stampin'Up}

A Snowy Spring Break

Today my pages are from our Spring Break vacation. We always love visiting and exploring Zion National Park. Who knew we would encounter snow in the Spring. Zion is already such a beautiful place, but with a sprinkling of snow it became even more majestic and gorgeous!

I used papers that naturally coordinate with the landscape, but added in some blues to reflect the change of weather we experienced. I even had to pull out my Christmas/Winter stamps again to stamp a few snowflakes!

{All products used are Close To My Heart}