Layout Share - Merry Christmas to Us

I usually do Shimelle Laine's Journal Your Christmas as my album for all the holiday-related stories, but I also create a page for my yearbook, and this is the one I did for 2017.

My favorite part of this layout is those adorable snowmen, which my sweetheart bought me for Christmas way back in 2009! I've been saving them all this time, and they work perfectly on this page, which gathers plenty of photos of Christmas day, spent with my husband Daniel and my nephew D.J.

There's a lot going on here, so I chose a grid design to organize it all into a coherent visual story. I love using tags, and I love that I got some twine on the page, too! Just a little bit of Christmasy patterned paper, leaning towards whimsical to coordinate with the snowmen, provides plenty of energy and interest without overpowering the page.

I love it!

And just two more pages to go before the 2017 yearbook is complete!

(Unless, of course, I decide to do more pages later...)

Layout Share - Holidays at Somerset

Another layout for my 2017 yearbook, and another one I created with lots of stamping and a Christmas tree punch.

First, I created the tree embellishments by punching out the shapes from two colors of Distress card stock. I also punched 1/4 inch circles with a whole punch I've had for years and years but haven't used a whole lot lately.

Next, I used stamps and the same Distress colors as the card stock I chose to make my own patterned paper strips, and I used one of the colors from the tree embellishments to die cut letters for part of my title.

Lots of stars and gems and enamel dots accent the trees, and I love how this page turned out, especially how well I was able to coordinate the colors I chose with the photos.

I've only got a couple pages left, and 2017 will be all wrapped up!

Layout Share - 15 Years

I'm still plugging along on my 2017 yearbook, and here's the page I did to commemorate our 15th anniversary, which we spent on vacation in Naragansett, Rhode Island. (I wish I were there, now.)

Merging autumn and sea themes was a little tricky, but I think it turned out well. I made the leaf embellishments with stamping, ink blending, and die cutting, same with the letters and numbers. A few other embellishments from a variety of manufacturers tie everything together to make a layout I really love.

Layout Share - The Cut

For this page about getting my long hair cut off, which happened in late September of 2017, I got into the autumn-themed supplies, my favorites!

Most of my supplies are from the Fall Farmhouse collection by Simple stories, and I cut the focal embellishment on my Cameo.

The larger letters for my title, I cut old-school with my Sizzix Big Shot and some very old letter dies that I've been using quite a bit lately.

The flower clusters really make me happy, and I added a few enamel dots--I'm running out of the fall colors!--to finish out the page.

My yearbook for 2017 is getting close to done, with just a handful of pages to go!

Layout Share - Date Night

I admit, I struggled really hard with getting this page started, particularly because I couldn't find supplies that I thought coordinated with the colors in the photos or the theme of the story. I went with a mini kit I put together with pieces of the Romance collection from Simple Stories, but I didn't initially love the choice because it seemed more "wedding" than anything else.

Sometimes, I find myself powering through on a scrapbook page, not liking it in the beginning, but really being happy with the end result. Creative perseverance usually gets the job done, and that is what happened with this page about my husband planning a date night for us at a special Ann Arbor  restaurant.

I did a lot of fussy cutting for this project, and I used more embellishments than I usually do, most from the Simple Stories collection. I did use a some pink stripe patterned paper from Carta Bella, a very old Bo Bunny doily, some enamel dots, and those delicious gold puffy hearts I love so much. Black glitter Thickers for the title perfectly accompany the other details of that color in a layout that makes me smile.

Currently - May 2020

Welcome, May! I haven't done a Currently in quite awhile, so here we go:

Watching: Lots and lots of stuff! Daniel and I subscribed to CBS All Access, with a month free trial that just ended yesterday, and we decided to go ahead and subscribe. We watched The Good Fight, which was a spin-off of one of my favorite shows of all time, The Good Wife, and we binged right through All Rise, which is so, SO good! We also just finished season 6 of Bosch on Amazon Prime, which was also excellent, probably the best season yet, and last night, we watched the series finale of Modern Family. It has crossed my mind that there probably won't be a new TV season in the fall, given the restrictions of the pandemic, so we'll be watching all kinds of stuff we previously missed. Gotta be thankful for the streaming services.

Reading: I've been slowly reading Dan Pfeiffer's book, Yes We Still Can, and I'm enjoying it. Not just the book, but reading itself, though it is still in small bites, due to my aging eyes.

Listening: The bulk of my listening--usually to podcasts--has almost always been done in the car, and since I'm not going anywhere anymore, I have fallen way behind on my podcasts. I have downloaded some new music in the past couple months, including an album by Jon Batiste and, by recommendation, the latest album by Five Seconds of Summer. I also found that my favorite group in high school, Hall and Oates, have an essentials album that I bought because...well...why not? I listened to that while cooking dinner the other night. Good stuff that takes me back...

Making: Inked backgrounds, shapes cut from those inked backgrounds, stamped embellishments, notebook covers, and of course, scrapbook pages. Lots of making going on around these parts, and it's good for me.

Feeling: So many various things, but really, really, REALLY exhausted. Physically and mentally and emotionally. I'm also feeling so very grateful--for Daniel, his steadfast support of me in so many areas, that he can work from home, which reduces our exposure to the COVID-19 virus significantly; that we can use a service like Shipt and the brave shoppers who work to bring us groceries and essentials, which reduces our exposure even more; for so many people working in frontline arenas to keep people safe, keep the virus from spreading, tend to those who are sick.

Planning: My Celebrate June project, which I'll be officially announcing on the blog soon!

Loving: Humans and how we cope and stand strong and love and forgive and help each other. I am so often really disappointed in people, especially during this miserable pandemic crisis, but I've also seen an outpouring of human love and compassion, and that gives me hope and solace and smiles. We all need all three of those, right now more than ever.

Layout Share - Apple Picking

A fall-themed collection by Carta Bella provided patterned paper and embellishments for  telling this story about picking apples at our favorite orchard, as summer was waning into autumn.

(To accommodate the rest of the photos, I also created a companion pocket-page, not pictured.)

I fussy cut the truck image and "hello" out of a 4x6 cards from a cut-apart sheet, and I die cut the doilies and circles that hold my journaling.

The apple enamel sticker came from a package I got (and forgot about!) at Paper Source awhile back, and I added some gold puffy heart stickers that I so love, as well as some enamel dots, and sprinkles of gold spray mist by Heidi Swapp to finish it off.

A day among the apple trees is one of my favorite things, and I treasure this memory even more now that visiting the orchard might not happen this year.