My little SONshine

Hi folks! I'm back with another layout featuring... wait for it... Henry! Haha, you might as well get used to it ;) So I have always wanted to do one of those fun sunbeam layouts, but simply didn't have the patience to measure and cut all the different rays. Enter Cricut's Edge to Edge cartridge, and they have a cute sunburst design which meant I didn't have to do any hand cutting or measuring! I did have to do a little tracing and hand cutting, but that was easy when the measurements were already there. So here is my layout:

So once I cut out the sunburst shape on my Cricut, I took the negatives and attached them to the patterned papers I wanted in the empty windows with removable adhesive. I then just cut around them and glued them to the backside of the empty spaces. Easy peasy!!

The stars were fussy cut from one of the patterned papers (this was from Echo Park) and then popped up on foam.

For the title I just used the stickers that came with the paper collection. It was easy, and I actually thought the bright colors and whimsical pattern matched my page really well.

I had a cut file for this polaroid frame that I was able to cut with my Cricut Explore (isn't it so awesome that we can do that now??!) and voila! Page is done! This was a very quick and simple page, and I love how the bright colors match the cute little monster knit hat that Henry is wearing. This hat was homemade, too, which is just amazing to me! Some people have such talent!!

I'm linking this page up with Paper Issues for their "Sunshine" theme this month!

Also Known As

So I thought it would be fun to do a layout of all the different nicknames Henry has already accumulated in his short 8 weeks of life thus far. I especially wanted to do it when I bought the Baby Steps cartridge and saw that one of the cuts was a little street sign that says "Scooter St." as this is the nickname Henry's dad calls him the most- Scooter. So this is what I came up with:

All the paper in this layout is from DCWV The Sky's the Limit stack. Really cute prints for a sunny or rainy day page. I liked them for this layout for the color palette and whimsical images. I had a lot of fun designing on my Cricut Explore for this page, and I continue to be amazed by the capabilities! One caveat- when you have a machine that will cut teeny tiny letters, you then have to find a way to get said letters adhered to your page. Not an easy task, especially with sticky fingers!! ;)

I loved the "hello my name is" name tag for this page theme. So appropriate. And here is the infamous "Scooter Street" image that inspired this page! The cardstock I used for some of this is also from DCWV- their Shimmer Stack. Hopefully you can see in the photo, it has a nice shimmer/sheen to it without being too overbearingly glittery. I am not the biggest glitter fan. I know, that is almost blasphemy in scrapbook world, but it just isn't my thing. I do appreciate a bit of sparkle, though and this really fits the bill!

I titled the page "AKA" as in 'Also Known As' and then listed his different nicknames in the journaling. How cute is this banner! There are some really cute cut apart images in this stack- clouds, rainbows, hot air balloons, etc.

Here is a close up of the journaling, with the nicknames listed. Hopefully you can read my handwriting :/
Here are the stacks I used- definitely check them out if you like this page :)

Little Cub

Hey guys! I have a cute layout to share with you of my favorite outfit of Henry's. We used this bear suit kind of like a coat when we took him out and I seriously could not get enough of him in it, it is so dang cute. I was lucky to get a few good pictures of him in his cub outfit. Here it is (and prepare for cuteness!!)

Tell me that's not the cutest thing ever! ;) So I went to my stash for this layout using some old MME product from a few years back. I was really proud of myself because I only had a couple sheets of it and I managed to pull this out!!

I used Thickers for the title- something we started calling our baby after he first wore the bear costume.

I used the new Dear Lizzy triangle punch to punch out the triangle arrows, and then popped them on foam.

I cut the cute stars on my Cricut from the Baby Steps cartridge. Popped both layers on foam and then added some brads and chipboard accents from Fancy Pants.

Linking up to Paper Issues for their Star challenge.

Your first breath...

Hi y'all! I have another layout to share with you today. This is another one of those special photos that I really wanted to do justice to on a layout. I can't say I love it as much as I hoped I would, but I don't hate it :/ That's just the way it goes sometimes, right?? There are things I love about it though... like the product which is all from the Dear Lizzy 5th and Frolic collection. I seriously love her, and her products are so fun! But back to my layout- this photo is one of a few taken when I met my baby boy for the first time. I was so hoping to get a picture that truly captured the emotion of that moment, and I think my boyfriend did an amazing job with this photo. It's really very special to me.  And here it is:

The paper, stamp, and buttons are from the Dear Lizzy collection, tab from Basic Grey, clothespin from Pebbles, Letter stickers from Echo Park and Carta Bella, and Washi Tape from MME.

The title is my favorite part of this layout (although the placement of it is NOT), but I just love the sentiment.

I also LOVE this sentiment. In case you can't read my handwriting ;) it says 'I did not give you the gift of life, Life gave me the gift of you'. Isn't that so sweet? I'm sure all you mommas out there can totally relate, right?

Love these wood and enamel buttons, they're just so sweet!!

I hope you enjoyed the project, thanks so much for stopping by today!!

Complete.

Hi all! I'm back today with another favorite project to share with you! This is another one of those special photos that I hoped to do justice to, and I am so so happy with the way this layout turned out. My boyfriend is the most amazing father. He is patient, attentive, supportive and loving (to me!) and he just loves the pants off of our little one. I couldn't ask for a better father for our son. And he's pretty darn handsome to boot!! I wanted to take some nice daddy/baby photos of the two of them, but Henry was being a bit of a cranky pants. I did manage to get a couple nice shots, though, and this one is my favorite. I used a few different DCWV stacks for this layout: Baby Boy and Decor Noir.

I wanted to keep the bulk of the layout monochrome (grey) and then add just a pop of color (blue).  I added blue accents in the circle border strips that were cut on my Cricut from the Elegant Edges cartridge. How cute are they!! I also added some blue washi from my stash.

I ended up finding a lot of the blue pieces from pages in the stack that had a metallic finish and I liked that a lot. 

I thought this tiny little baby banner was just too cute for words! Had to use it, so I popped it up to add some dimension and really make it pop out. All of the phrases, banners and images were fussy cut from pages in the stack.

This title says it all, and it is enough said. Having the two of them in my life now has made my life complete.

Here are the stacks I used to create this layout:

I forgot to mention that the texture of the papers in this stack is different than the usual cardstock you are used to seeing- it has a bit of a slick finish.

The entire palette of this stack is black/white/grey with accents of gold. It is very sophisticated and elegant. Would be great for wedding/prom/special events pages and projects.

Tiny Aviator

Hello friends! I have another layout to share with you today! So, I am a big fan of not always using baby themed papers and colors on baby pages. Sometimes it's fun to just mix it up a bit! In this layout I was using one of Henry's newborn photos in which he is wearing an adorable little aviator hat and lying in a vintage style suitcase, so I thought it would be fun to use some vintage style travel themed papers. I thought it really came together. Here is the layout:

I used two different DCWV stacks for this layout: World Traveler and Timeless Type.

There were lots of fun little tickets, stamps and other vintage-y goodies to cut out and pop up on my page that fit with the theme. Those cute little tiny paper clips are from Tim Holtz- aren't they so cute?

Here are some more goodies.

The antique typewriter key style letter stickers are from Echo Park, and I added some vintage looking brads from my stash and the twine is from an American Crafts ribbon pack.

Here is another favorite photo from this newborn session:

Isn't he the sweetest? :)

Here are the stacks I used:

You've got the Cutest Little Baby Faces

So I did my baby boy's one month photo shoot a few weeks ago. Anyone who's had a baby knows that photographing those little wiggle worms can be challenging! So I took my camera and just started shooting away, hoping to get a few good shots in there. What I got was a little catalog of all of his funny faces and expressions. He's always making funny little faces and it is just so dang cute! So I decided to document a few of them. I also decided to play along with the scraplift challenge over at True XOXO Scrapbooking. Here is my layout:

I think sometimes it is fun to do a challenge where you are forced to create in a style, with elements or from a sketch that isn't your usual style because it forces you out of your box a little bit and you get to really dig into those creative juices. All the paper in this layout is from the DCWV Kidlet Stack.

I cut the title with my new Cricut Explore (Cue giddy squealing). I just love how anything I can dream up I can create, and it's so much easier to bring it to life. You Silhouette users have already been onto this for a while, but I was a little late to the party. Now I'm on the bandwagon!

I was a little stumped with how to embellish this page, as it seemed a little busy already, and I didn't want to over-do it, so I kept it a little simple by cutting out some letter blocks, and a little fox (I like to sing that song that shall not be mentioned to my baby, and sometimes I can get a little smile out of him!)

I hope you enjoyed my page, I really like the way it came out. So yay for inspiration!! Here is the stack I used:

New toy!

Hiya! Okay SO. I have been a die hard Cricut fan since I first became aware of them. I have pretty much owned every machine they have released and invested a lot of money in a lot of cartridges. Then the Silhouette came out. Slowly I saw more and more people converting to the Silhouette and I was about to become one of them. I already owned so many cartridges that having to buy Provo Craft software wasn't really an issue for me, but I liked the fact that if there was a new image trend that I wanted to jump on, and Cricut wasn't quite up to speed with a cartridge release then I could use any image or file that I had on my computer- including fonts. What was holding me back (besides the cost and investment I had already put into Cricut) was having to learn a new software program that seemed intimidating, and a pain to have to learn on my own. Then... out of the blue I hear about Cricut's new machine release. It was like exactly what I needed- I still get to use all of my favorite Cricut goodies but have the freedom of using any image I find on the internet- for free. Now I have never used the Silhouette, so I don't have anything to compare it to, but I can say that the Cricut Explore is COOL. It is so fun, and SO easy to use. I was able to figure out their software program pretty much on my own. Granted, there is still a lot of things that I would need to figure out but I was able to cut and design some things on my own, and import some images I had on my computer and it worked beautifully. I am not computer inept by any means, but I do get intimidated by some software programs if they're not really user friendly and I haven't had any instruction. I was literally able to just jump into this one and start designing and cutting without any problems or frustration. On top of that the precision is so much more advanced than before, the possibilities are pretty much endless. As if all that wasn't enough, they have a whole library of ready to make, pre-designed projects that you can make. All you have to do is get the supplies. There are several that I would like to try out! Long story short, this machine was so fun to play with and I am so excited for all the possibilities of it. So excited, that I created an entire post about it, haha! This was actually supposed to be a project post, lol, but once I started going off on the machine I decided I better save that for another post! So, anyway, I just wanted to share my enthusiasm if any of you Cricut users out there were thinking about switching over to the Silhouette just know there is another option out there! I'm going to sign off now so I can go play with another project on my new toy!! Happy crafting!!

Hi! I'm new here...

Hi all! I have another baby layout to share with you today! Are you surprised? hee hee! What should surprise you is that I am typing out this whole post with one hand because I have a sleeping baby in my other arm who will wake up the second he is set down! We make so many adjustments as mothers, don't we!
This is a photo from Henry's at-home one month photo shoot.  All paper and embellies are from DCWV Baby Boy stack (see image below).

The background paper is from the shimmer stack from DCWV. It's hard to see in the photo, but it has a nice shimmer that isn't too overwhelming, but gives a nice sheen and complements the glittered papers from the Baby Boy stack nicely.

For all the embellishments I just fussy cut images and shapes from the paper and then popped some on foam dots for that depth that we all love so much! How cute is this glitter-y elephant!

This was a cute border strip that I trimmed down, then fussy cut the remaining cute circles and (again) popped up on foam dots and sprinkled them confetti style around the area. Hopefully you can see from this picture the nice glitter/shimmer element on some of these papers.

Can't take credit for this fun title again, but it was too cute not to use! I used Thickers for the title work.

Here is the stack I used.  I think this might be an older stack as they now have an updated version, but you should still be able to find it if it really strikes your fancy. :)

Thanks for stopping by today!!

One month

Hi friends! It's been a long time since I have participated in a challenge, so I decided to jump back in and join a sketch challenge! The sketch is from My Creative Sketches, and it was fun to play around with it. I did a layout with a photo from my new baby's one month photo shoot. Hard to believe he's already almost 2 months!!  I used paper from the DCWV Baby Boy stack. Here is my layout:

Here is the sketch I used from the challenge:

I did flip the elements of the sketch around a little bit, but I tried to stay relatively true to it while adding my own spin.

Here is the journaling... just a few likes and dislikes from his first month in the world.

I cut the title on my new Cricut Explore from a font that I had on my computer. That was so cool to be able to do that, and to adjust the font to fit my needs. If you are interested in learning more about the Explore check back to my blog on Wednesday as I created an impromptu post about it.

So that about sums it up- I hope you enjoyed my layout! Here is the stack I used if you are interested in getting some of this paper for your own collection: