Meeting Papa

Hi my friends! Today I have a special layout to share with you!

This was a moment when my dad was meeting Henry for the first time. Just a little background- Henry was 6 years in the making. There were many (including myself) that had concluded that being a mom just wasn't going to be in the cards for me. But then a miracle happened. Sometimes things just need to happen at the right time, right place and with the right people. So Henry was due on my dad's birthday, and I was around 10 1/2 weeks on Father's Day so we decided that was when we would announce my pregnancy. Because of those ties to my dad we wrote it all up in a card and had him read aloud it in front of everybody, however he figured out what we were trying to say and got very emotional before he could finish reading the card. 

It was a very sweet and special memory for us, so I wanted to do a special layout showing when my dad finally met his newest grandson. As you can probably tell, my dad is a biker and looks like one! So I wanted to marry some harder biker-ish elements with the sweeter baby elements in the layout, so I added some gear shapes, and the "wild thing" phrase in honor of my dad, "Papa".

I love stars on boy pages and probably overuse them a bit, but I love the rounded edges of these stars from the Baby Steps cartridge- so cute for baby boy pages! I used the DCWV My Sunshine Stack for this page.

I seriously love this viewfinder cut- I think I will be using this one a LOT in the future! And I still love Chevron, what can I say? It's not going to be going anywhere on my layouts anytime soon.

I designed the title on my Cricut Explore, and mixed fonts to create one that is softer and one that is harder (Blackletter) to represent the baby and the biker. :)

Here is the stack I used- some really cute design elements (phrases and journaling cards) for kid pages.

And then came Henry

Today I have a quick and easy layout to share with you all! Sometimes you just don't have the time to  spend a lot of time designing, or die-cutting images, but you still want a traditional layout for your scrapbook. This is when I turn to collection kits. They usually include coordinating papers with alphas as well as matching stickers and journaling cards, so you can literally complete a full layout in as few as 20 minutes. I used Echo Park's Bundle of Joy boy for this one, and by using the embellishments included in the kit it came together very quickly.

Very cute color palette in this kit, and I love the animal themes!

Aren't these little diaper pins the cutest?

I used two different alphas for my title- And then came Henry

I love the journaling cards that allow you to jot down thoughts or memories without taking away from your design theme.

Ten fingers and ten toes

Hiya friends! So I had a lot of fun playing with the Cricut Design Space for this project. I never really got into the Gypsy, even though I know a lot of you swear by it, so the designing and manipulating of images is pretty new to me, but now that I have jumped on the bandwagon I just LOVE it. I love how you can take an existing design and tweak it to be whatever you want. I also love that you can use any font that you have on your computer. Gives you so many creative possibilities with titling and journaling, and it's just plain fun!! So here is my layout:

Aren't those tiny little baby fingers and toes just the cutest?! So for this layout I used one of my all time favorite stacks from DCWV- Sunday Afternoon. This really is one of my favorites. The images are a little vintage-y, a little whimsical and right up my alley.

Here is where I had a little fun with the designing element of this page- designing the title. It was fun to have the freedom to use different fonts, to manipulate the size to fit your page, weld, etc all on the same computer screen and then have it print out as one project. As opposed to how I USED to do it which was to cut my letters one cartridge at a time, and being limited to what I could to with the image. Okay, I know I am a little late to the party with the designing aspect of this, but I was really intimidated by the software aspect, and thought it seemed complicated to learn so I just wasn't interested in taking the time. Turns out it was super easy and I'm so glad I dived in!

The hearts were fussy cut from a  page in the stack, and literally every heart on the page has a different design and they are all absolutely adorable!

And isn't this banner the cutest? I just love the patterns in this stack, and yes, I still love banners on my layouts. What can I say, I'm a banner junkie.

Film strips (and vintage cameras) are another design trend that I am really into right now. I simply love this film strip image.

So there's my layout, hope you enjoyed it! If you would like to get some of this darling paper for yourself (and you definitely should! It's adorbs!!) here is a picture of the stack:

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!!