Birthday Decor - Bo Bunny

Just wanted to pop in this evening for a minute to share one of my many projects I have created for my son's first birthday.  We are doing a circus/carnival theme (HERE are the adorable plates/decorations that started this grand idea) and I am having fun coming up with cute ideas (and finding lots of inspiration/ideas online too).  Here is a little décor item I made using Bo Bunny's Surprise collection.  I think it will be fun to put by the cake for extra decoration.

I love how colorful this Bo Bunny collection is...so perfect for a child birthday party.  I can't wait to use some of it to scrapbook the party too!   The container is a baby food jar and I just cut wood skewers to different heights for the signs/flags.  There are also some M&M's in the jar to keep the skewers in place.

I am super busy this week finishing up preparations for the party and working on my photo class too so it might be a bit quiet here for the next week or two.  But then I will have lots of fun stuff to share from the party, links to great party sites, and some birthday cards to share too.

Enjoy your week!

Improving Your Photography - Great Online Classes

So, many of you comment about my photography (thank you!) and talk about wanting to improve your own photography skills so I thought I would share information on a few classes I have taken online and one that I am going to take starting this week.

The class I am starting this week is 'Finding Your Photo Style' over at Big Picture.  Is anyone else signed up for this?  If so, leave me a comment.  I am super excited to get some new tips and tricks from all the amazing photographers that are teaching this class.  Taking 'Mastering Manual Mode' and 'Photo Finish' by Elisha Snow through Big Picture Classes were the two best things I ever did for improving my photography skills.  So, I can't wait to get some new challenges to stretch myself and learn new ways to improve my photography even more!  :)

For those of you interested in improving your photography skills, I HIGHLY recommend any class by Elisha Snow.  She does have a class starting up in July again.  Seriously...my photos went from this:

to this:

 

Big Picture Classes offers lots of scrapbooking and other classes too and has tons of great teachers.  They also have a reward program.  For every $100 you spend on classes you earn a $10 credit.  And if you refer a friend or sign up through a link from a friend you both get 10% off your next class.  So, if you think you might like to sign up for a class click here:  http://www.bigpictureclasses.com/register.php?refer=2680469F

 

or enter this code when you register: 2680469F

and you will get a 10% off code for a second class (which you have a year to use)

 

And the Finding Your Photo Style class starts this week so if you think you might be interested be sure to check out the details HERE.

 

Also, if you are super serious about photography and really interested in taking your skills to the next level I also highly recommend the classes over at Creative Live 

Their classes are usually 1-3 days and you can watch them Live for free but if you can't watch the class you want (or maybe it has already aired or you want to be able to rewatch it) you can also purchase the classes.  Today (and the next two days) they are airing a class called Book Yourself Solid.

 I have seen at least parts of several classes and have always learned something new and been really impressed with their teachers.  Some of my favorite classes that I have seen are:  Newborn Posing with Kelly Brown, Wedding Photography with Jasmine Star, Bellies and Babies wirh Sandy Puc, and Children's Portrait Photography with Tamara Lackey.

 

Have you taken any fabulous photography classes?  I'd love to hear...just share in the comments below!

 

Make a Wish - Using up those Rhinestones

Happy Sunday!  Today we are celebrating my mom's birthday so I thought I would share the card I made for her.  And for those of you who have a ton of rhinestones in your stash, hopefully you will be inspired to get out a few packages and use them up!

I was inspired to make this card when Paper Crafts was having their Supply Savvy call.  I don't use my rhinestones a lot...more just as a little accent...so it was fun to really try to use a lot of rhinestones and make them the focus of this card.

To create the chevron pattern with my rhinestones I first cut along a chevron patterned paper.  Then I placed the cut edge on my card where I wanted to create the rhinestone chevron and followed along the chevron with a thin line of glue.  I adhered my rhinestones along the glue line and then repeated these steps twice more to create my ombre rhinestone chevrons.

Hope you have some lovely plans for the day!  I am hoping to get a few things done around here before we head out to my mom's party.  In two weeks we will be celebrating my little one's FIRST birthday so I have a lot to do!  I may have been a little ambitious in my planning.... :) 

Mom: You are Loved - Fusion Card Challenge #6

 I was needing to create a Mother's Day card so I took a look at this week's Fusion Card Challenge to get a little inspiration.  This time I was inspired by both the photo and the sketch.

I loved the gray background and all the pinks/patterns on the photo inspiration and the sketch worked out perfectly too (although I did tweak it a little...I rarely ever follow a sketch 100%).  I can't wait to give this to my mom tomorrow along with a personalized iphone case that has all my boys on it.

Wishing all you moms out there a Happy Mother's Day!

To participate in the Fusion challenge or vote for your favorites (on Wednesday) click HERE.

Hello Friend - Fusion Card Challenge

 

Have you all checked out the Fusion Card Challenge yet?  I love that they made it like a science experiment (so creative!) and that there is both a sketch and inspiration challenge that you can combine or use separately to create your card.  Also, I think it is fun to go and vote for your favorite 3 each week! :)  I found a little time tonight to play along is the challenge for this week.  Here is my card based on the sketch only...

 

I created this card using American Crafts' XOXO collection...love the pretty pinks and greens in this collection.   I really like how this card turned out and my absolute favorite thing about this card is that pink fluffy stuff which I discovered by mistake!  I had some cute pink pom pom trim that I was going to use but when I cut a little piece to put on the card some of the fuzz was coming out of one of the little pom poms.  So, I went to see if I could pull the fuzz out and the whole trim began to unravel and voila, fluffy pink crafty goodness! :)  My card was based on the Fusion sketch (shown below) although I did flip it.

To play in the challenge or see the other entries and vote for your favorites you can check out the Fusion blog HERE.

Play - i heart faces photo challenge

This month the theme for the I Heart Faces photo challenge is play.  My little guy is really into his building boxes lately...learning to stack them, knocking them down, and discovering how they fit inside one another.  Here is a moment I captured of him playing with the boxes (after a little vintage editing in photoshop)...

To enter the I heart faces challenge or see the other fun 'Play' photos click HERE.

Summer Bucket List

So, this weekend Big Picture Classes had a great Creative Crop for National Scrapbook Day.  There were 10 challenges and I found time to play along with a few.  Challenge #3 by Tami Morrison was to create a Summer Bucket List layout.  I LOVE this idea and was so inspired that (instead of just making up my own list) I decided to have conversations with everyone in my family to see what was on their 'wish list' for this summer.   Then I used journal cards to document everyone's Top 5 and created this page...

This was so much fun!  And I am really glad to have this documented as I think it captures a lot about us as a family, my kids' personalities/ages, and what our summer 2013 will likely look like.  I put each person's  first initial on the journal cards to remember which list is whose in the future and  I put boxes by each item so we can check them off when we do those activities.  Hopefully we will check them all off by the end of summer!  :)  Then I plan to create another 12x12 layout with some photos that highlight items from our lists.  I am soooooo going to use this idea again!  Thanks Tami!

I hope you will consider giving this a try too!  It would also be a fun idea to do on New Year's Day...hmmm...I might just have to see what my family's bucket list will be for 2014!  :)  I'd love to see your bucket list if you give this a try so link it up in the comments below and I'll come take a peek!

LOVE Our Family - Echo Park NSD challenge

Well, I managed to get one layout completed for National Scrapbook Day.  I don't know about you, but I am not a fast scrapbooker so trying to complete one (let alone multiple) layout in a day is a challenge itself.  :)  My scrapbooking usually looks like this...Day 1: pick some photos I want to scrapbook and find papers that compliment them  Day2: Play with the layout of photos/papers and think about the story I want to tell  Day 3: Put the layout together and add embellishments/details 

I can be a bit of a perfectionist so I like to revisit my layout over several days.  So, needless to say this is probably not my most impressive layout ever but I am proud that I completed it in an hour and sometimes I just need to remember that it is the telling of the story/capturing the memories that is most important!

I created this layout for Echo Park's NSD Challenge #2 - Layout of Love and also for Big Picture Classes' Creative Crop Challenge #5 - a sketch by Lisa Day.

 

The journaling leaves a little to be desired but I wrote...love this man, these boys, this life...

And at the heart of it all, that is what I feel when I look at this photo...blessed.

 

Thanks for stopping by!  Happy National Scrapbook Day!

 

 

Bring on the Sunshine! - Echo Park NSD Challenge

Hello all!  I hope you are having a fabulous weekend!  Are you doing any scrapbooking?  There are so many great challenges to participate in since yesterday was National Scrapbook Day.  I am hoping to get one or two layouts done but usually I take a few days to complete a page (especially when the weather is so gorgeous!).  However, yesterday I did get have time to create a card for Echo Park's Summer Card Challenge.

Back in 2010, when Echo Park released their Sweet Summertime collection I immediately fell in love with this company.  I bought TWO of the Sweet Summertime collection packs (so I still have some in my stash).  I just love the happy, colorful, and playful designs that Echo Park comes up with and Sweet Summertime is still one of my favorites (although I am loving all their new Photo Freedom collections too!).

Sunny, yellow paper just makes me happy...how about you?!  You know those little strips at the bottom of scrapbook paper that show the pattern on the other side?  I often cut them out to use as a little accent strip or little flag but for this card I just cut my patterned paper so that the strip is still connected.  I love how it immediately creates a little border for my card and you could switch it to the top if you wanted and tie the twine around the little strip of white that separates the two patterns.

Hopefully I will be back later today with a layout!  Click HERE to see all of Echo Park's NSD challenges.

Sweet Baby Decor

So, we all have jars of buttons sitting around (right?!...please tell me I am not the only one!), probably getting a bit neglected since there are so many embellishments to choose from these days.  For me, my jars of buttons are almost more décor at this point!  However, for my project today I dug into my jar of Papertrey Ink Spring Mix Vintage Button Collection to create this...

I love the look of button frames so I got to thinking about how I could use the idea of framing with buttons to create a home décor item and came up with this pretty little wall hanging...perfect for a baby shower decoration or baby room décor.

First I die cut 4 circle frames out of chipboard which I then painted white.  I backed them with patterned paper (Echo Park's Love Story Collection) and added the AC thickers in the middle of each circle.  Then I adhered the circles together, punched a hole in the top of the first and last circle frame, and began laying out the buttons until I was happy with how they looked and adhered them.

Next I punched holes in each corner of the slide frame (from Crate Paper's new collection, The Pier), backed the frame with patterned paper and added the sentiment and buttons.  Finally I threaded some ribbon through the slide frame and connected it to the circle frames for a cute wall hanging.  And after I made a sweet card to go with it yesterday (see HERE), I decided it needed a little something more and added those pretty pink flowers (Maya Road) to the ribbon.

Other ideas/tips:
* Fill the circle frames with pictures of the new baby.
* Add the birth date to the slide frame.
* Use buttons to create a frame around a sentiment on a card.
* Instead of putting buttons all around the frames, consider clustering buttons in random spots around the frame to create a more dramatic accent to the frame.

Are you wanting to dig into your button stash?!  If so, Chic Tags' Sunday Challenge is to Use Buttons on a project!  I am entering my project into the challenge and you can too, just click HERE.

I hope you all have a lovely day!  The sun is shining again here in the Pacific Northwest so I am going to go out and enjoy it while it lasts! :)