Hot Chocolate Time

Today I'm sharing my latest two-page layout that I'm calling "Hot Chocolate Time".  The paper piecing pattern is from the Hot Chocolate Bears collection by Little Scraps of Heaven Designs.  I really love how this all came together:

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Here are some close-ups:

I've had these little chocolate Kiss brads forever and jumped at the chance to use them on this layout!

The hearts on the cups are diecuts from a 3-piece Heart set by Sizzix.

For the title I used some chipboard Thickers alphabet stickers that I had on hand.  They are so cute with the stitching on them and I thought they went perfectly with this layout.  I found the perfect blue and red background papers from the Home for Christmas stack by DCWV that I purchased last year and the dot paper is by Bo Bunny.

This Hot Chocolate Bears pattern came together very easily and was fun to work with.  Each piece is adorable, but I just LOVE all the little chocolate chips and marshmallows floating on top of the hot chocolate.  Here is a quick link to the pattern in case you'd like to get one for yourself:

http://www.littlescrapsofheavendesigns.com/item_765/Hot-Chocolate-Bears.htm 

Thank you for stopping by ~ I hope everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Until next time...Happy Scrapping!

I Love Snowmen

Yes, it's true...I absolutely  LOVE snowmen!  I have a TON of snowmen in all shapes and sizes that I decorate with for Christmas.  My tree is decorated with snowmen ornaments and accented with acrylic snowflakes and icicles.  I have glass snowmen, metal snowmen, stuffed snowmen, and singing snowmen. They are ALL favorites, but there are a few that are extra special. I've always thought about scrapbooking some of my favorite decorations and, of course, wasn't something that I actually took the time to do.  Then I saw the "Vintage Snowman" and "Snowballs For Sale" patterns on the Little Scraps of Heaven Designs' website and knew these were exactly what I needed to finally get that project started.  Tah dah...here's my first page!!!

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In addition to the LSHD paper piecings on this layout, I used a Martha Stewart snowflake border punch, some glittered Thickers chipboard alphabet stickers, and the heart is a Sizzix Primitive Heart die-cut.  What's fun about using the snowflake border punch is you get these great little snowflake confetti to use somewhere else, which I did on the snowman's hat and scarf and on the bucket and sign.  I also used Icicle Stickles to accent just a little on the snowman, little snowflakes and the snowballs.

These two patterns from Little Scraps of Heaven Designs are sooo adorable!  I just love the old-fashioned look of this snowman...reminds me of how they looked when I was a little girl.

This bucket of "Snowballs For Sale" piecing is just way too cute!  Since my penmanship isn't the best, after I cut out the sign boards I ran them through my computer to print the words on them.  I used a font called FlairRoman and changed the color to a dark brown.

I not only love snowmen, but I LOVE this layout.  Need to get busy making an accompanying page for it because we all know I have more than just two favorite snowmen to feature...

These two patterns are extremely reasonable in price ($3 for both but right now the Vintage Snowman is on sale for $1.50).  Here are the links to the LSHD paper patterns if you'd like to check them out:

http://www.littlescrapsofheavendesigns.com/item_788/Vintage-Snowman.htm

http://www.littlescrapsofheavendesigns.com/item_797/Snowballs-for-Sale.htm

Thanks for visiting with me and, until next time...Happy Scrapping!

O Christmas Tree Layout

Here is a layout that I worked on the last couple days (yeah, I'm slow) that uses the new "Christmouse Caroling" pattern from Little Scraps of Heaven Designs.  I LOVE how this turned out.

I knew I wanted to use some Teresa Collins Christmas Tree paper that I bought at Expo last month and thought this pattern would work well with it. Honestly, I set out to make this a school Christmas program layout but then one on my fellow LSHD Design Team members posted on Facebook some pictures of her and her family setting up their Christmas tree and that took my design thought process in a whole different direction.  Side note:  We usually wait until AFTER Thanksgiving to even think about putting up our tree but, hey, my DT pal lives in Canada and they've already HAD their Thanksgiving LOL!!!

Anyway,  I could totally see these little mice singing 'O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, How lovely are your branches' and so my layout is now all about the tree...  Can't wait to take pictures of our tree this year and put them on this layout.

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These caroling mice are just so stinkin' cute!  The little guy in the middle just makes me smile!

Since there's singing going on here, I thought using some music sheet patterned paper as part of my circle mat worked perfectly!  I also used some Core'dinations glitter paper on this layout to give it a little "snowy" sparkle.

I designed the title in SCAL2 and used a font called Kingthings Petrock because I thought it looked a little Victorian and would go nicely with the mice. The title is also matted in Core'dinations glitter papers.

This pattern turned out so awesome so I'm still thinking about making another set and doing that school Christmas program layout afterall...hmmm.....

Until next time...Happy Scrapping!

Let's Feast Layout

I've had this fabulous turkey paper for a while now and when Little Scraps of Heaven Designs released their new "Let's Feast" pattern, I couldn't wait to use both of them together!  Here is my layout:

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And now a closer look at each page separately:

In addition to the "Let's Feast" pattern, I also used the "Peeking Turkey" pattern from LSHD.  Here are some close-ups:

All the food items took me a little longer to piece together than I thought it would take, but I was mostly stumped on how to make my corn on the cob look like, well, corn on the cob.  Then it finally came to me...use those Copic pens that are just sitting there taking up space LOL!  The pattern for the corn has some holes that cut, exposing the bottom layer to where it looks like the kernels, but since I sized the pattern down in SCAL2, I lost some of that dimension.  The Copics worked super and I'm really pleased with the outcome.

Hope this gives you some inspiration for scrapbooking your upcoming Thanksgiving Feast!  Thanks for looking and, until next time...Happy Scrapping!

Sweater Time Layout

Happy Thursday!  It's been a busy week and yesterday I was like "yikes" because it was already Wednesday and I hadn't started on any of my Design Team projects for the week.  The "Sweater Time" pattern was one I really wanted to do something with.  A couple weeks ago Tricia, the owner of Little Scraps of Heaven Designs, asked the DT for file suggestions and I responded that since the seasons were changing, how about something like Sweater Weather.  She liked the idea and turned it into a super cute pattern.

Here's my "It's Sweater Time" layout:

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The title, girl and boy are from the "Sweater Time" file.  Since my grandson has blue eyes, I gave my little guy here blue eyes -- switched it up from the normal brown or black that is normally used to make eyes.  This particular pattern doesn't have a piece for the noses so I just added one from another file.  They look fine without the noses also, but I just preferred them with one.

Don't they look cute standing in the middle of those beautiful fall leaves?  I just had to have them each holding a leaf!  I also gave the little girl's shoes pearl snaps.  

For the rest of the layout I used the tree from the LSHD "Boy On A Limb" file and the leaves are from the "Harvest Friends" and "Moose With Leaf Chain" files.  Here's a closer look at the title, tree and leaves:

I hope you enjoyed my layout!  Until next time...Happy Scrapping!

Cute Christmas Card

Today I went to a Craft Fair with two of my besties and had so much fun with them shopping, sampling, and laughing.  I just loved seeing all the handmade items and admiring the handiwork of others.  I really appreciate how much time it must have taken the crafters to make all their beautiful items. Needless to say, among the three of us we came home with our fair share of new holiday decorations, dip, cake and soup mixes, and aprons (yes, aprons...).

With the many Christmas items that were there to be seen, touched, and enjoyed, I certainly came home with a sense of Christmas Spirit -- even though it was 75 degrees outside and only the 8th of November!

I've had this "Candy Cane Penguin" cutting pattern from Little Scraps of Heaven Designs for quite sometime and thought that today was the day to make something out of it since I was in a Christmas state of mind.  So I made this cute little Christmas Card:

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The card itself is made on the black cardstock.  My photo makes it look like the red background is part of the card, but it isn't.  Anyway, the card has several layers:  the black cardstock, white glitter paper by Core'dinations, red cardstock, Bo Bunny Dot paper and the paper piecing.  The sentiment is from a stamp set that I've had forever.  I colored in the open spaces in the lettering with a red glitter pen and then just double matted the stamped image with more of the black and red cardstock paper.  I used a Martha Stewart snowflake punch set on the white glitter paper.  The bonus was that I now have a bunch of little tiny glitter snowflakes leftover from the punch.  I used a few of them on the blue Bo Bunny dot paper.

I lined the inside of the card with white cardstock that is matted with red cardstock.

Yeah, it's a little early for Christmas but I think this card turned out super cute!  Here is a quick link to the LSHD "Candy Cane Penguin" file in case any of you are interested in it:

http://www.littlescrapsofheavendesigns.com/item_766/Candy-Cane-Penguin.htm

Thanks for looking and, until next time...Happy Scrapping!

Jack-O-Lanterns Light the Night Layout

A friend told me about a home on the outskirts of town that makes this huge lighted Jack-O-Lantern display every year in their front yard for everyone to enjoy.  It's only up for 5-6 days, but wow...it is incredible!  The amount of work that goes into this for such a short period of time just goes to show you how much this family really gets into this labor of love.  There are probably 200 pumpkins that get donated by a pumpkin patch to this family.  It takes them a whole day to hull out the pumpkins and then the carving fun begins.

The display has all kinds of themes... traditional Jack-O-Lantern faces, Peanuts Gang, Star Wars, Graveyard, Neighborhood, Witches, Sports Logos, FFA/4H/Scouts logos, --- well, you get the picture!

I took my grandson and one of his friends to see it the day my friend told me it was all lit up.  Good thing we went because, as it turned out, that was the last night the display was going to be available to enjoy (night after Halloween).  The whole yard was lit up like Christmas and it was AMAZING!   My pictures of the lit up pumpkins turned out not to be the greatest, but hey.... a bad picture is better than no picture at all, right?  The pictures totally do not give the display justice...you really had to be there to witness how awesome everything was.

So, of course, I needed to scrapbook our Jack-O-Lantern adventure!  I really like how my layout turned out.

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I designed my own titles in SCAL2 using three different fonts and love, love, love how the "Light the Night" portion of the title looks on the moon with the bats.

The paper piecings from LSHD worked perfectly on this layout.

The moon, bats, tree and curvy pumpkins are from the LSHD "Spooky Hollow" collection.  The other more upright pumpkins are from "Harvest Crows".

The fence is the "Spooky Fence" pattern.

And, lastly, this is the super fun "Stacked Pumpkins" file.

I appreciate you stopping by and hope you enjoyed seeing all the details of this layout.

Until next time...Happy Scrapping!

Ho Ho Ho --- It's Finished!

Well, it took waaay longer than expected, but the infamous Baby Shower Album is officially finished. The baby shower was like in August, and I gave Mom-To-Be the album even though it was only a little more than half complete.  For whatever reason, about 2 weeks before the shower I decided to make the album as my gift.  I should have known it would not be completed because I just don't work that fast when it comes to scrapbooking.  I got the album back and had every intention on having it finished before the baby was born, but that didn't happen.  Well Baby Josie is now almost two weeks old and I can finally give her Mommy this beautiful keepsake.

This last week was a little hectic, but I was able to get more layouts finished and was down to needing just one more page.  I knew I wanted it to be a Christmas layout and was determined to get it done today...and I did...YAY!!!!!

So here it is, my grand finale page...

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The paper piecing files are from Little Scraps of Heaven Designs.  The Santa and Reindeer are from, well, the "Santa and Reindeer" file.  This collection actually has three different reindeer; the one I made, one with a wreath around his head, and another one doing a handstand with a strand of Christmas lights tangled in his antlers (and it is adorable!).  The sign is the "North Pole" pattern.  I printed the words on the sign and cut them down to the pattern size.  The cute little penguin is actually a sticker from my stash, but I thought he looked so cute just hanging out at the base of the North Pole!

I used Thickers for "Josie &" and then used some super old K&Company sticker letters for the "Santa". I LOVE these sticker letters and don't know why I never used them before.  I will absolutely use them for some of my own Christmas layouts.

Here is a closer look at the paper piecings and title block:

I really like how this page turned out.  Now all that's left to do is to make sure I have photos of all the layouts, put them in order in the album, and deliver it back to the new Mom & Dad.  I hope they love how it turned out as much as I do.

Thank you for taking the time to check out my latest project.  Until next time...Happy Scrapping!

Rainy Day

Yay!  It has been so dry here but it finally rained late yesterday and all night last night so that was my inspiration to make this cute paper piecing called "Rainy Day Bear" from Little Scraps of Heaven Designs.  After making it I remembered that  I had some photos of my grandson playing in some rain puddles from a couple years ago when we were waiting for his mom to finish one of her Ragnar Relay legs in Napa and they worked perfectly with this pattern.

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The paper was purchased at Scrapbook Expo in August and I actually had a different layout in mind for it when I bought it, but I think it worked out pretty good with this one.  Instead of making a title, I decided to use this quote that I had read somewhere and saved in a notebook.  Just seemed so appropriate for the pictures.

The Rainy Day Bear was so easy to piece together.  Here's a closer look at it for you:

If you're interested in this paper piecing pattern, here is a quick link for it on the Little Scraps of Heaven Designs website:

http://www.littlescrapsofheavendesigns.com/item_859/Rainy-Day-Bear.htm

Thank you for taking the time to check out my layout...I hope you enjoyed it!

Until next time...Happy Scrapping!