Happy Halloween...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN from my house to YOURS... I was busy a few weeks ago decorating my front yard with pumpkins -scarecrows and mums and decided on painting some pumpkins instead of carving them and this is what I did to a few .

 These are out in front by the driveway with my house number painted on them- so cute.

 And why not do a chevron pattern on a white pumpkin and my initials with a polka dot pumpkin by my front door entrance with some beautiful magenta colored mums in full bloom.

 Then I spray painted these in silver, black and white and added tulip paint dots sprinkled with glitter-to use as a centerpiece on kitchen table . I just love the bling on these.

And one last pumpkin on my kitchen counter, which will look great for after Halloween into the month of November is my "Thanks" pumpkin with some raffia tied on the top and a few silk flowers. So thanks for taking a  look at some projects that have been keeping me busy with my crafts. Enjoy the holiday and Trick or Treat with the kiddies.

CRAZY LOVE

Crazy Love- is probably one of my favorite layouts I did this past weekend..and my daughter(the bride) came to visit me at the retreat and she just loved it!!! So I think I will be putting this page into a frame and giving it to them to display in their home.

With this layout I did not stick to the "Meant to Bee" theme or colors that I have been using in all the other layouts. Since the background was the red barn door- I thought I'd use this color in my papers and when I saw this crazy love paper a few months back I knew I would be using it somehow. But I did manage to add some burlap  into the title of You & Me banner (heart punched and faux stitching) and attached them with some black letter brads in my stash. Used a black a white diagonal paper, which I then colored in the red areas with marker and added a premade cutout ADORE with some heart brads and double matted the pictures. Once again- I really enjoyed working with this layout and like the simplicity of it. But, I want to put this in my scrapbook!

Half and Half...

Two Black and white and Two colored pictures make this a great layout. Simply added black or white mats to the photos and some pre-made cut out word tags -on a small pattern print yellow background paper. I also added a few stamped bees and some scrap papers punched on the side for a border. And then drew my little beehive for the bottom corner..Simple and I like it.

Too Sexy for your Love

This page received  lots of attention at the retreat this past weekend by all the ladies...I thought it was because of the misting/masking background I did with the honeycomb shapes...but NO it was the pictures that all the ladies were admiring --too funny!

I used my cricut to cut out previously honeycomb shapes and decided to keep the left over sheet for some future use- so this weekend I used the sheet as my mask and sprayed with coffee(tattered angel spray mist) onto the background and yellow cardstock. I then added the flower ribbon (which was leftovers from the garter belt I made) and a few other embellies like the mason jar cut out and the butterfly and piece of burlap. I simply matted the pics in white cardstock and put them in the order that they were taken to tell a story... What a story this is.. and got the title from the song that was being played at this time. I should of turned this page in for the layout contest- it would of won- probably hands done- just because of the subject matter- not the creativeness of the page..Too funny! Well I hope you enjoyed this page as much as the ladies did this weekend...my daughter saw this page and she really liked it- and said her hubby looks great with this hat on.

tornado warning at retreat- wow

Well what any eventful retreat this was...I only got 37 fabulous pages done- but had the best 70 minute massage ever, my daughter stopped by Friday evening at the retreat and spent the night visiting with me and my scrapbook buddies, and we had a tornado close by so we had to go into the lobby hallway for about 1/2 hour till the sirens went off...how exciting!! First time this has ever happened to me.

I worked on a few of the last pages for my daughter's barn wedding reception. Here is one of them- I really like how I incorporated all the elements from the decor of the barn- burlap, bees, sunflowers, and twine in all the pages somehow.

This page turned out great- The theme of the reception was "Meant to Bee" so I made a little mini banner for this page and clipped on with mini clothespins and stamped all the sunflowers and colored them in and then added brown fluff to the centers of the sunflowers and of course some stickles for some bling.

In this page I made my own burlap flowers and added some cute button brads and some twine- to keep the theme coninued in all the pages I used alot of the same papers and ink colors. Well thanks for stopping by and I will be posting all the pages that I worked on during this past weekend retreat in the next few weeks. I cant wait to go again in January.

Good Morning..its been a long weekend!

 Some misc pictures that I put together on one page for a friend of mine and just cut out the embellies from K&Company paper stack of flowers and used scrap papers I had in my stash that were colorful. One of the pages I did while at my retreat in September.
     Speaking of retreats that is where I was again this weekend...so right now I'm probably very tired (from no sleep) and unpacking all my supplies and reorganizing them in my craftroom downstairs..so in a few days I will tell you about the great time I had and post some layouts from the 3-day retreat.

Another Scrapcabana Retreat..YEAH!!

     Once again, I'm packing up for another retreat at the ScrapCabana in Aurora, IL this weekend and looking forward to seeing /meeting friends. I have been preparing all the pages- I plan on doing this weekend (Fri-Sun) the past few days and my goal is 50 pages this time. One thing, I have learned about going to these retreats is to have all my photos and papers figured out ahead of time. Its to hard to bring all my papers with and way to heavy to carry them all...so a few weeks before I go to one of these retreats I layout out my photos and figure out what papers I will be using with them and jot my ideas on a notebook- to give me reference when I get there. So that way all I'm bringing ( which is still way to much) is the embellies that I could possible use and the tools needed to complete each page. Here is a photo of all my supplies that I will be bringing with me this time...can you imagine if I had to bring all the papers that I wanted to go thru for each of my pages..OMG

Well, I hope everyone finds some time this weekend to scrap a page or two....And I'll be posting alot of new layouts after this weekend and after I unpack everything!

The last of the Jamaican Wedding layouts....

    Finally,  I have finished the Jamaican wedding layouts..all 50 of them for this book. I also did a book for my Jamaican trip and now I'm starting the wedding /reception at the barn- to be posted in the weeks to come. This wedding sure has kept me very busy for the past year and lots of layouts to do.

 I love this page on top- I tried to make them look like postcards- so I did some rub-on sayings and just matted them in cream cardstock. I then cut out of designer paper the waves and little shells and boat. I then drew and painted in my own little foot steps in the sand and inked all the paper edges in brown.

And the very last page of this album will be this layout- since the first page is of my daughter when she had just got all dressed  (black and white photos). So I thought this would be great to save for the end. A very simple layout which I just love it. Well thanks for looking at all my layouts of my daughters wedding over the past few months- and there will be more coming - because she actually had two weddings one in Jamaica and one in the states- here in our home town a month later for all the relatives and friends to attend- spoiled brat (kids these days want it all!)  lol...well they are paying for it- so I can't complain and say to much about that.

Beautiful pictures of the couple in Jamaica

   These last few layouts are pictures taken by the photographer and are just simply wonderful and I didnt want to take away from them and add alot of papers and embellies so I just cut out some seashells and clouds for this first layout and matted the pictures. I lined up the two pictures on the left horizontally with the sea line on the paper.

Same with these photos- I just simply matted and added alot of seashells and a few papers with border punched on the left side. If you take a close look at the photo on top right..the bouquet is in the sand with their handprints and they're actual rings in the sand- I thought this was such a cute photo.

Two of my favorite

I called these tow of my favorite- but I really like them all- hard to pick two - but these two stand out with me because I like to work with layouts of the outdoor natural looks and the color green like in this layout.

 I torn several papers and pulled out my crimper (i forget about that tool) and used the Martha Stewart butterfly punch -I just love this punch. and added a few silk flowers and chipboard alpha's for the title and matted the pictures in a thin white cardstock.

I finally found a page to use this great background paper - which I didnt have to figure out all different papers just this one. I then used my cricut to cut out the lamp posts (since that is what they are standing by and holding on to in the picture) and added alot of small yellow silk flowers and some of my handmade embellies of leaves and flourishes and 3 more punched butterflies.

First dance/Cutting the cake

 More layouts for my daughter's wedding in Jamaica- almost finished with this book 1 of 3 that I have been working on all summer. The top layout is really like because I saw this tutorial on making your own feathers- so I did. As you can see there are two feathers in the middle of this layout and I also added some butterfly cricut cutsand a birdcage. For the feathers I used some preprinted sheet music paper that I downloaded or printed off Pinterest- inked them in several inks and then glued  the paperclip in the middle of the two papers and then cut at an angle to feather it and they were down-very simple- will have to make more of these cute embellies for future layouts.

And here is a simple layout of them cutting the cake I used pre cut alphas for the title and a cricut cut for the cake from Tie the Knot and matted the two pictures in the middle to stand out more than the other two. Oh yeah-- this page has a sheet of vellum on top of a grey piece of cardstock

More Jamaican wedding layouts

Just posting some of the last of the Jamaican Wedding layouts I did while I was at a Scrapbooking retreat last month. Here are two of the couple  getting married and at the reception at the Sandals resort in Ocho Rios.

 The top layout is used a border punch and layered silk flowers and added stickles to them. But what I like the most is the handmade embellies I did with tulip paint on acetate for the flourishes and the leaves.

Ao many pictures to choose from for the reception and just wanted to do one page so this is what I came up with for this layout and did a few Cricut cuts too. The scalloped circle is a cricut cut also and just inked the edges and placed on white casrdstock.

What a two page week this has been

Ok- its been a week of posting two page layouts here ..lots of pages were done at the scrapbook retreat I was at in the middle of September..I actually did 62 pages on this weeknd retreat - and I;m going again in 1 week- so I will have to get ready with some more two page layouts.

Here is another one of my friends- son getting ready to zipline for his first time.This was really hard for me to figure out papers- because of the orange background in the pics- I think it took me over an hour to decide what to do...But I think it turned out pretty good considering all the colors and getting all the pictures on the two pages that she wanted. I found the papers in my stash  and cut out parts of the pattern papers into traingles for the top and bottom borders. I grabbed some gross grain ribbon sprayed it red and added chipboard embellies to represent buckles. I then added chipboard letters which I painted blue and added stickle. Of course the title were Cricut cuts.

Finish Line

Wow- its another two page layout for my friend and her kids enjoying some activities at Wisconsin Dells and this is them on the go-carts. So I painted my own black and white pattern on the borders of all the pictures and then found some embossed background paper -which didnt add to much distraction and I colored in the green leaf areas with a colored pencil and just simply added alpha stickers for the titles.

Fall is in the air

Well Fall is here...so here is a 2-page layout of some fall pictures taken in Wisconsin Dells a few years back . I layered papers for the title area and used some metal rings and painted them and added the letters for the title of FALL. I then went to my scrap flower container and pulled out some fall colors ones that I had already premade and added a brad to the center of them. These were Cricut cuts and I just grabbed the colors and layered them together. The papers I used were from a stack from Me and My Big Ideas- love all the colors - and I just cut out some of the leaves and made my own journaling tag. I simply matted the pictures in either gold or white so they would stand out a bit against the paper background

Wisconsin Dells adventures

Its hard to do a layout for me when I have to incorporate maps or large memorbilia..but I managed to on this two page layout of the Wisc. Dells which includes a large map-a program and 3 postcards along with three photos taken by my friend.

So after all that was laid out I didnt have a whole lot of room for embellies- so I stamped some leaves,trees and acorns on cardstock and cut them out and scattered them on the two pages. I used Tim Holtz papers for the background and added a red arrow and a few strips of red cardstock for some more color. Again- i think I accomplished what my friend wanted me to do with these pages for her.

Fearless..extreme

Another two page layout of my friends son ziplining at Wisconsin Dells. This time I went for the boyish theme and colors. I cut out stars and added stickles to the center of them and put on with pop dots and cut out the titles with my Cricut and my Gypsy and also added stickles to them. I used some colorful striped and star papers from My Minds Eye-Complete boy stack - just love this collection and matted the pictures in either grey or orange cardstock.

A New Experience

Ziplining is what this two-pager is all about.. Another page I created for a friend and her daughter ziplineing at Wisconsin Dells. I staggered the pics to resemble the moment of her ziplining and I also cut the title out of the extra pictures I wasn't using with my Cricut Expression.

I found some green honeycomb paper that I inked and then stamped with several colors of green some trees to represent the tree line and then made a helmet and drew very small little stick people figures on linescoming off the title  and added some clouds behind title also. I really likehow  this turned out- it tells a story about the event.