So Very Grateful

Hello friends! Today I am sharing a selfie layout of being thankful and grateful.  On a more personal note, I am celebrating my birthday today and actually I am not sad but happy and reflective.  I don't intend for this to seem that I am self absorbed, it just makes me reflect on how beautiful life is and after being on this earth for a number of  years it makes me realize that I have come through a lot of tragedies and challenges in my life and I can honestly say that I am happier in my life more now than ever. Sure, I physically feel my age at times, but mentally I feel 25.  I just wish I had the wisdom when I was 25. Ha!

It really is all about attitude and making the most of everyday and counting my blessings.  My life isn't perfect, but it's still wonderful.  I also am grateful for scrapbooking.  It really is an amazing hobby that lets me reflect on the memories, the beauty and the loved ones in my life.  If truth be known, I have always loved anything crafty, but scrapbooking by far brings me the most contentment.  I have met so many beautiful people, whom I call my friends, my support network and the people that get me.  Thank you for letting me share my passion with you and thank you for taking the time to read and visit my blog. I hope, if anything, you can take that we all need to do something we love, whether it's art, music, photography, cooking, sports or anything.  We need to do more of what we love and make the time for it.  Life happens and it's easy to get sucked into the monotony of everyday life so now,  more than ever, we need to slow down and take time for ourselves.

Well enough about that….  So getting back to business, I wanted to share a layout that I created for A Flair For Buttons.

I have been blessed to be on this amazing team and Shelley Haganman is so sweet and positive and she makes amazing flair buttons.  It's no surprise that I can't help but use her flair on almost every layout I create.  It always inspires me.  For this particular layout, I used the Fox And Owl Flair Set for the "thankful" flair button and the striped flair button as well as the Gobble Gobble Flair Set for the green patterned flair button.

 The patterned papers are all from the Simple Stories Sweater Weather Collection as well as the enamel dots, die cuts and chipboard embellishments.  I love anything that Simple Stories comes out with.

For the leaves, I actually handcut them using one of the leaves as a template and arranged them in a layered fashion using pop dots underneath some of the leaves to give some shadow and dimension.

  I had some burlap in my stash so I cut it and matted my photos and cut circles and placed the circles on the leaves and underneath the flair button to give it more texture.

Placing enamel dots around the layout gives it more of a Fall flair to gives the appearance that the leaves are falling down the page.  Most of my layouts have either machine stitching or some hand stitching because I love the homespun look and am an old fashioned girl at heart.  It probably has something to do with my cross-stitching days as well. 

Here are the flair button sets that I created my layout with:

Fox And Owl Flair

 Gobble Gobble Flair

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a good day and are able to take time to do something you love.

I Love Simple Stories!

Hello friends! Happy Saturday!  Today I have another Fall layout to share.  Lately, I have been scrapbooking with a lot of Simple Stories collections and I decided to dig out a collection from last year called Sweater Weather.  I added in a woodgrain background paper from the new Pumpkin Spice Collection.  I love when I can use different collections on a layout from the same manufacturer.

I really wanted to use up some paper scraps so I used my square 3 1/2 inch square paper punch and punched out several papers, used my corner rounder on all four sides of each square and inked the edges with some Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Gathered Twigs. 

 I love to layer papers so I randomly layered the squares until I was happy with the placement and adhered them to the background woodgrain paper.  I added two photos that I also punched out with my square paper punch and rounded the corners.  I added a diecut for the title and embellished with some chipboard for dimension and added some enamel dots and word stickers.

I love Fall and love creating layouts using paper punches.  I hope you are inspired to take out and dust off your paper punches and create a layout or card.  Thanks for stopping by and hope you have a great day

Scrapping Our Stash September 2015 Blog Hop

Hello friends! It's Lee-Anne here and I am excited that you are here.  A group of us ladies get together once a month to bring you a blog hop using our stash. 

 Every scrapbooker has a stash of papers and embellishments and we wanted to inspire you to get out your stash and use it up.  Be sure and visit all the ladies on the blog hop list as I am certain that you will be inspired.

Lee-Anne  http://lee-annelovethejourney.blogspot.com YOU ARE HERE

Alison  http://alisondaydesigns.com/

Majken http://chocoscrapaholic.blogspot.com/

Katrina http://paperscissorsandglue.blogspot.com/

Cheryl http://patchesandscraps.blogspot.com

Suzanna http://lifestrivialities.typepad.com

Wendy C www.stampingrules.com

For my project, I created a layout of Fall in the country in my area.  I had a 6X6 paper pad that I have had for at least 3 years called Harvest Lane by Simple Stories.  

I began by designing the word "Fall" on my Silhouette Cameo.  I then cut it out on a 12X12 piece of white card stock with my Cameo and set the letters aside for another project.  I wanted to use the negative space for each letter. 

To make the letters pop more, I took out my distress inks and my water brush and painted each letter a coordinating color that would go with the patterned papers and let it dry.

Now it' time to cut your paper strips in 1/2 inch strips and arrange them on the backside of your white card stock.  I make sure they are laying next to each other and for mine I placed them on a diagonal.  I then used some tape and taped them down.

After all the letters were backed with patterned paper strips, I added my photos, the alpha sticker title in the center and some coordinating embellishments such as a crochet heart, leaf stickers, enamel dots and a flair button.

Here are some more closeups.

This layout was so much fun to do and it is a great way to use up your paper scraps.  I hope you are inspired to give this a try.  Next up on the blog hop is Alison.  I'm sure she has something awesome to share with you.  Happy hopping!