Do Your Best

Just about a year ago, Blake turned 8 and joined the Cub Scouts as a wolf. He was pretty excited about it as he has spent the past three years watching Ty participate in Cub Scouts and he has observed just how much fun it is. Just days after his birthday he was able to participate in the annual Rain Gutter Regatta. He won several of his races and had a lot of fun. " Do You Best" is the Cub Scout Motto and I think Blake is always trying to do that so it seemed a perfect title for this layout.

The papers and stickers, tags, and flags here are by Basic Grey, and the twine, Washi Tape, Buttons, and Enamel Dots are by Basic Grey. The title was cut with my Silhouette Portrait and the stamp is by K and Co. 

The journaling reads: "One of the presents you received for your 8th birthday Blake, was a Cub Scout uniform. You modeled it for me right away. You have been excited to be Cub Scout for some time as you watched Ty go through the ranks. You were especially excited that you turned 8 just in time to participate in the Rain Gutter Regatta! Have a great time “doing your best” in Scouts Blake! --September 2012"

Have a great day!

Your First Cub-Cake

Marc and I are in our fourth year of helping make a cake for the annual Cub-Scout Blue and gold banquet. This year however, was Blake's first time! We had a lot of fun designing and making this Lego semi truck cake with him! It's our "fanciest" cake to date and I love how excited you were Blake with the final result!

(Now only 5 more years of cakes to go--we ought to be real experts by the end!)

This layout uses the very fun All About A Boy Line by Echo Park. It's a new favorite of mine and I LOVE the colors and stickers in it! Perfect for layouts of all my three boys are up to! 

I cut the the main portion of my title out directly from my background paper with my Cricut using the font on the Birthday Bash cartridge. I then backed all the letters with various papers--some of them embossed with my Cuttlebug and the Lifestyle Crafts Zig-Zag embossing folder. The white sub-title was cut on my Silhouette Portrait using the Simply Glamours font--I really like the results of die-cutting this thin and scripty font!. There is also some Queen and Company Washi Tape and buttons here.

The journaling reads: "Making your cake for your first Blue and Gold banquet was a group effort Blake! The theme was transportation so you decided you wanted to make a semi truck. You have had a fascination with them lately so we weren't surprised by this! I helped you bake the cake and then dad helped you cut the cake into the right shape. We frosted it and you helped add the wheels and the logos I cut out from frosting sheets. In the end we all had a lot of fun and it looked great! You won an award for the “Legoest” cake! Spring 2013"

Thanks for visiting today!

She's Just So Cute!

Back! So sorry for the long break. Somehow this often seems to happen during the holidays. There is just so much going on plus we often get sick around this time of year (this year I even managed to throw my back out for the first and hopefully last time--it was miserable). Anyhow a few things went on the back burner--things like folded laundry,  a perfectly clean house, and blogging.

Today however, I'm back at it with a whole stack of layouts that need to be shown. My goal is  to post a layout nearly everyday for the next little while to help me catch up.

First up is this layout about Blake and his love for little Claire--even when she spits up on him.

The papers here are from one of my all time favorite lines, Pebbles Seen and Noted.  I cut my title with my Cricut. The red is actually something I created in Inkscape and then used Sure Cuts A Lot software to cut out. The hexagons are one of my favorite Creative Memories punches.

The journaling reads: "One day I asked you Blake what you liked about having a baby sister. You said it was a lot of fun and that she was “just so cute!” You also said it was a lot of fun when she smiled at you. At the end of the interview she spit up as you were holding her and I laughed as I listened to you yell “Gross! Gross! Gross!” I'm so glad that you love her even though she spits on you! November 2012"

Thanks for coming back to visit me today! Have a great Monday!

Time For Presents

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you had a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving. We certainly did! We spent the holiday relaxing with my parents and then headed out to Six Flags to make some good use of our season passes. I finally got to actually ride some rides (pregnancy prevented this on earlier trips this year) and we had a great time towards the end of they day riding the same roller coaster over and over again. After the fourth time we started to go and Spencer made it clear he wasn't quite done yet. For a kid who doesn't speak he certain can communicate a lot with a simple dark look! Grandma took pity on him (not hard to do considering how much she likes roller coasters) and back we went for a fifth time. Gotta love that boy! He certainly knows how to have fun!

Today I have another Scrapbook.com layout to share. This time I used some of the very fun Bella Blvd "Birthday Boy" collection to scrapbook a few photos from Blake's 8th birthday.

I cut part of my title using my Cricut and the font on the Wild Card Cartridge.

This cupcake and present were simply cut out from patterned paper and added to my layout with pop dots.

I actually pulled out some paint and a toothbrush to fling some paint onto my Queen and Co. washi tape.  I practically never do "messy" techniques on my layouts but this worked out so well I may do again in the future. Much cheaper and easier to customize the colors than with mists too. 

The journaling reads: "You are a huge Lego fan Blake, and because of that all you wanted for your 8th birthday was Lego related things. I had a lot of fun picking out Lego sets, a Lego book, and a Lego computer game for you. Based on your enthusiastic reaction to each item as you opened it, I’d say you loved them all!"

Thanks for stopping by!

Queen and Company's Washi Tape

I just adore Washi tape, and I feel so lucky to have the privilege of designing for Queen and Company and working with all their wonderful embellishments including an amazing amount of awesome Washi Tape! I recently created this layout and card using almost no patterned paper (something really hard for me to do, the only patterned paper used is the lined notebook paper and the large yellow circle), but I made up for it with lots and lots of Queen and Company's new colors of Trendy Tape!

I used my Cricut to cut a couple of rows of circles and then filled each circle with several pieces of Washi tape that I overlapped slightly to continue the pattern and give me a wider design. I loved the little bit of added texture doing this gave my layout.

I also used my Cricut to cut out my title. The yellow letters were made by layering a couple of rows of yellow tape next to each other on white cardstock and then running the cardstock through my Cricut. I also used yellow Washi tape around the edges of my layout for a fun border.

This layout also includes lots of fun Queen and Company chipboard and buttons.

And lastly, here is a matching card I made with left over scraps from the layout. Again, no patterned paper. Those fun little travel punches were made by Creative Memories and the flower punch is by EK Success.

Thanks for visiting today!

New Scrapbooks.com layouts

Well the 20th came and went yesterday and that means I have a few new layouts to share.

This first one is from a visit last fall to the Oil ranch with Blake's joy-school group. We had a really great day there, and Blake even got brave enough to milk the cow, unlike last time when he wouldn't go near it. He still wouldn't let the cows lick the food pellets out of his had--he preferred to toss them to the cows--but I can't say I blame him--that is kind of gross!

There is a bunch of the new Cosmo Cricket lines on this Mostly this is their Garden Variety line with just a touch of Material Girl and Joy Ride tossed in. The letters are Basic Grey.

And this next one is a simple one about Blake and one of his many dress up adventures! This time he was a Harry Potter, Jedi, Clone Trooper and he wanted to be sure I took a photo of it :) So I did :)

I'm going to miss this stage.

This one uses mostly the October Afternoon Road Map line, but has some Cosmo Cricket Boyfriend chipboard and and bit of the Boyfriend paper as well. Letters are American Crafts.

Thanks for stopping by today, I have 2 more to post to the blog in the next little while so come back soon :)

My Mind's Eye Blog Challenge

Each month My Mind's Eye does a sketch challenge on their blog. This month they had another awesome sketch that I had to play with and it went along with the theme "Blast From The Past." This is the resulting layout. It is about how much Blake swinging on the playground with his dad reminds me of one of my favorite childhood activities:

The journaling reads: "

I love to watch you swing with your dad Blake!

You laugh your big huge laugh, smile big, and yell to go higher and higher.

It reminds me of how much I loved it as a girl, I too always wanted to go higher!

It is so fun to relive this childhood favorite through you Blake! June 2009

I kind of went to town with my Cuttlebug on this one to add some texture. You can see the embossing better in the close ups:

Hopefully the photos aren't too washed out. I'm on my laptop tonight and sometimes editing photos on it tends to result in washed out photos. I'll be glad to be back to work on my regular machine tomorrow :)

Have a great night everyone!