10 Years Ago

Here's a layout I did just before we went on vacation. The photo was taken 10 years ago when Steve and I took our first vacation together. Boy do we ever look young :) We took a road trip to Ontario and this picture was taken on the White Water Rapids Ride at Canada's Wonderland in Toronto. It was a lot fun and we made lots of memories. It's so hard to believe that 10 years have passed since then. Once again, where does the time go?


The paper I used is from one of my favorite Cosmo Cricket's collections called the Early Bird. I posted about this collection when it first came out and I had been hoarding it, waiting for the perfect pictures to user it with. The letters I used were some old chipboard letters I had kicking aroud that were the wrong color, so I painted them using Ranger's Crackle Paint and I love how they turned out!

Definately an Artist

Decorating Eggs

Here's a layout I did of my niece decorating Easter eggs and if you look to the right of the layout you'll see color blocks. Those are actual paint samples from the local hardware store. I thought it tied into the whole painting the eggs theme plus I was able to find exact color matches to my patterned paper. So the next time you are at the hardware store stop by the paint sample board and grab some color samples in what ever color catches your eye. I can guarantee that if you like the color, you probably already have patterned paper in your stash that will work with it.

Simply Beautiful

Here's a layout I recently did with a picture I took of my brother and his beautiful fiance in Kananaskis Country. I really felt that this picture captured the love between these two and I wanted to do something special with it.


I chose an appropriate themed paper - lovebirds and went for the layer look with my matting. I really like the layered look as it allows me to use different patterned papers in similar/complimentary colors from my leftovers pile. I recently purchased a new stamp set and found this layout the perfect place to use it. So I stamped the boy and girl in blue on the layout. I liked it but I thought it was missing something. I then remembered that I had these little adhesive pearls I bought a while back and thought they would work out great so I used them as buttons on the boys shirt. I then thought the girls dress needed something. I found these rhinestone shapes (hearts, flowers, stars, etc) at the local dollar store on one of Catherine's and mine shopping sprees and decided they would be perfect. In the center of the flower I stuck one of the pearls to pull it all together. Bling, that was it! I love how this layout turned out and came together really well. And the bonus to it all, everything with the exception of the stamp set I already had in my stash! How awesome is that! Yes I know, my stash is quite extensive so really it wasn't that hard.

Hanging Out

We spend hours and hours creating the perfect layout, pouring our heart and soul into everything from the photos chosen to the bling pain stakingly applied and then what do we do? We put it in a Album to be pulled out every once in awhile to be looked at.

Well I saw this idea and thought it was totally awesome - display your hard worked on layouts as pieces of art in a gallery. To get this look simply go to any local store (Walmart, Ikea, etc) that sells curtains and rods and buy curtain rod and loop clips. Remember the longer your rod the more layouts you can clip up. Mine is the length of the couch and I can fit five layouts on it easily. Hang the rod somewhere in your house where it can be seen and enjoy. Just remember that sunlight fades paper so either hang the rod where it doesn't get direct sunlight or switch out the layouts very regularly.

I love this as it allows me to display favorite layouts, recently completed layouts, or themed layouts (like Christmas ones at Christmas time) as decoration. I think it is so clever!