Winter Wreath

There's this little website called Pintrest ... you may of heard of it! I am super addicted to it! There are so many neat ideas and for someone crafty like me, it's an inspiration overload site! If you haven't checked it out ... do it! And if you need an invite leave your email in the comments and I will send you one.

So one day while checking out the ideas on Pintrest I found this wonderful winter wreath that I loved and decided to do for myself. It only took me a couple of hours to do and it looks awesome hanging on my front door!

Here's the link to the original wreath that I used for my inspiration if you wish to see how it's made, Snow Ball Wreath.  Now, like most things, I used theirs as inspiration for mine and added in different little things to suit my tastes and I made mine a little bulkier because I wanted that look, but other than that it pretty much the same.  Here's a close up shot so you can see all the little details I added.

And here's a little tip for you if you decide to make this wreath. Your first stop should be at a dollar store. It's amazing what you will find there. Plus it is way cheaper! For example, I looked at the Styrofoam balls at my local Michaels and for 4 balls it was $4.99 but the Dollar Store had them for 6 balls for $2.00! Sure makes this wreath way more affordable to do!

In case you are wondering, it took me 4 packages of 6-2" Styrofoam balls, 3 different designs of silver ornaments - 4 of each, 3 large silver snow flakes, 4 Skeins of Yarn in different colours, 2 packages of raffia, 1 10" foam wreath, burlap to wrap the wreath, various little items to fill small spaces (ie: small wintery ornaments, pine cones, twigs of pearls, etc) and a boat load of hot glue gun sticks - I ran out twice!

The Great Outdoors

Angus loves camping in the winter because when no one else is in the campground he can go off leash. It's like heaven to him!

I used Rub-ons on this layout.  I haven't used Rub-ons in a quite awhile.  Guess it's like style ... one minute you are all over a new style and the next minute you are onto the next.  I find scrapbooking is a lot like that.  Rub-ons were huge a little while back and I was big into them.  Now not so much but I still have a lot in my stash and I have been trying to use up my stash.  I wanted more dimension to the Rub-ons, so I added some glitter glue and glass beads to snow flake Rub-ons.  Seems to bring them a little more into "style".  How do you refresh some of your old products?

MacLean Creek

This is a layout about our first camping trip in our trailer. Yes it is winter but we were dying to try it out. It wasn't too cold but definitely cold enough where everyone thought we were crazy. Maybe we were but we has a great time and the campground was completely empty and peaceful.

Over the Mountains and Through the Woods

I wanted to use this title on this layout but the only way I could get it on the layout would be to put it over the photo.  I wasn't keen on the idea because I didn't want to cover any of the large photo.  I'm from the school of thinking that every detail in the photo is important. But I went with it and I think it ended up turning out pretty good.  Goes to show that you can still cover part of a photo but still get the desired effect you wanted, even without every little detail.

New Chairs

When I saw this paper line by American Crafts, I just had to have it!  It's too cute and perfect for winter camping pictures!

Winter Wonderland

Doesn't that title just make you want to break out in Christmas tune? No?! Well for me it does. Every time I hear or read Winter Wonderland somewhere the tune starts playing in my head. Funny how that is!



This layout, which is all about my love of Hoar Frost, is done with My Mind's Eye Life Stories Collection, Tattered Angels Frosty Glimmer Chips and Tim Holtz' Crackle Paint.

Birthday Camping

Steve asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday and seeing as I just got a new pair of snowshoes from him as my birthday gift, I decided I wanted to go camping. Some people think we were crazy camping in the dead of winter but I actually love it. Everything is so peaceful and serene.

Just Chillin' Outdoors

This is actually a 12 x 30 layout. The extra 6 inches are contained within the flap on left hand side. I use these things called Flip Flaps from Creative Memories which attach to my page protector to give me another 6 inches of layout space. Totally sweet for layouts with tons of photos.

Here's a look at what it looks like with the flap open:

Quality Time In The Woods Together

I love this paper line so much and couldn't wait to use it ... hey it had tent trailers on it, you know how hard that is to find? So I created the layout and then typed out the journalling and printed it out on acetate. When I put the journalling on the layout it seemed to get lost in the pattern of the paper. So I took some white acrylic paint and painted some very light, wide brushstrokes on the back of the acetate. Once it dried I put it on my layout and the journalling seemed to show up better. Problem solved!

Ooo ...

After 10 years of scrapbooking, I finally got up the nerve to submit one of my layouts for a contest thanks to some encouraging from Catherine. The contest is a sketch contest from Page Maps.

The prize is a boat load of My Mind's Eye products, which is one of my favorites product lines; in fact this whole layout is done with it! If I happen to win I will be getting a COMPLETE set of their Penny Lane collection that includes over 40 sheets of cardstock papers and cardstock die-cut papers, transparencies, die-cut shapes, frames and titles, rubs and stamps ... woozers!

This is the Sketch we had to work with:

And this is my interpretation of the sketch:
I admit a lot of work went into this layout. All the stitching was done by hand, I frayed the ribbon my self, inked all the pieces, sanded the picture and title edges, and flocked the tree branches I cut with my cricut. It was a lot of fun do even though it took me quite a bit longer than most of my other layouts take. Here's some close up shots for you: