Thursday, July 30, 2015

Christmas in July

Recently I was inspired by Patience Brewster and thought I would spread some early Christmas cheer! For those of you new to Patience Brewster, Patience is an artist of handmade and handcrafted unique gifts and ornaments. Here work is truly beautiful and I was more than happy to join them.

There are many reasons that I love the holiday-being together with my family, picking out our tree, buying and wrapping gifts, making cookies, waking up on Christmas morning....there is so much joy that surrounds December and I always aim to do my best to document this time of year. 

One of my personal holiday favorites is the return of the red cup at Starbucks. Nothing says Christmas is near better than the taste of a hot gingerbread latte!
 
Christmas in July

On this particular day last year it was raining, so I took my dog with us to pick up my son at school. Of course, I left early so I could swing by Starbucks before heading off to battle the masses of a rainy day school pick up!
 
Christmas in July
 
 
I used a mix of old and older Christmas products for this layout. One of the great qualities of holiday scrapping supplies is that they never seem to go out of style and because of this I give myself permission to keep it all! 

 
Christmas in July
 
 
Well, I will have to say that opening up my box of Christmas supplies has certainly ignited some excitement for the closer-than-you-think-it-is holiday season. And this is a good thing! I feel like hitting Pinterest and actually tackling some of those holiday crafts I always wish I had time to do ;).
 
Thanks for stopping by!
 
Michelle
 
 

 


Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Hip Kit Club: Float

Hello! Michelle here, starting us off on this last week of July with a new layout using the July Kits!
Today I am sharing a project featuring both a new fave photo and a new fave color combo.

Float

Lately I have found myself gravitating towards the color combination of aqua/turquoise and yellow. These last few weeks, these colors have been front and foremost in my mind and my pile of layouts can attest to this. Lucky for me, the July Kits are full of these colors!

Float 2

The polka dot paper, yellow frame, and clouds are a match made in summer!

Float 3

What colors are you loving right now? Are you super specific like me or are you all over of the rainbow? Whatever your colors of the moment, make sure and share your projects in our Member Forum on Facebook--I'd love to see them! 

Wishing you a great week.

Michelle


Tuesday, July 28, 2015

The Cut Shoppe: Sun-N-Fun

I was super excited when I saw the Make a Splash cut file pop up in The Cut Shoppe! I am a big fan of summer and all activities water and sun related, so these images are sure to make their appearance in many of my projects to come.

The Make a Splash cut file includes 5 pool themed icons, that can be used on your scrapbooking and papercrafting projects.

My favorite image from this set of cut files is the sun and I let that inspire this next layout, Sun-n-Fun!

Sun N Fun

One of the ways I like to use cut file shapes is to cut them out in more than one size and play around with their arrangement. I find that this is an easy way to not only make a project cohesive, but also to lead the eye around the page.

   Sun N Fun 2

All the supplies I used, minus the Fancy Pants pineapple flair and stickers from October Afternoon, are from Crate Paper's Poolside and I think that it just might be new favorite Crate collection. The colors and patterns have been ones that I keep pulling out for projects--they just seem to go with everything I am scrapping right now. That's a good thing too because I may or may not have bought the entire collection ;).

Sun N Fun 3 

Overall, I certainly love the little bit of sunshine that the cut file brought to my layout :). Wishing you a great day!

Michelle 

   

Monday, July 27, 2015

The Cut Shoppe & CSI

This month The Cut Shoppe teamed up with CSI (Colors Stories Inspiration,) a fun challenge blog.  Here's a little bit about CSI taken straight from their website:

CSI is a scrapbooking challenge that inspires you to try new color schemes and to tell your stories. Our case files provide inspiration that will get you thinking about scrapbooking in a whole new way. A new case file opens for investigation the first, second, and fourth Friday evening of each month at 6:00 p.m. EST. CSI is all about inspiration and sharing and, most important, fun! We can't wait to see the stories you'll tell and the art you create!

This past week it was my turn to take on Case File No. 171:


To play along I needed to keep with the color scheme provided, use at least two pieces of evidence, and one testimony. Here is what my investigation turned up:

Celebrate 4

From the evidence, I chose to go with a banners, triangles, wood (the brown is a wood grain paper), and something transparent. My testimony was the documentation of my birthday celebration. To help incorporate these into my layout I used two separate cut files from The Cut Shoppe-A Banner Day and It's My Party:

The A Banner Day cut file includes 4 banner themed icons, that can be used for your scrapbooking and papercrafting projects. The It's My Party cut file consists of 6 party themed icons, that can be used for your scrapbooking and papercrafting projects.

Here are some closeups of the details:


Celebrate 3

 Celebrate 2

There is still plenty of time to play along with Case File No. 171, so make sure to stop by CSI and check it out!  I had quite a bit of fun going through my supplies and picking out items that I thought might work. I really appreciated the opportunity to tackle this challenge and am looking forward to seeing everyone else's take on it!

Michelle



Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Hip Kit Club: Hello Ladies

Hi guys! Today I am back to share a new layout featuring the kits from The Hip Kit Club. I was recently super inspired by fellow Design Team member Missy Whidden's use of a kraft colored background, so much so that when I went to work on this next layout I started by pulling out a sheet of Kraft from the July Cardstock Kit and let that be my starting point.

Hello Ladies

It used to be pretty common to find kraft in scrapbooking galleries and I thought it was fun to bring this trend back and I really appreciate the inspiration Missy's project provided.

  Hello Ladies 2

The Crate Paper chipboard pieces in the July Main Kit really made embellishing my layout pretty easy. The combination of the chipboard plus the Simple Stories frame and October Afternoon flair make me think that these three items must have been made for each other because they go together so well!

Hello Ladies 3

I don't know about you, but I really dig a good, bright red and I made sure to add some to my layout. The sentiment on the Elle's Studio tag pretty much summed up my feelings about this fun and funky photo of my daughters. 

My first few projects that I have made with the July Kits have been such a breeze to make which, in my opinion, really goes to prove just how well the kits at Hip Kit Club are put together. 

Looking forward to sharing more with you next week!

Michelle

Monday, July 20, 2015

Hip Kit Club: August Reveal

The beautiful August Kits from the Hip Kit Club were revealed this past week and today I want to share them with you !

This month's kits are a fun combination of some super fun products which include the newest releases from both Crate Paper and Pink Fresh. Here is the line up of kits for August (which I have linked up for you!):


Picture of         August 2015 Main Kit


Picture of         August 2015 Embellishment Kit



Picture of         August 2015 Project Life Kit


Picture of         August 2015 Color Kit


Picture of         August 2015 Cardstock Kit


Picture of         August 2015 Paper Kit

Awesome aren't they? Did you spy all the Crate Paper Wonder in there? Such a beautiful kit!

Michelle

Friday, July 17, 2015

Hip Kit Club: Happy Days

Hi guys! Today I am super excited to share my first layout made with the July Kits from the Hip Kit Club!

When I saw that some of October Afternoon's latest collection Summertime was going to be included in this month's goodies, I was stoked! And finally, when my box arrived, they were the first things I pulled out when I sat down to make this next layout:

  Happy Days 

I have some major love for my square punch and it made this layout come together pretty quickly. I had initially thought to make two rows of squares that went all the way down the page, but I stopped midway through simply because I liked it.

  Happy Days 3 

When it came time to embellish, I went with two simple clusters made up of a mix of the Elle's Studio die cuts, Crate Paper chipboard pieces, and enamel dots from OA.

  Happy Days 2 

Don't forget, the Hip Kit Club is still running a fun special for new subscribers-here's the details:

Paper_Michelle

Wishing you a great day!

Michelle