Studio Calico SONNET Layouts

Happy to be contributing to the Studio Calico November kits! This month is called SONNET and all of the kits are simply stunning. Here are the two layouts I made for the Creative Team Gallery:

SERIOUSLY CHEERS by Paige Evans

DESCRIPTION: This layout was inspired by the rainbow hearts paper in the Sonnet scrapbook kit! I saw them, fell in love with them, then fussy cut them.

JOURNALING SAYS: We are so incredibly proud of you for finishing three years of pre-school! Bring on kindergarten! You are so smart and love to learn and ask questions and you're already such a great reader! But most of all you love to color which warms our artsy hearts.

HOW TO: Fussy cut all the hearts. Cut a heart from scrap cardstock and use it as a template to draw three hearts on a white cardstock background. Fill in the big hearts with the colored hearts then hand stitch around them using white floss to help define the edges. Place a small photo in each heart layered on a die cut and embellished with more die cuts. Add "seriously cheers" transparency words on the left and journal above.

SUPPLIES: Scrapbook kit: Sonnet by Studio Calico; Floss: DMC; Pen, adhesive: American Crafts

DETAIL SHOTS:

*********************************************************************************

SAY WHAT by Paige Evans

DESCRIPTION: I used the cards from the Documenter kit as patterned paper since I don't really do "Project Life" - this here blog is my "Project Life" :)

JOURNALING SAYS: Lately you've been saying things that just don't make any sense whatsoever! For example: "I can't know how!" "I didn't do nutthing!" "Where are we going when we sleep?" "What happens if you put a teapot on your head?" "Stop coffeeing me!" Where are you learning these funny phrases? Probably YouTube :) Love you silly sweet Jan!

HOW TO: Punch speech bubbles from the Documenter cards and then adhere them to a pink cardstock background. Make room for a photo and layer it over a floral transparency. Add a letter sticker to each speech bubble and add fussy cut flowers, die cuts, stickers, star die cuts, and puffy heart stickers to the mix. Journal with a pencil at the top.

SUPPLIES: Scrapbook and Documenter kits: Sonnet by Studio Calico; Pencil: Bic; Adhesive: American Crafts

DETAIL SHOTS:

Fun to play along again with the Studio Calico kits!

continue reading

October 2016

October is my favorite month of the year! Gimme all the candy! I've been saving photos from our various activities throughout the month for this one post, so bear with me :) To celebrate my love of Halloween, I've made "October-daily" albums for 2013, 2014, 2015 (I went back and did 2013's just a few weeks ago and pictures for the 2012 version are being printed as we speak!). Here is a quick flipthrough of each album:






Here are a few highlights from this month culminating in Trick-or-Treating just a few hours ago:

First signs of Halloween: candy at the commissary! Granted this was back at the beginning of September and I swear to myself I won't get excited until October 1st :)

New Halloween PJs!

Jerry from the pumpkin patch brings his pumpkins to the top of the hill a couple days a week. We got ours a few days before October 1st... my bad!

I spent a morning decorating - once again using mostly things from Fox's 1st birthday party way back in 2011!

This dresser held a few things for a couple weeks and then we installed shelves on the wall, see next pic.

Polish pottery pumpkins & skull adorning the staircase.

This is our 4th Halloween here in Germany. We have run out of candy every single year within an hour of the start of trick-or-treating!

This year we almost filled a huge plastic storage bin and we still ran out after 2 hours! Kids be crazy wantin' candy!

The grotesque mask vendor is back at the PX!

Colorful gourds at the commissary.

I love scary movies. Want a list of my favorites? Okay :)
The movie that scared me the most of any movie I've ever seen and by which I judge all scary movies is Paranormal Activity, the first one. I didn't sleep well for days after seeing that one! I enjoy the other 5 that have followed, but the first is still the best. In no particular order, these are the movies I have playing in the background all day, every day, during the month of October:
Hocus Pocus
Casper
Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen's Double Double Toil and Trouble
Nightmare Before Christmas
Halloween
Rose Red
The Haunting
Blair Witch Project (this one gets scarier every time I watch it!)
Poltergeist (original version, the new one is meh)
The Ring
Silence of the Lambs
Signs
Sixth Sense
The Shining
Ghostbusters (old and new - the new one is HYSTERICAL)

Making a Halloween layout while Rachel and Joey chill on the couch with Rose Red playing on the TV.

My cat.

Working on my 2013 October mini album - it's never too late to document memories!

I still love these Halloween quilts my mom made for Fox and Jane a couple years ago! Malm - I need Christmas ones!

For one of the two Activity Days of the month we decorated sugar cookies. This kid went so overboard lol.

Disneyland Paris trip which I blogged about a few days ago.

On my first Saturday at home since AUGUST (10 weeks of traveling/teaching in a row about did me in!) we made Halloween sugar cookies.

Fox's homemade zombie costume.

All dressed up for the Fun Run!

The track was filled with booths from different Army groups and associations and we "track-or-treated" at each one.

Jane was all about it. Fox was fighting a little cold and wasn't his enthusiastic self, but he was still such a good trooper.

She has been wearing her bat costume for 6 weeks straight.

Chris went down to Garmisch for a week for his annual dental conference and I made the kids' favorites for dinner: nachos, rice, and pineapple - served on Halloween dishes.

2nd Activity Days of the month - I brought along the kids because Chris was still gone. We played lots of games!

Including Bob for Apples.

I got this skirt for Jane's bat costume so she could be a 'pretty bat' but she straight up refused to wear it so I took pictures of her in it to sell on our local "take my stuff" facebook page.

Do you see the freaking creepy face in the dress?!? 100% not even joking I didn't photoshop that on there. So spooky. So glad to be rid of it!

But not before Rachel took a cat nap on it.

Blue skies in October MUST be documented.

Our ward "fall festival". WE WANTS THE TRUNK-OR-TREAT!! :)

Tower Barracks. Our home for only 9 more months.

After the ward chili cook-off Chris and I went on a date and saw Inferno. Very different ending than the books! It was really fun to see all the sites in Italy we've been to.

Sunday afternoon we carved pumpkins! Chris' is a tooth with a cavity lol. Fox's is the dragon and mine is the plain ol' Jack-o-Lantern face.

There is a family on our block who goes all out every year - apparently she's a professional balloon twister - neato!

They have no personality whatsoever... False, they have sooo many facial expressions I couldn't pick just one!

These faces tho!!!
 And they're off!

 Fox whimped out after only 15 minutes because his hands were cold, poor guy, so he went back home and passed out candy with Chris while I took Jane around. She wore ME out! She could have kept going but I was tired! She's a girl after my own heart. Way to go Jane!

 Trick-or-treating:

Loot! I think I ate 7 peanut butter cups... diet starts tomorrow???

 Our family on the Halloween Eve.

Happy Halloween 2016!

continue reading