Thankful... for Baby J

It fits that I share this album right around Thanksgiving... in case you didn't know, I have an adorable little nephew named Jordan. He just turned the big ONE at the end of October and I wanted to make him a little album documenting his first year. Well, of course it's not really for him, but for his momma and daddy. ;)

How does this connect to Thanksgiving? Well, I am very thankful for little J. He's the cutest little thing and has brought so much joy into our family. My parents love being "Papaw" and "Mamaw" and to see them just light up with Jordan is around is one of the cutest things ever. Not to mention getting to SPOIL a little nephew! It's a lot of fun. 

So here's a peek at the little book I made for baby J (that's what I like to call him... although he won't always be a baby!). I used a needle and embroidery floss to bind the little book together. Also, I had to use my phone to weigh down the cover or else it will flip open. Hah. Good thing I had just bought a new phone case.  

I mixed a lot of products in this album. I just dug though my stash and picked out things I wanted in the album. Baby things and not-so-baby things. I like the mix. 

On this last page, I put an envelope with some extra photos (more recent ones) inside. You can see a close-up of it a few pictures down. 

These photos crack me up... every time I would take my phone out and take a picture of J, he would totally ham it up for the camera and laugh and smile so much. He's adorable. :)

Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I think the thing I will be most thankful for this year is being home with my husband. :)

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Happy Happy Happy {summer vibes}

Hello! 

It's been a while! Well, I am now a MARRIED woman ;) and life is fabulous. Kevin and I got married on Saturday, November 12th, and the day was simply amazing. It was more than I had ever dreamed of, and everything went perfectly. I had several people tell me, "Be prepared for something to go wrong, because something will." But nothing really did! The night before the wedding, after rehearsal, there was a little scare that we didn't have the mom's corsages, but that was solved the next morning when we found them. 

I will try to share some photos of the wedding whenever I get them. I know it will be a while before we get the professional photos back, but I will have to ask around and see if anyone has some snapshots of our day. 

For our honeymoon, we spent a week at an all-inclusive resort in Cancun, Mexico. It. Was. Amazing. We didn't want to come home. :) But here we are. I guess there's this thing called reality. I am traveling with Kevin (he was already traveling for work before we got married), so I might be blogging more considering that I will be stuck in a hotel room a lot of the time! :P I'm looking forward to it though. I love traveling, plus having my hubby around will be a great plus. 

I suppose it's better late than never to share a card I made with my Summer Vibes collation. :) The collection is still available in the Pretty Little Studio shop, so make sure you pick some up before it is discontinued! I made this card for my good friend Katie back in September. I think this was the very first project I made with my Summer Vibes line and it's one of my favorites. It turned out even better than I had expected it to.  

To make the cute sentiment, I stamped the letters on various patterned papers (Shoreditch alpha stamp set from Kelly Purkey) and then cut them all out. I typed the extra parts of the sentiment (the "belated birthday" part) with my typewriter and then adhered it all down. I added some machine stitching to make the card more textured. Also, the gold polka dot pattern that I used for the background of this card is actually VELLUM, which I think is super cool. I'm a fan of gold foiled anything, though. 

I'm very happy with how this card turned out, and I hope Katie liked it too! :) 

Hopefully I'll be back soon with some more crafty adventures! 

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Holly Jolly is Here!

Yesterday I came home from West Virginia to a nice big box of my new Holly Jolly collection. Ahh, it's so cute. It's so exciting seeing things come together like I was imagining them.

I hope I get to share some projects made with these projects soon-- we will have to see because I'm getting MARRIED 10 days from now (whaaaa?! Seems like yesterday we got engaged). Maybe after the wedding and honeymoon I can create some fun projects with these awesome products. :)

Have you ordered your Holly Jolly products? Click HERE to do so if you haven't! 

me & my BIG ideas Favorites

It seems so weird to see my me & my BIG ideas family continue on into a new design team term without me. (cue sad face) I have thoroughly enjoyed the past 2 years that I have gotten to spend with them, and I will value that time forever. They're the reason I got to attend CHA this year and therefore the reason I got to meet so many awesome scrappy ladies! I'm so grateful for this awesome opportunity, and I'm looking forward to the future as well! 

I wanted to reflect some on my design team terms, and I have chosen several of my all-time favorite projects from the past 48+ projects I created for me & my BIG ideas.

This love page was a really personal, but fun, project. It's really neat to make these kind of pages because, here I am, a year and a half later, about to get married! Life is exciting and amazing. :) 

These notebooks were super fun to make.  

This Christmas garland was a favorite because of the simplicity and the POM POMS! I want to put pom poms on everything. :) I saw this super cute pom pom garland in the Christmas section at Hobby Lobby that I might have to go back and buy. It's super cute in person. ;)

I totally enjoyed making this walkthrough tutorial. Overhead scrapbook process are such a pain to make, but I think they look so awesome when it's all said and done. 

I did a LOT of HAPPY PLANNER™ project this past term, and this spread is one of my faves. So bright and cheery. 

And probably my favorite project of all.. this one. It was probably my most popular project as well. Maybe that's why I like it-- I know others liked it too. ;) 

Thanks for stopping by! It always means so much to me! 

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World Card Making Day Recap

Hello! I've been on a card making streak lately, and I couldn't let World Card Making Day go by without participating in a few of the challenges on the web! I made some cards for Studio Calico's challenges and also a few for Clique Kits' Facebook WCMD challenges. 

Here's the cards I made on World Card Making Day (only one of these got done on the actual DAY, K was at my house, so I didn't have much time for crafting ;) ).

This is one of my favorites... I love the texture and simplicity of this card. And also Kevin ended up writing me a note in this card (because it was just sitting on my desk). BEST use of one of my cards yet. :) So I actually get to keep this one! Yay! 

Hand lettered with an awesome brush pen that I'm just now learning how to use properly and painted by mwah. I love this one too. 

Which was your favorite? I think the rose one has my heart. <3 For more reasons than one! :D

Project Life Spread: OREGON

Slowly, but surely, I am catching up on my Project Life 2016 album. I would say total I am about two months behind. Maybe three. Anyways, I have a lot of pages that I have yet to share, but here's one from back in June when Kevin and I met in Oregon. It was a total blast and we made lots of good memories. :) We can't wait to go back. :)

I also have a process video for this page, so check that out if you're interested! :) Click HERE to view it on youtube if you don't want to watch it here. 

Introducing Holly Jolly!

Sleigh bells ring, are you listenin'? I'm SO excited for Christmas. For one, I'll be MARRIED by then and we will get to celebrate our first christmas together, and for two, I have a BRAND NEW collection with Pretty Little Studio that I will get to use for decorating all sorts of crafty things for the holidays. 

This collection- "Holly Jolly" is up for pre-order NOW through October 17, so get your order in now so you can have some fun crafting supplies to use to document your December. 

Here's a few of my favorites:

Santa's Sack patterned paper (also available in vellum). A black and white buffalo plaid? YES! I seriously need a lot of these. I will use them all. 

Stocking Stuffers patterned paper

Winter Wonderland patterned paper- Thanks to Kevin for suggesting to put the little snowcaps on the trees. He's got some great ideas. :)

RED METALLIC Peppermint diecuts. These will be adorable. 

Word diecuts. This time I included some words to build on the other words. For example "our traditions" or "holiday magic". I'm eager to use these. 

White acrylic words. In my handwriting. These will be in two sets. How CUTE are they?? And you can dot the i's with stars! 

Word Stickers- Yes. These will be used a LOT. Plus I made these (of course), so they're all words I'll definitely use. Ah, the perks of designing scrapbooking products. ;)

I hope you love this collection as much as I do!! Check out the entire collection HERE!