Hey everyone! Welcome to my brand new weekly Monday feature, "Kit It Together". I'm sure most of us are plagued by growing stashes of scrapbooking goodies which can sometimes cause us to feel overwhelmed and leave us unsure where to start. Or maybe that's just me, so forgive me for speaking for all of us! ;) So, to that end, I'm going to start kitting up my supplies to create my very own "free" kit.

On the first Monday of the month, I'll be showing you a kit I put together with supplies from my own stash. I thought long and hard about what *I* would want in a kit I were to purchase. Here's what I came up with:
*8 sheets of patterned paper
*4 sheets of cardstock
*at least 5 different types of embellishments
*washi tape
*ribbon or twine
*a stamp
*large letter stickers
*small letter stickers
*some sort of sticker embellishment sheet
*3 - 5 die cuts

I've owned a Cricut for over a year and have not used it nearly as often as I would like. Because of that, it will be a long time before I can justify owning a Cameo. So, as part of my kitting project, I thought I would include some precut die cuts that I could incorporate into my projects.

Now that I've got that covered, what exactly do I hope to do with my own personal monthly kits? I intend to use it to create at least 4 layouts and 1 card. Anything more than that would be awesome. In addition to the kit, I may use additional white cardstock to mat photos, adhesive, and other tools (such as a Tiny Attacher) I'll share these projects with you each Monday for the entirety of the month.

Without further ado, here's my kit for March:

Contents:
Patterned Paper (1 of each)-
Echo Park (Vintage Fans - This & That)
Echo Park (Instamatic - This & That)
Jillibean (Red Salt - Soup Staples II)
Lily Bee Designs (Uppity - Persnickety)
October Afternoon (Wooden Crate - Farm Girl)
Pebbles (Nellie - Walnut Grove)
Pink Paislee (Clam Chowder - Nantucket)
Studio Calico (Garbo - Darling Dear)

Cardstock (forgive me, as I have no idea as to the specifics of the company or exact color name of each piece, so I'm going to assume they are either American Crafts - most likely or Bazzill and I'm going to make up my own names for them for now, anway.) -
1 white
1 kraft
1 dark olive green
1 sea blue

Embellishments -
Buttons (October Afternoon - Farm Girl Collection)
wood veneer (unknown)
Do-Dads (October Afternoon - 9 to 5 Collection)
2 flair buttons (A Flair For Buttons, Studio Calico)
circle garland (My Mind's Eye - Kraft Funday Collection)
washi tape (7 Gypsies)
ribbon (The Girls Paperie)

Stickers -
Chipboard letters (Basic Grey)
Small alphas (Studio Calico-Abroad Collection)
Accent stickers (October Afternoon-Schoolhouse Collection)

Stamp - Jenni Bowlin

Drop by next Monday for my first completed project. And please let me know if you are playing along by creating your own kit!

As always, thanks for reading (and sorry for the giant post)!

A Baby and a Pair of Glasses

Hi all!  I'm back with another layout.  This one featuring my precious niece, Ellie.  :)

Glasses

Backstory:  My sister (Ellie's mom) wears glasses.  Somehow, Elle got a hold of them and was attempting to put them on.  She couldn't quite get it figured out.

Okay, so there's all kinds of stuff going on in this layout.  I created this little Chevron type design using an alternating mixture of washis and strips of patterned paper.  I did some machine stitching right through the center. 

Meanwhile, I found these little red epoxy stickers I'd had for years and years, so started out using them all over the page for a kind of confetti effect. Weeeelllllll....it looked like I had blood spatters all over the page, so that just wouldn't do! I went back and covered them up (at least partially) with some legitimate confetti. Much better!

Supplies:  patterned paper - Studio Calico, Crate Paper, Bella Boulevard, Lily Bee Designs; stickers - Crate Paper; letter stickers - American Crafts; buttons - Basic Grey; twine - Divine Twine; flag - Elle's Studio; punch - Jenni Bowlin (Fiskars); washi tape - Bazzill, Cosmo Cricket, Amy Tangerine (American Crafts); other - epoxy stickers, confetti

Thanks for reading!!

It's Been Awhile....

Hey kiddies!  I have been both busy and in a creative slump lately, so just haven't posted.  I'm leaving in a couple of weeks for a 5 week stay with my girlfriend in Ireland, so won't be around all June and most of July. 

Anyhoooo...thought I'd share this layout I recently crafted featuring the amazing 35mm May kit from Studio Calico.

Muckross House

Last summer, on my visit to Ireland, Lis and I stayed a night in Kilarney and drove the Ring of Kerry the next day. On our arrival, we visited Killarney National Park which was absolutely stunning. I'd love to go back there! Muckross House is a big attraction there. It's beautiful and has an incredible garden. We took lots of shots here, so the Heidi Swap mini book that came with the SC kit was just the thing to include as many photos as I could of this beautiful place.

Supplies:  patterned paper - Echo Park, Crate Paper; cardstock - American Crafts; mini book - Heidi Swap; embellishments - October Afternoon, Heidi Swap, Hello Forever, 7Gypsies, Jenni Bowlin, Crate Paper, Echo Park; letter stickers - American Crafts, October Afternoon, Basic Grey; stamps - Studio Calico, American Crafts;  other - ribbon, tape

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Snack Break

Hey all! Happy Friday! I thought I'd round out the week of London layouts with another page I did featuring the fabulous Lisa! I actually did this one several months ago and just never got around to posting it. 
In retrospect, I probably should have gone back and photographed this layout again, as my project photography skills were a bit lacking back when I took these pictures, but I hope you will forgive me this once!

It's a simple little page, but I really like how it turned out.

Snack Break

We were touring The Tower of London when these photos were taken. Neither of us anticipated the enormity of the place, so Lisa started getting a little famished and took a break to eat a snack. She's just too cute!

Supplies: patterned paper - October Afternoon, My Mind's Eye; tape - 7Gypsies; fabric tag - Ormolu; letter stickers - October Afternoon, American Crafts; other - cardstock

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great weekend!