Merry Christmas 2021

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope everyone had a great time celebrating the holiday with family, friends, or even a few strangers!  So many things have changed in my life in 2021, and I'm looking forward to ringing in the new year soon and making even more great memories! 

A few weeks ago we went to look at Christmas lights and celebrate the holidays.  Lucky for us Santa was there to chat with the kiddos (big and small) and take some pictures!  Even luckier for me, my latest scrapbook kit from Tres Jolie had some great papers and "stuffs" to go right along with the picture!

Voila! Our "silly" photo with Santa and the LO surrounding it!

I started by doing something I normally do, using a stencil and spray stains to make all kinds of texture on the bottom layer so I can cover up all my texture work with with other papers, flowers and the like!  😂  Either way, you can still see some of the texture work!

Below is one of my flower clusters and a cute Christmas butterfly from Renea Bouquets shop. The scrapbook kit from Tres Jolie came with some great papers, but also a great ephemera pack and some rub-ons and stickers that let me make all kinds of great layers on this LO!

Below is another flower cluster, I loved how sparkly all the flowers were!  (I kind of love glitter more than a grown woman should!) The paper pack also came with two sheets of ephemera and if you look under the flower cluster you can see some of the holly berry ephemera that came in the paper pack! 

I loved the stars on the bottom layer of paper I used, but the blue colors, the flowers, and the holly from another paper really pulled me in, so I ripped some corners of the paper off the blue paper and inked the edges in red for a little festive fun!

Speaking of stars...I used the rub-ons page to rub a few blue stars on the LO.  The background paper had the same star pattern, and the contrast between the subdued stars and the bright stars really made a pop!

The flower above is a rub-on from the kit as well.  I topped the LO off with plenty of paint splatter.  I hope everyone had as great of time celebrating as I did making this LO!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

xoxo,

Mel

 

The Best Gals a Girl Could Ask For...

I truly have some of the best girlfriends anyone could ever want!  We've all served in the military together and through thick and thin, good and bad, we've always persevered to maintain our friendships.  I can't believe I only took three pictures of this project, so the post may be a little short, but I can totally supplement with sentiment and heartfelt words!  💓

So the photo was taken about a little over a year ago...Bettye (the pretty girl second from right) had just come back to Arkansas from a five year stint with the Army in Washington, D.C. and we celebrated her return with a brunch hosted by yours truly.  (For what it's worth, I put on a heck of a brunch spread...but that's a whole 'nother blog post!)

So we gathered the ladies, including a little one (a.k.a. future awesome girlfriend to her girlfriends) and had a great time celebrating Bettye.  We've since met up at least once a month just to have some girl time and make memories! (You must know that I have a whole scrapbook dedicated to this...)

Here is the LO:

I really loved all the blues in this kit.  This was (I think) a several years ago scrapbook kit from Tres Jolie Kit Club, but I'm having trouble finding the exact kit on the internet.  What that ACTUALLY means is that it's probably several kits that I married up into one amazing LO!

Below you can see some flower work and some painting/inking/distressing I did on a piece of chipboard.  I added the filmstrip piece on a whim because I love all the amazing photos we take of each other when we all get together.

Below is another shot of some flowers as well as some texture paste and stencil work.  I also used a ton of beads from the Renea Bouquets shop.  I love her Beautiful Beads and the colors of these worked perfectly with the colors in the papers and flowers.  I tucked some lace in behind the flowers because even though we're all military women, we're also pretty feminine too!!!  💓💓💓 

And there you have it!  Another project in the books, posted, and another memory captured forever!

xoxo,

Mel

 

An Oldie But a Goodie!

As I continue to go through the process of moving my into my new craft room (pics to come soon!) and going through all my stuff (including the files I've uploaded and forgotten to blog about!) I keep coming across little gems like this:

This is my sweet cousin's even sweeter baby (he's a lot bigger now! 😂)  I made this a few years back and I absolutely love the way I feel challenged when doing masculine LOs.  I love sweet, soft, and shabby chic...but there's something super fun about making a masculine LO especially when it's time to add the flowers!  

I had to look back on my notes from when I made this...so here goes using notes AND memories to talk about this LO! 😂😂😂

Below you can see some of the layering and spraying/misting I did (plus a few flowers in the flower cluster).  I absolutely LOVE using corrugated cardboard on LOs, especially masculine ones because it just adds an extra type of texture and the grooves are fun to tuck things in...like the copper microbeads I used all over this LO!  I also inked around the edge of one of the flowers and stuck some extra microbeads on there too!

Below you can see a closeup of one of the other flower clusters and even a "masculine" butterfly (😆💓) complete with some more microbeads.  

And...MORE flowers (in case you missed it I answered "YES" in a Tres Jolie Kit Club poll question the other day about whether or not flowers have a place on masculine LOs!)

And finally, some stencil layering and misting coupled with the microbeads.  Even though the picture in the LO had nothing to do with the beach, the shot below makes me think of the ocean in the early morning.  

And there you have it!  Just another LO that I've come across and can FINALLY get around to posting about!  I can't wait to show off my new craft space!  Thanks for looking around!

xoxo,

Mel