Tuesday, March 3, 2026

A Box Full of Sweet Love

Last year I embarked on a few explosion boxes to highlight the first few months of my precious daughter's life.  This was especially important for us since on of her grandmother's lives so far away!

Below you can see the top side of her completed box. I went with a very clear "purple" theme here 😂

While the papers, elements, etc. came from a past Tres Jolie Kit Club kit, the box was straight from Scrapbook.com and purchased right after watching one of their Thursday Lives.  I purchased both the white and the craft boxes (this is the craft box.)


On the lid and the outside "walls" I used plenty of texture paste and gel medium to make the box strong.  I know how much I love to use heavy embellishments and I didn't want the box to fall apart.  Although I didn't use many of them, the explosion boxes come with several additional envelopes, pockets, etc. that can be used inside the box.  For the purpose of this project I just wanted to fit as many photos front as center as I could.


Below you can see the outside "walls" and the lid.  I used my Cricut to cut most of the paper pieces to cut down on time.  A bit of distressing and a lot of ink later, the final result was exactly what I wanted! 😍


Final result below.  For the explosion panels inside I used much smaller pieces of paper so that more of the craft background would show through.  The box in the middle is one of the extra pieces that came with the explosion box.  Since Grammy lives so far away, we sent her a "little rock from Little Rock" inside the little box 💜
 

And there you have it!  (Ignore the top of my feet in the picture above!)  My GoPro recently lived it's last day, so once I get a new camera system I'll put together of video of how easily this all comes together!  Until then, thanks for checking this out!

xoxo,
Mel

Sunday, February 1, 2026

An Obligatory 2 Month Pic!

It's hard to believe that I took this photo almost exactly a year ago!  Spoiler alert! For all the photos I took this first year of A's life...I only managed to catch about 7 or 8 months on this cute little butterfly mat.  And at least 1/2 of those were NOT taken on the actual "month" date.  🤷

Oh well, at least I have a few of them taken and at some point I will get them scrapped or put into her baby book (also a consistent work of art in progress!)

Below is a lovely, sweet layout of my teeny, tiny, TWO month-old baby...(back when she was teensy weensy!)


Above you can see where I used some ATC sized cards, and did the standard "distress and ink the edges."  I love getting to use "other" colors of ink when I ink edges.  Meaning, I love the vintage look of using neutrals and browns (think TH Antique Linen, Vintage Photo, etc.) but I also love color matching and I did that here with some green tones!

Below is a close up some flowers and chip board.  Again, with the chipboard I used an array of green colors.  I really love how the chipboard turned out and how it compliments the flowers!


I also distressed the edges of the frame for the photo and used some of the greens to color them as well.  A few stickers and sentiments to decorate the frame and VOILA!


Along the way I have gathered at three packages of these bubbly/bauble embellishments so expect to keep seeing them for the foreseeable future 🤣🤣  But they are super cute and elegant and fit in perfectly with this LO!


There ya have it!  A mere 12 months later I'm finally getting this one posted! (And let's be fair...I didn't get around to scrapping it until the summer at least!)

Thanks for looking around!

xoxo,
Mel


 

Thursday, January 22, 2026

Prom Night!!!

But probably not the prom you're thinking of!  Every year one of my professional organizations hosts a conference...and just about every other year we get to dress up for the banquet (spoiler alert, this year has a '90s theme!) Last year at just about 2 1/2 months post partum we had KK (my mother) come up and watch A so we could dress up and go have some fun!  And now I'm finally getting around to preserving that memory! 🥰

Here is the full LO:


Since I'm still getting back into the groove of crafting on a regular basis, my kits are all over the place but I am still 100% sure this is a Tres Jolie Kit Club kit. I love how their kits have chipboard in almost every single kit.  One of my 2026 goals is to do more with chipboard.  As I'm getting caught up on A's baby book I'm finding myself using lots of chipboard, so if anyone has any ideas or techniques, HMU because I'd love to try them! :) 


This time around I used gesso, some pink metallic paint, a little bit of embossing powder and some metallic flakes on the chipboard! For the base, I started with a stencil and some pink paste to build a textured background on the paper and layered the chipboard over that.  I cut some phrases from papers in the kit and distressed and inked the edges.  I really didn't feel like the background screamed "Prom Party" enough so I used a few Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays to add some color splatters.


For the finishing touches, I added a few elements, some flowers and a bit of glass glitter and more metallic flakes


As you can see from the phrase above, "It's a beautiful day" and it truly was then and is today!  Thanks for checking out my page today!

xoxo,
Mel