Our little one turned 2 last month and we had her party just a few weeks ago. It was a great time with LOTS & LOTS of toddlers, ha!

I chose to do a rainbow party theme this year, full of fun bright colors. Truth be told, I was a bit stumped on what to make for party favors. Since we were having Brooke's music teacher come and play music for the kids, I figured it would be perfect to make streamers they could use during the music portion, and then have them to take home. It worked out perfectly!

These are simply long pieces of gorgeous satin ribbon (thank you, Papermart!) tied onto plastic shower curtains rings (IKEA). The rings are the perfect size for toddler fingers to slip their hands through. All you have to do is tie the ribbon, finish off the ends & you're ready to go!

Here are the streamers hanging up outside before the party started. It was a gorgeous day so the party was mostly outside. These double as decorations, too. Double score!!

The birthday girl figuring out how to work her fancy rainbow streamer...

I even filmed a video showing you how to make these gorgeous rainbow streamers. Thanks to the awesome folks over at Papermart for offering me this amazing ribbon at a great price! The quality of this ribbon was incredible - and really made all the difference in how these turned out. They were a huge hit - all the kids loved having one to take home with them!

The exact ribbon I used from Papermart was 1-1/2" X 50 yards of the Double Face Satin Ribbon. I ordered one roll of each of the following colors:

Red
Tangerine
Daffodil
Emerald
Royal
Purple

You can watch the video below, or click here to watch directly over on YouTube. Enjoy!!

disclaimer: I contacted Papermart regarding their selection of ribbon. I was offered a discount in exchange for a writeup/review of their product. All views expressed are my own - I truly only review products on my blog that I actually USE and ENJOY!

Hi everyone, first off - thank YOU for all the interest in my Craft Room clean out. I had an amazing response and was able to sell most everything I posted. There are still a few fun things left, so if you haven't checked it out yet - click here to visit my Facebook page. Thanks!

Today I have a Halloween themed layout to share...

I have so many Halloween photos that I need to scrapbook - at first I was overwhelmed by just how many I would like to get scrapped. I decided to not try and squeeze them all into one or two layouts, there's no need! My strategy is to choose a few favorites from one of our many Halloween activities and get them into a layout. I will then choose another few I like and do another, etc. - I have plenty of fun Halloween supplies to use - and we all know that I'm not afraid to buy more goodies if I need to. HA

The other tip that I had to share regarding this layout is all about inspiration. I have a very busy 2 year old - so my crafting time is limited! I try to make the most of it - so I am 100% OK with pulling inspiration and "scraplifting" when I see a great idea that I love. There's no shame in it! I always make sure to give full credit for the original idea, of course. This page is based mostly off this awesome layout from Laura Vegas. Thank you Laura for the wonderful inspiration!

This entire layout was created using the Witch Hazel collection from October Afternoon.

I love these darn photos - they are some of my all time faves of Brooke. She was roughly 6 months old and that tongue just kept popping out...! So cute!

I cut the "BOO" letters out with my Silhouette, as well as the spider web background. The other letters are American Crafts Typo Thickers in Peacock Blue. For the journaling, I simply printed it out onto white cardstock and cut into strips. I distressed the strips just a bit with black ink to make them blend a bit with the rest of the layout. There's also some touch of sewing on this layout - all with black thread.

Hi everyone! Do you already follow me on Facebook? If not, be sure to go there & follow my page! I'm cleaning out my craft room this week and I've just posted an album FULL of items that need a new home - please check it out if you can!

I've had a stash of papers and stickers sitting in a pile for a while now, begging to be used in a 4th of July-themed layout. I finally decided to use last years photos and put together this layout, it was so much fun to make!

I pulled inspiration from this great layout that I found via Pinterest. I really loved the use of the long banners on the layout - especially since it ties in so nicely with the flag theme of 4th of July.

I filled in this page with a lot of details: some journaling and stamping to help tell the story of the day. I've been doing more & more stamping on my layouts lately - I really like the look of it.

Those small wooden stars are Studio Calico wood veneer embellishments - love the dimension they add.

For the title, I first cut out the "Stars & Dots 4x6 Project Life Card" from Loni Stevens using my Silhouette. Because the cardstock was a bit thick, I made sure to use the "double cut" setting. I have found this helps when using Stampin Up or Papertrey Ink cardstock. The title was cut using the "July 4th Phrase" - both of the cut files are found in the Silhouette online store.

I've listed full supplies below (aside from the Silhouette cut files which are linked above). Thanks for checking out my layout! I know I've been posting a bunch of scrapbooking lately - I'm on a roll, ha! I hope to create some Teacher related gift items soon.

I'm back today with the final months from Brooke's Monthly Layout project. SO glad to have them all complete!

(If you'd like to catch up on months 1-9, I've linked them at the bottom of this post). If you click through previous posts, I link almost all details on supplies used, but if you have any questions just leave me a comment and I will do my best to help you out!

Month Ten...

Month Eleven...

...and finally, Month Twelve!

I hope you've enjoyed following along with Brooke through this project. Now that she's almost 2, I will need to do an "update" - something to track all the funny, silly & amazing things she is up to. It's very important to me to keep track of these things so that I can put them into a scrapbook as I have the time.

If you'd like to look back on previous monthly layouts, I'm linking them for you here:

So as I mentioned the other day, our little one is turning 2 in just a few short weeks! That means I am in total party-planning mode, of course!

The theme for Brooke's 2nd birthday party is going to be fun & bright rainbow colors. I couldn't think of anything more exciting than that - as she's not really *into* anything at the moment, yenno? She just likes to have fun & play. So, we are going with bright & fun colors.

Between her playgroup and friends/family who have children, she really has a nice little group of friends. We are keeping this years party smaller than last year. Trying to focus on the kiddos, with just a few adults- we even have one of Brooke's Music teachers coming to play songs and fun music for the kids to dance and sing to. It should be a good time for the little ones!

Even though we are scaling down the size of her party, I still wanted to make fun decorations. I've been working on creating some of this rainbow garland and I must say, it works up SO fast! So I'm sharing it with you to show you how quickly you can pull together something handmade for not very much time, or money.

The first thing I did was cut a bunch of circles out of cardstock using some Quickkutz Dies and my Cuttlebug (if you have a BigShot, it's essentially the same thing).

I'm not using my favorite prized stamping cardstock for these - just some older no-name paper that I had lying around in my stash. You could also use your Silhouette or Cricut to cut these out - but I found that doing it this way worked just fine. I was able to cut through 3 pieces of cardstock at once, so it went pretty quick.

If you are using your Cuttlebug, the sandwich you will need to use is: A plate, C plate, cardstock, B plate. (PLEASE ignore the extremely ratty looking plates in this photo...my Cuttlebug is old...and well loved!)

I cut out 3 different circle sizes. I started with the biggest circle, which I believe is 3 3/4" and took the next 2 down from there. I cut a whole bunch of each color. I then arranged them: Large-->Medium-->Small, Large-->Medium-->Small, etc. and ran some stitching right down the center, to secure them together:

I just fed each circle through and kept the machine going in one straight line. I varied the lengths of each strand. Some have 12 circles, some are longer and have 15 circles. When I hang them, I will alternate the length of each strand to give the garland more depth.

Once each strand was complete, I used an embroidery thread to poke a hole through the top circle on each strand.

I then used that hole to thread some clear fishing string through and tie a loop:

From here, you can use an existing curtain rod to loop each strand of garland onto, which is how I plan on displaying mine. Here is a photo of the garland I've completed thus far, hanging in the window of my craft room. I completed these in just a few hours time - definitely a project you can tackle in one afternoon!

so fun! I can't wait to complete the decorations for her party. I will be sure to have a full blog post & writeup afterwards, so you can see all the other stuff, too

Believe it or not, our little one is turning TWO in just a few weeks. GAH! Can't believe how fast the time has flown by. With her 2nd birthday rapidly approaching, I figured it made sense to...uhhh...finish her monthly layouts from YEAR ONE!?!?

I was doing pretty well and completed the layouts for months 1-8 many months ago. (Although I slacked and only blogged months 1-6)...and up until last week, I hadn't even printed the photos for months 9-12. I was determined to finish these though - I really want this part of my scrapbook album to be complete. I *know* I will treasure it for years to come, and I hope someday Brooke will, too.

(If you'd like to catch up on months 1-6, I've linked them at the bottom of this post)

Today I'm sharing months 7, 8 & 9 with you:

I am following the same formula as previous layouts: still using the monthly belly stickers as the title for each page. These were the stickers that I would put on Brooke's onesie each month when I took her photos. They are SUCH a great & simple way to document the first year of your baby's life! We grabbed ours on Etsy - if you do a search for "monthly onesie stickers" you will get a bunch of options. I would link to our exact purchase, but it appears the shop is closed & her feedback seems to be quite poor

For the journaling, I just printed the monthly summaries that I typed after each photoshoot. I am *so* very glad that I kept these monthly notes. They are fun to look back on, and I know I would not have remembered the tiny details without having them documented.

...her spunky attitude really blossomed in month 9

I use SO many supplies in these layouts, although the main items I incorporate into each month are: Storyboard templates from Kerri Bradford (this is what I use to layout & print my photos into a collage). The designer paper is from the "Just Add Cake" Designer paper from Stampin Up! (it's on super clearance right now so grab some before it retires!!) Spiral Border Punch...lots of Ali Edwards stamp sets...and various stickers from all sorts of October Afternoon collections.

I will be back soon with the last 3 months! If you'd like to see months 1-6, I've linked them below

Instagram is a wonderful thing...with all those awesome filters and fun effects. I am really loving it to share photos and remember the little things in our everyday life. I also love that I stumbled upon this great video from 2Peas on how to print your Instragram photos using Lightroom.

I will admit that I *could* have figured out printing them with Photoshop, but I was looking for a quick & easy way to "mass print" - if you will. I promise if you watch this video, you will see how simple it really is. Such a timer saver!

After I watched the video, I knew exactly the layout I wanted to make. In fact, don't laugh at me...but I could not get this idea out of my head. I would lie in bed at night just thinking of creating this layout!! Ha!! So finally I decided to get out a pen and make a sketch of this idea, before I lost it forever (something I've been trying to do more of lately).

Here are some shots of my completed layout. I printed my photos as 2.5" x 2.5" squares onto a sheet of 8.5" x 11" matte photo paper (I get mine at Staples). Since I did them at that size, I was able to fit all 12 of these photos onto 2 sheets 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper. From there, I just had to cut them out and adhere to the layout.

I've decided I may use this as a rough template to create future Instagram layouts, since it came together quite quickly. Right now I'm more about getting the memories scrapped than making everything into the perfect scrapbook page. I think this works up fast, and gives me the option to add more photos/no title if I wanted, etc.

I used this font to cut the word "Instagram" using my Silhouette, and added the rest of my title using some Thickers - I like the pop of color the letters add to the page. The other embellishments on this page are mostly from the SN@P! collection from Simple Stories. I love this collection so so very much - it's so versatile. (I've listed full supplies at the bottom of this post)

I also added some stitching across the title. I wanted to give the word some dimension without doing too much. Stitching seemed to be just the right amount, and was the finishing touch!

Are you all on Instragram? You can follow me here if you'd like.

It's time for another Christmas layout...in March! Ha! Up here in MA, winter has decided to stick around - even though tomorrow is *technically* the first day of Spring. It's literally DUMPING snow right now. To say that I'm annoyed would be a huge understatement. I love snowboarding & all...but I have a toddler who is very active and eager to play outside. Needless to say, we are all dying for warmer weather...!

Anyhoo, all this time indoors has allowed me to tackle some layouts. Today I'm sharing my layout for our 2012 Holiday Cards. We had some many awesome cards that it took me 3 whole 12"x12" pages, and I still have MORE to scrap! I figured I'd at least get these blogged...

Pages 1 & 2:

...and page 3:

I've been trying to catch up on my scrapbooking lately (like I will EVER be caught up, ha!!) - and I decided to tackle our family Christmas cards. I like to do a layout each year displaying the card we sent out to family & friends.

This was our Christmas card that we sent out a few years ago when I was pregnant with Brooke. Yes yes, the year 2010. I told you I was behind...!

We got quite a few laughs from this card...it was a pretty fun idea. It was a great way to announce our pregnancy since a lot of people still didn't know. I think Pete's belly was a bit bigger than mine...even at 24 weeks!!

Here is our card from 2011. The photos of this are not that great, I apologize. I used some white shimmery mist on the background of this layout to tone down the green chevron pattern, and it reflected pretty badly when I tried to photograph it.

Look at how little & cute she was! Gahh!!

And here we have this past years card - 2012. I just completed this layout and even filmed a little video of me completing the layout for you to see! I used mostly all October Afternoon's Make it Merry Collection for this, with a little bit of Carta Bella thrown in. Our card this year had photos on the front & back so I had more space to fill with photos, which was nice.

You can watch the video of me completing this layout below, or over here on Youtube. I didn't talk through the video...just music this time. I tried to put captions in to explain things where it was needed, but let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!