St. Patrick's Day Card

It's March, which means it's almost time for St. Patrick's Day! I come by my Irish genes from my maternal grandparents, so every year I make sure to send them a happy St. Patrick's Day Card.

Doodlebug Lots 'O Luck collection is still one of my favorite St. Patrick's Day themed collections. It's such a fun mix of bright colors and shades of green. 

I kept the design really simple with some layering of patterned papers, a simple sentiment, and some enamel dots for texture.

Time to drop this card in the mail and make some Irish soda bread. How do you celebrate St. Paddy's Day?

St. Patty's Day Card

It's March, and that means it's almost time for St. Patty's Day! I have a good bit of Irish blood in me, and I love sending a St. Patty's Day card our 2 out to the relatives who are responsible for my Irish heritage.

Half the fun every year is picking what St. Patty's or Irish themed collection to use. This year I decided to go with bright and whimsical with Doodlebug's Happy Go Lucky collection. While it's mostly shades of green, there are some fun rainbow pops (like the polka dot paper in the background of my card). And, who could resist those fun shamrocks. I love Doodlebug Doodle Pop stickers. I just happened to have a shamrock one on hand, so I used that to add dimension to my card.

I used a rub on from Moxxie for my sentiment. I liked how it blended in instead of becoming a focal point. I really wanted the eye to be drawn more to the Doodle Pop Sticker than the sentiment.

 

I don't always decorate the insides of my cards, but I felt like this one needed a little something. I used a simple cut out card from Happy Go Lucky to add a rainbow colored "Happy St. Pat's Day".

Do you make cards for St. Patty's Day or celebrate in any way? I love to hear your plans.

Halloween Mini Album

I know Halloween was last month, but I just finished up documenting our Halloween fun this year and I want to share my finished Halloween Mini Album.

I have photos of just a few of the pages from my mini album this year. I make one every year, because it's just so much fun. This year I used Doodlebug's Boos & Brews Collection. It's, of course, adorable and not too spooky.

I mixed and matched my pages in this album. I have horizontal pages that are 4" x 7" and vertical pages that are 5" x 6".

I used my We R Memory Keeper's Cinch to bind the album.  The binding runs the full length of the horizontal pages. The binding is centered on the vertical pages with about an inch of unbound edge above and below the binding.

If you do a lot of book, journal, or mini album binding, the Cinch is a must have tool. It's so easy to use!

I even threw in a little 4x5 page just for fun. I kind of like the "messy" look of this album with all of it's mismatched pages. 

Now that my Halloween mini album is done, I can move on to getting my December album prepared! What are you working on this week?

Leaf Pile Layout

We're having some really beautiful weather this fall. We're taking full advantage of the warm temps and sunny skies to play outside...and what's a a beautiful autumn weekend without playing in some leaf piles? 

After creating a layout with Doodlebug's fun camera Silhouette cutting file as a large focal point, I thought it would be fun to try using it in a different way. For this layout I used it as a repeating pattern to make my background.

I used Doodlebug's Flea Market for the layout, because it really is just the perfect fall paper collection. I love that the colors are a bit brighter than traditional fall paper collections. 

I'm really  enjoying playing around with my Cameo a bit more to create layouts, and this leaf pile layout is just another fun way to use my Cameo.

Camera Layout

Every year I do a formal style photo shoot with my kids. While I take lots of photos all year long, I like having something a little more official to document how much they change every year. Today I have a camera layout with one of the photos from my oldest's photos.

Doodlebug recently came out with cutting files for Silhouette Cameo that coordinate with their latest paper collections. Wen I saw the cute camera that goes with their Flea Market collection I go the idea to use it for a layout. I thought it would be fun to use the photo in the focal area of the camera.

I originally thought I'd cut the photo into a circle and place it directly in the center of the camera lens, but I decided that it looked just a little too matchy matchy. I decided to go with a square photo because it ended up being a bit more dynamic on the layout.

 I really love the detail of the dial. There are so many bits and pieces that give it more depth. So fun! All of the paper used to build the layout (and the camera) are from Doodlebug's Flea Market collection. It's a really bright, fun fall collection that also just happened to be perfect for this camera layout.

I can't wait to scrap more of this kid's photos from his annual shoot. He's growing up so fast! How often do you take formal photos of your kids?

Halloween Lunch Box Notes

Welcome to your next stop on the Glue Dots/Card Maker blog hop. If you just happened along my post today, you can start at the beginning of the blog hop by starting at the Card Maker blog. For this hop I'm sharing one of my very favorite things to create: lunch box notes. The ones I have today are, of course, Halloween lunch box notes.

My boys love getting silly joke notes in their lunch box, so I try to make different ones for them throughout the school year. I put these lunch box notes together with Doodlebug Boos & Brews (such a cute Halloween collection!), and Craft Glue Dots®, Glue Lines, and Pop Up Glue Dots®. 

I like to put the question part of the joke on a top flap of paper. I then attach that piece of paper with a Glue Dots® Glue Line over a piece of paper with the punch line to the joke on it. That way they can read the joke and then lift the flap for the answer.

I used some Pop Up Dots® to add the not too spooky characters to the cards. Using Pop Up Dots® helps add a little more interest to the notes.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed my Halloween Lunch Box Notes. You can keep up with what's happening on Taylor Stamped by following me on Facebook and Instagram.
Ready for more fun Halloween ideas? Check out the list below to hop on to the next stop on this fun blog hop.

CardMaker Blog

Amanda Tibbitts

Danielle Hunter

Kelly Gettelfinger

Dawn Barrett

Donna Budzynski

Grace Tolman

Janet Van Lone Trieschman

Kelly Hedgespeth

Kim Rippere

Catherine Scanlon

Melanie East

Robyn Power

You  Are Here ---> Samantha Taylor 

Go Here Next ---> Jeanne Streiff

Shannon Morgan

Tammy Santana

Glue Dots Blog

Thanksgiving Layout

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from American Crafts and  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.

Okay, so I know Thanksgiving is over, but I couldn't wait to scrap some Thanksgiving photos. After 14 Thanksgivings in a row at my in-laws, we had no plans for Thanksgiving this year (my in-laws traveled to Florida to visit my sister-in-law). I love to cook, so we decided to do it up big at home and have a Thanksgiving feast in our PJ's. A Thanksgiving like that deserves to be scrapped right away. Here's my Thanksgiving layout.

Almost everything in this layout is from Imaginisce's Give Thanks collection. It's got the beautiful deep, rich colors of a traditional fall collection, but I love that it weaves in a lot of Thanksgiving and family gathering themes, not just fall themes.

This adorable turkey is about the only element not from the Give Thanks collection. It's a doodle-pop sticker from Doodlebug. I took one look at that sticker and knew I had to use it on a layout. Good thing it fit so well!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving (and really long break, as we had snow days Monday and Tuesday!) and now I have the layout to prove it. Since our Thanksgiving is usually so rooted in tradition, it's fun to have a layout reminding us about that one time it was different. What are your Thanksgiving traditions?

Back to School Layout

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.

Last week I shared the layout I created of my older son's first day of school. Today I have my younger son's back to school layout. They both use Doodlbug Back to School collection, but they turned out very differently.

I played up the white in this collection a bit more with this layout. I added in pops of color with strips of patterned card stock and lots of bright colored stickers.

 My kids only care about one thing when back to school clothes shopping: their shoes. They're not allowed to wear them until the first day, so taking a photo of their new shoes has become a bit of a tradition. 

I love how Back to School manages to be playful and fun without being juvenile, because, as my growing boys like to remind me, they're not little kids anymore. What collections have you been gravitating towards for scrapping back to school photos this year?

Thanks for stopping by!

First Day Layout

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.

School started back up last month, so it's time to make a First Day layout to commemorate back to school. For my kids for the last few years, it's been all about the shoes, so you'll see a bit a of focus on those.

There was no question in my mind that I wanted to use Doodlbug Back to School for my kids' first day layouts this year. I've been itching to scrap with it since it came out this spring. It's bold and bright and lots of fun!

This kid always gives me multiple photos to work with for his first day layout. I think he has the desire to model buried way way deep down inside. There are so many fun papers in this collection, that I couldn't pick just a few...in fact I think I tried to fit them all on this layout!

To keep the patterns from getting overwhelming, I cut them into small strips, and then alternated between light and dark patterns. I also grouped the photos together to give your eye somewhere to focus. While I love these papers and stickers, my goal is still to always have the focus on the photos. Sticking the photo of the neon shoes right in the middle doesn't hurt either. 

...and back to school we go. I miss summer, but I sure do love to see my kids grow and learn over the year. Here's to making every day between the first day and the last day of school great!
Thanks for stopping by. 

Fuse Shaker Tag - Teacher Gift

Teacher Appreciation Week is next week (May 4 - 8), so today I have a really fun and easy to put together idea to share. I created some Fuse shaker tags to attach to a little gift.

First, here's what's inside the boxes:

It's a little manicure set: Hand lotion, nail file, and nail polish in the school's colors (our school has 2 mascots, so I got  pair of polish for each mascot). You're kid's school probably only has one set of school colors, so you could do 2 colors plus base and top coat if you'd like.

Now on to the tag: The back side of the tag has a little thank you note with a helping hand pun.

 For the front side of the pocket, I started by slipping in a 4 x 4 card cut from Doodlebug's Back to School collection into a standard layout page protector (side note: Doodlebug's Back to School is a-stinkin'-dorable). I used the We R Memory Keepers Fuse tool to cut and seal the tag into the protector on 3 sides. Then I added a whole big handful of primary colored sequins into the tag, and used my Fuse to seal the final side of the tag. I punched a hole through one of the corners of the tag with a Crop-a-dile, and attached the tag with some bakers twine.

Just like that you have a fun tag and a cute little gift for teacher appreciation week. Do you make anything for teacher appreciation week? I'd love to see your ideas, too!

Awesome Friends Layout

For my oldest son's eighth birthday, we took a group of his friends swimming and then out to the local pizza place for supper. My husband and I walked away from that evening amazed with the wonderful kids my son has decided to surround himself with and call friends. Seriously, there wasn't one kid there who wasn't polite and fun and sweet. Today I'm sharing my Awesome Friends Layout.

 The background of the layout is made from Bella Blvd's Lucky Starz Bell Pepper and Lucky Starz Pickle. What can I say? I love a good word print, and Pickle is certainly that. Combining it with Bell Pepper added a nice pop of color.

I backed all the photos in Lucky Starz Surf N Turf.

 I used card from Bella Blvd's Max Candid Cards pack for journaling and a bit of embellishing. I also added a little Doodle Pop Present to add to the birthday feel of the layout. 

 Thanks for stopping by!

Lunch Box Notes

It's time again to replenish my stock of lunch box notes for my kids.  Every once in a while I stick a little note in my boys' lunch.  I'm not allowed to get too mushy with them at school, so I found a nice balance is to send joke cards in their lunchbox. 

This time, I decided that I'd make use of the adorable Doodlebug Doodle-Pops dimensional stickers. Pair it with some matching paper, and they come together so easily.  The hardest thing was coming up with some fun jokes my kids haven't heard! I make a little lift the flap piece, with the question part of the joke on the top and the punch line underneath. 

Q: What's a beaver's favorite snack?  A: Trees and crackers.
Q: What's a rabbit's favorite music? A: Hip hop

I threw a couple of mushy (You color my world! and Whoo loves you? I do!) cards in with this batch.
Q: What do monsters play on at the park?  A: The scarey go round.
Q: What's an owl's favorite subject in school? A: Owl-gebra

Q: What did the reindeer say to the elf? A: Nothing, silly! Reindeer can't talk.
Q: What's the first thing elves learn in school? A: The elf-abet.

Q: What do snowmen eat for breakfast? A: Frosted flakes
Q: What's black and white, black and white, and black and white? A: A penguin rolling down a hill.

Here's a quick list of papers I used too:
Doodlebug Happy Camper Outdoor Dots
Doodlebug Happy Camper Campground
Doodlebug Happy Camper Happy Camper
Doodlebug Stars & Stripes Old Glory
Doodlebug Take Note Totally
Doodlebug Take Note Tweed Stripe
Doodlebug North Pole Jolly Lollies

Thanks for stopping by!