Happy Little Life & Friday Favorite

I love this phrase, happy little life, that is sprinkled throughout the Dear Lizzy 5th & Frolic collection.  I knew that I wanted to use it as the title for this layout, but couldn't find a piece from the collection that matched with what I was creating, or that I haven't already used :), so I simply recreated it with some rub-ons and one of the die cut tags from the collection.

Is she not adorable?!  Love this peanut, my best friend's new little bundle, and I LOVE Dear Lizzy products- this week's Friday Favorite!!!

I cannot wait to get my hands on the new lines released at CHA, but in the meantime, I'm happily creating away with what I have left of the older lines.  So many fabulous patterned papers, phrases, journaling cards, chipboard pieces, embellishments, and stickers.  Love. Them. All!  Not only am I using it on layouts, but you'll see a lot of these products in my Project Life work as well.

I apologize if the photos seem a little dim today, but the cool grey calm before the big blizzard, was not creating the best lighting for photography today!

It seems mother nature is trying to recreate the blizzard of '78 that I was born in 35 years ago.  Looks like I'll be spending my birthday scrapping away and sipping on cocoa under a few feet of snow. Ha!  Happy weekending!

Boy Crazy

 
Yes I am crazy for this little boy!  I'm also crazy for My Mind's Eye Boy Crazy collection!  I love anything and everything from My Mind's Eye and this collection is just perfect for scrapping my little guy right now.

This layout is newly created for the My Mind's Eye/Gossamer Blue guest designer contest with products almost entirely from the Boy Crazy collection.  I may need to buy these papers and embellishments in bulk.  Seriously.  It's perfect for capturing the essence of life as a 5 year old boy!

Just check out that robot, is he not the cutest??  I jazzed him up a little bit by stamping him onto the Seeing Stars paper and then paper piecing him together with some foam adhesive.  I also added a touch of glossy accents to his eyes and buttons.  The stamp set is lots of fun.  You can catch a few more glimpses of it on the layout with the rocket and gears stamped onto the background.  I can't wait to ink this set up again!

I used a few different patterned papers here to mat the photo, add a layered border at the top edge, and two little pieces to ground the robot.  I also dipped into the coordinating washi tape, such fun patterns, enamel dots, stickers, and decorative buttons.

Thanks so much to My Mind's Eye and Gossamer Blue for hosting this fun contest!

Hope you're enjoying your weekend!

Friday Favorite

TGIF!

Yes, oh yes, glad it's Friday!  So, I can hardly believe it but I created a double page layout!  Haven't done one of these in a while.  

It just so happened that I was getting items together to create a page of my little guy sitting in the cockpit of the plane, in the captain's seat!, and I was having a tough time narrowing down from the 45 photos I had of this momentous occasion, when I stumbled upon this inspiring post from Vivian Masket on the October Afternoon blog.  

Vivian created a spectacular double pager and encouraged readers, like me who tend to stick to single page layouts, to give it a try.  Perfect!  Just the solution to my problem.  Feeling quite inspired, I set to work and was able to use my four favorite photos that I had printed, without hiding too much of the world map patterned paper that I wanted to use as a background. 

Here's what I came up with-

 
Using products mostly from October Afternoon's Boarding Pass collection, everything flowed nicely as the papers, rub ons, and other embellishments were the perfect complement to my theme.  

To tie the two pages together, I worked in a few different things.  In addition to coordinating some of the patterned papers in the borders of each page, I also carried this cluster of stickers from one side to the other along the top.

Next, I used the title to help the focus flow from one set of photos to the other.  It begins on page 1...

and carries over to page 2 to complete the title work...

All in all, this was super fun to create and I'm happy to have showcased such a proud moment in his little journey.  Not to mention, my most important critic gave me that same thumbs up when he saw the spread :)

FRIDAY FAVORITE:  October Afternoon everything!!!

Wishing you a most beautiful weekend,