March means Spring

I don’t know what the weather is like for you but here, March brings a mixture of warmer sunny days mixed with windy days. No matter what or when your Spring comes it’s always a time for new beginnings. New growth in nature, new fun things to do now that the weather is better and maybe some new things for your home. If you’ve not noticed the “newness” of Spring yet, take a moment to look around whenever your Spring comes your way! I know you’ll be blessed.

I want to share a few Springtime layouts I’ve created with you. All these layouts have used a template besides an art kit. This first one is from only a couple weeks ago. As you can see there is still some snow on the ground but we are only wearing a light sweatshirt – A beautiful Spring day for a hike. Created with Double Trouble 2 Template Collab from Dagilicious and Tinci’s Designs. Kit was Love the View from Designs by Lisa Minor

I’ve been using templates more on my pages because you can already have the design of the layout made for you – less brain work! LOL!! All you do is replace the decorative items that are on the template with the ones from the art kit you’re using.

Double Trouble 2 Collab

Another layout using a template – Bits of March from Dagilicious. I love the layers that are in these templates. Simply fill each one with a different paper and you’re layering is done! Spring cleaning is something I know I need to do each year but…. I’m really not one to enjoy that. My sisters’ know that so when they come it always includes a cleaning project! Woo Hoo for me!! I created this with The Weekend kit from Dandelion Dust Designs but I’m sorry to say it’s retired so I have no link for it.

Bits of March

A perfect template for my spring flowers – created with Spring Meadow Bundle from Dagilicious. The fun colors and flowers came from Color Me May from Designs by Lisa Minor.

Spring Meadow Bundle

With Artisan 6 you can create your own pocket style template really easily. Add a large rectangle to your page about 10×10, make it any color you want because it won’t stay that way. Remove the stroke at this time, and save. Center on your page.

Select the rectangle you just added and go to the Cut ribbon, choose Grid cutter. Select 4 squares across and 4 squares down, change the spacing to 2, and choose ok. Deselect all the squares so you can make some of them photo holders. Decide which squares you want to hold photos and select each one separately, right-click – fill – convert to a photo drop point. In the other squares, you can ad paper to them by doing the same thing. Right-click – fill – from art kit.

As you can see a couple of my photo squares are two squares joined together. No need to change much to create this. First, select the photo you want to fill two squares and drag the middle drop-down arrow to make it the same length as two squares. That’s it!! Now go over to your elements panel and find the single square that’s underneath the one you created – select and delete. Voila!! See I told you it was easy.

Created with A Motorhead Adventure from ADB Designs

Once you have the grid the way you want it, fill all your photo holders, finish your layout with papers and elements that you want. I do suggest adding a shadow to each square so it stands out a bit more as well as adding shadows to all your elements.

Check out temlates for your layouts soon, you might be surprised at how fun they can be!

Happy crafting ’til next time,

Fun Continues

It was nice to have a weekend of no stress in the real world – I had so much fun scrapping with girls all over virtually. Not as much fun as in-person but better than no group scrapping at all. 🙂 Here are a few pages I did during our crop.

 

I also competed in GS Survivor Week 4 Challenge. The challenge was combining two templates together AND use three separate kits or collabs. This was a big challenge for me because I’ve NEVER combined templates before. It was a bit intimidating but once I started it was good.

The next step was to decide on photos to use. I wanted to do something with uplifting colors for the spring season so I chose yellow flowers.

Credits: Combined two templates from GS Signs of Spring, used GS Signs of Spring GB Ladies Collab, Sunny Day GB Ladies Collab and Happiness Is GB Ladies Collab

Be sure and check out all the other entries this week – I was blown away AGAIN at the beautiful pages that were entered.

GingerScrap Survivor Week 4 Gallery

Drum Roll … I also entered my third and final page into GoDigital Supreme Team Creative Team Contest.  As soon as I saw this kit I knew I wanted to scrap my own easter photos from 1961! Love the soft colors of this kit. Yes, this is me and one of my sisters and my mom. ♥

Credits:  Vintage Spring Kit by MarieH Designs and Dana’s Footprint Digital Designs

GoDigital Supreme Team Contest Gallery

The best news was I MADE IT TO THE TEAM!!! 🙂 🙂 I’m dancing with joy!

I’m hoping and praying you are able to be joyful about something in your life right now. If you are struggling, take a breath and look at your surroundings inside or out – you can be joyful about something. I used to complain about how I didn’t like doing dishes every day, then the Lord reminded me to be thankful because I have food to eat! Joyful….. you?

Happy scrapping ’til next time, ♥

Focus On The Positive Changes

I want to FOCUS on positive things now, not all the negative that’s being spread around this country. The calendar says it’s spring and that means new beginnings. Change is coming ahead and we can all agree we need change. Our country is calling us to stick around at home more, so what a perfect time to start creating new pages for those memories you’ve treasured in your photos.

With more time at home, I’ve been able to create several pages this past couple of weeks and I want to share a few of them with you.

Spring on the ranch means wind just about every day! Also, I use the clothesline as my dryer and spring winds make my clothes dry a lot quicker than normal. Love that change!

Credits: Country Roads kit by Dandelion Dust and misc. laundry elements.

Pictures in the next photo are from last summer that I wanted to make a cheerful bright page with. The title – Create Your Own Sunshine is exactly what I was going for.

Credits: Blooming Blossoms template by Bits N Pieces, Choose Happy kit by Janece Suarez and misc sunflowers.

I suggest taking a walk around where you live whether in the city or country because this time of year you WILL see change with new growth sprouting from the ground. I love this colorful change!

Credit: Spring Alive mini kit by Aimee Harrison

Many colors are abound on the ranch and this last spring we had many of these beautiful purple-flowered plants. I took the colors for this page from the plants itself – purple and green.

Credits: Spring is in the Air template by Bits N Pieces, Lavendar and Chicks kit (retired)

Photos of the horses that were grazing on our grass are from several years ago but every time I look at them it brings me a smile. Beautiful animals eating on the spring grasses have a calming effect on me. I love this change!

Credit: Ginger Scraps Collab Hello Spring, template by Jumpstart Designs March challenge

As my signature says – Life is what we make it! Enjoy your life even where you now, slow down and start on things you’ve never had time for before.

Happy crafting ’til next time, ♥

Friendship Road Card

I was able to make a card this week and it reminded me that friendship is a relationship where you celebrate the good, fun and exciting things in life. But it’s also the relationship where you can bring your hurts and sorrows. It makes life go smoother when you have friends and I’m blessed to have several very good ones who always make the life road smoother. I wanted to celebrate by making a cheerful card with several layers.

I totally love using my computer to make my card sayings. I can decide on what I want to say and print it, no need to have a sticker or die cut to make it. Easy!

I made a layered pocket to add as one layer and chose a darker orange to go with the stripe. Ripped the orange paper for the first layer so it wouldn’t be all so structured.

Still not as layered as I wanted. Decided to put another strip of the orange paper underneath my friendship saying.

When I printed my saying I knew I wanted to have some kind of bling next to the words so left some room. I tried buttons and flowers and ended up looking at flowers because it does make it easier to put in snail mail. 🙂

Here’s my card. It was cheering me up just making it!

Spring is here and I love it! The orchard is full of flowers and color, grasses are greening, days are longer and getting warmer.  Renew and rebirth is what I think of when spring comes around. Each day I’m blessed with new sights and sounds of His creation and I’m filled with joy! Enjoy your day by looking around you-you have sights and sounds that are new also – Rejoice!

Happy crafting til next time, ♥

 

New Season Cards

We were warm this week for a couple of days and that meant my card craft room door was open and warm again. With it being so cold this winter I keep the door closed to this room so the wood stove will keep the rest of the house nice and toasty. 🙂

I truly missed the touch and feel of paper crafting so I told my ranchman yesterday I’m making cards so you’ll be on your own. Haha He’s such a good guy he smiled and nodded, he knows I need my paper fix. 🙂

My first card I wanted the look of denim along with the spring look of flowers – you know me and flowers!!! I found the perfect paper for that, brushed denim print and this rough gold to match the flowers.

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I didn’t want to just layer those two on the kraft card base so used the tearing tool and ripped the flowered denim paper and used the gold as the bottom layer.

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Here comes the fun part – choosing flowers! I laid a few out that I thought would go well and started playing with them. It usually takes a couple of times mixing them up to find just the right combination.

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I couldn’t decide if I wanted a saying on the front or not so for the first card of the season I left it blank to be used for any occasion.

I was on a roll and for me the first time making cards after such a long hiatus this was amazing. No waiting for the “mojo” to kick in.

I decided to use the same papers from the first card but in a different way. This time I used the vine punch on the denim flower paper.

I also used the basic corner rounder to soften the edges of the card and the bottom layer of paper.

Used two blue flowers instead of different colors and added a gold button to make a good contrast of colors.

I added a friend saying on the front to give it a finished look. See I told you my mojo was working, hahaha!

We went from two 70° days to last night dropping to 20° and the next couple will be winter with snow again. Whew, glad I got my paper fix in!!

Whatever your weather is I pray you find the blessings around you and praise the Lord!

Happy crafting til’ next time, ♥

 

Spring Borders

Spring is here and I’m so ready! I’m ready for warmer days and nights but don’t get me wrong, I love every day I have breath because I can praise the Lord! I can tell the season is changing with the sun higher up in the sky, our winds are blowing pretty much all the time, we had our first thunderstorm this week and the weeds are ready to come up any day. With all this happening around me I wanted to make more borders that I can use with pictures I’ll be snapping soon.

This border was made using Spring Showers by Boomers Girl Designs.

I used In This House kit from Forever for this one.

Easter is only a few weeks away so I had to do one for that. I used Classic Easter Embellishments from Forever. I really love the little bunny on the grass.

Rain is already happening here so this was perfect. When Skys Are Gray by Boomers Girl Designs. Perfect for those days when you’re going through some life struggles.

I used Blue Heart Scraps/Luv Ewe, Grateful kit for this soft and spring colors border.

I just love this little owl guy from Boomers Girl Designs When Skys are Gray kit.

Find a blessing no matter what your day brings, our days here are temporary!

Happy crafting til’ next time, ♥

https://www.forever.com/ambassador/denise-houser

 

Orchard Blossoms

I can’t seem to take enough pics of our orchard in the spring. Spring here is only a couple weeks long and in the middle of those couple weeks, we usually have crazy winds along with winter weather with temps in the 20’s and possible snow then soaring into the 70’s. We call this the “tweener” time and we never know whether the trees will produce fruit or not each spring so these are precious pictures to me.

Since we’ve moved to the ranch we’ve realized life is the moment you’re in, not the past or what the future will hold. Every day you have is to be treasured for whats in it.

The pics on this page are our peach trees last week, with the beautiful pink and soft flowers. I can already picture the gorgeous sweet peaches it will produce. Since these pics were taken we’ve had ALL of the above spring weather so now we wait and hope the Lord blesses us with scrumptious peaches this year.

I’m a beta tester for this template – TB-Happy Trails, Special Edition Artisan 5 Blueprint, #p2PHappyTrailsBP from Pixels2Pages.

This template was so fun to work with. I changed the large circle shape for journaling into a hanging tag with a decorative stroke around the edges along with a string to make it stand out. I love the torn papers on this template and with it, makes it easy to just fill with papers of my choice. instead of making my own torn layers. As I’ve said before – there are ways to be creative without all the work. Templates/Blueprints are one of these ways.

Credits: I used Willow digital kit and the Explore Page Pak from Forever.

Enjoy your “moment in today” and find something to scrap so you can treasure it.

Happy crafting til’ next time, ♥

 

I Feel Lucky

Silly thing to get excited about to most people but if you’re a ranch person then you can relate. I’ve been wearing the same boots for almost 8 years now and they truly were falling apart.

So think about when you’ve been wearing something that long and find a new pair and there NOT just brown – I was so excited!!!! My new ranch boots deserved a page all to themselves, right! 🙂

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boots

I used a template and adjusted the photo holders and all the papers behind them to be larger since the template was actually made for much smaller pictures. Since it’s spring now and I was so happy about these cool boots I wanted COLOR on this page! Still used colors from the outdoors but fun and bright. Plus of course, my FLOWERS that I really think are mandatory for me, hahaha.

Added a cool border at the bottom of the page with a ribbon, ricrac and some cute string. I still wanted a bit more fun on this page so added the bead spray. Shadowed everything since it truly makes the page not flat looking.

Here’s how the “cool boots” page ended up!

Credits: Ice Cream GingerScraps_FWP_May2017 by Dagi’s Temp-tations Template 2, GS Daily Download Lucky to have You Kit by Blue Heart Scraps. Font – Champagne & Limousines.

Have a super weekend finding something ordinary that brings you joy!

Happy crafting til’ next time, ♥

 

First of Spring

With our warmer temps there are signs of spring everywhere but no prettier than our orchard. This is one of the apricot trees and it is SO full of flowers this year it’s gorgeous. Never has it been this full before so it was perfect to make this spring page with.

I wanted the flowers on the tree to be the focal point on my page. I used a mask and enlarged it to fill the majority of the page. Added and adjusted the photo to show exactly what I wanted in it.

I still wanted to show more of the tree and flowers so included an oval-shaped matted photo to the page.

My background paper was just a solid color but wanted more of sky texture on it. I used a wrinkle surface filter applied to it for this cool look.

The Spring title was made using a 5×12 rectangle shape cut into 6 horizontal strips. I filled each strip with a paper from a kit so they would be coordinating. Once they were all filled it was grouped and flattened. Selected the rectangle and cut out a chunky font with my title.

Since it was flattened I could adjust the title size to fit my page. Added a couple flower clusters and heavy shadow.

Here’s the final page – hope you like it!

Credits – Kit used Forever Case of Blues Linen.

Happy crafting til’ next time, ♥

Hi Card

It’s been a while since I’ve created a card and was getting the “itch” to create one. When I want to create a card I look through my paper stash to see what catches my eye. I found this white piece with small flowers on it and I really liked it. I put these papers with it and decided on the blue and green.

The main focus of the card will be this flourish of spring flowers. Our days are getting warmer here and the flowers will be blooming soon.

I think layers on cards as well as scrapbook pages make it more interesting. Along with decorative corners.

I have a couple of different decorative corner punches and it really doesn’t matter which one I use. Just something to make the card not have sharp edges. I continued the decorative corners on the layers also.

It still needed something to me, such as a sentiment of some kind. I had some stick-on cardboard letters that I used.

I knew I wanted to add some other decorative element to the card and of course – flowers came to mind! 🙂 If you’ve been following me for a while then you know I’m a flower addict. hahaha

I liked the big off-white flower and added a smaller green one plus a green pearl element to finish it off.

Nothing on this card is done on my computer which I think is actually a first – so check through your stash and see what cool card you can make with those items alone.

Happy crafting til’ next time, ♥