Boys Rule June 2012 Sketch Layout

I completed another sketch challenge layout with the Boys Rule Scrapbook kit - this time for June 2012. This kit is full of blues, yellows, and kraft - one of my favorite color combos. Love the sketch and love the kit...

The layout is happy and fun - my 2 boys on the day they got their glasses. It feels like forever ago now - August 2009. Time truly goes by too fast.

The letters are cut with the self-adhesive cork paper included in the kit. I used the Chocolate 4x8 alpha die from QuickKutz.

The kit also included the fun rosette. This was the first time I've made one - and I admit, I had a few frustrating moments trying to get it to stick. I finally got it to work and I love how it looks.

I've said it before - but these kits are very well put together and fun to create with. I'm in love with this layout and I'm excited to add it our family scrapbooks. Thanks for looking!

Summer Mantel

Summer is here and it's time for a summery mantel share.

I love beach accents on my mantel. We'll be heading to the beaches of California very soon, and I'm so looking forward to it.

Here's my summer mantel from last year:

Since last year, I've added the large mirror and moved things around a lot. This time last year, I was kind of barely unpacked in this new house - now, we are much more settled in to this home that we love.

And I love the mantel so very much...

Thanks for looking! Sharing at these great parties:

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DIY Menu Board & Weekly Calendar

Another fun Silhouette project - I created this menu board and weekly calendar for our kitchen.

I had seen dry erase calendars at the store but I didn't like that they started the week on Sunday. For us, the weeks starts on Monday - so I created my own.

It was an easy project - just a frame with glass, then I designed and cut my shapes from vinyl with my Silhouette.

 A quick and easy project to update our kitchen - thanks for looking!


      

Quilted Camera Strap

Today, I'm sharing a project I finished up a few months ago - a quilted camera strap.

A few years ago (I can't believe it's been that long already - yikes), I bought the most lovely little charm pack of fabric swatches from Stitch Steals.

The fabric was from the Basic Grey Origins line by Moda - yes, Basic Grey makes fabric too and it's beautiful. I bought the little pack of fabric swatches, not quite sure what I was going to do with it.

Fast-forward a few years, and these lovely custom camera straps were sweeping Pinterest - and I wanted one too. I found this pattern on Etsy from BirdfulStitches. And I finally knew how my charm pack would be put to use.

The only difference I made in the pattern was to quilt the fabric swatches together before creating the long piece for the strap. To make the stitching easier, lay out all of your squares right-side together before you start sewing...

Then, put them through your machine one after the other leaving just a one- or two-stitch gap in between each square that you can snip later. That way, you aren't starting and stopping over and over and over again. Makes it much easier.

The camera strap pattern is very easy to follow. I had an old makeup pouch that I cut up to use for the leather-ish end pieces. I love the light brown against the yellow and green.

So, that's my custom camera strap - I love it. It makes using my camera much more fun - and comfortable.

Sharing here:

May 2012 Crafty Round-Up

I've been doing monthly round-ups for 2012, based on the class Kate Nelson taught at Big Picture Classes. I thought it would be fun to do a craft project round-up too, here on this blog. You can see the one I did for our family blog here.

For projects around the house, I made drop-cloth curtains to replace the vertical blinds in the dining room.

Byron put in a new bathroom faucet in the powder room. Love how it completes the room after the makeover it got earlier this year.

I painted the front door inside and out. What a difference. Love it even though this paint job made me cry at least 3 times (that's not an exaggeration - I'm terrible at painting).

I'm really proud of myself for staining the deck all by myself. When we moved in last year, I knew the deck was going to need to be tackled at some point. It had been neglected for a few years by the look of it, and was pretty sorry and grey. I kind of got a wild hair one day and thought I should just stain it before I chickened out. It was not easy, but I'm super happy it's done. It's now a nice dark brown.

And best of all, We had the master bedroom, bathroom, and closet painted. Here's how the bedroom looked when we moved in:

Crazy, right? What is up with those black stripes? It's so very-1995, even though this house was built in 2005. And those black stripes are textured with some kind of plaster, so I was kinda thinking it would be impossible to paint over them. And then, we had a very plain white bathroom (don't even get me started on the very weird tub-in-the-floor):

 The thought of painting these rooms by myself was daunting to say the least - especially since, as I mentioned before, I have cried at much lesser paint jobs. Instead, we splurged and hired an awesome painter. He was able to paint all three spaces in 2 days. It looks AH-MAZ-ING.

 

Bye-bye black stripes...so much better. I am so happy every time I walk into our bedroom now. The bedroom color is Proper Gray from Sherwin-Williams. And the bathroom is Respite, also from Sherwin-Williams.

 

So nice and bright and lovely. Both rooms still need lots of sprucing up, but it's so wonderful to have the painting all finished. I keep hoping I'll run into Matt Muenster while I'm shopping at Lowe's some weekend and end up with a bathroom makeover. Sigh.

Mmmmm....Matt....

That's it for home decor - that's quite a lot for a month, even if 1 of those projects I hired out.

For scrapbooking in May, I created 7 scrapbook layouts this month - 5 paper...

 

 ...and 2 digital...

That first layout was from a tutorial at Jessica Sprague's Photoshop Friday. Love those weekly lessons!

And finally, I started playing around with Lightroom print templates and created one to share with you all via download. I hope you enjoy it - and I'm hoping to make more soon.

That's it for May - a busy month. June is already underway, and I know I'll have more projects to share soon.

Another Boys Rule Kit Layout

I'm loving the May 2012 kit from Boys Rule Scrapbook Kits. They actually do 2 sketch challenges each month - and since I did one of the sketches, I wanted to do the other as well.

Love how this layout turned out. This layout uses all products from the kit except for the title letters, which are Thickers from my stash.

I'm getting a ton of scrapbooking done this month - what a great feeling...

Boys Rule Kit Club - May 2012 Sketch Layout

I'm in love with a new kit club - Boys Rule Scrapbook Kits. This is my first month to get a kit, and I love it. Their kits focus entirely on boys - and, being a mom of twin boys, I have a lot of boy-stuff to scrapbook.

May's kit is focused around the This & That paper line from Echo Park. I've been wanting this paper set for awhile now. I was super happy to get it in this kit. The kit includes lots of other fun embellishments to go with the paper line too.

They offer a sketch challenge on their blog, so I created this layout to go with the sketch. I love these colors - they were so much play with.

These are photos of Jack, showing how much he has grown over the years. I love to see the way his face has changed over the years - and I wish I could make it slow down just a little. Oh well.The supplies are all from the kit except I added in some letter and number stickers from my stash.

The June kit should be on its way soon. I can't wait!