My Little Musician!

When I was going through a stack of old photos I found this one ... my youngest playing on one of my mom's old musical instruments. I had totally forgotten I had this photo and found it so endearing I decided to scrap it straight away ... not for a challenge or assignment, just because I love it.

and a few details:

I love these journaling sprouts from Jillibean Soup and have loads of them! For this I just mixed up my last scraps of different Jillibean Soup lines. Love how it turned out.

This is it for now, have a fab weekend!
Hugs,
Monique

So Alike - My Little Shoebox

I don’t know about you, but I think that 90% of my layouts feature my kids (why would that be? :):):)) 8% of the layouts feature my husband and/or me and our doggie, BUT only 2% is about others. When I realized that, I found it rather shocking … only 2 layouts out of 100 are about other people I also love very much, but just “forget” to scrap about.

So I decided to scrap a page about someone who (sadly) belongs in this “2%” range … my sister! I have only one sister and she’s the best sister you can wish for! I’m deeply ashamed I haven’t scrapped more pages about her, but I definitely will in future!

Here she is, with her beautiful daughter:

For the layout I chose My Little Shoebox' "Aiko" line as I love the colors, but also because it’s so feminine and therefore just perfect for my sister and niece.

Supplies: My Little Shoebox, Aiko: March, Kiss, Festival, Bouquet, One Fine Day, Cardstock Stickers; Mini Alphabet Stickers: Peppermint Stick; Glitter Alphabet Stickers: Snow Flakes.
Other: Punches (Martha Stewart), Crystals (ZVA Creative), white paint (Amsterdam), Staples (misc).

I can’t begin to explain how much I love working with all the lines from My Little Shoebox ... they were made for me!!

By the way, my turn on My Little Shoebox' blog is next Monday. Will you come and see me?

Here's a little sneak of what I made:

Can you tell what it is??

Thanks for stopping by and wishing you a wonderful day!
Hugs,
Monique

Paper Bracelet Tutorial!

This month I made a tutorial for My Little Shoebox' blog: a paper bracelet, using their "Up in the Trees" line. 

As much as I love to create layouts and cards, sometimes I love to create something else more! So in this case I chose to show you how to create paper beads to make a bracelet.

First we start creating the paper beads.

1. Gather your materials to create the beads: scraps of paper (I use scraps from the Up in the Trees collection), scissors, trimmer, knife & ruler, glue stick, tooth picks and either glossy accents or crackle accents (or nail polish).

2. Cut a few strips of paper of at least 7.5”long and 0.5“ wide. Because I want every bead to be different I cut a few extra strips, but 4 would be sufficient. 

3. Cut your strips at a length of 7.5”.

4. Use your knife and ruler to cut the strips diagonally so you get triangles:

5. Now roll the top of your strip of paper (the wide end) 1 time around the tooth pick and use your glue stick to glue the rest of the back of the strip of paper.

6. Roll the paper completely around the tooth pick like this:

7. Repeat this until you have 8 or 9 beads (for my arm 8 is enough). Because you didn’t add the glue to the top of the paper you can easily slide the bead off the tooth pick: 

8. Because I don’t want to damage my bracelet when washing my hands I covered the beads in a little bit of crackle accents (glossy accents or even nail polish will do too of course):

9. When using crackle accents your beads look like this:

10. To let the beads dry in stuck them in a piece of styrofoam:

Now we come to the second part of the tutorial: creating the actual bracelet!

11. Gather the rest of the supplies: (glass)beads from your stash and  elastic beading cord):

12. String the beads on the elastic cord (I use a double beading cord so my bracelet is stronger). For my arm I needed 8 paper beads, 8 metal beads and 8 glass beads:

13. Tie the ends of the beading cord together and your bracelet looks like this:

And on my arm it looks like this:

That’s it!! You’re done! Isn’t this a fun way to use your scraps??? 

And you know what?? Because this was so very easy to do, I decided to make another one, just for fun; a red/white/blue one this time, using Pebbles "Let Freedom Ring":

Thanks for stopping by my blog today if you decide to try and create a bracelet too, I would love to see it!! 

Btw, I want you to know that this isn't my own idea. I got the inspiration from a book I downloaded on my Kindle recently: "101 Crafty Gifts" by Chris Thomas.

Have a great and creative day!

Hugs,

Monique

SUMMER ingredients!

As you all (probably) know I love Jillibean Soup and that's why I chose their August sketch to work with yesterday. I had quite a few scraps left from their spring line and those were perfect for the photos I wanted to use.

This is the sketch:

and this is my take on it:

and some details:

The photos show perfectly how our meals look during the summer. We eat outside as much as possible, that means every evening unless it's raining cats and dogs, we barbecue as much as possible and Patrick and I love to end the evening with coffee in front of the fire.

I used lots of Jillibean Soup lines for this page but most of it is from their Blossom Soup line.

Thanks for stopping by today and hope you have a great weekend!
Hugs,
Monique

More "Haunted Manor"

Because I loved playing with Doodlebug's Haunted Manor I decided to scrap a few cards as well.

and this one:

The stickers of this line are so much fun (the rest is too, of course)! It's a shame we don't do Halloween, so there aren't many people I can send this card to .... I do have family in Sacramento though! I'll just have to send it to them, LOL!

Thanks for stopping by!
Hugs,
Monique

Haunted Manor

Today Doodlebug is having a GIVEAWAY! The only thing you have to do is "pin" your favorite layout of today!

You'll find my layout there too:

I really love this "Haunted Manor" line! And although we don't "do" Halloween, I found this photo of Manon's 7th birthday party which was just perfect, as she was having a "WITCH" party! I can remember this party so clearly, but it's almost 9 years ago!!! When did that happen?

Some details:

So if you want to WIN some of DOODLEBUG'S goodies, go to today's blogpost! Winners will be announced on Monday August 27th.

Have a bootiful day!
Monique

I believe I can fly ....

Last week at My Little Shoebox the new "Muse" Cardstock Alphabet Stickers were featured and the design team was asked to create something, anything, to showcase this new alphabet.

Here's what I made:

Supplies: Patterned Paper: Coming Home (Park Avenue & Soaring Above), Aiko Kiss & Sky; Cardstock Stickers: Coming Home & Vintage Shop, Cardstock Alphabet Stickers: Muse (Strawberry Frosting), MLS ribbon, MLS stamps (Sew Cute).
Other supplies: Pearls (Inkido), Words-To-Go (K&Company), staples (misc).

Don't you just LOVE the new lines? I do!

Thanks for stopping by!
Hugs,
Monique

First holiday layout!

When we got back from France I warned you I would be scrapping a lot of holiday photos .... well, here's the first page!!

For Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge we got this sketch to work with:

And here's the layout I made:

Every year the kids want to go to this adventure parc ... no idea why, LOL! This year was the first time our youngest was allowed to climb too (until now he was too young and thus too short) and - no surprise there - he LOVED it!

I used the sports line I won from Jillibean Soup "Game Day Chili, which was perfect for these photos (both the colors and the design).

If you want to see what the other designers made, have a look at the blog of AFSC!!

But wait, I'm not ready yet, if you leave a comment at AFSC blog (here's the link) then you'll be eligible to WIN this pack of Jillibean stamps:

As I love Jillibean I buy a lot of their products only to find out that I bought these stamps twice!

See you at the AFSC blog!!
Big hug,
Monique

Winner Give-Away!

I promised you a winner today for the give-away I posted Sunday August 5. First I want to thank all of you to leave me such sweet comments! You're all awesome!!

And now for the winner, I used "Random.org" and got this as the result:

I counted everyone who posted on facebook twice and thus got 36 entries.

Without further ado ...... the winner is:

Congrats Margot!! Please email me your details and I'll get the kit in the post asap!!

Thanks everyone for participating and for following my blog!
Love you all!
Hugs,
Monique