Monthly Celebrations | December 2019 | Holiday Card 2015

I am so excited to share my layout today for the LAST month of the Monthly Celebrations YouTube hop and series.  This crazy I had a few years ago has been such a blast to go through with other girls in the crafting community on YouTube.

For December's layout, I decided to share how I document our holiday cards.  I usually create a pretty simple one page layout and it's basically a place for me to save the card and play with supplies too.

For our 2015 holiday card, I pulled out my favorite Christmas supplies - Simple Stories.  Most of the papers came from the Claus & Co. Collection.  Even though I pulled out all of my papers, stickers and embellishments, I ended up go very simple and instead used die cutting as my main focus for the layout.

The title die cut is from Kerri Bradford Studio and I have had it for years and finally used it.  Both holly leaves are the same file from silhouette studio store and one is just resized to be smaller.  I cut all the files from black cardstock first to create a drop shadow layer.  Then I used pattern papers from various Simple Stories collections and basic packs to die cut the layers with my cameo.

I love the type write font text phrase stickers that are included on most Simple Stories 12x12 sticker sheets.  They are a definite go to embellishment for me.  After I attached it with foam adhesive to my layout, I noticed I had grabbed one that said the exact same thing as my title...oops lol.

In all the christmas themed embellishments I keep together from Simple Stories, I challenged myself to use these red glitter clear stickers.  For some reason I have never used clear stickers.  So I decided to make a third text element on the layout by using one of the red glitter stickers with the smaller holly die cut.  Bright red enamel dots finished off the layout.  

Thanks ~ Nicole

"Cutest Pumpkin Ever" | Monthly Celebrations | November 2019

For the Monthly Celebrations series this month I went easy.  My room is currently still in a half packed level of mess.  

Having page kits from Scrapbook Generation are a big plus in my book.  They are always well designed, quick to put together and such a good deal.  I also have a LARGE hoard of them so it's always a good feeling to get one put together and into an album.

The layout was created with a very old Super Savers kit.  These are the ones that came with enough product to create three separate double page layouts.  The other two layouts were put together with other photos from this session with my son, so I figured I would just go ahead and continue with those photos and get them done.  So I managed to finish up a set of photos AND a kit.  

We have ONE more month in this yearlong series and I am excited to see what inspires everyone in December.

Thanks ~ Nicole

Monthly Celebrations | FEBRUARY

Can you believe it's already time for our second month in the year long series Monthly Celebrations??

For the month of February I went with what I say is a more everyday themed layout.  I live in the Las Vegas area and for some reason almost every February we get a week of seriously warm weather.  My layout this month features photos I snapped a few years ago during our February warm week of my kids playing in the sandbox.  I did choose to go ahead and add a little bit of a love theme into the layout as well.

 For my layout I ended up pulling up a bunch of digital files from Kerri Bradford Studio.  The vellum circle border piece, title pieces and photo collage are all downloads from her store.  

I also pulled out stamps from Technique Tuesday, Mama Elephant and Kerri Bradford.  I absolutely love being to customize colors and subtitles/phrases to what I am scrapping.  

To watch the layout come together, be sure to watch the video below then hop on over to Grace's channel and see her video for this month!

MONTHLY CELEBRATIONS | YouTube Collaboration with Grace Tolman

Hello hello hello!!

For the year of 2017, Grace Tolman and I are going to be teaming up over on our YouTube channels sharing all kinds of inspirations EACH month.  We will be focusing on how we personally celebration each month of the year.  Some months will be traditional holidays and other months may showcase more every day type of ideas.

I hope you enjoy are first installment of this series!

For me, January is pretty slow.  The major event we celebrate is my daughter's birthday.  Her actual birthday is on the 4th, but with Christmas and New Years being so close, we usually end up moving her actual part to the middle or end of January.

When I was looking through my photos for January I realized that the poor girl is 4 years old already, and I have yet to document her FIRST birthday!

Here is a look at my entire layout.  I will share detailed photos, information and the process video below:

I ended up making my life a little easier and going with some Kerri Bradford photo templates to make collages.  I sorted my photos in different aspects of her part:  family, gifts, and cake.  For the gifts and cake part I will do two single page companion layouts at another time.  I did go ahead and edit the collages and print them at the this time however.  They are ready for me when I feel like jumping back into this particular event.

For the right side I ended up choosing a 12x12 sized collage and left one space black to replace the intended photo with pattern papers and embellishments.  I like that this allows me to bring in elements from the left page and help tie in the theme and colors across the entire two page spread.

For the left side of the layout, I used Silhouette Studio software to design my own Mickey head placemat style piece.  Super easy and fun.  I cut it from textured white cardstock and added it to another sheet of textured white cardstock.  I think added some black ink splatters to add some interest, and then popped in some mickey head I cut from Simple Stories papers.  The title was also cut on my Silhouette.

From there I went fairly low key with embellishments.  I added a super old Doodlebug frills black border to the left, enamel dots,  and phrase stickers.

Be sure to watch the process video below to see how this page came together and then be sure to visit Grace's channel and her watch her take on celebrating the month of January.

Crafty Maven Channel Design Team!!

Exciting news!!!  If you know me, you know that I LOVE YouTube.  Love watching videos, love posting videos and love the community found there.  So when I saw that the Crafty Maven Getaway channel was holding a design team call - I jumped!!  I was very nervous to apply, mostly because I feel like a very different style than what is currently trendy especially on YouTube.

BUT I know that the way I scrapbook is like a lot of others out there, and I am glad that my videos are entertaining those who have subscribed to my channel.  I love to watch all kinds of scrapbook videos, even those who have a very different style than my own and will often watch more for the chit chat than the actual crafting!

So you can imagine how excited I was to get an email back from Hannah not asking for more information or a simple "thank you.  we will get back soon..." but a YES!  Woohoo!

My first video went live on Saturday.  I chose to contribute during the throwback to Two Peas week.  I love lifting layouts from Nichol Magouirk and Jennifer Gallacher so I knew that was a perfect fit for ME.  So I played along with their Scraplift Saturday series and continued on with my current project of getting 2014's Month in Review style pages done.  I had already been using Nichol's style as an influence for those pages so it was a perfect fit for me.

Here is the video that went up on Saturday:

If you haven't already subscribed to the Crafty Maven Getaway channel, be sure to check it out.  There are usually TWO videos posted each day of the week so there is sure be something to inspire you during the week.

You can find me on YouTube HERE on my channel, ColieBing for my own scrapbook process videos and other scrappy projects.  

I will leave you with some close up photos of the page below!

Nicole :)

Let's see if I can remember how to blog...

Hello, hello, hello!

I am attempting to get back into a habit of sorts with blogging.  Lots of things are going on RIGHT NOW in my crafty world so I feel the need to share and write things down.

1)  My local scrapbook store closed this week.  I am thankful to this store, as it taught me so much over the years but it also started me on my teaching journey.  Shortly after I had my first baby I was talked into teaching classes and they took off.  Fast forward FOUR years later and those wonderful customers are still in touch and sad that they will not be able to take Disney layout classes with me anymore.  I am still debating about some options with that, but I think I am still in mourning.

I did get my hands on some clear paper shelves (like I need MORE room for paper...) and have those set up and am using them to sort some projects I have in various stages.  More on that later.

2)  Last month I applied to the Design Team call for the Crafty Maven Getaway channel on YouTube - and they picked me!!!  I am so excited!!  I watch more YouTube than television or Netflix so it's a good fit for me.  My first video is scheduled for tomorrow and I am a little nervous about that.  Just looking at the album where we upload our projects on the private facebook group - I am VERY different style-wise compared to the other girls on the channel.  I am hoping this a good thing, and that variety is something viewers are looking forward to.  I will have a blog post up tomorrow with all the information on that and a link to the video.

3)  My scrappy hangout of choice for years has been a private message board (Hi Peeps!!) and the last two weeks of March we are going to be doing a speed scrapping challenge!  I am using this challenge as a kick in the behind to get through some Scrapbook Generation kits that are seriously piled up way to high (I am even considering cancelling my subscription for a few months, and you KNOW how much I love my SG kits!).  So I am all ready for that and excited to challenge to myself to see how many layouts I can get done during those two weeks.

4)  With the closing of my local scrapbook store, I found myself lost as far as what to do about teaching.  I enjoy the teaching aspect, but not the prep that was involved with the particular classes that we were doing.  I am in the process of developing my own online class, and will hopefully be able to offer it for purchase through this blog.  I am still researching the technical aspects of this, but have already outline a class course and complete the first layout.  I will be posting a class description and more information pertaining to that here as well.  BUT I can tell you that the focus of the class is using uncropped 4x6 prints.  We all have tons of those laying around waiting for inspiration to hit us.  I am structuring the class to provide sketches that I created, as well as a way for anyone to take their prints and figure out a layout based on what they specifically have to use and what their style and needs are.  

Thanks for stopping by!

Nicole

@ Mt Charleston

Happy Sunday!

Today I am sharing a double page layout I made with my August Trio Kit from 3 Scrappy Boys and Sketch #331 from Nuts About Sketches.

The nice thing about using a photo collage (this one is from Kerri Bradford Studio) is that you don't need a whole lot paper or embellishments.

The Trio Kit came with some textured white cardstock and instead of using it as my base pages like I normally would, I chose to use it for some of the new print and cut shapes by Simple Stories in the Silhouette Store.  The feathers, journaling spot, compass and arrow are all print and cut shapes. 

I used the second sheet of white cardstock to make some "polaroid" type frames in place of the 3.5x5 photos that were shown in the sketch.  I loved the added interest they gave the page.

The Trio Kit came with another set of the Jillibean Soup alphas that I love.  They make for such quick titles.  I added a few travel phrase stamps and was all done.  This was probably the quickest double page layout I have ever done!

Thanks for stopping by!
Nicole