We Have a Winner! And a layout share

Remember the little stamp I had up for giveaway last week? Well, Cindy F was the lucky winner!

Congrats, Cindy! Shoot me an email with your information to margie_visnick@yahoodotcom, and I will get it right out to you!

I also have a little bit of scrapping fun to share with you, a couple of pages made from my stash kit for the month:

The base for this next page was a starting point that I had already made up from my other stash supplies months ago, but I finished it off this month with a picture, and added embellishments from my kit:

Sorry about my reflection in the photo, it has one of those Maggie Holmes photo overlays on it, which is gorgeous in person, but hard to capture in a picture.

Photo Friday: Sunrise and Sunset on Siesta Key

After our hectic, fun-filled 5 days at Disney World, we knew that we would need a soft sandy beach to relax on for a few days before we went back to every day life, and Siesta Key, FL was the perfect place for that! Gorgeous white sand (I swear that powdery sand was magic on my sore feet!), the perfect place to soak up a few rays and just relax. After starting our vacation off very high-key and high-speed, it was nice to kick back, grill out, and enjoy some gorgeous sunsets and sunrises before we headed home. It's hard to beat sitting on the lanai, drinking coffee, and watching the reflected sunrise over the Gulf of Mexico:

Walking onto the beach from our condo, it looked like this:

And it's pretty hard to beat watching a sunset that looks like a painting, while sipping some white zinfandel and walking down the beach. Of course, I was the girl with a giant camera, too. ;-)

Thanks for letting me share with you today!

Workspace Wednesday...It's A Process!

If you follow me on Instagram, you already know that I have been working on making over the bedrooms in my house. Lucky for me, one of those bedrooms that I am making over is going to be a scrapbook studio! I have been working on it, and organizing, organizing, organizing, organizing....16 years of scrapbooking=A LOT of stuff! I will show you a few little peeks, and when I get it done (hopefully with in the next week or two!), I will show you my whole room completed.
disclaimer: These photos are all taken with my phone, I will pull out my "real" camera for the big reveal.
Here is the space I started with:

Negatives: dingy walls and trim, 20 year old wallpaper on one wall (it was a fabric wall paper and kind of fuzzy-it was probably gorgeous and expensive way back when), ancient ceiling fan, loose outlets (all the plugs fall out), broken blinds, old, bent register cover that doesn't open...

Positives: Great space, great windows, lots of potential-and hey, it's a studio space of my very own!

I started by taking down the wallpaper and patching holes-it's messy but necessary!

After I got it all puttied, filled, sanded, and painted, Eric came in and wired a new ceiling fan for me, wired new electrical outlets, and hung new plantation blinds and valances (I am sooo blessed to have such a handy hubby!):

And I started bringing in the furniture:

Which I am now in the process of unpacking into, labeling, moving things around, and filling. I can't wait to show you all the big reveal! Soon, I promise!

How To Use Project Life Cards on a Traditional Layout

I was perusing my edited photos, and I came across a couple of layouts that I haven't shared on my blog yet, so decided to share with you today. The first layout is a great of example of how I would use 3x4 project life type cards before I actually started Project Life:

Which brings me to my first tip:
*Line them up under the photos. Especially if you have one horizontal photo and one vertical photo, the line of 3x4 cards adds a sense of balance in the uniform sizes.

Here is an example of how I used a 4x6 card on a traditional layout:

Which brings me to my second tip:
*Use them as Titles for your pages- there are lots of cards in the packages/on the sheets that can be used this way!

More examples of my pages using 3x4 and 4x6 cards:

Ways to use Project Life (or any cards meant for those Pocket Pages) on a traditional layout:
*Use them as Subtitles/Secondary Headings. Many of the cards have cute expressions on them, and this is a great way to use them.
*trim them (or don't) and layer them up-they are just cardstock/paper, after all!
*journaling cards, this may seem obvious, but this is my favorite way to use them! Before Project Life became a big "thing" it seemed like there were never enough journaling cards/easy ways to add a few words to the page. Since I journal by hand, it is nice to have a card that I can write on, and throw away if I screw it up too badly (which I inevitably do!).

There are many other great ways to use Project Life cards, and others have blogged about about it, so check out this Pinterest board for lots more links and ideas for using Project Life in gifts, home decor, mini albums, cards, and more:

Use Project Life Cards

If you are feeling inspired, but don't have a huge stash of  3x4 and 4x6 cards, you can find links to tons of free printable cards here:

Crafty- Project Life Printable

Thanks for visiting me today, while you're here, don't forget to leave a comment on Saturday's post for a chance to win a roller stamp! There aren't a lot of entries yet, so your chances of winning are great!

(Almost) Silent Sunday

Happy Anniversary (12 years!) to this wonderful man who I have chosen to spend my life and build a family with.

Saturday Scrapbook Sharing

Since it's Saturday, and since I love you all for sharing it with me, I thought I would do a little giveaway:

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And share a recent scrapbook page with you:

I was inspired by this fun sketch from http://www.shimelle.com/paper/1906/sketch-to-scrapbook-page-repeating-simple-shapes :

I pulled supplies from my June stash kit:

Such a fun page to start my Disney album! I usually prefer to work with soft colors, but the bold colors suit the photos and album, and just the general feeling of vibrant summer days and sunshine. Here is a closer look at the cluster where my Hidden Mickey resides:

If you'd like to be entered in the drawing for the stamp, leave me a comment! I will draw names next Saturday, July 26. I'd love to know what you are creating or doing right now! Have a crafty and wonderful Saturday!

Photo Friday

I am always striving to improve my skills, and I am a huge proponent of making the most of any equipment that I have in my photography (that doesn't mean I don't want the newest shiniest toys, but it just isn't practical for me to always have them). So, when I heard that a photographer in my area was giving a wedding photography workshop, I signed up right away! Here are a few of the shots that I was able to capture:

Isn't it fun to learn? It is to me! What have you learned recently?

Golden Summer Afternoon Kit...and Connections

I have a couple of things I wanted to talk about, since today is "the day" for scrapbookers. Today is the day that Two Peas in a Bucket formally closes its doors. And although the message boards have been locked since the announcement, the finality of "the last day" is sad for me. I have downloaded my classes that I paid for, pinned a bunch of layouts and inspiration, and just browsed the forums and galleries for hours. I have spent hours watching the free content on youtube (although I am still holding out hope that they will leave that up!). And now, I have been looking for ways to connect with other scrapbookers. Of course, I read blogs a few times a week in my Feedly reader, but the personalization, and variety of topics that a message board has, well, it's just different. Unfortunately (or maybe fortuitously, it has yet to be determined), it looks like the peas have scattered to a variety of places.  Scrapbook.com was great in making a tool to transfer our galleries from Two Peas, so the 308 layouts that I posted to Two Peas since 2002 was easily transferred over there (If you are interested in seeing the progression of my work, you can see my transferred gallery HERE ). But, although I have been a member over there for a while, I haven't been at all active on the forums (at least, not yet). My Stashbuster friends all moved to Cocoa Daisy forums HERE , which I will visit for the wonderful and inspiring challenges that they share, and several of the peas visit the board that were quickly started by an NSBR pea, I believe, the 2 Peas Refugee boards which you can find HERE . I love this because they have a General Scrappin and an NSBR board, just like my 2 most frequented boards at Two Peas in a Bucket. And, I know that some people are already members and frequent users/ posters at places like Studio Calico, as well. I listen to the Paper Clipping roundtable when I am driving, cleaning, or painting, and I discovered that they set up a free forum, as well. All of these places seem like great places to chat with other scrapbookers, and I set up accounts on each of them, but my head is swimming with all of the choices! Where are you all going to connect with other crafters? Of course, there are all sorts of crafty groups on Facebook, too! I am Margievis on all of these sites, just like I was on 2Peas, and I will keep trying in my little bits of free time to see where I fit in the best. Or maybe I will just keep dabbling in all of them!

Now that I have gotten that off of my chest , I have to share some crafty fun! If I am in need of inspiration to create, one of the best ways for me to do that is to create a kit of supplies from my stash to craft with! This month, I was very inspired by the colors and textures in this month's Either Way Kit and add-on from Scraptastic Kits:

I loved the colors especially, so I dug into my stash and came up with this kit, which I am calling "Golden Summer Afternoon":

The papers are some lovely pinks, gold, coral, and minty aqua from a variety of my favorite paper companies such as Crate Paper, Carta Bella, and Sassafrass Lass:

I added in some favorite embellishments, mists, and free printables from Studio Calico and Kaitlin Schaeffer. I am also planning to try to use some of the free cut files from Studio Calico, as well, maybe these:

We shall see how it goes! Thank you for allowing me to share with you today, and be sure to let me know where you will be on the web! I am linking up with the Counterfeit Kit challenge for this post, and I will be around.