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.