Happy Anniversary to Us!

In honor of our recent anniversary, I made this simple card for my husband using the Lake Life collection and the retired Let’s Go Anywhere cardmaking stamp set  

Don’t forget to stamp the inside of your cards!

Here’s to many many more years together!

Take to the Sky Anniversary Card

My parents, who are both pilots, just celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary, so I made this angled double gate fold card for them with the Take to the Sky DSP (paired with the retired CTMH Let's Go Anywhere Cardmaking stamp set/Thin Cuts).

You remove the "belly band" and then the open card looks like this:

 Here's our family who were able to get together for a wonderful dinner together to celebrate my parents.

Dream Maker Anniversary Layout

When I bought the National Scrapbooking Month special collection, Dream Maker, I was planning to use it for some of our travel photos (and I still plan to do that), but it seemed just perfect with the pictures we took of our recent anniversary.

My layout was inspired by the Dream Maker Scrapbooking Workshop, but of course I had to make it my own to fit my photos. As you can see by the 4 x 4 photo mat, I forgot to order a picture of the beautiful orchid he gave me, so I’ve added it to my desktop "To Print" folder and will get it printed in my next batch.

Most of the embellishments are from the Cardstock Carnival die cuts (a special offer earlier this year) with some acrylic shapes thrown in for more color and dimension.

Part of me thinks I might need a few more black accents, but I think I am going to leave it as is.  I don't want to "gild the lily" for sure!

Do not be afraid to mix old and new products together!

Happy Anniversary Card

Today is our wedding anniversary, and it's the first time we've been apart on our anniversary.  I made this card for my husband prior to leaving on our trip and left it with our daughter to give to him today (or as close to today as she could).

I used the Beach Party paper pack, coordinating cardstock, and Scrapbooking stamp set to create this card.  I also used my Stitched Heart Thin Cuts and shaker window kit.  I stamped the sentiment with Capri and Bluebird inks with the For All Occasions stamp set (and the flip flops with the same inks).  I loved that the scrap of patterned paper that  I used featured a lady and a man floating in the water!  If you look closely, you can see that I stamped the sand from my Writing in the Sand stamp set with Shortbread ink onto the Shortbread cardstock.  Finally, I filled the shaker window with Candy Apple cardstock hearts and gold star sequins.  I also cut my gold shimmer trim in half (or close to have) with my paper trimmer for the thin borders.

I look forward to celebrating our anniversary together in person soon!

Silver Anniversary

My husband and I celebrated our 25th anniversary yesterday (not sure where the time went!) so here are the projects that I made.

Of course I saw the original idea on Pinterest.  I found the frame at our local Walmart and used actually spoons from our set that we've been using since our wedding (with extra pieces added thanks to eBay since Oneida no longer makes our pattern).  The background is the mountain pattern from the recently retired Aurora collection, and I cut the letters with my CTMH/Cricut Art Philosophy collection at 1" on silver foil paper (and the numbers at 1.25").

(I think he liked it!)

Here is the card I included:

I used the same Cricut collection with the silver foil paper cut at 2.5", the recently retired Mix In collection, silver shimmer trim, the Say It In Style stamp set, and pewter ink, along with some silver glitter gems.

We had a lovely day and hope to get away in the fall since our cruise earlier this summer was cancelled.  Is anyone else ready for this pandemic to get under control?!?  Thanks for letting me share my recent anniversary and projects with you.  Thanks for being a part of our story!

50th Anniversary Final Cruise Layouts

My final two cruise layouts really focus on the real reason for our cruise: time with family on the special occasion of our parents' 50th anniversary.  (If you missed the first installments, click HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.)  Again, I used the Postcard Perfect collection for this tropical vacation.  (You can get yours right HERE while supplies last!)

We all agreed that we would have a formal family photo shoot while aboard.  We all really loved how they turned out!  (This layout uses the third and final A Cut Above layout from the kit.  I did add in a stamped title.)

You can probably figure out that the photo at the bottom right is of my parents, and the main photo is of all 13 of us!

For the right side, I placed our photos in birth order: my family on top, then my brother's, then my sister's, and finally all of the cousins.

The final layout features a tradition that we absolutely love!  If you look closely, you'll see that we're wearing matching FFF shirts.  FFF stands for "Forced Family Fun," a coin we termed way back on a huge family trip out west when we were teenagers.  You can probably imagine some of the F words added over the years...  (In college especially FREE was very appealing!)

My sister had the great idea many, many years ago to have these shirts made and surprise our parents with them.  We've had to hand down some sizes and order more as our family has grown, but it is a privilege to wear this "uniform" at least once on our Forced Family Fun adventures.

Happy 50th anniversary, Mom and Dad!  We are especially proud to add that F (fiftieth) to our FFF!  We love you so much!

50th Anniversary Cruise Layouts #8-9

Welcome back to my series of layouts for my parents' 50th anniversary cruise!  (If you missed the first installments, click HERE, HERE, and HERE.)  Again, I used the Postcard Perfect collection for this tropical vacation.  (You can get yours right HERE while supplies last!)

Layout #8 uses the second of three Cut Above layouts from the kit to showcase some highlights of the ship experience itself.  (By the way, we were sailing on the Carnival Magic.)

I left several places for journaling.

 Our final day aboard was our second, fun sea day.

Since I wasn't able to use the long journaling strip from the Cut Above kit on the layout it was "supposed" to go on, I thought it worked really well here.

We enjoyed high tea and then went on to win a coveted "Ship in a Stick" for tying to win Harry Potter trivia! 

We had such a wonderful cruise together!  Tomorrow I'll post our final layouts of the amazing vacation.

50th Anniversary Cruise Layouts #5-7

Hopefully you're not tired of seeing our family's 50th anniversary cruise layouts! (If you missed the first installments, click HERE and then again HERE.)  Again, I used the Postcard Perfect collection for this tropical vacation.  (You can get yours right HERE while supplies last!)

This particular layout of San Juan, Puerto Rico, uses one of the three layouts in the Postcard Perfect A Cut Above layout kit.  These make great projects that you can easily make on your own!

As usual, I didn't exactly follow all of the directions so that I could make these layouts fit my photos.  (And I accidentally did not print my sister's family's photo, but that will be added before I give my parents their album).

That night was another formal night (and I'm hoping my parents have a picture of themselves that night!  If not, Mom can journal on the photo mat at left.)

Don't you love the addition of the Beautiful Friendship bows on that adorable flamingo?  Also, the title stickers are from the Cut Above layout kit.  I couldn't use them on the intended layout, which was okay because the entire collection mixes and matches so well.

 Our final port of call was beautiful (and HOT) Grand Turk.

For this layout, I used a mix of elements from the paper collection and the stamp set.  More to come tomorrow...

50th Anniversary Cruise Layouts #3-4

As promised yesterday, I'm back with more finished layouts for my parents' 50th anniversary album.  (If you missed the first installment, click HERE.)  Again, I used the Postcard Perfect collection for this tropical vacation.  (You can get yours right HERE while supplies last!)

Our first port of call was Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic.  Since this isn't our first family cruise (and ages span three generations), we all feel very comfortable doing different things during the day.  We have the tradition of gathering in my parents' stateroom before dinner and dining together nightly.

My family wandered around the port with the Grands, while my sister's family took a zip line tour and my brother's family swam with dolphins!  (On this layout, I again used the CTMH/Cricut Flower Market cartridge to cut my title.)

Our cruise ship docked the next day on beautiful St. Thomas.

The beautiful florals you see on the right page were stamped with the Postcard Perfect stamp set (no longer available) and my title was stamped with Inked Alphabet stamp set.)

This right page will have flip flaps added so that I can show off more of our beach pictures.  (They work best when added on top of your page protector.)

Thanks for letting me share my layouts from our trip!

50th Anniversary Celebration(s) and Cruise Layouts #1-2

My wonderful parents celebrated their 50th anniversary earlier this month, and we were blessed to be able to take a family cruise in June to celebrate and then have a backyard BBQ with friends.  I'll be posting my projects over the next week or so.  (MOM!  If you're looking, go away and come back after you get your album!!!!!!)

Here is the title page for their album, using the former "Dad Is Rad" collection.  (If you missed this one and would like to know more, click HERE.)

All of my cruise layouts use the Postcard Perfect collection.  (I have to give a huge shout out to Susan Williams for the amazing workshop that she created!  Contact me if you'd like to know more.)  You can still get the paper collection and A Cut Above Kit- while supplies last- by clicking HERE.

Layout #1 highlights getting to meet our baby cousin for the first time on the way down and embarkation day.

I cut my title with the CTMH/Cricut  Flower Market to cut my titles.

I added some Document Dots for dimension. 

Layout #2 was our first full day on board: my nephew's 10th birthdayand a sea day finishing with formal night.

Come back daily to see more if you'd like to travel vicariously and/or enjoy some tropical scrapbooking!  I'll be making my family's album as my next big project!  (I did make both sets of base pages at the same time.)

H2H Challenges: Fresh Air Fun

This week's Heart 2 Heart challenge is Fresh Air Fun.  You don't have to use the Fresh Air collection, but it's a great fit! This is the card I made my husband for our 23rd anniversary.  (My does time fly!!!) 

It didn't take long to fussy cut the focal image from the Fresh Air Scrapbooking set after stamping it in Fern and rolling it in New England Ivy.  The sentiment is from a retired CTMH set.  I used a sketch from Make It From Your Heart, Vol. 4 to put this together pretty quickly.  He really seemed to like it!

Be sure to visit the H2H blog and see our designers' inspiration.  All of our July challenges are open to the end of the month, so won't you join us for one or more?  You earn a special badge for participating in each of the month's challenges. 

Happy 19th Anniversary + Mojo Monday

Time definitely flies when you're having fun, because it is really hard for me to believe that Hubby and I are celebrating our 19th anniversary today!  Here we are 19 years ago...

 And tonight...

For his anniversary card, I used this week's Mojo Monday sketch but turned it 90 degrees.

I started with this great "You and Me" card from the Skylark Picture My Life kit that I pop-dotted onto my card front.  I grabbed my Skylark paper pack to create the rest of the 5"x7" card, but threw in the Chocolate checked piece from the Timberline paper pack so that my focal image would pop.  For the Lagoon strip, I used a paper punch for the border, and then decided to fold down the top edge to show off the stripes.  I didn't glue the flap down so it gives the card some dimension.  I embellished the card with some bronze shimmer trim, a Skylark complements bird, a Skylark Assortment flower, and several Aqua Dots.  (Everything is available HERE if you're interested.)

Thanks for stopping by and sharing our anniversary with us.  Here's to many more years of happiness together!