May Arts, Simple Stories, & Xyron Blog Hop!

Welcome to the May Arts Ribbon, Simple Stories. & Xyron blog hop! 

For my project, I wanted to display a couple of photos from my trip to the Outer Banks, NC last year. We go every year, but I had a couple of really great photos that I took over the 4th of July. The Simple Stories "Sea to Shining Sea" collection was PERFECT for this project!

I started by printing some photos from my trip and finding the perfect chipboard banner to do the job.

I used my Xyron Mega Runner to adhere the paper to the chipboard.

I took this photo at the Cape Hatteras light house... that was before I decided to go up in the lighthouse, that's a once in a lifetime kind of thing ;-)

This was one of my favorite photos, we found a little beach that was pretty private and spent most of our days there. Very serene. 

This is the same beach in the photo above. We actually spent the 4th of July there relaxing and my husband fished a little. I love embellishing with the stickers from this collection kit.

I chose to display this banner in my hallway over my "beach" shrine. It's the perfect finishing touch!

I LOVE making banners for the sheer fact that I can make them shine with some lovely May Arts Ribbon. The anchor ribbon is one of my faves and I couldn't wait to use it on this project! 

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Hop on over and visit my fellow ribbonistas today! 

Jen Shears

Gini Williams Cagle

Be sure to visit the Xyron and Simple Stories blogs as well this week! We have  3 sets of prize packs of - a Good Day Sunshine Kit, a spool of ribbon (winners choice), and a 2.5" create a sticker to give away! 

Products Used:

May Arts Ribbon- 424-18-14, 455-38-03, 419-03, SM-14, DD-8-14, 376-1-01, 392-58-14

Simple Stories- Sea to Shining Sea Simple Sets Collection

Xyron- Mega Runner
Petaloo- Flowers

Leaky Shed Studio- Chipboard Banner

I {Heart} Summer Tags

Woo hoo! The weekend is here! It's not just any ordinary weekend... it's Memorial Day weekend... aka the "unofficial" kickoff to summer! 

I decided to create some fun & festive Summer themed tags with the new Simple Stories I {Heart} Summer collection to share today. I love making tags, but I never know what to do with them. Sure, you can attach them to a gift, they get ripped off and thrown aside... after spending so much time creating a single tag, it really deserves more attention! 

I added some of the Simple Stories Sn@p! pockets to my tags to give them a dual purpose. 

These tags can be used as a regular tag, attached to a card, used as a card themselves, used as a gift card holder, or you could even add a little card or note and slip it into the pockets.

I used the standard #8 shipping tags and then covered them with patterned paper & stitched around them with my sewing machine. 

I also thought that adding lots of pretty trims would make these tags fun. 

Thanks for stopping by today! Enjoy your weekend! 

Products Used:

Simple Stories- I {Heart} Summer collection- #3202 Fundamentals Cardstock Stickers, #3203 Expressions Cardstock Stickers, #3204 Sunshine & Laughter, #3209 Hello Summer, #3221 Bingo Cards/Summer Stripe , #3223 Sn@p Pockets! 

Basically Bare- Celestial Shapes,  Arrows

May Arts- 363-09

Petaloo- Flower Layers

Websters Pages- Sparklers, Bloomers, Trim

Inkssentials- #8 Shipping tags

Sweet Stamp Shop August Release & One Year Anniversary Celebration: Day 2

Welcome to Day 2 of Sweet Stamp Shop's August release & One Year Anniversary celebration! If you came from the Sweet Stamp Shop blog, you're on the right track! 

Today we have an ADORABLE stamp set to show you... it's probably my favorite this release... it's called "Under the Sea" and I think you all are going to love this one!

 I decided for my project, I wanted to make a tag! I never do tags, so this was a perfect excuse to get out my distress stains and get inky!

I love how my tag turned out... so I decided to break out the Copics and color my images....

Ta-da! My little mermaid tag! I'm not sure what I will do with a tag... but I think I will hang it somewhere to display it... because it turned out really pretty!

I am a huge fan of ribbon... so I added lots of fun ribbons to the top of my tag to match. I even inked up my lime green ribbon a little.

Before I go today... I wanted to tell you a little story behind this stamps set... My 4 year old Reagan LOVES mermaids... you know Reagan, right? If not, here she is! 

Anyways... she loves Mermaids. The Little Mermaid, Barbie & the Mermaid Tale, etc, those are her favorite movies and we watch them over and over. Reagan has started to take an interest in art, so I let her color with me when I am stamping. I asked Nicole if she could do a fun Mermaid/Beach stamp set sometime and she surprised me with this one and said she had made it with my little Reagan in mind! Yep, Nicol IS the sweetest! We ♥ her! 

Here is Reagan coloring some of her images from the "Under the Sea" stamp set. She loves it! 

Now hop right along today and see what super sweet Jamie has in store for you! 

If you get lost along the way, here is today's line-up!

SSS Blog- http://sweetstampshop.

blogspot.com

Emily- http://www.createserendipity.

net

Jamie- http://jamielanedesigns.

blogspot.com/

Kim- http://paperiepetals.

blogspot.com

Misty- http://www.

mistylynnwhat.blogspot.com/

Nicole- http://www.onesweetromance.com

LSHD Splash of Summer Blog hop

Hello, Welcome to the Little Scraps of Heaven Designs Blog Hop. If you are visiting from Margaret's Blog you are in the right place. If you just happened to visit my blog please start the hop on Tricia's Blog.
This is a ONE day blog hop that will last all day today, from 12:00 am to 11:59 pm. So sit back, relax, and enjoy viewing all the wonderful projects these talented artists have created.

Tricia's Blog http://lshdesigns.blogspot.com​/
Leann's Blog http://www.scrapbookingbyleann​.blogspot.com/
Karel's Blog http://artandscraps.blogspot.c​om/
Deborah's Blog http://www.scrappingmamma.net/
Patricia's Blog http://pattyandcharlie.blogspo​t.com/
Tammy's Blog http://tammyjennings.blogspot.​com/
Julie's Blog http://designs-by-julie.blogsp​ot.com/
Margaret's Blog http://www.auntmargaretdesigns​.blogspot.com/
Emily's Blog http://www.createserendipity.n​et/
Roberta's Blog http://www.txscrappermom.blogs​pot.com/
Charlotte's Blog http://charlottes-creations.bl​ogspot.com/
Nancie's Blog http://alittlepieceofmebynanci​e.blogspot.com/
Corrine's Blog http://celebratingordinarymome​nts.blogspot.com/
Dawn's Blog http://dawnsdesignsthatdelight​.blogspot.com/
Jeana's Blog http://www.scraptoday.blogspot​.com/
Janet's Blog http://www.createatdreamscrapb​ooks.blogspot.com/
Nancy's Blog http://brujahrose.blogspot.com​/
Lisa's Blog http://honeybearzdesigns2011.b​logspot.com/
LSHD DT Blog http://littlescrapsofheavendt.​blogspot.com/

Now for my project for today! I want to apologize for not having more, but we have been packing and moving over the past couple of weeks and all of my craft stuff is boxed up still. I made this little digi page to share with you all. I just love the Little Scraps of Heaven Designs Hula Girl Collection! Whenever Tricia came out with these I instantly wanted to go somewhere tropical! I ended up doing this digi layout with photos of a cruise that I went on a few years ago to the Bahamas.

Since I didn't have many projects to share, I will offer DOUBLE blog candy today for you all!!! How does that sound?

Did you all see all of the new fabulous Pink by Design stamps released this month? If not, here's a few of my favorites that I had a little hand in helping Sarah design :-) And by the way, these stamps go AWESOME with Little Scraps of heaven Designs paper piecings! I make all kinds of projects using them both and they go hand in hand!

Today for blog candy I have 2 $10 gift certificates to the Pink by Design store for 2 lucky readers to win!

All you have to do to win is:
1. Follow Pink by Design on Facebook
2. Become a member of the Pink by Design Community and make a post there
3. leave a comment here on my blog letting me know you did both!

Thanks so much for joining us today. To be eligible to win the Grand Prize Giveaway you MUST visit each blog and leave a comment.

Your next stop is Roberta's blog, so hop right along and see what she has in store for you today!

Beach Party Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Beach Party Blog Hop! We are having this hop to kick off the Summer and share with you some fun Beach themed projects! If you've arrived here from Erika's Blog, you're on the right track! If you are just stopping by my blog today and would like to see all of the fabulous projects in this hop, please start at the beginning on Abby's Blog. This is a 2 day hop, so if you don't make it all the way through the hop today, make sure you come back tomorrow to finish hopping! Abby is offering up lots of blog candy for those who hop through and leave comments on every blog!

For those of you who know me, you know that the beach is my favorite place on earth! I could live there! This past September, my husband and I too the kids to the Outer Banks, North Carolina and had a honeymoon BEFORE our Beach wedding. I know, sounds odd, but we had the week prior to the wedding off of work, so we decided to take a little vacation. I love North Carolina, but had never been to the Outer Banks prior to this trip. Wow. What a beautiful vacation spot! No wonder it is a tourist hot spot! We were there the week after Labor Day, so most tourists had cleared out and it was pretty nice. There was always something fun to take the kids to do there, and my favorite part was being woke up by the sunrise over the ocean every morning shining in my window.

While we were there, I went to a little Beach Memories scrapbook store and found some great papers and embellishments. Finally, I had the perfect project for them! So for today's project, I decided to make one of my cascading paper bag albums, but I wanted to do one for myself with my own photos. I rarely scrap my own photos, but this strip was very special to me, so this hop was the perfect excuse for me to scrap my trip :-)

I had to hold the album to get a good photo because it kept popping open. I tend to load my albums with embellishments most of the time!

Brandon bought a boogie board and had a lot of fun "catching waves." This was the first time that the kids had seen the ocean and they were simply amazed!

I also added little pull out tabs so I could fit a few more photos in my album. This photo is of my daughter Reagan getting her first glance at the ocean. She just kept staring. I'd say it would be something quite amazing for a 3 year old to see for the first time!

We took a trip down to Okracoke Island, which is about a 60 mile drive but takes several hours to get there because there is only 1 road that runs through the Outer Banks and also, you have to take a ferry ride to get down to the island. On the left is us on the ferry, and the right photo is Reagan and I playing on the beach at Ocracoke Island.

The kids had a lot of fun playing in the ocean and looking for seashells.

And there is the beautiful sunrise that I was talking about earlier! See why it's my favorite part?

And here are the kids playing in the ocean at Okracoke Island. As you can see, they are having a blast!

And after a whole week in the Outer Banks... we drove down to Sunset Beach, NC and got married :-)

So... to say that I love the beach is just an understatement :-)

Thanks so much for stopping by! I'm glad that I got to share some of my own personal scrapbooking with you all today!

I don't have any blog candy to offer here on my blog today, but make sure you check out all of the blogs and leave comments because Abby has some candy for some lucky winners who hop with us!

Also, if you are looking for some steals and deals, I am having a moving sale (yes, I am sadly moving next week and need to downsize on my inventory) in my etsy shop! Just enter code MOVING20 at checkout to receive 20% off your entire purchase!

Now hop along and see what Christine has in store for you today!

And if you need the whole lineup, here it is:
Abby http://www.scrapbookaholicbyabby.com
Sandra http://365daysofcricut.blogspot.com
Pammejo http://pammejo-scrapbookflair.blogspot.com
Michelle http://www.scrappinwithmybug.com/
Meighen http://scrappin3rdeeschik.blogspot.com
Maria Elena http://mariaelenaworld.blogspot.com/
Liz http://www.lizspaperloft.com/
Kristin http://pinkldycrafter.blogspot.com
Kim http://rickettscricuts.blogspot.com/
Karla http://kalittlescrapcorner.blogspot.com
Gaby http://www.gabycreates.com/
Erin http://www.erinleecreative.com/
Erika http://cricutlove1.blogspot.com
Emily http://www.createserendipity.net/
Christine http://scrapbookingtechnique.blogspot.com
Celeste L http://touchedbyabutterfly.blogspot.com
Celeste B http://ccscards.blogspot.com
Carley http://the-real-icarley.blogspot.com
Candace http://papercraftsbycandace.blogspot.com/
Angelica http://www.handmadebyangelica.com/
Amber http://stayingcrafty.blogspot.com
Ashley http://myscrappinpalace.blogspot.com
Alina http://neverstopscrapping.blogspot.com

Happy Camper!

Happy Friday!!! And as promised on my facebook page, I will quit teasing you all! :-)

I am very excited about this album! I have been holding on to this Camping word book for a while because I didn't have the perfect paper for it... not anymore! About a month ago I won the Imaginisce Happy Camper line of paper from the Pink Cricut Birthday Bingo game! I just love this paper and it went hand in hand with this album!

Here's a pic of the Happy Camper line, it's a must have!

What also went hand in hand with this album were my new Woodland Critters stamps from Pink by Design!

And the last perfect element needed for this album, "The Great Outdoors" pattern set from Little Scraps of Heaven Designs!

I made this album for today's Little Scraps of Heaven Designs DT Challenge. Our challenge was to scrap your favorite summer vacation spot. Well... my summer vacation spot is OBVIOUSLY the beach, but I've done a few beach album lately and I figured that THIS summer we will be doing a lot of camping locally due to the high gas prices, so it's a little harder for us to get from Ohio to the beautiful beaches of North Carolina (which are by far my fave!) So here's my favorite vacation project for this summer.... CAMPING!!! :-)

This album is now available for purchase in my etsy shop. Thanks for stopping by!