There is this BOY scrapbook page

I know my Mom would absolutely adore the picture retrospectives I put together of my boys and I wanted to send them to her.  I quickly realized that I would not be able to find a frame do to their odd sizes.  So, what the hell I'll just scrapbook them.  

This is the first page, I actually finished it a few days ago.  I have a while to finish the second one though - they going to be part of her Mother's Day gift.  Glad I'm getting that handled early this year!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

There is this BOY

For some reason I have been in the mood to make some more home decorish type items.   This has never really been my thing but in the last six months or so we've made some changes and upgrades to our home and the ideas have started flowing.

I came up with an idea to do a picture retrospective of each of my boys with one picture representing each year of their life.  It took a long time to find pictures that worked well together, I am not going to lie.  But it was also kind of fun going through folders of so many pictures that I had forgotten about.  They really brought back a bunch of good memories.  

I found some large frames on Clearance at Michaels.  Not being a fan of white or black frames perse I pulled out some primer and spray paint and got to work.  These pictures are hanging in our foyer, and I kind of like the sunlight you see streaming across.  It does make the pictures harder to see so I have posted those alone as well.  The saying was something I instantly adored and naturally I found it on Pinterest. 

And the prints - well normally something like this would run $30 each at a printing place but I opted for an Engineering print instead.  It's printed on really thin paper and only prints in black in white.  I had already converted all of the pictures to black and white anyway so that they would flow more easily together.  It's not the highest quality print, but it still looks great in the frames, and hey, you can't beat $5 each. This project cost me no more than $60 total!  Which makes me incredibly happy. 

Thanks for stopping by!

A Portrait of My Boys

It's only been two and a half weeks right?  Have no fear, I'm still around.  I've been working on a few behind the scenes design team projects, and also just hanging out.  I am finding that I like to craft in spurts.  Sometimes I can't stop for weeks, and then I find I need a break for a few others.  I used to stress over it and posting something here every day but no more.  First and foremost this is a hobby for me, therapy really.  So I need to let it just flow . . .With that said, I have something new and kind of fun to share with you today. I have been quite take with picture displays lately.  I have all sorts of ideas (thanks to Pinterest) on ways to display photos around my home.  This project actually grew out of that.  I plan on making a wall collage of some of pictures of my kids, and I decided to try my hand at decoupage for the first time.   It's not perfect, but I really like it.  I used a bunch of my stash (all the flowers) and even strung those beads myself (thank you DCWV for the Blue Moon beads by the way).  Enough jabbering - here is one of my favorite pictures of my boys.

I used the emboss resist technique to color the back of the paper.  The stamps are from Papertrey Ink.  I first saw the technique here, at the brilliant Laura Bassen's blog - Emboss Resist.

Paper:  DCWV's Art Collage

Silhouette:  LOVE cut out of 12 x 12 photo, butterflies

Stamp:  Papertrey Ink

Flowers:  Recollections Brand and Prima Flowers

Beads:  Blue Moon Beads

Bling:  Recollections Brand

Metal Accents:  My Stash

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Craft Room Wall Art Part Deux

I am finally getting around to putting some more art up on my craft room walls. Every so often I go a lookin' for inspirational words and I came across this Picasso quote some time ago. 

It's very simple - I cut it out using Make The Cut. The font is a TTF called French Script MT.  I'm not sure if it came installed on my computer or I picked it up at one of the free font sites.  The Flourish is from the Flourishes I pack from My Vinyl Designer.

The quote in the frame is something that I made months ago.  It's something a good friend of mine said that I thought was hilarious.  Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying.  Anyhoo, I thought it was great enough to put in a frame and I actually made another one and sent it to her.  I used Make The Cut on this one as well and I believe the font is Digs My Heart.

Thanks for stopping by!

Craft room wall art

Many of you have probably noticed that I have Ranier Marie Rilke's poem "Widening Circles" posted several times on my blog.  I have been collecting poems, quotes, and sayings since I was a child.  When I was in high school I decorated an entire bedroom wall, from top to bottom, with poems that I printed out on Print Shop.  Do you guys remember that program?  I thought I was so cool then!   Thankfully I had great parents who indulged me in such endeavors and who weren't terribly worried about how their walls would look when we took it all down.


This poem is my latest obsession.  I came across it a few weeks ago.  For me it means, simply, that we are here on Earth to affect others, and we always need to remember our actions can and will be felt in ways that we can never imagine.  I also believe that we are all here for a purpose, and when we find that purpose we find our greatness and our own truth.  Life requires our full attention and our best effort.  No matter our circumstances, we must give ourselves to it fully.


I have been so moved by this poem that I decided to put it on the wall in my craft room.  It's the first meaningful thing I put put on these walls - to remind me to be the most authentic *me* I can be when I am in this space.