Build a Life You Love

Good morning! Today I'm sharing a layout that I absolutely love. Ever since that first hand embroidered page I did, I've fallen in love, and try to add embroidery to as many projects as I can. It's something I just love to do while I'm watching TV, and I can definitely see more of this in the future. I love the texture it adds to my pages and how easy it is to add some colour.

With this layout I tried something a little different. I stitched my title on the left side, and then I went back and cut and "interior offset" using my silhouette and cut pieces to fit inside of each letter and painted them similar colours with water colours. I love how they turned out. The letters looked incomplete without the paper in the middle, and I'm so happy with how it looks. On the right side, I added a piece of rainbow chevron striped paper, a photo of Jon and I, a little chipboard banner, and some typed journaling. I wrote the journaling as more of a letter to Jon, and love how this layout turned out. I love that the focus is mostly on the large title, and there's minimal embellishing to take away from that.

Thank you for coming by to check out this beautiful spread. I think I might frame this one and hang it in our bedroom. It's too pretty to sit in an album where no one will ever look at it.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
-Alexandria

Rainbow Alphabet

Good morning from Gracie, and I. When I was photographing this spread, she photobombed me again. It's so cute that she wants to be a part of it. Today I'm sharing a layout that I made about my nephew. It's about time I documented him a little while he's still small and adorable. I love that his personality is starting to come out, and he's such a dork.

Here's the full spread. I love the colours, and I think it turned out perfectly. I decided to do the letters in rainbow order, and love how the different patterns compliment and contrast each other. I put the photo on the O and used little letter stamps to stamp his name above the photo. I stamped the date below the photo and journaled in the bottom right corner. I added a couple of embellishments to corresponding colours and called it done.

Here's a close up. I cut the letters out of white cardstock, and added rainbow order patterned papers to the back of the page. I cut them to make sure they didn't overlap another letter, but so that I had enough to tape it to the back without it falling off. It turned out beautifully.

Thanks so much for coming by to check out this spread. I'm having so much fun making more use of my silhouette, and on my birthday wishlist is the attachment for the sketch pens, and some sketch pens. The possibilities will be endless then! Have a great day!

-Alexandria

Christmas Cards - For My In-Laws

I can't believe that it's already December. It's my niece's birthday in a few days, and we have 3-4 Christmas's to try and attend this year. Luckily most of my family lives close enough to make day trips to see them, instead of taking two weeks off to make sure we see everyone. I'd love to go a little further and visit my Aunt & Uncle in Manitoba for Christmas (I have yet to see the house they've been living in for the last 4 years). We'll see how things go.

Every year I make Christmas cards for my in-laws. I usually choose an animal that's somehow associated with them. This is the third year, and the last two years we did a horse, and a panda. This year, we decided on a deer, and after flipping through a dozen card making magazines, I found a simple on that had a deer head on it. I love that they include any cutfile details in the fine print at the bottom, so I downloaded the one they used and started planning.

I chose this cutfile but I hated the head of the deer. So while browsing Pinterest, I came across this photo, and so I used the trace feature in Silhouette, and traced the deer head. The image was small, so I traced it while it was small and after removing the image, I changed the size of the cut design to be the size I needed it for the card.

I used the "mount" from the original cutfile so the deerhead didn't look like it was just floating on the card. I typed out the Merry Christmas sentiment in word, and made a table with boxes the size I needed so I didn't have to think about it, I could just cut them out, cut the ends to make a banner and glue it down.

I love this paper. It's from the DCVW glitter pack. We decided on a stripe because it was more visually appealing than just the solid colors. I love that the glitter doesn't come off on your hands, and get everywhere, but I hated how thin it was. I had issues with it sticking to the cutting mat too well, and ripped a bit of the leftovers trying to get them off, luckily no deer were harmed in the making of these cards!

I also love that the deer don't all look the same. There's a few that are similar, but they're not exactly the same. I apologize for the terrible photos. I meant to do this post last night, but when I got home it was dark, and I couldn't find the lamp, so I took the photos this morning, in a rush before work.

Thanks for coming by to see these Christmas cards! I'm hoping to get mine and Jon's done fairly soon, but with my luck they won't be going out until next year, again.

Have a great weekend!
-Alexandria