A Winter Wonderland Valentine

I mentioned a while back that I had to make my mom some little Valentine's Day cards to give to her guests at the B&B, and since her theme is a winter wonderland Valentine's, I made he some snowflakes as well.  I'm sharing today what I made for her.

This is the mini card, and she will put these in the guest rooms.
Details (most products used here are SU unless otherwise noted):
Base - 4"x3" Bashful Blue cardstock
Layer - 3 7/8" x 2 7/8" Night of Navy cardstock
embossed snowflakes - Serene Snowflakes set, versamark, Ranger Bridal Tinsel embossing powder
Ribbon - Real Red 5/8" satin
Label on front - decorative label punch in bashful blue; wide oval punch in night of navy then embossed with vintage wallpaper embossing folder; I {heart} hearts stamp set, stamped in real red, then punched out with heart to heart punch.  This label is then attached to the card using dimensionals.

Inside the heart is stamped with I {heart} hearts stamp set in bashful blue ink, but stamped off once and then stamped on the inside.  The quote is from Occasional Quotes.

I made these snowflakes using my Cricut and the When It's Cold Outside cartridge.  I made 4 different snowflakes in 3 different sizes: 2.5", 3", and 3.5"  They are double sided so the outside snowflake it cut with just plain white cardstock, and the inside is bashful blue cardstock.  My mom will hang these from the ceiling in the dining room and throughout the lobby, along with some hearts that I made her last year.  I hope she takes pictures, I would love to see it all put together!

Tip for Today

I'm still trying to catch up on some stuff and I end up catching a cold!  I've been slacking on some of my goals I wanted to achieve this year, and I'm pretty sure I need a lesson in time management. 

For now I have a small little tip.  I'm sure others do it this way too, but sometimes I can be a little slow in figuring these things out for myself!  So how many people get frustrated with their paper trimmer cutting crooked?  Yup, me too!  Well, one day I was sitting there trying to figure out what could be possibly causing this problem.  I have 2 different kinds of trimmers and they both were cutting crooked!  As I was cutting a piece of paper, I noticed that as soon as I started to slide the blade down, my paper shifted.

Let me try to explain in pictures:

When you have the paper at the top of the trimmer and you slide the blade from the top down, it can very slightly push the paper to the left.  Yes, even when I hold down the paper, for some reason it still moves it very slightly, enough to notice that there was a difference in size from the top of the paper to the bottom.  I wondered if it was because there wasn't anything at the bottom of the paper to hold it in place.

So I thought what if I cut from the bottom going up?  If I did this, then the paper would be held against the lip at the top of the trimmer and it might keep the paper in place while I cut the paper.  Well, it worked!  With having that paper against that little ridge, it kept it in place while I pushed the blade through the paper.

It also works if you put the paper at the bottom of the trimmer (if there is a lip there also) and then cut from the top to the bottom.  As long as there is something that prevent the paper from slipping to the side while you cut it.














Since I've been doing it this way I haven't gotten any crooked cuts and my frustration level against paper trimmers is way down!

Now if somebody can give me some tips on how to stop getting these huge spaces in my blog posts, my frustration with blogger will go down as well! haha  What am I missing???

My Version of Project Life

I know many are doing (or have done) some form of a picture a day type of project.  Some document their lives by taking a picture everyday, some do it weekly, and some do it monthly.  There really is no right or wrong way to do this, it's basically just what you prefer!  Back in 2009 I tried to do the picture a day, then called Project 365.  At first I didn't miss a day.  Then I would miss maybe a day or two a month.  Then it turned into a day or 2 a week...well you  get the picture!  I continued to take pictures throughout the year, but it definitely wasn't everyday.  My intention was to do the album digitally in 8x8.  So I had a couple layouts done for January, but then I got behind on the layouts.  I continued to file my pictures into the appropriate monthly folders, but never did the layouts for them.  Recently I was going back through the layouts I did and I can't even convey the emotions I felt and how nice it was to look back at those pictures and remember those moments that most likely would have gone undocumented, especially those of my sons.  After falling so behind back in 2009, I always thought I could never commit to doing another one of these types of projects.  Suddenly after looking at the beginning of my 2009 Project 365, I really wanted to try it again this year.  I decided to do it digitally again, but this time I didn't want to do a separate album and have each 2 page spread be one week.  I wanted to try to incorporate these pictures into my family scrapbook, but not take up too many pages...oh the dilemma!  Sooooo, I ended up making my own digital template, based on Becky Higgins Project Life, with a tweak here and there to fit some portrait pictures.  Then all I had to do was drop in my pictures and add my journaling.  The templates I made are in 12x12 size, but I am going to resize it to 6x6, and I will be able to fit a whole month on a 2 page layout.  Here is what I mean...

These are 2 separate pages, which make up 1 week.  When resized to 6x6, they fit next to each on a 12x12 page.  The next week, I did the same thing and those 2 pages will be next to each other and will fit under the previous week pages, making up the left side 12x12 page, looking like this...

I did the same for the following 2 weeks of January, which will then be on the right side 12x12 page, and look like this...

So all together the full 2 page layout, which covers the month of January looks like this...

I hope this made sense, it's a bit confusing to explain.  The paper I used for January was Echo Park digital Wintertime Collection.  LOVE Echo Park!!!  I just love that I can fit the whole month, day by day, on just a 2 page layout and it can go right in with my regular family scrapbook, where I can still have my traditional layouts as well!  I love that I can feel like I have these memories already scrapbooked and not feel like I'm behind yet another year.