back to school

Happy Monday!  Our BBTB2 challenge for the next two weeks is a back to school theme.  I've taken a picture of my boys every first day, kindergarten through senior year of high school.  This year will be the last "first day", as my youngest is going to be a high school senior.  His first day will not be the traditional grabbing the backpack and heading off to school, but will be online from home instead, as his school is starting in a hybrid format due to the pandemic.  It's going to be an interesting school year for sure.  And that's not even getting into what may happen with my college kiddos!  All of us parents of school age children are facing the uncertain future this year!  My oldest, a college senior, moved into the dorms and 4 days later came home very sick with covid!  He has recovered and we are just finishing our 2 weeks of quarantine for the family.  I won't be surprised if we are doing this again with the other kids.

I used the Locker Talk collection of images for the calculator and ruler and the Varsity Letters font for the Senior Year lettering, plus some fun school themed paper from Echo Park.  You can link up a project over at the BBTB2 site and also see the rest of the design team's school projects!  Hope you all have a good week and stay safe!

Cricut:

The First Few Years-ruler

Locker Talk-calculator

Varsity Letters-font

Paper-Echo Park Teacher's Pet collection prints/stickers, CTMH solids

brown chalk in for edging

Back to School

Hello Monday!  Well, it's going to be a big life change moving my oldest son into his college dorm for his freshman year this weekend!  While he is going to school close to home, I'm still really going to miss him.  This letting go part of parenting is harder than I thought.  It's back to school week for the other two as well, with my middle son starting his junior year of high school and my youngest starting his freshman year of high school.

As I am hosting the BBTB2 challenge this week, I selected Back to School as our challenge theme.  I always take first day of school pics, so I made my layout using the Artbooking and Locker Talk cartridges.  Gotta have your backpack to be ready to go, right?  I'm going to have to make another project to capture the college move in.  The rest of the design team over at BBTB2 has some great projects to see and you can link yours up too!

Cricut:
Artbooking-titles
Locker Talk-locker, backpack
Paper-Echo Park prints, green/blue solids, CTMH red
brown chalk ink

Graduation layout

Happy Monday!  It's been a roller coaster emotional week at my house.  Son#1 graduated from high school Friday night!  Not only did he graduate with honors in the top 10% of his class, he is also an International Baccalaureate diploma candidate and won a medal as the Outstanding English student of his high school on Honor's Day.  I'm not ashamed to admit I cried tears of pride and joy.  I remember so clearly the day he was born and now he has grown up into an amazing man and I look forward to seeing what his future holds as he heads to college in the fall.

Fortunately for me, our BBTB2 challenge this week is a graduation theme-and you know I took plenty of graduation pictures Friday night! So...naturally I made a graduation layout.  It's fairly simple design, as the pictures will be the focus, but I accented my large photo (which will be a fantastic pic of the cap toss at the end) with the graduation cap from Locker Talk.   The design team has ideas for cards, layouts, etc for graduation, so take a look and link up a project.

Cricut:
CM Traveler-font
Locker Talk-graduation cap
Paper-TPC graduation print, CTMH solids

Movie night layout

Happy Monday!  Fall is here with falling leaves and crisp, cool evenings.  What is more fun than having a movie night at home with some popcorn and apple cider?  Our BBTB2 challenge this week is movie night (or a movie themed project).  We do movie night fairly regularly around my house, bringing out the popcorn and root beer floats, so I made a layout for some movie night pics of the fam.  There's nothing better than being snuggled up on the couch in front of a roaring fire with my favorite peeps to watch something blow up (not a lot of chick flicks allowed with all my fellas around)!  I used a whole bunch of cartridges, but I love how it turned out!  I even hand-made my movie reel using circles from Plaintain Schoolbook!  Go see the projects from the design team and link up a movie project over at BBTB2 this week.

Cricut:
Family Album-row of stars
Artiste-Movie Night title
Locker Talk-ticket and clapper
County Fair-popcorn and soda
Artistry-filmstrip
Plaintain Schoolbook-film reel hand made using different size circles

Graduation

Happy Monday!  I hope you are having a relaxing Memorial Day holiday!  It's that graduation season and our BBTB2 challenge this week is to make either a graduation or thank you card.  While I don't have any graduates this year, next year Son#1 will be a senior and I expect to need lots of cards as we will know many graduating seniors.  So this card is going in the stash!  I used Locker Talk for the graduation cap and Elegant Edges for the background mat.  The font is from Artistry.  My Swiss Dots embossing folder on the mat did not show up well in the photo, but gives some texture to the white mat in real life!  Hope you will check out all the fabulous cards at BBTB2 and use the linky for a project to share of your own.

Cricut:
Locker Talk-graduation cap
Artistry-font
Elegant Edges-shaped mat behind cap
Swiss Dots embossing folder
Paper-CTMH solids

Study Time layout (for BBTB2)

Happy Monday!  I actually feel ready for the week, as no one had to go anywhere and I didn't have to work this weekend.  It was absolute bliss to just hang out at home!

Our BBTB2 challenge this week is to use a clock on a project.  My Study Time layout is for some funny pics snapped during December finals week, when my oldest two were trying to get ready for math finals.  (The cat is even hanging out "studying" math with one of them in one of my pics that will go on here.  Although I don't think he would have passed the pre-calc final, lol.)  The green background mat with the letters if from the Graphically Speaking cartridge.  My clock and stack of books are from the Locker Talk cartridge.  The paper, letter stickers and stickers on the journal box are from the Echo Park Paper and Glue collection.  Go take some time at BBTB2 and see the cute projects the rest of the design team have made and link up a project!

Cricut:
Locker Talk-stack of books, clock
Graphically Speaking-background mat with letters
Paper-Echo Park Paper and Glue collection prints, sticker, blue paper, other CTMH
brown chalk ink

#1 Student layout

Locker Talk is my favorite school themed cartridge, both for the images and all the great titles.  This layout has some pics leftover from the end of school last year, so I made a quick layout using Locker Talk for the titles #1 Student and Field Day, along with my Echo Park school mini theme kit.

Cricut:
Locker Talk-all cuts
Paper-Echo Park mini theme kit, plus solid card stock

Back to School layout

So, this layout is for our traditional first day of school photos with the backpacks!  The kids even posed one of their stuffed animals with a lunchbox, but decided the backpack was too much for him!  (The cat refused to pose with ANY school related items!)  I used some paper from my stash of Basic Grey's Life of the Party collection and started cutting school supplies!  (Although not quite as many as the amount of actual school supplies-you do not even want to know how many pocket brad folders it takes to be a 6th grader these days.  In case you have an inquiring mind, the answer is 24.   I think altogether we bought 36 pocket brad folders, as the other two grades seemed to be satisfied with a ROY G BIV collection of folders each.  Don't even get me started on spiral notebooks and glue sticks! )  I used the Recess Lite cartridge for the title and most of the cuts, except the locker and brown bag, which are from Locker Talk.  The locker seemed appropriate now that I have two middle schoolers!   There are tags from Recess behind the pictures on the left page, so I can write about their teachers and schedules.

Cricut:
Locker Talk-locker and brown bag
Recess-all other cuts
Paper-Basic Grey "Life of the Party" collection
I'm going to link this to a couple of challenges this week:  BBTB2 back to school challenge,  Exploring Cricut back to school challenge, and the  Fantabulous Cricut-back to school cricut crawl.

Memories layout (school)

One of the kids most beloved teachers is taking a new job next year, so they took some special pictures sitting in her classroom and of the last days of school with friends, so I titled this layout "memories".  All the cuts are from Locker Talk and the paper is from Basic Grey's Shine On collection.  I had the most terrible time getting pictures of this layout-it's cloudy and the pics are kind of dark-sorry!

Cricut:
Locker Talk-all cuts
Paper/transparency-Basic Grey

I'm going to link this to the Die Cuttin Divas Anything Goes challenge this week, which has helped me finish up this layout!

Graduation layout

I dug out my never used Recess Lite cartridge that I bought last fall for the Exploring Cricut challenge to use a neglected cartridge, and made a layout for the elementary graduation pictures I took this week.  It had some cuts that were perfect!  Isn't the little schoolhouse cute?  I embossed it with a brick Sizzix folder.  I also added some cuts from Locker Talk.  (I think I've never used it because I like Locker Talk so much for school events.)

 
Cricut:
Locker Talk-Graduation banner and 5th grade badge
Recess Lite-all other cuts
Paper-The Paper Studio All Seasons 1prints, solid CM cardstock
Ribbon-Stampin Up real red

Science Fair layout

Lockertalk is going to get a workout this next few weeks with all the many school events!  I used the Science Fair sign, beaker, and microscope for this layout, which were kind of fun to cut out!  I love all the signs on this cart.   Ahh, those beakers and microscope:  brought back memories of high school chemistry-the thrill of mixing chemicals and not blowing yourself up is not to be forgotten :)   And the Echo Park This and That paper is very fun to work with!  All the ticket stubs and library card things were from the paper pack.

Cricut:
Locker Talk-all cuts
Paper-Echo Park This and That collection

Math Contest layout

School themed layouts anyone?  I pulled out Locker Talk to create a layout for pictures of Son#2 placing in a regional math contest.  It had the ribbons, a calculator, AND even a compass/protractor!!!!  Thank you, Locker Talk!  (I love it when I find EXACTLY what I had in mind.)  The paper is from the really great Echo Park A Boy's Life collection.

Cricut:
Plaintain Schoolbook-background circle, numbers (tall ball font)
Locker Talk-all other cuts
Paper/stickers-Echo Park

bookclub layout

This layout features my bookclub friends at our favorite meeting of the year, where we pick the books for next year.  It's always lively and loud, as we have lunch together and talk books.  I used paper from Simple Stories Destination line for the background and the Locker Talk cart for the stack of books.  The "bookclub" font is Nate's ABCs.  The small letters were stickers that came with the paper, and spells out our goofy bookclub name: SMOAUF (which stands for slightly modern, often american, usually fiction, since we are kind of eclectic in our selections). 

Don't forget to check out the post  about a chance to win blog candy to celebrate 50 followers! 

Cricut:
Locker Talk-books
Nate's ABCs-bookclub font
Paper-Simply Said Destinations
brown chalk ink
ribbon-Stampin Up old olive

I'm going to link this to the Fantabulous Cricut challenge to use "fancy trim" (ribbon, fabric, lace, etc.).

2011 calendar month pages

This was my calendar that I had hanging this last year, with all the pages together.  I've shown a few of them separately.  I used Designer's Calendar for the grid and month/day names and numbers, and a whole variety of cartridges for the decorations.  Doodlecharms and Simply Charmed were the carts I used the most (besides Designer's Calendar).

January:

Stretch Your Imagination and Graphically Speaking

February:

Doodlecharms and Paisley

March:

Simply Charmed and Stretch Your Imagination

April:

Simply Charmed and Paisley

May:

Doodlecharms and Simply Charmed

June:

Doodlecharms and H2O

July:

Doodlecharms and Graphically Speaking

August:

Mickey and Friends and H2O

September:

Doodlecharms and Locker Talk

October:

Doodlecharms

November:

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Doodlecharms and Simply Charmed

December:

Doodlecharms and Winter Woodlands