You Can Never Have Too Much Happy

These two! There may be a 5+ year gap between them, but they are thick as thieves, as the saying goes. It is lovely to see them playing together, enjoying each other’s company! My daughter captured this beautiful moment as they played on the sidelines of their sister’s tennis lesson last week.

Once again, I turned to Pretty Little Studio’s Wildflower collection to document this precious moment. The base patterned paper is called Wildflowers, and I used a coordinating Bazzill cardstock called Nixon to create the grass boundary on the bottom of the layout design. To create the border, I started by sketching borders on scrap paper and then placed them on the patterned paper to get a preview of the result. Once I was happy with sizing and positioning, I traced these patterns onto the cardstock and hand cut. Using a pair of Fringing Scissors, I cut a fringe along the rolling tops to replicate grass.

Before adhering the cardstock to the base paper, I chose several clusters of flowers from the Wildflower Stems coordinating ephemera pack. I made placement decisions for these clusters and used removable adhesive to adhere the bottom of each stem cluster to its respective grass border. The larger grass border was secured directly to the base paper, while the top grass border was added by using a layer of thin black Crafty Foam Tape from Scrapbook Adhesives. This dimension helps to accentuate the look and feel of grass and provides some texture to the overall design. NOTE: I find it very helpful to place my layout in my 12″ x 12″ Scor-pal to secure it tightly and ensure proper alignment of borders, such as those found in this layout. With the grass borders firmly adhered to the page, I placed small white 3D Foam Squares behind each flower cluster to raise them off the page and provide the illusion of flowers growing in the field.

The picture in this layout was mounted on black Precision cardstock by American Crafts. The title to the left of the photo is from the Chocolate Bunny Word Die-Cuts package belonging to the Wildflowers collection.

The three phrases above the picture belong to the Delightful Spring Word Stickers, also belonging to this paper collection. All the coordinating butterflies and bees found on the layout came from various Wildflowers coordinating ephemera packs; Garden Blooms Die-Cuts, Spring Mix Die-Cuts, and Wildflower Stems Die Cuts. The butterflies were folded down the middle and glued down the centre to the base paper using a strong, clear adhesive. The wings were lifted off the page using small 3D Foam Squares. The bees were adhered to the page using more 3D Foam Squares.

And that’s a wrap on the design process for this layout. The final product came together quite quickly. I hope you get a chance to relax on the grass this summer and soak in all the beauty around us. Wildflowers is the perfect collection for documenting these special memories!

Until next time, stay safe, stay well, and Happy Scrapping!

Family – Stitched Together by Love

We’ve always encouraged our children to follow their passion as they grew up. It’s so rewarding to see them do it, but so tough when that passion takes them far away from home! Our son Sean followed his passion into the military and has been posted in Edmonton for several years now. And how lucky for him, and us, that he was posted out west, because this is where he met his incredible fiance, Tanis!

Late last summer we traveled out to Alberta to visit with Sean and Tanis. It was our first opportunity to meet Tanis’ family and we had an incredible trip. We were so warmly welcomed by this family from the moment we arrived. From welcome flowers and cards to multiple gatherings, game nights and wonderful meals together, this family made us feel loved and special throughout our entire stay! We can’t thank them enough for making our visit so special from beginning to end. You know when you meet people and you just know you’re going to be good friends? It’s so rare and such a gift to treasure. And the very best part of this relationship was seeing first-hand how much this family loves our son and welcomes him into their lives. The picture in this layout was taken during our last get together on that trip, and it includes Tanis’ parents, Linda and Ted. I love how it represents both sets of parents as pillars in their lives. We all know how tough this life can be and how important it is to surround ourselves with people who love and support us.

A good part of this strong connection between us all is the things we have in common. Tanis’ Grandmother Donna, definitely has a soft spot for Sean, and so did my Mother! It was so tough losing my Mom several years ago, but how lucky for Sean to now have another Grandmother in his life that cares so deeply for him. One of the most striking similarities between these two Grandmothers is that they both are/were quilters. I can’t think of a better gift to receive than a homemade quilt. Each time you wrap it around you, it’s like getting a loving hug from the woman who dedicated hours, weeks and months to stitching the quilt just for you. It is the love of these women for their families, and their passion to quilt, that inspired me to create this page. My vision was to represent two families coming together by bringing two quilts together on one page.

The top quilt in this layout is a free cut file designed by the talented Paige Evans. It is called Patchwork and is found on the Scrapbook and Cards Today (SCT) website under Bonus Files – Spring 2021. SCT offers multiple free cut files with each new edition, so be sure to check them out! I cut this file from white cardstock and backed it with coordinating papers from Cocoa Vanilla Studio’s Happiness collection. The colours in this collection were a great fit for the colours in our family picture (and it was just luck that we coordinated so well that day!).

I also wanted another background that represented quilting and the Stitched Diamonds cut file from Confessions of a Paper Addict (COAPA) was just want I was looking for. I used 8 coordinating colours of DMC floss to stitch this foundation page (DMC #500, 502, 820, 825, 991, 992, 3844, 3846). As most of the bottom page would be covered by the top quilt, I only stitched the first 3 sections from the outside in.

Before securing the top quilt to the bottom foundation page, fun foam was adhered to the backside to provide further dimension and texture to the layout. I find this product ensures a smooth and secure look for years to come. Something you can’t achieve by using foam dots.

The title was created using cut file #154615 from Silhouette Design Store entitled family saying – flea market.studio by Doodlebug Design. I created and printed the add on – Stitched together by love – using Microsoft Office Word.

Our love for our children has brought us together and we are all so excited to see them begin to build a life together. While we can’t have Sean close to home, we are certainly blessed that he has a family out west that loves him as much as we do! We left that vacation with the feeling that our family had just doubled in size. We can’t wait to make another trip out west to spend time with this loving and caring family.

Wishing you all a Happy Victoria Day! Until next time, stay safe, stay well, and Happy Scrapping!