Memories in Bloom!

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Hey friends—its been a while. Its been the worst two years of my life. I was not really prepared for the direction my life was taking but now that I am here I am grateful for the things that God was lining up for me before I knew what was happening. It was not an accident, it was a plan designed to save me.

I am thankful for my crafting community, especially those who were in the nitty gritty with me as I cried through teaching classes or needed to vent, who kindly offered me reassurance that I would not be stuck in that space for long. Because that is the thing right—we are never actually in that space for long. No matter what we are always moving forward. For a long time I was coasting along on the tide of life into an ocean where I did not want to be. But now I have the chance to bring myself and my kids into a space where we are meant to be.

I want to get back to share my creativity with others and focusing on creating life long memories with my kids and friends, and capturing these in a paper legacy! I look foward to sharing with you in this space. Including recipes and just general life stuff. One day my kids can look back on this too :)

I hadn’t been to disney since before Covid…its the same nostalgic feeling!

In May I spent a week in Disney with Reese. It was a amazing. Every mom should be so lucky to spend time on a vacation with their son, and in a place as fun as Disneyworld. I could not have asked for a better travel companion! Our first stop in the Magic Kingdom was for a Starbucks and a picture in front of the castle.

I created this page as part of a series for my Scrapbook the Day event that I have been hosting every few months in my Home Studio. Its been fun to take our kits and turn them into other designs, treat people to a homemade lunch and dessert and have happy energy in my crafting studio.

I used the Memories in Bloom kit as the backdrop for this page. Personally I feel like you can use flowers for almost anything. I really loved the colors of the kit and the fact that there was a matching bundle to incorporate. The Pretty Florals bundle was a great add on to bring dimension into my design as I am not prone to just using the pop out images from our kits. My personal style is for things to be more dynamic.

However, I did pull in a lot of other supplies as well to complete my page. I am loving the new Party Banners Dies and the Celebrate Together stamp set is an #addtocart moment if you have not already. I have used the ‘A Day to Remember’ so many times already! It’s a perfect scrapbooking or memory keeping stamp set. Storybook Life is another fantastic memory keeping stamp set and that is where ‘Big Smiles’ is found.

My sentiments are stamped in Secret Sea ink which is such a great alternative to Memento ink.

TOP TIPS:

Combining pop out pieces with stamping and die cuts is a great way to use a kit and bring a design to life. I like my pages to have texture and interest.

Balancing out a busy pattern by layering a solid card stock over top is a great tip when you do not know how to use those busy pattern.

I used one of the large flowers from the Thankful Garden stamp set to fill in some space on the Petunia Paper base (stamping tone on tone). A combination of different embellishments is also fun (use up those random sequins or gems that you have left, it’s a crime they get abandoned!)

I hope this page sparks some new ideas in your own memory keeping!

If you are just starting your memory keeping journey—check out my gallery for a bunch of inspiration and follow me on instagram @stampwithbrenda if you are not already!

And wish me luck on my new journey—as I have been saying Brenda2.0 has just launched! If you are inspired to create this page please consider shopping with me in Canada—this helps me to keep loving what I do!

Twelve Days of Christmas--Project #6

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Hi friends! Are you enjoying our project shares? I really hope you are finding some fun and different ideas between myself and Melanie! Today I want to share another holiday scrapbook page idea with you!

I offer a class each month, on the last Sunday of the month, over zoom, that is called The Making Memories Membership. Each month I design and share a layout with the members, share my creative strategies and design process and then recreate the page using completely different supplies. You craft along with me using your own supplies! It has been a wonderful first year offering this class series. If you are looking to develop your scrapbooking skills, please message me to find out how you can join for 2025!

This page was one that I shared this past month with everyone in The Making Memories Membership group. Typically, I do not share publicly what I create for this group, but I love this page so much and I would love you to join my creative community, so here you go!

Tell me I am not the only one who snaps pics of the starbucks holiday cups? hahaha!

The base of this page is Pecan Pie with a layer of Basic White over top. I used a variety of 2x2 squares in a bunch of DSP patterns to give life to this page. Some are retired, some are holiday prints and some are more neutral, however they come together in perfect harmony. There is literally SO MUCH you can do, design wise, with a 2x2 square!

‘Yay all the Way’ is from the Sophisticated Sled Bundle —with a little Real Red & White Bakers Twine in behind and a gold snowflake from the Snowy Wonder Dies. This bundle is where you will find the ‘Season’s Greetings’ sentiment as well. I used the Modern Oval Punch for that sentiment and layed it over top of a label die from the Peaceful Season Dies.

I wanted to add little images or shapes to some of the squares to help tell the story or the theme of my page. I stamped the little tree from the Snowy Wonder stamp set, a heart from the Bee Builder Punch, a little die cut tree from Snowy Wonder and the snowflake from the One of a Kind dies. Plus a few fun peppermint embellishments and some really old little heart embellishments (that I have been hoarding!).

If you are going to try and recreate this page, make sure to pop up your Real Red photo mat plus a few of the square to give dimension to your page. It really helps bring the layering effect of the 2x2 squares to life.

If you have questions about The Making Memories Membership program, please reach out!

And check out Melanie’s project tomorrow, or see what she shared yesterday, as we are alternating our schedule!

Scrapbooking with Memories & More cards!

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If you are looking for an easy way to start scrapbooking, I would suggest Memories & More cards! I have several sets that I collect from every catalogue so my project share today is actually using a retired set of cards Flowers for Every Season. I do offer lots of classes featuring the Memories & More cards as they are just so user friendly!

Stampin’ Fancy Friday this month is featuring projects made with Memories & More cards so I knew right away I wanted to create a fun scrapbook page of a recent ‘pass through’ trip to Jasper, AB Canada with my friends Jessica. This was a nightly pit stop for us on our way to Vancouver for On Stage back in November!

What I love about Memories & More cards is that they have so many great images, sentiments or phrases that you can easily cut out. Often there are stickers and other fun elements that you can add onto your projects. You can stop there or you can add in other things from your craft supply.

For this page I started with a base of Crumb Cake 12x12 and I added a layer of Misty Moonlight behind my picture as a photo mat.

One of my favorite things to do with the Memories & More cards is cut them apart either with paper snips or with dies. The ‘Winter Wishes’ sentiment came from one of that cards that I used the Layering Circle Dies to cut out. ‘It’s Cold Outside’ and ‘Yay for Today’ are cut from another card that was full of different sentiments. I also trimmed out the flower tucked under the main sentiment from a card as well. See! So many options!

I jazzed up this page with some background stamping from Joyful Flurry.

TOP TIP: For background stamping with images, I like to add a bunch of stamps to a large block to stamp at once! This is an efficient way to stamp a large area!

I added some die cut snowflakes from the Celebrate Tags Dies and some of our new Pastel Adhesive Backed Sequins. I am also a hoarder of our gold and silver Metallic Thread that retired a few years ago so I added some on this page too. It is definitely a true mash up of stuff on this scrapbook page!

I like to use the cards to highlight my photo so you can see how I used them as some fun layers behind my photo. You can cut them apart and trick the eye into thinking you are using a much larger piece of paper than you really are. This really helps stretch the Memories & More cards even further!

I hope this project encourages you to look at some past or retired supplies you might have and give them some new life by pairing them up with some more current items. Or at the vary least you are inspired to create a scrapbook page.

Make sure you follow us @stampinfancyfriday on Instagram and Facebook. Each month Artisan Alumni members create with a different theme and share across social media!

 

Thanks for popping by my blog today! If you are interested in scrapbooking make sure to check out my gallery! I recently added 46 page layouts so there is alot of scrapbooking inspiration for you!

And if you create something that I have inspired you with, please tag me! I would love to see your take!

Seven Days of Scrapbooking--Day #2

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Hello friends and welcome back! If you missed the dozen amazing scrapbooking projects shared yesterday on my Instagram Stories just search the hashtag #sevendaysofscrapbooking and you can see all of the amazing projects! I am really excited to share my page today as it focuses on the Textured Chic Memories & More cards. I used these card packages quite frequently to make traditional scrapbook pages and I hope this sparks a creative idea in yourself!

With a few additional supplies I was easily able to make this amazing page to capture this moment in Rome with my husband. This picture was taken on the Greece Incentive trip using a photographer we booked through Flytographer and was one of the best experiences we have ever had on a holiday!

Fun Fact: We were at our photography location at 6 am to take these pictures! It was worth the early hour to not have a soul around in our pictures!

Let me start by saying what I LOVE about our Memories & More cards—the thickness and style of the cards, a little stiffer than our regular card stock and DSP so they immediately add texture. The VALUE of the cards is amazing! You get double of everything which allows you the freedom to cut up a card and layer it if you need to (on the word ‘days’ for example), and finally the variety of phrases and sentiments in the collection of cards. I find there are some really unique sentiments not found in our stamp sets. And the concept designers have been knocking the collections out of the park over the past few catalogues!

And if there are coordinating Cards & Envelopes, make sure to get those too! I often use them as layering pieces—the envelopes are decorative so cut them apart for layering!

For this page I actually did add in a few stamped florals and greenery from the Framed Occasions stamp set so this is actually a hybrid project of sorts. The top left corner of this page truly represents all that I love about M&M cards. For example, I have die cut a circle using Petal Pink card stock and the Stylish Shapes dies and on top have added a sticker (yes! the cards come with stickers too which is brilliant) and then CUT APART one of the 3x4 cards to make a whole new sentiment. I layered some of the new Natural Finish ribbon behind along with some stamped flowers, another sticker and the cute little Flower Trinkets!

On the bottom left of the page I used 2 more stickers (like seriously, how perfect are they?) that I mounted on a piece of Mango Melody card stock and part of the M&M card that was left over after I snipped out those words. Don’t let anything go to waste! A couple more flowers and some greenery tied this area together with the first one—this is a design key. You always want to have repeating elements on your scrapbook page (in my opinion or style of memory keeping at least). :)

 

My favorite thing to do with this style of memory keeping is to cut one of the duplicate cards apart to layer on top of the original. By adding ‘days’ that is hand cut and popped up with a Dimensional we have truly brought this one dimensional card to life. And don’t get rid of the extra left over, if you look along the left side of the photo mat I have tucked it there to bring this color across the page! Its a pro tip for sure!

I also added a few of the Elegant Faceted Gems to this section with more stamped flowers and a Flower Trinket. Its the best way to add this color trio over to this side of the page.

If you haven’t tried Memories & More cards yet on a traditional scrapbook page I really encourage you to give it a try! The investment isn’t steep and its fun to play around with the many card options in your design!

Make sure to check out my stories so you can see what everyone else is creating and sharing! If you are in Canada and would like to order anything, please visit my store with sincere thanks in advance and send me a message if you are interested in joining in any of my classes!

#sevendaysofscrapbooking

Around the World on Wednesday--Favorite Inspiration

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This month we are exploring where we get our inspiration from which I think is super interesting. Sometimes I have an idea, or want to use a specific color, but get stuck thinking about what other colors might coordinate. My number one go to tool are the Color Coach cards that Stampin’ Up! has developed. I know everyone who is participating in the Hop this month will have some fantastic tips and inspiration for us to get inspired when we are feeling stuck!

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The Color Coach cards are a Demonstrator resource found in the Printing Place. I am sure if you ask your own local demo she/he would be more than happy to share them with you. As a demo myself I have offered this as class project. We organized all of our Color Coach cards into one of our 6 x 8 albums with a card stock sample. I reference this book ALL THE TIME. Sometimes I just need a bit of color inspiration!

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So for our project today, I opened up my Color Coach and selected a Calypso Coral Color Coach Card (say that 5x fast!) and used the 3 colors to create my project—Calypso Coral, Petal Pink and Sahara Sand. I used gold as my accent color to add that glitz aspect.

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We have so many options to add gold to our projects—we can emboss with gold embossing powder, add gold foil paper to our projects, gold embellishments (so many options) or our brand new gold Gilded Leafing embellishment. The Gilded Leafing has a bit of a different look to it than gold embossing and I wanted to play around with it on this project.

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Because I wanted to incorporate all three colors from the Color Coach Card onto my project I reached for my Blending Brushes which are a brand new tool being offered by Stampin’ Up!. I started by blending the Petal Pink color first because I was then able to use the SAME brush to add in the Calypso Coral! These brushes are totally amazing.

The Petal Pink is blended across the mid section of the card. I then added in the Calypso Coral along the bottom left corner and brought the Sahara Sand in from the top right. The Sahara Sand just gives our paper a subtle color but you can see the difference when you add the sentiment which is on Whisper White/Basic White card stock.

The sentiment is from the stamp set Always in my Heart

The sentiment is from the stamp set Always in my Heart

I continued the gold theme by accenting my sentiment with some Gold Foil paper cut with the scallop die from the Peony die set and some Gold Metallic Pearls.

I stamped both opposite corners using the Sale-a-bration stamp set Corner Bouquet. To apply the Gilded Leafing to my image I started by stamping it with Versamark and then adding Heat’n Stick Powder over top.

HOT TIP: To use your Heat’n Stick Powder successfully only heat it until it starts to glisten. Once this happens it has become sticky and you can add another ingredient on top. If you over heat or cook it too long, it actually loses its stickiness

After heating the powder you can add your Gilded Leafing. I have dumped out my jar (which will explode in volume) into a large container. You can press your card right into the leafing in the bin or you can add it with tweezers. Either method works but I prefer pressing it into the container. Once you have it attached it, it will look like a hot mess (trust me you are going to look at this and think ‘this ain’t pretty'), you need to use either a Stampin’ Sponge or the large Water Painter brush to brush away the excess and bring the detail to life. I was able to apply extra Gilded Leafing to my project in areas where I didn’t feel there was enough. You can use your finger to rub it with some pressure to your project as well.

In the end, I think it turned out pretty spectacular!

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I am so curious to see where everyone else gets their inspiration from. I hope you enjoy our hop this month and if you live in Canada you can shop with me anytime by using the hostess code. Gratitude and thanks in advance! Up next on the hop is the amazing Tricia Butts from the United States!