My Hen's Den MME Stella & Rose Hattie Layout

My newest layout for the Hen's Den is posted on their blog! I used pictures of our trip to Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home in Scottsdale, Arizona for this layout, which features My Mind's Eye's Stella & Rose Hattie line.

Here are the steps that I used to create this layout:

1. Use Bazzill Basics Cardstock Paper (Midnight) as your background. Splatter some paint on it to create visual interest.

2. Mat each of your photos with the back side of My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose Hattie Happy Dots double-sided patterned paper. Ink the edges.

3. Cut out circles with My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose Hattie Happy Dots and Woven Stripe double-sided patterned paper and arrange behind photos.

4. Pleat May Arts Teal Satin/Grosgrain Double Band ribbon to create borders between photos and around circle and adhere with glue dots.

5. Add My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose Mabel So Sweet buttons to Maya Road Vintage Gauze blossoms.

6. Fussy cut flowers from My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose Hattie Happy Bouquet double-sided patterned paper and create embellishment clusters.

7. Hand stitch My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose Hattie Buddies Sticker Tag to the corner of your page to create journaling spot and add fussy cut flowers.

8. Add journaling and a title.

Don't forget to check out all of the new projects and products featured on the Hen's Den!

Hens' Den Newsletter!

The Hens' Den has been very busy creating a new website, putting its current inventory on sale to create room for new CHA 2012 products, setting up a gallery where you can win a prize just by uploading your layouts, and putting together its first newsletter! The newsletter has sneak peeks of all of the new products coming into the store.

The newsletter also features this layout that I created with My Mind's Eye's Stella & Rose Hattie collection:

Here are the steps that I used to create this layout:

1. Use My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose Hattie Tapestry double-sided patterned paper as your background.

2. Mat each of your photos with the back side of My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose Argyle and Woven Stripe double-sided patterned paper.

3. Use a border punch to create a pattern with Bazzill Basics Midnight Cardstock Paper and add to the bottom of your photos.

4. Cut out rectangles with My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose Herringbone and Woven Stripe double-sided patterned paper and arrange behind photos. Ink your edges to make the paper pops.

5. Add Maya Road Small Organza White Roses Ribbon to the bottom and side of your photographs.

6. Fussy cut flowers from My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose Hattie Happy Bouquet double-sided patterned paper and create embellishment clusters.

7. Add My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose Hattie Label Stickers to the embellishment clusters.

8. Use My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose Hattie Label Stickers & Sticker Tags and May Arts Teal Satin/Grosgrain Double Band Ribbon to create pendents on two opposite sides of the page.

February Layouts

This is the first card that I have made with MME's Sunshine line:

As you can see, I have now jumped in to MME's Lost & Found Christmas line:

Hens' Den Reveal

This month the Hens' Den gave me Basic Grey's Picadilly Collection to work with. I love the oranges and blues in this line, and thought that they would look great with these kayaking pictures from this summer.

Here are the steps that I used to create this layout:

1. Cut two Basic Grey Picadilly double-sided patterned papers (Eat at Joes and Farm Fresh Eggs) in half and adhere them together to form your background.
2. Cut strips of coordinating Basic Grey Picadilly double-sided patterned papers (Breadbox and Breakfast Nook) and hand-stitch around each strip.
3. Layer the strips of paper on the background to create a pattern behind your pictures.
4. Distress the edge of your photographs and crop two pictures.
5. Mat your smaller pictures using the other side of Basic Grey Picadilly's Farm Fresh Eggs double-sided patterned papers and hand stitch around the edges.
6. Layer the pictures on the layout.
7. Fussy cut flowers from Basic Grey Picadilly Home Sweet Home double-sided patterned paper.
8. Adhere the fussy cut flowers to the layout using pop dots.
9. Add Basic Grey Picadilly Metal Flowers to the embellishment clusters.
10. Finish layout with a title and journaling.

New Layouts (and card)

My dear friend Tiffany just had a birthday and I created this card to celebrate using MMR's card sketch.

I also have lots of layouts to share with you today. The first one is yet another layout of Jesse and my first trip to Hawaii (we took a lot of pictures of this fun new adventure!) using MME's January sketch and Lost & Found Sunshine line.

This next layout is the final layout from Jesse's trip to Chile, featuring Bo Bunny's Et Cetera line.

Last, but not least, is the first layout I am doing for our anniversary trip that we took to Phoenix last year. The main reason we chose Phoenix was so that we could buy Jesse a new car from a dealership there. I used MME's Stella & Rose Hatti line and PageMaps' beautiful new sketch to creat this layout.

Family Fun

I always knew my family was weird. Here's proof!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Yes, I know that Christmas was a week ago, but we have been traveling, making blogging a tad tricky. Before we left, we got ourselves stockings (no, we never had any before) and fixed our fireplace, which has added coziness!

Our first stop on our multi-leg tour was in Indiana, where we hung out with Jesse's side of the family.

We baked delicious gluten-free pumpkin muffins

and fiery chocolate mini muffins with chocolate icing and strawberries.


We had to use ridiculously high proof alcohol to get them to light right, but we got it!

We also played pool

and Jesse played so well that when he scratched Lorna was so surprised she spilled her wine all over the floor.

All of us went out to eat together as well.

We also had fun and craziness with my side of the family.

We enjoyed our presents,

read,

got crafty,

and went to the Mystic Seaport.

We had fun looking at old boats.


All in all it was a good Christmas!

The Hen's Den Design Team

Guess what? I am one of the Hens' Den's new design team members! You can find the announcement here: http://thehensdenteam.blogspot.com/ You will have to wait until January to see my first project as part of the Hens' Den design team, but until then here is a new layout I just completed using MSC's sketch #1:

I also had a blast playing with sketch #2

and sketch #3!

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

I was in the kitchen the other day, examining some questionable spinach, when it occurred to me: much of the food we throw out is perfectly safe for consumption. Many of us pitch the sour cream when the clock chimes midnight the day of its expiration stamp, but I'm thinking more broadly. A lot of food is safe well past any reasonable level of edibleness. Take my spinach for instance. It was in a bag, and at the bottom was a mass of green mush and liquid. Would you pull out your Oneida spoon and dig in? Nonetheless, I'm sure I could dump it in a pan with a little oil for a stir-fry and never know the difference. Popeye ate mushy spinach, and look where it got him.

On the other hand, no one ever ate blue-green chicken, cooked or otherwise, and was happy with the result.

This epiphany led me to the following, very important, list of foods you can eat when they're rotten:

• Spinach
• Carrots
• Cheese (just cut off the fuzz)
• Olives (Testing this now! 2 hours and counting!)
• Bread
• Potatoes (like a Chia pet, just trim the sprouts)
• Rice
• Flour (worms = protein)
• Twinkies (these don't actually go bad)
• Apples
• McD's french fries

Surely you've found others...

(PS: I don't really know if you can eat this stuff. When faced with the omnivore's dilemma, I recommend, as always, taking the conservative position.)

Sunshine

Now that I finally have a (short) break from traveling, I have had a chance to do some scrapbooking. I used MME's Sunshine line for this layout, which is based on MME's December sketch. These pictures are from my favorite breakfast ever -- at the Princeville St. Regis in Kauai. The food was delectable and the scenery was awe-inspiring!

While we were in Kauai, we explored the island in this jeep and got out and explored some beautiful beaches. This layout is based on sketch 3 from My Creative Sketches.


Here's the two-page layout perspective.


Finally, I made this card using scraps from MME's Union Square line and card sketch.