2 Peas Hop

December 22nd, means another round of the Garden Girl hop!

 Two of my favorite layouts in the Garden right now....

This is by Garden Girl Amy Heller. I love the traditional Christmas red paired with the wood washi. This is such an interesting mix of textures and details, all wrapped up in design perfection.

This peek is from fellow Pea Jaimeelynn's December Daily. She's used a beautiful combination of red and gold. Her book is filled with beautiful details and memories. It's inspired me to give the December Daily another shot. I just may do one right after the holidays and fill it with some of my favorite memories from this season.

Some of the things I've added to my collection this week:

1.  Kelly Purkey's Bright Idea Stamp
2. The Love Story Collection by Echo Park Paper Co.
3. Wood Veneer Alphabet by Studio Calico
4. Studio Calico's version of enamel dots, Gems
5. Crate Paper's Fourteen Collection
6. Secret Crush Photo Tabs by Pink Paislee

And now for a fun prize. How about a $10 gift certificate to twopeasinabucket.com? Just leave a comment and tell me what your favorite Holiday Tradition is and you're entered. Don't forget to leave me your PeaName too.  I'll announce the winner right here in one week.

And now hop on over to Garden Girl Lynn Ghahary's blog for more inspiration + links.

Jillibean Soup Staples

This boy loves art. He has since he was old enough to hold a crayon. I remember him drawing and painting the most colorful, detailed pictures. All of his trees were rainbow colored and I never once corrected him. He could spend hours sitting at the kitchen table creating.

I wanted to combine his love of color and rainbows (through the patterned paper) and the "where" of the story. Using the geotag symbol here made sense. I kept the layout pretty simple, based on white card stock and stripes of Jillibean Soup Staples paper. The circle die cut was filled with a  jumble of random Alphabean letters and made an interesting background for the ART title. The navy blue banner strip was cut using a Silhouette.  I used a black and white photo because the lighting and shadows in the picture were really bad. Changing it to B&W and sharpening it a bit 'saved it'.

These pictures are almost four years old and you can still find that very same boy drawing + painting in that same spot. As a matter of fact, just tonight he was drawing a very colorful, detailed Nutcracker for me. Some things really don't change.

Sadness

This is my First Grader. 

I've been hugging him extra tight all weekend. Each time I see the faces of the Newtown angels, I see my boy and his classmates.  I can't imagine the profound grief of those parents. I can't wrap my mind around this violent world we're raising children in. I try to keep him safe and sheltered from it. But time is not on my side. I pray. I hope. I vote. I wait on the world to change.

Echo Park This & That Christmas

Back into the Christmas spirit and way back in time. This is Nico and my Dad in 2006 at our local Christmas tree farm. He was so tiny and bald at the time. Hence that knit reindeer hat. I thought it was so cute at the time. Now I think it just looks 'different'. Ha!

I started the layout on the woodgrain paper in the This & That collection by Echo Park.  I love the traditional holiday colors and pretty patterns in this line. They compliment my photos + story.

The arrow and "tree tradition" were cut using a Silhouette. The rest of the embellishments are stickers and chipboard from the line. You can download a printable PDF and full instruction on the Echo Park Paper website.

SUPPLIES USED:

InLinkz.com

Jillibean Grandma's Lima Bean Soup

Our challenge over on the Jillibean team was to design a page around a long title quote. And I came up with this one...

I made this right after Thanksgiving and the quote was so fitting for the time. The layout is pretty simple and straightforward. Layers of horizontal patterns and one super long title using Alphabeans. The arrow and pocket balance out the photo on the opposite side. Everything centers and draws the eye back to the title. This page is so different than what I usually do - and I like that!

SUPPLIES USED: 

Grandma's Lima Bean Soup Dry Lima Beans Paper Lima Bean Diecuts

InLinkz.com

Believing

I know that the 'believing' days in this house will probably end way before I'm ready. Nico still believes in the magic of Santa with his whole heart. He knows kids at school that don't, but mostly he thinks they're crazy, foolish kids. Nico can be just a wee bit bossy and if he says Santa is real, then it just is.

I'm preparing for the inevitable though. For now, I'm enjoying this little bit of magic...

I was trying to come up with a way to use all of these wood circles by Studio Calico. The package comes full to the brim with different sizes and edges. Filling the circles with patterned paper, flair and a photo added dimension and design to this page. It also used up a whole lot of them without overwhelming the photos.

This layout is copyright twopeasinabucket.com

The title was cut with the Silhouette and the font is Lobster. A cluster of tags at the upper right, enamel dots and some journaling complete the layout.

New Christmas Video

Another new video for 2Peas. Yup, two in a row for me this month. I don't even remember why it was scheduled that way, something to do with an extra Monday in November I think. It's my last one in the Memory Keeping Mondays series and I enjoyed it.

The story is about Nico and our tradition of reading Christmas books during this time of year.

I combined a lot of older October Afternoon from last year and a few new things I picked up this year. The vellum pocket is something I sketched out months ago and was waiting to use on the just the right page. I thought the wood stars would like super cool through the vellum. I do like how the title shines through this colorful page.

Take a look at how it came together. PS. Sorry about the background 'noise'. There was a neighborhood football game going on in my backyard. I didn't realize how crazy loud they were being!