Happy Together - CTMH Brushed Collection

It's been hot, and that's reminded me to continue scrapbooking our cruise photos from last year. I had this beautiful collection from Close to My Heart called Brushed. It's a Bring-Back-My-Pack collection so it's only available for a short time. I decided to get scrapping with it and selected a few flowers I had on hand as well as some CTMH acrylic hearts and Julep accessories. I hope you like it. I'll have a process video linked below. You can purchase the collection from my website here until July 31, 2020: https://kikihalbert.closetomyheart.ca/ctmh/promotions/campaigns/2006-bbmp-brushed.aspx

Back to my roots with art journaling on a scrapbook layout!

It's been a while since I pulled out texture paste, and glass bead gel. It's been forever since I used roller stamps and just randomly stamped around a page mark making. And it FELT SO GOOD! I know that being back to this style of scrapbooking and creativity is right for me, because it speaks to my heart.

I can't wait for you to see my latest creation here:

If you want to create beautiful pages, watch my process and learn new techniques, then start now by subscribing to my YouTube channel so that you don't miss any new projects.

A Masculine Layout with Feminine Touches? YES!

It's been a beautiful weekend here in the Pacific Northwest. Hot and sunny! I hope you enjoyed yours! My husband and I celebrated 15 years of marriage this week, and he bought me some lovely gifts to be used in my craft room. I cannot wait until my new project case arrives. I'll be able to craft more freely, being able to bring incomplete projects from one room to the next, so that I can finish them while watching TV or when I want to be in the dining room instead of isolated from my family. It's been a wonderful stress reliever, being able to get into doing something creative, while this pandemic rolls on. It's given me stress relief, my own space away when I feel overwhelmed, and just a place to be me, on my own. Once in a while we need that, right?

I know that very soon, I'm going to throw art journaling back into the mix as well, because it gives me a voice. Scrapbooking is wonderful, don't get me wrong! But I find it hard to journal out emotions on pretty pages about events that have nothing to do with how I am feeling in THIS moment. That needs another outlet; enter art journaling. When I did art journaling in the past, it was an act of pure creativity, abandoning perfection and an idea of what the end product should look like. And I could just sit, and add layer after layer, being mindful, and work through emotions in my own head, in my own space. That's how titles for pages would often come out. Something random would pop into my head, and end up on the page. Now that I'm reading about Morning Pages, I realize that I had been doing them in my own way in the past as art journal pages.

Now though, I'm scrapbooking again because I have so many memories to get down on pages. After my mother died almost two and a half years ago, I realized that there were so many of her pictures that I had seen, but I didn't know the story behind them. And there was no journaling. My mother had been a bit of a scrapbooker in her single days but decorated her pages, and not done any storytelling. And I inherited these pages, and that changed how I look at scrapbooking. Originally I had viewed it as another beautiful form of creative expression, art really. Now I see them as so much more. A legacy. Someone will read these once I'm gone. I need to tell the story. So you will definitely see a transformation in my pages in the near future. I will still do artsy pages believe me. I have too many beautiful embellishments to use. 

Which takes me to my latest layout. Here's a masculine layout with feminine touches. Who says that scrapbooking the boys and men in our lives has to be snips and snails and puppy dog tails? It can be an eclectic mix of metals and woods, along side flowers and flourishes. Want to see what I mean? Here's the process video for you. I hope you enjoy it and if you do, please subscribe and share it with friends.

So check in with me next post to see a storytelling page and see if you think I'm on the right track.

A simply lovely gift tag!

I have a lovely quick project to show off today. I've loved working with Scrap'n with Flair's September kit featuring A Ladies' Diary by Graphics 45. It's perfectly vintage and feminine.

This weekend I made a quick tag using the papers and some beautiful flowers from I am Roses. I made a video of the process so that you can play along.

Here's the final product:

I'm definitely loving these tags! They are quick elegant gifts for friends, or decorations for my craft room.

Hope you have a lovely weekend!

What a lovely evening, spent reminiscing

It's been a gloriously quiet night here at home so far. I don't think I can remember a night this quiet in our neighbourhood in a long time. It got me to thinking about some of the simple things in life, like a beautiful sunset, the songs of the crickets, and a sweet song that I used to sing to my niece when she was a baby.

It's a wonderful tune by Natalie Merchant that I heard once on a talk show. I instantly fell in love with it -- its simplicity, its melody, its whimsy. I bought the children's CD and listened to that song over and over. And when my niece was born, it was the first lullaby I ever sang to her.

I hope one day to teach her the song so that she can sing it to a special little girl as well.

Here are the lyrics:

I once loved a sailor, once a sailor loved me,
But he was not a sailor, who sailed on the wide blue sea
He sailed in an airship, sailed like a bird on the wind
And every evening at midnight, he would come to my window and sing:

Come take a trip in my airship, come sail away to the stars.
We'll travel to Venus, we'll sail away to Mars.
Noone will see while we’re kissing, noone will know as we swoon.
So come take a trip in my airship, and we’ll visit the man in the moon.

One night sailing a-way from the clouds
We passed through the milky white way.
While idly drifting and watching the crowds
he asked if I’d name the day.
Just by the dipper I gave him my heart. 
The sun shone on our honeymoon.
We swore to each other we never would part
And we’d teach all the babies this tune:

Come take a trip in my airship, come sail away to the stars.
We'll travel to Venus, we'll sail away to Mars.
Noone will see while we’re kissing, noone will know as we swoon.
So come take a trip in my airship, and we’ll visit the man in the moon.


Have a listen, and have a great weekend!

Art Journal: Fly

It's done! My first You Tube fast forward video!

You can watch me create an art journal page, and see my process. Next time I'll have better lighting and a better setup for the camera angle, though.

Be creative and learn to fly!!

Enjoy your weekend!

ETA: some of you would like to see the closeups of the final page. Here are some shots that when clicked will allow you to do that: