new for Noel Mignon

For my post today at Noel Mignon I pulled out an older photo of Lily in a dress that I love and paired that with the beautiful new "Tea For Two" kit.

This kit is full of beautiful papers and the fabulous mix of embellishments that Noel's kits are known for. 

The Notes & Things collection is one of my favorite Crate Paper collections to date (and that is saying alot since I have been using Crate since about the time they started manufacturing their collections) and the gold bits like this phrase I used for my title is part of the reason. I hope that you aren't tired of gold accents because I don't see them going away from my projects any time soon.

One of my favorite parts of the kit is the roll of gray self-adhesive lace trim. I tend to use more twine than ribbons and trim on my projects but I made an exception this time because I LOVE it. I also used some of the chunky twine from the kit and like the mix of texture Noel put together with the lace, twine, cork and enamel shapes. 

Thanks for stopping by today!

♥♥

and another new layout for you!

Good morning!

It is still hard for me to believe that summer vacation is upon us.

Today is the last day of preschool for my 4-year-old and tomorrow is the last day for my kids in 2nd grade and kindergarten!

Heaven help us!!!

just kidding...sorta.

Summer vacation is fun, we get to do lots of cool things, go on road trips, relax, go swimming, take it easy but all of the family togetherness time can sometimes cause a bit of friction between the girls.

What do you do when the kids have seen a little too much of each other?

What fun things do you plan to do to keep kids busy this summer?

Today I have another page to share with you where I used some of the cute Lifestyle Crafts dies. These pinked circles have quickly become a favorite of mine and because they come in SO many different sizes they will be used over and over on my projects.

I used papers from Lily Bee (orange dot, blue), American Crafts (pink, chevron), Studio Calico (yellow stripe), Crate Paper (doilies background), alphas from American Crafts, mists from Maya Road and Studio Calico and twine from The Twinery.

Oh, and a note about these pictures of my Hailey (7 years old). She is a bit shy, reserved, introverted, whatever you want to call it. She doesn't talk much at school or church but at home she can get a little crazy and let loose once in a while. I thought it was so fun that she wanted to pose for these pictures with her sister's Barbie guitar, even grabbed some funny hats and wigs and things. I laughed so loud when she came up to me in this frazzled blonde wig with my old glasses (with tape in the middle and lenses missing because she used them for Nerd Day) and said to me, "Look mom! I'm Taylor Swift!" She is so silly sometimes. 

These are the pinked circle dies that I used:

http://lifestylecrafts.com/products/core/core-nesting/nesting-pinking-circles.html

and these are the stars:

http://lifestylecrafts.com/products/dies/star-punches.html

Aren't those so fun? 

I love that you get two different sizes of stars and that you can cut so many at a time. It's way quicker than using my little star punch and I get two sizes in just one template.

I know I'll be using them again and again.

Take a look at what is available from Lifestyle Crafts

http://lifestylecrafts.com/

and get a 20% discount by clicking on my Lifestyle Crafts button on the right sidebar.

Have a fantastic day!

a year ago and some Jillibean Soup

It's hard to believe that this picture was taken about a year ago when Hailey was in first grade:

This green really didn't photograph well but hopefully you get the idea. 

I used Jillibean Soup's new Sweet & Sour Soup collection (my fave from the new release) along with some Dutch Mustard Soup (the green background) and some Homemade 6 Bean Soup (the strips). Since we did a cross-promotion with Maya Road for this month I also used some flowers (the blue corduroy one on the right and a chipboard one on the left with the paper ones). I also used a little birdie, some cute wooden bingo chips and some butterfly rub-ons from my Maya Road stash. 

Have a great day!