Happy Saturday! Oh wait it's actually Sunday!  I wanted to show you all what to do when you can't find paper that works with your photo the way you want it too. I wanted my background paper to mimic the circles on Siena's pink dress and couldn't find any paper that worked with it. So what I did was, I matched embroidery floss with the colors on her dress (dark pink and lime green) and stitched in my own circles on white card stock. To make sure that the circles were in fact round, I used my paper piercer and a plastic canvas circle. Yes, a one of these!

And it worked perfectly!  I got round circles that were pre-pierced and easy to sew. I back stitched the circles onto the white card stock, stamped my girls names on, added a paper ruffle border, a crochet flower and a polka dot button and it was done!  I love the contrast between the pink and lime green cards stock. I have a lot of portrait type pictures of the girls and I don't feel the need to journal on each scrapbook page I made from them.  However, I do always try to keep the photo as the main focus of the layout.

Hi Everyone!
Since this is my first blog post I think I should probably tell you who I am and why I am making this blog.
My name is Laurie and I am married to a wonderful man named Marshall.  We have two beautiful daughters that we adopted from China.  Siena is 10 years old and Anya (Ani) is all of 8.  We have a very spoiled Yorkie named Boo, she is 4 years old.  I am a SAHM (that would be Stay at Home Mom), but I am involved in a lot. I am co-writing a new art program for our school with the lovely and talented Courtney. Courtney is one of my best buds! I am working on an Up-cycling ( taking things that would be thrown away and turning it into something wonderful and useful) event for the school for this spring and of course our Fall Carnival. I volunteer in my girls classes and I teach art once a month in their classes as well.  Those lessons come from the program that Courtney and I are writing.
I used to be an interior designer but when they handed Siena to me in China in 2001, nothing else mattered.  But I needed a creative outlet, so I learned to scrapbook, make cards, and do other general crafts. Now 9 years later I have been on design teams, taught classes, and am now writing a program.
I love crafts, and I find that sometimes I have a BIG budget but most of the time I am working with a medium sized or small sized budget, occasionally I come up with an idea and I have NO budget.
On this blog, and my reason for starting it, is that I want to share my knowledge and ideas with you. You will see some of the crafts, scrapbook pages, and cards I have made. You will see the evolution of my scrappin' space and how I am hoping to turn it into a lovely, comfortable and efficient work space. You will see demonstrations and instructions to make some of my favorite projects and of course I want to see yours as well.
So here goes and I hope you enjoy my blog.
Laurie