Winter Blog Hop with Creative Life Scrapbooking!

Hi friends...it's Blog Hop Day! My scrappy friends over at Creative Life Scrapbooking and I are excited to host our Winter Blog Hop! You've probably arrived at this stop on the hop after visiting Lisa's blog, and at the end of my post I'll send you along to Karyn's blog. If you've somehow stumbled into the middle of the hop, don't worry, I'll give you ALL the links at the end of this post! 

Sometimes for our CLS Blog Hops we choose a specific theme or product collection to work with, but this time it's a free-for-all! Yes...all of us are simply using our favorite products to create projects to inspire you! I was excited to have a chance to play with the Limited Edition Happy BirthYAY Collection to create a layout and a card to share with you.

This is such a fun and bright collection and was perfect to document some pics of my son Sam's 10th birthday! While I didn't set out to create a 1-2-3 layout, I guess I'm just wired to think that way...I started by cutting the Blue/Multi Ombre Paper into some strips - two 4" x 12" and two 2" x 12", and  turned the 2"strips over to reveal the Multi Ombre side.

I laid the Blue Ombre strips vertically on both sides of my layout about 1.5" in from the middle, and added two of the Happy BirthYAY Border Stickers along the outside edge of each paper strip. 

I placed the Multi Ombre strips horizontally right across the middle of both sides of the layout. My title and journaling went right onto the Multi- Ombre Strips: I used some White Serif ABC/123 Stickers along with the Happy BirthYAY Stickers for the title, and a scrap of White Cardstock trimmed to 1.75" x 6" for the journal box.

I cut Royal Blue Cardstock into 4" x 6" photo mats and adhered my photos on top. I love using 4" x 4" photos since I can trim down a vertical OR horizontal photo to fit!

That left two large areas for embellishment clusters which I filled with the bright, oversize die-cuts in the Happy BirthYAY embellishment pack. I love the way this easy and festive layout turned out!

Here are some close-ups:

I also wanted to make a quick card using these papers and embellishments. I started by making a standard size card base with White Cardstock - cut to 5.5" x 8.5" then score and fold in half. (This card will fit into a standard Invitation/A2 envelope.) 

I cut four .75" x 6" strips from the Rainbow paper in the Happy BirthYAY Paper Pack, and then snipped the ends into banner shapes with the Banner Flag Punch using the easy trick I recently demonstrated in this video on my YouTube Channel.

I adhered the strips to the card base, butting them up against each other, then trimmed off the ends that overlapped the edge of the card with my All-Purpose Scissors.

I cut a 3.75" square from the same paper, but turned it over to the pink side with the white icon drawings, and adhered it on top of the strips. Then I added the champagne bottle and flute die-cuts, a "Cheers to You!" sticker and a few gems! I love that this card is a little more "grown-up", but is still bright and fun! It will be perfect for my gal-pal's upcoming birthday!

I hope you can see how fun the Happy BirthYAY collection is and that it can be used for boy or girl, kid or grown-up projects!

Now you'll want to head on over to Karyn's blog for more scrappy goodness! And if you haven't already, make sure you hop to ALL the stops below to check out all the other projects my friends from Creative Life Scrapbooking have created to share with you!

Stop #1 - Lisa Brown Graham's Blog
Stop #2 - Noreen Smith's Blog - you are here!
Stop #3 - Karyn McDermaid-Rolfe's Blog
Stop #4 - Julie Tambrini's Blog
Stop #5 - Diana Brinsley's Blog
Stop #6 - Candace Bouldin's Blog
Stop #7 - Stefani Jones' Blog

Happy Scrapping!