Reveal Day!

Today's the big day...the full reveal of the new Front Porch Kit from The Little Blue House!

As usual, there are tons of creative papers, embellishments and other materials to inspire you. Check out the Little Blue House blog to see all the fabulous goodies that are packed into this kit and leave a comment to win a FREE kit!

Ready to see what I made?

First off, a double layout with lots of photos. I don't do that many double layouts, so they're kind of a challenge for me. But the colors in the kit papers all just really worked together...

I loved the Scrabble tiles and wanted to find a way to incorporate them, so I added our initials inside the slide frames.

There are also some chalkboard embellishments in this kit, including chalk tape, which I used to handwrite part of my title.

The surface in this kit is a fun little clipboard from Pebbles (we're calling him Chip!), and I turned it into a wall hanging to show off one of my favorite photos.

I added a poker chip and some ribbon to the metal part, and I tore a strip of the fabric in the kit to tie around the bottom.

Next up is another layout. Just a silly photo Avery and I took one day in the car when we were waiting for Cecily to arrive.

One of the things I loved about working with this kit is that it really works with any photos you want to use. You don't have to make them all about games! And here you'll see another bit of chalk paper that I doodled some arrows onto. (I'm not much of a doodler, but I can handle arrows!)

There's some really cool foil tape that I punched the flower shapes out of. Fun to play with! And shiny, too!

Finally, here's my bonus project. I wanted to do something fun with the deck of cards in the kit. As I was looking at the box, I thought "Hey, I could make this box into a book cover and use the cards as the pages!" So it became a little bit of a personal challenge to see if I could really do it, but it actually worked pretty well.

Since it was a package of "Bicycle" cards (and also because of the red, white and blue color scheme), I decided to use photos of my kids riding their bikes in the 4th of July Parade. See, I'm tricky like that!

I used scraps of papers from the kit, along with chalk tape to finish it off. It's one of those projects that looks super-complicated, but it's actually pretty easy to whip out.

For more ideas and project photos, be sure to check out the Inspiration Gallery at The Little Blue House website, where you can also order your own Game On kit!

Dreams

Over Thanksgiving, my mom presented me with a battered folder stuffed full of my old artwork, report cards, writings, etc. from childhood. It was an interesting trip down memory lane, piecing together all the different things I wanted to be and do and see in my life...and realizing that I've experienced many of them. I guess you could say that those dreams came true. Of course, there are others that I still need to work on. But it was a nice reminder that, when you're a kid, no dream is too big.

Now that Avery is just a few weeks away from her 8th birthday -- and brimming with dreams and ideas of what she wants to do in her life -- I decided to create a repository to capture all those thoughts in her own words.

The book was a bit of an experiment. I created it by making a chipboard backing that I folded twice to make a spine. I punched holes in the top and bottom and bound with twine.

The inside pages/pockets are made from glassine bags that I folded at different increments to create a tabbed effect. The pockets are labeled: i want to be, i want to see, i want to live, i want to go.

The embellishment is pretty simple on each pocket. Just a strip of patterned paper, a strip of trim and a couple of pieces of ephemera with the label.

For each pocket, I created a small card for Avery to write on. I love that the cards show through the glassine for a hint of what's inside.

I can't wait to see what she writes on each card. And hopefully someday, many years from now, she'll thumb through it and see some dreams -- big dreams -- that came true.