Valentine Blog Hop Stop Number 6!

I love Valentine's Day! The colors are gorgeous and the sentiments are warm (plus you can always make pretty scrapbook pages about holidays!) Whether you love Valentine's Day or you hate it, love is something to celebrate, and it can come in many forms. Just to be a bit different, I will focus here on pages that have nothing to do with romance so we can "think outside of the box" with the CM Group's new Watercolor Love collection. Love for a child or a pet, love of a holiday, love of life, love of travel, love of your grandparents, love of a hobby that fills your soul - it's all a part of our life and should be celebrated. Celebrate with me and this beautiful new CM Watercolor Love paper and embellishments collection!

1.) Love of a child!

The floral paper looks gorgeous with black and white prints - this is actually one of my favorite baby pictures of myself (and the reason I chose to have hydrangeas in my wedding!) What black and white photos do you have that could be used with this paper pack?

What do these circles look like to you? They looked like cake pops to me, so I actually cut a few out to make some homemade cake pops to help tell the story here. Being an older brother is tough and sometimes it's hard to share Mom and Dad's attention. Little C had been having a rough week so I made the spontaneous decision to pick him up after school while his brother had another engagement and take him to Starbucks for some "one on one time." I love this memory, and the Watercolor Love paper combined with CM's brown cardstock look really sharp together! The hearts on the journal box are actually "scraps" from the new Heart Chain Border Maker cartridge - aren't they the cutest?  

2.) Love of a holiday or of a time of year!

I have my own "girly" tree in the dining room, full of pink Victorian bows and ballet dancers - it is my pride and joy and a leftover from my "single days" before my house was outnumbered by fellas! I thought the red plaid paper combined with the new Heart Chain cartridge worked well together. Who knew you could highlight Christmas pictures with Valentine's paper? :) 

3.) Love of a time of year

I am excited about our new Year in Review stickers and embellishments, and I used those here to make a nice "almost summertime" page with lemon and watermelon slices cut using our recently-introduced circle patterns. It is so nice to have such great tools at our disposal. Brotherly love and the beginning of summer, all in one page with our lovely new paper and our cardstock.

4.) Love of your pets! 

Before the children, our pets are our babies (and in many cases they still are!) Tom and Socks actually got a mention at our wedding  (a funny surprise to us and something we will always remember.) They deserve scrapbook pages of their own (actually, I think they deserve entire SCRAPBOOKS, don't you agree?) The pink Watercolor Love paper and border strips are nicely offset by the green punch at the bottom (reminiscent of grass to highlight the pictures of Tom and Socks outside.)

5.) Love of a hobby!

Okay, I cheated here - this isn't Watercolor Love (but it does feature CM's "Shades of Pastel" cardstock, our new Music Notes Border Maker Cartridge, and a title cut from the new Fresh Picks collection's Slide In Pack!) Before my husband, before my children, my love was and still is ballet. Our dreams and our hobbies are what makes us who we are, and love is a state of mind. And I love these black and white photos!

What do you love? Document it and keep celebrating that wonderful life of yours!  

There's still  one more stop in this blog hop but if you are loving what you are seeing so far then plan on tuning into Facebook and joining the Creative Memories Virtual Crop on Saturday, February 6, 2016 where we will be giving out even more ideas (and prizes!) For more great ideas today please hop on over to Noreen's blog for the final stop of today's Valentine Blog Hop (and I have included the links to the other blogs below in case you started here with mine and want to see what you may have missed!) Hope you've been inspired and as always,  keep scrappin'! Fran

Creative Memories Valentine's Blog Hop Kickoff

Stop 1: Sarah Fitzgerald at ClickWriteShare
Stop 2: Candace Bouldin's Scrappin'JPEGs
Stop 3: Julie Tambrini's CM Blog
Stop 4: Diana Miller Brinsley's DBrinsleysBlogspot
Stop 5: Lisa Graham Brown's Lisa's Workshop
Stop 6: YOU ARE HERE!Fran Smitherman at CelebratingYourBeautifulLife
Stop 7: Noreen Smith's Organized and Creative Mom