CLS Fall Blog Hop Stop 6

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, but have you scrapped your Halloween photos yet? Halloween is one of my FAVORITE holidays, and going back to childhood I have had a LONG tradition of dressing up (with many of mine and my boys' costumes thanks to my Mom who is a wonderful seamstress.) This year we had to change things up a bit so instead of going out to find the fun, we kept it in our own home. Instead of trick or treating in various neighborhoods around town, we made spooky food, ordered a fog machine and decorated our house to the nines for a fun night with my parents! Here is what I came up with to celebrate these special memories - instruction sheets are at the end of the post. Enjoy! 

A Spooky House with Doors and Windows!

How Did I Do It?

I hope you can use these ideas in your own books and know that this is just one of many WONDERFUL fall-themed ideas on our blog hop today!  Hop along with us and follow these links to see all of the blogs of the Creative Life Scrapbooking team members:

 Stop 1: Krista French

 Stop 2: Meggan Jacks

 Stop 3: Karyn McDermaid - Rolfe

 Stop 4: Diana Brinsley

 Stop 5:  Tessa Chapple

 Stop 6 : YOU ARE HERE!  Fran Allen Smitherman

 Stop 7:  Noreen Smith

 Stop 8:  Lisa Brown Graham

 

Halloween Blog Hop Stop #5

Welcome to Stop #5 of our Creative Memories Halloween Blog Hop! 

Isn't Halloween fun? I love being a part of this blog hop with my fellow CM Content Contributors - what a creative group of ladies! Today I am going to share some ideas I came up with a few months back that I hope you will be able to use yourself. My projects are pretty simple if you have the right tools (and I try my best to use scraps so nothing gets wasted!) Today we are going to work on some spooky Halloween faces and a two page layout featuring "Spooky Eyes." Let's get started!

Spooky faces using CM cardstock, the Shape Maker System and scraps from the Border Maker System's Film Strip cartridge  

A fun layout using CM cardstock, jewels from the Floral Embellishment kits, Gold ABC/123 letter stickers, and the fence that comes with the Border Maker System

1. Spooky Skeleton and Spooky Pumpkin

To get started, you will need the Custom Cutting System's mat and the green blade, a tape runner, and the Jumbo Hexagon Pattern. You will also need the Shape Maker System with the Square and the Fancy Circle cartridges and the Border Maker System with the Film Strip Cartridge. For paper I used our Shades of Bright and Shades of Neutral Cardstock packs to get my orange, black and white cardstock (one sheet of each.) Right now Creative Memories also has for a limited time 10 sheet packs of White and Black cardstock (not a bad idea - I know those are two colors I use a lot of!)

The CM custom cutting system, blades, mat and tape runner

                                      

Creative Memories tools: The Border Maker System and the Shape Maker System

"Shades of" cardstock packs and Flower and Jewel Embellishments

One sheet each of black, white and orange cardstock

Begin by using your Green blade to make the smallest hexagon possible with the inside of the Jumbo Hexagon Pattern. Do this with both the Orange (the pumpkin) and the White (skeleton) cardstock.

 Next, take your black sheet of cardstock and make two film strip borders. Save the scraps!

Finally, using the Shape Maker System and the rest of your sheet of black cardstock, make four Fancy Circles and two squares. Cut the squares in half to make triangles.

Assemble the pieces you have cut as follows - the Fancy Circles are the eyes, the triangles are the noses and the cheekbones, and the rectangles that were the scraps from the film strip cartridge border become the mouths. Adhere with your tape runner and voila, you have a Spooky Skeleton and a Spooky Pumpkin!

Spooky faces using CM cardstock, the Shape Maker System and scraps from the Film Strip cartridge (used with the Border Making System)

 2. Spooky Eyes

My second project came from being the mother of two boys. I loved the paper flowers and the jeweled embellishments, but struggled with how I could use them for my pages. After staring at the adhesive jewels I realized they could be used as spooky eyes staring out from the dark and that is what I did to create this fun layout! I used a sheet of grey cardstock from the Shades of Neutral cardstock pack  - the black picket fence from the Border Maker system and the Gold ABC/123 letters as a title added a little something extra!

                                        

I hope you are enjoying all of these fun ideas for your Halloween pages.  Now it's time for you to go see what Diana has brewed up for you at Stop 6 on this Blog Hop, Diana Brinsley's blog. If you started at my blog but want to see the previous Halloween ideas, here are all the links:

Stop 1 ClickWriteShare

Stop 2JuliesCMBlog

Stop 3 Scrappinjpegs

Stop 4 LisasWorkshop

Stop 5  CelebratingYourBeautifulLife <==YOU ARE HERE!!!

Stop 6 Dbrinsleysblog

Stop 7CropwithStef

Enjoy the rest of the blog hop and as always, keep scrappin'! Fran

Themed Albums Part 2: Halloween

Halloween is my favorite holiday! I never miss the opportunity to make the most of it, and the beauty of the season combined with the fun decorations and costumes make for some of the best photos all year. 

While I love all holidays, there seems to be a little more frivolity and a little less work involved in Halloween as there is less pressure to travel, prepare large feasts or to select the perfect gift for people. To add to the fun, Creative Memories has launched some fun new tools, seasonal coversets, cardstock sets, ABC stickers and matching Halloween paper and sticker packs  that make it easy to get inspired to do something special with your favorite spooky memories. Before we get into the subject of themed albums, take a peek for yourself! All are available on my Creative Memories website or that of your favorite consultant.

I am in love with our 12X12 paper packs - not only are they cute and photo safe, but they are also double sided and a great value. With 12 sheets of double sided paper you get 2 of each sheet, or 12 unique designs. The matching "Trick or Treat" stickers add the perfect accent.

Creative Memories scores again with another wonderful paper pack and sticker set. The theme here is "Trick or Treat" and they are available for a limited time. 

Halloween itself is purely fun and low pressure, similar to the themed albums I am talking about in this blog series! 

This is the second in a series of blog posts on themed albums, a type of scrapbook that is near and dear to my heart as the topic is finite and you don't have to mentally change gears as often as you do with a regular "chronological" album. Two of my favorite albums under my coffee table are my Halloween and Christmas albums. I only have to work on them once a year, yet they are a great way to remember gifts,traditions and costumes and which year they took place in. With both I have created a cute start page at the beginning of the album, and then I allow myself about four sides a year in a 12X12 Creative Memories album to tell the story of each year. The hardest part of all of it is narrowing down the stack of photos to about 20 or so a year to pull this off. It takes some restraint (I take enough pictures each Halloween to complete an entire album, haha!) but the end result is worth it!

A fun start page is a great way to begin a themed album

A few favorite photos, the year and some captions are the most important elements of your Halloween pages

Journaling can either take place in a journaling box or right there on the page, but make sure to do it while the memories are still fresh

Cutting out pictures is a great way to add more pictures to a page when you are working with an 8X8 album

It's fun to show pictures of who you are dressing as!

Creative Memories' metallic pens work the best on dark paper

Have you thought about starting a Halloween themed album yourself? It's never to late to do so.  I plan to work on these books until the boys are 18 and I have figured out how many pages I can do each year to accomplish that (4 sides each year for a complete 12X12 Creative Memories album.)  Right now Creative Memories has an adorable 12X12 Halloween coverset for sale - it is limited edition so hurry and get one before it's too late! If you are hungry for more fun ideas then stay tuned for our upcoming "Halloween Page Blog Hop" on October 19th and my next blog post on themed albums will feature the holidays in December. Thanks for reading! Fran

Limited edition Creative Memories 12X12 Halloween coverset - get one while they last!  Don't forget your refill pages, page protectors and the accompanying paper and sticker pack! Click on the CM banner on the right of my blog or shop from your favorite Creative Memories' consultant's website! 

Eggplant is a supper cool color for a Halloween album - I love apple green and purple together so this new coverset is very exciting to me!