Spring Blog Hop - Final Stop

Greetings and welcome to the final stop on our Spring Blog Hop! Fran Smitherman here, and while this may be our spring blog hop, down here in the South we are ready for summer. School is out and we are beach bound soon - but not before I wrap up the finishing touches on some pictures from our trip last September using the latest and greatest tools, paper and stickers from Creative Memories! Do you have some favorite vacation photos to work with? If so, then read on!

If you love Nautical themes, then Deep Blue Sea is for you, and if you are more of the "outdoorsy" type during the summer, then you will want to check out the Explorer line! I have had the opportunity to use both recently, and I think you will find them both to be very versatile and great enhancements for your photos! Throw in some of the latest tools and your pages will be styling in no time.

Night Swimming! Layout for Beach Pics at Night

For my first layout, I wanted to capture a walk on the beach at night with the light glowing from the condo windows. While I would typically think of the Cityscape punch as being something to use in a strictly urban setting, by adding some yellow cardstock behind in for a glow and snipping off some of the decorative building toppers that didn't quite look like beach condos, I think I achieved the look I was going for. What do you think? 

By the glow of the condos!

On the second side of the layout I kept a cleaner look, like the dunes in the distance, with a Double Wave tearing tool to give the uneven effect and a cloud sticker from the Deep Blue Sea sticker set. Notice that I used the Wave blade from the 12-inch Rotary trimmer system on the photos (three at a time, by the way!) and their mats. I am loving the new trimmer and my customers and I can't wait for them to come back in stock later in June!

The beach at night!

Nighttime at the beach - now it's time to journal this and make the pages complete!

Paper and stickers from Creative Memories' "Deep Blue Sea" line

Cityscape Standalone Punch

Creative Memories' new 12-inch rotary trimmer has a space underneath for 12 blades!

A place to store more blades!

Explorers! Mini Albums for Little Hands

For my next project, I wanted to make some mini albums for my boys to use as journals for an upcoming trip out west to see the National Parks. The Explorer line was exactly what I needed! These albums were very inexpensive and easy to make with a handful of navy and white cardstock sheets, some circle rings, a hole punch, the Explorer stickers, and just two of the decorative sheets of Explorer paper.

Mini 6x6 albums for little hands to record memories of a vacation!

I started with a stack of Navy Blue and White 12X12 carstock. I alternated every other color in the stack before I cut (you will see why in just a moment!) I sliced it down the middle vertically to make two sides that were 12 inch high, 6 inches wide, then I rotated those to do the cut again. I had 6X6 squares and was ready to make the most out of just a handful of supplies!

The new 12 inch Rotary trimmer's straight edge was able to cut several sheets of cardstock at a time for me

I love how you insert the blade and it only "comes out" when you press down on the housing unit as it is cutting - to me that is an excellent safety feature

I cut the 12inch tall/6inch wide strips again to make 6X6 squares

Not wanting to do a lot of decorating, I selected the sheet of designer paper with the borders and basically just cut them all into strips by their design, then used my trimmer to slice those in half, one for each boy's book. I decorated the  pages with these borders and the Explorer stickers, and for the album, I envision one side for journaling, one side for a photo of the day. See how it all came together:

A sheet of borders to cut from the Explorer decorative paper pack

A few extra sheets of cardstock for journaling on the navy side of the album

Once everything was decorated (including using the wood grain paper for the back of the book, and while not necessary, a laminator made a nice touch), I got out the hole puncher and the circle rings to assemble these books.

 I made sure that no two sides were the same color. I wanted white for journaling when possible, and the navy side for a photo to be adhered upon returning home from the trip!

 The boys liked their albums and I can't wait to see what they fill them with!

I hope you have enjoyed the "hop" and don't forget to follow Creative Life Scrapbooking on Facebook for more great ideas every week! Follow me personally at Celebrating Your Beautiful Life to stay up to date on all things digital and traditional, and if you started with my blog, be sure to check out all of the rest of the ideas here:


Noreen Smith Organized and Creative Mom

Karyn McDermaid-Rolfe Karyn Crops

Julie Tambrini Julie's CM Blogspot

Diana Miller Brinsley D Brinsley's Blog

Stefani Jones Crop with Stef

Lisa Brown Graham Lisa's Workshop

Fran Smitherman YOU ARE HERE Celebrating Your Beautiful Life

February Blog Hop

Wow - I cannot believe it's been a year since the Creative Life Scrapbooking team (formerly known as the CM Content Contributors) did a February blog hop, but such is life and time does move on doesn't it? Love is in the air and I LOVE the new products I am going to be featuring today - I hope you will too! Today I will show off pages I made using the newest tools from Creative Memories, a few "unexpected" ways to use the new Mi Amour and Cake My Day CM paper packs, and the fastest way to get your favorite photos into your hands from the Forever phone app. As always, I enjoy your comments so let me know what you think and once you have finished with my blog, be sure to check out all of the other posts (links are listed at the bottom.) Let's crop!

Button, Button, Who Has the Button? 

It is so so fun playing with new cutting tools, and Creative Memories continues to come up with new standalone cartridges such as the new Embossed Trio Button Punch and the Garden Vine Paper Punch. With some pink cardstock and the precious Soiree paper pack I was able to make this eye-catching but simple page to celebrate a precious little girl - I called it "Cute as a Button!" I used the Border Maker System's Button Chain cartridge down the side to finish it off, and the letters came from the "Storybook" Cricut cartridge.  CM's Mini Tape Runner refill cartridges really come in handy with delicate letters such as these.

Buttons and polka dots, it doesn't get much sweeter than that!

Creative Memories' Embossed Trio Button punch is a fun stand-alone tool that can be used to create pretty designs such as this one. 

Creative Memories continues to add to its line of cartridges for its Border Maker System 

Another new favorite tool of mine is the Garden Vine Border Paper Punch. I love how it works its way up the side of this page here like a true climbing vine, perfect for pictures of a Bed and Breakfast in Maine and a bit of splurge on myself during an anniversary trip (yes, I found a Crabtree and Evelyn store!) 

Creative Memories' Garden Vine Punch was perfect for these Primrose Inn pictures!

Mi Amour and Cake My Day Used in the Most Unexpected Ways

Creative Memories outdid itself with the gorgeous Cake My Day and Mi Amour collections. They are available digitally as well! 

At first glance, the Cake My Day collection looked decidedly fun and feminine with its bright pinks and yellows, and Mi Amour looked very much like something one would choose for Valentine's Day and anniversary pages with its rich reds and blacks. As the Mom of two little boys I love the challenge of finding a way to use paper packs in unexpected ways, and I was able to come up with a few good ones I think! :) 

Look closely in Cake My Day - do those darker pages remind you of tracks? PERFECT! We just held the Cub Scouts' Annual Pinewood Derby Races! With a little help from the Chevron cartridge  I have begun to lay out the beginnings of some cute race pages. Again, I will be VERY grateful for the mini tape runner refill! 

Cake My Day paper for Pinewood Derby - who would've thought it?

I also could not help but notice the very distinct HOUNDSTOOTH paper in the Mi Amour paper pack. As a graduate of the University of Alabama, my first thought was that this paper pack would make some BEAUTIFUL Crimson Tide pages! 

Roll Tide! Red cardstock, a homemade football and the Mi Amour paper and stickers are all you need to make your Alabama pages come to life!

And I CERTAINLY don't want to leave out the DIGITAL versions of CM's art kits! It is VERY exciting for those of us who also like to scrapbook digitally to have the ability to purchase and download DIGITAL VERSIONS of Creative Memories' papers, mats, letters and other embellishments. This digital paper from Mi Amour truly looked like something from "another dimension", perfect for our most recent ride on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror! I used Forever's Artisan software to make this page - I used a "fractured" mat for the photos and, believe it or not, Creative Memories' "Christmas Past" digital embellishments to give it an "antique look" in the corners! Christmas embellishments on a Tower of Terror page? You bet!

Photo Developing Comes to Forever! 

Do you have the free Forever photo app yet? If not then now is a great time to check it out! The most recent version of the app offers the ability to print your photos at your closest Walgreen's store. I was very excited to have these Pinewood Derby pictures in my hands on Sunday morning (the race was Friday night!) I had uploaded pictures from my phone and my camera into my Forever account after the event and created a "Pinewood Derby" album - it took a few clicks on my Smartphone late Saturday night to pick out my favorites, and by Sunday morning I had an email from Walgreen's to let me know my pictures were waiting on me. Talk about fast!

Thanks to the new "print" feature on my Forever app, these pictures were in my hands within hours of ordering them

I am happy with the quality of the images and there are definitely times when I don't want to wait for my pictures to arrive in the mail. I love what Forever offers and this feature is definitely just one more reason for me to want to share Forever with the world!

I hope you have been inspired to celebrate your memories and remember to leave a comment and let me know how I can help you! I love to encourage others to do something meaningful and safe with their photos, no matter where they are in their journey (no idea where to start or a seasoned scrapbooking/digital pro!) Creative Memories and Forever both have something for everyone so if you haven't already, be sure to check them out today.

Thanks for reading my blog and now it's time to head to the next stop on this blog hop which is Sarah Fitzgerald's blog, ClickWriteShare!


Stop 1 D Brimsley's Blog
Stop 2 CropwithStef
Stop 3 Fran Smitherman's Celebrating Your Beautiful Life
Stop 4 Sarah Fitzgerald's Click Write Share
Stop 5 Julie'sCMBlog
Stop 6 Noreen Smith's Organized and Creative Mom
Stop 7 KarynCrops

Fun New Papers and Tools from the CM Group

 Now that the "cat is out of the bag", so to speak, with the new July products, I can share freely my enthusiasm and joy over the new catalog. While CM is staying true to their promise to keep the product line simple, they have been consistent in adding new things in a measured fashion, and consultants and customers have a lot to work with!

The re-introduction of the Border Making System has been greeted with enthusiasm. The system comes with the picket fence cartridge, and the bubble, film strip and star cartridges have recently been added to the product line as well. I am willing to bet we will see more in the months ahead, but for now take a look at some of the fun designs I have made so far with our new paper packs and these new cartridges:

You don't need Disney stickers to make a nice vacation layout! I made this page with the CM Group's border making system, the film strip cartridge, the star cartridge, the new Corner Rounder, and the Shades of Red and Shades of Bright paper packs

Fellow CM advisor Lisa Graham designed this firecracker using the new film strip and star cartridges - I love a card! The papers used here came from the Red White and Blue paper pack and the Shades of Neutral cardstock pack

I am a sucker for blue gingham (now found in the Red White and Blue paper pack)  and I love the way this unexpected color combination came together. The peachy floral print is from the CM group's new be Bold and Flourish paper pack,.

There are so many possible uses for a bubble maker - beach, babies, and weddings come immediately to mind!

I love bringing unexpected color combinations together and this new shipment made it very easy for me! All you need is the Red White and Blue paper pack, the Be Bold and Flourish paper pack, and the new Shades of Pastel, Bright and Neutral cardstock packs to have borders and mats and backgrounds for days! The cardstock does very well with Cricut machines, and CM's paper is double sided so you are getting two pages in one.

Be Bold and Flourish with the pink from the Shades of Pastel cardstock pack - mothers, daughters, grandmothers, baby girls, the page ideas are endless

Red gingham and the brown from the Shades of neutral paper pack - gingerbread men and warm holiday memories in the making here

The Red White and Blue paper pack has 6 sheets of designer prints and 6 sheets of Tone on Tone prints. 12 sheets of double sided paper for $9.50, gingham and stars,I'm sold!

Be Bold and Flourish is the newest design and it comes in a Fast2Fabulous album, a paper pack and a slide in pack. Also shown are the CM group's new Gold and Black ABC/123s and the newest cartridges for the Border making System, Stars and Film Strip

Cardstock packs come with 5 colors, 2 sheets each. The newest ones are Shades of bright, Shades of Neutral, and Shades of  Pastel.

Check out these tools and papers and more at my website http://www.creativememories.com/user/fransmitherman and as always, keep scrappin'! Fran