Here comes Candy Cane Lane and a FREEBIE!

It's here!! Candy Cane Lane has arrived  and is now available in my shop! Save 20% until Monday on these new products. Click the images below to be taken to my shop at The-Lilypad.com for purchase!

Candy Cane Lane Elements- Brads, Twill Tapes, and Word Strips:

And if you still haven't gotten your Christmas cards done, here is a new quick card template- just pop in your photo and you're ready!

In celebration of the release of Candy Cane Lane, I have a FREEBIE for all my wonderful blog readers and iPhone users- Iphone background papers!

To get your iPhone background, simply right click on any of the images and save the image to your computer. Email the file to your self, and open the attachment on your iPhone. Click Save Image, and then set it as your wallpaper under the settings menu.

I am using the polka dot background on my phone and love it! It's so festive! 

And now for the lucky winner of the Candy Cane Lane Elements and Paper Packs:

Congratulations Terri!

December Daily Day 7- Instagram

We are officially one week into December Daily, and I'm still in the game! Woohoo! Seven days documented, 18 more to go! Everyone is getting into the spirit of December Daily around here- including my husband. You see, I have been getting my layouts done each night in the wee hours of the night, and I've been leaving them out on the counter over night (usually to let the glitter dry). I wasn't intentionally leaving them out for the hubby to see, but the other day he told me- "I've been enjoying reading your layouts (actually, I think he called them "things" but I knew what he meant) each morning. I've started looking forward to it every day." Aw! And that's why I'm excited to do this album- because I know we will ALL cherish these memories- it's not just "Mommy's Hobby".

And now for Day Seven. I was actually all prepared to document the story of my online shopping today, but as I picked up my girls from Grandma's house, I spotted Jules admiring the ornaments on Grandma's tree. Then Grandma (my mom) started showing her each ornament and telling a little story behind them. It was such a cute moment. I whipped out my iPhone and caught these pics with my camera and touched them up in instagram.

Close up of left side. Three instragram pics, plus a doodled border by me. Font for the {capture the moment} word art is Veteran Typewriter. 

Close up of right side. This page was created from a paper from my Candy Cane Lane Paper Pack (released tommorrow). I then printed out a paper flag from my Modern Merry Flag It pack and stapled it to the top. I used another sheet of paper from the Modern Merry Paper Pack to create the background for my journaling strips. I typed directly onto the paper, printed, and then cut it into strips. Paper products used include a paper doily and a thick glitter number sticker (EK Success).

Again, don't forget to enter the Candy Cane Lane Giveaway! Winner will be drawn tonight!

December Daily- Day Six

Hi friends. I'm back again with the next installment of December Daily. I just have to tell you that I've given up on trying to take pictures that do these pages justice, and I just decided to scan them! To heck with it all! I did manage one decent close up of today.

I sent my first batch of photos to the print lab, and I can't wait to replace the dark crappy photos on these pages with the real thing! My page protectors should arrive tomorrow, and before you know it,  I will have a completed album on my hands! You don't even want to know how long it's been since I've had one of those.

Anyway, on to today.... Today Jules got her first time out in preschool (gasp!). That meant no advent calendar treats or cartoons before bed time. But I still managed to get these shots of her posing with my refrigerator (why? I really don't know).

On the left we have a full page black and white photo with a Naughty overlay I created. Font is abeatbyKai.

 

On the right I added another photo and created another overlay (same font). I then cut some strips from my A Very Vintage Christmas kit and stapled them to the page. I used thick cardboard letter stickers to create the six (stickers by EK Success). 

Journaling font is Veteran Typewriter. The journaling reads:
You know the song- "He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sakes!" Jules definitely knows the song because they've practicing it for her Holiday Show at preschool. So it's quite ironic that Jules got her very first time out at preschool today WHILE singing this song! Apparently she insisted on jumping up and down while singing the song, and didn't stop when she was asked to. Miss Carrie said she asked twice and she thought that it was a bit of a power struggle. Ha- welcome to my world.

Since you are here, don't forget about the Giveaway for Candy Cane Lane! Ends tomorrow at 9pm Pacific.

Also, don't forget about my CT Call- deadline this Friday!

December Daily- Day 5

Today's December Daily focuses on a not fun topic, but one that is undoubtedly bound to happen in the month of December....a sick kid! My poor little Lilly started running a really high fever out of nowhere. She was fine Sunday night, and Monday morning when I got her out of her crib, she was running a temp of 102.3. I hate when the kiddos get sick. :-(

Here's my layout:

The left side is a page from my Very Vintage Christmas kit. I added the number five to the center of the page (font: Stencil) and applied a gold glitter style and a thick stroke. After I printed it out, I applied a generous amount of platinum Stickles glitter (are you noticing a trend here?) to the five. I then outlined the page with brown bakers twine that I bought on Etsy. I just applied a thin line of glue around the edge of the page and laid down the twine.

On the right side, I have a simple photo of my poor little sick baby. It's an iPhone pic, so I applied a little vintage tinting to make the graininess of the photo look intentional (action Back in the Day by M4H). The picture isn't quite as blue as it looks here. I'm struggling with my camera right now- it doesn't like me. Anyway, I then added brown bakers twine at the bottom of the photo, and then traced each letter of my title with blue bakers twine (okay between glitter and twine, I think it's clear what I'm currently obsessed with). I then stapled  a little paper flag to the bottom corner.

The title of this page is "Under the Weather". The journaling reads:

"The only bad thing about the holiday season is that coincides with another, not very fun season- flu season! Today Lilly woke up with a fever of 102.3. She hasn't been sick since she was three months old, and it just broke my heart to see her little droopy eyes. I kept her home with me today, and Jules too, so the three of us hung out. Jules was so attentive to Lilly- she was rocking her, trying to entertain her, and was by my side at all times while I took care of her. She kept saying "Probably her fever has gone down now." She was just itching to play with her sister. Lilly enjoyed the company too, and the few times she smiled today, she was smiling at her sister. I love how much they love each other."

I can't wait to send the photos for this album to the photo lab! I am struggling with the print quality of the photos right now. I also can't wait for my Amazon shipment to arrive with my page protectors. 

Now I'm off to create Day 6- Naughty or Nice?

December Daily- Days 1-4 Revisited

So just five measly days in to December Daily and I already decided to scrap my entire album and start over!! I originally decided to do this album digitally because I knew it would be faster than the hybrid album, and it would have a better chance of getting done. However, once I got into it, I kept looking at Ali's album, and I was so jealous. I really wanted to go hybrid. So, I took what I had, changed it up a bit, and am moving forward hybrid style!

Here's the basic design of my album: each day is a two page spread, with one large photo on the left, and journaling and a smaller photo on the right. This will vary from day to day, but that is the basic idea. I decided on the 8.5 x 5.5 album size, and chose this album from We R Memory Keepers in Real Red.

 

I will put each spread into these page protectors that I got on Amazon.com. 

So before I share with you the re-made pages, I must first share a little caveat to what I'm about to show you. The pages shown here have been printed onto thick cardstock using my color laser jet printer. While I love the way my printer prints, I do not love photos printed by a laser jet. So I will be reprinting all of the photos by a photo lab, and then I will come back and replace the photos that are printed onto cardstock with the real thing. So basically I am printing these out onto cardstock just to show on my blog each day. But wait you say- Isn't that a huge waste of expensive color toner? Um- yes. Yes it is. But I really can't wait to share my pages with you, so oh well. ;-) 

And now for my pages:

Day One:

On the right page, you will find a close up of my daughter and her Tootsie Roll (to be re-printed), some paper strips stapled to the layout, a popped up date stamp that I printed and punched out with my 1-inch circle punch, and the title "Advent" gussied up with Stickles Glitter. The papers and the date stamp are from my Very Vintage Christmas kit.

On the left side will be a picture of our advent calendar, with the title "The Countdown" printed directly onto the photo. See that dull I've-been-printed-on-cardstock look? Yeah- that will be going away. ;-)

Day Two:

 

Close up of the left side: I used the music sheet paper from my Very Vintage Christmas kit, and created the title with the font Carnivale Freakshow. I applied a red glitter style to the font in photoshop, and added a stroke to help the letters stand out from the page. After I printed the page, I used red Stickles glitter to add some real live sparkle to the page. 

On the right side, I used a picture of my new favorite Christmas album, accented by some paper strips from my Very Vintage Christmas kit. 

 

On the bottom, I created a little flag with the number two, and stapled it to the layout. Of course I enhanced the 2 with Stickles glitter (as a forewarning- you will probably see glitter on every single page I do for this album. I love glitter). 

Day Three: 

On the right side of the page, I kept it simple with just some journaling a paper strip, and a printed tag from my Very Vintage Christmas kit. I added some red bakers twine to the tag, and used dimensional stickers to pop it up off my page. 

On the left side, I am focusing on a photo of my girls sitting with Santa. This entire page is actually going to be replaced by the professional photo that was taken that day, but I am still waiting for the full resolution photo from the photographer. Instead, in the meantime I am using a not-so-great iPhone shot from my husband's phone, but you get the idea. I created the photo overlay and added it to my page. 

Day Four:

I'll be honest- this is not my favorite layout. I may change it up before I finish the album for the year. But, in the meantime, this page consists of more papers from my Very Vintage Christmas kit, a red glitter star from the same kit that I added the number 4 to in photoshop, applied a glitter style to the 4, and then added some real live glitter after I printed and cut out the star. I popped the star of the page with dimensional adhesive.

On the left side we have another full page photo of my and my girls in front of the tree after it was all done. I designed the photo overlay and added it to my page.

I also must apologize for the crappiness of these photos. I'm having a love/hate relationship with my DSLR right now. I feel like all my photos are grainy and flat. I keep switching the lens, switching between auto and manual, changing up the lighting- but I just can't seem to get it right. I'm frustrated with that thing.

December Daily- Day 4

It's officially beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Today the day was spent trimming tree and putting up our Christmas lights, or as Jules calls them- our "celebrations". I had too many pics to choose from for today, so three pics made the cut for this page in my album. The first pic is a snapshot of our outdoor decorations, the middle pic is Daddy lifting Jules up to put the star on the tree, and the last pic is me and the girls in front of the tree after it was all decorated- a job well done. :-)

December Daily- Day Three

What a fun weekend to be doing the December Daily project! On Saturday, we attended a Breakfast with Santa at a local restaurant for the second year in a row. We had a good time eating breakfast, and telling Santa what we'd like for Christmas. Jules' request was- candy! Really? ugh. She couldn't think of something better apparently.

So here is my page for the third day of December, but it comes with a slight caveat- I will be updating this page with a better pic of the girls. They had a photographer at the Breakfast taking pictures, and they are going to email me the picture but I don't have it yet. I still wanted to get my page done and shared, so I used this one from my husband's iPhone to fill in the photo spot until the "real" picture arrives. I will update and re-share when I get the new pic!