Erin Taylor Designs

For National Scrapbooking Day, I packed up a bunch of Studio Calico kits, my tools + adhesive, and drove to a friend's house for the afternoon. I haven't gone to an all day crop in forever, and I had so much fun! We had a mid-afternoon lunch (Chick-fil-a... yum!), I got to hold the sweetest 16 month old baby, and I finished two layouts. I am such a s-l-o-w scrapbooker! But it was a wonderful afternoon. 

I pulled out some older photos to work with. The first layout uses Studio Calico's Pip and Gertrude add-on kits. I covered the heart die cut with Colorbox pigment ink to match the lime green cardstock.


I used the Office Hours scrapbook kit, Stitched class kit, and some washi from Freckled Fawn for this layout. The stitched tag took forever! And I actually ran out of blue DMC floss, so I switched to gray halfway through. I like the two-toned look, so my mistake worked out for the best. The large stamped square is from Kelly Purkey's Sketchbook class. I am currently working my way through the first lesson and have finished two layouts already. I will post them this weekend.

When we had our professional photos done in November, I really wanted a few pictures of just Mark and me. And I am so pleased with the results! This photo is especially sweet, and the Pillow Talk collection from Creashens was perfect for it. I also used a digital template from Scotty Girl Designs called Singled Out.

Last month Mark and I took the kids to a professional photographer for a family photo session... our first one in over two years! We had a "mini session" with the photographer, and I am very happy with the photos. A few of them I will enlarge and frame, but most of them I compiled into a 7x7 inch Blurb Book that is scheduled to arrive Wednesday. I haven't used Blurb before, but after reading Cathy Z.'s review, I had to try them out. I created some simple templates in Photoshop, then added the finished pages to the photo book. The whole process took about 3 hours. Not too bad from start to finish for a complete photo book.

These are my favorites from the shoot. Our photographer was Kati Rosado Photography. 
 






I just love this... Jack with his tongue stuck out, and Evan covering his face. Too funny. 


After our photo session we took the kids to a wonderful dinner at The Mansion in downtown Melbourne. It was a lovely afternoon and I am so excited to get some of these photos printed! 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week! 

The first month of school is always a crazy-busy time for us, but I did manage to create a few layouts for the Pixels and Co. designers. I worked with current photos, but I also pulled out a bunch of older photos, too. I love looking back at photos of the boys from years ago... they have grown up so much! 

Hey there! I have quite a few layouts to share today that I've created for Karla Dudley Designs, Scotty Girl Designs, and Pixels & Co. 

The new kit, Walt's Park, from Scotty Girl Designs is the perfect kit for scrapping Disney photos! And it has the same color combo as Started by a Mouse, so the kits coordinate well. I used several elements from each kit for my layout: 


I was thrilled when Wild Blueberry Ink released Dad's Day Flair last week! I don't use real flair on my paper layouts often (they are so bulky!), but digital flair is fair game! Here I used My Dad flair and My Dad Arrows (digital wood words & shapes? Yes, please!). The digital template is from Simply Tiffany Studios:


Robin Meierotto released a fantastic set of boy-friendly papers last week called Fatherhood. I used several from her her collection on my layout below:


This one's from a couple of weeks ago using Karla's Peachy kit and a different Simply Tiffany Studios template (I love templates...):


The last layout I have uses Scotty Girl Designs' new Ship Shape kit:

Hey guys! I have a few more layouts to share today... two traditional layouts and one digital. I am having so much fun working with my photos again! And of course using some fun product, too. Who doesn't love chipboard banners and cute little letter stickers and Thickers?!? 

But up first is a digital layout using MyeDeLeon's new kit: Carefree. I used a lot of elements from her kit (paper, banners, frame, doily, butterfly sticker, journaling card, and "having fun" sticker). I also used one of her new Page Blenders for the beautiful white frame. 


Up next is a CAS photos + journaling + washi tape + letter stickers layout. Super simple:



Close up of the typed journaling: 


Awesome chipboard Thickers and cluster of elements on the top of the layout: 

Happy Monday, friends!

After 5 days on the couch, I am finally on the mend. My energy level (and appetite) are not quite back to normal, but I am feeling so much better! We celebrated Easter with some good friends of ours, and today I dropped in on Evan's classroom and delivered some birthday cookies for him and his classmates. I am so glad things are returning to normal around here.

Karla released two new collections last week: Sweetpea and Anywhere. Both kits are fabulous, but for tonight's layout I worked with Sweetpea. I don't usually work with pink/purple/red (most of my pictures are of the boys!), but I was really drawn to the beautiful watercolor flowers and washi tape. All 6 photos are Instagram pictures that I downloaded to my computer before resizing.

Hey there! I hope everyone is having a good week. I have a layout to share today with one of the pictures my mom took before Mark's company's holiday party on Saturday. I fiddled with this layout in Photoshop for hours before deciding to rotating the whole thing on an angle. And I'm so happy with how it turned out! I think this is my first "angled" layout, and I will definitely do it again.

Hi there! I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween. The kids finally fell asleep at 9:45pm after eating their weight in candy, cookies, cupcakes, pizza, and more candy. Evan picked out his Mario costume months ago and he couldn't wait to to wear it. Jack was undecided until almost 5:00pm and  finally decided on Iron Man (minus the mask) right before we left for Publix. I have a ton a photos to process and I'll post them here soon.

I am super excited to share a layout I made using Karla's new kits: Give Thanks. They will be available tomorrow on the Design House Digital website! She has four kits: papers, flair badges, word stickers, and word brushes. I used a little from each kit on my layout:

Miss Karla has a beautiful new collection, Penelopi, available in her shop, and I had a chance to work with it tonight (and last night... I'm a slow scrapper!). Her collection is full of bright papers, colorful badges, stickers, washi tape (yay!), and digital brushes. 

Evan took this picture of Mark and me last summer and I had to use it on a layout:

We are officially in back-to-school mode here... getting up early, packing school lunches, soccer, birthday parties. Throw in a hurricane warning and our week has been a wee bit crazy! Today, especially, was go, go, go for us. Tomorrow we have another birthday party to attend, then swimming + treats with some friends. 

Even with all the running around I still find time to sneak into my studio to make a few cards or work on my Project Life album. I also made it a priority this summer to create a few traditional scrapbook layouts, something that I haven't done in a while. It felt great to create with photos again. I purchased a few products from Heidi Swapp's No Limits collection that I knew would be perfect for the boys. When I posted these pictures of Jack a few months ago, I immediately printed them so I could create a layout with them. Here is the result:


I think I'm going to frame it. And Heidi's new products were so much fun to work with! The banners, photo frames, papers... super cute & versatile. I also used a few My Mind' Eye products and Thickers for the title.




Jack started pre-school two weeks ago, and he is having the best time. Last Thursday was his first show-and-tell, and of course he had to bring Pup-Pup. Mark tucked Pup-Pup into Jack's backpack and Jack clutched to it all the way to school. Adorable. Beyond adorable.




I got both boys backpacks from Lands End last year, and they have held up really well. Jack isn't required to bring one to school, but of course he has to wear one because Evan does. And now Jack is requesting to eat lunch at school, like a lot of the other kids. When did he get so darn big? 

I also want to share a little good news... I was chosen as the Hero Arts Fresh Face for the first half of August. Mark was at work & the kids were at school when I found out, but I did my little happy dance in my office. Definitely made my day. Thanks Hero Arts! I can't wait to get my free stamps in the mail. :-)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Erin.

Jack and Nick played legos together and were so cute together... they have become good friends over the past few months. 

And this cutie is getting bigger by the minute! I love to snuggle him and make him laugh. He is a great baby and so easy to entertain. 

I love, love, love this photo. My little family... surrounded by palm trees and oh-so-happy. Well, most of us. Jack was not happy that I was making him pose for a photo. He wanted to play! 

Family + Dion. We are so happy he was able to join us for the 4th this year. And the kids were happy he brought his iPad. :-)


Liz made this amazing patriotic cake for us to enjoy. Isn't it fantastic? Her baking skills constantly impress me... I am jealous of her talent! And of course it was yummy, too.  

With only 4 weeks of summer vacation left we are trying to cram everything into these precious days before Evan goes back to school on the 8th. This week I'm hoping to take the boys to the park, the water area of our local zoo, and work on a couple of our Kiwi Crate boxes. And of course spend time with Rocket and Miss Lilly. The more pets we add the more I feel like I'm in the movie "We Bought a Zoo". :-)

Have a great week!

The kids and I have been holed up in the house the past couple of days as Tropical Storm Debbie causes damage across the state of Florida. We are not in the path of the storm, but we have still been subject to a lot of wind and rain, and an occasional power outage. Evan was particularly upset this afternoon when an outage interrupted his favorite show: Transformers Rescue Bots. It was the third time he's seen that episode today, so I was quietly relieved. 

While the kids ate their dinner I whipped together a photo Thank You card through Shutterfly... another freebie I stumbled across this afternoon through The Mom Creative. I love making handmade cards, but sometimes I need a generic Thank You note and don't have the time to sit in my office and whip one up, and these Shutterfly photo cards are perfect for those occasions. I included three of my favorite photos of the boys, dragged them onto card and ordered them. Easy peasy.




I am going to curl up on the couch and finish reading the very addicting 50 Shades of Grey series tonight. Goodnight!

Mark and I are coming up on the 9 year anniversary of our first date: June 14th, 2003. I hadn't seen Mark in two or three years, and we had both grown up so much during that time. He took me to see the movie Finding Nemo followed by coffee at Starbucks. He had quite the Starbucks habit back then. :-)


The last nine years have been crazy... two cross country moves, a college education, two kids, and a lot of laughter (and a few tears, too), but it's been so much fun to do it all with Mark by my side. Love you, babe.