Whether you’re celebrating a new love or a love that’s tried & true, this collection is for you!
This collection is packed full of beautiful Valentine’s Day papers and elements. It’s a little flirty, a little sassy, and a little sarcastic! Take a closer look.
I even scrapbooked a quick page celebrating the almost 20 years my husband and I have been married! I used a few of the Journal Cards to add a fun touch to my page. I usually scrapbook pocket-style pages so this is a bit out of my comfort zone. It was kinda fun to play with a few embellishments. Documenting this page also let me know that I need to take a LOT more photos of my husband and I together! It took me forever to find these. Thank goodness for Google Photos face recognition!
We were such babies when we got married! We’ve had some crazy adventures together over the years. We’ve had a lot of hard times, and a lot of great times. I’d do it again. In a heartbeat. This man makes me laugh. Sometimes I get so frustrated with him. We argue. We make up. We share popcorn (that’s about the only food we can both eat). We go to traveling Broadway shows. We’ve made countless runs to Maverick, and just about every other convenience store, to grab a Coke and get a few minutes alone together. And like my favorite journal card in this collection says, “I Choose You. Everyday. Forever.” I love him.
Growing up in the southeastern United States, I can safely say I’m a warm weather fan. I spent some of my high school years outside Washington DC, so I can definitely appreciate a snow day, but I prefer to do so from the indoors. We’ve been in Utah thirteen and a half years and I can also safely say that each year I pray the snow will stay in the mountains. My kids love snow, so they’re pretty pleased about this week’s weather forecast. Seven straight days of cloudy, rainy, snowy weather. Me, not so much. But, I’m trying to stay positive because we desperately need the precipitation. I’m trying to remind myself of all the cozy socks, sweaters & sweatshirts I can wear and the lovely electric throw blanket I keep near my desk for work days. I can wear my still-warm Uggs the dog used as a chew toy a few years ago and just stay home. See? Now I’m looking forward to taking some pictures and documenting our story with my new Cuddle Up Collection. It’s so new I haven’t even had a chance to scrapbook with it yet!
There are a lot of fun, whimsical details in this collection. It’s jam-packed with 26 patterned backgrounds and 15 solid backgrounds. I love the plaids and the confetti-style heart pattern. There are 108 embellishments in the kit, including several hand-drawn sticker-style illustrations. There are 3 full alphabets including uppercase, lowercase, numbers 0-9, some symbols & punctuation. The first one is a beautiful gold glitter-dusted alpha, with a deep matching green alpha in the same style. The third alpha is designed with an illustrated knit pattern in pink. I think you’ll love all three. If you decide to go for the collection, you’ll not only get the Cuddle Up kit, but you’ll add 24- 3×4 cards in jpg format. There are cards to fit the winter lover in your life as well as those who are a bit more skeptical about the white stuff. As always, you can buy the packs individually, the kit (papers, elements, alphas) together, or the collection. They’re all 25% off this weekend, thru 1/24/2021, but the Collection is the always the best bargain.
I’m slowly chipping away at my goal to document both 2021 and 2015 this year. To that end, I created new versions of my This Year cards for each year. Yes, I know how odd it is to release a set of 2015 cards in 2021, but I can’t be the only person in this boat. They’re priced to reflect the absurdity of releasing them this year. And, I have plans to release other years as I need them for my scrapbooking. If you’re looking for a particular year, just let me know and I can add it to my design schedule.
The 2021 Cards include two options for beginning 2021. I began my Week 1 on January 4, 2021. There weren’t any business days before that, just a holiday and a lazy weekend. January 4th marks the Monday we got back to real life, or as real life as we can in a Covid world. I do have a card for Week 1 covering January 1-10. The week dates run Monday through Sunday so that all of our weekend adventures stay together.
Here you can see that the 2021 Cards come in 4 sizes: 3×4, 4×4, 4×6 & 6×4 to fit in various size card slots. Each size comes in ready-to-use jpg format as well as “With Bleed” jpg format. That basically means that each card is 1/4″ larger, with the design staying the same size. It’s best used for situations where you’re printing the cards to use in physical projects. It allows for the image to shift a bit due to printer limitations and then be trimmed afterward to the correct size.
The 2015 Cards are designed the same way, and in the same sizes: 3×4, 4×4, 4×6, and 6×4. We once again have a partial week with Week 1 covering January 1-4, 2015. This leaves us with a partial week 53 at the end of the year, too.
This is how I’m using the This Year 2021 cards in my documenting. I use a lot of screenshots. Lots of them. There’s no reason for me to try to put the Covid counts into words when the charts & graphs do a better job. Why journal about the importance of getting vaccinated when I can include a screenshot of the Utah Corona Virus post and a picture of my kids’ aunt, who’s a healthcare worker, getting vaccinated? I did include some journaling about that, but I think the picture is meaningful. And my kids like seeing their aunts, uncles & cousins included in our story. They’re a big part of our lives.
And our 2015 story… I can’t believe how tiny and cute my daughters were. I mean, they’re still cute. But come on… I can’t handle how cute this little girl is in her dripping wet coat under her soccer uniform. It was so cold that day. She’s wearing a sweatshirt under her coat, which is under her soccer jersey. And all dressed up for Dad’s graduation – drastic weather change?! Gotta love Utah weather. And Hannah’s “Elsa braid” on the way to church. Ainsley wore fairy wings when we went to see her cousin (and a bonus neighbor!) in a production of Peter Pan Jr. I had completely forgotten about that, but she still loves to accessorize! I even journaled about seeing my baby sister’s cute friend, who was serving as a missionary near us, walking down the street in a neighborhood near mine. We knew she was in our area, but hadn’t seen her. I yanked my car into the middle lane of the road, ran across the street yelling her name and made her take a picture with me. She was pretty gracious about the entire situation. Looking back, I’m sure she was a bit scared at first. Hidden under the Week 19 page is a picture of our dog, Alfie, who has since passed away. I treasure those photos! I’m so glad I’m going back and telling these stories about the random bits and pieces of our lives.
You can find my Life in Pockets Templates on the first couple of pages of these search results at SnapClickSupply. I modify the templates to see more of the patterned paper underneath. I’ll share how I do it quickly in a tutorial another time.
And because I’m a huge fan of Erica Zane, you can find her products here. They’re sweet and fun with a little bit of sass!
That’s all for this week. I’m working on some Valentine’s products. Hopefully I’ll get them finished before Valentine’s Day!
Stay safe & healthy. Wash your hands. Keep making memories with the people in your life, and document them!
