Five for Friday

1. Well, our Christmas holidays have come to an end this week and it's been back to school/work for our household. Sigh.... Thankfully I get a week off at the end of January for exams at the high school. There's always something to look forward to, right? ;)

2. I got some happy mail this week! Scrapbook Trends magazine requested one of my layouts for their June issue.

3. I wanted to share a layout I made last weekend, using a favourite photo of my boys.

I used Crate Paper & Simple Stories patterned paper  (which I used for the title) and some My Mind's Eye (green), Girls' Paperie (map) and Basic Grey (new york) decorative brads. I added a PTI Wonderful Words stamp ("together") to the subtitle with some Versafine Onyx ink.

Here are a couple of close ups:

4. We have a big event tomorrow for Cameron's side of the family. The first grandchild, our nephew, Luke, is getting married. I still remember meeting him when Cameron and I were dating.... he was four years old! And now he's getting married! How time flies....

5. In honour of #4, I thought I'd share the card I made for Luke and his bride, Laura, which I used several techniques, including this week's Make it Monday at Papertrey Ink: creating backgrounds with border dies.

I used PTI cardstock (kraft, aqua mist), stamps (love & marriage), twine, button, impression plate (woodgrain) and dies (heart border).

I cut several strips of the heart border die out of kraft cardstock and adhered it to a kraft base. Then, I ran the whole thing through my Cuttlebug with my woodgrain impression plate. For the sentiment/tree image, I first stamped the sentiment in Versamark and heat embossed it with black embossing powder. Then, I stamped the tree image over the sentiment in Versamark and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder. I added some twine and a button to finish it off.

Enjoy your weekend!
Thanks for looking!