Apple Orchard

I LOVEEEEEEEE Fall! Love. Love. Love. Loveeee! A couple of weeks ago, my boys were on their fall break when we had one of the most miserable weather patterns through here in a while. Ugh! (As much as I love fall, I HATE icky weather!)We had *one* glorious day on Wednesday so we hopped at the chance to head down the road to Evans Apple Orchard. Evans' has the best cider I have ever had...and rows of one of my fave apples - the Jonagold! (Turner apparently got a hold of an apple that *wasn't* a sweet Jonagold! hee!)


We picked a HUGE bagful of a wonderful variety of apples (and a couple got taste-tested while out in the orchard, of course ;)). Carson got a ladder involved to get the "good ones, Mama!"


And then when we were done with the apples, it was time for some playground farm fun - the part the boys loved best, of course! I loved catching these grins. There was the sack slide, the tube races, a corn maze and king of the hill. You couldn't ask for more to entertain rowdy boys!





It was a wonderful day. Next up - the PUMPKIN PATCH! Have I mentioned how much I love fall!?!

Just a reminder - tonight is your last chance to enter to win the Kenner Road add-on kit! Click HERE to makes sure you get your name in!

Have a happy Wednesday!
xoxo,
k.

Kenner Road

**********CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. WINNER ANNOUNCED SOON! THANK YOU!************

Hello, everyone!

Whew! I'm back from my self-imposed hiatus and a quickie trip to sunny California! I think the craziness and sickness has finally left - or is leaving - my house (knock on wood!) and I'm ready to be back here a bit more!

The first thing I just have to share is my guest designer gig for my friend, Kerry Lynn's wonderful kit club, Kenner Road! KL is such an amazing artist and her kits are always full of such wonderful vintage pieces and gorgeous papers so I was hugely honored to be a part of it if only for a month.

Here are my contributions to her gallery for October's Kit and Add-ons:

This layout is about our recent trip to the apple orchard (um, yeah - pictures I haven't quite posted due to above-mentioned craziness!) and how those apples just taste better right off the tree! LOVE those faces! ;)




Yes, I crashed a wedding on my trip to Florida last month. It was so beautiful and the clouds had opened up to a gorgeous sunset right before we walked out there and came upon this. I swear there was truly a silver lining to those clouds!




These cards completely got me in the mood for fall and (quickly-approaching) Thanksgiving. I think I am addicted to these crystals now! Love them!






...and last but not least this fun Kaiser Craft bird house. I'm thinking it will hold some business cards one day. We'll see!



Thank you so much, kl, for letting me be a part of your club this month. I had a ball! And for you lucky readers, you can be a part of Kenner Road, too! Kerry has graciously offered up one of her add-on kits, Windy Corners, to one random reader!

Simply leave a comment here by 11:59 pm Eastern Time on Wednesday, October 21st and you will be entered to win!

Happy Monday!!
xoxo,
k.

A delayed congratulations!

...to Tania Willis! Tania, you win the Eskimo Kisses card kit for your entry into my World Cardmaking Day post! Please email me at kelly.goree@gmail.com to claim your prize! :)

Thank you to all who participated!

10 Years

...passes by way too quickly.

I love you, Daddy.

World Cardmaking Day

For those of you "in the know", yes, I realize that I am waaaaaaaaaaay late for World Cardmaking Day (which was actually last Saturday), but for those of you who had no idea about WCD, you can just assume I'm reaaaaaaaaaaaaally early for the first time in my life! ha! The actual story is that I was out of town on Saturday so I missed all the fun happenings, but I did manage to create a card for Scrapbook & Cards Today before I left. I really hope you'll take a minute to check out the post because Scrapbook & Cards featured twelve card sketches along with some awesome examples to inspire you all year long! How cool is that?

I was Miss December (I know! Quit laughing!) and here is my holiday card...



So to honor World Cardmaking Day, I wanted to do a little giveaway. Link me up here to a card you created (on WCD or otherwise) and you'll be entered to win BasicGrey's Eskimo Kisses Card kit just in time for the holidays! You have until Friday at 11:59 PM Eastern to get your name in the drawing! Oh, and just a little "heads up", there will be a couple of other pretty cool giveaways coming up in the next week or so. I can't wait!

Have a wonderful day!
xoxo,
k.

Two Peas Super Sketches with KP!

This month I had the pleasure of working with my sweet friend Kelly Purkey for your fabulous year of SUPER SKETCHES class she's doing at Two Peas. Kelly has been doing some fantastic sketches and I was thrilled to play along (anyone who knows me knows I love me some sketches!) with her and our other awesome Kelly friend, Kelly Noel! It's Kelly x3 for you all this month!

Here is my layout followed by KP's fantabulous sketch:


Supplies: Heidi Swapp PP and diecuts (Advantus); BasicGrey buttons, brads, chipboard alphas (white); Fiskars border punch; Bazzill CS; Marvy Uchida circle punch; Zig pen; BoBunny chipboard alphas (orange); Colorbox (Clearsnap) chalk ink.
(All supplies available at twopeasinabucket.com.)


I hope you decide to play along with us this month! If you do, be sure to post your layout and link it to "Super Sketches" so we can see it and appreciate your hard work!

And I wanted to give a quick shout out to the wonderful ladies at Scrapbook & Cards Today Magazine - their fall issue is out now and it's an amazing one! You can download it for FREE by (yes, I said FREE!!!) following the link here!

Have a fantastic Friday!

xoxo,

BasicGrey GIFT WRAP in FIGGY PUDDING!

Yes, it's true! BasicGrey has released gift wrap for this holiday season in our popular Figgy Pudding line! How fun is that! Be checking your local retailers in October to get your own!


Happy Hump Day!
xoxo,
k.

And the Winner is....

I'm so sorry for the delay in posting this, but I've had some serious deadlines looming and I've been busy slaving away! I just wanted to pop in quickly to let WALDENBUNCH know she was the winner of the seat in Sherry Steveson's latest class "Lemons: Making Sweet Pages from Sour Photos". Whooooo hooooo!! Huge congrats to you and enjoy your class! Please email me at kelly.goree@gmail.com and I'll get you in touch with Sherry! Class starts WEDNESDAY! :)

Happy Monday, all!
xoxo,
k.

I'm ready for some FOOTBALLLLLLLLLLL!

Ethan's season opener for his Jr. Tackle team is today! He's so excited he can hardly stand it and I have to say, I am, too! I LOVE football season and watching him work so hard at something he loves so much! It does this mama good :) Hope you're having a great day this any given Sunday!

(Ethan is one of our running backs...these pictures were taken a week ago at our first scrimmage. He's #4 in these pics, though his regular number is 14)

xoxo,
k.

When Life Gives You Lemons....

...you make amazing scrapbook pages like my sweet (and sassy!) friend, Sherry Steveson! Sherry is the author of two books with F+W Publishing, When Life Gives You Lemons: Turning Sour Photos Into Sweet Scrapbook Layouts, and her latest, The Scrapbook Embellishment Handbook. She is also the instructor of the class "Lemons: Making Sweet Pages from Sour Photos" at Debbie Hodge's site "Get It Scrapped!" where she shares some of the ideas and techniques found in her book. The fantastic news is that she is giving away a spot in her class to one of my fantastic blog readers! (Thanks, Sherry!!)

Just leave a comment here telling me all about your "lemony-est" photo and you'll be entered to win! I will take comments until 11:59 pm Sunday night (9/13) and will draw a winner Monday morning. Sherry's class starts that following Wednesday, September 16th!

Have a blessed day.
I will never forget.

xoxo,
k.

Scrapbook Deals4U.com

Hello!!

Happy Labor Day, all! I hope you're taking some time for yourselves and enjoying the long weekend! We've managed to do that a bit around here with a day on the river yesterday and some ball park time today. Here's hoping the rain holds off enough today to get outside and enjoy this last day of summer!

In the meantime, I had something I wanted to share with you. This month I had the honor of being the guest designer at Scrapbook Deals 4U.com this month! I was completely honored when Martha asked me to contribute and I have to say when I got my Delight Kit in the mail, I was also completely floored. I couldn't believe all the amazing things that came in it and the color combination was perfect for a mom of all boys! In fact, I used up just about every. single. scrap of paper to make these projects I'm about to share with you. No joke!

As I mentioned, these colors just seemed perfect for summer and boys, so I had an abundance of pictures I couldn't wait to use. These are some of my favorites from this summer. They are of my middle son, Turner, blowing some bubbles. I chose the "B" side of some of the Fancy Pants papers to create a really subtle tone-on tone design and pulled out my trusty circle cutter for a "bubble-like" effect. And the buttons! Oh how I loved these pearl-finished buttons!


Supplies: Fancy Pants PP, Creative Imaginations PP, Bazzill CS, BasicGrey Chipboard alphas, Colorbox (Clearsnap) chalk ink, Zig pen, buttons

For this next project I completely lifted a piece by the amazing Stephanie Dagan. Stephanie is a French designer who's use of color has me constantly in awe. I've had several of her layouts marked as inspiration for quite some time and have been dying to try my hand at combining colors the way she does. This Delight kit couldn't have been better for that so here is my lift of Stephanie's "Enjoy Water" layout. (You can see more of her work here.) I created a library pocket for this library themed layout out of green cardstock and used it to hold my journaling.



Supplies: Fancy Pants PP, Creative Imaginations PP, Bazzill CS, Colorbox (Clearsnap) chalk ink, Zig pen, Uniball pen (white), buttons

I love how the patterns in this line go so well together. It really made working with it so easy! I took the scrap strips from the first two layouts and made the background for this one! This was my baby's first day riding the bus to Kindy. He was so excited and was waiting for it much longer than he actually needed to!

Supplies: Fancy Pants PP, Creative Imaginations PP, Bazzill CS, WorldWin Carstock (yellow), Doodlebug alpha stickers, Making Memories tiny alpha, Colorbox (Clearsnap) chalk ink, Zig pen, cord, KI Memories Softies

And because I couldn't stand to not use any of this paper, I made three cards with what I had left! The first one uses that adorable "Hoo Loves You" card and yummy orange satin ribbon. I tied a big orange button to the bow with cording and added the green leaves cut from the green paper as an extra embellishment. The sentiment "i do!" is on the inside.


I've used this particular card design over and over again because it's such an easy one to do and I love the look. I used a circle punch to hold my sentiment and then cut out some of the flowers from the floral paper to use as accents. The dotted paper just makes me happy!


And here's my final card using one of those fantastic paper flowers and some layered buttons! I love layering buttons for flower centers. For this one I secured it with the cording again and used a glue dot to adhere it to my card. The mini alphas were the perfect size for my sentiment.


Have a wonderful (non) Labor Day!

xoxo,
k.

BasicGrey's September Newsletter

...is now available for your viewing pleasure! Just click here: BasicGrey Newsletter to read all about it!

This fall issue is jam-packed with tons of eye candy that I hope will inspire you. The introduction features a look at one of our newest products, Doilies, our laser-cut lace cardstock. I created this layout (below) to show how fun they can be used as a layout base (and to show off that sweet picture of my baby)!

I also want to mention that the fun technique for those butterflies came from Jennifer McGuire's "Thinking Inking" class over at TwoPeas! She's absolutely amazing and the class is incredible! Please check it out Here!


Supplies: BasicGrey Doilies, Indian Summer Patterned paper, Chipboard alphabets, Bling It Rhinestone Dots
Other: vellum, Martha Stewart butterfly punch, Ranger Ink

A huge thank you goes out to Brianne Nevill, Nikki Hobbs and Marla Kress for participating in this month's sketch column. This was one of my first sketches that I've ever done and you ladies completely rocked it! I really appreciate your hard work! Here's the sketch for those of you that want to give it a try yourself! As always we love having you submit our sketches to our gallery for possible inclusion - just make sure to put "September Sketch" in the title!

Have a wonderful and relaxing Labor Day weekend!

xoxo,
k.

Patterned Paper - Part 2!

Hi, everyone!!

Today is Part Two of my self-proclaimed "Patterned Paper" Week over at Scrapbook & Cards Today's blog. I hope you're having a fantastic time playing along!

One of the questions I seem to get asked most frequently is how I use so many different patterns/papers on a project and how I go about choosing the ones I'm going to use. I thought today would be the perfect opportunity to share some of my favorite tips on mixing multiple paper patterns and give you a little insight into how I do my own personal paper selecting! So here we go:

1. LIMIT yourself!

One of the easiest ways to use multiple patterned papers is to stay within a manufacturer's given paper line or "range". This lets you know that the papers are already designed to coordinate and "go together". This takes a good portion of the guess work out of it for you. How great is that?!

2. CONTRAST is key!

When you are wanting to put several patterns together, contrast in your colors is a necessity. Colors that are too similar or of the same intensity don't show up very well when put together. Mix it up and be bold!

3. VARIETY is the spice of life!

To really get the most out of your patterned paper, I have found that it is essential to vary the size and shape of the patterns I'm using. For instance, I'll use a stripe with a small dot, then add in a large floral. When the patterns are different sizes and styles, they will stand out when used together whereas several prints of the same type (ie: all florals) can have a tendency to blend together.

4. USE in moderation!

A lot of patterns out there can be overwhelming! Don't be afraid to use a BOLD pattern, just use it in moderation. Take a strip or a small square or a circle of that pattern rather than using the whole thing!

5. FRAME it in!

This is by far one of my favorite tricks for managing lots of patterns - reign those patterns in with a "frame". Use some dark or light cardstock around your layout design to frame in or contain your patterns! You can see I used this trick in both of the examples I've shared this week! (I told you it was my favorite!)

So let's put these tips to practical use and let me show you step by step how I used each one in my layout, "Home."

First, I limited myself to one paper line. For this layout, I choose BasicGrey's Indian Summer line for its rich, intense hues and lots of bold patterns.



After looking through all the papers that I had to choose from, I started grouping them according to some of my favorite patterns and what I thought might work well together. I was looking for the right mix of contrast between light and dark, and size of patterns.



The next thing I wanted to do was start to vary the different types of patterns I was using. I wanted to see if I could mix some floral designs, stripes and more. Notice that while I was looking at two different florals, the scale of the pattern is so different that they still work well together.



I still wasn't completely satisfied with the patterns I had pulled as I was looking for a little bit more "quirky" color palette, so I introduced the yellow and orange and really played around with it a bit. While those colors could have been overwhelming to my final design, I took them in bits and pieces and created a fun color-blocked background that was....wait for it....contained by both a light and dark frame! You're shocked, I know!



So there you have it! I hope this encourages you to try your own color combos and to really play up the patterns! I can't wait to see what you create! Here is my own page after her my final selection of patterned papers:


supplies: patterned papers, alphabet stickers, felties, doilie, BasicGrey; cardstock, Bazzill; tool, Fiskars scissors; pen, Zig.

Have a great Wednesday!
xoxo,
k.