In the meantime, I'll stick with the birthday theme (while not his 13th) and share some recent layouts I did for my design team commitment with Scrappin' {Sports} Stuff. I was really drawn to the bright colors and fun patterns of the "Animal Crackers" line by Imaginisce. I knew I didn't have any circus or fair pictures to use with the line, but instead felt that it would be perfect for some birthday pages.
Armed with Sketches for Scrapbooking Volume 8 by Allison Davis, I was able to sit down with this line, my photos, and a fun assortment of alphas and quickly knock out some documented memories.
First, I scrapped Tom's birthday from August.
2-page layouts make me so happy. 
Pop dots turned shapes cut from patterned paper into instant embellishments.
The die-cut pennant strip was one of my favorite embellishments from the whole line. (LOVE those colors!)Next up was Blake's 12th birthday.
It's obsvious from the pics that he really enjoyed his dinner out at the local Mexican restaurant.
I only used one side of the sketch for this single page layout. I used another of the pennant strips and added a couple different Thicker fonts, too. 
The pennants made yet another appearance on a page from Kevin's birthday last November. This layout is for Blake's album. Kevin loved the Cars set Blake gave him. 
In addition to Thickers (2 fonts), I also used alphas from Paper Trunk and Sassafrass Lass.
The pennants made yet another appearance on a page from Kevin's birthday last November. This layout is for Blake's album. Kevin loved the Cars set Blake gave him. In addition to Thickers (2 fonts), I also used alphas from Paper Trunk and Sassafrass Lass. Our fun family game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey needed a page to itself. My youngest sister won the game at Kevin's party last fall.
I used the ribbons from the line to help frame out the page. Several pop dots were also used on this layout.
I converted a couple of my favorite photos from Blake's 12th birthday to black and white. I'm glad I did since I think they look so nice on this next layout. They aren't competing with the bright colors on the rest of the layout.
Since I was out of my pennant borders, I used pennant paper!
When I have a lot of photos from one event, I often print them as photo collages. I did that for pics of Blake with his gifts. I like to document what he receives each year, so we can look back and remember his interests. In this case, I printed the photos as 2-up 4x6 collages. This made it very easy to get six photos on one page.
I used a set of Thickers, a set of Cosmo Cricket chipboard alphas and a sheet of Scenic Route alpha stickers for my big title.
To further accent the page, I added some scraps in the upper corner, a piece of ribbon and a Jenni Bowlin vintage looking button from my stash.
I used the ribbons from the line to help frame out the page. Several pop dots were also used on this layout.
I converted a couple of my favorite photos from Blake's 12th birthday to black and white. I'm glad I did since I think they look so nice on this next layout. They aren't competing with the bright colors on the rest of the layout. 
Since I was out of my pennant borders, I used pennant paper! 
When I have a lot of photos from one event, I often print them as photo collages. I did that for pics of Blake with his gifts. I like to document what he receives each year, so we can look back and remember his interests. In this case, I printed the photos as 2-up 4x6 collages. This made it very easy to get six photos on one page. 
I used a set of Thickers, a set of Cosmo Cricket chipboard alphas and a sheet of Scenic Route alpha stickers for my big title. 
To further accent the page, I added some scraps in the upper corner, a piece of ribbon and a Jenni Bowlin vintage looking button from my stash. While going through my stash, I decided to use up some older (and large) chipboard alphas by Heidi Swapp on this final 2-pager. This layout shows off the gifts Blake got from family at his party last year.
I didn't have enough letters to spell the word I wanted, so I used the negative "scrap" from a G and just backed it with patterned paper.
Once again, I cut shapes out of the papers and adhered them with pop dots for dimension.
Now I want to print out photos from this year's birthday and scrap them!
I didn't have enough letters to spell the word I wanted, so I used the negative "scrap" from a G and just backed it with patterned paper. Once again, I cut shapes out of the papers and adhered them with pop dots for dimension.
Now I want to print out photos from this year's birthday and scrap them!Happy scrappin'!
The layout is for Kevin's album. 
I also did a one page LO for Blake's album for the party. 
I had just received a photo order that included my nephew Luke's birthday party from last month. I made a really cute page for Blake's album using a special sheet of patterned paper. All the words were on the bottom of the paper - I just had to add Luke's name for my title. Then I added a striped strip to the top of the page, some brads, and called it done!
"I'm this man...5" is my second favorite LO. I actually finished it for a crop challenge. I pulled out my circle punches to punch shapes out of one of the patterns and then raised them up with pop dots to add dimension to the page.
I'm finding that I work quickly and feel really productive when I take a paper line and work with it until it's gone. I know some people comment that they get bored with a line if they use it for a period, but I think I like the rewarding feeling of getting so many pages finished. 
This was the year I realized I took too many photos at birthdays. I tried to cut back on how many I take, but also started doing photo collages to make my pictures smaller. By fitting 2-4 photos on a 4x6 or 5x7, I'm able to get more images on a page like I did in this page also for Kevin's 7th.
"Lucky Number 7" is a page for Blake's album about Kevin's "friend" party this fall. I completed this page for a challenge by millermath/Debbie over at 
For Blake's 10th, I didn't have any more of the large chipboard numbers so I improvised and used letters to make a "10" out of a lowercase "L" and "O". By mixing it with smaller mis-matched chipboard letters, I'm hoping no one will ever notice!
Both boys got lucky last fall and each had two birthday parties - one for family and one for friends. We won't do that every year!
I even scrapped a page about my birthday last year! The "Making Memories" ribbon is acutally packaging off of a Making Memories brand apron that I won as a crop prize! I can be thrifty!
Back to birthdays...
Then I made a page for Blake's album about Kevin's birthday at home this past fall.
I decided to finally tackle the MANY, MANY, MANY photos I had from Kevin's "friend" party last fall. Luckily I had used a photo editing program to make collages (smaller sizes) before I had them processed!
