Good morning, and a very happy Friday to everyone! Today finds me once again out of town for work, but the good news is that I'm heading home this afternoon and am so ready for a weekend in my own house!

Today's roundup of crafty picks includes just one or two Valentine's Day projects, but they can be re-themed to any holiday or celebration, really! And there's a little photography, some organization, and a bit of home decor thrown in for good measure, as well. So, let's get started, shall we?


From the top left:

• This sweet garland mailer DIY at Oh Happy Day would be a lovely gift to send for any occasion!
• Cindy Liebel created a totally unique and fun desk organizer! She's also entered it into a design contest, and when you click through the link she has details on how you can vote for her, if you're so inclined.
• Jasmine Star wrote a great post showing several different ways to photograph the same dessert buffet. It's loaded with photos and detailed information (lens, camera settings, etc.) for each picture. 
• Learn how to use your Silhouette to both create and corral items to use in your Project Life album on Lori Whitlock's blog.
• Jennifer Pebbles' office/playroom got a fab makeover from Target!
• I thought that this cute sushi-themed dessert buffet on Amy Atlas' blog was just fun!
• Erin Stewart shows how to use circle punches to create a lovely home decor piece on the American Crafts blog. What a great way to use up some scraps!
• Like the Project Life format, but not really interested in using it for your current pictures? Becky Higgins shows the Olive Edition being used to document heritage photos!
• Learn how to make this adorable mini album at Bananafish Studio.

I've got a fun Valentine's Day treat to share with you today! I have a copy of this brand new eBook from Ella Publishing to give away to one of my readers!


I'm blessed to be a fast scrapbooker (most of my layouts take between 45 and 75 minutes to make), so when May Flaum asked me to contribute to this book, I was excited to jump on board!

Fashionably Fast is all about making layouts with both style and speed and is filled with ideas to help you squeeze the most out of your creative time. May came up with 10 of her best tips for speedy scrapping, and you'll get more time-saving ideas from all of the other contributors (Shimelle Laine, Lisa Dickinson, Amy Tan, Stephanie Howell, and me!) along the way, as well. The book's 36 pages are packed with all of these ideas plus 20 brand new layouts, and as a bonus you get 30 minutes of video instruction from May, too! Fashionably Fast is available for a limited time at an introductory price of $7.99. 

I'm so happy to have two layouts in this book, and I've got tiny little sneaks of them to share with you!



If you'd like to enter to win a copy of Fashionably Fast, all you have to do is leave a comment below (and make sure your email address is included, please, so I can contact you if you win!). Entries will close at midnight on Sunday, February 17, and I'll have Random.org select a winner on Monday morning and email them to set them up with their copy!

February is my last month on the Pretty Little Studio design team, making this my final project for their Out of the Box challenge series!

I have to admit, this one threw me a bit at first. Pink? Red? Pink? It's just one color I don't use much of, and when I do need to scrap with it I either reach for photos of my niece, Sophie (since lots of her clothes have pink in them), or for cherry blossom photos.


Supplies:



As I was flipping through my photo binder I stumbled upon these cherry blossom photos from last year, from one of the trees that has blooms with more of a reddish-pink hue than most of the yoshinos do. Decision made- cherry blossoms, it is. :)


I hand-cut the pink floral sprays from a sheet from the Pretty Little Studio Antique store collection, then went digging through the journaling cards to find a few more pink and red bits to finish things off. The brads, buttons, bling, and washi tape are all older stash, and that woodgrain background paper is from Studio Calico's Christmas collection, believe it or not!



I've got just a couple more Pretty Little Studio layouts in the hopper before my time with them as up. And as the design team commitments wind down, my time to dig in and use up some older supplies is ramping up- love that!

It was kind of light on layouts on the blog while I worked on rolling out content from the CHA Winter 2013 show, but today I'm going to make up for it with the four new layouts that I made for Citrus Twist Kits with the just-revealed-today February lineup!

Just a side note- many of the new kits were already sold out at presale. Trina greatly expanded CTK's inventory for February, but the club grew much more quickly than she anticipated in the last month. She's expanding the numbers again for March to try to include everyone- Citrus Twist doesn't want to be a kit club that's known for being sold out all the time, so if you're trying to get in, please email Trina!

My first layout has actually already been up on the Citrus Twist blog as part of the sneak peek festivities. I started this one by using the little kraft bag that the kit embellishments were packed in as a base and layered papers and photos on top of it. I finished things off by sprinkling embellishments and sequins down the page to look like they were spilling out of the bag. And, as for the subject- Darren + the cats + a laser pointer = big time entertainment in our house. :)


Supplies:






This page was inspired by the "I Love To Eat" journaling card from the Pebbles Seen + Noted pad. I flipped through my photo binders until I found a set of pictures that would work with the theme, and luckily everyone looked great on that sheet of Amy Tangerine Ready. Set. Go. woodgrain paper that I'd been hoping to use! So happy to have these photos of my Dad grilling in my album now!


Supplies: