Happy AUTUMN! I love all of our seasons for one reason or another but there is something absolutely magical about AUTUMN. I know that not all localities have the magnificence that I see here when Fall is in full force, but WOW, the colors and even the smells of fall take my breath away.
At one of my networking meetings recently, one of our members, Liz Garrett, author and wellness coach/owner of Essential Wellness Coaching, spoke about how most people during this season are looking back to new habits, new activities, new obligations started in the year, and evaluating what to LET GO of. The GO, GO, GO has finally caught up and she said, “You may find yourself EXHAUSTED about now, evaluating what is really important to keep doing and what can be let go to make more time for self, reducing stress, and making room for things that bring you joy.”
If this is indeed a phenomenon, and I suspect that it is, I believe it is one that our Lord Father has set into motion, not just with us, but with all living things! Look at our trees! They have sprouted in Spring and flowers have bloomed in all their majesty but in just a few weeks, here in Virginia, the leaves will yellow, turn orange or brown, wither, and float to the ground as our trees and flowers go dormant for the winter season.
What came to mind for me while she was speaking was verses from Ecclesiastes 2: 1-8, where it says, “There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens…”
How symbolic is the shedding of the leaves, which happens not once but every year like clockwork! If God sees fit to seasonally take our trees and flowers through such a metamorphosis, just think about what He is doing for me and for you.
I know that I will ALWAYS fall short of what God wants for me and my life. I will never get it right, no matter how hard I try. But, God will always be there for me to allow me to slough off the ugliness and wake to a new day, with a new chance to get it right. God gave his Son to guarantee forgiveness for every slip-up that we sometimes harbor guilt for, for years, unable to even forgive ourselves.
How grateful I am for the earthly seasons and this wonderful postcard-style reminder of God’s power to bring change in leaves and in hearts!
I LOVED making these pages that celebrate this fall season. The colors in the papers, stickers, mats, and laser embellishments NAILED the majesty of fall in the Creative Memories line, Autumn Harvest. If you didn’t order quickly enough to snag the bundle in its entirety, no worries! Just add last year’s laser embellishments, Golden Harvest, which match PERFECTLY and are gorgeous too, and you will be able to get the looks that I am sharing pretty close.
Just a word of caution. Our company is growing VERY quickly. And we are experiencing some growing pains with selling out quickly lines that before lasted quite a bit longer. It’s a great problem to have, in a way, but I know it can be frustrating to our clients. If you like to copy pages exactly the way your advisor makes them, if you see a new line that you really LOVE, I suggest you go ahead and get the bundle. Typically, by doing so, you get a discount on the bundle when it’s first released and that way, you get a bargain AND will not be disappointed by premature sellouts.
With that said, if you love every line, and would like to be a part of an amazing company where you work with a mentor like me (or your advisor), this is a GREAT time to jump on board! We are growing like gangbusters and it is so fun to watch as our sales continue to climb at a pace I never saw coming. There are so many out there who have never even heard of Creative Memories and have photos that need celebrating. Let me know if you can help in sharing this with others while saving on your Creative Memories™ habit or just JOIN NOW! It’s only $49 to join and you get $50 in Free Creative Memories™ stuff of your choice to use on your first order as a Creative Memories™ advisor – No inventory required! Start saving on your own orders TODAY and make extra money by sharing YOUR Creative Memories link with family and friends!
Thanks for reading and enjoy these page layouts featured below!
I appreciate you so much for following me on my blog and on my YouTube channel where I do live videos weekly with scrapbooking tips.
Blessings, Beckie Belote
Newport News, Virginia
Again, because of the tones in the papers, I was able to add blue to the layouts and I love the way it came out. Incorporating vellum from the Autumn Harvest vellum pack again softens this busier piece of paper and adds texture to these pages. One thing about our vellum is it has a white core which makes paper tearing easy. Sometimes paper tearing can be tricky. Tear one way, and you get this white rugged tear featured here. Tear the wrong way, and not so much! I found it didn’t matter which way I tore, the core white showed through with this beautiful textured edge. Don’t forget to grab your vellum tape runner when doing vellum. The blue and rust sheets here are all vellum from the Autumn Harvest pack. When using vellum, it is SEE THROUGH by design and most adhesives are VISIBLE when you use them. Our vellum adhesive comes as a cartridge that will fit in ANY of our tape dispensers and is the best I’ve seen to be invisible under vellum, but if you still see it after you use it, simply scratch the surface where you see it until it fades to the background!
I also added a journal box on the left from the mat pack with a tag and another embellishment at the top for texture. So pretty! And, in the center at the top of both pages, I popped with some foam squares, and some foiled leaves that you will find in BOTH of the embellishment packs mentioned (Autumn Harvest and Golden Harvest). So if the leaves look like they are hovering off the page, they are 😉
This page I actually made one week on YouTube for one of my Tip Tuesday presentations. I used an oldie-but-goodie punch called the Autumn Leaves border punch. It’s been around for a while, so if you don’t have this punch, it’s one you should snag before it’s gone. I added a mat for journaling and popped leaves, hearts, and even the tangerine-colored leaf border with foam pads. Here’s the link to that video if you want to see how fast this one is to make.
This one kind of takes my breath away. Something you may not have noticed is the rust-colored frame on the left side came from a mat from the variety mat pack! I hollowed it out using my trimmer and cut out a half inch all the way around. The piece that was in the middle is ALSO on the page just in a different spot. It says, FALLING INTO AUTUMN! It was the perfect title for the page but now the mat served two purposes 😉 This Mosaic border is super stunning and actually easy to make. See how by watching this Tip Tuesday video.
I also added another mat from the mat pack with pumpkins on it on the left for journalling and lots of foiled and popped leaves from the embellishment pack (found in last year’s pack as well as this year’s pack in case you missed out on the new ones).
This is a kind of complicated LOOKING layout that can made in minutes. I used the new Pumpkin Patch Frame punch and simply folded a full-size 12×12 piece of paper on its diagonal. On the FOLDED edge, put the punch right in the middle and punch and then use the border punch from there to go one direction, then the other to completely punch the whole diagonal with these divine pumpkins. When done, you will see that the punch not only left borders on both halves of the paper but cut it diagonally at the same time. Just lay the two halves back together on colored cardstock. I chose our pumpkin orange paper so that the orange would show through to look like real pumpkins. I love how I used the mat from the mat pack with pumpkins and blue vine and pulled both pages together by using a similar sticker embellishment on the bottom right corner. You will notice EXTRA pumpkins popped on that mat as well as another sticker/embellishment grouping on the facing page.
Some of our border punches double as FRAME punches meaning they can easily go all the way around a piece of paper instead of just making borders. The Pumpkin Patch punch is one of those. There is a technique to this but it’s not hard and you can see in the middle panel above how I have done this. The one pictured would be perfect for a 4×6 photo to fit on from say a day at the pumpkin patch 😉 If you do a 4×6 photo, to do the perfect frame, add two inches to both dimensions making your paper 6×8 before punching. Need help doing this? Check out this video
This time, I used vellum underneath my mats where I will put photos. Vellum as a double mat is a great look. I even tore the edges. At my last crop, my clients asked how I tore the vellum. I do not have a tool for this though there are some out there. In fact, at one time, Creative Memories had them. But I just tore it with my hands 😉 Not hard at all. Our vellum is not fragile at all and works well just with your hands.
In addition to using vellum to get this look, I used sticker borders from the Autumn harvest sticker pack with a 1-inch paper strip to give pretty borders and a journaling block from the mat pack with pine cones on it. The squirrels, leaves, and other large embellishment grouping on the left side were all either stickers or embellishments from the set.
This is a fast strategy that I do A LOT. You simply decorate ONE full-size piece of paper and, when done, CUT IT IN HALF to make it a double-page spread. Here, I took the blue-print from the Autumn Harvest designer pack, added two sticker borders from the sticker pack across the middle, and added a POPPED border using the Autumn Leave Border punch in the very middle so that it was flanked by the sticker strips. Then, I CUT IT IN HALF. I did add a half-inch yellow strip on both sides to pull it all together, a mat from the mat pack, and a lovely embellishment on top of that mat that gave a title and texture to this beautiful layout.
Last but not least, I added a beige-colored vellum to this page layout on top of the acorn print. I love the softness of the vellum and like minimizing papers that can be distracting. I added texture by adding the acorn sticker strip across both pages down the middle. The cute little oversized acorns were made using two colors of cardstock, your LEMON punch, and, for the cap of the acorn, another lemon, cut kind of in half with the deckle blade on your trimmer! In addition, I have added a journaling block by picking a coordinating one from the mat pack and added a large log embellishment.
I hope you’ll agree that this line really will get you into the AUTUMN HARVEST Spirit 😉
Thanks for checking out my blog.
