Home Decor - My Way!

Happy Monday!  And it IS a happy Monday.  Want to know why?  Because I am on the Pretty Little Studio BLOG with a home decor project that is done  - MY WAY (echo echo echo echo)!  What does that mean?  It means I took this:

...which was cute but a little too redtastic for me.  And, under the {intense} watchful supervision of Cross-eyed Pete, who loves all things arts and crafts, especially if he can get his paws on it:

as well as the help of Mod Podge, a little spray paint, and the Pretty Little Studio NEAPOLITAN COLLECTION, I turned it into a calmer, pastel-ier this - intended to hold my pin cushion and pins for sewing:

I love being able to alter things so that they look exactly the way I want them to.  It's nice when things go...my way.  *smile*

Getting Inspired!

I think I have just had my "in a perfect world" scenario come to life - at least in scrapbooking.  How's that?  Well, I am up on the Practical Scrappers BLOG today using a layout created with all my  (Nature Walk Collection) goodies from PRETTY LITTLE STUDIO.  I played along with this week's OOTB inspiration challenge, and IT WASN'T EVEN MY WEEK TO POST.  Pretty sure that's true love.

I really believe this week's OOTB challenge gave me that little extra bit of inspiration that I needed.  I LOVE the way this layout came together.  Of course, it's mine, so you know I'm going to say I love it if I am taking the time to blog about it but...I really do like this layout - a lot a lot!  I like the clean lines, I like the bright pops of color, I like the adorable photo and my play on the word "fall."  Yep, I like it all.  Like I said - it's a good day.

A few close ups:

It's Pretty Little Studio Sketch Challenge Time!

I love sketches, and the Pretty Little Studio SKETCHES are some of my very favorite!  This week's sketch got my crafty mojo revved up in high gear as soon as I saw it, and I could not wait to be able to share it with you!

I have been l-o-v-i-n-g all of the negative space layouts I have seen, so I decided the circles shown in the background of these week's sketch would be a great way to use this technique.  I turned to my trusty Silhouette (because I know I can't freehand draw a good circle, much less cut one out by hand!) and added a few randomly placed circles in different sizes which were then cut out of my white cardstock.  The cardstock was then cut down to an 11 x 11 size. I placed my white cardstock over my pretty heart paper, from the Pretty Little Studio Birthday Cake Collection, which allowed the patterned paper to show as the border and in the holes left from the circles.

Next, I created clusters around my negative space circles.

I was definitely raised by a depression baby grandmother because I am a firm believer in using every single scrap of paper.  I had a few leftover hearts from my previous project, which I put to good use by layering over circle garland tags from the NEAPOLITAN COLLECTION (My little banner pieces in the lower left hand corner were also created from left over scraps left out from my last project - my grandmama would be so proud!)

I turned to my Silhouette again to create this little arrow which anchors the lower left corner of my layout.  More hearts and garland tags were added - because they were so crazy cute together, I had to make just ONE.MORE.CLUSTER.

Can you tell I have a little obsession with hearts?  I guess it's a good thing hearts are one of the new scrapbooking trends...

To play along with this week's sketch, please check out the Pretty Little Studio BLOG.  I would love to see what YOU create!