I always get really excited when I have a new release to share here. My new December Moments collection is something I’m going to use for loads of layouts and holiday projects. This was a super fun design project. My daughter Riley created the color palette and designed one of the cards and one of the papers. It’s so fun to see her developing her design skills! Her enthusiasm has rubbed off on me and I feel like I’m having more fun that I ever have with designing. I hope you can feel that joy when you use these items for your own projects!

Since it feels like we are already 10 weeks into November, I figured I should get my October roundup done. October was another crazy month for us as the numbers in Utah have spiraled out of control. We voted by mail-in ballot and took them to an official dropbox. We watched way too much news and lots of tv shows and movies. The weather was pretty nice most of the month so we took a lot of walks. We did have a record-setting cold spell and even a little bit of snow. We all got our flu shots and I got a pneumonia shot since I'm at risk with all my sickness last year and having diabetes.

I have a tasty and very easy treat project to help you make Election Day a little more fun! I don’t know about you, but I’m coping with election stress by carb-loading. Seems like a good idea, right?! I kept this really simple by using a boxed cake mix and a can of prepared frosting. I put the frosting in an icing bag with a star decorator tip and just swirled it on top of the cupcakes. A few festive sprinkles combined with my free voting stickers added the perfect finishing touch!

I printed out the stickers on Avery 5293 round labels but you could also just print them on a thicker paper and cut them out with a circle punch or a cutting machine. I put one on each side of a toothpick and ended up with some really cute toppers!

I can’t wait to share my 2 new collections with you but I’m even more excited to tell you about a brand new designer! My daughter Riley Cooper is making her debut under the design name of The Creative Coop and she designed one of the cards in my new Cozy Fall collection! She is just getting started but she’s always been brimming with artistic and creative talent. She’s been helping me behind the scenes here for a few months and getting to be a real whiz with Procreate and her Apple Pencil. She’s on instagram as the_creative_coop and you will be seeing more from her here as well.

The end of October is just a few days away and I’m posting my roundup prompts a bit early since I have 2 new releases coming to my shop later today. Also, people tend to get busy with Halloween and forget about doing roundups so it helps to get an early start.

I love documenting holidays and special events on scrapbook layouts. It’s a fun way to be creative and also a meaningful keepsake to share with my family. As we start off this Halloween week, I thought this would be the perfect time to share some layouts to get us all in a festive mood.

How will you be celebrating Halloween this year? It’s an unusual time with the Covid-19 pandemic in full swing, especially here in the United States. Unfortunately, Utah is doing a terrible job of getting the virus under control and our numbers keep rising. We have a lot of kids here in Utah and I understand why they will still want to go trick-or-treating. There are precautions people can take to make this holiday safe and the CDC put out this list of Halloween activities with their associated risk + some ideas. It’s actually a great guide for several holidays so be sure to bookmark or pin it!

I think we can all agree it’s a tense time right now! One of my main coping tools is humor and I think it’s the perfect day to share some funnies. Hope you enjoy them!

I started this blog back in October of 2005 so I’ve now reached my 15th blog-i-versary! I started on blogger and mostly posted about digital scrapbooking products I liked and shared some of my layouts. As I built a following, I shared more of our life and expanded my blogging focus. I moved to typepad and stayed there for many years. I moved to squarespace about 5 years ago and hope to stay on this platform as I really love how easy it is to use.