Amy Kingsford

Every Valentine's Day I try to make my boys a special treat and we sit down to either make or fill out our Valentine's Day cards together--and despite the change in schooling, I had decided that this year would be no different.

So my husband and I stayed up making these adorable Lorax and One Fish, Two Fish inspired cupcakes to surprise the kids with in the morning and in addition to our lessons that day we also made Dr. Seuss-themed Valentine's Day cards.



To make it easy for the boys to make enough valentine's cards for all of the boys in their scout group in a single sitting, I designed and printed the backgrounds for the cards using the Grinched font and colored cardstock I had onhand.

And then we accented them with fish stickers and these printable mustaches to add a touch of fun to each of the cards.




If you're looking for activities to host your own Dr Seuss week I would strongly recommend taking a look at Seussville.com they have so many printables, lesson ideas and activities, all FREE and ready to go!

We had such a blast all week long, but our Valentine's Day was especially fun this year because of our special theme.

Color really is a big deal to me on my scrapbook pages. I use it as a way to tie my photo to the other elements on my page and create harmony, to set the mood and convey feelings and quite simply to have fun and add a little bit of myself to each page.

This month at The Get It Scrapped Membership we've got a new learning track series available called Playful Scrapbooker and the first class in this series is centered around one of my favorite topics, Color Play.

Kindered Spirits by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Lilypad Designers: MPM Kindred; Mommyish Designs: Warm and Cozy Paper and Elements; Sahlin Studios: Kindred Add-on Papers and Elements

My page "Kindred Spirits" is an example of how I generally approach color on the page:

• I'm not afraid to use rich, saturated colors. 
• I often tackle extended color palettes of 5 or more colors.
• I love white backgrounds, not only because they don;t require any ink when printing my pages at home, but also because of the way the colors pop against it.
• And I use color as the glue that holds my page design together - notice all of the visual triangles in this page that I've created with color.  They keep your eye circling my photos as you drink in all of the finer details.

We'd love for you to join us over at The Get It Scrapped Membership as we take an in-depth look at using color playfully and purposefully on your scrapbook pages!

Have a great day!

This summer we've gone on so many awesome family adventures thanks to our own bucket list and the recently discovered website Atlas Obscura which has over 50 hidden gems and unusual things to do in Utah listed on it.

Looking through our photos from this summer I can't help but realize how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful state, whose landscapes are so diverse and remarkable.  However this spur of the moment trip to the northwest region of Utah might have been one of our favorite family adventures of them all!

The Spiral Jetty

This week on the Get It Scrapped blog the team shared an interesting approach to scrapbook page storytelling which comes in the form of cross-out, blackout and erasure poetry.

Now let's be clear, I am no poet, but as someone who struggles regularly with getting her stories written down on the page, I was very excited to give this a try and approach my journaling from this creative angle in this page about my niece.

Best Year Ever by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Creashens: Midsummer Day Papers and Elements; Original Poem by Linda Reznicek.

Here's what I had to say about this challenging, yet fun approach:

"I made this page to showcase a recent photo I took of my niece to commemorate her first birthday. I thought a cross-out poem would bring something special to this page.”

“In preparation for making my cross-out poem, I read through a number of poems about aspen trees (my niece’s name is Aspen) until I found Riding Through a Grove of Aspens by Linda Reznicek. I retyped the poem into my text box in Photoshop using Century Schoolbook font, and I layered the text over an old textured paper to make this poem look as though it was torn straight from a book.”

“I then drew pink rectangles over the words I wanted to highlight and played around with my blending modes to create the highlighter effect you see here.  I used Photoshop’s line tool to cross out the remaining words.”

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

We made it down south today to visit my sister-in-law and I took a few photos of their family while I was down there. This is the first time I've photographed my youngest niece and she is just all smiles and goo-goo eyes!  Capturing these guys through my lens is always such a joy because their family just exudes love in everything that they do.

It was beautifully overcast day, it would have been PERFECT if not for the wind, but we made the best of it! Here are a few of my favorite shots from this windy shoot :)





 Thanks for looking! And thanks to my sister and brother-in-law for allowing me to share in their family's memories.

Over on the Get It Scrapped blog this week we're talking about mixing texture on the scrapbook page.  As a digital scrapbooker this is something I feel compelled to do to keep my pages looking realistic.

The greatest compliment I can receive from someone looking at one of my pages is when they ask me whether it is paper or digital.  This means I've set out to do the job that intended to do and that is to bring the depth and dimension that I have always loved about paper scrapbooking and merged it with the ease that I have come to enjoy from digital scrapbooking.

Out From Behind the Lens by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Creashens: Goodness Papers and Elements, Sugarfoot Papers and Elements; Paislee Press: Behind the Lens; LilyPad Designers: MPM Status; Karla Dudley: Bestie Glitter Styles; Sahin Designs February 2016 Templates; Fonts: Remington Noiseless.

My page "Out From Behind the Lens" combines a variety of textures including fibers, shine and soft, sheer layers all with realistic shadows that add serious depth to the page.

The story of this page is about stepping in front of the camera and seeing myself and my family from a new perspective.

And here's what I shared about my approach to texture over in the article at Get It Scrapped"

"I often aim to include a good mix of textures on my scrapbook pages as it lends depth to my digital designs. However, I like to try and select textures that echo my page’s sentiment while adding a polished look. Here, I’ve used a variety of charming and soft textures that compliment the tender feeling created by my photo and journaling.   Then I've thrown in a few sparkles to finish things off."

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Early this spring, tired of the prolonged winter up North, we decided to take an impromptu trip down to Moab to get a bit of sun.  We spent two days in Arches National Park.  We saw most of the arches and other scenic landmarks in the southern part of the Park. We also went on a few of the hikes that were easy enough for our kids.



Despite becoming ill the second day of our trip, our oldest was a real trooper.  He loves the outdoors and hiking and said his favorite sites were Balanced Rock, The Windows and The Delicate Arch Viewpoint Hike.  Even our youngest, who is more of a homebody enjoyed himself.  He especially loved the Park Avenue hike, the visitor center and the interactive dinosaur trail.


We hope to return soon and stay at Devil's Garden Campground so that we can take in the rest of the sites in the Northern half of the park including the Landscape, Skyline, Sand Dune and Broken Arches.

Below is more info and photos of some of our favorite parts of this family adventure:

1. Park Avenue

2. The La Sal Mountain Range

3. Balanced Rock

4. The Windows

5. Delicate Arch Viewpoint

6. Mill Canyon Dinosaur Trail

The drive out to Mill Canyon was a fun little side trip, though I'm not sure I would recommend tackling it in early spring with a low-clearance vehicle like we did, as there were a few spots our small car almost got stuck. Nevertheless it was well worth the worry. This was by far both boys favorite part of the trip. Being able to walk up to the dinosaur bones and see them up close in their natural setting was really very cool. And it was a good learning experience for our boys...because a place like this only continues to exist when we respect nature and history.

7. The Moab Sunset

8. The Arches National Park Visitor Center

9. Moab Rock Shop

10. Moab Coffee Roasters