Amy Kingsford

Hi everyone! I'm excited to share a few pages that I made using Crystal Wilkerson's New Template Collection with you today.


Now most of you know that I am an 8.5 x 11 scrapper, but this year I've vowed to complete a summer album and I've opted to use this fun little 4x4" Instagram Album by W R Memory Keepers:


Below you'll see my title page and a few of the other pages I've finished up using Crystal's Templates and plan to resize, then slip in among my Instagram photos and memorabilia from this summer.

Summer 2014 Title Page by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Crystal Wilkerson Designs: 12 x 12 Template Collection; Creashens: Summerific Papers and Elements, Summered Kit

This page combines some of my favorite photos of my boys from summer's past and will act as a divider page for behind which photos of my boys from this summer and stories about some of their summer faves and milestones will be housed.

Summer 2014 - Boys of Summer by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Crystal Wilkerson Designs: 12 x 12 Template Collection; Creashens: Summerific Papers, Frames and Elements, Summered Kit; Anita Designs: Summerliscious Elements; Karal Dudley: Berenstein Papers; SugarPlum Paperie: Endless Summer Alpha; Laura Passage: Boardwalk Papers; P&Co: Bright Side Collab

And here is my summer reading list for this year.  I've already finished The Fault in Our Stars and The Kite Runner and I'll be picking up The Maze Runner next.

2014 Summer Reads by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Crystal Wilkerson Designs: 12 x 12 Template Collection; Karla Dudley: Berenstein Collection; SugarPlum Paperie: Endless Summer Alpha.

With a great mix of designs and built-in stitching and styles--these templates are sure to help make completing my summer album a breeze. I loved the ease of working with these templates and if you've got a big event or album that you're looking to get finished up, I would totally recommend taking a look at this collection!

There are (8) separate template packs which come with (4) templates in each.  That's 32 different configurations, plus you also have the choice between templates with preset layer styles or no layer styles within each design--making them super versatile!


For more inspiration, click here to see how Crystal used these templates in her Layout -A-Day Challenge last month.

And feel free to use coupon code CWTEMP50 to save 50% on these templates thru Sunday, June 22nd! Thanks for stopping by...

And have a great weekend!

Hi everyone! And welcome to the Pixels and Company CT Blog Hop...

I hope you are all enjoying your iNSD Weekend so far. I'm so excited to be a part of all the fun things happening over at Pixels and Company this weekend!



In addition to our CT Blog Hop they've also got:

• A Storewide Sale with awesome Buy More, Save More discounts.
• Games and Challenges going on in the forum--don't miss the iNSD: What Color Are You Challenge hosted by Janell.
• Contests including The Big Pay Off and the Dream Cart Contest.
• and SO MUCH more!!!

Designer Blog Hop + Bermuda Triangle MEGA Collab

If you haven't found your way to the Pixels and Company Designer Blog Hop yet, then you won't want to miss that either!  Your prize for hopping (besides a whole lotta fun) is the Bermuda Triangle Mega Collab, which I used to make the layout below.

And now for your prize...

If you found your way here from Lynette's blog then you've probably already got the gist of how this blog hop works, but for the rest of you that are just arriving let me give you the rundown!




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Have a Happy International Scrapbooking Day!

I know it's been a while since I've checked in, but I've been doing lots of scrapbooking thanks to the Calvinball Competition that has been going on during the month of March at Get It Scrapped.



Headed up by two of my favorite scrappers, Doris Sander and Celeste Smith, Calvinball's growing set of rules have been a huge inspiration to me over the past few weeks. And though I'm nowhere near the point totals of the Calvinball leaders, I'm proud to have accumulated over 50 points in just two  weeks, by making layouts, getting organized and trying new things.

I'm excited to share a few of my favorite pages that I made this month, many of which earned me bonus point for things like, scrapbooking with Pantone's Color of the Year, using a photo the same day I took it, sharing a photo of my creative space and more.

Hooray for Spring by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: One Little Bird: Hopscotch Kit and Journal Cards; Amy Martin: Polly Love Templates - Sucali; Mye De Leon: Blush Alpha.

Oh Vera! by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Pixels and Co. Designers: Kate & Co Part 1 and 2; Creashens: Pillow Talk; Scotty Girl Designs: Paper Stack Templates.

Let Your Imagination Fly by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Credits: Mommyish Designs: Spring It On Me and Messy Gesso.

The Purple Umbrella by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Vinnie Pearce: Orchid Door, Art Propelled; Karla Dudley: Dad's Day Cardstocks; Photo: Creative Commons.

I Can Do It by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Credits: Sahlin Studio: Arrow Paper Clips, Anagram Alpha No. 2, Motivation Word Art, A Wonderful Day, Vintage Vogue, Retro Mod, Down the Lane; Amy Martin: Polly Love Templates - Sucali.

On My Desk by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: One Little Bird: Busy Week.

This Little Boy by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Mommyish Designs and Laura Passage: Jack Collab; Robyn Meierotto: In Stitches-Basic Neutrals.

Have a great weekend and thanks for looking!

This week I'm blogging over at Write.Click.Scrapbook, sharing creative ways to express, reflect on and celebrate gratitude in your lives and in your crafting.

So far I've shared ideas for handmade thank you notes and cards:


Given you an idea of how my own family celebrates gratitude throughout the month of November, plus a look at our family's gratitude album:


And I've also given you a peek at a few of the handmade decorations that will be dressing up the Collard Thanksgiving feast this year:

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

This past weekend I got a chance to preview Lesson 1 of Debbie Hodge's Your December Story, and I want to tell you about the class and give you a peek at how it's inspired me. I'm also giving away one pass to the class. (If you already purchased the class, you'll get a $24 gift card good for any other GIS/MSD classes.)

 Your December Story is shaped around the Hero's Journey.

This December, like Dorothy dropped into Oz or Alice tumbled into Wonderland, you will receive a call to adventure. You will move from the ordinary world into a one of magic and tests as the holiday season arrives.

Many of the most-loved and best remembered stories play out in a story form described by Joseph Campbell as "the hero's journey." This class has prompts and page ideas for visual storytelling that have you telling Your December Journey, from the heralds, to the challenges, mentors, special tools and the return to the known world and what you take forward.

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Take the journey AND get a $10 gift card

When you purchase "Your December Story" by midnight PT, Wednesday, November 20, you also get a $10 gift card that you can use for Get It Scrapped and Masterful Scrapbook Design classes. Click here to purchase Your December Story and get the $10 gift card.

Here is how I'm using Your December Story in my own holiday memory keeping approach...

Upon first hearing of this class I knew instantly that it would help me to achieve something in this year's holiday album that I felt like had been missing from years prior--a real sense of story.  In previous years I've approached my holiday memory keeping in a variety of ways--sometimes prepared and other times not as much.  But one thing I had never done is planned out my story approach and as a result I always felt the words that filled my albums to be lacking--in both quantity and quality.  Some years I was happy to just get pictures into my album and a date and place.

But this year I wanted something different...

On What's Different This Year...  It looks like we’ll have snow soon...the chill is definitely in the air! And it can’t come to soon for these two boys. This time last year they were building snowmen and having snowball fights. Caleb was teaching his younger brother not to eat yellow snow, while I was trying to teach Caleb not to eat snow at all! Its hard for them still,they don’t understand that the snow comes WHEN IT COMES!

My initial plan for 2013 was to take a daily approach with both my photos and my story, but after reading through the first lesson of "Your December Story" it became clear to me that this was not the only way to go and that perhaps broadening my  approach with regard to story, would help me to capture what had been missing in my previous December albums.

I feel like our family's December Story is just starting to become established and now is a perfect time to capture both the details and the depth of  our December.

On November's Challenges... November is typically a busy month for the Collard Clan. Every year I seem to cram more and more things that I don't want to deal with in December into our November. That along with the winter chill beginning to set in, makes this one of the least desirable months as far as I am concerned. It can be a real challenge to remember all the things we have to be grateful for at times. That's why we started our family's Gratitude Jar. It acts as a daily reminder of all the things we have to be thankful for in our lives.

I will be using the lessons and prompts offered in Your December Story to reflect on and record my family's holiday story in its entirety while accenting this story with my favorite photos from our day-to-day December life.  The flexibility of this approach has me excited for a number of reasons, the most appealing being that even if I forget to take a few pictures or nothing exciting happens on Day 13 or Day 22, I will still come away with a complete story of our December.

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To put your name in to win the class...

Please leave a comment below telling me one thing you will be doing differently this year in your holiday memory keeping . I will draw the winner on Thursday, November 21, 2014.  And while you're at it see how others are using this awesome class AND get 20+ more chances to win by visiting the blogs below!

Thanks for stopping by!

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Stacia H.

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I hope you all are enjoying your Digital Scrapbooking Day weekend...I know I am!

I started this special day off by posting a new word art freebie and bonus journaling cards over at Get It Scrapped!  If you haven't downloaded them yet, I'd like to invite you over to grab them.

I then spent the rest of my day scrapbooking  and organizing a sd card full of photos of my life over the past few months.  I joined the ladies over at Get It Scrapped for part of their online crop and then scrapbooked off and on throughout the day as my busy little boys would allow.

My goal for this week was to get 10 pages scrapbooked and I'm on my way.  Below are the pages I've scrapbooked so far (with the exception of a few assignments which you'll see in the upcoming week) and I hope to finish the others up tomorrow.

Hello Memories by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: One Little Bird: Memory Collector and Beyond Measure; Sara Gleason and Crystal Livesay: DSD2013 Grab Bag.

Sugar and Spice by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Crystal Livesay and Sara Gleason: DSD 2013 Grab Bag Templates; Creashens: Early Morning; Gennifer Bursett: Far and Way.

3 A Day by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Jenni Bowlin Studio Digitals: General Store Postage Kit, Milk Cap Buttons,Vintage Bling, Vintage Number Cards; Creashens: Early Morning (Thread) and Whale of a Time (Splash); Anita Designs: Quick Scraps Vol 4 and Classy.

S is For... by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Sabrina's Creations Clean and Simple No. 18; Anita Designs: Sublime; Creashens: Early Morning and Vellum Chevrons; Laura Passage: A Flutter.

The Little Things by Amy Kingsford | Supplies: Pixels and Company Designers: Picadilly Collab.

I'd love to here about how you spent your day in the comments below.  I hope you all have a great DSD weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Happy Scrapping!

I was very excited to be able to join Vinnie Pearce over this last month as a Guest Designer--working with her beautiful new collections and participating in some fun challenges that she has put together to celebrate her 5th year as a designer.

Not only is her entire shop 40% off now through Sunday, September 29th, but she's also put together a STUNNING Idea Book featuring her new collections that you can download for free!  Just click on the image below to have a look!

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What's New!?

Here's a look at Vinnie's NEW collections and the pages I've created with them.  Each of them is so different from one another, yet they were all so inspiring and I had a blast working with them!

Using Vinnie's Upgraded Collection I was inspired to pay homage to an object that I use every single day but often take for granted--my cell phone.  I just LOVED this hand-drawn cell phone paper that I used for my background and I added the random blocks of blue for impact and to highlight all of the different ways I use my phone.  The best thing about this collection is that although it has a technology theme, it also has tons of versatile papers and elements that can be used on every day layouts as well!


 The Chinee Collection is filled with soft colors, whimsical patterns and the sweetest, most charming elements--perfect for scrapbooking your little girl, right?!  It also happened to be perfect for showcasing this adorable photo of my youngest son on his first day home from the hospital.  Somehow the photo had gotten placed in a random folder on my computer and I just recently stumbled upon it, so I couldn't help but  be inspired to scrapbook it using this soft and sweet collection.

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Up for a challenge?

There are also three fun challenges included in the Vinnie Pearce Downloads Lookbook that you can play along with!  I had a ton of fun taking Challenge No. 1 - The Modular Grid.  Using the FREE template provided by Vinnie and inspired by the other guest designer's pages, I came up with the following page using a few of Vinnie's older collections, Curio and Make It Meaningful. I can totally see myself using this design approach time and time again now that I've tried it out and see how it can work with so many different styles.


 Big thanks to Vinnie for allowing me the opportunity to work with her beautiful new collections, it was an absolute pleasure! And don't forget to head on over to Vinnie Pearce Downloads where you can download your free idea book, play along with the challenges and take advantage of the 40% off sale!

Have a great day!

Hi everyone! I just wanted to pop on and invite you all to join Jana Morton and myself for this month's episode of Digital U on Tuesday, September 17 at 9PM EDT.  If this is your first time hearing about Digital U–Creative Passion's free digital and hybrid scrapbooking webinar series–then click here for more details and get registered now!

This month we'll be talking about creating pages that are anything but square!  More specifically, I will be sharing tips for creating in 8.5 x 11 and Jana will be giving her best advice for designing double-page spreads and we'd love for you to be there to join in the discussion!



Once you are registered for Digital U you can grab one of the seats available for our September 17th webinar, by logging in, visiting the Digital U Schedule Page and clicking on the registration link!

We look forward to seeing you there–as your questions and comments always make these get-togethers that much more fun!