Guest Designer for Spiegel Mom's Scraps

Hey guys!! I am super excited to announce that I am gust designing this month for SpiegelMoms Scraps. You can check out my full layout, blog post and process video here. I had so much fun with this layout. I took Wilna Furstenberg's Spring class and improvised with the mixed media supplies I had on hand.

I will be having a giveaway up on the blog at some point today. I have 3 sick little girls, so you can imagine what life has been like here. I hope you are all having a fantastic week and that you are well.

xx

Tiffani

My Sweet Melody

I made this layout a little over a month ago for the Hip Kit DT Call. I did not make the cut this time around, but man it is so hard holding on to layouts for that long. Especially when they are one of your favorites. I absolutely loved how this turned out.

The clouds are from The Cut Shoppe

The bow is from Felicity Jane

The handwriting is not mine, you can find that here 

Rediscovering Who I Am

We are never prepared for the curve balls that life throws our way. We can go days, weeks, months and even years on incredible highs in life and then the next thing we know everything around us is spiraling out of control and we become trapped in our own bodies. I wake up every day not knowing who I am anymore and it is not a very pleasant experience. 

I held onto the negative aspects of the relationship between my father and I for 27 long years. When I sit back and think about all the wasted energy I put into to that negative thought, I want to smack myself because really it was silly. Sure, there was pain there, but holding on just caused even more pain. I associated a lot of my issues to that relationship and I blamed everything on my father. I told myself that the way my life turned out was his fault. How foolish is that? 

In December, my father and I had a really nice 2 hour conversation. It was the first time in my adult life where we just were able to talk about life without passing judgement or discussing negative things. At the end of the day I have always loved my father deeply and I have always cared about him, As time goes on, I know that we will never have the relationship I desire, but I am comfortable in the release I have gained from letting go of all that negative energy. I now, can find positive aspects in every song I listen to and I remember the positive memories. 

With letting go of that release, I thought that my anxiety would have gotten better, that life would have been a straight path from here, but I was not prepared for what was to come. All the built of stress and emotion led me to just become really emotionally unstable. I was focusing on everything negative. Every negative aspect of my marriage, friendships and life in general. It made me feel alone when in reality I wasn't.

Despite how my marriage may be at times, there is no question how much love my husband has for my children and I. Sometimes I loose sight of that and just look at all the wrong. This is why I love having such a wide age range of friends from 16 to 78. Your younger friends are quick to jump on ship with saying things like, "leave him", "you don't need him" etc. (you catch my drift) But then my wiser, older friends. that have been married for 30+ years offer some of the best advice. We all need that balance in life. 

Truth is, I told my husband to leave and as hard as it was for him he purchased that ticket. I had been crying out for help for weeks, but no one was listening. We explained to my oldest that daddy was leaving and tried to explain the best we could. Nothing could have ever prepared me for her emotional state. Of course I knew she would going to be upset, but the worst thing you can ever do to a child, and I know this because it happened to me, is to just leave with no explanation. I held onto my father never saying goodbye for 27 years. I did not want that for her. "But daddy buys you flowers mommy" "Daddy loves you mommy" "Daddy won't be here to see me open presents on Christmas" "We won't have a family anymore mommy" It hurt me to the core. Pain I had never felt in my life. I wanted to escape. I knew that I could not do this on my own, not in the state that I was mentally and I knew that the pain I was feeling was not normal if my love for my husband was truly gone. I sat on the floor of my shower for 90 minutes crying and finally gathered the courage to admit myself to the hospital. I reached out to a friend who brought me in and stayed there with me until I asked her to leave. It is the hardest thing I think I have had to do. 

Coming home, I was still in a state of shell shock. Where I was, although a place to get help, was not helpful. I had been placed somewhere else because of no capacity at my original destination. The care there was very poor and so it was in my best interest to come home. I am struggling with my anxiety as it does get the best of me. Noise is my trigger and being a mom of three little girls, you can imagine what the noise level is at home. It is a terrible feeling when the only reaction I have is to yell because the constant feeling of adrenaline pulsates through my veins. I constantly drop things because I shake so terribly, but I know that this is not the end. 

You have to take care of yourself first and foremost, that is what I have learned through all of this. I have put myself on the back burner for all of my life. I truly cannot think of a time in my life that I just took care of me. I feel selfish for even saying that, and by just making that statement I know it is wrong, but that is how I feel. This is something that I have to learn. Everyday is a new beginning to learning how to put myself first and once I can figure that out then I will figure out who I am again.

 

I'm Still Here

I have been working on projects that I am not allowed to share and haven't done anything outside of those for the time being. Starting next month be on the look out for a giveaway and a $10 gift card to the shop that I am guest designing for. Also if you haven't already, please subscribe to my YouTube channel as I will be having a RAK there. I will be doing a 4 part series on origami and I am so excited to share it with you all. I hope you and your family have a wonderful Easter weekend and many blessings to you all.

Tiffani

Planners and a Giveaway!!!!

So for months I have watched the planner world. I have desired to own one and organize my life. Then I said to myself why do I need one? I am pretty much always at home. So for as part of my anniversary gift I received a Webster Planner. Oh it is so yummy!!! I am officially hooked.

It took me a few days after receiving it though, to start to play around with it. I had actually lost my scrap mojo for a bit. Then a few nights ago it hit me in full force. I sat down at 9pm....

I decided first, that I was going to go through my stash and make myself a little kit for the month of March, I recently acquired a large scrap stash from a fellow scrapper and decided on these papers.

Then I decided to go through my stamps. (check my IG: tiffanis_scraps for a RAK coming soon) I thought it would be fun to use the coordinating cut outs from the papers and stamp on the back for me to incorporate with my scrapbooking later on :) 

**GIVEAWAY** So then as I was going along I decided to make a second kit to giveaway. Simply leave a comment below for a chance to win. Winner will be picked Friday 2/26!!! 

I have been following Irit Landgraf and her watercolor embellishments and I just love them. Super easy to make too. Oh, this was now at about 2 am. I was focused!! 

So much fun!! I have already started adding them to my planner and they just add such a personal touch. I love the little ballerina. :) A few of these pieces will also be in the giveaway bag :) (ps.... this was 4am and then I decided I should go to bed)

So then of course the next thing you want to add is some bling in the form of a charm. I just used some of the supplies I already had to create my own :) The possibilities are endless here and there are some great shops out there with people that make the most adorable planner charms. 

I am officially hooked. I spent all day yesterday decorating my dashboard. The horse you see in the picture is Twist. He was a horse that was wild and rescued by a woman in Florida. We spent a great deal of time with her horses over a course of a month taking pictures. So an incredible picture. Every time I look at this picture it reminds me of love. Through the act of love and affection, I watched Twist transform into a beautiful soul even in that short time. 

It doesn't matter if you are a busy on the go person or a stay at home mom with little ones, every one can plan. I am using mine to plan my day with activities for the kids, meals, finances and household chores. It feels good to plan out your day and just know there is a schedule. Here's to a lesser stressed life!!

Tiffani xx

Watercolor love

It's so funny how I can be lounging all day feeling extremely lazy, but when my girlfriends tag me in a meme about it being international wine day. all that changes. Suddenly it turns into craft night and I go from 0-60 instantly. House cleaned, dinner prepped and kids fed by 5!! WHAT!! haha. Oh how funny we are :)

So last night my girls Sarah and Molly came over. When Molly and I first started scrapping together she was working on layouts. Then she discovered bullet journals and listing and she has found her calling and I love it. I love watching her progress and her creativity blossom and it reminds me of myself and how I was when I got back into scrapping after so long.

Last night was the first night that I actually worked with watercolors with other people around. I normally keep my mixed media projects for when I am alone, but they were screaming at me last night. I honestly had no idea where I was going from this and you can tell that by the picture at the top of the page. It looked like a party hat at first and that was how I got the idea for the colors. 

I used pink and blue and combined they made the beautiful purple you see. I love doing drips it can be hypnotizing moving them around the paper. The important this to remember is that there is no wrong way. The most important thing to know when mixing colors though is your color wheel and I learned that from Irit Landgraf. I have been studying color theory and it has helped me significantly. 

I love how playful and colorful everything turned out. How will you create this weekend? 

Tiffani xx

Lightbox ... yay or nay?

In my quest to post better quality layouts without a high end camera, I stumbled upon people talking about light boxes. What are those? I thought. Upon researching I instantly knew I had to have one, but I did not want to pay a lot of money. So I took to amazon and read reviews. I decided on this one from LimoStudios. The difference between this one and the higher end one was that the lights are inside the box already and the cell phone holder is also built into it so it is one complete system, which honestly I can see myself wanting in the future. With the LimoStudios you have to play with the lighting yourself a bit to get rid of shadows so it will be a learning experience. It is also pretty large so I had no choice but to do this on my floor.

The set up was super easy and the best part is that it all compacts down to one carrying bag. Instantly I was excited because the results were incredible. Now, I know I need practice with my light angles, but being a night time scrapper this made me excited. I could now scrap and share my things at night time, no more waiting until morning and standing outside on my porch in freezing temps in my robe lol.

So on to my layout :) I got a huge scrap haul a few days ago. I had intended on a youtube video, but I was slammed with a terrible stomach bug and am still recovering. I came across someone selling their scrap stash along with 2 planners that I have been wanting (those will come later ;)) I also scored pretty big at Michael's. They have an insane clearance on things I use most, spray inks 1.79 yes please! Ink pads $2 ummm yeah!! So I got my first Ranger's Archival ink which reacted differently with my gesso than other inks so I am assuming this will be practice as well. I am on a mission to stamp on every page now that I have what must be over 100 stamps. The gesso, let me also say, I got for 1.79 for the Faber Castell brand (honestly not my favorite but it was too cheap to pass up) 

I have been wanting a bow cut file for what seems like forever and I finally got one. This one is from Felicity Jane. Lesson learned as well since I am fairly new to the silhouette studio. With the basic you cannot use SVG files. Bummer!! I had already purchased the bow which was only .99 so I wasn't upset, but I now was on a mission researching how to change to svg to png when I stumbled upon the same cut file available in the silhouette store from FJ on sale for .75, but now I question if I need to upgrade o.O The bow is super easy to assemble and absolutely adorable. 

This was also my first layout using a shaker page as I finally got the fuse tool. I will do a review on that another time as I am still learning and I don't want to base my opinions after a few uses. It is definitely something that takes a bit of time and patience and I know I will love it in the long run. The heart is from the oh so amazing Cut Shoppe and if you've never gotten one of their cut files, I promise they don't disappoint. I am officially obsessed with everything The Cut Shoppe :D 

So what's my verdict? How could you not want one!! I mean the difference is just drastic! Especially if you are a night scrapper or if you live somewhere that rains often. Lighting is absolutely everything. I have felt like my pictures have often held back the beauty of my creations and being someone that loves photography and once did photography it was extremely frustrating. Happy Scrapping !!

Tiffani xx