Easter 2019

While I don't usually take a lot of spring related photos, I typically have many layouts each year for Easter. Before I had step-daughters, Easter was an acceptable time to pull out all my pastel and floral papers and embellishments.

I love Easter. I didn't always feel this way - sure it was fun eating chocolate and jelly beans in the morning, and I loved dressing up in a new Easter dress for church when I was little. But it was not until I had kids and started teaching them about Jesus that I truly learned to love this holiday and fully understand how central it is to my faith. When Dave died, Easter became even more significant. While I will be showing many fun, Easter egg themed layouts this month, I wanted to start off with a layout of what is central to our holiday celebration - and that is attending church.

When Jim and I married, we made the decision to change our church home to Life Church Albany. We need a fresh start for our newly blended family. I was resistant to this change because I truly loved the church we were attending. Dave and I had attended there our entire married life, I had been on staff in the children's ministry, Dave was very involved on the worship team, and that is where we brought our children. Then when Jim came into my life, our first date was attending church together and then breakfast at a diner. But after Dave's death, it was very hard for me not to flash back to his funeral, and every time I would see the worship team he played with step onto the platform, I had to choke back tears knowing I would never again see him pick up the electric guitar and play this side of heaven.

On the way to church one morning, Jim made the unilateral decision to visit Life Church. After attending one week, I felt like I had finally come up for a fresh breath of air after almost drowning! I wasn't "white-knuckling" the service and fighting the emotional upheaval. I could focus on worship and listening to an awesome, soul feeding sermon. Our kids, especially the boys, were hesitant at first - they only knew our old church, but within two weeks, they loved it as well! Jim and I serve every week now in Life Kids along with the three younger kids and I truly feel our family has grown together as a result.

I love that Life Church has a photo booth set up in its lobby for important days like Easter, Christmas, Baptisms and other fun days throughout the year. These are photos from Easter 2019. We did a family picture (Alexis was in Georgia for college) and another photo of the kids. I love comparing our Easter and Christmas photos from year to year. And I love celebrating the true meaning of Easter.

Scrapbooking Tips:

This layout came together so quickly! I had this piece of pattern paper from a Simple Stories paper collection that I had been saving for just the right picture. I thought the colors and flowers were perfect for Easter and the wood grain matched the backdrop in the pictures.

I created a mat out of purple paper for the photos and embellished it with the border and flower stickers that came with the collection. I cut the butterflies out of a piece of coordinating pattern paper and adhered them with foam tape.

I added pearl Nuvo drops to the center of some flowers. I wanted to do something to create a little dimension.

To create the page title, I used a statement set die from The Stamps of Life. It was the perfect shape and size. I used the coordinating shadow die out of a scrap of paper from the same collection that coordinated with my background.

The Stamps of Life have many statement dies that come with coordinating stamps. Some word dies are: Christmas, Love, Shine, Dream, Happy, Party, Sweet, Coffee, Believe, Birthday, and Beautiful. To be honest, I use the word dies more on scrapbook layouts than I do cards. It creates a quick and easy title! To see another title I created with a Stamps of Life Sentiment Set go here https://www.scrappingmyblessings.com/post/stamped-embellishments-part-2.

Supplies Used:

Pattern Paper: Simple Stories

Purple Cardstock: The Stamps of Life

Easter Sentiment Die: The Stamps of Life

Miscellaneous: Nuvo Drops