Celebrating the Small Stuff...

All my family's birthdays are in the first half of the year starting with my daughter's on January 12th and continuing on until mine and my grandson's on May 27th and 28th consecutively.  Our families live 900 kilometres apart so we try and get together at least once every year to celebrate someone's birthday, but really it's just an excuse to get together to celebrate all of us being together again. And as I have gotten older (and OLDER) I have come to realize that no matter what other events or accomplishment I gather up in my life it's always these annual, unstructured gatherings that seem to hold the sweetest memories.  So in honour of our upcoming Family day here in Alberta I have created this layout to remind myself that it really IS the small stuff that matters most, like eating chocolate cupcakes together... Grin

Now for all you scrapbookers out there that might be interested I created this layout using two stamps sets from myStamp Box:  the Happy Birthday set and the Fleurishing Punctuation.  The background paper and embellishments were cut from the We Are Memory Keepers Maple Grove collection and all the sparkle comes from Ranger Stickles (of course!)  For a little something different I stamped the "Happy Birthday sentiment right onto my photo creating a second frame.  And notice how the three trees are placed to focus your attention on the photo while the brackets highlight the title so it doesn't get lost on the page.  The final touch for me is always some handwritten text somewhere and I love finishing off with a hand drawn, wobbly black line all around my page... Enjoy!