February Photo-A-Day Challenge

Yes, it may be late in the day, but if you haven't already joined Fat Mum Slim's photo-a-day challenge for the month of February, there is still a little time left in the day (at least in this zip code :) )

I discovered this this morning via the Paper Bakery blog and though I rarely seem to follow through all the way to the end on these "daily" kinds of challenges, there is just something invigorating about a good photo challenge.

Day 1 is complete so maybe this time will be different ;)

Celebrating One Year - MME #25

Yes, her birthday was only this past weekend but I couldn't help printing out and scrapping these photos of my niece's first birthday right away! Birthday photos are my very favorite to scrap! And since the sweltering heat this weekend kept me from going overboard with the photo taking, I only had 5 pictures to edit and choose from. Doesn't that just make the whole process easier?

It just so happens the theme and sketch challenge at My Mind's Eye this month worked out to be a perfect match for this page too. A few of the elements are switched up a bit on top, but other than that it stays pretty true to the original design. On this page I used papers and embellies from Good Day Sunshine, Lime Twist, Stella Rose, Fine and Dandy and the glitter ribbon is from Lost and Found (can't wait for the sequel!). Yep, this page is hanging on the wall as my current fav.

And here is the sketch just in case you want to play along too! I'll be posting my CHA wish list tomorrow so come back to visit then!

NSD pages

Didn't get a whole lot of time last weekend to scrap but in honor of National Scrapbooking Day, put together these 2 pages for some challenges over at SC + some manufacturer challenges.

This one was for the Crate color challenge last week, plus a scrap recipe and handstitching challenges. It's my daughter's very first legible drawing - a catfish! Her daddy was doing a lot of fishing that spring but we were pretty impressed regardless.

This one here uses the Sass sketch challenge, plus a color recipe and is also my page for the next XOXO challenge. Whenever we go to Southridge Mall (which sadly probably won't be along much longer), she wants to ride the carousel and of course chooses the biggest, scariest animal of the bunch. All the kids are really fascinated with dragons. They are pretty cool I guess.

Anyway, that's my quick update for today. More to share soon. &hearts

Walk - April Crate Sketch

Hello again. We've been meeting here so sporadically lately and I'd like to apologize. It's not that I haven't been working on anything. It's been so rainy and murky that no pictures have been taken. I've been busy decorating our living room, camping with my hubby who's working out of town, working on sewing projects, and playing with the May Lucky Girl kit (which is full of glitterly goodness!!).

Anyway, just wanted to share the page I created for the April sketch challenge at the Crate Paper blog. It's a photo from last fall of my little gal walking down our gravel road in her hot pink track suit. It looks like she's doin some serious power walking :)

I made some ruffles under the pic and topped them with a bow to make this page extra girly. Also punched the edges of the paper with the jumbo circle punch to make it like a die cut paper.

I used mostly Emma's Shoppe, plus a little bit of Restoration, Brook and some Crate exclusives for SC. All the Crate lines seem to mix together so effortlessly which is amazing to me - I don't normally like to mix product from the same manufacturer. Must be the ultra luxe texture.


 See you soon...

MME April sketch - Snake Eyed

Hi there! Just popping in quickly today to share a page I created for the April layout sketch challenge at the My Mind's Eye blog. It's my first time particpating! Here is the sketch:

And the layout I created with it using some Stella Rose papers and stamps, an Alphabet Soup card, as well as some ribbon packaging, twine and a button.

The theme using this page was "April Showers" and even though it's not obvious from the subject, I tried to incorporate the shower part with cascading paper banners and a stream of hand stitching. The page is about my step-son's first gun, a BB, and him and his dad testing it out. Of course he's not quite big enough to use it yet but it was still a fun, manly bonding experience for them both.

By the way, who needs a Sew Easy tool to get straight stitch lines when you can just run the paper through your unthreaded sewing machine?! A big DUH moment for me.

Hope this week has been a great one for you, despite the icky weather. xo

Monday, Monday

So I have been MIA for the last week and have felt a little guilty about neglecting this blog and all my online stuff really - but not that guilty. The weather is getting nicer here and the kids and I have been away from the house, spring cleaning fever has hit me and also I've been working on projects for the twins' birthday and my sister's upcoming baby shower. Mostly stuff I can't share just yet.

I finished this mini album for my sister last week. You can see the rest of the details up on the Lucky Girl blog here - it is the Friday Fun Day project. You can use it or any of the other inspirational projects created by the Lucky Girls for a chance to win April's kit - A Boy and His Toys. Believe me, we just saw the contents of this kit last week and you are not going to want to miss it!

I also created one final project with the leftovers of my March Lucky Girl kit, Homemade Happiness. There are just a few left in the store and boy does this kit go a long way! Love this picture of the girl's kissing their brother, he was quite unhappy about it and that makes it even cuter. I used a PageMaps sketch for the design.

The newest challenge also went up last week at XOXO girls week - you can enter it here. There are 16 pages to choose from and all you have to do to enter is scraplift one or more for a chance to win an awesome prize from our sister site, Candy Shoppe Designs. I love these photos of my stepdaughter and MIL from last fall - they just look so happy together!

Hmm, let's see... here is my photo for Project 52 from last week. Taking all these photos of myself is starting to feel a bit narcissistic so I'm considering abandoning but am not sure. Maybe I'll just compile all the pics in an About Me album. My daughter might appreciate that someday.

Last is a page made using the weekly challenge at Studio Calico to use scraps. All the little bits on my desk went onto this page and now it is clean! Sadly I am really behind and this challenge ended on the 7th! I thought it was last weeks! Not my usual style, but I really really like how it turned out. It reminds me of my talented friend Michelle.

Well that's about it. I'll be around again this week but I have a feeling the nice weather will be making posts more sporadic. Later alligator.

weekend update

Hello! Hope everyone is having a great weekend! We've been home all day, just relaxing and I've spent the last hour putting together a big pan of manicotti - it's the first time I've made it and though wow, was it time consuming, it smells like it will be well worth the effort.(PS - We've ate and I'm still writing this post. SO good! Find the recipe here).

Anyway I just realized the final project I created for my guest stint at Design Dollies never was posted here even though the Trifecta challenge started on Monday. Eek! It's a combo of the weekly sketch, color combo and elements challenges. As a bonus, everything used here came out of the scrap bin.

Also got a little progress accomplished on my step-son's quilt that was started last fall - all that's left is the binding!!

Rather than actually quilting, I just sewed around the blocks on the inside and outside of the border. Here's a close-up:

One final project I completed this afternoon was a layout using the Feb sketch at Sweet Peach Crop Shop.

I just pulled a bunch of random colorful stuff outta my stash to coordinate with this fun photo we took modeling the dress I made last week (or was it the week before, hmmm? either way,see more details here). The girls play dress up all day long but the truth is, I love to do it just as much as they do!!

Here's a close-up of the details.

And another of my first attempt flick-misting with the end of spritz tube. Love the look! I would just die to win the kit that is the prize for the sketch challenge - their is a vinyl paper in it (from their August kit) that I am seriously coveting!! Wish me luck! xo

VDay cards for boys

Happy Valentine's Day! Do you have big plans for tonight? We'll be staying in but I did the make the old man a card (and may slip a sexy picture inside) just in case he has any doubts that I love him.

One of the challenges at Back Porch Memories for February was to make a masculine card - to me that means simple so I had enough time to make 3! There is one for each of his sides - romantic (he is under all that tough exterior), egotistical (he considers himself a god) and randy too (let's not go there).

If your celebrating, I wish you a very magical night!

a couple challenge pages

Hey there. I've been sick the last couple days and not really feeling the mojo. Completed a couple challenges with sketches but even with the help...nada. That's okay, let me share them with you anyhow.

First is for Project 12. To accommodate the fact I've scrapped almost every photo we took in January, I condensed the sketch to a single page. But the colors just aren't working together. It's okay, what's important is that it got done.

Second up is a page completed using the 2/6 Sunday sketch at Studio Calico, combined with Lisa's challenge to use a photo from the same month but a different year. This photo of 4 generations of our girls taken in 2008 is very special and was framed until my daughter broke it a while back. I'm glad to finally have it on scrapped. Nicole Samuels' sketch was gorgeous but it all went wrong for me starting with the misting. On a positive note, this was my first time cutting a title from patterned paper and I will def be doing this again soon! Love it!

Oh and the rosettes turned out cute too.

Hope your weekend is wonderful!

Guest @ Design Dollies!

Hey there again! I just saw that their post is live and wanted to share with you that I am so excited to be the guest doll at Design Dollies this month! For those of you who aren't familiar, they have 3 challenges each month and then a 4th trifecta challenge that combines all three - color, elements, sketch. Of course there is a prize and what I think is extra cool is that for the most part they sponsor themselves.

Anyway, here the card I creating using the February color challenge:

This one was def a challenge for me - I like purple but it's kind of hard to use. I googled the colors green, purple and ivory and all these wedding related photos kept coming up - bouquets, bridesmaid dresses, and what not - so I went with the theme and made a card with a yummy wedding cake.

Hope to see you play along this month!

Give Thanks with a Pop of Orange

Hope all you lovelies had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and loved ones yesterday! I was abruptly awoken at 5 am with touch of the flu so did not get to enjoy all the rich foods (well not for more than a few minutes) that make this day one I look forward to all year. No worries, I'm feeling much better today and have eaten far more than my share of pumpkin pie.

Here is a card I planned to share yesterday that was created with a little color inspiration from the busy, busy girls of Design Dollies. Who would have thought it was possible to create using black, white, gray and orange with feeling too Halloweeny?

(Sorry about the bad lighting and glare, this whole dark by 5 o'clock deal is kind of hard on my limited picture taking abilities.)

I added a little stitching, some grey paper from a Halloween party invitation and some very difficult rub-ons and although this is not a color scheme I would have come up with on my own, I really like how the card turned out. What do you think? This challenge is up until Sunday the 28th - you should play along too!

Autumn Leaves

Autumn is in every way my favorite time of year. The mild temps, the changing colors and oh the chunky knits!! More than any other season, I spend so much time outside with the kids in the fall. One crisp day last week, the kids and I pulled out the rake and wrangled the leaves into a giant pile before jumping in. And since I had yet to use this new leaf punch bought on sale at Joann's a few weeks back, it seemed like a great opportunity to document the photos from that day. Journaling reads: "Anticipating the jump while golden leaves are raked into a mountainous heap is an austere test in patience for three anxious toddlers." Yes, I used my thesaurus.

To create some extra dimension behind the punched leaves, I masked off an area and placed the negative from the punch. I stamped using the grunge stamp from Kaiserkraft with black, brown and olive inks, then sprayed Mr. Huey mist in Atmosphere and Maya Mist in Blue Cornflower. When cleaning out my stash this weekend, I found some BG Granola and thought it would be perfect to use for the challenge over at Candy Shoppe Designs - use animals or animal print in your design. I've got it covered with tiger and zebra prints. The winner will receive an awesome package full of goodies from Blue Moon Scrapbooking - wish me luck!

XOXO November Challenge #13 - She's 26

The new scraplift challenge is up over at XOXO and I am so excited to announce that I am now part of the design team too! My creation is above. All you have to do to enter is head over to the site, lift one (or more) of the lovely layouts listed and link up your project. Now I know creating is rewarding in itself, but in this case you also have the chance to win an awesome prize package courtesy of Scrap Attack Scrapbooking. I saw lots of Crate's Mitten Weather!! Scrap Attack carries all the latest with 10 percent off MSRP everyday and another bonus - they also give reward points to repeat customers. Well worth stopping by.

This page is about me, age 26. Where I'm at, where I thought I'd be and what I still hope to do. Having young kids is a lot of work and sometimes you lose sight of who you were before that little person became the center of the universe. Now I realize you can't put yourself on the back burner and still feel fulfilled. 

To make the other wings, I traced the JBS butterfly, misted with Cherry Maya mist and edged with gold puffy paint. I also put dimensional adhesive behind the wings to help them stand.

More butterflies with an accelerator gauge to represent how fast life speeds by - you really have to take it by the reins to make the most of it. 

Hope you'll stop over and have a lift! xoxo

One Year

September 2nd, the old man and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. It was a pretty low key night - appetizers, bowling and a few drink stops at the local taverns - but very fun none the less. Our conflicting schedules and the general lack of ever having a babysitter keeps us from going out alone together so it was nice to spend some time together and reconnect.

This layout was put together for the XOXO blog, challenge #12. I scraplifted Lipstick Chick Ilaria Gianquinto (for the second time, her style is fab!) with the paper strips and floating hearts. Love how this layout turned out - thanks for the inspiration Ilaria! 

This page may have been a record in the length of time it took for me to put it together - just 30 minutes! The design is fairly simple but all the colors really make it stand out for me.



Tucked behind the page is a notecard with some details of the night. Thanks hunny, for a very memorable (both good and bad) first year. Love you, xo.

The Case of the Missing Numbers...

Somehow, somewhere along the learning process, my daughter missed out on the numbers 4 and 5. I'm not sure whether she zoned out during these two or if she's just too excited to get to ten. Either way, it makes me giggle every time and I know I will look back and laugh at this page (and silly grin) again one day.

I put this page together for the Makeup to Breakup challenge put together by the talented Lollipop Girls over at Candy Shoppe Designs. The inspiration was a photo of a pretty redhead made up in metallic hued makeup and also to use a broken element in the design.

To meet the bright metallic spec, I used some colorful numbers that are accented with glitter and bling. (Can you tell from the title I've overindulged in Sherlock Holmes stories recently?)



The break in the number sequence satisfies the broken requirement as well as this broken plywood frame, accented with a few rub-on dots.

Thanks for the inspiration, girls!!

P.S. I never usually print my photos in black and white but I recently read a quote on Sweet Memories that has stuck with me the last several days: “When you photograph people in color you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in B&W, you photograph their souls.” –Ted Grant. It really makes sense and felt appropriate for this layout since there is already so much color going on (that and it's really hard to coordinate with our 70's yellow shag carpet). I will have to print more photos in B&W in the future.