A Good Life Indeed

Hi everyone!  So wow, did you see how long the challenge list from Wednesday got?  I'm really looking forward to trying some new challenges.  I'm still updating the list, so if there are some sites missing, just let me know.  :)

So today I have a layout to share with you.  It uses the super fun The Good Life collection from Fancy Pants.  Here it is:

I think I am not a city girl, or a suburb girl.  I crave land and space, I just love being outside, in God's playground.  That's what this page is about.

Here are some close up's:

I am seriously lovin' this fun collection.  :)

Well thanks so much for popping in today!
Have a fabulous day!

Challenge Me!!

So on Monday I posted a layout I did for a Webster's Pages challenge, and I realized that I wanted to some more challenges.   But frankly, I haven't done many in quite awhile, so I wasn't sure which sites were still around, etc.  So I thought it would be fun to make a post asking you all to share challenge sites with me.  You'll want to bookmark this post, because I will constantly be adding and updating the list.  I've already started looking around and making a list, but I really want your help!  So please share some challenges with me.  :)  Some challenge sites are listed in multiple sections because I am trying to categorize them as well.

*  Anything But A Card
*  Artastic
*  Bird Is The Word
*  Child's Play Challenges
*  City Crafter 
*  Club CK Challenges
*  Collage Obsession
*  Colorful Creations
*  Frosted Designs
*  Get Creative
*  Helmar Challenges
*  Kraft It Up
*  Let's Scrap
*  Scrap Africa
*  Scrapbook Challenges
*  Scrap Fit
*  Scrap It Girl 
*  Scrap It With A Song
*  Scrap Our Stash
*  Scrapping Everyday Miracles
*  Scrapping The Music
*  Scrap The Boys
*  Scrap The Girls
*  Screen 2 Scrap
*  The Digi Dares
*  The Studio Challenges
*  True XOXO Scrapbooking
*  Two Peas In A Bucket Challenges
*  White With 1

**  BasicGrey Weekly Challenge
**  Fancy Pants' Challenges
**  Helmar Monthly Challenge

**  Lily Bee Challenges

**  My Mind's Eye Challenges
**  October Afternoon Challenges
**  Sei Challenges

**  Webster's Pages Challenges

*  Card Positioning Systems (CPS) (cards)
*  Creative Scrappers
*  Get Creative
*  GrandDiva's Creative Corner
*  Let's Capture These Sketches
*  Mojo Monday (cards)
*  My Creative Sketches
*  Once Upon A Sketch
*  PageMaps
*  Pamela's World of Scrap Sketches
*  Retro Sketches (for cards)
*  Scrapbook Challenges
*  Sketchbook 365
*  Sketches With A Twist
*  Sketch Inspiration
*  Sketch N Scrap
*  Stuck Sketches
*  Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenges (for cards)
*  Unscripted Sketches (cards)

**  BasicGrey Sketches
**  Bella Blvd Saturday Sketches
**  October Afternoon Sketches
**  Prima Build A Page

*  Color Combos Galore
*  Color Me Scrappy
*  Color Throwdown
*  Colour Q
*  CR84FN
*  CSI: Color Stories Inspiration
*  Scrap Much Colour Challenges
*  The Color Room
*  The Play Date Cafe

**  Crate Paper Color Challenges
**  Prima Product Picks

*  365 Cards
*  Bunny Zoe's Craft Challenge Blog
*  Card Crafter's Circle
*  Card Positioning Systems (CPS)
*  Cardz TV
*  CASE Study
*  CCEE--Cheers & Challenges Eclectic Ensemble
*  Clean and Simple Stamping
*  Craft Punked
*  Crafty Mess Challenge Blog
*  Crazy 4 Challenges
*  Creative Card Crew
*  Creative Craft Challenges
*  Cupcake Inspirations
*  Emergency Crafters
*  Fab 'n' Funky
*  Gingerloft Challenge
*  House of Gilli
*  Inspired By
*  Inspire Me Fridays
*  Just Add Ink
*  Just Us Girls
*  Little Red Wagon
*  Lollipop Crafts
*  Our Creative Corner
*  Pals Paper Arts
*  Papertake Weekly
*  Polkadoodle
*  Raise The Bar
*  Retro Sketches 
*  Robyn's Fetish Challenge Blog
*  Scrapper's Delight Challenge Blog
*  Simon Says Stamp!
*  Skipping Stones Design Challenges
*  Splitcoast Stampers Clean and Simple (CAS)
*  Stampin' Royalty
*  Stampin' Sisters in Christ
*  Sweet Stampin'
*  Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenges
*  The House That Stamps Built
*  The Kraft Journal
*  The Paper Girls
*  The Paper Players
*  Totally Stampalicious!
*  Tuesday Throwdown

** All That Scraps

** All Things Unity

** Bitten By The Bug (Cricut)

** Catch The Bug (Bugaboo stamps)

** Chick Challenges (Ippity)
** CMC Copic Challenge Group
** Fantabulous Cricut Challenges
** Gina K Challenges
** Lawnscaping (Lawn Fawn)
** Meljen's Challenges
** Passion for Promarker
** Stampin' Celebrations (Stampin' Up!)
** Unity Challenges
** The Cameo Spotlight

*  Anything But A Card
*  Art Journal Cafe
*  Collage Obsession
*  Dragonsdream Tag It On
*  Fast Friday Quilts
*  Fun With ATC's
*  Lessology  (altering)
*  Shoot And Paint
*  So Artful Challenges
*  Sunday Postcard Art
*  The Craft Barn
*  The Three Muses
*  Weekly Art Challenges








** means you have to have a specific company's product to play along.


Some manufacturer's have challenges on their blogs but I haven't listed them here because there is no direct link to the challenges (or label I can link to).  I don't want to share a link with you all but then make you search for the challenges once you are there.

So now HELP ME OUT.  What other sites are out there?  Which are your favorites?

Who Needs Photoshop!

Hello all!  I have a fun layout to share with you today!  It uses my Cameo and one of my favorite brands ever...Webster's Pages.  Webster's Pages had a challenge up on their blog to get trendy and use die cuts on your layout.  They are right, cutting with your Cameo (or similar machine) is very in right now.

I personally love all the cool things you can do with your Cameo.  Although, I will admit, I haven't used it as much as I want to because I get frustrated.  I feel like I must be doing it all wrong because most the time I can't get it to work right.  I can get it to cut my kraft cardstock perfectly.  Yeah! But if I want to cut patterned paper, it either doesn't cut through the whole paper and I have to use my craft knife to cut out the rest, or it rips up the paper.  Seriously thought I wasn't going to try anymore when I finally got it to work with my kraft cardstock.  But I do wish I could get this thing figured out.  :(

Anyways...

Here's the layout I did for the WP challenge:

I used pieces from a variety of collections for this layout.

This summer my sister-in-law took pictures of me and the kids.  There was four photos.  But just my luck, none of them worked great...each one had at least one person with eyes closed or face turned.   You know how great Photoshop experts can take one person from one photo and put it in another photo and have it match seamlessly so you have the perfect picture.  Well I spent several hours trying to do that.  And failed miserably.  So finally I gave up and thought I would do a better job just me and my craft knife.  So I cut each person out of the best photo they had and then layered them all together on the photo to create the best possible photo for me.  :)  It was actually kind of a cool trick...who needs Photoshop.  ;)

Here are the close up's of my layout and you can see the photo better too:

Well thanks so much for popping in today!

Have a fantastic day!

Winner!

I owe you a winner.  :)

And here it is....

The winner of the 8 stamp sets is...

Congratulations Judy!!!  Send me an email to pamelacy@msn.com with your address to get this sent out to you!

And a huge THANK YOU to everyone else who stopped by the blog and left comments.  I am planning another giveaway to do soon.  ;)

Have a wonderful day!

It's A Happy Happy Good Life! :)

Hi everyone!  I have a layout to share with you today!  :)  Jodi posted a sketch this month on the Fancy Pants blog.  Check the sketch out and play along here.  A few of us made layouts based on this sketch. Here's mine:

It uses the super fun The Good Life collection from Fancy Pants.

Here are my close up's:

Thanks so much for stopping in!

I will be back to announce the winner of my giveaway.  ;)  

Have a fantastic day!!!

The Best Tool Ever!

**There's still time to get in on my giveaway!  Scroll down or click here.  :)

Well I've been sick this week so I haven't really gotten much accomplished.  But I did want to pop in and share a couple cards with you.  They both use the fantastic Sweet Childhood collection from The ScrapCake.

One of the first tools I ever bought when I got into scrapbooking was my circle punch.  And it is still well used today.  I do believe it is one of my favorite tools.  And I punched a bunch of circles for this first card.

I love the look and added texture of the white on white, but had to throw in a row of patterned paper circles too.  And instead of adding stitching through the circles like I naturally want to do, I made it a bit more funky adding little sections of stitching that don't really correlate with the circles.  I like it, sometimes it's fun to go against our first intuition or design idea (especially when you've done it lots).

And here is my second card:

On this card, I took a piece of white cardstock that I had punched circles out of (for the first card) and added it in the layering.  The focal point of the card is off to the right, making it a bit funky, but it's just unexpected.  ;)

Well thanks for popping in!!!
Have a fantastic day!

Giveaway Time!! :)

So I realize that it has been quite a while since I have had a giveaway on here.  I think I need to change that.  ;)

So here ya go....

That is EIGHT stamp sets from Skipping Stones Design!!!

So here's the deal...

How you can win: Leave me a comment on this blog post. :) It's as simple as that.

I will also offer extra chances to win by doing the following:

• If you are already a follower of my blog or have just become one, let me know. Just leave another comment on this blog post letting me know that you are a follower (old or new) and you will automatically be entered in for another chance at the giveaway.
• Share this giveaway on a blog, facebook, or another website. Leave me another comment on this blog post with a link to where you shared it and you will automatically be entered in for another chance at the giveaway.

Hope you are having a fantastic day!  :)  I will draw the winner and announce on next Friday.

Thanks for stopping in!

Remember

Hi all!  Today is a day to remember.  If you live in the US, than this day probably comes with very vivid memories.  I know it does for me.  There is honor in remembering.  The past shapes who we are, both as individuals and as nations.

We remember in our scrapbooking too, that's what scrapbooking is all about.  Maybe not so much in scrapbooking the history of a nation (although you certainly CAN do that!), but we scrapbook our own history, the people and events which have shaped us into who we are.  And I have a layout to share with you!  :)  It uses the fun Sweet Childhood collection from The ScrapCake.

I love the look of vintage children's books that this collection has.  Isn't it fun!  The photos are of my dad as a baby and my Great Grandparents.

Here are the close up's:

I love the look of the stitched lines under the journaling.  I hadn't done it in awhile and thought I needed to.  :)  Actually, I had been redoing some of my labels so I was going through all of my old blog posts and there was lots of things I noticed on a project and thought "Oh, I need to do that again!"  It was inspiring.  So maybe I will get more done soon.  :)

Thanks for stopping in!
Have a wonderful day!!

Devotions Vs. Lifestyle

I've grown up hearing about "devotions" and how a committed Christian devotes a certain amount of time every day to reading the Bible and praying.  It's like the person is giving that time to God.

Sometimes it is necessary to make that commitment and to schedule in time with God.  I get that.  But along with that comes both disappointment in self when you miss a day (or more) and an actual limitation on our time with God.

A lifestyle of worship includes God in most things you do all day.  The person is doing everything for God, and it includes conversing with Him throughout the day.  But it seems to me that Christians who are living this so-called lifestyle for God seem to often neglect to spend time in the Word.

I am one that believes fully in the lifestyle of worship.  But I am at this point now where I think I need to be more purposeful about scheduling a specific time to spend in God's word and prayer.  I can still do both throughout the day, but the actual devoting of a specific amount of time sounds really honoring to me.

What do you think?  Do you schedule time with God?  Does that make Him less or more important?

One thing is for sure, I think there's room for both devotions and a lifestyle of worship in our relationships with God.

Makes a Great Gift! :)

Happy Labor Day everyone!  Hope you are doing something fantastically fun.  :)  I guess Summer is officially over.  I'm ok with that, because it's been so hot and I am ready for cooler evenings.  Has it been incredibly hot where you live?  I don't remember a summer ever being so hot.

So awhile back, I posted this project I made as a gift for my sister.  Well, she asked me to make another one, one she could give as a gift to her friend.  Different pictures, different papers, but really similar projects.

This time around I used the Hopscotch collection from Fancy Pants.  Here's how it turned out:

And here are some close up's:

Well thanks for popping in today!!

Have a fun day!