Christmas Blessings

Hi everyone! I hope you had a FABULOUS Christmas and holiday season. :) We have been busy busy busy, as most of the world seems to be this time of year. We were blessed with much time with friends and family and of course many wonderful presents.

My biggest blessings:

(the poor boys have strep though...so they weren't feeling the best this Christmas.)

One of the best gifts I received:

:) Yep, that is a peek at my new Cameo. Can't wait to pull it out of the box and play a bit.

Thought I'd share another layout with you all, since I haven't posted for a little bit. This layout uses Pink Paislee (including more of the freebies I was talking about in previous posts that I found on their blog).

Here are the close up's:

I weaved a bit of paper, played with layering the same paper on paper, popped some up, and whitened my wood pieces (love their wood pieces!).

Well I really hope you had the best Christmas, but also got some moments to just breathe and relax. I'm looking forward to getting crafty, because it seems like forever since I have. :)

Have a wonderful day!!!

Spellbinders Series: Making Cards with Large Dies **AND GIVEAWAY**

Nope, didn't drop off the planet...just been busy. :) I'm sure you all can understand. It's just a busy time of year.

So today I am going to share with you how to make cards using the large dies from Spellbinders. This is my last post for my Spellbinders series. If you missed any of the previous ones, here, here, here and here.

So, using the Grand Labels One dies:

I made this card:

Isn't it fun! I love making shaped cards and these large dies make it so easy. All the papers and the cool wood shapes are from Pink Paislee. Some of them were freebies that I printed out...they were giving them away on their blog, and I think you can still get them, so head on over. :)

And using the Creative Book Pages Dies:

I made this card:

Those adorable snowmen is another piece I picked up as a freebie from the Pink Paislee blog. I printed it and cut it out. Again, all the papers are from Pink Paislee.

Well thanks for stopping in today! And I wanted to offer a giveaway. Think of it as a Christmas present for one lucky reader. :)

Here's the giveaway up for grabs:

It's a bunch of papers and die cuts from The ScrapCake! I love love love their papers, and I just know you will too!!! And I know they can be harder to find, especially here in the States. So now is your chance to grab them...and for free! :)

And here's 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 enjoying the season and getting much accomplished as well as spending good time with family and loved ones! My kids are off school til the new year and I am excited to have them home. :)

Again, thanks for stopping in!

The Big Book: Day 1

It's FINALLY here!!!!

It seems like FOREVER ago that I had 5 layouts picked up for Memory Maker's "The Big Book of Scrapbook Pages". And the book itself is finally in my hands!

And I can finally share my layouts with you that I made for this book. :) I'll share all 5 over the next 5 blog posts.

Here's a peek at the first one:

The Big Book, Layout #1: "So Cute"

First off...holy cow! Check out those photos of Eryn! She looks so different! She's grown so much! Seriously, check out my post from yesterday compared to this one, and you'll see why I keep saying "finally". I still love these photos...of my sweet little Eryn in her bright and fun crocs...that of course, don't fit her anymore. :) See...THIS is why we document such silly things as red shoes! Just looking at these photos bring back a flood of memories. :)

So this layout uses a bunch of my favorite papers from Prima Marketing. They may be older now but I would still say they are some of my favorites!

Here are a bunch of close up's of my layout:

The word "So" was printed directly on my photo when I printed it...I just left room to add the rest of the title.

I hand-cut the hearts and arranged them like a large banner.

I underlined my journaling with 3D paint. :)

Well I hope you have enjoyed my post today! Come back tomorrow for another layout! And the layout will have something to do with today's layout. :) You'll have to wait and see what I'm talking about.

Have an AWESOME day!!!!!

One more push...

for you to submit to the calls at Scrapstreet! :) Here are all of the calls:

December 2010 Article Calls - Features

Call 1: Sugar & Spice: Run, run as fast as you can...it just wouldn't be Christmas without the Gingerbread Man! Come and satisfy our ginger sweet tooth by sharing your layouts, cards, and altered projects showcasing this sweet treat.

Call 2: Piece for the Holidays: Paper Piecing is very popular...we want to see your holiday layouts and projects where you creatively make your own embellishments by paper piecing (i.e. Christmas trees, Gingerbread houses, etc.).

Call 3: Come Light the Menorah! Send us your layouts, cards, and projects that showcase this special holiday.

Call 4: Painter's Trays: Show us how you use all those cute little cubbies for your scrapping!

Call 5: Lead the Way: Show us how you used maps on your layout. They can be from patterned paper or actual maps. Anything goes as long as it features a map.

December 2010 Article Calls - Fixtures

Chic Street: Home Tweet Home. Call for projects featuring bird/little houses.

U-Turn: Altered Item Gift Gallery! Have you altered something special to create a one-of-a-kind gift? Submit your creations to be showcased in our holiday issue!

Open Road: Put the focus on your journaling! So many activities, travels and events during the holiday season! Record one today by using an agenda as your journaling!

Easy Street: Good things come in small packages! Calling for simple gift boxes to make those little treasurers more special!

Card Corner: Gift cards from the heart: we're looking for creative ways to personalize and wrap holiday gift cards.

Crossroads Cafe: Are you a hybrid scrapper? Submit your layouts that use any hybrid technique and tell us what you love about this style of scrapbooking!

Deadline is midnight September 29th for all calls.

Please send your work to submissions@scrapstreet.com.

And here are some projects that I had in last month's issue. We got to play with some images from MelJen Designs. I absolutely LOVE the images I was given...will be using them over and over again! Here's what I created:

To see the supplies, tips and full article, go here.

I did use Helmar adhesives for all of my projects. Did you know that Helmar has some calls out right now????

* They have an Australian DT call out (which actually includes New Zealand as well), get all the details here. Deadline: Oct. 8th.

* They have a Educator Team call out (open to USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). You can find all those details here. Deadline: Oct. 15th.

* And finally there will be some guest designer opportunities coming up...so stay tuned to the Helmar blog. :)

One other thing...just wanted to let you know of an event that is coming up...

You won't want to miss that.

I've actually got several events coming up that I am participating in. I've added a little section to the right on my blog to see some of them. :)

Ok, well that was a lot of information, right...I'll be back tomorrow with a fun tutorial.

Have a wonderful day!!!!

Scrap and Stamp Saturday

Hello everyone! The challenge over at Scrap and Stamp is up. The challenge is to create a birthday page that includes stamping. This week is sponsored by Meljen's Designs and she gave us a couple of digital stamps to play with. You will see them both on my layout. Here it is...

Everything is from Prima except those two digital stamps. Here are some close up's:

Hope you play along with us. You will find all the details and other samples for the challenge here.

Have a great day!!!

Scrap and Stamp Saturday AND Day 6 of my RAKS!

Yep...the RAKS are still going! :) You didn't think they were going to stop did you? But first, let me share with you a little about an awesome challenge blog. By now you probably know that I LOVE to scrapbook and that I LOVE to stamp. So many scrappers seem scared to stamp and so many stampers seem scared to scrap. :) I love to stamp on my scrapbook pages. I want to encourage you to stop by the Scrap and Stamp blog and participate in their challenges!

**And they are having a design team call right now!!! Read all about that here.

The challenge this week was a bit difficult for me though. I just didn't seem to like the challenge...which is a challenge of 3: use tearing, a large title and stripes. Now...I'm not a huge fan of stripes or tearing. Large titles can be ok, but man...did I just have a tough time with it. I'm not really pleased with the way my layout turned out, but oh well...

Here are the close up's:

Just had to include that picture! :) It's like she's screaming "I don't like this"...just don't know if it was referring to the dressing her up or me taking her picture. :)

That cute little girl image is a digital stamp from Squiggle Stamps. She generously provided this for the DT to use on our layouts.

Hope you join us for the challenge this week! We are in need or more participants. :)

And now...

On to the RAK:

It's the new "My Family" line from Fancy Pants Designs!

Now as for the rules...they are exactly the same as yesterday and the day before and the day before...

How to get entered into the drawing for this awesome prize:

* Leave me a comment on this post! :)

For EXTRA chances to win, here are two more ways to get entered into the drawing...

* Post about this giveaway on another site (blog, group, etc.) and then leave me a link to your post! :)

* Be a follower of my blog! Over to the right you will see the "follow" section. I have never done a giveaway where you have to become a follower of my blog...I kind of always thought of that as pimping out your blog. But then I was thinking about it and here is why I decided to go ahead and do it this time... 1) What's wrong with pimping out your blog? :) and 2) I have had many faithful and wonderful followers...isn't it ok to "reward" them for following me? Afterall, shouldn't they get a little extra love from me at times. :) So yep, if you become a follower or if you are already a follower, then you have another chance to win. Simply leave me another comment stating that you are a follower! :)

So there you have it! You have all week to leave your comments. I will announce a winner on Monday March 29th.

Good luck! :) And make sure you come back tomorrow to what I will be giving away next! :)

Scrap and Stamp Saturday

Hello everyone! The challenge at Scrap and Stamp is up. The challenge this week is to make a hybrid page. Use your computer in some way with your traditional scrapbooking. :) One super easy way to do this is to use a digital stamp. Just print it out, color if you want, and add to your layout. Stamping Dragon Designs is our sponsor this week and they provided the DT with some digital stamps as well as a digital kit to play with. Here is the layout I made for the challenge:

Close up's:

I paired the digital elements (which I just printed out on cardstock and cut out) with some new American Crafts goodies.

And while you are at the Scrap and Stamp site don't miss the tutorial on adding digital elements to a paper layout, by Lacey. That's something new Scrap and Stamp is going to do...having regular tutorials as well as the challenges.

Have a fantastic Saturday everyone. We are off to basketball and then we have a birthday party this afternoon. :)

Scrap and Stamp Saturday

Good morning! The challenge at Scrap and Stamp this week is to use the following sketch and make a layout. And of course, you need to use at least one stamp on it. Here is the sketch we were given:

And this is the layout I made:

Our sponsor this week is Stamp and Create. We got to play with some brand new stamps from Wags n' Whiskers. That adorable girl holding the bunny on my layout is one of their new stamps! I just love it! And those papers are from Bo Bunny. :)

Ok, have a fantastic Saturday!

SSCC #25

The new challenge at SSCC is up! It's a challenging one, but it really is fun! The challenge is to use two of whatever you use on your project (i.e. two stamps, two papers, two....). I used several two's in my layout that I made. Here it is:

Those digital stamps are from our sponsor this week: Digital Ink Company. The cool thing about digital stamps is that you can make them any size you want. I totally enlarged them for my layout. :) Those fun papers are from Fancy Pants Designs.

So it's Super Bowl Sunday...anybody watching? We are having some friends and family over to watch...although I mostly watch for the commercials. :)

Have a fantastic Sunday!

10 Photos on 1 page! :)

The challenge is up at Scrap and Stamp...and it will be up for two weeks instead of one. The challenge is simple, make a Christmas layout with stamping. The sponsor this time is "Making Handmade Cards." We each got the "Funky Christmas" ekit to play with, and even though they are intended for cards, they are easily used on layouts too. :) I used 5 images from the kit on my layout.

Here's my layout:

And it has 10 photos on it! :) I made the collage of photos in photoshop, then I made a clipping mask for the borders. It is actually something that is really easy to do.

Well I hope you play along with us this week, we desperately need people to do the challenges. :) And you have two weeks to do it! So I hope I see several of you playing along.

Have a FANTASTIC weekend everyone!!!

Winterfest 09 supplies:

Papers--October Afternoon, Digital Images--Making Handmade Cards, Chipboard Letters--Pink Paislee, Snowflake Stamp--Pink Paislee, Ink--Stampin' Up!, Button--Rusty Pickle, Ribbon--Rusty Pickle, Gold Star-- , Glitter--Scribbles, Adobe Photoshop CS2, Digital Mask--Katie Pertiet (Border Die Cuts No 2, downloaded from www.designerdigitals.com).

Sorry...been busy!

Yep...sorry I haven't posted the past few days...we have been busy busy busy. Basically, just a lot of running around trying to get things done before we leave on vacation. But I wanted to pop in and show you two cards I made for Marks Paper Company.

Supplies Used:

Cardstock--American Crafts, Papers and Die Cuts--Marks paper Company, Chipboard--Rusty Pickle, Trim--Maya Road, Paint (on chipboard) Making Memories, Glitter--Scribbles, Button--Rusty Pickle, Rub-On--Pebbles Inc., thread--DMC.

We leave on Friday, but I should have a couple more things to show you before we leave. :)

Hope you are having a terrific week so far!

Fun journaling! :)

Today is the last day from the most recent Letters and Words challenge.  The challenge was to create shaped text.  Check out the details here.   Your link needs to be posted tonight at midnight EST so if you have time today...play along!

Here's a layout that I made (it's hybrid):

What I did was make a page in photoshop of patterned paper and butterflies.  I then printed it and too my exacto knife and cut out the butterflies (leaving a border).  I layered a piece of cardstock behind it and added my journaling to those butterfly spots!  :)  Here are some close up's of the journaling.  

The digital papers and elements are from Audacious Designs.  I used the Butterfly Fancy kit for this layout.

So Kelby and I have a date tonight.  :)  We are going to see the new Harry Potter movie.  Anybody seen it yet?  

Supplies for "the Clan":

Cardstock--American Crafts, Papers (digital)--Audacious Designs, Chipboard Letters--Basic Grey, Buttons--Rusty Pickle, Pearls--Kaisercraft, Thread--DMC.