Hoping to get lucky with LYB

I love St. Patty's Day, I love a good sketch, I love a challenge and I love Little Yellow Bicycle...one of my fave scrappy companies ever!! So imagine how happy I was to work on a layout about St. Patty's Day using a sketch for a challenge by LYB! So stinkin happy that's how happy!!!! I saw the sketch on LYB's facebook page the other day and knew I just had to play around with it and I knew as soon as I saw it I was gonna work on a layout for St. Patty's Day...for 2 reasons...reason one...I own alot of LYB's lucky me line and reason 2...my favorite beer swigging holiday is just around the corner! Yeah for beer! And yeah for all sorts of LYB cuteness! Even though my inspiration was the LYB Lucky Me line I rarely work with one line exclusively...I usually like to mix things up...so when I did this layout I ended up using a little bit of stuff from a bunch of LYB lines including Lucky Me, Wonders and Wishes, Zach's Life and Pack Your Bags. The orange hexagon paper from Pack Your Bags line was a definite must use...it's just an awesome paper. The only thing on this layout that isn't LYB is th little orange letters ...those are sandylion...and the labels which are from October Afternoon and the paint which is by Ranger.
Here's the sketch...


 

and here's my take on the sketch...



I already submitted mine to LYB for the Sketch Challenge ...wish me luck...the winner takes home $50 in LYB goodies. Whoot Whoot! If you want to try your hand at the sketch challenge you can check out LYB's facebook page or blog. Happy scrapping y'all!

Tweek Tweek

So remember how I said the other day I was doing my scrappy chores and putting all my layouts in albums and it was taking forever...of course you remember...anyways even if you don't I guess it's not that important...see the thing was it was taking forevah and it was taking forevah cause I couldn't help but inspect and critique them before I put them in...not a good idea I know...when it comes to layouts I believe you should live by the motto..."whats done is done" ...but I couldn't help myself. Some of the layouts in my stack were from months and months ago and because it had been so long since I worked on them I was looking at them with a fresh perspective...which basically means I was looking at them and going I could of, should of, would of. Most of them I was perfectly happy with and put in as is but a few of them bugged me...one had crooked ribbon...an easy enough fix with the magic of un-du, another needed a bit more color, another simple fix...just added a few buttons and it was done. But one layout really needed some tweeking. I loved the layout when I did it but after I got it done I did my journaling by hand directly on the layout and totally wrecked it...I never never never should've done it...but oh well what's done is done...right...wrong!! When I saw it again it was still bugging me and I couldn't put it in the album with the cruddy journaling so I tweeked it...I added a journal spot to cover the old journaling which made a humungous difference...but even after I fixed the journaling I couldn't stop tweeking...I added some twine to the tag and a chipboard heart too which was just the perfect finishing touch and then because I had a small empty area on the new journaling spot I added a few more embellies there too. I was totally thrilled with all the changes...amazing what a few tweeks can do.
Here is the new improved version...



doesn't the tag look better with a bit of twine...so cute...



and there is no denying the new journal spot is 100% times better than the previous disaster...



here's the original to compare...



So glad I made the changes to this layout...note to self for future layouts...journal spots are my friends!

Using some old stuff in a rocking way

If your anything like me (or the bazillion other scrapbook hoarders out there) you probably have all sorts of amazing, totally terrific, super duper, mega awesome scrap crap you just can't part with. Lawdy lawdy knows I totally have more than mere words can describe. And like everyone else who is just like me I eventually get to a point where I begin to think about whether or not I should or should not part with the afore mentioned scrap crap. Granted I never really get much past the "thinking about" stage so none of my stuff is in real danger at the moment so no need to panic. But I do think someday fueled by too many 5 Hour Energy drinks I may just go buck wild and purge, purge, purge but I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future.
For now it all just sits there...waiting...waiting to be used, waiting to be loved again, waiting to be part of something, something totally awesome. Well the other day for one lucky little embellishment that dream came true! Yep it was a good day for one of those old, forgotton embellies and a good day for me cause had I gone on a purging spree it probably would've ended up in the gotta go, see ya later alligator pile which would've been so sad cause it was absolutely without a doubt perfect for this rockin layout I did of my super adorable rocking doggie.
I had the whole layout almost done and realized I left a pretty large space all across the bottom of the layout and as much as I love my white space it just wasn't working...I knew I need sumthing to put there and was totally clueless about what until I thought about some ribbon and as soon as I thought of ribbon it was like WHAM...flash of brilliance..and I was super excited cause I remembered this awesome bad ass looking trim I bought cause it looked like a dog collar. I must've bought it at least 3 years ago maybe even longer and I never evah used a single piece of it ...until this layout...



Isn't my pups just too cute for words! She definitely has the rock star look...if only she really knew how to play.



and isn't that trim just too stinkin perfect for words!! I mean without it the layout was cute...with it ...it ROCKS!!
So the moral of the story today ladies...procrastinating and hoarding are not always bad things. ;)

Recent Layouts

Here's some of what I have been working on the last couple weeks...



my hubby and son at the nascar race in loudon, nh. I had some nascar stickers but they were pretty cheesy so instead of using them as is i added some of them to cardstock to create embellishments...I used a circle punch to cut out the dupont sticker from a much larger sticker and added it to a piece of chipboard to create an awesome little embellie.



a simple graphic layout of my son in his first roadrace...to make him stand out in the photos I added a wide oval vignette around him and removed the color leaving only him in color...I really love the effect.



I layered thickers to create the title ...instead of using white pop up dots under the top layer which would probably show I used another letter from the same set of thickers and cut it apart and used it like pop up dots.



Was super happy with how this layout turned out... the awesome die cut paper and leaf transparencies are from little yellow bicycle ...so cute...love their stuff...there is another transparency around the photo in the lower left corner but it doesn't show up that well in the picture.



Aren't the flowers on this layout awesome! I wish I could take credit for them but I didn't make em...my scrap buddy Tina made them and then was nice enough to share...she made them by wrapping twine in a circle on a piece of cardstock and then painted them...the colors worked perfectly with my pics! love!

Day 3 ... a day late

So life has returned to normal tonight...as normal as the life of a mom can be anyways...so now that last night's chaos is behind me it's time to get back to posting projects. Woohoo! If you've missed my previous posts this week I'll recap...today is day 3 (sort of ;) ) in my series of projects using alcohol inks, vellum and texture.

Day 3's project...a layout. Technique wise this layout is nothing spectacular ... but while it lacks in technique it's still a pretty darn cute layout thanks in part to the adorable (yet annoying) subject ...just one of the many crafty ingenious squirrels that manages to outwit our every attempt to keep the birdfood out of their greedy little paws. Darn squirrels. But it's not the pesky little thief who is the real highlight of this layout...nope that honor goes to some pretty amazing vellum...more specifically the totally awesome pink woodgrain vellum I used for my background...totally just love it. I also have it in lime green and it's just as awesome.



The paper was just perfect for this layout for obvious reasons...first it's awesome...which I already mentioned...but second it's woodgrain...so perfect for a layout about a birdhouse in a tree. So using the awesome vellum as a jumping off point for this layout I just had to select a coordinating cardstock...which turned out to be quite the dilemna...had to decide between several shades of pink all of which I liked ...finally just had to let my friend pick ...so if you don't like the color you can blame it on her. After I (she) selected the cardstock I trimmed 1/2 off 2 sides of the vellum and used my spray adhesive to mount it to the cardstock. My spray adhesive is way old and spits and sputters so unfortunately I got some blotches that show through but no it ain't no big thing. After the background was done it was just a matter of arranging the layout and finding a way to incorporate some texture and the alcohol inks. I had some trouble incorporating the inks ...I tried adding splashes of color around the pics but they were more blotches than splashes and after about an hour of struggling I decided to give up that idea. It looked so bad I actually replaced the vellum with a new sheet (lucky I had 2). So after I gave up on the alchohol inks I worked on adding the texture which was so much easier...just ran some polka dot paper (love me some polka dots) through my papercrimper and voila ...a fabtastic border. Finished tweaking the arrangement and glued it all down and added a title and journanling and some super adorable embellishments and I was done...well almost. After I added the title ...those fabulous glossy thickers...I figured out a way to incorporate some alcohol ink!!! I realized since the letters were glossy I could add some oomph to them by sponging a slightly darker shade on the letters...it's super subtle...but hey it counts!!!



Stayed tuned...I'll be posting day 4's projects super soon.

An apology, winners and a layout

First the apology...a big one...for my total lack of ability to manage my time and a calendar! I made the ultimate oops...hosted a giveaway and then forgot about it...genius right? I totally forgot about the Un-Du giveaway and should've posted winners a week ago!! It was just monumental stupidity on my part that I forgot about it. I should've known not to end the giveaway the same weekend as my son's birthday and in the middle of my vacation...obviously it was way more than than my brain could manage in a week! And even though I was back from vacation on Friday I didn't even think of the giveaway until last night when I finished a layout and thought about posting the layout on the blog that I realized my last post was a giveaway...monumental mega duh, smacking forehead moment!
Anyways...now that I have my head on straight again and I now remember the giveaway...let's get on with some winners!! And the winners are....Everyone!!! Yep...all 7 of you that commented on my blog and on facebook are winners!! Just need your addies and I will send each of you some wonderfully marvelous Un-Du!!! Hooray for y'all!!
And now for the layout...which I gots to say I am monumentally happy with...I just love when something I am working on comes out the way I hoped it would and this layout did not disappoint! Isn't it awesome!!



I had the idea for this layout months ago when I first found and edited this awesome pic of my daughter. I just love this picture..it so captures her. Originally the pic wasn't that great ... I took it in front of a window and while her face looked amazing the window frame did not ...so through the magic of PSE I took out all of the window frame and replaced the background with a soft white with just the hint of blue.. then to add to the dreamy effect I wanted I used a darker blue to create a vignette around the pic...love how it came out! Knew when I printed the pic that this layout would be all about my daughter's constant day dreaming and had tons of ideas for it but I didn't start it until 2 weeks ago. Right off I found the perfect background paper...Romanji from Basic Grey...such a beautiful color. Then I dug through my stash for all the awesome embellies...lots and lots of embellies. After I had all my stuff to play with I worked on the layout for a bit but no matter what I did I hated it....what I was coming up with was just not at all what I had in my head so I deserted it and ignored it for 2 weeks until last night. See last night I was feeling super motivated to be super creative so I pulled out season 5 of That 70's Show (love that show!)...popped a disc in my laptop and sat down to scrap and in no time the creative juices were flowing! After all that time away from it I was able to look at the layout with a fresh perspective and immediately got ideas on how to fix what was bugging me last time.
First thing I fixed...the background...I absolutely loved the paper and the soft color but it was lacking so out came the glimmer mist...2 shades... a blue and a purple...as usual it was a heart pounding experience to apply...hoping I didn't wreck the only sheet of the beautiful paper I had ...but after a few oh $#&% moments (got glimmer on my woodwork! yikes!) I got the background the way I wanted. So it was onto the embellies...lots and lots of embellies...most of which I either made or tweeked in some way. The embelly I had the biggest issue with from the beginning was the rainbow...I used my Ranger Alcohol Inks to create it on a piece of transparency...it was way to bright so I put a piece of vellum over it which then made it too opaque...grrr...so needed a happy medium between ultra bright and mega dull ...took me a while but finally figured out that lightly rubbing it with white pigment ink toned it down just enough.



On to the clouds...these were actually cheap vellum stickers from the dollar store...I mounted them on transparency and cut around them...a trick I use for stickers so I can move them around the layout without them...well ...sticking. To bling them out a bit I stickled them (not sure if bling or stickle are actual verbs but that's what i'm rolling with) :).



After the clouds it was onto the trees and bush and flowers...more stuff I created and/or tweeked. The tree and bush were created with transparency, glimmer mist and vellum....first I sprayed green glimmer mist on transparency and let that dry...then I sprayed the vellum with some spray adhesive and adhered that to the sprayed side of the vellum...I liked the mottled shiny look I got from this technique...then I just cut out the shapes and used my slick writer to add some depth and detail around the edges of the tree. I decked out the bush and bottom of the layout with some white rubon flowers from American Crafts. Some of the flowers didn't rubon fully so I used my fave sakura white pen to touch them up...love the ultra super white detail I get with that pen. To give even more detail to the flowers I used my glaze pens (more pens I just love) to color the centers. Added some super mega adorable bird stickers from Sandylion and even more rubons...stars from AC and the pretty flourishes from Making Memories...the Making Memories rubons didn't show up quite the way I wanted them too so I traced the design with my white pen again to get that super crisp white detail. Added more details...star stickers from ADT and Miss Elizabeth...a rubon sun from Miss Elizabeth...a some purdy butterflies from ADT ...and a hot air balloon I created with a scrap of BoBunny paper and a glaze pen...this was too bright as well so I rubbed a layer of pigment ink over that too.



Lastly I used some adorable alphas from Websters Pages and Basic Grey to create my title and detailed the bottom with some borders from Doodlebug, Making Memories and Reminisce. Took 5 hours to complete but Kelso and Hyde were keeping me company...and making me laugh out loud... the whole time so it was all good.

Awesome with a splash of cute

So a while back I did some online shopping...something I rarely do cause I am a hands on touchy feely kind of shopper but one day I was browsing online and there was a bunch of stuff that looked so so cute online so I placed an order. Well one of the super cute things I ordered was a box of K&Co. chipboard animals called Actopus to Zelephant (whatever those are LOL) and they even came in their very own cute box...



Cute right? Adorable even. 35 pieces of adorable cuteness in an adorably cute box to be exact. Here's the thing though...when my order arrived a week later and I opened all my "cute" things I had a sudden realization that I don't do cute...cute is not my thing...never has been...neither is anything theme-y and I would say animals are definitely both theme-y and cute. Odd right...ordering something not your style. ..I thought it was...seriously as I took inventory of the menagerie that lived inside Mr. Frog ...that's what I call him now... I couldn't fathom why I ordered them. Trying to rationalize my purchase I tried to remember what I was doing the night I ordered...was I drinking heavily? had I spent time that night with puppies and babies and I was riding a cute high when I ordered? was I held captive that night by Elmo and forced to order cute things? ...there all of them plausible reasons...especially the first one but the reality is it didn't really matter why I ordered them cause order them I did and since it was so not worth the greenbacks to send them back I just decided to keep the box of cuteness. So then for whatever reason I decided not to put Mr. Frog away...instead I set him on a shelf next to my scrap table and there he sat...for weeks...those little froggy eyes just staring at me. Periodically I would take Mr. Frog off the shelf look at all the marvelous creatures that resided inside his belly and wonder what the heck I was going to do with 35 little critters...but alas I would always return the critters to their home and Mr. Frog back to his shelf and he would go back to staring at me and I would go back to ignoring him until one day it happened. I had a need for an animal! But not just any animal...a cute animal...a cute little chipboard animal...so I opened Mr. Frog and took out Mr. Giraffe and made a layout and even though it was cute...gasp...I liked it! Probably because the super awesomeness of the other scrappy stuff I used toned down the cuteness to an acceptable level. So only a short while later I had need yet again for another animal so I sprung Mr. Rabbit from his box of cuteness and plunked him on a layout filled with awesome scrappy goodness and then just a few months later I had a third layout in need of animal cuteness so down came Mr. Frog from his shelf and out came Mr. Sheep to live among more awesome scrappiness. Amazing right...3 layouts with 3 cute little critters...who da thunk it...surely not me. I personally was astonished after I used the 1st one...by the time I got to the 3rd one I was downright befuddled and flabbergasted by all the super cuteness I was using. So imagine my surprise when believe it or not...it happened again! Yep just this week I did yet another layout with another cute little critter ...bringing my cuteness total up to a whopping 4...amazing right...hard to believe even...well here it is ...




Adorable right? Super ridiculously cute right? I know right! I mean that little itty bitty froggy is just so stinkin cute! I love him. I love him and everything else on this layout...that paper...awesome...those thickers...mega awesome...those adorable Jilli Bean journal spots that double as lily pads...mega super awesome. So I guess this layout is a lot of awesome with a splash of cute...guess that's my new style!
Of course now I still have to use the other 31 critters in the box...



I'm thinking the lion, cat and monkey have a chance of making it to a layout but I'm having doubts about the yak, squid and clam. LOL

2 nights of scrapping ...woot woot for me!

I've been jonesing to scrap for weeks now but it just hasn't been happening for me...most of this week was a bust because I've been completely wiped out at night because we've been crazy busy at work...actually had to do work the WHOLE 40 hours...geesh...anyways between that and the ridunculous heat last week that made my scraproom feel like a boiler room there has been very little scrapping going on at my house...actually there has been very little anything going on at my house...doing dishes is overated anyways right :). Anyways this week I needed to scrap...I'm in another Chinese Whispers challenge and it's my turn so I had to get at least that done. So Thursday night when I got home I sucked down a 5-Hour energy and gave it the ol' college try. Unfortunately I was having major issues finding photos for my challenge layout and I was lacking moojo so I decided after a couple hours of frustration to move onto something different. Decided to go through my kits and find one of them to work on.....ended up settling on one of my daughter at Mystic Aquarium. It took me most of the night to finish it but I was happy with it and it got the moojo flowing so it was a win-win.



Used very minimal product on this layout...cardstock is Bazzil...those great stickers around the photos were actually a really awesome border from Creative Memories (yes...I saidCreative Memories ;)..some of their stuff is pretty darn cute) ...I cut it into pieces so I could use it all over my layout...used my Sakura Gelly Roll pens to create the rest of the border around the pics...love those pens...when they work right anyways. Added my title (it was too late for clever so I went with simple) ...used some super cute puffy tiny letter stickers from Sandylion..got these bad boys and 2 other colors at ACMoore...really wish I could find more colors...totally love the size and dimension of these. Added a small amount of ric-rac from my super huge stash of ribbon and then did some detail work on the stickers to give them a little more oomph...




I added some stickles to some...brads to some and then busted out my Gelly Roll pens again to add some dimension and voila...done!
Since I was still on a scrapping high from Thursday I decided to scrap some more Friday night and get my Chinese Whispers layout done...which I'm proud to say I accomplished...totally love how it came out...can't show it to y'all yet though....can't post it though until the last person in our round is done with theirs ... so I guess you will just have to wait patiently ...or wait impatiently...either way your waiting. :)

A confession and some layouts to share

OK first the confession...I'm a geek! Yep that's right...a geek! Hard to believe right. I mean I'm sure everyone thinks I'm as cool as Fonzie but I so ain't. Don't get me wrong I'm no mega nerd either...I don't own a pocket protector or live in my mom's basement and I've never played a game of D&D evah...but I do have a love for one of the geekiest things on the planet ...Harry Potter. I am full on lover of the boy with the lightning scar and his precocious friends. Now if I were a 8 years old my love for Harry Potter would be OK because that is what little kids are supposed to be into but as I'm a few (cough) years older than 30 being a mega fan of Harry Potter makes me a geek and I'm OK with that...after all judging by the crowd of the other over 30 somethings that were in the theater with me this weekend it's safe to say I'm not the only geek on the planet. Like many other geeks I've been hooked on Harry since the first book came out so many years ago ....that's when I first started reading the books to my son...he was just 5 at the time...man do I miss those days. The only book I didn't read to him was the last one...by the time Deathly Hallows came out it was 2007 and he was 14 and was so over being read to :( . But at the same time my son was losing interest my daughter...then 10...was beginning her own obsession with Harry Potter...both the books and Daniel Radcliffe...he was her first "poster on the walls" crush. Since we all loved the books we naturally had to see all the movies...and of course we loved them all...I especially loved them because they were movies we all watched together...as a mom you just can't knock anything that gets both your kids in the same room with you! So of course being a family of Harry Potter obsessed geeks we had to see the last movie this weekend...we weren't crazy enough to go to the midnight showing but we did go opening day...I couldn't wait any longer to see it. We loved it ...it was awesome! Already looking forward to seeing it again and can't wait for the DVD release! As excited as I was to see the last movie now that it's over I'm bummed...it's like a huge hunk of my kid's childhood has come to an end. So being a scrapbooker I had to capture a bit of our Harry Potter love so I will always remember what a big part of our lives the boy with the lightning scar was so I did a couple layouts this weekend ...



this first one is of my daughter dressed as Hermione...such a perfect costume for her. I didn't have any Harry Potter themed scrap stuff so I had to wing it to get the feel of Harry Potter with supplies I did have....used a great paper from Colorbok for the background...it looks like Harry himself could have written it with his quill. To bring in the Gryffindor colors I mounted the entire layout on a piece of burgundy Mi-Tients paper. To bring in the gold...the other half of the Griffyndor color scheme ... I used it for my title block and to make my journal block pop. Inspiration for the framed pictures came from the many framed pictures that hang in Hogwarts...love how the super cute transparency frames from Colorbok make the photos just pop. Added a few more embellishments such as the burgundy and gold ribbon and the dangly stars and then I added my favorite part of the whole layout...an awesome embroidered embellishment from Autumn Leaves...totally worked perfectly with the photo of Kay waving her magic wand (a stick ;) ) ...love love love the magical look it adds to the layout!



The other Harry Potter inspired layout I did was about my daughter's love for reading and her favorite books...which of course includes Harry Potter



I chose a simple aged paper from Basic Grey for the background because it reminded me of an aged leather book. Again since I didn't have any themed embellishments I had to get creative and decided to use images of the book covers as my embellishments. I simply googled the books I wanted to use...cut and pasted the images into a PSE file and resized the images and printed them with my photos..voila instant embellishments....totally love how all the covers to the books she loves totally coordinate! To add a little more detail I added a bit of of faux stitching in between the photos and then added some flourish rubons from Making Memories. Since the photos really told the story I opted for no journaling but I did add some great word stickers I just got from Reminisce to carry on the theme and then added a simple but colorful title using some fabulous new Thickers I got.



The plan is to do at least 2 more Harry Potter inspired layouts in the near future..one of me and the kids at the final movie and one about reading the books to my son. Although being the geek that I am I might just dedicate a whole album to the boy who lived.

Do-over

This layout is a do-over. I don't do a lot of do-overs but occassionally I do a layout and it just bugs me like something ain't right and then I feel compelled to rip it apart. This was one of those layouts that bugged me. This was one of four layouts I did at the crop I went to on the 11th....actually it was the first one I did and it went rather quickly. That should've been my first clue something was wrong. I never do quick layouts. I have to move stuff around over and over for hours before I call a layout done. Just how I roll. Anyways...this layout...it was one of the kits I've been toting around since May and I have totally not been inspired one iota when I've tried to work on it before but it just so happens that at the crop I picked out some new paper at the store before I started to crop (surprise right...i bought more paper) anyways I found this paper I really liked and put it in my pile o'stuff to buy. Then I sat down to crop and took this kit out and realized that one of the papers I picked out would be perfect for this layout...the colors were fab and it had just the right "feel" KWIM? So going with the new paper I did the layout. Cut, glued and voila! Done. Or almost done. I still had to add my journaling which I always do at home. Anyways I put the layout away. 2 nights later I pull out the layout to journal and ick. I mean major ick. I'm looking at it going really...this is ick. So I look at it for a while trying to decide what's wrong with it and I realize that its just boring. I wish I had taken a before pic to show you but I didn't so you'll just have to take my word for it. It was icky boring. I had the photo in the same place but right next to it I had the paper I liked so it was one linear block across the layout... another clue that this layout was wrong...I don't really do linear. So anyways...i have photo and paper across the middle and this big punched border all the way across the bottom of the block. In the top left corner I had 3 strips of stickers with 3 tiny heart accents. On top of the patterned paper I had my title...happiness together...the "happiness" was the same font as the "together". Boring. Right under the title I had the rick rack border and the round chip embellishment is pretty much where it is now. I tried to tweek it without taking it apart by adding buttons and such but nothing seemed to work. So I decided to just basically gut the layout. I took off the patterned paper I had loved so much and replaced it with some journal paper which I like so much better because it looked more fun. I then replaced the "happiness" sticker in the title with "happy" in another font which was WAY better...mixed fonts are so much more fun. Then I used the colors in the patterned paper I liked so much to find other papers to use for the strips. Was very happy with the strips...love the movement and again just way more fun than one solid block of paper. Lastly I moved the sticker strips and added some staples and buttons and that cute die-cut heart. SO much better. Hated having to do a re-do but it was worth it. At least now when I look at it I won't go "ick" anymore.

Mostly wordless

I always have a lot to say..always. No matter what the subject is I usually have a lot to say about it. It's my thing...I babble. It's just part of who I am...I spew words...lots and lots of words. So being that I am a big fan of the babble it should surprise noone that I journal on all my layouts. I feel compelled to. I have to tell who's doing what and why and what I thought and what they thought, etc., etc., etc. After all I scrapbook so I can tell a story and I can't tell the story if I don't tell the story...right? So considering all that it is really unusual for me not to journal on a layout....even more unusual for me to do two layouts in a row that are sans words...but that is just what I did..back to back wordless layouts. They aren't completely wordless.....I did add a title...and of course a date..and on one I did write 4 words saying when it was...but that was it. No she did this, he did that, she liked this but I didn't...blah..blah....blah. I guess I figured the photos in these layouts were much pretty much self explanatory...not much need for me to elaborate. Gotta say it's really bizarre for me to look at these layouts and call them done without a litany of words...but done they are. So without further babbling...here's my mostly wordless layouts...

Success! I can smooch

Oh yeah! That's right! I busted out the Smooch last night and it was a Smooching success! It took a while to Smooch but it was worth it. Just like last night I did all the prep work...mask...practice...etc... but this time I was super overly ridiculously cautious cause I did not want to screw up yet again. And after every spray I got more and more cautious because it was actually going good and I was freaking I was going to wreck it and have to do another do-over. I made one itsy bitsy ooops but it happened after I sprayed..I was a moh-ron and I had wet ink on my hand and put it on the paper....grrr...but only a little grr...luckily it was someplace I could cover up the ooopsy. So after a lot of anxiety...success! Unfortunately as it turns out the Smooching was actually the easy part of this layout compared to what I did next... a ridiculous amount of pen work. I had the idea that I wanted colorful doodly flourishes a-la fancy pants for the background of my layout but the fancy pants paper I had with doodles didn't work cause the doodles were all in the wrong place...soooooo.... genius me decides to make my own. I repeat...MOH-RON. Talk about nerve wracking. OMG. And time consuming too. First I had to sketch the doodly dos which wasn't so hard...at least I could erase anything I didn't like. Next I had to do the center of the doodles so I used my White Signo pen (LOVE this pen!) to color inside all the pencil lines so the Smooch wouldn't show. After that I was dry I busted out my Gelly Roll pens to do all the outlining. After about the 3rd doodle I was trying to figure out when I decided this would be a good idea cause it was such a pain. It took forever to sketch, fill and outline all those doodles and stars. And just like the smooch, with every successful doodle I would get more and more stressed out that I would eventually goof the whole thing. Amazingly enough I didn't make any major goofs...probably because I was going so slow....really slow... 2 hours later I was finally done. It didn't come out exactly how I wanted but close enough. To be honest I was just happy to be done with it.

I get by with a little scrappy supplies from my friend

mmmm, I get by with a little scrappy supplies from my friends, oh I can scrap with a little help from my friends. Don't you just love the beatles? I do. But I love my scrappy friend Tina more. We had a great time at our Friday night crop last week. We spent our time in her new scrappy space which I totally love....girlfriend got a new flat screen ...I'm mad jalous. She's also got a pretty nice collection of scrap supplies which she's recently added to thanks to her mad addiction to 2peas shopping. I'm normally not supportive of my friends addictions but in her case I'm going to conveniently overlook her problem and hold off the intervention for now since I found out her "little problem" is beneficial to me and my scrapping. Beneficial how you want to know...well as it turns out I got only one LO done on Friday and most of what was on that LO was pilfered from Tina's newly gotten scrapping booty. Yep that's right...I was that friend...the one you invite to your house and she uses all your brand new stuff...nice right? In my defense I have to say I had no intention of borrowing anything...after all I brought plenty of my own stuff...tons of my own stuff actually..it's not like a showed up with a stack of pictures and nothing else...that would be like showing up for a dinner party with nothing but a fork. For a 6 hour scrapping session I brought a tool tote, a rolling cart with about 30 kits in it and a basket of some of my fave embellies. Plenty of stuff to complete one measly LO. So if I had all this stuff why would I mooch from my gracious hostess? Well it was scrappy karma that made me do it. Just as I started working on my LO Tina pulled out some new papers she just got ... she was trying to decide what to use on her LO ...when lo and behold she flips to a sheet of 2 sided paper that is an absolute perfect match for my LO. I mean 100% spot on perfect match...no other paper could have matched any better. So there I was faced with this nasty dilemna...do I listen to the little polite me on my shoulder saying "it's not nice to mooch" or do I listen to the little hardcore scrapper me on the other shoulder saying ...very loudly I might add...."that paper is perfect, perfect paper is like scrapping gold, you have to have it, the scrappy gods want you to have that paper!" Well of course I couldn't argue with that logic ...perfect paper is just too hard to pass up...so of course I did what any other scrapper would do when the scrappy gods tempt them...I caved. So I told the polite little me on my shoulder to shut the heck up and I snatched the perfect paper from Tina's hands! Gasp! OK so I didn't snatch it...I asked for it...but I think I would've snatched it if she said no...thankfully she gave it up willingly and I didn't even have to threaten her with my paper piercer. I'm sure there are those of you who would tsk tsk me from the comfort of your computer chair for being so rude as to mooch but you weren't there. Trust me if you were in my shoes you would've given your friend paper cuts getting that paper...luckily it didn't come to that. I mean all you have to do is look at my LO to realize I did the right thing. I wish I could say the borrowing stopped at the paper but as any chronic moocher knows, once you start borrowing stuff...it gets easier and easier. So I "borrowed" this super duper cute sun journal spot from her brand new Bo-Bunny Journaling book...after all it was way cuter than the 200 journaling spots I brought with me and it was just perfect for my LO. Luckily for her the borrowing stopped there because the rest of the stuff in my kit matched perfectly with the stuff I pilfered from her. I'm sure Tina is thankful I'm not a faster scrapper or I might've borrowed more stuff. At the urging of the polite little me I did leave some goodies behind in an effort to repay her kindness so she might actually invite me back... after all she said she was working on another order from 2 peas ;) !

Bittersweet

The family and I just got back from a whirlwind tour (by whirlwind I mean hot and tiring) of the nations capital and waiting for me in da pile o'mail when I returned was the new issue of Creating Keepsakes. Now usually I am super excited to get scrappy magazines in the mail...especially when said magazine sits on top of a week old pile of bills I'd rather not deal with and normally I would have been doubly excited since one of my layouts appears on one of the pages within. But alas (yes I said alas...can you tell I'm reading Harry Potter now) I was not quite as excited as I normally would have been. ***Alert...Debbie Downer Time*** Instead I was a little sad to see the magazine laying on the counter. See the layout that was selected to be published was of my step-dad Jimmie who died suddenly and unexpectedly in April. I had taken the pictures of him on March 19th and did the layout that night and submitted the layout the next morning. On April 2nd I was notified the layout was selected and I was so happy. 11 days later he died. Luckily he saw the original layout and photos before he died and he knew he was going to be in a magazine...unfortunately he never got to see himself in print. So that being said...I knew I would probably cry a little when I opened it and found my layout (which is on page 97 if I haven't mentioned that already) and as predicted when I found the layout I shed a few tears just as I usually do when I stop to think of him. At the same time I smiled. I cried for what I lost and I smiled for what I was fortunate to have. I was fortunate to have an opportunity to take photos of someone I loved doing something they loved and I was fortunate enough to be able to tell a small small part of his story... I was fortunate I scrapped. So like I said...bittersweet.


****note...apparently its been so long since I blogged I forgot how to publish a post...I typed this post on August 14th but apparently I never published it****

Sleeping Beauty

I finally got some scrapping done the other night....woohoo for me...and I wanted to share with you my latest creation. The pic is of my darling daughter...I was hanging around in her room one night and she was wearing the most beautiful pink angora sweater (a hand me down from a very stylish older cousin...if I only the cousin wore my size...sigh) ...well anyways she looked so pretty I told her I wanted to get a picture. My daughter not being very camera friendly decided to play oppossum so to speak and pretended to be asleep when I came back up with my camera. Of course being a true mamarazzi I was completely unfazed by her little tactic and snapped away anyways. She should know I always get my picture one way or another. Hence the title ..which I need to give props to my daughter for...she helped me with it...she didn't like my version...which was "Not Sleeping Beauty"...she thought people would take it as she was not a beauty...like anyone would ever look at that face and think that. She suggested that I add the words "still" "a" in front of beauty to clarify....so of course being the good mom I am I obliged.

The LO was really fun to do. I edited the pic in PSE7 and added a dream effect / soft tint to the photo...thought it looked prettier than the original version and it worked better with the papers I chose. As for the papers...I cannot remember who made either but I loved them both. The star and moon paper is way theme-y for me but it worked perfectly for this LO. I got lucky and found some fuzzy pink velvet stars to use as embellishments. The pretty lace border is actually Mrs. Grossman sticker border...I tinted one piece with pigment ink and layered it under another piece. I used the same pigment ink to color the rolled edge of the paper and tint the edges of my Jenni Bowlin journal spots. I made the title with Thickers, tiny alphas from My Little Shoebox and a clear sticker from Colorbok that I mounted on transparency and used itty bitty teeny tiny pop up dots to raise it up over the Thickers. I even busted out my sewing machine for this LO...all 10 tons of it...I love my machine but it's a total beast and I don't have a permanent home for it so I have to lug it out when needed. I love the little extra ooomph stitching adds...although sewing around the stars had me using some choice 4 letter words by the time I was done. I even used some ribbon from my stash for this LO...only 8000 yards more to use. To finish the LO I used some Kaiser beads as accents for the moon and along the border....my kiddos...AKA the "critics" didn't like the beads on the moon but I decided to ignore them as I often do. Kids...what do they know

Double take challenge, the big reveal

Way back on March 23rd I posted about a Doubles Swap I was doing with my blog buddy, the uber talented, Renee Lamb. What? You don't remember that post? You mean to tell me you all don't have all of my posts memorized. Geez! Well because I'm a nice person (and also can be counted among the seriously memory impaired) I will give you a recap. It worked like this...Renee and I each pulled all sorts of fun scrappy stuff from our stash that we had duplicates of...which by the way in my case was a lot...then we took all the duplicates and did one for you, one for me, one for you, one for me and each made identical kits...in total we each made 4 kits...we each kept 2 and mailed the twins to each other. Got it so far. Good. So once we got our kits the real fun began...we got to scrap with them. Not sure about Renee's take on the kits but I loved them...and I hated them...LOL. The kits themselves were awesome...lots of great papers and embellishments and the second I opened them I started getting a ton of ideas. Problem being I had to find photos to work with my ideas...so not used to working backwards...talk about a challenge. Our intention was to post about 2 weeks after we got them but being that Renee and I are both busy moms 2 weeks turned into 3...3 turned into 4 and well here we are ...30+ days later. But hey all good things are worth waiting for. So it's finally time for the big reveal...time to see what Renee and I did with our matching kits...oh and FYI...I have not seen what Renee did yet and she will see mine for the first time when I post this...exciting right...well it is for us. Your all just along for the ride ;)
so here is the first kit I sent to Renee... Papers: SEI, American Crafts; Journal Spot, Transparency: Colorbok; Rubons: American Crafts; Brads: Creative Cafe; Rubon Letters: Basic Grey; Photo corners: K&Company



and here's what I did with it...I used the back side of the AC paper which was a dark grey and layered my cardstock over that leaving a border. I didn't want to use the "good times" phrase on the journal spot so I tucked it behind a pic and I also wanted to funk it up a bit so I layered the transparency over it to make it a little edgier. Did lots of layering to make the background and hand drew a border to connect my photo corners and brads. I applied the rubons to the brightest paper and fussy cut around them to create the title. Sorry for the wonky colors on all the pictures...I edited these at 2 a.m. ...apparently not the best time to edit pics.



This is the 2nd kit I sent to Renee... Papers, Die Cuts: My Minds Eye; Chipboard flowers: Lil Davis ( I think); Journal Spot: Making Memories; Letter Stickers: Heidi Grace; Tickets: Tim Holtz; Photo corners: Heidi Swapp; cardstock: Bazzil; buttons



and heres what I did with this kit... the whole kit was really matchy matchy and the colors were on the sugary sweet side which I didn't really realize when I put it together so to funk it up a bit I used black and white photos and put the photos and title at angles. Some quick layering and voila ...done.



Here is the first kit I got from Renee...totally loved it...more My Minds Eye and lots of cool embellies to play with...

 

and here's what I did with it... had to go way back in my albums to find pictures that would work for this LO...that's my cutie pie daughter way back in 2003. I decided to something a little funky with the orange paper and did a large cut out frame then I fussy cut some flowers from the patterned paper and scattered them across the LO. I needed some more embellishments so I cut off the cute graph paper portion of the "fun times" journal spot and used it to make the bracket near the title and a cute scalloped circle.



and here's the 2nd kit I got from Renee... this kit was so pretty but the colors stumped me at first. Can't remember who the papers were from...journal spots: K&Co; thickers: American Crafts; cardstock: Bazzil; bling: michaels...not sure about the rest.



And here's what I did with this kit...which by the way was the hardest for me to work with but ended up being my favorite kit of them all. Because I was working with a variety of colors...brown, red, ivory, aqua and orange...I decided to use some various photos with a variety of colors as well. These are pics I took for my niece for her senior photo shoot...isn't she just gorgeous. When I first started the LO I didn't have an idea for the arrangement but since this weeks Lizzie K Challenge on ClubCK was to work with grids I decided to do my LO in a grid...totally worked for this LO. I layered 2 of the journal spots to create a background for my simple title and used the other one as a border for one of the photos. Cut up the prettiest paper and put a few pieces in between the pictures and then used the other paper to create a fun border. then I stitched around the whole cluster to add a little more red to the layout. The white white of the letters and buttons didn't work for my LO so I inked them both. I had the hardest time working with the flowers and the fleur de lis...had no clue where to put the fleur de lis and I rarely work with flowers and was having a heck of a time getting an arrangement I liked. Finally got a brainstorm on how to use both...you can see the close up shot of what I did below.



here's what I did with the 4 flowers and the fleur de lis that were in the kit... I cut the fleur de lis in half to make them look like leaves and I layered the ivory flowers to create the large flower and then made buds with the 2 red flowers...I will be posting the how-to for the flower on my blog tomorrow.



With the exception of the little letter stickers on the last LO, some inks and border punches, I didn't use any other product on my layouts except for what was in the kit. I also managed to use every element that was provided in each kit in some way.
This was totally fun and a wicked challenge...glad that its done and so looking forward to doing it again...hint hint...if you have your own blog and are interested in trying this challenge just let me know.
Now I'm off to check Renee's blog to see what she did...can't wait to see but I'm betting they're all amazing.

Wanna Know What I Can Do?

I can take off my jeans without unbuttoning or unzipping them. Cool ..huh! No I'm not Houdini and no I don't work in a business that requires me to take off my clothes quickly. I can do this amazing (yes I think it's AMAZING) feat because ....I HAVE LOST 25 POUNDS (that so deserved all caps). So hands up in the air ladies and give me a woot-woot! I've been eating better and exercising since the first of the year. I've swapped my double stuff for chocolate rice cakes (which by the way are super yummy) and I'm eating enough veggies to make the bunny in my yard jealous. It's taken longer than I thought but I finally made it to by first big number. When I first started dieting at the first of the year I was losing weight so fast I thought I would be a size 6 by now. Then BAM...I hit that brick wall of dieting commonly known as a plateau...which by the way in Latin is Dietus Haltus...it was so majorly aggravating...what worked for 6 weeks for some mysterious reason stopped working at all. UGH! Finally made it past what is sure to be the first of many plateaus and started to lose again...much slower than originally planned but hey as long as the numbers are going down that's all that matters. Truth be told they probably would've gone down a little faster if not for a few slips here and there...nothing big...an occasional double stuff....a few cocktails when I went out...skipped the treadmill on a few occasions...oh well life can't be all celery sticks and fiber bars. On the plus side after every slip (and the expected self imposed guilt) I got right back to it. And now after all that huffing and puffing on the treadmill and gnawing on carrots I have finally hit my first big number...25...sigh...love that number.

Onto the next 25 (funny how that number sounded better a second ago).

Here's a layout I did to celebrate my big achievement...