I'M THRILLED!!!

I have been sitting on this information for over a month now and am finally able to tell you!!! I am excited to announce that I've been selected as a layout design team member for Sketches: Creatively Yours. My term will run from March 1 through August 31.

I've been hanging out at the site for a little while and have thoroughly enjoyed the little community and the talent and inspiration I find there. I hope you'll pop over and scrap with me!

 

Come on over and meet the other gals announced this morning. I've seen some of their work and it's beautiful! You won't lack for inspiration!

Our little "country girl"

We had a nice little blizzard here today so what better way to spend my time than at my craft desk? Today I chose some adorable new Kaisercraft Farm Collection that Tina gave me recently.  I chose some photos of Gabby last Spring the day she discovered the boys' tractor next door. She had a blast!

It's hard to believe how different she looks today! She's growing up so fast.

I also used some of the Tim Holtz Core'dinations paper, a Prima flower, Thickers, misc wood embellishment, clip art rooster from my favourite vintage image site - Graphics Fairy.

Enjoy!

Football!

My handsome nephew, Jonathan, is the subject of this morning's post. Using some football paper and Tim Holtz Kraft-Core core'dinations - Nostalgic collection, I was able to put together this page for Tina's Scrapbooking

I had a lot of fun, embossing the stars on the right hand side, the pennants under Jonathan's photo, crumpling and stretching the other piece of blue. Sanding the heck out of it is just an added bonus! I love what the Tim Holtz core'dinations does. That kraft inside is just fabulous for masculine layouts like this one.

It was a good break from all the fun, bright and cute layouts I've been doing lately and I wish my nephews would be free-er with their photos for me to scrap!

Doo Vidins!

Tina gave me Sandylion Disney© Cars Paper to work with  recently. I had no idea what I would do with it beyond knowing that Gabby loved the movie and had the vitamins!

I do love a challenge!

It took me a while to figure out exactly how I wanted to use it. I mean, it's not like I'm turned off by bright colours - especially for toddler pages but this one had me stumped for a while.

This is what I came up with. What do you think?

The "eureka" moment came for me when Tina gave me a piece of Moxxie's "Finish Line" from their Racing line. From there it was a matter of cutting out individual cars - choosing the colours I liked and matting them all on black cardstock and creating this grid.

This whole layout also worked for a challenge over at Sisterhood of Scrap  Did you know that 9 out of 10 people are at risk of having a stroke? I didn't. Check out Jackie's challenge over at the site and see what the other ladies did with it.

Remember to be kind to your heart!

Banana Phone!

Until my darling grandchildren visited me during the month of January, I had never in my life heard this song... I don't know where I was or how unfortunate my poor children's upbringing was, but I'd never heard it.

I will never forget it...

Completed for February LO tag at Scrapshotz using Rosie's Feb CT Challenge-Use a Grid and to complete Challenge #1 to Eat Well over at Sisterhood of Scrap 

I will never forget it because it's "a phone wid appeal"!

Read all about this phenomenon here!

Don't forget that February is Heart & Stroke month. Join the challenges over at Sisterhood of Scrap and take care of yourself and your loved ones.

Till next time. :)

"ACK"!! RAK!!

I can't believe what a goof I can be! I made a massive error on one of the layouts that I uploaded this week. I laughed about it when I noticed it (after my heart started beating again!) because it is irony in the fullest.

I thought about a 'whoa! I can't believe I did that!" post and then thought.. nope.. what I would like to do is to find out if you, dear readers, can spot my boo boo. (It's big, trust me.. not something piddly like a brad misplaced or something like that. It's very obvious..)

It's in a layout I posted since February 13. If you can spot it, email me before the end of the day on the 19th. I'll do a random draw of everyone who can spot the boo boo and send a little RAK your way. Once I figure out what the RAKwill be, I'll post a picture.

In the meantime, happy hunting...

"Vatime Caft"

aka "Valentine Craft".

Our month with our adorable grandchildren included a lot of "cafting". What better activity to keep a busy toddler's little hands engaged in something that she "can" do!

Do you ever have one of those "moments" when it's as if the stars just align? That's how I felt when I was looking through some of those 140 photos my darling husband brought home the other day and came across these photos. I had a flash of inspiration (doesn't happen often some days, but I welcome it when it does!)! On the layout I included the actual "Vatime" that she made for us. We'll remember it forever. :)

Since I'm also working through the Heart Month challenges at Sisterhood of Scrap, it's no wonder that I was able to use
Challenge 4-Cook Healthy RecipesOf course with recipes we need ingredients, so please use these ingredients
on your layout.

a. red
b. black
c. ribbon
d. stitching
e. buttons
f. flowers
THEN I realized that I could also combine Gail's January challenge from over at Scrapshotz.  And then as if THAT wasn't enough, I also used Sketch #5-12 from Sketches: Creatively Yours!
I used some old Jenni Bowlin papers and embellies that I received in a Scrapshotz kit a few years back. I did the journaling on the back of the "ADORE" card. It feels good to be using them finally! The photo doesn't do the paper justice. It's really not that "pink" but hey... there you have it.

Hope you enjoyed this little "heart attack" of mine. :)

Cardstock everywhere!

Cardstock isn't my usual "go to" these days. The longer I scrap, the more I seem to be drawn to lucious patterned papers. It was good to go back to my roots however and create this layout. I found the title and then just HAD to do it! LOL My kids have often griped about their college (all three of mine and my two daughters in law as well went to the same college) so that made this a fun layout to do!

I was stuck last night on how to make it more interesting. I mean, the title is great and all but I for one needed more than that. It hit me then! I could use Wendy's challenge from Scrapshotz AND combine it with a layout challenge from Sisterhood of Scrap. Woot! Two birds with one stone.

Challenge 5-Preventable
80% of heart disease and strokes are preventable, so create a layout using
80% cardstock.
I have to be honest and say that I thought that Wendy's was a dumb challenge <blush> until Wham! It hit me and I couldn't go to sleep last night. I think this may well be one of my newest favourite "things" to do. Not being much of a cardmaker, I don't always have things to do with the many scraps I create in the course of a layout. This is a perfect way to use them up!

I have to be sure and give a shout out to Sisterhood of Scrap this month. The Heart Month challenges are near and dear to me. My father passed away from a massive coronary when he was just 40 years old. I'll be turning 50 this year. When my sister had a heart attack a couple of years back, it really brought home how important heart health is to all my family.  Take care of yours too my friends.

Brown Bears?

Our Christmas this year seemed to have a lot of hats, stuffed toys (mostly belonging to the dog), babies and baby bears. Dh printed off this most excellent photo that was a true joy to work with!

Tina gave us some of Little Yellow Bicycle's "Winter Twig" line to work with this month and I thought this was the perfect paper and photo to go together. :-)

"Winter Twig" from Little Yellow Bicycle, Bazzil cardstock, Maya Road and Prima embellishments, Stamping Up hardware and ribbon, and Prima letters,

I was also able to incorporate a Sisterhood of Scrap challenge

Challenge 8- Sign 2 of a stroke
Another sign of a stroke is trouble speaking so use at least one full
paragraph of journaling on your layout.
If you look carefully you'll see a brown ribbon and journal tag poking out from behind the photo near the top right corner. It has a full paragraph of journaling (which I LOVE to do!) I know, shocker eh?

As always I hope you're having a wonderful day! I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback.

Sharing Some Love

The Liebster Award

You may remember from two days ago, my new friend Julie, gave me this lovely award. I want to share it with a few friends of mine.

Now, contrary to popular opinion, I am *not* the world's greatest blogger (I know, you're shocked!) but I do like to read from time to time. The idea of the Liebster award is to bring attention to blogs with fewer than 200 followers. Love this idea to bring traffic to other bloggers!

  

One of the conditions in accepting the award is to pass it along to five more blogs.  So, in the spirit of good fun I am passing this award along to the following blogs that I love to visit. It was a difficult task to only pick five! I think you'll enjoy the ones I picked, though!  

 Laura-Lee - you're my kind of scrapper. I love your energy and your creativity. I always come away from your blog with smile on my face.

Stephanie - you never cease to amaze and inspire me with your photography. Your dedication to "that perfect show" and your willingness to climb over fences to get it always makes me smile. Thanks for attempting to show me some of the ropes!


 Jaci - how could I *not* include you. I love reading your blogs and your posts. I love watching your kids grow up and love hearing about your art and your walk with God. You are an amazing woman and I'm blessed to call you friend!


 Jen - Seriously, how does anyone expect me to not include you! I am ALWAYS amazed and inspired by your art. Thanks for being willing to show and share!

and of course, Carla, how could I leave you out of this? I don't always get to your blog but love your positive attitude and joyful presence in my life. I love what you create and what you do with it.

For those interested, the Rules are:


1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
2. Reveal your five picks for the award and let them know.
3. Post the award on your blog.
4. Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the blogshare-other bloggers.
5. Finally and the best rule of all..........have fun and spread the love!

Encouraging!

Well as anyone who has been subjected to my whining this past week reference my cold, I have to let you know that:
a) it is getting better every day
b) I'm still tired (exhausted really)
c) I did manage a layout for a tag I was supposedly leading - will show you soon
and

d) best of all, I am the proud recipient of  a Liebster blog award from my new friend Julie over at Glorygirl

Liebster, is German for 'dearest' or 'beloved' but it can also mean 'favorite'

The idea of the Liebster award is to bring attention to blogs with fewer than 200 followers. Love this idea to bring traffic to other bloggers!

  

One of the conditions in accepting the award is to pass it along to five more blogs.  So, in the spirit of good fun I will be going through blogs I love to visit this week. I'm sure it won't be an easy task to only pick five!

 

Stay tuned.

Scrapping again!

Well the upside of my spouse's rude shove to wake me up (and stop my alleged snoring (I have a wicked cold) is that I had extra time to create today. :-)

Again, I'm working on the Sisterhood of Scrap challenges. I did this two page layout for two separate challenges. Gabby's other Papa got her a beautiful little metal sea set for Christmas this year. She had a wonderful time playing tea party with not only her mamma but Murphy's toys as well!

Let me know what you think!

This first is the left side of a double pager layout about the tea set. It was used to satisfy the "Unannounced" challenge at SOS




Right side of the 2 pager. Used Sketches: Creatively Yours current sketch #4-12 at their site this week. It also satisfied the requirements for the Feb 5 colour challenge over at SOS

I hope you enjoyed these layouts as much as I did creating them. :-)

New layout!

Good sunny afternoon to you all! It's a beautiful day out there. I may even take my poor neglected puppy for a walk. He's feeling pretty lonely since Gabby and Hugo left. They were the perfect height for him to play with! They weren't always the most gentle but he liked them anyway. :-)

Finally got back in my scrap room this morning and finished up this ayout that's been sitting on my desk since mid-January! Just getting time to work on it was a trick for sure.

I'm interested in your thoughts. I thought I'd take boring old hockey photos and paper and twist them a little for a Valentine's type layout.  Let me know what you think of it. :-)



Completed for DT work at Tina's Scrapbooking and also a challenge at Sisterhood of Scrap. I used Creative Scrappers sketch #192 for inspiration.



January Layouts

Well despite all the fun and craziness around here this past month, I did manage to get a few layouts done. I'm pretty pleased with them!



Done for a Layout Tag at Scrapshotz as well as for a challenge at SOS a "doublemint" challenge - use two sets of two!



done for a challenge at SOS - Layers... I have 9 of them!

another challenge from SOS - this timea layout showing movement!

I hope you like the little peek into what I've been doing.

In the near future you'll see layouts about the crazy busy weeks we've just had. Some of our activities included:

• baking cookies and cakes
• playing with goop
• food colour experimentation
• shaving creme fun
• washing every single plastic dish I own - twice at least
• visiting kitties
• playing with Murphy (who has turned out to be a very good with toddler dog) (poor thing!)
• dancing
• playing in the snow
• singing "Banana Phone" and other fun songs (I'll never get them out of my head!)
• and other miscellaneous activities...

Yes, I did a lot of cleaning this week as well but there are no photos of that! LOL

Enjoy!