My Layout was featured on the Scrapbooks, Etc Facebook page!!

So this morning, I get home and check out Facebook. I was just scrolling down, and catching up on, and then something catches my eye. I look at a picture and I think to myself "that looks like my layout." I look a little closer and I realize that it IS my layout!!! One that I had posted in the Scapbooks, ETC gallery a while back. But there is my 22 Days layout as their Monday Morning Scrapper Spotlight! You can check out their Facebook page here. I originally did this layout for a Scrap Our Stash Challenge. It was to do "THAT" layout. One that you had been putting off or couldn't finish. When these pictures of my twins were taken, it was a tough time. We knew they would be in the NICU, but you always worry how they will do. And for 22 days, we did. These pictures always reminded me of that. So I decided to scrap these pictures. I loved how it turned out, and it has become one of my favorites from this year. I am so very excited that Scrapbooks Etc. featured it and said such nice things about my layout! I knew there was a reason that they were my favorite scrapbook magazine!!! Happy crafting!

Cubs- Layout-17

Since my oldest son played for the Cubs this spring, this month's challenge at Scrap Our Stash was perfect for scrapping his baseball photos!


I cut the strips of paper from scraps from his last baseball layout that I did, plus an old scrap of paper that was from a 4th of July collection. I machine stiched around the edges with some red thread. I used some Cuttlebug embossing folders to make the stars and then just fussy cut around the embossing. The title is cut from the Cricut cartridge, Sans Serif. I added some red staples, and some red and blue brads to finish the page.

This summer has been crazy busy for us, so I hope to catch up on some layouts My boys will be going back to school soon, so maybe I can get back to posting on a regular basis! I have alot of projects that I need to get started on! Happy crafting!

Artists- Layout 16

When I first saw that the June Challenge at Scrap Our Stash, was to use something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue, I thought "I've got this!" But boy was I wrong! I had the hardest time finishing this challenge. I changed pictures two or three times, pulled apart a layout, and then redid it all! I decided to just go with what I have finished, but I may mess with it some more later!
My something old is the Lime Rickey papers by Basic Grey. Something new is the baker's twine that I received as a RAK. Something borrowed is the layout. I found a sketch in an older CK magazine to follow. Something blue is my background, Glimmer Mist, and ink.

Next month's challenge is to use the colors red, white, and blue. Hopefully that will be a little easier! Happy crafting!

Mother's Day Brunch-Layout # 15

Here is my layout for the May Flower Challenge at Scrap Our Stash. I used up a few of my printed paper scraps as the background. I originally made this layout to submit in another challenge for National Scrapbook Day. I really liked the layout, but the subject was not about something that I wanted to put in my scrapbook, (what would you do if you won the lottery). So I took it apart and re-worked it with the picture of me and my twins at their pre-schools Mother's Day Brunch.




I made the crepe paper flower white and then sprayed it with my lime green glimmer mist.
I was also able to use up some flowers, pins, and brads that I had gotten in some swaps!






I will definately put this one in my scrapbook. Happy crafting!

Game Day- Layout 14

I had so much fun over the weekend at A Cherry On Top! They had sooo many challenges, twenty to be exact, classes, games, and lots and lots of awesome layouts uploaded into their galleries! I was able to complete the drink carrier class, one fast scrap challenge, and two layout challenges in between playing games, baseball games, and Mother's Day activities!

I finished this one for Challenge #5, use all caps for your title. A pretty easy one, and since I was inspired to use these pictures, I had to make them fit into a challenge and this was the easiest to do.

My oldest son received the game ball on opening day. And one of my favorite kinds of photos to take is one with a small aperture, a small depth of field. I had my son hold out the baseball so it is in focus and he is blurry along with about fifty other people in the background! Once I saw the photo, it went straight to the top of my "to scrap" pile!!

I used some Fouth of July papers since I didn't really have any Cubs stuff, but it works and I was able to use up some of my stash! The baseball die cut might look familiar. I had a couple left over from the baseball goodie bags that I made for opening day, so I used it on the layout. I have some more great pictures from ball season, so I am sure you will see more of these colors! Happy crafting!

Suntanned toes Layout 13

One last layout for you before a few days off to celebrate Easter!

This layout was for two challenges, the April Bring in the Sun challenge at Scrap Our Stash, and the Counterfeit Kit Challenge.

Everything I used on this layout was from my conterfeit kit. One thing that I was worried about was that all my layouts from my kit would look too similar for my liking. But with all the paper that I added, it was easy to leave some colors out of my last layout to make them look different enough.

For the Scrap Our Stash challenge, we had to use something with sun. I have very few pictures of me at the beach, but I had this one of my feet in the sand. I couldn't help but to think of the start of Kenny Chesney's song, When The Sun Goes Down.

Suntanned toes, tickling the sand.
cold drink chillin' in my right hand.....

Perfect for my picture!

I decided to layer lots of embellies from my kit. And the title is cut from the Don Juan Cricut cartridge.

I hope you have a wonderful Easter! I will see you next week! Happy crafting

Goodbye Glasses Layout 12-Counterfeit Kit Challenge

This is one of the layouts from my counterfeit kit, about my Lasik. My hubby took the picture of me with the creepy looking eye sheilds that I had to wear the first few night. I didn't think about doing a layout until I saw his picture. I had a long list of doctor's orders and lots of eye drops too. And of course, I couldn't forget a picture of my calendar!!

Most of this was from my kit, but I added a couple of scraps of Echo Park paper. The black glitter stickers are from Basic Grey and the transparency is from Colorbok.

I've got one more layout finished, so look for that in a couple of days! Happy crafting!

Tiger Rank-Layout 11

You know I love how my little guy looks in a uniform, and I have the pictures to prove it! These are pictures of when he first started Cub Scouts and when he earned his Tiger Badge. I needed a quick layout for the Cub Scout banquet a few weeks ago. I saw a layout by Joni on Scrap Our Stash here. She did her paper strips the same way, and I loved it! I used my American Crafts letter stickers and my EK Success punch. This picture is not the best, the paper kept curling up. I like how the page turned out and it's one more page done for the year! Happy Crafting!

Jump In-Layout #10

Jump In-Doesn't the water look nice? Especially since it is 20 degrees outside and there's snow on the ground!! Me and the boys went with the Cub Scout's to the local indoor pool last month on another cold winter day. They had tons of fun and it was nice to get out of the house for some playtime after being couped up for a while!!

I made this layout for the Plagerize This challenge at Scrap Our Stash. I took my two favorite parts of the layout and used them on mine. I liked the title and the horizontal strip across her layout. I couldn't bring myself to scrap snow pictures though!!! I also used some of my Midnight Blue Glimmer Mist. I sprayed it right on my paper, but I also used an old painting trick. I sprayed some on my craft mat and dipped an old toothbrush in it. Then just rubbed my finger across the bristles to add extra spray where I wanted it. Beware though, my fingers are still blue after two days!! I also used my Fiskars punch, Tiny Attacher, and American Crafts letter stickers. I am going to keep this one out to help me remember that warmer days will be here soon!!! Happy crafting!

No Cavities-pages 5-8!

Four more pages done!!! I am determined to work through some of my scrap supplies! My shopping has been limited to things for my swaps, and some paper that I needed to finish these four pages!

These pictures are of my twin's first trip to the dentist! I was so worried that they would not do well, but they did great! Maybe it had to do with the tv's on the ceiling playing cartoons, or the treasure box, or the balloon animals that the hygenist promised them, who knows?!?! After some x-rays, the dentist said that they were cavitiy free!

These are the first two page layouts that I have done in a while, so I decided to keep them simple. I used some of the Rough and Tough double sided paper collection from Fancy Pants. The background is a printed distressed paper from Paper Studio along with the brads, and the epoxy arrow stickers. I used my Gypsy to make the title along with the circles. And again, I made a similar layout for my other son.
Thanks for stopping by! Happy crafting!

first day-layouts #3,4

Hey everyone! I am back to my somewhat normal self and ready to start posting again! Thanks to everyone for all the well wishes.

My layout goal this year is to get at least 52 layouts finished this year, so I am going to start posting my layout count to keep me up to date, (and honest!!)

These pictures have been on my desk since August, so I went with it. I had bought this K&I Memories kit from Tuesday Morning a long time ago. It came with chipboard elements, stickers, rub-ons, brads, and a paper pack, all for $7.99. I usually wouldn't buy all that together, but for that price, why not?!?

I used both sides of double sided paper for the strips along the side. For my embellishments I used some of the chipboard shapes, star shaped brads, a homemade epoxy sticker, iRock gems, and a paperclip. On the paperclip, I wrapped some school themed ribbon around the end, and used a glue dot to secure it. I love how it looks! The two paper strips in the upper right are secured with my Tim Holtz tiny attacher. I used the new cartridge Basic Font for the title.

The reason this is layout number 3 and 4 is because I made almost the exact same layout for my other twins' scrapbook. I make the same layout for each of my three boys to save time! Thanks for stopping by! Happy crafting!

New Year's Day Blog Hop-2011 Layout

Welcome to the New Year's Day blog hop! You should have just joined us from Charlotte's blog, Papercraftingchic. I hope you have enjoyed everyone's great projects so far! Here is what I would like to share with you today:



This layout is way out of the norm for me. It has no pictures and it's very girlie! I also do not usually scrap about me or my thoughts, but I enjoyed working on this! And I love it how it turned out! I was able to use up some paper and embellies that I have had in my stash forever! I didn't have any black flowers or ribbon that worked with this layout so I had to make some. You can check out my video on how I did that.






This was the first time that I have included a stick pin in my layout. This one is courtesy of Dollhouse Diva on the Cricut Message Board! She sent me this in a swap and it worked perfectly with this layout, so thanks Diva!!

I cut my title from Cindy Loo, added some bling, and a rub-on by Pink Paislee and I can call this one the done and the first one in my yearly album!

Next up, Somanycrafts


Here is the blogs participating in our New Year's Day blog hop!

Craftyscentiments
Cricutcraftyclare
Ollieanddextersmommy
Tatteredprimitives
Paperrenee
Scrapcavecreations
Papercraftingchic
Papertreats-You are here!
Somanycrafts-Next stop!
Fantabulouslypink
Txscrappermom
Scrappinpalace
Deannaspapercrafts
Wamfamily
Dees-Specialthings
Ink-spirations
Angiespaperpassion
Heart2Handshighlights


Have fun on the rest of the blog hop! Thanks so much for stopping by. Happy crafting!!

Build-Play-Dream

A couple of my goals for 2011 (I'm not going to call it a resolution!) is to scrap more layouts, get my craft room organized, and spend less money. I have decided to combine them and make my goal to scrap ten layouts before buying more supplies! This way I will use up my supplies on hand, save a little money, (maybe) and make me get some layouts done so I can buy new stuff!!

So since I had a little while to myself today, I decided to get to work! These pictures had been on my desk for a while. I loved that my little guy spen the afternoon building this Lego ship and then playing with it all day. He didn't want to put it down and ended up falling asleep with it in his hands!

I took the colors of the Lego ship as the basis for my paper selection. And this was not a color combo that I usually work with! But it was fun to get it put together! I used some paper from Paper Studio and K & I Memories that I have had for-ev-ah! The oldest brads I have in my stash also made a comeback. Thickers, my Uniball pen, and my new Cricut cartridge, Basic Font, finished up the page. Of course the Lego logo is from the box!

Coming up on New Year's Day, we have a blog hop! I can't wait to show you my project with a little tutorial on making a flower and paper ribbon! Hope to see you here! Happy crafting!

7-challenge layout for Scrap Our Stash

This month's challenge at Scrap Our Stash was to complete a birthday project since it was their one year blog birthday. When I started this page, I realized that I didn't have very many pictures of our son's 7th birthday, and I am not sure why I took so few. But I picked out the two I liked the most and cropped them very little to help take up space on my layout. Helping my out on this layout is some yummy paper from Echo Park. Their Little Boy collection is just wonderful! The papers are double sided and I made sure to use both sides of it. I cut circles and halved them along the bottom. I also fussy cut around some of the stars and used them as accents around the page. I also pulled out my iRock gems, an EK Success Slimline punch, and the Star Cuttlebug embossing folder for this one. Hopefully I have enough of this paper left to do some more projects! Happy crafting!

Boys of Summer

Last month's challenge at Scrap Our Stash was to use a sketch by Helen Croft. We had our choice of three sketches to use and I picked this one:




I loved the tall, skinny photos, and they worked well with these pictures from our visit to the beach. I used some of my favorite paper, the Frenzy White Out collection from We Are Memory Keepers. I bought this paper last year and used alot of it, but I loved it so much that when it went on sale for .19 a sheet at Michael's, I had to buy almost every sheet left!! My intent was to use it for a summertime album, but never did. I love it because you can use it for so many different pages, but it really went well with these summer pictures. It's a colorblocked, two-sided paper, so I was able to finsih this page with just one sheet and the background paper.

Some other things that I used for this one;
Fiskars wave punch
Autumn Leaves flourish stamps
iRock tool and gems
Basic Grey chipboard
Studio G stamps

I hand cut the swirl and the sun, but used my Cricut for the title.

Maybe this will give you some warmer thoughts on this cold day! Happy crafting!

Silly Bandz

My boys are crazy about these silly little things. We spent all summer trying to find certain ones; a dragon, Buzz and Woody, glow in the dark. They love to get new packages and go through them. They fight over them and love to get them as rewards. Teachers have even had to tell kids to only trade them at playtime! I don't understand what the obsession is with these, even adults are wearing them! I am sure that they will fade away as most fads do, but I want the boys to remember that these were some of their favorite things over the summer!

Scrap Our Stash has a monthly Pagerize this challenge. A reader submits a layout for everyone to pagerize, lift, copy, what every you want to call it. This is my take on her layout. I turned it to the side and moved the circle. I needed more white space on my layout! I used a bunch of scraps and trims to embellish the side and my EK Success Slim line punch/emboss combo. The paper is from the Target dollar bins of all places! But it worked for these pictures. I used Glossy Accents to attach the Buzz and Woody Silly Bandz to the page. I hope you enjoy it, and if your kids are as crazy about Silly Bandz as mine are, I hope your scrap these for your them! Happy crafting!

22 days

This month's challenge at Scrap Our Stash is to do "that" layout. You know the one that you have been putting off for a while. I knew as soon as I read the challenge, that this would be my layout. I have been putting this one off for three years since my twins were born. They were in the NICU for 22 days and to this day, seeing pictures of them in the NICU with all the wires and tubes, makes me very emotional. I think that it was mommy guilt. You know, when you feel bad about things you can't control. I couldn't do anything to help them get home. I felt bad about leaving my older son to visit the twins, and I felt bad when I had to leave the hospital to go home and take care of my older one. We were very blessed to have two healthy babies, but they were too small to come home! Our hospital said that they had to weigh at least 5 lbs before they could be discharged. I never thought that I would be so happy over an ounce, but every gain made us happy, and every one lost would just be heartbreaking. It was just a very emotional time for me. So I had put this layout off for long enough! I was surprised at how easy I got through this one! Now maybe I can focus on getting some more of their photos in an album.

I hid the journaling on this layout, kinda personal. I used the brackets for the pull tab. I used the LYB Safari line, EK Success slim line punch, and my Cricut for the title. The chipboard accents are from American Crafts. Even though this one was a tough challenge for me, I like how it turned out. Happy crafting!

Outstanding Student Award

My oldest son received the award for most outstanding boy student in his class last year. We were so proud of him and how well he did all year to earn that award. What did he have to say about that? "Mom, I had to miss recess to go to awards practice!" Hah! Little guys and their thoughts. I definately wanted to record this event and what he thought about it all. This layout was a one-hour layout and easy to get done. All the printed paper are scraps. The circle is part of a rub on and the title is from my Cricut using Plantin Schoolbook and Street Sign. The apple is also from PS and I just embellished it a little with my white Uniball pen, my favorite!! This type of layout is showing up alot in my scrapbooks, fast and easy to do! I used to spend days trying to get one layout to look perfect. I am glad that I no longer feel that way and I am just as happy with the results! Try it yourself. You may be able to get alot more layouts done! Happy crafting!!

Handsome Little Devil layout with homemade Glimmer Mist

I was looking for some red Glimmer Mist that would show up on black paper for this layout. My local scrapbook store happened to be closed that day and I wanted to finish this layout without waiting. So I decided to try to make some of my own Glimmer Mist. The first time I tried to make red, it just ended up being pink which didn't show up on the black cardstock. For the next batch I tried white. It didn't quite show up either. I had to add a little more paint to get it to show up, but the overall effect was what I wanted to achieve. I made the spray using a small mister bottle filled 2/3 of the way up with water. I added a drop or two of acrylic paint (or you can use alcohol inks). Then I added a small scoop of Perfect Pearls by Ranger Ink and shook the bottle. If you make your own, a little bit of the Perfect Pearls goes along way, so start small!! You can also use the Perfect Pearls with other techniques, so grab a bottle and try it out! The flower is made using layered circles and an epoxy sticker for the center. All the printed paper is Basic Grey. The title is cut using my Cricut and I added the tail using Design Studio. If you try either the flower or making you own Glimmer Mist, let me know how it turned out! Happy crafting!

Love

Monday's mini challenge #2 at A Cherry On Top was to use three shades of green on your layout or card. I had just printed this photo out of me and hubby at his brother's wedding. The groomsmen all changed into tuxedo shirts at the reception. As soon as I read the challenge, I thought about this picture. I used scraps of some St. Patricks Day paper which had four different shades of green. My embellishment cluster has green and white flowers, a handmade lace flower, clear buttons, a piece of transparency scrap cut into a heart shape, rub-ons, skittles, Dymo label maker words, and Make the Cut letters. I used the words from Jason Mraz's Lucky as the title, but decided to use Love instead of lucky as the main titile to separate it from a St. Patrick's Day layout. The main subject of most of my layouts are of my children, so this was a nice change for me. I hope you like it. Happy crafting!