Seize the Cupcake!

Supplies : Pattern Paper - Basic Grey; Cardstock - Bazzil; Flowers - Prima; Brads and markers by CTMH; Sentiment printed from my computer

This card was made for one of the challenges on the bella forums this weekend celebrating Em's birthday :D The challenge was to use 3 embellishments and 7 layers. It was crazy for me to use so many layers on the card but I did it, lol. When I finished though, I realized I had put 4 embellishments on instead of three. Since my card face was REALLY glued down to the card base I just pulled off the second flower since I knew I wouldn't be able to get the brad off without tearing something up. My coloring wasn't the greatest on this one, I think I should of used my pencils instead but oh well. She came out all right :D Anyway, enjoy the card and have a fantastic Tuesday!

Road Trip

Supplies : Pattern paper and Elements by My Minds Eye; White Cardstock and brads by CTMH; Remarks and Thickers stickers by American Crafts; Flowers by Prima

Thirty two photos scrapped on 5 pages in 3 1/2 hours. I think that is a record for me, lol. With inspiration from the July Scrapbooks Etc. magazine and the Share and Tell albums from Pebbles, I whipped out these quick and easy layouts for a trip we took to The Shoe Tree last year all in a single evening. This first page is a twist on the inspiration layout I found and the second page I simply trimmed the photos so that they would have a little bit of matting and used the basic concept that the photo sheet protectors use. There are 12 photos between these two pages. I used the new Breaking Free paper by My Minds Eye for a dash of color on these mostly white layouts. I love all the white on these because it doesn't compete with the photos which were a multitude of mish mashed colors and items. Caitlyn's shirt ended up being the inspiration for the papers to use. The set matched not only the color but the theme of her shirt as well even though I didn't use the Hawaiian flower or surf board paper in these particular layouts.

The girls didn't want their pictures taken when we went. I got only a few keeper shots of them and Audrey even completely hid her face a bunch of times, lol. I kept the one where you could see her smiling behind her hands. These pictures throw me off a little because they were taken last summer, but the girls don't look so much bigger now than in the pictures (even though I know they are ^_~). The main thing is their hair. Their hair has gotten pretty long now and the other day when Paul's sis asked Cait if she wanted it long or chopped off Cait said "Chop it all off!" I guess that means she misses her shorter hair, lol. Audrey doesn't seem to mind either way but now that her bangs have grown out to chin length I might just get hers bobbed as well. Anyway, I'll be posting the other 2 page layout on Wednesday. Have a happy Monday and thanks for stopping by!

Merry

Supplies : Paper, Ribbon, and bird by My Minds Eye; Glitter paper by Doodlebug; Chocolate buttons by Papertrey Ink; Snowflake punches by Marvy

Sparkle's extra challenge this week for our Christmas cards was another sketch. I love sketches, they take all the guess work out of my cards and this time I decided I wanted to try something different than my usual stamped image card. All the papers were from the Snowed In set. I let the 'merry' text on the paper take place of a stamped image and then used the little bird from the accessory sheet to sub in for the circle. This is such a different style than I'm used to making but I had a lot of fun with it and it was so nice to finally cut into these papers and play with them. I'm such a silly scrapper, I buy papers I love and then 'save' them for that perfect layout, lol. But now I have tons of paper and I'm sure I'll just fall in love with more each season so I'm trying to break that inhibition and use those papers I adore instead of trying to save them. Anyway, don't forget to check out Sparkle's post for the sketch and the other cards! Have a fabulous Sunday!

Kinibellarific!!

Supplies : Kinibella by Stamping Bella; Cardstock, cocoa and vanilla creme markers, ocean ink, Friendship alpha, small white flowers and big red brad by CTMH; Paper by Creative Imaginations? and Pebbles; brads by Queen Co.; white flower by prima; other markers by sharpie; white gel pen; coluzzle mini oval;

Here's my card for this week's Bellarific Friday challenge which was another fabulous sketch though I did condense it a bit to fit to the standard size! I've been hunting down my summer RAK images to play with and she was perfect for the challenge. Kini made a wonderful mood card as I've been taking the girls out swimming. While I may not wear a bikini I still feel pretty cute when I take them to the pool in my sporty one piece and bright tote bag. Of course my little minis totally outshine me, lol, but I don't mind in the slightest :D Everyone have a great weekend and thanks for stopping on by!

Singing Monsters

My mom sent some fun stuff this last month, one thing in particular that the girls really loved was the package of modeling magic by crayola. Before I knew it I was making these cute little guys for them while they made everything from snakes to aliens to balls and fruit, lol. We were using the plain white so after they dried we colored them in with their crayola markers. They did the initial coloring and then after Cait saw me helping Audrey fill in the gaps she decided that I needed to color hers for her too, lol. The orange monster was pretty quick, but Cait wanted 3 layers of blue on hers before she thought it was good enough to be done! I used my CTMH markers just to fill in some of the joint gaps and then sharpies for the mouth, eyes, and the final coat of blue on Cait's monster. Before the modge podge the orange monster had deep pink spikes and the blue monster had purple spikes, but as we were putting it on the colors started to bleed into each other making them a bit more red and closer to blue on the other. Not that the girls minded the next day, all they cared about was that the monsters were dry and they could play with them.

Here are some close ups of the monsters if you click on the pictures. They are actually pretty small, a little less than half the size of a my little pony. The modge podge really glues the joints tight together. I took inspiration for their faces from the Eek! A Monster stamp set (the mini monster) by My Cute Stamps. I've been oogling this darling set not just for little boy cards but for my girls as well since they like monsters (at least cute ones anyway ^_~). It cost us nothing to make these since all the stuff we had on hand and my mom sent the modeling foam and we got two days of creative fun making them, plus all the time they've been playing with them this past week which is a lot! Anyway enjoy these little critters and have a good day!

Have a Hoot of a Day

Supplies : wise owl and bellies, retro backgrounds, and buttons by PTI; cardstock, ink, and ribbon by CTMH; jute (rak)

Just a simple and quick card using the splitcoast #231 card sketch. I was feeling like making something a bit more earthy and masculine and using the sketch as a jumping point, when from there. I think if I wasn't so over conscious about making guy cards they would probably be a whole lot easier for me to make. Anyway, instead of thinking about making a masculine card I tried to think more about making a nature card and I think little owly turned out alright :D Enjoy and have a terrific Thursday!

Funny Girl

Supplies : Paper by Scenic Route, Cosmo Cricket, Basic Grey, and My Minds Eye; Prima flowers; Thickers letter stickers by American Crafts; Cardstock by CTMH; Brads by Basic Grey

Another fun bright page using the IB sketches. I'm loving bright summery colors right now and am hoping to get to use some of my new summer papers soon. I'm excited for Christmas (I know totally random subject change) because we are redoing the girls' room as their big Christmas present and the colors are bright and fun like summer. The palette is varieties of pink and purple for the main colors and a dash of spring/lime green. Their bedspreads are reversable huge dots so that their beds aren't too matchy matchy and Caitlyn's features purple sheets and bedskirt, while Audrey's is pink. There is still a little bit of the garden theme that we had before. Butterflies for both, lady bugs and bird/owls for Audrey, and then a little bit of rockstar thrown in for Caitie. Cait has really been into Hanna Montana. She doesn't watch it, but she knows who she is and is big into the rockstar thing right now, lol. Anytime she sees a toy guitar she wants it and she can spot Hanna Montana stuff a mile away! I've been picking up the stuff here and there so that it's not one huge purchase (which is why I'm starting so early ^_~) and I think they'll have a blast decorating their room Christmas morning before we go to Nana's that afternoon. Anyway, enjoy the layout and have a bright and happy Wednesday!

Tube Time Bella

Supplies : PMSabella from Stampingbella; Sentiment by CHF; Paper by Making Memories; Cardstock, Markers, and Brads by CTMH; Flowers by Prima; White Gel Pen

A few days after making my bitty bloom card the craving to play with my bellas struck again so I got on the splitcoast forums to get some inspiration and picked up the #78 bella sketch challenge to play with. It seems like forever since I've paper pieced anything and I have to admit that even though a couple parts of the couch were a pain in the butt, it was fun. PMSabella was one of the first bellas I got though I always see her more as movienightabella or tubetimeabella. This has been me every other night after the girls go to sleep. Well, both Paul and I but they don't have a fella to match her. It seems like since we've had kids the only time we really get to spend together is after 9pm, lol. Anyway, we'll stay up to watch a show together, usually a netflixed series. Right now we've been alternating House and Battlestar. Other times we'll just watch a movie :D Enjoy and have a good Tuesday!

Too Stinkin Cute

Supplies : Paper by Cosmic Cricket, Collage Press, and Basic Grey; Cardstock by CTMH; Cardstock butterfly by Basic Grey; Thickers Letters by American Crafts; Felt Flower ribbon by We R Memory Keepers

These are some of my favorite spring pictures I took of Audrey this year. Probably because this is one of my favorite long sleeve shirts of hers. I had to get it a size bigger since we found it in January so that she could wear it again this fall, lol. She's such a cutie! This was one of those days where she was a camera ham, which isn't very often. Usually Caitlyn is my little model, posing for camera and being an all around diva (both the good and the bad, lol!). I used the #21 Inspired Blueprints sketch for this layout. I still need to get #17 and both of the sketches for this month to be all caught up. It's nice that they usually only put out 2 sketches a month. It's a scrapbooking challenge that is easier for me to keep up with and if I fall behind it's pretty easy to catch up as well. Anyway, that's all for today :D Have a happy Monday!

Warm Wishes

Supplies : Snowfall Additions and chocolate buttons by Papertrey Ink; Figgy Pudding paper by Basic Grey; Glittle paper by Doodlebug; ink by CTMH; jute; Marvy snowflake punch

I got a little mixed up with how the extra challenge on Sparkle's Christmas Card Challenge works and my kitty card actually uses the challenge for last week. So I whipped together another card using the sketch challenge for this week which works out great since I can always use more Christmas cards :D The mitten was stamped first in heavenly blue then I rolled the stamp in barn red and stamped right over my blue mitten. Then I added the snowflake and sentiment for a quick non-coloring card. Glitter snowflakes and some rustic buttons finish it off. I made Paul's favorite cookies today which are ginger chewies and the smell of them in the house along with the Christmas music playing right now (Barlow Girl) makes it feel so much like wintertime in our home. Audrey was also feeling cold and wanted to wear her poofy winter jacket instead of using her blanket so I had a little snow bunny running around the house which was icing on the cake, lol. We've definitely been having a fun and interesting Father's Day today! Everyone have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Don't forget to visit Sparkle's Post for her week #29 Christmas Card Challenge and the links to the other players!

A Kitty Christmas

Supplies : Kitty by Penny Black; Paper by Basic Grey; Sentiment by PTI; Buttons and markers by CTMH; colored pencils, gamsol, and white gel pen; jute

I finally got myself back in gear and created a Christmas card this week for Sparkle's weekly challenge! The added challenge this week was to use a Christmas stamp that you haven't inked up yet. I haven't inked up any of the cute little animals in this set until now, mostly because even though I think they are darling, I'm a bit intimidated of coloring them in, lol. I ended up using both markers and colored pencils and the kitty didn't really need as much fuss as I thought. For the card I used the splitcoast sketch #214 seeing as I'm still not quite back into the groove to be making cards completely on my own again, lol. Paul is getting spoiled today with silly stuff from the girls and I and I hope everyone else is having a fun Father's day too! Enjoy and thanks for stopping by. Don't forget to hop on by Sparkle's Blog for the challenge and links to the other cards!

Baby Bitty Blooms

Supplies : Bitty Blooms stamps from Stampingbella; Pattern Paper by Making Memories; Ribbon and Sentiment by Papertrey Ink; Cardstock by CTMH; Colored Pencils and Gamsol

Fancy me making another card, eh? I reorganized my bella collection and was inspired to play with some so I looked up the bellariffic challenge and gave it a shot. The square quartet threw me off a little but then I thought I haven't used my bitties in a while and they would make such a cute baby card. I used my pencils with gamsol this time for coloring. This has got to be my favorite card I've made with these stamps so far. Enjoy and thanks for visiting!

All American Boy

If you got a new post message for posts that aren't here I'm sorry. Last night Blogger started publishing my new scheduled posts right away and then gave me a bunch of errors. It seems fixed now but since I had to just delete and remake my future posts I think the google reader might still display the deleted posts. Nothing terrible, you'll just get to see what's coming up this next week, lol. Anyway onto the card :D Marcia's sweet RAK was just in time for me to make my nephew his birthday card. I don't really have many masculine stamps and making cards for guys, even little boys, is a pretty tough challenge for me. She sent not only this darling image, which is so my nephew (he's totally all boy), but also some darling boyish paper too so putting together a card wasn't nearly as difficult for me as it usually is. I used the twisted bella challenge, which is to use the BSC70 sketch and red, white, and blue, for the inspiration of this card (I flipped the sketch upsidedown). His birthday is close to the 4th so the colors were just right. Since I haven't colored in so long I thought I might mess up a bit, but he came out darling. I used my CTMH markers and then a white gel pen for highlighting. The cardstock, clear stars, and pewter nail heads are what I used from my stash and are all CTMH. I hope you all enjoy seeing a card finally after all these layouts ^_~ Have a fabulous Friday!!

Spoon

Supplies : Dot and Stripe Paper and Kitchen Jouraling prompt by My Minds Eye; Ice Cream paper by Basic Grey; Thickers by American Crafts; Ribbon unknown

Time flies when you have kids! This was another redone page of a layout that was waiting to be finished. All it needed was the journaling and I'm sure I made it almost 2 years ago. This was back when I kept reading that to scrapbook more productively create your layouts then go back and fill in the journaling. Well, that happens to be a method that really doesn't work for me as I have quite a few layouts that ended up never getting the journaling put in. Apparently I'm one of those people that needs to finish something completely before moving on otherwise I won't get it done. This was one such layout and I didn't like the way the theme and pictures seemed lost in the monochromatic purple page I had created so I created a new one, this time using one of the newer Pagemaps sketches. Instead of matching the page to the colors in the pictures I took the theme and went with that. This layout was so quick and simple, but the papers were so busy I didn't want to add anything more to it. Even the journaling was fast "1 Spoon + 1 Bowl + Rice Cereal = an afternoon of tasty messy fun! @ 6 months" The craziest part for me was that I was doing a baby layout! I haven't done baby pictures in so long as I tended to scrap them as soon as I got them to stay caught up. Plus with all the baby naps, it makes it easier to carve out some mommy time. No naps + no school = no mommy time, lol.

Goodies

Pat gave me this darling lemonade award this past month. She's such a sweet heart! Thank you!

The rules of the award (to pick up the Lemonade Stand Award): Comment on this blog. Cut and paste the award logo and use it in your own blog. Nominate 5 to 10 blogs you feel show great attitude and gratitude. Link to your nominees within your blog post. Comment on their blogs to let them know they've received the award. Link back to the person who gave you the award to show your appreciation. So I'm sending this darling lemonade stand along to Jenn, Sparkle, Laurel, Vicki, Kathi, and Vicki W. Thanks gals for inspiring me time and again, not just in the crafting world but life in general! And thank you Pat for this super cute award!



And Deborah gave me this pretty award.

1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.

2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

I nearly fell out of my chair when I read to award 15 other blogs, lol. I haven't blog hopped in a long time and when I do get the chance to surf online it's usually all my same old favs ^_~. So I took this opportunity to go to my favorite bloggers' sites and see what blogs they look at and I found some awesome blogs out there!

1. Amy - Awesome cards and projects! Her site will get your creative juices going!
2. Katie- Fun layouts and Cards! I love it when there is both!!
3. Jacilynn - Cards and more cards! The first post I saw was Geemaneez and it is one amazing card!! Check out all the fun details on that!
4. Stephanie - Cute cards, pretty cards, cards galore! The first couple posts are summer cards :D
5. Carolyn - Exciting cards and fun projects. This Firecracker Project totally gets me in the mood for the 4th!
6. Jennifer M - A variety of cards and layouts! Some stamping cards, some not, and all amazing!
7. Amy T - These cards are stinkin' cute!! The U Go Girl and HB2U coffee are a couple of my favs so far looking through!
8. Sarah - Is this CTMH stuff? Really?! Fresh designs with Close to My Heart stamps - I love it!
9. Suzanne - Sweet, lush cards with darling images! What's not to love :D
10. Maren - Fun eye catching cards! Fresh inspiration all over her blog!
11. Melissa - Pretty, pretty, pretty!! The projects here are gorgeous!
12. Valerie - Beautiful to simply cute and all exquisitely colored her site is filled with card eye candy!
13. Daniel - Fun projects and lots of pics of her little cutie. This is my favorite post so far, love those colors!
14. Lesley - Cards, projects, layouts! She's got a little of everything and they are all gorgeous!
15. Karen - Tons of bright and fun image cards! Plus she shows you what copics she used :D

These awards are such a treat, thanks ladies! Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful wednesday!

Hair Do

Supplies : Base paper by My Minds Eye (Penny Lane); Green Floral and Brown Swirl Paper and Green Flourish Sticker by Pebbles; Glitter Letter Thickers by American Crafts

It's always fun when your girls want to play hairdresser with your hair. Messy but fun, lol. This was another redo layout. The pictures were originally on a 2-pager that I never completed and was coming back around to finish up but I just wasn't feeling good about it, probably because I had put it together over 6 months ago and my style is constantly changing. So I redid the layout, this time cropping the photos more and fitting it on to a single page. I used a simple photo collage to keep the busy pictures from overwhelming the page. There are so few photos of me and most of them I think look a little funky, lol. But I do want my girls to have pictures of me with them so funky as I think they are they are all getting scrapbooked. I think it would help if I knew how to teach Paul to take better photos. Even though both of us are hit and miss with our pictures, I take tons more than he does so more of my off shots still look okay, lol. Anyway, I remember how much fun the girls and I had this particular time. My hair was so gross afterward but I think that just made it more funny. I learned the hard way to not let the girls use styling products in my hair and they use water in spray bottles now instead of the real thing, lol. Have a happy Tuesday and thanks for stopping by!

Ink

Supplies : Paper by Pebbles Inc., Sassafras, Creative Imaginations, Scenic Route, and My Minds Eye; Sheer Dots by K I Memories; Chipboard by Basic Grey; and Thickers by American Crafts

First off I'm sorry for being such an absent blogger. During this past month I've planned and hosted a bridal shower for my SIL, gone to her wedding, my other SIL had hip surgery, we went up north again for another appointment for Paul (they took pictures of his optical nerve and scheduled another appointment with the neuro-opthomologist), and Paul got a concussion this past week trying to rescue Cait's frisbee. Plus I'm totally going crazy with Cait out of school, lol. I can't wait for her to start Kindergarten! Anyway, I have been able to get a little crafting done here and there but haven't been able to get it posted. Now that things aren't too crazy I'm scrambling to get some posts ready for you all :D

This layout is actually a redo, something I rarely do though you are going to see more of them in the next couple posts. The page had some chalk paint on it that seeped through the paper over the past couple years and the original layout was all but ruined. I had pulled it out of the album months ago to keep it from hurting any other pages and set it aside to work on later. I used a January '09 Page Maps layout for this one and flipped it horizontally to cover up some damage to the photos that happened when I was trying to remove them from the page. This pictures are from my old film camera and though my negatives are organized I really didn't want to get reprints if I didn't need to. I like this one so much more than the original. Perhaps I should have done some before/after photos but I didn't think about it before disassembling the layouts.

I also want to share this darling snail mail surprise I got in May from Marcia, one of my SBS4 sisters. She sent some cute paper samplers, a couple darling stamps, pearls and rhinestones, and a bunch of fun images for me to play with along with a gorgeous card that she made. Thank you so much Marcia this is such a treat, I'll be playing with these real soon ^_~. And realizing that it's Sunday today, I also need to get back in gear with Sparkle's Christmas Card challenge. I've fallen pretty far behind so I'll just be starting with the newest one next week. I haven't had my evening crafting time lately but I'm hoping now that things seem to have settled that I can get it back again. Anyway, thanks everyone for sticking around. It was fun to come back and see that I even have a couple more readers subscribed even though I haven't posted in a month! Have a fabulous Sunday!