U & Me

"What fun it is to have a sister to love, play with, and pick on!" I had so much fun making this layout which uses a ton of new things I got today. I broke down and got a cropadile... yes I feel like the last scrapper to get one, lol. It was on sale for just $20 and it included a cute case that was filled with the big eyelets. Plus it's green which matches my desk organizer. Now if I could just get a desk for my scrappin' lol. Uses some new Making Memories and Bug in a Rug paper I got today, also on sale, as well as the swiss dots embossing on some of the green paper. I got a cuddlekids flower die set on sale as well (aren't I just a savvy shopper ^_~) and used it for these cute flowers. The & is covered chipboard by rusty pickle and the alphas are a die cut set by Bug in a Rug. It's so fun to work with papers that coordinate even if they aren't from the same company. I used lilac mist CTMH cardstock for my base and the fun circles are cocoa CS. Stitching done with good old fashioned embriodery floss and the perfectly matching ribbon is from my secret sister. Window circle charms are in the center of the flowers and they are all pop dotted as well as the title. Not only did I use a bunch of fun new stuff, this is my first layout using my new Page Maps book I got the other day, yay!

Tagged

I'm sure you all know by now just how bad I am at proscratisnating playing along when I get tagged, lol. Nicole (not my SBS4 sister Nicole, this is another one ^_~) and Clearly Inspired tagged me with the 7 random facts tag a week or so ago. I already played and am being lazy so I'll just link the post here so you can click and see my answers if you want. And Seleise and Inkey Pingers gave me this award. It's called the Pico award.



There are 5 rules attached to this and they are:

1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte y Pico" blog , so everyone will know the origin of this award.
http://arteypico.blogspot.com/

5) To show these rules.


So I'm tagging :

Sparkle - she is always creative and is constantly involved in the online community.
Jules - she works in a scrap store! How fun must that be :D And she's so up to date on all the fun new scrappin' trends.
Nona - she's an awesome lady who's creativity is so very inspiring!
Y.Poulsen - she's such a wonderfully encouraging woman and is also another lady who is just so creative with our CTMH products
Nicole - another amazing CTMH gal. I love seeing pages of her boys since it's so different because I have girls ^_~

Love you ladies! You are always an inspiration! And thanks for the tags girls ^_~ I know it takes me forever to get around to doing them, but I know my little blog means something to someone other than me because of these simple things!

Inspiration Challenge #5

It's hard to not participate in every challenge I see. Sometimes I even mean to make something, even think about what I want to do, but never get around to actually doing it. I'm sure most of you know what I mean. Jena's Inspiration Challenges have been one of the very few that I've been able to keep up on but this is only the 5th challenge she's posted so only time will tell if I can stay up with it. The inspiration piece this time was a box of huggies wipes, the container had pastel yellow paisleys on it. The first thing that came to my mind was some sunkiss yellow paisley B&T that was retired last year from CTMH. The second was playful flourishes. So I set out to look for some photos to match those and found these cute pictures of Caitie posing with one of her many books. Well after that my inspiration changed. I was inspired by her dress and the buttercup paper in Sonata. After that it was 'oh look at that scrap' (the blue butterflies) and 'this would be cute' (another scrap of sonata paper) and before long I even had the page maps layout picked out.

Colors : Lilac Mist, Buttercup, Chocolate

Papers : Life Delights, Sonata

Accents : Primas, fakey dew drops, clear/frosted buttons, dimensional elements

This was fun to make even though I kept getting interrupted. Paul was trying to give me time to do some scrapping but it just wasn't working, the girls wanted my attention still. So I did what I could and finished it late tonight. I finally got my Page Maps book today and spent a good while oogling that (it is so wonderful!!) as well as the online CTMH catty for summer which of course I made a whole other wish list for, lol.

Color Challenge #12

This week's color challenge was inspired by all the bright color combos on the bella forums the past few weeks. After making some fun cards I felt the need to make the color challenge for this week bright! I usually have a really hard time using the bright colors so this was also to get me out of my box ^_~ To play make a project using at least 3 of the colors. If you don't have CTMH colors and want to play just use whatever you have that's close. Please leave me a comment if you play so I can link your artwork to this post as well and have fun!

Pink Carnation
Citrus Leaf
Crystal Blue
Orchard Bouquet


Sue's Flower Card
Jenn's Adorable Elephant Card

My example :

This is one of the very few layouts I've tried that just uses cardstock. It was quite a challenge for me since I LOVE pattern paper. I sanded the cardstock to give it a softer feel and add some texture. The purple journaling mat was embossed with the cuttlebug and then sanded, the pink background paper was scored then sanded as well for more texture. The only embellishment is a single big bloom flower from CTMH that I cut up to fit with the page maps layout that I used. Playful Petals and Serendipity stamp sets were used for the flowers and Extreme Caps was used for the title. I wasn't sure if I'd like the page seeing as in the beginning it didn't seem to flow but the end result turned out super cute!

A couple more Thank Yous and this week's Bella Challenge

Colors : Pink Carnation, Baby Pink, Taffy, Key Lime (BCC21)

Stamps : Bubblebella, From Me to You

Accents : Fakey dew drops :D, ribbon, white brads, cuttlebug birds embossing folder

I just love using my bellas to make cards! They make it so easy to make adorable cards. This was done for this week's sketch challenge (BSC22) and for last week's color challenge. These colors are so fresh and fun together and it's such a treat to have Sparkle doing the Bella forum color challenges because she also puts the CTMH colors on there as well, so no more trying to compare and hunt down the closest color! Yay ^_~

This one uses one of those adorable house mouse images that my secret sister sent me and also some ribbon she sent. I was following an older SCS sketch challenge and after I made it I realized I should have just aligned the main image on the left like I had wanted to in the first place, but it's still cute and the only person that will really notice is me. Uses some scraps from the old CTMH Lazy Days paper pack, garden green buttons, white waxy flax, and a cute thank you charm I got on clearance at Joanns (12 for $1). And there is a lot of coloring to do on these little mouse images, lol. I'm so used to coloring bellas that this was quite a feat for me and I was half tempted to just leave the rest uncolored after finishing the mouse and pencil.

And this one was just me experimenting. I tried random stamping again and found I am still not too good at it. I know the old addage practice makes perfect but I hate wasting paper on bombed efforts, lol. A little galaxy gold distressing on the embossing and around the sentiment though you can't tell at all in the picture. It's quite subtle in real life as well. The gold glitter with my glue pen really came out on the butterfly and I hope to get some gold wire later to create some antennae for the butterfly since I cut them off while cutting her out, lol. Colors are Vineyard Berry, Topiary, Bamboo, and Desert sand and I used the Butterfly Kiss and For Every Occassion stamp sets.

Bella Challenge Cards

I love my bellas, really I do! And they have been neglected lately since I've had the scrappin' bug the past month or so. But I really need some specific cards right now. I realized that I used up all my thank you cards in my stash so I decided to settle down and just make some cards. I wasn't in the mood at first so I did the past sketch and color challenges that I've missed on the bella forum on SCS. After I got started I had so much fun! The color challenges were really a challenge and I still have this last week's challenge to do. The sketches were just what I needed, I love not having to worry about the design and just being able to create and have fun with the card. So here they are along with one card that I made just out of scraps from some scrap pages.

For BSC17, and BCC16 challenge. The colors were to use rusty oranges and purple. I instantly picked up a gardenbella image I got from my SBS4 secret sister and these scraps. The orange CS is textured though you can't much tell in the pic. Bella colored with pencils and all CTMH paper and embellies used. I wanted to stamp thank you some where but figured it was fine and I'd just stamp the inside. Papers were the retired garden b&t and enchanted, the color scheme being pansy purple, goldrush and autumn terracota.

Made this one for my niece's birthday coming up this next month. She's going to be nine so I didn't want too kiddie of a card for her but still wanted something fun. Used the BSC18 sketch and the BCC17 colors which were olive green and purple. The image is from a RAK that Sue had sent me and the glitter flower stickers were from my secret sister. Uses more of the retired b&t, this one the cozy set and also uses a small piece from the paper garden pack. Colors are Olive and petal.

I was actually really hesitant to make this card. I loved the colors : Crystal Blue, Buttercup, and Chocolate (BCC18), but the sketch to make a tent topper card (BSC19) really intimidated me. After putting it together it was really easy! Silly me for thinking it was going to be hard ^_~ I used my cuttlebug to emboss the flowers on crystal blue CS and used more of those fun fakey dew drops. The image is another from my secret sister. This was the only card I made that I don't have an immediate use for. But I'm sure someone is bound to have a baby boy soon enough, lol.

These colors (BCC19) seemed like a real challenge and the minute I saw them I thought of Super Why! lol. So I had to use a superbella image (another RAK image from Sue though I already have this bella ^_~). The sentiment was printed out using my computer and the classic 'super you to the rescue' saying from super why. I would have used the swiss dots for embossing, if I had it. I've been waiting and waiting for it to get in stock here and I'm starting to think I'm just going to have to order it online. Also used the BSC20 sketch. This is going to be for my MIL. She's always there to help us out and this last week it was really great to have her house to stay at even if we did only stay one of the days.

This one is for my friend Julie. Both her and her hubby make the BEST food! Really, when we go there for dinner it's better than dining out, lol. This last time Julie made stuffed pork chops. It was soooo good! So this is for her, I even gave the bella red hair like Julie even though it's not curly and Julie almost never wears a ponytail, lol. I used the colors for the Bella 20 challenge and the 21 sketch challenge.

And this one was made from some strip scraps I had. I really had no idea what to do, lol. It very different from what I usually try to make but I think it turned out kind of cute. It reminds me of a quilt or country home stuff. So that's what I did this past week, 4 layouts and 6 cards ^_~ Not to bad and I have to admit it was kind of nice just making one post for the week. I also got to read a short novel, The Dream Thief, which is nice since the last book I got to read was in September! I love reading but feel I rarely have the time and my girls LOVE to lose my place and steal my bookmarks. Hopefully I can do better this year than the last. I miss it so much, I must have read over a dozen novels when I was preggo with Audrey but since she's been born I've only read maybe 5 or 6 and she's almost 2 1/2 years old now! Yikes!