February and March Pages

So I told you all before that I commited to taking one picture (yeah right...more like 1,000!!!!) of Allie each month and creating a layout for each month of her first year. I started with April (you can see it HERE) and here is my February and March pages. They're nothing fancy, I just wanted them to all coordinate so the supplies may seem familiar. It's the same one as the previous layout just different placement.

I followed sketch #184 over at Pencil Lines. Click the link to see the original sketch.




Here is the March page. I followed sketch #101 at Creative Scrappers. I left out a few things that didn't really go with what I was trying to do, but I LOVE the way it turned out. :) Maybe it's just getting to look at that sweetpea this entire post :)

The Chef

Last week my almost 6 year old decided we HAD to have brownies. So I pulled out all of the ingredients and grabbed the camera. I decided to let her follow along with the pictures (it was a mix from a box) and she did the entire batch all by herself! I just had to supervise the measuring and put it in and out of the oven. This was a scrappy moment for sure!!

Wedding Shower card

The challenge at 365 cards posted Thursday was called 'Front, Back, and everything inbetween.' The idea was you had to create a card making sure to decorate the inside, the outside and the back. Even if it was just a little embellishing...SOMETHING had to be on each side. This is the card I created for my cousin-to-be's wedding shower this Sunday. I used lyrics from their wedding song so that it can be a special keepsake for her later :) I have never decorated anything but the front of the card unless it was a fancy fold card so this was new to me, but I did add some designer paper and solid cardstock to the inside to 'fancy' it up a bit and a 'with love' stamp on the back.

The challenge this week at Fab 'n' Funky Challenges is to dig deep and use some of your neglected stash. Well every single bit of this card came from my own stash. The primas and ribbon can't really be called neglected though, since I put them in 75% of my creations. So I went digging REALLY REALLY DEEP and found a ziplock of 6x6 designer papers that I had received in a swap and decided that since they were at least a year old and I'd not used one single piece....now was the time. All of the papers were so pretty I just couldn't bare to use one. I totally think my new cousin-in-law is worth this gorgeous paper....so I dug it out and....**GULP**....cut it!

Our Love Can Make Miracles....

When I saw the theme at Raise The Bar this week I got very excited. My favorite movie is the Notebook and I thought there would be lots of perfect themes throughout the movie to use to create a page about my hubby and myself. Especially since he's on my good side today after bringing me home fudge. :) When I started weeding through movie quotes though to pick a favorite, I ended up in a totally different direction. Yes it's about us, and our love. More importantly about the legacy our love story will leave behind. I am printing this out as a smaller square to use as a card front for my hubby and I's anniversary :)

...My Loves..

I just finished a few layouts of some of my favorite pictures of my kiddos. The three of them are the loves of my life....I hope it shows in my creations. I tried to tell a story with each layout. Some in journaling, some with the embellies themselves.

This first layout was inspired not only of my favorite picture of my middle child, but a quote I saw online and just LOVED. I'd been searching for a fitting quote to participate this week at My Time to Craft Challenge Blog. I ended up with: "A princess is what you were meant to be, 'cause being sweet comes naturally." I tried to use pretty, yet wimsical supplies to compliment that quote.


This layout is a picture my 5 year old daughter actually took. She asked to take some pictures on Thanksgiving last year and came out with this awesome pic of her big brother. I saw a layout online where the scrapper used the word sunshine but spelled it 'SONshine' since it was a layout about her son. I thought that was super cute, but finished it off with the chorus to 'You are my sunshine'. I couldn't find the type of items I was looking for, so I decided to try to create the feel of a sunny day. I used a sky blue for the background. I layered a grassy shade of green to anchor the picture and strips of dirt colored brown. I even added a snail to make it more obvious it was the ground. The journaling strips are cropped from a cloud print paper. I used a sun embellie on the corner to finish it off.



Last up is the newest member of the family. I just adore this photo of her chubby little cheeks!!! I could just eat them up :) I have commited to take a photo once each month and this is the April photo :) I followed sketch #183 from Pencil Lines

Sweet Escape

I found a fun new challenge blog called, "These A a Few of My Favorite Things." This week the challenge was to scrap about our favorite city. It's a close tie between all of the beach cities in Florida, but if I had to pick a very favorite....it would be Cocoa Beach. We've vacationed there twice and will definitely be going back! I also used the sketch at Sketchy Thursdays to create this snapshot of our favorite summer vacation :)

Have you checked out the new challenge blog yet???

Cinderell-y Cinderell-y

A great card maker is not something I'll ever be, my style is much to simple to be in a league with some of the WOW works of art I see my friends making, but I'm okay with that because I truly enjoy the process. For my daughter's 6th birthday coming up this Friday, she has requested a Cinderella card. I looked at my LSS store and of course they were running very low on their Disney scrappy supplies. So I decided to dig through my own stash knowing with 2 little girls I just HAD to have some princess crud stashed away for a rainy day :) Well...I dug deep and SURPRISE!!! I had all the stuff to make this card in my stash.

I followed the sketch at Crazy 4 Challenges this week because I thought it would fit well with the ribbon I was going to use :). Over at 365 Cards, we were given a recipe of 3 items to include on our card. They were:

1) An item that is more than a year old

These Cinderella stickers are almost 5 years old!

2) Something that you were given that you have never used - this could be from a swap or a gift, but it has to have come from someone else.
The ribbon was given to me in a girly swap.
3) Something you forgot you had.
Those blue flowers were DEEP down in my stash. They are from Walmart's craft department and not scrappy flowers at all...but clearanced out at 50cents an 8pk they were gonna be! Just haven't found a use for them....until now. I think they cover up what a horrible bow maker I am well. LMBO!

Happy Birthday Katie-Bug

My middle sweetpea, Kate, is turning 6 in a few days and to celebrate I created this layout of her now and when she was a baby to hang in her room. I hope she loves it. She goes by many names: Kaitlyn, Kate, Katie, sometimes brat...lol, but she'll always be our Katie-Bug.

This layout was created following these challenges:

Just Us Girls - color challenge (pink, lavender, yellow, green)
One Stop Craft Challenge - things with wings
Magical Crafts - for the girls
Practical Scrappers - sketch challenge

Have you checked out my new challenge blog yet???

My new favorite technique.....STITCHING!!

The Challenge this week at Allsorts Challenge Blog was to stitch on our project. I have tried faux stitching for a few years, but had yet to venture into actually picking up a needle and thread. I once tried to sew a button on a shirt for my poor husband and managed to sew the shirt closed?!?!?! I thought it might be a bit ambitious, but decided this was the week to give it a try on paper!!!

I have been in my scrappy zone this weekend and created an entire 12x12 album and actually stitched much more intricate patterns, but since this was the first (and the one that drew blood....LOL) I wanted it to be the one I shared :) The stitching are just 3 cross-stitches grouped together and place randomly around the circle paper. I also am LOVING the crimping paper strips look :)

So Doggone Cute

Now before anyone asks...yes I totally used an I LOVE MY PET set to scrapbook my kid! LOL. I promise we don't make him eat off the floor nor sleep in the yard so it's all good right? We caught this pic of him crawling in a doghouse at a children's museum we visited in St. Louis and I thought it would be cute to use puppy themed scrappy stuff to create this page. I had to be careful to not pull any of the stuff that specifically says, 'I love my dog' but I think the supplies I DID use came out cute. TFL.

Mom...like Dad only better.

I was struggling to scrap this photo of my oldest and myself last Mother's Day. I loved it, but couldn't think of a title and I didn't want to just use a generic 'mom and me' title. When I asked my son's input, this is what he came up with. I nearly fell over laughing so I knew it was a keeper. I love that kid.

I created this layout of my favorite picture of my hubby with our daughter. It's not necessarily my favorite picture of each of them individually (we were on a hike so everyone was all sweaty) but I love that this picture shows off how much they look alike. It also fits so well to the challenge over at Secret Crafter: 'A Day Out'. I'm getting a little crazy with the faux stitching these days, but I just love the definition it gives and since I can't even sew on a button........ :)

I'm also going to sit down at my scrappy table and get a few more projects done this weekend so I may be back with a few more shares. Cards and paper/scissors layouts likely :) Stay tuned.....

I know April is almost over, but....

How cute is this??? I have always made digi scrapbook layouts in landscape size to use as the display on my desktop and laptop's home screens. It's much more fun to look at that then the orange bg that came with windows 7!!! Well, one thing that is lacking on the desktop is a calendar that's easily accessible. Well we KNOW that a true crafter can't just look at a black and white calendar and call it good, so I created this to set as the homepage background!!

I love it!! It works perfectly (you have to select stretch image) on all 3 computers I've tried it on. A desktop running Windows XP, the laptop running Windows XP with a 15" screen and the laptop running Windows 7 with the 17" screen. If you'd like to snag it to use (or even to pring out smaller to stick on your desk...that's okie dokie by me! If you click on the picture it will take you to the original image. From picasa you can click download and it will pull up the full sized/res image. You can then click the actual image (there will be a little magnifying glass if you hover over it) to make it bigger and right click and save.

To set it as your background is easy peasy. It differs for each operating system, but in general the steps are very similar. Right click in the background of your computers desktop. Select the option for changing your background image. Click browse and find the folder you saved this image to and select it. Make sure you select 'stretch image' so that it fills your screen.

I'm off to go create one for May-Dec!!!! I'll be sure to share :)

Blog Candy at Creatively Me!!!

Would you like a chance to win some yummy blog candy?? Well pop on over to Tammy's blog by April 22nd for all the details.

Creatively Me

---------------------------------------------

While you are in the mood to oogle some yummy prizes, pop on over to the post on my blog giving a way a prize too!! CLICK HERE!!!

Camp Sweet Camp

I had to redo this layout no less than 5 times. It was very hard to make the sketch work for me. I do love a challenge though and I refused to give up!!! I think the trick was making all of the different solid elements remain solid. Not a lot of patterns, that is. I also stuck with all similar textures for those background papers. I adored this title even though we weren't really camping. We are definitely the type to camp at the Doubletree hotel long before we set up camp below an actual tree!!! So these pics were taken at our local museum where their children's museum has a mock campfire complete with dress-up fun!!

This layout follows a sketch at

Capture These Sketches blog.

Click on over there and see the sketch!!!!!

Cry Baby

For this layout I used one of the bonus sketches Creative Scrappers has revealed as part of it's month long birthday celebration. I just LOVE these pictures of my daughter (yes, the one that's now about to turn 6). She could be smiling and cooing and all you had to do was make a frowning face to her and she's pull out a pouty face the likes of which you may never see again!! Even at only a few months old...she knew how to work an audience for sympathy....Hahahaha!!!!

You can click THIS LINK to see the bonus sketch

and all of the awesome layouts that were shared

by readers of this fabulous sketch blog. Enjoy!!!

What are YOU doing for national scrapbooking day??

**THIS CHALLENGE IS CLOSED**

see the winner here

What are YOU doing for national scrapbooking day?? Well, I plan to spend the day scrapbooking my life away...YAY!!! Not that I need a special day marked on the calendar to do that, but it almost feels wrong to not be doing something crafty on that day...so at my scrap table you will find me come May 1st.

Something else you will find me doing on that special day is giving one lucky reader a fancy schmancy prize package of scrappin' goodies. Well, I don't know about how fancy...but I would be excited to get it in the mail!!! The blog candy contest will run from now (April 14th) through May 1st at noon (CDT). I will draw a name at random that afternoon.

over 650 misc embellies including:
primas, shaped clips, crystals
dewdrops, shaped and round buttons
shaped and round eyelets, snaps
charms, anchors, word blocks
shaped and round brads, book plates
clear 'snap-in-place' storage box

How do I win such a fabulous freebie you ask? Well, read on my friends....

1. Become a follower so that you will be sure not to miss the big winner post. If you are already a follower...then you can just check this off of your list.
   
2. Tell someone...anyone...about this blog and this challenge. Post it to your blog, leave a post on a forum, share the link on your facebook or even just send a friend over here.
   
3. Create something based on the sketch below. You can interpret it any way you see fit. It can be any medium, any supplies, any project. I created a layout for an example, but if the wind floats you towards a card or an altered project....let it. The only stipulation is that this must be a new creation...no linking back to something made prior to April 14th.
   
4. Make sure you comment this post letting me know that you have completed all 3 and where to find your finished creation so I can come see. If you don't have a blog, you can upload your photos to any photo gallery (splitcoast, picasa, photobucket, etc) instead. Please include your name in your comment so I know what to call you if you are the big winner!!! LOL

And here is my layout based on this sketch. I decided to scrap my favorite photo of each of my 3 kiddos and doing that just made me a big ole crybaby about the fact that they are growing up too fast. Even the baby that I swear was JUST born yesterday is going to be 3 months on the 1st!! :( So I thought the lyrics to this song by Billy Dean, 'Let Them Be Little' was so very fitting for how I was feeling. Thanks for playing along.

A daugter is yours forever

I saw this sentiment on a card at the grocery store and it immediately went into my scrappy ideas notebook. I'm assuming it comes from the saying, "A son is yours until he takes a wife, but a daughter is yours for life." Or something like that...I tend to butcher quotes! LOL. The sentiment was just so sweet I knew I would want to use it next time I sat to scrap a layout about one of my girls.

For this layout I followed a sketch released over at PageMaps blog. You can view all of the awesome sketches Becky Fleck has released by visiting her site PageMaps.com for even more inspiration.

Our Wedding

I don't have very many wedding pictures to scrapbook. Well, let me rephrase that. With several professional photographers in my immediate family and even a film developer for an uncle, I had nearly 5,000 wedding photos all printed and placed in chronological order in a fancy white photo album. What I DON'T have are extras to scrapbook. One I do have is our formal shot. So here it is. I hope I did it justice because it was one of the happiest days of my life. Everything opened up to help create the most magical day of my life!

I loved this page kit, but it was all so pale that I was having a hard time distinguishing the different papers from each other. So I added faux stitching along the edges. I hope it turned out okay.

This project was created for the challenge at
Tuesday Morning Sketches #41
Create a project using: soft hues, ribbon and flowers

Sketchy Thursday...... x2

Here are two layouts I've completed for Sketchy Thursdays challenge blog. One is for the blog hop they currently are participating in. It's been loads of fun hopping and if you want to play along, check out the details here.

I absolutely adore this picture of my daughter. She insisted on wearing this big ole floaty even though she was in one of those little blow up pools that are only 6" deep at best. LOL. She was having such a blast though and it's plastered all over her face with that smile. I decided to use some of the lyrics from the chorus of the song, 'Yellow Polka Dot Binini'. Of course, she's not wearing a yellow polka dot bikini, she's wearing a black zebra print bikini....so I had to change the journaling! I decided to mix fonts so it would seem obvious that the words were switched out. I hope that came across. This layout was created following the sketch over at Sketchy Thursdays Challenge Blog.

Second is the layout for the bloghop. It follows the sketch at Sketchy Thursday as well as the inspiration challenge at Dancing in Pajamas Challenge Blog.

A Lifetime of Love

After weeks of eyeballing all the DTs wonderful creations, I finally decided to jump in and give this a try. It was very intimidating. I do better being given a to-do list than having a challenge be open to interpretation. Every other week Scrap That Peotry shares a wonderful poem that you can use to inspire a layout. Many of the entries I found revolved around flowers but as soon as I read it I immediately pictured my grandparents wedding photo and my grandmother holding her bouquet. They were married around Easter of 1952. My grandmother just passed earlier this year or this would have been their 58th anniversary.

Using a card sketch for a layout...

These sketches were designed to be card sketches I'm assuming. Based on the fact that most of the entries I've seen were all cards. I think they would make fabulous cards, but since I'm working on layouts at the moment I figured I'd give them a try with that in mind. What do you think? Tranfers well in my opinion.

Check out the sketch and join in the fun
by heading over to Truly Scrumptious Challenge Blog.

There is an optional challenge of 'Fly Away' associated with the sketch,
but the best I could come up with was that this layout is about Santa
and Santa flies right?? It's a stretch...LOL.

-----------------------------

I hope you enjoy this picture of my step-mom teaching my son to make one of our Thanksgiving leftover favorites....turkey slop. Sounds gross, but tastes oh so yummy!

Scrapped with a sketch from Papertake Weekly.
Clicky the link or the sketch to give it a try yourself.