I ♥ K&Company

The challenge over at These Are a Few of My Favorite Things this week is to focus on our favorite manufacturer. After getting the word from Ms. Julie herself, I went with creating a layout using patterned paper all from my favorite line at the moment. Now, I am a rather fickle person when it comes to styles. Right now I seem to be gravitating towards themeless patterned papers and LOTS of them. One thing I love about this brand is that you can usually pick up 3-6 papers that all coordinate perfectly together to layer in a single project. My favorite papers of theirs are the distressed looking prints. This line is called 'Addison'.

My title is a quote I found that reminds me so much of my son. "Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage and confidence in the doing." He is afraid of everything including his own shadow. I try to nudge him into trying new things, but usually he just feels more comfortable sticking with the things that are tried and true. The words 'strength', 'courage', and 'confidence' are cut from a Sizzix die and I found that they blended too much so I used a ivory gel pen to add some faux stitching. It doesn't show well in the photo, but in person it pops them very well.

The ribbon is pleated and tucked behind a pocket I received in a swap so I don't really have any details on that. It is popped up with dimentionals so that a bit of hidden journaling could be tucked away. Inside reads, "You always had a fear of getting hurt. You often let it stop you from exploring new things. When you climbed this rock because everyone else was, you fell and scraped up your knee pretty badly. More important than anything else, you learned that the pain went away much faster than the memory of the climb! -June 2010-

Finally getting my hands dirty!!!

I've been catching up on my digi album for the past few months. I haven't had much opportunity to get down and dirty with the paper and glue! That all changed this past week and I have been doing a marathon of scrappin. YAY! Here are a few of my favorites

--I still need to put a date on the tab--

Bunny Hop

Here is 1/2 of a 2page layout I did of this past Easter. I have been having a heck of a time with getting decent photographs and no matter what I tried, the second page was not photographing. :( For this page I followed Liz Qualman's sketch found HERE. I loved the sketch and hope I did it justice :) :)

Back to School

Tomorrow is the big day. My kids are headed back to school. Well at least the bigger two are. I'll have the baby home to keep me company, but how in the world will I justify the Justin Bieber blaring from my car stereo without an 11 year old in the back seat!!! LOL It seems like just yesterday I was sending him off kindergarten and now he's started MIDDLE SCHOOL!?!?!?! How did THAT happen?

I decided to make them each a card to sit out waiting for them with an after school snack when they get home. I so hope they have a great first day back, but even if not (I worry more about the older one who's a nervous wreck) they'll have a great first day after school. :)

The first card uses Friday Sketchers #115 and the school challenge over at Our Creative Corner. I also found a new blog thanks to one of my readers called Stampin' Royalty and their theme is also back to school. I can't wait to join in more challenges of theirs :) :) :)



The second card uses the Sketch and Stash sketch #42. Almost everything on the card is from deeeeeep down in my stash except the ribbon. That is brand spankin' new. It also fits the FOOD/DRINK challenge at My Parner in Crafting Crime this week.
Sorry for the uber blurry photos. My camera batteries must be dying because no amount of lighting was solving my problem.

Wild About You

I needed a card for my hubby. He's been working like crazy lately and putting in ridiculous hours and still comes home and helps so much with the kids and the cooking with me being in so much pain. In other words....he rocks and needs a card to show for it! :)

The entire line is DCWV. Cardstock weight patterned paper, both the cream palm leaf paper and the green palm leaf paper are from the paper stack Safari Kids. The faux stitching strips are cut from the border of the cream paper. The glossy metalic frame and lion as well as the glittered 'Wild About You' are from the DCWV Animal Crackers chipboard embellishment set.

I used several challenges when I was planning out this card. I started with the sketch this week at CPS. Click on over to join in the fun...there's still time! The challenge this week at My Time to Craft is glitter and glitz. That helped me pick this set because it's the only thing I have glitzy that isn't Christmas or pink! LOL. It's a jungle themed set (both Animal Crackers and Safari Kids coordinate PERFECT together) so I picked out a great lion to RAWR the message across. That is where the challenge at Crafty Catz comes in. The theme this week is ANIMAL(s) cards.

I hope you all like the finished product and I REALLY hope he does. He is always such a fan of my crafty stuff, but it's mostly because he knows it makes me so happy.....even more reason he deserves a card!!! :)

The bigger 2 were feeling neglected

....because most of my layouts lately have been about the baby. So I did this layout for them of all of my favorite shots from the past year or so of just the two of them! I decided to follow Mission to Create #23 because I thought the photo strip would work well for incorporating several smaller pictures. In the end I think I was able to tackle every challenge.

#1 Use photobooth style photos - These weren't from a photobooth, but the photo strip style none-the-less. Hope it counts :)

#2 Use brads - in the center of the flower on the bottom of the layout is a fancy shmancy butterfly brad embellie.

#3 Use 6 pieces of 1x1 or less patterned paper - the pink polka dotted paper is trimmed into six tiny pieces before being used in a strip formation.

#4 Stitch a border - there is a faux stitched border around the outside of the layout.

#5 Use this photo below as inspiration -
......and voila..... As an added bit of awesome, the challenge over at Practical Scrappers this week was stitching too! YAY!!! Two-fer :) Click to check out that challenge .... there's still time to join in :)

Baby Love...

My hubby and I are falling back into our NFL season routine. Tonight is Kansas City's preseason opener and we have the tv tuned in and are parked next to each other on the couch. Him filling his face full of food and me on the laptop blogging (okay and farmvilling..lol). I have to stop from time to time to yell at some idiot on the tv so pardon me if I lose track of my thoughts. And this is only the pregame show!!! hahahaha

I've got a few layouts to show you that will be posting over the next few days so stay tuned. First up is a layout I just finished of my favorite picture so far of the baby girl. It's so hard to believe she's SIX MONTHS OLD ALREADY!?!?!?! It seems like just yesterday that what I thought was a serious case of the flu was actually this sweetpea starting her journey into the world.

I saw the sketch over at Pencil Lines and was excited to give it a try. Click the link above to see the sketch and try it! :) I then saw this challenge at Off the Wall Craftiness and just KNEW I was going to have to try it too! I've never thought of putting sky blue and purple together, but I LOVED the look of it. Here is the photo we had to use as inspiration:

And finally this is my finished layout. I so adore this photo of her!!!

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It's hay!?!?!

This past weekend when my best friend (a south Florida native) came up to BFE Kansas to visit it was quite the sight. I take for granted the fact that I can't even go to the grocery store without driving past field after field of corn, bales of hay and buffalo. Yes, my neighbor has buffalo?!?! We got this picture of her standing next to a huge bale of hay to take home to show her hubby because she just was beyond amazed! I thought it'd make for a good layout about finding the wonder in things that we take for granted. I followed sketch #116 at Creative Scrappers and came up with this:

Monkey...funky funky monkey

That is a sing song little chant my older two kiddos seem intent on singing to the new baby whenever she shows the slightest bit of silliness. It's quite amusing most of the time. She just eats it up which is what counts, right? :)

I captured this pic of her learning to blow raspberries....a skill she has mastered to put it mildly...HAHAHA! I absolutely love how it turned out. I followed the uber fab sketch from Sassy Lil' Sketches. Follow the link to check it out! :)