Aren't you feeling So Sketchy?!

Wow! Long time no blog...our Christmas holiday was a great time and a whirlwind of activity, but I am back in the saddle so to speak and back to creating! What a great way to spend the last day of 2008. I created this page for a design team call at the So Sketchy site. Ally shares some amazing sketches and I was so excited to be able to try out for her design team. Of course, I am sure the competition is tough, and I really don't think I will be choosen to become a page sista, but hey, if you don't try you for sure will never be given any opportunities will you? I just found out about the design team call two days ago so I created my two pages in a short time, but it really was easy using the sketches off of this great site. For this page I used the November 7th 12 x 12 sketch. So run on over and check out Ally's site...http://sosketchy.blogspot.com/ and if you create something awesome with one of the sketches leave me a comment with the link so I can go check it out! Catch you peeps next year! HA!

My baby is turning eleven today!

Can you believe my baby turned eleven today? I can't seems like yesterday I was bringing him home from the hospital! Here are a couple of quick pictures from his family birthday party today. He is with his best buddy who wants to be just like him, his cousin Ryan. Ryan seemed to manage to get in every picture since he was almost as excited as Jakob to open the gifts! We celebrated with double fudge chocolate cake and a lunch at Jakob's favorite place to eat Applebees! Jakob has really been celebrating all month as he had a sleep over with his two good buddies two weeks ago as well. Nice to have two parites huh? Well, we are off to our evening Christmas Eve service soon, gonna have pizza for dinner and do a Christmas gift exchange this evening, our new annual family tradition we started three years ago, so gotta run. Wishing everyone a blessed Christmas day. I will try and post again next week after all the holiday chaos simmers down.

Black Friday revisited!

Well, its suppose to be Git 'R Done Wednesday but I am desperately trying to finish up my challenges I started for the online crop at Personalscrapper and was not able to dig into my "to be finished" pile to work on any of those layouts, so here is one of the layouts I did finish for the "ALPHABET SOUP" challenge . We were to use a minimum of 2 alphabets on a page, I ended up using five. Black Friday is something I started doing three years ago and have not even scrapped about yet, so thought I would while this years Black Friday is still fresh in my mind. I used a sketch from the STUCK?! blog http://stucksketches.blogspot.com/. I used sketch #65. I love their sketches as well as the layouts they feature using their sketches, lots of inspiration there! I really like the black and white look, although to make my title stand out I ended up going with a light pink paper from Breezy Designs, I was trying to keep it totally black and white, but my letters really didn't pop on black or on white, so I added just a "touch" of color. This is one of those layouts where you keep going back to it and adding a little bit more here and there. I finally had to put an end to that by putting it in my album otherwise I might still be altering it! I had a lot to journal so I used my favorite journaling trick..stick it behind the picture in a pocket, works great when you have a lot to say and its only a one page layout. Even though the crop is over I plan on continuing to finish up the other layouts I have started as the challenges were super this time, so I'll continue to share as I get them done!

Use your Stash Tuesday the Christmas Card edition!

Ok, its use your stash Tuesday again, and although I thought I was finished with my Christmas Cards I realized a few more peeps I left off, so I went back to the drawing board to make a few more cards. I decided in honor of Use your stash Tuesday that I should dig into my SUPER JUMBO SLAB of Christmas paper. I bought this giant slab 2 years ago, and have really not even made a dent in it. I keep telling myself I don't like any of these papers, but in reality I do like most of them, I am just overwhelmed by such a HUGE stash of paper! So after seeing what my friend Rose (who is a creative genius by the way) had done with some of these papers, I decided to try my hand at using them on Christmas cards...it went pretty well, I am pleased with the results. As you can see I stuck to one basic layout, but used different papers and stamps. That saved me time, but yet allowed me to continue on my mission of making each person an individual card. I promise this is my last Christmas Card post, well...unless some long lost relatives appear out of nowhere that I need to send a card to! HA! So get to it girls, use up that old Christmas paper you've been hoarding, and if you run out, call me...I gotcha covered!

It's raining Christmas Cards!

Ok, I was running out of time making each person an individual card, I had so much fun doing it though, so I had to pick up the speed a bit, especially after seeing on the news that time is running out to get things there by Christmas. So I pulled out my Simply Sent Card Element set by Stampin' Up and created away. I was able to make my cards fast using these preprinted elements, I did change them up a bit and add embellishments to make them each unique, but I was able to get them all done in record time and finish up my cards! I like the way they turned out, simple yet elegant. I hope the recipients like them as well. Now I plan to get back to croppin' as we only have one day left in the online Personalscrapper crop. I haven't gotten much done, but considering its the holiday season, I am happy to have gotten even one page done! I'll take pics and share when I finish up with the 2 layouts I am currently working on. It's super cold here today and it may ice up in the morning, so I may have extra time to play if I can't get to work tomorrow! Oh...a gal can dream can't she? I know those of you on the East Coast and in the Midwest don't feel to sorry for us, but if it drops below 30 here its news!

Enabler Alert!

Ok, nothing new created today (not yet anyway, I'm still working on it) but I had to share before this sale ends....go to http://www.scrapbooksongthego.com/ and check out the HUGE sale they have going on right now. Not sure when it ends but a bunch of stuff including the jewerly is 50% OFF!!!!! I hate to enable everyone this time of year, but hey, these make great gifts, so hop on over and check it out! I plan on picking up a few things myself, and click on the new altered portfolios (that's the baby girl one I am showing here), those are SUPER cute and cheap too! Plus, if you spend $50, shipping is free!! LOVE that word this time of year! YEA! Ok, off to crop, gotta get to work on all 15 challenges I am trying to complete!

Christmas Cards are in the mail!

OK, hope this doesn't take some of the surprise out of the Christmas cards I have mailed out or will mail out this weekend...but I just had to share some of my favs here. These are made with some Paper Studio stickers from Hobby Lobby and the Basic Grey Figgy Pudding paper line...love the vintage feel of these cards. I have decided to just make random cards this year, so each card is special and individual as well, no mass production this year, so no two people will get the same card, thus the sharing on the blog, so everyone can see all the pretty cards! Hope you enjoy, and if you don't get yours right away, well, its because I'm busy making it! But its worth the wait I promise! HA! Today was the start of our Online crop at personalscrapper , so I will be busy creating but maybe not posting until the end, so look for lots of new goodies coming soon! And if your not busy stop by and join us, the more the merrier! Visit: http://www.personalscrapper.com click on FORUMS. Erica has designed some AWESOME challenges for us, you wont' want to miss it! Hope to see you there!

Git 'R Done Wednesday Cowboy Style!

Well, its that time again, to just Git 'R done! And this week's edition features a fun two page layout I started last year but just didn't really know how to embellish it. I ended up using some of my stamps sets by Stampin' Up and I like the way it turned out. It's a deviation from my normal style of using my favorite patterned paper as well as my fav embellishment of buttons, but hey, its time to use these stamps! I was even able to fit my tickets onto the page, and I like how I was able to use a bunch of pics as well. We had so much fun last year at our first ever Cowboys game and we were able to go again this year too (still need to scrap those pics). Hope to do it again next year at the BRAND NEW Cowboys Stadium. I know my son is excited to see it as am I. So when you are scrapping those sporting events you attend, use a small (or big if needed) pocket as part of you embellishing to keep the memorabilia on the page, it will be neat to look back in 20 years and see how much those tickets cost! (although in this case they were actually free thanks to our WONDERFULLY generous friends ~ Lisa and Chuck, who were are so blessed to know) They are the best and I am still astounded by their generosity in giving us those amazing tickets! Our Got Sketch mini class ended today, but don't worry you can still sign up if you do it within the next few days, you will love it I promise, and best of all its free! What a great gift to yourself this holiday season. So check it out on Valerie's blog: http://gotsketch.blogspot.com/. Enjoy!

Countdown to Christmas!

Did ya'll miss me? Well, it's been one big party around here. My scrapbook party on Saturday was SO much fun! Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, but can you believe I did not take ONE picture? Shame on me. I think this is my fifth year to do this and I have yet to take a picture. We enjoyed ourselves so much that I am planning on doing it again next year (not next Christmas but literally next year, in a few months), why wait until the holidays to have so much fun and get together with a bunch of fun and creative ladies to talk about scrapbooking?! The double page spread is what we made for one of our fun projects. It uses last's years Basic Grey Christmas paper, Figgy Pudding. So as you can see I was able to use up some of my stash of Christmas paper with this project...I tend to save and hoard my Christmas paper, but figured if I start to use some of it up I can always buy more. Have you seen some of the lines out there now? I love the new Basic Grey Wassail line ( check out the December Personalscrapper kit it features this plus the FA LA LA LA line by Making Memories). My next fav is the Cosmo Cricket O JOY line. Also like the October Afternoon, American Crafts and My Mind's Eye lines. I guess you can say I am easy to please YUCK YUCK! These pics are from Christmas 2006, I hope to get a bunch of Christmas layouts done this weekend at the online Personalscrapper crop. My son is having a sleep over on this coming Saturday with his friends for his 11th birthday, so I will most likely be up all night, and I hope to get some cropping down, if I can hear myself think over all the boys laughing and playing! Catch you again soon, promise I won't wait a week to post again!

Another homemade Invitation

Today is use your stash Tuesday and although I don't have a scrapbook page to show you, I did use a lot of my older stash on this birthday invitation to my son's eleventh birthday party. I used some of my hoarded Stampin' Up paper as well as my discontinued, very old star eyelets. I was SOO into eyelets a few years back and have tons I need to use up! I also used my neglected star punches which I love but don't use much. The "its a party" was cut on my Cricut, which I am trying to use more and more and my goal is to use it for my use your stash Tuesdays. I won't allow myself to buy anymore cartridges until I have used the ones I have on a regular basis...need to prove to myself it is worth the price to buy new ones. Does anyone else have a Cricut? What are your favorite cartridges, drop me a comment, I would love to know which ones you recommend, because if I keep using it more I plan on buying myself a new one for my birthday in a few weeks. I couldn't come up with a design for this invitation, and as I was in a rush, so busy as we all are this time of year, I decided to use the same layout as my previous invite to my scrapbooking party. Try that sometime, its simple and makes you feel creative if you just cannot come up with something and need to in a pinch. You can look at my post for November 23rd and see how different they look by changing out the papers etc. Tune in tomorrow for Git 'R Done Wednesday, I'll have a scrapbook page completed out of my drawer again, and last count I will have just 8 more to go! YEA! Maybe I'll reward myself with some more scrapbook goodies! HA! One last thing...hop on over to Valerie's GOT SKETCH blog, http://gotsketch.blogspot.com/, she is having a FREE sketch class starting tomorrow December 3rd. YOU WILL NOT WANT to miss this! Believe me, her work and her sketches are AWESOME. So sign up, it is only a week long and if you don't have time to complete everything you can still download all the materials and do the assignments after the holidays. Now, that's a WAY better deal then anything you bought on Black Friday!