Challenge fun!

I hope everyone had a scrappy weekend!  I was able to spend the weekend cropping with my BFF in St Louis!  It was one of the best crops I have attended (and yes, I've been to a lot!).  This crop was sponsored by First Class Scraps.  Mary Jo and Maureen who run it are the nicest, most sweet and fun people I have met !  They make your experience VERY enjoyable and I felt as if I had known them my whole life, very inspiring ladies to meet!  If you have a chance to attend one of their crops make sure and do so, it is DEFINITELY worth traveling to as well!  You won't regret your experience there , the facilities are lovely, the food is great, the cropping group is super friendly and fun and you have TONS of space and time to work on what you want!  While I was there I was able to get  layouts done for a few challenges.  Here is my layout using the new Fancy Pants Boardwalk collection:

Supplies Used: Paper: Fancy Pants Boardwalk, CTMH (red diagnol) & Echo Park

 (orange background); cardstock: Stampin Up Basic Black and Red Riding Hood; metal

accent: Fancy Pants; flower: felt fusion; letter stickers: Fancy Pants; Journal card: Fancy Pants

I created this page for two challenges.  The first challenge is for Paper Secrets sketch with a twist.  Here is the sketch by Page Maps:

The twist was to use a project life type card on your layout, I had to borrow one from my table mate and it was funny how this older Fancy Pants line matched the newer one!  Love happy mistakes since I forgot the twist and didn't pack a card to use!    I am also entering this is Personalscrapper's Summer Camp challenge to use the word Summer in your title using two different alpha stickers!   I hope you will have a scrappy happy week folks!  I did a bunch of layouts at the crop, not all of which I can show just yet, so stay tuned for more inspiration soon on the old bloggo!  Toodles!

Paper Secrets challenge!

I was lucky enough to get some scrappy time yesterday and was able to complete a couple of challenges! Great way to start the New Year huh?  I always want to play along with so many of them but find that I just don't always have the time to meet deadlines.  One of the places I always stalk and hope to play along is Paper Secrets.  So when I saw their sketch and found out the challenge was to use washi tape (which I just got for Christmas) I figured I'd give it a go!  Here is the sketch:

And here is my take on it:

Supplies Used: Patterned Paper: October Afternoon Very Merry (music note & red), Echo Park For the Record; washi tape- Michaels;

Letter stickers: Paper Trunk; Embossing Folder: Stampin Up; Cardstock: STampin Up; chipboard frame: Maya Road;  Flair:

A Flair for Buttons; flower: Petaloo.

My washi tape is the row of music notes above the black border strip and I also covered a chipboard circle with this washi tape to make an accent to set off my journaling.   I am also entering this layout in the week 52 challenge at Personalscrapper which is "anything goes".  I am very happy with how this layout turned out.  I'd been hoarding these pics for awhile now and it felt good to get them on paper! I hope you will find time to play along at Paper Secrets, but if not at least stop by and see all the awesome inspiration from their DT!  Kind of sad the holidays are over, cuz now I will have to get back to the daily grind and most likely won't have a lot of scrappy time during the week ;(  Good thing the weekend is going to be here soon!  Enjoy your week!

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone had a fabulous time ringing in 2013!  I know I did.  I went out to eat with my family, then home for some scrapping!  Although I must say it was an interesting experience, I had to move my scrappy stuff to another part of the house because where I normally scrap is right by a window and my neighbors were outside shooting off guns all night! Do people do that where you live?  I hope not, super scary!  I could go on and on with stories of these "people" but I won't, I promised myself to try and say only nice things in the New year and I would hate to break my promise on day one of the New Year! lol!  But here is something super nice...a NEW sketch from Sketch N Scrap! Yay!  I hope you like it!



And here is my example:

Supplies Used: Personalscrapper June 2010 kit. Patterned papers: Fancy Pants Rusted Sun;  Stickers: Fancy Pants Rusted Sun;  Punch: Upper crest punch by Fiskars; Letter stickers: Thickers by American Crafts and Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type; Bling: Kaisercraft; Flower: Bo Bunny

These photos were taken at our favorite waterpark NRH2O this past summer.  My niece, nephew and son LOVE this family tradition.  We usually go on Memorial Day and Labor Day each year, its a fun way to celebrate these holidays!  I also created this layout for Personalscrapper's 52 week challenge: Lots of Dots (week 45).  I hope you will hop on over the Sketch N Scrap to see all the wonderful creations by my fellow DT members, they are just gorgeous! I know you won't want to miss it, plus we have an AWESOME prize again from A Flair for Buttons, so link up your layout (s) for a chance to win these great flairs, they will make a great addition to your stash!  Happy New Year everyone!

Grow

Another Croptoberfest layout completed today! This one completes the Fall tradition challenge for one of the 31 October challenges as well as week 16 of the 52 week challenges over at Personalscrapper! Every year for about 8 years now we have gone to Vala's Pumpkin Patch each fall, and I was stunned when looking back over last year's photos of how much my son has grown in just one short year! He is now pushing 6 feet! Wow! What a difference a year makes! I thought it was a fun layout to show the comparison next to the Vala's growth chart! Can't wait to see what next year will bring! This layout is based on a sketch by Valerie Salmon for her Got Sketch Express 2 class I just finished up! Valerie's classes are great, if you haven't taken one you should, in fact I think you can still sign up for Got Sketch Express 2 HERE! I will most likely be using the rest of the sketches in week's to come. All papers I used here are from Bella Blvd's One Fall Day line from last year. I loved that line, I think I can eek out another layout or two from the papers I have left, will be sad to see it go, these colors are awesome! Off to get some more scrappy time in before I have to go to bed, this layout I am working on now is just not coming together like I want...ARGHHHHH...hate it when that happens! I may just have to change gears if I can't get the mojo flowing soon and be back later in the week to share!

Croptoberfest fun!

Many of you have heard me talk about all the fun we have with Croptoberfest over at the Personalscrapper boards each October, and this year is no different! I was able to create a challenge for Erica's die cut + 3 pictures challenge a few days ago using none other then my AWESOME October Personalscrapper kit featuring We R Memory Keepers' Autumn Splendor line! It is a great line and I really like the fact that we got one but TWO sheets of die cut paper in this kit! I just love this kit! These pics were taken on our vacation to Nebraska last week and are of my cute little nephew at Vala's Pumpkin patch enjoying one of the climbing areas. He just loves to climb! I am hoping to get some more scrappy time in this weekend and catch up on some of the 52 week challenges (I'm about 20 weeks behind-ughhh) as well as do one or two of the GREAT Croptoberfest challenges that the members are posting! Why don't you come join us? You don't have to be a member to participate and I promise it is LOADS of fun, plus FREE inspiration and LOTS of encouragement, an all around fun place to visit! See you there!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day friends! I hope everyone has a special day spent with those they love! It will be a pretty routine day for us as we are pretty busy on Mondays as a general rule, but I do have a fun surprise up my sleeve for my son, although he will have to wait until after school to fully enjoy it, so hope he doesn't have much homework tonight as he does have basketball practice! This is the card I made for him letting him know I love him, he is special to me and I have a surprise waiting for him on his laptop! YEAH! I love surprises :o) This card was created for one of the challenges over at Personalscrapper where we are having a fun crop this week, check it out and I hope you will have time to join us there, lots of great stuff being created and shared! Papers for this card are from my February 2008 Personalscrapper kit and are from We R Memory Keepers Tiffany line. Hoping to finish up this kit in the next week as another challenge for the crop, so check back again soon! I used my Stampin' Up Everyday Flexible phrases set for the sentiment and used my decorative scissors (again!) to frame my square...one of these days I'm gonna get me one of those borders punches with the corner punch where you can punch around the entire square...hmmm...maybe I should get myself a Valentine's gift! LOL!
Hugs!

Pagemaps

Barbara's challenge over at Personalscrapper for October 5th was to create a layout based on one of October's page maps. This is the layout I created based on Becky Fleck's Page Maps sketch above. I just love Page Map sketches! October had so many fun sketches it was hard to just pick one, I plan to go back and use at least one more during the Croptoberfest L.O.A.D. crop. For this layout created for my newest nephew's scrapbook I used October Afternoon's Fly a Kite papers and "sweet" sticker, that I had won on the October Afternoon blog (YEAH! and thank you October Afternoon!), kite, heart date box and cloud stickers from Echo Park (Personalscrapper's Sept kit- you gotta get this kit, fun...fun..fun) and Letter stickers by Cosmo Cricket (thanks Erica!) and American Crafts. The punch I used to create the border under the pictures is from Stampin' Up. Hope you have a great weekend folks...I get to spend some time with my cute little nephew (the one in the layout above) so we have lots of activities planned for the weekend, but check back next week, I will have more scrappy goodness for you as I will have to play catch up on the L.O.A.D Crop!

Why I love Personalscrapper!

Just a quick post today, wanted to let you all know that if you are in the market for some great inpsiration, want to receive the latest and best scrapbooking products monthly at your doorstep without leaving the house AND want to be part of a GREAT supportive community of online scrapbookers, then you need look no further then Personalscrapper! I used to spend TONS (and I mean TONS) of time shopping for scrapbooking products to use on my page, I would go one place, find cute stuff I loved only to find out the stickers, ribbons, or other "matching" embellishments were sold out and may not be restocked anytime soon :o( I would then hunt and hunt to find something to match, and if I didn't then I would just forget about what I bought and move on to something else. While at the St. Louis CKC 3 yrs ago I met Erica and Personalscrapper, I was skeptical at first, worried I wouldn't like the kit OR that I was paying to much for it when I could find it "cheaper" somewhere else. Boy was I worried for nothing! The first kit that came I thought "well, its cute but it's not my style"....but since I paid for it, I needed to use it (why be wasteful) well, the rest is history, the DT at Personalscrapper had SO many great ideas that were included each month in the kit PLUS the other members on the message board shared their layouts and I was OVERWHELMED with ideas...in fact, I started wanting ONE more kit to do ALL the layouts I had ideas for!!! And by scrapbooking with these gals, I learned to think outside the box and be MORE creative with my kits so that now each kit that comes I am SOOO excited for! I have used a variety of papers, colors and embellishments that I most likely wouldn't have tried if they weren't in my kit. I also LOVE how everything coordinates, it takes the work out of it, I just pick my pictures to go with my kit and then go to work, no more searching all over and spending time "hunting" when I can spend that time "creating". I have got to know many of the gals at Personalscrapper over the last 3 years I have been a member, and I must say they are the nicest group of ladies I have ever met (well, not really met, but you know what I mean! LOL!) I would love to actually "MEET" them IRL someday! So if you looking for a kit club, I can HIGHLY recommend Personalscrapper, you won't be disappointed! If you don't believe me go check out Erica's blog HERE she is featuring a new member of Personalscrapper each day in October, so hop on over and "meet" some of the great gals that I scrap with!

Lisa's sketch challenge

Hey, yes, it really is me with TWO blog posts in two days! LOL! As I mentioned in my last post I am the "host" of today's L.O.A.D. challenge at the Personalscrapper board for Croptoberfest. My challenge was for the ladies to create a layout based on my sketch above, but with a bit of a twist, they are to use a "fall" or "fallish" word in their title, i.e. Fall, cool, crips, pumpkins, Thanksgiving, leaves...well, you get the picture! The layout DOES NOT have to be a fall layout though, for example, you could do a LOVE themed layout with the title "FALLING FOR YOU"...fun huh? If you would like to play along I would love to see what you come up with, just post a link to your creation here in the comments section and share the love! For my layout using this sketch I used once again Crate Paper's Lemongrass collection with some 7 Gypsy's stickers and SEI and Jenni Bowlin letter stickers. This cute little guy is my little nephew, isn't he a QT? Well, I hope you enjoy the sketch and play along with me. I everyone enjoys what is left of your weekend...check ya later peeps!

Round and Round

This is a fun layout I created for several reasons, first being I set a goal to scrap all my Disney trip pictures in 2010 (just a mere 5 years after the trip), and secondly, Erica at Personalscrapper challenged us to scrap a page with at least 3 4x6pictures on it (and her prizes rock, keeping my fingers crossed I win)! This page uses the March Personalscrapper kit featuring My Minds Eye papers..the journal box is by Elles Studio, the sticker(laugh) by We R Memory Keepers (and donated to the cause of a balanced page by my great croppin' buddy Janelle) and the sticker letters are Thickers! Simple page, but I really loved these pics of my son taken on the teacup ride at Disney and thought these bright fun papers captured the mood! So go challenge yourself, try to add more pics to a page, you know you have enough! LOL! Enjoy your weekend everyone! Tune in tomorrow, because I am a guest designer tomorrow at My Little Sketch book and can't wait to share my layout with you!

Sketch 98

Here is another one of the layouts I did for Personalscrapper's online crop last week. It is based on sketch 98 on the GOT SKETCH blog by Valerie Salmon. This sketch is super easy to work with and was able to make this layout in under 30 minutes! I have so many 5x7 pictures I need to scrap and this one was perfect for this sketch. The challenge I created this layout for was the "OLYMPIC" challenge where we were to use 5 or more circles on our layout. I used Scenic Route papers and chipboard..in fact I think this line (Grafton) is now 50% off now if you don't have it or want more! I love a sale but hate it that Scenic Route is closing. If you have used this sketch or decide to please leave a link in the comments, I'd love to see your take on the sketch!

Keep on Croppin'

Even though it is a weekday I am still cropping. The Personalscrapper crop is still going on until today, and I am chugging away at all 10 challenges trying to complete them...so far I have done six and started on the seventh. I wanted to complete all 10 but it ain't gonna happen unless for some reason my boss calls and gives me the day off! LOL! I did want to share two layouts I did using my September 2009Personalscrapper kit The first one is of my son after his recent band solo and ensemble performace earlier in the month. This was his first competition and he sailed through it earning a ONE PLUS...the funny thing is we didn't know what the scoring was and if one was good or bad...until the teacher told us. Kind of funny, we were in the hall with his rating trying to decide if he did good or bad...he told me "Mom, I know I didn't suck that bad so a one must be good" (the ratings were 1-4) then we find out that a ONE PLUS is the best you can get! YEAH! I was so proud of him. The other pic is a scan of the rating sheet from the judge. This layout was done for the challenge to scraplift Erica's layout you can see here. The second layout was done for the alphabet challenge for which you were to use two or more alphas in your title...I used Scenic Route chipboard, Jillibean Soup letters (word- zone) and then the small black fabric thickers. This layout is using sketch one from Got Sketch 105..it started Monday...loving this class! It's not to late to join..check it out here. These photos are of my son and nephew Christmas day "zoning" out playin their new DS lites...can you tell they were in the "DS zone"? Thanks for stopping by to check out my layouts..gotta go to work so I can come home and crop some more!

February sketch challenge

Here is a sketch I did for a February sketch challenge over at the Personalscrapper board and a my take on the sketch using the February kit from Personalscrapper! These papers are Pink Paislee's Cupid line and it is absolutely gorgeous! I LOVE it! The heart is from my stash and is a ghost heart from Heidi Swapp, I painted the edges and then cut out the paper heart with my ripple Fiskar scissors! Haven't used those in years! If you want to play along with this sketch you can go here to post your layout and be entered into the drawing for a RAK from me, hope to see your creation soon!

Flash Back Friday

Seeing the pics of my new little nephew yesterday got me to thinking of my son when he was little. I have scrapped a lot of those pictures but some are still lying around waiting..(poor things) I made this layout for the 12 Days of Christmas Crop but never shared it on the blog and thought now was a good time. When I received the September 2009 kit from Personalscrapper and saw this veggie paper I immediately thought of these pics of my son when he was 5 mos old and then of course, thought "I knew I didn't scrap these for a reason"....yeah, that's right I had to wait TWELVE years for the right paper to come along! LOL! So here we have it. This layout made for the challenge at Personalscrapper to use a lot of white space on your page (I NEVER DO THAT) and this was a BIG challenge for me. I like the way it turned out even though its not my usual style. Papers are from the Farm Fresh and Report Card lines from October Afternoon. Journal stickers from American Crafts and Jenni Bowlin and alphas from Jillibean Soup (love these BTW). Layout is a lift of Lisa Dickinson's you can see her AWESOME work here. Looking forward to a good weekend of basketball and scrappin' two of my favorite things! TGIF!

Gotta Love the Boyfriend & Cosmo Cricket!

Howdy Cosmo Cricket fans! My all time fav Cosmo line (so far that is) is the Boyfriend line. Personalscrapper had a challenge to use at least NINE squares on a layout for one of the Winter Wonderland Crop challenges and this is the layout I came up with using the Cosmo Cricket Boyfriend line. I am so happy with how it turned out. I usually don't like layout with only small pics, but I think this one is one of my all time fav layouts I have made. I just love these pics of my son from last Labor Day. And now we have a sneaky peaky of the new lines Cosmo Cricket is releasing soon, and they are spectacular! My fav is JOY RIDE, but I really like them all! Plus they are introducing this awesome lush embossed cardstock as well as some yummy chipboard letters and the thing I am most excited about BUTTONS! You can check them out here....just a warning before you click though...it may be detrimental to your wallet! Happy Hump Day everyone!

Another sketch

I can't believe it has been a week since my last post, I have been busy creating, just not uploading..so gotta get on that. Check back all week, as I have lots to share. Here is my second sketch, I am hoping to make this a weekly post on Tuesday's. I find sketches make my layouts come together much quicker. As usual, if you make a layout based on the sketch, link it to the comments section so we can all see. For my layout based on this sketch I used Dream Street Sam papers from my October 2009 Personalscrapper kit. I was so sad to hear Dream Street is going out of business...I loved this line and was looking forward to getting more stuff from them. This pic is of my brother, SIL and son at our annual Vala's pumpkin patch trip last year, love that place! It was so cold this year we had to go on a weekday with all the school field trips, so it was a "different" experience, but it was still a lot of fun! This layout was also inspired by one of the Personalscrapper challenges for the Winter Wonderland crop which was to use buttons, flowers, and ribbon on your page. I picked this challenge to do as I have hard time using ribbon and flowers, so I was proud of myself for doing so on this layout! Now buttons, no prob for me, in fact I am always trying to stick buttons on my layout! LOL! Have a fabulous week folks!

Snow Fun!

Here is another layout I was able to get done using my January Personalscrapper kit from 2009. The challenge that sparked this layout was to use a 5x7 or larger photo on your page. I don't scrap a lot of large photos, but knew this one would look great as a 5x7 plus it went with my snow theme. I didn't even use a sketch for this layout folks. By this time I was down to scraps and this was the only large scrap I had left so this was my only real option. This is my son from our October trip to Nebraska where we saw the first snow of 2009. The papers are Fancy Pants ARtic Chill, the letters are thickers, and the felt snowflakes are from Stampin Up. I really think these colors look great with my photo. One of my scrappy goals for 2010 is to finish up SIX of my past kits, so I am well on my way to completing one! LOL! Hoping to scrap a bit more tonight, too cold to do much else!

2009 a year in review

Here it is, my annual year in review! I am so glad this was a challenge over at Personalscrapper for the 12 days of Christmas crop, otherwise I may have waited until things weren't so fresh in my mind to make this layout. I used the January 2009 Personalscrapper kit for this page, in fact, I used the same kit for my 2008 year in review! I am working on using up this kit. I think I can eek out 3 more pages and then it will be done. I really enjoyed this kit featuring Fancy Pants' Artic Chill. When I saw it on the website I was not overjoyed with it as a kit..I worried I wouldn't like the colors..well...worry not, it has turned out to be one of my fav kits ever! In fact, for that very reason, I love my Personalscrapper kits, cuz they push me to use products I never would have bought on my own...plus everything is so perfectly coordinated you can't help but LOVE them! I am enjoying my Saturday to just crop today and so am off to work on another challenge! Enjoy your weekend folks!

Dreaming of Summer!

OK, it's barely gone and I am wishing for more fun lazy summer days! LOL! This layout was inspired by two different things that came together as one! (Love it when that happens!) First I used the sketch from sketchy Thursdays for this week. Second, I used a challenge at Personalscrapper (thanks Lydia!) to do a collage on your layout. I did three different collages using my Shutterfly application. The far right is a 5x7collage and the other two are 3.5 x 5 in size. I used My Mind's Eye paper and embellishments. The letters are foam Thickers. I really like how this turned out, simple but yet it captures our summer well. I wanted to do a Summer review now for the last two years and never got around to it, but now I have. I may go back and do the other years as well if I still feel so inpsired! But right now I am off to work on some more Personalscrapper challenges and use some of the new Pagemaps sketches! Happy Halloween everyone!

Journaling challenge

I am back from vacation and starting to get my creative groove back. It seems I have gotten lazy with having so many days to do nothing but play! I enjoyed my time off SO much, and am finding it hard to get back to getting up early and going to bed early! LOL! So it's a good thing we are having Croptoberfest over at Personalscrapper, its great inspiration and easy to get the juices flowing. The challenge for October 14th was to create a layout with a letter to someone or do some creative journaling . I choose to do journaling about all the things I have done that I really never would have without my son as the driving force/inspiration. I used the Personalscrapper August 2008 kit and framed my journaling with a Scenic Route chipboard frame that I colored with an ink pad. Journaling reads: BECAUSE OF YOU:
I rode the Green Extreme Uphill watercoaster
I overcame my fear of heights and went parasailing.
I started riding roller coasters, like the Mummy ride at Universal
I became a reluctant movie buff
I learned how to play Bakugan and trade Yugioh cards
I saw Star Wars for the second time
I stood in line for hours to see a Harry Potter movie
I came to admire the loud blaring of a clarinet played by a beginning musician
I learned how to play Guitar Hero
I have become grateful for each moment, as they pass so quickly,
I am changed, stronger, and so PROUD to call you my SON.
Thanks Christia for a wonderful challenge! Now I'm off to work on today's challenge, it should be pretty easy as it is challenging us to scrap a holiday or celebration and I know exactly what pics I am gonna use! Check back tomorrow for Friday's Featured blogger, see ya then!