Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all the Father's out there! This layout isn't really a true Father's Day layout, but it is of my brother and nephew, such sweet photos taken by my SIL. I just had to scrap them. We had a nice Father's Day celebrating with my Dad and spending time with the fam....even got some time in stamping with my niece and scrappin'time as well..can't beat that! This layout was one I made for my stint as this week's camp counselor over at Camp Personalscrapper! We are having a fun summer camp starting this week. You can earn badges by completing each week's challenge and this week my challenge is a scavenger hunt challenge! You create a layout based on the things on you "list", the more things you add to your layout the more points you get (20 points max) and the winner is the one with the most points! I used to love scavenger hunts....the best ones are where you have to do silly things...and in this digital age it is fun to be able to capture it on video or film...i.e. one of the challenges I saw online from a church group was to smile at someone and when they said "hi" to say "I have new socks!" and capture their reply on video...or go into a restaurant and then ask patrons for the parsley off their plates...or how about this one...get a picture of a human pyramid in the front yard of a stranger's house, but the kicker....the homeowner has to be in the pyramid! I was laughing so hard imaging people's expressions on some of these...however, in the times we live in now, it may be dangerous to do some of these things, people are not as friendly as they used to be and might not think these things are to funny! I know when I was a kid it was a common occurrence to have someone knock at your door needing something like a roll of TP etc for their list...and in my 15 years as a homeowner, I think I have had it happen only once that I recall...so not as common anymore. But back to scrappin'...this layout is worth 15 points...you can see my list HERE. For this layout I used My Mind's Eye papers from the Stella Rose line, buttons and puffy sticker are from that line as well. I also used my Stampin' Up punches for the flower and to add a bit of texture, I used my newest STampin Up sizzix embossing folder on the middle of the flower. Letter stickers are Thickers (blue) and My Little Shoebox (small grey). I hope you can join us at Camp Personalscrapper soon, I know I'm on a mission to earn all the camp badges this year!

Life of the Party!

Another fun layout to share with you today! This layout uses the newer Basic Grey line called Life of the Party. Have I told you how much I love Basic Grey? It seems like their last few releases have been just my style, and this one more then any of their previous lines! I don't even really like to scrap birthdays per se, but this line is very versatile, bright, cheery, and it's not just for birthdays! Most of the "B" sides of the themed paper are totally non-birthday! This layout is of my son on his big thirteenth birthday...he got an Ipod Touch and it was a total surprise to him because I told him they were "too expensive" so he didn't think he was going to get one at all! All the papers and embellishments are from Basic Grey's Life of the Party line and the letter stickers are Thickers (daydream font- a fav of mine). I love the use of tags here, seems like they are appearing all over the place again, it's a trend I like and seems to go dormant for awhile and then pop up as the "in" thing every now and again, so glad they are back "in again! Have a wonderful Friday friends and look for another fun challenge at Scraptivations on Sunday....a little hint...it's colorful!

Scrapbook Bingo!

Time for another fun challenge over at Scraptivations! This is my week to host the challenge and I have come up with a fun game of scrapbook Bingo! I love Bingo and decided to combine two of my fav things: scrapbooking and bingo for this challenge! For this challenge you will create a layout or project using the four items in your "bingo" i.e. across, up and down or diagonally. You can use more then these 4 items but you must use at least those four items on your layout or project. On my layout I scored my bingo diagonally and used: one photo, twine, season and punch(used my wave border punch)! With Scrapbook bingo everyone's a winner! My layout uses papers and embellishments by October Aftenoon, their Seaside collection. I also had fun with some twine I picked up online awhile back, love the look of twine, it's all the rage now and you see it everywhere, in fact, I need to get some more to play with! Don't forget to link up your layout for this week's challenge HERE by July 5th for a chance at a very cool prize! Can't wait to see what you Bingo!

Happy Memorial Day!

Here marks the price of freedom.... Arlington National Cemetery, what a beautiful final resting place for our heroes. This view as we walked down the hill back to the metro after our visit last summer, was one I didn't want to forget, so I took this picture. I wanted to remember this sight, this reminder that freedom isn't free, and that I will always be so thankful to those who made the ultimate sacrifice and to those who serve today and served in years past to allow me and these 3 sweeties to live in freedom enjoying our holiday at the waterpark today, soaking up the sun, splashing and laughing and realizing the true beauty that comes with freedom. So thank you to our brave men and women, thank you for all you have done and continue to do!

Happy Memorial Day and God Bless the U.S.A.!!

The inanimate object challenge

Our next challenge at Scraptivations is up today! Not only was this a very challenging challenge (lol!) but a fun one as well. Carly's challenge for us was to scrap an inanimate object. I had been wanting to document my advancement into the 21st century world of technology in my mid 40's but hadn't done so yet, so this challenge was a perfect opportunity to do. I even went out and bought some fun pinkish papers to use specifically for this layout, something I don't usually do. I wanted to document my first smartphone, a Tmobile My Touch, cuz I know how much things will end up changing and in 10 years this phone will most likely be pretty lame, even though I find that hard to imagine! However, it was about 20 years ago I got my first cell phone which was HUGE, I had a bag much like a purse to carry it in and just thought it was SOOOOOOOO wonderfully advanced, in fact, I never could have imagined a smart phone and all I could do on it! Guess, I'm not very imaginative and I am thankful there are those that are so that they can develop wonderful technology for us to use! The papers I used for this layout are Echo Park Life is Good. Echo Park has the most yummy papers! Letters are Thickers and the journal box is from Making Memmories. Hope you can play along with us at Scraptivations, cuz the prize up for grabs is a gift card to your fav scrapp store! WOW! To participate just link your layout on your inanimate object up HERE! Can't wait to see what you create! Blessings,

Fun with Life of the Party!

Hi friends! I can't believe how much time has passed since my last post! Wow, time flies when you are having fun croppin' with friends! I spent a long weekend in Kansas City croppin' with some old and some new friends! Had a blast and wanted to give a shout out to my new friends at Archivers in North Kansas City, those girls are a lot of fun and know how to crop! Here is one of the pages I created while there. I love the new Basic Grey line Life of the Party! Fortunately for me Archivers had a lot of the line in stock so I could buy more (probably more then I needed) to supplement my May Personalscrapper kit. This line is now my fav line of the Spring! These are pics of my nephew playing in the tub, these bright colored toys matching the these Party papers perfectly! The flower is by Basic Grey (bloomers), the other two paper embellies are from My Minds Eye and were included in the May Personalscrapper kit. Letters are Thickers - love the faux stitching detail on them and the stars in the upper left corner are actually brads from my older stash, made by Making Memories. This layout was one I created for the Personalscrapper NSD crop challenge of : brads, buttons and ribbon (although I used ric rac which I hope counts as ribbon!) I can't wait to create some more layouts with this fun paper line, it is so much more versatile then just for birthdays! I have a lot more to share, but will do so later on, as I am off to work, but stay tuned tomorrow for my next Scraptivations challenge, it was a fun one and involved my cell phone....can you guess what it is? Well, you won't have to wait long, more tomorrow! Have a fun Friday friends!

Handmade sketchy fun!

It's time for another Scraptivatingly fun challenge! This week's challenge is brought to us by Amy who is challenging us to make our own handmade embellishments! What fun huh? There are so many techniques to try, but I decided to make my own flowers out of tissue paper. I didn't have any pink tissue paper, so I stamped my white tissue with the By Definition background stamp from Stampin' Up in Pretty in Pink ink to give my flowers just a hint of color, and I love how they turned out. For the larger flower I used my Stampin Up scallop circle punch to punch out the shape for the flower- just a hint: fold the tissue paper into several layers (I did 5) to make it thicker and easier to punch through. The smaller flower I just hand cut, using 5 layers for this one as well. Both are held together with a brad. For this layout I used the May sketch I created for our May sketch challenge over at Personalscrapper. I love how this sketch turned out and plan to use it again on a birthday layout with stars soon as well. The pictures for my flower girl layout are of my niece taken on a recent outing we had to Hobby Lobby, she had a great time trying on all the fun headpieces/bows etc! We ended up buying a big pink flower for her hair instead of this flower headband. The papers here are from Personalscrapper's February kit featuring We R Memory Keepers Be My Valentine papers (don't you just love that little cuckoo card I cut out from the papers!) The circle is handcut from pink felt as are the circles in the upper right hand corner. Letters are Thickers from American Crafts and the brads in the flower center are from American Crafts as well- LOVE these glittery brads! All of these things except the tissue paper and felt were in the February Personalscrapper kit! I hope you can play along with us at Scraptivations this month, the prize is AWESOME a $10 gift card to your fav scrappy store...now how can you beat that? I can't wait to see what fun embellishments you come up with, I just know I am gonna have to copy some of your ideas! Don't forget to check out the other DT's layouts HERE, they came up with some AWESOME ideas that you won't want to miss!