These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

I created this layout for a challenge at Memorable Seasons for the last scrapper standing contest. I was kicked to the curb two weeks ago, but I'm still playing along, because I like the challenges. This week we needed to create a layout using no photo, at least 20 of something, and patterned papers from 3 manufacturers. No photo, no problem. I have 36 manufacturers on my layout, and I apologize to those that I left off! I already know of a few that aren't on there! My patterned papers are from Pink Paislee, Cosmo Cricket, LYB, and Authentique! This layout also shows my love of sewing on my layouts, my Thickers obsession, and how I love Primas!! This was fun! I love it!

I hope you're having a great day! Thanks for stopping by!

Five Layouts In One Day!

I'm not sure what was going on with me yesterday, but the scrappy mojo hit, and I created five layouts in one day! The first one uses an older kit from Inspired to Scrap! The photo is from 1998!! Wow, aren't the girls CUTE!?! I scraplifted a layout by Tami when I created that layout! The second layout uses a kit from Memorable Seasons. The third layout features one of my all-time favorites . . . Cosmo Cricket Snorkel! I love the Thickers on the Harley-Davidson layout! Shiny silver! Nice! The last layout is Basic Grey Lauderale. So, that was FUN!! Creating all day long is really a good time!

I hope you're having a great day. Thanks for stopping by!

Love These 3!

I created this fun layout featuring a photo that I LOVE!! I used a kit that I got at Memorable Seasons. I love it! So many FUN manufacturers . . . American Crafts, Cosmo Cricket, Crate Paper, Pink Paislee . . . and more! I did a lot of sewing and distressing on this page! It was really fun to incorporate the number 3 so many times in my layout!

I hope you're having a great day! Thank goodness it's Friday! As always, thanks for stopping by!

Circa 1934 cards!

I created some fun Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934 cards. I love this collection! The last card has a Tim Holtz Stamper's Anonymous stamp on it! I love it with the Circa 1934! I added some stitching to all three too! I just love sewing on my cards!

I hope you're having a great day! Thanks for stopping by!

Freshman Flute 2010

I created this layout for a scraplift challenge at Coordinates Collections. I love the Pink Paislee Anthology ink resist papers! They are so cool! I sewed a heart on the layout, featured a wonderful photo of Emily in her marching band show uniform, and then just added journaling next to the photo. I used some Bo Bunny Cambridge letters and some Cosmo Cricket tiny type. The stickers borders are also Bo Bunny Cambridge. I love the way this turned out. It's very simple, but striking!

I hope you're having a great day. Thanks for stopping by!

Lots of Scrapping!

I was very CREATIVE this weekend! It was wonderful! An online crop at Coordinates Collections really inspired me! Here are just a few of the things that I created!


I created this page for a white space/negative space challenge. I love white space! I used Crate Paper Snow Day, some Pink Paislee cushy alphas, and some ribbons. I love the trio of ribbon next to the photo! Isn't that a gorgeous photo? It was a sunrise, and I love a pink sky!


This page was created for an orange and turquoise challenge. I love that color combination! These are some fun photos from our Disney vacation. I used a Hambly transparency (yes, it got sewed on crooked!), some Jillibean Soup, American Crafts, and Prima. I love the way this turned out. Fun vacation layout!


This layout features just one manufacturer. I love Sassafras Indie Girl, and it just seemed to work with these photos of the girls and their new fleece blankets. They're so CUTE!


This card was created for a frills and bling challenge. My mom's birthday is coming up, and she'll love a pretty feminine card! I used Cosmo Cricket DeLovely, some tulle, rhinestones, and a Prima. The sentiment is a Stampin' Up stamp, and I cut it with one of my circle scallop Nestabilities. I like it!

I hope you had a great weekend! There's talk of a blizzard for Illinois. I hope they're wrong! I don't like the word blizzard unless I'm going to Dairy Queen! :) Thanks for stopping by!

Bracelet Buddies

I created this page using a January 2011 PageMaps sketch by Becky Fleck. I love PageMaps! I used Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934! Oh, how I love this collection! I won the collection from the fantastic SRM Stickers! Thank you so much!! I just love the way this layout turned out! The flowers were made using my Tim Holtz Tattered Floral Die by Sizzix. This is one of my most favorite layouts EVER!!

I hope you're having a great day. Enjoy your weekend! It's cold here today! Right now, it's -5 degrees! Brrr!! Thanks for stopping by!

Gift Card Holders

I created a couple of fun gift card holders over the weekend. These really just took me a few minutes! I used some awesome Cosmo Cricket double-sided paper, put in a couple of folds, stitched on my machine, added a couple of stamps, some glitter leaves, a flower, and a button! Done! Cute as can be!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend! We have one Christmas celebration done, and one to go! We had a wonderful time celebrating! Thanks for stopping by!

Joyful

I actually made a Christmas card! I really like the way this turned out using paper strips from the awesome Cosmo Cricket Jolly By Golly collection! The letters are chipboard from that same collection! I added sheer ribbon and an awesome button! I also sewed on the card front.

I hope you're having a great day! It's very COLD here! As always, thanks for stopping by!

Home Economics Challenge!

Scrap-Friendzy just started our Scrap University! It's going to run the entire month of September! Come on by and play along! Today, I posted the 2nd challenge of the month, and it's a Home Economics Challenge! For my challenge you need to add fabric and sewing to your layout! Here are my examples.


This page features denim and machine sewing! I literally cut a pocket out of a pair of shorts that the girls wore when they were younger. I love the pocket design! I also die cut two denim flowers in my Cuttlebug using my Tim Holtz Tattered Floral die. This layout features Jillibean Soup papers, some Cosmo Cricket Lil' Man items, a Jenni Bowlin ticket, and Maya Road velvet flowers. I even added a clothing tag from one of the shirts to the page. Last, but not least, I am LOVING those varsity Thickers for this layout! I used my sewing machine too! Oh, how I love my sewing machine!!


This page features a fabric flower that I created (tutorial is on the Scrap-Friendzy site), and I also added fabric to the edge of my journaling block. All of the sewing on this page is hand stitching. I took some FUN photos of Jessica in June, so I decided to create a Jessica June 2010 page! I love these Bo Bunny papers!

I hope you have a wonderful long holiday weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

Some Cards!

I created this card for a wonderful blogging friend! I used one of my NEW Tim Holtz texture fades embossing templates. I also used the Tattered Floral Tim Holtz Sizzix die. I love those flowers! I also did a lot of distressing and some sewing. Last, I used my typewriter! I ♥ my typewriter!! I love the way this turned out!


I needed to send a sympathy card last week. I struggle with sympathy cards! This is mostly Jenni Bowlin, and once again, I used my typewriter for the sentiment!


This last card is not the best, but I wanted to use ONLY what I received as a prize from the amazing Stephanie at Crafty Steals! She sent so much, and this card features: Cosmo Cricket Early Bird, American Crafts flowers and rhinestone brad, and some Jenni Bowlin crepe paper ribbon.

I hope you have plans for a very fun weekend! Happy Friday! Thanks for stopping by!

My American Girls

I created this page for a challenge over at Memorable Seasons for their 2nd Annual Last Scrapper Standing contest! The first challenge was "An American Child", and we had to use stars and stripes on our layout. I love that this challenge could be interpreted in many ways, not just patriotic!! However, I had these awesome 4th of July photos of the girls with Princess, so I went all out Patriotic!! I used Pink Paislee Starlight, Cosmo Cricket Halfway Cafe, Rusty Pickle letters brads (thanks Chris!), Thickers, Maya Road acrylic sheer and kraft envelope, Jenni Bowlin journaling star, so many things from my stash (mostly Making Memories items), and I sewed! One of my favorite things that I added is the "made in the U.S.A." strip. It came from the bottom cutaway strip on the Pink Paislee paper!! It was fun to pull out a bunch of older items and put them on this layout!! I love the way this turned out!

I hope you're having a great day! Thanks for stopping by!

Altered Notebook & A Layout!

I created both of these projects for the awesome challenges that are going on over at Scrap-Friendzy's Camp-Friendzy! Come over and check it out! It's a lot of fun!!


I altered a notebook for a pre-camp challenge. I used what I considered to be an obvious choice for a camp-themed challenge . . . Cosmo Cricket's Mr. Campy! I love the way this turned out! The blackboard shapes are so cool!


I created this layout for another challenge where we needed to use banners or flags on our layout. I used both! I cut the awesome banner from a sheet of paper from The Girls' Paperie, and I added two little travel-themed flag pins from Making Memories. I really like the way this layout turned out!

I hope you're enjoying your weekend. Thanks for stopping by!

A couple of layouts!

Here are a couple of layouts that I worked on recently.


This first one features of photo of Emily in Palm Springs the day after we visited Disneyland in Anaheim where she enthusiastically met Minnie Mouse! Her reaction to meeting Minnie Mouse is one of those moments that is etched on my brain and is truly priceless! She's two years old in this photo, and I'm sure you'll agree that she is too cool! The red paper at the top is Cosmo Cricket, the red polka dot behind the photo is packaging from Jenni Bowlin journaling spots, and the black and white journaling sticker is American Crafts. I added a stamped Stampin' Up heart, a couple of Minnie Mouse close-ups that were cut from patterned paper, and some Primas with Making Memories brad centers.


I did a little masking and misting on the "Disney" in the title! It wasn't completely successful, but I went with it anyway! I used the backing from adhesive letters for my mask, and basically, it wasn't heavy enough on the paper, so the mist ran underneath. I was going to just trash it, but I figured that tracing the letters would work, and it did. These are three random photos that I shot over my shoulder while we were on the airplane on the way home after our Disney vacation. As you can see, Emily and Jessica were sitting behind Dave and I. I think these photos are hysterical! I did some sewing, added some Making Memories papers and travel stickers, and I even detail cut and lifted the "e" and the "y" in the title so that I could slip a photo underneath. I love the way that looks!

I hope you're having a great day. Thanks for stopping by!

South Rim

Over on the Unity Forum at SCS, they posted two cool sketches for NSD. I created using this sketch right away! Love it!


Here's my page! The background is Cosmo Cricket The Boyfriend, the half circle scallop sheet is My Little Shoebox. The strip across the page is My Mind's Eye. I also used fantastic Jillibean Soup corrugated letters and Prima felt letters in my title. I did a lot of sewing on this layout too, and broke out the paint! Last, but certainly not least, I used amazing Unity and ippity stamps on my layout! I used Distressed Dots, Love In Return, Life's Little Moments, and Capture Life. Unity and ippity stamps are AMAZING for scrapbooking!! I love the way this page turned out!! You can click on the layout to see it larger and to get a better look at the stamping! ♥

Did you get time to play for National Scrapbooking Day? I hope so! I'm working on the 2nd sketch today (almost finished!), and I hope to create all day long! We'll see! Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by!

Unity Anniversary Challenge Cards!

I created some cards this week for challenges on the Unity forum at SplitCoast Stampers.


The first challenge was to create a bird or tree card using Unity stamps. Well, I have a lot of Unity stamps, but most of them are for journaling or scrapbooking, and shockingly enough, I didn't have ANY birds or trees except for this penguin! He's actually from a winter set, but I made him a beachy penguin! Isn't he cute!?! The paper is My Mind's Eye.


The next card is based on a sketch, and there was a twist to use ribbon and three buttons. Once again, I used My Mind's Eye papers. I love the two flower buttons that I used, and I always love ric rac! I added some rhinestones too.


The last one is also based on an awesome sketch. Since Unity just came out with Cosmo Cricket stamps, I used Cosmo Cricket Material Girl paper on my card! I did a lot of sewing. I love the way this turned out!

I hope you're having a great day! Happy Friday! Do you have plans for National Scrapbooking Day? I cannot wait to scrapbook all day long (hopefully!) Have a great day and a fantastic weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

Downtown Disney

I created this page based on a Julie Bonner sketch that my friend Chris used as inspiration over at Inspired Crafters. If you check out the sketch that was posted, you can see that I used MUCH larger photos on my layout, but I still like the way it turned out! These are four photos from Downtown Disney. We went there in the evening, and it was such a cool place! I used orange dotted and black dotted paper from Making Memories. I used Thickers and Cosmo Cricket tiny type for my title, and I added some sewing. I punched a couple of border strips, and I punched the flowers with two Martha Stewart punches that my friend Chris sent to me! This is a simple page, and I like it!

I hope you're having a great weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

Emily and Elmo

Sketchy Thursdays posted an awesome Second Chance Challenge Sketch for some amazing Lawn Fawn stamps, and I just had to create a layout based on the sketch! This is my Emily with her Elmo way back in March of 1997! Emily was ten months old on her first Christmas in 1996, and my mother in law got her a Tickle Me Elmo. This was the Christmas when you COULD NOT find the Tickle Me Elmo in stores. My mother in law bought it before all of the craziness set in, and she didn't become aware of how popular it was until someone offered to buy it off of her before Christmas! Anyway, she refused, she gave it to Emily on her first Christmas, and Tickle Me Elmo (with the tickle sound box removed!) quickly became Emily's stuffed toy that she always had with her! In fact, when I gave birth to Jessica in July of 1997, Emily and Elmo came to the hospital to see me! The doctor even put a small surgical gown on Elmo! Anyway, this photo is precious to me, and it brings back so many memories of my sweet girl and her Elmo! This sweet girl is now 14 years old, and YES, she still has her Elmo! ♥

So, I used a beautiful sheet of Prima paper for the background. How could I resist that red and orange color combination for this page!?! The orange dotted is by Making Memories. I added a little Elmo stamp on a My Mind's Eye journaling card. The other Elmo detail cut is from a sheet of paper from a pad that was in the dollar section of Target. It's perfect on this page! I used Thickers, Cosmo Cricket tiny type, and Jenni Bowlin alphas to create the title, and I sewed on a few buttons. I love the way this turned out, and I know Emily's going to love it too! Be sure to visit Sketchy Thursdays to see the fantastic sketch!

Happy Friday! I hope you have a GREAT weekend, and as always, thanks for stopping by!

Cherry Slurpees

My most amazing, wonderful, and awesome blogging friend Chris is taking over the April challenges at Inspired Crafters. She posted a great Sketchy Thursdays sketch for this week. I love their sketches, so I just had to do a layout for it! I'm featuring a photo that I really love! It's Jessica, Emily, and I drinking our big 44 oz. cherry slurpees! A couple times a year, Dave takes the girls to get slurpees. He was out of town on business one week in the summer, and when the girls and I went to get gas in the van, Jessica noticed that slurpees were on special at Speedway! So, she convinced me that we had to get them, and when we got home, we snapped a pic of us drinking them, and we emailed the photo to Dave. He was very disappointed that we went to get slurpees without him! I blamed Jessica, because it truly was all her fault! Anyway, I used my new Cosmo Cricket kit that I got from HSN. I added a cherry brad (I got a package of these as blog candy a long time ago, and I was convinced that I would NEVER use them!), a Jenni Bowlin journaling spot, some Jenni Bowlin round alphas, a Making Memories felt flower, and a button and twine from Papertrey Ink. I also did a lot of ink distressing and sewing! I love the way this turned out! ♥

I hope you had a great week! Enjoy your weekend, and thanks for stopping by!

April Guest Designer at SBKC!

I am so excited to tell you that I am the guest designer at Scrapbook Kit Club for April, and would you just look at the amazing kit that I got to work with!! First off, I want to thank Amber for having me as the guest designer this month! I'm thrilled and honored! The kit is filled with amazing products by Cosmo Cricket, American Crafts, and Maya Road! The kits at SBKC are really fantastic, and Amber's customer service can't be beat! You get A LOT for your money! If you're looking for a wonderful kit, I cannot recommend this one enough! Go take a look! Tell Amber that Carol sent you! ♥


Here's the first layout that I created! I just love it! This is a photo of Emily on Christmas Day 1997. Isn't she adorable? Dave and I asked her, "How big is Emily?" The answer to this question is, of course, "SO BIG!" This is one of my favorite photographs EVER, so it deserved to be showcased on a layout all by itself! I used the rulers from the Cosmo Cricket Material Girl patterned paper. They're perfect! I also detail cut the small border under the photo, and detail cut a flower also from Material Girl papers. The chipboard title is also by Cosmo Cricket. I usually dislike the look when crafters leave the centers in the letters (as seen on the "o" and the "b" in my title), but with these letters, I think it looks awesome! I cut the pennant banner from a Dear Lizzy paper by American Crafts. The pom pom trim, crocheted flowers, and kraft envelope are all by Maya Road. I finished off this page by adding a zig zag machine stitch all the way around. I love it!


For my second layout I created with the kit, I wanted to feature some favorite photographs of Jessica! She used to make the cutest scrunchy face when she was a baby! Totally adorable! I cut the banner across the top and all of the semicircles on the left side from Dear Lizzy papers. The brown strip and the pink strip at the bottom of the layout are cut from fabric paper! Very cool, and it has such a great texture! The title is Cosmo Cricket chipboard, and the flower was detail cut from Material Girl. I took apart one of the Maya Road kraft envelopes. I journaled on the flap, and then I matted my photos with the rest of it! Once again, I added some machine stitching around the layout. I love the way it finishes off the page! I love this layout too! ♥


This layout features a photograph of the girls and I in Palm Springs, California. We flew out to visit my mother-in-law right after Emily turned 2. Vicky took the girls and I to a beautiful wildflower field, and we snapped this pic. I love it! I detail cut the bottom and the pennant from Dear Lizzy papers. The flowering branch on the upper left is from the fabric paper. I added a glitter Thickers title, and a ribbon flower. Once again, I sewed around the background. In case you didn't notice, I'm totally into sewing lately! This page is simple, but I love it! I really let the photograph be the main focus of the layout!


I love that Material Girl is all about sewing, so I just HAD TO create a layout about one of my favorite things . . . my sewing machine! I love this machine, and what I love even more is that it was only $15 at a garage sale. It is the best garage sale find EVER!! I sewed some denim to a border element, and I made some denim flowers in my Cuttlebug! I detail cut three spools, and then I added thread to them! I love the way that looks! I added some buttons, and I sewed them to my layout. I also added a button with twine. I did a ton of zig zag stitching on this page (of course!), and I added a title with Thickers! Once again, I love it! I should hang this above my sewing machine!


I had so many scraps on my desk, that I had to create a card! I used the extra folio closure from the envelope that I used on the "Scrunchy Face" layout as my flower center! Isn't that cute? I also mounted the chipboard sentiment on some of that envelope. Believe me, I used that envelope up! I love the Maya Road ribbon. I knotted it, and pushed through two of the amazing straight pins! Beautiful!


For my last project, I created a "We Are Family" banner from the Maya Road chipboard people that came in the kit! This represents us! Dave is decked out in Harley Davidson denim, I am in red (which is my favorite color), and Emily is in blue gingham, and Jessica is in green gingham. The ginghams are the backsides of Material Girl! The alphas are by Jenni Bowlin. I gave myself a diamond necklace, and the girls both have skirts! All three girls have flowers in their hair, and Dave's chipboard piece has a motorcycle brad! The "LOVE" is Cosmo Cricket chipboard. Not everything that I used came in the kit, but I did my best! I haven't decided where I'm hanging this yet, but I love it!

So, I hope you enjoyed looking at the projects that I created using the AMAZING April kit at Scrapbook Kit Club! I cannot recommend this kit enough! Amber's kits are wonderful! Try one, you won't be disappointed! Thanks for stopping by!