Holiday Challenge #3!

I know this is a day early, but I have a very busy weekend ahead of me and it starts in in about an hour! So, with that being said, I want you to get ready for your holiday pictures. I don't know about you, but I am far to busy to do much scrapping during the season and by the time I have time to sit down after the first of the year I am sick and tired of all the holiday colors and such. So finding inspiration after the fact is just too hard. I like to create a mini album for the season and then display them as decorations over the the following years. You may like to do a Layout for your album, so whatever it is get started on it! Do a LO or album and leave room for your pictures. That way when you are done all you have to do is slap the photos down!

This is what I started with:

It is a 9 by 9 inch accordion mini album by CTMH. I have had it it my stash for years and never knew what to do with it. It really is not my style. I just have it because it was a promo one year. I turned it into this:

The first holiday that we celebrate that never has a good LO after the fact is Thanksgiving, so I made this:

I know it is not the typical Fall colors, but...well....ummmmmm....I am sick of the typical fall colors, so I pulled out this line from Basic Gray that I had in my stash and used it. I also threw in the typical fall PP from Cosmo Cricket that I have tons of to make it a little more Thanksgivingish!

Sorry this is out of order. I had a hard time uploading today and some of the pictures did not even upload correct, so sorry. I hope you can get the idea though! Anyways, I sealed up the accordion and made it into a pocket for the kids' letters to Santa. We have a tradition (it is actually a German tradition) in which the kids write letters to Santa, stick them in their shoe, and then wake up the next morning to find a small toy or treat as a hint to what Santa will bring them on Christmas.

Here is a close up of the Beaver on the Thanksgiving page (again sorry about it being out of order)

My boys have their Birthday a week a part from each other. Logan's is right after Thanksgiving! We have a big party for them between the two days (yes on their day they still get a cake, balloons, their choice of meal, and their presents from us)and we call it Brother's Day. I always like to include it in the Holiday album.

Here is the Christmas page. I really like this one for this year. I stink at designing Holiday pages, but this year I love it!

A close up of my tree and girl.

I stamped her (CTMH), used my tonic markers to color her in, and used this puffy type stuff to make the snow. I then pop dotted her and placed her on the page making sure to leave an open space to slip a picture under it.

The following photos show how I made my pocket. First I used my oval cutter and cut half an oval on one of the flaps:

Next, I placed a continuous strip of adhesive around the edges:

Finally I sealed it up! Now, instead of an accordion album I have a useful 4 page mini album!

I look forward to seeing what you create for your holiday LOs! Make sure you upload your link in my comment sections so I can go leave you some love! I will post the next challenge on Nov. 12 and it is a fun one in which you will be altering ;-)

Holiday Challenge #2!

Are you ready for a new challenge? I actually have two for you today. Originally it was going to be one, but some of you I thought were itching for a Layout challenge so I came up with one of those to! So here is your first hint regarding the first challenge:

Carmel apples? Say what? Do you think you know what it could be about?

Here is another hint:

Now do you get it? I want you to create a LO with "apples" as part of it. It can be an embellishment, photo, title, or paper. I love this time of year because we have great produce and my family's favorite has to the be apple. Here is my Layout for this challenge:

My homemade apple pie that is huge is what I scrapped about. I also stamped the apples In the pail and played with my Copic Markers to color them in! Again, you don't have to do a LO about apples, just incorporate apples into the LO. You could do something about fall or the first day or school or something like "The Apple of My Eye". Just be creative and spend some time creating!

Now, this was my original challenge: Make favor boxes for your Thanksgiving table or Halloween. Or alter something as a hostess gift if you are not cooking this year. I usually do not do dreary and scary for Halloween, but decided to alter these boxes for my kids. I was kind of sick of looking at the typical orange, brown, and purple I usually do for Halloween. Instead, I took three take out containers that I had in my stash for like FOREVER and glimmer misted them. I then altered the fronts with Waffle paper and a few different embellishments. I finished each box off with the first initial of my child's name. Here they are:

Make sure you post a link to your blog on my comment section so we can all go check them out and get inspired. I can't wait to see what you come up with! Your next challenge will be posted on Oct. 29! Can you guess what that will be?

Challenge Oct. 1

Are you ready for the upcoming holiday season? I don't know about you, but I can't wait! This is by far my very favorite time of the year. To kick off the holiday season your first challenge is two fold. First, make your holiday cards! I know it is early to do this, but it always seems that a week before the holiday is when I get around to making the cards and I don't even enjoy the process because I am in such a hurry to get them in the mail. This year I want to enjoy the process! Take the next two weeks to get a good dent, if not all of your holiday cards done! Here are a few of mine:




Now, don't stress about this. I am actually not a card maker. I have to lift ideas all the time and that is okay. If you are having a hard time coming up with ideas then just use a sketch or lift the cards that I made.
Ready for part two of your challenge? I want you to address them, seal them, and put a stamp on them. Now, you may be thinking "but if I make all my holiday cards how am I gonna know which ones to mail off and when?" Of course you are not going to put your Christmas cards in the mail right now. I know this, but you can keep track of them by placing a small decorative stamp in the lower right corner of the envie. For example, if they are Halloween then you can stamp a pumpkin. Or for Thanksgiving you can stamp a turkey or leaves. Don't have a stamp? Then put a sticker on them. Or you can take an orange pen, for example, and draw a heart for the cards going out for Halloween and a different pen for the other set of cards. By doing this you stay organized and on top of things and your recipient thinks that you are so wonderful and thoughtful for sending a handmade card in a cute envie ;-)
I want to see what you create so please paste your link to your creation in the comment section of this post. Please do not E-mail me your pictures because I can not promise that I will be able to upload them. You have until 11:45 pm Friday October 15 to get this done. Have fun!

A New Challenge?

I am putting together a few challenge series that will begin at the first of the year. The goal is to get into our scrappy spaces, create, and strengthen relationships with others. I will post a new challenge and an example of it once a week. You will have one week to complete it and post the link to a picture of your creation here in the comment section of my blog. So, please stay tuned!

In the mean time, I am going to have a mini Holiday challenge series starting in October to get us through the next three months (October, Nov, and Dec). What makes this a "mini" challenge? Instead of a weekly challenge it will be every other week. Check back often because I am going to post the first challenge soon!

I can't wait to create and be inspired by you ladies -- my players. ;-D

10!

I actually have done 13 LOs for the month....wow! That is like almost a LO a day. I did not even try to do that. Woo-hoo! I only uploaded ten of them because I forgot to take pictures of the other three and they are already in my album. What can I say? I am lazy.

This first one I *heart*. It was soooo much fun to make with paint and such on the stars. I was able to use the new Tattered Angle Glam too!


I am pretty sure I have scrapped this picture before. LOL! I actually used the "Prima" packaging for the half circle above the picture.


Love love love this picture! Parker at the preseason Cards game. He kept yelling "Let's go Arizona Cardinals. Kick their little hiney butts!" He put his cap on backwards to watch the game. It is just soooo cute!


All of this page was done from my stash. I never thought I would ever use those button brads!


This page is busy, but I think the pictures make it ok! Pretty simple actually. I did not use any special techniques or anything and got the page done in about 15 minutes.


Old BG Recess line that I have been trying to use up. Pretty simple page.


This page was a lot of fun to do! I got to use a ton of new goodies on it like paint, TA Glam and some of my old grunge board from my stash!


Parker's first day of school. The big "K" is just grungeboard painted red and then sprinkled with glitter.


Not loving this, but it is done.


I just wanted to use the CTMH stamps I bought awhile back and never used.....not my best work at all.


This was suppose to bet he BG page of the month, but I totally did not like it, so I did my own thing and this is it. I really had a hard time with such babyish girl paper.....

TFL! :-D

August Uploads

I have had a few private E-mails asking me why it is taking me so long to upload my scrappy blog. There are two reasons. The first, I have started homeschooling and my time is limited. The second, I am having to use a different camera and it takes a lot of time to get the pictures from the first computer (my laptop can not download from the disk) to this computer then to the blog. So, one of two things is going to happen. I am either going to have to upload about once a month or not at all. I am sure it will go in spurts, but at the present time my time is really limited. Regardless, here are the uploads for the month of August!

I used the back side of one of the Christmas Prima Paintable pages that I would never ever use and created this page with watercolor crayons to kind of mimic the colors my son used in his painting. I then used this medium by a company called Golden and painted over that. I added some glitter on the edges, painted the stars, and Glimmer misted the packaging to chipboard stars I had saved. To do the title I just used this really cool spray called "Smooches". I flipped over the transparency letters and sprayed them.

This LO I used Paper Trunk pp on. I have had this pp in my stash for about three years and finally broke it out. I really love it! I made the lollipop flower out of a pair of old jeans. I then cut apart the jeans and added a small strip along the bottom of the first word in the title. The title I stamped with Poster Alpha stamps from CTMH, cut them out, and added pop dots to every other letter.

All I can say is this LO is done! I have a hard time with Birthday Layouts -- as you can see!

This LO was originally suppose to be three separate pages. However, my book is getting really full so I decided to make it into one. I made it at the end of summer and just did a summary of what we did all summer long. Homemade pizza, parks, and the movies.

This is mostly CTMH supply. I made the flower at the bottom by using a circle punch and then folding each circle and lining them up to make the flower.

I used the backside of some very ugly pp I got in a C2P kit. Gag! This stuff was hard enough to use the first time around. However, once I flipped it over and used the backside it was perfect for this! Once again I made the flower with those old jeans. We were in Texas and found the only NFL shop that was really a Dallas Cowboy shop. So, we just had to take the picture. The LO is a total joke :-P

I actually am not very happy with this LO, but it is done.

My Mom has amazing flowers around her home and this was my very favorite! I just used my circles cutter to cut the rings and flowers from my stash.

More flowers from my Mom's garden.

This is so my style! I think this is one of the most beautiful LOs I have ever done. Most all of it is by Prima, however I did make the flowers using my Cricut and the heart setting on it.

Here is a close up of the flowers. First I cut out 18 hearts in three different sizes, inked the edges, put a hole in the bottom of each of them, layered them then crumpled them up, pulled apart the crumpled up hearts, and sprayed with smooches (I think I like "Smooches" better than GM because it is so vibrant!). I then added blingy centers by Prima and now I have beautiful flowers!

I made the swirl with a template and small bling pieces.

Finally, the last one! I used another product by Smooches. It comes in like a nail polish bottle and can be used on transparency. This is a Prima transparency that I flipped over, painted and then flipped back over. Why flip? Because if a little paint gets on the black line it does not show on the other side! I then adhered it to bling CS, made the swirl and added some flowers.

All of these were created from my stash. I must admit that I have an unusually large stash and said I could scrap out of it for the next ten years. However, it has been about a year since I have been using it and I must confess, I would love to get some new things. My PP is not nearly as abundant as it was. I am glad that I have been digging in my stash to create and I must say that my creativity has really been challenged. I think I have grown as an artist because of it! Thanks for looking!

Treasured Memories Retreat in Indy!

As some of you may know, I went to Indiana over the weekend for a scrapbooking retreat. During my stay I was able to complete 31 Layouts! Of course I uploaded all of them for you to see! :-) Thanks for looking :-D