Willie's First Snow

We finally got some real snow here the day after Christmas. I really wish it had been on Christmas so that we could have played with the dogs during the day on Sunday, but I got a few photos at 2:00 AM (when Katie needed to go out), 5:00 AM (when everyone got up) and 4:30 PM on Monday (when I was clearing the walkway).

At first Willie was not sure about it. He was a little freaked out with the snowballs that stuck to his paws and all over his fur. But once he was outside with Harley, the fun began. They started running lightning fast all through the yard.

Of course I had to do a layout of Willie's first snow experience. I struggled with what to do. I knew I wanted to do do the December Challenge#19 at Lasting Memories . The challenge was to produce a winter themed layout. Well, I had the photos, but no direction. Well, today on Facebook, Let's Scrap posted the January Sketch Challenge. Wow... that was it. It's a Julie Bonner sketch for a double page layout. Just awesome....



My pages came together quite easily after finding this sketch. Here's page 1 ....

And page 2.....


And both pages together.... I used Echo Park's Wintertime collection and cardstock. What great papers.


I obsessed so long about the winter themed layout, the challenge is due tonight. But there is plenty of time to check out Let's Scrap and give Julie's sketch a try.

Santa Claws

This week's challenge at The Paper Variety is a photo inspiration challenge. Suzanne chose the most adorable photo for inspiration.


Such a sweet puppy. The challenge is to create a project with something from the photo being your inspiration. Of course doing a project with a doggie subject is pretty easy for me. For this one I decided to incorporate the Scraplift challenge for Scrappin-n-Chattin also. I scraplifted Suzanne's project for this week's TPV's challenge. Her page is just too adorable. I even used paper from the same collection Suzanne did - Echo Park's Everybody Love Christmas. Jax is so good, and just too darn cute.


And here is my page. I took Willie to see Santa today. He was pretty good about it.


Thanks for looking. I'm off to plan another page or two....

It's A ..... Thing

I made a 2nd layout over the weekend. This one was not of Ben, but of Willie. I followed the current sketch at the My Mind's Eye blog. The sketch also comes with a challenge. The challenge is to make the project in the theme It's A .... Thing, and fill in the blank. I have been playing with the dogs, trying to get decent photos of them with Christmas hats on. I ultimately want a picture of all 4 of them, dressed up, under the tree - TOGETHER. That's pretty difficult. So the title of my page is It's A Trial and Error Thing. Here is the sketch:

And here is my page:

I used a couple of mis-shots. It has taken so many tries to get a decent photo. I'm glad I was able to use a couple of bad pictures.

I used My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus papers. I was very surprised at how well these non-Christmas papers worked on this Christmas layout. I used some glittery letters from a DCWV Christmas pack I had got on clearance last year for the title. So this layout will also qualify for my 2nd Sparkle layout at Scrappin-n-Chattin.

Thanks for looking.

Baby's First Christmas

The weekend of Ben has spilled over to a 2nd weekend. I did a layout today of Ben's first holiday photos.

I followed a sketch provided by Ashley at Scrappin-n-Chattin that came from Beggahuna. OMG!! I really loved this sketch as soon as I saw it.


I used Echo Park's Merry Christmas pack again for this layout. I love those papers. In addition to entering this into SnC's sketch challenge, I am using it as the Song challenge on SnC. The challenge is to use a Christmas song title as the title of your layout. Baby's First Christmas is a song recorded by Connie Francis. I am also playing along with Challenge #13 at The Paper Variety. The challenge is to create a layout or other paper project about or for a child.


Thanks for looking. I will be taking a break from photos of Ben to do a few of the doggies.

It's A Boy

The weekend of Ben continues. I feel good that I was able to get a few pages of him completed. I have to study some more photos and get them together to do more.

This layout contains Ben's hospital photo. I'm glad I finally got it done. I was so excited to see the flourish in this week's Sketch Along Tuesday Sketch at Frosted Designs. I felt the layout of the sketch was just perfect for the baby picture.

This is the page that I created:


I used browns and blues to coincide with the color challenge at Scrappin-n-Chattin. I was so happy to be able to use my brown flourish that I found on clearance at Michael's.

Thanks for looking.

The Gymnast

I've been working on pages of Ben this weekend. Three done. Pretty good.

This page is of Ben while at gymnastics. All of the boys were in gymnastics for a little while. I think Ben is the only one with photos though. The layout is based on this week's sketch at Sassy Lil' Sketches. I really liked this sketch. I think it worked out pretty well. Here is the sketch:



And here is the page.


This page will also be my 2nd entry for the child challenge for this month at Scrappin-n-Chattin.

Favorites

I did not create as much as I would have liked during my time off this week. I did relax and did some organization in the office. It's getting close to being done. It's so much more pleasant working in there when it's clean. I managed to get the tree up this week. I wanted to have it up before David left. I hope to get a picture of him in front of it today or tomorrow before he leaves. I photographed the progress as I put the tree up. I even took some photos of my favorite ornaments. I used these photos to create a page this afternoon. I used this week's sketch at Sketchy Thursdays as my base for the page.


For some of the elements I followed the challenge this week at The Paper Variety. The Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge is so much fun. We had to create a project with 3 items in a row.


I actually followed 2 Tic-Tac-Toes. I followed the row across the top, and diagonally from top left to lower right.


The layout contains 3 photos. The diamonds that form the title banner are cut from my Cricut, the Jasmine cartridge. The photos and the papers (Echo Park's Merry Christmas) are in the holiday theme.

This page also qualifies for this week's challenge at Design Dollies - Layer upon layer upon layer... The project was to include at least 5 layers. I chose to display these layers on my most favorite ornament - my little angel. This is an ornament I received as a child in 1965. It is triple matted with 2 background papers behind it.

I am using this layout for the Sparkle challenge for Scrappin-n-Chattin. The challenge is to add glitter, bling, gems, etc. on your layout. I added a couple of rhinestones above the ornament sticker as well as sparkly string on the ornament and the banner.

It felt good to create. I am optimistic that I will get another layout or 2 done this weekend. Thanks for looking.

My Boy

Well, I came downstairs to work so that I can take most of next week off. But, I read a couple of emails from my SnC group and was totally inspired to make a page. So that's what I did.

Several of the girls in the group made awesome pages for a challenge at Artful Delight. I love the sketch and all of the pages were such great inspiration. Here is the sketch:

I chose to do a page of Willie again. I wanted to do a photo of Willie how he looked before he was groomed. I really wish I hadn't taken him to be groomed now and can't wait for everything to grow out. The page went together very quickly and I really love how it turned out.

I am also entering this layout into this week's challenge at Sketches In Thyme. It is their first Open Sketch Challenge, where you can create a layout using any sketch. There was a lot of great inspiration on that site as well.

This layout qualifies for the Repeat challenge at SnC. The challenge is to repeat the same thing at least twice. With this sketch, I repeated the squares.

I am so sad that I have not had time to create much recently. I hope work calms down soon. I am actually pretty surprised that I was able to complete 3 pages this month. I will have to make a point to make time to create more in the weeks and months to come.

A Special Sketch

This week at The Paper Variety, they have an awesome sketch by Julie Bonner. I love Julie's sketches and this one is very inspiring. I have not scrapped in a long time, but this sketch really sparked my interest. Here is the sketch:


I love the placement of the 3 photos and how they are divided on 2 pages. Even though the specific elements are something that I would really play with, the stars made me think of David. I created the first layout of his deployment to Iraq. These photos are from the day we dropped him off at the base. He didn't end up leaving for 3 more days, but when the photos were taken, we thought he would be leaving. Here is my page:

This layout will also qualify for the button challenge at Scrappin-n-Chattin. I used 3 orange buttons along the lower left edge of the green paper. It felt good to get a layout done.

There's still a little time to join the fun......

Scrapbook Challenges is having a Birthday Blog Hop. It started on Friday at 10am (MT) and is running through midnight tonight (MT). You still have some time to catch some of the great activities that they planned to celebrate the end of their first your on the ning forum. To start the hop, go to Pamela's blog. She has done such a great job with this hop and all the party activities as well as coordinating such wonderful talent and inspiration at Scrapbook Challenges.

Pamela created a sketch for this celebration. All of the design team members created projects based on this sketch for their blog posts for the hop. What an amazing group of talent. Seeing so many different layouts/cards really made me want to create a layout from this sketch. So I did.

Here is the sketch:



And my layout:
Stew was so impressed with how good Willie was, he decided that he didn't need to stay in the crate during the day when he was 6 months old. That only lasted for about 3 weeks or so. He was getting into things and ultimately broke a glass that was left on a table. So back in the crate. On his 2nd day back in there, one of the big dogs - Lola or Harley - totally killed his Mr. Monkey. Right in front of him, where he couldn't do anything. Poor guy. I can only imagine how bad he felt.

Pamela gave the members of Scrapbook Challenges the opportunity to join in the fun by making a layout and posting the location of the blog post. Check out what other members did.

Great job everyone!!

Trick or Treat

Check out my friend Suzanne's blog. She's offering some great blog candy if you become a follower and leave a message. She has a lot of inspiration throughout her blog. Check it out and good luck. Happy Halloween.

Halloween Cards

I have never made a Halloween card before, but I made 2 today. They were quite fun. I am going to send them to my nephews with the treat containers that I made for them.

This first card I made following the challenge at Jitterbuggin'. The challenge this week was to follow the sketch, include a cricut cut, emboss something and include a pumpkin on the card. The spider and web were cut from the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge. I used 2 different Cuttlebug embossing folders to emboss the circle and the orange paper along the right side of the card. Here is the example to follow:

And here is the card I created:

The next card I am entering into the Paper Kutz Challenge this week. The challenge is to create a Halloween project - a card, layout, or other craft project using circles, starts, diamonds or crescents. The bat and the cat were also cut from the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge.


Thanks for looking.

Halloween Treat Contatiners

This week at The Paper Variety they hare having A Sweet Challenge. The challenge is to create a project to be used for treats - a container, tag, topper, etc. What a fun project.

I created a couple of container for my nephews filled with Halloween candy. I used my Tags, Bags, Boxes and Bows Cricut cartridge to cut the container and used Paper Doll Dress Up to cut the cat and bat I used as tags. I sure hope they like them.

This is 4th challenge week at The Paper Variety, and Suzanne chose a scraplift challenge.


The design team members created an "anything goes" layout. The challenge is to choose one of these projects as your inspiration. I selected Tessa's page as my inspiration.


I really like the different elements that she used. Tessa painted the photo mat, but I thought mulberry paper... It's been a long time since I've used mulberry paper. I wet the edges and pulled them. Once the paper was dry, I secured it to my background paper and chalked around the edges. I also used many of the other elements that Tessa did including the 3 embellishments below the photo and an outline around the outside of the photo mat. I used floss, eyelets and brads for the outline and I cut some embellishments from the paper I used, A Boy's Universe from The Paper Studio. On Wednesday, I checked out the Bo Bunny blog and was inspired by several of the layouts posted that day. Janice Medina's layout really struck me. She had the words mischief and mayhem on her layout. When I saw that, I thought of the photo I used. I just had to incorporate that into this layout.


Thanks for looking.

The Baby

This week is the 2nd challenge for The Paper Variety. This week is an ABC recipe challenge - to create a layout using autumn colors (A), borders (B) and cinema (C). This was quite challenging, but very fun.


To create this layout I used Sketch #122 from Creative Scrappers. I thought it was perfect for this challenge, especially because of the borders.


This is what I came up with. Lots of autumn colors, and leaves, making this page qualify for the Leave challenge for Scrappin-n-Chattin. I got to use one of my border punches. I always love using border punches. The cinema part was the hardest for me. Since this is a photo of David when he was a baby, I chose the movie The Baby for the title. This is a movie that I found from 1973, a horror film. The theme of the movie surely does not fit the photo, but the title is a movie title.


Thanks for looking.

TPV's First Challenge!!

What an exciting time. This week is the first challenge for The Paper Variety, the new challenge blog started by my friends Abby and Suzanne. I have been looking forward to this for weeks and when I saw the sketch I was not disappointed. I loved it immediately.


This has been a bad week for me, so I was not sure that I would be able to get a layout done. But I found it therapeutic to study the sketch. I printed a photo on Thursday evening, but had trouble choosing papers. On Friday, a photo of Courtney's friend Molly popped up on my screen saver at work. I thought - That's It!!! So I put this page together.

Congratulations Suzanne and Abby. The Paper Variety has been great so far and will only get better.

Grrrr

I figured I better start doing some more pages of Katie. She is getting old and is loosing her hair, so I am scrapping some pages from before this year.

She really hates clothes. But in the winter now, she gets very, very cold. I've been trying to keep her a little warm so she's comfortable when she has to be outside. It doesn't really work. I took some pictures, of course, last year when I tried dressing her. I used this week's Sketchy Thursdays sketch as base for the layout. I really liked this sketch.


And here is the page. I think I will try getting her something pink and fuzzy this year.

Thanks for looking......

So Pretty

Yesterday was Pete's best friend's wedding. Pete and Jenna were both in the wedding party. Everyone looked so nice. I didn't get many photos, but I managed to get a decent one of Jenna and Pete together.


To do the photo justice, I wanted to choose the perfect sketch. I found this one at Sketchy Thursdays. It's the current sketch being used for the October Guest Design Team Challenge.
It's such a nice sketch and there were so many wonderful takes on the sketch.

This is what I came up with. Very blingy.



Thanks for looking.

The Paper Variety

It's almost time.... The new challenge blog, The Paper Variety, will be having their first challenge on September 15th. How exciting to be able to participate on the very first challenge this blog is offering. Tomorrow they will be announcing the first design team members. The members don't even know yet if they were chosen. Everyone will find out tomorrow. Such suspense.

Pay a visit to TPV and check out how you could have the opportunity to win Echo Park's Life is Good paper kit. I love Echo Park paper so much. This is a great giveaway.



Sue

24 Hour Challenge

At Scrappin-n-Chattin we have a challenge once a month called the 24 Hour Challenge. Each person chooses 3 paper collections that they have and want to work with. The hostess, April, chooses 3 sketches. April then selects which player will make the selections for another player. On Friday evening she announces which collection and sketch each person is to use and we have until 9pm on Saturday to create a layout. It is so much fun. I so look forward to it every month.

This month my selections were the Sophie collection from Bo Bunny and Sketch #1 which was a sketch from Got Sketch, #74.


And this is the page I created. These are photos of my granddaughter the day her sister was born. She was so excited to become a big sister. After spending some time at the hospital with the baby and everyone, we brought her home with us so Mom and Dad could have some peace. Morgan loves to pose for photos.


Thanks for looking.

Sue

Check Out This Giveaway!

I just followed a link to the blog Obsessed with Scrapbooking. There is a giveaway going on there right now. She is giving away 3 Cricut cartridges for 3 different people. Check out this post. I totally love the cards she created. I'm so excited about following her now. There is so much great information on this blog. Go take a look. The giveaway ends August 25th, so hurry on over.

Mark Your Calendar!!!

The Paper Variety is launching its very first challenge on September 15!!! Be sure to check TPV on the 15th to join in on the fun. Be one of the first to participate in the awesome fun that Abby and Suzanne have planned for all paper crafters. There will be sketches, color and technique challenges, photo inspiration and much more - something different every week!! I hope I see you there.

TPV is looking for members for its Design Team. If you are interested, please read this post and submit your application to thepapervariety at gmail dot com. Applications are being accepted through August 25th.

**~Sue~**

Every Day Card Challenge

At Scrappin-n-Chattin we are currently running a challenge to create a card every day. And for this month, they are to be Christmas cards. How fun to be creating holiday cards during the summer. There were 2 options - creating 30 cards, or 15. I chose to try to do 15. So far I am up to 4. It's quite fun and very challenging for me. It will be so nice to have a stash of holiday cards all ready for addressing in December.



My day 4 card also qualifies for our Card Challenge #1 this month at SnC. The challenge was to use a transparency. I used one I had from the Eskimo Kisses collection from Basic Grey. It's such a wonderful collection. The colors are awesome and non-traditional. I really like how it turned out.

I am also going to enter this card into a contest at The Paper Variety. Abby and Suzanne will chose a random winner to receive the Imaginisce Christmas Cottage 6 x 6 paper pad, greetings rub-ons and holly stamp. So much fun.

Thanks for looking.

Blog Hop Winner!!

I hope everyone enjoyed our first Scrappin-n-Chattin Blog Hop. I really enjoyed reading all the wonderful comments about the border punches, my layout and my puppy. Thank you so much for all of the nice things you had to say.

Now to announce the winner of the Martha Stewart Deco Fan punch. The Random Number Generator chose #31.


#31 - Jennyplace2

Congratulation Jenny!!!


Please email me at ssedlak815 at gmail dot com with your address and I will get the punch into the mail to you. I hope you enjoy the set and will share your creations with me.





Thanks again for all who participated in the hop.

Border Punches

Welcome to my blog, The Scrappings of Sue. I hope you are having fun on our blog hop today. If you reached my blog from Theresa's blog, you are in the right place!! If not, you will want to start here, at Abby's blog. You will want to hop in the order outlined in Abby's blog. You will be collecting a secret word from each blog. You can read all the details about this from Abby. Be sure to check out our Yahoo! Group, Scrappin-n-Chattin. We are a great group of talented friends. You will find so much support and inspiration here.


I have so fallen in love with border punches. I have collected quite a number over the past year and try to use them whenever I can. I get very excited when I see a sketch or challenge to use border punches.

I have also fallen in love with combining the use of the corner punches in conjuction with a border punch to create an edge all the way around the page. To make the sizing work, you have to have the paper cut to a specified size. These are the dimensions that are included inside the package:

3.25 inches / 8.25 cm
5 inches / 12.7 cm
6.75 inches / 17.15 cm
8.5 inches / 21.59 cm
10.25 inches / 26.04 cm
12 inches / 30.48 cm

Today I creating a page based on a sketch that I found on Julie Bonner's blog. Here is the sketch:

Although this sketch did not use a border punch, I used one on one of the paper elements. Here is what I used:

My paper is cut into a 10.25" square. This Punch Around the Page set is called Scallop 3 Dot. To begin, punch each corner.

Next, line up one of the corners with the pattern just to the right or left of the punch part of the punch. I always go to the right. Line up the pattern further down on the punch after you make the first punch.

Continue around the page.



And here is the final product.




I am doing a giveaway. How would you like to win a Punch Around the Page of your own? All you have to do is leave a comment on this post and become a follower of my blog. I will do random drawing on Monday morning. The winner will receive this Martha Stewart Deco Fan Punch Around the Page Punch.







So now I have my secret word for you - friendly .



Thanks for visiting. I hope you enjoyed your time at my blog. Now, continue your journey on our blog hop and visit Laura.

~~Sue~~