The Carrot Tradition Continues

I thought long and hard on how I could get a 2nd layout completed to follow the Food Challenge at Scrappin-n-Chattin. I really don't take many photos of food. I had almost decided I was going to take photos of the dogs waiting to eat their dinners to use for this page. Then at work on Tuesday, I looked up at my photo collage above my desk and saw a picture of Willie with a carrot. That's it.

Every morning, the dogs get a carrot for a snack. Once Willie was about 4 months old, we started giving him carrots. Every morning now, they wait for their carrots as I make our lunches for work. Lola takes her into the living room and eats it on her bed. Harley puts his down on the rug in front of the sink and starts on it. And Willie trots off to the back room, all by himself and eats his half under the table in the room.

To create this page, I followed Sketch #112 at The Scrappiest. I wasn't sure about how the paper placement was going to work, but the dt's inspiration was great.


I used Max and Whiskers. I love how the papers work so well together.


Thanks for looking.

Rufus

Since David has been gone, I have wanted to scrap some photos of him on deployment. I've been collecting photos from Facebook that he and his friends have posted, and collected a few stories here and there. But I just haven't been able to bring myself to actually scrap something.

I went to Joanne's yesterday and got the Americana paper collection from K & Company. It spurred me to want to work on a page with something that has happened in Iraq. This week's Sketchy Thursdays sketch just really pushed me over the edge.



Here is what I came up with....


The story of Rufus ultimately did not turn out to be a good one. But he brought a lot of happiness to the guys for the time he was there.

I also matched a challenge at Scrappin-n-Chattin that is called Leprechaun's Gold. You had to include glitter, oval, leave and doodle on the layout. I used the oval in place of the brackets on the center photo. The red in the flower embellishments in the upper left and lower right of the page are glittery and I added Stickles to the title. I added leaves to the flowers in the upper right of the page. And I doodled around the oval and added a little smiley face on the journaling tag. This was a pretty tough challenge, but so fun to try to make it work.

I am also going to use this layout as my 3rd entry into this week's Sketches in Thyme Open Challenge.

Santa?

Happy Sunday everyone. It's time to reveal this week's challenge and layout at Lasting Memories. We have a sketch to follow this week. I loved this sketch. It's so versatile. I can see using time and time again.

I know that it's spring, and you probably don't want to be thinking about Christmas today, but my page is a Christmas one. I have been wanting to do a page with this photo for several months. The photo was another outtake from trying to get photos of the dogs in their Christmas hats. Willie's position really looks like he heard something on the roof. Stew came up with the title again. He was the first to notice that it looked like Willie heard something.


I used Echo Park's Everybody Love Christmas collection, a total favorite. I am also excited that I was able to include a Cupcake Poppy from Tessa's Etsy Shop, Precocious Paper. These are so cute.

I am also including this as my 2nd entry into Scrappin-n-Chattin's Long Title Challenge. The title needs to be at least 5 words long.

Hop on over to Lasting Memories and check out what the other members of the team created with the sketch. I hope we inspire you try the sketch too.

Artful Delight

Artful Delight is a great kit blog. My friends April and Abby are on Leeanne's design team. And my friend Suzanne was a guest designer in March. Their work is always awesome and really helped to influence me to try a kit. It's the first kit site that I have ever joined and I am so happy. I got my March kit and love everything in it. There is so much awesome paper and all the embellishments that coordinate perfectly. Here is a layout that I created using just a small amount of what was in the package. I used the March sketch at Artful Delight as well....



My nephews turned 12 this week. My how time flies. It's so hard to grasp how big they are getting. I used a photo of them from 2000 to create this layout.


Artful Delight is celebrating their one year anniversary with a giveaway. Check out this blog post and become a follower. Look around at all of the inspiration and the kits. You will love what you see.

I am also entering this layout as my 2nd entry into this week's Sketches In Thyme Open Challenge, to use any sketch.

Birthday Sundaes - Challenge #2

Wow, the response to our first challenge was awesome. I cannot believe how many wonderful birthday cards everyone submitted. So very exciting. I enjoyed looking at all of them. So much inspiration.

This week, in honor of the new season, the Birthday Sundaes challenge is to create a Spring Birthday card. I actually made 2 of these cards. I used the Wild Cards Cricut cartridge to make the cards and matching envelopes again. I'm so happy to be getting some use out of it now. I used DCWV Spring Stack paper and cardstock for all parts of the card. The Cricut got some more use making the flowers - Walk In My Garden cartridge.

I am also entering the cards into this week's challenge at The Creative Cottage. The challenge is Spring Has Sprung, using spring colors and elements. And the cards also qualify for the Happy Birthday challenge at Fantabulous Cricut. It's their birthday week. They are 1 year old.

Check out the great cards the other design team members created. I hope we can inspire you to show us some signs of spring.

Wonder

I have been crafting today. I was only able to get one layout completed, but I made 3 cards too. So that wasn't too bad.

To create my layout I followed a Julie Bonner sketch. To make my photo choice work, I rotated the sketch 90º.


The colors and elements on the page were selected to follow this week's challenge at The Paper Variety. The challenge is a spring Tic-Tac-Toe. You are to select 3 elements in a row. I chose my elements in a diagonal - 2+ flowers, spring colors and scallops.


The scallops are on the sides of the ovals I cut for the photo mat. I used Basic Grey's Olivia collection for this layout. I love the papers. The colors are so cool for girl pages.


I am entering this layout into this week's Sketches In Thyme challenge. They are having an Open Sketch Challenge this week where you can create a layout based on any sketch. In addition I am going to enter this into the Wee Memories challenge, it Anything Goes....

Thanks for looking. Hope everyone is having a wonderfully crafty weekend.

Abby has some blog candy...

Check out my friend, Abby's blog. She has an awesome post there about photographing every day things. Things that make you happy and even things that make you sad. All of the things that define you and your family. That's such an awesome idea. And in celebration of her recently reaching 200 followers and over 10,000 hits, she's offering some fantastic blog candy. Echo Park's Playground collection....


So, check out her awesome post, and her whole blog. She's has some great inspiration. Leave her a comment on the March 17th post for chance to win. She will be selecting the winner on April 1st.

It's Coming

For several weeks now, some of my friends on Facebook have been sharing signs of spring in their yards. When the first photos appeared, we still had a foot of snow on the ground. We still have some covering about half of the front yard, but I witnessed our first signs of spring on Thursday!! The daffodils near the front deck are coming up.

Today is Sunday and time again for the weekly challenge at Lasting Memories. The challenge this week is one of my favorite kinds of challenges - A 1, 2, 3 Recipe. I used 3 photos I took on Thursday, showing all the snow still in the front yard and the daffodils coming up, even through the snow. I followed the current sketch from Scrap A Little! Sketches. I first saw the sketch before I took the photos. I took the pictures with the sketch in mind.


The photos may be a bit tough to see on the layout, so I am including just the photo of the flowers also. The recipe is to use 1 - Diecut, 2 - Brads and 3 - layers.


As luck would have it, one of the challenges at Scrappin-n-Chattin this month is to use a Diecut as a background. I'm going to use this layout as my 2nd entry for this challenge. I can't wait to see what everyone cooks up this week. Be sure to check out the rest of the inspiration the design team has to offer.

Birthday Sundaes' 1st Challenge!!!

The day has arrived!!! Today is the premier of our challenges at Birthday Sundaes. And to get started, Kristie has made it easy - Anything Goes!!! Kristie is also sponsoring the prize this week. The winner will win Cupcake Ruby from Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps.



Here is the card that I created. It's a birthday card for my son's girlfriend, Jackie. I used the Wild Card Cricut cartridge to cut the card and the matching envelope. That makes things easy. The paper is from Basic Grey's Wisteria collection, and the cardstock from Making Memories
.
Here is a view of the inside of the card:


Check out what the rest of the design team has created this week. I hope you will join us in our inaugural challenge. Remember, anything goes. Make sure that the front of the card has some sort of birthday wording on it. You have until Saturday to post your creation. I can't wait to see what everyone creates.

Me Too

I was able to complete a page during the week this week. And this one made me quite happy to complete. The photo I used was one of Wilie. It was taken on the day that I had taken a couple of photos of Katie with her Christmas collar on. Willie sat in place until I took his picture too. He's too funny.

I used the sketch for Sketchy Thursdays April DT challenge. I really liked this sketch and the diecut I used I think fits pretty well.



I used some papers from Bo Bunny's Persuasion collection.



Since I used the diecut, this layout qualifies for the Diecut challenge at Scrappin-n-Chattin.

Thanks for looking.

Some exciting news....

I had some fantastic news this week. Kristie has selected me to be a part of the first design team for her new birthday card challenge blog, Birthday Sundaes!!! Thanks so much Kristie. I cannot wait to get started and to get to know the other DT members. She has some really fun challenges lined up. I hope I will see some of you playing along. Take a peek at the Birthday Sundaes and meet the rest of the design team. I hope you will join us for our first challenge next Sunday.

Green and White Challenge

Good morning. I hope everyone has found some crafty time this week and weekend. Happy early St. Patrick's Day.

This week's Lasting Memories challenge is to use GREEN and WHITE. One of my fellow DT member has very generously offered to sponsor the challenge this week. Leisa, who is a CTMH consultant is supplying CTMH's "Lucky paper pack, blue ribbons, assortment of "Lucky" embellishment, Thickers letters and a hand-made card. What an awesome prize.


Honestly, I struggled with this challenge this week. I'm sure it was due to my choice of paper, but once I cut into it, I made it work. I recently took advantage of some deals at Crafty Steals. I got several packs of paper and embellishments that they had previously offered. My package arrived earlier in the week, and I was excited to start using them. For my layout, I used American Crafts Blue Skies paper along with some DCWV cardstock.

I am still on my multiple photo kick. I was pretty excited to see this week's sketch at Sketchy Thursdays. It's a 2 pager, with 5 photos. I loved the size variety of the photos.


One of the pages I was longing to work on, with multiple photos, was something with garden photos from last year. I feel bad that I am not documenting the gardens very well. Last year we made a few chances, one of which was adding an extensive garden area on either side of the baby barn in the backyard. We actually started this in 2009, but most of the work was completed last year. On each side of the barn is a rose garden. As the gardens proceed away from the barn, other types of plantings are used.

The photos in this layout are not limited to the new gardens though. They include multiple gardens in the yard, just some of my favorite photos of flowers from last year. There will be more garden pages to come, with more specific detail.

This is page 1. I love this peach rose. Such a striking photo. This is part of the new garden. The upper right photo on this page is the garden right outside of the scrap room window. The creeping phlox is breathtaking when it's all in bloom. The bottom right photo is a part of the new garden, early in the spring before most of the plantings were done. We still are not done with plants yet. We are taking our time, trying to make wise choices regarding color and growing habits.


Page 2 shows a photo of our azalea that is located right off the front deck. This poor plant has really had it rough. When Stew planted it about 5 or 6 years ago, it was eaten to the ground by the deer. He was shocked that it survived. He also had a large grass that was planted to the right of it, that just kept growing and crowding the poor thing. We moved the grass in 2009 and the azalea could not be happier. The clematis is also in the scrap room garden, growing on a trellis right outside the window. The color was just spectacular.


And here are the pages together.


I hope you will get your green on and show us your creation. You have until 9pm on Saturday to enter your layout at Lasting Memories.

Campground Fun

I have made some progress today. I managed to create my 2nd page of the day. This one is for this week's Sketchy Thursdays sketch.


I have been in the mood to do pages with more than 2 photos, so this sketch was right up my alley. I used the Prudence collection from Crate Paper. I used photos from a camping trip we took in 2005 that both my nephews and granddaughters were able to spend time with us. It was a very fun, Labor Day weekend.


I am also using this layout for the Color challenge this month at Scrappin-n-Chattin. The challenge is to include the colors brown, green and blue. This collection contained all of those colors nicely.

I am hoping to get a couple of cards made tonight after I start dinner.

Just in the nick of time...

I didn't get near as much done this weekend as I wanted. Isn't that always the way? I really wanted to participate in the blog hops that happened over the weekend and get a page done for The Paper Variety. Sadly, none of that happened. But as luck would have it, I am forced to take a day off from work because I have too much vacation time built up. The only day this week I could take off was Tuesday. Cool, if I planned it right, I could get a layout done and uploaded before the noon deadline today.

The challenge this week at TPV was "Let's See Your Green". Your layout is to be at least 50% green.


I love Kermit, and all muppets for that matter.... Anyway. I had no idea what photo I was going to use for this challenge, right up until 10:00 this morning. I had Morgan's and Courtney's school photos printed on the desk in the scrapbooking room, but neither of them were wearing anything with green in it. So I started looking through some of my collections and came across the Basic Grey Green at Heart collection. Yep, that was it.....

Well, I needed a sketch to follow of course. I had looked over several the night before and I chose the March 7th reveal at Sassy Lil' Sketches.


I flipped the sketch to fit Morgan's school photo. She is growing up so fast, and isn't she pretty? I think the colors in the collection were perfect to coordinate with her shirt, and I got my green in there.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope to get a couple more projects done today. It's so nice to be able to relax some, and not worry about what I have to get done though.

Cherry Pie

Good morning everyone. This week's challenge at Lasting Memories is very a fun, easy one - You're the Boss!!! Use your style to create your layout. I can't wait to see what everyone creates.

We have another sponsor this week. Tiffany Doodles.

There are 3 prizes being offered:

1. FIRST PRIZE = 5 digi's
2. SECOND PRIZE = 3 digi's
3. THIRD PRIZE = 2 digi's

Check out the site for all of the digi's Tiffany offers. She has a lot of very cute and versatile digis. Each design team member received a digi to use on her project this week. Check out each member's blog to see what they chose and how they used it.

The digi I chose for my project was cherries. To create the layout I used the sketch from last week for Sketch Inspiration, #209. I thought it has the perfect spot for my digi.


And here's my layout. This is a photo of one of our new cherry trees last year. We only had a couple of cherries last year. We sure hope it changes this year.


The complete title may be a little hard to see. I had to choose what photo I wanted to use a few weeks ago so I could select my digi. I was loving looking through the garden photos. I showed Stew what photo I was going to use and he said I should title the page "Not Quite Enough For A Cherry Pie". So that's what I used. Because of that, this layout qualifies for the March Long Title challenge at the Yahoo group Scrappin-n-Chattin. The title has to be at least 5 words long.

I hope that you will let us see your style this week. Your layout is due linked to the LM blog by 9pm on March 12th. Have a wonderful and crafty week.

I created a layout using the current sketch at Nuts About Sketches. This sketch was great to work with.
I actually created this layout a couple of weeks ago using this sketch, so no one has really ever seen it before. I really like this layout and the main photo of Willie. He is just too funny.


The journaling tells how one night, as I was coming down the hallway going to bed, Willie was waiting on the edge of the bed with his gorilla, sitting right next to him. I thought Stew set them up that way. But he didn't. He merely threw the gorilla into the bed as he passed it on the floor. Willie set it up there all by himself. I started talking to him saying how cute he was, passed right by him to take my crocks off, and he sat right there. I made a comment that I bet he would move if I went to get the camera, all the way back out in the kitchen. I told him to stay, left the room and went back down the hallway, through the living room and into the kitchen to get the camera, went all the way back and HE WAS STILL THERE, posing. I swear he wants his picture taken and he knows what he's doing. I was very excited to get the shot.

A couple of birthday cards

I made a couple of birthday cards this week for a couple of the guys in the department . They both have birthdays on Sunday. I don't usually blog about my cards, but my friend Beth was looking forward to seeing them.

This card I scraplifted from a card that Kritina Werner posted in February. You can see her blog post and video here.


This card was based on a card that my friend April created. I can't find the file I saved with it in, but here is a link to her blog. She has a great style and is very inspiring.


I am going to try real hard to post more about cards I make. I think I will join some more card challenges as well. I love looking over the Christmas cards I made last year when our scrapbooking group SnC had card a day challenge. That was so much fun.