Ahh

I finally got it!! A picture of Tessa laying in her bed. I left the bed out all weekend, and by Sunday evening she was ready to lay down in it. I got a few photos of her in it, showing how she fills it now. She even let me get right up in her face and take a photo.

I had been trying to figure out what photos to use for this week's sketch at Sketchy Thursdays, their final challenge. I am very sad about that, but totally understand how much time and dedication keeping this blog going has taken. I wish the owners and the design team members all the best.


I thought this sketch could work well for the photos of Tessa I was just able to get. But I had to make it coordinate with the Grown Up layout I completed over the weekend (you can see it here). I used black cardstock as the background for both pages. I wanted to vary it a little, adding a little more color. But I also wanted to tie them together. I did this using the maroon cardstock, the same flower on each page and the use of the pearls.


Thanks for looking. I hope everyone has a nice, quick week.

The Tree

Man have I been having trouble getting my blog the way I would like it. I have given up for the night and probably the season. Uggghhh.

I wanted to create a page to submit for my off week at The Paper Variety. The challenge for this week is to include an ornament on your paper project.


And there is an awesome prize from Precocious Paper.....

I used this week's sketch at Sketchy Thursdays for my layout. I really loved the layout of it.


Here is the page.....


I love Facebook. Jackie posted a couple of photos of their first Christmas tree yesterday. I knew I had to nab them. For my ornaments, I have the jingle bell ornament and ornaments on the journaling spot. I also followed the current Fabulous Friday Challenge at Frosted Designs which is to include music on your project. The lower right corner has paper with musical notes on it, as does the font used for the title, and the Christmas tree on the left side of the page. I added some Stickles to the jingle bell to add a little sparkle. I will be entering this page into the Sparkle Challenge at Scrappin'-n-Chattin'. And I will be using this page as my 52 Week's entry for this week at SnC. Woohoo!!! Not the last minute.

Happiness is..... SNOW

I am so disappointed. Stew's working 2nd shift this week and I really had wanted to create each night while he was working. I didn't even make it the first day. I was so wiped out, I just ate and went to bed.

But today, I was able to put together the page that I had wanted to do last night. I used a photo of Tessa from over the weekend. It was her first experience with snow. And she LOVED it!!! This one photo really excited me. I printed 4 copies of it already. One will be framed and hung in the bedroom, 2 small ones are in each of our offices at work, and the 4th I had to scrap.

I had the title picked out Sunday. It was going to be used as my last layout entry into the October monthly challenges at Scrappin'-n-Chattin'. This challenge was to use the words Happiness is in the title. Watching Tessa play in the snow over the weekend made it clear that this would make the perfect title. Unfortunately, I didn't get it done in time to enter the challenge. But that's ok. I still love the title for this layout.

I saw this week's sketch at Sketchy Thursdays and loved it. I thought it would work well for this page.


And as luck would have it, I got a package in the mail today. Last week I saw a deal at ScrapbookSteals.com for Echo Park's Little Boy and Little Girl Collections. I have had Little Boy for a while and LOVE it. I didn't get Little Girl, because at the time I had limited girls photos. But after we got Tessa, I had to get it and the perfect deal came along. I actually got both collections.


Thanks for looking. I hope everyone on the east coast has recovered from the weird weather from over the weekend. I'm hoping to be able to get creative at least Thursday and Friday. We will see. Thanks for stopping by.

Boo

Good Wednesday morning. What a great blog hop and week of challenges we had last week at TPV. It was great to see so many participants and all of the projects were amazing. It's time for a new challenge at The Paper Variety. The challenge this week is to create a paper project using stickers. It can be any type of sticker - flat, chipboard, 3D.... Our sponsor this week is SRM stickers, and one lucky winner will receive a prize package. They provided a wonderful package of stickers to each member of the design team. So much variety. Be sure to check out the wonderful products they sell.

I really wanted to create a layout using some of the stickers that we got, and as I was going through them the Halloween stickers really sparked my interest. To create my page, I used this week's sketch at Sketchy Thursdays.


I used photos of my nephews from quite a few years ago. It feels good to get some older photos scrapped. I used the SRM stickers as the title, along the left side, on the orange and white paper strips and along the bottom. They are so much fun to use.

I am also entering this layout into the current challenge at Paper Cutz which is to create a paper project that incorporates Cricut cut, hand stamped or digital stamped pumpkins. I cut a pumpkin from the Create-a-Critter cartridge.

Be sure to surf on over to The Paper Variety and check out all of the great projects the design team created. I hope you share your sticker project with us this week.

Under The Table

I realized this morning, that I had not completed my weekly layout for the 52 Week Challenge at Scrappin'-n-Chattin'. So as I was processing the work for the guys for next week, I was pondering what to scrap.

I decided I wanted to do a page that showed how much Willie and Tessa look alike as puppies. Then I remembered that I had photos of both of them under the dining room table. They both seem to gravitate to the legs of the table. Every evening they snuggle together under it.

I used this week's sketch at Sketchy Thursdays. When I saw it yesterday it stuck with me. When I considered the photos, I knew I needed 3. Great sketch.


And here's the page....


I am also entering this layout into this week's challenge at Frosted Designs. The challenge to include animals on your project. I am going to link it at Wee Memories as well. Their challenge is to use at least 4 colors.

It's Friday!!! I hope to get a bit of scrapping done tomorrow. I have 3 or 4 layouts swirling in my head now. I hope everyone will be having a wonderful weekend. Thanks for looking.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Good morning and Happy Mother's Day. I hope everyone is having a beautiful weekend. The weather has been pretty good here so far this weekend.

I enjoyed learning a little more about a lot of you last week with your awesome layouts. Way to go scrapping about you. This week at Lasting Memories we have a Mother's Day photo inspiration photo to follow.Beautiful colors, right? I did my page for my garden album for this challenge. For some reason, the flowering trees we have in our yard don't flower much in the spring. It's probably due to the very tall pine trees along the property line in the neighbor's yard. We seem to get a lot of sun, but maybe not quite enough. Our Bradford Pear did flower on the lower half of the tree, so of course I had to take some pictures. I followed this week's sketch at Sketchy Thursdays.


I thought these photos would work well with the sketch. The top photo is the picture of the whole tree, with the flowers on the bottom half. It's kind of hard to see the flowers in that photo.


Be sure to check out the rest of the wonderful inspiration at Lasting Memories. I hope to see your pages based on the color inspiration. Have a wonderful week.

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.

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.

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.

Growing

I needed to create a layout for Scrappin-n-Chattin's 52 Week Layout Challenge. I hadn't even planned one. I tried to all week, and really wanted to get it done on Monday or Tuesday. But with work and working on taxes, it just didn't happen. I told everyone, though, Friday is it. I have to scrap and get one done.

I searched several of my favorite sketch blogs, to find some inspiration. When I saw this week's Sketchy Thursdays sketch, I thought that will work. I loved the journaling spot and the shaped element.
With all this winter snow and cold, I have been looking at some garden photos for projects I have in mind for some future Lasting Memories challenges. I was quite fascinated with the remembering the flowers and now really would like to see spring getting here soon.

This sketch got me thinking about a before and after format. Before the dogs and I moved in with Stew, he had started gardening. He planted a Red Japanese Maple and little Weeping Cherry tree at the south side of the house near the solar room. They were quite small, and for years they remained pretty small. Well, in 2009, they exploded. They have gotten so big, they outgrew their own separate spaces. So we created a garden off the side of the house that encompasses the front and entire side of the house. We even have a little stone walkway with some lights along it there. It just amazed me to see the difference in the size of these plants.


I was pleasantly surprised that this layout came together so quickly. It only took about an hour and a half, which is quick for me. I got it uploaded in the appropriate folder with bout 3 hours to spare. I have to work more on my gardening album, and really start journaling about things that work, things that didn't and future ideas. Thanks for looking.

Cricut and/or Die Cuts

This week's challenge at Lasting Memories is a real fun one. How many of us got a Cricut cartridge or two for Christmas? I am very excited to say that I did. As a matter of fact, I got 4!! My kids did real good. The challenge this week is to use your Cricut, or other die cuts if you don't have a Cricut.

To create my layout, I followed this week's sketch at Sketchy Thursdays. I really enjoyed this sketch and knew what I wanted to use for my die cuts. Here is the sketch....


Even though I got 4 new cartridges for Christmas, I didn't use any of them for this layout. My friends at Scrappin-n-Chattin are real good about informing the group of sales. Someone pointed us to a site last week that had cartridges on sale for around $16. I ordered 3. I used 2 of them on my page.


For the yellow and light green background, I used the Paper Lace cartridge. I can see I will get a lot of use out of that cartridge. For the title I used Alphalicious. That one has been on my wishlist for a while. I also used 2 Martha Stewart Monarch punches to create the butterlies on the page. The colors I used were chosen to coincide with the Super Bowl challenge at SnC. The challenge was to create a layout using the colors of one of the teams in the Superbowl. I chose Green Bay's colors.

I hope you will play along this week at Lasting Memories. I would love to see how you use your die cuts.

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.

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.

Broadway at the Beach

When I went to South Carolina to visit my sister and nephews, we went to Myrtle Beach. One afternoon, we went to Broadway at the Beach in search of a cinnamon roll store. We never found it. The phone was disconnected, so it must have gone out of business. We walked around a little bit and paid a visit to a candy store near Margaritaville Cafe. There was a giant bear outside, so one of the boys decided to pose with it. Then the other, and Jill posed too. This week's Sketchy Thursdays sketch worked out well for the layout with these photos.


And here is my take...

I am so glad that I was able to get a layout done with this sketch. I really didn't think I was going to be able to. Thanks for looking.

I'm loving challenges

I have found that the sketches and challenges that I have been using are really inspiring me to get more layouts done. It's a goal for me to complete the 1o monthly challenges at SnC. I also try really hard to get the Sketchy Thursdays sketch done each week. Sometimes I am not able to get this weekly sketch done, but I do try. I have found that some of the challenges that I am trying are really making me step outside my comfort zone.

This week's sketch at Sketchy Thursdays was a nice 2 photo layout. When I saw it, I thought I would have no a problem putting something together using the sketch as inspiration. I'm totally loving using the border punches I have started collecting and I get very excited when I see a sketch that I can use one with.


When I work on a sketch, I try to incorporate a challenge at SnC with it as well. Sometimes this isn't real easy, especially if I've completed most of the challenges already. As an added challenge, I have been trying to incorporate a 3rd challenge into each layout. This is very difficult for me, so I get pretty excited when something comes together that incorporates 4 contests.

I have been checking out the sketches and challenges at Scrapbook Challenges, a ning site that has some great inspiration. One of their challenges for July is By the number. The challenge was to use 0 - Patterned paper, 1 - Stamp, 2 - Photos, 3 - Ribbons and 4 - Alphas or fonts. An added twist was to use yellow and orange as the main colors. As it turns out, there is a challenge at The Studio Challenges blog from July 4th to do a layout with orange and yellow as the main colors.

When I saw the 2 photos in the By the numbers challenge I thought of the Sketchy Thursdays sketch. As I was checking out my photos, and the challenges I have left to do at SnC, photos of Courtney and Morgan struck me as a good match for these challenges. When the girls were visiting in May, Courtney discovered a stone in the garden near the office window. This was the perfect perch for each girl to stand upon for a nice photo. Courtney went first. I don't know what she was doing, but she made a strange face. Morgan had a neat pose. I was not sure I was going to scrap these photos because I didn't really like the expression that Courtney had. I used a photo of Jessie in a another layout in May, and I didn't want to use it again. One of the challenges at SnC is called Pose. We are to use a photo featuring a funny or fabulous pose. Hmmmm.

I used a stamp and stamped all over a piece of white cardstock. I'm not a very good stamper so this took me some time. I used 1 ribbon across the middle of the page on top of a piece of yellow cardstock that I punched with a border punch. The other 2 pieces of ribbon I created flowers with. That was a bit of a challenge for me as well. I've never made a flower from ribbon before. For the title of the page I used 2 different fonts. In the body of the journaling I used 2 additional fonts, alternating at each word. I have always wanted to do this with fonts, and just never tried it. I feel so good that I incorporated these challenges together and the page really came together.

Thanks for looking.

I love balloons

I have always wanted to watch hot air balloons going up. They have a balloon festival here in the next county over every year, but we have never gone. This year, they had multiple launch sites with evening launch times. The fairgrounds are just over the river from us, about 15 or 20 minutes away. They were scheduled to have 3 balloons go off on Friday evening. So we went over to watch. It was pretty cool watching them unpack the balloons and baskets, then filling them up. It was breathtaking watching them float into the air. So worth the trip.

I found that some of the photos I took at the launch would make a perfect layout with this week's Sketchy Thursdays sketch. The sketch is for a 2 page layout, and I was so excited about that.


For the large photo on the left side of the layout, I created a collage of 8 photos of one of the balloons inflating.


I used Echo Park's Sweet Summertime collection for this layout. So cool that it had a balloon die cut and the colors were perfect. This is the right side of the layout.

And both pages together.


Thanks for looking.

A Fun Summery Layout

This past 3 day weekend for me was pretty productive. I accomplished quite a bit of housework and gardening work. And I was able to get 4 pages completed and a 5th one started. It felt good to get so much done and to start scrapping again.

I did a 2 page layout of Josh and Jarred with photos that my sister took during our vacation at Myrtle Beach at the beginning of the month.

The first page contains a photo of my nephew Josh. It's based on the 6.17 sketch at Sketchy Thursdays. I flipped the photos a bit to make the page work as a 2 page spread. This is the sketch:
And the page:

The photo of Josh looks a little dark in this photo, but in person it's nice and bright.

The 2nd page is based on Sketch #107 at Creative Scrappers. The picture is my nephew Jarred. He sure looks like he's having a blast.


And here are the 2 pages together.

These pages will qualify for the Coastal Challenge at the Scrappin-n-Chatting Yahoo group. Thanks for looking.

First Layout of the Month

I had been doing so well at keeping up with the challenges on the Scrappin'-n-Chattin'. This month started with vacation, then getting caught up. Scrapping has just seemed to be taking a backseat. Stew is working 2nd shift this weekend, so I have decided that I will spend most of my time in the office scrapping while he's gone.

The first layout that I worked on was based on a sketch for the July Guest Design Team Challenge at Sketchy Thursdays. As soon as I saw this sketch, I knew which photo I wanted to use. Stew took this picture that when I was away. The dogs spent most of the days outside while I was gone and Willie and Harley were inseparable. Stew looked up from his work to find Lola, Harley and Willie sound asleep on the front lawn. He went to get the camera, but Lola heard him and moved. When he got back, he snapped this one.

These are truly best friend. This layout is also being used for the Tiny Alpha challenge at Snc.