Moments of Tranquility giveaway

Well I stumbled on another blog with some gorgeous projects.

Natasha at Moments of Tranquility is giving away **20** pieces of Dusty Attic goodies. I love me some DA, and she is giving her viewers 5 chances to win. How generous is that?? Check it out:

 

 

Oh, she has such beautiful projects to look at. Just check it out...you won't be sorry.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by, and happy scrapping!!

I'm on the hunt....and look what I found!!

I decided that I would look for challenges this morning (like I have nothing better to do.....I should be working!!). I found a bunch of challenge sites and hopefully I can figure out how to work them into my next layout *fingers crossed people*. One thing I found from a friend (Darlene) was Kelly Foster's blog. Her layouts are so beautiful. I just love looking at them and know that mine would likely fall a little short. Oh well, we all have our own style right??

Anywho, she's having a little giveaway. Check out the blog candy she's giving away. Just look...

 

Head over and check out her beautiful layouts. You will not be disappointed.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by, and happy scrapping!!

MME Sketch Challenge

I finally broke open my Sweetest Thing collection....I know, I know....it's been out for a WHILE but I'm determined to use up some of my older 'hoard' just to get it gone. I really liked the sketch on the MME Blog this month so I decided to play along.

 

I love these papers so much. I like the smooth quality and the pretty colours. I added a few elements like stamps (Close To My Heart) and the dollarama bling, as well as the Bella Blvd alpha's. The journaling explains the story and there is a pic of her cake under the title paper with a tab to pull it out, as I couldn't fit all of them the way I wanted :)

 

Thanks for looking.

Scrap Your Story....new blog with lots of challenges!!

I was going through my blog comments (I selected the approval method so it's easier for you to comment and me to weed out spam) and Scrap Your Story posted about the new blog.....check it out for yourself here.

They are having a design team call and I know a lot of you gals are starting to get interested in that (as am I). So make sure you check it out and tell 'em I sent ya :-)

C

Scrapbooksteals Jade series is good for the mojo...

*Warning* Long, photo heavy post

You never know where your online interactions will go, do you? I have been a part of a Facebook scrapbooking group for a few years now and have been making friends all over Canada as a result. All of the members post our projects for challenges, contests, etc. One friend has been posting about the scrapbooksteals blog for a few weeks now and I decided to look it up. I happened to be checking at the end of a 10 part sketch series entitled Jade for their Mid Week Mojo. You can check out the deets here. Well I took it into my head that I was going to complete the whole series before the deadline.....yeah, so I printed off the 10 sketches Friday afternoon. I finished all of those plus one for another challege - post to come in a few days.

Anywho, on to the layouts. I am posting them with the sketch so you can see how they compare. When I'm looking at layout's online it's nice to see the actual interpretation.

#1 Ooo....Scary  bee? (MM in Grade 5, age 10. Old Fancy Pants papers, etc)

 

 

 

#2 Grin (MM age 1)

 

# 3 Sew Darn Cute (Echo Park This & That)

 



#4 This is me @ 38 (I rotated the sketch to make it work for my photo - old MME/Basic Grey)

 

#5 Welcome to our crazy mixed up family (MM's christening - old pics don't give you the option of choosing the best ones sometimes - DQ was NOT happy with the arrival of her baby sister lol but sadly this is the only group shot I have)

 

#6 Hot Wheels (rotated to make my pic work. Down to the bare bones of my SS Fabulous kit *gasp*)

 

#7 You are Fabulous (I cracked open the MME Sweetest Thing and used up some older Making Memories ribbon)

 

 

#8 Chillin' (Big Brother at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta a couple years ago)

 

 



#9 True Colours (DQ a few years ago - she HATES the pic. Her dear old dad doesn't like it either. I love the contrast of the lyrics and the sadness I feel from the pic - I rotated it to make it work for my pic)

 

 

#10 My Silly Man (just once I would like to get a photo of Hubs with a simple smile. Don't get me wrong, I love him dearly because he is goofy but do ya know what I'm sayin? Just once would be nice....)

 

 

Phew, hopefully you're still with me......talk about gettin' the mojo flowing. I can't wait for the next series at scrapbooksteals. Now I gotta go home and clean up the house, haha, cause with all this scrappin' I certainly didn't do a lot of cleanin'......

 

Webster's Pages is having an awesome giveaway!

Webster's Pages is giving away some totally awesome stamps on their blog! Check this out - this one is my absolute FAVEf!!

 

 

There are also sentiment stamps, camera stamps, arrows, and a woodgrain stamp that I just plain *need* :)

 

Good luck to y'all.....check back later today to see what I've been working on over the weekend.

2013 Valentine's Treats by MM and moi

I have always enjoyed doing up little treats for my daughters' classmates each year. And as MM is now 10 and in Grade 5 I expected it to stop this year. No......she wanted to do up something neat, so off to Pinterest I went. I was thinking "something fun, but not too little kid - ish". iPods!!! Yay, I realize it's not a new idea but it's new to us and none of her classmates had done it yet. So I printed off the images and she cut them out. I would say she did half the work on these and we loved the results. We ended up putting them in baggies with her classmates names on them cause she enjoyed deciding who would get a certain colour, etc. And, it made sure that no small parts would come off in transit. Here's what we ended up with.....

Aren't they darling? I found chocolate bars at my local WalMart (4) in a pkg for $2.50. What a steal, eh?

 

Of course then we had to make something super nice for the teacher, aka "Miss". She always appreciates our efforts so I don't mind putting a little extra time and effort into her gifts. I used up a fine chunk of a CTMH kit "La Belle Vie" for this one. She gets a little card/box thingie with a drawer. MM didn't want to put a Valentine sentiment on there as she wants Miss to use it all year round. What a doll, eh?

We decided to put Hershey Kisses in the drawer for her.

And last but certainly not least, the goodies for Girls Group. In our small community we don't have a Brownies club or anything similar so a few years ago I decided to start up a Girls Group. I ran it for 3 years and last year when I decided to take a break, a really good friend asked if she could step in. I gladly agreed, thrilled that the group wasn't going to just fade away to nothing. She is into her second year now of leading out and doing a fantabulous job. As the girls range in age from 3 - 12, we had a little more leeway in the scope of our craft. We decided on these adorable owls made out of toilet tissue rolls.

(Thanks "good friend" for giving us all of your empty rolls, haha). Just check out how adorable they are....MM did a lot on these as well. Lots of cutting, and glueing....YAY.....and using up MORE supplies. I am nothing if not determined!! Check teddy (aka Mr. Ted / Tedward / Theodore) out - MM may be 10 now but Mr. Ted doesn't miss much in our house. DQ gave him to MM about 8 years ago and he's still going strong. You will see him as a special feature in an upcoming post. MM and I are going to do a mini - album all about Mr. Ted.

Thanks for looking :)

 

Guess what I found....

I have always loved those kit clubs with such gorgeous goodies that they just deliver to your door each month..........I mean, really........how fabulous is that? Except that my problem is I have too much stuff already. So I looked up Counterfeit Kit Challenge and stumbled across THIS blog. I was going through the blogs in the list looking at all their 'kits' just getting a feel for what I could put in mine.......anywho, to make a long story short - this lovely lady is having a giveaway. AND she is shipping anywhere (given the cost of postage, I think she's amazing to be doing this). Actually she is giving away 3, yes 3 prize packs. I picked the girlie one as I'm always drawn to girlie things haha. Check this out.....

Nice, hey? I thought so too. She has her giveaway open to the end of the month so go check it out. And make sure you take a look around too....you never know where you will find inspiration!!

Check back later as I have a post of MM's valentine's that we did this year....

A mini album.....the first of MANY

I bought two of these Echo Park interactive albums from a local retailer that was closing up shop. I had been tossing around the idea of doing a mini album for DQ but really didn't know where to start. I have some paper bags cut and ready to go but quite frankly was intimidated by the thought....they are not to be wasted though - I WILL complete that album soon, lol. Here are some pics of the album that I did for DQ's sweet 16th birthday. She absolutely loved it. I included one page of her with "the love of her life" and advised I did that so she can look back on this time in her life and remember happy times (should things go sour in the future *gasp*). I made this album in the Fall of 2012 and used up the bulk of 2 kits - Simple Stories Summer Fresh and Simple Stories Fabulous. These are my fave kits *evah* and I still have scraps that I can't part with. I'm sure you will see them on cards someday soon haha.

 

This is the cover. I included the quote from the movie "The Help" as it's one of her faves. This album is about being an independent and strong young woman. I wanted to include quotes that I feel she can live by.

The inside quote says "Instead of wishing you were someone else, be proud of who you are. You never know who has been looking at you wishing they were you". - Unknown.

The pics are of my baby sister and DQ last year. The quote says "See regardless of what anybody believes who hates me: you ain't gonna make or break me" - Eminem. She was thrilled to see this quote in there as most mom's are not too fond of Eminem. I'm not a normal mom - I like Eminem lol.

Pics of DQ and MM (my other daughter Mini-Me) last summer during a camping trip. The quote says "Four things a woman should know: How to look like a girl, How to act like a lady, How to think like a man, And how to work like a dog" - Unknown.

These are the pics of DQ and LOHL(love of her life) who recently split and are attempting *another* reconciliation, sigh....the quote reads "Don't be the girl who needs a man, be the girl a man needs" - Unknown. I LOVE this quote - I may even get it made as a vinyl sticker and post on both daughter's walls.

Simple shots of everyday life for DQ. The quote reads "Be the girl you'd want your daughter to be. Be the girl you'd want your son to date. Be classy, anything but trashy" - Unknown.

And I seem to be missing the pic of the back cover. It had a photo of my girls hugging - a rare thing, let me tell you.

I also did a mini album for MM's 10th birthday - post to come soon :)

Thanks for looking!!

 

My Creative Sketches January 2013

It's been a while since I played along at My Creative Sketches so I thought I would check out the newest sketch. I loved it and immediately thought about using washi - hmmm, the implementation fell a little short. I don't really love this layout, but my daughter does. She said "When I like a layout mom, you don't. And when you like a layout, I don't". She is quite critical of my work and loves scrapbooking herself. Maybe I'll showcase some of her work in a future post. I bet she would love that. So here's the sketch:

And here is my version of it:

I used mostly old K & Company papers with the red dot paper being older Fancy Pants. The title is from Michael's and the washi tape is 'unknown' (if someone knows the manufacturer please comment with it as I'm organizing everything in my scrap space).

Thanks for looking, and there's still time to complete a layout and post to the site...what are ya waiting for?

A new card for Valentine's Day

I don't often make cards, even though I want to. I never know if they look good. I'm sure other people like them but I'm quite critical and unsure of my ability with cards. Nevertheless, I did one for hubby as I do every year. He is not critical AT ALL and keeps everything I make for him. He's such a dear (even if he calls my love of paper "crapbooking"). I am entering this card over at Let's Capture Our Memories It's a Canadian company - YAY!! I will definitely be checking them out further - I stumbled onto the site just a few days ago.
Here is sketch #5:

And here is my take on it. I rotated it to make it work for my die cut.

 

In keeping with my 2013 "Use What I Have" theme, I used scraps left over from BG's Little Black Dress line and MME's Be Loved line (just the 2 die cut papers). The flowers are Prima (LOVE!!) and the ribbons / resin pieces are 'unknown'.

 

Thanks for looking

Some Pages I Did Over the Weekend

I am seriously trying to use up my stash without buying more.....yeah right, do you KNOW how hard that is?? Well in reality I'm using up my stash and buying VERY LITTLE AMOUNTS of new things.....by very little amounts I mean if it's a super good deal, or adhesive. Anywho, on to some recent layouts.

So this layout is a total scraplift found in an old CK magazine. A friend was getting rid of her mags and I took some (read: about 30). I loved this design and as part of my "use what I have" deal for 2013 I used old MME Be Loved papers. The photo's are of my oldest daughter who is now 16 (I will call her DQ as she is a drama queen of the highest realm - God love her, she is my baby though) when she was just a wee one and so terribly cute. I totally love this layout and I think it will become one of my fave's.

NOTE: DQ's nickname is Bee (just to let you know why the title is spelled wrong)

This one was done at a retreat last Fall. It was a kit that they had prepared for purchase. It was not my "style" but I really like it now. Another goal for 2013 is to "go outside of my comfort zone". Hence the misting, and altering the washi tape. I wouldn't normally do either of those things. I loved this ride when I was a kid (we don't live near an amusement park so there's a travelling "fair" that arrives in town once per year around the end of June)

That's going to be it for this post. I have a bunch more layouts to post, and some challenges as well and will do those in a bit.

Ciao, C

New Blog Header and some things I've been working on...

So what do you think about my new blog header? I totally LOVE it!! It was very easy to do with a template I found on the web. The link is up there in the header if you wanna check it out....

I've been sewing, sewing, sewing clothes for 18" dolls for the past 3 months straight. From the beginning of October right up to and including Christmas Eve actually. So I took a break from sewing and was so excited to get back into the scrapbooking. In the next few days I'll be posting some new pages, etc.