Stylish Blogger Award and Project Scrap Our Stash 2011

It seems lately that I am so busy helping Cheri and Debby run Let's Scrap and trying to get some scrapping time in that I have been neglecting my blog a bit.  Hopefully things will settle down some in April so I can get back to visiting my blogging friends and doing more posts in here.

I am so excited and thrilled to learn that my friend Tracey from Garden of Grace has awarded me the Stylish Blogger Award.   I feel so blessed to have met Tracey, she is such a sweet and loving lady.  She is also a very talented scrapper so you should pop over and check out her blog.

So here is the award I won

After receiving the award I am to...

Thank the person I received the award from and give a link back to her blog - which I did above

Share 8 things about myself

Pass the award to 8 other individuals that I have recently discovered

And Leave them a comment so that they can pass along the recognition.

Here are the 8 things about me.

1. I am a grandmother of an amazing 22 month old grandson. I will also become a grandmother of a  

    granddaughter in June and then in September another Grandbaby is expected.  We'll know in 3 weeks

    the sex of this little one.

2. I have been married for 28 years.

3. I have two wonderful sons Andrew 25 and Jason 23.

4. I worked for 34 years caring  for mentally and physically handicapped adults.  I was very fortunate to

    have loved every minute I spent working with them.

5. I only started scrapbooking a couple of years ago although I did start buying scrapping things about 4 years

   ago.

6. A year ago I joined the scrapping group Let's Scrap and not only did the fantastic sketches help me to get  

     scrapping but I met some amazing ladies who I am blessed to call my friends. In January of this year I

    was asked to help run Let's Scrap and although it keeps me quite busy, I am thoroughly enjoying it.

7. I have been tracing my family tree for over 40 years and some day I hope to scrapbook all my heritage

    pictures and information.

8. I still live in the same little home town I was born in, in Ontario Canada.

Now, for my nominations for the award.  Please be sure to check out their blogs and see some of the amazing scrapbook projects they have done.

1. Debby

2. Shelly

3. Jessica

4. Linda

5. Valery

6. Beth

7. Roulien

8. Kristie

Now for Project Scrap Our Stash 2011

 In January I joined my friend Denise and many other scrappers in trying to Scrap Our Stash and I am very proud of myself for working really hard not to buy and scrapping goodies.  This month I did fantastic.  I had heard that my LSS had gotten in some of the new lines but even though I had a gift certificate I wanted to wait to use it when she had more new things in. I figured I might as will have a good choice when I did decide to use it.  So when I ran out of adhesive I was a little leery about going in to buy it because I was afraid I would get carried away and buy other things. So I ended up waiting until 5 minutes before the store closed and then went in to buy the adhesive.  This only gave me time to grab what I needed and get through the cash.  Which was great because I didn't have time to even look around.  I did go in a couple of weeks ago with my gift certificate in hand and bought some of the Bo Bunny Blast Off paper and stickers but normally I would have bought at least 2 of every patterned paper in the line plus any stickers and chipboard that when with it.  I was very selective and only bought the papers I really felt I could use.  I did buy one of the sets of stickers and the chipboard pieces but I'm sure that I will end up using them and they were just too cute to leave behind.  The great thing is that I still have money left on the gift certificate and I also got a $20 credit at the store so I can still go in and get a few more new things when they come in, without actually spending money.

As I mentioned last month I started a Let's Scrap Our Stash Group over at Let's Scrap.  It has been so successful that the request of the members I have also started doing weekly Scrapping Our Stash Challenges.  We're having a ton of fun so if you interested why don't you come check it at Let's Scrap.

Ok I just have one more thing to tell you about.  Let's Scrap is do a Design Team Call. It is for a 3 month period starting May1st-Aug. 31st so if you interested in applying come check out all about it here.

I hope you are all had a fantastic week and Happy Scrapping.

With This Ring I Thee Wed

Here is this weeks sketch over at Let's Scrap.

I have already given the kids the wedding album I was working on for them but didn't get as many layouts done for it as I had wanted to. So I am going to do a few more pages for them before I start making an album for me to keep.  Here is the layout I made with this weeks sketch. I'm not real thrilled with the flowers I used on it so may look for others that I like better and then switch them. 

I hope you are all having a great week and happy scrapping.

Happiness

Today I posted the second Let's Scrap Our Stash Challenge over at Let's Scrap.  I am so thrilled with all the interest the members are showing in the group and the challenges. 
For this weeks challenge you have to use at least 5 brads, 3 patterned papers and 3 different stamps.  Here is the example I posted for them.

For this layout I used 14 brads, they are tiny but they were used in all the flowers and the two metal pieces on the last picture.  I used 4 different patterned papers, they are the yellow polka dot paper for the title, brown polka dot paper behind the pictures on the first page, yellow patterned paper on both pages (it is quite light but it is pp) and the green pp on the second page.  I then went crazy with stamps and used a total of 10 different stamps. Everything I used were Close to My Heart products.
I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with for the challenge.   If your interested in joining in on the challenges you can find out all about them buy joining me at Let's Scrap.

You Hold The Key To My Heart

Today I posted the first challenge for scrapping our stash over at Let's Scrap.  The group I started last month called Let's Scrap Our Stash has been a great success and already has 55 members.  At the request of those members I will be providing them with a challenge each Monday and there will be a draw for a rac at the end of each month.
For this weeks challenge I asked the members to do a layout or 2 cards that have 2 metal embellishments, 2 different colored ribbons of any length and to use at least 3 different punches. Here is the layout I made for the challenge
.

I really like the Nellie Multi Frame Heart Die I got a while back.  It's similar to the shapeablities in that you use it with your cuttlebug and it will cut the shape and them emboss it. Here's a closeup of the heart I made with it.

This is a picture of my grandson Jacob and I taken at Christmas.  The items I used for the challenge were
2 Metal embellishments - the key and the lock
2 different color ribbons - a red and a white ribbon tied to the key
3 punches - I used a large Martha Stewart heart border punch on the left side of the layout, a small Martha Stewart heart border punch on the bottom of the layout and a Fiskars Photo Corner heart punch for the frame around my picture.

Other items used were
pp - Bo Bunny
CS - Brazil
Cricut to cut the two upper right hearts
Cuttlebug and Nellie's Multi Heart Frame

I can't wait to see what the members come up with for the challenge. I hope everyone had a great weekend. Happy Scrapping.

Best Friends Forever

Cheri gave us another fantastic sketch this week over at Let's Scrap and I just had to make a layout using it.
Here's what the sketch looks like

and here is the layout I did with it.  If you want a closer look just click on the picture.

 This was another layout for Jason and Amy's wedding album.  These beautiful ladies were Amy's Maids of Honor and they have been her best friends for many years.  I had some problems photographing the layout I just couldn't get it to show the colors right.  They are definitely much brighter in real life.

I've been quite busy over at Let's Scrap.  Once I finished up with the blog hop I decided to start a couple of groups.  The first one started a couple of weeks ago and is called Let's Scrap Our Stash.  I am thrilled with how many members have joined the group.  We are encouraging each other to scrap with what we already have instead of going out and buying new products.  I am impressed with  how well everyone is doing.  Then this week I started a group called Organizing our Stash.   I will showcase something from our stash and we can discuss and share pictures of how we organized them.  Already we have had great discussions on organizing our ribbons and also our stamps. The members have some fantastic ideas and I will definitely be using some of them.
At the request of the members I am going to also have Scrap Our Stash Challenges going on every Monday.  I will make up a challenge listing items from our stash that they have to use on layouts or cards.  They will have a chance to win a prize at the end of the month. 
My good friend Debby has also started a couple of groups.  She has one where we have signed up to scrap 100 layouts in 2011.  Some of the members are doing so well in this group that they will probably reach their goal in a couple of months.   The new group Debby started this week was one for Photography and there will be fun challenges posted every couple of weeks for it.
So if you have any interest in any of these groups then pop on over to see us at Let's Scrap.

Practical Scrappers is Giving Away Pink Paislee Prize

I just wanted to let all my friends know that Practical Scrappers has a fantastic giveaway going on right now. The prize pack is from Pink Paislee.  You know you don't want to miss out on this one so head right over to Practical Scrappers to see how you can get your name in on the draw.