Let's Get Scrap Happy

THE LET'S SCRAP LEAP AROUND THE WORLD BLOG HOP HAS BEGUN

2012-03-01T22:01:00.000-08:00

I am so happy that you decided to join us for the Let’s Scrap Leap Around the World Blog Hop. For those of you who are new to the site, Let’s Scrap has a wonderful group of international scrapbookers who encourage and motivate each other in our love for scrapping! It has amazing two page sketches and cards for you to use as your inspiration and there are many challenges and tutorials for you to do each month.

Now on to the hop!

YOU ARE AT STOP #4 ON THE BLOG HOP. If you came here from the very talented Jennifer Russell’s blog ( http://scrapinexpecttheunexpected.blogspot.com/ ), then you are in the right place! If you did not, Mindi Brown (the coordinator of this great event) at http://scrapchat-n-coffeetalk.blogspot.com/ has the order to help you find your way.

I am so excited to be 1 of 50 blog hosts for this amazing event. Here is the Let’s Scrap sketch (created by Sketch Artist Debby de Wilde) I am showcasing for the hop:

And, here is my interpretation of this great sketch.

I used the Graphic 45 Once Upon A Springtime paper line for my card along with some CTMH cardstock. I even pulled out my sewing machine to add a little something extra to it.

Now, for the fun part” Here is the RAK I have put together to send to one lucky random winner.

And, here is how easy it is to enter for my random draw:

Be or become a member of Let’s Scrap which you can do by clicking here http://letsscrap.ning.com/. It is free, easy and fast! Once you get there, I know you will love it and want to stay!
Be or become a follower of this blog. That's easy, too. Just go to the upper right-hand corner and click JOIN THIS SITE!
Leave me a comment telling me you were here (using Google Chrome or Firefox as your "search engine" is the best option (Internet Explorer or IE does not always "play nice" with Blogger)!
And, if you would like a SECOND CHANCE in the draw, make a card (or layout if you prefer) based on the sketch I have posted and upload it to the gallery at Let’s Scrap. Please "TAG" it: 4-15-09, LEAP4 Note there is no space between the word LEAP and the number 4. Please make sure to tag your project properly so that it will not get missed in the draw for my RAK
Leave a second comment for me with a link to your card or layout in the Let’s Scrap gallery and you will get your name into my draw a second time.

The hop ends at 11:59 p.m. Central Standard time, February 29th, which you can track using the clock on the main page of the Let’s Scrap website.

YOUR NEXT STOP ON THE HOP IS THE TALENTED SUE COLERICK. YOU CAN FIND HER AT http://creativitybug.blogspot.com/.

Thanks for coming by and for participating in the February 2012 Let's Scrap Leap Around the World Blog Hop!

Wee Fairy

2012-01-30T13:58:00.000-08:00

My oldest sister Ardell was not only an amazing sister but also my best friend. Although she was 11 years older them me she let me tag along with her and her best friend Lynda where ever they went. With 6 kids in the family we often had to share beds and Ardell was my bed mate. I can remember her reading to me every night before I went to sleep and even when she started dating she would make sure to read me a chapter from my favorite book before heading out on her date. We remained very close even after both of us were married and had our own families. We lost her suddenly 13 years ago and I still miss her terribly.

When I started scrapping I decided that I wanted to do a special page about her as a baby. I knew that the page had to have fairies on it because Fairy was the nickname that her Aunt Phyllis and Aunt Joyce gave her as a toddler. They told me that Ardell would dance, flit and twirl around the room on her tiptoes and because she was so tiny it reminded them of a little fairy. She was obviously very special to both of them. I can remember many a time when Ardell would come into a room that one or both of them was in and you would hear them say “oh my look, it’s our wee fairy”

Over the years I have picked up different papers and embellishments with fairies on them but they never seemed to be right for the page I wanted to do. A while back I came across the Graphic 45 Once Upon a Springtime paper line. I had finally found the paper I wanted to use. Even the title of the paper line seemed to fit as she was born in the late spring of 1944. But I really wanted to make the pages special and couldn’t decide exactly what I wanted to do with the papers. So they sat in the drawer waiting for me to work with them. I finally decided that I would try fussy cutting all the little fairies and flowers and popping them up so they looked 3D. I have never done any fussy cutting before so I didn’t realize just how much work it would take, but like any labor of love it didn’t matter how long it took because I enjoyed every moment of it.

Ardell loved butterflies and since her passing everyone in her family thinks of her any time we see a butterfly. So I had to add a couple of those for her too.

Here is the layout that I made for her

Some close-ups so you can see some of the detail

I hope you enjoyed seeing Ardell’s special page as much as I loved doing it.

Any of you that have been following my blog know that I have been doing a LOAD challenge over at Let’s Scrap. LOAD stands for LayOut A Day. So the idea was to make a layout each day in January. Cathy van der Bruinhorst, the organizer of the challenge made it a bit easier on us by letting us count both layouts and cards. I am thrilled to say that with a card I made today for the upcoming blog hop and the finishing of Ardells layout I have made 30 layouts and 11 cards in January, an all time high for me. I’m so happy that I finished off this great month of scrapping with this special tribute to my sweet sister Ardell.

Fall Layouts

2012-01-28T08:21:00.000-08:00

With finishing these two layouts I have now reached 38 layouts/cards for the LOAD challenge going on over at Let's Scrap. I can't believe I scraped that much in one month, thank goodness my Mojo finally decided to return.
Here is this weeks Let's Scrap sketch

And here is the layout I did for it.

The next layout I did for a challenge over at Let's Scrap. We had to pick a sketch and then use smaller size photos in place of the size the sketch called for.
This is the sketch I picked to use

I changed the size of all the photo's on the right hand side of the sketch.

All the pictures were taken Thanksgiving weekend when my Grandchildren and their parents came to visit. With them moving to Nova Scotia I don't get much chance to see them so I was super excited to have them here for a few days. I have separate albums for Jacob and Ava so that is why there are two layouts with similar photos.

It won't be long now for the start of the Let's Scrap Leap Around The World Blog Hop to start. With 50 blog hosts it is the largest hop I have ever seen. Sure hope you can join in on the fun. For more information check out Let's Scrap.

Meeting the Great Grands

2012-01-19T13:00:00.001-08:00

I have been working really hard on the LOAD challenge over at Let's Scrap but still seem to be a couple of days behind. I'm hoping to make up a couple of more cards just so I get caught up.
Here is the my latest layout

Every year on the 3rd Sunday in June, my In-laws, Nana and Papa come to our house to join the family for a meal to celebrate Father's Day. As my oldest son's birthday is on the 22nd and Nana's is on the 28th we always buy a birthday cake to celebrate their birthdays that day too. Last year the celebration was even more special because 5 day old Ava got to meet her Great Grandparents for the first time. Although her brother Jacob is in many of the photos I decided to go a little girly with the page because I plan to put it into Ava's album.
I decided to make a card with the scraps I had left over. We're able to count cards in the LOAD challenge so that brings my total up to 14. Here is the card I made.

I hope everyone had a great weekend and that you were able to get lots of scrapping done.

Don't Forget The Blog Hop

2012-01-19T13:00:00.000-08:00

Don't forget to mark your calendar for the Let's Scrap Around the World Blog Hop starting Feb. 1st and ending February 29th. There are 50 blogs participating, all with a Rak up for grabs. To read more about it come see us at Let's Scrap.

Giveaway from Glitz Design

2012-01-18T15:00:00.000-08:00

I was checking things out on my Facebook today and came across a post about a giveaway from Glitz Designs. I must admit this company was totally new to me and I just had to check it out. Boy have I been missing out on some amazing scrapbooking products. I will definitely be looking for their paper lines from now on. Their new line Pretty in Pink is absolutely stunning. Make sure to check them out. http://glitzitnow.blogspot.com/2012/01/introducing-pretty-in-pink.html

Masculine Card Made to Look Like a Man's Wallet

2012-01-09T19:50:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago a fellow scrapper, Linda McDonald, showed me a card she had made her husband. It looked like a man's leather wallet but was actually made out of cardstock. I have wanted to make a card like that for my son ever since but unfortunately Linda moved out of town and was never able to show me how she did it. I decided this week that I would try and figure it out for myself. Mine didn't turn out as good as the one she did but I'm still pretty pleased with them. It took a lot of trial and error but I finally got it the way I liked it so I thought I would make a tutorial showing how I did it in case you wanted to give it a try too.
I made the smaller one on the right first but didn't like it as much so I made the tutorial giving the measurments and photos from the larger one I did the second time around. Here is what the two looked like in the end.

Here is how I did it.

You only need one piece of cardstock to make this card so pick the color that you want to use for it. Two important things I learned about the cardstock were:
1. Don't use cardstock that has a different colored core. For one of my cards I used dark brown but it had a white core and when I embossed and sewed on it the white showed.
2. Inking the edges of the cardstock gives the wallet a cool look because it makes it a bit worn looking, but if you are wanting to ink it you will want to pick a color that isn't really dark because the ink won't show up very well. I picked a really dark brown and although the ink did cover the white core showing through it didn't show up on the dark brown as much as I would have liked.

Cut your cardstock into these sizes
1 - 10" wide x 4" high - Outside of wallet - Called A
1 - 9 14/16 w x 3 3/4 h - Inside of wallet - Called B
1- 4 3/4 w x 3 1/2 h - Photo holder - Called C
1 - 4 3/4 w x 2" h - gift card holder - Called D
1 - 4 3/4 w x 1" h - sentiment holder - Called E
1 - 4" x 3" piece of clear transparency sheet - Called F.
Note: For my transparency I used a left over piece that came inside a package of stickers. The stickers had been stuck to it in the package and I saved it when I had used up all the stickers.

Here are your pieces

Using a corner rounder I rounded off the corners of all the pieces except the transparency.

Next cut a window out of the photo holder (C) I used a 4'"x 3" photo so I measured in a 1/2" on each side of the photo holder and drew a rectangle. I then used a ruler, my craft mat and Fiskars Craft Knife and cut out the rectangle.

Score pieces A and B down the centre

Sew around the outside edge of piece A. If you wanted to you could sew around the other pieces also but I didn't bother. Note: at the end of this tutorial I will show you two other suggestions you could use if you don't have a sewing machine.

Using a Cuttlebug and embossing folder, emboss piece A This will be the outside of the wallet. Because the piece is so large you will have to put one end in and emboss it and then turn it around and emboss the other end. The embossing folder I used is called Mesh. I picked it because it reminded me of alligator skin so thought it would make it look like regular wallet.

Ink over the embossed area. You will also want to ink the edges of all the other pieces.

Apply double sided tape to the two shortest edges and the bottom edge of pieces B, C, D and E. Also apply double sided tape around all the edges of the window in the photo holder, piece C.

Take the white part of the tape off piece B and attach this piece to the back of the embossed piece (A). You want to line it up across the bottom and make sure that the scored centre's line up. I found the best way to do this was to stand them up on the table and then start attaching them. After it is attached the upper part will be open and can be used to put paper money in if that is what you are giving as the gift.

Next remove the tape from around the window in piece C and place the clear transparency piece over the window and make sure it is stuck down on all sides. Then remove the rest of the tape from it and stick it down on the left side of the card. Make sure it lines up along the bottom and have the bottom left rounded corners of piece B and C match up. It won't meet at the score line but that is the way you want it so that the card can be folded closed. Slip in the photo you want to use.

Next take piece D and attach it to the right side of the card. Again line it up along the bottom but match up the bottom right rounded corner of part D and B. Then take piece E and line it up along the bottom the same way. This will give you two small pockets one to put the sentiment in and if you are giving them a gift card then you can put it in the second pocket.

The last thing I wanted to show you was how you could do the front outside edge if you don't have a sewing machine. To do faux sewing you need to use a sponge mat (I use my mouse pad), a ruler and a hole punch. Place the paper on the mat, lay the ruler down near the edge and punch little holds at even intervals. Then take a fine tipped black marker and draw a line from hole to hole all the way around. Mine is a little to light, so you will want to make the lines a little darker and you will be surprised at how much it actually looks like it was done with a machine.

The second idea I had was that you could punch larger holes along the edge and then lace ribbon or lacing through the holes. I can remember one of my sons having a wallet that had lacing on it like this.

One last thing I wanted to show you was that you could use the Paisley embossing folder if you didn't have the mesh one. This is what the outside would look like after the paisley designed was inked.

I have never made a tutorial like this before so I hope that I have made it clear enough for you to understand. If you need to see the photo's larger all you have to do is click on them. Making the card sounds quite complicated but once you get the hang of it, it is actually easy to do and makes a cute card for a man or boys birthday or even could be used for Fathers Day.

Hanging Around Waiting For Christmas

2012-01-05T09:04:00.000-08:00

The pictures for this layout are of my 3 month old Grandson Colton. Amy and Jason invited me over a few days before Christmas to do a mini photo shoot of him. I had the Santa’s Suit already and went to the Dollarama here in town and was able to get all these cute little hats. He had a couple of Christmas themed onesies and Pajama’s so we used them too. Colton was so good with all the switching of the clothes and picture taking. He just always seems in a good mood and has lots of smiles for everyone.

I did this layout for the LOAD challenge going on over at Let's Scrap. A friend of mine used a PageMaps sketch to do a layout with the clotheslines on it and I just loved how it turned out so had to give it a try. As the sketch was just for the one side I had to come up with something myself for the left side. I was so thrilled when I remembered that I had clothespins with the word Christmas spelled out on them, because they worked perfectly for part of the title and I was able to carry the clothesline theme onto the left side so that the two pages looked like they should go together.
Here is the layout I did. I finished it yesterday but had waited until today to photograph it in hopes that the weather would be nicer but no such luck. So I'm sorry that they are so dark but if I wait around for a good day to take the pictures I might be waiting until spring, lol

Here are a couple of close-ups showing the clothespins with the felt letters and also ones with snowflakes and Christmas trees on them that came with the set.

The little outfits, hats and toy stickers have been in my stash since I started scrapping. They are made by Paper Studio and I was so glad that I finally found the perfect layout to use them on. I’ve had the felt letter clothespins for a long time to but some where along the way I lost the packaging for them so don’t know who made them.

I hope you are having a great week and Happy Scrapping.

BLOG HOP COMING TO LET'S SCRAP IN FEBRUARY

2012-01-03T12:42:00.000-08:00

One of our DT's, Mindi Brown, is organizing a blog hop for February over at Let's Scrap. We put the word out to all our members asking if anyone wanted to be a blog host. We didn't expect the amazing response we got. There are 50 Let's Scrap members who are going to host the blog hop and each of them will have a RAK up for grabs. Make sure to mark the date on your calendar because you won't want to miss out on this one.

January LOAD Challenge

2012-01-02T08:19:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my previous post I am taking part in a LOAD challenge this month that one of our Design Team members, Cathy van de Bruinhorst, posted for the Let's Scrap members.. I started the month off well by finishing a two page layout last night. The layout has photo's that I took of my son Jason, daughter-in-law Amy and my then 3 week old grandson Colton. The house across the street has several maple trees in the yard as well as a rail fence and archway so I thought it was the perfect place to take some fall photos.

Here is the Let's Scrap sketch I used to make my layout

and here is my layout

To make it more interesting and give it some depth I popped up some of the leaves and photos. I also distressed the edge of the photo mats and little circles.

I just purchased an ATG gun and used it to stick down the title but then decided I really didn't like the look of the title so wanted to remove it. Unfortunately the adhesive used in the gun really adheres quickly so I wasn't able to take it off without ripping the paper so ended up having to leave it the way it was.

The papers I used are all Close To My Heart products. I borrowed one of the CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut cartridges to cut out the tree branches, leaves and journaling frame. I have been thinking of buying the cartridge and my sales rep and friend was kind enough to let me borrow her's to see what I thought of it. I was amazed at all the things you could cut out with it, many more then from a normal Cricut cartridge. So I can see myself buying one the next time her order goes in.

Well I guess I better get back to scrapping, I have lots more layout to do for the LOAD challenge. I wish all of you a wealth of peace, love and goodness in the New Year. Happy Scrapping.

I'm Back From The Land Of The Missing.

2011-12-28T12:07:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it has been almost 2 months since I last posted. Life has been so busy lately that I just haven't had time to get on here to post. I also haven't had much time to scrap either so really didn't have anything to share with all of you.
As you all know Debby de Wilde and I started helping Cheri run Let's Scrap back in January. At the end of October Cheri decided to give up the group so now Debby and I own it. So that's what has been keeping me so busy. There were so many things we needed to do like have a DT call, get everything switched over in our names, change over all the albums,re-name sketches and many, many more important jobs. Things are now starting to settle down and I am really hoping to start the New Year off with lots of scrapping and blogging.
To help with my scrapping one of the Let's Scrap DT's, Cathy van de Bruinhorst has set up a LOAD Challenge for January. What is LOAD you ask, will it stands for LayOut A Day. She is being a bit easy on us by letting us count 2 page layouts as 2 and also we can include cards in the 31 count. I'm not sure that I will be able to complete the challenge but I figure even if I do a few pages it will be better then I have been doing lately.
Will I better go and try and get some things organized so I will be ready for LOAD. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that you have a Scrappy New year.

I've Reached My Goal

2011-10-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

Over at Let's Scrap we are challenging everyone to do 100 layouts (pages) in 2011. I have had a lot of problems with my mojo lately and I was beginning to worry that I wouldn't make the challenge. Woo Hoo today with this layout I have finally met the goal and I am so thrilled. I have now upped my goal to 125 pages in hopes that I can meet it too.
This week Cheri posted the Design Team Challenge and she showed us several different techniques and we were to pick one and do a layout or card using the technique and a Let's Scrap sketch. I picked the technique where you change circles into squares for a unique look for your layouts. If you would like to learn how to do this you can check out a tutorial here. Here is the layout that I did using a photo of my wonderful sister Rose and her family taken in October 2010.

I made the leaves myself and thought I would share a mini tutorial on how I did them.

To make the leaf shape I used a Spellbinders Shapeablilities Nested Maple Leaf die and my Cuttlebug.

The way the die is made I could have put it back through the Cuttlebug and embossed it but the embossing would have only made a small edge around the whole leaf. I didn't want it to look that way. Instead I preferred to make them with the veins in the leaves like you see in real leaves. I don't have a stylus to do the embossing and I tried different little tools that I had in my scrap bag but they would either make the veins to thick or they would rip my paper. But then I had a brain wave. Why not take one of the "fake" fabric leaves from a fall decoration and use it to emboss with. The leaf had a plastic stem and plastic veins attached to it. So I laid the fabric leaf on the "A" plate of my Cuttlebug, then put my cut out paper leaf on top of it, then the rubber mat and my two "B" plates on top of that. I didn't use any shims in between which you usually have to use because I didn't want the embossing to be to pronounced. I then ran it through my Cuttlebug.
Here is what it looked like before embossing

here is how I placed them together before running them through the Cuttlebug.

and here is how it looked like afterwards

Then I used some rangers inks (mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade and Dried Marigold) and inked the leaves. I also used some of my cat's eye inks to add a bit more color. After I was done all that I then sprayed the leaves with Tattered Angles Iridescent Glimmer Mist to give them a bit of a shine. While they were still wet I scrunched them up a bit so they weren't laying flat. Here is a close up of how they looked when they were done.

If I was doing it again I would be a bit more careful when scrunching them as I found that they wrinkled a bit more then I would have liked where the veins are, but all and all I am thrilled with how they turned out and will definitely be trying the technique again.

I hope you found this tutorial interesting and will give the idea a try.

FABULOUS PRIZE TO BE WON

2011-09-27T14:07:00.000-07:00

If you are a follower of my blog you know that I love the group Let's Scrap. Most of my layouts and cards are made for that site. During the month of October Cheri is having a great challenge. If you become a new member of Let's Scrap or are already a member but have never posted a layout or card in their gallery then you have a chance to win a fabulous prize. All you have to do is make a card or layout using a Let's Scrap sketch and post it in the gallery between Oct. 1st - Oct. 31st. and you will get your name in the draw for this prize of 5 stacks of DCWV paper. Here is what the paper looks like.
.

Also if you do post a layout/card let them know that I encouraged you to post and my name will go into another draw and I could win 5 stacks of their paper too. So why not give the challenge a try. You only have to do the one LS sketch based card or layout for your chance to win. While your there check you might want to check out all the great groups and challenges we have going on. There may be other challenges you want to do so that you can get in on that draw too. Click on the word Let's Scrap and it will take you to the site to sign up. Once you are signed up go to the forum to check out the challenge.
Hope to see you there.

My New Grandson

2011-09-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share a couple of things with my blogging friends. First I wanted to let you all know that my Grandson, Colton Jason Orr arrived on Sept. 17th, at 10:pm, weighing 9lbs 3oz, and measuring 22 inches. He is such a sweet little guy and I can't believe how alert and happy he has been right from the very beginning. Here is a photo of him taken at 2 days old

As far as scrapbooking I seem to have been in a real slump with it lately. I think someone stole my Mojo and I would really like them to give it back. LOL. Three weeks ago I started a layout on the birth of my Granddaughter Ava.. My plan had been to get caught up on her layouts so when Colton arrived I would be able to get right at his. But I didn't finish it until today. Hopefully I will find my mojo soon and will get back to scrapping like I used to.

I did this layout for a Julie Bonnor sketch challenge over at Let's Scrap. The flourishes and doily were from some wonderful items I was gifted by Enmarc Crafts. I decided to use some micro glitter on the flourishes but not sure I will do that again. I have glitter all over me, my floors and my furniture. I think I will be months trying to clean it all up. LOL

Happy scrapping everyone and I hope to be back soon with some more layouts.

Carolina's Give Away

2011-09-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

My good friend Carolina is guest designing for Freehand Scraps this month and did a fantastic post on their site with "10 ways to make your projects unique" To celebrate how happy she is to have been picked as the guest designer she is having a wonderful give away. Here's a photo of what you can win

So head right over to Carolina's blog and get a chance to win these goodies. You can find her site here.

Jacob Love's Trains

2011-08-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

I have a group over at Let's Scrap called Let's Scrap Our Stash. We try to encourage each other to use the stash we have instead of buying new things. We also post a couple of challenges each month that use up lots of stash. Because I wasn't feeling the greatest for a while and then life got real busy I have been very fortunate the past few months to have my good friend Kathy Perry posting the challenges for me. I figured it was about time that I gave Kathy a break and I did the challenge for a change.
For the challenge this time around I wanted the members to use lots of chipboard and use at least different techniques on them to alter the look of them. I was very fortunate to have been gifted a lot of the Enmarc Crafts white chipboard pieces "chippies" last month. Enmarc is a business in South Africa and they have amazing products. They started a scrapping group a couple of months ago and each month they have a sketch challenge. You can find there group here. So I decided to use this months sketch and several of their "chippies" for the Scrap our Stash Challenge.
Here is what there sketch looks like:

and here is the layout I made using it

Where I live there is a rail line right beside us so there are trains passing by several times a day. My grandson has always been fascinated with them and every time he hears one he runs to the window to see it. I decided that he was finally old enough to go visit the Railway Museum that we have here in town. Although it was one of the hottest days this summer that we picked to visit he still had a fantastic time. He got to go inside a bunch of the old trains and check out the buttons and phones. He also got to see a huge train set that they had all set up there and loved watching all the different trains traveling around all the houses and people.
I was thrilled that Enmarc had sent me the train mini album because it worked perfectly to hold my journaling in and was light enough to be attached to the layout. I also loved all the chipboard gears they sent. I used different techniques to color all the chipboard. Some I used embossing powders on, some I painted, others I stickled and I even used markers on one of them. I find the "chippies" so versatile that you can use just about anything on them. I also decided to use the Timeworks Tim Holtz masks on my background paper because they looked like gears and used blue skys glimmer mist to make them show up. I had a blast doing the layout.
I hope all of you are having a great week and Happy Scrapping.

My Little Love Bugs

2011-08-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

Things continue to be busy here at home and also with helping run Let's Scrap. I always plan on doing lots of scrapping but then life takes over and I don't get anything done. Last month my oldest Son Andrew and his family, including my grandchildren Jacob and Ava moved down to Nova Scotia. I am really missing all of them especially little Jacob. I was used to seeing him a couple of times a week so am going through Grandchildren withdrawal. Ava turned 1 month old a couple of days before they left and Katie brought the two of them over to spend some time with me. I was thrilled to see that Ava was wearing the little outfit I had given her as a gift. So of course I had to take some photo's.
I finally finished a layout last night for a hidden journaling Design Team challenge that Lynn posted for us on Let's Scrap. The photo's I used were the ones I took the day they visited. Jacob looks like he was giving his sister a loving touch but he was actually trying to get a ladybug button off little Ava's headband. He had seen me attach it and decided he should have it instead. I laugh when ever I see the photo of the two of them because he is acting so sweet and innocent while trying to sneak that button for himself.

I used a Let's Scrap sketch for the layout. I found a free file on the internet with the cute letters with the ladybugs on them I used in my title and I bought a couple of ladybug files from Country Clip Art for the little bug embellishments. When I printed the ladybugs off the colors were very faded, probably because my ink is getting low, so I used my markers to color them again. I pop dotted them in a couple of spots to make some of them show up more.
Hopefully I will get a chance to do some more scrapping soon and I won't be away for so long. I hope all of you have a Happy Scrappy weekend.

Canada Day 2011

2011-07-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

It seems like such a long time since I have done any scrapping but lift just got in the way. I finally got around to finishing this Canada Day layout for a challenge going on over at Let Scrap I also used one of Cheri's fantastic sketches for it. The photo's are from our recent Canada Day celebration. My husband, son's, DIL's. grandchildren and myself when we went to the celebrations being held at a park here in town.
For the challenge we had to use papers that were only red, white and/or blue. We also had to use at least 10 buttons in the same colors and chipboard for the title.
I recently received an amazing gift from Enmarc Crafts which is a company from South Africa. They sent me several of their chipboard embellishments so that I could join in on the fun on their site. Wasn't that so sweet of them. The Canada title is one of their fantastic pieces. I used Ranger distress ink and Color Box Cat's Eye Inks to color the chipboard and then applied glossy accents to it.
Here's my layout

Amazing Candy Give Away

2011-07-21T08:29:00.000-07:00

You won't want to miss this one. Michelle from Scrappin' For Kenzie is giving away an amazing amount of scrapping goodies once she reaches 100 followers. So make sure to go check it out.

Bundle Of Joy

2011-06-28T20:12:00.001-07:00

I made this layout of my sweet granddaughter Ava using a Let's Scrap sketch. She turned 2 weeks old today but the photo's were taken when she was a week old. It is so much fun getting to finally use some of my Prima Flowers, bling and pretty pink papers. Having had two sons and a grandson I don't often get the chance to make any girly pages.

The papers I used are from CTMH's Sophia line and all the flowers are all made by Prima. The title I cut using my Cricut and the border and separate butterflies were made using Martha Stewart punches. I used some stickles on the butterflies to make them stand out and also added some pearls to them.

My Precious Granddaughter Has Arrived.

2011-06-16T09:47:00.000-07:00

My precious Granddaughter Ava, arrived on June 14, 2011 at 12.58 am and weighed 7lbs 15oz. I can't believe I finally have a little girl that I can scrapbook about. Here's a picture of the first time I got to hold her.

There are sure to be lots of layouts about her but until I get enough photo's of her to scrap I thought I would share this one with you. I did this for the Design Team Challenge at Let's Scrap. We had to do a layout with someone elses handwriting on it. So I chose to do one with a note from my Mom to all her children.

     My Mom had an old journal that she would periodically write in. As far as I knew she only used it to keep track of medications she was on, dates repairs were done on the house, how she was feeling etc. After she passed away I got the journal and I found out that it held so much more then everyday life events. There are little notes about each of her children and some of her grandchildren. It might just be a couple of lines about one of our weddings and how pretty it was, or how proud she was of her youngest child's graduation from college but you could feel her love in every note she wrote. On the very last page of the journal she wrote "Love to my children always, you have been a joy to my life. God Bless You All ways(sp) Mother." Finding this note after she had passed away meant so much to me. She obviously hoped that we would some day find the journal and wanted us to know just how much she loved us.
     My father passed away when the youngest children were 2 1/2 and 4 years old and I was 13. We never had a photo taken of Mom, Dad and all 6 children. In 1995 we had a photo taken of my siblings and myself and gave it to my Mom for her 70th birthday. That Christmas my sister Ardell had our Mom and Dads pictures inserted into a copy of the photo. She had to change it to a black and white photo because we didn't have many photo's of Dad that were in color. This photo is very precious to all of us. In 1986 Mom wrote in her journal "The families seem to be doing well and I am very proud of all of them. Its sad Frank can't be here to see how great our children turned out"
     There wasn't room to add all the notes to the layout so I put some of the more special ones on tags that I tucked under the photo's on the first page.

BOOK OF ME

2011-06-11T13:34:00.000-07:00

I have always wanted to do a Book of Me (BOM) album. There are so many things I wish I knew about my parents and grandparents and now with them all gone I will never know them. My children aren't very interested in hearing my "I remember when" stories right now but hopefully they or my grandchildren will wonder about it someday. I may not still be around to be able to answer their questions so I want to make an album now that will fill them in on my childhood, things I enjoyed, how my husband and I met etc.
I have decided to start a group over at Let's Scrap so anyone who was interested in doing a book about themselves could join in.. I'm calling the group Book About Me (BAM) because it made made more sense to me then Book of Me. I want to make it as easy as possible so every month I will post two different themes or topics to help us create a page about our lives. Members can do one of them, both of them, or none of them what ever they wish to do that month! If they don’t get a chance to do a challenge the month it’s posted, or if someone is new to the group, they can go back and do ones they missed. Hopefully with all of us sharing idea's and supporting each other we will be able to get some pages done for our albums.

Here are the two topics I posted this month

What’s in a name? – There are many ways you could scrap about your name.

Tell us why you were named after someone else?
What is your name’s definition?
Explain why you like or dislike your name.
Do you go by your second name, why?
Use the letter’s of your name to make words that describe you.
Scrap about the nicknames you have had.

BAM#2 What is your earliest memory.
Some things that you might remember from when you were little could be

When a sibling was born.
When you started school.
Books your parents read to you as a toddler.
Going on a vacation or visiting a special person.

I decided to the What's In a Name challenge first. To me my name Betty Anne is very easy name, but I have had trouble all my life with people either calling me Betty or Bet or spelling it wrong. So that's what I wrote about in my journaling.

If you're interested in working on a book about your self why don't you join us over at Let's Scrap. It's an amazing group that not only has lots of one and two page scrapbook sketches and cards sketches each month but also several great groups you can join in on too. I hope that you will check it out.
The next time I post I hopefully will be a grandmother of a new little granddaughter. Katie is going in to be induced on Monday so the little one should arrive that day or the next. While his Mommy and Daddy are busy at the hospital my grandson Jacob is going to come stay with Grandpa and I. So there should be lots of chances for fun photo's and new layouts.

Some New Layouts

2011-05-31T11:40:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it has been almost a month since my last posting, where does the time go. Today is the last day for the Let's Scrap National Scrapbooking month long celebration. There have been many amazing cards and layouts posted for it. What was really special was that several of our members supplied challenges along with several of our Design Team. How great is that!! I didn't find organizing this celebration was to hard, but I think having organized the Blog Hop a few months ago really helped.

So now for some of my layouts. I am going to post several of them because, who knows when I will get a chance to get back in here to blog. LOL This first one was done for Ana's challenge to use black and white pictures and paper with a touch of an accent color. I chose to do a layout with Jason and Amy's engagement pictures on it.

The next one is for Jodie's challenge where you were to do a layout about yourself. So I chose to scrapbook about my having been on the High School Reunion committee back in 2005. My job on the committee was to gather and display high school memorabilia. I think having to come up with some inventive ways to display the photo's on bristol board was what got me thinking about scrapping.

This one was for Kathy's challenge. There were several things you had to do when making it. You had to put the word first in the title, have some type of texture in the title, journal around the pictures, use 3 patterned papers and doodle around the outside edge of the layout. I chose to do pictures from my childhood and the first cake I ever made with my Easy Bake Oven. Up until a few months ago I had never seen these pictures but while going through old negatives I came across them and had them developed. It is was amazing how the memories of that day came flooding back. I wasn't that thrilled with the hand doodling and journaling on it. I normally use my computer for my journaling because my hand writing is so bad.

The last NSD2011 challenge I did was Rachelle's. For it you had to scrap something that showed time and use the word time in your title. I ended up scrapping pictures of my oldest son and his time spent on the farm with his Papa and the cows over the years. The first picture is him when he was only a week old and Papa introduced him to the cow's. The ones on the right show him about 2 or 3 years old out in the barn yard. The other two are when he was 9 and he decided he wanted to ride the cows so his Papa put a harness on Andrew's favorite and he took him for a ride. I laugh every time I see the picture with him on the cow and the cow wearing the hat.

Here is the layout I finally finished for last weeks Let's Scrap sketch. My 2 year old grandson is hat crazy and was thrilled when I picked up all these St. Patrick's Day hats at the dollar store for him.

I would have liked to have finished all the NSD challenges but life has been pretty crazy lately so I didn't get them all done. We are anxiously awaiting the birth of my Granddaughter in 2 weeks and my grandson Jacob has been coming to visit quite a bit. He is a busy little guy so there is no scrapping while he is here.

Recently we found out my older sister Rose has a brain tumor and that has thrown all of us for a loop. She started her radiation and chemo treatments yesterday and we are praying that they will work to get rid of the tumor. I would really appreciate it if my blogging friends could say an extra prayer for her.

Will I better get back to scrapping while my mojo is still working. Happy Scrapping, my friends.

Who Are They?

2011-05-05T22:39:00.000-07:00

I have been really busy lately organizing the month long NSD celebrations we are having at Let's Scrap. We have such wonderful members that several of them provided the group with challenges, as did some of our Design Team members. There are lots of challenges, two new sketches and even a game of bingo going on for NSD 2011. Why not pop over and join in on the fun?
I decided to give member Betty Hornbrook's challenge a try. For it you had to do a layout using a Let's Scrap sketch with no pictures. In there place you could use a poem, bucket list, story etc. Here is what I came up with.

The poem I used is this one written by Pam Harazim

Strangers in the Box

Come, look with me inside this drawer,
In this box I've often seen,
At the pictures, black and white,
Faces proud, still, serene.
I wish I knew the people,
These strangers in the box,
Their names and all their memories
Are lost among my socks.
I wonder what their lives were like,
How did they spend their days?
What about their special times?
I'll never know their ways.
If only someone had taken time
To tell who, what, where, or when,
These faces of my heritage
Would come to life again.
Could this become the fate
Of the pictures we take today?
The faces and the memories
Someday to be passed away?
Make time to save your stories,
Seize the opportunity when it knocks,
Or someday you and yours could be
The strangers in the box.

I have been researching my family tree for over 40 years and I have many family photo's of people I have not been able to identify. When I started scrapbooking I came across this poem and thought it would be perfect to use on a page for my heritage album but never got around to scrapping it until now. Hopefully with my scrapbook albums I will prevent future generations of my family from wondering who the strangers in the box are.
I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and Happy Scrapping!

How My Grandbabies Grow

2011-04-19T15:41:00.000-07:00

We are expecting 2 new grandbabies this year. My oldest son Andrew, his (common law) wife Katie and big brother Jacob are expecting a little girl in June and we found out today that my youngest son Jason and his wife Amy are expecting a little boy in September. I can't wait for these little bundles of joy to arrive so I can start spoiling them.
Sorry I haven't updated my blog lately but I had some back problems the first part of the month that made scrapping or working on the computer near impossible. I finally got that settles down and then took the flu. So really haven't felt up to scrapping. I also have been very busy helping out on Let's Scrap, preparing to pick the new Design Team Members and also working on arrangements for a month long National Scrapbooking Day celebration. Hopefully I will get a chance to do some scrapping soon.
I hope you are all enjoying your week and Happy Scrapping.

Your Color My Life With Love and Monopoli-ze My Heart

2011-04-02T19:46:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago my friend Michelle a Let's Scrap Design Team member had an interesting challenge for us to do. She challenged us to use paint chips on a layout or card and use the word color in the title. I have to admit I had never thought of using paint chips but it was really interesting to see all the different ways everyone used them for her challenge.

At the same time Cheri posted a sketch that would be revealed this week. This is what her sketch looked like

Although I like both sides of the sketch, I had scrapping paper that looked like a monopoly board that I had been wanting to use for a layout but couldn't figure out how to make the sketch work for something to do with monopoly on the left side. Michelle's challenge got me thinking and I decided to use an older sketch for the left side of the layout and then use the monopoly board for the right side of the above sketch.
So here is what I came up for Michelle's challenge

The paint chips were used for the top of the cards and then I printed out Monopoly clip art to used for Mr. Money bags, the hotels and houses and the word monopoly.
For the right side I printed off a bunch of pictures of my grandson in 1"x 2" size. I still had to do some trimming but I was then able to put his picture on all the property's. I didn't want to cover the inside with photo's so I printed off monopoly money, dice and playing pieces for embellishments. I also made up my own community chest and chance cards. Here is what the right side looked like when I was finished

And here is a picture of all of it put together.

I had so much fun making it and although some of his pictures are very small they are still quite easy to see. I'm working on another upcoming sketch so I guess I better get back to scrapping. I hope you're having a great weekend and Happy Scrapping.

Stylish Blogger Award and Project Scrap Our Stash 2011

2011-03-31T20:20:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-23T14:49:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-14T17:38:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-07T17:29:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-05T23:44:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-03T12:19:00.000-08:00

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.

Project 2011 Scrap Our Stash - How I did in February

2011-02-28T22:22:00.000-08:00

Another month has gone by since I signed up for Denise's Project 2011 Scrap Our Stash group. In January I didn't buy anything but I wasn't quite as good in February. Before joining the group I had promised a friend I would host a Close to My Heart party at my home. Eight people attended and amazingly they bought enough CTMH products that I was able to get $165. worth of free product and also 4 items at half price. There were tons of things I would have liked to have ordered from the catalogue but I worked very hard to only pick items I knew I would use. I know that I shouldn't have taken any of the half price items but just couldn't help myself. I am still working on the kids wedding album and there was an alphabet stamp that I thought would be wonderful for the wedding layouts and also there was a hostess variety pack that had papers I could use for the album. So I ordered them at half price. I was good though and didn't take the other 2 half priced items. I am proud of my self for being able to do 10 layouts and 4 cards using just what was in my stash.
Because of the success of Denise's Project 2011 idea I decided to start a Let's Scrap Our Stash group over at Let's Scrap. Many of the members had already signed up for Denise's group so they joined my group also. It has been wonderful seeing everyone encouraging each other in the group and also they have been sharing some great ideas on using up our stash.
Today I started another group as a sort of spin off of the Scrap your Stash group. This one is to for Organizing Our Stash. I hope by getting our scraprooms more organized that it will help us to use our stash more. How often in the past have you bought something to scrapbook with and later realized you already had it. Or you know you have the perfect paper or embellishment for a layout you're working on but you search and search and can't find it so you go to the store and buy something to replace it.
I can't wait to visit all of your blogs and find out how you did Scrapping Your Stash.

Itty Bitty Betty Anne

2011-02-20T21:58:00.000-08:00

This is one of the layouts I did for the blog hop challenges. My Friend Bev's challenge was a blue and yellow layout and black and white photo. I realized I don't have many papers in those colors so had to add in a fair amount of cardstock but I'm very happy with how it turned out. It was the first time I had used the around the page large punch by Martha Stewart and really liked it, so I'm sure to use it again. I glimmer misted some white flowers to make them blue and yellow/

I only had a few pictures of me growing up. Then a few months ago I went through a bunch of old negatives my Mom had, had and was thrilled to find some of me when I was little. I thought it was time I did another layout for my Book of Me.
I'm the little one in the picture and the girl holding my hands is my oldest sister Ardell. Although, she was 11 years older then me she always treated me very special. She often let me tag along after her and even when she started dating she wouldn’t go out on an evening date without reading me a bedtime story. As we grew up she wasn’t just my beloved sister, she was my best friend. Sadly we lost her very suddenly to a brain aneurysm 12 years ago. She is never far from my thoughts and I was so happy to have a picture of her and I together. The butterflies on the layout are for her.

The Let's Scrap Blog Hop Was A Tremendous Success

2011-02-16T22:29:00.000-08:00

I know you must be wondering where I've been. I have been so busy with the Let's Scrap Hoppy New Year Blog Hop that I haven't even had time to make posts in here or visit my many friend blogs. The hop was a tremendous success. We had 138 new members join us over at Let's Scrap and there were over 1000 layouts and cards posted in our gallery. I am a huge fan of showing my love for the members projects so a lot of my time was spent leaving comments for very everyone and also answering lots of questions. The rest of the time I was busy trying to complete all 15 of the challenges given to us by all the blog hosts. I was amazed at the talent and creativity on all the layouts and cards that were uploaded to our gallery. Hopefully now that things are settling down a bit, I will have a chance to share some of the layouts and cards I made during the hop.

I also want to announce the winner of my Blog Hop Challenge. It was SCRAPPIN ANNIE. I hope that you will enjoy all the goodies I will be sending your way.

Father Daughter Dance

2011-02-04T19:48:00.000-08:00

With the blog hop still going on over at Let's Scrap and my new duties as an administrator in the group I have been so busy that I haven't had much time to visit all my blogging friends or to make blog posts. I had some time tonight so I thought I would share a layout with you before heading off to see what you have all been up to.
In January Julie Bonner supplied us with a wonderful sketch and prize over at Let's Scrap. So I decided to use the sketch to make a layout of my new daughter-in-law and her father dancing at the wedding. I was really pleased with how it turned out. If you want a closer look at it, just click on the picture and it will enlarge for you.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and Happy Scrapping.

Project 2011Scrap Our Stash - The First Month

2011-01-31T08:39:00.000-08:00

     On the first of January my friend Denise from Lala's World encouraged many of her scrapping friends to sign up for Project 2011 Scrap Our Stash. So basically you would sign up one month at a time and you would try to only use your scrapping stash. Then on the first of each month we would visit each of the participants blogs to see how they did and give encouragement to all. You can then decide whether you want to sign up for February. I wasn't sure if I would be able to do it but thought I would give the first month a try anyway.
   When I signed up I never thought about all the great after Christmas sales that would be going on. So my first shopping trip of 2011 brought me two doors down from my local scrapbook store. There was a sign in the store letting everyone know that everything in the store was 25% off. I've got to tell you it was so hard not to pop in to see what great deals I could get. But I was good and turned and walked the other way.
     The next store I went to was the dollar store and there right inside their door was all their Christmas paper, stickers etc. on sale at 50% off. I even picked up a couple of items but decided to put them back.
   My next stop was Walmart, and again just inside the store along with all their Christmas decorations they had their Christmas stickers, album kits, ribbons etc all at 75% off. It was like the scrapping gods were daring me to break the New Years resolution of only scrapping our stash. I thought real hard about the fact that I wasn't going to get a better deal then 75% off but I also knew if I gave in at that store I would end up going back to the others. So I turned tail and RAN. I didn't even stick around long enough to buy what I went into he store for LOL
   For the rest of the month I worked really hard on scrapping my stash and I even broke out some of the tools and things I have bought in the past and had never even used. So I'm pretty proud of myself for making it through the month without buying any scrapping goodies. When I ran out of my favorite adhesive I even pulled out some old stuff I had and used it up. It wasn't until a couple of days ago while corresponding with Denise that I found out that things like adhesive, blades, cardstock etc. weren't counted so I could have bought some of those items. It's probably a good thing that I didn't know because I'm afraid if I had gone into the store to buy any of them I might have been tempted to buy other things too. The only thing that I spent money on was having pictures developed. I even was careful to only develop what I knew I would use rather then all the pictures I took. I find with digital camera's I tend to take many more shots then I will need just to be sure I get just the right picture.
     So I have decided that I will sign back up for February. It may be difficult because I'm hosting a Close To My Heart party at my home next weekend. I'm hoping to have enough sales to get a few free items but I will also have a chance to get some 50% off items also. So I'll just have to see how it goes.
     If you would like to join in on the fun then head on over to Denise's blog, Lala's World and sign up. I would love to have some of my friends join in.

Our Most Prized Possessions Are Our Family Memories

2011-01-26T20:46:00.000-08:00

If your looking for my Let's Scrap Blog Hop Post you can find it here.

Kristie, a friend I met through Let's Scrap, is on the design team of Cookbookin. I joined their blog quite a while ago but hadn't had a chance to make a layout for them yet. Then in December, Cheri O'Neill, from Let's Scrap made a fantastic sketch for them. If you follow my blog you know that I just love Cheri's sketches. So I decided that I would enter their sketch challenge.
Here is Cheri's sketch

and here is my layout

     The lady in the picture is my mother. As far back as I can remember my mother made chocolate candy at Christmas. It was like a very sugary and sweet fudge. After all six children grew up and had children of our own my Mother found that she really couldn't afford to buy gifts for everyone. So each year she would make up batches of her candy and each family would get a little box filled with it. I can't say it was the best candy/fudge I have ever tasted but biting into that sweet treat always brought back fond memories for me.
     My Mother passed away 8 years ago this month. Just before Christmas I got thinking about her and her candy.   I thought that the recipe was long gone and I would never get the chance to ever taste it again. But I started to make some phone calls to my sisters and learned that my youngest sister Cathy actually had my Mothers original recipe. So during our family Christmas get together she brought it down to me. The paper was well worn with add notes on it in different color pen, but it was my Mother's handwriting.
   My Mother was an old fashioned cook and many of her recipes didn't have measurements. Often they would say a pinch of this or a dash of that or even at times a handful of this. In this recipe one of the ingredients was a hunk of butter. How big is a HUNK of butter?? She then had drawn an arrow from the butter down to the bottom of the page and it said - a dessert spoon heaped like an egg. Ohhh so that's a hunk of butter, then in different pen and obviously added later on it said - 2 tablespoons of butter. Geesh she couldn't have said that in the first place. LOL
     I ended up making a batch of the candy a couple of days before Christmas. I made some with the cocoa in it and also some without it. I can't even explain how happy I was when I took that first bite and was whisked back to my childhood and sitting in our old kitchen watching my Mother make it. It was just pure joy.

Jacob's Hat's

2011-01-21T18:48:00.000-08:00

If your looking for my Let's Scrap Blog Hop Post you can find it here.

Sorry I haven't updated for a bit, I have been really busy greeting new members to Let's scrap, commenting on all the fantastic layouts and cards being posted for the blog hop, taking part in discussions and voting on the new Design Team. I am so thrilled at how well the hop is going. When I decided back in November to organize it I had no idea how well it would be received. Way to go Let's Scrap members (old and new) and the members of the Design team who are helping to make it such a success. If you haven't yet joined us you still have lots of time because it doesn't end until February 14th. So hop on over to Let's Scrap and check it out.
I thought I would share with you a layout I did a couple of weeks ago using a Let's Scrap sketch. The pictures are of my Grandson and all the hats he loves playing with. I had picked up a couple of hats at the dollar store and he had such fun with them that I started watching for them at garage sales, on sale at store or any where else I could find different ones that I thought he would like. He has such a great time trying them all on when ever he comes to visit and you never know which one he will decide is his favorite of the day. So I thought I would try to capture him in a variety of the hats for a layout and here it is.

I'm working on a couple of layouts for the blog hop and hopefully I'll get a chance to share them with you soon. I hope all of you have a fantastic weekend and Happy Scrapping.

Yeah, It's Let's Scrap Blog Hop Time

2011-01-14T08:00:00.000-08:00

I'm so happy that you have decided to join us for the Let's Scrap Happy New Year Blog Hop! For those of you who are new to the site, Let's Scrap is a wonderful group of scrapbookers who encourage and motivate each other in our love for scrapping! New sketches are posted every Wednesday, with sample layouts done by the Design Team to provide inspiration. Members have one week to complete and post their interpretation of the sketch, and one random winner is then selected to win that week's prize provided by many different sponsors.

In addition to the weekly sketch, one of the Design Team members posts a challenge every Friday, and there are often special monthly challenges, with chances to win a prize for each challenge entered. Our forum contains tutorials, a place to "toot your horn", hosts a 'Question of the Week' and much, much more. We believe we have one of the friendliest communities of scrappers on the web, and are so glad that you have decided to check us out during our blog hop!

And now, a little bit about this blog hop:

The Let’s Scrap Hoppy New Year Blog Hop starts Friday, Jan. 14, 2011 and runs until 11:59 pm central time on Monday, Feb. 14, 2011. That’s right it runs for a whole month. Because it is the New Year we thought it would be fun to name the challenges Resolutions rather then Challenge #1, Challenge #2 etc.

There are 15 Design team, Contributing Design Team members and Administrators from Let’s Scrap hosting the blog hop. They will each have a Resolution (challenge) for you to do and a prize that you can win. Also one of the members of the group who doesn’t have a blog is posting a couple of great challenges in the Let’s Scrap Forum and there will be in depth rules and other important information posted in the forum also so make sure to check it all out.

Not only do you have a chance to win a prize for each challenge you enter but if you complete and post an entry for EVERY challenge along the blog hop, by February 14, 2011 you're name will be entered into a random drawing for a wonderful prize supplied by Cosmo Cricket

On every blog in the hop you must become a follower and leave a little love (a comment) for the host.

Okay, are you ready to start the Let's Scrap ...hop? Here is the first Resolution (challenge.)

Resolution #1-

They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery, so my challenge to you is to pick one of your favorite layouts in the Let’s Scrap Photo Gallery and scraplift it. It can be any layout posted in the gallery in 2009 or 2010. When scraplifting someone else's layout, you don’t do your page exactly like theirs. Pick some design elements that you like, and use the Let’s Scrap Sketch they used to make the layout your own!

Many of the layouts in my favorites list are made by Kathy. I really like her style and all the added little touches she does on her layouts. When I saw her Dorney Park Spins & Twirls layout I loved it right away. I loved how her it looked so bright and cheery and fun. It also used papers I had in my stash that I just couldn’t figure out what to do with. So I used the paper the same way she did but then added different little embellishments to make the layout my own.

Here’s the fantastic layout Kathy made with Let’s Scrap sketch 9-1-10

And here is the one I made

Specific Resolution#1 Rules:
1. Be sure that the layout you choose to scraplift is based on a Let's Scrap sketch: the tag line will have either the date of the sketch, like 2-12-10, or a number preceded by LS, like LS120, or a name, like letsscrap#4. If there is nothing in the tag line, it is probably not a Let's Scrap Sketch!
2. When you post your layout in the gallery, describe in the comment section why the layout is your favorite and what you scraplifted from it.
3. Provide a link to the member's original layout in the comment section. To do this go to the layout you scraplifted, highlight the information in the URL bar (or you may call it location bar or address bar) Make sure you highlight all of it. Then right click and hit copy. Go to where you are doing your write up for your photo, click where you want it in the comment section. Right click and hit paste. It should put the link to the other page in your comments. If you need help just send me a message in Let’s Scrap..
4. You must tag your layout correctly in order for it to be entered into the challenge. For my challenge, I scraplifted a layout using the sketch 9-1-10. So my tag would be: Resolution#1, 9-1-10. NO space between Resolution and #1, separated by a comma and then the sketch name/number with no space either.

5. On Feb. 15th, I will randomly select one person who completed Resolution #1 to receive this great prize

Ok now its time to hop on over to the next stop – Kristin’s blog

Lots of Scrapping Going On

2011-01-10T09:17:00.000-08:00

     I'm busily putting the finishing touches on the Let's Scrap Hoppy New Year Blog Hop starting this Friday, Jan. 14th. There are lots of great challenges and prizes and I'm am so excited to get it started. But I thought I would take a moment to share my layout from this weeks sketch.
    Let's Scrap had a special contest going on. Members were asked to send in their favorite layout or card that they didn't use a Let's Scrap sketch for. Then the design team picked their favorties and Cheri made a sketch for the winners layout and that is what we will be using for our sketch challenges over the next few weeks.
    The first place winner was my good friend Michelle from Homespun Scrapbooking. Here was her prize winning layout.

Isn't it amazing. Here is the sketch Cheri made for it.

This is my take on the sketch. The title is from the Celine Dion song, "Because You Loved Me" that Jason and Amy danced their first dance to.

I have some other layouts I did this week but they will have to wait until my next post because I have to get back to finishing my layout for my challenge at the blog hop. I hope you are having a fantastic weekend and Happy Scrapping.

2011 Seasons of Change Blog Hop

2011-01-09T13:51:00.000-08:00

I just recently joined the group Scrapbook Challenges and had a chance to take part in on their blog hop this weekend. It ends tonight t midnight but you still have time to get your name in on some great prizes. The blog hop starts out on Pamela's blog and she will give you a link to the next blog on the tour. If you leave a comment on each of the blogs you have a chance to win a great prize. Many of the blogs along the hop also have prizes to be won and if thats not enough if you go to the Hop On Board you will get links to members blogs who have participated by doing a layout and some of them even have little give aways. So what are you waiting for.

Here is the great blog hop sketch they gave us to make a layout from

I decided to do the left side of the layout. I have been working on Jason and Amy's wedding album and had some supplies left over from layout I just did for it so I thought I might as well make one for my album. I had to move some things around on the layout to accommodate the vellum tags I wanted to use but I think it still looks very close to their wonderful sketch. Sorry the picture is so dark, I couldn't take the picture outside due to bad weather and my flash kept causing problems so I had to take it without the flash.

Don't forget that I'm organizing a blog hop over at Let's Scrap starting Jan. 14th and ending Feb. 14th. Thats right it lasts a whole month and there are lots of prizes to be won. Hopefully it will be as much fun as this one has been.

I'm Am So Excited To Share This New's With You

2011-01-05T18:48:00.000-08:00

    If you have been a follower you know that my absolute favorite scrapbook place on the web is Let's Scrap. Joining this group last April was the best thing I ever could have done. Cheri's 2 page layout sketches are amazing and I because of using them I feel I have really grown as a scrapper. When I started with the group I had made about 4 layouts in early 2010. After joining them in April I went on to make 109 more. Never could have done it without Cheri's sketches. I'm not a big card maker but the fantastic sketches Kim gives us for cards have me even starting to enjoy making them. The other reason I love the group so much is all the great members that are there. The ladies are all so encouraging and wonderful and I have made some amazing friendships there.
    In August last year I took on a Design Team postition with the group and really enjoyed being able to provide challenges for the group and thinking up special questions for the question of the week. When my term was over I decided to continue on as a Contributing Design Team member.
     Cheri has been running the group for a couple of years and is very busy with her work and family. It bothered her that she wasn't able to keep up with everything that goes on it the group so she was considering giving the group up. She asked my good friend Debby and I to take over running the group. Isn't that totally AMAZING. But rather then just taking over we have all decided that it would even better if all three of us Cheri, Debby and I worked together to run it. That way Cheri can still stay involved in this wonderful site she has created, but will have help with it so she won't feel so overwhelmed.  I am so thrilled that I will get a chance to work with these two wonderful ladies. Also my good friends Bev and Pat are going to be helping us out to. What a great group.
     We are excitedly thinking about all the great challenges and fun we can bring to the group and hope it will become an even more exciting and amazing place to visit and create. So if you don't already belong to the group then why not drop over to visit us. You won't be sorry you did. Also don't forget about the Let's Scrap Hoppy New Year Blog Hop that is starting Jan. 14th.
Hope you are having a fantastic week and Happy Scrapping.

Last Challenge of the Year and Giveaway!

2011-01-03T20:07:00.000-08:00

My dear friend Carolina is giving away this fantastic Rak on her blog The Scrapping Nomad. She not only has a challenge going on over at Let's Scrap where you can win this great Rak but she is also offering her followers a chance to win a duplicate set of the papers. To read all about it pop over and see her.

LET'S SCRAP HOPPY NEW YEAR BLOG HOP

2011-01-02T14:38:00.000-08:00

I am organizing a Let's Scrap Hoppy New Year Blog Hop with the help of the design team. In order to give everyone a chance to get over the Christmas and New Years rush I decided to start it on Jan. 14th and it will end at midnight on Feb. 14th. There are 15 blogs participating, each with a challenge for you and a prize you can win. For anyone who finishes all of the challenges their name will go in a draw for a prize from Cosmo Cricket. There will also be a couple of extra prizes up for grabs. So make sure to mark the date on your calendar and join in.
My good friend Debby was kind enough to make me a button for the hop. Isn't it wonderful!!

http://letsscrap.ning.com/

Exciting News and The Winner Of My Blog Candy

2011-01-01T09:55:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

OK I have two big announcements today. First I wanted to let everyone know that I am organizing a Blog Hop for Let's Scrap. There will be 15 blogs participating and each of them will have a challenge for you to do and a prize you can win. Then for anyone who finishes all 15 challenges their name will go in for the grand prize from Cosmo Cricket. I want everyone to have time to finish all the challenges so the blog hop will run from Jan. 14th and end at midnight Feb. 14th. So you will have a whole month to work on them. So make sure to watch for announcements over at Let's Scrap telling you more about it.

Now the second big announcement is the winner of my Special Friends Blog Candy. I am so thrilled that so many people entered. I used a Random Number Generator to pick the winner and that winner is

#17 TRACY -( http://gracescraps.blogspot.com/)

Congratulations Tracy please send me a message in Let's Scrap giving me your snail mail address and I will get your prize out to you as soon as the post office opens on Tuesday. Thank you to everyone who entered.

Project 2011Scrap Our Stash and My 2011 Scrapping Goal

2010-12-31T21:20:00.000-08:00

I hope all of you had a fantastic New Years Eve. Things have been quiet here. I did a bit of scrapping and watched re-runs on TV. Wow pretty exciting wasn't it.
My good friend Denise from Lala's World has started Project 2011 Scrap Our Stash. One of her New Years resolutions is to only scrap her stash for the next 6 months. Wow not sure that I could handle that without going into major withdrawals. But to make it a bit easier she is going to let people sign up for it at the first of each month so if you feel you can't do it certain months or just can't handle it (lol) then you don't have to sign up for the next month. Now that I think I can handle. Once a month we well visit each of the scrappers blogs that are participating to see how things are going and to give each other encouragement. So I decided to give it a try and have signed up for January. She even has this cool button for us to put on our blogs.

     I remember last New Years seeing several ladies putting their scrapping goals in their sidebars. When I started my blog in February I thought about doing the same but at that time I was only scrapping a couple of times a month at my local scrapbook store so figured I wouldn't have much of a goal to put down. But them in April I joined the group Let's Scrap and with the help of their wonderful layout and card sketches I started scrapping a lot. I was looking through the layouts I put into their gallery and realized that I did 113 pages last year. I mainly do 2 page layouts but I counted each side as one. I don't make a lot of cards so I figured out I probably only did about 15 of them. I also belong to a couple of other groups and have done a few layouts and cards in them. I can't believe I did that many this past year.
     So this year I decided that I am going to make myself a goal. I am going to try for 150 layouts (each page counting as 1) and 25 cards. I think that's possible especially when I still have lots of pages to finish for Jason and Amy's wedding and my Grandson Jacob's album is far from done. With a new Grand-baby due in June I am sure I will have lots more pictures to scrap too.
    So its 12:15 am, hubby has been long asleep as have my two sweet doggies. So I guess it is officially 2011 and I brought in the New Year doing what I love to do, talking about scrapbooking.   I wish you all the very best in 2011.

A couple of New Layouts

2010-12-29T11:49:00.000-08:00

I have gotten behind on posting my layouts with the busy holidays. Here are a couple I did recently.

The first one I used this weeks sketch from Let's Scrap

Isn't that a fantastic sketch that Cheri did. The layout I did using it, is of my beautiful Niece and her family. The little one is only 4 months old and was born with all the glorious hair. I used my Cricut to make the poinsettia's and added a bit of stickles to them.

The next layout was done using this sketch of Cheri's over at Let's Scrap

The pictures were taken last year for my Grandson's first Christmas. I was able to use the first side for a Pet challenge and the second side for a Traditional Christmas color challenge that Melissa O'Neil had going on in the group Sketches 4 All. I had lots of fun doing the groups monthly challenges as well as the ones they had for their blog hop.

Only two more days to enter my Special Friends Blog Candy draw, don't miss out getting your name into the draw. I will announce the winner on January 1st. So make sure to come back and see if you won and also to hear about some exciting new's about something I'm organizing over at Let's Scrap.

Have a great week and Happy Scrapping.

Family - I Made Top 3

2010-12-21T17:43:00.000-08:00

Things are still pretty busy here but I wanted to add a note that my Family layout made one of the Top 3 Picks over at Frosted Designs. Woo hoo I'm so excited.

It has been a busy week trying to get last minute shopping and wrapping done and food purchased for Christmas dinner for 13 people. There are also some challenges I want to finish this week for some of my favorite groups. I did the following layout for the group Frosted Designs. They have two challenges going on right now. One is a sketch challenge and the other was to use the word family in a layout, card or project. I decided to combine the two challenges together.
The picture of my family was taken at Jason and Amy's wedding this past October. We haven't done a family portrait in a very long time so I am so glad that we got this one.

I don't think I will get a chance to post again before Christmas so I want to wish all my friends Peace, Love and wonderful times with your family and friends during this holiday season.

Two Best Friends means Two Best Men

2010-12-15T15:10:00.000-08:00

     I've done several layouts of Amy and the ladies in the wedding party so though it was time I did one for Jason and his Best Men.
     When it became time for Jason to decide on his best man for the wedding he found it very difficult. He had two best friends who he had known for years. While his many other friends disappeared after his accident these two wonderful guys stuck around visiting him while in hospital and rehab and after his discharge taking him fishing, coming to the house to play video games or to accompany him to the rugby. He knew that picking one of them would hurt the others feelings and that is one thing he would never want to do. So he finally decided to have two best men.
     I used one of Cheri O'Neill's sketches from my favorite group Let's Scrap.

and here is the layout I made with it.

It's getting really busy around here trying to get all my decorations up, buying and wrapping last minuite gifts and planning the meal for 13 of us on Christmas day. I hope everyone's plans are coming together and that you have a very Happy Holiday.

Scrapping Up A Storm

2010-12-10T11:38:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't posted many of my projects lately but I have been so busy scrapping and also getting ready for Christmas that I just haven't had time to blog. I've been scrapping up a storm for several different challenges and blog hops. So I thought I would share a couple of layouts today. Here are a couple I did for Let's Scrap challenges.
This first one was done using one of Cheri's fantastic sketches. Alhough these aren't traditional wedding colors I wanted to use fall colors to go along with the mum's, hay bales and pumpkins in the picture. Bev a Dt and friend from Let's Scrap also had a challenge going on to do a layout with flowers you make. I remembered that I had a quilling kit for a chrysanthemum that you use your cuttlebug to make. It made the perfect flowers to go with the pictures. If you want to have a closer look just click on the picture.

The picture on the left was one of my favorite pictures taken of Amy taken on the day of her and Jason's wedding. Amy's, Aunt Debbie, was the wedding photographer and as their wedding gift did all the pictures for them and even let me have them to. That was a scrappers dream. Debbie is a fantastic photographer and we have several nature pictures hanging on our livingroom walls that she did a couple of years ago.

This next one I did for another challenge on Let's Scrap. We were to do a layout with the theme being Something old, Something new, Something borrowed and Something blue. Of course the first thought is a wedding layout. So I did a layout of Amy getting ready for the wedding and in the bottom right corner are her items for the old, new, borrowed and blue. But I also took it a bit further. I used paper I bought last spring, a new Martha Stewart punch and a borrowed corner punch on the mats behind the pictures. I stuck with the blue in the pictures for the something blue. I can't say I am totally thrilled with the way this one turned out and may end up doing another one using the same pictures, but for now it will do.

I'm going away for a couple of days to Quebec to accompany my son Jason to a Wheelchair rugby tournament. They are calling for snow so hopefully it won't get snowed in there. Here's a picture of Jason taken at his last tournament in London, Ontario. It was so cool when they gave him the #7 jersey because that was the number he wore all the years he played hockey. I think his smile says it all - he is having a blast and it is so great to see him play.

I'm off to pack. I hope everyone has a great weekend and happy scrapping.

Frosted Designs Blog Hop

2010-12-08T15:56:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't posted any new layouts recently. I have been doing lots and lots of scrapping but just haven't had time to post any of them here. I took part in the Sketches 4 All blog hop and completed something for every one of their challenges. I had an amazing time and even won some prizes. Its a great group so you might want to check it out.

I just found out about another great blog hop going on over at Frosted Designs Blog Hop. The hop ends tomorrow but you still have time to enter it so don't miss out. They want you to do a layout, Card or project using glitter so I decided to enter a Christmas card. I used micro glitter to make it and it was so much fun. I plan to send it out to one of my cyber friends, I hope she'll like it.

You have a chance to win some great prizes so you should hop right over there and take part. Here's a picture of some of the great scrapping goodies you can win

I better get back to wrapping Christmas gifts. Happy Scrapping my friends.

Sketches 4 All 1st Anniversary Party and Blog Hop

2010-11-30T21:44:00.000-08:00

NOTE: If your looking for my blog candy giveaway then you can find it here

Fia from Sketches 4 All is celebrating the 1st anniversary of her group and they have a week of celebrations with challenges,games, prizes and a great Blog Hop. If you have never been to the Sketches 4 All group you should check it out. Every month they have lots of challenges going on and you can win prizes for your submissions. What better time to join them then during this great celebration when you can win even more prizes.

Here is the sketch that you will be using for your entry for the blog Hop. The main prize will be ECHO PARK paper from winter/holidays and and a $15 and a $10 gift certificate(1st and 2nd prize) from a scrapbook store that Fia will be giving away.

Many of the Dt's hosting the Hop also have challenges you can do to win a Rac from them. To help you get started here is the first stop on the Blog Hop - Melissa's blog - make sure to follow her instructions and she will have a link to the next person hosting the hop. I hope to see you over at Sketches 4 All.

My First Blog Candy Give Away

2010-11-24T16:52:00.000-08:00

     Yesterday was my birthday and I was amazed and extremely touched by all the birthday wishes I received from my internet friends, especially the ladies I’ve met who love to scrapbook.
     A year ago I took scrapbooking classes at my local scrapbook store but never used the layouts I made because they didn’t suit the pictures I had. I seldom did any scrapbooking at home because I had such a hard time coming up with ideas on how to do a page.
     In January I started joining different scrapping groups online. It opened up a whole new world to me. Some of the groups were mainly for us to chat with each other and occasionally share a layout and others were scrapbooking classes. With the encouragement of people I met there I started my own blog. I then started finding groups that had challenges and sketches. I fell in love with these groups and I couldn’t believe how many layouts I was getting done.
     If you are already a follower you know that my favorite site is Let’s Scrap. Everyone is so friendly, encouraging and helpful in the group. The sketches that Cheri and Kimmy give us are phenomenal. I especially love that the layout sketches are 2 pagers. For me it was perfect because I always do 2 page layouts and it was hard to find sites that had them. For people who only like to do 1 page layouts it’s great too, because you get to choose from either side of the sketch. They also have weekly challenges. The winners are chosen by a draw so everyone has a chance at the prizes and I have been fortunate to have won 4 different times. I love it there so much that I became a Design Team Member and when my term was up I stayed on as a Contributing DT.
     But no matter what group I belonged to, I found that I met wonderful people along the way. I think someone should make a sign that says Scrappers make the Best Friends because I have had the privilege of making so many great friends these past few months. All of you have become just like family to me and I love to chat with you, hear about your families or what’s going on in your life. I enjoy following many of your blogs to see what wonderful scrapping projects you have been doing.
     So that is why I decided to give away some goodies and I’m calling it Special Friends Blog Candy. It’s because of all the wonderful friends I have met and hope to continue to meet. Here is a picture of all the scrappy goodness you can win.

Here is what you have to do to get your name in the draw.

1. Become a follower

2. Put the above picture on the sidebar of you blog or post it on your Facebook Page with a link back here.

3. Sign up to Let’s Scrap – when you sign up it will ask how you heard about them, just write Betty’s Blog. You don’t have to do any of their sketches or challenges but I’m hoping that once you have had a chance to look around the site that you will see how wonderful it is and will want to join in.

4. Then come back here and leave me a comment so I am sure to put your name in for the draw.

5. What happens if you don’t have a blog or Facebook and you’re already a member of Let’s Scrap? Then let me know in your comment and tell me what it is you love about Let’s Scrap and I will make sure your name goes into the draw. Or if you don't have a blog or facebook but aren't a member then go join up and come on back and let me know. I want everyone to have a chance to win the candy.

I will be drawing the name for the Blog Candy on Dec. 31st. Make sure to come back here and check to see if you won. On that day I will also be announcing something I’m organizing over at Let’s Scrap where you will have a chance to win lots of prizes. So don’t forget to come back so you can hear all about it.
As always, I hope you are having a great week and Happy Scrapping.

Letter Stash Challenge That I won

2010-11-13T14:41:00.000-08:00

Last week Debby over at Let's Scrap had a great challenge. Here is what she had to say about it.

     How many sheets of letter stickers do you have lying around that you don't use anymore simply because you're out of the 'a', 'y' or 'e'? I know have quite a few.

     This my my challenge: Try to use the left overs and see if you can make it into the letter you need. The 'w' most of the times can be used as a 'm', simply turn it upside down. The 'u' can be a 'n', the 'q' a 'b', a 'p' becomes a 'd' (only lower case). The upper case 'Q' can be easily transformed into an 'O' by cutting of those little extensions. An 'i' can be made out of almost any letter. The 'y' can be made out of a 'x', just cut the right bottom leg of.
     By looking at your letters you can probably see some more possibilities. Besides that you can also combine different types of stickers in a title, or use one uppercase letter when you're out of lower case. You can also replace missing letters by stamps or die-cut letters. My challenge for you: Try to make a layout based on a Let's Scrap sketch with the tips I gave you.

     At first I had a bit of trouble coming up with how I would do the challenge. I don't tend to use very many sticker letters. I prefer to use my cricut to cut the titles out or my computer to print them. But I wanted to do the challenge. I picked the title Fall Fun for my layout and then started going through my letters to find ones that I could change. I used E's for the F's by cutting off the bottom stem and then cutting the ball off of that and re-attaching to the bottom of the F. The L's were made from upside down T's with one stem cut off and the N is a Z turned sideways. It was fun playing around with the letters to turn them into other ones.

Here is my layout

    The pictures are of my brother Jim and his beautiful family. There were 6 kids in my family 5 girls and 1 boy. As my only brother he has a very special place in my heart. I left the journalling box empty but will add their names before I put it in my album.
     Today I found out that my name had been drawn for the challenge and Debby is sending me some Fall Stamps. I was so excited to have won a prize and can't wait until they arrive so I can play around with the stamps on some other fall layouts I want to do. It may take a bit of time for it to arrive though. Debby is in The Netherlands and I am here in Canada so the stamps have quite a distance to travel.
     I hope all of you are having a fantatic weekend and Happy Scrapping.

You Can Run But You Can't Hide

2010-11-10T10:56:00.000-08:00

It's Wednesday and that means there is a new sketch up at Let's Scrap. Cheri never ceases to amaze me with all the great sketches she gives us. Here's what this weeks looks like.

Isn't it great. I decided to do another layout from my Son's wedding but this time I used some of the fun pictures that were taken throughout the day. They just seemed to work well together and gave me a bit of a laugh.

And here is a closeup of each of the pages

     I've noticed lots of you are using your sewing machine to sew on your layouts so I decided to dust off my Mom's old machine and give it a try. I love how it looks even though I did hid a lot of it with the pictures. I will definitely will be using it again. The punch I used is one of the Martha Stewart ones that I punched in the two different colors. I really love her punches.

     I have been having a bit of trouble finding paper that goes well with the bridesmaid dresses. I bought several packages of the paper I used in the layout from CTMH quit a while back because I thought it would match well. But I was wrong, the girls dresses are more bronze then I realized and although there is a cream sash it doesn't tend to show up in a lot of the pictures. I'm hoping to come across a line of paper that will compliment the pictures better.

     After having such a problem with the paper I contacted my oldest son's girlfriend and told her that when they get married that she has to pick out the perfect scrapbooking paper for her album and then she can find bridesmaid dresses to match. Can't you just see the lady in the bridelshop when a bride to be walks in with scrapbooking paper and says ok I want dresses to match this LOL.

    I have been having so much fun scrapping this week but have made a real mess of my scrapbooking room. So I think I better get back to cleaning it up. I hope you are all having a great week and Happy Scrapping.

Our Little Pumpkin

2010-11-04T20:44:00.000-07:00

Cheri Johnson O'Neill's gave us another amazing sketch this week over at Let's Scrap . Here is what it looks like, don't you love how many photo's she is able to get incorporate into one sketch.

and here is my take on the sketch

This is my little Grandson Jacob and his Mom Katie. They came over to carve the pumpkins Grandpa had gotten for him. Although he is still a little young to actully get into the carving he did have some fun helping cleaning it out. He also got a kick out the play hats I bought for him.

It sure feels good to be back scrapping again. I've missed it and also missed visiting all my favorite blogs so I'm off to see what all of you have been up to this week.

I hope everyone has had a great week and Happy Scrapping.

Dreams Do Come True

2010-10-28T16:01:00.000-07:00

Woo hoo, I finally got time to scrap. I feel like I have been away from it for such a long time even thought it has only been a few weeks. So I worked on two different projects this week.
The first one is a layout I did using Cheri's fantastic sketch, over at Let's Scrap. Here is what the sketch looked like.

Don't you just love the little pocket to put your Cd of photo's in. I thought I better get started on the wedding album I'm doing for Jason and Amy. I used some photo's of her taken at her Mom's house prior to the wedding and some of her accessories.

The next project I did was for Karien's challenge this week over at Let's Scrap. You had to make a shape card. I tried to make one from scratch but soon realized I wasn't that handy lol. So I used my cricut to cut out the truck from a file I had and made the card with it. Sorry I'm not sure who actually made the file or I would gladly give credit for it. I also used a couple of Tim Holtz's gears for the hubcaps. Here is what it turned out like.

It's great to be back and hopefully I will have lots more wedding layouts to show you soon. Happy Scrapping.

Wedding Pictures

2010-10-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

We don't have all of the wedding pictures yet but I couldn't wait any longer to share some of the ones we do have with my friends. The wedding was absolutely beautiful and everything went perfectly.

Here is a photo of my family taken after the wedding.

This is one of my husband Tom and I

Jason and Amy leaving the church

and here is one of their first dance.

This week I've been busy helping out at Jason's and also babysat my Grandson Jacob for a couple of days so haven't got around to resting much. I do hope to get back into scrapping next week and I'm sure over the next few weeks you will get a chance to see lots more wedding photo's on my layouts.
I hope everyone is having a great week and Happy Scrapping.

Michelle's Blog Candy Giveaway

2010-10-11T21:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry for being MIA for the last little bit. My Son's wedding is this Saturday and I was getting a bit overwelmed trying to get things done for it, helping out when needed to look after my Grandson, keeping up with my Design Team position over at Let's Scrap and keeping up with my blog. So I have decided to take a couple of weeks off so that I can just concentrate on the up coming wedding. I will be back next week, hopefully with some pictures to share.
I did want to share with you some fabulous Blog Candy that my friend Michelle is giving away. Here is what she had to say about the blog candy.

SCRAPSHEETS AND RM CRAFT DESIGN have kindly sponsored this stunning gift for you.

You can win a kit containing some of the new range of FLORENCE PAPERS as well as a selection of the “WONDERFUL HOME SWEET HOME” diecuts collection and some matching ribbons.

So don't miss out on this fantastic candy. Go see Michelle on her blog Homespun Scrapbooking for you chance to win.
Hope to see you all again soon and Happy Scrapping.

Autumn Memories

2010-09-30T19:21:00.000-07:00

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

I thought it was a perfect sketch for the pictures I had of my beautiful neice Beth and her family. The pictures were taken in the fall of 2009. Here is my layout.

I was having some trouble trying to do this layout because the pictures had so much yellow in them but the only autumn type paper I had didn't. Then Brenda's from Let's Scrap posted a challenge to use glimmer mist on a layout. It was just what I needed to pull it all together. I used 4 different glimmer mists, including yellow, to change the color of my cardstock and I also glimmer misted the flowers and leaves. I love how it turned out.
Thank you for sharing your pictures with me Beth and I can't wait to see you and your beautiful family at the wedding in a couple of week's.
Happy Scrapping!

In The Arms Of An Angel

2010-09-24T21:59:00.000-07:00

Over at Let's Scrap they are having a special challenge for the month of September. We were given a Julie Bonner sketch to use for a layout and have a chance at a great prize. Here is Julie's sketch

Here is the layout I did for it.

The pictures are engagement pictures of my Son and his fiance. Three weeks from today Jason will marry the love of his life Amy. He has had a crush on her since he was 10, started dating her at age 13 and now they are 22. I thank God for bringing this sweet Angel into his life. She is truly beautiful inside and out.

As many of you know Jason was paralyzed in a car accident 2 years ago. I believe that it was Amy’s love that helped him to keep such a positive attitude about the tragic turn his life took. She not only has been with him every step of the way but she has also been there to help and support me. If I had, had a daughter I can only hope that she would have been as amazing and loving as this young lady is.

I came across a quote the other night written by Lao-Tzu that says
“To love someone deeply gives you strength.
Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.”

In there case I believe this is very true.

I hope you all have a great weekend and Happy Scrapping.

I Received the One Lovely Blog Award

2010-09-23T16:05:00.000-07:00

I got a wonderful surprize a couple of days ago. Ramona from http://create-with-joy.blogspot.com/gave me the One Lovely Blog Award. Thank you so much Ramona, it meant a lot to me that you would pick my blog for the award.

You are to pick 15 blogs you follow that you think deserve this award. I follow a lot of beautiful blogs and had quite a hard time picking. I tried and tried but just couldn't narrow it down to just 15 so you will see that there are 16 blogs listed. Please take a moment to visit these wonderful ladies, I know you won't be sorry that you did.

I am awarding the One Lovely Blog Award to:
Amy - http://queen-of-the-crazies.blogspot.com/
Ana - http://anaperalta25.blogspot.com/
Anna - http://itsascrappingthing.blogspot.com/
Anna - http://shesjustmytype.blogspot.com/
Beverly - http://scrapnforfun.blogspot.com/
Brenda - http://roseblossomlegacies.blogspot.com/
Chelsea - http://craftinglifespieces.blogspot.com/
Debby - http://drdewilde.blogspot.com/
Denise - http://lalasworldblog.blogspot.com/
Megan - http://happylittlehawkinsfamily.blogspot.com/
Michelle - http://homespunscrap.blogspot.com/
Roulien - http://my-scrappy-story.blogspot.com/
Sabrina - http://sabrinascrapbook.blogspot.com/
Stacy - http://scrapwithstacy.blogspot.com/
Susan - http://paperdaisydreams.blogspot.com/
Tracey - http://traceyscountrycraft.blogspot.com/

Sorry I haven't been around much this month. Life continues to be quite busy for me. I have done a fair amount of scrapping but just haven't had time to post any of it on here. Its only a little over 3 weeks to my Son's wedding and still lots of things to help with. Hopefully I will get a chance to come back soon and show off some of my layouts.
Hope your having a great week and Happy Scrapping.

So Happy Together

2010-09-07T17:42:00.000-07:00

Life seems to have gotten very busy lately so I haven't had as much time to post anything here or to visit all the great blogs I follow. This past weekend was a Labour Day weekend here in Canada. I spent all day Friday with my son Jason, Saturday I went to a 50th birthday celebration for my brother Jim and Sunday I helped put on a shower for my future DIL Amy. On Monday I had to get some laundry, dishes and other house work done that got ignored all weekend. So I havn't had a chance to do much scrapping. I think things should be fairly quiet for the next month or so until my Son Jason's wedding on October 16th.
I did do a layout last week using Cheri's great sketch over at Let's Scrap. It was another wonderful sketch and I had so much fun making the layout.
Here is her sketch

Here is my layout

I do so many layouts about my Grandson Jacob I thought it was time I did one about his parents my Son Andrew and his beautiful girlfriend Katie. The sketch worked perfectly for some pictures I had of them. I used the new Bo Bunny line Sophie and two different Martha Stewart Heart Punches. I love how it turned out.
I hope you all have a fantastic week and hope to be back soon with another layout.

A Family Tradition

2010-08-29T20:43:00.000-07:00

The sketch that Cheri gave us over at Let's Scrap this week was amazing. It holds so many pictures and if you still don't have enough room for all of them she even showed us how we could had an extra fold out section. If you love doing sketches then you will love it over at Let's Scrap. All the ladies are so nice and encouraging and you can win some great prizes too.
Here is this weeks sketch

Here is the full layout I did. If you want to have a closer look at the layouts just click on them.

and here it is with the extra fold out showing

      As soon as I saw the sketch I knew it would be perfect for some special family photo's I have. Back in 1919 at the age of 3 my Father, Frank Harrison, had his picture take with his sister Lillian who was a year old. He was wearing a beautiful Scottish outfit made from black velvet and it had square silver button on it. It consisted of a vest, jacket, hat and real horse hair Sporron. No one seems to know why the son of 2 immigrants from England would be wearing a Scottish outfit. I have been researching my family tree for over 40 years and I have not come across any connection with Scotland.
     Over the years almost all of his descendents have had their picture taken in the outfit. Most of them are 3 when it is done although there have been times that they are older for one reason or another. Five of his 6 children, all 12 grandchildren and so far 4 of 5 of his great grandchildren over the age of 3 have had their picture taken.   There are also 6 great grandchildren who are not quite old enough to get their picture taken in the outfit, one of which is my Grandson Jacob.
     Cheri's great sketch made it possible for me not ony to get all of the pictures on one layout, it also gave me room to leave spots for the children waiting in the wings. I decided to also add my Sister Rose and my Great Grandnephew Ben's pictures to the layout even though they missed having their pictures taken in the Scottish outfit. That way all of my parents descendents are all in one layout.
     I hope you had a great weekend and Happy Scrapping.

My First Design Team Challenge

2010-08-25T11:32:00.000-07:00

Last Friday it was my turn to post a Design Team Challenge over at Let's Scrap. As you all know my favorite thing to scrapbook are heritage or vintage layouts. I am very fortunate to have several pictures of my ancestors along with stories about them. So when I do their layout I want to be able to include as many pictures and stories about them that I can without having to do several layouts. Hidden journaling and or hidden pictures is what I need.
So my challenge was for the members of Let's Scrap to do a vintage layout with hidden journaling or photo's on it.
Here is my the layout I did as an example

     I tried a new technique for the layout. It was wet distressing and I just love how I was able to wet the edges of the cream cardstock, squish and pinch the paper to where I liked it and then use my distress ink on it. I'll be using this technique again thats for sure. I did figure out that I have been making way to many boy layouts. I have no idea what to do with flowers and had an awful time trying to use them for embellishments. Still don't like the way it turned out but only have them on with tape I can move so I can play around with them a bit more.
     The little book in the bottom opens up to share the story about how my Great Aunt Eva came to be named from a character in the book "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Also on that page as you can see the pocket holds extra pictures plus a very scaled down copy of Eva's birth registration. On the right hand side both pictures lift up for hidden journaling. The reason one of them is blank is that I have contacted Evs's Great Grandson to verify some information before I add it to the layout and haven't heard back from him yet. I also shared a layout I did a few months ago that has a cool steamer trunk on it that has hidden journaling and if you would like to see it you can go to this link .
     When I decided to do hidden journaling for my challenge I went searching on the internet to find some more examples or tutorials for them to use. I was really surprised to find there is very little out there. So I went to the next best source for information. Let’s Scrap member Michelle Van Wyk. Michelle is a scrapbook teacher and makes the most amazing layouts. She is such a sweet lady and always willing to help if she can. Michelle was nice enough to share with the members pictures of some of her layouts using hidden journaling and also some tips on using them. She said it would be ok to share some of her layouts with my blogging friends incase they were looking for idea to. So here are a few of her layouts.

Aren't they fantastic. I just love Michelle's layouts, she has such great ideas for them and I am always amazed at how many pictures, embellishments etc. that she can get onto a layout. If you would like to see more of Michelle's work check out her blog here. If she didn't live so far away I would love to take her scrapbooking classes, but I think going from Canada to South Africa would be a bit of a stretch for a class LOL. Thank you so much for all your help Michelle, you are an amazing friend.
I also want to thank Kristel for helping me out with the film strip for my layout. She was kind enough to make me one that I could cut out with my Cricut and Scal. You should check out Kristel's blog because she has some amazing svg. files for scal and lots of great project ideas she is doing . You can find her here http://www.k%20andrewdesigns.blogspot.com/
Thats all for now, I hope you are having a fantastic week and Happy Scrapping.

Great Time At Stag and Doe

2010-08-22T18:10:00.000-07:00

I have been really busy this week and only have time for a quick post but I wanted to share a couple of picture with my family and friends that were taken last night at my Son Jason's Stag and Doe.

Jason and Amy make such a beautiful couple and in 8 short weeks they will become man and wife.

and here is my oldest Son Andrew and his beautiful girlfriend Katie.

I hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend and I hope to have a big post tomorrow showing you the layout I did for my first challenge on Let's Scrap. Until then Happy Scrapping.

Cosmo Cricket Card

2010-08-18T22:06:00.000-07:00

Hi all, I am finally feeling better from my tooth problem but seem to have got far behind on my scrapping. On Friday I am doing my first Design Team Challenge over at Let's Scrap and I still don't have my layout done for it. I'm also helping out with the Stag and Doe for my Son Jason and his bride-to-be Amy which happens on Saturday. So I am a bit stressed at the moment. Hopefully once both those events happen I will have a chance to get caught up on my Scrapping and breath a little easier.
I did make a card from Kimmy's sketch at Let's Scrap. They are also having a Cosmo Cricket Contest in the group so to kill two birds with one stone I used the Cosmo paper for the card. Here is Kimmy's Sketch.

and here is my card

I have been wanting to do the Tea Bag Folding technique for a long time but was having trouble finding paper that had a repeat pattern. Cosmo Crickets's Delovey line was perfect for it.
Well I have to get back to my challenge layout. Hope you are all having a great week and Happy Scrapping.

Like Father, Like Son

2010-08-15T21:59:00.000-07:00

Sorry that I haven't been on much this week but besides having had a busy week I have also been having some problems with an abcessed tooth. I'm a big baby when it comes to dental work and had to go into have things done two days in a row. I'm still not 100% but am feeling better then I did.

I did want to share this layout I did for a Let's Scrap Challenge. Tammy had asked us to do a layout showing a time line. I had some pictures I have been wanting to scrap for a while now and the challenge was perfect for it. Of course I used one of Cheri's fantastic sketches to do the layout. On the left are pictures I took of my oldest son on his first New Years Eve, back in 1986. On the right are pictures of his son, my Grandson Jacob, on his first New Years Ever in 2010. The layout is actually much brighter then it shows in the picture of it. I didn't have much in the way of New Years embellishments so ended up using stickers which I'm not totally happy with but they will have to do. The banner is actually gold Christmas Tree ribbon I had that I turned upside down. I was thrilled with how will it worked.

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend and until next time, Happy Scrapping.

White Rock

2010-08-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

I just love Cheri's sketch this week over at Let's Scrap.

I have been wanting to scrap some of the beach pictures I took when we went out to White Rock, British Columbia last year. This weeks sketch was perfect for those pictures.

I used a new product I got a while back called Sand Glue made by Mudpuddles. I put it on the bottom of all the letters in my title. It went on fairly easily, glued itself to the letters and dried hard. I just love how it worked. I had quit a few extra pictures of the beach but didn't really want to do another layout so created a pocket to put them and some hidden journalling in. I had gathered some shells when I was was on the beach in White Rock but they were to big for the layout so I used some much smaller ones that I had on a necklace, they worked perfectly.

I was also able to use the layout for a ink challenge that my friend Denise has going on in the group Sketches4you so I was thrilled about that.

Hope all of you are having a great week and Happy Scrapping.

Echoes Of The Past

2010-08-05T18:27:00.000-07:00

As you all know I was recently accepted as a Design Team Member over at Let’s Scrap. Anyone interested in becoming a DT member was asked to submit a layout using this fabulous sketch that was made by Cheri O’Neill the owner of the group.

The sketch was perfect for a layout I wanted to do for my heritage album. Because I always do two page layouts for this album I decided to just mirror the sketch. Here is my layout.

These are pictures of my Great Grandparents William Eli Edwin Thomas and Mary Permilla Lavina Howey on my Mother’s side of the family. Also in the picture are my Grandfather, William Justice Thomas who is the youngest boy in the picture and his brother Samuel Eli. They had such interesting names back then, didn’t they? The pictures would have been taken around 1894.
I was thrilled when I found some lace in my stash that had several designs on it, one of which looked just like a banner. So I carefully cut it apart to use on the layout. The lace was originally white but I wanted it more of a cream color. Eila Sandberg, a friend, I met in another group was kind enough to explain how I could dye it with tea bags and water. Thanks Eila.
I made the flowers out of ribbon and used some of the Easy Brad Maker brads for the centre’s. On the green ones I placed pearls which I changed the color to cream using some glimmer powder. On the gold ones I cut out tiny clocks from Graphics 45 paper and then put one of the brad maker clear crystals over them. The fabric feathers were just from the dollar store. The lace butterfly was from an old broach that I took the back off of. Most of the paper used was card stock but there is some Basic Grey Cappella mixed in there to. I used my sissors to distress the edge of the cream cardstock and lots of Antique Linen Distress ink to distress all the papers.
I belong to a Heritage Scrapbooking site and my friend Karen Moore from that group mentioned that she was using a key on each of her heritage layouts so there would be some continuity through out the album. I thought this sounded like a great idea. The first heritage page I did had, had a key, butterflies, a ticket stub and clocks on it. I couldn’t decide which of these I wanted to repeat throughout my album so I decided to use all four. I don’t use them all on every page but do make sure to use some of them. As you can see on this one I used the key, butterfly and the clock.
I hope you enjoyed seeing the layout and Happy Scrapping.

A New Layout and Tag

2010-08-03T21:48:00.000-07:00

I have a couple of things to share with you today. The first is a layout I made using a sketch Fia shared with us over at Sketch4you . Here is the sketch

and here is my layout.

If you have been a follower for very long you might remember that I did a layout using this picture before. That one went into an album I gave to my daughter-in-law to be. So I have been wanting to make one for me. My son Jason really doesn't like to have his picture taken and will normally make all sorts of faces, anything but smile. I love his smile in this photo taken at the Prom in 2007 as he gets a kiss from his now fiance. He was expecting the person to take picture so didn't have time to make any faces LOLHe better get some smiling classes going soon as he will have lots of smiling to do come October when he and Amy get married.
I did the layout for 4 challenges all of which were at Sketches4you. First was for Fia's sketch challenge, 2nd was for Denise's Ink challenge, 3rd was for Staceys stash challenge and lastly because I used 3 different challenges on one layout I was able to enter it into a 4th challenge that Stacy has. This one is called "You aint't getting off so Easy challenge"
I also made a tag for Denise's Ink challenge. You had to use ink in a couple of different ways on a project.
I inked the tag with worn lipstick and broken china distress inks. Then stamped the sentiment and butterflies with archival ink. I then sprayed the whole tag with irridesent gold glimmer mist. I stamped the butterflies again on a plain tag, put a CTMH window charm on part of them then cut it around the circle and then glued it down on the image. So part of it is plain colored and kind of looks magnified. I then used Tim Holtz hardware to attach a cherish charm.
Here's what it looks like.

Must Be My Lucky Day

2010-08-02T09:32:00.000-07:00

This morning I found out I had won not one but two prize draws.
The first one was from Danielle over at her blog A Day In The Life Of A Coffee Addict. She was cleaning out her stash and decided to divide it up and give it away to 3 lucky followers
The second prize was from Stacy. She is a Design Team Member over at Sketches4You and she had a brad challenge going on in her group Stacy's Weekly Scrap Challenge. There are lots of great challenges at Sketches4you so you should pop over and join the group.
Hmm they say good things come in three's, I wonder if I should go buy a lottery ticket, LOL

Caro's Gift Certificate Giveaway

2010-08-01T15:57:00.000-07:00

One of the nicest people I've met on the net is Carolina (Caro). I first met her through the group Let's Scrap but since then I have become a follower of her great scrapping blog which she calls the Scrapping Nomad. She is such a sweet lady and is always there to answer any questions I might have.

She is on a family vacation right now but they will all be moving shortly because of her husbands work. She lives in Libya (North Africa) now and is moving a couple of continents away to Trinidad & Tobago which are Caribbean Islands. I've lived in my little home town almost my whole life and raised my family in the same house for the past 25 years. I can't imagine packing up to move across town let alone across the world.

So while Caro is relaxing in the sun on her vacation she has been thinking about having a giveaway on her blog. She has decided to giveaway a $25.00 gift certificate to Crafty Steals. So don't miss out on the chance to win this great giveaway. Hop right over to Caro's site, the Scrapping Nomad and see what you need to do to enter.

Prize Winning Garden Layout

2010-07-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

I think I'm starting to get the hang of combining challenges from the different groups I belong to. This weeks Design Team challenge over at Let's Scrap was to do a layout about gardening and we were to use at least one of these colors green, yellow or red. Also this week on Let's Scrap Cheri gave us another fantastic sketch to work with. So I decided to combine the sketch and the DT challenge together.
I was also able to enter the layout in the group Sketchesforyou. Stacy has a stash challenge going on that you are to use brads. Last but not least I was able to enter it in the group Pages In Time where my good friend Denise has a distressing challenge going on and Barbara has a pretty punch challenge. So I think I did pretty good for combining 5 challenges onto one layout.
Here is the great sketch that Cheri gave us this week.

and here is my layout.

I couldn't find any pictures of my own garden for Tammy's Garden themed layout but have been wanting to scrap these wonderful vintage photo's of my Aunt Phyllis at age 14. She had planted the garden for a contest being held by the Horticultural Socity's annual junior Garden Plot Competition. There were 68 entries and she ended up winning first place.
My Aunt Phyllis is the only one left from my Mom's family. I just love going over to visit with her and hear her stories of Mom and her siblings growing up. She is the one who has given me so many of the old pictures and stories I use in my heritage layouts. She is a wonderful lady and holds a very special place in my heart.
I hope everyone is having a great week and Happy Scrapping.

Blog Buddy Award

2010-07-26T09:11:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much Carolina for giving me the Blog Buddy Award. I love following Carolina's blog Scrapping Nomad. She always has interesting layouts and cards and is a super sweet lady who is always quick to help out a fellow scrapper. Make sure to pop over and check out her blog.

Here is the cute award she sent me

I am to pass the award on to 3 blogging buddies. It is so hard to just pick 3 from the list of fantastic blogs I visit each day. I decided to pass it on to 3 of the newer blogs I have started following.

1. SabrinaScrapbook - http://sabrinascrapbook.blogspot.com/
2. Cyndi's Treasures - http://cyndistreasures.blogspot.com/
3. Scrap With Stacy - http://scrapwithstacy.blogspot.com/

Please be sure to visit these very talanted ladies, you won't be sorry you did.

I've Been Scrapping Like Crazy

2010-07-24T21:58:00.000-07:00

I have been working on some challenges for three different groups I belong to and luckly was able to combine some of them.
First I did a couple of cards using Kimmy's Card Sketch over at Let's Scrap and I entered both of them into this weeks challenge there. Both of the cards were also entered into Marie's Card challenge at Pages In Time, and the blue one was entered into Barbara's punch challenge there and Stacy's Monocromatic challenge over at Sketches For You.

The last project is a layout I did of my Son and his Fiance.

I did this one using this months sketch over at Sketches For You and I entered it in Fia's sketch challenge and also Stacy's Monocromatic challenge. I also entered it in the pretty punch challenge over at Pages In Time . The blue background came punched like that but I did use my two new Martha Stewart heart punches on it.
If you really enjoy scrapping, using sketches and challenges then you should join one, two or even three of these groups, I know you won't be disappointed if you do.
Until next time, Happy Scrapping.

I'm A New Design Team Member On Let's Scrap

2010-07-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

If you have been following my blog you know that I just love doing layouts using the sketches and challenges from the fantastic group Let's Scrap. A couple of weeks ago I applied for a postion on their Design Team and this morning I got word from Cheri that I had been picked as one of the team. I am so excited about being picked. I have been having so much fun with the great ladies in this group and I've done more scrapping since joining in April then I have in the past 2 years. If you love to use sketches and do challenges you should come over and join the group, you won't be sorry you did.

Artful Delight Is Having Another Amazing Give Away

2010-07-20T16:29:00.000-07:00

Yesturday I posted about the two Cosmo Cricket Kits that Leeanne, from Artful Delight's was giving away. Will today she is at it again. She has an amazing assortment of scrapping goodies to give away to 2 scrappers. So head right over and find out what you need to do to enter. Here is a picture of what she has to give away.

Check Out This Great Blog Candy

2010-07-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

Leanne over at Artful Delights is giving away some fantastic blog candy this week. Three people will each recieve Cosmo Cricket, Material Girl Crafting Kits. Later in the week she is having an even bigger give away, so hop on over and check out her blog you don't want to miss out. Her is a look at the Cosmo Cricket Kit.

Genuine Boy

2010-07-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

I had so much fun with Cheri's sketch that I just had to do another layout using it. If you want to see the sketch you can check my previous post, or why don't you head over to Let's Scrap and join us for all the fun.

Here is the layout I finished today. I used the Creative Imaginations paper and stickers. Of course the pictures are of my precious Grandson Jacob. I switched things around a bit in the sketch so that the two layouts wouldn't look to much alike in design.

So until next time Happy Scrapping.

Play Dinosaurs

2010-07-12T19:49:00.000-07:00

This week over at Let's Scrap, Cheri had an amazing sketch for us to do.

Don't you just love it.
Also at Let's Scrap Caroline had a very interesting challenge for us. It was to do a layout or card with a shaker box on it. I have always wanted to make one but just never got around to figuring out how to do it. Caroline gave us some examples and some links to some great tutorials so I had no excuse not to give it a try. So I figured I would kill two birds with one stone. I used Cheri's fantastic sketch and Carolines great challenge and put them together to make this layout.

The pictures are of my sweet Grandson Jacob who just turned 14 months. Katie, his Mom, just started back to work so he came to play with me for the day. He had so much fun playing around with his dinosaurs. I had this really cute Creative Imaginations Dinosaur paper and stickers so thought it would be perfect for the pictures. I also had a felt dinosaur so decided to turn him into the shaker box. What fun I had with this layout.
Well back to scrapping, hope you are all having a great week and Happy Scrapping.

Vancouver Aquarium

2010-07-06T21:28:00.000-07:00

I just loved the sketch that Cheri O'Neill did last Wednesday for the Lets Scrap sketch of the week.

I really liked that it had room for many pictures and I was excited to get to use a film strip in a layout. Unfortionatly, I had a lot of trouble cutting the film strip with my cricut and ended up wasting a lot of cardstock and still didn't get the film strip to work so had to give up on it. But I did the layout anyway for the sketch challenge. I also entered it into Andrea's July Color Combo Challenge over at Pages In Time. One of the color combo's was to use blue, orange and white.

The pictures were taken at the Vancouver Aquarium when we visted my son and his family out in British Columbia last year. Just after paying for our tickets a guide had us pose for a picure. Of course having just come in from outside my hubby and my glasses were still tinted so we look like were wearing sunglasses. LOL Also we didn't notice that my little Grandson Jacob, who was just 8 days old, had nodded off while the picture was done so we couldn't see is precious little face. So the large picture didn't turn out the best but I decided to buy it anyway for the memory of a great day with my family.
The heat and humidity have finally hit here in Ontario and the last couple of days have been unbearble so makes it kind of hard to scrap. I can't take the heat of my scraproom but if I put the fan on it blow's my paper and embellishments all over the place. I don't want to complain to much because we had an awful cold and rainy June but I do think it could cool off a little bit.
Hope you are keeping cool where you are and Happy Scrapping.

Moments in Time

2010-07-03T18:04:00.000-07:00

It's not usual for me to post a one page layout but wanted to share this heritage page I did. I recently joined the group Pages in Time and have been enjoying joining in on their challenges and discussions. This past week I decided to give their Thursday sketch challenge a try along with making some ribbon flowers from a tutorial they had shared in one of their discussions groups.
The layout is for my heritage album and I hope to make another page to go with it very soon. The picture is of my Grandmother Lilian (Milns) Harrison and my her first child, my father Frank Harrison. The pictures were take the year of my father's birth 1916. I used Basic Greys Cappella line.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. Happy Scrapping.

You Amaze Me

2010-06-27T10:33:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe it been 9 days since my last post. At times life just gets to busy and I don’t get as much scrapping done as I would like. I’ve been working on a layout for the June Month Long Challenge over at Let’s Scrap. Becky at Pagemap’s is letting us use one of her sketches.

Here is the pagemap

As you all know I like to do twe page layouts so I used one of Cheri O'Neils sketchs over at Let's Scrap. If you have never seen Cheri's sketches you are really missing out so why not hop over and join Let's Scrap.

The layout I did is about my 22 year old son Jason. Two years ago he severed his spinal cord at the neck in a car accident which left him a quadriplegic. He is totally paralyzed from mid chest down and although he can move his arms and flex his wrists his fingers are also paralyzed. Before his accident Jason’s loved playing hockey. When he found out he was paralyzed his first comment wasn’t that he wouldn’t walk again but instead that he would never play hockey again. He looked into playing sledge hockey but unfortunately you need the use of your hands to play so it was not possible for him. But he didn’t let that get him down he just started looking at alternatives.
While he was at the Rehabilitation Centre learning new skills he would go down and watch other quadriplegics play wheelchair rugby. He became friends with several of the men there. He was not strong enough at that time to really play so since coming home he has been working hard with his physio therapist to regain his strength and to use a manual wheelchair. In May of this year he returned to the gym at the Rehabilitation Centre to join his friends in a game of Rugby. He absolutely loved it and has returned each week to play. For now they are just playing and practicing as there are no team games during the summer but he hopes in the fall to join an actual team.
Two of the men he is playing with are on Team Canada and they have been wonderful in teaching him many of the techniques. He now has a dream to get a chance to play on Team Canada and with his positive attitude and determination I have no doubt he will make that happen.

So here is the layout I did about him playing rugby.

The journaling is taken from part of a note his Aunt Cathy wrote him on facebook after seeing pictures of him playing. It reads "Jason you amaze me with your positive attitude and determination to live life no matter what obstacles are put in your way." This truly describes Jason. The tags say Inspire, Believe, Imagine, Hope and Courage.
If you are interested in learning more about Wheelchair Rugby just google it and you find many sites that talk about it. Another name for it is Murder Ball because it can be quite rough. That's not really the name of a sport a mother wants here son playing and when I expressed concern Jason with his sense of humor just said "What's wrong Mom are you afraid I'll break my neck, I've been there, done that and bought the t-shirt. So don't worry" LOL
I hope you liked the layout and Happy Scrapping.

Dog Tired

2010-06-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted for a few days. I've been waiting for blogger to help me with the problems I was having. A very nice gentleman gave me some suggestions some of which worked but couldn't figure out why I was still having trouble with correctly spelled works being highlighted. So he has referred in on further. I haven't heard any more so thought I would go ahead and try posting again. You can be sure I won't be touching any spell check buttons. So here is what I was up to yesturday.

The challenge last week over at Let's Scrap was to do a layout about an ordinary day. I decided to do it on my two dogs Harley and Daisy. An ordinary day for them is sleeping, sleeping and sleeping some more. Often they can be found curled up together on a chair or our bed but if one or the other isn't available they well sleep with my pink puppy slippers.

I followed one of Cheri's great sketches to do the layout. Here is her sketch.

And here is the layout I did about my two lovable pets.

Although posting still wasn't as easy as it had been under the older version of blogger it looks like this time it has worked better. Hopefully it will continue that way.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and Happy Scrapping.

Father's Day Cards

2010-06-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

I've had some suggestions on fixing the problems I have been having with blogger so we will see if we can get this post to work better. ADDED NOTE - As you can see not all the problems have been fixed. Now I can get my pictures in the right place but it is now highlighting words it believes are spelt wrong. Grrrr - wish I had never updated it.

I recently went to a couple of workshops my friend Verna was giving at her store Memory Lane. The workshops were for making masculine cards for Father's Day or a man's birthday. We used Rosewood Stamps which are made here in Ontario, Canada. Verna has started selling these stamps in her store and I just love them.

Here are the first two cards I made.

First we stamped the images on the cardstock and then using Distress Ink and our blending tool we colored in the card. I goofed on the first card because I stamped the image on the textured side of the cardstock which didn't give me a very clear image so made sure to use the smooth side on the second one. We used a scalloped shapeabilities die and the cuttlebug to cut out a section of the first card and then mounted that section inside the card. For the second card we just cut the stamped and colored cardstock into an oval shape and along with a bit larger oval gold glossy

The last card was made using gold glossy cardstock and three different colored alcohol inks to make the rectangle and diamonds. I haven 't had much practice using alcohol inks so it was great to give them a try and just loved how it turned out. I'm going to give this card to my husband on Father's Day. He collects duck decoys so I hope he will love the card.

I hope you like all the cards.

Blogger giving me trouble.

2010-06-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not posting lately but I updated my blogger the other day and have been having trouble ever since. At first it kept telling me that Blogger was unavailable even though I could see others were posting on their blogs. That problem seems to have stoped but now I'm having trouble with inserting images. Before when I uploaded images the html would go to the top of my post and I could copy and past it where I wanted it. Now there isn't a image button in the html part and I have to go to the compose part. In the compose part when I upload the image the actual picture shows up in the post I'm working on but it won't let me move it anywhere. If I upload the image first and then try typing before the image it starts my typing in the centre instead of to the left side.
I wondered if any of you have had this problem and what you do about it?

Adorable

2010-06-08T20:53:00.000-07:00

I've had fun this week doing a couple of layouts with Cheri's Sketch from Let's Scrap. Here is the sketch
This first layout is for my Grandson Jacob's album. Most of the paper and embellishments were made by Crate Paper - Little Sprout Collection plus I added a few other embellishments in my stash. The clouds were made using my cuttlebug, spiral folder and stickles. I'm very please with the way it turned out.
Here is the layout

The next layout was completed using the same sketch. The difference is that I also incorporated the Let's Scrap Design Team Challenge which was to do a layout with torn cardstock as the background. The pictures are of me (aren't I cute lol) between the ages of 3-8 taken while I was camping with my family at Silver Lake Park here in Ontario. I did some extra journaling which is on the tag hidden behind the last picture. I have many fond memories of my time spent camping there and did the page to put in my Book of Me album. I had never torn cardstock for a layout before so it was a new experience for me. I decided to do the whole background with this technique making the grass, beach, water and sky with the torn paper, most of which was the core-dination paper line. I also had fun using up a bunch of my stash of stickers and camping embellishments.

Here is the layout I made.

I hope you enjoyed both layouts and Happy Scrapping.

Wow My Blog Was Featured On Paper Craftorium

2010-06-03T10:10:00.000-07:00

I bet you didn't expect me to make another post today but I was to excited to wait until tomorrow. I was just checking some comments that were made on one of my layouts and saw a note from Dawn from Paper Craftorium letting me know that they had featured my blog on their site today. Wow, how cool is that!

For those of you who have not heard of the site this is what Dawn has to say about it "Paper Craftorium was created in May 2010 as a way to showcase regular papercrafters and bloggers, who may not always get the chance to be showcased otherwise. It was created as a regular place for regular people to help promote "the little guys" much like ourselves." I became a follower when the group first started and have been enjoying checking out the many sites that they have shared. If you're not already a follower then you should check it out, you won't be sorry you did.

Thanks Dawn and Penny for featuring my blog, it really made my day.

Mom's 75th Birthday Layout

2010-06-03T09:45:00.000-07:00

Recently they had a challenge on Let's Scrap to do a layout in honor of Mothers Day, this challenge was to make a LO having to do with mothers. Either yourself as a mother, your mother or mother in law, could be a Mother to a litter of puppies or even Mother nature! I've had pictures of my Mom's 75th birthday from the year 2000 that I had really been wanting to scrap. The pictures mean a lot to me because Mom had been very ill prior to her party and we didn't expect her to be well enough to be discharged from hospital. Fortunately a couple of weeks before her birthday things turned around and she not only was able to attend the party but would have 3 more wonderful years with us.

I used this sketch from Let's Scrap as my inspiration.

Here is the layout

I used SEI's Juliette paper line to do the layout. I just love their paper especially this line. I also added some pearl bling and little fabric flowers that I had picked up quite some time ago. I was really please with the way the layout turned out.
The other part to the challenge was to make a card from the scraps left over from making the layout and this is the card I made.
It always feels good when you can make something from your scraps.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my layout and Happy Scrapping.

Jacob's Birthday Party

2010-05-30T18:47:00.000-07:00

I just realized I never got around to posting my Grandson, Jacob's 1st birthday layouts. I used one of Cheri's sketches over at Let's Scrap to do both of the layouts although I did change things up some.
Here is the sketch

Jacob and his parents live in an apartment so they came over here to have his party because there was more room. His Great Grandparents, Aunts, Uncle, his best friend and her Dad all made it to the party as will has his Grandpa and I.
Kate, his Mom, and I had both bought the same scrapbook paper for his party pictures. Kate decided to use the ones she got to make his decorations which worked out nice as they matched the paper in the layout. She had made him a banner so instead of making a new one, as the sketch called for, I just blew up the picture of the one she made and cut it out for the banner.
Here is the layout

This next layout was done from pictures taken the same day. My hubby, Jacob's Grandfather, happened to be at a garage sale the morning of the party and found this motorized jeep. Although Jacob isn't near old enough to drive it yet Grandpa just couldn't resist picking it up for him. Jacob and his little friend Katie had a great time playing around in it.
I used the same sketch as above but I also used it for the Blog Hop over at Carolina's blog in which we were to use one of here traveling quotes on a layout.

That's all for today, Happy Scrapping.

The Sunshine Award

2010-05-24T19:45:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, a very sweet lady presented me with the Sunshine Award. I have been so busy working on all the challenges that I haven't had a chance to post about it so I wanted to do that now

The sweet lady was Denise who I met in one of my yahoo groups and we became fast friends. She is so good to always check my blog and leave me sweet comments and this is the second time she has passed on an award to me. I love visiting Denise's blog Lala's World She has such wonderful layouts and cards and I just love hearing all about her two little munchkins Nick and Lara. You should go and visit her, I know you won't be disappointed.

Okay so the rules of the award are to send the award to 12 blogger's who brighten your day. I follow several blogs so it was hard to narrow it down but here are the ones that I picked.

The first two are ladies I met in the Yahoo group "Scrapbooking Classes" and they just started blogging. They are doing such a great job and I enjoy going to visit their blogs. Please go visit them and give them a little of your love. The last 10 are the ladies from the Let's Scrap blog hop. I originally became a follower of their blogs because I had to in order to compete in their blog hop but I have continued following them because I love their blogs. They definitely brighten my day when I go to see them. So without further ado here is my list of the 12
blogs.

1. Mary - Mary's Scrapping and Stamping
2. LeAnn - LeAnn Creates
3. Susan - Paper Daisy Dreams
4. Cori - Creative Chat
5. Deb - Sendable Sentiments
6. Jean - PAGESINTIME
7. Sally - Sally's Challenge Chatter
8. Rosalie - Fivetulips/5 Tulps
9. Scarlett - Scarlett's Scrapoirs
10. Carolina - Scrapping Nomad
11. Nana - Younique Reflections
12. Kristie - Scrappy Days

I really hope that you will go to visit all these wonderful ladies so that they can brighten your day to.

Hope your week is starting out great and Happy Scrapping.

I'm So Excited I Won

2010-05-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

As you all know I have been participating in all the NSD events over at Let's Scrap One of the events was a blog hop. There were 10 members of the Design Team who were having challenges on their blogs and if you did the challenge you got your name in to win a prize. If you completed all of the blog challenges then you also got your name in for the big prize. I WON the big prize which was a $50 gift certificate for A Cherry On Top I was super surprized that I won and so excited about it. I have been over to ACOT and looking at all of the great scrapbooking things they sell and still haven't decided what I will use my gift certificate for because they have so much to choose from.

If you like to scrap and are interested in doing challenges then Let's Scrap is the place you should go. I love all the layout sketches Cheri does esecially because they are for two page layouts. It's seldom that you can find a sketch for a 2 pager. Kimmy does card sketches once a month and although my first love is doing layouts I am really starting to enjoy card making to. This is the 3rd prize I have won since starting with the group last month, isn't that amazing. They had tons of challenges all through May and I hear they has something special going on in June also. So why don't you go and check them out, I know you won't be sorry.

Never thought I would do it

2010-05-22T15:19:00.000-07:00

As a scrapper I'm sure you have done tons of layouts about your children, grandchildren, husband, friends or trips. But have you ever scrapped about yourself. It's a very hard thing to do.

I have been wanting to do a Book Of Me but never thought I would finally get around to it. This is an album about yourself, your childhood, teen years, favorite things, etc. There are a number of reason why I have thought about doing this

First would be that my father passed away when I was only 13 and had been sick for a few years before that so I never got to talk to him about his early life. I have been able over the years to talk to a few people who knew him and get bits of information but still I would have liked to have heard it from him.

My Mother lived until she was 78 but to her, her life was boring. She couldn't see why anyone would be interested in hearing about anything she might have done when she was a child, teen or her early married life. It was only shortly before she passed away that she told me a few stories, but I would have loved to have heard many more.

I have been researching my family tree since shortly after my fathers passing and have been able to get some stories about my Great Grandparents and my Grandparents coming to Canada. I cherish those stories and love to scrap about them. If you would like to see a layout I did about my Great Grandmother you can find it here and my Great Grandfather's is here. Being able to tell something about there life makes them so much more real to me.

So when I came across some information a while back about doing a Book of Me I thought it was something I would like to do. It's not because I have had a real interesting life either because I haven't. It's so that my children and grandchildren will get to know a little about me. I don't want them later on wondering about the things I loved or hated, things I did as a kid, what class was my favorite in school or any of that. I want them to know all about me just in case I'm not around when they're ready to ask questions

So all that being said I finally got around to doing a couple of layouts about me. Both of them I did for challenges over at Let's Scrap The first one is my introduction page for my book. It's called Pieces Of Me and I used jigsaw puzzle piece shapes to cut out pictures of myself from very young to now (getting old lol) I also listed a few of the roles I have. I have put several butterflies on the layout because they have special meaning to me and I used pink as the main color because it is my favorite color. I had a few extra pictures so added them in as well but not real pleased with their placement so may change them around a bit before I put the pages in my album. The poem I found quite a while back and have no idea where. I have tried to find out who wrote it but have not had any luck finding it again. So if you recognize it please let me know so I can five credit to who ever wrote it. So here it is

The next layout also has pictures of me and I'm doing my favorite thing - Scrapbooking at a crop at my LSS - Memory Lane. Because I was so busy doing a bunch of challenges I didn't get around to doing the second page but will get at it when things settle down some. Part of the challenge was to put a quote on the page. I used "Scrapbooking is a work of heart". Which I am sure is true for all of us that scrap. If you take a close look you will see one of Cheri's, from Let's Scrap, fantastic sketches in front of me.

So now I have a start on my Book of Me album. Hopefully I will get a chance to do more pages soon. I have so many things I want to scrap about and I want to work some more on my Heritage album so I guess I better end this long blog entry and get back to scrapping.

I hope you are all having a fantastic weekend, Happy Scrapping.

I Have Been So Busy Scrapping

2010-05-17T08:39:00.000-07:00

Wow I have been so busy scrapping I haven't had a chance to do any blogging, lol. So I'm going to show you a couple of layouts and a card I made.
The card was made for another Let's Scrap NSD challenge which was to decorate a card with a basket and to also decorate the inside of the card. Last year I found at a garage sale a dresser scarf that had two beautiful baskets of flowers made of ribbon on them. When I saw it I knew I wanted to use it some how in my scrapbooking. So I used one of the Baskets of flower's for the front of the card and then another design on the dresser scarf for the inside. I really like how it turned out

I also made a couple of layouts for the blog hop. The first one I used for Nana's challenge which was to use a Let's Scrap Sketch and do some sewing on it and I also used it for Kristie's challenge which was to use Green and Yellow in the layout.

The picture is of my two boys when they were 4 and 1 1/2, so was taken about 21 years ago. It was always one of my favorite pics of them.
The next layout has my favorite picture of my grandson when he was 3 months. He just had his first birthday a few days ago. I combined a couple of the challenges together for this one also.
The first one was for Rosalie's blog which was to scraplift something from a layout that was done quite sometime ago on Let's Scrap. The other challenge came from Scarlette's blog and it was to do the layout using Monocromatic. This is the second time I've tried a monocromatic layout and it was a little easier this time around.

Will I guess I better get back to my scrapping table. I still have 3 more layouts to do for the blog hop (hmm wonder if I can combine them all into one), also the weekly sketch and weekly challenge on lets scrap and have to have everything done by Thursday night. So I think I'm going to be a very busy lady for a few more days.

Hope you all had a great weekend.

Man's Best Friends

2010-05-13T17:16:00.001-07:00

I did this layout for two challenges this time. One is the Design Team Challenge and we were to use at least four different things with our layout titles. I used different colors and sizes for the letters, I put metal bones on a couple of the letters, the word best is on a bone made from cork, sparkles on the word friends and distress crackle on the word Man's. It's hard to see the crackle but it is there. Can't say I was real impressed with it but might like it better if I used it on something else.
The second challenge was for the Let's Scrap Blog Hop. Cori had us use quotation marks on the layout and something metal. Why not go over and check out her blog called Creative Chat
Here is the layout

The pictures are of my husband and our two Jack Russels mixes. A couple of years ago our dog passed away while our Son was in hospital after his accident. Jason was quite upset about the loss of his beloved pet. We decided to get another dog but I didn't want a puppy as we were still having to make daily trips to the hospital and even when Jason was home I would be busy with his care so wouldn't have time to train a new puppy. When we heard that a lady had a couple of 7 year old Jack Russels that she wanted to get rid of we decided to go see them. We really weren't wanting two dogs but when we met them we fell in love so both made the trip home with us. They are a brother and sister but are very different in looks and temperment. Harley the male has the markings of a Jack Russel and is very outgoing. He likes to sleep in our bed but must be completly covered up. He is very outgoing. Daisy the female is mostly white and is very timid. She is afraid of her own shadow, lol. Both dogs have been well trained, know some tricks and seem to understand everything you say to them. They are very loving and well behaved. They love to snuggle with my husband when ever he watches TV. One of them is always on his lap and often both of them will be there.

Hope you are having a great week.

Spring In B.C.

2010-05-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

Last year my husband and I went out to British Columbia to meet our Grandson for the first time. My son and family lived in an a apartment complex in White Rock, B.C. The owners of the apartment rented out some of their empty apartments to visiter's and we were lucky enough to be able to get one of them on the ground floor. The patio doors opened up into a beautiful garden. There was nothing more relaxing then sitting out their amongst the beautiful flowers. The pictures in the layout were taken in that garden. I was amazed at the large variety of flowers that bloom in the spring in British Columbia.
Here is a layout I did of the garden

Hope you enjoyed the layout.

Card I Made for the Blog Hop

2010-05-10T18:57:00.000-07:00

As I was saying in my post yesterday I am competing in a blog hop put on by Let's Scrap. Today I did blog hop challenge over at Deb's blog http://debhorstcreaterofsendablesentiments.blogspot.com/ Check out her blog to read all about the requirements for the card.
Here was the card I made

Let's Scrap NSD Blog Hop

2010-05-09T22:20:00.001-07:00

As you all know I have been having so much fun doing challenges at Let's Scrap What you may not know is that Let's Scrap is celebrating National Scrapbooking Day all month with many different challenges. One of the things happening is a Design Team Blog Hop going on from May 7th - 21st. There are 10 Let's Scrap design team members who have challenges on their blog and at the end of the two weeks each blog will put the name of everyone who completed the challenge in the hat and draw for a prize. Not only that but if you complete all ten of the challenges you can have your name put in a draw to win a $50 gift certificate from Cherry On Top Scrapbook Store. Now how cool is that. But in order to have a chance to win any of these prizes you have to be a member of Let's Scrap because that is where your layouts and Cards will be uploaded to. You also have to be come a follower of each of the ladies blogs. So if you are interested in having a ton of fun and meeting some wonderful friendly, ladies then hop on over to Let's Scrap and find out all about it.

The challenge for Blog Hop #1 came from Susan's Blog Paper Daisy Dreams Here Is what Susan had to say about her challenge.
"I love shoes, I love purses, I love shopping. And today as I was contemplating what to do for my part of the challenge I received an email from a nationally known shoe store. The minute I saw this advertisement I knew two things.....1. I have to go get those purple sandals AND the bag, and 2. this would be the inspiration for my challenge. Sooo, having said that your challenge is a two-parter: Create a layout based on this Let's Scrap sketch...."

"and using this advertisement for color inspiration. (Aren't those purple shoes too cute? HAHA!)"

So here is my entry for Blog Hop #1

This beautiful young lady is my future DIL and she LOVES purses and shoes. She was nice enough to let me take a picture of her with just a small number of them. She has lots more but they are packed away while renovations are being done on the house.

I hope you liked the layout and I hopefully will have several more to share with you as I hop from blog to blog. I also am working on some other challenges that Let's Scrap are having so I will share them with you as I finish them.

I hope everyone enjoyed Mothers Day.