Another Day in Paradise

Here is my second layout based on a fantastic sketch by Helen at Scrap a Little.

I was trying to ink the papers and photos with black ink. I proceeded to get in on a couple spots on my white paper so inked it all up to make it look like I wanted it that way!
I added some fun stickers on to the photos, did a little doodling and a lot of black inking. I had so much fun with this layout and it was super quick and simple! Echo Park sure made it easy to create quick layouts with their fun stickers and patterned papers.

I started following Tessa's blog a while back after seeing some of her yummy Etsy goodies on a friends blog. This month she has something called Attitude of Gratitude on her blog. You can read about it here. She even has a beautiful mini album kit up for sale at her Etsy store, here. I think it is such a neat neat idea! I don't plan on doing the daily blogging, but I would love to make a mini sometime soon!

Thank you for stopping by!

And so it began... a layout for Scrap A Little using Cosmo Cricket

A while back Helen at Scrap A Little contacted me and asked if I'd be interested in being a guest designer! It took me off of three seconds to reply with 'heck ya'! Okay, I didn't really reply with that, but that is what I was thinking! Helen has lots of FANTASTIC sketches on her blog. Make sure check it out. If you would like to see the post with my feature, click here.

Here is the sketch she sent me, Sketch #52:

Cute huh?

Here is my take on it:

I used the DeLovely line by Cosmo Cricket. The pictures were taken from one of our trips to OHSU for Maddy's 'going' issues. What an experience. It was heart breaking to hear her scream through her blood being drawn and another test. And even worse to have them yield no results. :-(

I did some hand-stitching. Its take more time than I like, but I am usually happy with the end results.

Its kind of perfect timing for this feature as Maddy is going back in for more testing this coming Monday. Any prayers are greatly appreciated. No matter how big or small the test are, it is hard to see your baby go through the 'unknown' to you.

A few weeks ago, Peyton, Maddy and I were upstairs in the family room when Chris got home. Maddy got excited and said she was going to hide. This is her hiding spot:

No, I did not leave her alone like that. Yes, I did explain that it is not a good idea to put a bag over your head and consider that a hiding spot. BUT, I could not help a quick giggle and picture of her hiding spot. Which, by the way, she sat VERY still and VERY quiet til Chris came up to find her!

Thank you for stopping by!

The Big Day using March Birds of a Feather Kit

First off, my apologies for the smudges and what not on the layout! Maddy decided she wanted to scrapbook. Chris found her on top of my scrapbook table, ink all over her and my layout, my photos torn off, smudged and crumpled, my glue bottle tops missing...I think your getting the picture!

This is another layout I created using the March Birds of a Feather Kit and Add-ons! I'm telling you, you can get a lot of projects done with the kit and add-ons!

First off, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the embossed swiss dot cardstock! It is so so so cool!
Included in the kit were the Prima leaves. They are definitely going on my to-get-again list! Quite a few came with the kit, but I'm LOVING using them!
Aren't the coiled flowers fun? The leather lacing was included in the kit. I was inspired by a Jillibean embellishment.
I glued the Kaisercraft Hippy Chic chipboard flower to a piece of black cardstock and trimmed it down. I think it helped balance out the black on the right side of the layout. I then glued buttons on top of the chipboard.

I am HORRIBLE about keeping track of specific papers and supplies and such. But here it is, if you have specific questions, please ask, I can retrack it for you! Kaiser Craft Hippy Chick patterned paper and chipboard, Basic Grey Buttons, My Little Shoebox Home Tweet Home patterned paper, die cut journaling spot and alphabet stickers, Bazzill cardstock, Prima leaves and leather lacing. From my stash was the black cardstock.

I used Sketch #9 created by Helen Croft at Scrap A Little.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Pack rat saga continues!

And the pack rat saga continues! haha! Well, its not really funny, more frustrating, but ya gotta find humor in the frustrating things to keep sane, right? A lot of you mentioned you hadn't heard of a pack rat. Well, here is a link to Wikipedia's definition of a pack rat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pack_rat

So we thought we had rid ourselves of the nasty little thing. Well we were wrong! Chris went to start the truck Saturday morning and it made a horrible sound and died! Yikes...of course my first thought is 'here we go again' and 'I wonder if the Ford dealership charges to tow less than a mile....' Chris got out and went to lift up the hood and noticed the little bugger under the truck! Yep, he got taken out by the fan! It was GROSS! We had rat organs on our driveway! haha! But at least we know its dead right??? But that didn't help the truck restart. :-( Nope...Chris got the idea to take a fuel can and get more diesel as the guy we bought it from mentioned that fuel gauge was a little off. It said their was a quarter of a tank left, but it worth a try before paying to have it towed. Yep, that was the problem, no diesel. Chris poured some in and started it up and was on his way! I was SSSOOO glad that the rat hadn't chewed any wires or holes in anything else!

Now on to some scrappy inspiration. Helen at Scrap A Little came out with a new sketch at the beginning of the month.
This is my take on it:

This is Peyton with his Uncle Coco! Peyton LOVES to play games and tries to sucker everyone who comes through the front door to play a game with him.

ScrapStreet Magazine Layout

A while back Helen at Scrap A Little e-mailed her DT to let us know that ScrapStreet Magazine was going to be doing an article on Scrap A Little!!! She asked us to create a special layout using one of her sketches. Here is my layout:
Supplies: Paper: Kaisercraft, Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper, Alphabet: American Crafts, Journaling Spot: Jillibean Soup, Ribbon: Offray, Bling: Studio 18, Ink: Colorbox, Sketch: Scrap A Little #19, Other: pin, metal frame, journaling spot.

I'm hooked on these flowers at the moment. They are so easy to make and I just love the looks of them.

Its all about the layering too! I am having fun adding different textures to the layers. Here I used a metal frame and a pin. I'm in love with pins at the moment, but intimidated on how to use them.

Thanks for stopping by!

Scrap-A-Little

Helen at Scrap-A-Little just posted her August sketch.

I gotta say, this is one of my favorite sketches of Helen's so far.
AND one of my favorite layouts using Helen's sketches so far.

I've been itching to use these super cute and fun We R Memory Keepers paper for a while now.

I did a little machine stitching on the sun rays to add a little oomph. I had fun using a bunch of my buttons I 'just had to have' too. :-)

Almost as soon as Maddy started crawling she started climbing. She'd get one let up on the end table and scream like not other! haha! OR she would somehow get herself stuck in her exersaucer. Yep, she is a mover thats for sure!

Thanks for stopping by!

Helen just posted a new sketch on Scrap A Little (Sketch #28). I couldn't wait to use it! Creative Cuts and More is celebrating Christmas in July this month and I wanted to create a layout using some of their dies.

This is what I came up with! Pardon the wrinkled cardstock. The kiddos thought they needed to help me out on this layout! :-D Also, its not crooked, I just have horrible photography skills. :-(I've been wanting to try something a tad different and the red piece of cardstock was a piece from CC&M's Mix & Match Mini Album. It makes the perfect matting and layering piece!
This flower was VERY fun to make. I took a scallop circle frame and covered it with Rangers Crackle Medium and sprinkled it with Doodlebug Sugar Coating Glitter in white. I then took 2 Tacky Tape Flowers and sprinkled with the glitter also. I put one flower on red cardstock and one on white. and trimmed around them leaving some of the cardstock showing.

Other products used: My Minds Eye Paper, KI Memories Sticker, Doodlebug Alpha Stickers, Making Memories Brad, Jenni Bowlin Label Sticker and unknown twin/jute and brad.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Pipe Cleaner Flower Tutorial

I created a little tutorial for a fun Pipe Cleaner Flower for the Scrap A Little Blog. Helen posted it there yesterday. I thought I'd share it here today in case you missed it!

I saw a flower from a larger manufacturer that looked a lot like a pipe cleaner. I thought, I can make that! So I did!

I got this die cut card from Creative Cuts & More.

Here is how I make my Pipe Cleaner Flowers:

Start off with a pipe cleaner.

Wrap one end around your index finger.

Wrap the very end of the pipe cleaner so the loop is secure.

Put your index finger in the first loop to keep its shape and wrap the pipe cleaner in a figure eight around your ring finger.

Twist the long end of the pipe cleaner around the figure eight.

Create the third loop around another finger to keep the size of the loops even.

I then wrap the long end of the pipe cleaner through one of the loops already made to secure the last loop made.

Create the fourth and fifth loops the same way, wrapping around a finger to keep size consistent and wrapping through a previously made loop to secure.

You should have a tiny bit left over that you just tuck around the center know to secure the flower.

Open up the prongs on a brad all the way.

Slide the prongs around the center knot.

Fold the prongs shut.

Here is the finished flower!

This was so quick and fun to make. I think they’d make great layering pieces for layered flowers too! Of course, you could always make bigger flowers by using more than pipe cleaner.

Here is a layout I did for Scrap A Little a while back using the pipe cleaner flowers.

Scrap A Little May Challenge

Helen has another great challenge up on her site Scrap A Little this month. It is to use 90% Basic Grey! Some Basic Grey goodies are up for grabs so make sure and check it out!

Here is my take on this sketch:

I used the scalloped circle and scallop frame from Creative Cuts & More. The flourish is a revolution die I cut with my Cuttlebug. Then of course I used Thickers for my title.

This beautiful flower came from the very talented Pam. The tab pulls out my hidden journaling. I talk about why I love this picture so much. I love it cause it shows off Maddy's blue eyes and chunky thighs, because it shows her playing with her feet while eating (which she does all the time) and because its a picture of us together.

Popcorn...my family loves it. I freaked out the first couple times Maddy eats it, but she get extremely upset if she is left out. Yep, everyone but me LOVES to eat popcorn! We can't get our couch upstairs into our bonus room, so right now we only have a recliner up there. It makes for quite the cozy time with the kids. :-)

Oh, and one last thing. I offered up a RAK a while back, the gal never claimed it, so its up for grabs again. Leave a comment and I'll draw a winner sometime at the end of the week. Here is a picture of it:

Scrap A Little's May Layout

First off, HAPPY NATIONAL SCRAPBOOK DAY! Wahoo! I hope you all have lots of scrappy time planned. As for me, its my birthday tomorrow and I'm headed out to spend the day with my hubby. We are going to a Home & Garden Show, doing a little shopping and then going out to a nice dinner (well, something other than fast food...haha!).

Do you like the looks of this?
Do you want to win this? Well its SUPER easy. All you need to do is sign up over at Scrap A Littles's new Ning Site, here. Here is a layout and card I created using this kit.

And a super simple and quick card:

Yummy papers huh?

Creative Cookbooking is having a crop this weekend as well as Citrus Tree Studio. Make sure to check them out! There will be games, challenges and lots of prizes!

Trying something new

I got my first bottle of Smooch! Well, my first bottle of any type of spray. I used a friends Glimmer Mist and wasn't impressed with it. I also used a friends Maya Mist and it was better than the Glimmer Mist. I won a gift certificate to Scrapbook.com and decided to give it a try! I used Helen's Sketch #15.

We have had horrible lighting here lately, so sorry for the bad picture. This style is new for my, not the norm. I'm not sure I'm diggin' it. It was fun trying something new though!