Guest Designer

Hop on over to If it's groovy to see the amazing surprise they had for me!! I was asked to be thier Guest Designer for the month of April. I was also named the first "Best Kept Secret"!! Keep reading in the post below this one to get the full details!

Wow. The Best Kept Secret

I am truely at a loss for words. I am speechless! But most of all I am honored!!! I was voted the very FIRST "Best Kept Secret" over at If it's Groovy! Deb, blog owner, asked if I would accept the nomination and if so give a challenge to the ladies of the DT. I challenged them to do a boy layout using flowers and bling! The inspiration for this challenge came from everyone always commenting on how I add flowers and bling to my boy pages but yet keep it masculine. They accepted the challenge, some hesitant, some jumping right in but they ALL did a fantastic job!!!! Hop on over to If it's groovy to check out their layouts!!! But there is another challenge that I DID NOT know about! Those sneaky ladies decided to use a layout of mine to scraplift! I had NO IDEA!! This was such an honor to me!!!! I am thrilled that they did this. Of course, I wanted to do a layout based on my challenge as well and here is what I did. This is a layout of my oldest nephew being baptized. I bought a frame for him so that he could hang it in his room if he wanted to. I used the sketch "Lavender Escape" by the talented Beggahuna. I handmade this flowers myself. I LOVED doing this. It was so much fun. I'll be adding a tutorial for some things (including these flowers) on here very soon so be on the lookout for them. Wow. I just can't stop smiling! This was such a surprise and honor to me. Thank you so much for the Design Team members and to Groovy Deb for giving me this title this month, for giving me the honor of scraplifting me and for participating in my challenge!! As always, I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedules to come sit with me for a while. Until next time, keep scrappin'!!!

National No Housework Day!

April 7th is National No housework day!! It will be a day strictly for play! Hop on over to If It's Groovy for more details!

There will be fantastic online crops with games and prizes and helpful hints for the other half to use while he does the mundane things you usually do!

Want to be a part of the hop? Become a hostess by emailing groovydeb@yahoo.com!
Hope to see you there!!!

Dusty Attic Giveaway!

Who doesn't love a giveaway?? And entering is easy!!! Head on over to this blog, become a follower and comment on the post. Good luck!!!

Scrappin Time!

This first LO I did while my husband was kind enough to allow me a day to myself without the kiddos. To bad I only got 2 pages done that day. Oh well......I had a friend over scrappin' with me so it was time well spent. I used a sketch based on Pages in Time blog week of May 13th (2010) The small rose in the upper corner is a rose I made myself. The 3 flowers in the bottom corner I also made and then added Recollection mini roses in the center. The feather is a Hobby Lobby special (I love wandering that store looking in other departments for all kinds of goodies to use on my scrappin'!) I used bling and again used my cricut to cut the background paper.

"This is how we roll" sketch is based off CraftySprinkles Scraps of Darkness #106 sketch. I used the water distressing on this layout (2nd time ever doing this technique) Everything is done using older supplies in my stash except the bling. The title is done in Thickers.

This is truly a unusual photo. My son was allowing my daughter to "drive" his power wheels. She can't even touch the petal but he usually won't even allow her near the steering wheel. She is usually content in the passenger side playing with the radio. Isn't that SUCH a typical woman?!?!?! :)

Ohhhh I had fun with this one. Let me start by saying the sketch used is by Suepup (again, I know but I LOVE her sketches!!) This one is 10-03-10. And again, this one turned out much different than the original sketch. For one I used one vertical photo instead of 2 horizontal ones. Plus I didn't add florishes and much girly stuff. The white border running the center of the page is Queen and Company felt self adhesive ribbon. Dragonfly, Hobby Lobby, papers-older paper stash, mini roses-Recollections. The title came from my "Graphically Speaking" cricut cart. I also cut the ladybugs out using the "Walk in my Garden" cart. I took some "grass' that I found in the Hobby Lobby floral section and cut just the tips off. I then took some old hard plastic casing that came from an old package and stamped my image of a mason jar on it. I then cut around it. I glued (using hot glue) the grass to the bottom of the mason jar with my ladybugs tucked away in the grass and slid the jar behind my makeshift grass (the grass I cut for my border) to hide the hot glue mess! Then I proceded to VERY CAREFULLY finish gluing around my jar. I didn't want to have the mess of the glue showing so I just did a very fine thin line and then pressed down firmly. Looks fine!!! I had a blast using that jar stamp and making the ladybugs. I have had that stamp for years and never used it. I finally found my photo opportunity since my son was looking in a mason jar in the picture!!! That's what I call picture perfect. :)
As always, I appreciate every single comment and for your taking the time out of your busy schedules to read and look at my blog! Until next time, keep scrappin'!!

Sketches galore

I love sketches. I am constantly looking for sketches. I have found several sites that feature them on a weekly basis, some on a monthly basis. Some speak to me, others don't. You can't win them all right. The best part about sketches and no one expects them to come out looking exactly like the sketch. It's a jumping off point. A way to jump start your creativity. Some of the LO's I do based on sketch stay fairly close to the orignal. Others, as you may see, go off into a different directions. Both are perfectly okay. Afterall, it's YOUR creation.

Here is my Sugar and Spice page. The sketch is by the AMAZING artist known as "Suepup". I've used many of her sketches before and they are always ready to give me the mush needed "jump" I need. The sketch is 12-14-10. The papers I used are DCWV Mariposa Paper (the green background), the circle paper is Bo Bunny (Alyissa line) and also the photo mat is Bo Bunny. I used the Martha Stewart butterfly punch for the circle border. The big butterfly came from Hobby Lobby. I distressed the circle bo bunny paper with Tim Holtz "Old Paper" ink. The flowers are a mixture of Prima, Petaloo, Ek Success and Recollections. The title I cut from the "Opposite Attract" cart. I took the word "sugar" and added diamond dust to make them looked "sugared". The black border came from my "Storybook" cart. I then added dot accents using strawberry iridescent fabric paint.
My little girl is definitely the spice in my life. Some sugar, mostly spice. But I love her.

Snow Angel is a sketch based off the Page in Time blog. Its the week of Jan. 20th. This is one of those sketches were my ending result is different than the actual sketch. I used the same title placement, and the same circle picture (just placed differently). The paper already had the heart and the journaling space on it. Most of the time I have a difficult time with those types of papers, this time being no different. I'm still not sure if I'm 100% happy with this LO but it doesn't matter now because it's staying put!! :)

Prima flower and butterfly, lace around the picture is from my stash, bling and the letters are thickers. (I love thickers!) Small flowers in bottom corner is Recollections and I used a small swirly stamp behind those flowers.

This is a picture I will treasure forever! Read me a Story is based off a sketch done by Suepup (12-19-10) I love the way this turned out. I started out with a plain beige background paper which I took my large script stamp and Vintage Photo distress ink and stamp the entire background. My blue circle, I cut using the Paper Lace cricut cart. The vine is Recollections as well as the mini roses, the blue small flowers came from the floral department in Hobby Lobby. The large white flower is K&Company as well as the butterflies. I also used Prima flowers (gotta love Prima!). For my title, the words "me a story" I cut using my cricut, "Graphically Speaking" cart. The word "read" is chipboard that I painted in yellow. I then used the Tim Holtz Rock Candy clear and painted over the yellow. While that was still wet I sprinkled Martha Stewart blue micro beads over top of it and then used my heat gun to speed the process once it started to crackle on it on. Very fun process!!!!

As always, I appreciate all comments and for your taking time out of your busy schedules to look and read my blog. Until next time, keep scrappin'!!!

In love with my Cricut!

Have I told you lately how much I adore my cricut and all my carts?? I have found a couple of carts that are new to me and I will probably use on every single LO. Some other carts that I've had a while I've rediscovered some fantastic images on them. This year I have vowed to start using my cricut more. Boy have I ever!!!

This LO, Once upon a Time, is of my son. Photography by Beth Coleman (my amazing photographer whom I'm learning alot from) This Lo is basically what you see is what you get. I used my cricut cart "Paper Lace" to cut that amazing butterfly background. I sprayed the white background with blue glimmer mist. The title I cut using the "Storybook" cart. The butterfly came from Hobby Lobby. I used bling and the Petaloo flowers, which I colored with my alcohol inks. The blue flower on the bottom is out of my stash from a long time ago. I then accented the page using my blue fabric paint. (the dots)

I love the way this turned out. "Family". I used a sketch from the Pages in Time blog. The sketch is for the week of January 13th. Started out cutting the butterfly from my Paper Lace cart. The flourish under the butterfly came from my "Cindyloo" cart and the corner pieces came from the "Storybook" cart! I added bling, a red feather, cut a small butterfly out using my Martha Monarch punch, used red fabric paint and some red stickles. The flowers, the white ones are K&Company and the black flowers are actually an applique for clothing! I glued that bad boy on, trimmed it in red stickles, added a couple of red Recollection roses and viola!!!!! The title is Thickers.

"Cutest Cowboy in the West" I used alot of distress inks on this one. If you were to go to my scrapbook.com gallery, you will see the proper credit to the person who inspired this layout. I used a mixture of my stash and my mom's stash on this one. The big flower in the upper left corner came from mom's stash, along with the "sweet" circle and lasso rope. The letters also came from my mom's (okay maybe more mom's stash than my own) oh and dare I say the butterflies are from her stash too? Okay, shall I say she supplied this LO I just did it!!! :)

This is my son's 4th birthday photo shoot. I love this picture of him. He looks like he can be a cologne model or something. I may just be biased. (but I don't think I am hehehe) Flowers are Prima and Recollections, the inks I used are all Tim Holtz, the papers are miscellaneous, and the big cutout flower came from, you guessed it, my cricut!!!

As always, I appreciate your comments and your taking the time out of your busy schedules to look and read my blog! Until next time, keep scrappin'!!!!

A Scrappin' fool!!!!

Well I guess the new year rolled my mojo back home. Maybe she missed me. Maybe she couldn't find anywhere else to settle. None the less she is back with me and I'm happy. :) Since I've had so many done, I will be doing post with 3 layouts at a time since I want to be able to tell ya a little about each one without boring you to pieces with a 100 mile long blog. One of the layouts I did was of my daughter on her first birthday. (by the way she will be turning 2 on the 17th of this month!!! ) Anyway, she was such a diva that day, not smashing her smash cake, not wanting to eat her cake (except the flowers) and crying because she didn't want that silly looking princess hat on her head!!! I didn't do to much on this page. The cake paper I used is Heidi Swapp. I love her papers. So pastel-y looking. Anyway, I used a Prima Flower and some Say it in Crystals bling. The small roses are Recollections and I cannot for the life of me remember who the letters were by. This was a pretty simple, straight forward page. But I like the way it turned out.

This next LO is, again, my daughter at the beach. I love this picture because as we were sitting playing in the sand, my son said something and my daughter whipped around and smiled at him. I just so happened to have my camera trained on her anyway trying to get a good profile shot of her. I used my Martha Stewart shell punch. That's what I call it anyway, not sure of what the true name is. The small roses again are Recollections. The bigger flowers are Prima. The title I used out of Tim Holtz grungeboard and then used my alcohol ink with the silver additive to color them. The shell border came from my stash. I also used some bling.
A Grandmother's Love. A special LO to me. My MIL was in town for the month of August to visit with us and the kids. She had moved back to her hometown, which is over 1000 miles away, a little over a year ago. While she was in town she suggested us getting pictures made. So I called my photographer and got us an appointment. This shot is precious to both her and I. This LO I actually made for my MIL. I mailed it to her and she called crying telling me how much she loved it. She is going to hang it on her wall. :)

This is the first LO I ever did that I did water distressing on. I actually loved the process and the result of it. The red flower in the upper right corner is a flower that I made. I put the tutorial on my blog several months ago. I edited the photo to fade the sides in and add the word LOVE on it. Then I placed a clear overlay frame over top it. The green flower is Prima and the two smaller flowers I made. I also used some bling and I believe that butterfly is Prima too.


As always, I appreciate all comments and I truly thank you for taking the time to look and read my blog. I really does mean the world to me. Even though I can't always update it on time. With 2 small kids and many many many projects and now sports practices I hope you understand. :) Thanks again!!!!