Saturday, May 26, 2012

Better with a friend like you!

Yep, way to much Barney in the house these days!  Both Gino and Vinny have become attached to this lovable purple giant dinosaur and so even without knowing what I was doing I titled my layout ... yep, Better with a friend like you!  Here I was so proud of myself for coming up with the title so quickly until I heard our purple friend singing it. 

So anyway here is my Barney inspired layout using this month's Jillibean Soup sketch and goodies:

May JBS sketch



What songs are you singing today?  I hope your selection is better than mine! 

And I got some very happy mail yesterday - thought I'd share...

Yep, that's mine of my little Beano!  It is in the Create Magazine - All About Baby.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Learning to tell time...

with Thomas!  Not really as my son has just turned 3, but soon enough I will begin to teach him he can't yell for mommy before 8am and 3pm nap!  I saw these circles at Wall Sugar and I love to make clocks and so the wheels of my mind started turning and this is what I created:

Materials Used:  Bo Bunny, American Crafts and Thomas products


Now I just have to get Daddy to hang this one up (along with a few other projects) so I can clear out my scrap room and create some more!  So what about you, what do you see when you spot a piece of wood/cardboard/etc...

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Smash Winner!

So I am just a little late announcing my winner for the Smash products, sorry about that, life kinda got away from me!  By Random.org, #16 is my winner!  (Send me an e-mail with your address and I will get your goodies out to you - my info is above.)


This is such an awesome use of the Smash products! Fab layout! Happy to be a new follower of your blog!

Thanks so much each of you that stop by and leave comments - I really appreciate it!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

More Fabulous - ness!

Here are 2 more projects I created using the Fabulous line from Simple Stories - love this stuff!!!

The first I created using the 6x8 photo mat element sheet #2113 and the 4x6 journaling element cards #2112 - I fussy cut around some of the elements to make a place for my picture.



The next project I created was altering a chalkboard for my daughter - if you remember I made this chore board for my boys a few weeks ago, and what you do for one, you had better do for the next!  I bought this chalkboard from Michaels years ago in the dollar section - painted it - and then stopped...  The paint color matched the Fabulous line perfectly so I set about altering it and here is the result.


The flowers are magnetic.


Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Sketch Time with Artful Delight

I received a box of Echo Park This and That a few weeks ago.  So I finally got around to looking through my pictures to see what needed to be scrapped and what went with this line.  Although I've already scrapped Tracy's dance recital the colors were perfect for a few of my favorite pictures.

I used a sketch from Artful Delight to create each page - although the pages are separate I also made them to go together.  Here is the first sketch:


Even though the sketch was a card sketch it fit perfectly with my collage of pictures so I used it for my layout.




Here is the next sketch I used, this was created for a layout:


And the second page of Tracy's dance pictures:



Notice that lovely little bubble!  I ran out of my Fabri-Tac which is my liquid glue of choice so I used another one I had in my closet, Aleena's clear tacky glue - needless to say I was a little ticked!

I have one more dance picture to show you, I actually didn't realize I had scrapped another dance picture!  I have officially completed scrapping Tracy's 2011 dance recital and just in time as the 2012 recital is in 3 weeks!  LOL

Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate each of you and your comments!


Friday, May 11, 2012

Lily Bee sketch #9

I have been putting in a lot of time the past 2 weeks in the cake bakery department - Marc and Vinny both celebrate their birthdays a week apart.  Last weekend found me making a Luigi cake...


and right now, I'm supposed to be finishing up the Thomas cake for this evening!


In between all the hustle and bustle of 2 little boys birthdays I grabbed a few minutes (very late at night) to document Gino's 1st birthday with the help of sketch #9 at Lily Bee. 

Here's the sketch:
 

and here is what I created using some of my new Lily Bee stash... 

Materials Used:  OA Sprinklers, Jillibean Soup number, Lily Bee, twine and clips from stash



When I saw the banner and the ovals I started thinking about balloons and birthdays.  I knew that I had some wonderful yellow in my stash and so here is the layout that was born.  Now I have better run or I will have some seriously unhappy boys! 

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Life Lessons


As a mother of 5 and a homeschooler, I am constantly keeping my eyes and ears open for anything that will help our daily lives run smoother.  I've found that our dynamics change so often that what was tried and true last month is totally useless now; this has become more and more true as the children 5 and above become more and more of themselves.  One of the places I have found great inspiration and hands on practical knowledge is from the Duggar family - when their show first came out I would tape it so that I could really listen and go back and listen some more to the truths that worked for their family.  Later as it became a weekly show, while we still enjoyed watching as a family some of the little details were missing, so I began reading their books.  While our family is not the same as theirs, our values are very similar and I truly appreciate the Duggar family being so open about their lives because in a day and age when large families are not the norm - I need some help!

You can imagine my excitement when I found out the Duggars were only going to be 2 hours away from us at a marriage conference!  So for the first time I left all 5 of the dudes with a baby sitter and my hubby and I headed off for a day away.  It was wonderful to be together, it was wonderful to actually hear Jim Bob and Michelle speak and share exactly what I needed at that moment, and it was wonderful to eat and shop a little just the 2 of us.  I was thrilled to find a Michaels and an AC Moore right next to each other, go figure!  And so I headed in with my trusty coupons to find something...

I quickly filled up my basket as would be expected, but I chose to use my coupon on a new tape dispenser by glue art - a glue glider pro.  I had seen this advertised in my magazines, but I never had a chance to actually find one in the stores; another yea thing for my day.  So when I saw that Glue Arts had offered up a challenge for NSD I just had to participate and scrap the topic of the day!  (I didn't make a card because I wouldn't be sending it to the Duggars, but I did want to document a mom who really inspires me!)  Isn't it amazing what your mind links together!  LOL  I also found this sketch and loved it so I decided to participate there too.

Here is the sketch I used:

And here is what I created using my April Scrapbook Nook kit (Crate) and my Glue Arts:




 


Monday, May 7, 2012

Mom memories

Today brings a new challenge at Scrapping Everyday Miracles - Challenge #16 and it is all about moms. 

Our May Challenge is to create a project that is inspired by our Mothers. How have you been blessed by your mother? What everyday miracles have you missed in the past but see clearly now? Some of us may not know our mothers, but have had mother figures about whom our project can be focused upon. Maybe you're thinking to yourself my relationship with my mother is nothing to be celebrated. We believe that even if that is the case God wants to meet you there through this challenge, so please don't lose heart and keep reading after the DT layouts to hear how one of our very own design team members handled that exact situation.
Every challenge at SEM has a scrap twist that participants need to have on their layouts in order to complete the challenge so for the May challenge our scrap twist is....

Scrap twist: Use a page from a book (can be any book, novel, dictionary, etc.) 
Here is the layout I created using my favorite technique - fussy cutting and some Fabulous Simple Stories!
Materials Used:  Simple Stories, book page, Martha Stewart
I love my collections of Simple Stories and totally hate to cut up the papers, but because of the wonderful element sheets that are included in each collection I can cut to my hearts content!  :)  I cut the birds/cloud/wire and strips under the picture from the 2x12 border and 4x12 Title strip elements page #2114 (I couldn't bring myself to cut the All about me page!).  The title "ME" came from the 4x6 Journaling card elements #1 page #2110.  The tags and butterfly came from the 4x4 quote and 6x8 photo mat elements page #2113.  My main page was based on the Kraft Grid page #2120 - of course I have another one of these sheets so I can also use the typewriter font on the other side!
Here are some close-ups of my fussy cut elements:


I've had such fun with my Fabulous collection from Simple Stories and especially the element pages!  You can see a card and a few layouts I made here, another layout here and here

Make sure you stop by Memorable Seasons this week for a week long celebration of National Scrapbook Day - we've got challenges and prizes galore!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Challenge Time at Memorable Seasons

Hello everyone!  Hope your week is going well, it is hot here, but I finally convinced hubby to turn on the air so I am okay now.

I have the privilege of offering up the first challenge for May at Memorable Seasons and today was the day.  I was inspired by this page in a magazine and so I decided to challenge you to be inspired also!

Here is the magazine page that I started with:

I loved this picture that my daughter took of me and the boys, but it was really quite blurry (plus I hadn't gotten ready for the day).  When I saw this paper in the collection it seemed perfect for this picture; I'm happy to finally have used this glimpse into our life on a layout.  And here is what I created using my DT kit from Memorable Seasons, Fabulous from Simple Stories:

Materials Used:  Fabulous Simple Stories, Tattered Angels, Sculpty, Martha Stewart

Here are some close-ups:


You have until May 31st to complete your entry and load it into the gallery at Memorable Seasons for a chance at our monthly prize.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

It's May!

So much for us happens in May, birthdays galore and a wedding this year too, Mother's Day, dance recital drawing near - yikes!

But May also brings another lovely kit from Memorable Seasons to play with - Simple Stories, Fabulous!  I love working with Simple Stories because everything you need is included in their collection kits and all the lines work so well together.

I created this card in a matter of minutes using the journaling cards included in the collection kit.

Materials Used:  Simple Stories, the Twinery
I also created this layout using both the Fabulous collection and the Year-o-graphy collection, they mix so well!
Materials Used:  Simple Stories, Cricut


We also create a layout based on a member's gallery each month at Memorable Seasons - I loved the burlap that our May MOTM used and here is my version using my Fabulous collection:

Materials Used:  Burlap, Simple Stories, Fiskar


Thanks for stopping by, I will have some more Fabulous layouts to share later this week!