52 Inspirations - Week 3

So, to continue with the 52 Inspirations ... here's my layout for Week 3:


Week 3's kit is from Vicki Stegall. The only things not from that kit are the photo mask and the notepad (both from Sue Cummings). Remember, that if you sign up for the subscription, you get all the kits for a seriously reduced price!

It's just an everyday photo of everyday life ... which is what I think it's supposed to be :)

I hope you like it!

*~*~*

52 Inspirations

I tried to do the 365 thing last year. It's a really cool idea where you take a picture every day and all compiled, they tell the story of your life. You can work on your photography and take pictures of things you normally wouldn't ... and it's a great idea.

I would say that I took at least one picture for about 355 days last year and I ended up with thousands upon thousands of photos. I believe my biggest month had over 9,000 ... wow.

However, I did not do a good job beyond that. I did choose some photos for every day. And I did print some of them out. I journaled sporadically and probably less than half the year done. So ... now my goal (and it's almost March) is to finish last year's 365 project. I feel very sad about this ...

I knew right away that I would continue with this project for 2010. Yes, I do want to take pictures of my life and tell the stories of our life for my children ... but I need a break and to catch up with my HUGE to do list.

But, I do need inspiration and I do need the push to get things done. So, I've subscribed to the 52 Inspirations at Oscraps. They have at least one mini-kit a week and I think I can handle that - at least one layout a week :) I've found it challenging because the themes or colors aren't always what I was thinking ... I'm still debating if I should find a picture from last year or earlier in the year for every week or if I should see the new theme and take a new picture for that theme ... we'll see :)

Anyway ...

Here's my first Inspired layout - from the Week 2 kit by Sue Cummings.

I made it simple and then expanded ... here's my second version with extra word art:

I like it because it ties in the pink from Samantha's dress.

The 52 Inspirations is a very cool idea. You sign up once and pay a small price, and get over 52 separate mini-kits with many extras! You just come back every week to see what has been added! You could also buy them individually. If you paid for each one individually, you'd pay well over 20 times the original price. I highly recommend it - you never know what gems you'll find and we all need to be inspired!

I hope you like it!

*~*~*

Woodland Whisper

Danielle Young has a new kit out! This is a collaboration with the fabulous Kitty from Kitty Designs!!! It's beautiful. So beautiful.

I LOVE IT!!! :) And the things people have done with it already ... oh, those girls are genius!

Here's my first layout with it:


Samantha being adorable :) Awww ...

So, head on over to Oscraps and check it out here! It's on sale right now for 20% off! Woohoo!

I hope you like it!

*~*~*

Love is in the air!

Lots of new stuff! It's almost Valentine's Day and people are excited!

As you know, Danielle Young just came out with a new kit and know for a fact that a new one is in the works and almost done!!! I'm so excited about it and I know you can't wait, either :)

Sue Cummings is hard at work with the 52 Inspirations and she's just released two new kits and more are on the way!

I am going to be busy with these goodies and I'll show you soon what I come up with. So many ideas, so little time :)

Also ... have you checked out Patina Soul? I just stumbled across this blog today and oh my! The antique goodies! It's inspiration waiting to happen! They're offering a gift certificate, so head on over as quick as you can!

Oh, I'm so excited for the possibilities! I feel so inspired that I can't sit in my seat! I'm jumpy :) So ... let's hope that I can have an hour or two to work it out of my system before duty calls :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

*~*~*

Girl Time

This is the companion to the layout I just posted, Tootsies. We all went to get our nails done together in the Fall for birthdays ... and had some girl time :)



Using Danielle Young's Flutter kit now available at Oscraps.

I hope you like it!

*~*~*

News from Danielle Young

After a brief holiday hiatus, Danielle Young has a new page kit coming out - Flutter.
Here's my first layout ... I can't wait to do more because I LOVE butterflies :)




And in other exciting Danielle Young news ... she's hosting a $20 giveaway on her blog!

It's to celebrate her participation in a new online scrapping site: ScrapHD.com. It looks really cool and I can't wait to check it out! Go have a look!

*~*~*

Once again, I hope you like it :)

*~*~*

Craft Fair - Framed Scripture Graphics

I never got around to posting about the Craft Fair that happened here in late November. So, here goes:

My three sisters and myself (in the hat). One had gorgeous floral creations and one had fabulously beautiful jewelry and the last was there for moral support and childcare (thank God for that!)

I've participated in my church's annual craft fair (and some others) for four years. I have sold a variety of items including, but not limited to, pre-made scrapbooks, calendars, notepads, journals, dayplanners, squashbooks, hanging scrapbooks, paper ornaments, and cards. I didn't think I was going to do it this year because of the move and Kevin's deployment. I didn't have a huge stash of pre-made items and didn't want to take the time to make more.

But, it was also the time that I was starting to look ahead to Christmas and prepare those gifts. I had an idea (which I thought was pretty good) of revising an earlier project and customizing it for some of my friends as gifts. Then, I thought about how easy it would be to reproduce copies en-masse and sell them at the craft fair ... this brilliant idea turned into something of a monster, but much easier to deal with than any other paper crafting project.

First, let me explain about the project. Last year, I did an inspiration piece by creating a background graphic with a Scripture verse on it that was missing one word. (You can see my post about it here) I then had the graphic printed out in an 8x10 by the local printshop and purchased a suitable frame with a mat. I chose some chipboard letters (Making Memories) and painted them with Tim Holtz crackle paint and adhered them to make the missing word. The end result:

(Yes, bad picture)

So ... I consulted my friends and got the thumbs up - i.e. they wouldn't mind if their gift wasn't exclusive. So, I gathered some more Scriptures and created a bunch of different graphics in different colors (and then different sizes) ... and bought a ton of different frames in all sizes ... and then the only issue was the letters.

It would be expensive to buy a whole alphabet for just one word when chipboard alphas are at least $5 each, so I thought of using a die-cutting machine. My friend had a Cricut, so I borrowed hers and borrowed some alphabet cartridges from her and another Cricut-owning friend and tried it out (I now have my own little Cricut as a housewarming gift and love it! even though buying my own cartridges will be expensive!).

Then came the beginning of my problems. The fonts weren't quite what I envisioned. I'd picked some Scriptures with longer blank words. The Cricut wouldn't cut the chipboard very well and trying to paint paper or cardstock with crackle paint was disastrous. The crackle paint in the color I was planning to use the most was all dried out. I was running out of time! The list goes on ... so I ended up moving on to Plan E and digging out all of my alpha stickers, chipboard letters, etc and coming up with a custom word for each graphic ... it was quite time intensive and I found that I had a whole lot more alphas than I had realized!

The end result was fabulous, but you can't really see it from the photos I took:

The colors popped, the letters were fabulous, the frames were awesome ... and I love it! They sold quite well actually and this was the first craft fair that I actually made money ... I still have a lot left over, though. As usual, it's the smaller, cheaper ones that really sell, so I have a lot of large ones left.

Almost every single graphic is an original photograph that I took myself, re-colored, layered together and used to create a unique design.

This is my sister's handiwork:

Once again, the pictures do not do the work justice. They do such good work!

I hope you enjoyed this review of our craft fair!

Any extra inventory is available to any interested parties and custom items can be made!

*~*~*

More computer problems ...

Hello All!

Do you all have this many problems with your computer? I've had two external hard drive failures in under two months! Plus the one that happened last January ... so three in one year plus the PC crash and Internet problems ... yikes! Good thing I spent hours backing up on to DVD and CDs as well! I've spent the last few days downloading all of the stuff off the DVDs to create a new file system and backing it up onto yet another external hard drive!

It's all very frustrating, but at least I didn't lose all my family photos or something ... that would have made me cry.

So ... once I get that settled down, I will be starting to post the projects and layouts I have been working on in the past few months! Exciting! I think I may be able to post again today! Yippee!!!

Thank you all for being patient!

*~*~*

Happy Holidays!

Hello Everyone! I hope you had an amazing holiday!

I was so unbelievably busy and I'm still in the throws of things ... we had the holiday celebration at my house this year and you can imagine what kind of cleaning and preparing that entailed. I had this wonderful vision of handmade gifts for everybody and homemade Christmas cookies, cakes and pies ... and I didn't get half of what I wanted to do done. But! I did get the most important things done and that's what matters. (You'll be seeing some of that in my next few posts)

We're expecting a house guest tomorrow. My recently engaged brother is flying his fiance here to see us (all the way from Texas) and the kids and I will have the honor of having her stay with us. We're looking forward to it, but it means we're still very busy! Maybe I can get her caught on the scrapbooking bug :)

So, once again, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and I'll be posting again soon!

Christmas Cards

Merry Christmas!!!

I love this time of year! Peace on Earth! Good will toward men! Family, friends, food, THE DECORATIONS! I love it :) But most of all, Jesus (the greatest gift of all) is the Reason for the Season :)

I always have a hard time choosing a photo for our card. I like to do a special Christmas-themed photo shoot. This year, with Kevin in Kuwait, it wasn't going to happen. I was really unsure of what to do, but finally decided that a multi-photo card was the way to go. That way, you're not putting all the significance on one photo.

I usually do 4x8 cards. It's easier and cheap and you get free envelopes. They don't make 4x6 envelopes.

But, I've decided this year to write our very first family newsletter. So much has happened in the past year and this is the simplest way to to get it all out there to our family and friends. So, since I'd be using letter envelopes, I figured I could get away with a 4x6 print.

This is my Christmas card (if you're on my mailing list, you can pretend to be surprised):




I immediately thought about my Christmas card when I saw Sue Cumming's 'Christmas Stamps #2' and that is the framework for my card. I cropped and edited the frames a bit. The snowflakes and elements are from Sue Cumming's '52 Inspirations 2008 Weeks 46 & 49'. The label and the alphas are from this year's HUGE Merry & Bright daily download kit.

I think it turned out pretty well. I hope you enjoy it!

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

*~*~*

Little Shop of Sketches Wednesday

Tanya has come up with a fabulous sketch for this week. Here is sketch #60:



You don't have to go with the Christmas theme, but since it's December, I did. Here's my take:

I used the new Danielle Young and Cinzia Designs Collab kit: Oh Joy! available at Oscraps. The word art and titles are from Sue Cummings' Merry&Bright (awesome concept with a mini-kit for every day in December!)

As always, head on over to Little Shop of Sketches to see the other fabulous layouts and be sure to tell us if you do one as well!

I hope you like it!

*~*~*

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!



We did our annual running of the Manchester Road Race (~5 miles) in the morning. I convinced my brother-in-law to join my brother (so glad he's back from school - missed him last year) and I. Alas, I finished a close third out of us three. (The other people in the picture are family friends or friends/family of those family friends ...)

Then, we had 13 people over for a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner. I must really thank my lovely mother and sisters for doing so much to help with the cooking, baking, cleaning, decorating and last but not least, childcare. I couldn't have done it without them!

I hope your holiday was just as good as mine!

*~*~*

Oh, have you been wondering where I've been? Well, I've been right here ... but with no Internet! I thought my cyber woes were over, but they were just beginning.

I was actually in the middle of a fantastically long and detailed blog post with several pictures ... and my browser 'encountered a problem and needs to close' which completely ruined everything.

Between the browser problems and the recurring Internet connection problems, I'm about ready to pull out some hair ... but God is good and I will choose not to let this get me down!

*~*~*

Change of pace ... GGS trade album (August)!

I went a bit old-school for my August Girls Gone Scrappy Trade Album.

My trade partner, Kathy, has a very ecclectic style, so I didn't know if she would like this simple one, but she did. I must admit, the hanging scrapbook is a cool idea :)


This is a hanging scrapbook. You can check out my gallery to see some other awesome ones I've done :) I think it's a rather cool idea and there a lot of different ways to implement it. This time I cut my own pages out of chipboard, punched the holes and connected them with book rings. I also tried to create the pages before attaching them to the chipboard ... it's a bit different than other times, but I did it because of the metal accents (brads punching through the background paper). We'll see if it works out better or worse.

I apologize for the sideways pictures. I didn't notice until just now and I don't want to have to change them all and re-upload them ... so just tilt your head to the left and imagine ...

Cover:


So, I used some very old Plum Mist patterned paper from Close to my Heart, some metal words from Making Memories, misc. ribbon and other metal accents (mostly from CTMH).

Page 1 & 2:
Flip open the first page and you get two photo mats and the one on page 2 hinges open for space for more pictures.

Page 3 & 4:

Page 4 has a tri-fold mat that folds and opens out for room on both sides.

Page 5 & 6:

Page 5 has tags behind and in front of the photo mat.

Page 6 has a fold out held closed by photo turns.

Pages 7 & 8:

Page 7 has a tag. And because the page is longer, the tag is, too :)

Page 8 has a fold open page held closed with a photo turn.

Pages 9 & 10:

Page 9 hinges to turn up (or down) with a tag behind the hidden space. Triple layers :)

Page 10 has a pocket and tag.

Pages 11 & 12:

Page 11 has a tag and a fold-open page.

Pages 13 & 14:

Page 13 is triple layered again, but not quite as hidden with two tags and a pocket.

Page 14 (and the end) has a fold out page.

That concludes my purple hanging scrapbook.

I hope you like it!

*~*~*

Today - Samantha

Alright, this is an odd one. I don't even know where to begin describing it.

Dawn, from Createwings Designs, gave a freebie mini-kit on her blog about a month ago. She then had a contest for people to use the freebie.

At the time, I had no digi stuff on my computer (because it crashed - long story), so free was nice. I really didn't have any digi stuff to work with. I finished it about 90% of the way (using Danielle Young's Halloweentown tree - it's what I had!) and then didn't have anything for a title ... so I forgot about it. The blog contest is long gone, but I finished it up and thought I'd post. I just inserted some word art from Sue Cummings.

It's a little odd, but still cute ... I think.

I hope you like it (or at least smile)!

*~*~*

Little Shop of Sketches Wednesday (a day late)

Yes, it's Thursday. Due to a combination of forgetfulness, procrastination and computer challenges, I am posting a day late. Please forgive me.

Sketch #55:

And this is my take on it:

5 Siblings = one big happy Family!

I used all Danielle Young elements from several different page kits. Let me know if you want to know about something specific.

I hope you like it!

*~*~*

Sue Cummings Design Challenge at Oscraps - Day 1

Almost every week, there's a digital scrapbooking design challenge at the Oscraps forum. This past week Sue Cummings was highlighted and she gave away a beautiful freebie page kit called Each and Every Day.

I had this horrible photo that I wanted to try and salvage. The original photo looked like this:

Why waste a good photo, right?

You tell me, did I salvage it?

Because of course, each and every day I love my husband :)





I hope you like it!

*~*~*

I love you :)

As you may already know, I've quite a few computer problems in the last few months. My laptop broke around the move, but I fixed it. My Internet connection took weeks to get resolved and they still haven't finished the install (must remember to call about that - again). Our family computer was having major problems and was so friend that we couldn't even re-format it and re-install the operating system, so we're now in the market for a new computer. My computer things were all packed away - including my back-up discs and I just had the hardest time getting enough time and focus put together to do a lot of computer work instead of all the other work that I needed to do. My laptop doesn't have enough memory to house my digi kits and my home computer is in limbo, so I didn't have any digi supplies even if I had the time and inclination to create something.

Now things have settled down a bit and I've been able to slowly start up my hobby again :)

One of the first things I did was download some of Danielle Young's new kits that will soon be available at Oscraps.

The layout above has a freebie from Createwings Designs (the heart and wings) and the rest is from the Family collab kit by Danielle Young and her black alpha from Halloweentown.

Sometimes it's really frustrating not having the ability to browse for just the right thing and get what you want ... but sometimes it's nice to not have to worry about having the right thing. You just work with what you've got :)

I hope you like it!

*~*~*

Caramel Coffee Coolatta

An ode to coffee:

Using Danielle Young's Cream and Sugar kit.

I took a picture of my favorite (for the moment) drink - a Caramel Coffee Coolatta. I didn't end up using any of the wonderful word art in the kit, but it's a great kit for helping to record that caffeinated moment in your life - or more :)

I hope you like it!

*~*~*

Little Shop of Sketches Wednesday

It's that time again! Little Shop of Sketches time. And I have a treat for you today! Two layouts! We're up to sketh #54, but I'm also going to show you my version of sketch #51. I did it a few weeks ago, but wasn't able to post on my blog again yet ...

Anyway ... Here's Sketch #51 from Little Shop of Sketches:

And here's my take on it:

I used Basic Grey papers, CTMH brads, spiral and photo turns, AC Thickers and misc. string.

I'm doing a series of one photo layouts for each member of my family. I'm going to put them together in an album for my mom. The title is always their name and the journaling (not complete on this layout yet) says "She/He is ... (words from other family members to describe them) ... and so much more!"

You can see my first layout in this series here: Abby

I have more than one more in progress and hopefully I'll get them finished soon. Oh, the joys of moving :)

*~*~*

And here's more fun:

Sketch #54:

And my take on it:

I used the Sue Cumming Each & Every Day kit from Oscraps and Danielle Young's Family collab kit coming soon to Oscraps.

We took the photo on an abnormally (for the time) hot day in October when Kevin was back for his 4-day pass. It was so nice to have Daddy back! I didn't quite realize it until he was back, but life isn't complete without him here.

I hope you like them!

*~*~*