Cropping by the Numbers

ScrapShotz is having a "Cropping by the Numbers" online crop January 18, 19, 20. I wonder what wonderful things they'll come up with. Drop by if you get a chance. I'm hoping to take in at least some of it and maybe even manage to do at least one scrap project of some sort. I haven't scrapped in ages!

Scrappy Mail - ATC's

I wrote the title to this post and then thought - you know, that could be taken the wrong way, but scrappers know what I mean. :) A while back I signed up for an ATC swap at ScrapShotz. This week I recieved my ATC's from the swap. I have to track my DD down to get some pictures for me to post.

I had heard about ATC's on the scrapping boards but I had never actually seen one. I was curious about them and went searching. ATC's are Artist Trading Cards. They are like baseball cards for scrappers. :) Seriously. They are the size of baseball cards and scrappers make them and trade them withone another. ATC swaps are often arranged on scrapping boards. Sometimes the swaps are set up such that everyone that signs up for the swap has to make enough ATC's so that everyone can get one, though this is not always the case. Often there is a theme given for the cards, but once again that is not always the case.

I had noticed that there were ATC swaps on the ScrapShotz board and I watched with interest. I finally decided to give it a try, though I really didn't have a clue what I was getting into. For this swap everyone that signed up only had to make 3 ATC's. The organizer was going to collect them all send send everyone out 3 different ATC's when they all were recieved. I figured I could manage to make 3 ATC's. There also was a theme - snowflakes. At the time I had my sister's embossing supplies and I figured I could do something with her snowflake stamp and embossing supplies. I played with a number of different designs until I finally decided on one. I took a picture of mine before I sent them off but it didn't turn out that great. I may try to find it and post it later.

The ATC's that I recieved are wonderful! Mine are from Ladybug1, Corinne, and Wendy. Each of them are so unique and beautiful.

Problem is, now I'm wondering what all the others are like and wishing that it had been one of those swaps where you got one of all of the designs. :) Oh well. I may just have to give this a try again.

Busy, busy, busy...

...but not busy scrappin'. Bummer. :) I've been so busy around here lately that I haven't been on the computer much and I haven't done any scrappin'. I've kind of given up the idea of getting any done for a while, but I keep hoping that maybe I might be surprised and be able to sneak some in somewhere along the way. DD#1 and I have been busy with school, Christmas preparations, and looking after little ones. Besides our own little one, we had two other little ones join us for our days this week. We are now sitting a 10 month old and a three year old - makes for some pretty intersting days as DD#2, at 2 years old, is used to being the center of attention all the time and also used to having all her things to her self. So that explains why I've had no time for scrappin'.

I have, however, been keeping my eye on some scrap happening at some sites incase I manage to find any time in there somewhere. At Creative Crafts and Stickers they are having a 12 Challenges of Christmas contest. ScrapShotz DT have some great challenges up for December. Scrapbooking Fanatics is having their only crop of December this weekend. You still have a little time to some if you're intereted. Scrapbook Heaven has a Christmas Party planned for December 18. They are also working month long on an ABC's of Christmas Album. And then there are all the blog challenges and ideas that I have saved in my google reader starred items list. So many fun things to do! And no time to do them. :(

Where did that week go?

I can't believe it's been a full week since I posted! Wow! I really don't know where that week went.

I seem to have lost my mojo for scrappin', but I did manage to get a couple of things done last week. I hesitate to share them because the pictures are so terrible. I used my DD's camera and I guess I need some lessons on how to get good pictures with it. She always seems to get great pictures.

Inspired by this post at the Savvy 'n' Sassy Blog, I made myself a notepad. It ended up being much bigger than I thought it would be. It holds 80 sheets! Mine is pretty plain but be sure to check out the sample in the blog post linked above. The instructions are all there and it's very easy to make. I made mine a little different because I decided to hide the ribbon holding it all together under the patterned paper and I didn't bother to add any embellishments to fancy it up cause I'm a pretty plain and simple girl at heart. Anyway, here's how mine turned out. The first picture shows it closed and the second shows it opened.





The other creation I managed to do this week is a notebox and notecards. I didn't really have a pattern for this one. I used the cs, pp, and white paper left over from creating the notepad. I had come across this neat idea for a Scripture Memory System and instead of buying a filebox and using store bought file cards and dividers I decided to make my own. The first picture shows the box and in the second you can see the cards and dividers in the box. Once again it's nothing fancy but it serves the purpose.

Unproductive Weekend

Inspite of the great challenges posted at Scrapbooking Fanatics and the wonderful Scrappy Hour project posted at ScrapShotz, I didn't manage to get a thing scrappy done this weekend. Too much going on at home. Saturday was DD#2's second birthday. DS#1 put his truck off the road in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Thankfully he was not hurt in any way but his truck appears to be unfixable. That's just a couple of the major things that kept me from scrapping this weekend, but there were lots of minor things in there too. DS's near miss has me re-evaluting, yet again, how I spend my time and what is truly important in life. I've been making the most of every minute with my family. I will get back to scrapping again because I think it is important to my family but I really need to rethink what my scrapping goals are and work toward them.

Sketch reminded me of Christmas Card Design

I was checking out some blogs this morning and came across Poetic Artistry and the sketch she has posted for her Mojo Monday challenge for this week. Way back in October I had signed up for a Christmas card swap at Creative Crafts and Stickers and Julee's sketch for this week reminded me of the cards I made for the swap, so I decided to repost it. Here's my card again:

Friday Night Crop at ScrapFan

Every second Friday night the DT at Scrapbooking Fanatics puts on a Friday Night Crop (FNC). They post 8 challenges sometime Friday and you have until sometime Sunday to post your creations. I had forgotten about their crops but I just took notes on the challenges for this FNC. If you're looking for inspiration check it out.

Crop Cards

I'm finally getting around to posting the cards that resulted from this weekends crops.

There were two card challenges at Scrapbook Heaven - Holly challenged us to create a Birthday Card and a Fall card. Meanwhile, Jen, at ScrapShotz, gave us a challenge to make 3 cards from on 12x12 sheet! I loved this challenge. I decided to use two of these cards to fulfill the other two challenges. The picture shows the three cards made from the one sheet of 12x12. The birthday card is on the left and the fall card is on the right.



Carla, the card queen of ScrapShotz, posted two great challenges with great instructions. The first one was to create a unique pop-up card.



The second one was to make a cool shaker card. You can't really see it but the image is in a shaker filled with glitter that you can shake around.

The rest of the layouts

Before I head downstairs to watch NCIS and then to bed, I'd better post the rest of the layouts from the crops.

Julie, at ScrapShotz, challenged us to use buttons on a layout and Jenelle, at Scrapbook Heaven, challenged us to use at least 5 buttons.



Susan, at Scrapbook Heaven, challenged us to put all the elements in the center of the page, while Nonie, at ScrapShotz, challenged us to do a simple, clean page.



Still have to post my card creations from the crops yet, but that's going to have to wait until tomorrow. I'm off to watch NCIS. :)

Fun, Fast Layouts!

Little one is sleeping so I'm sneaking in again to post more of my creations from the crops this past weekend. I was keeping an eye on two crops all weekend and I planned my layouts so that they would meet challenges at both crops. I love it when I can do that!

Jen at ScrapShotz's challenge use to create a layout using products all from one line. Holly, at Scrapbook Heaven, challenged us to create a layout with at least 5 embellishments. I used felt flowers, a felt button, real buttons, a frame, and a journaling tag, all from a Jenni Bowlin kit that Ally sent me a while back.



Carla, at Scrapbook Heaven, challenged us to create a layout with a 5 letter or 5 word title, while Aimee, at ScrapShotz, challenged us to use one descriptive word as a title.



Wendy, at ScrapShotz, gave us the interesting challenge to only use pictures that didn't have faces in them! Meanwhile, Susan, at Scrapbook Heaven, challenged us to us at least 5 photos in a layout.



Jenelle, at Scrapbook Heaven, gave us a sketch to use for a layout, while Nonie, at ScrapShotz, challenged us to use at least 3 different distressing techniques in our layout. I had so much fun with this one! I sanded the edges of the pictures, inked the edges of the papers and the cardstock, stamped the patterned paper and cardstock, tore a couple of the pieces of patterned paper, and used paint to put the title on!



Heidi, at ScrapShotz, challenged us to find a layout in the gallery to scraplift. I decided to scraplift Nonie's "You are my Heart". Jenelle, at Scrapbook Heaven, made a list of decorations and we had to choose at least 3 to use on our page. I chose ribbon, brads, and gems.



Little one is awake again so I'll have to finish posting the rest later.

Fast Scrappin'!

While I didn't manage to get much scrapping done over the weekend I did manage to get lots of ideas in my head while going about things around the house so when I finally got some time to scrap, boy did I scrap! I did 2 cards, have two more in the works but not completed, 2 make 'n' takes, and 7 layouts, 5 of which were completed yesterday afternoon! I tell you, that's a rare happening for me to scrap so fast.

Aimee at ScrapShotz posted a couple of really neat Make 'n' Takes at the crop. One was an Envelope Gift Bag. These are super easy to make. I see more in my future. I made mine quite simple because I just wanted to do it quickly to see what it was like. There were some really beautiful ones posted at ScrapShotz this weekend. I stress these are real easy to make and oh so beautiful and functional. Don't just look at mine and think blah. Check out the super ones in the thread at ScrapShotz. They'll blow you away and make you have to try it. Anyway, here's mine:

The other was an Origami Gift Box. It took a while for me to wrap my head around the instructions but it was pretty easy once I started it. Once again mine is real simple but the others posted at Scrap Shotz are just gorgeous!


That's it for my computer time right now. I'll post my other creations later.

Where I'm hanging my hat this weekend

It's way late and I should be in bed but instead I've been checking blogs and boards. Today was DD#1's birthday. I really meant to do a post especially for her but was so busy here all day that I didn't get around to it. I also didn't get around to doing any scrapping. Well, I did start a digi layout for DD this morning and I did manage to do a card tonight but that's it. Hopefully tomorrow will be better, but we'll see. I seem to be having trouble getting myself in gear - that and I need some pictures to scrap.

You'd think I'd be busy scrapping because I sure have plenty of motivation coming at me this weekend.

I'm hanging out at ScrapShotz's last crop of the year and they're promising it's going to be a good one. The prize is wonderful and the challenges are great so far, with lots more still to come.



Same at Scrapbook Heaven's Birthday Celebrations. Wonderful prize and great challenges so far with lots more to come.



It's not to late to join in the fun at either place.

More scrap happy mail!

Wow! I'm really being spoiled lately.

Today I received a lovely surprise package from Jen at Creative Crafts and Stickers. A while back they ran this really cool contest on their board. You can read all about it and see the creations I made for it in this post if you're interested. I had so much fun in the contest and I was really pleased with most of the things I created. Anyway, today I got a package from Jen as a thank-you for participating! How cool is that! The package contained products from Imaginisce Candy Cane Lane Collection - Snowflake Glitter Glamour, Fantastic Freeze, and Poinsettia Vendetta! What beautiful stuff! I can't wait to play with it.

Then tonight a friend came knockin' on the door with another surprise. A mutual friend of ours had received a gift certicate from on online store but when she perused the store she didn't see anything that interested her, as she has a scrapbooking store quite close to her where she gets her supplies. Knowing that I didn't have that luxury, she graciously offered me the gift certificate. I wasn't a member of the store board but the friend that came knockin' was so she suggested I get her to use it for me. I didn't have a clue what to order so I told her to surprise me. What great stuff she picked out! I have some yummy Crate Paper Samantha Collection - the 6 papers and the sheet of bands, tags, and frames! There's also 4 sheets of what I'm assuming is the Bazzill Card stock. Wow! What great stuff!

The only problem now is, after seeing all the great stuff that is out there, how do I go back to being satisfied with the dollar store and WalMart stuff I normally use? :)

Happy Scrappy Mail and Upcoming Online Crops

I just love happy scrappy mail! Today I got a cool card and envelope of stamped bella's from my dear friend Kelly! Thanks, Kelly! Love those bellas! Though I don't have a bella stamp of my own yet, and I stress the yet because it's definitely on my wish list, I now have a pretty good collection of stamped bellas thanks to the kindness of fellow scrappers rakking stamped images. The more I see the more I want them. :) I've yet to try Carla's coloring tips, however. Man do they look good when they're colored! I'm dying to try my hand at it but I have to get me a set of coloring pencils first - they're on my wish list too. :)

Haven't done much scrapping this week - actually, haven't done any. Been too busy. Hoping to get to do some this weekend but we'll have to see. There are two online crops happening that I'm really hoping to get the time to pop in on. I had told DH about it early last week, preparing him to take responsibility of little one so I would be free to scrap. Well, he got a call last night and now he has to officiate games all weekend! I'm bummed! Anyway, I'll be popping in as I get a chance. ScrapShotz's crop starts Friday and is sure to be full of fun. My friend, Carla, recently joined the DT of Scrapbook Heaven and this weekend they are throwing a Birthday Scrapabration. Though I haven't yet taken the plunge and joined the board I am seriously considering it. I hoping to pop in and check out the celebrations if I get a chance.

Update: right after I posted I went and checked out Scrapbook Heaven's schedule for the weekend celebrations. I couldn't resist - I joined. :) I sure hope I get a chance to play.

Google Reader

I love following blogs of all sorts but I found I was wasting a lot of time checking out blogs to see if they were updated only to discover that they weren't so then I wouldn't bother to check them for a while and sometimes I'd forget about them. I had a list on my blog, as well as in my favorties list, that I would try to keep track of but it was a hit and miss sort of thing. Well, thanks to the Barefoot Stamper, I recently discovered Google Reader. What a great thing! I love it! Google Reader helps me keep track of the websites I want to and notifies me when they are updated. I simply have to check into my google reader home page to find out if any are updated. I can read all the updates right there in google reader if I want and if I want to comment on them I can just click on the title and be taken to the post to comment. If I don't have time to really check them out right then I can mark them to be kept for me to go back to later. I just love this thing! No more wasting time checking sites unnecessarily and no more missing new posts. Let me know if you already use it or if you decide to give it a try.

And the winner is...

...me!!!! Yeah!!! I'm so excited! I won the Texas Holdem' Poker game at Sisterhood of Scrap with a flush of diamonds! I was dealt the 2 and 4 of diamonds and didn't think I had much of a chance of winning but got pretty excited when I saw all the diamonds coming out in the community cards. My only fear was that someone else was also dealt 2 diamonds, because their's would have been higher than mine. What a fun game that was! DD asked me what I won and I told her I didn't know if I won anything or not, other than the pleasure of winning the game, and I was perfectly happy with that. Curiosity got the better of me, however, and I had to go search the blog to see if there was a prize for winning the game, and there is! I get a great Daisy D Scrapbook kit! Wahoo!!! There were eleven of us in the game. Bev was looking pretty strong with a pair of aces and Jennifer and Laura were pretty strong with two pairs. Jean didn't have much of a hand but she sure put on a good poker face. This game resulted in some great layouts and tips and memory sharing and a whole lot of fun! Thanks again, Sisters!

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

In honor of Mom and Dad's anniversary, I thought I'd repost a couple of layouts that I created earlier.

Here's one with a picture of them in their dating years and one of their wedding day. This one was a hybrid I created when I didn't know what hybrid scrapping was. :) All the papers were printed from a Free Printable Scrapbook Supply site I discovered first when I started scrapping and didn't have any supplies. The rose images were found on the web, printed off, cut out and stuck on. The title was designed and printed using my computer and then cut out and stuck on.



And here's one with a picture of them on a cruise they went on this past year. This digi was created during a digi scrapping class at Creative Crafts and Stickers.

Card Kit Creations

At ScrapShotz I've been introduced to the concept of Card Kits. They are so much fun! A card kit is an envelope with everything in it to make a card. There are a number of different ways they come into play.

One on one Card Kit Swaps
Sometimes someone will set up a one on one card kit swap where everyone that signs up to play is paired with someone else. Each person must make two card kits - one for themselves and one to mail to their partner. Everyone posts thier creations when they are done.

Card Kit Swaps
Sometimes someone will put out a call for a card kit swap with a particular theme. Everyone that signs up for it has to make a card kit for everyone else that signs up.

Card Kit RAKS
Every once in a while someone will post on the board that they have x number of card kits ready to go in the mail and the first people that sign up will get one, or everyone's names will be put in a draw for them.

I loved watching the creations people made with thet card kits they got. It was so much fun to see what different people did with the same materials. Soon watching wasn't enough and I wanted to play too. :)

Here are some creations I recently completed with card kits I've received:

The very first card kit I received was from a Stampabella Card Kit Rak offered by Carla. It took me a while before I got up the nerve to actually do something with the kit, but I finally managed to do it.



This one was from a Christmas Card kit Rak offered by Virginia:



Here are my creations from a one on one swap put off by Carla. My partner was Wendy. The first card is from Wendy's kit and the second from mine:





Card kits are so much fun! I hesitate to sign up often because I don't have much to offer anyone else in way of stamped images or nice paper but I'm thinking I'm going to have to invest so that I can play more. :)

The game is coming to a close!

Texas Hold'em Poker week is almost over at Sisterhood of Scrap. What a fun game they came up with! By the end of this post I will have completed all the challenges and I think I will end with a pretty good hand.

I finally got around to doing Thursday's challenge tonight. Earlier today DD#1 took DD#2 out to play in the snow from our first snowfall of the year and she took some great pictures while outside. I knew I wanted to use them. I was thinking I was going to do a paper layout but just before starting in on it I was surfing some scrappin' blogs and I got bit by the digi bug again so I decided to go digi with this one. All the elements, except for the red matte behind the one picture, are from Selena's A Formal Affair, though I did recolor all elements except the paper.



I don't think I really need the card for Friday's challenge but I'm going to do it anyway. My mom is crazy. She loves to have fun and is known for all the fun she creates and enjoys. This halloween was no exception. She, and a friend that shall remain nameless for the time being anyway, decided to dress up and go knocking on the doors of their friends. I have many pictures of Mom dressed up ready to go out and have some fun with her friends over the years. She has had a great collection of different masks, teeth, wigs, glasses, outfits, etc. Her dressing up and going out is not confined to Halloween - oh no, Mom dresses up like this all throughout the year. You never know when or where she's going to show up in costume. She has many stories about her dressup times. Maybe some day I'll share some of them. For now, I'm going to leave it at that and share with you the picture she sent me of her and her friend this halloween. Mom is the one with the lovely green face. Love you Mom! :)



There, I've completed all the challenges and I'm feeling pretty confident about my hand, but who knows. We'll find out how I made out tomorrow when everyone lays their cards on the table.

Thanks, Sisterhood of Scrap girls, for a super fun game!

Layout Tag Again

Just finished another game of layout tag, this time at Creative Crafts and Stickers. Unfortunately I made my team lose because I was out of town when it was my turn, but it was still fun to play. I'm also pleased because I managed to design the layout so that it also met a challenge at the Sisterhood of Scrap blog. Here's my creation:



The journaling reads "Anna's first visit to a MacDonald's playplace. She wasn't too sure of it at first and was saying, "No, 'fraid!", but with Sis's help that soon changes to, "'Gain!" November 7, 2007, Gander, Newfoundland"

I finally got to do some scrappin' again tonight and finally got around to putting together cards from card kits I got in the mail. Hopefully I'll get them posted tomorrow.

Home again!

Had a great time visiting with my sister and her husband for the weekend and then my parents for the night last night, but it is good to be home. DD took lots of great pictures that I'm anxious to get to. Haven't done any scrappin' for days! Been some stuff happening at home that kinda knocked the wind out of me for a bit, but hopefully I'll get back at it soon.

Got some great scrappy mail today! Actually, it probably came while we were away but I just got it today. Two card kits from ScrapShotz gals- one from Carla and one from Wendy for a card kit swap. Can't wait to play with them. I have another from Carla that I got a week or more ago that I haven't played with yet either. I'm hoping to get to all of them tomorrow.

Got some great news yesterday! Creative Crafts and Stickers message board is going to stay open! The store and gallery are still going to close but there was such an outpouring of love and good wishes that Jen decided to leave the board open so we could all still connect. Yeah!!

Now, I need to try to catch up on some of the poker game challenges at the Sisterhood of Scrap blog.

Tuesday there was a challenge to share a tip or technique. I have been enjoying creating hybrid layouts lately. There are so many great digital papers and embellishments available and it's great fun to use them on paper layouts. Digital embellishments are great fun to play with because before you print them you can make them as big or as little as you like and you can also adjust the color on them so that you have the color that you need. How you do this depends on the program you use. Once you have it the size and color you want you just print it off and cut it out to add to your layout. A great way to give a digital embellishment more depth on your layout is to layer it a couple of times, and maybe even popdot it. I did this recently with a layout. I wanted to add digital flowers. I sized and colored them how I wanted them first then I printed off a number of copies of them and cut them out and pasted them on top of one another to give the flowers more depth. I was really pleased with the finished porduct.

Today's challenge is to share at least three sites that you get inspiration from. That's pretty easy. My two favorite scrapbooking forums at the moment are Creative Crafts and Stickers and ScrapShotz. I love how fun and friendly the people are at both boards. Ally, at Creative Crafts and Stickers, is an amazing scrapper! I just love her work, and she also creates great sketches. Carla, at ScrapShotz, is amazing with cards! She is the card queen in my books. She regularly posts card challenges with sketches in the forum and also at her blog. I believe she creates most, if not all, of the sketches. Two of my favorite digi designers are Amy and April. Both these gals create wonderful digital kits and elements that you can check out on their blogs.

Digital Scrapbooking Day

Today is Digital Scrapbooking Day and there is so much going on! I'd love to be playing along but I'm far away from my computer and all my digi stuff. I'm visiting my sister for a few days and I don't think she has anything I can use for it on her computer, though I may end up having to try. Mind you, they're all trying to drag me away from the computer. :)

Anyway, if you are into digi scrapping be sure to check out the Digital Scrapbooking Day site. If you've never tried digi scrapping and are curious make sure you check it out too. They are posting hourly challenges and there is lots, and lots, of great info on the site. Leave a note and let me know if you try some of their challenges. I'd love to see what you create.

Fun Game at Sisterhood of Scrap this Week!

I got some sad news yesterday. My favorite scrapping board is closing. :( I'm so sad. I was by far my best scrapping board experience so far. I only joined there this past January but I have so enjoyed it there. The owner is wonderful, the CT is amazing, and the members are so much fun! It really was a fun place to hang. Hopefully we'll all still be able to hang together through the blog, which is going to continue. Plans are to continue to offer challenges and inspiration through the blog adn there's even talks of a newsletter through the blog. Won't quite be the same but it sure is better than nothing. I wish Jen nothing but the best and I'm so thankful to her for being upfront with us about the closure rather than just let it sizzle out. The board isn't sceduled to close until the last week of November and I'm sure there will still be lots of great stuff happening there until then.

Now, this morning I got some good news! Sisterhood of Scrap is playing a game of Texas Hold'em at their blog next week. Sounds like a lot of fun and there's a great prize for the winner too. Be sure to check it out soon. If you want to play you have to email them before Monday so that they can deal you in.

I love combining challenges!

It's something I used to do a lot but haven't done so much lately, but I just love when I manage to do it. I managed to plan this double pager so that it met 4 different challenges! Two of the challenges were DT challenges at ScrapShotz and two were from an email crop amongst friends.

Aimee had given us an October Quoted Inspiration challenge to use a great quote by Judy Garland as inspiration for a layout. I loved this quote and thought of my DD as soon as I read it. I knew I had to use it on a layout about her. Though it doesn't show up at all in the picture the quote is written on the right hand side of the two pager. It says "Always be a first rate version of yourself, instead of a second rate version of somebody else." One thing that I love about my DD is that she is not afraid to be herself and I absolutely love who she is.

In Wendy's Sixth Sense challenge she posted a layout she had done and challenged us to do a layout inspired by her layout. I loved her layout and decided to scraplift it so her layout gave me the basic design for my double pager. Her's was just a single page but I just mirrored it to make it a double pager.

I have a great group of friends on an email list. We are a group of Christian home educating mothers from all across Canada. The list is special because everyone on the list has been known in real life by someone on the list and invited to the list by that person. We are a very close knit group. Recently we discovered that a number of us were into scrapbooking so we set up a special list for us to share our scrapbooking. Every once in a while we put on a crop through the list. We are in the middle of a week long crop right now.

One of the challenges was to use stamps in a layout. Once again it doesn't show up well in the picture but in real life it looks real cool. I used an Autumn Leaves Flower stamp and versa mark ink to stamp all the plain cardstock I used in the layout. It looks really neat in person.

Another of the challenges was to use 5 or more different ribbons. I had just recieved my prize from winning the Sisterhood of Scrap Card day contest and in it were a bunch of beautiful ribbons. I used 5 of them on the double pager.

My DD is a hat fanatic. She's rarely seen without a hat of some kind on her head. She has dozens of them, all different styles, and she looks great in them all. I had decided I wanted to use some pictures of her in her hats and she happened along while I was picking them out. She started talking about her hats and how much she loves them and how each one makes her feel different and she said the phrase "you have to feel your hat." I loved it, and decided I had to use it as the title of the layout.

So, here's what I created:

Mini album - finally!

I finally managed to get pictures of the mini album that I made a while back. I am really pleased with how it turned out. Jen, at Creative Crafts and Stickers, challenged us to make a fall themed mini album, while Amy, at the same place, challenged us to do a hybrid project. At the same time, Heidi, at ScrapShotz, also gave a mini album challenge and included instructions on how to make an accordian fold mini album. All of these challenges were inspiration for the mini album I created. The album's theme is pictures of my children taken in the fall. I created the cover, title pages, and name tags digitally and printed and pasted them into the mini album. Love how that turned out! It took some figuring out but I finally figured a way to use the accordian fold album so that I could tie it shut with ribbons on both sides and so that all the pictures on one side were of the boys and the other side of the girls. I just love the final product! And, yes, Mom, it's a present for you. I'll bring it to you this weekend. :)

The top picture here shows the cover and then the next two show both sides of the album opened out:



I have some other things to post too but I think I'll wait until tomorrow to post them.

Layout Tag Again

I can finally post my layout from the layout tag game at ScrapShotz. It is so much fun to see how that layout changed as it passed hands! You can see all the layouts if you scroll down through the pages at the link to ScrapShotz above, but here's mine:



I haven't managed to borrow a camera yet to get pictures of the mini albums. I also have to get a picture of the layout I did at an actual real live crop this past Friday night! It was great to have a night out but I didn't accomplish much scrap wise, but I did manage to do one layout. I don't especially like the layout, but it's done. The crop was a part of the Creative Memories Great Gathering and I found out about it through a Facebook Page. It was put off byWendy Power and Renee Mason. When I finally manage to borrow a camera and get pictures of the mini albums I'll post the layout, as well as a couple of cards I've completed.

This Weekend's Layouts

While I'm not a fan of Halloween, I couldn't resist checking out the fun at Creative Crafts and Stickers Creepy Autumn Crop this weekend. I had a little trouble getting into anything there at first but finally managed to wrap my head around some things I could do for some of the challenges. In the end I completed 3 layouts and a mini album.

The first layout was inspired by Jess's Title Challenge. She listed some titles to inspire us. I tried some new techniques on this one. I used a stencil and acrylic paint to paint a border around the cardstock. I also did the title with stencils and paint.



This next layout was inspired by Ally's Sketch Challenge.



The last layout was inspired by Tara's photo challenge. One of the games at the crop was a photo treasure hunt run by Tara. She posted a list of things that we had to try to get pictures of. One of the things on the list was a horse in a field. DD loves horses and she was helping me with the treasure hunt and she took some beautiful pictures of a horse in town that she likes to visit once in a while. When Tara posted the challenge to use one or more of our treasure hunt pictures in a layout I knew right away which ones I wanted to use. The design of the layout is based on a Christy Mack sketch which was featured at the Sisterhood of Scrap blog.



I just remembered that I actually did two mini albums this weekend - one I just finished tonight and the other that still doesn't have photos or embellies yet. I'll post about them tomorrow if I get a chance.

Christmas Card Crop

Thanks to the two great crops I participated in this weekend, I had a very productive scrapping weekend. I made 9 Christmas cards and 3 layouts. I also started one mini album and have plans in my head for more mini albums, cards, and layouts, but I didn't have time to do any more this weekend.

The 9 completed cards are thanks to ScrapShotz's "12 Cards of Christmas and a Mini-album in a Pear Tree" Crop. At first I wasn't sure how much I was actually going to get to do because my one and only Christmas/Winter related stamp is a snowflake. I have absolutely no Christmas sentiment stamps and the alphabet stamps that I have are really too big to make them to fit the cards, but I came up with an alternative that I hadn't thought of before and I was quite pleased with how it turned out. I printed what I wanted using a program on my computer! Anyway, here's my cards:

This one was inspired by Julie's CrissCross Card Challenge. Julie posted great instructions for making this unique card style. I used yummy paper that Carla sent me in a wonderful Rak last week. Thanks again, Carla! The card is actually like a little pocket into which you insert a notecard type thing. The picture shows the card tucked in the pocket and then out of the pocket.



Jen's Whimsical Monochromatic Card challenge was the inspiration for this one. The stamped image was part of teh RAK from Carla. I colored it using pastels and added some glitter to it.



Carla's 5 Step, 5 Minute Christmas Card Challenge took me way more than five minutes to created but I had fun doing it and will probably do more like it, especially after seeing all the great creations others came up with for this challenge. The top picture shows the card closed and the bottom picture shows it opened. Once again I used papers from Carla's great RAK.



This was a fast, easy one inspired by Nonie's Scraplift Challenge.



Another fast and easy one was inspired by Wendy's Card Sketch Challenge.



Amiee's Trimming the Tree Challenge had me stumped for a while but I'm pleased with what I came up with.



I had great fun with Carla's Non-Traditional Christmas Card Challenge. I used another of the many stamped images Carla sent me in the RAK. The top picture shows the front of the card and the bottom one shows the inside.



Had great fun with Aimee's Frosty Footprints Challenge! The challenge was to trace a child's foot print and to use the trace to make a snowman for the front of a card. I also used a technique my sister told me about. I glued a used dryer sheet onto the footprint and sprinkled it with glitter. I used some bling for the eyes and buttons, some ricrac for the scarf and cut out a hat. I also cut a piece of white paper to make a snow bank and cut out a couple of trees from another paper to put on the snow bank.



Here's another fun one inspired by Carla's Pop-Up Christmas Card challenge. I cut a tree out of a patterned paper to use as the pop-up and made a fun card to give someone who had their tree fall over on them last season. The picture on the left shows the front of the card and the right shows the inside.



I'll post about the other crop and my creations for it tomorrow, hopefully, right now little one needs my attention.

Lots of Layouts this week!

I've had great fun creating layouts this week. My inspiration were sketches from a few different places.

Ally's sketch on the Creative Crafts and Stickers blog was the inspiration for this one. I also used mostly materials from the CC&S's October kit which Ally rakked to me.



Used materials from the same kit for this one, which was inspired by a Patti Hutchinson sketch that was posted at Sisterhood of Scrap.




This double pager was inspired by a blog sketch at SnapShotz and also by Julie's October Catch Phrase challenge to use the phrase "eye on the prize" as inspiration for a layout. The sketch was actually for just a single page but I just mirrored it to make a double pager.

Scrappin' Tag Games

I love playing scrappin' tag games! I actually posted a post about it on my old blog where I explained all about it but I thought I'd do it again on this blog just in case someone might not know what it is. Also, the game is fresh on my mind because I just finished a game with a group of friends and I'm in the middle of a game on ScrapShotz.

I was first introduced to the game by a friend. She organized a game for a group of us friends to play online. It was so much fun! I was hooked.

Here's how it works. An organizer decides to organize a game and asks for people to sign up if they're interested. People sign up to play and the organizer makes a list of them in the order they will be IT. The organizer picks out either a layout or a sketch and, either does a layout herself based on it, or else forwards it to the first person on the list to do so. Once the first person is finished they usually forward the layout they created back to the organizer, who then forwards that layout on to the next person in line. This continues with each person creating a layout based on the layout of the person ahead of them until everyone has had a turn. Then comes the big reveal when everyone gets to see all the creations everyone made. It is so much fun to see how things change as they go through the line.

The tag game can also be made into a race. I was introduced to this idea at Creative Crafts and Stickers. Here they divide the list of players into two teams and the teams try to race each other to the finish. Sometimes each team starts with the same layout but sometimes they start with different layouts. Personally I like it best when both teams start with the same layout because I find it even more interesting to see how the same layout changes as it goes through two different teams. The race adds a little more excitement to the game but it's really fun either way.

The game I just finished was another one with my online group of friends. We're just some Canadian home educating homes that hooked up on the internet and this past year we discovered that there was a group of us that were interested in scrappin'. Here's the layout I did for the game:

Past Weekend Creations and Online Crops this coming Weekend!

I have been nursing a bug all weekend so I didn't go out anywhere. That gave me some time to create. Yesterday I printed pictures for and planned basic layouts for 5 layouts, one of which is going to be a double layout. I even managed to complete 2 of them yesterday. One I can't post yet because it's part of a layout tag game so I have to wait until the other players are finished. The other I will post in this post. Now to find the time to do the others. I think they will come together pretty quickly because all I have to do is pick out the papers and embellies and put them together. I'm hoping to have them all done before the end of the week, because I hope to have a busy weekend scrapping for crops I'll tell you about shortly. :)

Anyway, here's the layout I can post from this weekend. It was inspired by a SnapShotz Blog sketch. It's my first creation using the wonderful October Kit (full of wonderful Jenni Bowlin merchandise) at Creative Crafts and Stickers. The kit was an unbirthday gift from Ally. Thanks again, Ally! I'm doing my best to stretch the kit as far as possible so I even cut out the middle of the papers that I used to mat the photos! Couldn't imagine wasting that beautiful paper by hiding it behind a picture. :) So, here's the layout:



Looking for something to do this weekend? Scrap Shotz are holding a 12 Cards of Christmas Crop and promises to throw in some challenges for non-card makers too. That's where I'm hoping to spend most of my weekend, but Creative Crafts and Stickers are having a Creepy Autumn crop and their crops are always full of fun so I'm going to have to pop in there when I get a chance too. If your looking for something to do you don't have to look any further than these two places. I'm sure they'll keep you busy, and you'll have lots of fun. :)