Saturday, November 29, 2008

Haven't been postin'...

...but I have been scrappin', problem is most of it is stuff that I can't post yet! I did a couple of layouts for layout tag games that are ongoing and I can't post them until the games are done. I really like how they turned out and I'm anxious to post them, but I have to wait.

I just realized that I do have a few creations that I haven't posted here. They were all inspired by challenges in the Apprentice Game at Love Bug.

This one was inspired by an ad challenge. We also had to use at least 5 pictures and no patterned paper. Here's what I came up with:



This one was also inspired by an ad inspiration challenge:



This one was inspired by a progressive challenge. I've done a few of these porgressive challenges before but this was the first time where we had to post pictures of our progress as we went along, and I really liked that. Our first step was to gather the supplies, then we had to cut them according to instructions. Then we had to adhere some according to instructions. Finally we had to put it all together in a layout. It was really fun to do.




This challenge was to use the posted sketch by Traci Boutilier. For this layout I used pictures that Little One took of me a while ago.



This was a challenge to scraplift a layout by a fellow Newfoundlander, Joe. Once again I used a picture that Little One had taken, this time of her big sister.



One more layout and news bulletin before I sign off for the day. :) The layout below is featured on the Sisterhood of Scrap blog today. It was completed especially for them as a sample of the Becky Fleck sketch they are featuring today.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Weekend Scrappy Creations



The layout above was inspired by a few different challenges that I came across this weekend. At Scrapbooking Fanatics Friday Night Crop, the first challenge was a sketch challenge to use the Becky Fleck sketch posted. I loved the sketch and found the perfect pictures for it. At CompuPro Scrapbooking they had an "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" crop happening and one of the challenges was to use something real and something fake on your layout. I used a real piece of chipboard that I inked yellow, but I also traced the chipboard onto patterned paper and cut it out and used that underneath the chipboard. Also, I used a real leaf embellishment, but I also traced around the leaf onto two different patterned papers and cut those out and used those too. Sisterhood of Scrap had a Blog Crop happening and one of the challenges was to use an embellishment cluster. That inspired me to put all the embellishments together in the layout.

The pretty bow below was inspired by a couple of challenges too. ScrapShotz has a monthly Scrappy Hour and in this month's scrappy hour on Friday night Virginia shared instructions on how to make a paper bow. A Make 'n' Take challenge in the crop at CompuPro this weekend included much the same instructions so this morning I finally found the time to follow the instructions and make the bow. I made it pink for my Little One, whose third birthday is today. This is a real easy project and I will be making more. I'm hoping to find the time to try making a smaller version.



The rest of my creations from this weekend are all meant to be Christmas tree ornaments but truthfully I will not be using them on my Christmas tree. Maybe it's because DH is fire chief but I'm leery of putting paper ornaments on a tree along with Christmas lights. It may be a perfectly safe thing to do, but I'm not willing to take the chance. I may try to incorporate them into decorations elsewhere in the house, such as hanging from swags in doorways, where they will not have any chance of being near any source of heat. We'll see.

The circle globe below was also inspired by a couple of challenges. A while back Lil' Scrappers had a 5th Anniversary Celebration Crop. I didn't get a chance to do any of the challenges at that time but I did record them to hopefully come back to later. This weekend one of the challenges in the CompuPro Crop was to make a Christmas Ornament using 10 circles. This reminded me of Carla's Make n Take challenge in the Lil' Scrappers crop, except you had to use 20 circles. I followed the instructions in the Lil' Scrappers crop and made the creation below. I my try my hand at the other instructions later. Someone in the CompuPro Forum mentioned that they've seen these made with photos and I'm thinking I'd like to give that a try, if I find the time.



Friday someone in one of the forums I frequent, I can't remember which one, pointed out this Christmas Photo Ornament blog post. I had to give it a try and my creation is below. I'm not thrilled with it, but I may try it again. This one was a bit of a rush job just to try it out. It's real easy to do and she gives the instructions in her post.



Later in the weekend a bonus challenge in the CompuPro crop was very much like the photo ornament, except it's just made with patterned paper and the instructions are a little different. The creation below was made for that challenge. It would look much nicer with double sided paper.



And it looks pretty good when it's spinning. :)

Friday, November 21, 2008

Final Challenge for Cre8ive Idol

The 5th, and final, challenge was to use something old, something, new, something borrowed and something blue on a layout, but it was not to be a wedding theme at all. I almost didn't bother doing something for this challenge because I didn't have a clue what to do. After some cheering on from Jackie and Jean, however, I finally came up with an idea, the morning it was due, and set to work. I'm so glad I did because I absolutely love the result. To see all the beautiful creations inspired by this challenge you can check here. Here's what I created:



The something old was the chipboard and patterned paper I used for the letters and journaling pieces. They were actually a part of a RAK that Jackie sent me a long time ago. The new was the rest of the paper and materials and the picture which was taken just a couple of days ago. The borrowed was Carla's sizzix that I used to make the letters. Sorry for still having it Carla. I promise I will bring it back. :) The blue is the bit in the picture and the bling I glued in the letters.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Featured on ScrapShotz blog!

Wow! I was rather shocked just now to discover that the Christmas Tree Ornament set I made recently is featured on Scrap Shotz's blog today! Thanks Amber!

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

I seem to have lost my mojo

Just can't seem to get motivated at all the last couple of days. The last challenge for the Cre8ive Idol contset is due tomorrow but I just can't seem to wrap my head around it at all. I hate the thought of not doing the last challenge but I have absolutely zero ideas! Oh well. Must go spend some time with my girls.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

The Apprentice at LoveBug

Last week I signed up to play the Apprentice Game happening at LoveBug Scrapbooking. What great fun! The game will be going on for quite a while yet - right into the new year, apparently. I don't plan on doing everything but I will be doing what I can and having fun. Here's a couple of things I made inspired by the game this week.

I love this mini albums. I'm made them before and I will make them again.


This is a neat little gift bag that I will definitely be making again too. So easy and so nice!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Layout Tag at CompuPro Scrapbooking

Earlier this week I created a layout for a game of layout tag at CompuPro Scrapbooking. The game finally finished up today and the layouts were revealed tonight, so now I can post my layout. If you want to check out all the layouts inspired by this game you can check here and here. We had so many people sign up for the game that the organizer decided to divide them into two teams. It wasn't set up as a race but it did kind of end up being sort of a race and it was great fun! Here's the layout that I did for the game:

Friday, November 14, 2008

Cre8ive Idol Challenge #4

Challenge #4 was to creative a gift for someone. This one really had me stumped and I didn't have a clue what to do, until the morning of the day it was due! I worked like a busy beaver and managed to get it posted well before the deadline. I am really please with my creation, but I still didn't manage to get any extra points for it. Oh well, it's all in fun. There are some really great gift ideas in the gallery. You can check them all out here. My favorite is the one that won the most points, Leigh's book that she created for her little one. I absolutely love it!

Here's what I created for this challenge - a gift set of tree ornaments and a jar to store the ornaments in:



This is what the jar looks like closed. It is a slightly wider, though shorter, than standard mason jar. I covered the jar with patterned paper. The title on the cover is a rebus meaning "O Christmas Tree".



This is a picture of the jar lid off showing the ornaments stored inside. It acutally holds 4 ornaments, but I think a couple more could fit in there too.



The ornaments are made from the sealing lids of a standard sized mason jar. I glued two such lids back to back for each ornament, securing a hanging loop of ribbon in between the lids, and trimmed the edge by gluing a thin ribbon around it. One side of each ornament has a photo of a different Christmas tree from past years. The edges of the photos are inked and the photo is adhered to a circle of cardstock before being glued onto the lid. The other side of each ornament has an origami Christmas tree, made with patterned Christmas paper, glued unto a circle of cardstock before being glued onto the lid. The storing jar is a larger size mason jar. I cut circles of cardstock to glue to both the outside and inside, so you wouldn't see the actual bottom of the sealing lid when you opened the jar, of the sealing lid before securing the sealing lid to the outer rim.

This is a picture of the origami tree side of one of the ornaments:



Each ornament has a picture of an actually family Christmas tree from a different year on one side. It is really neat to see how different they are. I meant to take pictures of each ones but my batteries died and I hadn't thought about it again until just now. This is a picture of the photo side of the same ornament as above:



I decided to hang them on a tree to give an idea of what they would look like hung on a tree. I think they look pretty good.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Layout Tag at JustCre8!

Yesterday I finished up a game of layout tag at JustCre8. I was the last one on the list so once mine ws submitted I didn't have long to wait for the reveal. I can't decide which I like better, having to wait for the reveal or having to wait for my turn. :) Anyway, the reveal went up last night so now I can post my layout. TO check out all the layouts inspired by this game of layout tag you can check here. It's really interesting to see how the layout changed as it went through the list. Here's my creation:



The picture is of my oldest son and my oldest daughter all dressed up for last year's youth Christmas formal. Our youth pastor's wife is a photographer and she took pictures of all the kids.

See the flower in the layout? I made the biggest layer with patterned paper. I just took one of my few big prima flower and traced around it on the back of the paper and cut it out. Then I went around the edge of the petals with an embossing tool to make it curve up. I then topped it with a prima and a button. Isn't it neat!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Cre8ive Idol Challenge #3

Challenge #3 was an ad challenge. We had to be inspired by one of three ads that were posted. It was a tough deciding which ad to use because all three were inspiring, but I kept going back to one. You can see all the beautiful creations inspired by this challenge here. My layout totally pales in comparision to everyone elses, but I still like it. :) Here's what I did:



Here's what I wrote in my description: "This layout was inspired by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Tourism ad. The colors and the placement of the colored item inspired me. Also the doodles made me think of my little one and the words on the ad "Check More Off" made me think of a check list. I searched on line for a "what your Child should know at" list to use. The list I decided to use is actually for 3.6-4 year olds and she's not quite 3 yet but she's already mastered most of the list. I printed the list and cut it up and made it into a little booklet at the bottom of the layout and checked off the things she's mastered. The booklet is held closed by a fancy paper clip I got in a RAK. You can remove the paper clip to check out the different lists in the booklet. The strip of children holding hands across the top of the page was actually on the list I printed off and I just cut it out and inked the edges. The picture is actually a flip up that reveals two more pictures. The pictures are all of Little One enjoying YouTube all by herself. She shocked me when she did this a few weeks back and I had to get pictures of it. They fit in perfectly with the layout. A funny...I had misspelled "already" when I wrote it on the layout and had to cover it up with the correct spelling. Then it struck me how perfect it is to highlight that word because she does know so much of the list already, so I decided to ink the edges of that and make it stand out."

Here are some close ups:
The skills booklet closed:

The skills booklet opened:

The picture flap opened to reveal more pictures:

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Layout Tag at The Scrapping Bug

Yeah! I can finally show you the layout I made for the game of layout tag I played at the Scrapping Bug. I was the first one to complete my layout and I've been waiting since the 10th of October to be able to post it. You can check out the layouts everyone on my team did here. You can check out the layouts the other team did here. And here's my layout:



I absolutely love how it turned out! This is my beautiful DD and the picture is actually one that she took of herself! She's not only beautiful, she's talented. :)

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Cre8ive Idol Challenge #2

Challenge #2 was to use a rubus in your layout. You can check out all the wodnerful creations inspired by this challenge here. I love them all and can't really decide on one favorite, but two that stand out to me are Jessi's and Jennifer's. Here's what I did for the challenge:



The picture is oneour youth pastor's wife took of our youth pastor cuddling with his new born baby girl in her hospital bassinet, and the journaling is something that he wrote in a thank you note. The rebus is the title - Head Over Heels in Love .

Saturday, November 8, 2008

More layout tag layouts coming soon!

I've mentioned before how much I love playing layout tag. I just finished a game at the Scrapping Bug and I'm waiting for the reveal so that I can post my layout for that one here. Well, I also signed up for layout tag games at CompuPro Scrapbooking and JustCre8 a little while ago. I recieved the layouts I have to scraplift for both of those games today - and I'm away from home and my scrapping supplies! They are great layouts and I can't wait to get to work on them. I won't be getting home until Sunday and I'm not sure how much scrapping I'll get done after the 6 hour drive to get home. It will probably be Monday before I get to it. Hopefully Little One will cooperate and let me scrap with out too much distractions. Maybe I'll set her up with her own supplies to keep her occupied. I've had to do that a bit lately. Anyway, that's my news for today!

Friday, November 7, 2008

Ack! I forgot to post yesterday!

It was a crazy day, and I still can't post the layouts that I would like to post. I'm still waiting for the reveal of the layout tag game before I can post my layout for that. I did finally give the layout to our youth pastors so I could post that one today, but there's one problem - I'm out of town and away from my computer where the picture is for me to post! I'll try to find something interesting to post about tomorrow to make up for this totally meaningless post. Can't make any promises though. :)

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Little One's Photo shoots and Layouts to share - later :)

Little one has taken an interest in taking pictures recently. I can't resist letting her give it a try and she's had a number of different photo shoots lately and I'm one of her favorite subjects, though she also likes taking pictures of herself. :) Here's some of the pictures she's taken.









I have a couple of layouts that I would like to share, but I can't yet.

One of them is the one I completed for the second challenge in the Cre8ive Idol contest. The layout I created is a gift for your youth pastors, who recently had their first child. I want to give the layout to them before i post it on my blog for the world to see. I've been meaning to give it to them for days now, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

The second one is one that I completed for a game of layout tag. I love layout tag! I am actually waiting for my turn in another couple of games on different boards, but I already did my layout for one game almost two weeks ago, but the game is not over yet and you can't post your layout until the game is finished and all the layouts revealed. Hopefully I'll get to do that tomorrow, or the next day at the latest.

The other one is the layout I was up til 1 o'clock last night finishing. It was for the third challenge in the Cre8ive Idol Contest. I'll be able to post that one tomorrow after the reveal tonight.

That's the only scrapping that I've managed to get done lately. I've been so busy with life that I haven't had a chance to do more, much as I'd like to.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

1 hour layout contest

DD and I recently participated in Creative Scrappers October 1 Hour Layout Contest. They put off one of these contests each month and they are a blast! DD has watched me participate in the past and this time she decided to give it a try too. I was thrilled! It was mad scramble time at our house during that hour but what fun! You can check out all the creations from that night here.

Here's what I did:



And here's what DD did:



I absolutely love her layout! She caught that frog just half an hour before the contest started and decided she wanted to take a picture of it to use for the contest. She took the picture herself! I helped her come up with the title and I love the layout! She's so talented and creative!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Cre8ive Idol Challenge #1

The first challenge was to create a layout inspired by an advertizing slogan. What a lot of great layouts were created! You can check them all out here. My personal favorite was Leslie's.

Here's what I did for the challenge:

Sunday, November 2, 2008

I'm participating in ...

...JustCre's 2008 Gr8 Cre8ive Idol Contest! I know I don't have a chance of actually winning, but it's so much fun to participate!

Why bother joining a contest that you have no chance of winning? Because I love to be challenged! What motivated me to join this contest is the fact that there are no eliminations. You can participate the whole way through without having to worry about being kicked out of the contest. In my mind, I am a winner because I am participating.

The challenge lasts 5 weeks, and we're already into the third week. I will be posting the layouts I created for weeks one and two in the next few days.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

A blog posting challenge

Okay, so I think I'm crazy, but.....inspired by Penelope, I, too, am going to attempt to blog every day for the month of November. I didn't actually sign up to be a member of NaBloPoMo, so I am unofficially doing this, but I think it's a great challenge.

I am going to be so busy this month trying to meet the NaNoWriMo challenge that I won't have much time to put much thought into my blog posts but I am going to try to post something everyday.

Anyone else want to join me in this challenge? I'd love to hear from you if you do.

Happy Mail - Prize RAK's!

Last week I received some scrap happy mail.

On World Card Making Day Wendy, at Scrapbooking Fanatics, posted a contest for everyone to post cards they made during World Card Making Day and she had a draw for a winner. I was the lucky one drawn and here's what I got:



My name was also picked for a random prize for participating in the week long World Card Making Day celebrations at Creative Scrappers, and here's what Kristine sent me for that:



Thanks, Wendy and Kristine!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Weekend Creations

Just a quick post right now to be edited later. Having gallery issues at one of my sites so I'm using this as a back up.

Color Personality Challenge




Chocolate Cake Challenge



Pick a Color Monochromatic Challenge

Gives Back Challenge


Color by Numbers Challenge


Metal Mania Challenge




Progressive Cards Challenge



Same Card 5 Colors Gift Set Challenge



Slider Card Make and Take



Monday, October 13, 2008

More Origami Christmas Tree Cards

This weekend I went to visit my mom and dad for Thanksgiving. My sister and her husband and my son and his girlfriend also joined us. Us girls had a couple of scrappin' sessions and I taught them how to make the origami Christmas tree card that I learned how to make at ScrapShotz during World Card Making Day. Here are their wonderful creations!


This is the tree my Mom made. I actually finished decorating the card for her while she made dinner for us. I used some Fantastic Freeze rubons for the finishing touches.



This is the card my son's girlfriend made. It was her first time doing anything like this and she really enjoyed it. Hopefully we'll get to do it again soon. She added a stamped greeting to the front of the card and inked the edges. The tree top is made from two stamped snowflakes, one pink and one yellow, layered on top of one another and then a bit of bling added to the center.





We tried putting a stamped greeting on the inside but the stamping didn't work that well so we had to improvise. We decided to line the inside with the same patterned paper used to make the tree, in part to cover up the botched up stamping, and then stamp the greeting on a peice of paper and stick it on the patterned paper. She also punched a snowflake from the patterned paper and added that to the white paper. I love how it turned out!



This is the card my sister made. She liked the look of the tree tilted. She also used punched snowflake for a tree top and decided to punch some snowflakes from the front of her card for an added touch.



She used patterned paper and then white paper on the inside of her card and added the punched snowflakes from the front of the card to the inside of the card. I the finished look!



As I mentioned in my previous post when I shared the card that I made, I played with the measurements because I like to make my cards to fit normal letter size envelopes. Here is my card again and here are the measurements I used for my card:



The card base is made from a piece of 7 x 6 1/4 card stock scored at 3 1/2 to make a 3 1/2 x 6 1/4 card, the perfect size for a normal letter size envelope. Then I adhered a 6 x 3 1/4 piece of cardstock and a 5 2/4 x 3 piece of patterned paper to the front. To make the tree I used 6 squares of patterned paper - 1/2 inch, 1 inch, 1 1/2 inch, 2 inch, 2 1/2 inch, and 3 inch. The trunk of the tree was made with a 1/2 x 1 1/2 cardstock. The ribbon is 3 3/4 inches and is tucked around the cardstock adhered to the front of the card. I also used three small Glitter Glamour snowflakes to add a little bling.

I'd love to see your creations if you decide to give it a try.