My 100th Post!

Wow! That didn’t take long! Here are a couple of cards I did for the weekly card challenge over at 2 Sketches 4 You. This week, the challenge is being sponsored by Paper Popsicles! Any chance to win some more goodies from them and I all all over it! 🙂 The girls who do this challenge every week rock at card making. Me, not so much, but I am getting a chance to use up my scraps!

Here is the sketch:

And here is my first interpretation.

I wasn’t sure whether or not I liked this one or not, so I did another card.

I like this one much better!

Don’t forget, the Fiskateer message board Virtual CHA crop is still going on today and tomorrow! Hope to see you there!

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What I Can Share

I’ve been crafting away! Some of it I can share, some of it I cannot! Sorry! Hopefully soon! In the meantime, here are a couple of layouts I just finished up.

This one is for the monthly sketch challenge over at Paper Popsicles. The sketch is a Pencil Lines sketch.

And here is my take:

(Making Memories, Scenic Route and American Crafts)

My other project is from a challenge from the brand new PageMaps blog! I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am that Becky now has a blog! And that she started it off with a sketch challenge! Be still my heart! 🙂

The sketch Becky chose for her first challenge is one of her favorites from the January 2008 collection. I liked it so much that I did it twice and created a double page layout! Here is the sketch:

And here is my take on it:

(My Mind’s Eye, Heidi Swapp, Heidi Grace, Cosmo Cricket, Colorbox Cat’s Eye Chalk Inks)

Don’t forget, we start the online Virtual CHA crop over at the Fiskateer message board bright and early Friday morning!

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Online Crop Time!

While quite a few members of the crafting world will be in Chicago this weekend for the annual CHA (Craft and Hobby Association) Summer show, I will be co-hosting an online crop over at the Fiskateer message board. The 5 new leads will be attending the show, but didn’t want to leave the rest of us twiddling our thumbs, so we will have our own Virtual CHA on Friday (July 18th) and Saturday (July 19th). I am in charge of the happenings on Saturday and fellow Fiskateer, Linda Auclair is in charge on Friday. There will be challenges, online chats, reports from the CHA floor and prizes! Come join in the fun!

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Fresh Start Challenges Completed!

Okay, here are the challenges I was able to complete for the July Fresh Start Challenge over at Paper Popsicles.

This layout was for the 10am challenge issued by DT member Jackie Gallagher, who, by the way, ROCKS at making cards. They are works of art! Anyways, her challenge was to create a summer/beach/water layout. I went a little bit out on a limb with my layout because none of my current photos quite fit the theme. We haven’t made it to the beach yet this summer, so I went with another “water sport” that has been quite popular at my house this summer with my daughter–mopping. I usually tend to do this chore while the kids are at school. I do it quickly because I don’t like it. My daughter LOVES it. When she is home during the summer, she always begs me to let her “help,” which thus makes mopping a water sport.

The other challenge I was able to complete was also issued by Jackie. This time, she provided us with 2 card sketches that she designed herself. Here are my interpretations.

This first one is actually a tag I made using my giga scallop punch from Marvy Uchida. Love this tool!

Here is the 2nd one, which is a monochromatic card. I didn’t set out to make it monochromatic, it just happened as I pulled everything together!

There were a couple of other layout challenges, but I just wasn’t able to get everything completed. Summer activities getting in the way! 😉 That’s okay…I have the challenges written down, so they will become the inspiration for future reference!

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Online Crop and 3 for 1!

Today over at Paper Popsicles they are having their Fresh Start Crop! They have been having challenges every 2 hours and while I have been writing them down, I haven’t had a chance to do much more than make a card today. I did however finish up a layout that will go towards 3 different challenges! Whoo hoo! Love it when that happens! 🙂

Here is a card I did for the 8am Fresh Start Challenge. The challenge was to use “fish scales” to create a border on a card.

The layout I did fits into 3 different challenges:

1. Use Your Stash–a new blog I discovered! The July challenge is to use stamps on your project. I have a ton of stamps I never use because I am slightly stamp challenged, but I did my best! (They have the cutest blinkie, but I am slightly blinkie challenged at the moment as well.) And thanks to their inspiration, all of the stuff I used on these 2 projects are from my stash and probably at least 2 years old!

2. Kelly Jo, one of the new Lead Fiskateers, issued this challenge a few days ago. The challenge was to create a layout or paper project using red, white and blue and some stars. And, it had to be a new project.

3. Paper Popsicles has monthly theme challenges and this layout also fit the challenge for week 1. The challenge here was to create a project using stars, stripes and some other embellishment or technique that starts with “s”. The deadline for this was July 6th, so I am a little late, but that’s okay. I am just glad to be getting stuff done!

And here is the layout! An 8 1/2×11 too! I haven’t done one of these in forever!

Hopefully tomorrow I will have a few more creations to share with you!

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Fiskars Green-Up Garden Challenge

Fiskars Garden group issued another challenge on the Fiskateer blog. Although they said to do a scrapbook page, they also said there were no limits and to be creative as possible. So I did a little thinking outside of the box and decided a one page or even a double page LO would not do this topic justice. I created a paper bag mini album with the photos I downloaded off of their site. For the journaling, I used some of the article I found on the Fiskars Garden site which talked a little bit more about the event. Here is the project I created!

(the cover)

(page 1 & 2 with insert 1 peeking out)

(page 3 & 4)

(page 5 & 6 with insert 2 peeking out)

(back cover)

This is the 2nd paper bag album I’ve made. They are so much fun and so easy, yet they come out looking so great! I think I’ll have to find a subject for another one!

And the good news is, I just got an email saying I won! I will be receiving a tool kit of Fiskars gardening products!

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Happy 4th of July!

Hope you are having a wonderful day celebrating Independence Day! No scrapping going on, but we are having a great time with family who are in town visiting for the long weekend. Hopefully, I will get back to some scrapping stuff next week! Until then, eat lots of BBS and watermelon!

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437

That’s how many people tried out for the Chatterbox design team. And yes, I was one of them.  Courtney was so encouraging in her blog posts, telling everyone to give it a shot, so that is what I did! 🙂

With this many people auditioning, I have no hopes of making it to the “call-back” round. But I decided to send in my audition, for one reason. They wanted everyone auditioning to answer the question “Why do you scrapbook?” For me, this is a LOADED question. They just wanted a short paragraph with our answer. I think my answer could fill a book! But, you wouldn’t want to read that either! 😉

So what is my answer? Why do I scrapbook? Here is the answer that I put in my DT application.

The main reason I scrapbook is because I HAVE to. It fulfills my spirit and my soul in a way nothing else does. It allows me to be creative in a way that I never knew I could be. Before I started scrapbooking, I knew something was missing from my life and that something was making time for myself. Scrapbooking allows me to do that. When I started scrapbooking, it changed my life. I have made life-long friends, rediscovered myself and it was a catalyst for my husband and I to enter into marriage counseling which has resulted in a much better relationship. I know that scrapbooking will always be a part of my life.

Between each of those sentences is a lifetime of lessons learned, heartbreak, renewal and discovery. I won’t share all the sordid details here, most of you that read my blog (all 5 of you, LOL!) already know the story because you walked alongside me while it happened.

The end result however, is still the same. Even if I never make another page for anyone else to see except me, I will still keep doing it because I love it!

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Becky Fleck!

I had the privilege of attending a crop at a LSS with the incredible Becky Fleck, the creative force behind Pagemaps! I was so excited to meet her and told her so! (She probably thinks I am a big goof ball!)

Becky approved this photo…she said she had been up 21 hours straight and wanted to see it to make sure she looked okay. I don’t know about you, but I think she looks fantastic! And she was so friendly and full of energy. If it had been me up for 21 hours straight, the grouch would have been out.

Of course I had a copy of her new book, Page Maps, there for her to autograph.

When I gave it to her, she said I still had a “virgin” book because I hadn’t punched out the cards and box at the back yet. I still haven’t. There is a part of me that never wants to “damage” a book, even though I know that the cards and box are meant to be taken out and used. I am working my way up to it. LOL!

I did manage to get a little scrapping done at the crop as well. Here is one 6×12 LO I can share with you! Some of you Nifty Fifty might recognize the patterned paper block that the photo is on. Yes, it is the cover page of the 2008 calendar we were suppose to create in Nancy’s class in San Antonio using the Cloud 9 goodies we received. Yea, guess I never got around to doing it. Sorry about that Nancy!

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Use Your Stash!

I recently discovered a new challenge blog that seems tailored made for me! It’s called

My stash is definitely overflowing and it is time to start using those products instead of saving them for that “perfect page.” I plan on starting to get involved in the challenges after the July 4th holiday, once my home empties out! For some reason, my guests need to be entertained 😉 I guess watching me scrap doesn’t count as entertainment! LOL!

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