Happy Halloween!

Since it's Halloween, I thought that it would be fitting to share one more Halloween page made with my kit for this month! I started with a couple of challenges, one on Sketches 4 All using this great sketch by Jana Eubanks:

And a challenge from The Paper Variety blog to make a Halloween project.Here is my page:

A close up look at my embellies:

Thanks for stopping by today-before you go, leave me a not and let me know what you do for Halloween! Do you trick or treat? Pass out candy or dress up? If so what was your best/most creative costume? I will be taking the kids trick or treating tonight, myself. Be sure to come by tomorrow-I have another layout and some exciting news to share!

"Paddleboat Fun"

I saw this awesome color challenge over at The Color Room, and since I had these colors in my October kit, I decided to play along (albeit a little late).

The challenge:

My take on the challenge:

Again, with a crooked photo...gaggghhh!!! Oh well, you can get the idea-I just have to get used to shooting my pages w/o tons of sunlight (it has been very fallish, gray, and rainy here lately). Any way, on to my layout:

I finally scrapped a few photos from my honeymoon! Supplies I used: Pink Paislee Vintage Moon Harvest Moon paper, scraps of Crate Paper Emma's Shoppe Dresses paper for the photo mats, Echo Park Life is Good Element and Alpha stickers, several Girls Paperie vintage buttons, ZVA bling flourish that I colored to match my layout with a Copic marker, black glitter chipboard Thickers.

Oh, and if you don't read the Dear Lizzy blog...she had the AWESOMEST recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies on her blog this morning- 16 oz can pumpkin, 1 box spice mix, and chocolate chips. It sounded so yummy, and I had some of the stuff, so I tweaked it to what I had-1 cup of pumpkin pie mix, 1 butter recipe yellow cake mix, 1 egg, 1 tsp vanilla, and just added in some spices-ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and a cup of chocolate chips, dropped them on a greased cookie sheet and baked at 350 for about 15 minutes. They were SOOOO yummy with a glass of ice cold milk-and I think they still would have been awesome with out the chocolate chips. Try them out and let me know what you think!

Pagemaps Sketch Challenge

I told you I had more to share before the month was over! Here is a layout I did for the current sketch challenge over at Pagemaps blog:

 My Layout:

I used up some scraps for this one: Cosmo Cricket for the yellow background with the circles, and the flowered paper, yellow gingham print from The Girls Paperie from my October kit, an ancient "The Pumpkin Patch" sticker from my kit, brown crochet ribbon leftover from my September kit, a Graphic 45 tag and Basic Grey Eerie brad from this month's kit, and some inked fall felt embellies that I bought in a bucket from Wal Mart ages ago!

Get Picky Birthday Blog Hop

I saw that Get Picky was having a birthday blog hop, and I had to play along!

Here is the sketch:

Here is my layout:

Do you believe I actually scrapped a page about myself? I don't always dress up for Halloween, but that year, one of the kids put a tattoo on me, so I had to scrap it!

Supplies used:
SEI Eerie Alley Arachnaphobia (been hording this paper forever!), Making Memories Spook Alley die cut 6x6 paper, gray Cosmo Cricket embossed cardstock that I inked, and a few scraps from Little Yellow Bicycle's Frightful Collection Large Stripes and Making Memories Spook Alley. I used part of a KI Memries border, and a couple of 7Gypsies stickers. The title letters were chipboard sticker letters from the Target $1 spot, and I dabbed them with my silver paint dabber.

It's A Blog Hop...AND a Pretty Paper Party!

It's time for the Master Forger's Blog Hop-and here is the challenge we were given this month:

BLOG HOP CHALLENGE: Alter some stickers and use them in an unexpected way on your project. Let's see if we can even recognize them as stickers any more!

I have several pages to share, some using stickers and some not, since I won an entrance to Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party, I have been combining as many challenges as possible, using up lots of pretty papers from my paper scraps and Counterfeit kit, and more importantly, getting lots of scrapping done!!

The first day's prompt was to mix and match strips of patterned paper (which is easy if you just happen ;-) to have a piece of border strips paper in your kit). I also used one of Shimelle's sketches for Day 1.

My Layout,"Just Breathe":

 My "Sticker in Disguise":

I mounted it on a chipboard flower and added some bling to the center-love making it dimensional!

Supplies I used for this layout:
A piece of GCD Studios pink cardstock from a previous CKCB kit, Echo Park Life Is Good Border Strips, a salmon pink handmade ribbon flower, Echo Park Life Is Good Element and Alpha stickers, a pink rhinestone from my kit, and a journaling spot from my stash.

The prompt for Day 2 was to use a patterned background-again, I followed a sketch from Shimelle:

I am not so sure I love the way this page turned out, but I ripped it apart twice and changed it around, so I finally decided I was done, and it was time to move on to the next page. It kind of feels off balance, so I may add a little something to the right side, but for now, I am walking away! The way I disguised the stickers here: I layered them on cardstock and with other stickers.
Supplies Used:
Making Memories Spellbound "Glitter Crow", American Crafts Halloween Stickers, Basic Grey Eerie Pops Stickers, Making Memories Spook Alley rub-on house, a stamp from my Halloween kit, and some orange bling from my stash

I skipped Day 3's Prompt, since it was all about making a kit up from your stash, and I kind of already do that ;-)

Day 4's prompt was to use dots and/or stripes-and possibly mix in another pattern such as a floral.

Here's my page:

I used a sketch loosely for this one.Supplies used:
American Crafts Play "Paper Dolls", The Girls Paperie Paper Girl "Die Cut Wallpaper", a piece of pink scalloped felt ribbon, pink Primas and bling, a handmade pink flower from my stash, and Echo Park Element and Alpha stickers, and an American Crafts Remarks journaling spot.

One of the prompts from Day 5 was to make it messy or distressed, and I used Shimelle's sketch for the day.

My Layout:

And a closer look at my "disguised stickers" here:

On the star sticker, I just added bling to the center, and for the Thickers-I "disguised" a P, and turned it into an R with a little creative cutting.
Supplies I used for this page:
patterned papers from the DCWV All About Boys stack, pieces of red and light blue cardstock from my scrap stash, American Crafts Thickers (from 3 different sets-the black glitter chipboard letters were in my Halloween kit this month, the other 2 were in past kits), Sapphire Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels that I dripped/flicked on the page, red rhinestones from my stash, and the red stars are from Jenni Bowlin.
Thanks for hopping by, be sure to visit our sponsor for this month, Momenta , and be sure to "like" them on FB for a chance to win an AWESOME prize pack!
Here is the blog hop order:

• http://kensingtondesign.blogspot.com/
• http://razzledscrapper.blogspot.com/
• http://craftimperfect.blogspot.com/

• http://just-jimjams.blogspot.com/
• http://mypair-a-dice.blogspot.com/
• http://truelifeimascrapaddict.blogspot.com/
• http://julieannshahin2.blogspot.com/
• http://lovejoyscrap.blogspot.com/
• http://lisahausmann.blogspot.com/
• http://scrappinmargie.blogspot.com/ (you are here)
• http://millermall.blogspot.com/ (go here next)
• http://howiburb.blogspot.com/
• http://www.snapsandsnippets.blogspot.com/

Stop by tomorrow-I still have more pages to share before I do a wrap up for October!

A Page For a Challenge...

There was a great sketch over at Burlap And Buttercups Blog this month, so I just had to play along!

Here is the sketch:

There was a twist: you have to use at least 2 different manufacturers on it. Kits make that easy, though, because you already have coordinating products at your fingertips.

Here is my layout:

Supplies used:
background paper is the flip side of the SEI Chocolat "Framboise"-you can't really tell from the photo, but there are debossed butterflies, which looks so pretty up close-I love texture on my pages and cards! I also used a scrap piece of the SEI Chocolat "Chocolat", a piece of Echo Park Life is Good "Grandma's Quilt" to pick up the faint blue stripe from the background paper (which, again, you really can't tell from this photo-but I like pink and blue together anyways), a leftover piece of the back of the SEI Chocolat, and a scrap piece to show the back side of the Echo Park paper (which also carries out my pink and blue theme). I inked the edges of all of the papers and cardstock with a cocoa colored chalk ink to help them all blend a little better.
 Embellishments I used were: Echo Park Life Is Good Element and Alpha stickers, The Girls Paperie Flower and Vintage buttons, and a label sticker from Creative Imaginations.
Be sure to drop by tomorrow, we are having our Counterfeit Kit Challenge Master Forgers blog hop-and I have a lot more scrapbooking to share!

Autumn Colors

The page I am sharing with you today is based on this month's sketch from The Scrap Room Blog:

My Layout:

Supplies I used were from my October main kit:
2 papers from DCWV Lemon Flower Stack, green houndstooth borders from Heidi Swapp "Groovin", and punched with a Fiskars border punch, and the pumpkins were a Scrappy Kat stamp from my Halloween  kit, which I stamped on white cardstock, colored with my Copic markers, and attached with pop dots. The title was a stamp also, from Creative Cafe for Hampton Arts, stamped with black Momento ink. The journaling strip was a Studio Calico stamp (from the same set I used in my last post).
Thanks for sharing your time with me, come back tomorrow for more layouts!

Halloween and Fall fun...

A couple of layouts to share with you today as promised:

For the first one, I used a sketch from Sketch Inspiration:

My Layout, "2 Ninjas Costume Party":

Supplies used for this page:(from my October Main Counterfeit Kit and Halloween kit)
Silver glitter Polka Dot paper from DCWV's Lemon Flower Stack, orange K&Co Halloween Whimsy paper, which I fussy cut the orange spider web from, black glitter chipboard "2" AC Thickers, "Ninjas" chipboard letters from Target $1 spot pack, "Costume party" from Target $1 spot sticker word pack, Skeleton 3-d Sticker from Basic Grey Eerie pack, spider rub-on from a Target $1 spot halloween rub-on pack (rockin' the dollar spot, huh ;-)? ). And 2 Studio Calico label stamps for the journaling that I won in a blog hop giveaway from Jennie McGarvey!

The second layout I am sharing today was based on a sketch from Pretty Little Studios:

And here is my layout, "Hey Pumpkin":

Sorry about the crooked photo,I couldn't get it straight no matter how I tried!

Supplies I used were all from my Counterfeit Kit Halloween kit: Basic Grey Eerie "Screech", Little Yellow Bicycle Frightful "Large Stripes", We R Memory Keepers Black Out flocked web lace (I added some of my black rhinestones), black "wrought iron" gate die cut with rhinestone, Cosmo Cricket "Hey Pumpkin" label sticker, and 2 Basic Grey Eerie brads. I edged around the striped paper and the whole page with my silver paint dabber.

A Few Challenges and some Scrapbooking to Share

Sorry, I have been a bit of a bad blogger lately. I have spent some time creating, but not nearly enough time sharing. So, I thought it would be a good time to share some of the pages I have made with you.

First up is a page that I did for the CKCB blog's layering challenge. I used sketch #177 from Creative Scrappers. I also took the prompt to make a fall/Halloween page from Sketches 4 All, and this is what I came up with.

Sketch I Used:

The page I made:

 Supplies I used were all from my October Counterfeit Kit:
Swirly gray background paper was the backside of the Heidi Swapp, "The Lounge", and the green stripes were the backside of the Heidi Swapp "Groovin". I used a black glitter pumpkin border from the KI Memories Wicked border stickers, We R Memory Keepers Blackout felt border, a green ZVA bling flourish, an assortment of Primas from my kit, along with some of the Basic Grey Eerie brads, and a black and a few brass brads the chipboard letter stickers are American Crafts Thickers.
I am also sharing a page that I made with another sketch from Creative Scrappers.
The sketch I used, #175:

The page I made :

I still need to do some journaling, but I love the way it turned out so far!The supplies were all from my October Main kit: the back of the Echo Park Life Is Good "Bold Stripes", the polka dot and flowered paper is Crate Paper Emma's Shoppe "Dresses" (both sides), and used some border stickers and letter stickers from the Echo Park Life is Good Element and Alpha Stickers, pink satin homemade flower, some of my digital elements that I printed out on sticker paper for my kit: a Cosmo Cricker "Gluber" flower, and a yellow journaling spot from Echo Park's Digital collections, and pink Thickers that I used my pearl colored paint dabber on.

If you'll check back, I'll be sure to share the rest of my October pages through the next week, I promise ;-). Thanks for stopping by today!

Harry Potter Birthday Party

My son turned 10 this year, and the last Harry Potter movie came out, so what better way to celebrate than with a Harry Potter birthday party? I got tons of ideas from Pinterest, then I decided what I could make work in my house.

The first thing that I made was the sign for "Platform 9 3/4", which I placed by the door (I picked up the file that I printed here-she has TONS of other great printables for a Harry Potter party). The frame was a simple oak frame that I repurposed with black chalkboard spray paint and hi-gloss spray (or you could just use a gloss finish spray paint) but I used what I already had.

My Sign:

The next thing on my list...wands for the Wizards! I found an AWESOME and easy tutorial for making them from cardstock, hot glue, and spray paint-and I love how they turned out!

Ollivander's Wand Shop:

As you can see, I also made "Hogwarts Completion Certificates, but I will show those later ( I gave them out at the end of the party).

As any Harry Potter fan knows, the wizards doesn't choose the wand, the wand chooses the wizard. So, we blindfolded the kids and the let the wands do the rest of the work ;-).

(birthday boy had to put a spell on his sis!)

Now there are lots of ideas for Harry Potter party activities if you google it, but the kids opted to ride four wheelers and play Harry Potter video games.

We had a Sorting Hat Pita Bread with Felix Felicis Spinach dip:

We had a Honeyduke's Sweet Shop:

 A closer look at the spooky sweets:

We had lots of yummy treats: Acid Pops (sour pop rocks), Drooble's Best Blowing Gum (eyeball bubble gum from the Halloween section-also a nod to Moody Mad Eye), Chocolate Frogs, Slytherin Snakes (sour gummy snakes), Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans (I couldn't find these, so I just used gourmet jelly beans), Cockroach Clusters (chow mein noodles covered in chocolate), Golden Snitch Cake Pops, and Edible Wands (chocolate licorice), and Nimbus 2000 Broomstick treats.

I made the sign with some googled clip art and cardstock:

There were lots of fun treats there, like Nimbus 2000 Broomstick Treats:

Instructions to make these HERE.

Golden Snitch Cake pops (I got the idea for these here):

I used vanilla almond bark, and mixed golden yellow and lemon yellow food coloring in for the candy coating.I made the wings from a shimmer cardstock, and cut them out with my Cricut.
For the cake, we had a "Hagrid Cake," like the one that Hagrid brought Harry in the first movie, messy pink and green frosting, misspellings, and all.

Here is the cake from the movie:

And, Evan's cake:

(this was the easiest and most fun birthday cake I have ever made-it was so freeing to make it messy on purpose!)

There were Chocolate Frogs:

Which I made with a candy mold from Hobby Lobby, and printed out the labels for.

I also made a banner:

I printed out the Gryffindor house crest for the ends, along with some Harry Potter artwork that I altered in PSE, I cut the letters in red and gold (Gryffindor colors) for the banner from the Parry Hotter font using my Cricut and SCAL, then tied it all together with pieces of black tulle.

Here's another look at the banner and table:

There were "Magical Color Changing Drinks" for "Potions":

(these were easy-I put food coloring in the cups, then the ice cubes, so that when we poured the sprite in, it changed colors)
And, of course you can't have a Harry Potter party without Butterbeer!:

I used this recipe for Magically Easy Butterbeer-  I did have an "oops" moment here-I overbeat the whipped topping and turned it into butter-luckily, I had bought a back up of Cool Whip, so a crisis was averted! It was really good (kind of like a cream soda float)-I'm sure that it would have been even better with the topping it was supposed to have ;-)

Of course, there was singing and candle blowing:

Cards :

(What 10 year old boy doesn't love a whoopie cushion?)

and Presents:

He got lots of Nerf stuff, a video camera, a Super Soaker, money, books...

When it was all over, all of the kids got "Hogwarts Completion Certificates":

This is what they looked like:

I printed them out on vellum, one at a time, and immediately sprinkled them with UTEE and heat embossed-then I rolled them all up like diplomas and tied them with golden yellow grosgrain ribbon.

It was a fun party, and hopefully it made my little man feel special! Everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves!

I am linking up to: