Creative Scrappers #248

Just a quick post to share a layout that I made for this Creative Scrappers Sketch:

Here is my layout:

 A closer look:

 

Paper Smooches: February DT Blog Hop

Paper Smooches: February DT Blog Hop: It's Pep Rally week and we are here today to share a sampling of the Paper Smooches March die release with you!  Six NEW dies will be ...

Scrapping up a Storm...

Thanks to Shimelle's sketches, my kits, and inspiration from 2 Peas. Here is one of my recent layouts, made with my January Scrap Your Stash kit:

 See It On 2Peas

A little look at the title and my "bubbles":

 

I used this sketch for inspiration:

 

And took a few of the 213 in 2013 prompts:

• Use vellum
• Use Candy Dots

I am also linking up to the Simon Says Stamp: Anything Goes challenge for this week! Papers used: Bazzil Basics Swiss Dots cardstock, a scrap of light blue grid paper from DCWV's Mango Frost stack, Glitz Designs patterned paper, vellum and white shimmer circles were cut with my Cricut and punches from scraps, letter stickers are American Crafts Thickers and Jenni Bowlin Studios, Pebbles Candy Dots.

12 Tags Of 2013/February

For 2012 and 2013, Tim Holtz has been doing a "12 Tags" Series (before that, he did 12 tags of Christmas). I had so much fun playing along for the 12 Tags Of Christmas 2011 series, and I have been meaning to play along ever since he started the monthly series, but always forget! Well, not this month! I actually made a tag...aren't you proud of me, lol! My tag for February:

A closer look at the embossing and embellishing:

I am linking up to:

• Tim's 12 Tags series
• Simon Says Stamp And Show (the stamp you love but haven't used)
• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Anything Goes

Cupcakes On Fire

I am finally getting around to scrapping some photos from my twin daughters' 9th birthday party that was in November! I used papers and embellishments from January's Scrap Your Stash kit (the last page I shared was made from that kit, as well). I started with this sketch from Shimelle:

I was also inspired by a prompt from Janna Werner on 2Peas In The Mood To Scrap series-her mood board was full of arrows, and I loved the way she used them to point out her title and journaling, so I did the same:

I am also linking up with this week's Simon Says Stamp, as the challenge is to "Use an Arrow/Arrows"  I also took inspiration from Shimelle and wrote directly on my layout (I find myself doing it more and more lately):

Glamorous Gold and other metals....

Today I am sharing a layout that I made to play along with the "Metal-ology" challenge over at I used Simon Says Stamp And Show:

I used lots of gold and a few other metal bits and pieces: American Crafts gold glitter ribbon, gold Thickers, gold paper doilies, and added a metal rimmed tag and ancient Making Memories metal eyelet swirl.

Playing along...

With this challenge from Paper Smooches Sparks challenge... The challenge was to use these colors, along with at least one Paper Smooches product:

I made this layout:

A closer look at the Paper Smooches products that I used:
The tag was made from their new scalloped tag die:

and the sentiment was from the Good Gab stamp set:

 

It was a lot of fun playing with some of my Paper Smooches goodies!

I also used this sketch from Shimelle's blog:

Throwing My Hat Into The Ring...

Recently, Gossamer Blue kit club and My Mind's Eye sent out a call for a guest designer position. I love both companies-My Mind's Eye has long been one of my favorite scrapboook companies, and Gossamer Blue makes some of the best kits out there right now, so I had to play along!

The challenge was to make a project (layout/card/altered item), using primarily MME products and upload it to both companies' facebook pages. This was easy for me, since I had a lot of MME product in my February kit from my stash! Here is the layout that I made:

I am so happy with how it turned out! The background paper is a gorgeous gray doily print from My Mind's Eye Lost&Found 3, Ruby collection, and I have included bits and pieces from the Collectable and The Sweetest Thing collections, Enamel Dots, yummy lace print washi, journaling card, and the "Documented" sticker, all from MME. The only things I added that were not by MME: Mr. Hueys Honor Society blue mist droplets, new wood veneer from Studio Calico's Sundrifter collection that I covered with Zing embossing powder, and a couple of pieces of scrap paper that I diecut into doilies with Papertrey Ink doily dies to layer under the title Thickers.

Sketchy Fun (And Killing a Counterfeit Kit)

Well, I have finally had some time to play along with some sketch challenges and get a little scrapping done with my kits!
My first page was based on this sketch from February1st at Stuck Sketches:

Here is my layout:

See It On 2 Peas

 

And, I created a layout for this fabulous sketch at Artful Delight:

 

Here is the layout:

 

See It on 2 Peas

 

So, with these two pages, I am going to say this kit has been killed! This is what I started with:

 

And these are the pages that I made with it:

 

This was quite a fun kit to work with!

Allison Kreft's New stamps

I am a big fan of Allison's work, and these stamps are super! And Webster's Pages is giving some away!

Awesome Giveaway!

Stashbusting...Full Speed Ahead!

With all of the new collections that I loved coming out at CHA, I figured I had better take a swing at using up some of my enormous stash before I make any orders/or start playing with any new supplies!
My favorite way to use up my stash is to make a kit from it! It makes it so much easier just to grab a kit and knock out a few layouts, instead of pulling out half of my stash any time I want to create a page. So, with that in mind, I checked out a few of my favorite sources for kit creating inspiration:

• Shimelle's Best Of Both Worlds kit for February
• The Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog
• Scrappypedia's Scrap Stash Kit club

I really have oodles and oodles of products that could be Valentine's day themed or related, so I made up 2 kits. My first kit is based off of the currently trending colors and patterns for Valentine's; reds, pinks, navy, and aqua. I didn't include much in the way of embellies in this kit, but a rather large assortment of stamps that I am determined to use this month, as a rather large portion of them remain untouched. My first kit, Hearts and Flowers:

It is filled with papers from Basic Grey (several collections-old and new!), and has a bit of MME, Crate, Heidi Grace, Doodlebug, and Graphic 45 thrown in as well.

A closer look at just the papers:

And my second kit, mostly inspired by the Modern Romance kit by scrappypedia, is black and red, softened by touches of pink, cream, and gray. When I saw her kit, I immediately knew that I wanted to use the MME Lost&Found 3 collection that I won a few months ago! I mixed it in with some other bits and goodies that I felt would go well with the collection, and came up with my second kit for February,  Romantic Interlude:

There's no lack of embellishments in this one! I added in papers from DCWV, Jenni Bowlin, Crate, GCD Studios, and SEI, lots of yummy washi tape, Vinyl Thickers shapes and alphas, Doodlebug Paper Frills, some paper mini roses, Tiny Type stickers, and a few loose die cuts.

A look at my papers only:

So, that's 2 HUGE kits...lets see how much scrapping I get done this month...I will keep you updated!

And the Winner is...

I ended up with 65 comments last week (Thank you so much to everyone who visited and left a comment!) The winner of the Love Elsie prize pack is up:

 And comment #34 is:

Congratulations, Heather! Shoot me an email at margie_visnick(at)yahoo(dot)com, and I will get your goodies in the mail right away!

 If you didn't win, don't despair, I have more blog focus weeks with more giveaways planned!

The Thrill Of Victory...And The Agony of Defeat

No, I am not talking about the Superbowl! Saturday was such an up and down, emotional rollercoaster for me! My three youngest children had their basketball tournament semi-finals and finals.
The day started for us with Evan's semi-final game at 10:00am. He came more than excited and ready to play:

(He's the one jumping!)

He had an awesome game, scoring 10 points, and getting 6-7 rebounds:

Two of his 10 points came from free throw shots that tied, and then won the game for us with 16 seconds on the clock:

 

These boys were so excited to beat a team that was the #1 seed, and for the first time since they started playing together, back in second grade (he's in 5th grade now):

 

I think my favorite moment of the whole day was when he went running and jumped into his daddy's arms after the game, with a very proud grandpa looking on:

 

My eyes fill with tears every time I look at it!

After Evan's game, we watched 2 more games while the twins waited for their turn to play (they are on the 2nd/3rd Grade girls team). They were excited and ready to play as well!

And play they did! They really played their hardest:

They ended up losing 7-9, and they were heartbroken. I comforted them as best I could, but they did take it hard! As a mom, all you can do is wipe their tears and tell them that they have next year to work towards, and how proud you are of how hard they have worked this year...

After their tough loss, we went home and had some lunch and relaxed for a bit before we headed back to watch Evan's classmates, the 4th and 5th grade girls team, play in their finals game.  They lost a very close game-I don't remember the exact score, but I think it was another 1 or 2 point game. But our boys got out there and played.And they played hard. For the second time in one day! They were exhausted, but they didn't give up:

 

I was so proud of our team for bringing home 2nd place in the county, but in that moment-their hearts were broken, because they truly put their hearts and souls out on the floor! And as a mom, my heart was broken too!

 

All I have to say-these kids are all fantastic! They make so proud as a mom when they go out there and give it their best. Win or lose!

Love, Elsie Blog Focus:Day 5 (Friday Wrap-Up)

Good morning! I can hardly believe that this week of stash busting and focusing on an older product has already come to a close! I got several pages finished this week, although not quite as many as I had originally planned...I am still pretty proud of the dent I am making in my stash! Today, I am sharing an example of something that I do with many of my older papers-Layering it in!

 

I had this lovely sheet of embossed pink cardstock from Love, Elsie (the Roxie collection, I believe). It was so fun and girly, I was reminded of this kit that I put together with my stash a few months ago, "Sassy Fashionista":

 

and a handful of pictures from the twins' first haircut! I had a lot of pictures (enough for a double page spread), and only one sheet of the embossed pink cardstock, so I knew that cutting it up and layering would be the best way to "stretch" the cardstock across two pages.

I ended up with this DPS:

A look at each page, individually;
Left side:

 Right side:

And...that's a wrap on this series for me! If you would like more inspiration for using up your Love, Elsie papers and embellishments, please check out:

• Glitter Girl Adventure#15: Old And New To The Rescue
• or, you can check out my Love, Elsie board on Pinterest-if I stumble across any new Love, Elsie inspiration, I will be sure to pin it!

You have a couple more days to follow my blog and leave comments on my posts for this week for a chance to win the kit filled with Love, Elsie goodies. Tomorrow, I will be at elementary school basketball tournament games all day-all 3 of my younger kids are in the semi-finals. If they win their first games, they will play in the finals (also tomorrow)...Cross your fingers for them!

Awesome Giveaway over at the Paper Made Bakery!

I am loving their February kit-fingers crossed!