Happy St. Paddy's Day

May the Luck of the Irish be with you today and always.

Mischievous

 Sometimes it is fun to just spice things up a bit.  To make this layout I began by choosing the title piece. This is something that I have had in my stash of goodies for a couple of years and decided it was time it got put to good use. That title piece determined the color scheme of my page.  Once I knew the color scheme I pulled paper and emblishments.  After those decisions were made I determined which pictures I wanted to use.

The title piece is deceptive.  The journaling is a touching tribute to my wonderful friends.  Some I have known for many, many years.  Others I have met only in the past 5 years or so.  All of them are special to me.  Part of the journaling reads, "With these women I have laughed and cried.  I have shared heartfelt talks and worship with them.  I have broken into spontaneous song and dance with them.  And have, on occasion, been a little mischievous with each of them.  I cherish our stories.  I cherish each place in my heart that is held by them.  I thank my heavenly Father for I have been greatly blessed."

The base of my layout is a piece of White Daisy cardstock.  I dry embossed lines on it at 1/2" intervals.  Then I inked the whole page with Bamboo ink to make the lines stand out.  To give it an aged looked I used Sunflower, Honey and Chocolate ink sponged onto the edges.

The flower is three pieces of Just Blooms layered with a Filigree Charm in the center. The butterflies are also from the Just Blooms.

I used my corner rounder to scallop the edges of the cream B&T paper.  You can really see how the ink work gave this page a vintage feel.

So, how 'bout it.  Why don't you shake things up, spice up your scrappin' routine. You never know, you may end up with a thing of beauty.

Rockin' Cute Birthday Card

Boy birthday cards are always so much harder for me to make.  The jokes on me though, because I have 3 boys.  Add in their friends and I have a lot of guy cards I have to make.  Tonight my 2 big boys are going to hang out with one of their buds to celebrate his birthday.  Teenage boys are even more of a challeng to come up with a card that they will appreciate. Lucky me - I have the You Rock (X7122B) paper collection just hanging out in my scraproom. I then pulled out my Wishes book and decided to use Keep It Secret pattern on page 75. Using that as my inspiration I got rollin' and made, what I believe is a really cool teenage guy card.

I started out with the Outdoor Denim cardstock to use as the base of my card.  I wanted to go for a worn jeans look so I first used my Edge Distresser (Z1297) to rough up the edges of my cardstock.

To give it a more jeans-y feel I used my sanding block that comes in the Sanding Kit (Z1294) and using the finest grit I sanded in all directions until I was satisfied with the look I wanted.

I layered the inside of the card using the B&T paper in the Goldrush color and stamped the guitar from the Star Power (D1403) in Goldrush ink (Z2123) and then stamped on a scratch piece the guitar again using the Outdoor Denim (Z2140).  I cut out the Outdoor Denim guitar and layered it over the one I stamped in Goldrush.  Once I had my guitar in place I used the wings from Star Power and stamped them in Versa Mark ink and then embossed them using the Clear Embossing ink (Z671).

I folded up the bottom of this inner piece of the slide card to make a pocket to hold my gift card.  I secured the sides with some gold star brads and hand wrote Happy Birthday using a white gel pen.

Still using the Star Power stamp set I stamped the border  and the Your A Star.  The big blue splotch is from Rock Star (C1388).  I pierced three holes and add three gold star brads.

And that is a rockin' cute card for a teenage boy.

Sweetly Sparkling Scrap Night

Friday night I hosted a scrap night for some of my friends. I had nibbly bits for us to snack on. You have to keep your strength up while scrapbooking. I covered all the necessary scrapping food groups: savory - french bread pizza bites, salty - cheeze-its and cheese puffs (whole grain=fiber=health(ier)), sweet - mini pound-cake cupcakes with buttercream and caramel frosting, candy covered chocolates in happy colors and smiley face gumballs. For the sparkling part of the night I had sparkling water, IBC rootbeer, mini bottles of Asti-Spumanti, and Cherry Lime soda.



I was able to get a little bit done on Friday night. I love the chatting and catching up and then I also love the silences when everyone is hard at work. Concentrating on creating beautiful scrapbook pages.

These are the 2 I finished on the night.

For this page I used Form and Function pattern from Cherish (9029), Topstich paper packet (X7120B), December 2009 stamp of the month - Notice the Details, White Daisy Just Blooms (Z1300).

My second LO:

I used Beauty In Repetition from Cherish, Emporium paper packet (X7105B), Photo Hangers (Z293),  and Natural Hemp (Z280).

The stickers were part of the challenge for the night...dig something old out of your stash.  I had some stickers  that were a few years old and used those as my embellishment.

That is what I call a fun and productive scrap night. 

Birdthday Card

My daughter, Karissa made this card
for her friend's birthday. I did give her a helping hand. We picked our stamp set first. Karissa chose Piece of Cake (D1407), the February Stamp of the Month. Karissa then chose the pattern Pretty Simple from the Originals How-To book (9032). Then we started digging through my stash of supplies. We started with a CTMH White card base (x254). We then layered some patterned paper from my stash on top. We stamped and embossed the image on to Daisy White cardstock and glimmer misted the background. Karissa went in and colored in the image using CTMH Exclusive Ink markers. We also glimmer misted another piece of white cardstock before Karissa stamped the sentiment. Karissa layered all the parts onto the card base following the Pretty Simple pattern. Cute!

To coordinate the package with the card we used the same striped paper that we had pulled from my stash. We cute it to fit the width of the bag and then at 6" wide. Folding it in half we cut a slit for the handles to poke through. To give it a little personality I used a Martha Stewart punch for the edge. We stuck on some letter stickers from my stash of goodies and all done. Super simple. Super fast. Super easy.

Since I was in play mode. I pulled out my Tim Holtz alchohol inks and made a the background on this card. Then I stamped my image from Treasure Life (D1306) using versa mark ink and emobssed with chocolate embossing powder. Once it was embossed I went over the top of the image with some Radiant Pearls just to give it a little shine. I mounted my image onto chocolate cardstock and then wrapped it with some chocolate ribbon from my stash. The ribbon slide is something I have had for a while. I then dry embossed two lines down the side of the card and stamped my sentiment. To finish it off I pierced three little holes.

March - Already?

Hello all,

I am sorry for not having any new stuff to post - yet.

Life in my household has been so crazy....I am sure you know what I am talking about.

My hubby is on a long business trip. {I miss him.} So I have been holding down the fort - solo.  That part is okay, but the running of the kiddos here, there and everywhere is - at times - overwhelming.  There have been events that we have had to pick and choose which munchkin gets to go and which munchkin must miss out.  That is just the way it is.

We also took a road trip.  I drove my kiddos out to Oklahoma to see my family and to celebrate my middle sister's wedding.  We had such a great time.  It was the first time in many, many years that we have all been together at the same time {I have four sibs}.  I LOVED every minute.  The time went all to quickly.

Now I am home and after having a few days to get back in the groove I am ready to have some play time.  Friday night I am having some lovely ladies over and we are going to get our scrap on!  I am really looking forward to it.  I need some grown-up time.  I will get the kids all set up with a movie and put my oldest in charge of putting himself and the younger sibs to bed.

Hopefully I will have some fabulous pages to share.

I hope all of you have had a great February.  I am shocked and somewhat amazed that March is here.  February just flew by.  The really good news is we are now in count down mode until daddy comes home - 22 days to go.  Yipee!!!!