Layout Share...

Believe it or not, I did a layout! I just adore the pics that my kids took for Valentine's Day. I just had to scrap them!



I created the hearts by free cutting them from burlap. The hexagons are scraps left over from a lattice die cut. The heart frame and frame background are all a single layer that I created and printed out from photoshop.

I'm entering this in the challenge at Off the Rails Scrapbooking.

Thanks for stopping by!

Project Life Marathon Training - Week 17

We are running a marathon next weekend... NEXT WEEKEND!!! This week is for resting and healing.



I don't know how we are going to do this. No one feels ready.

Project Life Marathon Training - Week 16

Two more weeks, two more week, TWO MORE WEEKS!!! We are all ready for the training to be over and to cross that finish line!



It's been a while since I created a new filler card. To get the free card this week, click on the image below!

Time Flies...

Oops, hold that thought! I'll get back to you!

Happy Mother's Day!!!

I wish all the Mother's out there a Happy Mother's Day. My family is making me feel very special and blessed this morning.

Look what Cheryl made for me... I just LOVE it!! She is the SWEETEST and talented too, hehehe... I'm going to frame this one for my scrap room!

Chris made me a new blog header.. with this message:

Happy Mother's Day Mom <33333

I made you this blog header. I didn't think that port-o-potties matched people places and things that you love very well, so I made you one with people, places, and things that you love <3

I love you <3

That is a lot of pictures! He did a great job picking out things that I LOVE! What a special gift from my SPECIAL guy!

I got these beautiful flowers from Jim. I don't know what I would do without him. He is the BEST!

He also got up early this morning made breakfast, washed my car... AND made heart shaped cookies. The kids appreciated that one too :oD

Did anyone tell you that they love you today? Hi, Jena, love you bunches!

Happy Mother's Day to ALL!!!! Have a WONDERFUL day!

National Scrapbook Day

Yesterday was NSD, and today I finished a challenge layout!!!

This layout is for the Unity Sketch Challenge, and the May Challenge at Scrappin' Mojo. The Unity stamps used in this layout are:

Dream Big
11/09 KOM
Time of your Life
...and my favorite stamp set: All About Today

Thanks for stopping by, and Happy National Scrapbook Day!

Happy Easter

I saw this gift jar made up last year and tucked it away in my memory to make up for this year. Of course as I've gotten older, things that I have tucked away have a way of getting lost. So thanks to my friend Beth, I've been reminded of this fun jar and made it up this year for my niece to make for her family.

I lifted these directions from my friend, Mara, who also got carried away in the Peep jar madness, lol!

I started with a wide mouth quart sized mason jar. And then added the ingredients in layers:

Bottom: 1 sleeve of crushed graham crackers
Middle: 8 peep bunnies around the jar in a ring. Add 1/3 - 1/2 cup brown sugar to fill the hole in between the peeps. Pack down tight!
Top with: 1 1/4 cups Easter M&M's. Pack down.

That's it! So easy and so FUN! I added a tag with the baking directions:

1. Dump contents of jar into a bowl.
2. Snip peeps into small pieces
3. Melt 1/2 cup butter. Add butter + 1 tsp vanilla to bowl. Mix all ingredients well.
4. Press ingredients into an 8 inch square pan.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.
6. Cut into squares and eat!

There you have it...Peeps In A Jar! I'm going to ask my niece take a picture when she bakes these. Even though I've found lots of recipes for this jar, I didn't find a single picture of what they look like baked.

Happy Easter! I hope you all enjoy family and friends as you celebrate the miracle of the day!

How I roll a die cut flower

Creating a tutorial video is harder than it seems. I tried three times to get this video right. I kept moving my hands off frame. I was so careful in this last video, but you will still see me move out of the video frame at the end. I really hand it to those ladies who create those online video classes.

I hope this works and is helpful to those who have die cut flowers to roll!

Book Tutorial

Some of you might remember this little "She Art" that I did of the two girls.

Well, I sure hoped the girls liked it because I turned that She Art into a book. One for each of them!

Here's how it's done...
1) Take a digital photo of the She Art canvas (or you could scan it);

2) Resize the image in Photoshop to fit the cover of the sketch books

3) Print them out on plain printer paper.

4) Cover the sketch book with two coats of white gesso.

5) Add a coat of paint to match the background of the She Art printout. Notice that it's not necessary to paint the middle of the front cover.

6) Cut around the printed she art cover design

7) Adhere the cutout design to the book cover using modge podge

8) Use other colors of paint around the edge of the printout to blend it into the painted cover.
9) Add rub-ons and stamps.

10) Continue the painted design around the spine and back of the book.
11) Cover everything with a thin coat of modge podge to protect it.

12) Attach a ribbon bookmark to the top of the spine.

That's it! That's all you need to do to make a fun gift book!
Thanks for stopping by!

Typography 101

I'm taking a typography class with Chris's friend, Thalita. It's an on online class. She's in Costa Rica, I'm in the US... isn't the internet a GREAT thing? It makes the world so much smaller.

I've always been interested in typography. I tried to take a class at the local community college, but it's always full. When I found this class taught by Cathy Z, I signed up! The first week she gave us 10 tips for creating and placing type. This week we are supposed to use what we learned and create a scrapbook layout.

Here is my homework assignment. It's a layout of Cheryl's birthday:

Here is my challenge assignment... a layout from the Disneyland 5K:

Look! TWO layouts this year! I've already doubled the number of layouts that I finished last year! YAHOO!

Christmas box

Here's a close-up of one of my Christmas boxes. I cut it from two sheets of 8.5x11" papers; one for the bottom and the other for the top. I decorated it with my whole collection of Christmas stamps from Unity, PTI and an unknown Santa.

Thanks for looking! Merry Christmas!

My Travel Journal

I made myself a journal for our trip to Italy and Greece. This is one trip that I don't want to forget!

Is this the last family vacation? Maybe... maybe not... This page is about that and how we decided where to go.

These pages aren't finished yet and won't be until we go. The left page is about what we are taking. The right page is going to be a running schedule of the day, in TWEET format, hahaha!

Last Saturday, we were at the LA Colosseum watching Galaxy lose badly to Real Madrid. It was fun thinking that in just a week we would be at the Colosseum in ROME!

Now we are busy busy busy getting ready for the trip!
FOUR MORE DAYS until we leave!!!

Is this ART?

Cheryl and I took an Art Journal class last week at the Carson Stamp show. It's kind of new, kind of different, and a lot of FUN! This first one is Cheryl's creation:

I'll have to admit that I didn't think that I would like it that much. Do the pictures give you the creeps? BUT, after working with them, they have a charm and a mood... which leads to a message (hence the journal part).

The whole process was rewarding. And even though you won't find my girl hanging on the wall at my house, she still has a place in my heart (and on the first page of my art journal).

Happy Birthday, Cookie!

Another new layout for me! This is another one for Chris's birthday... And the HUGE cookie that he got from his friend Thalita.

I followed the May Mojo Challenge at Scrapping Mojo. This really isn't my style... I prefer my photos to take most of the room on my layouts, but I'm okay with how this one came out; even though that blank area in the upper left really BUGS me!

I used my die cutter A LOT on this layout! Add some Stickle sparkle, and it makes great cute embellies.

I'm going to end off with a BIG-NOSE picture of Jena! We've been trying to get a BIG-NOSE picture of our girl, like the one Chris took of BJ. BUT, everytime we try to put the camera in Jena's face she tries to lick it. Well, here she is after our 7 mile run... FINALLY, so tired that we got the picture. Not as good the one of BJ, but we'll keep trying...

Thanks for stopping by!

Diaper Cake...

A couple ladies at work are putting on an impromptu baby shower for one of the other ladies. They contacted me on Friday and asked if I would bring decorations. I said I would bring a diaper cake centerpiece. I've always wanted to make one of these! Chris said that he would help me. We downloaded directions from the web, and they said we needed 54 diapers. I went down to the store and bought a package of 56.

The first disaster was that the diapers were BLUE printed fabric! Min is having a GIRL!!! When did diapers turn blue?!!! The last time I used diapers they were white and plastic. So the color scheme has changed... the cake will be blue and pink (with emphasis on PINK).

Second disaster is that 56 diapers is not near enough! We decided to use a paper towel core to fill out cake. This worked GREAT because it holds all the layers together! It's going to be a lot easier getting this to work than I thought.

The height of the paper towel roll dictated a 3 tier cake. Chris rolled most of the diapers, twice! I won't bore you with the reason why we did it twice... just call it a problem with indecision.

The bottom layer has 34 rolled diapers, the middle layer has 14 rolled diapers, the top layer has 4 flat diapers wrapped around the top of the paper towel roll. That left me 4 diapers left over that we just stuffed in the top.

The first decoration we needed was something for the top. I got a pink/green toy that is connected to a carrier handle... I guess it would be called a mobile?

I think it looks GREAT! Now I need something to bring in more pink. Time to breakout the scrapping supplies!

This paper from Basic Grey is just the thing. I didn't have enough paper, but this paper happens to be available as a digital download from BG! I printed off 6 strips of paper to cover the layers.

Add some pink ribbon, tie on a few teething rings and pacifiers, add some pink silk flowers to cover up the blue diapers AND TA DA!!! A pretty diaper cake centerpiece!

Of course, it wouldn't be complete without a matching card for the mama-to-be! (made with more BG paper and a cute stamp from Unity Stamp Co).

Oh one more thing... as I was looking at the diaper cakes, I couldn't find where anyone listed how big it would be! Our diaper cake came out 16" tall, and the base is 12" across.

Thanks for joining us on this diaper cake journey. My only regret? I didn't get a picture of Chris rolling baby diapers, lol!

First layout of the YEAR!

I've made a few cards, but this is my very first layout of the year! I created it by following the Mojo Master Challenge at Scrappin' Mojo. We are given new steps weekly and have no idea what the layout will look like until it's complete. I really like how this one came out!

Puzzle Swap...

So, What's a puzzle swap, you ask?... Take a 12-piece puzzle, break it up and separate the pieces between 12 ladies. We each decorate the puzzle piece to match each lady's theme and color scheme. Here are the ones that I did:

* Christmas Theme - Red/Green/White/Gold/Silver
* Angel Theme - Red/Green/White
* No Theme - Orange/Brown
* Sultry Theme - Brown/Cream/Green/Pink
* Fall Theme - Orange/Brown/Yellow
* Snowman Theme - White/Blue
* Patriotic Theme - Muted Red/White/Blue
* Think Pink - Pink
* Vintage Theme - Tan/Brown/Pink/Green
* Love Bird Theme - Brown/Teal/Beige
* Romantic Theme - Green/Brown
My theme was "Tropical Island" in colors Blue/Green/Orange/Red. I have a couple of pieces that I have to do in my own theme, but I'm going to wait until I see how the other pieces go together.

I can't wait to see all the pieces for my puzzle. This was a super FUN swap!

Christmas Craftiness

I neglected to share the card that I made for my nephew's birthday. I used some old paper that I had on hand, added a little stamping and lots of die cuts!

Next here is Jena's Christmas stocking. Yep, Jena has a Christmas stocking... She got presents from Santa too. I made the stocking completely out of scraps of felt, added some trim, AC Thickers, and woolies from Basic Grey "Max and Whiskers."

Next, here is the annual Christmas ornament. I make one of these every year with photos of the kids. This is a simple design... I cut six circles using my largest Spellbinder's circle; folded the edges of the circle up and glued them together. Then I cut some photos out using a Spellbinder's square die so it will just fit on each side. A Shrinky Dink star (with date) and a jingle bell top it all off:

My next share is a crochet hat. Yep, I decided to crochet a hat... RED and FESTIVE!

My last share today is Candy Cane Biscotti. I got the recipe from Mara's blog. They are just as yummy as she promised they'd be! Mine aren't are pretty as hers... I think I need more practice, hehehe.


This is more Christmas Craftiness than I've done in years!

Layout Share!!!

Yes, don't fall over, but I did a layout! It's about how we got our sweet Jena-girl. I used some old Crate Paper. A girl's gotta have PINK!

Dimensional Details - Week 9

First, I have some NEWS! Out of the hundreds of ladies all around the world taking the Dimensional Details class, my week 8 layout (the Catalina Island Race layout) was the pick of the week! I WIN a prize from Nic Howard, the instructor in Australia. I'm excited to see what I get!

I'm getting a little behind in my class posts. I'm going to upload one week a day, so I don't overwhelm you all!

There were two assignments on week 9 (that's what put me a little behind). This first one is using a photo of Cheryl that I took during the "Great Photos with any Camera" class.

Here's a layout using a couple photos of the cousins. I'm so lucky that they don't mind having their pictures taken!

Thanks for stopping by! Look for more scrappy shares tomorrow.