The lucky number was 19 and that is.....MELISSA !  Thank Melissa and everyone else for stopping, hoping and commenting (it almost rhymes).

Leafing Memories Blog Hop

Happy Fall and Welcome! A little business first. If you didn't come to my blog from (http://www.eterno-lyyours.blogspot.com) please go to Amanda's blog  http://www.lovejoypaper.com and start at the beginning.  If you get lost, go back to Amanda's and start over.

I love fall. Fall means watching my children play in the leaves with their friends every year.  Fall means it's apple season. The weather is usually nice. I can feel the crispness in the morning, the sun shines frequently.  Fall means packing up the warm weather clothes and digging out the cold weather ones. Fall means a hot cup of tea and a book in the afternoons.  Fall means Halloween and Thanksgiving are right around the corner.
Here is my LO.  The pictures are older from 2004 when my son was 4 years old and just discovering that playing in the leaves was fun. They are some of my favorites.  I kept the LO simple and focused on the pictures.  There are 3 card stock stickers, one journal spot and a bit of stitching to tie it all together. I kept staring at it, wondering what else it needed, and decided to leave it alone.

Of course I have a giveaway, and of course it will be fall themed.  Just leave a comment, and if you aren't a follower, please become one.  I'll draw a name Sunday around 10am PST and I will post the winner here on my blog, so please come back to see if you are a winner. 


Thank you for hopping, stopping and commenting.  Please go to your next stop  http://www.scrapbangwallop.blogspot.com/

New Scrap Space!

Well, during the past 2 weeks, I have been busy! I have an entirely new scrap space to call my own.  Well, almost my own.  It's in the guest room.  But the room is empty most of the time and it was screaming at me to change that.  So, I did.  After 3 trips to IKEA, hours of putting it all together, arranging, re-arranging, organizing and purging, I think I am happy with it.

I was inspired by my giant Mickey Mouse, and I love the color red.  I call myself a red person.  I started by keeping the red legs on the table.  I had been looking for a futon/day bed for the room and I found one at IKEA.  It came with a red velvet slip cover.  Perfect.  Then came the rest of the red accents, and it all just fell into place.   By the way, this is the cleanest it will ever look.

This is the view from the doorway. I did decide on the corner desk. 

I might move things around as I start using the room, but so far so good.

I made 2 places for me to sit.  I like to look out the window while I scrap.

I have temporary stickies on the drawers while I'm looking for some fun knobs.

I have my newer PP on the bottom shelf and current mags & idea books on the top.

My drawers are very organized.  For now anyway.  I bought some of the plastic organizer inserts for 12x12 storage bins and cut them to the way I needed to use them in each drawer. I did that in the adhesive drawer and a few others.

The new couch/bed and shelf above with all my Mickey stuff.

This is my favorite thing in the room.  It's an old shelf that I found in my Mom's garage this summer.  It used to hang over her stove in her old house.  I shipped it to my house, cleaned it and repainted it. It's a combo embellishment/things-that-make-me-happy-shelf.

So, thanks for looking at me new room.  I'm ready to start using it now!

What a Weekend!

As a member and participant of the Club CK Community I've had the chance to 'get to know' some wonderful people.  A couple of months ago a few of us who live near each other decided we wanted to meet, so we planned a weekend getaway crop.  We've been chatting and planning since June and finally the weekend was here! Nine of us got together at a hotel last weekend.

I do believe I just had one of the best weekends of my life! (Well, not counting family time). We scrapped, talked, laughed and ate.  Not necessarily in that order, or one more than the other.  Ok, maybe we laughed more than anything else. In fact I'm pretty sure of it.    There were many jokes, some tears-from-laughing, a few pranks, but all in good fun.

I felt like I knew everyone already.  There were no nerves or awkward moments. I felt like I was spending time with my best friends who I hadn't seen in a long time. And I can't wait to see them again.  We're already planning for next year.  It was an absolutely incredible weekend Ladies. Moustaches, pink glitter, saran wrap and all!

Believe it or not, I did actually get some pages done.  Here are some of the LO's I created on our weekend. I finished some of the details here at home.

One of Evan's Swim Meets.  I used a journal tag that was in one of my goody bags. Thanks HS.

I am amazed daily by how beautiful my surroundings are.  I get to see these mountains on my daily walks.  The flower is also from a goody bag.  Thanks Skeeter. This is also one of the last 2 LO's for BPC Design Challenge class I was taking.  Use a variety of sizes of font in your title. 

Hee Hee. I got to meet 2 Peeps for lunch in Feb.  A mini Peep too! Oh, and I got to use PINK! Oh, and another item from a goody bag! Thanks for the title, but I don't know from whom!

 

Oh, my little Bubba and his GEARS!  He brought this one home form school and they have been the toy of choice since! We have buckets of them!

Ok.  I don't do the random stuff.  I know I should, but I don't.  On this day I did.  I filled up my tank when gas was over $4 a gallon.  I was shocked when I saw how much it was. Thanks Moonygirl (my new name for you) for the twine, and Scraps for the stamps!

Blog Hop Winner!

And the Winner is.....CAROLEB!

Sketch Blog Hop

If you did not arrive to my blog from  http://www.eterno-lyyours.blogspot.com please return to Amanda's blog- http://www.lovejoypaper.com to follow the hop in order.

Welcome to my blog, and welcome to the August Sketch Blog Hop!  This is my first time participating in a Blog Hop. If this is your first time here, thank you for stopping.  I appreciate it and hope you enjoy.  I gave it a facelift because I knew you were coming. Let me know what you think!  I'm still fairly new to blogging, just figuring it out as I go along.   

I'm going to keep this short and sweet today because there are so many blogs to visit.

Well, here is my LO based off of Amanda's sketch.  A simple, easy sketch with lots room to interpret, which is exactly what I did.  The photos are in the same place, but I reversed the places for the title and journaling.  

I have boys.  I seem to be gravitating to bright colors and bold patterns with lots of energy lately.  I think they match the boys' personalities.  

I love followers,  So, if you aren't a follower, please join my blog.  I'll even give you some incentive to join....

PRIZES! 

All you have to do is join my blog and leave a comment for a chance to win some fantastic ??????

Want a peek? This is not all though.....

I will announce the winner here Sunday 8/21 morning

Thank you for stopping, reading and looking at my blog.  Have a great time on the rest of the Blog Hop journey.  Please go to  http://ladyofthelakeslog.blogspot.com/ to continue!

If you'd like to be entered in the prize for the entire hop, after you've completed a layout based off the sketch, return to Amanda's blog- http://www.lovejoypaper.com to add your link!

Just Sharing

Well, summer has always been hard for me to find the time to scrap.  Thankfully, this summer I have Club Ck as well as a few scrappy challenge blogs to keep me going.  I may not be creating as much as I do during the school year, but I haven't come to a complete halt either.  Each of the past few weeks, I've finished just one LO per week, but it's still better than nothing. At least the mojo is still here, even if the time isn't.  I'm in week 7 of BPC Mother LOAD, and have begun the BPC Big Idea Festival.  My goal is to stay current in MotherLOAD.  Take a look:

This is from Week 6: Begin with the story. These are the friends I made over the last 10 years and left behind in IL.  I miss them terribly.  But now I can open my scrapbook and see them daily. The paper and embellishments are the Abrianna line from K&Company.  I received this from Ben Franklin Crafts monthly Crop a Latte class. It was fun to use some very feminine colors and patterns.

I love this picture and there aren't enough words to describe it. Both my son and his friend have special needs.  They seem to have made friends with each other.  On this day, they just sat so nicely and quietly, sharing and enjoying the movie on the DVD player.

This I did just today for many challenges. (I love it when that happens!) The LO was inspired by a sketch from August 2011 PageMaps

-Club CK Issue Challenge #6-use eyelets (brads in my case)

-Club CK Project Runway Challenge-#3-Stilts-create your LO on a different size paper than you normally use.  I did the whole LO on 8.5x11 before mounting it onto 12x12 card stock

-BPC MotherLOAD-use color to help tell the story.  Blue + monsters+little boys=a great story

-BPC Big Idea Festival-Day #1-Share.  This is probably the only LO I'll get done within a day of the challenge.  Thank goodness I have until the end of the class to load my projects!

Most of the BIF is going to have to wait for MY BIG FUN SCRAPPY GETAWAY. But stay tuned.  I will have one more LO later this week. I'm participating in my first BlogHop!   Come back this weekend to see what else I've created.  Follow me and you'll be entered for a prize!

Red, White & Blue

I love when someone gives me an idea and that idea sparks my creativity.  This LO combines 2 challenges.  The first is from Scrap Our Stash.  Use Red, White and Blue as your LO colors. The other is Club CK Issue Challenge to have a 'hidden something' on the LO.

I come from a family of HUGE baseball fans.  I have many, many baseball pictures to someday turn into scrapbook pages.  This one was from the RedSox/Cubs game at Wrigley Field in 2005.  Both teams are red, blue and white.  Perfect.  Busy patterned paper?  Hidden journaling. Done!  I have plenty of Cubs embellishments, but none of the Red Sox, so I printed the flags from the internet, cut them out and made the banner.  The journal tag is a large baseball sticker.  I left the cellophane backing on, cut around it and wrote on it instead. I used a smaller baseball sticker as the pull tab.  I added red and blue brads to help move the eyes around the page.  Overall, I'm really happy how this turned out.  Thanks for the ideas!

A few new things

Not very much time to scrap over the last few days.  I spent so much time helping Evan while he was working on his Book of Snickers, that I didn't get anything of my own finished.  That's ok.  It was time well spent and worth every moment.

I did manage to get these 2 LOs completed.  Both use sketches, and both were inspired by the BPC classes I am taking.  MotherLOAD and Design Challenges.

MotherLOAD week 4 assignment- Use PP and items you've been "saving" for the perfect time to use them.  Design Challenge #7-Use bold PP on a multi photo LO.

This first one uses Sketchy Thursdays 7/21 sketch. I love the sketch and thought it would be easy for me to use.  Boy was I wrong.  It took me a long time to finish it.  I was having a hard time trying to make it work.  I thought about starting over, but I've never done that before and wasn't going to start now.  I decided to walk away for a while.  I came back to it, added the paper strips and title and left it at that.  I like it more than I thought would.  A great challenge for me!

This next one uses the 7/21 sketch from Sassy Li'l Sketches.  Another awesome sketch.  Had an easier time with this one, but I wasn't sure about using so many bold PP.  I thought maybe it was too busy.  I decided to run with it.  It's a fun and playful LO.  I'm happy with the results.

Under the Gun-Sketchy Thursdays Entry

There are so many other things I should have been doing...But I did this instead.

Sketchy Thursdays entry for 7/20

The cut the watermelon out of the paper plates I bought for his birthday party.

Outside of My 12x12 Box

I have so many ideas swirling around my head.  It's like little voices telling me what to scrap next!  I'm taking two Big Picture Classes right now, both of which are keeping me busy and challenged.  The first is The MotherLOAD, taught by Lain Ehman.  So far it's a small homework assignment each week, (like cleaning your scrap desk) one photo a week (Yikes! A self portrait!), and one LO a week, but she's gearing us up for the LOAD in September.

This is the LO from Week 1.  "Why do you scrap"?

My inspiration came from The Book of Me challenge on Club CK

This is a LO I did for "How do you scrap" in week 2

 The second class is Design Challenges, taught by Elizabeth Dillow.  Talk about thinking outside my box! I've now created a LO using a photo as my canvas.

And created my first LO without a photo! The challenge was to use symbols as inspiration.  

This was pretty funny.  I thought I'd ask my older son how many symbols he knew.  He knew more than I thought!  Some of his responses are clever.  So now I have his handwriting and his responses saved.

Sometimes, challenges can be stressful.  It can be hard trying to come up with new ideas and new ways to think about scrapping. For some reason, these have been just the opposite.  These challenges have really let my creativity take over.  I like it when that happens.

Technique Tuesday

This is not really a technique, but a fun and easy theme album idea.  I had taken a class at Archiver's that got me started, then I expanded the theme to work for me.  Every year for their birthdays, I have professional pictures taken of my boys.  Every year they have school pictures taken.  Every year, there is a first day of school.  Why not put all these pictures in the same place?

First, I keep it simple.  The only supplies I use are CS, 2PP a border strip, stickers letters or chipboard letters, and the occasional embellishment. That's it.  Every layout is a 2 page layout.  Same supplies on both pages.  One page has one PP 1 1/2" wide, the other has 2 PP.  The bottom one is 2" wide, the top one is 1 1/2" wide.  I don't even line them up to match.

Some years I have more first day of school pictures that require a 2 page layout.  Some years there are only enough for one page. I've still been able to arrange the pages, so they line up by year.

I begin with the birthday picture because it come first for us.  I try to pull colors from the shirt as best as I can.  I always mat the picture so it stands out more.  The PP is 1 1/2" wide.

It's companion page is the fist day of school because it comes next.  I only had a few pictures, so it was only one page, and worked nicely with the birthday picture.  Notice the addition of the second PP which is 2"wide.

and the addition of a quote sticker

Here is the 2 page spread. 

Next is the school picture layout.  I use both the picture and the class picture.  This is the original design from the class at Archiver's.  In both this layout and the previous layout, I changed the orientation of the left page from horizontal to vertical.

Here is a close up of the journal tag and the right page

Lastly, here is a layout of both pages horizontal.   I had more pictures of the first day of school this year, so it became a 2 page spread.

 another quote sticker added to the bottom, and 2 PP on the left side page.

I like having this album.  It's easy to keep up.  It's current and shows their changes and growth.  I usually work on it right after I receive the school pictures, then I put it away until the next year.    My older son likes to keep the class picture in his room until the new one arrives, so I leave a place for it in the album.

I hope I've given you an idea to use.  If not for school pictures, for something else.

It's a SMASH!

I bought a SMASH book and all the accessories today.   I succumbed to the pressure! Well, not really but it was fun to say.   I didn't really need an excuse.  It's something new, so I have to have it.

The truth is, my Mom has been after me to make an album about me with all my likes, dislikes, wishes and adventures.  I know I should do it, but I don't like being the center of attention (well, for long periods of time anyway).  After reading all the SMASH discussion, and thinking more about it, I decided a SMASH book might be a less intimidating way of accomplishing a "Me" album.  We'll see how it goes.  I'll share my journey.

Here is my album.  I couldn't decide between the Red one with the doodle theme or the Black with the Mod theme.

I chose black first.

Here is a close up of the cover with the 6 style descriptions, but I only saw 4 colors, red, black, blue and pink.

Here are all the accessories

 Tape, Tabs, Pockets, Clips and Tags

and a close up of the SMASH pads.  There were 4 themes at the store.  I got Entertainment, Family and Word of Mouth.  I'll add photos of the tags next time.

Here are some of the pages inside.  This is the first page you see.

I don't know where or when to begin, but I'll figure it out.  Wish me luck!