Oh I loved this one and...I'm caught up!  I finished this last night, but didn't have time to post!  So LOAD day 17 prompt: When I grow up...I went literal with this one.  I had a contact sheet of proofs that my Dad had taken of me when I was about 11 years old.  I used the ScrapHappy Feb quick page sketch and lots and lots of girly stuff for this one.  It was fun to use pink, purple and flowers!

Lots and lots of supplies for this one: PP-BoBunny, Crate Paper and Making Memories. Punch-EkSuccess, stickers-Crate paper, chipboard embellies, BoBunny, flowers-Prima, brads-Making Memories, Buttons-random, Journal tag-Simple Stories, rub-on numbers-Doodlebug, letter stickers-Cosmo Cricket, Piggy Tales and Thickers

LOAD #15-The One for Us

Whoo Hoo!  Almost caught up!  Today's LOAD #15 prompt was : Songs of days gone by.  I chose not to do the soundtrack of my life. It would have been totally fun to find album covers of my favorite one hit wonders from the 80's, but I'll save that for another time.  I did something a bit more current, but it still has a tremendous amount of meaning behind it.  My husband and I had a rare moment with a Super Rock Star, who happens to be the lead singer of our favorite band....

U2 has a lot of meaning to us.  ONE is the song we danced to at our wedding.  We've seen all of their concerts together since 1991.  My husband has seen all of them prior to that as well.  It was all because of his work that this photo opportunity occurred.  OMG we were soooo excited!!!!!!!   It was a rare and special moment that we will always remember.

I was soooooo torn between really glamming this up and keeping it clean and simple.  I stayed with simple.  I very slightly tilted the photo.  I pulled the ONE logo from the backdrop behind the photo and yes, I had to use bling and silver embellies. 

CS is Bazzill, PP is Best Creations and DCWV, chipboard and bling is DCWV, letter stickers are Momenta, pens are American Crafts.

LOAD #16-The Gang's All Here

Well, I'm still 2 behind, but at least I got to do something today, and it is for LOAD and ScrapFit WWU Challenge #24 "using clusters"  LOAD day 16, a wonderful prompt: These are the people in my neighborhood.  I sooooo wanted to do something Sesame Street, but didn't have photos printed, so I did this instead.  These are my son and his friends, the children in our old neighborhood, on the day we left to move to Seattle.  He's known them since the day we moved in when he was 1 year old.  One of the boys wasn't even born yet.

I used hidden journaling behind the photo.  The navy polka dot tab pulls out.  I blocked out the other children's names.

I just wanted to do something clean and simple. I added the word cluster on the right edge.   These words were perfect to describe all the children.  

I got the idea for the LO from the SBE April 2012 mag page 106.  

My supplies are CS:Bazzill, PP-Fancy Pants, pen-American Crafts, cardstcok stickers-Basic Grey and Fancy Pants, word stickers-Tiny Type by Cosmo Cricket, Letter stickers-Tiny Type by Cosmo Cricket, Sassafrass and Thickers, brads-Heidi Swapp, jewels and button-SEI, bakers twine-Doodlebug.

LOAD #11-Countdown to Independence

Not only am I out of order, I'm off now by 2 days as well.  Good thing I will have some time the next few days to play catch up.  I finally finished LOAD 11: School Days.  I loosely interpreted this prompt.  I wanted to use this CK Sketch, and also submit this for the ScrapFit "blank canvas" challenge.  I really wanted to use these photos.  I am ready to tell this story.

I wanted to create some movement like the wheels of the bus, so I used round shaped punches, in yellow and blue to both highlight the color of the bus and add some contrast to my son's blue jacket.   I wrote a quote on the yellow scallops to help keep the eye moving to the right.  To add texture, I added the monochromatic brads at the peaks of the scallops,  added buttons to the wheels of the bus sticker, and used pop dots on all the stickers.  Lastly, I highlighted in red ink the 5 descriptions closely matching the numbers on the photos.  The journaling is the email I sent to my family and friends on this day and reads:

Today was quite the day for Joshua.  SInce Dec 2007, Joshua has been riding to school on the bus, but in his wheelchair. 

5.Today, he walked to the bus 

4.He walked onto the bus with my help. 

3.He sat down in a seat, just like his friends.  2.He rode to school.  

1.His aide Kelly, helped him walk off the bus and she and I walked with him into class.  He knew I was there, but never turned to say goodbye once he was in his classroom.  His teacher told me this was the highlight of her professional career.

John, Evan and I are so proud of Joshua. I can’t believe how very emotional we are today.  This is a HUGE milestone for Joshua. What we've seen most from Joshua lately, is his desire for independence.  I know this is only the beginning of new territory for Joshua, It will only help and encourage him. He just wants to be like everyone else.  He took a step in that direction today.  I can’t wait to see what comes next!

LOAD #13-Play ball!

Oh, Mr. Mojo, where are you???? I got nothing. Mojo is nowhere to be found.

I love today's LOAD prompt: your hobbies.  It could be now, it could be then, it could be how they've changed, it could be my family's hobbies.  I basically have 3 hobbies.  Scrapping, reading and baseball.  I thought about taking a picture of my Nancy Drew books and another of a shelf of books I have yet to read, but I have so many photos that I have printed, I decided to see if I could find a photo that fit the prompt. Any ideas where this is going....

Yes, I played Little League.  I loved baseball then and I still love baseball now.  It isn't the prettiest or best designed LO, but it is another one in the book.  

I was happy that I had this baseball circle by Colorbok.  I laid that on Basic Grey navy CS and added some old Karen Foster and Autumn Leaves stickers, some bling and I am done. 

LOAD #12-Let the Music Play

Oh, I'm out of order now.  I still haven't had a chance to do LOAD #11.  I know what I want to do, it's all laid out, I just need the time to do it.  I just don't get as much scrappy time on the weekends.  Anyway, on to LOAD #12 and today's prompt is: History repeats itself.

Again, there are any number of things I could have done, but I knew 3 things already...I wanted to use these photos of my son's band concert for the Club CK ThanksLiving Challenge #2, and also the Club CK CHA trend Challenge,  I was tremendously inspired by the Frosted Designs 2/7 Sketch.  So I decided that history has repeated itself by my son being in the school band, just like I was, but also, that I am just thankful we still have music in our schools.

So, for this LO, I used the Frosted Designs sketch, but I flipped it so the photos go left to right instead of right to left.  This was a great sketch for these photos for a lot of reasons. I had one central photo and 2 small ones to focus on. It allowed me to use some embellishments to highlight not only the photos, but the theme of the LO as well.  I just knew right away, this was going to work for these photos!

Orange is a hard color to use. Really? NEON orange band shirts that had to be photographed indoors in bad florescent lighting.  Yeesh.  So, I chose to use more orange PP to complement the photos rather than try to contrast them and just set it on black CS.  I was concerned it might look like Halloween, but I don't think it does at all.  I took a close up photo of the medal my son received, and printed multiples, cut them out and make them the banner to reinforce the music theme.  I added metal brads and the metal round clips to play off the brass trumpet.  I also had this chipboard piece with the word music on it that I wanted to stand out, so I used smaller letter stickers.  I am really happy with how this turned out.

Lots of supplies for this one.  CS-Bazzill, PP-SEI, Scenic Route, Echo Park, DCWV, Basic Grey, Journal tag, letter stickers and date sticker-Echo Park, 'Music' Chipboard-DCWV, Ink-ColorBox, brads-Making Memories, metal clips-unknown, bakers twine

Now all I need to do is find time to play catch up.  Maybe tomorrow....

The Liebster Blog Award

I need to give a big thank you to my friend Cassie.  She nominated my blog for the Liebster Blog award. I was really surprised and very flattered!  I have seen this little badge on some other blogs that I visit, but didn't know anything about it.   

How about a little info about the Liebster Blog award:
"Liebster" is German for dearest, beloved or favorite. The award is given from one blogger to another and is intended to showcase up-and-coming blogs typically with less than 200 followers. It's a chance to get more traffic to their blogs and to share the love and creativity that is out there. There is no evaluation committee or formal process for this award. It is simply peer recognition for your hard work---which is pretty terrific, right?Obligations of receiving this recognition are minimal. Show thanks to the blogger(s) who nominated you by linking back to their blog. Share the Liebster Blog award with other up and coming blogs with fewer than 200 followers. Post the award on your own blog!


So again, thank you Cassie, and please visit her beautiful blog www.allsmilesandsunshine.blogspot.com, and follow her if you don't already! 


Drumroll please, I am nominating 2 of my friends for the Liebster Award. Both of these women have inspired me tremendously, and when you see their creative works, you'll understand why.
Moongirl-www.happinessequalscreation.blogspot.com   You impress me everytime I see your 2 page speeds.  They are just beautiful
Emeraldvalkyrie-www.myscrapbookevolution.blogspot.com  You are constantly trying new artistic and design ideas and encourage me to do the same.


So go check out their blogs, and follow them (and me!) too.

LOAD #10-Ice Cream Sundays

Yes, another fun one, but yes, I cried while I typed.  LOAD Prompt for today: A Favorite Memory.  The first thing that came to mind was ice cream with Grandpa. We used to give Grandpa a coupon book for his birthday. The coupons were for him to take us out for ice cream every month.  Oh how we looked forward to that!  I know that if I asked my sister for a favorite memory, she'd say the same thing.  It was our special thing to do with Grandpa.  I only wish I had a more appropriate picture.  I only have pictures of Grandpa and I when I was a baby, and none of my sister and I with him.  Have to "borrow" some from my Dad I guess....

I was thinking frosty pastelly colors, of which I don't own a lot.  I remembered I still had some unfinished pages from a SEI class I took at CKC in November.  I changed up the embellies and moved the journaling and title to other areas on the page.  Pretty much what I had in mind. All supplies are SEI, except the title letters are Sassafrass.

Oddly enough, I recently did this same prompt for a CK Challenge and it was about my other Grandpa.

LOAD #9-Home

Ok, another light hearted project completed.  Today's LOAD prompt is: Home Sweet Home.
In this pile of photos I was given, there were a few of our house when we were adding the second story to it.  The day the contractor came over to start the demolition, he handed my sister and I a rock and told us to throw it through the window from the inside, out.  My friend Rachel had just arrived to pick me up for our walk to school. He handed her a rock as well, and the 3 of us did and we were told.  It was the weirdest feeling to be doing that to my house.  Finally though, later that year, I was going to have my own room.  I loved that house and living in it.  When my parents sold it, my sister and I said that someday we would like to buy it back....

I feel like brown goes with pictures of houses, kraft actually. I've been using so much kraft, I needed to choose something else.  So I used brown Bazzill CS for the background and used some scraps and some chipboard embellies and twine from the MME Kraft FunDay.  Thickers, CC Tiny Type, Pebbles Kraft alpha letters round it out.  I fussy cut the chevron pattern on all the PP.  The sketch is from the SLS eBook.

Can't wait for tomorrow's prompt.  You can check out LOAD at www.layoutaday.com

LOAD #8-I Miss the 80's

I had to get out of the Darkside and move on to something light and silly today!  Today's LOAD prompt : I miss...I actually dreamt about this last night. (I have the benefit of being on the west coast.  The prompts are sent anytime after 12am EST).  I woke up thinking about the beach and how much I miss it.  I have no idea how I came up with this.  Wait, yes I do.  I saw the new Jan/Feb Issue Challenge #7 at club CK: use a calendar on your LO.  I used the free download from CK as a journal tag.  All the chipboard shapes are from the DCWV Rock Star collection that has been sitting in my drawer for ummm...years?  If I had been scrapping in the 80's, I could have said since then.  I was saving them for a project I have yet to begin, and at this point, probably won't ever begin.

These pictures are from our last high school reunion.  We had tooooo much fun in the 80's; the music, the dances, the clothes and oh, can't forget the hair.  I miss seeing my friends daily.  I'm lucky if we get to see each other once a year now.

I hated this LO so I red-did it.  I mean completely started over.  I have never done that before.  Here is the new one:

Supplies: CS-Bazzill, chipboard-DCWV, journal tag-CK, punch, EK success, Stickers-American Crafts, CC Tiny Type, brads-Making Memories

Lovely Grins

I love when one LO conquers 2 challenges.  I did this lovely page today for the Club CK 2/8 One Hour Challenge, use pink and make a Valentine project and Scrapbookers Anonymous Feb Challenge, use at least 3 hearts and stitching.  Feeling pretty smart in tying these together.  They were similar in theme.  The pink doesn't look half bad for this either! Thanks for the fun ideas.

LOAD #7-I never, I always

Well, today was a doozy.  I could have taken this in so many directions.  But then I saw this picture and I knew what I needed to do.  Today's LOAD prompt is : I always thought....  It could have been about song lyrics, what I thought about when I was a child, any number of things.  I always thought I'd be a doctor.  I always thought I'd get married young like my parents. I always thought I'd go to the same college as my parents.  I could have done a LO about those things.  But I didn't.  Today, I decided to go deep and write about how I always thought my family would be like everyone else's and we aren't.

Here is my page.

Supplies: PP-MME, punch-EK Success, Letter stickers-DCWV, CC Tiny Type, Pinking shears

Check out www.layoutaday.com for more info about LOAD

LOAD #6-Dream Big

Almost a week in the bag!  What started out as an organized day, suddenly just got wacky.  Too much time wasted on the phone trying to take care of simple business.  Really zapped my calm mood and sent Mr. Mojo packing.  Bummer for me.  Nothing like trying to be creative when you are frazzled.  I did manage to sneak in a bit of time to get today's project done.  I kind of got lost in it and it didn't turn out the way I saw it in my head.  I used the February sketch from ScrapHappy for today's LOAD prompt: Little Girl Dreams.

These are more like Big Girl Dreams.  This was the day I left on my cross country drive for my move to Chicago in Feb of 1991. I had stopped at my grandparents house for brunch and one last goodbye. Some of my friends came over, gave me the hat and the bear, (whose name was Sebastian and I have no idea why).  I was scared, nervous and excited. I definitely was not sure I was doing the right thing.  New city, home, roommate, job, climate.  It was all going to be new.  The bottom line was, if it didn't work out, I could always go home.  But, the only thing I did know was that I was finally going to see Wrigley Field. :-)

Here is my LO.

This is also my entry for Club CK Jan/Feb '12 Issue Challenge #6, go hybrid.  I think that's where I lost my way.  I was trying to do too much with this page, and it wasn't coming together the way I had envisioned.  The skyline photo and tag at the bottom I printed from internet images.  

Supplies used: PP, Echo Park, Fancy Pants, Recollections. CS, Bazzill, Thickers, CC Tiny Type, Jolee's, twine.

LOAD #4 and #5

Phew, what a weekend. It was not what I had expected it to be!  I spent the entire weekend with my son at his swim meet which left me absolutely no creative time. Don't get me wrong.  I loved every minute of my time with him. It just made keeping up with LOAD a tad difficult.   I was determined to do something.  I had been thinking about the prompt: The more things change and what photos I wanted to use all day. But, it was 9:45 pm when I finally got to my desk last night.  I drastically simplified my LO by using a half-finished class page and adding a title and some journaling. It became a 15 minute page, but it was finished and uploaded.  I may still do the other idea I had another time. I better write it down though. I am looking forward to Monday. I need a rest!

LOAD #4

So yes, moving was a a big change.  This is our change of address card we sent.  I blotted out our address.  

Paper is Bazill and Basic Grey. Title sticker is 7 Gypsies

I really didn't see this coming.  LOAD, Day 5: The more things stay the same.  I thought about taking pictures of the laundry, messy bedrooms, the dog leash. Instead, in my attempt to stick with my OLW, and Progress, I found a picture of my husband and boys together.  Again, super short on time today. I had 15 minutes before it was time to leave for the pool.  I was saved once again by an unfinished class LO.  I added "it never changes" under LOVE and called it a day.  I might move or remove the flower.  I don't love it there.

LOAD #5

Love Never Changes

Paper and flower is MME, letter stickers are CC Tiny Type

If you want more information about LOAD, check out www.layoutaday.com

LOAD-Day 3: Who am I?

Day 3 and I am feeling good!  The sun is out, it's Friday and I've got a 2 pager finished, and in the book. Bette yet, I get to add this to the Frosted Designs Friday Challenge-use ribbon and/or twine. Awesome!

Because the theme of LOAD is "Past Perfect", I have a stack of old photos ready to go.  Although many of the memories that go with these old photos belong to my parents, it's been fun to have them out and around me.  My son gets a kick out of them as well.

Today's LOAD prompt is "Who Am I Now"?  Good question.  There were a group of photos of me, about the same size, all black and white, of different expressions, but of varying ages.  I know one of them is a favorite of my Dad's. I tried to imagine what those expressions meant then, knowing that I still make some of the same faces and expressions now.  I'm sure some mean the same, and some are very different.

I used a LO I started in a CKC class.  I changed the entire LO design and embellies. the only thing that is the same is the PP selection and placement.  Supplies are Basic Grey, Bazzill, Glubers, Glue Dots, twine, ribbon, ink,Thickers, Tiny Type.  I love using twine on Glubers. So fun!

I came up with the answer, "I am me", with some adjectives describing me know and possibly then.  Original don't you think?

LOAD-Day 2: Favorites

Moving right along to day 2. Today's prompt is a favorite photo, why is it a favorite, what is the emotion behind it. I immediately thought of this picture.

I love this picture. It is so rare that the 6 of us are together in one place at the same time.  But this picture is deceptive. It is an oxymoron.  Everything about this picture is wrong. This was the day of Momo's (our Grandfather) funeral. The worst day of my life to date. None of us wore black because Momo wouldn't have liked that.  The sun was shining and the palm trees were swaying because Nani and Momo live on the beach. We were smiling and laughing because it took about 20 takes to get a decent picture.  We wanted to give this picture to Nani at a later date, hoping to make her smile because we knew she was sad.

So everything about this layout in a way is wrong too.  The title is a play on words.  Yes, the picture is a favorite, but we, each one of us, were Momo's favorites.  It's bright, cheery and happy, which is anything BUT the way we all felt.  I will always love this picture, but I hate the reason we have it.

LOAD #1-Cheerios

So, this is the cool thing about LOAD: I give myself (about) an hour to do my LO.  Sometimes, it does just take longer, but when I have a time limit, I have to make faster choices and stick with them.  My pages may not be as elaborate as some of my others. They will definitely have fewer details. They may not all become favorites. But, they will be finished and can go in an album.  Today's prompt: You've got good taste, something inspired about food.

I got the old Cheerios jingle in my head as soon as I came across this photo, which is the title. I bought the garland with the other Kraft MME papers.  I think they mimic the look of Cheerios well, and I still have some scraps of the Cheerios PP I bought eons ago.  know I have at least 2 other Cheerios pages in our books, and I will probably have a few more, but he knows what he wants and he knows what he likes, so I keep taking pictures. LOAD, day 1, is in the books.

LOADing up...

Getting ready for LOAD, Layout a Day with Lain Ehmann, to begin tomorrow! This will be my 3rd time participating. This months theme is Past Perfect.  I've got some old photos of my childhood prepared, as well as a batch of semi-newer ones from 2006. I ought to be able to come up with 29 new LO's from them. I'll be posting them here daily after I finish them.

My scrap room is clean, and almost totally organized. My desks clear and ready to go.  This will be my main focus this month scrappy wise, so there won't be many other challenges that I participate in. The exceptions will be Club Ck weekly Issue and ThanksLiving Challenges.  The idea is for me to have fun, not make myself crazy!  The only thing I need to do now, is figure out when the best time of day is going to be for me to work on my LO each day.  I'm hoping I can get most of the LOs finished in an hour, but I guess that is ring to depend on the prompt and how much journaling I'll have to do.

If you've never done LOAD, but are considering it, I highly recommend it.  It's a challenge and who isn't up for a challenge?  Then there is the wonderful feeling of accomplishment when you finish.

Wish me luck!

Squeeeeze Hugs & Lights

I love these pictures.  Mostly, I love the contrast of colors. The reds, and browns seem to highlight the blue of both boys eyes. They are both such a contrast to me.  Anyway, I really wanted this to be a special LO. I just found the Kraft FunDay collection by MME.  I was pretty sure they would work well for what I wanted to do.  I am very happy with how this came out.  I started with a sketch from the SLS eBook, but adapted it to fit the photos.  As it turns out, I am able to enter this LO in 4 different Challenges.  ScrapFit WW #23, use Kraft, Club CK ThanksLiving #1 and January Pinterest, and lastly for ScrapHappy January Inspiration.

For now, the journaling will be for me and I will be writing it on the back.  We love our Squeeeeze Hugs in our family. I am very thankful to have them.

I was able to finish another project today.  This is for the Club CK Jan/Feb '12 Issue Challenge #5, Use the colors brown, purple and teal on your LO, inspired by the cover of the CK Magazine Cover.  I was not afraid!  I love purple.  I just don't have a reason to use it all that often in a house full of boys....Oddly enough, both the lamp and the bowl in these photos had purple in them.  By using the purple and teal, I think it made the lampshade stand out, but didn't overshadow my son in action.  That silly, curious, proud little boy. 

I pulled scraps out of my bin, Basic Grey, SEI and Creative Imaginations, Bazzill CS, used a few different EK Success and Fiskars punches, some of the banner is Echo Park stickers, twine, ribbon, Glimmer Mist, Cosmo Cricket mini alphas and Thickers.  Volia! Another LO that makes me smile.

Got Snow!

Yikes!  Did we have a storm this week or what? For a minute I thought I was dreaming that I was living in Chicago again...Nope, it was the storm of the decade for the Puget Sound area. I didn't spend as much time outside as my husband and son did. I am fortunate he took so many pictures.  I have about 200 good ones to choose from.

This is my submission for the Frosted Designs Blog Hop.  As soon as I saw the prompt was to use vellum, acrylic or transparency, I knew I wanted to use vellum and some of these new snow pictures. I decided to try cut some snowflakes using my Cricut, something I've never done before.  Wow, they turned out great.  I used a simple snowflake, and kept them larger in size because I didn't want to tear the paper.  For some size variation, I then used my punch for the smaller flakes.  I added some colored & embossed acrylic snowflakes for a change of shape and color.

The vellum snowflake cluster at the bottom

Stitching, vellum and acrylic snowflakes

I used the negative space from one of the die cut snowflakes and layered it over the letter 'O' to give it some dimension

This LO will also be my entry for this weeks Issue Challenge over at Club CK, inspired by a card.   My Dad is a photographer/art designer.  He takes the mist beautiful scenic photographs and chooses a favorite to be his Holiday Card each year.  This is one of my favorites from a few years ago, taken in the Lake Tahoe area. I always cut the card part off and keep the photo.  This the the card that inspired my LO.

If you would like to see more of my Dad's photography, here is a link to his website.outdoorscenics.com

Been Busy Creating

I had some good scrappy time over the weekend.  It was nice to sit in my room, football on in the background and just get busy.  I had spent Friday evening perusing a bunch of challenge blogs for inspiration.  I even found a few I knew I could participate in, so I was ready to roll Saturday morning.  Two in particular are ScrapFIT and Scrapbookers Anonymous.
I've been working on pictures of spring 2006.  Some are events, some are moments, but man, just looking at them brings back all the memories.

This first one is for two challenges.  ScrapFIT Weekend Warmup #22, use STARS.  Stars are a fairly easy one for me.  Having two boys, stars go nicely on many LOs.  All of the PP and embellishments are by Fancy Pants.  The stars at the top and bottom of the page are rub ons.  The bottom one I outlined in black pent to make it stand out more. The orange triangle border at the top of the PP is a Fiskars border punch.

I also used this LO for Club CK Issue Challenge #3, use stickers in your journaling.

This next one is using a mask with ink and a stamp, which is something I've never done before, as suggested by Scrapbookers Anonymous and Scrap Our Stash.   The Journal spots are a stamp I use often, but they actually have lines in the middle. I used a mask so the middle would be blank and I could write the way I wanted to.  They aren't perfect, but pretty good for my first try and good enough to use. It's a small part of the LO, but it made a difference to me.

Seeing as tomorrow is a snow day for my husband and children, I may have some time to sneak back into my room again.  I already have some photos and PP's laid out on my desk!

Little by Little...

Little by little, I am getting back into the swing of things.  It was rough coming out of winter break and back in to the regular weekly routine.   So, I am glad we have lazy Saturdays at our house.   The boys and DH chill and do their own things.  It gives me a chance to regroup and recharge.

I was in and out of my scrap room all week with nothing to show for it.  Finally yesterday, some ideas started to form as I was getting ready to walk out the door. (of course!) I quickly made some notes on a scratch paper and hoped I would remember the rest.

I headed to my scrap room today and have been working on 2 of the 3 LO ideas so far.  The light is terrible today.  It's just plain grey outside and difficult to photograph the LOs.

Here is one using Sketchy Thursdays 1/5 Challenge.  I wasn't sure I was going to scrap this photo.  I wish  I had gotten the shot of my son looking at the book with my friend.  This sketch was perfect for the photo, so I went ahead anyway.  Lots of room for interpretation to make it fancy or keep it simple.  I kept it simple, but I did use a mask around the edge of the CS for the mist.

Some new creations

I finished off 2011 with 255 scrapbook pages created.  I don't think I had made that many over the past 3 years!  I'm calling 2011 a transition year for me.  I had some extra time on my hands.  I highly doubt that I will repeat that performance in 2012. These are some of the last few LO's I created.

This one is kind of crazy, but fun.  The clown paper was in the Sassafrass mystery box.  Didn't think I'd use that one, but it really went with the goofy grin in the photos.

This one I really like, but can't take any credit for the paper choice or design.  It is from Creative Color Techniques class I took at CKC Seattle in November.  I am challenging myself to finish the pages that I started in all the classes I took.

This is the first layout of 2012.  Sadly, I can't take any credit for this one either. It is also from a CKC class, Latest and Greatest with Basic Grey, sponsored by Embellish It.  As much as the flowers aren't my style, I do have to say we learned a very creative way to extend the use of double sided PP.  We cut the middle out of the background floral paper, covered the empty space with the yellow paper, then trimmed the piece we cut out of the middle, flipped it one to use the reverse side and stuck it on top of the yellow. I will remember that the next time I want to use both sides of PP.

I'm feeling good about my crafty start to 2012. A 2 page layout, and I've already backed up all my photos.  Hmmmm, what's next?

A New Year, a New Post

Wow, I didn't realize I had ignored my blog for so long.  The fall leading into the end of the year gets a little crazy for me.  It becomes calendar time and my own scrappy projects get pushed to the side until they are finished. This year I made 8.

This is the 6th year I've been making them and the first year I did not use a kit. I used my own designs.  I started by choosing my photos. I chose 1 or 2 per month and ordered prints.  Then I chose the designs. Some were from sketches, some were my own. Next I chose the card stock and papers.  When all that is done, I lay it all on the table and trim/cut the papers for each calendar, then assemble them.  The last thing I do is choose and adhere all the embellishments.  I keep them pretty simple. After all is said and done, it winds up being 96 pages....It's a lot of work, but so worth it.  Everyone in my family looks forward to their calendar each year.

Here is the calendar I made for my husband.  He takes it to work and hangs it on the wall of his office.

 I have many scrappy and non-scrappy projects in my future, which means there will be more new things to add.