Delightful You

Here's a layout I did of my darling daughter in her birthday dress and matching hat - she always has a smile on her little face. For added texture and dimension, I used a pizza box and tore it up, inked it and voila!

Close up of the butterflies I cut out from K&Co's Designer paper pad - awesome paper for little cut out embellies!

I cut strips into the background paper and curled up the paper with the edge of scissors.

This wooden tree was originally green but I inked it pink and added grungeboard for the trunk. Added a few flower buttons and another butterfly!

Materials Used:
Patterned Paper: Bohemia Collection, Blossom “Angel” (My Mind’s Eye)
Patterned Paper: Lemongrass Collection, Brown Sugar (Crate Paper)
Patterned Paper: Designer Paper Pad, Cut and Paste (K & Co)
Patterned Paper: Vintage Red Bookprint (Jenni Bowlin)
Patterned Paper: Penny Lane Collection, Ballet Dancing Circles (My Mind’s Eye)
Pearls: Unknown
Buttons: Unknown
Tree: Plaid
Grungeboard: Tim Holtz
Edge Distresser: Making Memories
Alphabet Stamp Set: Studio G
Pizza Box
Ink: Vintage Photo (Tim Holtz)

Perfect Pucker

Here is a layout I did for a neato website called Scrap the Girls. Layouts and challenges with photos of girls only! (They also have a sister site called Scrap the Boys - same idea, boys only!) Tres cool if you're looking for girly girl inspired layouts. The challenge this month was to do your layout according to their monthly sketch (found on their site) and your title had to include the word "Perfect".

This is my dd on her birthday. She has just turned 1 and her newest favourite things are Rice Krispies! When I poured a bunch on her highchair she responded with an excited "Oooo.. WooooooWooooooW!"

Here is a close up of the lacing and coloured eyelets.

Journaling strips attached with brads.

Materials Used:
Patterned Paper: sugared, pleasing (Basic Grey)
Patterned Paper: corecolour cardstock, chocolate box (Core'dinations)
Patterned Paper: 29th street market, peaceful dream (My Mind's Eye)
Patterned Paper: gretel, fairy tales (Cosmo Cricket)
Patterned Paper: 8x8 paper pad, honey pie (Cosmo Cricket)
Eyeletz: Provo Craft
Edge Distresser: Making Memories
Paper Trimmer: 12 inch portable trimmer (Fiskars)
Ink: Ranger, Vintage photo (Tim Holtz)
Journaling Pen: Jelly Roll, White (Sakura)
Glue Stick: Selectum
White School Glue: Selectum
Ribbon: Spool o' Ribbon (Berwick Offray)
Alphabet Stamp Set: Studio G

Happy Spring to ME!

Just received some wonderful news today! My layout "Love Those Cheeks" has won the Spring Layout Contest over at SCRAP THAT! In addition, I'm to be featured, along with my layout, in their upcoming May Scrap That! Scrap Chat newsletter. Wonderful news - thanks so much everyone!! Don't forget to check ou their forum for awesome contests and challenges to get your creative juices flowing!

Just in Time

I haven't had much time to scrap the past few days with my daughter's first birthday party this past weekend but I finally managed to complete this layout for Scrapping Out Loud's Challenge blog. This week's challenge was to scrap your crappy pics - this is too funny as probably 75% of the photos I take of the kids are crappy. Gotta love digital cameras where you can simply delete them all! I used the 3 photos in this layout featuring my kids giving me their "best cheese smile". I managed to use their sketch of the week and word of the week which was adjust. I'll update the materials list later tonight when I have more time. Thanks for peeking!

Some More Publishing for ME!

Just wanted to share the fabulous news that 4 of my layouts have been published in Scrapbook News & Review!! The actually wanted 7, but 3 were already being published by Scrapbooking.com Magazine and Canadian Scrapbooker so they had to settle for 4 - LOL! The entire last month has been unbelieveable for me and I am so fortunate to have the support and interest in my layouts that I am receiving - thank you everyone!

You must click on the Magazine Tab and then over to "In the Spotlight" tab, under "Style Spotlight" My layouts: How Time Flies, In Your Loving Arms, Now I Know and Hand in Hand are all under the 05/09 Style Spotlight gallery. Have a peek!

These 4 Things

Here is a layout I did of my beautiful son. He is such an amazing little boy - so smart, so caring, so wise beyond his years. Always a curious mind with such an imagination. I tried to incorporate 2 challenges with this layout. One was to use the colour grey. While I did use this colour, I think the layout ended up more orange than anything - oh well - grey is such a boring colour anyhow! The second challenge was from Scrapper's Block? and the challenge was to do a layout with a list.

I often find it difficult to include a title or journaling on my layouts as most of the space (even white space) seems taken up once I finish arranging the papers, photo(s) and embellies. I do want to include sentimental words if the layout calls for such and this is a layout that I did want to incorporate journaling so I simply hid it.

Here is the hidden journal tag with the pull tab closed: and opened: Journaling Reads: Things I Want You to Always Remember:
1. Your FAMILY is the most important thing in the world.
2. ENJOY life - each and every moment.
3. Never lose your sense of WONDER and imagination.
4. Eventhough you will GROW up to be 'big' one day, you will always be my little boy.

Close up of some cut out work and embellishments. I ended up hilighting key words from the journaling and incorporated into the layout: Wonder, Grow, Family, Enjoy.



Materials Used:
Cardstock: Basic cardstock, blond column (The Paper Company)
Patterned Paper: Ambrosia Collection, Winsome (Basic Grey)
Patterned Paper: Ambrosia Collection, grove (Basic Grey)
Patterned Paper: Ambrosia Collection, marmalade (Basic Grey)
Patterned Paper: Write Out collection, Explore - Discovery(We R Memory Keepers)
Adhesive Paper Ribbon: Que Sera Sera (K & Co)
Metal Words: Colorbok
Wood Stickers: Plaid
Ink: Jet Black (StazOn)
Paper Trimmer: 12 inch portable trimmer (Fiskars)

A New Design Team for ME!

Its with great pleasure that I announce a new Design Team that I am now working with - Butterfly Crafts! Its a fabulous challenge blog offering new challenges twice a month - the 1st and the 15th! If you're looking for some great inspiration - stop on by!

Something New

Stuck Between a Rock and Hard Place

For those of you who don't already know, my biggest inspirations when doing my layouts are my kids, great photos (of my kids) and amazing papers. I snapped this great photo of my son climbing on the rocks at the beach and when I went to scrap it, couldn't think of any other embellishment to use other than... rocks! I've never really seen another layout done using real rocks so I thought I'd give it a go.

Turned out pretty well - aside from the total weight of the layout (LOL)! I used some eyelets along the sides and strung some twine through to bring the piece together better. The beaver embellishment is actually cut from a clothing tag (Roots) and I thought it tied in well with the outdoorsy/rustic feel.



Materials Used:
Edge Distresser (Making Memories)
tiny alpha letters, blackwhite (Making Memories)
Eyelets (H.A. Kidd & Company)
Twine
Rocks
Acrylic Stamps
Distress Ink, Vintage Photo (Tim Holtz)
Patterned Paper: lemongrass collection, brown sugar (Crate Paper)
Patterned Paper: melody (Around the Block)
Patterned Paper: wassail collection, brandy butter (Basic Grey)
Rub-Ons: Cornucopia flourishes (Me & My Big Ideas)
Scotch Craft Stick (3M)