Hawaiiana

Ryan and Logan were lucky enough to get to complete the Hawaiiana Merit Badge while at Summer Camp last year.  They learned so much about the Hawaiian culture and customs.  I used the Life's a Beach Cricut cartridge fo rmost of the cuts on this one.  The grass was made with my Martha Stewart fringe scissors and I used the Tim Holtz ticket die and the Stampology ticketed stamps for the red ticket.  Don't you love it when stamps and dies fit perfectly together!!!  I used lots of Tim Holtz distress inks to give the trees and leaves dimension.  I printed the Hawaiiana merit badge from the Scout site and cut it out with my nestabilities. 

Craft Us Crazy Challenge #2

WOWSA!!! WOWSA!!! WOWSA!!!  We can't believe the amazing participation we have had in our first challenge over at Craft Us Crazy!!!  We are all so excited and hope that all of you will join us again in our second challenge!  This challenge is a "Winter Theme" challenge.  We are delighted to have Meljen's Designs as our sponsor for this challenge.  I'm so excited to work with this cute image called Cozy Winter Owl....the name is even cute!  You can find him here.  I used papers from the Hot Chocolate line by Fancy Pants on my project.  I forgot to make a note of which cartridge I used for my background snowflake but I cut it with my cricut and then glittered it up.  I used a snow writer to get that awesome dimension in my snow and then added glitter for sparkle.  You can find this amazing Hot Chocolate kit at Crop Chocolate....appropriate huh?  Melissa has graciously donated 4 of her lovely digi images of the winner's choice for this challenge!  She has such a fun style...I can't wait to play with more of her images!  Here is a little bit of information on Meljen's Designs:

Meljen's Designs is a lovely stamp company owned and illustrated by Melissa Jenkins. She illustrates whimsical rubber and digital images inspired by her kids and family.  Meljen's Designs has new releases along with a new challenge every Thursday, freebies every Monday and a Guest Designer each month at the Meljen's Designs Blog. Please visit the Meljen's Designs line of stamps at the WHIMSY STAMPS STORE to browse and enjoy Melissa's wonderful images.

Don't forget about our monthly sponsors also!  If you participate in this challenge you can be on the running for our prizes donated by The Cutting Cafe and Stamps Alive also!  Here are the copics I used on my project above:

Can't wait to see what you make for this winter theme challenge at Craft Us Crazy!!!

Rolled Paper

I'm still frantically hoping to get Ryan's Eagle Scout scrapbook finished before his Court of Honor next month.  Here is one page I completed using a really fun and easy technique I found on The Scrap Farm.  Melinda has some REALLY cool fun techniques that I can't wait to try.  This was so easy to do and I got to use up a bunch of my scraps!!!

Be Mine Minnie LO

If you haven't picked up the new Echo Park kit "Be Mine" yet.....hurry hurry and get it!  You can pick it up on Crop Chocolate and you won't be sorry!  I usually have one or more sheets of cardstock in a kit that I think I will never use....that is why I've never been much of a kit person....I usually buy by the sheet and then it takes me forever to put together the patterns I want to use......not with Echo Park.  I love their papers so much that I have a hard time cutting in to it because I want to use both sides of this beautiful double sided paper.  Plus it is all put together for me and I don't have to worry about trying to coordinate papers myself.  Speeds up the whole scrapbooking process tremendously for me!  If you watch all the magnificent deals on Crop Chocolate (be sure to refresh your page often as there are lots of deals everyday) you will see lots of Echo Park kits....check out the new Springtime and For the Record kits....they are sitting in my carte right now!!!  That is one of the beauties of crop chocolate is that you can keep an ongoing carte so that you can save on shipping!  When you look in your carte it will tell you how many days that item can stay in your cart so you don't miss out!  Plus when you go to check out with all of your goodies there will be an option to purchase a "hot chocolate" which is usually $2.49 or so.....check out this picture to see what my $2.49 bought me:

If you would like to read a little more about me and see some fun photos of my kiddos head on over to Crop Chocolate today as I'm the featured customer of the day.  I'm so honored!!! (LOL....tells you I must do a little too much shopping over there huh?)

Sponsors! Sponsors! Sponsors!!!

We are all so excited over at Craft Us Crazy at the amazing response to our first challenge!  There are so many talented crafters out there!  If you haven't already participated, please come over and share whatever project you are working on because this first challenge is anything goes so whatever you are working on will fit the challenge!!!  Plus you can win some AWESOME prizes!  Regina from The Cutting Cafe has graciously donated 3 digital image sets from her store to this month's winner!  The cute cake image on my card came from her store!  You can find it here.  Her sets are AMAZING....they have tons of images in them!  This set comes with the black/white version of the cake like I used above so you can add your own color plus...it comes with some colored versions and....a couple of different sizes plus....a cake shaped template to make a cake shaped card and I'm sure I'm forgetting something but you get the point the sets are huge!  We are also excited to have Terri from Stamps Alive as a sponsor this month!  She has graciously donated a Spellbinder Nestabilities set to this month's winner!  Plus....if you hurry on over and link your project up before our next challenge begins on Feb. 17th then you can also have a chance at winning 3 digital images from Digital Delights!  Can't wait to see what you are working on!

Craft Us Crazy Challenge #1 Anything Goes

I'm so excited about our first challenge over at Craft Us Crazy.  Jeri is giving us an Anything Goes challenge to get us started!!!  So you can make any kind of project you want!!!  Just go "crazy"! (he! he!)  We are so excited to have Digital Delights as our very first sponsor for this challenge.  I am so excited that I got to work with this super cute image called Dilly Duck & Ladybug from their store.  This sweet little duck was so fun to color...I'll show you the copics I used below.  That adorable duck paper in my background is from the Ducks in a Row paper pad by October Afternoon and I used basic black cardstock that I keep on hand.  That pretty yellow cardstock is crushed curry by SU.  I used my nestability dies for the frame and some of the spellbinder dies are in 1/4" increments which sometimes I feel is too large so I cut a second black one in the same size as my image layer and then I cut it in half....the gap is hidden behind the buttons.  I think it worked pretty well as I'm in no way a "free hand cutter" so that was out of the question.  Here is a little information about the Digital Delights site:

Welcome to Digital Delights, a magical place filled with little digi creations from all walks of life. We have a wide range of digital stamps which are delivered straight to your email 24/7!

In addition we also have a growing range of "Delightful Piecings" which are paper pieced files designed to be used with your cutting machines or for hand cutting.
Fancy a new blog makeover, header or new watermark, then stop by our sister site Delightful Custom blogs.

Digital Delights as graciously donated 3 digital stamps of the winner's choice for this challenge's winner!  Can you believe we even have more prizes this month?  Regina over at The Cutting Cafe and Terri from Stamps Alive have both donated prizes....so rush on over to the Craft Us Crazy challenge blog to get all the details on how you can win!!! I can't wait to see what you make!!!  Oops...almost forgot....here are the copics I used on my card above:



Ryan Summer Camp 2010

We are so proud of Ryan.  He made Eagle Scout in December....so....I'm frantically trying to finish his Scouting Scrapbook before his court of honor!!!!  Here is one page that I had a blast making.  Most of the die cuts are made with my Cricut and the solutions Camping cartridge.  The dutch oven sticker is from a Karen foster scouting sticker sheet.  If anyone has any scouting scrapbook page ideas they would like to share...I'd love to see them!  Also, trying to come up with something for centerpieces for the court of honor ceremony.  We are going with a patriotic theme....would love ideas!

Happy Birthday!

Sorry....not the best picture but I was making this for a birthday party the next day and the picture was taken at about 1:00 in the morning.  Does anyone else do that?  Used my cricut on this one and I know the background shape is from Storybook and the tiara is either from Storybook or Once Upon a Princess...sorry I was looking at them both and I should have written it down.  The paper is DCWV and some SU cardstock with some BG for the pink top layer.  The sentiment stamp is from Papertrey Ink.  Hope you are having an awesome weekend!

Ryan Crossing Over

I know....I know....nothing for weeks and then 2 in one day!  This LO is of Ryan crossing over from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts.  He just made Eagle last month and I want to make a scrapbook for him of his adventures in scouting and my goal is to have it done before his Eagle Court of Honor which is tentatively scheduled for early March....  Here is my first page......I'm so far behind in my scrapbooking!!!!  This is from 2008 and I haven't even started scrapping that year yet.  I'm way behind that.  I promised myself that I was going to get all my 35mm photos that I already have printed scrapped before I would start the digital ones and I'm not making alot of progress there.  It might help if I didn't take the attitude that I NEED to scrap everything or every event that I have photos of.....he he he.  We will be moving in the spring and I'm in major purge mode so I really need to get those boxes of photos into albums!!!

Welcome Baby!

I had so much fun getting back in my craft room!!!  I needed a baby card and I really wanted to make one using this card as my motivation.  I love Laurie's style!  This sweet image is from Elizabeth O Dulemba.  She is a wonderful illustrator who has tons of sweet images over on her site.  I used my copics to color...sorry I didn't take a picture of the colors I used before I put them away.  I believe the pinks are RV21 and RV23 with a brighter one thrown in.  I used papers from October Afternoon's Ducks in a Row backed with some SU cardstock and then an off brand lighter weight cardstock for the top two images as the SU cardstock is a little thick for my border punch.  This border punch is a MS punch and I think it is called crowns....it is a punch around the page set.  I added some ribbon from my stash with a cute yellow button adorned with a silver charm (Walmart...I think).  Hope you enjoy and have an awesome Monday!

Awesome news!!!

I apologize for not being here lately.  My in-laws were here to visit and then my Dad went in the hospital for a short visit.  My hubby has been in and out of town a lot lately but I was able to squeeze in a trip to visit my folks over Thanksgiving and then I came home and had to get busy getting the school semester finished with the boys and get ready for Christmas!  Makes me tired again just typing it...ha! ha!   I so appreciate your prayers for my Dad. He has been feeling somewhat better over the last few weeks!  I do have some awesome crafty news to share, too! Jeri has asked me to be a member of her brand new challenge blog design team.  Her challenge blog is called Craft Us Crazy.  Jeri is so talented herself and she has put together an AMAZING team!  I have the blog roll in my sidebar...be sure to check them out!

Rodeo

For this layout, I used Creative Scrappers Sketch #126 which you can find here.  What a wonderful inspiration this site is!!!  I've had these papers in my stash for a while so I can't even tell you what they are but I love doing western themed pages!  I made another of the "pleated flowers" and then I cut some stars out of some jeans one of the boys had outgrown.  That "saddle up" stamp is from a Unity stamp set.  These pictures are from back in 2001 while we were stationed in Germany and we went to this rodeo on one of the military bases there.  It was so much fun!

Life Is Good

I made this layout for a Scraplift Challenge over at Crop Chocolate.  I used the Life is Good paper pack from Echo Park and I have to say I've purchased several of the Echo Park kits over at Crop Chocolate and I have loved everyone of them.  They coordinate together so well and I could sit for hours trying to find papers to go together so I love that they have done this for me!

CROP CHOCOLATE CROP!!!

Crop Chocolate is having an online crop this weekend!  You can check out the challenges here!  There are lots of awesome challenges going on and AMAZING prizes to be won!  I've not seen the entire list of prizes but I know at least some are Crop Chocolate credits!!!!  Be sure to check out the Sweet Talk also for lots of fun mini games!!!