Cheryl looks like a young bride.

This is my DD in her beautiful dress for her 8th grade Red & White Banquet in 2001. She looks like a young bride in her white dress. I'm entering this layout in Sketchy Friday at Practical Scrappers and also the Practical Scrappers weekly challenge to use punches and decorative scissors. I used My Minds Eye papers , cream cardstock, and a green avacado cardstock with inked edges in brown. Used a Martha Stewart border floral punch in several areas on layout. One big white flower with glimmer mist with a large light green rhinestone brad in center and several small white silk with glitter flowers and leaves, added  pearl beaded swirls and white rhinestone embellishments. And journaled a saying in brown Zig writer pen. If you like new challenges weekly go over to Practical Scrappers and check them out great inspiration for you layouts weekly.

Bunny ears

Another layout of our Eskies, whom we just love having around- us empty nesters, and they are a bit spoiled. This is my take of the sketch over at My Little Sketch Blook by Liz Qualman. I used a easter bunny paper by Moxxie, white lazer cut floral paper sprayed with a white glimmer mist,  all on  a pink cardstock , blue and green polka dot ribbon, pink felt chipboard letters, punched out circles from the bunny paper attached with pop dots, and the scalloped edge on the left were each individually sprayed with 3 different colors of glimmer mists. I made the hearts to kinda represent ears and journal a bit inside them and wrote the letters to spell ears on the top 4 circles on the right side of page which is hard to see in this photo. And the other 2 circles I wrote" 2 cute" on them. I like the simplicity look of this layout and my bunnies are just 2 cute.

Spring Band Concert

This is my take of the sketch this week at Sketches in Thyme, I believe this is there 3rd week and I'm loving there sketches so far for inspiration to do my layouts. I used a scallopped template to cut out 3 of the pictures and a pinkish red Bohemia paper, musical note paper and a small leaf pattern paper. Black cardstock to journal on with a white gel pen and some musical note buttons on the left side of page. I had doodled some leaves along the right edge with a black gel pen and around the scalloped pictures for a border look and inked the edges of paper in black. This layout I put together pretty quickly and like how it turned out. I won  at Sketches in Thyme TOP 3 winner with this layout from the sketch.

The Musician

 This is my DD at her recital in 8th grade back in 2001 and I'm doing a sketch from Sweet Peach blog under Liz Qualman. I really loved the sketch and thought I would give a try. I used the following on this layout. Red floral patterned paper with a reddish cardstock behind it, matted the photo in 3 cardstocks, some musical note paper and a red & white leaf paper that I chalked in green. I sewed a zig-zag stitch around border in black thread, cut musical notes from the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge with black stickles glitter glue ,white roses, which I sprayed with glimmer mist in candy apple red attached with 3 red rhinestone brads and added a few touches of glitter glue and some silk green leaves and added a little white ribbon to each one. On the right side of matted photo I added 5 large gold brads to pull out the buttons on her band uniform. And the little area for journaling I used a 3-D gloss pen in black. I like how I tied everything together from the photo into this layout.

On your Mark, Get Set, Go

This is my DD at her 8th grade track meet back in 2001 and I'm following a sketch from Sketchy Thursdays. This was a bit of a challenge to do the page in horizontal stripes, but I managed to come up with this. Used several misc papers in orange, yellow and red, cut the words-title form cricut cartridge Plantin Schoolbook and used chipboard letters for all the first letters and painted them in a bright green. All the stars were cut from Gypsy Wandering cartridge with yellow buttons and gold string tied on them.

Red & White Banquet

This 2 page layout took me some time to figure out how I was going to do what I intended to have it look like. Its my DD at her 8th grade graduation banquet and she had alot of pictures, so this layout only looks like 6 pictures , but it really has 11 after you flip up 3 of the pictures there is several more. I used K&Company papers from"life's a journey" stack, cream gross grain ribbon, 3 hinges and brads, white cardstock for matting all pictures, slick writer for journaling under one of the pictures, moss green ink for edges of all mats, and used the cartridges Heritage for the floral swirls and Lyrical Letters for the Title , added a few red silk flowers and out lined the title letters in red ink, also added some stickles glitter glue to the floral swirls.

As you can kinda see on the picture of layout when you flip up the pictures there are 5 more underneath. I journaled on the left side flip up and added one more picture and the right side there are 4 more pictures. I was really impressed how this turned out. This layout I'm using at Pink Elephant this week for added more pictures using pockets, accordian fold, etc. Also the right side is a sketch for the L.I.D. challenge over at the cricut MB

Let's go tubing!

This is a bright a colorful page I did for 2 challenges this week. One over at  FCCB #15  " Summer time at the Beach" and Frosted Designs "color challenge" using orange, yellow, turquoise and green. Both blogs have wonderful challenges for your layouts or projects every week and I try to do them both and this week it worked out well with doing one layout.

I used a precut patterned circle that I cut in quarters and used 2 sections of it and some other 2 sided paper by Memory Keepers. plain colored cardstock for the title that I cut from Cricut cartridges Jasmine for the blue and green lettering and Life's a Beach to cut the waves, life saver,fish, beach ball and everything is touched up with stickles using many different colors. I journaled on the corner cut outs in black gel pen. This is my DD in Michigan during the 4th of July in 2001 tubing at my uncle's camp.

Welcome to Frugal Fridays week #8

 What is it about flowers- that we love to put them on our layouts?  Is it because they are so beautiful, cheery and so many colors to choose from, and they just make us feel good. Well here is a little tip about saving a few dollars while your doing those flowery layouts. Next time your in a store and see those bunches of flowers that you really like (and on sale is even better) pick up a few bunches. And when you get home just cut them off the wire branches, use wire cutters on the wire though, not your good scissors. Then put them in your containers or boxes (however you store them) and you will have them on hand when you need them. I put my more delicate ones in a box, or the smaller ones in individual bags, or leave them in small bunches till I need the , then I cut them apart. I find buying white flowers in an array of different petals is great -that way you can glimmer mist them to the colors you need or add glitter glue. You could even cut off some of the leaves and use them in your layouts-now how's that for a money saving idea- a whole bunch of flowers for a small price -can't beat that.

YOU & ME

I just love this sketch from Creative Scrappers this week #109. I like the contemporary look of it and it worked out well for me in this layout of me and my husband on top of the Stratasphere in Las Vegas the first time we went there in 1999. All patterned papers are from Minds Eye and I inked all the edges in coffee bean by paper salon, used a brown with small white dots- ribbon on the edge of LO and for tag, the tag is a piece of chipboard that I covered in my paper and chalked over the journaling, a few circles from a punch and added a few blue rhinestones to the picture and tag. I used my Expression to cut out the title in 2 papers and outlined the letters with a fine black marker using the cartridge Lyrical Letters.Can't wait till next week sketch .

Back Roads

I just love this picture of my son on my Uncles Triumph motorcycle taken about 10 years ago by my uncle.I have been saving this black and white photo to do a special layout and this week I thought the challenge "Behind Closed cupboard Doors" over at Practical Scrappers monthly bonus challenge would work out perfectly for what I did with this layout. Also over at Frosted Designs their challenge is to "recycle" items as embellishments so this layout qualifies for this challenge also. I found this paper a while ago in the boys section but don't remember the name brand. And I used brick colored cardstock, and black cardstock for the background. The items that I used that would qualify for in the cupboard are washers wrapped in wire, mesh, old black and silver earrings which are on the matted picture with wire between them, and a old key. Other products used were glitter paper in a brick color, misc polka-dot paper, vellum and vellum pen, white acrylic paint on top of the vellum, 2 tags that were inked in black or gold, and my Gypsy to weld the title and other words together. Cartridges used in this layout are 50 states, Plantin Schoolbook. My son and his great Uncle took a day long trip  on the backroads of upper Michigan on 4th of July weekend and had a great time. I wish I had gone on the trip sounds like it would of been fun.

Oh Christmas Tree

We decided to get a real Christmas tree this past year (for the first time)so we went to a local tree farm and picked a special tree out and cut it down--of course our two girls Jenna and Izzy helped us out. I am doing this layout from a sketch at Practical Scrappers -Sketch Friday. I used misc Christmas patterned papers, some cut outs from pre patterned papers, a  rub-on gold holly leaf, brown ink for edges, scalloped punch, glitter glue on all the letters in "diamond" and of course my Gypsy to weld the title together using Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and Christmas Cheer for the samll trees on the bottom with 3 different colors of cardstock and glitter glues.

Grandpa's are Special too...

I had so much fun with this layout even though it took me so long to figure out the papers (probably because I have so much to choose from). This is our granddaughter and Grandpa is giving her a birthday hug at her 1st birthday party. I am using the sketch from Sketches in Thyme-this is there 2nd week -so you should go check out there new blog site. I used Making Memories, K&Company , flocked patterned, solid cardstock papers. Cosmo Cricket sayings cut out, corner punches, loose pink glitter, embossed some leaves, brass swirls, green glitter glue for the swirls, pink glitter brad, coffee bean ink, brown Zig pen, Reddish pink embroidery thread stitched all around the edge of page, 2 tags one from a pack of premade and the other I hand cut . I really like the outcome of this layout one of my favorites.

Happy Birthday Invite

My grandaughter enjoying this part of her first birthday-she was one day early of being a Valentine's Day baby. Im applying this layout to the sketch at Sketchy Thursdays. I used a hot pink cardstock and torn edges of a soft pink numeral paper and a pink and purple striped paper from my older papers I have. I added a paper for the mat of the pictures and inked the edges in teal and cut out parts of the invitation and added them to the layout. I used my Gypsy to cut the cute little yummy cupcakes with cherries on top from From My Kitchen cricut cartridge. Added some ribbons and rub-ons and the Number one is from Lyrical Letters and added a few rhinestones to that and a few little embellishments to corners of pictures.I had fun doing this festive layouts especially the cupcakes.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to...

Here is my granddaughter at her first birthday party and not a happy camper. I think she is just overwhelmed with everything going on that day. Im applying this layout to Pink Elephant for the sketch and the theme challenge. I used several misc papers from different paper stacks I 've had one striped and one floral with glitter and the lilac cardstock which I dry brushed with a blue paint. I used some cut out of the flowers to pop dot them all over the page, and added a pink dot ribbon across the center. I then used my Gypsy and Expressions and cut the small party hat  in the journal area from Zoobaloo, and the title from Gypsy Font and added glitter to all the lettering. I like the bright and cheery colors in this layout. Did you notice the cake is bigger than she is? I would be a little worried or scared if I were her too.

Welcome to Frugal Friday week#7

Hello friends.  I hope you got the chance to hit a few garage sales last week and find some treasures like I did. Now this week I 'm having a garage sale , so I've been very busy cleaning and organizing and getting rid of a few things myself.
     This week I thought I'd tell ya about a super find on double sided foam mounting tape for just $1.00----yes only $1.00 at the good ole' Dollar store. What a great saving compared to the craft store prices of $4-$7.  I really like this tape because you can cut it to any size that you need for your project. Of course at this price I picked up a few packages. I have also in the past with the other 3-D and pop dots, after using the small dots  I cut the rest of the foam into pieces and use the whole thing up and get my monies worth -you might say. So head out to your local dollar store and get some of this tape and you might find some other bargains while you're their. Happy Scrapping!

Under the BIg top

My own layout -for my wedding scrapbook of some candid pictures taken by a guest of the tent where the ceremony was held in our back yard and some guest who had arrived. I like how I did this layout in a V shaped  andstaggered the pictures and used a yellowish scalloped border to represent the tent look. I used TTK for the 2 doves, and heart in center and Tie the Knot saying in the corner and some precut letters for the main title. Attached some lavendar flowers with brads and added the date.

Gobble-Gobble

 Another few pictures of the girls (dogs) enjoying their Thanksgiving Dinner with us at the dinner table with great manners I might add...I know what your thinking! But it was just my husband and I and we do spoil them a bit and we thought why not let them enjoy the home-cooked meal also with us. They ate everything off their plate and made no messes either. Well this is a sketch from My Little Sketch Blook this week and its titled Gobble-Gobble. I used several different papers from Reminisce, Cloud 9, Ek Success and lazer cut floral and some solid cardstock. I used my Gypsy to weld the title words using Plantin Schoolbook(PS) and the tag cut from Tags, bags, boxes and more(TBBM) and used a four brass brads to attached them to the page. Other items used in the layout were brown inks, pumpkin -stamped and then chalked, pop dots, stickles glitter glue in copper, brown Zig pen for writing. I really liked how this layout turned out and I added a sketch from Creative Scrappers this week to make a 2-page layout with all the same papers.

Feast

This was another one of those silly photo ops I did with my two girls (puppies). On Thanksgiving Day this past year, it was just my husband and I and the girls- so we let them join us for our Thanksgiving dinner and they had such great manners and really enjoyed my home cooking. I am doing a sketch from Creative Scrappers with this layout  #108 titled "feast". I used Reminisce papers (leaf pattern in orange and red), Cloud 9 in green polka dot, EK Success in brown, green leaf paper, and lazer cut floral paper in brown and misc striped paper for title, I cut some dog words out of special papers and orange cardstock for journaling on. Other items used were pop dots, stickles -copper glitter glue and 2 brass designer brads. I used cricut cart. Plantin Schoolbook for the title using my Gypsy to weld together.

Happily ever After

My last page for my wedding scrapbook...and titled "Happily ever After". I spent alot of time on this last page and had fun doing it too. I did alot of cutting out some floral and leaf pattern from K&Company paper and adding rhinestones to the center of some of the smaller flowers. The Title is a cut out of K&Company paper stack "once upon a time" and backed with teal cardstock. Cut out  5 sizes of circles with my fiskars circle cutter and added sticky gemstones around the edges of them. made a tag and added a pewter heart brad and a teal ribbon to the forever tag in left corner. I used a deep purple cardstock for back and ontop of that a K&Company designer paper and torn all the edges. On the top circle I used used my Gypsy to weld a sub title 'And they lived" using two cricut cartridges Tie the Knot and Gypsy Font, with silver glitter glue on top of the letters to stand out more since they were kinda small.

My Bridal Shower

I just love how this page turned out and I finished it in just about 1 hour...that's a record for me. This is my layout for June over at My Little Sketch Blook with Liz and all her wonderful sketches. I used K&Company designer paper for background and the pink floral is Paper Company to mat my pictures and for border using Martha Stewart  floral border punch. I used a star cookie cutter ( 2 lg ones) and sprayed an adhesive inside and sprinkled prisma ultra fine diamond glitter on it and let them dry before I cut them out. A pink floral ribbon was used on the top and bottom and a white ribbon for tag which also has some sticker gemstones on it with my journaling. I will be also entering this sparkly layout in Frosted Designs this week for Glitter, glitter, and more glitter.

Our Honeymoon

This is my 2-page layout for Practical Scrappers this week to use some eyelets in your project. I'm glad they came up with this item to use, cause I too kinda forgot about this embellishment, and I have so many of them. I made some circles on page 2 with white and yellow eyelets. This is also a layout sketch from L.I.D. on the cricut MB this week so it worked out great and now I am almost finish with my wedding/honeymoon book. I used TTK for the Vegas cut and GBS for the title Our Honeymoon using my Gypsy to weld them together. Added some gambling charm embellishments and card cutouts to page 2, and a piece of torn paper for journaling spot.

2 Girls and 2 Boys = 4 My Kids

This is my take of this week's sketch at Practical Scrappers Sketch Friday, but I turned the layout vertically which fit my pictures better. I used K&Company designer paper "once upon a time" paper pack, deep purple cardstock, black stickles,cut out letters from a letter blooklet and attached with pop dots,4 misc solid color papers and some cut trim pieces from same paper pack by K&Company, used fiskar edger scissors and torn the corner of the paper, attached another circle medallion in middle with pop dots also.

The Cutting of the Cake

I am entering this 2-page layout at Frosted Designs this week the challenge was to use Glitter, Glitter, Glitter...which was easy  for me to do- I love to use glitter. This was our wedding at the time of cutting the cake and some candid shots that were taken for us. I used new BoBunny papers which were 2 sided designer papers and Basic Grey teal paper for the scalloped strip which I used a small bell punch on and backed with white paper. The lilac cardstock was inked and small heart punch used on the edge for my journaling area (yet to be done). I used Tie The Knot cricut cartridge for the cake , swirls and heart cake top and cake trimmings. I used a small 5 petal flower punch using scrap papers in teal and purple and scattered over the 2 pages. I used stickles glitter glues in peacock teal, purple and white all over the flowers, cake, and swirls and heart cake top. Also added some rhinestones in the center of flowers. This picture does not show off all the glimmer and glitz that this page really has. As you can tell we were dressed very casual at our backyard wedding reception. A friend of mine had these t-shirts made up for us to wear after the ceremony. Mine said "Not Tonight" and his said "Yes Dear" it was cute and they were comfy- for the fun evening we had with family and friends. 

Welcome to Frugal Fridays week #6

Hello  and welcome back to Frugal Fridays...now that summer is almost here and schools out, we are probably spending more time outside enjoying the weather and many activities. Well one activity that I like to do on Thursdays and Fridays early in the morning is hitting a few Garage Sales...".this car breaks at all Garage sales" is the bumper sticker I need for my van. I look in my local papers for sales that might interest me and in my area on Wednesday, and highlight them. There are many items that I look for at sales that might save me some money for my scrapbooking habit. I like to be organized so shelving and storage items are great finds and usually much cheaper than buying new pieces, and sometimes only need a little touch up paint or a good cleaning. I found these black shelves last week for $5.00 each and now I store all of my paper packs, my cardstock, chipboard and scrap paper container on them. As far as embellishments go, you can find so many good deals - like silk flowers that you can pull apart and use or glimmer mists them to the colors you want, old books , maps to cut up or use pictures from, beads from old jewelry pieces are great finds, ribbons, threads, paints and so much more, and maybe some nuts and bolts. Then there are those who choose not to scrapbook/craft anymore or just have to much and are getting rid of their supplies- Those are the great garage sales that I like to run into. So keep your eyes open and go to a few garage sales and get some really good deals....ones junk is someone else's treasure!

L.I.D. Challenge for week 6/5-6/11 3 sketches

Sketch #2 this week used T.D. for title, silk flowers, and my big bite to punch the holes on top and bottom designs, used a heart lace and purple gel pen for lettering.

This is sketch #3 this week-  I used L.L. for the title Best Wishes and sprayed with glimmer mist, silk flowers with decorative brad, scalloped lilac cardstock with purple glitter glue in the punched out holes, and K&Company decorative 2 sided papers, also used big bite to punch a large circle holes around the whole layout and put teal cardstock behind (which is hard to see in this photo)

Josh and Liz-wedding layout

This is sketch #107 over at Creative Scrappers, I love all there weekly inspiration for my layouts that I work on every weekend.This is another wedding layout of our son Josh and his girlfriend back in 2000 (now his wife Liz). I used K&Company designer 2 sided papers and black and white cardstock.Prima flowers in purples and teals with brads to attach them.Sticker reflective rhinestones on title and on scalloped edge of photo, colorful ribbon rick-rack, green glitter ink pen to draw on some ivy leaves, and clear stardust pen for outline of title. I used Gypsy Font cricut cartridge for the title using the same papers.

Cousins...Wedding layout

This is my take of the sketch over at Practical Scrappers , Sketch Friday this week. Another layout for my wedding album of my cousins. Used Studio Paper co papers, scraps papers in blue for the torn strips, cream background matts for photos. EK Success floral stickers, Rhinestones in blues- purples- pinks,big blue button with lavendar ribbon tied on, letters cut out of a letter book attached with pop dots, purple glitter gel pen for writing names.

Tears of Joy and Sorrow

This layout is from the weekly challenge over at Sketches in Thyme , there are new and this is there first challenge so go check them out if you like new inspiration for your layouts. And I'm also using this layout  for Frosted Designs to use buttons this week. This layout reflects the day so well at our wedding in 2000, Tears of Joy (because we were happy to get married) and Tears of Sorrow (because my father had just passed away 3 days before out wedding day). So everyone was was crying for 2 reasons that day, I was on an emotional roller coaster. Materials used in layout: Precut  teal scalloped paper and patterned lavendar paper and scrap polka-dot paper, and green cardstock. Buttons(11) in pink, purple and clear (are stacked) with white embroidery floss, red and green Stickles glitter glue,VersaMark ink in Celadon, word stickers, Fiskars "Victorian" edger scissors, and used left over backings from chipboard letters for the title, except for the green ones they were sticker letters. Used the cricut cartridge Home Accents for the 3 bunches of leaves with berries on them.

Wedding Layout of Relatives

This is my take of this week's sketch at Pink Elephant #10. This was a really good photo taken of my Aunt Sue and her daughter(my cousin) Allyse at our wedding in 2000. I used K&Company designer 2 sided papers and lilac cardstock for matt and scalloped edge which I used my big bite to punch holes in. I used lilac color embroidery thread to lace up the middle of each section on the bottom half and tied a bow and all around the edges of layout on top half, also tied a few knots on matt of photo with inked edges in lilac and just wrote there names on the matt.

Dinner Time layout

This is my take of this week's sketch at Sketchy Thursdays. Materials used: Lilac cardstock sprayed with several glimmer mist sprays on background, white cardstock to cut out title and bells from From my Kitchen  cricut cartridge, and swirls from Accent Essentials cartridge and also sprayed with glimmer mists, stickles "diamond" glitter glue, white ribbon and scrap paper for matt of photo. This was my husband and I as we were in the serving line for our wedding dinner held at our home in 2000.

Welcome to Frugal Fridays week #5- organizing

Well this week I will tell you about organizing all your scrapbooking supplies into one big book. Depending on how much you have will depend on how long this will take you to do, but once it's done it is so beneficial later on. So I suggest to start now and add to the book as you accumulate more (which is a good possibility). I took a large 3 ring binder and seperated it into sections with a piece of cardstock cover with some bright colored papers that I had laying around and labeled them.

My first section is labeled "Mediums" which include inks, chalks, sprays, glitters, special markers. On white cardstock I stamped (using an old eraser) all the inks that I have and wrote underneath them the color and brand name and put them in a color order as best as I could, which I filled 3 pages of colors. I did the same with my embossing powders. stickles, glitter glues, glimmer mists (I used a paper towel roll cut short and just sprayed a small circle of the mists on cardstock) and just some of my chalks- since I had so many.

The next section in for my Punches/Scissors/Templates which was easy to do just used some scrap cardstock and punch 1 of every punch you have and I haven't got around to it yet, but you could write down the brand name  underneath each one for future reference. Also in this section I have my decorative scissor edgers, again just cut some scraps,  templates I just traced onto the cardstock and labeled them  and I did little squares for my textured templates and wrote right on top of them the name (like woodgrain, waves etc,)

Now this next section" STAMPS" took me a very long time, but I had over 2000 stamps...I tried to put them into catagories such as flowers, baby, butterflies, holidays, pets, sports, borders, words, sayings, wedding, individual sets, and alphabets. With the alphabets I only did A B C and wrote all the info about this set down, And as far as a collection of stamp sets -as you can see on the left side I wrote the name of the set down and a brief description of what is in this set and how many stamps. I then placed these acrylic stamps into cd cases into the same catagories that I stamped them in this book. All my rubber stamps are in another drawer and my complete sets are in another large drawer.

 So now when I'm doing a layout, card or altered project and I'm thinking about some stamp, but not sure what I have- I just grab my big book and look thru  by catagory(flower,holiday etc) find it and I know where to go get it. Sounds a little complicated...but it works really well for me and my friends that come over to my scraproom. They have no idea of what I have until they look thru my book and see what they might be able to use.

Another section I have is a list of all my TOOLS/supplies and Embellishments... which of course you can't show them on paper, so its just nice to have a list to remind myself and others what is available in my scraproom. And of course the best section is a list of all the Cricut cartridges I have (which I'm adding to that list all the time) which I will be showing you how I organize them in weeks to come. So now that I have this book completed it has been a life saver some times and I just love to be organized. I did this book this past winter when it was cold outside and I had a few days to work on it, but you could start now and do it at your leisure, you'll surprise yourself with all the items you didn't even know you had or forgot about. Happy organizing....Debbie  

Caught in the Act

Here is one silly layout I did of my son "loves a dare" years ago at Lake Michigan on a hot summer day. I am entering this layout over at Pink Elephant which we were to do a layout for "Summer". I used papers from the summer stack and a vellum for the title and hand journaled  with some yellow chalk to highlight some words.