Closest to my Heart

Wow- this page is qualifying for 4 different challenges this week. So first I'll tell you the materials used then Ill list the challenges after the layout. I really spent alot of time making my own embellishments and playing on my Gypsy with this one.  Papers were by  Paper Studio, white and red cardstock, embossing powder in grapefruit and Red Dragon for the hearts, heat gun, misc stamps, scrap chipboard for xoxo, Tattered Angels Spray mist- Bubblegum, Flower Soft in Ivory, Martha Stewart markers in Peony, Stickles in Diamond and Christmas Red, versa mark clear and black ink, fine black marker, pop dots and Cricut cuts from Wild Card and Lyrical Letters welded with my Gypsy for the frame heart and XXX border.

Qualifying challenges are:
Paper Variety-photo inspiration of valentine hearts
Fabulous Fridays at Frosted Designs- use Pink- Red and White only on a project
Studio Challenge- the February sketch and handmade embellishments
Scrapbookers Anonymous- use the letter x as many times as you want.

Wish You Were Here layout

Here is my layout for the sketch over at SOUS- which by the way I love to work with their sketches. I really take my time and plan these pages out- and they end up being some of my favorite pages. Well here is one of my layouts to this sketch ( I did two this week) which will be in my next post. This picture was taken at Presque Isle in Michigan with 3 of my 4 kids and I'm doing this page for the daughter that is not in the picture-but thought it would be a great page to but in her book- titled Wish You were Here.

Materials used:  Lilac House Garden Gate for background paper, Lots of Bo-Bunny "Olivia's stripe, baby's breath paper, cut out flowers from Bo-Bunny also. Provo craft edger scissors, pop dots, rhinestones, stickles and several Cricut cartridges- Wild Card, Home Accents, Printing Press along with my Gypsy for some welding

Layouts for Creative Scrappers Challenge #128 & 129

I just got home from a scrapbooking retreat and have a few pages to enter for Creative Scrappers challenges that I worked on this weekend and want to get them posted as soon as I could. This entry is the newest challenge #129-which is a sketch. This was a painting project I did this  past September- I repainted the sign into our subdivision-which was badly needed and I changed the color of the windmill so it stood out better-which alot of the neighbors really like-now. In the layout I used Fancy Pants, DCWV and Recollections papers, textured brown  and some white and tan cardstock. I inked all the edges and used Cricut cut from Lyrical Letters for the Title "before & after", which I ran through the crimper before I sprayed with coffee bean glittter mist. I hand cut the cattails and added some flowery soft to the tips for dimension. Added some cute Fiskars stamps of some frogs and a few cricut cuts-windmill (heritage) dragonflies with stickles.

 This next layout is for Challenge #128 to use a 12" wide photo- I really enjoyed this-something new to try. So I had this photo of fall colors from a  subdivision that I drive thru everyday and I just loved looking at all the burning bushes _"like a Sea of Red in the fall. So I printed a large 12" version to work with. I used several fall papers, a pre die-cut of leaves, ribbons, stickers, a book mark, border punch, 3 metal leaves by Karen Foster, inks, chalks, vellum saying on picture, my Expressions using Home Accents for the leaves and Wild Card for the title. I sprayed a piece of white paper with several Tim Holtz's distressing Inks and then used a single leaf stamp on top of that and then did my cricut cuts on my own handmade color designer paper

Hanging with The Blues Brothers

Here is my take for Creative Scrappers sketch #127 and also for Embellishment Magazine color challenge of green, yellow and rust with a vintage flair. I used K&Company, My Minds Eye 2 sided designer papers, and black cardstock. Used the Cricut cartridges Heritage, Home Accents and Wild Card, many ditress inks by Tim Holtz, polka dot ribbon and 3-D gel pen and black fine marker. My thought of the 3 big circles were they kinda looked like the tires on the old car, also wrote part of my title of the flags hanging underneath the ribbon.

This is My husband and I in Las Vegas strolling along the strip and had our picture taken with the Blues Brothers in front of Imperial Palace back in 2003. I love to visit Las Vegas as much as I can so I would go at least 2-3 times a year and both of us went usually in the fall. If I could only talk my husband to moving out there! Now my excuse to visit more often is my daughter lives out there and I need to see her.

Girls just wanna have fun-Karaoke

The photo's are not the best, but this was taken when I took my two boys camping back in 2003 and they met many new friends-all girls of course...and the camp ground had many fun activities for the kids and on Saturday night it was Karaoke night and they all had a great time. So this page will bring back some fun memories for both of my boys I'm sure. So I did a girly color page for my son's scrapbook-

This layout is for the challenge at Sketchy Thursday and the materials I used are: All My Minds Eye papers, multi rick rack ribbon, teal ink, Studio G chalk ink in brown, Wild Card cartridge for the title, and musical notes that I drew and cut out to do some journaling on.

Lake Tahoe has some very large Pinecones...

Doing this layout brought back so many fun and good memories for me. Back in 2002 my husband and I went to Reno for my Nationals Bowling Tournament for one week- so we took a couple of days and drove down to Lake Tahoe-what a beautiful site this place was. And I couldn't get over how big the trees and pinecones were. I just had to pick up a few and bring them home. I was so excited!!! My husband just laughted at me with all my excitement-he said "It doesn't take much to make you happy".

This take is from Creative Scrappers Sketch number #125, whom are having a bit of a celebration over there with their 125th sketch you should go check them out-they have great sketches every week.Materials used are: My Mind's Eye for background paper, Paper Loft, cardstock and misc papers for color. Coffee bean ink, white gel pen,stickles in Frosted lace and lime green, brown Zig writer, Hero Arts pinecone stamps, and Wild Card Cricut cartridge for all the lettering.

Go Speed Racer

This fun and simple layout was done for the challenge over at SassyLil Sketches this week. It's a few pictures of my oldest daughter on the go carts in Shawano, Wisconsin on a family vacation back in 2001, all the kids had a great time that long weekend swimming, rafting, at the amusement park and of course driving their own little cars around the track.

I used a piece of cardstock in green but  sprayed several glimmer mists on it to get the look I wanted using patina, lime green, teal and frost. I masked off the circles first, using a circle punch out of 1 striped pattern paper and put the rest of them on the layout after I sprayed. Black zig marker for stitched look border and cut the title and arrows from Wild Card cartridge and George Basic Shapes cartridge for the arrows. Since I used arrows on this layout it also qualifies for the challenge over at Frosted Designs this week-boy I must like arrows lately I have done a few layouts without realizing that I had  arrows on them.

Make a Wish

This is layout of my DS and some candid pictures during his 12th birthday -years ago. They were really hard to work with cause they weren't very good pictures, so here it goes and this will be from the sketch over at Sketchy Thursday this week.

Materials used in sketch:  DCWV-Far Eat stack papers, Me & My Big Ideas value pack, cardstock in teal ,glimmer mist in chocolate brown and teal, brown ink, and Cricut cartridge Wild Card for all the cuts.

Iceless Hockey layout

Another blog that I really like, when I was blog hopping the other night is The Playdate Cafe...so here is my first entry for this challenge which is a color challenge to use black, white, grey and tan. This is my DS in Iceless Hockey when he was 11 years old-boy has time flown by he just turned 21 the other day. I used DCWV papers, black and tan cardstock, black ink, circle punches, a zig writer for some journaling. I used Wild Card cartridge to cut out the title and date.
 This layout also qualifies for another challenge over at Chop Suey to pick any date on the calendar(no holiday) and use that on your project, so mine is the first day of iceless Hockey which was Jan. 5, 2001.

The Parade

This is anew challenge blog for me this week over at Sassylilsketches-it is a sketch layout. I did three pictures of my sons in "The Parade" in Michigan back in 2001. They were the head mascots all decked out in red white and blue for the kids parade, they loved all the attention they received that day. I used red embossed cardstock,blue and red polka dot paper, and white ribbon that I hand stamped in Azure Staz-On ink,lazer cut stars, and cricut cartridges Wild Card for the 2 big stars and A Child's Year for the title.Also used some sticles in diamond and waterfall. and inked all the edges in brown.

FCCB #10

This is my project for the FCCB #10 challenge this week to do a 3-D project- box or bag -etc and to use the color black and of course some where use a cricut cut on your project. Well this worked out great for me this week because my son's girlfriend is graduating from H.S. on Sunday, so I made this  Graduation Cap box to give her with a small cap card inside with a gift card. I bought the cap box for $1.99 at a card outlet store and painted it black and put a glossy spray on it.

Let it dry leaving the inside white. I then used my Gypsy to plan out all the words and numbers for the outside of box. I used Wild Card for Class of 2010, Diploma, Stars, You did it!- Gypsy Wanderings for Congrats!. I made my own tassle using a thick braided thread and a silver gel pen to write her name on the little graduation cap card, which I cut 2 caps one in black and one in white ,so I could write on the inside- using Wild Card cartridge.

I attached all the words and letters using a spray adhesive. Their school colors are of course as you can see, are black ,white and maroon. Last I tied on the tassle and its ready to go for tomarrow's Graduation. She will be able to use it as a cute little trinket box on just put on display.

Practical Scrappers-Patterned Papers/L.I.D. Challenge from 5/15-5/22

This is my take on Sketch #2 this week for L.I.D. Challenge on the Cricut MB, and using this for my entry at Practical Scrappers for Patterned Papers. I used several patterned papers from K&Company and cardstock in teal  and purple which was the colors in our wedding in Sept. 2000. I also used some floral lace put cut and seperated them and added some green and blue gemstones to the middle of each of the flowers, then used a silver gel pen and doodled around them. I used my cricut and my Gypsy to cut out the bride and groom using WC and the words in teal and purple cardstock using PS and welding them together and also outlined them in the silver gel pen.Here is a picture of them together as a 2-page layout.

My Little Sketch Blook Challenge

Here is my take on My Little Sketch Blook sketch...I used a purple word background paper and cut circles from K&Company black and white patterned paper and inked edges in Teal. I then used my Gypsy to weld the letters for the title using the JAS cart and then used black stickles on the black part of the letters. I  used Wild Card cartridge for the roses and put red stickles on them. I attached some purple ribbon to the small punched out circles. This is our Wedding in Sept. 2000. My husband and I, my mom and my 4 children, attending our backyard ceremony.

Creative Scrappers Challenge- (sketch #101)

I did a layout of my stepson at his college graduation back in 2003.I used an extra program to cut up and use in my layout and added a few embellishments and cuts, very simple. Wild Card  cartridge for the cap, diploma and Congrats,and George Basic Shapes for the Way to Go!. I added my own tassle made with embroidery black thread and inked the edges in brown and used a gold metallic marker for some lines on the page.

FCCB #5 Challenge water theme

This week at FCCB the challenge is to do a project using the theme "water" and since I do all layouts this is what I was working on this week. I used Wild card for the umbrella, and the square cut out , Jasmine for the lettering and Life's a Beach for the diver, and Life preserver. I just now noticed it is hard to see the title "Madison" and the sub title" A rainy day in". I also used a lazer cut- looks like waves on the bottom of the page and added glitter to it. I journaled around all the pictures.