I"M BACK..from my scrapping retreat.

    And I'm all fired up for the new chapter in my life to begin. I had so much fun while on this 3 day retreat sponsored by Heart & Soul Memories- I believe this was the 8th time I have gone and look forward to next time. I was celebrating 2 occasions at this retreat-  my Birthday (26th) and my Divorce Day( 20th) with old and new friends, whom made this weekend extra special for me. Thanks girls!

 I completed a whomping 30 pages...so I think I got my mojo back..lol I worked on some Christmas & graduation layouts from 2007 and some more recent photos of my grand-daughter and my dogs- so a variety of photos to work with.  I will be posting all these layouts in the next few weeks- and I leave here with a photo taken of me and my balloons while sitting at my scrapping spot-

2 Pieces of the Puzzle...

     First of all ,I just wanted to post that it was my Birthday yesterday (26th) and I have been so busy I haven't had the time to post anything this week. Because at the beginning of the week the 20th- I finally had my day in court for my Divorce, which has been consuming me for the past 9 months with all kinds of worries and doubts about my future. But , now that it is final-- I am happy to say that I'm in a good spot and I'm looking forward to the new chapter in my life and can't wait to start moving ahead. I have so many goals and plans for myself- and I get to do them in the comfort of MY home and my wonderful craft/scrapbook room, which I have been organizing and filling with all my goodies for the past 4 years.
     My life has been like a puzzle and all the pieces were scattered and now I'm starting to put all the pieces back together again..and here are the 2 pieces are so dear to me...my girls. I did this layout a month or so ago while on Christmas break and thought it was a good one to post with my topic of discussion. And I'm happy to announce the girls are living with me also (Jenna & Izzy)

    So with that said- hopefully you will be seeing and hearing from me  more often and I cant wait till this weekend to get started back into scrapping once again- on a regular basis. I am treating myself ( for my birthday) to a 3 day scrapbooking retreat here in Palatine Illinois, once again- and I'm so excited for that 5 o'clock whistle today and will be scrapping- laughing and enjoying new and old friends till 3 pm on Sunday-

    I want to say and express a big heart of thanks to some of you whom have already known of my situation and all the support you have given me- on either my blog or on facebook- it means alot- So thanks for caring! And- I will be blog hopping once again too- I will have more time to concentrate and relax with what I love to do--- my passion for scrappin!

A-Z Challenge the letter F this month

Here is a layout I did using  the letter F=  friends, flowers, flourishes and fun times for Scrapbookers Anonymous challenge this month.I just love this challenge I look forward to it every month- makes you go thru your stash and see what you have that starts with that letter. I went out with a few of my dearest friends whom I haven't seen for awhile and we got together for a nice dinner and one of the girls brought us all Bling Rings to celebrate us getting together and our friendship for over 30 years- we had a fabulous time and plan on getting together again- soon. So, I did a layout to remember this event and titled it- The Bling Ring Friends.

 The fancy lace flowers were cut individually and added rhinestones to the center, the flourishes I used Tulip Paint and hand drew them on and the rhinestone flourishes I bought, the rest of the title "friends" is in the lower right corner which is a metal  saying.

 I used my Gypsy and Expression to cut out the title with the Ashlyn's Alphabet cartridge from  a shiny silver and black cardstock and added silver Stickles to it for more bling. Used my new Martha Stewart butterfly punch and added 3 of them to the page with some glitter.

I pulled the colors out of the clothes we were all wearing from K&Company specialty papers I really like the color combo and it also has a floral pattern-so festive. Well can't wait till next month- for the letter G.

Color Us Happy

The Fabulous Friday challenge over at Frosted Designs this week is Paint...and that is what I did here in more ways than one. I used several colors of acrylic paint and scattered brush strokes over the page and then this layout is of my son and his girlfriend painting some projects in my craftroom one evening. As you can see they were a litlle messy- I think they got more paint on them than the projects...lol  I also drew and cut out my own paint-brushes and painted the tips of them.
 I used a colorful patterned paper for background, torn graph paper- so the photo's would show up better, cricut cartridge- Ashlyn's Alphabet for title and acrylic paints. I think this turned out great- such a colorful and fun page. So be sure to get out those Paints this week and have fun on a project and be sure to enter for a chance to win a prize at Fabulous Fridays at Frosted Designs....can't wait to see what you come up with!!!

Farwell Miss Antioch-layout

Here is a page I did the other day for a challenge to use 5 or more photos on a layout - The Studio Challenge this week. The photos are of my son's girlfriend saying farwell this past summer and giving up her crown to the new Miss Antioch.

Materials used: K&Company background paper, Webster pages die cut heart, white cardstock for all matting,Gypsy and Cricut Cartridges for cuts of the title and crown, Stick pins, K&Company border strips, lots of bling. I made my own flowers from paper towels and used some florist silk white leaves.

I made this a two page layout so here is the other page that goes with this one- but there is still 5 photo's on this one page for the Challenge.

a treasured POEM

This was a challenge alright- 4 of them-- First one is Frosted Designs to use cardstock only ( this was stepping out of the box for me) Scrap Our Stash "NEW" challenge - so this was a new technique of cardstock only & no pictures- a poem instead, Scrapbookers Anonymous to use either ink, mist or paint along with masking on a project and the last challenge I used was the sketch from Sketch Along Tuesdays over at Frosted Designs.

 All my papers are plain cardstock- which I masked stars on the background, chalked a rainbow,  embossed on the sun and clouds, and fringed for the grass.  I used Tattered Angel Mist, several inks and jelly roll markers. This cardstock was a great challenge for this layout of mine- because I wanted the poem to really be the main focus of this page for my daughters scrapbook.

 She wrote this poem the night her grandfather (my father) passed away and gave it to me the next day, which was also 2 days before I was getting remarried- so it was an emotional roller coaster in our household. I tried to bring out a few of the embellishments that she had written  about in her poem such as the birds, clouds, the sun , rainbows and grass. I used some rain drop like rhinestones  to represent rain from the clouds which she mentioned also in this lovely poem.

I drew some birds and some swirls to represent the wind- which might be kinda hard to see in this photo. This is the original copy that she wrote on -so this will be a treasured page for sure in her book. I know the sketch is not quite the same as Sketch Along Tuesdays- but I was inspitred by the sketch and tried to follow it the best I could with this poem- instead of a photo.

B & W and hint of Color Layout

Black & White and a bit of Color is the challenge at The Paper Variety and this is my layout of a  friend of mine's- daughter (Aubrille Lynn). And this challenge was just perfect for this black & white photo I had  and I choose yellow as my hint of color with a few bumble bees and ribbon.

 I used a border punch and Cricut font cartridge ( Calligraphy Collection) and did some fussy cutting of  the white flowers and staggered them with pop dots on top of the black flower paper. I then used diamond Stickles on the name and the white flowers to add a little bling to the page. I think this page is so elegant and perfect for this adorable photo. Sweet & Simple.

Camp Buddies

Here is my take of the sketch over at Sketchabilities this week- but I used 4 pictures instead of the 3 to keep them all together in one layout. My daughter recentlly went thru some of her older photos and is giving them to me to scrap for her book...but I have already chronilogically passed this time in her life- so I am kinda back tracking in her scrapbook. 
I used Recollections-Charming Stack papers, buttons, scrappers floss, inks, pop dots, sticker alphas, scalloped punch, fine black marker and misc cardstock and scrap papers.