So Yellow

Can’t you tell I want summer to hurry up and get here? It’s in the 30’s tonight and suppose to be cold tomorrow. Ahhh…

So here’s a digital page that I did using Dana Frantz kit, Daisy Lemonade. The kit is very cheerful and fun. Love it! As usual, I only used one kit for this LO — maybe one day I’ll go all crazy and use papers and elements from different folks, for now… one kit at a time.  There’s nothing fancy here, no technique to share, just drag and drop {::SMILES}.

Today I had good news and bad news. The bad news wasn’t bad really but I was hoping… I submitted some work to A Million Memories, a scrapbooking kit store and found out that I didn’t make their creative team. I know that there are so many great scrapbookers out there and it’s my first try at submitting to a paper store but I was hoping for the 1% chance that I’d get chosen {::SMILES}.  But, the next email I read was great news I’m accepted to another place… can’t tell you yet until a few weeks. SUPER excited about this store!

I’ll be scrapbooking when this post. Have a great Saturday and I’ll share some of my items that I submitted to AMM this coming week and the next.

My Butterfly

Wow, the weather yesterday was crazy! I think if I weighed 10 lbs less I could have been blown away! We have a damaged screened in porch. Not much, the screens in a few places were torn because the 50+ lb futon was blown against the north side of the porch. Crazy! It’s really not bad compare to our neighbors. One had to call the roof guy because their shingles, a few, were blown away, and another neighbor doesn’t have a shed anymore… it collapsed. At least there was no tornado… this is one big reason we’re not 100% loving this place. Without the tornado, this place is great.

Back to my page… I’d probably have other things to scrapbook about if I didn’t have this little gal but since I do, she’s the star of my pages. I LOVE this layout. It took me two days to do it. I put the picture, window, and flower, and stared, and stared Saturday evening. I think I ended up watching Ugly Betty (rerun on the ‘puter since we don’t have cable/antenna service at home) and got back to it Sunday night. See, stopping does help. It took me about an hour to finish this page. All of a sudden my creative juices started flowing and here it is…

I used the new collaboration kit, Expressions of Healing and Calm, from Scrapbook Graphics. Awesome kit and it’s on sale today for $9.99! Check out their blog to see what other CTs did with this kit. I used a lot of what they have… wish I can use more… but they just didn’t fit the theme. I used three pieces of paper for this, just layered it on top of each other. The third piece is actually just that little piece of verse in the bottom. I erased the rest of the paper. I tried to give it a feel of a traditional scrapbook page. What do you think?

Ok, got to go. Big party to go to today at work… I have to be there by 7:30 a.m. — urgh — not an early person {::SMILES}.

Once Upon a Time

This is the other page that I did for the Scrap Artist challenge. I thought I was suppose to do two pages from whatever kit and not one from my own kit and one from the freebie kit. Last night at midnight was the cut-off date and time. I’m just waiting to see what the results are. You can see the submissions in their gallery. Quite a bit, huh? Not hoping much, but we’ll see. Like I said, I had fun, got some LOs done, AND got a free kit. What else can I ask, right?

The Internet is a BAAAAD thing for me. Especially now that I’m so into challenges and contests AND blog candies. I’ve never gotten anything from the last but it was still always fun to participate in all and hope that maybe one day I can get some cool freebie. I can’t do them all but I’m trying to do something from the different ones that I love. Prima has a new monthly sketch contest now. It’s called Prima’s Build-a-Page. You get prizes. Just don’t forget to submit your layout by the 25th. I love the sketch and I have the perfect photos — just found them last night {::SMILES}.

Do you know that PaperTrey has a blog hop contest each month on the 25th? I just found out today but I might try it for next month. I love their stuff. If you have a blog and either have or will be getting some PTI stuff, watch our for April’s hop. Should be fun. I should put it in my calendar, huh? {::SMILES}

Ok, have a great day. We just did our taxes yesterday and I feel so good (although both our muscles were tense during the process). I hate tax time. It was also nice too that we didn’t have to pay. I think the tax people made a mistake but whatever, they did check two-three times. I’ll let you know if we go to prison, ha! It might not be bad… more time to scrapbook and make cards… ha ha ha… I wonder if I’d be able to blog too… ok… enough of that… laters…

Youer Than You

Ok, this is a bit different than my usual style but thought I’d go a bit nutty since I was inspired by Dr. Seuss. Thought I’d try a Scrap Mojo challenge (#11). I used “The Cat in the Hat” sketch for this layout. I’m still trying to figure out if I like it or not. Yeah… I’m hard on myself. The kit I used is from Scrap Artist and the leafy floral on the left was extracted from one of the background paper. Although I will blend here and there still, I just love it if I can digi scrap just like how I would paper scrap. Just an update if you’re new to this blog: Last week I submitted a layout for a contest at Scrap Artist (I blogged about it Saturday) and from that submission I received a free kit. I have to create a LO with this kit in order to be fully eligible for the prize which is guest CT. There are a lot of awesome submissions so I’m not sure if I’ll get the spot but what I’ve done so far was worth the work. I got three great LOs done and a free kit.

I have to do one more digi layout for this month and then I’m done. I want to do more traditional LO since I have so many new pretties that I want to use. After this month I will only be the CT for Tara Sroka and guest CT for Dana Frantz for one more month. Unless I get the Scrap Artist guest spot, I won’t look for any new ones. I want to try for some scrapbook kit CT or card CT position after I’m done CT-ing for Dana. I think having a hodge podge of things, paper and digi, will be fun and also keeps me motivated in both departments.

I have a conference at the end of next week that I’m presenting at and I have one PowerPoint done. Yeah!! I’ll probably add more to it but at least the basics of it is complete. I just have to prepare for one more; I have two different sessions that I’m leading. A bit stressed but I think I got it. M will be going with me; I found a drop-in center (actually the YMCA). She’s soooo excited. We did this before and she loved it. My friend might also go with me, we’ll see. So either the Y or my friend will be with Emma for a couple hours each day. Hubby was suppose to go but his work has something in store for him — of course! There’s a good outlet mall there and a scrapbook store. I guess it’s a good thing hubby can’t go {::SMILES}.

Have a great day!

Happy Easter!

This is a layout that I did last weekend at the girl scout crop. I’ve been wanting to post this earlier but there’s been more interesting stuff to share it seemed. 

There’s typo on this lo but I never got to uploading the updated version. It’s We and not Wee {::SMILES}. This layout was created using Dana Frantz kit that you can find in her store. It’s called Whisper. I’ve only used five of the kit content, there are a bunch more! It’s a fun kit, you should check it out. But the five that did use are my favorites and the reason why I was drawn to this kit.

Now, have you been on Flickr? If you haven’t, this place is an awesome source of inspiration and resources. From Flickr you can find people and their work, maybe a blog, and maybe some other sites that they love to go to that you don’t know about that’s listed on their Flickr or blog. If you have an account, you can favorite different work. You can join groups and send your work/photo very easily to the different groups. Love this place!

Hope you’re enjoying your time with the family! Happy Easter.

Happy Saturday!!

Prima has a blog candy. Check them out. Subscribe to their blog if you haven’t. They do blog candies quite often! A winner will be chosen on Monday around 4 p.m.! If you’re wanting something to do this weekend/next week and love Dr. Seuss, check out the Scrap Mojo challenge for this week. As usual, I’m going to try a Beate sketch and do a few more LO. I am on track for my 2008 scrapbooking goal!

Another page that I did last night. There’s a contest at scrapartist.com. If you submit a LO, you get a free kit. With that free kit, you need to create another LO and after you submit two LO, you are eligible to win a spot as one (out of three) Scrap Artist’s guest CT. Go ahead, give it a try. If nothing else, you get a free kit {::SMILES}. Oh, you do need to use their products. If you don’t have any, check out their store. A LOT of awesome stuff. The ones I used for my LO are my favorites! I’d be great if I can be a guest CT, but if not, the freebies alone AND the layout that I can now print, is worth it. I love all these challenges and contents, they help me get motivated and try my best.

This year M’s going to get an Easter basket. The bunny told me. M’s so funny, she’s been going to the middle of our field and wishing, “Bunny, I’ve been a good girl, I want a little chicken and some stickers, mommy wants a little book and a pencil, that’s it. Thanks, bunny.” I love her, she’s so precious. I’m so glad I was chosen to be her mommy. The other night at dinner, we were pretending that we were in a ship. Emma had one little piece of chicken left and I said, “Oh, I see pirates coming our way, M, eat your last chicken. If you don’t eat it, the pirates’ are going to get it.” She looked at me and seconds after I completed my sentence she stuck the chicken to her fork, shoved it on to dad’s plate and said, “daddy, eat my last chicken so that the pirates won’t eat it.” We had to turn around so that she won’t see us laughing. Then hubby said, “No, you eat it, if not the pirates are going to cut your leg off.” She fell for that and shoved the chicken in her mouth. Great parenting skills, huh, leg cutting and pirates {::SMILES}

Hope you’re all having a great Saturday. I’m not expecting a lot of you to visit today but if you do, happy Saturday!

A Digi Page

Here’s a quick page that I did today using Tara Sroka’s kit and elements:

- You Shamrock Kit
- Nutritional Facts #1
- Word Frames #1
- Never Forget Stamps

Love this kit. Looks real and it’s clean. I love this page that I did. I think the green color really highlights the photo.

Today (or Thursday) I received my  goodies from SIStv. Yeah!!! Love my loot!

I think I should quit writing. I think I have very short and choppy sentences. I hope Friday is a better day. I had back-to-back meetings all afternoon and after the last one (which I didn’t know I was going to be pounced on) I was just pooped! I’m surprised that I was able to whip out three layouts today — in 3 hrs!! I’ll show you the others over the weekend. I have them on queue to post Saturday and Sunday since I’ll be spending Easter weekend with the family and maybe squeeze in a bit of work.

Have a great day, it’s Friday. WHOO HOO!!!

I Am May’s Guest For…

H&M stamps! Whoo hoo… You can check out the announcement on Heather’s blog. I guess I’m the only one without a photo {::SMILES}. If you’re interested in being a guest for H&M, just send Heather some of your creations via email or link her up to your gallery. This is my first stamps CT and I can’t wait for my first shipment. It’s also an honor to be her May guest CT since that month is her launch month for her new stamp company. It’ll be so fun to be amongst so many other awesome stampers whom many of you know already through SCS and their blogs.

Here are some info on my layouts. The two layouts were created using Cherie Shield’s new Beautiful Soul kit. I really like this kit. It was really fun to play with. The pictures are old… I’m a bit behind with my scrapbooking. Before this year, I think the most that I’ve done in a year is 12 pages. This year I’ve done more as you’ve seen. Being in a few design teams and also this blog has motivated me to keep creating.

The picture on the second layout was taken when hubby returned from a three+ months duty. M was almost 19th months when he came back. Due to dad’s job, M and dad lost almost 7 months of time together (hubby’s gone on a few more since then but they were short trips, 2-6 weeks). Because of his job, M’s a momma’s girl. Even though they’re closer now, if she’s hurt, sick, or just feeling down, mom is who she ask for 95% of the time. It breaks daddy’s heart a lot but it’s gotten a lot better. The pictures on this page is really special because hubby was really worried that she wouldn’t remember him and M wouldn’t want to come to him but he was wrong and she was attached to him from the first time she laid eyes on him. It was a great homecoming.

I had such a great time the last few days at the two crops that I went to. The first one was at a local church. They meet once a month and next month they’re hosting a 15 hour crop. I did one layout and an altered book there. The second one, Saturday, was hosted by the girls’ scout. I did three digi layouts and a paper one. I started doing another one but then ended up stuffing all in my bag since there weren’t a lot of time left by then.

At the Saturday crop, I met up with the ladies that are going to open a scrapbook store here in town. Whoo hoo!!! I gave them a few names that I love. Just like clothes I have a few favorite brand names. Unlike clothes, I can buy which ever brand when it comes to paper and digi since I don’t have to wonder whether that brand carries petite/short items. For paper or none reusable items they’d just stay in my paper bin since they look so pretty and I’m afraid to use them in case I mess up. So, even with a lot of things that I haven’t used, earlier today I orders some Bam Pop, Sassafrass Lass, Adrienne Looman, Hambly, Tinkering Ink, Love Elsie stamps, and alphabets from American Craft from SIStv. Most are paper but I did order a few embellishments like tags and other coordinating items. Ahhh…. I think I need to go to therapy!

Card and LO

Silke Ledlow nominated me for a You Made my Day Award. Wow! I wasn’t expecting it. I’m one of her blog stalkers, love her simple, classy, and fun designs. You should check her out! So now I need to nominate five people…. hmmm…

1. Amy Tsuruta - Tsuruta Designs. Her cards always make me smile. They’re so simple and sooo elegant. Amy definitely makes my day
2. Cathy - Paper Cat. She’s my new SIS sister and I love her stuff and her blog. She makes my day when I see all her work
3. Allison - Your Memories. This chick is another awesome scrapbooker. Her work makes my day too
4. Melissa Goodsell - One Crafty Mumma. She’s my hero. She’s my Martha Stewart! She’s so good at everything it’s sick and her family is so lovely. Check out Bella’s sock monkey tutorial. This family makes M and my day
5. Bonnie - The Lucky Clucker. She’s one of my blogging sister and her work makes me smile. She’s really good and so she deserves the award {::SMILES}

Here are some projects that I did tonight. The first is a card. I used my scrap papers for this card and also the netting. For the flower, I used Stampin’ Up’s die cut floral. The hi is American Craft and the friend is SU’s Rough Edges Alphabet stamp. Ok, let me tell you this… I am a SU demo but I don’t recommend this Rough Edges Alphabet stamps unless you like to mount A LOT of itty bitty rubber. I hated it! The stamps are great but the process of mounting is a pain in the a**. I mounted friend and a few more. That’s it, until next time. Maybe I’ll just use it for just the word friend, ha!

Then I did this page. I used Tara Sroka’s Love Muffin kit, Hearts Do Dads, size tags, and to-do list.

I used the B/W photo technique that I showed you last week or maybe two weeks ago. If you read the journaling, you’ll know why the picture is kind of over exposed.

For the journaling, I used the path tool and I intersected two squares together (in the tutorial I intersected two circles and used the intersection, in this one I combined the two squares).

This is a pretty simple LO, another layered one — I am really liking this layering concept.

I’m only working half a day tomorrow. Yeah! Not sure what I’ll do but one is to prepare for my Stampin’ Up! workshop tomorrow night. I didn’t take the half day to do that, I did the half day just because and coincidently I have a workshop tomorrow. I’m excited. I don’t do workshops much, maybe once or twice a year, so it’s always fun.

Cooking Together

I was so happy this morning. I showed M the “Sweet Child” page that I did for her last night and she loved it. She had a huge smile on her face and her favorite piece was the bird (I thought so!). One day everything that I made will be hers and I want to make sure that they’ll be something she’d love to look at over and over again. I know she’s only four but her thoughts are important to me and even at her age, she’s already got good taste.

Today, after we did a bit of cleaning, I got a chance to scrapbook again. I did this page based on a few items:

- I need to do a layout for Dana Frantz since I’m her guest CT and I’ve only done one thus far. So I need to use her two kits, Party Flower and Chronicles of Life, that I downloaded a few days ago.

- I only submitted two things for VSBN since I didn’t have time all week to do anymore and so I incorporated the black, white, and red challenge, the sewing challenge, and the use a recent picture challenge. Ok, there were more to each challenge but the ones listed were the ones I used in my LO.

-A sketch that I did while I was waiting for my hot cocoa water to boil. This is the first time that I sketched before I work on my LO. Usually I just wing it or like the last few times, used Pencil Lines sketches.

I am quite happy with the result. This page isn’t hard to do. It’s just all about layering. The only add-on that I did isn’t too noticeable is added some grunge brush effect to the red paper and the strips of paper on the left. If you want these brushes, go to the “Texture Overlay” tut that I posted yesterday. You can find the link for the brushes. It’s also interesting to see how the end result of my LO look like in comparison to the sketch that I made myself.

Here’s my first sketch and my sample LO with it. If you want to try this sketch please do so and if you share your LO with me either through email or by posting a link to your LO, you’d really make my day {::SMILES}. Also, if you use any of my tuts, I’d love to see your LOs too!