smashbook

Okay so I haven't crafted in days and I am in withdraw!!!! Here are a few pictures of my smash book. I have to say that I work with the best group of people ever! These aren't even all of the silliness we had at the 31 party.... ( we try to have like monthly or 6 weekly (is that even a term?) get togethers. I think since we lost our dearest friend Linda we find comfort in one another) I used Terri Bradford photo templates to create the collages to print all the photos. When I photograph the next 2 page you will see the rest. I have the pictures printed from Cape May on Saturday to add but they aren't in here yet.

I went to see the documentary Miss Representation yesterday. It was so inspiring. My county Ed office bought the rights to show it in their office. I recommend anyone who has a young daughter to go see the film to help raise a generation of girls who view the world a little different and aspire to be more.

My county office is offering free viewings for schools and towns who are interested.

Times

I am just wondering why time is never correct on my postings.... Like hours off.

Easer card

An Easter Card from the Imagine cart Enjoy the Seasons. The patterned paper is also printed from that cartridge. Not really liking the hug I stamped.....I'll do a little something to it. Not sure what yet though.

Very tired from watching the Oscars.. going to start pulling and organizing papers for Thursday night scrap night then go to bed early. I am out really late the next 2 nights. Tonight was an early late night. Whatever that means...LOL

layout

Took a ride to Cape May with my family again today.. WOW..WINDY!!! But it was still nice to look at the Ocean and eat lunch at our favorite shore restaurant. When I got home I decided to take the rest of the day off. I processed lots of pictures for scrapping and worked on this layout. The font is cuttin up and I used a Terri Bradford storyboard template for the pictures. The papers were mostly from DCWV Summer Dreams pattern and solid stack.. I have to tell you this is one stack that I used all but about 5 sheets of now. I like when you buy the solid color pack that matches the pattern stack. Makes matching colors so easy.

When I looked at my St. Pat's cards posted on the blog I knew that they were lacking. I went back and added white signo pen stitching and dots here and there. I like them better now..

I looked at my calendar for next week. Out every night for meetings :-( and tomorrow is clean and laundry after church since I took today off. No rest for the weary.

Off to work on my smash happy book now. I haven't been posting all of that because some of it is just private stuff.

St. Pats Day

Its been a busy, busy week. Still not 100% and lots of things to do after work everyday. The other night I did get time to cut the pieces for these cards. ( Designers Calendar Cartridge) Got carried away and cut and heat embossed enough for 6 cards. ( okay who will I send them to?) All with different phrases outside and inside from My Creative Time I Believe in Leprechauns stamps. Tonight we had scrappin night and I assembled them into the cards. Paper all stuff from my stash. I also cut my march bulletin board letters and started a layout that I didn't finish. We called it an early night this week and stopped at 8:30. Still got 3 hours in :-)

Pinterest

Okay so the new thing is pinterest. Love the sight but I have to tell you I saw something that was a little weird. I searched wreaths and I have to tell you I saw a Halloween wreath that was almost identical to the one I made and posted here and on the cricut blogs. Now I know someone can have my same vision but it was weird because I thought is was mine for a minute minus the hanging bat in the middle.. Hmmmmm .....

gift card dies

I recently bought not one but two gift card holder dies for the cuttlebug. I could decide which I wanted and to be honest both were so reasonable I bought them both. I got one from My Creative Time with Emma and one from PaperTrey Ink. I like them both. I am a big gift card giver. I am not a terribly creative shopper.. Ugh, I guess because unless its a craft store I hate to shop.. clothes, food, household goods, presents.... hate it!!! I love the clicking mouse to do it whenever possible. Anyhow with my mom being 90 I mostly pick her up gift cards to give to people also. I made her a bunch of gift card holders to have around on the weekend. Here are just a few.

The one on the left was PaperTrey Inks die.. Didn't quite fit on the cuddlebug plate so I taped it down and ran it through twice shifting it on the plate when I cut it. The one on the right is from Emma fits on the plate nice but you have to eight tape or add some kind of closure the keep the flap down after you put the card in.

B-day card

I have been trying to rebuild my card file of cards so when my mom calls and needs like 5 birthday cards right now I have some pre-made. I made four of this design yesterday. The card base papers, ribbon and ink are all paper trey ink. The cupcake was done on the imagine. I created the two different browns myself. The pink icing was from bubblegum stripes and the cherry was from a pattern on Enjoy the season. I used creamy brown and pink colorbox chalk and cinnamon stickles.

b-day layout

The pattern papers here are from DCWV All Dressed up paper pack. The ribbon is from Michaels. The balloons were cut from create a critter and I don't remember the number font. I used diamond sticklers on the black lines on the one balloon. The light green balloon I inked and then sprayed that and the numbers with marshmallow glimmer mist. I used a Kerri Bradford template for the photo collage.

On another note I have to say I am really struggling internally with want and need. I am in lust with the silhouette cameo font cutting ability. With that said I own 2 cricut machines that I love. I just love the fonts and intricate cutting of the silhouette. Hmmm the battle of rationalizing over want, need, cost, then what would I want.... the internal battle continues.

blog link

My former work friend and current church friend Darlene is a children's author and I wanted to share her blog link:

http://www.darlenebeckjacobson.com/

Me... this week I did lots of napping after work, as you can read I made it to hobby lobby but on Friday I suffered... barely making it through my inservice at school I felt so bad. I really know my body and I DO KNOW I should have called the doctor but with Friday's inservice being on a holiday weekend it would have created complications at work.. Blah, blah, ... I ignored the increasing coughing which is how my asthma many times manifests itself. Any how, couldn't sleep all night. Got up early and researched... I went to the Voorhees Express Intermediate care center and I am in LOVE with them... treated my asthma, in, out and they have a pharmacy right next door.... Gave me scripts and I am already feeling on the road to recovery so the whole weekend is not lost and I didn't spend 6 hours in the er for medication when my doctors office is closed.

Almost done a scrapbook page from this afternoon. Waiting for things to dry... Spent the day sleeping with some mild crafting.

Hobby Lobby

I have had a terrible cold yet again this week. All I can say is that my immune system got depressed early on in the school year and it has never recovered.. ughhh.

Finally a Hobby Lobby opened in my area. My Thursday night scrapper friends and I are taking a road trip tonight to ck it out then have dinner together. Yeah.. A nap after school with this cold will get me through :-)

more variation of the same design

The difference from yesterday was that I used the cupcake stamp and colored it with copics and added and tiny dot of stickler.

birthday cards

Here are two cards using the My minds eye fine and dandy paper cut and then layered to create the background and stitched on the sewing machine. The scallop and stitched circle dies along with the all around stamp time are from My creative time with Emma. The face in the center is from peachy keen stamps.

In Love

I am in love with photoshop elements and Kerri Bradford's templates.. BUT I want to learn how to create my own templates.. I really need to research a course on elements.... I have always liked my layouts about the pictures not the embellishments. I have to say some layouts I see are works of art and the pictures are lost. I like that now I can put 7 images on 1 page to capture the memory without having to scrap 4 pages to capture the same event like when I printed all 4 X 6 or digital size photos to do the same thing. I often found it hard to be creative enough to scrap that many pages for the same event. Now I don't have to and I LOVE it! I made some cards tonight pictures will follow after I take them. I printed 2 pages of photos to scrap..... heaven.

layout

My first layout using a Keri Bradford storyboard template in photoshop elements :-) The font is makin the grade and the flag drape from the independence day cartridge.

layered mats

The other night I spent a couple hours creating these layered mats for cards in all different colors and patterns. I used My Minds Eye Fine and dandy double sided paper cut in various angled strips. I then put a runner of tape on a piece of thin card stock 4 X 5.25 and then laid the strips on. I trimmed the edges and then sewed around the edges on the sewing machine. The frame and stamp are paper trey ink. You will see the other mats when I get my order from my creative time with Emma.. I'm waiting for the stitched flower die and matching stamp set to come. I also placed a paper trey ink order yesterday so it will be like Christmas here in a couple of days... I treated myself to a few things with my income tax return :-)

90 years of fun

This is a two page layout of my moms 90th birthday party last April.... My oldest brother's job was to take pictures of everyone who came to put in a book for her.. grrrr I'm still waiting for the pictures. I am gonna have to be on him. These were the few that I actually took. I am playing with arranging pictures differently. I am just tired of 2 to 4 pictures on a page matted. Looking to try something new. I used gypsy font and all papers and embellishments that have been in my stash. I am trying to reframe from paper buying unless I need a solid color to match what I have. I have so much it is silly to keep buying.

Pinterest inspired card

I got the idea for this card on Pinterest. It said it was pinned from the cricut blog but when I went to the cricut blog to give credit for the design I could not find it. I actually made 4 different versions of the card using different pattern paper layers. The be mine heart was cut from designers calendar and the little hearts were cut from plantin school book. I used an ek success border punch for the edges.

back to regular scrapping

Easter 2011.. I forget which letter font I cut these on but the grass, egg and chocolate bunny came from the Easter 2010 seasonal cricut cartridge. The pattern paper has been in my stash for a couple years from a big stack that the cover is long gone from.

finished

My daughters graduation album is done!! Yeah, finished it Thursday night. Here is the last page. A picture of her going to work on her first day in the hospital, in her scrubs. She doesn't like the picture but it was the best of the two I took. Next time she should smile more instead of giving me a hard time about taking her picture. I think I mentioned before I collected nursing stickers for 4 years to make this book and then hardly used any in it.. LOL. I used a bunch of stickers and brads on this page.

smashbook

I am loving my smash book. I can tell you that post-it notes and cell phone camera's are making it possible to remember to document things. Project Life seems to be the new it thing... Funny that I had decided to record fun outings etc in my daily life with my smash book before I heard about the project life kits. I think a smash book is the way to go for me because I don't want to be confined to those pockets. I also think it funny that on my own the last two summers I used a similar system to get all my photos in pockets and add little pocket scrapbooking notes along the way to record trips where I wanted ALL the photos in for memories and it would be impossible to scrapbook.

My daughters final page is designed and needs to be assembled tomorrow night at scrapbooking. I took the album apart and added the extra pages. ( Have I mentioned how much I hate to do this?? I always stab myself with the screw driver somehow.)

I still need to get at least 2 more Valentine cards made.. work is never done.. LOL

Oh and I got my desk space cleaned & organized. Lets see how long that last.....