Scrapbooksteals MWM - Amethyst 10

Amethyst 10. Yes, you read that correctly. I can't believe we are already done with this series. It's been a good time! I realized while compiling all the pictures into one photo album that I didn't link nearly enough of them to the Scrapbooksteals blog! Really need to be better about that - if only because it would have made the task of organizing them a little easier.  Nevermind the fab prizes they send for the weekly winners.

Ah, and speaking of prizes, this gem series' prize is from My Mind's Eye (which if you haven't figured it out yet - MME is one of my absolute favorite scrapping brands) and it is to DIE for. A girl can dream...

Anyway, Amethyst 10. I took this adorable picture of Squishy while we were on the road (DH was driving). We were headed to my parents' house and both boys were just so.very.excited. 

The papers are all Authentique Blissful. There's a lot of fussy cutting that went into this, though the photo corners and trims are die cuts. Twine is MME. There's a variety of brads - AC Chap, Paper Studio Affinity, MME Follow Your Heart. I lightly chalked all the edges with Pebbles chalks just to give it a soft depth.

"Happy Boy"

50 Project Challenge

Done: 23

another clock

I made another clock face today. Instead of just altering an old one like I did the other day I actually bought a clearanced charger, drilled a whole in it and added the clock mechanism. This clock is for our bedroom, The Scientist has been asking for one in there for ages and I just didn't like anything enough to buy it! But I LOVE this one.

Today's clock face is Authentique Blissful. I fussy cut the "numbers" from a Blissful 6x6 pad.  ColorBox Chestnut Roan to ink the edges, Pebbles Chalks, and Imaginese D-stress to age it a bit. Brads were stash.

Clock in it's place on the wall

Detail pic of clock face

Unfortunately, the clock kept time before adding that center Authentique icon. Because it isn't now I assume that means that the paper is obstructing it in some way and I'll have to make a run to the craft store for a longer... whatever that part is called!

In other news, it's still April so I'm still trying to be intentional with some random acts of kindness and last week someone stole the tip jar from my workplace. The girls who were working were really upset about it - partly because they need that money for real life expenses (whereas I use that money for crafting!).  So I slipped the tips I'd earned the previous week (they get distributed weekly based on hours worked) back into the pool. Questions about the theft came up in our shift meeting last night and everyone was getting super negative about the situation so I told them a customer had made a donation. That lifted the mood instantly. It was kind of fun, though I think my boss was onto me because of the weird way he said to pass the thanks to the anonymous customer.

Then today, one of the girls made a comment about only having a few cans of food in her house (payday isn't until next week). This week's tips bought her some produce, okay, a lot of produce. I just couldn't help myself.

50 Project Challenge
Done: 22
Cheated: 1x

Scrappy weekend

Oh man did I get a lot done this weekend! I finished up my page for the Paper Girls Challenge Blog, worked on a couple of extra Mid Week Mojo's (still trying to get all the original ones done), and a card. I had lots of fun, can you tell?!!

So here we go: Paper Girls Challenge #6 was to use the following photo as inspiration.

from Martha Stewart. com via pinterest

 "You can take whatever you want from this photograph - colors, patterns, grid, squares, materials (glass, metal, fabric) and use that as your inspiration for your creation this week. I'm so excited to see what you make!"

"Don't Forget"

 Well, I pretty much only took the grid from this picture. I did a page that I'm not in love with but it was fun to do something so very different from anything I've ever seen! I used Cosmo Cricket papers, American Crafts Chap accordion flowers and both the stamp and blue ink are Martha Stewart.

Then, I opened up the Scrapbooksteals.com blog and pulled out some old MWMs.

MWM 3 - This page originally just had the one 4x6, but I really liked the idea of making those tags into pics too. Squirrel was doing these crazy smile faces for a few months around the holidays and I just wanted to capture that. Papers, stickers, stars and twine are Jillibean Christmas Soup. Brad is stash. Eyelets are We Are Memory Keepers.

"We're all a Little Flaky"

MWM 4 -This sketch was originally a 3 pic that I converted to get a few more pics of Christmas onto the page! They weren't the best pics so cropping them made the focus seem a little better. The papers, stars, stickers and twine are Jillibean Christmas Soup. American Crafts Delight Thickers, inked with Color Box Chestnut Roan.

"Our Christmas 2011"

MWM 5 - When I started scrapbooking (just over 3 years ago) I always did  2 pagers, but I haven't in a while and this 5 picture spread was a challenge! I cropped some of the pictures down and squeezed an extra two on this page about hanging out at the park during our very warm winter! Papers and stickers are Fancy Pants Rough and Tough. Brads are stash.

"Boys will be boys"

Then, I made the following card for The Paper Variety's current challenge - we were to scraplift an idea from somewhere on their blog to use as inspiration for a project. I chose to "lift" a tutorial about creating a title with twine by Kate.

Papers for this card are Authentique Blissful, brad is Paper Studios Affinity, ink is Prima Terra, and twine is WRMK Sew Easy Yellow.

And finally, this morning I made a card using the Scrapbooksteals.com MCM #81. Papers and embellishments are all Authentique Blissful. Ink is Terra by Prima. Glitter glue by Crayola.

50 Project Challenge
Done: 21
Confession, I "stole" today from Scrapbooksteals.com - just couldn't pass up on the MME Lost and Found 2 Sunshine. *sigh* Time to hop back on the wagon.

Sketch challenges and then it's "time" for the weekend!

The first sketch that I worked on this week was a Kristy Lee for this week's MWM, Amethyst 9. What a lot of pictures that sketch has - 11! A great event sketch since you can really cram them in.

Amethyst 9

I used LilyBee Christmas Town for this one about the boys at Christmas at my parents house. The snowflake swoosh is a cut from the Silhouette store. I chalked the edges with Pebbles chalks. Ribbons are stash.

"Christmas Traditions"

Really liking the sketch, I decided to do another page about Squishy at the park using MME Follow Your Heart. I just need to say that the kit I bought from Scrapbooksteals was totally worth my money - I've done several pages, a couple of cards and still have two sheets of paper and tons of embellishments left. That's part of why I love SS!

MME Follow Your Heart papers and embellishments
MME Pretty Please
Pebbles chalk

Anyway, having completed that sketch I wandered back over to MME's blog to see if they'd posted their new bi-weekly challenge. Success! They'd posted a card and page sketch.

MME April Page Sketch

MME April Card Sketch

These are my interpretations of those sketches. For the page I used MME Pretty Please, Abbey Road, Follow Your Heart, and Lost and Found papers. The embellishments are MME Abbey Road. Inked with Color Box Olive. Adhered with Xyron.

"when dinosaurs roamed the earth"

 For the card, I turned it horizontally. The base of the card is a MME Abbey Road die cut page (scrap from doing the above page). The embellishments are also Abbey Road precut die cuts and some fussy cutting. Inked and stamped with ColorBox Olive and Charcoal. Ribbon is MME Lush. Rhinestones are from Imaginese. Stamp is KI Memories.

Happy Birthday Tough Guy Card

Well, the Friday workday is over. Guess it's "time" to go, but first an altered art project. See that boring clock in the top right corner? That's what the clock looked like to start, I used Photoshop to add it to this image of my fancy new clock! The base paper is Authentique Uncommon. The hands and center of the clock are Target Washi Tape (they call it printed tape and it's with the stationery) and the numbers are stamped and heat embossed with Black Metallic Zing! The blue glitter is from Crayola. 

Have a great weekend!

50 Project Challenge

Done: 15

Happy Birthday Scientist!

The Scientist and I share a birth month, his day is 7 after mine and because of that I'm just under 7 years younger than him. For his birthday (today) I made this dino card using Imaginese Dino Roar and the Scrapbooksteals.com MCM 80 sketch by Kristy Lee.

Someday I should really stop picking on him about that age difference, but this was just so.much.fun!

Imaginese Dino Roar - paper, rub ons, pop-up embellishments
EK Success Punch
Xyron
WRMK Sew Stamper

The card also gave me a chance to try out one of my last purchases before starting my Project Challenge - We are Memory Keepers Sew Easy Stampers. I have to say these things are super cool. I love the look of stitching on my pages and already owned the Sew Easy, but the stamp is just such a different look that I'm glad I went ahead and got it too! WRMK was sure onto something when they made these little guys. One thing I learned in the process was that those shiny spots on some papers that give such great texture do not hold the stamp ink well. Please notice the smudges, some of those happened on accident which caused me to go in and add some on purpose!

As part of my birth month Random Acts of Kindness challenge I cleared through my scrapbook stash and came up with a decent sized pile of stuff to donate - and then called one of our friends who is an Education grad student and asked her if she could use the stuff. A lot of it is leftovers from my early days of scrapping - and boy has my style changed! Because of those changes I'd rather let her use it with the students/or let other teachers use in their albums than continue to just sit in my stash (unused for well over a year).

The pile looks decent enough on the table, but looking at the storage area makes me wonder if there's more I should purge. Nothing like a good spring cleaning, right?

Project Challenge
Done: 10

Monday monday

Most Mondays people head back to work and are relatively cranky about it, but for me they are almost always a day off from work and a whole day at home with my little guys! I simply adore Monday because it gives me a day to clean, run errands or do crazy projects without the Scientist under foot constantly or a million people also trying to grocery shop! Yes!!

Today I am in the process of baking some strawberry leather, it's been in the oven almost 6 hours already and looks like it'll need closer to 8 hours for this batch. ETA: That leather never did set right, wondering if my pan wasn't big enough and that made the leather to thick. Some areas turned out quite tasty, but after 10 hours those areas were burning and others were still a warm puree!

I made my second batch ever of bread machine bread (just the white bread recipe that came with it, we'll get fancier later). It turned out significantly better than the first batch did. I had some weird flour stuff in the bottom of one corner and the bread fell while cooking - it tastes fab though and for that I'm grateful because I had to do a quick ingredient swap while putting it together and I thought it was probably gonna be an educational flop. You can see that Squirrel and I already sampled a little as an afternoon snack.

Tasty homemade bread

Also today, I busted out some scrap fabric and made this little iPad display for road trips. I saw one posted on Pinterest and forgot to pin it so I sort of winged this based on my memory of it. Not bad considering I'm about as new to sewing as I am to bread making and I didn't have a pattern! The ribbon helps a lot, because the window was not cut straight. Ooops.

My in-car iPad holder for movie watching

I've also been working on two Christmas presents this weekend. Yes, I realize it's April, but in an effort to not spend so much on "stuff" I decided that I am making most of our Christmas this year and that means starting NOW so that I can enjoy the process. The two projects I picked to start with were kits I bought from Scrapbooksteals.com's archive a while back and having done them each now I'll probably reproduce them with minimal effort for at least one more person. *But* because they are Christmas presents you'll only get sneaky peeks at them.

The first project was My Mind's Eye Decorative Blocks. Decoupage paper to all sides of a cube, sand the edges, ink. Pretty easy and will be super cute sitting on a coffee table. Just need to do a spray acrylic sealer so that they are water resistant!

Nearly completed cube

The second project was a photo frame with decoupaged paper and embellished canvas from Bo Bunny. The kit itself was themed "Noel" and while I really liked the color palette I didn't want it to be a Christmas thing. I tossed some of the holiday themed elements, pulling other components from my scrap stash in instead. Now it is more of a "family" theme. Closer to Christmas I'll take a picture to coordinate with it and seal it one last time.

"Family" corner of canvas - this corner has a lot of MME
Lost and Found Union Square

Time to go squeeze a run out of all this sunshine and then maybe get my MCM knocked out as well!

50 Project Count
Done: 9

Card with matching envelope

The Paper Variety blog's newest challenge is to create a card with matching envelope. The envelope needs to have two elements that complement the card's design.

The first thing I did was pull up the Silhouette Studio software to see what I already had on file. Since I haven't done any envelopes yet, there wasn't anything. A quick trip to the store awarded me a card and envelope file that fits so many trends right now that it was worth $1 from my subscription balance - a hexagon card with envelope!!!  Sweet, I can use that hexie again with a little bit of editing.

Next, I decided to use up some of my lingering MME Lost and Found papers. Two papers from Union Square and then one from a 6x6 Lost and Found 2 paper pad. The 12x12 Union Square became the base of the card, the envelope and an embellishment for each. I used some scrap Union Square on the card and fussy cut some of that 6x6 sheet for both the card and envelope. Almost all of it got inked with Colorbox - Chestnut Roan and a little bit of Gold. The sparkly flower stem is Prima. Twine is MME.

Hexagon Thank You Card

Hexagon Envelope (closed)
Two coordinating elements include papers from the card  and part of the floral stem through the eyelet.

Hexagon Envelope open with Hexagon Thank You card inside

Now obviously this is not a card that can be mailed. It was designed for a special person in my life and will be hand delivered very soon!

Project Challenge

Done: 6

MWM - Amethyst 8 plus one other project

After the last two weeks and feeling like the sketches were made for my pictures I'm sort of disappointed. Don't get me wrong - Kristy Lee's interpretation of the Authentique April sketch was breathtaking - I just don't like how my completed page turned out.

In reality, it doesn't look bad. It just isn't speaking to me this week.

Here's the original sketch:

Amethyst 8

And here's my version:

MME Follow Your Heart papers, twine and chipboard stickers
AC Amy Tangerine Thickers - Hello
Color Box - charcoal
Helmar Zapdots, Xyron 1.5 X

This morning I woke up before the kids, and since I was feeling ever so slightly better (but still badly enough to have to stay home from work) I did a little crafty goodness. I bought this canvas from Target. I'd been eyeing it for months, but refused to pay full price. Well, as luck would have it I found it on clearance last week. $10 for an already painted canvas isn't bad since it saved me a certain amount of effort and I loved the colors!

Papers from scraps
Prima flowers

After I hung it I took a stretchy hair band (the kind for your whole head that I can't wear because they slide off) and stretched it around the top of the canvas, then clipped all of my flowers for hair/lapels. You know the big flowers I'm talking about! It looks pretty cute, but I'll need another solution for them if I add any more flowers. Thinking about drilling small holes into the bottom and running ribbon through for them to hang from.

50 Project Challenge 

Done: 5

Birthday Project Challenge

I've been spending a lot of money lately. A lot. Like I actually needed spring clothing (in February because it was so hot already!), the boys needed clothing, three trips to Grandma's in just over a month, and all those scrappy supplies I've been picking up. Ugh. Excessive.

So now I'm reissuing my Project Challenge - I'm going to complete 50 projects this time before buying any new supplies other than adhesive. I do have a gift card and some outstanding packages I'm waiting on and those won't count as falling off the wagon.
When counting projects:

• Page = 1
• Card = 0.5
• Mini Album = 10

As part of my Birthday Project Challenge I'm also incorporating a Random Act of Kindness Clause.

• I started this part at the beginning of the month by paying for the customer behind me in line.
• Brought a whole bunch of Gluten Free stuff to mom's on each trip up there (how in the world this tiny town gets better GF stuff than her major metro area has I'll never understand). 
• The boys and I have been grabbing a shopping cart from one of the corrals and using it. While we do redeposit it into the corral, maybe we'll keep that cart boy from having to work quite as hard!
• And then yesterday by giving a nice thank you card to our mail carrier. The pound of coffee I included was probably over the top, but considering
•  I'm a barista so it was free 
• We haven't done anything for him in, well, ever, I think it's okay. 

My idea for this Clause is that it should balance out my spending, sort of. Now based on what I just explained has been my spending, I have a lot of good karma to throw out there! Watch out for stories of what else we're doing during this Challenge.

So here's the first page I created as part of the challenge - I used MME Follow Your Heart again. Love that stuff! I'm almost done with all of the kit I bought from scrapbooksteals.com but this will be a line I buy again, just not anytime soon. *smile*

MME Follow Your Heart
Color Box Pumpkin Spice

One good thing about having to stay home with an upset tummy is that I still feel good enough to craft. I busted out some cards that I made from a BoBunny kit (because I made all of them based on the provided sketches we'll count them as one project).

I also finished up my MCM for the week. 

MME Follow Your Heart
Color Box Charcoal
Stamp from stash

50 Project Challenge 

Done: 2.5

Just a little about your mom

I can't believe it's time again for the 5th Paper Girls Challenge Blog Challenge! Nor can I believe that I've managed to keep up with all the challenges to date. Whew, that's a lot of scrapbooking! Especially when you consider that a year ago I was averaging 5 pages in three months *only* if I took a trip to mom's for the weekend!

This challenge was a "recipe" challenge. Scrappers had to follow a formula to achieve a result. Here's what went into the page:
1 Photo - this one is fairly obvious
2 Journaling Cards - two papers that I wrote on about myself
3 Different Ribbons/Trims/Twine - twine, ribbon and crepe paper ribbon = check!
4 Stamped Images - one stamp used in all four corners (and then heat embossed)
5 Non Paper Embellishments - two stick pins and three brads 
(Brads, Buttons etc...)
BONUS
6 Words in the Title - yep, six

MME Miss Caroline: papers, twine, brads, stick pins
MME Laundry Line lacy ribbon
MME Lost and Found crepe ribbon
Color Box Charcoal ink
AC Thickers: Typo and Delight
Zing Teal Metallic Powder
The Girl's Paperie - Toil and Trouble Stamp

Just trying to decide now if I want to scrap a second page about myself for the other guys' scrapbook or if I should just make an album that's all about me?! I have a couple of pages that would work for that album already, hmmm, maybe I'd buy a PINK book?! *squeals of delight*

MWM - Amethyst 7

Today's MWM sketch was provided by guest sketcher Kyla Dawn Norris. And what a fabulous job she did. Some sketches just seem to come together with ease. I actually knew when I bought MME Follow Your Heart that it was perfect for these pics I'd taken the day before. I'm so glad that I didn't tear into the paper as soon as it arrived at my door! This sketch was perfect for them. 

MME Follow Your Heart - brad, paper, chipboard stickers, twine
Color Box Yellow Citrus
Helmar Zap Dots

After a crazy Easter weekend I was able to come home and finish up the Amethyst 7 sketches. The second sketch in this duo had some fantastic little details! I loved working with it. And man -oh - man looking at Kyla's completed page was pretty inspiring all on its own. Hope I can live up to it!!

MME Follow Your Heart - brad, buttons, stickers, twine, paper
AC Thickers Typo
Helmar ZapDots
Color Box - Charcoal
Hero Arts - Hexagon Diecut

spring break round up

Every spring break for the last 5 (?) years The Scientist has helped our church's youth group raise money for missions by driving vans of teens with bicycles along the state's cross-state trail system. It's a three day adventure for them. Since having Squirrel I've been using that time to visit my mom's house. Extra help with kiddo (now kiddos) and fewer chores for  a few days means that I get to have more of scrappy time! LOVE that.

So while my hubby gets all hot and sweaty actually riding a bike this year I'll hopefully be posting a crazy number of pictures of my scrapbooking and card making adventure!

Day 1: after getting back from the zoo I completed the Scrapbooksteals.com MWM sketch by Kristy Lee Amethyst 6.

This page almost put itself together - I had a series of pictures laid out by color scheme and started looking through some of the paper kits I'd bought in the last several months and fell in love with Fancy Pants Rough and Tough with these pics of Squirrel and Squishy splashing in the rain. And while I know that chevrons are all the rage I generally don't like them, but these ones? They're totally lightning bolts! Again, these pictures, the sketch and the papers were made for each other.

Fancy Pants Rough and Tough

Then upon waking up on day 2 I made this card with scraps from yesterday's adventure. Those Jenny Bowlin alphas were a fab extra touch but I personally think that my newest toy is what really made this page - check out those eyelets and twine. Yep, I finally got a Crop-o-dile. YAY!

Fancy Pants Rough and Tough
WRMK Sew Easy Navy Twine
Jenny Bowlin Mini Alphas
Color Box Olive
Martha Stewart airplane stamp

Well, by the time I'd finished working on that card (because the boys were up), suddenly Squishy was in desperate need of a nap - so our out of the house adventure was put on hold and I decided to work on another page.

I really wanted these two pictures because they tell the story without any journaling needed. Clearly Squishy is enjoying finger painting! So I pulled up last week's Amethyst MWM #5 and did another interpretation of it. I'm pretty excited about how it turned out. 

Fancy Pants Rough and Tough
7gypsies Green/Blue Brads and photo turn
WRMK Sew Easy Yellow Twine

When he woke up it was off to a hands-on learning museum = lots of future layouts from that adventure and then to help my parents get ready for an Easter egg hunt/carnival their church was hosting the next day. 

When we got done with the egg hunt (again= more pictures= more pages) mom and I quickly set up shop on the dining room table and went to work paper crafting. We made 40 Thank You cards for her volunteers (forgot to take pictures) during which I taught her how to heat emboss and how to set eyelets.

 I also made another two pages and two more cards before we called it quits and packed up so I could leave town after church. I went all out on my own for these two page layouts - no sketch?! Eek. I really need to start designing my own pages again, I've gotten to used to using sketches as a crutch!

Fancy Pants Rough and Tough
Paper Studio Button brad
7gypsies red brads
Pebbles chalks
AC Thickers Amy Tangerine Hello

Fancy Pants Rough and Tough
7gypsies red brads
Pebbles chalks

This card was based on the Scrapbooksteals.com MCM 77 - just one of several fantastic sketches by Teri Anderson. 

Made from an assortment of scraps that pre-date me
 keeping track of what brands I was buying. I do know the base is MME.

And this card I just created from some more scraps. The paper with gears (BG Oliver) was the unused side from using my Kiwi Lane Design templates on another project but other than that I just inked up some of the paper and glued it all down "as is" - finding stuff to coordinate with the base card stock took longer than assembling the card but it's still pretty cute.

MME Lost and Found Union Square
Basic Grey Oliver
Fancy Pants
KI stamp

Whew what a week this has been! I though Spring Break was supposed to be a "break"?!

Squirrel and I made this during the Egg Hunt. He's so crafty. :)