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. :)

Play

Now I know this isn't unique to Squishy, but that kid LOVES to play. All the time. Sometimes running around so fast that he's just a blur in the lens. So when I saw the sketch at the Paper Girls Challenge Blog I knew that this picture of him stopping, for a teeny moment, would be the perfect picture for their fourth challenge's sketch.

MME Pretty Please with embellishments from Abbey Road
3D flower papers from Fancy Pants Lilac House 

Speaking of running around all the time. The weather here has been beyond amazing which is why I haven't really posted much since the last challenge - but I was working on a First Year album that we gave to Grandma last weekend. Pictures of that will be coming soon.

Card challenges - MCM and Paper Variety

This week's MCM from scrapbooksteals.com featured so many gorgeous blues that I decided to not only follow the sketch but do a blue card from my scrap stash.

I also decided to tie this card into the newest challenge over at The Paper Girls Challenge Blog - use a stamp as a background/accent element. That was one massive stamp by the way, I had a bit of a fuss with it, but it turned out all right in the end.

Amy Tangerine - blue cardstock
MME - scraps and die cut
Jenny Bowlin - Butterfly embelly
Martha Stewart - butterfly stamp
Zing Powder -silver
ColorBox - Ocean 

For The Paper Variety Challenge I decided to start with this sketch from SS and then it sort of evolved. I had also really taken to the idea of using a stamp as a background element. The TPV challenge was to use three in a row or diagonally of a tic-tac-toe board full of options. I chose: embossing/card/die cut.

Embossing: green on green as a background element
Card
Die cut: MME Abbey Lane tag

My first mini!

Here it goes -- pics of my first mini album. Ages ago I bought a MME Lost and Found Union Square kit from Scrapbooksteals (of course) but was to intimidated to use it because of two little chipboard pieces attached with rings. I knew that a making a mini was something I wasn't ready for yet. I can't explain why I suddenly felt the need to attack the project, but eh, I did so here we go!

I started with the front and back covers, knowing that they needed to balance each other and would set the tone for the book.

While working through the title I decided that the book would be about the Scientist and our boys. Because of our work situation he gets to spend more time with them then my father ever could with me (because of his job) and I wanted to make sure they understood how important that is for me. That I LOVE how much they love each other.

I only designed on the right side of the two page spread. 

Page 1

Page 2

For page 3 I used a technique that isn't new to the industry but was a first for me - rolled paper. That sure took a long time (and a lot of paper!).

Page 3

Can I just say, that while I adore the look - I really, really don't like fussy cutting. It is just sooooo fussy.

Page 4

This was the first page I did, which means it should be page 1, right?! Well, I decided I liked the look of the crepe paper poking out the bottom the whole time.

Page 5

I really like that the title for page 6 doesn't indicate which of them is "charming, adorable, and ever so sweet." This is probably one of my favorite pictures I've taken of Squirrel with the Scientist.

Page 6

The completed album, closed. Not so bad for a first time.

Completed album

I just got a new mini too - the MME Lush 2 in Orange (shhh, I know, I wasn't supposed to buy anything yet but I couldn't pass it up). Maybe for that book I'll look into doing some hidden journaling or something. I can't wait!