Well, well, well….

Guess who finally was inspired to get scrappy? 🙂 After a long drought, I finally found some time and scrapping mojo. I think with the pressure of no design teams I am feeling a lot more inclined to create. That combined with the LifeBook class that I am taking has really got me feeling inspired. For the past 2 weeks I’ve been knocking out some layouts. I can’t believe how fast some of them came together. Although like any other scrapper, I know that I will never really be caught up, I feel like I’m making some good progress. This is going to be kind of a picture heavy post, but this way I can share with you what I’ve been doing and get caught up on my blogging all at once. I have many friends’ blogs to visit and catch up with as well 🙂










The Pumpkin Patch and The Day You Were Born layouts were based on sketches from Creating Keepsakes Fast 4 x 6 pages
I hope you enjoyed the layouts are maybe found a little inspiration here as well 🙂
Take Care!

Challenge Me Happy! 9.15

Hi everyone! I am here with my very first reveal for Challenge Me Happy. Our challenge was to create our own embellishment. I don’t do this too often, but I really enjoyed this one. I made some fun pinwheels out of leftover pieces of coordinating PP. The pictures are of two of my daughters, Natalie and Sophie, dancing on the shores of Lake Michigan while on vacation this summer.

Supplies used-Patterned Paper: Bo Bunny, unknown from stash; Sticker: Stick-O; Punch: EK Success, Stampin Up; Washi Tape: Up and Up; brads: The Paper Studio; Pen: American Crafts


Make sure you stop by Challenge Me Happy and check out their fun challenges. You can also link up your project to win a guest DT spot on the blog for Challenge #32!

Challenge Layout Catch Up!

How do y’all like my new blog design? I’ve been hard at work giving the page a little makeover!

I know I am not the only mom out there who is excited that school has resumed, right? 🙂 With all of the kids (but one) back in school I have been on a scrappy roll lately! I just wanted to do a quick post to show a few layouts that were done for a couple of Issue Challenges over at Club CK. I’ve been busy keeping up with those, as well as getting ahead on my DT work for Frosted Designs and Challenge Me Happy. I am looking forward to beginning my new terms with these great challenge blogs. Here is some of my latest work that I can show right now:

Issue Challenge–to use mini envelopes:

Supplies used-Patterned paper: Little Yellow Bicycle, Punch: Recollections, Pen: American Crafts


Issue Challenge-use outlining at least twice in your layout. This layout is a scraplift of a layout by Dina Wakley called “Glimpse” from Somerset Memories. It’s not an exact scraplift, but I like to give credit where it’s due! I love her work!


Supplies used-Cardstock: DCWV, Paint: Ranger, Stencil: Unknown & Studio Calico, Spray Mist: ARTC, Dylusions, Punch: EK Success, Recollections, Pen: American Crafts, Washi Tape: SEI, Stamps: Studio G


Supplies used-Patterned paper-Studio Calico, Crate Paper, Brads-The Paper Studio, Letters: American Crafts, Punch: Fiskars, Creative Memories, Frame: Heidi Swapp, Pen: American Crafts

And finally September’s Sketch It Out Challenge entry. I love Ashley’s sketches. Check out her blog and look at her adorable layouts. Here is my layout for her sketch:

Supplies used-Patterned paper and flags: Heidi Swapp, Pen: American Crafts, Punch: Fiskars, Letters: American Crafts, Cardstock: DCWV

Stay tuned next week for my Frosted Designs Team 1 reveal for the new term!
Thanks for stopping by 🙂

Scrapfit and Issue Challenge Layouts!

Good morning peeps! I have to say that I have been on a scrappy roll lately and I am loving it!! It’s funny how you can miss this hobby so much when you’re strapped for time. Now that I have finished some of my home decor projects and the kids activities have slowed down a bit, I’ve had a bit more time for scrapping and my new addiction…Zumba!!
My first layout is for ScrapFit’s workout #72, a color inspiration workout. We were challenged to use the colors coral, teal, and brown. I had a few sheets of My Mind’s Eye On The Bright Side papers left, and I thought they would work perfectly. Here is my layout:

Next up is my layout for this week’s Issue Challenge at Club CK. This week’s challenge has us using a slang word on our page. I had this sweet pic of Macie and her close friends after one of their basketball games. I thought “Homies” was a pretty appropriate title. Macie isn’t very girly, so I always try and tone down her layouts a bit. The muted colors I think work well with her personality. I also went a little outside my comfort zone by doing some stamping on this layout. I like stamping, but mostly confine it to my art journal or cards. I got the cute arrow and “hey girl” stamps from my friend AndreaJoy. Most of the papers used were from SEI from my Scarlet Lime kit. And in case you were wondering…yes, I hand cut every one of those hexagons 🙂

I hope you all have a wonderful day!!!

An update on me and a few layouts in the midst of chaos….

Hi everyone! It’s been forever since I’ve had time to get scrappy. Lots going on here…it started with the end of the year stuff with Natalie and Macie—finishing up school, track meets, doctor appointments, camps, summer basketball league, dental appointments…you name it and I’ve done it. Sophie’s new school does not offer a summer program so she’s been at home with me all summer and that’s been interesting (ok, sort of stressful, I love her but she’s a bit of a high maintenance diva). A lot of times it’s hard to squeeze in any creative time when you are chasing 5 kids around (ok, mostly just 4 right now—even though Ashley is 20 now she’s still considered my kid 🙂 )She had the privilege of going to Brazil with the Study Abroad program through Texas A&M (where she goes to school) and had some exciting experiences. We’re hoping to work on a journal together documenting her time there. If we’re lucky, maybe she will let me share some of it with you guys here 🙂 Weston is crawling and so I am literally chasing him all over the place!

Anyhoo…I’ve realized that I just can’t do it all, as much as I’d like to, and so I really backed off the scrapping challenges and stuff and have been working on an art journal project that I’m hoping to submit for publication and working on my house. When we first bought this house, it was an investment property that we were going to just rehab and resell. In a funny turn of events, I actually fell in love with the place (usually not a danger in our line of work–I’m sort of picky LOL) and we decided to keep this one for ourselves and move in. Suddenly white walls and wall to wall tile were not good enough. We really rushed to move in, so I hadn’t really decorated or even finish unpacking all of the boxes even though it’s been 10 months. I’ve been redecorating the twin’s room, our master bedroom and bath, the dining room, the laundry room, and the living room. It’s been a blast turning this house into our home and I’m really happy with what I’ve done so far. I plan on sharing some pics when things are done.

Now onto my scrappy bits 🙂 This first layout is for my friend Ashley Horton’s July Sketch It Out Challenge. I am a big fan of Ashley’s sketches and layouts, and was really inspired by her sketch this month. I dug into one of my past kits from Scarlet Lime for the goodies, I believe most of the paper is American Crafts. I also used some rub ons and a stitch stamp that I found and had never used, as well as a mask and mist (part of the “twist” in the challenge) I am also submitting this layout for the *thinking through design* blog’s “thought” on grounding. I used the dark color strip as a way to ground the picture of Sophie against the white background with the misting. Here I feel like the mask/mist combo also helps ground the layout in general by appearing in both corners and tying the entire layout together. Here is my layout:

This next layout is for this week’s sketch challenge over at Let’s Get Sketchy. I never do anything diagonal, so I thought it would be fun to try this one out. Here’s my layout using some Simple Stories paper that I got as a gift from Ashley Horton when Weston was born.

I hope everyone is well, and that I am able to find some more time in the next few weeks to share some more of my projects. I’ve missed all of my wonderful scrappy friends!

Challenge Layouts :)

This has been a challenging week in more ways than one, but I was able to squeeze in a couple of layouts by working a little bit at a time. The first one is for the new sketch site Let’s Get Sketchy. I used my new Authentique Genuine paper pack to show off Weston and Opa hanging out at Chuck E. Cheese.



The next layout is for Erika’s Issue Challenge over at Club CK. The challenge was to scrap a special friendship. Sophie and Shelby have been best friends since they first met 2 years ago at Mother’s Day Out. I got a lot of the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan collection in my February Scarlet Lime kit so I used that on this layout.



The last page I did is for Ashley’s Sketch it Out Challenge at Club CK. We had to use her sketch, and as an added twist we had to use chevron, woodgrain, or hexagons. I used chevron and woodgrain. This page documents Weston’s first smile 🙂


Thanks for looking and enjoy your weekend!! TGIF!!

Frosted Designs “Show Me” Sunday-Tutorial

Hi Everyone! This week for our Frosted Designs Show Me Sunday tutorial I would like to share a quick, easy, and cute home decor project that you can make using lots of things that you most likely already have laying around in your stash. It probably only cost me about $10 to make this. Here are the materials that you will need:

Picture frame (I used an 8 x 8)

1 piece of solid cardstock cut to fit your frame

some patterned paper scraps

1″ punch (I actually used a 1-1/4″ punch that has a ragged edge–one of my clearance sale finds at Hobby Lobby!)

some coordinating embellishments (brads, stickers, rub-ons, bling, chipboard elements, twine, buttons, etc.)

Vintage Photo Ranger Distress Ink

Small photos of family or friends that you can punch into a 1″ square

In addition to the patterned papers you can add fabric and book paper. I used a scrap of burlap I had laying around and some book paper from an old French book.

First, take all of your photos and paper scraps that you are going to use and punch them into 1″ squares. Then, distress the edges of the squares and ink them all around with the Vintage Photo Distress Ink. The next thing I did was to lay them all out in a grid (several times I might add, I even changed the background cardstock color a few times!) until you are pleased with the overall design. Secure with adhesive.



The last step is to use those embellishments!! Decorate some of the squares using those fun bits and pieces. I left a few squares unembellished so the design wouldn’t look quite so busy. I finished the piece using Dear Lizzy’s chipboard “Love” banner from the new Neopolitan collection. If I hadn’t been interrupted a million times by the kiddos I probably could have knocked this out in about 20-30 minutes. The thing that took me the longest was finding pictures I wanted to use, changing them to black and white, and resizing them. The rest was a breeze, and a lot of fun!



I hope this easy project will inspire you to create your own special photo frame; I’d love to see what you create!

Frosted Designs Sketch Along Tuesdays

This week has been so busy, getting ready for baby by the end of the week plus all of the normal stuff going on. This week Karin created an awesome sketch for us to use as inspiration over at Frosted Designs:



I used this gorgeous paper from Webster’s Pages as my starting point for this layout. The picture is my daughter with her very best friend at Halloween. Most of the pieces of this layout came from my November Scarlet Lime kit.



This week’s sponsor is Paper Secrets. They are offering a $25 gift certificate to one lucky winner, so make sure to use this sketch to inspire your layout and link it back to Frosted Designs for a chance to win. I hope you all enjoy your week, hopefully some of the next layouts you see from me will have my new baby boy!! 🙂