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!

Frosted Designs Fabulous Friday 10.26

Good morning all! This week our challenge at Frosted Designs is to use Paints, Mists or Inks on a card, layout or off the page project! How fun it that?! I LOVE using spray inks in everything from scrapbooking to mixed media projects.

In honor of this Halloween season, I created these little 8 x 8 canvases featuring these cute little trick or treaters! I used a lot of acrylic paints, spray inks, stencils, masks, and other bits and pieces of Halloween goodness that were lurking in my stash. This was such a fun project to do. I’ve been taking Christy Tomlinson’s Pumpkins and Cider Workshop, which is full of neat fall projects. She is so inspiring to me!!
Here are my canvases:

I call this one my Frankengirl 🙂



And my Pumpkin Spice Girl 🙂



I also created this cute haunted house scene that I featured on my Art Journaling blog, but figured I would share here as well. I think this may be my favorite thing I’ve created so far! I bought this plaster piece at Goodwill and revamped it into a scene for Halloween. I thought it looked kind of looked like a tombstone.



So have fun creating a project using paint and/or spray inks and be sure to link it up at Frosted Designs for the chance to win a super cute Halloween mini album kit from The Paper Trail!

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 🙂

Gettin’ my scrap on :)

Got a few layouts to share today now that we are back from vacation. I finally think I have figured out how to consistently squeeze out some time for scrapping and other projects…I just quit going to bed a reasonable hour!
This first layout was for Erika’s Issue Challenge at Club CK last week. We had to use a monogram. I also had fun using my new Studio Calico hexagon mask, some mists, and fun Echo Park papers to complete this Easter layout. I also busted out some ancient chipboard from my stash and it matched perfectly!

Next up is one that I just did for fun. I had been wanting to scrap these photos for a while and I recently bought this beautiful new Carta Bella paper (a line I’ve never used before, but love)

This layout was done for my friend Ashley Horton’s Sketch it Out Challenge also at Club CK. I love Ashley’s sketches and I think this one is one of my favorites. As soon as I saw it I knew exactly which photo I wanted to use. This one came together super quick using some of my This and That by Echo Park and the cool little “Adore” folder from Heidi Swapp.

And last but not least, my favorite…it’s a layout for Weston documenting his very first vacation. It’s a hybrid layout that I did using multiple photos and lots of journaling. I used some really old curly paper clips and some baker’s twine to form the border around the layout. I submitted this one for this weeks’ Issue Challenge, which was to use paper clips. I recently bought a ton of new product, so I’m trying to incorporate a lot of old stash with the new stuff to help use it up.

I hope you all enjoy your weekend!!

Scrap Challenges for the Week

I got some quality scrappy time in this week (woo hoo!) and was able to crank out a few late night layouts for some of my favorite challenges. First up is my layout for last week’s Issue Challenge over at Club CK. The challenge was to use a die cut on a layout. I don’t use these too often, even though I have a lot of them in my stash. I used the cute swirly star I got in a toss a while back and Echo Park papers. I also used some misting to sort of mimic the messiness of a first feeding.

Next is my layout for this week’s Issue Challenge. The challenge was to do a summer layout and use a sun. I was appalled to discover not one single bit of beachy paper in my stash, so I used some of the new Studio Calico papers instead. I think it works:

This next one I just did for fun. It’s for Natalie to document when her XLR8 dance team performed at half time at the AT&T Center for the WNBA Silver Stars game.

The next one I did also just for fun. I was inspired by Kelly Purkey’s “Together” layout in the July/Aug issue of Creating Keepsakes.

And last but not least, my submission for ScrapFit’s Warm Up #29, to use a long title that is a complete sentence or question. I had this hilarious photo of Ashley at my nephew’s birthday party. She took one of the little kids’ mask and cape and we had fun laughing and taking pics. I thought it was a funny twist using the “To the Moon and Back” boys paper by Fancy Pants for a 20 year old girl! Hopefully when she sees this she will appreciate my warped sense of humor 🙂

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!

Sketchy Thursdays 10.20

This week’s Sketchy Thursdays sketch was designed by Heidi. Look at all that space for journaling!

We took a trip to the pumpkin patch last Friday and I couldn’t wait to scrap these pics. Since this will go in my almost teenage daughter’s book, I wanted it to be a little bit fun and funky and not so “cutesy” (I will save that for Sophie’s layout!) This is the layout that I came up with:

This week’s sponsor is Let’s Capture Our Memories and they are offering this week’s random winner a $20 gift certificate!!!!
Just add a direct link to your layout based on this week’s sketch to Mr. Linky in the sidebar on the Sketchy Thursdays website by 10pm EST Wednesday October 26 for your chance to win!