Project 365 Week 32

Here are my photos for the week:

3/21 The girls stomping on their chalk drawing on the driveway. They like to watch the dust rise as they do this.


3/22 Will getting some air. He doesn't stand up completely, he just kind of gets stuck in this position.


3/23 The girls helping me make chocolate covered strawberries for book club.


3/24 As the snow melted (AGAIN) it formed these cool icicles on one of the dead plants in the planter on the front step.


3/25 Rick and the girls watching "Shrek: Forever After."


3/26 Taryn and Catherine working on cards at our Card Making Day.


3/27 Addy trying on her Easter dress from Grandma and Grandpa.

Layouts with Sketches

Here are a couple of layouts I did in the last week using challenges and sketches.

The first was for the Recipe Challenge at Challenge Masters. The recipe called for 1 photo, 2 different shapes, embellishments in multiples of 3, 4 different papers, no green (except in the photo) and we must use purple or orange. I also used the current sketch at the Sketchabilities blog. I don't scrap single photo layouts often, but I had a lot of fun with this one and found it quite easy to incorporate the ribbon on this one.



Next is my page for week 2 of the Chopped Challenge at Challenge Masters. This week's challenge was to use yellow, dimensional flowers, and scallops. I thought it would be fun to make scallops out of my flowers, so I cut them in half. I also used my Cricut to cut the scalloped paper. I did lots of inking to make the papers work together. I also used the sketch for the PageMaps Webster's Pages contest. I had to move the journaling and title to make them work with my larger photo and extra photo.

Cards and Challenges

I've been busy making cards and have some catching up to do! Here are some of my cards from the last week.

I did this one for the current Card Challenge at Challenge Masters. There were several options to choose from this month and one of them was this sketch created by Jamilie, the card diva.



Next is a card I did for the color challenge at Challenge Masters. The challenge was to use cream, dark blue and tan.


Then I did the stamping challenge. That challenge was to stamp an image on vellum and heat emboss it. I stamped and embossed both the flower and the sentiment.



Here are a few others that I made and I wanted to share.

Project 365 Week 31

Here are my pictures for the week. I obviously spent a lot of time with my wonderful husband this week. :)

3/14 "I don't know how the peaches got all over the place..."


3/15 Rick engaged in one of his favorite past times: computer gaming.


3/16 I received a coupon for $5 off a haircut at Kids' Hair so I decided to take the girls since they hadn't had their hair cut since before Thanksgiving. Rick told me to ask them if either of them wanted their hair cut short, and Addy said yes! Here she is after her haircut (with a little green for the holiday).


3/17 Ellie pulling up her pants to step in the (melting!) snow.


3/18 Poker Night!


3/19 The kids stayed with Rick's parents over the weekend and so Rick and I did some shopping and got new phones (smart phones). Here's Rick playing with his new toy.


3/20 One of the things we won at the Viva St. John's silent raffle was brunch for two at Santorini's. Here's Rick enjoying his brunch (it was fabulous!).

Chopped Week #1

There is a contest going on at Challenge Masters right now based on the TV show "Chopped." I have never seen the show, but from what I gather, contestants are giving the same ingredients and they have to make something with them. Then the dishes are judged and someone is eliminated or "Chopped."

This week's "ingredients" for our contest were: the color lime green, paint, and circles. I had a lot of fun with this challenge as these are all things I use on a fairly regular basis. I used lots of lime green on this layout. I used white paint on foam stamps for "Haylee" and I also found 3 different sized objects to stamp the circles with paint.


Here is the sketch and my entry for the Back Porch Memories Guest Designer contest for April. I don't make many 1 photo layouts, so I decided to make a photo collage in the place of the single photo. I also played around with different fonts and media for the long title. The process of making the title was fun, but also a little frustrating. The most frustrating part was figuring out how to make the stamped letters stand out against the background paper. I ultimately decided to use embossing powder.

Cards, Cards, Cards!

Here are some of my cards for the week.

For this one I used the current sketch at Cardabilities and a tutorial linked from the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog for making tulle flowers.



For the next two I used some old Stampin' Up and Close to My Heart catalogs for inspiration.



Finally, for these two I pulled out a couple of my new Cricut cartridges and found some fun cuts. The frog is from "Boys Will Be Boys" and the mushroom is from "Live Simply."

Project 365 Week 30

Here are my photos for the week:

3/7 Mmmmmmmmargarita! Yes, it was that kind of day...


3/8 Rick feeding Will, this kid has been a bottomless pit lately!


3/9 "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return."


3/10 Will studying how his toy works.


3/11 Ellie playing "Pin the Wings on Tink" at her friend Haylee's birthday party


3/12 We attended "Viva St. John's" on Saturday night which is the yearly gala/fundraiser for our church's school. We had a lot of fun and won a couple of items on the silent auction.


3/13 The map Rick and I built playing Carcasonne.

Get Sketchy!

I have a couple more cards to share and a layout.

The first card I made using the current sketch at Get Sketchy, which is a card sketch blog. I used my new "Live Simply" Cricut cartridge for the butterfly and everything is scraps! (Can you totally tell I am craving spring from the colors and flowers on this card?)



The next card was the card I made yesterday. The "Birthday Girl" sentiment was one I had cut out for a layout but wasn't quite what I had in mind. The was my starting point and I chose papers to go with it.


Finally, I made this layout for Will's scrapbook- he now has 2 pages in his book! I was itching to use some of the boy stuff I had collected so I pulled out these photos from the day he was born. The big circle paper reminded me of a quilt with its different patterns so I pulled out my sewing machine for this one and added some stitching.

Post #100!: Some Projects

I have started my Lenten project for the year: making a card each day to be sent to Operation Write Home who sends them on to the troops overseas so they can send handmade cards to their families.

For my first card yesterday I pulled out the stamped image and then pull out my red paper scraps and put together the card.


For today's card I used the current sketch at Cardabilities. The sketch made me think of balloons and cupcakes so I used my Cricut and Stretch Your Imagination (balloons) and Doodlecharms (cupcakes) cartridges.



Here are three layouts I did without sketches! I realized how much a sketch makes my scrapping faster when I was working on the first layout. It took me all week to complete it! I had printed the photos in sizes I thought would work well together (I had also played a bit with black and white and color in Photoshop Elements with a few of them). I had to figure out how best to lay them out and then how to embellish the page. With all three pages I also had to figure out how to incorporate some "ephemera"- the program and invitation on the first layout and the ribbons on the other two. I had fun playing with some of my new Cricut cartridges and the extra capabilities of the Expression, but I did find these layouts to be a bit challenging as well!