Project 365 Week 36

I slacked a bit in the beginning of the week and ended up taking photos right before bed of whatever I could find. The end of the week had an abundance of photos since we spent Friday through early Monday in Illinois with Rick's family for Easter.

4/18 The beginning of the Easter goodies. The cups are pretty fun, they flash different colors for a minute or two when you press a button on the bottom.


4/19 Ugh, the living room after a long day. We really need to work on getting those kids to pick up their toys!


4/20 No, your eyes do not deceive you, that is SNOW! We may need to move if this continues...


4/21 Will laughing with Addy


4/22 Ellie and Addy panning for gems at Cave of the Mounds in Wisconsin. We stopped there for a tour on our way to Illinois.


4/23 Michael showing off one of the cookies he decorated.


4/24 Will (9 1/2 months) and Matt (11 1/2 months) These two were pretty funny to watch together. They were fascinated by one another's presence.

Exciting News!

A few weeks ago I was asked to join the "Sketch Along Tuesday" design team at Frosted Designs! Today was my first reveal. This week's sketch is for a single photo, so I pulled out this photo of the girls taken by JCPenney's a couple of years ago. I used a screen and did some misting with the larger purple photo mat. Once I had everything attached I felt like the purple background paper was too stark so I drew the scrolls with a white colored pencil to match the scrolls on the bracket paper. Click here to see what the other designers did with the sketch.



We are hosting a crop with challenge and games for National Scrapbooking Day. Come check it out!

Frosted Designs is having their first ever Online Crop to celebrate National Scrapbook Day, May 6th - 8th! There will be games, quick scraps and challenges with plenty of opportunities to win some great prizes!! Mark your calendars... you won't want to miss any of the fun!! Please friend us on Facebook since we will also be playing there. Stay tuned for more details coming soon!! Feel free to grab the button and share the news on your blog! The more people who play along, the more fun we will have!!

Project 365 Week 35

Here are my photos for the week:

4/11 Back at the zoo. The aquarium on the Tropics Trail may be my new favorite photo spot. This is our friend Max, completely enamored with the diver in the aquarium.


4/12 Will is 9 months old! Here is a picture from the shoot I did of him.


4/13 Ellie decorating a rock. She has a nature craft book and this was one of the projects. (Actually the project was to make animals, but that is kind of advanced so I just let the girls color on them.


4/14 Today the girls made paper snakes. Here's Ellie teasing Will with hers.


4/15 Will eating peas. We a trying to get him to eat more finger foods. He is good at cereal and crackers, but other foods seem to be more of a challenge.


4/16 We went mini golfing at the black light course in the local mall. The girls had a blast hitting their balls around.


4/17 We celebrated Easter with my family. Here's Addy blowing bubbles with my aunt Karen.

Project 365 Week 34

Spring is FINALLY here and we got out to enjoy it this past week!

4/4 Brad and Joe involved in an intense game of Manoeuvre.


4/5 Floating toddler? I bet you didn't know Addy had such powers!


Okay, so maybe not...


4/6 "Welcome to the Bird Show"- Ellie LOVES playing Bird Show and is so excited for them to start having them again at the zoo!


4/7 Will's first experience with a playground swing- he LOVED it!


4/8 Ellie choosing her card for Brown Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?


4/9 Ah, clean floors!


4/10 Matthew 7: 30-31 "If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry..." This is a message I need to remind myself of over and over...

April Blade Masters Challenge!

I am the new Blade Masters "Diva" at Challenge Masters for the next 6 months! The Blade Master category is all about using your cutting tools: electronic die cutters, manual die cutters, punches, scissors, etc. Since I have a Cricut and I have seen many comments in the Challenge Masters forum about women who do not use their die cutters, I am going to try to come up with some unique ways to use them other than basic die cut page accents and titles in hopes that people will find some new ways to use their machines and they don't go to waste!

For this month's challenge I decided to go with something pretty easy that you don't see very often. My challenge is to use die cuts to make a faux dry embossing look. The way you do this is to make the die cuts from the same color of paper as the background that you are placing them on.

For my example, I decided to do the layout of all of my belly shots from my pregnancy with William. I chose to cut out the foot shape from "New Arrival" in various sizes. I placed them along the top and bottom of my layout. Unfortunately you can't see them at all in the full shot of the layout, so I have included a couple of close up shots so you can get a better idea of what it looks like in person.




I made this card a couple of months ago, but it fits the criteria. I used a scroll frame from the "Storybook" cartridges behind the butterfly.

So, there you go, that's my challenge for this month. You don't need a Cricut for this either- you can use a punch to cut out your shapes or even a scissors! Get those blades moving! :)

Chopped Week #4

This is the final week of the Chopped Contest at Challenge Masters. Our challenge this week was to use one "ingredient" from each week. Here is a review of the past weeks:

Week 1:
lime green
circles
paint

Week 2:
yellow
dimensional flowers
scallops

Week 3:
white
cardboard
stitching

I decided to use paint from the first week, scallops from the second, and, I know this is going to be a shock, WHITE from last week. But, in my defense, I was working with wedding photos so it worked well. I used the paint with some foam stamps that I have never used before (I've used stamps from the set, just not these particular ones). For the scallops, I punched scalloped circles (yes, there are scallops ON my scallops!), cut them in half and lined them up. For the title I used my Cricut to cut the letters from chipboard and then patterned paper. After I glued them together I went around the edges with a black pen and then covered the letters with Star Dust Stickles. I have been struggling a bit lately with two pagers and then add wanting to put the program and invite on the page, this was a tough layout for me. But, it is done, and that is what matters!

One Stamp, Three Ways

The website Two Peas in a Bucket has decided to sell more card making products and are hosting a 30 Days of Stamping and Cardmaking event for the month of April. They have different lessons and challenges every day. One of the first challenges was to use the same stamp to create 3 cards in 3 different styles. I decided to use the present from the "Birthday Whimsy" set by Stampin' Up. The first card I did in a distressed style, inking and roughing up the edges of my paper. The second was more of a graphic clean style using straight lines and clean graphics. Finally, the third card was using an elegant style, with the dark purple and tan and gold heat embossing. I really enjoyed this challenge and may try it with some of my other stamps!


I also used the current sketch at Sketch Support which happens to be a card sketch. I liked the style of this one a lot and I will probably use it again!

Project 365 Week 33

Here are this week's photos.

3/28 The girls making pizzas at Old Chicago.


3/29 A sweet girl sweetly sleeping.


3/30 My handsome little boy playing with his toys


3/31 Addy styling Daddy's hair, Daddy is such a good model. :)


4/1 The kids (with a friend) having a snack and watching the fish at the zoo.


4/2 The Shurts boys playing "The Age of Conan." Brad had two "helpers."


4/3 The girls do their "Jammy Dance" with their friend Grayson.

A Week's Worth of Cards

Here are the cards I made this week.

This one I made on Wednesday using the current sketch from Cardabilities. I rotated the sketch and added my sentiment across the bottom. I think I may try to use this sketch again, because I feel like there is a lot that can be done with this one...



Last Saturday I had some friends over and we made cards for the troops. It was a lot of fun to create with other people and I hope to do it again soon (hopefully without kids next time!). I was able to make 3 cards over the course of the day. We worked together to make a card, each adding something to it. Here is how that turned out:

(I "stole" this picture from my friend Taryn's blog post about our card making day. You can read more about it here.)

Here are the other 3 cards I made that day:




And the rest of my cards for the week: