Our Everyday Life {Birds of a Feather Kit Co: February Kit; Lily Bee Lovely Collection}

Amy challenged us to take a portrait this month and this is what *I* consider to be a good portrait of my girls. I tried getting a shot of them both looking at the camera, but the little one just doesn't do it unless her finger is up her nose! lol But to me, this perfectly represents how I see my girls, hand in hand :)

 My older daughter is my "little mommy" so this quote was perfect for our life right now, and this picture. When I asked her to take her sister's hand and walk, she jumped at the opportunity "sure, mom!"

 I used sketch #74 at Inspired Blueprints for this layout.

This week has been so fun to see how the girls interact now that they are not spending 24 hours a day together. They really enjoy each other's company and made it a point to be together tonight - I hope their friendship continues on this path!

Smurf*tastic {My Mind's Eye: Alphabet Soup, Fine and Dandy}

This layout is inspired by two things I saw online....the current sketch at Inspired Blueprints and a sneak of a layout using the sew easy tool. 

 I had the pennant head for my sew easy tool but hadn't used it yet. The sketch was perfect for it! I had lots of fun with this layout and love how it turned out :) I even remembered to use a movie ticket stub! The pictures are of my daughter and her friend from one of those photo booths...I had forgotten my camera so indulged their request to take the pictures there and I'm so glad I did!

Thanks for looking :)

P.S. I just realized the dot to the "i" is missing in the title! Must have flown off while I was taking pictures, lol.

Bye Bye Thirty Five {Birds of a Feather February Kit: Glitz Design "Love Collection"}

The journaling challenge this month at Birds of a Feather was to journal with 11 different prompts....

I answered all of the prompts on the pullout tag under the photo shown here {to view the journaling, you'll have to go register and read them on the forum :) }:

I have been planning on doing a layout with a picture of my last day as 35 years old and this journaling prompt was perfect for it :) It's my "burying 35" page...but I decided "Bye-bye 35" was a better title!

I used Inspired Blueprints sketch #76 as my inspiration and the papers are from the February kit at Birds of a Feather.. Thanks for looking!

Autumn Inspiration {Basic Grey: Green at Heart}

This is the 2nd layout that I completed for the online crop last weekend at Birds of a Feather. The challenge was to use one of several quotes and use a tree, leaves or pumpkin on your layout. I don't normally scrap with purple but these pictures called for it, and the Green at Heart paper went great with the pictures. The striped paper and the circles used on the tree are the only two sheets that I bought from that collection. I was digging through my cardstock stash at 1 am to find a shade of purple that worked! lol The tree, grass, butterfly & bird are from a set of Little Yellow Bicycle rubons...I have way too many rubons! I doodled around the circles on the tree, under my journaling and around the outside of the LO...it just needed something extra when I looked at it the next morning ;)

The quote I chose is "Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile. ~William Cullen Bryant" and is on the brown journaling strips. I didn't use a title for this layout - it feels weird to me to not have one!

I used an Inspired Blueprints sketch. I have no idea what number, sorry :( But it does have a tree on it, just like my layout!

Christmas In July

I'm pretty sure that I scrapped a lot of Christmas last July, too. Must be that I'm trying to get a break from the heat! LoL

I've been hanging out with Suzanne at her new site, Paper Whores. This first challenge was spread out over a week or so and we had to follow daily instructions to complete a LO. Here's mine - I love it!

Then the next challenge was to scrap our addiction - which part of scrapbooking we are addicted to. Mine was the paper (I really do belong at Paper Whores!) and alphabets. I would say border punches are close to becoming an obsession, too! We had to use a punch AND it's negative space (flower in the center) and 4 different pattern papers. The alphabet for the title just so happens to be my favorite Thickers!

And then this last one is really from a kit that Suzanne sent us for being so chatty. 5 of us all had the same supplies and came up with at least on LO using ONLY those supplies. This is my first one...{I used an older Inspired Blueprints Sketch to get me going on this one}but then I went back to make a page to go with it. The only thing I added was the red twine on this page...and I still have supplies left to make at least one more page! Suzanne was VERY generous :) btw, the title says "{Fairy} Fun Xmas" because my oldest DD was sporting her fairy wings - which she pretty much wore every day of 2009 :D The are kinda hard to notice but she's wearing them in front of the tree in the first LO.

If you are looking for some fun challenges, come visit me at Paper Whores :D

My Girls {Basic Grey: Olivia}

I was so excited for the new Olivia line to come out and was just a tad disappointed when my LSS only had 4 of the papers :( I guess I"ll be buying collections online from now on! I came across this sketch (#50) from Inspired Blueprints a few weeks back...and was inspired to use it with the new Olivia papers and this photo of my girls. It's not the greatest photo but when someone takes their pictures at "school" I can't pass up buying at least one! I'm a total sucker :) It was a super easy sketch and I think it helped me find my mojo again ;)

Thanks for all of your kind comments that you leave me and thanks for stopping by!

Inspired Blueprints Sketch #32 {My Mind's Eye: Tiny Dancer Chasse, Free Bird Beauty}

This LO came together very quickly. Inspired Blueprints just blogged the sketch today and I've already got it done :)It's very basic - the only dimension is that I popped up the "Family" tag. (And that was my 2nd choice but I accidentally inked my fingerprint onto my first choice of tag...it's a good thing I have so much MME stuff in my stash!)

Pine Cone Press NYOBC {My Mind's Eye: The Spider's Web}

These two layouts are from one of the two kits from this month's bookclub. I like the paper MUCH better after seeing it with my pictures. When I first got it, I wasn't sure I would have pictures that really coordinated with it. Luckily, the pictures from last year's portrait party looked GREAT with the paper!

I designed this page based on sketch #16 at Inspired Blueprints. I did use a couple of pieces of paper that is not MME but the rest is from The Spider's Web line.( And after seeing the picture on the computer, I went back to add more pearls!) Credit for this next title goes again to my sister!

What I think is interesting...is that what looked acceptable in real life (the font for "dolled up") is totally NOT acceptable when I see it on the computer screen (just like for the layout above needing more pearls). It does not fit with the idea of the whole page and I WILL be changing it. Probably with red gingham paper like my sister suggested ;) The reason I originally thought it would work is because of the "dripping" in the bracket and in the font for "halloween night" but, well, NO.

I only wish that I had thought to put makeup on her for these pictures...those red cheeks add so much to the costume! There's no "bling" on this page...but I'm guessing once I see what others did at our bookclub meeting, that I'll come away with an idea to dress it up a little (pun intended!).

Thanks for looking - I still have a couple of more layouts planned with these kits so hopefully I'll get to them this week...

Inspired Blueprint Sketch #27 - Basic Grey Sultry

How did I ever scrap before without a sketch? I saw this one for Inspired Blueprints-And here's my take on it-I'm going to need to get more of this Sultry line from Basic Grey...I love the colors! Enjoy your weekend!

Grids and Collages Everywhere!

I seemed to lose my mojo this past week....not getting our books with the kits from the bookclub really threw me off! So I started looking for a sketch to inspire me and I found this one at Inspired Blueprints.
And then on the Studio Calico blog, Maggie Holmes posted a challenge about using a grid for a summer layout. I had just been to Kemah the night before and knew I could use a collage for those pictures. I printed the collage through Snapfish and was amazed at how easy it was! Both challenges used the square grids but I wanted a variety in sizes for this project so I went with the collage. I will certainly be using both the grid and collage for future projects - especially when I have tons of pictures.

Too lazy to grab my other flash to get rid of that spot...

Ignore the cat hair please :)

Thanks for looking :)