Always Share Your Secrets {Pink Paislee: Prairie Hill Collection}

Hi there! Yes, I have been crafting with paper lately, but I've been finding it hard to get all of my projects blogged :) I was excited to see a fun sketch on PageMaps blog with a deadline of today...it's been a long time since I've entered a layout into any contests! I enjoyed working with the sketch and my new kit from Birds of a Feather.

A couple of my regular challenge sites are no longer up and running so I'd love some suggestions on where you all go to participate in challenges!

Thanks for stopping by! I should have more to share after next weekend since I'll be participating at the "Back to School Crop" over at BOAF. You should come join us!

Project 12 - October

We are on the downhill slide for another year documented with Project 12! I finished Sept just a few days ago *blushing* but was feeling more motivated for October. I love Halloween so that helps, but also, because 10 months done out of 12 feels awesome! 

 It was fun to include a 5x7 picture this month. I think I'm going to go back and doodle some around the title circle to fill in the black areas.

 I was worried about using the 3x6 pictures but it turned out to be a really good size!

 This is my favorite picture of the month :) My niece so excited to be carving pumpkins and getting all of the "gunk" out.

Thanks for looking and if you would like to know more about project 12, check it out here :)

The Hunt for Perfect Pumpkins {Crate Paper: Farmhouse}

I'm back today with another layout using my October kit from Birds of A Feather. I might be able to squeeze another few layouts out of the kit! This is using the sketch for this month's sketch challenge at BOAF and I'm also entering it at The Paper Variety this week for their family challenge.{I used the word "family" in my journaling.}

 A few closeups:

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend! :)

Birds of a Feather Birthday Blog Hop {Basic Grey: Out of Print; Pink Paislee: Soiree}

 Birds of a Feather Kit Co is having a birthday party! 

Amy started her company one year ago this month and she is also celebrating her very own birthday today ;-) What better way than to celebrate with a crop, right? To start the crop off, the design team and a few of the guest design team alumni have put together a blog hop for you! If you arrived here from Linda's blog, you are headed in the right direction. If you came to my blog first, be sure to head back to the BOAF blog to get started so that you don't miss out on any eye candy!

I have two birthday theme layouts to share with you - both using the August kit (there are still 3 kits left in stock!).

The first layout is using the sketch from October's sketch challenge which is posted in the forum here. Did you know that completing all 5 monthly challenges puts you in the running to be a guest designer? If you want to try one of Amy's kits, this is a great way to do it! 

The pictures are from mine and my sister's joint birthday celebration from last year. We celebrate our birthdays just 3 days apart so we took ourselves to lunch and then for cupcakes after. We even repeated the tradition just a few months ago but without my daughters in tow ;-)

I created the banner by fussy cutting from one of the Pink Paislee papers in the extra patterned paper kit. The twine, tiny type alphas and paper clips are from my stash... but everything else is from the August kit.

I also fussy cut these flowers, outlined them with my white signo pen, layered with embellishments from the kit and then added bits of bling. The bling is in the kit as one piece, but I cut it into pieces and still have some left for future projects.

This next layout is based on a Pagemaps Sketch. I loved the cake piece that I fussy cut from the same Pink Paislee paper and thought it would be perfect for this picture of my daughter's princess cake from her 4th birthday.

I used mixed pieces for the banner, added the same twine from my stash and added a couple of pins as well.

I contracted a case of Stickles sneeze on this layout! Amy included a bottle with the August kit and then I also added a couple of other colors from my stash. I outlined many of the flowers on the busy background piece, but I also added Stickles to most of the other embellishments as well.

Hard to see all of the stickles in these photos but ALL of those green dots were accented!

One of the many reasons I love the August kit is the Core'dinations cardstock. The first layout was with the white back so when I filed the edges, a white frame develops. But this second layout, I used the pink back so all of my distressed edges are pink. Love that!

What is a birthday celebration without presents, right? I've got a present for one lucky person who comments on this post...a $10 gift card to scrapbook.com! We are cropping all weekend long and the entries are due by the 12th, so I will post my blog candy winner on the 13th. You do not have to be a follower of my blog, but if you like what you see, I'd love for you to stick around! 

All of the crop challenges and games can be found in the forum here. The grand prize is going to be a kit of your choice! Oh, and the boutique will be having a BIG sale this weekend! 

If you've made your way through the blog hop, you'll want to keep going so that you can be entered to win a prize package of Bella Blvd products valued at $50! You'll need this word to add to your collection for the mystery phrase: 

and then you'll want to hop on over to Kayla's blog here to continue with the celebrating. I hope to see you in the forums cropping with us this weekend! 

Pre-K {October Kit: Birds of a Feather Kit Co; Fancy Pants: Off to School; Imaginisce: Geek Chic}

Another layout using the October Kit from Birds of a Feather Kit Co. I was a little bummed that I had already scrapped all of this year's back to school pictures - normally I have at least one picture that is left to scrap. Then I realized I had the class pictures from Pre-K last year. I found a sketch from PageMaps and went to work to come up with this:

 A couple of closeups. The twine is from my stash but everything else is from the kit. The little ticket tags and the lined patterened paper are from the add-ons.

 I decided to leave this button naked and not alter it. You get a whole pack of them in two sizes with your main kit!

You can click on any of the pictures to see a bigger version with more detail. It's hard to see on the whole layout picture but there is some stitching and staples in the folded corner. Thanks for stopping by!

Welcome Princess {Echo Park: Victoria Gardens}

I've been busy this weekend trying to complete all of the challenges at The Paper Variety for their blog birthday party! I'm entering this layout into their favorite embellishments challenge shown here. 

 I'm guessing that most people are getting sick of banners right about now, but I still love them! I'm getting better at making different kinds and this is my first time to use just a couple of pennants by themselves. Love the look!

 All of the papers and embellies (except for the Princess card for the title-thanks Kayla!) are from the September or August Birds of a Feather kits. The design is based on a PageMaps sketch.

Thanks for stopping by and if you haven't seen the challenges yet at The Paper Variety - go check them out! You have until Tuesday to enter ;-)

July Project 12 {Pretty Little Studio: April Showers}

I've been having lots of fun playing with the Pretty Little Studio papers! For the month of August, if you complete a sketch challenge, you are automatically going to receive a $5 gift card - go check it out, they have one per week!  I won a $5 gift card two times now and with just a few extra bucks, I've gotten all of the pattern paper & tags used on this layout. (Do I need to mention that I have tons left over?) The only thing not from PLS is the cardstock. 

 The left side. My oldest daughter told me I should add "rain drops" with my glimmer glam, and upon my husbands approval I decided to go for it. I think I went a little too crazy but this is one of those things that can't be undone! I fussy cut those umbrellas, trying to make it like a banner. If I had just a few more of them, i would have taken the banner to the edge of the cardstock ;)

 And the right side. I don't think you can read my journaling on the little tag, but July was a month of rain for us after a 6 month drought! It wasn't much rain, but enough to make us happy :)

 I had to include a closeup of this picture. My youngest daughter avoids bedtime like any 2 year old. But she'll play possum for a while and then walk out with her blanket on her head. Not sure how she sees to walk so far out without hurting herself, but it sure is cute :)

Fall Fun

This is my last challenge for the weekend crop. The challenge was to get dirty - with paint, inks, etc. I don't use paint on layouts...ever. I have used white pain to distress but I think that's only been on mini-albums. And I've painted on altered items...just not layouts. Until now! 

I used a paint dauber to create the red splatters, then I dipped several different round items in purple, orange and yellow to mimic the little circles on the green patterned paper (plus the colors that the girls are using to paint in the pictures). 

 I accidentally did too much black when I first started so I added the white circles to help balance the black. The spider webs are rubons, and I had a few other rubons that I placed on the chipboard and a couple of pictures. The pumpkins have google eyes so I added a few of those in some of the random circles and on the chipboard pieces to cover the holes.

I was having way too much fun with this - the splatters are SO FUN to make! Because of drying time though...I was up way too late getting this finished ;) I used a PageMaps sketch to get me started and the papers are OLD from Stampin' Up!.....5 years old! Sometimes I wonder why I hold on to papers for so long but they really couldn't have been more perfect for this page!

The challenge at The Paper Variety for week 45 is to use circles...so I'm submitting this layout for the challenge :)

Paradise

Second post in a row without a manufacturer's name! I *think* the pattern strip might be from K&Company but not for sure. 

 This layout is for the Inanimate challenge for the weekend crop at Birds of a Feather. This picture used to be on my desk when I was working - I love how peaceful I feel looking at it! It is the view of a room that I had on a solo vacation over 10 years ago. I've been wanting to do a couple of layouts with songs that I like right now. SOME of the words in this song really speak to me....and although "knee deep in water" doesn't fit this photo, parts of the words do fit with what I was going through at the time of this picture. I did some more personal journaling on the back of this layout as I have a hard time with just anyone being able to read my thoughts as they are looking through my albums ;)

Birds of a Feather Crop

As promised, I've been scrapping my weekend away! I was up WAY late last night and got these first two layouts done. This first one is my favorite for the weekend so far! I used a PageMaps sketch and Cosmo Cricket's Pixie-licious line. The challenge was to create a layout using a large photo (5x7 or larger). 

 I couldn't get a picture of the journaling because the wind was picking my layouts up and carrying them across my yard! But it's a saying "Cousin to cousin, we'll always be, special friends from the same family tree" - perfect for this picture of my oldest DD and my niece!

 This next layout I lifted from an Archivers ad...and the one in the ad was SO much cuter than this turned out :( The challenge for this one was a recipe: 2 photos, 1 banner, a homemade tag and a handful of bright colors. I'm also entering it in this week's challenge at The Paper Variety to create a project with a grid.

 I started this layout last night and spent today finishing it up. Boy it was a lot of work! So many details that I can't show you without closeups...you'll just have to believe me :) This layout is based on the June Project 12 sketch and was created for the challenge to scrap "What I did this summer". I used photos from last week's trip to Build A Bear - where the kiss the heart, rub it on their knees, nose, etc, before putting it inside their animal for stuffing. I wish I had paid more attention to what the importance was for each step!

I have 5 of the 8 challenges done and am trying to work on those last 3. We have till Wednesday to get our challenges done so I should be able to get them all done!

NOT a fan! {Basic Grey: Jovial}

I'm back with another layout for this week's Christmas in July challenge at TPV. For this week only, we can enter more than once! I saw Suzanne's layout using BG's Jovial and it got me itching to use some of mine... so I whipped this up super quick this morning :)

I used part of a double page sketch from Page Maps for my inspiration. Not my favorite layout ever, but it's another two pictures scrapped!

First Year Album

This project started nearly 6 years ago with me buying a baby book and matching 12x12 scrapbook during my pregnancy with my oldest. I also attended a Creative Memories party where I bought the calendar pages and decided that I wanted to use those to record milestones on one page, with the other page being a collage of pictures. I believe I completed one layout in a timely fashion and then the rest were completed over the last 3 years. Not my original plan, but hey, it's done! Yay!!!!!!!!

The front page:

 Each month has it's own double page layout but I included the tail end of December with January since she was born at the very end of December.

 I created a hidden pocket for her very first daycare artwork!

 Some pages have flip books included - this one has a few extra pictures under the picture of clothes.

 Each of the pictures on the right has pictures underneath...

 There are some naked bath pictures under the June title spot-

 The tag pulls out on this one.

 This one is full of extra pictures too :)

 Can you tell I was embellishing less trying to just hurry up and get done? lol

 I was running out of milestones and notes...I tried to be good and write them down back then but as I got into December, I didn't write much down. Possibly I was too busy with a baby, work and the holidays? ;)

 This is the last page and is based on a PageMaps sketch.

Thanks for stopping by and suffering through these itty bitty pictures full of itty bitty writing ;) I'm just so glad to have this album completed!