Getting Ready for NSD!!

As an incoming Design Team member at Let's Scrap, its my pleasure to post a special NSD challenge.  I will also post it here on my blog and invite you to Let's Scrap to participate! 

This one is going to be a little more tricky than just completing a layout based on a sketch!  It's all in the numbers!!!  You will be creating a layout based on the Let's Scrapsketch below, but there will be a twist....I am going to list 5 different items and you will need to "Countdown" with those items.  For example, AND THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE, your layout must contain:

5 flowers
4 buttons
3 photos
2 patterned papers
1 die cut

This list may change so don't go collecting your items yet!!  I will post the list sometime on Saturday afternoon on the National Scrapbooking Discussion at Let's Scrap and you will have 24 hours to complete the challenge.  On Sunday I will randomly select one person to receive this small prize:

American Crafts Chipboard Numbers and a package of Sassafrass Lass Chipboard Numbers.
Do you see the number thing going on?  :)   The only advance information I will give you is that your inspiration must come from this sketch:

 I have some more small prizes to give away as well....so stay tuned!!  Oh...and if you want to win the prize, you must be a member of and upload your layout to Let's Scrap!  Why not join today?

The Color Room & Sketch Inspirations

I really should be in bed right now considering I had no more than three hours of sleep last night and all day long I was dragging but I had the weekly sketch from Sketch Inspirations sitting on my desk and a light bulb went off in my head and I knew just what pictures I wanted to do with this sketch. And to double my mileage on this one, I used the color palette over at the Color Room.

I used OLD OLD OLD Making Memories papers for this.  I'm talking like 10 years old!!  I was pretty shocked when I realized I really don't have much in the way of purple papers, even though for many, many years purple was my favorite color. In fact, as a way of saying "in your face", when I became "newly single" again I even painted my bedroom purple because my husband was always so adamant about having a gender neutral bedroom..no pastels or flowers allowed! Unfortunately I grew tired of the purple fairly quickly and its now a beige y-white color! :) Anyway, this is my take on both challenges! I am now checking out for the night! I'm over-exhausted!

A Better Day!!

I really must have been burning the candle at both ends! I went to bed fairly early for me last nigh since I just couldn't come up with any great ideas for layouts. I figured I'd get up bright and early and hope that I got some inspiration back. Well that plan didn't quite pan out. When I opened my eyes and looked at the clock it said 11:25!!! YIKES!!! I jumped out of bed and asked John why he didn't wake me up. His response....he tried. Once. And he knew better than to KEEP trying! (OK, so I'm not happy when someone wakes me up...so what, I get over it!) Anyway, everyone was hungry because apparently the kitchen doesn't open until I get in there. So I made some bacon and eggs with toast and we had Sunday breakfast and little past lunchtime! John started the ribs we are having tonight to slow cook on the grill. Yum, can't wait for them to be done! And after cleaning up and getting the LAST load of laundry for the week started, I headed to my scraproom. I can't show you what I created because its one of my Design Team layouts for Let's Scrap for the week of 5-12-10. But here's a couple sneak peeks! The sketch is GREAT....make sure you check it out when that challenge goes live!!

Not sure what else I will get done today. I'm starting to feel a headache coming on....or it could be an overload of coffee!!

One of those days!

Ever have one of those days when you wake up bright and early and have such high hopes for all that you will do that day, only to hit 5:00pm and realize that none of what you had planned to do worked out? Yep, that's my day. Instead of scrapping and doing laundry today, Susie woke up with a fever, congestion and then after I gave her some medicine and sent her back to her room she got sick all over the place. So, I had to tend to that mess and take care of my little girl. I'm telling you, the last few weeks have been exhausting with one kid or another sick, plus all the Spring activities. I wasted almost 2 hours this morning searching for a challenge to work on that would go with the challenge at The Color Room and I came up blank. By the time I decided to just use the one at the Color Room site, I wasn't even feeling any scrap mojo. This was literally the best I could come up with for this challenge and its just not how I envisioned it. But...its another layout in the album and years from now it will be the memories that matter, not that this wasn't how I had planned for this layout to come out. I'm in a sorta funk today and think I'm going to hang on the couch with John for a while and surf some blogs and see if later tonight I feel like scrapping.  I have a few Lets Scrap design team things to work on. I even went into AC Moore today armed with $$ and a 40% off coupon and walked out with a $1.49 hank of hemp. I couldn't get excited about ANYTHING new! That's when I know its time to go home and relax and forget scrapping for a bit. Well I didn't go home, I went grocery shopping, but thats good because now I won't have to do it tomorrow!  I did just notice the new color pallette for The Color Room for this coming week....looks pretty doesn' it?

It's Scrappy Time!

Its been a long week but its finally Friday and finally scrappy time!! I started with the weekly challenge at Let's Scrap. You can see the sketch in one of the posts below. I made the card for Susie's friend Emily who will be having her 12th Birthday party next Saturday. Then I decided to make a gift card holder to match the card. It fits right inside the card too. Both items were made entirely of scraps which is even better as I rarely use my scraps!  Love the Doodlebug glitter paper...I still have a little piece left of it too!  The butterflies are cut on the cricut.  The black glitter paper is a scrap leftover from a DCWV stack.

I'm not usually one to make cards but I like the idea of the gift card holder so I think I may whip a few more of these up to have on hand as the kids are always going to birthday parties and at the ages they are (11 and 13), CASH or GIFT CARDS are the gift of choice!!

Iwill update this post as I get more projects done tonight so as to not have a million posts!

UPDATE - I got this week's Sketchy Thursday's  challenge done.  I love the colors!  Uses Reminisce and Dream Street papers, Prima flowers, not sure where the water splashes are from as they have been in my stash for a while and I STILL have more splashes to use, palm tree brad is Creative Imaginations, round stamp is 7Gypsys, font is free on the internet and called "David" and the flower center brads were from my stash.

I think I am calling it quits for tonight.  Tomorrow morning bright and early I have to drop my car off so John can finally do my brakes!  That will give me a few hours scrapping/laundry time in the morning before I run some desperately needed errands.

The Scrapping Gods Are Mad At Me!

 

WARNING - Long post...with pictures!

All I want to do is scrap. But noooooo....I had to decide on the spur of the moment to re-do my scraproom! That started on Sunday after a trip to Ikea. Here's a couple pictures of John assembling my furniture.

So far so good right? Wrong....the last box to get opened was my desk. As you can see, all the shelving units are white. Well my desk was black. So between Sunday and today, I had my old table back as a desk.  Here are some pics of the MESS I made while trying to make room for the new furniture to go in.

I finally get to today...have the white desk and just need to put it together and put everything in its place.  Sounds like a plan right?  Well it was my plan for tonight (and then **GASP** I even planned to scrap just a little) up until noon this afternoon that is.  That's when I got the call from the school nurse.  I automatically assumed it was my daughter who went to school annoyed that I would not take her to "Take your child to work day".  You have to understand that my kids have been to my work MANY times and they HATE IT!  Its boring, there's no video games, there's nothing to do...blah blah blah.  But when she said she was calling about Matthew my heart sunk.  She said he was complaining of a lot of pain in his abdomen and since he came to her wearing gym shorts, he was able to fold the top of his shorts down where she saw "a small lump".  She said (and I agreed) that he is not one to complain and she could see the pain in his eyes and thought maybe I should pick him up and let him rest at home today.  OK....shut down the work computer (and I was being REALLY productive at work today too and off I go.  When I get him home and ask him to show me the lump I about died.   It was not SMALL at all...more like the size of a golf ball.  He was in tremendous pain by now so I skipped the pediatrician and we headed to the ER.  Fast forward 6 1/2 hours and an ultrasound, CT scan, pain killers, an IV of antibiotics, blood work, urine test, the possibility that it was a hernia...then appendicitis....we finally left the hospital about 7pm with the diagnosis of a severely strained groin muscle (inevitably from sliding in baseball) AND a bladder infection.  While I was happy to get that diagnosis as opposed to the first two...both of which would have resulted in my child having surgery and I did not want that to happen AT ALL, I once again was too wiped out to do much when I got home.  John took care of my daughter and got her to softball practice and I picked her up on the way home.  When I got home, John had assembled my desk and I once again had a mess in the room.  For the last 3 hours I've been putting things back.  Still a long way to go and some sorting and purging to do but the furniture is in place.  Here's the finished product and I have to say it was worth the stress:

I have so much more storage now....I even have some empty bins until I reorganize and do some micro-sorting.  And try to eliminate some of the plastic drawers (above) that are on the other side of the room "encroaching" on the kids half of the room as I've been told!

Now I just can't wait to create here.  Maybe tomorrow???  Oh wait...Susie has a game, I have to go grocery shopping, have to run to Kohl's before the sale on bedding is over....why Scrapbooking Gods?  What did I do!  LOL!

New Blog Looks and Plans!!

I know I don't have many followers, but for those of you who do, you may have noticed that I keep changing the look of my blog.  I can't promise that this one will stay but for now, I like it.  This is what happens when your boss is on vacation....I play with my blog and surf the internet!  I will catch up tomorrow!

It APPEARS as of right now, that I have no place to be tonight except home!  No baseball games, no softball games, neither have practice!  Woo Hoo!!  John is taking my desk back to IKEA tonight because we didn't notice until late Sunday night when he went to put it together that instead of white, we got a black one.  The rest of my scraproom furniture is white (with green accents) so the black desk would not have worked.  So that means fast food for dinner and mom can scrap until he gets home and puts my desk together!!  I have a bunch of challenges I want to do plus a few layouts for Let's Scrap that are at the top of my list.  Here's what I want to get done (in no particular order) over the next few days....let's see how successful I am...and if you are bored and want a challenge, maybe you can get some of these done too:

1.  Color Challenge at The Color Room using the below Color palette:

2.  Three Design Team layouts for Let's Scrap!

3.  Card Challenge at Let's Scrap! using this sketch:

4.  The Countdown Challenge at ACOT....Countdown Challenge - on my layout I must use 5 - Flowers;  4 - Ribbons or Strings; 3 - Pastel Colored papers; 2 - Yellow Elements and 1 - Bird Element

5.  The weekly sketch challenge at Sketchy Thursdays which will be posted tomorrow.

There's a few others but these are the ones I have sketches printed for or notes for.

Stay tuned to see how I do!

Sketch Inspirations

Another sketch challenge site I visit almost daily is Sketch Inspirations. Tonight, after returning home from Susie's first softball game of the season, I checked out the newest sketch and quickly came up with an idea. I've had this picture of Matt getting off the bus on the first day of first grade sitting on my desk for some time now, along with the package of Maya Road school themed rub-ons. A quick dig through my paper and I found the yellow happy suns by Cosmo Cricket which I felt lent to the "school bus" look I was looking to achieve. I think I did what I set out to do....the black scallops represent the black bus tires, the yellow the bus and the green is a strip of Core'dinations cardstock with the alphabet embossed on it which I sanded. The bling star is MAMBI. Fortunately most of the items I used on this layout were out in the open. If not, I'm not so sure I could have completed this as EVERYTHING is still a mess in my scraproom and I just didn't feel much like reorganizing. That's the bad part of re-doing your scrap space....nothing is where it always was! Hopefully everything will be back to normal by the weekend. Definately no scrapping for me tomorrow as Matt has a game and the way his games have been going, I won't be home until after 10pm. Here's my take on the sketch.

Exciting News!

I got the email last night and couldn't share right away but this has just been posted on the Let's Scrap website:

I made the design team!!  Woo Hoo!!  If you haven't checked out Let's Scrap and you like to work with sketches, please check it out!!  The sketches are nothing but FABULOUS and there are two chances each week to win prizes....there is the Weekly Sketch challenge and the Design Team challenge as well as a question of the week that lately have been GREAT conversations!!

There is a ton of talent over there so I am very humbled and honored to have been selected.  I just had to share my exciting news.

On the home front....my great plans for my new Ikea stuff came to a grinding halt last night!  John assembled the main unit and the smaller unit and loaded it into position.  While I was starting to put stuff back on shelves I heard a groan and an "Oh no".  My heart sank...this can't be good!  I walk into the living room carefully expecting to see something broken...my first thought was he put a board through the new tv.  As it turned out, when John opened the box to my desk to start assembling that, something didn't look right and it wasn't.  I have all white pieces and a BLACK desk!  Oh no...that's NOT going to work.  I am a matchy-matchy kinda gal.  So I had to improvise because there is NO WAY I was going without a desk for another week when we can make the 2 hour round trip back to IKEA to get the right desk.  So my old table is back and doesn't fit well but its there.  I took before, during and after pictures and will post them next week when I get everything all organized and have my desk set up.

New Scrapping Space In My Future!!!

So yesterday afternoon we headed out to Ikea.  Its in Philadelphia and we are at the Jersey Shore so it was about an hour drive to get there.  The "real" reason for going was to get my son a new bedroom set.  His is literally falling apart and being a teenager (aka MESSY), I didn't want to spend a ton of money on anything that would probably get ruined over the next few years.  I looked online and we decided that the Ikea furniture would serve the purpose.  And it was affordable!  For just over $300 we got a 6 drawer dresser with glass for the top, a night stand and a bed.  This is what we chose for his room:

I really like it.  Its clean and simple.  Once we got that decision made and on our cart, off we went to check out some options for my scrapbooking supplies.  I am currently using a JetMax cube system and its literally falling apart on me.  I have a makeshift shelf on top of it and while most people wouldn't notice anything, I know that its a thrown together set up and I really wanted something cleaner and put together.  I have been saving my income tax refund and bouncing ideas around my head for weeks now.  I would have loved to have gotten some other pieces to match so that I can forever get rid of the plastic drawers, but since I share my space with the kids playroom, there wasn't enough room to do what I really want.  We are planning to move in the next 18 months so hopefully I will have a better/bigger space and will add on then.  I opted for the one that was meant to hold a tv because I wanted a place for my cricut and cuttlebug right next to me!

The desk will attach to the middle of the tv shelf and the cube to the right of the tv space so that I have an open shelf for my cricut, above that will be my bulletin board which I HAVE to have.  I have so much stuff hanging on my bb!  I'd be lost without it. The smaller 4 cube will set next to it....just some more counter/cube space!!  I can't WAIT for it to all get put together.  I'm not pushing the issue (John has been working on his fishing reel all morning) but its KILLING me to sit here and look at 11 boxes of IKEA furniture sitting in my living room waiting to be assembled.

I also picked up a few other odds and ends...a set of funnels for my kitchen for 99c I got the green so they COULD match my scraproom should I need them in there  :), a huge bag of chip clips for $2 vs. the $8 I paid for 4 at a Pampered Chef party, and two sets of these jars that were only $3 for a set of 4 and perfect for my embellies:

 

I was very excited with my trip to Ikea and have plans in my head to go back on Aprl 30.  I'm off from work that day and can spend ALL day there without John pushing me along telling me what I don't need!  :)  As it was, all that we got took us almost 3 hours to collect, go through the checkout and load into the truck.  My next trip will be small items that will fit in my car!!!

After all that shopping we were hungry.  John suggested we find one of the "famous" cheesesteak places in Philly.  There are two...Pats & Genos.  They are across the street from each other and there's quite a friendly rivalry there.  Even though we live fairly close to Philly, I have never had a "real" Philly Cheesesteak.  We chose Geno's because the line was shorter and we got our food and hurried back to the truck to eat.  It was to cold to sit outside and eat. We got home shortly after 11pm.  But oh, what a fun day it was!!

Busy Day Ahead!!

Some weekends come and go and at the end of it I wonder just what I accomplished.  Today will NOT be one of those days.  Its just about Noon here in New Jersey and I've already got quite a bit accomplished.  I've cleaned up the kitchen, done two loads of laundry (except for the putting away part), vacuumed the entire house, dusted in the living room, picked up my daughter from a sleepover and started and fnished one layout so far.  This is using the new Maya paper from Glitz Designs.  The stickers are Glitz also.

The rest of the day will be busy as well!  My son desperately needs a new bedroom set.  The one he has now he's had since he was 2 and the bed is collapsing, the fronts of the dresser keep coming off and we reglue them but they still come off.  Nothing in his room really matches and my daughter has had two room makeovers in the past 3 years!  So we are heading out to Ikea later this afternoon to look at bedroom furniture and for my scrapbook area, some new Expedit shelving.  I've been using the Jetmax cubes and a table for a few years now but yesterday as I was cleaning up I noticed that a few of the cubes are coming apart.  The screws have broken right through the particle board.  It kinda ticks me off as these were MADE for scrapbookers and don't hold up to the weight of paper, albums, etc.  And they were MORE expensive than the unit from Ikea when you add up each individual cube.  I'm a little...ok a lot...excited to be going to Ikea.  I have never been there before but alway oooh and ahhh over what I see other people getting for their scraprooms from Ikea.  I will report more tomorrow once I have been there!

Since we can't go until John gets home from fishing, I'm going to work on a couple more challenges.  This one is not going to be easy....
Here are the requirements:

1. Create a layout using a sketch from Let's Scrap.

2. Choose 2 of the following stash items that were listed in this week's question. After the name, I've listed how many you'll need to use, so you're not just using one of these items, you'll need to use the amount listed.
     Buttons - Use at least 15
     Flowers - Use at least 10
     Chipboard - Use at least 4
     Rubons - Use at least 3
     Brads/eyelets - Use at least 15
     Stickers(alphas not included if used in title) - Use at least 6
     Ribbon - Use at least 4 different ones
     Jewels - Use at least 15

3. Use at least 2 pieces of patterned paper that are at least 5 years old.  If you haven't been scrapping that long, just use your oldest ones.

4. Use Alphabet Stickers in your title

5. Use 1 more additional item in your stash that is older than 5 years.  Again, if you haven't been scrapping that long, use your oldest items.

Yikes!!!!!!!!  Ok, I'm outta here...have a great Saturday!

Edited to Add:  Well, I got right to work on the above challenge and I LOVE this page.  I think I covered the requirements and then some....I used way old papers from  Daisy D's, 10 flowers, 4 different ribbons, 9 brads (just couldn't get the 10th one in there and still look good!), 1 button, 1 chipboard letter, alpha stickers are Doodlebug Simply Sweet, my one additional items was the chipboard heart that originally was burgandy but I stamped it with silver ink, set it with my heat gun then misted it with Vintage Pink Glimmer Mist.  Used the LS115 sketch.

Last for Tonight!

Three blog posts in one day! I guess I should try to save everything and just do one big post when I have all my scrapping for the day done. I was going to wait until the morning when the lighting would be better for photographing the layout but....well I just didn't. I really like how this one came out. These papers are by Glitz Design Distressed Couture. I used my edge distresser to rough up the edges of the papers. then inked with Distress Ink. Photo was printed in Sepia and matches almost perfectly to the floral paper...you can't see that in the photo. I also love the little UPC symbol at the bottom...its a Glitz sticker. There's a lot of metal on this page and its kinda heavy! I had to resort to my Quick Grab Tacky Glue to get them metal pieces to stay. The key is from K & Co. and the two hearts...metal and loopy iron on one...from my stash. Ball trim and eyelet snaps from stash and letters are Thickers and SEI. I'm a bit tired so I think I'll surf the blogs a bit and head to bed early...so much for scrapping all night!!

Another Challenge Layout

This layout is for the Manufacturer's Challenge over at ACOT. This month it is Little Yellow Bicycle. I used two papers from the Zinnia line. The only things not LYB are the green felt Thickers letters and the round letters which are SEI Momento. I love this photo of the kids. It was taken at the Wildwood Boardwalk just two short years ago yet they look sooooo young. This year has been a big growing spurt for both of them. They are knocking on the teenage door way to fast for me! Matt even had the nerve to walk through that door in March when he turned 13!! Where does the time go. Its times like this that I am so thankful for this hobby. No matter how old the kids get, they will have their whole childhood documented lovingly by me in my scrapbooks!

Friday...oh how I love Fridays!!

I finished this one after baseball last night (we lost...but it was a heck of a game...14-13!! Matt made a few good plays and had a great solid hit to the outfield which got him a double). Its a "two-fer". First for the Sketchy Thursday's challenge and also for the Who's That Girl challenge! Its not a page that WOW'S me at all, but it does represent those items that I am all about RIGHT NOW!! I'm off again today (Matt's home too with an upset tummy) and just sorted through a huge order from ACOT so I',m gonna start scrapping shortly! Next up is the Manufacturer's Challenge over at ACOT.  This month it's Little Yellow Bicycle and I will be using the Zinnia line which is in this pile of new stuff I have!!  I'm sure I will have another post later once I figure out what other challenges I am "up for" today!

HAPPY Weekend!!!

Actually my weekend started this morning when I called out from work. I've been nursing an earache all week and this morning it was killing me. Been laying on a heating pad and that helps a lot. I have a furlough (unpaid) day off tomorrow so its officially my weekend!

While the house was quiet today I completed two challenges over at Let's Scrap. The first one was to scrap a vintage photo using something handmade and at least 3 patterned papers. I made the "ruffled" paper stip and sewed it to the other strip for my homemade element. The photo is from 1949 and is my dad with his model train set. He was 12 in the photo and right up until he died in 2006, he still loved model trains. All paper is SEI except one which is DCWV. Buttons are Making Memories, letters are Thickers. Also used my brandy-new Martha Stewart double loop punch and red cats eye ink.

The next is a two page layout for the weekly challenge at Let's Scrap. The photos are from our trip to Antigua. All papers, flowers, ribbon and brads are SEI - Claire. I seem to be on an SEI kick today! The butterflies, journal spot, swirls, leaves and font cut on Cricut. Lots of inking, glimmer mist and stickles used.  Click to see a better view.

My son has another baseball game tonight so I won't be home until agter 10pm.  Tuesday nights game was over 3 hours long, its was FREEZING, but the won 22-2!!  I just may have some more scrapping in me tonight since I only have to wake up to get the kids off to school!!

Need suggestions for Kit Clubs!

OK, I've been a member of three different kit clubs for the past 2-3 years.  I am getting tired of 2 of them and would like to change.  I won't name the ones I am with now but the prices continue to rise and the kits seem to all look the same anymore.  Even using the same lines 2-3 months apart.  So I have cancelled the two that I am not happy with and would LOVE to get suggestions from anyone who visits my blog on a good Kit Club.  I have been looking at Cocoa Daisy but haven't made any decisions yet until I see what else is out there.  If you wouldn't mind just taking a minute to let me know your thoughts on good kit clubs, and what you like about them, I'd really appreciate it!!

Now its off to the first baseball game of the season for my son!  Its so cold here today....I wish we had the weather we had LAST week....it was 90!!!  Today its 50 and dreary.  Game isn't until 7pm so you KNOW I'm gonna be cold sitting in the stands!  Ahh, what a mother does for her children!  :)

Oops, Had another one in me!

So after my last post I was blog-hopping and saw this sketch on Sketchy Thursdays. You had to use the provided sketch, use the color green and the theme had to be celebration. I wasn't going to do it tonight but I turned my head, looked at the pile of unsorted photos on my scrap table and this one was right on top! It matched EVERY requirement perfectly so how could I not do it. I even had the papers sitting out as I just got them (Crate Paper - Brook collection) in an order! Once again, you can't see it in the photo but the kraft cardstock is sprayed with gold Glimmer Mist. So another one done, bringing my total for the weekend to 9 pages done! Yay for me!