Creepy!! & Some News!

I'm in a great mood right now!! Its Thursday night....that means....ITS THE WEEKEND! Unfortunately, its almost my last long weekend of the summer. After next Friday I'm back to working Monday through Friday from 8am-4pm. Grr....as much as I will miss my Friday's off, it will be nice to be home by 4:15 everyday. The house is quiet right now with Susie up in her room with a friend, Matthew at football practice for another hour and John is out golfing with his buddies! Ahhh.....bliss! (Edited....it has taken me 2 hours to get this posted...house is no longer quiet, everyone is home and I am totally frustrated with Comcast.)

This layout I did for two separate challenges! The first one is Stacy's Weekly Stash Challenge at Sketches For You. The challenge was to scrap a holiday page. I had JUST finished Christmas 09 when she issued that challenge so wasn't sure what I was going to do and then I realized that I haven't scrapped Halloween 09 yet! I had this great My Minds Eye kit that I got at Crafty Steals and decided to use that, adding only some leftover flourishes from a sheet of Cosmo Cricket Blackboard and a few screw brads from Karen Foster. For the title I used some WackyTack to temporarily adhere the Maya Road Sheer letters to my background paper and then I misted the letters with Coffee Shop Glimmer Mist. I love the effect and since one of the August challenges at A Cherry On Top was to create a layout with masking on it, I got double duty!!! I really like how this page turned out...it does have a creepy feel to it! The journaling reads: "Every year there is a house in Absecon that goes all out for Halloween. Its fun but scary at the same time. This year there were zombies with chainsaws and this live man hanging there giving candy."

And now for my news....I've known for a few days now but haven't had the time to sit down and write a bio and send a picture off and wanted to do that before I announced it. One of my favorite sketch challenge sites for the last few months since they started has been Sketches In Thyme. The site is led by Kim Sparks and her team of "Mavens". I just LOVE that...Mavens!! LOL! Anyway, Kim emailed me that one of her mavens had to step down and she asked if I would fill that position. I struggled a little making the decision because of the way things have been going haywire here at home with my mom's health, kids activities, etc. but ultimately decided that I would LOVE to be a Maven. Part of my decision to join this team is because the commitment is not as heavy as on some site, but most of all because several of the closest blog friends I have made since I started my blog are also Mavens so I almost felt like I belonged there! So I will be joining Debbie, Barb, Brenda and Fern whom I already "knew" from blog-land and looking forward to meeting and getting to know Dawn, Diana, Penny and Tanya, as I become a Sketches In Thyme Maven.

Flowers for Mommy

The first sketch in Fia's Sketch Crazy group at Sketches For You was posted on June 30! I've been looking at the sketch, but haven't actually thought much about using it until today. A few weeks ago I had pulled some older photos out of albums so I would scrap them too instead of JUST the newer photos. This one of Susie holding some buttercups she picked for me kept creeping to the top and it was there again this afternoon when I started thinking about scrapping. Then I remembered the sketch and got to work! I had a hard time coming up with a base for the layout. White was too stark, and other papers from the Lily Bee line that I used for the flowers and photo mat didn't work either. I tried Kraft and didn't like that. I pulled out one of my paper holders that has a mish-mash of older papers in it that I still liked but didn't really go with anything else and found this lonesome sheet of dainty floral paper by DaisyD's that is probably 5-6 year old. I had to back it onto white cardstock because the paper is very thin. 

I made the flowers by tracing an image of a Primrose flower into my Sure Cuts A Lot program then cutting three different sizes out of Lily Bee Lovely papers on my Cricut and layering, curling and fluffing each layer. I added a clear cabachon to the center of each flower. Te flourish was also cut on my Cricut using an SVG file from My Cricut Scrapbooking. I thought the sketch left a little too much white space for my taste so I added another flower at the top right. The title letters are Thickers and Echo Park and I added my last delicate butterfly from Creative Charms that I sprayed with some Wild Cherry Glimmer Mist to help it stand out more than just the white did. Thanks for looking!!!

Dunes

I squeezed in one last layout for today. Its a two pager....not crazy about two pagers but I did this for an upcoming sketch at Let's Scrap and that's how the sketch is! I used papers by TPC Studios Mediterranean Summer and the blue crinkly paper is something new I just got called Banana Leaf Paper. Its got a really neat texture but its a pain in the butt to cut! I painted with two colors of blue at the top and bottom of the layout which also qualifies it for Cindy's July Challenge at Sketches For You. That's all I have.....I MUST sleep now! Good thing is I am off at 2 tomorrow and don't go back to work till Monday! Yipppppeee!! Gotta love short weeks!

July 4 ... 5 challenges!!!!

I have a couple hours tonight with NOBODY home....its glorious! I have the radio blasting and I'm singing my heart out (wouldn't dare do that in the presence of anyone else....I'm tone deaf I'm told!!). I decided to work on a couple challenges.....two for Sketches For You -- the first one is to use Red, White and Blue, add ribbon and a couple stars. Check, Check. Check. The second one there was to try a new technique. They gave a link to a tutorial for paper barn stars. Sooooo easy and they look great!!! The third challenge with this layout is the sketch which is a PageMaps sketch for Stuck on You Sketches. And there is a bonus if you use Red, White & Blue!! And of course Frosted Designs has Red, White & Blue as their weekly challenge!! Yay! I have to admit, I've only done ONE 4th of July layout (this one) and have a ton of fireworks pictures still and I've done 3 other Red, White and Blue layouts this month. I'm about tired of the colors and I'm running out of different papers to use!! All paper is by Scenic Route from last year! OK, so I didn't scrap LAST YEAR'S 4th of July yet either! I still have the WRMK Old Glory papers to use so there will still be more Red, White & Blue in my future!  This layout also works for the Summer challenge at Partners In Crafting Crime.  I know July 4 means summer to me!

I really should be working on a baby album that I have half done but I just don't want to! Is it bad that the shower is THIS Saturday and I don't intend to finish the gift until Friday night!!! I did pick up a bouncy seat as a gift in addition to the album so even if I don't finish it I still have a gift. And it would give me an excuse to go get my baby fix after he's born! Hmmm....no, I will try to finish it! But now....something more fun...not sure what yet but I have 3 Design Team projects to get done so maybe one of them will be next.

All That I Am

Phew, what a scorcher of a day. My boss let us out of work 1/2 hour early and I was soooo happy. I knew that I was coming home to some new scrapping goodies from ACOT! When I opened it I remembered I ordered the new Echo Park summer papers!! I LOVE them!! And as luck would have it, just minutes before I was starting this layout, Fia over at Sketches for You posted a color challenge that went PERFECTLY with these papers and the photo I chose of my mom, sister, brother and I circa 1976! All papers and embellies are Echo Park except the red letters which are Basic Grey Junebug. I also used the weekly sketch at Sketch Inspirations because you know I'm not happy if I don't get some mileage out of my layouts! I just couldn't figure out a way to get Mickey Mouse on here for Practical Scrappers! LOL!!

I got some great news today too!! I won the $70 gift certificate to CSN stores from the Sassy Lil Sketches contest!!!! See my original post with the layout HERE. How exciting!!! I can't wait to get it and spend it!!!!!!

OK, its only 8:30!! I think I will go shower and then work on another layout!! Both kids are out and John is snoring on the couch!!

Dream Fastpass

While we were in Disney for my 40th birthday we won Dream Fast Passes! We were standing in the elevator on Tower of Terror and the Disney Team Member stopped the elevator and told us that we had all won Dream Fastpasses! It was so exciting and the first of TWO dreams we won on that trip!

This layout is for Brenda's July 5 Sketch Challenge at Sketches For You. I really like how simple the sketch was and it allowed me to use that HUGE Disney Carriage embellishment without it getting lost on the page! The theme also qualifies this layout for the Animation, Cartoon, Character challenge over at Practical Scrappers! Another Double Duty layout and YES....another Disney page in the 2007 trip album. I used papers by Sandylion and EK Success, more of the white chipboard letters I found in my scrap bins, three disney brads from the Eyelet Outlet, a metal "dream" eyelet from Making Memories, the Princess carriage and Wishes Do Come True stickers are EK Success.