Blog hopping & candy trolling...

Hey there,
I've been blog hopping again and came across some really neat blogs that you might enjoy - and even some blog candy give aways!

Check out Debbie's blog candy and the awesome artwork from this English artist!

I'll add more here as I have time, but the hubby is calling for me to watch the season finale of Heroes with him. Check back soon!

Lots of layouts!

My goal for the scrapbook weekend was to catch up on some of Andrew's baby album. He turns 10 this year, so I figured I should get the ball rolling if I want his album done by the time he graduates from high school!

I used a lot of old pictures, making me miss my chunky monkey baby of a boy, but I also used a lot of old papers and stickers that I've had almost as long as he's been alive. It made me feel so happy to finally be using some of my excessive stash.

Silly Little Mess uses some alpha stickers that I got forever ago at Target - I think that they're ColorBok. You could tell they were really old because I had to re-glue all of the letters to actually have them stick to my page. The dimensional stickers are from Sandylion - also from a long time ago. The pictures of that silly little boy? He wasn't even three yet.

I don't scrapbook in chronological order, so this next page is just from last Christmas. Here Andrew's on the slopes with his uncles. Cardstock, stamps, inks & rub-ons are Close To My Heart. The patterned paper is from My Mind's Eye - and I've only had it for 1 year!

I think this is my best layout from my scrap weekend. I could not even guess where the papers came from, but they were double-sided and I've had them for ages. I added some fancy-dancy little star brads from Stampin' Up and the title is in alpha stickers from Doodlebug Designs - both recent purchases.

I also tried doing a few pages of the sweet girls in my life:

Here's my Sophia - girl getting all grown up. We got her ears pierced (finally) right before last Thanksgiving. The lady who pierced her ears was a little crazy and convinced that Soph was only 3 (she was actually 5) and kept telling me that I was going to scar her for life. That should have been a red flag, right? No, I'm stubborn and made her go ahead and pierce my baby's ears. On the first ear, she got her rubber glove pierced too, and had to remove the whole earring and re-insert it into the new hole after she removed her glove as my daughter's accessory. The second ear, the gun got stuck on the earring as it went into Soph's ear, and it took some wrestling to get it off. Poor girl. But through it all, Soph didn't cry or so much as whimper. She was so brave!

This page uses Close To My Heart patterned papers, ribbon, stamps, ink & flower, cardstock & brads from Stampin' Up, photo corners by Martha Stewart and sparkles from Wal-Mart. The crown & title are from the Cricut Storybook collection.

I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm most creative in the middle of the night. That's where this page came from of my beautiful little niece, Kaelee. Everything here minus the buttons and pen are Close To My Heart. The die-cuts are from last November's Dazzling Die-Cut campaign. I ripped the bottom of the "T" - it was late, after all, but hid it with a flower so it's all good.

More fun old pictures! Here's Sophia and her uncle (no joke), my youngest sibling Max from a few years ago. Little Max is such a gentleman! Papers are from the Life Delights line from Close To My Heart. I cut out the big flowers from one of the patterned pieces to add as embellishments. The white flowers are also Close To My Heart. Photo corners are Martha Stewart and rhinestone swirls and flower centers are from Wal-Mart.

This last layout uses more stuff from my stash. Here Andrew is enjoying his new bike that he got for his fourth birthday.

By the way, all of the very limited journaling you see on these pages are done with the Bic Mark-It permanent pens. They are ultra-fine point, acid free and come in TONS of colors. I've heard them called the poor girl's Copics. My kind of pens!

Getting in the groove...

I'm finally recovered from my awesome scrapbook weekend - yeah! Big thanks to Christine for hosting such a wonderful weekend.

My hubby talked me into going over earlier than planned on Thursday, for which I am so grateful! I followed a friend over and it only took 2 hours and the worst roads we came across were actually in Breckenridge. Had we left when we planned on leaving, it would have taken us at least four hours. I could not believe how much it was snowing!

Here's what we ended up with by Saturday afternoon (only after most of it melted away!)

When we got to the house, I got stuck in this gigantic driveway and every time I went to back out, I slid closer and closer to the guard rail and the edge of a ravine. Not fun. Since I wasn't really blocking anyone, I left my car there until Saturday, and then had to dig out my car from almost 3 feet (!) of snow! Then, a Bobcat came to plow out the driveway and he got stuck. His wife came in her Bobcat and she got stuck too. A gigantic bulldozer came to tow the Bobcats out so the Bobcats could tow out the stuck cars. I finally got towed out and was on my way to find a better parking spot when I got stuck in ANOTHER driveway down the road. Luckily one of the neighbors came to help me out. He looked at me a little funny since I was still in my pajama pants at 3 in the afternoon, but it was scrap weekend. Fashion wasn't high on my list of priorities.

All in all, it was great. Lots of yummy food, fun girls and tons of progress. I got 50 baby shower invites done for my sister-in-law's shower, seven 20-page retirement albums completed for a local school district, finished Breaking Dawn - the last book in the Twilight series AND completed 10 pages for my albums! Woohoo! My back killed me for a few days but it was so worth it!

Scrapbook & Share Contest

Hi all,

Sorry it's been a while since posting. My husband bought me the Twilight series a week ago and I'm totally hooked! What a great series. I've read the first three books and I'm half-way through the last one. I would have read it already but I felt a little guilty since it was taking away my family time, so I'll be finishing it this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend, I'm off tonight for a weekend scrapbook retreat, as long as Mother Nature feels like cooperating, so be sure to check back next week for posts on what I accomplish this weekend. I tried packing light and actually organizing - not something I do often, so... we'll see!

Close To My Heart is celebrating National Scrapbooking Month with tons of specials and they have even created a new blog www.scrapbookandshare.com where you can WIN $150 in Close To My Heart products. Visit the site for Contest rules and categories. I'm excited to see everyone's artwork.

Thanks for stopping by!
Jessica

Say it with Love Accordion Album

I just finished the accordion album that I'll be teaching at a private workshop this weekend. This is the display album, but each guest has chosen her own paper packet, so everyone's completed album will be a little bit different.

For this I used my favorite CTMH paper packet, Emporium, and CTMH's 9x9 My Creations Memory Showcase Album. I sponge distressed the edges of all of the pages and the covers with Crystal Blue Ink, and the edges of all of the papers with Chocolate ink from Stampin' Up.


This album was pretty easy to complete. It uses minimal stamping - primarily with CTMH stamps, except for the short, fat swirl, which is Autumn Leaves. The album uses the coordinating Stickease set for most of the accents, plus a few Just Blooms and Prima paper flowers, some CTMH & SU ribbon, a CTMH Pretty Pin and a couple of CTMH Designer Brads and regular brads here and there.

Oh - I also used a scalloped circle card base from Stampin' Up, too, (page 3, above), but a regular solid circle would work great here too.

Notice anything familiar about these layouts? These are the finished product from my sketch post from last week. I'm pretty jazzed with how they turned out!