What's your dream?! LGC Blog Party Day 1

Hi friends! I'm so glad you're able to join us for another Lucky Girl Crafts blog party. If you're new to the party, check out the post above for more details. The Lucky Girls have prizes in store for you, you'll just need to follow along!

This month's kit is more kid-themed, so I thought it'd be fun to take a more mature spin on it. The embellies this month are so luscious, and can be used in so many ways that it's really easy to stretch the kit for all kinds of different projects. Don't you just love it when that happens?

I'm the guest FITGirl at ScrapFIT this month (wootwoot!) my first layout goes along with their challenge prompt, "Dream".

One of my biggest dreams is to travel the world with my hubby, with Italy being in my #1 dream destination. I've never been, but my 2010 calendar was filled with gorgeous architecture, historical sites and rolling vineyards. You could almost taste the delicious food! What better place to get great pictures for a place you've never been?

I used one of the main 13x13 pictures for the large photo, and just traced a plate to get the circle. I took some of the thumbnail prints from the back of the calendar for the smaller photos, then embellished with the yummy scrappy goodness from the February Lucky Girl Crafts kit. (Who doesn't love Prima flowers?!)

For the centers of the flowers, I added a big dollop of Mod Podge Dimensional Magic, and sprinkled a bunch of seed beads in various colors. I was so pleased when it turned out better than expected!

And now, finally - do you want a chance to win some Lucky Bucks?

Each day of the blog party (Feb. 1-3) we'll have another chance for you to enter to win $7 Lucky Bucks to the Lucky Girl store. At the end of the party, the Lucky Girls will each choose one winner from their blog who played along. Here's how you can enter:

Earn 1 entry for referring a friend to the LGC blog party

Earn 1 entry for answering today's question: "What's your favorite childhood tradition (or) tradition you've got for your own children?"

Earn 10 entries for the giveaways on all of the Lucky Girl Crafts Blog Party when you place any order with Lucky Girl Crafts between now and February 3!

Show Me Sunday tutorial - Repurposed Ribbon

Hi friends! I hope you're enjoying your weekend.

I've got a new tutorial posted on Frosted Designs today, all on how to repurpose your ribbon scraps into beautiful flowers like these:

Using materials like this:

To use on a layout like this:

These fancy flowers also make great jewelry and hair accessories, too! Just sayin' ;)

For full instructions, please be sure to head on over to Frosted Designs!

Join the fun for our first Friday Fun Day Challenge @ LGC!

Hi friends & happy Friday! I don't know about you, but I am soooo glad this day has arrived. After a long week, I look forward to a weekend of being crafty and selling Girl Scout cookies with Soph like it's nobody's business. At least we get to visit some of our old, totally awesome friends that we haven't seen in ages.




Not only am I excited for the weekend, but I am thrilled about the two projects I have for you today. (Please see the post prior to this one for my Frosted Designs project!)

First, have you heard? Lucky Girl Crafts just started our new weekly challenges with a kick-butt monthly prize and it rocks!

Join us for the Lucky Girl Crafts

Friday Fun Day Challenges

...where inspiration is the highest form of flattery!

Our Lucky Girls will be posting new projects each and every Friday for you to gain inspiration from using the overall design, color combination, project title and/or use of embellies. At the close of the month, we'll pick the best of the bunch for a chance to win the latest Lucky Girl Crafts kit or store credit. Check out this link here for full rules & details so you can play along!

Here's our first Friday Fun Day project inspiration for your crafting pleasure:

You've Got Mail

I used some of my left over papers from the January LGC Kit "Forever Love" for this altered tin mini mail box, plus flowers, ribbon and bling from my stash. For the little flourish, I cut out the corner of the American Crafts Dear Lizzy Oliver Die Cut paper from the kit and used it as a mask. I sponged acrylic paint over my home-made mask, then outlined it in fine tipped permanent marker to make it stand out against the striped paper.

I am also playing along in this week's ScrapFit challenge, which is to use scraps. You'll see more of Lucky Girl Crafts as the February ScrapFit sponsor, and more of me there next month when I'm their guest DT!

Fancy that...

It's Frosted Designs time again!

This week's challenge prompt was to use 3 or more pictures, which was perfect since I just got in a huge order in from Snapfish. Among the piles of pictures I received was this grouping from the mini-vacation my hubby and I took for our 11th anniversary last year.


I won a getaway to this great little B&B in the middle of the Colorado mountains called Fresh & Wyld. They had a delicious gourmet dinner featuring local meats, veggies and wines. Though the little town didn't have much in the way of entertainment, the people were sweet, the scenery was amazing and it was a neat treat for us. I'd definitely go back.

I used part of the brochure for both my sub-title and title block. The name of the B&B is featured in metal frame, and the deceptive part was my main title block. this layout features nearly all products from the January Lucky Girl Crafts kit (or what's left of it - I've gotten so much out of it!). The white script letters from the kit were colored in with Bic permanent marker so it'd actually show up against the busy background.

For the center of the flower, I popped a circle photo out of one of the many chickens that were found on the property, then added a dimensional glaze and chunky glitter for extra emphasis. Check it out:

Be sure to stop by the best of the rest of the Frosted Designers (not to mention for your chance to win this month's awesome prize!!!) We hope to see you soon!

Gettin' a little punchy!

Practical Scrappers has a great challenge this week... Get your punches out and get ready to play along!

I don't know about you, but I really dig the fancy-pants layered flowers on the market out there. Problem is, I live in a small town and the nearest scrapbook store is nearly 2 hours away, and I feel so guilty for ordering just a package or two of the blossoms on-line that I don't get my hands on them nearly as often as I'd like.

For this layout, I created 3D flowers using my Stampin' Up Boho Blossoms punch. I punched the flowers out of several different patterned paper, distressed the edges and, once the ink was dry (this is a key hint, by the way! Otherwise your ink gets all over and ruins the pretty effect you're trying so hard to create...), simply crimp, crunch and crumple the blossoms up. Once that's done, either poke holes through the center of your buttons and attach with a brad, or use glue dots to secure each blossom and top with pretty gems.

Here's how they turned out:

Really, once I got the hang of it, I quickly became addicted to them and made more than I needed for this layout, which I'm sure will adorn some other project in the very near future.

All of the patterned papers were from My Mind's Eye, with some Zva bling, Kaiser Craft adhesive pearls, and vintage lace thrown in the mix. I also used a pearly flower from Prima, some cardstock from Stampin' Up, a strip of wide blue ribbon from Target's dollar spot and K&Co. letter stickers. Oh - and can you spot the other punches I used? The scallop circle journaling tag is from Stampin' Up, and the "Threading Water" border punch is from Fiskars.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Don't forget ... the deadline for my Lucky Girl DT call is this Friday. Check out this post here for more details on how to enter!

Clearly, it's (almost) spring in Colorado! Transparency Challenge for Frosted Designs

Here's another delayed challenge post... This time from last week's transparency challenge at Frosted Designs.

First, a close up:

And finally, the whole shebang:

For this card, I {carefully} embossed a Close To My Heart butterfly stamp using Versamark and black embossing powder from Stampin' Up on a heavy-duty 3M transparency film, then I carefully cut the butterfly out and used it as a template for the bottom part of the butterfly. For the bottom part, I used a variety of Twinkling H20s iridescent water color paints to make kind of sunburst of colors. Once this was dry, I cut it out and popped it up to place in the center of the distressed circle. I added double-sided sticky tape from Stampin' Up to the body of the butterfly, then bent the wings outward slightly to make it appear that the butterfly was in flight. I added a few color-coordinated brads from Basic Grey and a big black bow to finish the card off.

Goin' Green - Chipboard Challenge at Practical Scrappers

Hello friends,

I am finally fully back to normal - yeah! - and created a fun project for this week's chipboard challenge at Practical Scrappers - reusing some packaging from one of my favorite scrappy goodies - Prima bling flourishes.

For this square card, I used the Rainy Day Cynthia digi stamp from The Stamping Boutique - one of our wonderful sponsors over at Practical Scrappers - and matted it onto a trimmed piece of the Prima packaging. The diecut flourishes and fresh, organic printed design were too cute to toss, and was a great compliment for the colors I used to add some life to the little fairy girl. (Stampin' Up Watercolor Wonder Crayons, of course!)


Green Tip: A lot of manufacturers incorporate fun packaging and funky designs to help market their products that add a distinctive flair to cards, layouts and other crafts. Some of my faves - Prima & Jenni Bowlin, plus I hoard funky tags from clothing - Mudd jeans usually have some pretty awesome articles. If you're concerned about longevity of the product, spray with an acid-neutralizing spray that can typically be found at local scrap stores or online scrap stops - or, if you're lucky, your local Wal-Mart or Target. (EK Success makes Archival Mist & Krylon has a spray called "Make it Acid-Free")

Here's a close up of the card - I added Liquid Glass to the water and dots on her dress and mushroom, plus a little blue bling for her hair flower. The sentiment was hand-written.

Thanks so much for stopping by & don't forget to check out all of the rest of the fantabulous work from the Practical Scrappers DT!

Better late than never... last week's Practical Scrappers Ink Challenge

Sorry to have been absent lately but I have been soooooo very sick for the past week... literally. I went to the doc today because I just couldn't bear it anymore, just to find out that I have an inner ear virus that is causing vertigo, kind of like being an "old drunk" according to my doctor, and that my symptoms can last up to a month. Ugh!!! I hate this feeling, which is why I don't ever drink in excess, and here I have that feeling for no good reason. Way not fun. At least I have some meds to help ward off the nasty feeling, I guess.

Anywho, enough about me... here's my layout for last week's white pen/ink challenge at Practical Scrappers.

I really don't play with my white pens as often as I should, because I really like the way they look. I used my white pen to add a doodled frame around the picture and to trace some of the edges of the flourish shape and Prima flowers. This page uses Basic Gray papers & journaling spot, Bazzill cardstock & stitched ribbon, Bo Bunny gingham ribbon and miscellaneous brads
& letter stickers. The flourish is from the Home Decor Cricut cartridge - another fave! (Thanks, Juanita for letting me hog your machine at our last crop!!!)

Thanks so much for looking. Be back soon with some other fun designs to share!!!

Sometime's it's OK to raid your hubbys tools for scrapping... really!

It's technique week at Frosted Designs! This week we were instructed to create a layout featuring our favorite technique, so mine features sanding - talk about a great stress reliever!

I must admit, I have been known to raid the hubby's tool box in search of sandpaper from time to time, just for the sake of a good layout. I now have several sanding tools - the Tim Holtz mini grip sander and my Precision Files from Close To My Heart (which are amazing for detailed objects, like chipboard letters or frames or for getting into tiny nooks and crannies like scallop corners); but the rest of the time I stick to plain old sandpaper and even, an emery board! Emery boards (or nail files - whatever) are great for smaller items, like the letters here.


For this layout, I primarily sanded the edges of my papers, but here are some other techniques to try:

* Sanding in different directions across the width of your paper (like up and down then side to side) to create a faux-fabric look

* Sanding in circles across your paper

* Place objects under your paper - like flowers, chipboard elements, stamps, etc., to get a subtle outline of the image

* Sand your embellishments, like I did here, for a fun take on distressing

This layout was created with Close To My Heart papers and a mish-mash of tons of small embellies.

Thanks so much for looking! Be sure to stop by Frosted Designs to check out all of the amazing techniques, tips & tutorials from the talented group, too!

Bling it on!

My little Sophie-girl is all about the bling -she is a princess through-and-through. This week's challenge at Practical Scrappers was perfect for her pictures - we had to use bling in any way, shape or form! You've got to check out what the amazing design team has been coming out with lately - awesome work over there!

For this layout, I used blingy shapes & swirls (Zva Creative & Michael's), glitter chipboard (K&Co.) & stickers (Making Memories), and home-made glimmer mist that I created using Perfect Pearls (Stampin' Up) and food coloring. I also used Dollar Spot ribbon and a sheet of CTMH cardstock, plus one of my favorite recent pictures of her, one that Andrew took of her while they were just joking around last fall.

HOME-MADE GLIMMER MIST:

Perfect Pearls or pearlescent acrylic paint

Warm Water

Food Coloring or Re-Inker

Small, Travel-Sized Spray Bottle

Add 1-1/2 to 3 TBS warm water to small spray bottle. Add a small scoop of Perfect Pearls and 4-5 drops of food coloring or re-inker of your choice. Shake well and spray! You can also use a pearly acrylic paint - pre-colored if you want - for a similar effect.

The layout was also inspired by this sketch from Sketchy Thursdays. They also have a great challenge blog with new prizes each week. As far as sketch blogs go, this is one of my favorites.

Thanks for stopping by!

Fun with Fabric - AKA Recycled Scrap

Our challenge this week at Frosted Designs was awesome... definitely one of my favorite challenges I've done so far. Our mission was to incorporate at least one piece of fabric into our layout or project. Though I don't so - in fact, not only can I not cut a straight line, but I can't sew one either. I don't have a whole lot of extra fabric on hand, but what I do have is even better.

I happen to be a bit of a pack rat. Additionally, when I see clothes sporting a cute design on them for my kiddos, I wonder if the stains that will inevitably get on the clothes will cover the cute design. I also collect fun tags from my clothes - neat twill and embroidered deals that will one day end up in some project.

Case in point: This is one of Sophia's tees that I bought for her a few years ago. She's long since grown out of it plus its got some nice pen marks from my little artist, but the flowers were so cute I couldn't bear to get rid of it.

After trimming the flowers out with my super-sharp precision scissors, I picked off the weird felty-backing and ran them through my Xyron sticker maker so they were ready to go on my project. Here's the finished look:


Aren't these pictures so funny? This is Andrew and his still BFF from waaaayyy back when they were two. Sweet little monkeys who I'm sure are going to be so mortified that I even have a picture of them kissing... let alone that I've posted it to my blog. This was taken moments before Maddi tried pushing Andrew off the little bridge, so maybe there's the validation. Good times...

Anyhow, back to the layout. Here's a close up:

This layout uses primarily all Close to My Heart items, including papers, inks, metal frame, and letter stamps. There's a piece of Bazzill Just the Edge scallop strip and a swirly stamp from Stampin' Up.

Check out the awesome prize you can win by participating in this week's Frosted Designs challenge by clicking here. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Ink it Up.... Frosted Designs Challenge #1

It's the debut challenge over at Frosted Designs!

The design team over there was challenged to ink (or chalk) up our projects. This was a great challenge. I used to ink distress everything and to this day it's one of my favorite things to do, but lately I haven't been doing it very often.

For this layout, I used the direct-to-paper method of ink distressing of swiping my papers (and in this instance, the chipboard title) directly onto an ink pad. I used black on everything here, but it also looks great when you do tone-on-tone distressing (using a similar color ink as your paper).

Another method of ink distressing is using a sponge, sponge dauber or distressing tool to transfer the ink to create a softer look. Close To My Heart and Tim Holtz have some great distressing tools - I recommend checking them out. This method also helps eliminate the messy fingers you get by direct-to-paper distressing.

This layout uses cardstock and papers from Close To My Heart and Making Memories (the large dotty paper at the bottom). There are also Close To My Heart inks, chipboard, pearls and white flower; Making Memories metal charm and pink & red flowers; and Sandylion swirl stickers.

Thanks for looking and be sure to check out the rest of the work from the DT over at Frosted Designs!

Felt Fancy

I'm one of those scrappers who buys things that look great in the store, thinks that I'll be able to use said product everywhere, but once I get home I have no idea what to actually do with it.
That's how it is with felt - our challenge product for Practical Scrappers this week. Surprisingly, I have A LOT of it. Everything from leaves to flower to brads - really, I'm not quite sure where it all came from!

As I was digging through my pics I came across this one of Michael & I at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. It wasn't quite fall, but the beautiful red rocks of the Kissing Camels would tie in beautifully with fall, so I pulled out some felt leaves that I picked up from Target's Dollar Spot ages ago. They looked too plain, though, so I decided to jazz them up a bit.

I used one of my flourish stamps from Stampin' Up's Priceless set, and using a pearly acrylic paint and a cheapy sponge paint brush, painted on a thin layer of paint directly onto the stamp. It's important that it's only a thin layer because if you put too much paint onto the stamp, you'll lose the details that you're trying to transfer onto whatever it is that you are painting. Anyhow, from there, I just stamped like I normally would in random locations onto my leaves and let them dry while I completed the rest of my layout. I really loved how this one turned out!

This layout also uses Close To My Heart papers, Just Blooms paper flower (white one), brad and the large flourish stamp, my new favorite, Powder Puff ink (it's so creamy!), a Stampin' Up felt flower, Dotted Swiss cardstock, Jenni Bowlin memo journaling block (that I trimmed from a plain rectangle into a cute little brackety shape) and some recycled ribbon.

Thanks for stopping by!

Scrappin' with stickers and a neat technique

Hello to all of my blogging buddies! I hope your weekend was great!



Our challenge this week at Practical Scrappers was to use up some of our stickers. This was a great challenge that I was eager to tackle - I can't tell you how many sheets upon sheets of stickers that I've collected over the last 10 years scrapbooking. My collection mostly consists of the cardstock stickers that come in the Close To My Heart and Stampin' Up scrapbook kits, so I decided to use up some of that massive stash on my challenge layout.



Since it's been so hot here lately, I wanted to take a mental vacation back to the cooler weather, so I dug out some of the pics from our impromptu sledding party after one of the big storms last winter. Here's what I came up with:

It uses 16 different stickers - can you find them all?

This layout features Stampin' Up cardstock & cardstock stickers, a Colorbok bling sticker, Close To My Heart Liquid Glass, button, stamp (alphabet) and Tulip ink and cardstock (for the tag); Doodlebug Designs rub-ons and a Bic Mark-It fine tip red marker. I also used a little chunky glitter from Martha Stewart.



To make the tag that has the date on it, I cut out the outline of a bracket sticker I had used on another project:

After it was cut off of the main sticker sheet, I placed it onto some cardstock and cut it out more precisely - leaving just 1/4 of an inch or so of the sticker itself for the outline of my tag:

Once it was all cut out, I added rub-on letters from Doodlebug Designs for the date and added it to my layout:

P.S. This little tag technique is not my own, but unfortunately, I don't remember where I saw it used first. If I come across the original inspiration, I will pass on credit where credit is due. In the meantime, thanks to all of you who take the time to share!

To add some extra dimension to my layout and match the glitzy striped paper, I added bling sticker and glammed up the snowflake stickers. For the snowflake stickers, I added dimensional tape to the back of the red snowflake to pop it off of the blue snowflake, then added a blue button and a pink-polka-dotted white circle sticker to the center.

All of the little circle stickers and the snowflake in the center of the big circle got a little Liquid Glass and chunky Martha Stewart glitter to add a wintry feel. Oh - and that cute rickrack and pink strip are both stickers, too.

And here's a shot of the toll my creative process takes on the kitchen tables...

My process tends to be a little messy! It's a good thing Michael is so patient & supportive...

Happy Mother's Day

OK- so I know it's not Mother's Day anymore, but hopefully this will give you inspiration for something else!

This card was created with Stampin' Up stamps. The images were hand-colored with Stampin' Up brush-tip markers directly onto the stamp. Once everything is colored in, give it a little "huff" by breathing onto the stamp and you're set to go. I used a sponge to add very faint blue background using Close To My Heart Heavenly Blue ink - though you can't really tell here, it made it look like you were viewing the flowers against a lightly cloudly sky. The ribbon and flower pin are also from Close To My Heart, but that little pearl is soething I picked up at Target - Marcella by K (BTW - the pearls don't stick very well at all! I had to attach mine with a mini glue dot to keep it on there.)

Dreamy color combos

Brown, pink and blue are my favorite color combos so I was really excited when I saw the new Unforgettable paper packet from Close To My Heart!

This card was relatively easy to make - I used the Aspiration set from Close To My Heart. To get the dual colors for the branches and leaves, I stamped the image first in second-generation Desert Sand ink. I used Cocoa for the main branch color, but first, since the leaves are on the same stamp, I gently swiped the brown off of the leaves with my finger (though, if you don't like getting messy, you could use a slightly damp Q-tip or the tip of a twisted paper towel to wipe the ink from the area you want to miss). I stamped my image slightly off-set to create more of a 3-D feel on the card. Then, I used Juniper for the leaves, doing the opposite as I did with the Cocoa (swiping the green off of the branches).

Once all the stamping was done, I used my trusty Water Color Wonder crayons from Stampin' Up to create a water-colored looking blue sky. I added pewter brads and White Daisy Just Blooms to the branches and we were done with the image. I also direct-to paper distressed the cream base using Blush ink, then once it was matted, added a pretty satin ribbon to tie it all together.

Now that it's all done, I think I'm going to save it for a graduation card for my cousin (yeah - one card ready!)

More baby gifts!

Here's a little layout I did for yet another girl who's having a baby. Since she & her husband don't want to find out what she's having, I'm going with a gender-neutral album filled with pages for first holidays instead.

This layout uses almost all Close To My Heart products.

They've got a jungle theme going on in the nursery, so I figured the first and last page of the album would feature my all-time favorite image stamps - these animals are from the stamps sets Life's A Jungle and the giraffe is from Nursery Bash. I used the monochromatic-side of the plaid paper from the Aspen paper packet, and the green striped paper is from the Emporium Creative Basics kit. The scalloped circle frame is from last November's special - Dazzling Die Cuts. Baby is spelled out using the Large Friendship Alphabet set and covered in Liquid Glass - be careful when you use the Liquid Glass, because it makes your paper curl! I had to go back and re-glue my letters down. The words on the journaling block are from Tiny Typewriter and the dotted journal lines are from the Priceless Love set (another really fun one!)

I water colored the animals in with Stampin' Up water color wonder crayons and a blending pen.

Father Son Bond

I don't seem to get very many pictures with my husband in them. Or, for that matter, pictures where my son or my husband aren't making funny faces. Since these were taken on mother's day, I think they both decided to be nice to me and let me some really nice pictures of them both.

This layout was inspired by one I saw in Creating Keepsakes. I don't scrapbook on white paper very often, so it was a kind of nice change of pace.

I used the second generation technique for the nifty Autumn Leaves swirls (ink up your image as you normally would, then stamp it once on scratch paper, then again on your project or layout for a lighter image in the same color).

The stamps are Autumn Leaves and CTMH (letters). Inks are all CTMH. Papers are Stampin' Up.

Distressed elements

I went through a huge phase where almost every project I created I distressed. I think that distressing can really add character.

In this layout, I used inks to distress the textured white cardstock for my journaling circle and tag as well as the white paper flowers. I used sand paper on the brads and buttons and on the edges of my photo. To add more visual interest, I tore the edges of the striped yellow paper.

All supplies are CTMH, except for the blue brads, which are Making Memories.

Thankful for... This Minute

I don't know about you, but my life is in a state of constant chaos. In between working and family time, playing chauffeur to the kiddos - taking them to art, dance and youth group, cooking meals, trying to keep up with chores (not really my first priority), and trying to do some scrapping and creating when I happen to have a second, it's easy to have days, weeks, months fly by with hardly a second thought.

I think it's important to slow down once in a while, take a deep breath and take time to create memories with your family & friends. Even if it doesn't happen often, it just makes you appreciate those special moments all the more.

This fall, there was an awesome pumpkin patch in our area. It was the first big pumpkin patch we have ever visited, and only the second my kids have been to at all - which is kinda funny, because living in farm country, you'd think they'd have pumpkin patches everywhere in the fall... It had been raining and nasty all weekend long, up to five minutes before we pulled into the pumpkin patch. We met my brother, sister in law & beautiful niece and all of a sudden, the clouds parted and the sunlight spilled over the field. It was incredible!

This layout features what is possibly my favorite

photo - maybe ever, of Andrew & Sophia. They

were chasing each other spontaneously through the parking lot on the way to the corn field, when all of a sudden Andrew took Soph's hand to tug her along. No urging from mom's end, no posing. Just full on, sibling love & laughter. Usually I'd have to beg & plead to even try to get them to get in the same vicinity to take a picture.

I wanted to highlight the rare, spontaneous moment and the special bond between brother and sister, so I created a bling frame. I laid a square scrapbook frame over the picture (I think it was one of CTMH's Foundry Frames), then added the self-adhesive Sparkles around in a kinda-even square (start at the corners and go out). If you're super picky, you could mark each spot using a ruler and place everything exactly where it should go, but that takes too much time for me.

FYI: Most of these supplies are CTMH, except the pen, solid cardstock & metal embellishment in the middle of the flower, which are all Stampin' Up!. The yellow flower is from a Prima collection I picked up ages ago at Archiver's.