Little Girls and Their Sleepovers

Recently my friend Catinthegrass told me about a page contest using a Becky Fleck Page Map for a page map blog contest. I was so excited about the contest and couldn't wait to design my masterpiece for the contest.

Of course like any layout the biggest decision to be made is what pictures will I use. I went back and forth and then stumbled across a handful of old pictures from 1995 of my daughter and her friend Kiana having a sleepover at our house. Girls are some much fun when they are this age because they love to pose for the camera and don't have a care in the world what they look like. Below is the sketch and my interpretation of the layout:

The Sketch:


My Layout:


I used: Basic Grey paper (Infuse Saturate) and Doilies, Stickles (Frosted Lace), We R Memory Keepers (Love), Quick Quotes Poem, My Minds Eye (Signature Life), Patterned paper from a Costco pack, Chipboard, and buttons.

The layout was fun to do and I am happy to have some more old pictures out of the photo box.

January's Design Team Challenges (Scrap Again)

This was the first official month for my design team projects to be submitted and ready for the all day crop on January 9th. I am looking forward to next months crop since I am also teaching the lunch and learn. You can find the upcoming crop schedule at http://www.scrapagain.com/.

Challenge #1 was to alter a composition notebook. Now that I am on a design team, I wanted mine to be a place where I could store pictures and details of all my layouts and projects I have completed this year. I will also keep data on all the page contests I enter for the year in my book. To date I have about six entries in my book and it will grow alot since I forsee a busy year.

Challenge #2 was to use a product called Kaiser droplets. Kaiser droplets were the January giveaway at the all day crop for bringing a friend. My layout is of my son playing soccer this season. Soccer is his all time favorite sport. The Kaiser Droplets are on the bottom left corner and are used as bullets for each phrase. I actually liked the sheer effect the droplets have so I was able to put one over the top of of a photo and you can still see the detail thru the droplet.

Challenge #3 use items from the emelishment box. The embelishment box this month contained 3 themes.

• Metal items
• Blue, white embelishments and snowflake items to represent winter
• Red and green embelishments for Christmas.

These embelishments are displayed as complimentary items to use at the crops and change each month. My layouts are below:

"Freezin for a Reason" I used snowflakes, ribbon and brads from the box. These pictures are from from the snow in Susanville, CA when my daughter was 3. The pictures are of us and my friend Carrie's family having a little winter fun."Christmas" - I used metal key chain links, flat jewely charms and a flat jack as my star on top the tree. This layout is a photo of my son and our 4 legged children Athena and Luna Christmas morning 2009.

Overcoming Fear of Electronics

For a couple years now I have been wanting to introduce my sewing machine to my scrapbook pages. However two things were holding me back, the only machine in the house is my daughters quilting machine and I was afraid I would make a disaster of a great layout. Don't worry it's not a high end machine but she uses it when my mom, my aunt and her get together to make charity quilts.

So time continues to go by and I see all these great layouts my friends have made or I find on other blogs sites that have sewing as an embelishment. And like my dog who drewls over things she wants I too find myself drooling (Ha Ha) for some pages in my book to have a little machine stitching on them.

Awhile back I purchased on of those "Sew Crafty Mini Machines" and thought I would give that a go first. About 4 weeks ago I pulled the machine out and and attempted to sew on some scrap paper. Well lets just say the machine does not do what I wanted however, it is a great paper piercer. Guess that little machine is finding a new home, in my next donation box.

Finally, last week while my daughter was away I snuck in her closet and pulled out her machine. Set it all up and then I went to town on scrap paper first. Of course I went from a moment of anxiety to oh my this is so much fun!!!! I pulled out a page I scrapped about 5 months ago that I felt needed stitching and I began to introduce the scarry machine to my scrapbook pages. It's not perfect but it is a learning process in progress and I'm so glad I finally did it. In time I will get better as I get used to the machine and the speed. In the mean time I remind myself there is never a mistake in the world of art only an opportunity.

Check out my stitched layout. Another little fear overcome, yeah!!!

A Big Dream, A Little Nudge and Here I Am...

Many of us from time to time wonder: do I have time, am I good enough, will others like my creative side. Well with a little nudge from a friend about 4 months ago my fears started to dwindle away.

With the encouragement of a good friend, my friend and I submitted for our first design team. This is when the dream started to become a reality for me. With sadness in my heart she was not chosen to be by my side on this first adventure. I believe there are other little monsters behind this story as to why she would not be. Then again maybe there is something bigger out there for her and she is about to find it.

So with a little nudging from one friend to another here I am. My friend has and continues to inspire my creative side. I could only hope I am inspiring her to realize she is an amazing artist that has alot to share with others like me. Although I don't think I will need to nudge her along, she will be the one with the gentle tap saying to me, "what are you dragging your feet for" or something along those lines. Thanks friend for the gentle push...