Greece Map

Greece is next. I went with the same four papers but changed up the card stock in the background. Greece proved difficult in all of the islands that make up the country. My paper version does not have as many islands nor will I say that all islands are exactly to scale. :)

Another Kelly Purkey inspired map using her geotag stamp.

Two more countries to go.

Italy Map

Yesterday I felt it was a good time to get started on the big trip book from the trip in June. A good majority of the trip was spent in Italy on a G Adventures Ultimate Italy tour. It gave us the opportunity to see a bunch of places in Italy as we traveled throughout the country.

In order to document this, I wanted to try my hand at making a Kelly Purkey map layout. I loved the fact that she gave a tutorial on how to do them even! And now with the recent release of her geotag stamp, I thought it would be a fun addition in order to show all the places that we went within the country too. So you can say this is a very Kelly-inspired layout. :)

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out and I hope you agree. I have two more to do for this trip book I think - Greece and Slovenia. Greece will be interesting since it's mostly islands! I am glad that I finally just sat down to create this page. It has a lot of love in it to get it "just so." I even got to try misting..a fun technique!

Another page completed!

I felt inspired to do this first page of the 2011 book today. Stephanie will be happy to know that I used the letters I got from her for the "Chicago."

Hawaii - January 2011

I had some time recently to get the Hawaii scrapbook finished up. Here's the result...

I may not have blogged much lately, but I've still been scrapping

If you have kept with me this far, thanks. Sorry for the crickets around here. I'm coming back with a bunch of eye candy though because even though I have not been blogging, I have still scrapped a little bit.

Today I have 4 pages to share. Three of them I started on Christmas break up in Montana. My mother-in-law and I had to get some craft time in while we were together. :) Of course, you never have everything when on the road though, so the last touches had to wait until I had some time here at home before they were truly finished.

This first one is a fun page about 5 years with my husband. We happened to be in the same spot in July 2010. I thought it was a great way to reminisce.

 This second one is actually a 2011 page. My husband and I ran in the 100th running of the Bay to Breakers race. We got nice medals for finishing too. That is probably one of the heaviest embellishments I've added to a page! But we'll enjoy it more on the page rather than in a drawer.

This one was the oldest 2010 page I needed to do. This was quite the celebration to launch RunMonster out to the App Store back in May 2010. I had made a RunMonster for a different page way back when and it seemed only fitting to try it again for this page. So after finally getting my Silhouette software up to date and reinstalling Illustrator, I was back in business. And to add more fun, why not cut the letters and glue each one separately too...hee hee!

And the last page is another one that I did just this weekend. Since I was using my Silhouette for the RunMonster page, I figured to keep going (keeping with the green monster theme too) and do this Pixar page. I made the "patterned" paper myself with coloring pages found in the Internet set in a collage. I found Mike Wazowski at this site with great SVG files. It was a fun page to create.

And this batch helps me finish my 2010 group of pages...yay!

Well, hopefully that makes up for some of the lack of posting around here. Thanks for stopping by.

Doily Congrats with WMS

I needed a wedding card for the wedding DH and I will be attending this weekend. As the bride and groom are more outdoor people and the wedding is in Yosemite, I went with a green and brown color scheme. But then to add some daintiness to the card, I went with Waltzingmouse's Doily stamps and some seam binding lace. I think it will go along well with the wedding in the great outdoors!

As for me, I'm also looking forward to my first trip to Yosemite!


Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday with Lace and WMS

Hello! Just a short post as it is getting a little late here, and I need to head to bed! I just finished this card for a friend I'll be meeting up with tomorrow. I will miss her birthday this weekend but we're going to meet up for dinner and a drink for the occasion. :)

I used some of my seam binding lace in various yellows, oranges, and reds. Then all the stamps are from Waltzingmouse Stamps.

Thanks for stopping by!

Marin County Fair

It's so great not doing pages in chronological order. If I did, I would be about in May 2010 for my general scrapping book and then July 2009 to get my wedding book even started! I had made the switch a while ago, but just being able to do another page from just last month still makes me happy. I thought the pictures from our trip to the Marin County Fair were just so fun and would be a fun page to scrap. Coming off the page about the Sonoma State Beach page, this is another in that weekend.

I wanted the pictures to tell the story more than anything. And as I chose this particular fair because of the graphic promotional materials (that's what DH says anyway), I had to include one of the main graphics from the map brochure. :) This was also the opportunity for DH to try out cotton candy for our "cotton" anniversary. We ate some of it, but it was more just the thought that counted since it wasn't his favorite.

Thanks for stopping by!

Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Hop - Flower Power!

Hello! Welcome to the next stop on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Hop. You should have come from Rachel's Blog. If not, be sure to start at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog for all the hop participants.

This month those hopping along are showing off creative ways of using flowers with our counterfeit kits for July. Now my entry in the hop is about Christmas, and no, I wasn't trying to do the whole "Christmas in July" thing...it just happened that way! I was inspired by one of the Gallery Idol participant's take on the current fabric challenge for the Top 10. She did embroidery with the help of this great stitch tutorial. To make a long story short, I figured the same could be done with crinkle ribbon, or in my case, lace trim!

So in the bottom right is my take on the flower challenge. I did the lazy daisy stitch with the help of drawing a circle on the layout and punching holes with my Big Bite. I then threaded the lace ribbon in petals of the flowers. I finished the flowers off with some fun Christmas brads. On top of that, I used the Twisted Sketches #111 sketch from this week as my inspiration for my layout.

And there you have it. Thanks for stopping by. Your next stop is off to Glinda's Blog!

Here's the list in case you are interested:

Counterfeit Kit Challenge:  http://counterfeitkitchallenge.blogspot.com/

Karen:  http://icouldbescrapbookinginstead.blogspot.com/

Milissa:  http://millermall.blogspot.com/

Angela:  http://colestoucan.blogspot.com/

Christy:  http://myscrapbookevolution.blogspot.com/

Emily: http://aplaceformyscraps.blogspot.com/

Alanna:  http://scrapping-and-life.blogspot.com/

Linda:  http://lindaspaperie.blogspot.com/
Caryn:  http://thescorpiancrafter.blogspot.com/

Rachel:  http://creativekokes.wordpress.com/

Laurie:  http://lalybi.blogspot.com/

Glinda:  http://razzledscrapper.blogspot.com/

Gabrielle:  http://nomorelittlemonkeys.blogspot.com/ 

Sonoma Coast - Counterfeit Kit Challenge Layout

Hello!

I'm finally posting a layout that I've had on my desk a few days, just waiting to be glued down. This is a layout from July 4th weekend with my DH as we explored up north in Sonoma County along the coast. I was inspired to do these pictures now due to one of the pieces of paper in my Counterfeit Kit with a bunch of summery sayings by American Crafts. Instead of using the page whole, I cut apart the sayings to make my own kind of paper. And some of the little flower images in the page turned into cool buttons with the help of my new button tool! :)

I can barely believe that July is almost over! Summer is going by too fast!

Thanks for stopping by!

Sometimes good things take time...

So in May I posted a layout about my trip to the Great American Ballpark with my bestest friend in Cincinnati. It fit the Waltzingmouse Stamps waltz theme for red, white and blue. It used the Bitty Banners from WMS.

I was happy with it, but after taking the picture of it to put on the blog, the layout sat out of an album (I need to reorganize what I'm doing with my albums since the latest one is bursting...but that's for another time). Every time that I came into my craft space I felt there was something missing to the layout. So one day I just tried a few more things: added the white stars from the Way Out West WMS set and the chipboard sayings. I also had the bright idea to emboss the stars....

DO NOT PUT A HEAT GUN BY SPORTS TICKETS!

I accidentally started to turn the tickets on the layout black on the side! So then the layout sat out of an album again for a few weeks. I needed something to hide that unsightly burn mark. Enter the star from The Craft's Meow set designed by Claire of WMS! This was what I needed for the theme of red, white and blue and the baseball theme of the pictures.

So here's what it now looks like. I think I'm finally happy that the layout has that extra punch that it was lacking. I even added a baseball with an epoxy pop dot sticker. Nothing like making your own embellishments! What do you think? The second round a bit better? Would you have even known that I had burned the tickets if I hadn't told you?

July Counterfeit Kit!

It may be halfway through July already, but I didn't want to miss out on participating with the July Counterfeit Kit Challenge. I had a great time picking papers for this kit. As there are a lot of little pieces in the original kit, I just plan to put those in as I create my projects rather than pick them out. But I was able to include a few fun other things including polka dot letters, travel Thickers and a Smash book date stamp. See, it's new in the package...I think it's time to take it out!

You might also see I got another fun toy thrown in there too. I was so lucky to get picked for the June prize over at the Counterfeit Kit blog! Woot! I'm going to try to use it in my July kit for sure. Thanks again to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge coordinators and SoCal Scrapbooks (the June sponsor).

Now to make some fun projects!

Mojo Monday #198 - Happy Birthday

A simple red, white and black card for the latest Mojo Monday contest. I was inspired to use just one accent color due to the buttons for the flowers. I even included a little lace...a rarity for me! Stamps are Papertrey Ink (Everyday Button Bits) and Waltzingmouse Stamps (Frame It).

Thanks for stopping by!

July 4th Weekend and WMSC54

Just a quick little post about the July 4th weekend and a card for the Waltzingmouse Stamps Sketch Challenge #54.

My card for WMSC54 is the card that I gave to my husband for our anniversary this past long weekend. It's our second anniversary so the theme is cotton, but I couldn't help but to incorporate a little paper too. For cotton, we got some cotton candy at the county fair that we went to. :) It was the first time my husband had ever tried cotton candy! The sentiment for the card is from Half Pint Heroes.



Here's a few other pictures from the weekend. We drove up to Santa Rosa Sunday after attending the Marin Country Fair. Then Monday was a tour of the coast at Sonoma Coast State Park with stops in Sonoma itself and Napa. We even caught some fireworks Monday night back at home...a perfect ending to the anniversary weekend.

Thanks for stopping by!

Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Hop!

It's that time again...the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Hop! This month the theme is "The I's Have It," where each counterfeiter shows how they interpret the challenge incorporating the letter "I." If you have come from Milissa's Blog, you're on the right track. (You can refer to the list below or return to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog if you get lost along the way.)


With that out of the way, I present to you my interpretation of the challenge. I don't usually do layouts just about myself, but since I had a birthday photo from last month that I wanted to scrap, I thought I would give it a try. The picture was a fun one of the Angry Birds that my DH got for me. Pair that up with the calendar page from Fancy Pants Designs that I have now included in two counterfeit kits, I was determined to use it this time!

I found some fun number/calendar stamps by Autumn Leaves at a recent used stamp sale at a LSS too. I found these were perfect for the calendar blocks. And the title, since it was my 29th birthday recently, seemed appropriate. :) You can always hope to not turn 30, right? Hee hee!


So there you have it... Thanks for stopping by my little blog on your hopping journey. Your next stop is Amarilys' Blog. I can't wait to see what everyone came up with for this challenge. I hope you enjoy the hop! 




Here's the blog hop list for reference:

Counterfeit Kit Challenge:  http://counterfeitkitchallenge.blogspot.com/

Karen:  http://icouldbescrapbookinginstead.blogspot.com/

Milissa:  http://millermall.blogspot.com/

Laurie:  http://lalybi.blogspot.com/   <--- You're here!

Amarilys:  http://amadrian8.blogspot.com/

Rinda:  http://gallorganico.blogspot.com/

Stacey:  http://ohschwietscrap.blogspot.com/

Helen:  http://craftimperfect.blogspot.com/
Emily: http://aplaceformyscraps.blogspot.com/

Becca:  http://lajoliefleurrouge.blogspot.com/

Glinda:  http://razzledscrapper.blogspot.com/

Jen:  http://jennifer-shaw.blogspot.com/

Bethany:  http://inspiredscrapper-bethany.blogspot.com/ 

Ad-Inspired Card Layout

Over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog, one of the June mini challenges is to create something with inspiration from an advertisement. I found this Citi ad and thought it would make a great card layout.

Here's the ad:

Here's my take with a card using papers from my June kit:

A fun challenge! And I used my June counterfeit kit! This is only my first project for the month I've posted, but I am ready for the Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop on the 28th, so this card is actually my second project I've created. With a few days left of course, I hope it isn't the last.

Thanks for stopping by!

WMS June Waltz - July 4th/Americana!

So there was no need to schedule this post. I just finished this page for the waltz today. Doesn't get more Americana than a baseball game, does it? This layout is from my trip to see my best friend in Ohio for a Cincinnati Reds game, which happened to be opening night of the Reds' season. And this California girl had to borrow a winter coat that night cause it was a little chilly by the river! Hee hee! I used Bitty Banners for some fun Americana banner embellishments to the page.

Okay, a short post cause I'm now going to head to bed. I look forward to seeing what everyone else creates for this month's waltz. Be sure to check out the WMS Forum for all the waltz details!

Thanks...now to catch some zzz's! :)

WMSC #51 & Gallery Idol

Just a quick post today. I wanted to make sure that I got this card submitted as I've been working on it for the past two evenings. It has a lot of fussy cutting to get all those flower layers. I did think that layering the little flower images in the Say It With Style set was the perfect excuse to combine the WMSC51 sketch (by a good friend even!) and a submission for the Gallery Idol open auditions. It was the inspiration for the scored box and the three flowers. I want to say that I just flipped the sketch so it was from the left instead too. You can see it right? I teamed the flowers with the trusty "Congratulations" sentiment from the same set.

Here's the sketch:

Thanks for stopping by!