Holy Smokes!

I'm going to be the guest designer for All Moments Remembered! I am beyond excited. AMR is my online "home". Love the girls there. Love the owner Stacey, she is the sweetest, most giving girl. Heather is the DT creative director, her stuff is awesome, and she always has kind words for everyone... and she's funny. The DT girls are Jenn and Debbie. They both do such gorgeous stuff.

Wow, it's still sinking in...

You'll have to check out their kits... OMG, such gorgeous stuff. I can't wait to see the stuff in the kit.

I did 2 layouts last weekend. This weekend, I was finishing up some ATC's. Those little buggers are time consuming. I don't mind making one or two, but I just made 24 of the same one... I get bored fast.

Here's the layout I did of my DD when she was a baby. Love these photos:
The yellow color is my wall. I put a piece of double sided tape and stuck it to the wall so I could take a picture.

Here are a couple of close ups:




Here's the other layout that I did... this one is of my son... I snapped a picture of him while he was playing in the back yard (before we had landscaping). He has leaves on his head, a stick in one hand and a birds nest in the other... too cute.

Since I finished up those ATC's, I started another mini album. I'm going to use circle coasters. I printed the pictures out already on some matte paper. It should be a fun little project.

I'm going to mail my "Georgina" mini album off to Matt's sister for her birthday. I think she'll be quite surprised and hopefully excited.

Have a scrappy weekend!!!

What A Day!

Aren't you just glad when some days are done? Not that it was a bad day, just tiring. We had to drive into Pittsburgh Children's Hospital to have Ethan's arm Xrayed. It looked good, but the doc wants CT scans. We have an appointment tomorrow afternoon for the scans in Monroeville. At least we don't have to drive the whole way into Children's in Pittsburgh. Monroeville is much closer.

Let me tell you, riding 35 miles home in a little Hyundai, with 2 sugared up kids, does not make for a happy mom. They weren't fighting they were just talking and talking and talking, and it was all nonsense. I finally just asked my DH for the iPod. (We stopped for lunch at a buffet and they each had 2 sodas. Gets them going every time.)

We drive the little car to save gas money. But honestly, I just love my big SUV... go ahead, slap me for likin' my gas guzzler. But, boy when you have a couple of kids right there in your ear for 40 minutes, you'll start wishin' for a stretch limo!! A super stretch!!

On with the scrap - so I kicked some scrap butt this weekend. One minibook and 2 LO's. Woo hoo. I had the mojo.

Here's my mini album that I made for Matt's sisters birthday. The photo doesn't do the big ribbon justice. I left the tails really long and it looks really pretty. I sandwiched the ends between the chipboard cover and the inside piece of patterned paper using YES! Paste. That stuff really sticks:

These swirls I drew all by myself in Adobe Illustrator, then cut them out on the Silhouette. I have so many different swirls now. I just wish the Silhouette would cut chipboard, then I'd be in business. I haven't tried cutting cereal boxes or anything too thick ~ yet.


I also drew the blue butterflies in Illustrator and cut those out. Love that. I used some Stickles along the edge of the butterfly.

When I was scanning these old photos it hit me, that my son looks exactly like Matt's mother. Same bone structure. For years we couldn't figure out whose nose he had. (All I know is that I'm glad he didn't get mine!) Matt's mom passed away in 1993, a few weeks before our 1 year wedding anniversary.

I'm sure Matt's sister will cherish this little album. She's crafty, so she'll appreciate the time and effort it takes to make a little album like this. I'm also making one for Matt, just swapping out the photo of his sister on his mom's lap to one with him and his mom.

I'll scrap ya later.

Couple of Scrapbook Pages

I did these last weekend for All Moments Remembered. The girls had some challenges for CHA to use your stash before all the new goodies roll in.

This layout, you had to use eyelets, stickers, fiber & paper older than 6 months. So, here ya go, got them all.



Did some fun stitching to mimic the pumpkin tendrils that grow on the vines:

Here's a close up of the stickers. They are glitter stickers, and not too terribly old:


The other challenge was to use orange, 3 buttons & ribbon. I might journal on this, haven't decided yet.


And, here's my sneaky way of getting 3 buttons on without scattering them or lining them up... I stacked them:

I just finished up a mini album, that I'll post later on.

Update on Ethan:
Ethan is feeling better. He doesn't seem to be in much pain at all. Thursday night he said he felt sore, so I gave him some Advil. He was only complaining about the cast being tight. Since the swelling went down in his arm, he says it feels much better.... now it's itchy, but, we knew that was going to happen.

Monday is the day he gets the follow up Xray.... I'm crossing my fingers that everything stayed put, and he won't need anything else done.

Catch ya later!!

Something to Scrap About

Yesterday, my dear son gave me something to scrap about. Not that I need more subjects. I have plenty of ideas. I have 10+ years of things to scrap.

Yesterday, my dear son broke his arm. And, not just a simple fracture.... no, he did a number on his elbow. He broke the bone clean away from the elbow and the little piece that broke off, the radial head I believe it's called, moved quite a bit away from where it should be. He was climbing the swing set at the play ground. The really tall swing set, and he was about 8 foot off of the ground when he came crashing down on his elbow. He was at the local park right behind our house. They have a summer camp program where the kids go for about 5 hours a day, play, do crafts, hang out with other kids. It's nice for them to get outside during the summer, while I work, rather than sit in the house and veg in front of the boob tube.

My daughter calls at 2:30 to tell us Ethan fell and he's hurt pretty bad. We also talk to the camp counselor. We bring him home, but he's crying really hard. We thought maybe he just twisted it. So, Matt took him to the pediatricians, who could see him right away, rather than sit in the ER for 4 hours. They took Xrays and saw the break. I stayed home to finish up a client project. After viewing his films, they decided to send him to Childrens Hospital in Pittsburgh to see a Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeon. Matt came home with Ethan around 6, we grabbed a pillow for his arm, iPod, gameboy, magazines... we were in for the long haul.

Once at Children's, they took their own xrays, which determined that it looked like rather than surgery, they could manipulate the bone back into place by doing some "pushing and tugging" as they called it. I'm so thankful they didn't have to do surgery or stick any screws in his bone to hold it in place. They still needed to put Ethan to sleep. We stayed with him while they were giving him the medicine to fall asleep. He was so funny. One minute he's gabbing away saying he's not sleepy, and the next he was out cold.

They were done pretty quickly. They started at 10 pm, and while they were fixing his arm, we ran down to the cafeteria to eat dinner... it's very strange to eat dinner at 10 pm. About a half hour later, we went back up, and Ethan was awake already, feeling pretty good (due to the "sleepy medicine", LOL!) and talkative. We had bought some pretzels and juice, so he nibbled on those and within an hour after recovery, he was ready for discharge.

What a night! We rolled into our driveway about 1:30 am this morning. I just want to add that the entire staff at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh is magnificent. They were so good with Ethan, so gentle, and explained things to him that didn't make a 9 year old afraid. They were wonderful.

Here's my boy, quite proud of his cast:
Here's a close up of the cast, but he wouldn't hold still, so it's a bit blurry:

And, at night, he has to sleep in the big foam "Lego":

On Monday, we have to go for follow up xrays to make sure that little bone piece stayed where it is suppose to. I think I'll take my camera along and take a photo of the hospital, and maybe the xray. I'm sure the doctor will pop those up to compare.

Never a dull moment with boys. I wouldn't trade my boy for the world tho... even with all the dirt, mud, messy room, rolled socks I find under the sofa, broken bones and skinned knees. He's my boy, and I love him!

Scrap ya later, have a great day.

Happy Sunday

Almost Monday! I had a busy day visiting with family, so I haven't been on the computer all day.

I wanted to share some happy news.... I've been pubbed!! I'm still waiting for my copy of the magazine, but, I did see it in Michaels when I was with Michelle a few weeks ago... she had her camera handy and snapped a photo. I was so excited to see something I created in print, that I couldn't wipe the silly grin off of my face long enough to get a decent picture... so this one will have to do, bad hair day and all....


My card ended up being pubbed in this magazine:


I originally thought it was going to be in a baby magazine, but, it's in a mini cards one. I'm on page 109, guess who's on the next page? Danielle Flanders. I think that it's pretty neat, to be in a magazine along side some designers that I really admire.

I also got some scrapping in. Scanned some photos for a mini heritage album I want to make for Matt's sister for her birthday. I hope I can work on it this week.

Have a great rest of the weekend!!

What I've Been Working On

It’s Friday.... I just finished up the magazine that I was working on, yeah! Redesigned the whole thing. Finished up my FedEx Manual, it’s 2:05 PM, I'm calling it a day!

Here’s the magazine... I’m super happy with it.
Now, I’m going out for some “scrappy” retail therapy, coupon in hand, plus I have some returns.

Catch you scrappy cats later.

Just A Card

Before I post my card... I just wanted to say that blogger is a bugger! I just added a list of blog buddies, and it totally messed up my stuff on the side, so I took it off (and it only took 40 minutes to compile)... but, my side is still messed up. >:(

Well, hopefully, it will fix itself... I thought maybe I had too many things going down the side, but, I've been other blogs where they list a gazillion things... sorry guys, I can't link to you all.

Anyway, here's a little card that I did this past weekend. I used Hero Arts stamps. To do the leaves, I used the inside of the chipboard from some Basic Grey chipboard shapes. I had used the leaves on another layout. I just took a sharp Prisma colored pencil and traced it, then colored it in. I like how it turned out against the brown.




Gotta love pop dots!!

Last night I did an ATC for the Christmas in July swap. It's soo cute, I want to keep it. But, I'll pop it in the mail for Jen.

Scrap ya later...

(edited to add ~ figured out what was wacky, and it wasn't the list. It was the 2 widgets I had on the side. I'll see if I can put those up again later... dang, I didn't have to delete my blog buddy list.)

A Productive Weekend

I managed to get a few challenges done at the All Moments Remembered Crop. This one was my favorite. Of course, I pick the hardest one to do first! You had to scrap something you love that isn't animal or human, so I scrapped my coffee pot. I was going to do my iMac, but, Heather's sample was of her iBook, and I figured I'd do something different. I got the inspiration from (of all things) a Starbucks box.

Here's the inspiration:

For the layout, you had to have paint, something that wasn't a scrapbook supply - I used 1/2 of a Starbucks gift card, and the logo from the above box), a number somewhere, words other than in your title or journaling.

Here's how it turned out. It was pretty fun to create. I really like to use "junk" on scrapbook pages.

Here's a close up of the card. I tried to round the corner of the card where I had cut with my corner rounder, but I didn't want to snap the plastic green handle off... so I used my Xacto knife, then just sanded it.

I also won the challenge! Woo-hoo. Scrappy goodness!

Looking at this LO makes me want to make a pot of coffee...

Have a super day!!

New "Hand-stitched" Hybrid Layout

If you haven't checked out the Making Memories blog, you must. Joscie has a tutorial on there, actually 2 tutorials, on hand-stitching on your layouts. And I did it! It was "sew" easy! ;-) Her instructions are great.

This was one of those layouts that took forever to come together. I think I spent an hour looking for paper, and ended up looking on my computer thru my digital stash, and found the ones that were perfect. I printed the digi paper out on this Staples brand double sided matte photo paper. It's really nice paper. And, as you can see, it distresses really well. It's heavy like Bazzill. Very nice.

Here's the LO... I'm very happy with it. I think there are like 6 hours of work in this! Oi vay!


Here I used the Queen & Co. felt, and embellished it with buttons & flowers. Here's a close up:


I found those cheapy chipboard letters at Target in the dollar spot, the ones that look like Scenic Route. I didn't like the stripes on them, so I sanded them, painted them with metallic teal, then used Rangers Turquoise stickles to cover them.



Here are 2 close ups of the stitching. I was totally surprised at how neat it turned out. Thanks MM and Joscie for the sewing tips! I used the backstitch method:



Thanks for looking!

If you want to have some fun today, there is an online crop over at All Moments Remembered Message board. They have challenges every hour and prizes for each. It starts at 4 pm EST. Come join us!

And the winner is.....

Scrappycindy! Woo-hoo.

You can pm me your addy from AMR! Congrats.

I apologize that this was late, I was SCRAPPING!! And, thank you everyone for playing. I so appreciate it!

Good News!

Matt is still in the Top 100 for that big prize of $5,000! We were a little confused about the way that the awards work, but each time you click to see 10 of the top 100 images, it randomly picks the images. We thought he was in the top 10 then got kicked off, but what really happened was they just rotate the 100 images that are up for the prize.

I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am for Matt!! This is his dream! Not to win the prize, but to be an illustrator, and this proves to him that he is good, really good! And, not just because I say so. I don't count, I'm his wife! LOL!

He actually has 3 illustrations up for nomination. So that's 3 out of 100 that are his! Woo-hoo!

Here they are:
I highlighted them for you!!
And that's his owl!! I asked him to draw me an owl, and look now! : ) Got in the top 100, yeah baby!! So proud of ya!!

You can vote. Just sign up to iStock, it's free.
Vote for owl
Vote for cat
Vote for mullet guy

There's a little "vote now" button to the right of the illustration.

Only 5 hours until I pick a RAK winner!!! If you haven't entered, enter below in the RAK post.

More later!!

Blog Party!

It's Work for Scraps one year "blogiversary"! One year to the day, July 8, 2007, I posted my very first blog entry!

In honor of a year of blogging, I'm going to do a summer time RAK! Yep, a super giveaway, with all things good and summery for your summer time scrapbook layouts!

All you need to do is leave me a comment. That's it. Let me know what you think of my blog, or just say hi. Hopefully, you've found some informative stuff along the way, especially with my tutorials.

I'll pick a winner on Friday July 11 after 9 PM EST using random.org.

Thanks for stopping by. Good luck!!

Weekend Update

All in all it was a pretty nice weekend. It rained a bit, but nothing was ruined because of it.

I took lots of photos. We went to the local Arts and Heritage Festival on the 4th. Good food. Good art. Good music. We didn't see any fireworks, tho. But, they have good ones this weekend in the next town over on Saturday.

They had new signage at the festival. I don't know who did it, but I love it!


Here is one of the bands that were playing. They played jazz and some R&B stuff.



Every year this guy brings in these wild birds of prey. This Golden Eagle, he's really old... his left wing is droopy because he suffered a stroke. My DD told me that. The same guy visits the local elementary schools and brings the birds in. Isn't he gorgeous tho?


And this guy is a Peregrine falcon:


And this guy (or girl, I can't remember which) is a Prairie falcon (I think). I should have taken photos of their names that were on the signs under each bird.



And here's some graffiti art being done... pretty cool stuff... this guy was so accommodating, he sprayed my Chrispea logo right on his art work! (LOL! just kidding! ~ thanks again to Joscie for making my Chrispea stamp!)




And lastly, here is the one lonely firework that we had. It was one of those little canister things that you light up and sparks come out. I tried to take a photo... didn't use a tripod tho.



I'm hoping to get my "scrap-on" later. I printed out some really cute "old" photos of my DD when she was little. Too cute. I'm going to call a local LSS and see if they can pull some paper and things for me - because I don't have any paper that will work... imagine that!? I'll see if I can pay for it over the phone and have a friend pick it up for me... he lives in Butler... notice how I said "he". That's why I'm not just giving him the list, he'd be clueless on what to look for. But, I think he'll pick it up for me, if they can get the order together. They are awesome, so I'm sure they will. Matt, I and the kids are meeting with Bill Wednesday to have a belated birthday dinner with Bill. We also need to take our computer to the Apple store :-(. Bill is are computer guru, but, this is a problem that needs an authorized apple dealer to work on! Hi Bill ~ if you're reading this, hope you won't mind pickin' up my scrap goodies! ;-)

Have a great week, and stop by tomorrow ~ it's my Blogiversary!! One year to the day! Stay tuned!!

That's it Fort Pitt! (That's a local Pittsburgh saying! LOL!)

No Need to Vote

Matt got knocked out of the top 10, so don't bother voting. I'm super proud that he was in the running for a day... pretty impressive. I'm still not sure how the voting thing works, and how the top 10 continue to change...

Thanks anyway. : )

Vote for Matt!!

Another campaign to vote for one of my boys in a contest... it's on iStock, and it's for the $5,000 prize. My husband, Matt, is in the top 10, which in and of itself is pretty impressive. I'm very proud of my DH. :) We're not exactly sure how this whole nominating thing works, and I'm not exactly sure why they picked that certain illustration - it's not one of my favorites - but, if you'd like to vote for him go here. His illustration is the guy with the mullet and it's labeled quisp65. Click on it, and on the right of the illustration will be a Vote Now button. You need to be a registered iStock member, tho (I believe it's free). If you do happen to register, add quisp65 as a reference, then Matt will get credit for that. Here's the illustration:

Here's a picture from Disney...

and here's the original.... notice anything different?

I finished the inside of Joscies journal page last night. I just made it simple, so that it would be able to close. I was able to fit a ton of photos on here!! Nothing like a grid to get lots of photos on a page. The paper is Basic Grey.
Speaking of Joscie ryhmes with bossy and sometimes coffee, check out her sewing tutorial on the Making Memories blog! She's famous! And a great layout to boot!!

Don't forget to vote for Matt if you can. Thanks for supporting my retirement fund! LOL!

Vote for Louie!!

My little guy is in the top 10 Highest Rated Pugs... he's sooo handsome! Go here to vote and give that boy 10 stars! (just click on the last star under his picture.) He's an old boy and deserves a little fame! He'll be 14 next month. Wow, 14 years old... if he was a human, I'd feel OLD to have a teenager! LOL! He's my second oldest... we had his brother Oskar, born in 1992, but Oskar passed from pug dog encephalitis in 1997. This photo of Louie was taken when he was young and spry at 10 years old!!


I may be asking (begging) you to vote for something else soon... but, I need to find out if my DH is in the running yet... and the prize is $5000! OMG, what we could do with an extra $5000. I'm not much of a campaigner... so, if you vote you vote, if you don't you don't.... whatever happens ~ happens. I figure, everything happens for a reason, so if it's meant to be, it's meant to be....

Que Sera, Sera

Flat Joscie Journal Page

I had a major migraine yesterday. The aura hit me around 4 pm. It was like someone flashed a camera flash in my left eye, but it lasted for over 10 minutes. I couldn't focus. I had to go to the post office to ship some business cards that I picked up, and I couldn't even drive myself. So, my DH drove me. When I came back home, I took an Exedrine migraine pill, then went to sleep. Funny how when I get a migraine I can just sleep... it's the only thing that will take it away. Around 6 my DH tried to wake me for dinner, but I still had the headache... I woke up around 8.

So, what's the moral of this story? Well, since I slept for 4 hours I wasn't tired at all, so I worked on a scrapbook project. I was able to stay up until 2:30! Although I was done around 12:30 with this.... this piece goes into Flat Joscie's journal. It's on the Bazzill scalloped paper, which measures 11.5 x 11.5, and folded in half, fit perfectly on her journal page. It will fold down and I will be able to do a full size LO on the inside. Since I had FJ for over 2 weeks, I have lots of pictures to stick in there!

When I'm finished, I'll be shipping the journal and FJ over to Karla Dudley. And Flat Joscie's adventure will continue to CHA!! How exciting!!

Here's the cover, so far... I'm contemplating adding a rubon...
I'm just lovin' this whole pink, green & brown color combo. The paper is basic grey. YUM!

Go, now ~ get your scrap on!!