Red and Blue Christmas

I ordered new paper JUST so I could use it with red in my Christmas projects this year.  I am loving this combination!  The papers are Pool Party and Real Red from Stampin' Up and the ink is the newest (and I think best) addition to the grey family also from Stampin' Up.  I love how these colors look together!

 

OUAS August Sketch Challenge

This month's theme at Once Upon A...Sketch was "I'll Never Forget."  Uhh.  What a great theme right?  We scrappers scrap everything we don't want to forget, but this theme really hit home this time.  I knew the picture I would use right away.  October will be the first anniversary of my Grandad's death.  I won't go into all that he meant to me and my family, but I'm guessing that all of you who have THE most special grandparents in the world will understand.  Because he really was.  My journalling is on the tag under the picture.  It talks about how at my wedding, he didn't say much.  He never did, but he also didn't have to.  Doesn't his smile say it all?

Sampler

I am finally posting the projects from last weekend!  Last Friday night was my monthly get together with my crafty friends, and here is the project my sister found:

Mine is a LOT like hers were, just with a different color.  I loved this project because we got to use so many different stamps, embossing, and some bling.  This would be a great use for a new stamp set that you just want to use every single stamp from right away!!

Well then I got so inspired I thought I should make another one with some of my favorite ever October Afternoon papers.  I originally was thinking of using this in my classroom, but it actually fits perfectly in my kitchen, so it has found a home there instead.  ;)   

CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #112

This week's challenge at CAS-ual Fridays is to use green, aqua, and orange in your project.  I got some new ink colors this week and some new stamps, so I was thrilled to get to play along.  These are the new Stampin' Up In Colors, and I LOVE them!  I think you'll be seeing many more of these!  

Happy

This year I am super determined that the stress of back to school will not rob me of all my crafting time!!!  I'm off to a good start so far:  I spent last Friday night with my crafty girls and made a super cute sampler that I will post soon!  Then on Saturday, my sister let me invade her house for a few good crafting hours, and here's the layout I did.

This is a photo of me and my hubby celebrating our anniversary a few years ago.  So fun!

Love This Card

I created this card with some extras from my Simple Stories kit and a little help from my Cricut.  Isn't that bike the cutest thing?  I took it outside to get a good shot of it, and wouldn't you know, a bug landed on it.  When I tried to shoo it away, I accidentally squished its poor little guts all over my white space!!!  Argh!  Good thing you can never have too many flowers on a card huh?

12 x 12 Double Layout

I had these two pictures from a long-ago camping trip with my nieces where we "swam" (or maybe more waded) in the Gallatin River.  I loved how the pictures went so well together, so I tried my hand at a 12 x 12 double!  These will go side by side into my scrapbook for ultimate girl cuteness factor.  :)  Amazingly, finishing these also was the end of my full papers from this kit, so I'm already on scraps and can make some summery cards!  That's a miracle!

Inspire

I have been wanting to try out some of Gabrielle Polacco's texture paste for a while now on my new masks, so here was my chance!  I tried it out on a layout after this one and it worked much better.  The first time, I didn't quite have it thick enough, so here's take two with a lot more talcum powder in it.  Maybe I had to make the high altitude recipe??  I have no idea.  But it was really cool how it turned out.  Plus I finally got this picture of me and my mom from my graduation done.  Yay!

Color Throwdown #250

I wanted to make sure I participated in this week's Color Throwdown challenge!  I knew I had the perfect papers and loved the combination!  Here is the original challenge:

And here's my take on it.  I was inspired by the collage-style cards in this month's Papercrafts magazine too.

Swim Chick

Well, for not being originally very inspired by these papers, I sure have been on a roll with them...in fact enough of a roll that I already have NO full-size papers left, just scraps!  (That's because I have more LO's that are already done that I will post another day!)  This one is another picture of the sun-bathing niece.  I love it!  I caught her just as she was coming up out of the water.  All of the materials on this page came from Simple Stories (oh plus a little bit of Stickles.)  :)

I'm also entering this page in the Challenge Me Happy final challenge ever, which is crazy because I JUST found their challenge site.  Like three days ago.  :(  Hopefully I'll be able to look in the archives for some good inspiration!

Keep Calm and Soak Up the Sun

I just got my latest kit from My Creative Scrapbook, and I could not believe all the stuff in it!  Lots and lots of embellies from Simple Stories and a fun beachy theme.  Unfortunately, I live in a completely land-locked state that is well known for it's skiing, hiking, and fly fishing...but not so much the beach.  HOWEVER, we do have a few local man-made beaches around some little lakes that are nice on a hot day as you can see from my niece sunbathing.  This whole kit does make me want to plan a trip to the beach despite my white  Norwegian roots and even whiter legs.  Ha!

The Last of the Kit!

Yep, that's right, I finally used up an entire kit with the exception of a few stickers which I can now throw in with all my card-making extras!  Perfect!  

This is a picture of my nieces from a few years ago at the fair after watching the pig races.  I know, right?  But it actually was fun to watch... :)

Here are all the projects I made with this kit!  It was my favorite one ever!  It included papers from American Crafts' Dear Lizzy collection and also a mask and some wooden embellishments.   Oh.  Just realized I have those left too.  Well, I was close anyway!!

Live...and remember this...

Just sharing a little layout today using up some more of my favorite kit!  I LOVE self portraits like this; I have so many I should just do a whole page about them.  This one was taken a while back of me and a friend.

My Creative Sketches June Sketch Challenge

What a fun sketch last month from My Creative Sketches.  This is an old picture I've been wanting to scrap for a long time.  I know it's old because now she has freckles on her nose.  Aww.  The camera was seriously about 5 inches from her face, and she never even woke up until I poked her.  Why is it that sleeping animals and babies are so so so cute, but sleeping adults are so so so NOT.  Ugh.  Although you might get tired of me scrapping my pets, at least you get to see my kitty sleeping and not my husband sleeping...or me for that matter.  All I can say is a chin strap would be a good invention.  Whoa.  ;)

A Random Aside...

I am taking a break from my regularly scheduled programming to share some blogs I've started following...  These are fashion blogs, so if you are here for a paper crafting post, you can skip right over this one.  First, I found this girl on Pinterest.  Her name is Whitney, and she has a blog called Along the Lines of Style, and she's a teacher trying to dress cute on a budget!!  Just my kind of girl!!

Plus, my finding her led to find all kinds of other women like her who are REAL women, not models, who have style challenges they admit to AND some of them try to do it on the cheap!  Like Tamara at Ordinary Fashionista and Fran at Franish.

I have the same habit with clothes that I do with paper.  I have a tendency to "save" the stuff I really love for a special occasion, which means I hardly EVER wear my very favorite items!  That has to change.  Also, there are limitations to living in Bozeman and those are called LACK OF PLACES TO SHOP and WEATHER!  Even Old Navy closed here.  Sheesh.  8 months of winter = heels are just not that practical.  Anyway, I was pretty stoked to find these ladies that I will now be following.

CAS-ual Fridays #107

This week's challenge was to create a CAS project that incorporated an arrow.  I am on a kick to get my favorite ever kit from American Crafts used up.  I know.  It's totally opposite of what I usually do; aren't you proud?  The tree stamp is from Papertrey Ink.  Now I have one YES ONE piece of paper left from this kit, so I'm off to have some fun with it!!!

CAS-ual Fridays #106: Over the Edge

I made this card for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge, which is to create a CAS card with a design element that goes over the edge.  I like really open challenges like this, so I got out my very favorite ever leaf die (seriously I use this die probably more than all my others combined!)  I love white and kraft together, then added a couple of elements from my new Bloomin' Marvelous set from Stampin' Up.  

Once Upon a...Sketch June Challenge

This month's challenge at Once Upon a...Sketch is to showcase your guilty pleasure.  Don't you just love that?  I loved looking through all the design team's guilty pleasures.  I actually felt a bit guilty doing it...like I was snooping or something!!!  

One of my many guilty pleasures is owning way too many crafting goodies.  I LOVE getting new stuff for crafting.  This picture is from Christmas this year, when I of course, got more!  This one is actually my Stampin' Up paper piercer, which I love!

Mojo Monday #298

Here is this week's sketch from Mojo Monday.  I love the little banners peeking out the side!

Here's my take on the sketch.  I used washi tape to make the banners and had to let my wild side out to get this one finished.  :)

Color Throwdown #247

I just found this fun challenge blog called Color Throwdown that uses Stampin' Up ink colors for their challenges.  How fun!  This week's challenge was to use real red, white, crumb cake, and night of navy (which I didn't have, so I substituted faded jeans.) 

I used my Stampin' Up paper piercer (which I am always thrilled to use!) to make the hearts.  Super fun!

CAS-ual Fridays #105

This week's CAS-ual Fridays Challenge was to incorporate a travel theme into your project.  I used a Tim Holtz cityscape with some Stampin' Up postcard stamps to make this card.  

The sentiment on the inside is "wish big."

Hope You Perk Up Soon

Another card that I actually got done at craft night.  This one was inspired by last week's Shabby Tea Room challenge to use banners on your card with a tea theme, except I think this would actually qualify as coffee?  Aww, who cares right?  Super fun!

Be Mine

 I actually got a couple of cards made at our group's scrap night.  I mean you know how it goes, right?  Talk for the first 45 minutes, snack for the next 15, then finally get down to business about the time I should be leaving to go home.  I had brought my February kit from My Creative Scrapbook, so thus the  Valentines card.  I guess this one will have to stay in my card stash for quite a few months before it gets some love.

  This card is based on this sketch from Retro Sketches.

Shabby Tea Room #170

This week at The Shabby Tea Room, the challenge is to use pink, blue, white and flowers on a shabby project.  That's pretty much the best mix ever!  This one was fun to make after a day of being outside and enjoying the beautiful Montana day with my hubby!

Finally!

I absolutely love this collection from American Crafts.  All kinds of minty and pinky goodness!  This is a layout I FINALLY got put together after a couple weeks of working on it bit by bit.  It's been a busy few weeks, but now summer break is officially here, so lots more scrapping to come!!!

Smile Big

Okay.  Honesty here.  I do not love this whole camera trend that is speeding through my craft room right now, but I DO love a good sentiment or pun to go on my cards, so I liked how this one turned out.  I have no idea who this card will go to, but I did have fun creating it.  End of story.

A Day Late

I got all excited about The Shabby Tea Room's Challenge #167 which included using a window in your project!!  I just so happen to have this Cottage Window set from Stampin' Up, which I totally love but honestly don't use often enough!  I love it when challenges make me get something out that I haven't used in a while!

Anyway, I got all ready to link up...and the link had closed.  Talk about burst my bubble.  Moral of my story?  ACTUALLY READ WHEN THE CHALLENGE IS DUE.  Duh.  I don't really mind though.  I had lots of fun creating this card and pulling out something old but loved!

Case Study Challenge #142

This week's cards at Case Study were so gorgeous!  I was super inspired by Maile's card and the beautiful flowers!  I am more and more appreciating the CAS style when I really want to showcase a stamp set I love.  Which is totally this set.

This flower comes from the soon-to-be-retired (as in T-minus 5 days) Button Buddies set from Stampin' Up.  I used masking and some fussy cutting to get these babies on there, which took me, 2 but so close to 3 tries.  But it was oh so worth it.  :)

Smile

I don't have kids, but I'm so glad that I have two wonderful nieces who live just minutes from my house.  They make me smile every time I see them.  This picture is probably almost 6 years old already, but we always keep having fun together.  :)  

I used this sketch from My Creative Sketches for inspiration.

My Creative Sketches April Challenge

I had fun with this month's sketch at My Creative Sketches using last month's kit from My Creative Scrapbook .  This kit has grown and grown on me the more I've played with it.  Here is the sketch:

Here's my take on it:

I have been wanting to use this picture on a layout for AGES but the colors just weren't working for me with any papers I had until this kit!  Perfect!

This picture was taken when my twin nieces were 4 year old quesadilla addicts!  I think every time they came over, they helped me put the cheese on the tortillas.  Then one of them would open up hers and eat all the cheese off first!  Kids are so funny.  I love this memory!