Scrapbook Circle Pattern Mix-Up

Hello friends! I have been itching to play. But absolutely no time to even come down here lately. May was a busy month with birthdays, talent shows, field trips, school, work and so much more. I have tons of catching up to do with CCG, and I just haven't been able to sit down and concentrate. He left on a job to Florida yesterday, so today was the first day I was able to relax. No phones or paperwork, no housework, no nothing. Just peace and quiet. I needed it. I needed to breathe and totally unwind. So I napped and then came down to my scrap room. I have been wanting to play with my May Scrapbook Circle Kit, My Favorite (sold out) and their blog Challenge #52, Pattern Mix-up, and got completely taken away with it. I used almost every paper in the kit and did my best to mix different colors and patterns together. It was quite the challenge considering I am used to specific color combos. It was so much fun to feel the freedom of just playing with tons of color, and layering! Here is my piece:


  

TONS of goodies in this kit! For the Pattern Mix-Up Challenge, I used 2 Amy Tangerine, 2 Basic Grey, 2 Maggie Holmes Crate Paper, 2 Fancy Pants, and 1 Lily Bee Design patterned papers. The label stickers are Lily Bee, the metal stars are Basic Grey, the bow is Maggie Holmes, the alpha letters and corrugated Potty People are Jillibean Soup, and the baggie is Fancy Pants. This kit absolutely rocked! The Maggie Holmes fabric frame, Mint Julep chipboard and Jillibean Soup's flair badge is included in one of the add-ons. Papertrey Ink dies for the banner ends, numbers and doilie, Ek Success punches for the scallop circle and chevron strips.

The page is about my husband, he was so shy! When we met, it wasn't even formally. I noticed him, he noticed me later. I had quit my job in NY to help my Mom in our family store in NJ. There was a glass partition between the stores. So when he came in to the soda shop to see his friends, I would go in to get some gum, a soda, or just wash my hands. We never spoke. Just steal some glances. So after 5 months of casual flirting and run-ins, he got the courage to finally call me up. That phone is just like the one that we had in the store, which is when I answered his call. Obviously I don't have a phone like this around, so since I wanted a photo of it for this layout, I took it off the internet.

Well, I am off. Playtime is over. I got emails and CCG work to catch up with.

Pssst....edited to add: http://www.scrapbookcircle.com/2013/06/winner-challenge-53-pattern-mix-up. Wooop! Woop! I won the challenge! I get some money to spend at the shop, thanks Scrapbook Circle!!!

As always, thanks for stopping by and....
Happy Scrappin', Loves!

xoxo
COMMENTS:
(add your ♥ ♥ ♥ here)

Sweet Indulgence....CCG #235

{ Color Combos Galore: Challenge #235 }
{ Unscripted Sketches: Sketch #204 }

Edited 4/7/13: My card made Top 3 at Unscripted Sketched and got Honorable Mention at Just Add Ink! So excited!!

Hello there! Hope your Easter was splendid and that you and your family had a wonderful day together. I think this was the quietest Easter for us as my little girl still had a bad cold, and I am still trying to get over mine. I managed to create a card last night. I tried to challenge myself and create it in 10 minutes, but it TOTALLY did not work out. I definitely need to plan a bit more. Well after much more than 10 minutes, this is what I made:





Color and Inspiration...




The CCG Designer's Challenge: I chose Inspiration Photo #1 - Focus On Technique: Dry Embossing. I was also inspired by Photo #1 mimic the arch frame by creating a scalloped edge. The trim inspired me to add dimensional paint and a circular element for the fountain.


Sketch Inspiration...
Sketch #204 @ Unscripted Sketches

The Sketch Interpretation
• For the "three horizontal blocks": I substituted them for banner strips. Or are they called flag strips?
• For the "title/greeting": I moved it down a notch
• The "bow/string": Because of the irregular shape of the scalloped edge, I found it difficult to add it in. I tried, but it wouldn't work for me. Being it was my first time playing with them, I was a little worried. But when I looked at the DT samples again, it really was okay to leave it out. WHEW!

I used My Mind's Eye Lost & Found Market 6x6 Pad and these Papertrey Ink goodies:



This CCG Color Combo Challenge has ended. Tune in later today for the next Reveal!

design influenced and inspired by:

{ Just Add Ink: Challenge 159 } Theme: "Just Add Bunny's"

{ Papercraft Star: Challenge 138 } Theme: "Easter"

{ Pattie's Creation Challenge: Challenge 64 } Theme: "Easter"

{ Daring Card Makers: Challenge } Theme: "Springing into Spring"

As always, thanks for stopping by and....
Happy Scrappin', Loves!

xoxo
COMMENTS:
15 thoughts, thank you! (add your ♥ ♥ ♥ here)

Moonlight Serenade....CCG #234

{ Color Combos Galore: Challenge #234 }
{ Cardabilities: Sketch #71 }

Edited 4/1/13: I'm a Featured Designer! Thanks Cardabilities for loving my card!

Hello friends! Squeezing this one in before the challenge closes,





Color and Inspiration...


(Please take one and pass it along)

The CCG Designer's Challenge: I chose Inspiration Photo #3 - Focus On Technique: Inked Edges. I was also inspired by Photo #1 to use a circle die. Photo #2 inspired me to add the flower and the pearls prompted me to use dimensional dots around my circle element. Photo #3 inspired me to use metal and a bird image. I also dry embossed the die cut pieces, used a sentiment with a semi circle flourish and my paper has the word "Post" on it:

Photo #1

Photo #2

Photo #3

Sketch Inspiration...
Sketch #71 @ Cardabilities

The Sketch Interpretation
• For the "two vertical strips": My first strip is the Post Card paper. Then for the second strip, I grouped the pin, circle and sentiment label to create the illusion of one
• For the "two horizontal banner strips": I grouped them together and offset them
• The "matting": It looks like the dotted paper was layered over different paper, but actually it was cut from the same paper. I cut out the journal frame and added dimensional dots.

I used Prima's Botanical, Pixie Glen and Script papers and an Avon Rose Romantique flower. Also used these Simon Says Stamp! beauties:



The CCG Color Combo Challenge will close on the 31st. So I hope you get to play, for more inspiration from the rest of the team, hop on over to their blogs and see!

Ana Castro | Beck Beattie | Camille Robinson | Emilia van den Heuvel | Fi Kenward | Jinny Newlin | Kelly Holbrook | Meihsia Liu | Meredith MacRitchie | Trudi Harrison

As always, thanks for stopping by and....
Happy Scrappin', Loves!
xoxo


COMMENTS:
8 thoughts, thank you! (add your ♥ ♥ ♥ here)

Trying to keep up .........

Crazy. Hectic. Too much happening at once.

I can't believe it has been a month since I updated here. Sometimes I feel I have to give myself a shake and say, snap out of it and get with it! I need a battery recharge or something. Between work, home, errands, the kids, work on the color combo blog, creative team work, Two Peas in a Bucket, friends' blogs, page calls, there something that gets neglected for a while. (Ha, ha. Except my kids of course!) I need to organize my time or something. How does everyone else fit it all in every day? Gosh, I really have to hand it to you. Those who have all this on their plates AND MORE!! Want to give me some pointers? :)

Well, exciting things have happened in the past month, really exciting, and you'd figure I would be here first to shout it out, but I haven't.

But my great news? WHOA!

One of my layouts was picked up by Scrapbook Trends for their new book, Go Digital! Seriously, I am ecstatic over that, it is my FIRST PUB!!!! Yeah I have been on the e-zines a few times, but never been pubbed in a magazine or idea book and I am just over the moon! Can't wait!!

I was asked by Two Peas in a Bucket for their July Pea Profile. I was one of three, the others were Davinie Fiero and Emily Pitts.

I won this month's Designing With 2008 Calendar contest at Two Peas!

Three things, but I am really happy about all of it! It's been a good month! So, starting with the most recent, here are some new pages I did:


Valerie Salmon's Got Sketch
I love getting Valerie's sketches in my inbox! They really are so fun and it's truly an honor to be on her team.
Here is my take on #67:



Two Peas' July Pea Profile
Two Peas is so FUN and GREAT! They asked me to create some projects for them with products they were going to send me. I said, GREAT! and YES!! They sent me KI Softies and Maya Road journaling sheers. Here are the projects I created with them, see the little flowers? I added Maya Road little chipboard frames, rub-on stitches and used the KI photo corners they sent me as well for the petals:


and a card:



Color Combos Galore
I haven't done the last two combos, but I will this week! We had two CK Hall of Famers back to back. For Combo #82, we had the wonderful Lea Lawson! She wanted red and aqua, and I made up this delicious combo!

persimmon - swimming pool - passionate pink - green tea

my page:


And for Combo #83, we had Karen Wilson-Bonnar! Her choices were red and orange and this is the combo she chose:

orange fire - granny smith - custard - mango

my page, also using Pencil Lines Sketch #96:



Sketch This!
Here are two that I did for the Sketch This! blog. Janelle's been cranking some really fun sketches!

#60, the winning layout for the Designing With Calendar contest at Two Peas! I LOVE this layout! Love the Elsie sports paper!


#61, I flipped this one on it's side:



An Oldie but Goodie...
I made this one a while back, I had made this page one night and had mind to post it the next morning at Two Peas. Then I saw a call for multi-photo layouts on the e-zine magazine, Scrapbook News & Review. So I submitted a bunch I had in my gallery and threw in this one. The next morning, after posting this layout to my Two Peas gallery, I saw the email requesting it. WOW, well I had to take it down right away.
So here is the page, using Anilu Magloire's Pencil Lines Sketch #70. the 24 means minutes, not seconds, oops!:



Well, thanks for the super long post!!! Hope you have a super great day!
~janet COMMENTS:
4 thoughts, thank you! (add your ♥ ♥ ♥ here)

The BIG news!

I am just THRILLED!

Pencil Lines has chosen my layout from the Readers Gallery for their April favorite!!!!!!!!

THRILLED, I tell you! This is the layout they chose:




I absolutely LOVE that layout, it was a great sketch to work with. Thanks so much! That made my day! COMMENTS:
3 thoughts, thank you! (add your ♥ ♥ ♥ here)

They loved it! Scrapjacked, OLW and HMITM

So I created this layout for OLW (BEST) and Scrapjacked! (LAURA KURZ). I have played OLW before but not Scrapjacked! and it was fun to play! I was super happy that my layout was chosen as a FAVE for both sites! YAY! I was so happy and honored! COOL!

Patterned paper: Pink Paislee; Lettering: Imagination Project (chipboard); American Crafts (rub-ons); Die-cuts: Making Memories; Chipboard heart: Heidi Swapp; Stamp: Technique Tuesday; Pen: American Crafts Slick Writer

Another layout that caught someone's attention this week was this one for How Much Is Too Much #75. Paula's challenge was 5 for 5: 5 patterned papers, 5 stamps, 5 brads/eyelets, 5 rub-ons and 5 other embellishments. This was a bit challenging for the stamping, but I did and it won. She sent me a Scenic Route paper pack which I loved! Thank you so much Paula!!!!!

Patterned paper: Cosmo Cricket, My Mind's Eye, Creative Imaginations; Cardstock: Bazzill Kraft; Brads: Making Memories, Queen&Co; Rub-ons: American Crafts, K&Co; Stamps: Autumn Leaves (flourishes), Art Impressions (dots), Savvy Stamps (flowers on chipboard) ; Letter stickers: American Crafts; Chipboard circle: Maya Road; Button: Foof-a-la; Tab sticker: Creative Imaginations; Paper ribbon: K&Co COMMENTS:
1 thought, thank you! (add your ♥ ♥ ♥ here)

I WON!!

I got the email just before dinner from Karen at Creative Therapy.


I won the first catalyst for my Gone layout (see my original blog post HERE). It totally made my day!!! How cute is that picture? It's such a cool challenge, go play if you haven't already!

This is the winning layout:

COMMENTS:
3 thoughts, thank you! (add your ♥ ♥ ♥ here)

Too Many Challenges

I LOVE challenges!

All of my layouts are created based on at least one challenge. So yesterday I bookmarked 16 challenges that I want to play with this week. I then planned out how I was going to incorporate different ones onto each layout. So it's actually 17+ challenges since that is a challenge in itself!!

I was excited to find a new one with some girls from A Million Memories called Creative Therapy and this is their first challenge, though the preferred word is catalyst: Something that you lost. It could be something good like weightloss, or terrible like a person, or heartbreaking like a friendship.

I did lose something, or thought I did at the time.

I had a best friend in high school who I never kept in touch with after I started college. She had left for Europe. I regretted not maintaining the friendship because I really missed her all these years.

At the time I was contacting classmates for a possible HS reunion. I had found several of my friends as well as my one other best friend and it was so great talking to them, but I couldn't find her.
So in my depression, I made a layout.
The day I posted the layout to Two Peas, someone told me I should Google her name.

OH, DUH!

I did so immediately and found a comment she left on a website. I emailed the owner of the site and she told me that Christine was a very good friend of hers. Christine was in Italy.

Imagine my surprise!!!! I was THRILLED and told the the woman she must contact Christine and forward my number and email. The next day of posting that layout there was an email from my long lost best friend.


I found her!

And it was GREAT!!!


So this was the layout I made at the time. I used Color Combo #42 and combined it with HMITM #54 (4 PP, 11 embellies), OLW #11 (Gone) and a couple of other Two Peas challenges.

SUPPLIES: Pattern paper: Sassafras Lass, Around the Block; Cardstock: Bazzill (Java, Green Tea); Chipboard letters: Creative Imaginations; Fabric letter, brad, oval metal tag: Making Memories; Alphabet stickers: K&Co; Chipboard phrase: Scenic Route; Journaling card: 7 Gypsies; Transparency frame: My Mind's Eye; Chipboard square: Imagination Project (Gin-X); Felt flower: American Crafts; Decorative tape: Heidi Swapp; Elmer's Paint Pen; hole punch COMMENTS:
4 thoughts, thank you! (add your ♥ ♥ ♥ here)