Fun in the Sun Layout

I just got back from 3 wonderful days at a lake house with some scrapbooking friends.  We were on Lake Hartwell which is between the border of Georgia and South Carolina.  Very nice.  My friend, Deb, has a huge lake house with 5 bedrooms and plenty of bathrooms for a group of ladies...there were 12 of us scrapping together. Very fun!

I did get a few layouts and projects completed which is always a good thing.  Here's one I did of little David at the pool last year.  I used Close to My Heart papers and chipboard embellishments.  This one is sort of out of the box for me...I don't ordinarily crop photos so small but I saw an inspiration layout with small photos at the Scrapbook Generation site and liked the idea.  I love the way this turned out

Here you go...left side:

and right side:
.

I hand drew and cut the "rays" of the sun and penstitched a bit to give it a little more "oomph" against that neutral paper.

I loved this little chipboard sentiment:

So true...don't you think?

And here they are side by side:

Happy Crafting!

Off for a Few Days....

...I'm heading off again to crop with some girlfriends.  A friend of mine has a lake house and 14 of us are going to crop for about 4 days.  I hope I have a few things to share when I get back.  I'm actually not taking as much stuff as I usually do so I may start a lot and finish a little.  ;)  But what a fun time we will have!  We eat, we drink a few cocktails, we laugh, we dance, we tease, we giggle, we share....it's very fun!  And a big shout out and a huge thank you to Deb for sharing her lake house with all of us.

And any of you internet stalkers who think you will come to my house while I'm gone and steal my scrapbook stuff...well, let me tell you....my big bad husband and my big ferocious dog and my man eating cat are all staying home to guard my stuff!  So don't even bother....

Happy Crafting!!!

See you in a few....

Birthday Card

This will be a quick post today...why?  Because I am leaving shortly to help my daughter out with the little kiddos.

Her husband's nephew is celebrating a birthday soon (he'll be 13) and she asked me if I had a card.  No problem...it gave me an excuse to get out this set of Unity stamps that are well loved in this household (well, by me....my husband probably doesn't know they exist!)...but he loves that I have a hobby that keeps me happy and so indirectly he loves these Unity stamps, too.

I used Cosmo Cricket Joy Ride which is a very boyish line of papers....and very cute if I say so myself!  I used a Kraft paper as the card base.  The ribbon is from Paper Trey Ink.  Edges were distressed with Antique Linen Distress Ink and I also used Memento Tuxedo Black.

I love all the combinations of colors and prints.  So much fun for me to mix like this! 

I just finished the card and used some Glossy Accents which haven't dried so the stars and birthday candle look a bit cloudy but they should clear up in no time AS LONG AS I DON'T TOUCH IT!  :)

and a bit of a closeup....

On the run!

Happy Crafting!!!

No Favorites for Me/CFC Challenge0422

I don't really have many favorites.  Ask me my favorite color and I'll name at least three...blue, red...and black (black is slimming you know)....I might even throw in green on some days!  Ask me my favorite thing to do and I'll name paper crafting, tennis and reading.  Ask me my favorite food and I'll say "It depends...".  I don't have a favorite animal (like 'em all)...don't have a favorite cartoon character although I do seem to be watching a lot of Thomas and Friends these days and if you ask my grandson what my favorite train is he will say "Skarlooey".  I always tell him Skarlooey is Omie's favorite.
In case you are not up on your Thomas...here is Omie's favorite Skarlooey:

I certainly don't have a favorite bug.  Mostly I don't like bugs. Bugs give me the heebie jeebies.  I'd rather touch a snake than a bug any day!  I do like butterflies, though...and I can put up with a dragonfly.  Dragonflies are pretty neat to watch....I just don't think they need to land on me.

Anyway, I am participating in my first challenge at the very cool site The Outlaws.  This is the Creative Freebie Challenge CFC Challenge0422 where you are given 2 digital images to use in a project...and if you complete the project you get two more.  The image I selected to use was Sandi Huggett's dragonfly.  And it did not give me the heebie jeebies, thankfully.

Here is the card I made:

I colored with Copics (yay)...and just had a fun time making a sort of op art dragonfly....I made a card base with some Spellbinder dies and used a Hero Arts sentiment stamped with some SU ink.  I also versamarked the entire dragonfly and embossed it with some SU sparkly embossing powder.  Added a little pearl gem to the flower, some pearl cotton around the mat and that was it!

And a closeup:

Not bad for a bug, huh?

And by the way, the cookies I made yesterday that I named the "Have It All" cookie were a big hit.  Scrumptious, wonderful, delicious...and perhaps a FAVORITE!

Happy Crafting!

Forget the Paper Crafting!

And eat the chocolate!  (Well, I guess paper crafting while eating chocolate would definately be nirvana for me!)

Anyway...I've mentioned how addicted to Pinterest I am.  I have gotten so many great ideas off that site from house cleaning tips to decorating to kid crafts to paper crafting extraordinaire to wonderful recipes.  I pinned a recipe from a friend the other day and another friend made it for a tennis match.  Oh my God...I only had a teensy little tasted but it combines about my favorite sweet tastes in the world!  Chocolate chip cookies, brownies and Reese's peanut butter cups.

What you do is this...you take break apart chocolate chip cookie dough and smoosh it into a tin...put a Reese's peanut butter cup upside down on top of that and then put prepared brownie mix on top of that.
See?  Click HERE to see the idea on Pinterest.  And if you aren't already a Pinterest user I highly recommend it...you can click on the Follow Me on Pinterest link at the top of my blog. 

I decided to make some minis...so I used smaller chunks of the chocolate chip cookie dough and smooshed it into a mini muffin tin.  Then topped it with a miniature Reese's peanut butter cup and then put about a teaspoon of brownie batter on top.  And then they were baked at 350 degrees for about 15-16 minutes.

 I forgot to take a photo with the brownie batter on top but I bet you can imagine what that looks like.
Here they are fresh out of the oven....

It was a bit of a challenge getting them out of the tin...what I did was chilled them for a bit and then was able to use a knife to gently lift them out.

And here they are....(well, half of them)...ready for my tennis team tomorrow!

YUM!!!

....maybe I should make a cute little sign for these with some paper scraps. :)

Happy Crafting...er...baking!

I Love Leftovers!

I do love leftovers!  I love to cook up a bunch and eat leftovers.  It doesn't bother me to eat the same thing 4 days in a row!

I also like leftovers in the craft room....and probably save too many scraps "just in case"!

As I was cleaning up my room from the Great Thank You Note Project that I just completed for a friend (shown HERE and HERE) I came across some leftovers.  My thought was "If I don't use these right now....and I mean RIGHT NOW...I will forget I have them!"  So in the midst of the cleanup I whipped (I love saying that word) out this card.

 It's a window card made with a Hero Arts/Sizzix set.  You know how I love stamps and coordinating dies.  They cut out so neatly....they really appeal to the OCD part of me.
I used the same DCWV papers from the other day and some Hero Arts Chalk Ink (love that stuff....note to self...buy more) and some Hero Arts pearls and gems.

Here's a view of it closed up:

And a sort of side view:

Now...back to cleaning up!

But....not bad for "leftovers", huh?

I'm entering this in the A Blog Named Hero Challenge of creating a card with a view!

Happy Crafting!

It's All in the Packaging...

I finished the set of thank you thank you notecards for my friend whose daughter is graduating from high school next month.  I am really happy with the way they turned out and I think she will like them, too.  It was a lot of fun but I don't know if mass producing something is "my thing".  I'm more a "one of a kind" gal, I think but I did have fun coming up with the design and once I had it they were pretty quick to assemble (Quick = < 4 hours).

I packaged them up in a clear cellophane bag and tied a tag I did in the resist technique to the top with some twine.  It is all in the presentation and packaging, isn't it?

Happy Crafting!