Day 4 & 5 of the CK/J. Waters Challenge...

This is the layout that I did for day 4 of the J. Waters prompt which was to use white cardstock as a canvas and add everything to your patterned paper. The journaling says: "Whenever my family gets together, you can count on one thing- GAMES will be involved! We all have our favorites, but mom and I definitely prefer SCRABBLE."
Supplies used:
*Scenic Route papers
*Daisy D's die cut tags***
*Heidi Swapp Oval Bling***
*Autumn Leaves ledger stamp
*Chatterbox ribbon***
*swirl stamp
*Heidi Swapp deco tape***
***from the Cottage***


Today's approach from J. Waters was to separate two vertical pictures using strips of pp. I love J. Waters' style, but after several days of semi-emulating it, I had to play with some serious patterned paper.

These photos are from this year's Valentine's Day. The journaling says, "My wonderful husband! Jacob's birthday is Feb. 11th and my mom always tries to come and visit for his special day. That means that she is usually still with us for Valentine's Day. Not only does Ben bring me flowers for this day of love, but he always remembers to bring my mom a bouquet too. Isn't he the greatest!"

This layout has a lot of misc. supplies on it and most of them are really old (meaning I have had them around for ages.)


smiles,
christi

Weekend Work...

I feel like I didn't get anything done, but I guess in retrospect, I actually did. Unfortunately, I just didn't make much of a dent in my list of things to get done (which is getting rather LONG!)

I continued working over the weekend on my daily layouts using the Jamie Waters prompts from the March CK and finishing up the Basic Grey Color Me Silly layouts for the LSS.

This first layout is using prompt #3 from the J. Waters article which was to use a pp photo mat on top of a neutral background.

The journaling says:
"At 25 weeks, I am feeling pretty good. I can definitely tell that I am older this time around, but your dad and brother are great about letting me nap whenever and wherever. You are an active little one...much more so than your brother ever was. I can feel you doing somersaults daily.

Your Nana took this photo. She and your Papa were here for Jacob's 12th birthday, but we took advantage of the rare time together and did some serious baby shopping. I hope that you and I are as close as I am to my mom.

We look forward to your arrival- just don't make it too early."
Supplies used:
*Chartreuse Dream Retro Echo Primrose Proper paper
*Chartreuse Dream Retro Echo Bubbles
*Chartreuse Dream Retro Echo Buckles
*Chartreuse Dream Retro Echo Corners
*Maya Road Velvet Rickrack- cream

This second layout is using the Basic Grey Color Me Silly paper for the LSS. This paper simply screams freestyle to me so I tried to create a layout more along those lines and was inspired a bit by CD Mukosky to add a bit of my own doodling. I am not too sure about it...
Supplies used:
*Basic Grey Color Me Silly
*Basic Grey Undressed monograms
*Bazzill


And this final layout, I REALLY struggled with... I worked literally the whole day on Saturday on it and it simply is not that complex of a layout. LOL! These papers are just so bright that I have a really hard time making them look good...definitely not my style. Everything on this layout is Basic Grey besides the Bazzill cardstock.


My list of TO DO items is still a mile long so I am back to work in my scraproom. I hope that you are finding time to create this week.
smiles,
christi

Jamie Water's Fast & Fabulous Article...

Over on the Cottage, we have all been really inspired by the March, 2007 edition of Creating Keepsakes. The Jamie Water's Fast & Fabulous article is particularily inspiring so starting yesterday, we are doing a layout a day following her 10 approaches. You can see the article online here: Fast & Fabulous Article.

Here are my first two day's layouts:

This is the layout that I did using Jamie Water's #1 approach...three large circles. The photo is from a magnificent castle ruin that we explored while we were in England.
Supplies used:
*Basic Grey Color Me Silly
*Bazzill**
*Heidi Swapp word stamp**
*Basic Grey Undressed Chipboard
**available from the Cottage Store**


This is one of my favorite layouts from the CK/Jamie Waters article so I pretty much did a direct scraplift.
Supplies used:
*Prima Aurora Radiance paper***
*Heidi Swapp Icee Frame bling***
*Heidi Swapp Chipboard Alpha- newsprint crimson***
*Daisy D's Family Die-cuts (romance collection)***
*Technique Tuesday Irony stamp***
*7 Gypsies tabs
*Autumn Leaves ledger stamp
***Available from the Cottage***

I also played catch-up with Emily F's card challenge. I finished 2 of them yesterday, but have another 2 to do today so I will hopefully be uploading them later.

Once again I find myself alone in the house as the guys have gone camping with the Scouts so today is my day to create. I hope to get tons done today so keep an eye on this space!

smiles,
christi

So far....

Well I have only gotten one project completed, but I have lots planned in my head. LOL! Here is the layout that I did yesterday...

Journaling says: This is one of my most prized possessions....Great Aunt Christine's treadle sewing machine. I never knew her, but this helps me feel connected to my namesake & totally in touch with my family legacy of crafting.
Supplies used:
*Heidi Grace Wildflowers Decor Stripe
*Heidi Grace Wildflowers Trim
*Heidi Grace Wildflowers Plastic Tabs
*Heidi Grace Bouquet Rub-ons
*Li'l Davis Journaling stamps
*Bohemia Backyard Rub-ons
*Junkitz Long Bradz
*Bazzill
*Making Memories paint (custom mixed color)

Almost everything used is available from the Cottage and the Heidi Grace products are half price!

And for those of you that are curious...here is how I look right now. I will be at 26 weeks tomorrow and I have an OB appt. this afternoon. I have a feeling that we may be in trouble with this little one...she is WAY more active than Jacob ever was and he keeps us running!! LOL!

smiles,
Christi

I'm BACK!!!

Hey everyone!!! My mom flew out this afternoon and while that makes me VERY sad...I am happy to be back in the blog world. My mom and I had the best visit!! We easily played 30 rounds of Scrabble, the baby room is well on it's way to being fully stocked, we ate (I say we, but it was mostly me) several pounds of chocolate, shipped 9 boxes of my cleared out scrap stuff to her house to spread between friends and family, and even managed to do some damage at a scrapbook store. It was a fabulous week and she plans to come back in the middle of May to be here when the baby is born. YAY!!!

But because all that I have done is play the last week and a half, I am seriously behind on my creating which means I will be living in my scraproom for the next few days...be ready for the onslaught of art (I hope!)

For now, I do have a couple of pieces to show you. These are my DT projects for the Cropper's Cottage this month. We were sponsored by Prima with their GORGEOUS new line of papers. The only way that I can truly express how much I love this line is this...when I got my DT kit in, I immediately got online and ordered 3 more sheets of each paper pattern. Yes, it is truly that gorgeous and elegant. The Cottage still has it in stock if you like what you see too! :)

This is a photo that I took on our vacation this last year. The quote says, "If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere." ~Frank A. Clark
The quote was printed onto Bazzill using my computer/printer.
Supplies used:
*Prima Aurora Collection Clearwater
*Prima Aurora Collection Majestic Garden
*Prima Aurora Morningsong
*Prima Essentials Collection Aurora
*Prima Sweet N Sassy Tweener (tiny blue flowers)
*Prima Sweet N Sassy Princess (tiny green flowers)
*Bazzill Java & Parakeet


Just a very simple layout of my niece, Mia. This is some of the gorgeous Prima Aramanth Collection- Without End paper and it was super-simple to cut out this big circle and make it the design feature on the page.
Supplies used:
*Prima - Line Without End Aramanth paper
*Prima - Line Without End Azure paper
*Prima - Whispers flowers
*Bazzill Nutmeg
*Heidi Swapp Chipboard letters


I will be back with more artwork soon and hope to catch up on all your blogs in the morning!!!
smiles,
christi

Absentia....

I am still here, but I am not. My mom is in town so we are having fun playing scrabble, playing in my scraproom, and shopping for baby stuff. I am only online this morning because it is 4:00 am and my pregnancy insomnia is in full-swing!

Over the weekend was Jacob's birthday so both of my parents came in and we had a whirlwind celebration. Unfortunately, my dad has to work so he headed back on Sunday, but mom is here for another week! Yippee!!

So, obviously, Jacob had a great birthday. He is 12!?!? How did my little boy get so old? And funnily enough, he is growing like a weed too. We put a mark on the doorframe just 2 weeks ago trying to measure him for the Scout backpacking trip and on a whim, I put him back up against it this weekend...he has grown 1/2 an inch in just 2 weeks!?!

He is such a great kid, but I have to tell you...there is something about his birthday...he is never sick except the week of his birthday...
every.
year.
What is up with that??!!! This year we were lucky that it was just a cold (one year we had the fun of spending his birthday evening in the ER), but now it seems that both Ben and I get to share in the joy. I am just hoping that my parents don't get it.

Needless to say, I am desperately behind on my challenges, but that is okay...I am having fun! But because I hate to do a blog post without some sort of art, here is an old layout...


I hope that everyone is doing well! I will be playing serious catch-up with everyone and everything next week...I promise!
smiles,
christi

Lackadaisical weekend...

Well, as it turns out, it was good that I was so productive on Thursday because I was wiped out and hormonal the rest of the weekend and didn't get a thing done. UGH! This is the one thing that I hate about pregnancy...I can handle the being tired (although I really don't like it), but I hate the hormones and what it does to my mental stability. LOL!

But yesterday was a new day and I did get a couple of layouts done. This first one was for the PubCalls birthday contest sponsored by the Cropper's Cottage.

For this challenge, you had to use either red or pink on the layout and include a heart.


Then while I was over on the PubCalls blog, I noticed that they were doing a sketch challenge so I had to try it to. I didn't enter this in the contest, but I had fun interpretting the sketch for my Charleston photos.


I have lots on my to do/create list right now, but I also have tons to do around here. Jacob's birthday is this weekend and my parents are coming into town to celebrate on Friday so first on my list should probably be to pick him up some presents and I think that I will be doing that this morning. That and I have to pick up some sleepwear to cover my ever-growing baby belly since I am going to have houseguests. Hopefully, I will still be able to find time to create today!!! This is when I miss my late afternoon pots of coffee that enable me to stay up until all hours of the night!

smiles,
christi

Cybercropping & 28 Days...

Well, yesterday was a fun day! I spent the whole day creating. It was the first day of the cybercrop over at the Cropper's Cottage. Yesterday's theme was "Old School Tools" and there was a new layout challenge posted every 2 hours. I didn't get them all done, but I am happy with what I did get done. Some pretty easy/simple layouts, but a ton accomplished for the day.

Yesterday was also the first day for Gretchen's 28 Days class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. This class has a new class project for each day. Yesterday's assignment was to make a journal for notetaking/sketching/ideas. Here is mine. It's very similar to Gretchen's class example except for I got to play with my new Li'l Davis stamps. I really love the overall look of it.


This layout is of my niece in her Jungle Baby diaper cover. Gotta love that look on her face!! The challenge for this layout was to use punches.


This layout is of my son at the drying barn at the Duke Homestead. The challenge here was to use shaped templates.


This very simple layout is from Mt. Vernon. The challenge was to use the corner rounder. I love this effect for a fun look and I forget to use it.


Finally, the last challenge that I completed for the day was to use deco scissors and that is what I did here...


Today's challenges are all centered around Football Lingo and look really fun! I hope that I find some time to create using them in between errands and cleaning house. Feel free to come and join us...anyone is welcome. The hotlink at the beginning of this paragraph will take you directly to today's challenges.

smiles,
Christi