Day 1 of...

The 25 days of Christmas! A little challenge for myself here. I have been busy crafting up a storm for the Holiday Bazaar at my kids' school. That means I have lots to share. I thought I would attempt to share something Christmassy/Holiday-ish with you all for the days leading up to the 25th. Yes, that means blogging EVERY day for 25 days...let's see if I can do it!

So, without further ado, I present to you day number one. How about a card?

Cosmo Cricket sponsored the design team at A Million Memories and I received their Mitten Weather line. The papers and chipboard are from that line. I added some gold glitter to the snowman and some stitching to simulate the path of the snowflakes that he juggling. Those snowflakes of course needed some jewels in their centers, so I took care of that. Topped it all of with a sentiment from the Snowflake Serenade stamp set from Papertrey Ink.

Whew, one day down...only 24 left.

Mission To Create...

A while back I was approached by Nicole from the Mission to Create challenge website and was asked to be a guest designer for them. I eagerly accepted! What a fun challenge site. The concept here makes pages come together quickly, at least it did for me. The idea is that each design team member chooses a different element that has to be used on your layout. I got to be the first to pick which element I wanted to assign and I chose the color scheme...which was red, pink, aqua and orange. The other elements that the rest of the design team picked were to use the name of a day in your title, stitch a frame around a photo, use pearls (or creamy white) and lastly use newspaper.

Here's my final result. I used the girl version of My Mind's Eye Alphabet Soup line. I also didn't have any newspaper since we cancelled our subscription last year, so instead I used a text stamp and stamped up some white paper to simulate newsprint.

The Mission to Create design team did some great layouts to go along with this challenge. Head on over and leave them some love....

MISSION TO CREATE

A Million Memories November

Time to share with you all my projects using the A Million Memories November kit. You can buy a kit HERE. This kit was full of the new Cosmo Cricket 1934, which I am completely smitten with, great colors with vintage charm.

I'll start with my favorites and work my way down the list...

Every year on Labor Day I take this same photo of my kids. This is the fifth year. If you click on the photo it will bring it up larger and maybe you'll be able to see the tone on tone title down the left hand side of the page. Love the way that it looks in real life. I didn't have a number sign so I hand stitched one in there.

This next layout was based on the November sketch that fellow design team member Jennifer Longenecker made.

This is my least favorite. One of those layouts where it was much cuter in my head than it looks on paper. Plus, I was doing some machine stitching on it and my machine went on the fritz and I couldn't get it fixed so I had to cover up holes with the ribbon. (Did get the machine working again as you can see by the above layout :) )

Some cards...the blue flower was white, I misted the heck out of it with Mr. Huey Lunchbox and then dabbed the excess up with a tissue and it dried to be the perfect seafoamy blue!

and some notepad holders...the last photo shows the insides with the cute little flap to hold whatever...

Lastly, but certainly not least. I want to give a public shout out to my best friend. I already knew how strong and brave she was, but this last month and in particular this last week she has made me so proud of her. She has been a real trooper and has proven once again that she is one of the bravest and strongest women I know. I am so lucky to call her my best friend. She still has a long road ahead of her. I have all of the faith in her and know that if she made it through this week, the rest should be smooth sailing. I know she reads this blog...so to my dearest friend...I love you!

Happy Fall Y'all :)

Here is a happy little trio of cards that I made for the A Million Memories blog.

I used all Papertrey Ink products on this except for the jewels, twine, ink, and thread. If you click on the above link there are some detailed instructions on the AMM blog post.

Thanks for stopping by on this beautiful Sunday. I'll be back tomorrow with a few AMM November kit layouts...using my new favorite Cosmo Cricket line!

    

Happy Be-lated Halloween!

Hope you all had a great time! We had the most spectacular time in Disneyland. Great weather, lots of trick-or-treating, fun rides and lots of candy....Mickey does not scrimp when it comes to handing out treats!

So, in honor of Halloween I had the exciting opportunity to be a guest blogger over on the Two Peas website. I was asked to do a tutorial and I chose to do one on these accordian stars that many of you have seen on my layouts. Here is the layout (the pic. is from a few Halloweens ago)....

I ended up not using much Halloween themed paper for this. The pink in her costume threw that idea all off, and is the reason I have had these photos sitting around unscrapped. The only piece of "real" Halloween paper is the black text piece, it is from Making Memories Toil and Trouble line. The rest of the papers are from Crate Paper's Restoration line, which if you are familiar with it NOTHING about it says Halloween! But, hey! It worked for this page! 

If you are interested in learning how to make your own stars check out this link to the tutorial I did for Two Peas...

http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/userblogpost.asp?id=47655

Eek! They're black and perfect for Halloween!

Yep, you guessed it! Bats and Spiders! Yeah, not real fond of either of them. However, they are perfect for   Halloween related things. In this case, I used them on some cards using the Clear Scraps Buckle frame shapes.

This first card uses the frame part of the shape. I used some Hambly rub ons applied directly to the acrylic and then outlined the edges with a silver paint pen.

This second card uses the oval center piece from the frame. Lots going on here with this one. First I used a lime green alcohol ink on the back. Then backed it with an almost solid orange patterned paper. Stamped the spider images using StazOn ink on the front and then covered the bodies of the spiders with Rangers Enamel Accents.

Head over to the Clear Scraps blog...we are having a Halloween contest, the winner will win a great package full of yummy Clear Scraps!

Hope you have a Happy Halloween. We are leaving early in the morning for Disneyland, should be a super fun way to spend Halloween. The kids are so excited! So am I! 

Wowza!

Took a long time to get back to post the rest of my AMM layouts huh? Well, a week ago Sunday I came down with a little something that knocked me flat on my back for a good 4 days and a so-so 5th day. Ugh. It was all I could do to get the kids to school and then back home to my bed.

All is well now and I am back up at full speed. So, with out further ado here are the rest of the layout and some cards. All were made using the October kit from A Million Memories. I'll start with my absolute favorite of the bunch. My mom and my oldest kiddo. Same photo shoot as the layout in the previous post, but a nice photo...one where they aren't goofing off. :)

This next is of my second son and his buds from his surprise bday party.

and a plethora of cards...

                                       

On this last card I used an impression plate on the chipboard leaf and then inked around the edges and on top a bit to make the impression stand out.

Off to bed for me...night!