Page Maps Sketch Challenge - Girlys

Page Maps has a great sketch challenge this month. I really love their sketches :)

This one intrigued me with those swirly things.... Originally I wanted to make them out of pipe cleaners but I didn't have any. Then I thought about wire and seed beads... none of that either.

This layout sat undone for a few days while I pondered over the swirlies... because I knew I wanted to use something similar and not replace with a different element....

And this is what I came up with!

Glitter glue makes everything better lol! Also the two left papers, plus the mat and the border are all from DCWV the Glitter Stack... so what should you add to a glitter page? MORE GLITTER!!!

Overall very cute I think for a bunch of cute little girls dancing around at my wedding.

Eventually I will make another page to go beside this one of myself holding one of the girls and my husband holding two of them :)

Thanks for looking!!



Sketchy Thursdays 11.17 - down the aisle

Right away, this sketch from Sketchy Thursdays inspired me to use my flower girls and ring bearer.

Since there were three kids it made perfect sense...

I really wanted to keep the warm feeling of the wood so I used a DCWV Photo Stack 2 wood grain background. I don't have mists yet so I instead inked flowers through stencils behind the photos with Studio G pink chalk ink. I added a butterfly paperclip and a big colorful title, matching the ribbon I used. Finally I added a Deja Views vellum quote, anchored with ribbon scraps.

Let me know what you think!!

Scrap the Girls November - Classic Girly

Scrap the Girls is a fun, no-boys-allowed blog all about scrapping girls. I tried their November challenge this month.

The criteria were:

PINK AS THE DOMINANT COLOUR

MULTIPLE PICS

POLKA DOTS

and as always... NO BOYS!!

This is my take:

I used an ancient pink polkadot baby paper I had, a big fluffy flower, a Creative Memories journalling card, and two Deja Views photo mats from a wedding set. I also knotted the friendship bracelet mounted under the flower. Finally I added extra polka dots with some Jillibean Soup letters!

Photos are baby me at about 6 months of age. I asked my mom for a title and journalling on it - she said she was just playing with her camera photographing her favourite subject - MOI - le bebe aux yeux bleus :)  

Hope you enoy!!

Moxie Fab's 365 Cards Week - Celebrating Relationships Challenge - Grandparent's Day

The Moxie Fab World Celebrating Relationships Challenge was to make a card for National Girlfriends Day, Grandparents Day, or National Dog Day.

Right away I had ideas for Girlfriends Day and Grandparents Day. The first card I tackled was for Grandparents Day as I had a Sketch Support card sketch I wanted to use for their DT call (see my entry here).

This is the sketch:


Tres cute eh?

This is my take on it:

This was my first adventure into paper piecing. I don't have a digital cutter so the houses are all hand mad and pieced by hand. I really love how cute they turned out :)

Hope you enjoy!

Sketch Support Design Team Entry

Well.... I've been submitting some Design Team entries. My super-duper long-shot was for Sketch Support. Didn't make the team, but wanted to show you the projects I created anyways!

For all the sketches please visit Sketch Support where you can get gorgeous print outs

The first sketch was Add-On Sketch #9. This is my first time using an add-on sketch.

This layout is of our photographer, Melanie, and Richard taking photos of someone. When I saw the camera add-on I knew that I could use it for this page.

The camera was made with grey cardstock, gold DCWV textured cardstock, black cardstock and black DCWV textured cardstock. I also used acetate for the lens and the flash. I added Stickles to the flash to add some more shine, and used more Stickles to make the line down the strip on the camera. 

Then there was Two-Page Sketch #21:

As you can see, I played around a bit, changing the photo sizes. I really enjoyed making the background and it was sooo easy! If you use a 12x12 patterned paper, you just cut it in half, then cut one of the halves in thirds and repeat!

Finally there was Card Sketch #11:

This one I wasn't sure what to do with, since I don't make too many cards, but I wanted to force myself. To see what I came up with, go here and see my blog post on that card as I am now entering it in a challenge :)

Giveaway time!!!

Well... its time for my very first giveaway.

This comes from My Memories Suite, a digital scrapbooking software. I was given a free copy to evaluate and another copy to give away! The brand new Version 3 has just been released!

Here is my first complete album. It is going to be a pocket album for my Mother-in-Law to keep in her purse. The cool thing about My Memories Suite is that you can also make videos, interactive albums, etc. I could have added music to this, but I was unsure about privacy issues so left it off.

This is my draft version of the book. I would love you to give me suggestions or let me know about pages that aren't quite right...

In total I spent $12 downloading things for this album as well as using the $10 free downloads I had. I found in making it that I really didn't need everything I had downloaded, so I would suggest you start with the essentials you really want, and then buy as you find you need something else. Primarily I used the Neutrals pack and Scrap Basics - Orange, with a bit of Vows and White Weddings thrown in. Everything else was freebies!

Review of the Software
Please note I was given a free copy of the software to evaluate. I am in no way required to give a favourable review, and all opinions are mine and mine alone.

Overall, I loved this software. It was so easy and fast to use. It does take a while to figure out where everything is, and in that respect I think the software could be improved by having a "View All" button for each category of add-on. That being said, I also found the division of all the elements very useful at times, and was OK with it once I figured out where things were (i.e. funky black flower is a Neutrals flower).
I love the quick crop options for the photos. I really can't say enough about how awesome it is to pick your photo layout and have the photos all jump right in, custom cropped for you. All you have to do is adjust the crop location on the photo if your subject is not dead-centred.
I also love all the ribbon and button options available. In general there is a wide variety of embellishments with anything you can think of... and if not, you can probably download the pack that you want.
The freebies online are awesome. Believe it or not, I did use some winter/Christmas accents in this album - its all in context. I would suggest that you download all the freebies so you have them available as there are hidden treasures in all.

My pet peeves - it is hard to see what-all you receive in the purchased downloads. I would prefer it if they had it all laid out element by element so you can look for something specific you want. I ended up buying one set that I barely used because the embellishments didn't have the feel I was looking for. I did use and love the papers in that set though.

All in all, this is a great, quick, easy to use software. You don't have to be "good" at computers to use it, and its easy to get going. I read nothing online and just jumped right in. I would suggest it for anyone who is interested in printing hardcover or softcover custom albums, making videos, or just digital scrapping. As an added bonus, what a great way to make an interactive album friends and family far away can experience!  This gets a two thumbs up from me!


Now get your own copy....
How to win:

1. Follow my blog
2. Visit the My Memories site. Check out the different kits available around the site.
3. Comment back here with two things: which kit or add-on you like best, and what your first project would be with the suite!
4. Bonus entry for any ideas or tips on how to improve my album. These need to be specific i.e. on the page about the cake, I think you should add an orange flower.
5. Bonus entry for sharing on Facebook or Twitter. Just comment letting me know you did!

The contest closes December 6th at midnight. Winner will be selected randomly from all entries.
Now if you don't win the giveaway, don't despair! I have a coupon code for you as well which gives you $10 off the software and $10 in free downloads! Simply visit here and enter STMMMS51336 in the promo code box and away you go!


Congrats to Chrissie who won the software!

Creative Scrappers 182 - We Did It

I was pretty excited when I saw the Creative Scrappers sketch #182 this month.

I was drawn to it right away with the circle and the flowers and of course, the bling. It looked so fun!

Unfortunately, I didn't have much in the way of things to execute the sketch with... but I gave it a try nonetheless....

The photo is from the Weekend to End Women's Cancers in Toronto Ontario that was held in September. My sister and I participated in a one-day 32 km walk. We only made it 20 km, but that was still a great accomplishment. I knew I wanted to use this photo for the sketch right away. The blue jerseys we are wearing are our completion jerseys. 

Here is a close-up of the journalling. It also shows the subtle glitteryness of the background paper which is from the Creative Memories Wish collection.

Here is a close-up of the edging on the circle. I don't have many punches at all, and I had nothing to make the intricate edge shown (I don't even have a digital cutter). So I decided to use a Tim Holtz stamp and some Fired Brick distress ink and give the edges some "texture" that way. I really like how it turned out.

Hope you enjoy... please comment and follow :) 

Scraptastic Club 3rd November Challenge

The 3rd challenge at Scraptastic Club this month was a recipe challenge... arguably one of my favourite kinds of challenges because they can be so difficult or so easy!

From the blog:

This month's recipe is... use any three of the following:

• Use a fall photo
• Dig out those embossing folders. Try using them on a chipboard piece!
• Use two colors of cardstock
• Use rub-ons. I think that sometimes can be one of those items we tend to forget to use.
• Punch a border
• Use teal, orange and brown
• Mist somewhere on your page, be it the whole page or a mask or an item adhered to your page.

Right away I knew the teal was out! I have been using lots of teal for challenges lately and I am kind of fed up of it! Also I couldn't mist or emboss, as I don't have mists or embossing folders (sigh)

So that left me:

• Use a fall photo
• Dig out those embossing folders. Try using them on a chipboard piece!
• Use two colors of cardstock
• Use rub-ons. I think that sometimes can be one of those items we tend to forget to use.
• Punch a border
• Use teal, orange and brown
• Mist somewhere on your page, be it the whole page or a mask or an item adhered to your page.

I decided to skip on the fall photo, and this is what I came up with:

Two colors of cardstock - cream for the background (inked with Wild Honey... loving that color) and brown textured for matting (this is the same cardstock used here, which will be the double to this page)

Rub-ons - two of them - the blue sentiment and the matching birdies, both from a set I just picked up

Punch a border - I kind of cheated here. I used the Creative Memories border punch to make the orange strip which is the "Frame Chain" punch. So its more of a chain but since it uses a border punch system... I think it counts. Paper is CosmoCricket Everafter. The matching hearts were also punched using Creative Memories punches and inked on the edges with more Wild Honey.

These are probably my favourite portraits done by the photographer at the wedding. She is on an outdoor staircase and hence got the angle from above. Love it!

Thanks for looking!!

Thanks eighteen25!

I won a great Elmer's glue giveaway!! Can't wait for it to show up!

Check out eighteen25 yourself... its a great blog!!

Sketchabilities Sketch #59 - Babies

Sketchabilites brought us a great multi-photo sketch for their Sketch #59.

I was stuck on this one as I don't really have many photos that can be cut down that small. Flipping through the kittens seemed perfect for this one....

All the accent papers are DCWV Petz Stack... I need someone to trade me their cat themed papers for my dog themed papers!! 

This was the first weekend we met our little babies. They are sooo tiny here compared to now and it was only a month ago!! I can't wait for a few months when I look back and these are the itty bittiest cats ever.... A new litter was born and I saw the 3 week old kittens... now that's small. Too bad I don't have any photos of them then :) 

Scraptastic Club 1st November Challenge - Ride Warriors

Scraptastic Club gives you 4 varied challenges each month, the first one for November was to use banners on your layout.

This photo is from the summer when we took my brothers-in-law to Canada's Wonderland for their birthdays. It was their first visit ever. This is the photo taken by the roller coaster cameras on Behemoth, which is the tallest coaster there. The empty seat next to Cam is supposed to be me.... but no way was I going on that thing!! My sister came along and she did go on...

The striped paper is from a scrapbook a day desk calendar that has frames and cut outs and plain pages to use as mats. The rest are random items I had.

Thanks for visiting!!!!

CR84FN3 and Paper Secrets Scraplift Challenge

Paper Secrets hosts a monthly scraplift challenge. Head on over to the forum to check it out as I don't have the permission to republish Steph's work!

What caught me was the clocks she used to make a strip on the page. I paired this challenge with the CR84FN3 as I envisioned the clocks on brown.

Here is the color image:

And here is my scraplift and color challenge:

I used Tim Holtz masks and Wild Honey Distress Ink to do the base coat. Then I added stamps of clocks in Walnut Stain and of suns in Versamark Champagne. I inked the edges of the paper in Walnut stain and a bit of white chalk. I cut out around the clock strip to insert the tan paper into the page. I tore one edge and used a bit more Wild Honey. Finally, to tone down the white mat under the photo, I used Peeled Paint Distress Ink. The scallop trim is Cosmo Cricket EverAfter.

Below are some detail photos of the masking and stamping: 

I hope you enjoy!

Paper Secrets November Sketch Challenge - In the Rain

Paper Secrets is another great challenge forum you should check out. Below is the November sketch. I love how intricate it is and all the little details.

I decided to rotate this sketch to fit the portait oriented photo I had.

I used my Creative Memories Hummingbird letters to make the title, as well as a Creative Memories corner punch to jazz up the title block.

I used a heart punch to make the background flower petals behind my fabric flower.

Papers are Cosmo Cricket Everafter, and I used the Creative Memories Picket Fence border punch. 

Sketch Along Tuesdays #28 - Kiss the Bride

Trust Frosted Designs to come up with another amazing sketch for their Sketch Along Tuesdays:

This was a complicated sketch with a lot of elements. I chose to use a background paper with a lot of elements and so eliminated some of the other elements from the sketch.

I had a lot of find with this one... didn't even plan it out. The paper is Creative Memories Reminisce collection - I love this collection and you will see it more and more from me. Chipboard is Cosmo Cricket Ever After, flowers Recollections, and the rest is random. The black paper and vellum are Deja Views.

Hope you enjoy this one, please comment and follow my blog :) 

2SF November Sketch Challenge - Crown & Anchor

Well... they really challenged us this month over at Two Scrapbook Friends...  The evil Dee provided an 8 1/2 by 11 sketch for all us 12x12-ers to use! Grr!



Well. I knew I wasn't doing any of this funny shaped stuff... I am a 12x12-er all the way and that's the way I like it!!

So I decided to turn the sketch 90 degrees to the left (aka counter clockwise) and stretch it a bit to make it into more of a square sketch.

So I sort of stuck with the sketch - but had to add that 4th photo of the boys playing. The two card themed strips are out of a DCWV Travel Stack - cut out of a casino/Las Vegas style page. Its funny, the game was a real hit with the kids and they played more than the adults did... which of course meant the adults kept them in funds all night to play :) 

Creative Scrappers #181 - Boys

Creative Scrappers was back again this month with another 4 great sketches. The first one I tackled was #181.

I was excited to do the chevrons... found it a bit difficult, wished I had looked at a tutorial like the one on October Afternoon's blog.

The photos are of the boys walking the important guests down the aisle at the wedding. Dylan walked my mom, Cameron walked his mom, and Brandon got to walk the grandparents.

The paper is Cosmo Cricket Everafter - I used both sides of the paper. Flowers are Recollections, Alphas K&Co. Ribbon is random as usual!

Hope you enjoy!

My Memories Suite - Thankful

Hey everyone,

wanted to let you know I've tried out this new software called My Memories Suite - its a great, easy to use digital scrapbooking software. I will provide a complete review in a few days with a more extensive project I've completed and a giveaway of a copy of the software.

For the time being, you can get $10 off the software using my promo code shown in the left side bar. I really suggest looking into this software, it is soooooo easy to use and fun. I am really enjoying it (and wondering why I deal with glue sticks...)

The challenge over at their blog this weekend was to make a project reflecting what you are thankful for.

I'm fairly certain most, if not all of the elements are freebies that either come with the software or that you can download as well. Note that if you already have a scrapbooking software, you can download freebie and for-purchase elements and packs for other programs as well, such as Photoshop. "Thankful" is a gradiated word art element (easy peasy) and the "Spending time with family" is an embellie element, much like a phrase sticker. I modified it to add shadow (which isn't too obvious on the dark background, but it stands out otherwise)

These photos are from the birthday trip with the boys to Canada's Wonderland this year. We are all soaking wet as it rained in the morning, and as soon as it stopped, we went on the log rides and the river rides :)

Hope you enjoy my FIRST-EVER digital layout!!!

Frosted Designs Fabulous Fridays - Die Cuts - Let's go Higher

So last Friday's challenge over at Frosted Designs was to use die cuts on a project. That's a tough one for me as I know zero dies, no die cutters and I don't really buy many die cuts at all (really only if they come in a pack with something else).

Luckily I had ordered a pile of Cricut - cut flowers from a girl locally so I had them handy and decided to get using them.

This is what I came up with:

These photos are from the Weekend to End Women's Cancers in Toronto, a 32 km walk I participated in September 10th. I was on Johnny Reid's team called the Pink Tartan Army - hence the photo of the back of my shirt. I ended up walking 20 km before I wimped out :)

Johnny Reid attended the opening ceremonies at 8 AM and sang Let's Go Higher. It is a great, inspirational song, and hence the title. We did meet him and talk to him a bit, but forgot to ask for a photo together! Oh well!!

I stacked a pile of different colored and shaped flowers across the bottom of the page in pinks and blues - the colors of the Weekend to End Women's Cancers.

Stay tuned for a layout of myself and my sister in our "Completion" jerseys we received at the end of the walk :) 

2SF Online Crop - Avril's Challenge

So the last post of a challenge I have from the Burst of Color Online Crop at Two Scrapbook Friends is from Avril.

Now this one stressed me out. We had to use ONE color photo and the rest in black & white. I don't have any black & white. I don't print in black and white. I don't really like it for scrapbooking because I love to pull colors out of the photos and splash them all over the page.

So I hummed and hawed... and thought and thought. I went through travel photos... but I just couldn't justify turning beautiful color photos to to black and white.

I gave up and flipped through the wedding photos with an idea to use 3-4 photos from one part of the shoot and do one in color. Well... that was a problem. I had only printed one from that shoot, and it was not the one I wanted in color, and I didn't want to waste it (I am sooo cheap!).

But then I found a sepia and two black and white photos (my photographer locked them in that coloring so I had no choice) that I had printed.... they were all of me at home getting ready and the shots before we left for the ceremony....

I thought it turned out stunning, and I had been waiting for a chance to use that paper with photos of me. The paper is My Mind's Eye Lost and Found 2 - LOVE IT! This is a great line, I am going back to 2SF to get some more papers from the collection as I only bought a few the first time.

Flower is Prima for the base two layers and unkown for the rest. Stickers of the flowers and doves are Jolee's and the phrase sticker is Cosmo Cricket Everafter.

Hope you enjoy this one!



2SF Online Crop - Carolyn's Challenge

Carolyn is the 2nd friend over at Two Scrapbook Friends.

She gave us an image for the online crop and the instructions that we had to use stitching as well.

I love that car paper in the background. I wanted some of it to make life easy. As I looked at the image hoping for inspiration, I thought of how those same bright colors said "Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville" in Hawaii...

Now I am a huge Jimmy fan. Have been since I was little. My sister and I knew the words to "Why Don't We Get Drunk" when we didn't know what drunk was.... The rest of that line is "and Screw". LOL!!! Can you imagine some grade school and preschoolers singing that song? That's me and my sister... Thanks mom lol.

WAIT. Don't go calling Child Services or Children's Aid on us, first we're both now adults anyways, and I see no lasting damage (except that we know a lot of songs about alcohol)...

All over Waikiki there were ads and little tidbits for the Margaritaville Cafe. So I took photos of a few I loved - the front of the store, the painted Muskoka (or Adirondack) chairs, and this random canoe boat thing on the beach.... and those photos were selected based on the inspiration image.

Now you're thinking... where did that purple come from? I don't know. It was in my scrap box. It really wanted to be included on the page, and so it was :)

The stitching is done with my Kenmore (rebranded Singer) machine. Its the base model. It has 8 stitches, one of which happens to be this dashed zig zag. You can bet I'm gonna use that little baby again. (I used width 0.5 and length 5, or the other way around, if you want to know).

The alphas are Jillibean Soup (LOVE!) and the stickers of the guitar, flower and Hawaii are Jolee's. The two black neons are random stash finds :)

I am truly in love with this page. I feel Hawaii when I look at it - the sun, the sand, the never ending Jimmy Buffett music.... ahhhhhhhhhh.... 

2SF Online Crop - Christa's Challenge

I love the Burst of Color Online Crop over at Two Scrapbook Friends... color challenges are so fun, and the design team mixed it up a bit.

Christa didn't give us a specific color challenge - she instead required that we use a "rainbow" for on our layout - didn't have to be traditional but there had to be an array of colors. This was great as everyone did something different - some used non-traditional colored rainbows, some used stripes or swirls, others used dots. It was great overall.

I knew only one thing - I wanted to use embroidery floss as I had recently purchased a rainbow pack.

This is what I came up with:

For the circle embellie, I wrapped 9 different colors of floss around a black corrugated circle. I have had that corrugate forever - it is literally from the first scrapbooking pack I ever bought... and most of that pack is still untouched (clearly a bad choice!).

The rainbow paper is DCWV Photo Stack 2 (another ancient one). I really wanted this layout to feel rainbow-y to reflect all the colors of shave ice you get in Hawaii. We loved this stuff so much we had it probably 3 out of 7 days there.... and I would go back just for the Shave Ice.

I added a personal challenge to this challenge - use kraft. I have never used a whole piece of kraft. I have used kraft to mat a few photos once in my life and that is it. I hate it, I don't know what to do with it, and as my husband said "its just kinda boring, not like what you normally use".

But I like the contrast here - it helps ground all the crazy colors going on and add a bit of calm to the page (cuz it was crazy looking when I had it on the 12x12 of that rainbow paper).

I also think this will help it match the page next to it better... although I don't know what that page is yet lol!

Thanks for looking everyone!

2SF - Online Crop - Dee's Challenge

Two Scrapbook Friends hosted a Burst of Color online crop over at their forum this past week with challenges by the two friends and the design team.

Dee's challenge was a tough one - based on some fabric she has.


The "words" of the challenge were to use teal, cream and golden yellow.

For me - I don't really feel that a blue that light is teal (or my monitor is not very well calibrated and I am not seeing the right color, which is possible).

Either way, I decided to go with the descriptor "teal" rather than the fabric image itself, partly because the fabric image was added later.

This was a hard one for me. I couldn't find patterned paper with the three colors, I had almost no cardstock in the right colors, no scraps... bad news bears.

I ended up combining my version of teal blue cardstock, some golden yellow cardstock, and a textured cream cardstock from DCWV to make the layout.

I used foamie letters and a random golden tag I had as well, added a real toonie and a We R Memory Keepers gromlet from the stash which combined the fabric colors with a bit of green :)

Thanks for looking!

Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger and Paper Variety Thanks

This is the first time I decided to combine challenges. The first was the Paper Variety challenge - to make a project using Thanks or Thankful. I knew I wanted to make a thank-you card for this one.

Then I saw the Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger. Initially I had no idea what to do until I thought about how the dots and sticks shown below on the bag looked like lollipops.

I had been wanted to make some distressed lollipop flowers for a few weeks, but couldn't decide what I wanted to do with them once I made them. Originally the plan was for this card to be a Happy Birthday card... but the Thank You sentiment seemed to fit a bit better. I would have used Happy Thanksgiving as the colors are so fall like - but being a Canadian my Thanksgiving is WAY past.

So here's my card and details:

Thanks for looking, hope you enjoy!!