WINNER!!!

Ok, drum roll please.....

The random winner of the National Craft month goodie package is...

I threw everyones name into a box and picked one out and the lucky winner is Laura1943! Please contact me with your mailing info to claim your prize! Congratuations!

To the rest of you who shared your beautiful creations...............thanks so much. I feel like I've received the gift of inspiration for National Crafting month. So thanks for sharing and taking the time to post.

Fun Weekend

As I mentioned in an earlier post I have a crop planned with friends this weekend. I am very excited to be hosting it at my house! I have some special goodies I've made for each and every one of them!

Anyway, I am signing off the blog for the weekend and will post again all about my crop weekend on Monday! Have a super weekend and I hope you are doing some paper crafting yourself!

Great Dollar Store finds

I love dollar stores! You can find such unique things in a dollar store for next to nothing! I love to just go in and browse and then start thinking creativly. The item pictured is from a dollar store and it measures 20" wide by 14" tall. I took patterned papers and filled in each area attaching with a liquid adhesive on the back. When I saw it I was reminded of a coloring book but instead of thinking about coloring with solid colors I thought patterned paper would be beautiful in each area! It is a lovely and decorative wall hanging that I created very inexpensively!

So I challenge you to go browsing at the dollar store and see what you can find. Then doing something creative with it! When you are done, come back to my blog and post a link to your creation! I love to be inspired by others ideas and work!

March isn't over yet!

Ok, this is my reminder about National Craft month and the prize I am giving away to one lucky poster! Just scroll to my March 4th post and follow the instructions for your chance to win a package of really great goodies!

You have until March 31st to make your post! Then I will be choosing a winner and posting the winner on my blog!

Scrapping with Friends

Well, I am pretty excited for this coming weekend! Some girlfriends and I have been trying to find a weekend to get together and crop and this is the weekend! I can hardly wait!

I am sending my husband and daughter off to visit family for the weekend and my girlfriends are coming, staying overnight, and cropping the weekend away! They have no idea that I have some special goodies I've put together for our special weekend! I've planned a great menu of food, am working on room set up, cleaning my house, and getting all my tools ready to share!

There is nothing like spending time and chatting away the hours while you scrapbook! As a stay at home mom I love having time to just connect to adults outside my fun little child world!

Growing Up!

Last weekend we went to visit some friends who just had a baby. There is nothing sweeter than holding a new baby in your arms. It is a reminder of all the hope, joys, and dreams we hold dear for that new little life.

My daughter decided she wanted to hold the baby too! So she sat on the couch and posed for a picture. As she sad there holding that sweet new baby, I couldn't help but think of how much she has grown since she was born. I felt sad that this time seems to be going so quickly and how quickly she is growing. Sometimes I say to her, "Meliah, please stop growing so I can keep you this size forever." She replies, "Mama, that isn't the way the world works." I am so happy with the way she is growing, and changing and developing. She is just such a light in our world.

So for those of you with children, take time to reflect and appreciate who they were, who they are, and what they will choose to become as they grow in life!

A Disney layout?

So, how many of you have scrapped Disney pages before?

How many of you have felt "obligated" to use Disney papers and embellishments?

I have a whole album of Disney pictures to scrap and part of what I decided to do was to really step outside of the Disney comfort zone when I scrap them. Oh you better believe some of them will have cute little Mickey ribbons and embellishments on them! But I want at least 1/2 of them to be done with product that is not Disney. I want something different for my album, something non-traditional.

For this layout I used the Maple Crest Ct. line by Heidi Grace. The colors compliment the photos and the designs on the papers and embellishments seem very "Chip n' Dale" to me! I used the March 08 sketch on http://www.fiskarscrafts.com/ to create the layout.

So today I inspire you to look at your next page differently. To not feel obligated to use cute birthday papers and embellishments on your next birthday page. Or skip the soccer paper and stickers when completing your next soccer related layout. Take something totally unrelated and give it a try!

She scrapbooks!

Ok, as promised here is a picture of my daughter's first attempt at scrapbooking! I laid out an entire kit of supplies and let her do whatever she wanted. She just turned four and she was so excited to scrapbook just like mommy does!

It was loads of fun watching her. She didn't take any time to think about what she was doing at all, she just dug right in. Unlike her mother who obsesses over every piece I choose and just how to place it. LOL

We had such a great time creating her very first pages of her new scrapbook!

National Craft Month at Fiskars

So as I posted earlier in the month, it is National Craft month! Fiskars crafts has so many things going on for the month!

I am a Fiskateer and have so much fun being a member of the community over there. The Lead's have done some challenges and giveaways to celebrate. I was also asked to create a project for the Fiskars Craft website where other Fiskateers are featured each day for the entire month! The project above is what I created. So make sure to head over to Fiskars crafts and check out more detailed photos and instructions for my project as well as all the other Fiskateers who have created something to celebrate! There are some awesome projects that folks have created.

http://fiskarscrafts.com/projects/

If you are not a Fiskateer yet, well you really should sign up! There is always something fun going on and it sounds like they have so much planned for the rest of 2008! The community over there is so postitive, helpful, and inspiring.

http://www.fiskateers.com/

I'm busy with a couple of new projects so check back as I will post them as I finish. Right now I am busy with my 4 year old as she is creating her own scrapbook! She is so excited about it each time we work on it! So Maybe I'll post a couple of shots of that as well!

Bright and Colorful

Maybe it is because spring is on the horizon, I'm not sure, but I have really been into bright and cheery colors lately! I finished this layout last night and wanted to share with everyone!

Right now my daughter is in a phase of building and figuring out how things go together and work. I wanted to capture a picture of her totally immersed in one of her creative building projects and got this shot. This is a set of gears with some bugs along with the set that you place on top of a gear and then you spin them around. It is a very cute and fun set and she really enjoys creating with it.

She has also been interested lately in my scrapbooking. So today she and I are going to be working together on her very own scrapbook. I told her yesterday that we should do a little scrapbook of her favorite things. So this morning we start taking pictures and then over the next couple of days will work on creating a little album to hold the photos. I'll post when we have a few things in the album to share!

Reminder

Happy National Craft Month! Just a reminder to make sure to scroll to my previous post about Craft month and leave a comment so you are entered in the drawing to win. Check out the picture that contains all the prizes you will get if you are chosen!

Things I Love

I just finished this "Things I Love" Clear acrylic album. It isn't often I do something about myself and I decided I should capture some of the things I love right now at this stage in my life. We all know things change as we grow and develop new direction and interests. So here is the front cover of my album and on the inside the things I love right now include, my children, my husband, chocolate, Paper Crafting and flower gardening. Those are tops....of course there are many more!

Inspired by others

So yesterday I decided it was time to spring from cabin fever and to go shopping for the day all by myself. So I drove to Appleton and of course started at the scrapbook stores! When I got inside my favorite which is Archiver's I noticed there was a card class that afternoon. Knowing that I get all inspired when I take a class and come home with new ideas and new perscpective, I signed up! I made four cards that I think are just darling! Sometimes I just love completing something that someone else has designed. I don't have to think so much, I can just sit back and enjoy the process.

I had a really fun day immersed in scrapbook shopping and card making. I also snagged some great bargains for my 4 year old's spring and summer wardrobe!

My latest project

I just finished this project today! I wanted to highlight the princesses my daughter visited on our most recent Disney trip this past fall so I created an album to capture the royal memories! This is a clear acrylic album by Clear Scraps with some wonderful rhinestone frosting on the bottom front cover by Glitz Designs. The "frosting" really finished off the front cover giving it the complete royal treatment!

I've also included shots of the inside pages and as you can see I kept the inner pages clear which is a cool look! I stamped on the clear acrylic using a black StazOn ink pad which gives such a crisp and even appearance!

I'd love to hear from any of you who have tried a clear acrylic album and share your experiences with me. I'd love links to any you have completed as well! Thanks!

What is so special about March?

Well, besides the fact that it is getting closer to the big thaw...........it is National Craft month! Any of you who know me know that my whole life for as long as I can remember is all about crafting. My parents are crafters and well, I was immersed in it! There are so many fun things going on all over the internet to celebrate and why should my blog be any different!

To celebrate national craft month I want to give something away. I have created a wonderful little prize package and here is what you have to do to win it! Leave a message after this post with a link to your favorite craft project. It can be anything, not just Paper Crafting. So if you are a quilter or knitter or painter, makes no difference. I just want to see what you do, be inspired by your work.

At the end of March I will come back to this post and randomly choose one person that has posted to win the prize pictured. So send your friends, relatives, neighbors, and everyone else over to post and inspire me!

Happy National Craft month!

Paper Crafting rolls over...

So I am working with my 4 year old daughter on mixing colors. She is catching on that when you mix two colors you get a new color, but she is just guessing what the color might be! So I decided to make these color paddles using the primary colors to help her out. So now I ask her what color you get when you mix red and yellow and we use the color paddles. We also use actual paint as well, but you don't always have time to get out the paints so this little tool works great!

I created this using Clear Scraps acrylic circles, a post from an post bound album, and alcohol inks by Ranger/Tim Holtz.