Ready, Set, Create!

I am so super excited and just had to share with you all that one of my cards is featured in the latest issue of Ready, Set, Create! magazine! Their e-zine is so awesome and full of so many fabulous creations and I am tickled pink to be a part of it! The October/November issue is out now and you can check it out on their blog HERE. For $4 bucks you get so much crafty goodness! And if you do get a chance to look at the magazine, my card is on pg 68! Did I mention that I was excited!! LOL! Happy Scrapping!


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Creative Twist Up Close & Personal Challenge

Hello, Hello! Sorry to all that I haven't been posting much crafty goodness lately! It seems though that God is taking care of things for my family and the days are getting easier! I promise to get back on track and have some more posts this week than I have had in the past two weeks!

It is Monday, which means my regular Creative Twist DT challenge post! This week, the awesome Christina gave us an absolutely fabulous challenge that I just loved! It was an 'up close & personal' challenge, meaning to use a photo that was a close up or zoomed in on someone or something. I chose this photo of my rockin' hubby, Andy. I took it back in April during our annual NASCAR trip. We always go to Fuddrucker's in Grapevine, Texas for dinner the Saturday before the big race. He ordered the biggest burger you could get! He is a big guy and as you can see from the photo, that is one HUGE burger too! Yes, he did finish it all too...and the yummy cheese fries!

It seems I have another new love of late too....81/2 x11 layouts! I finally stepped out of my comfort zone a few weeks ago and did my first one. I am hooked! I absolutely love them and will definitely be incorporating them into my regular scrappy style! And, I really liked how this one turned out too! I used Reminiscence, K&Co., MME and Making Memories paper along with some fiber from the Lady Marmalade Gauche Alchemy kit, and some vintage buttons I have been hoarding for awhile. Love, love, love vintage yummies! The rub-on is Making Memories as well, and the journal tag is Heidi Swapp. I used Thickers (pajamas felt font) for the title and I am definitely getting the most out of these little guys! See, those "l's"? They use to be "i's"! And that "i" in American used to be a "j" & the "a" at the end of American was a "d" in a former life! I am a firm believer in getting the most bang for your buck and this is such an easy way to use all the letters! I also have to admit I love how my little flower turned out! As you can tell, since I am always using them, I love making these cute little flowers and they are super easy too! This one I sewed together using some Bazzill thread. I also used StampCraft ink in black and coffee to distress the background paper and journal tag.

Make sure you hop on over to Creative Twist and check out all the terrific projects the other DT members came up with! If you play along with the challenges you will be entered to win a gift certificate! And, there is currently an AMAZING fall challenge blog hop going on that Creative Twist is participating in! Make sure you start out at Scrapsketch and enjoy the blog-hoppin' party! Happy Scrapping!

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Right now...

these things are feeding my soul....

a great book i am reading again &
and THIS song....

"A Proud member of The Lime Light. Click on over to see what we are doing."

The Thundering Herd - Creative Twist & Scrapsketch DT Challenges

This week is my first official layout submission being part of the official Scrapsketch DT! I was super excited when Stephanie allowed me to be on her team and I still am. It is definitely a bright spot in my days right now! This is also my submission for the Creative Twist DT this week! I decided to combine the two challenges, a sketch and a classical movie inspiration, for this layout of my son and his friend when they marched in the local Western Days parade recently.

The sketch is #160 over at Scrapsketch and for the classical movie inspiration Christina asked us to use, I chose The Sound of Music. Since the school mascot is a bronco, the name of the jr. high band is The Thundering Herd, hence the name of the layout! They are a really awesome band, and I am not just saying that because I am a biased mom! LOL! They really are a tremendously talented group of young kids who always place at the top when they go to contests and even went to Tri-State last year! I am so proud of them! The adorably goofy boy next to my son is his BFF that he has know for years. He is such a good kid and has been taller than me for about a year now!
The cardstock for this project is DCWV and the patterned paper is by Karen Foster and The Paper Studio. Just random papers I bought a long time ago and knew someday I would use them! I used my Cricut and both George and Mini Monograms to cut the title and arrow. The music notes are some die cuts by CTMH a friend gave me. The foam photo corners are by AC and I inked everything, even the photos, with Stamp Craft black ink. The little flower I made myself from a gift bag I got from a local music store. They always put your purchases in these cool little bags and I saved this one to cut up and use on projects. I used George to cut the circles, then I just crumpled them, inked them and used a Making Memories brad covered in black Stickles to hold it all together. I just love these types of flowers! Fun & easy to make too!

Well, I hope you like my layout and that you take a moment to visit both Scrapsketch and Creative Twist! There are so many fabulous DT members that create such beautiful work for both sites! It will be so well worth your time. Plus, they both have great blog candy! Every time you leave a comment on Scrapsketch, you are entered to win a monthly prize that is awesome! And, Christina is giving a gift card away at the end of the month to all those who participate in the weekly challenges! Fun, fun, fun!

And now for an update....I am so blessed to have such amazing crafty friends and am so thankful to each and every one of you who has kept my family in your thoughts and prayers! I am so grateful and thank God for all of you! We are still going through some difficulties, but we crossed one bridge by the grace of God. We still have a couple more "big" bridges to tackle but I know that with our faith it will be okay. God always delivers and takes care of us and He has seen us through some tough stuff the past week. I am just thankful for my faith and strength it gives me. God is so amazing and I would not know what to do without Him in my life! Right now we are just taking it one day at a time and letting go and letting God. If you would still continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers though for the next few weeks, we would so appreciate it! I love y'all and y'all are the best!

I would also like to give a shout out to Joyce who is part of the circle journal group I am in at Gauche Alchemy. She is such a sweetie and I received some rockin' little scrap goodies from her that just made my day! It was exactly what I needed, when I needed it the most. Isn't it cool how things work out that way?

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Prayer Request...

I would like to ask all my wonderful friends and followers to keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Right now, my family is going through some difficult times and I know that prayer can lift us up. I have a strong faith in our Lord and it is the only thing helping me get through at this time. I don't want to discuss the details and I hope that you understand that. Just know that I would never request prayers if it were not something that was affecting my family in such a negative way. As things get better, as I know they will, I will make sure to let you know as they improve. In the meantime, I am just praying that the Lord provides for us as he always has and continues to deliver us through our difficulties, making us stronger in our faith along the way. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

"A Proud member of The Lime Light. Click on over to see what we are doing."

Every Day

I finally conquered one of my scrappin' fears....an 8.5x11 layout! Yay! I see so many cool layouts in this size and finally got the courage to do one myself. I like how it turned out for my first one too! And, this is the first time in a little while that I have done a layout without a sketch. Everyone knows I love sketches, but letting your mojo flow is fab too!

The photo was taken last week while I was sitting in traffic driving home at rush hour. This is my daily commute. UGH! For some reason I decided to pull out my camera and snap a pic, despite the odd stares from a few drivers! LOL! I get sooooo tired of dealing with this on a daily basis but there is not much I can do about it. I work an easy 30 minutes from home....in good traffic. My morning drive is usually not this bad, but evenings are always crazy. I totally identify with the song, How Far We've Come, by Matchbox Twenty. I like to listen to the part about sitting in traffic...when I am sitting in traffic. hehehe If you haven't ever heard it, take a listen to it HERE.

Most of the products I used are Reminiscence. I won a small kit when I went to a crop at my LSS quite awhile back and finally decided to use it. I also used some thickers and some random letter stickers from my stash. The black chipboard arrow is also from my stash and I inked the edges of the papers with StampCraft black ink. I also used a Uniball Vision Elite black pen (my fav for journaling and such) to draw all the lines, the circle and to journal. Thanks for taking a look and I hope you like my first stab at this size! It is pretty simple but I kind of like that too. And although it was cloudy, at least it wasn't raining again and I got outdoors to take my pics! I do love rain, but not so much when it interferes with my scrappy photos! LOL! Happy Scrapping!


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Creative Twist Fruit Challenge - So Berry Sweet

The latest Creative Twist DT challenge was to incorporate fruit into your project some how...be it in the form of your title or embellies, whatever worked best. I have to say that I honestly look forward to Christina's challenges for us each week as I never know what she is going to come up with! She always thinks of fun, outside the box ideas and I am just loving that I get to be a part of that and such a creative team!

This particular layout is of my nephew, Drake, at his birthday party last weekend. I was going to use these photos for my first official layout as a Scrapsketch DT member, but have something else up my sleeve instead! LOL! I just thought these photos would work so well with this challenge! He is such a sweet little guy and is so funny! He will do anything for a laugh and just cracks us up all the time. He is also into karate right now and is pretty darn good, he can do the splits, so the little card he is holding up is one I made with a karate monkey image I had! He just loved it!I first have to say that the layout is inspired by Scrapsketch #139. The background paper I used for this layout is We R Memory Keepers. The rest of the paper is Reminiscence, Daisy D's, SU, Making Memories, and Bazzill. I used my Cricut Indie Art and Mini Monograms carts for the strawberry, title, and journaling space. I also used lots of stickles, Studio G ink for distressing, lots of pop dots, and Making Memories Brads. Inside each little "seed" on the strawberry I filled it in with red stickles, but it didn't show up that great on the photo unfortunately. It looks pretty cute in person though!

I am also sorry that the photos are not the greatest either! It has been raining here for days and the light just sucks so I can't get a decent photo outside anywhere. I took these inside and am not totally thrilled with them. Hope it stops raining soon!

I hope you take the time to hop on over to the Creative Twist site and see all the wonderful creations the rest of the DT came up with! Also, if you participate in the challenges you will have an opportunity to win a gift card! How cool is that! Happy Scrapping!


"A Proud member of The Lime Light. Click on over to see what we are doing."

Cupcakes for Callista

Well, this is what I have been working on lately! I took a few days off from scrappin' and didn't do much in the evenings but read,watch the tele and spend time with the family. Much needed considering work hasn't exactly been a bundle of joy lately.

This is Callista's circle journal for Gauche Alchemy. We are in a circle journal over there and each month we will mail our journals to the next person to complete two pages. This is the first month we have swapped and I was so excited to do Callista's first. I sure hopes she likes the pages I have done too! Her theme is cupcakes and I just loved what she did with her journal! You can check it out on her blog here and here. My theme is vintage and I have posted several times with pics as I completed my journal. So far this has been so much fun and my journal is going to have quite the adventure as it travels throughout the US and Canada!

For the two pages I did in this rockin' girl's yummy journal, I used papers by The Paper Studio and Miss Elizabeth. I also visited our two local cupcakes shops in the city and picked up their business cards and menus. My personal fav is Cuppies and Joe (how cute is that name btw)! They have the yummiest cupcakes ever and I just feel so happy when I eat one! LOL! Anyway, I also used a cupcake liner that I jazzed up with some Stickles. The rub ons are by American Tradition Designs, the chipboard is American Craft, flowers are Prima and Making Memories, the stone word accents are by EK Success (love these...thanks Cindy!), the ribbon is from Michael's, the buttons are from my stash & also from Cindy, and the flower I made myself. I used StampCraft ink to distress the pages and Studio G ink on the flower. The letter is a Thicker and the image is colored with my water color pencils. Callista's fav color is purple so I tried to incorporate it as much as possible! I also used all products from my stash! I have doing that for awhile now and I love finding things I had forgotten about!

I also have been enjoying some new tv shows premiering! Watched Glee, which my son and I just love, and caught The Vampire Diaries as well. I love vampire tales and always have, but this one is either gonna grow slowly on me or I am not going to like it at all. I love Ian Somerholder though so I am gonna wait a couple more episodes before I make a final decision. However, I do love Bones, especially David Boreanz who was in one of my all time fav vamp shows, Angel. Anyway, Bones is on at the same time so it may win out after all. And besides, David Boreanz is just my cup of tea! LOL! I am really looking forward to the upcoming episodes of Fringe, House, Family Guy, Cleveland Show, Mercy and Lie to Me. I have never been into this many shows before! So, what are you watching? Any favs yet? And, is anyone jonesing for Lost to start already!!!

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WSB Ad Inspiration Challenge

Cindy assigned an ad inspiration for the Whimsical Scraps and Bugs DT to work on. It was definitely a challenge as it took me a little while to decide what I wanted to do, and I ended up making a card that strayed a little bit from what I normally would do.

I am not a totally lovin' pink kind of a gal. I like it but don't use it a lot, which is saying a lot for me as I used to despise the color pink up until several years ago. However, as of late, I have been incorporating it more into my projects and really trying to stretch myself to explore its different shades. I also did a party invitation style card for this challenge, which is out of my normal zone too. It just kinda came together that way as I was wanting to use the canvas stickers that Cindy had sent me during a Cricut swap sometime ago. It just evolved from there and I may have an idea up my little sleeve now too!

For the card I used patterned paper by Daisy D's, Autumn Leaves and The Paper Studio. The stamps are Studio G, the ink is SU, and I also used my Stickles for the cherries. The canvas stickers are Scrapbook Inspirables by EK Success. I just love these and the dimension they add to a project! I used some StampCraft ink for distressing, the ribbon is from Michael's and I the button is from my stash and I just sewed it on.

Make sure you hop on over to WSB and check out some of the other cool projects the DT came up with. Also, you will definitely want to keep up with the blog on a regular basis. WSB's blogiversary is coming up soon and Cindy has some fabulous stuff planned, including our first ever blog hop! And, definitely check out the new challenge she just posted. We would love to see you play along with us to possibly earn a GDT spot or some yummy candy! Happy Scrapping!

"A Proud member of The Lime Light. Click on over to see what we are doing."

Creative Twist Letter Challenge

This week Christina gave us Creative Twist DT members a letter challenge. We had to use a letter as a theme for our project. I chose the letter "F" and did a friendship, forest friends themed card! This was so much fun since I got to use a new stamp set that I was able to purchase thanks to winning Stephanie's awesome blog candy a few weeks ago!

The stamps are Hampton Art Footlongs and the sentiment is by Studio G. I hand cut the clouds and grass, and I used Studio G, KI Memories, Cat's Eye Chalk, and SU ink for the card. The paper is Making Memories.I just love all things nature and really liked how this card came out. I can't wait to use this adorable little stamp set on some more projects! Make sure you check out the Creative Twist site! Christina is giving away some great blog candy for those who participate in the challenges! Hope to see you there, playing along! Happy Scrapping!

"A Proud member of The Lime Light. Click on over to see what we are doing."

I Like Your Style!

I received one cool blog award from Sandy last week, a fellow Creative Twist DT member! I am a little late in getting it posted so please forgive me! I do want to say thank you, thank you, thank you and that I think your style totally rocks girl!

I would love to give this award to the following awesome ladies!
Leanne
Amy M.
Stephanie
Roberta
Sammye Jo
Chris
Beth
Diana
Callista
Diana
Enfys
Leah
Pinky
Lorraine
Annette
Alecia
Okie
Annalise
Amy B.
Jackie

Whew, I know that is a lot, but I didn't receive any restrictions and I wanted to give it out to as many as I could right now. I think all of these blogs are wonderful and I find so much inspiration at each of them! I hope you take the time to visit each one too! Happy Scrapping!

"A Proud member of The Lime Light. Click on over to see what we are doing."

Blur

As soon as I had seen last week's Friday Sketch Challenge over at Scrapsketch, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I had taken these photos of TJ's first day of eight grade a couple weeks ago and they didn't all turn out well. He is at that age where sometimes he's like, "Mom. No more pictures." And then other times he is like, "Take a picture of this!" Teenage boy...go figure!

Anyway, two of the three photos I took came out blurry. At first I was just gonna toss them but then I got to thinking...I need to scrap more imperfect photos because that life is never perfect. Just made sense. And, when I started thinking some more, I realized that these photos were perfect! They show exactly what I feel sometimes when I realize how much he has grown up...life is like a blur - one moment they are a baby and the next they are teenagers and before you know it they have their own families. Time just blurs by and goes so quickly.

So, for this layout I used some cardstock by ANW/Crestwood and Bazzill. The red patterned paper is Paper Pizazz and the blue paisley is Reminiscence. The ribbon is all by Offray and the title is some American Crafts Thickers. The chipboard arrows are also by American Crafts. The dots are rub ons by Colorbok. I also used Mini Monograms to cut the scallop and regular circles for some journaling spots.

If you get a chance, make sure you hop on over to Scrapsketch! It is one cool site and I am so blessed to have been chosen as one of their new DT members this week! I will be completing my first official sketch as a DT member soon and am super excited! Happy Scrapping!

"A Proud member of The Lime Light. Click on over to see what we are doing."

Doing the Happy Dance!

I am so super excited to announce that I have been chosen as a new DT member over at Scrapsketch!! Yay me! I am so super happy about this as it is one of my absolute fav sites and it is my fav site to go to for sketch inspiration! There is so much talent on that DT, with the fabulous Stephanie leading the way. Thank you so much for this opportunity Steph! I am so appreciative and blessed to be a part of the awesome Scrapsketch DT!

"A Proud member of The Lime Light. Click on over to see what we are doing."