This is where their story began

In January I signed up for the Press Your Luck challenge over at Colorful Creations. I used to love to watch that game show when I was a kid - hollering "No whammies! No whammies!" at the television.
 For the challenge they had a picture of a game board with the numbers 1 -20 on it and you had to be careful or you might pick a whammy. I picked the number 10 and boy did I hit the jackpot! My challenge was to use this beautiful sketch by Brenshevia.

And this is what I came up with:

Supplies used - Patterned Paper - My Minds Eye - Love Me Do collection, Cardstock - Close To My Heart - lagoon, Alphabet stamps - Close To My Heart - B1416 Keyboard Uppercase, Alphabet stickers - Close To My Heart - Houndstooth Irresistables, heart puch - Marvy Uchida

This photo is of Abby when she was in the 5th grade. She came home from school one day and showed me this picture of a rose. She told me that a boy at school had drawn it for her. Gotta love the fact that she really wasn't wanting me to take a picture of her with her first flower from a boy!  As it turns out that boy is now her husband! The journaling says:
He liked her in 4th grade.
He gave her this picture of a rose that he had drawn in 5th grade. (2001)
They "went out" for 2 days in 7th grade and they officially started "going out" in 9th grade and never looked back. - And the rest is history.
As with any relationship, they've had their ups and downs, but they have always found their way back to each other.
I guess I really should have added in that they got married on August 13, 2011!
What a fun, fitting story of true love for Valentines Day, right?!

So You Think You Can Scrap - week 6

Ugh! These challenges are really challenging me! First off let me apologize for the photo. I didn't realize I didn't have my pages lined up perfectly, so it looks a little wonky. This is the 6th week of So You Think You Can Scrap over at Colorful Creations and I really can't believe that I am still going! The past couple of challenges have been a little hard for me, scrappin' out of my comfort zone and all, but I'm glad that I keep pluggin' away at it. Here is the sketch we had to use this week. Along with this sketch we had to create a double page monochromatic layout and we had to use a diecut, a border punch, flowers (2 had to be handmade), bling, and butterflies.

Monochromatic. Flowers. Butterflies. None of these are my favorite things to work with when I'm scrappin'. But, I was willing to give it a try and this is what I came up with.

First off I've gotta say that I am about "pinked" out after this one. I rarely scrap with pink since Abby has never been much of a pink lover, girly girl. So I am on pink overload with this one and you probably won't see pink for a while either! I used up some old papers from My Mind's Eye (from 2005 - YIKES!).  Yeah, I'm sure I have some newer pink paper, but it felt good to use up some stash. I made my own diecut paper by cutting a circle and then punching out smaller circles to make the scalloped edge. I tried my hand at making some twisted ribbon roses - they're easy to make, but I'm not sure I like this first effort, and I also made some lollipop flowers. Luckily I had bought a Martha Stewart butterfly punch a while back, otherwise I'm not sure what I would have done for the butterflies. For my bling I used some sparkly gems for the centers of all the flowers and I know it's hard to see, but i also used them on the butterfly bodies. I used the loopy border punch by Martha Stewart and I think that about covers all of the requirements.

Do I love this layout?  No.
But it's done and another memory down on paper.
I'll find out Friday morning if I met all of the requirements and am able to move on. Hopefully I'll keep going and I can't wait to see what the next challenge is.

Hello?

As promised, the challenges for the So You Think You Can Scrap challenge over at Colorful Creations are getting harder each week - at least for me! This week we were to use this sketch, we had to have tearing, distressing, and a recycled item on our layout.

I struggled with what to use for my recycled item - that was definitely the hardest part for me this time. I found these old pictures of Shane in a pile on my desk and it finally clicked that I could use the page out of an old phone book for my recycled item. Once again these are old photos - I think from 2004 - I'll have to check and make sure. I can barely remember Shane being this little! To see him standing on that stool and to know that now he is almost 6 feet tall and towering over me...Wow!

supplies used: Patterned Paper - Echo Park, Jillibean Soup, Provo Craft, Cardstock - Bazzill, stamps - B1416 Keyboard Uppercase, grid stamp - Studio Calico, Alpha stickers - Doodlebug Simply Sweet, tab - Quickutz, Speech bubbles - Cricut George cartridge

The colors match a lot better in real life - not sure why they are looking so off in this photo!
I distressed the edges of my circle with my edge distresser, tore one side of the yellow paper (you can barely see it) and the light blue paper at the bottom, then used the page from the phone book on the circle underneath the title and on the speech bubbles. I was so excited to use my new alpha stamps from Close To My Heart on this page. I love those little square letters, and to know that I can make them whatever color I want is heaven!  I'm sure you'll be seeing them on more pages! I added a little potty person boy to the speech bubble at the top - just because I like him! This is one of my favorite layouts - mostly because of the photos and I am happy to say that it was a featured layout in the gallery at Colorful Creations!

So You Think You Can Scrap #4

This week's So You Think You Can Scrap challenge over at Colorful Creations was just that for me. A challenge. We had to use the color combo and the sketch below. Along with that, our layout had to include a die cut paper like the one on the sketch - it could be handmade or bought, 3 photos and then our choice of one thing - masking, bling, brads, flowers or stars.

The beautiful Country Boutique papers from Fancy Pants were the perfect colors for the challenge. I am so glad that I got them for Christmas! I made my own diecut paper using a plate for a circle template and my Martha Stewart border punch for the "ruffle" around the edge of it. The picture is not the greatest - it's a cloudy day out today - but I used grey for my background, black and grey dot for my diecut papers, cream for the ruffle and black and cream paper strips, and I mounted my photos on white. I cut out my title using my cricut and the Storybook cartridge and I used bling (the sparkle flourishes from CTMH) as my other item. The photos are from Abby and Shawn's wedding in 2011. I think the hardest part of this layout was figuring out what papers to use where!

The one thing that I absolutely love about this challenge is that it pushes me to use things I might not normally use or think of to use. I'm looking forward to the next challenge!

This is my favorite photo

This is my second post in one day! I cannot believe it! This is my layout for the second week of the So You Think You Can Scrap challenge over at Colorful Creations. I really do love this photo of Matthew from 2007. It is one of those photos that's been sitting on my desk just waiting to be scrapped since the day that I got it almost 6 years ago, and I just never could scrap it. I wanted everything about the layout to be perfect. I finally decided it was time to get this photo on a layout and the challenge this week was perfect for it. Matthew loved playing baseball. He looked forward to his games every week and when he stepped out on that field, he was all business. He took his game play very seriously and he was a very good player. Sadly, as he got older he decided he didn't want to play ball anymore and I've gotta say, I really kinda miss going to his games every week. But, it's still fun to look back at his pictures and we still play ball out in the yard every spring and summer.

So long summer

supplies used - Patterned paper and alphabet stickers - Basic Grey, Cardstock and ink - CTMH. border punch - EK Success, Stamps -  Autumn Leaves

In December I signed up for the So You Think You Can Scrap challenge over at Colorful Creations. I thought that it sounded like fun, and if nothing else I would get at least one layout a week done. Starting on the 4th of January they post a sketch and a challenge and then you have a week to get your layout completed and uploaded to their site. In order for you to move on each week your layout has to be uploaded by the due date and all the requirements met. This is my layout for the first week. Luckily I met the requirements and got it posted before the due date and moved on to the second week. I'm a pretty plain and simple scrapper, so I really love these challenges that make me use things that I normally might not put on a layout.

Layouts 13-16 for 30 in 30

#13&14 is a layout titled Saturday morning treat. This summer Abby stayed with us again while Shawn was in Texas for the National Guard. I knew this was probably going to be the last time she was home with us for any length of time, and we needed to make some fun memories! We decided that grocery shopping would be so much better if we got a frappe from McDonald's. It definitely gave us non coffee drinkers energy that's for sure! We didn't get one every week, but when we would grocery shopping would be so much more fun!

For this layout I used My Mind's Eye - Lost and Found two collection and sketch from Scrapbook Generation's Sketches for Scrapbooking  Vol. 3. It was also made for the For Girls Only challenge at Colorful Creations

For my #15&16 layout I used some older photos of Shane listening to Abby's i-pod. He loves music - always has! He definitely has his favorites and you'd better not change the station while his favorite song is on or he will let you know he's not happy! On this day, Abby had Kelly Clarkson playing on her i-pod and she put it next to his ear so he could hear. He thought it was pretty cool, but he wasn't too crazy about the ear bud in his ear. As long as they were close enough for him to hear he was happy!

I used Echo Park - A Boy's Life collection and a sketch from Scrapbook Generation's Sketches for Scrapbooking Vol.5.

Me and my randomness

So, I guess you could say that I am spending my day getting caught up on my blog! I thought while I was at it I would post the other two layouts that I have done for my 30 in 30 Challenge this month. Now maybe from here on out I can post them in the order that I make them!
This first one is layout of my sweet, sweet nieces, Allie and Baylie and it is my third layout for 30 in 30.

It was made following two different challenges. Rach's recipe from Colorful Creations was to use ric rac, stitching, a minimum of 2 photos, journaling, metal (staples), and to fussy cut one element (flowers). I have not used my sewing machine in ages, so it was fun to get it out and sew a little! The fussy cut flowers...they were a pain to cut out, but I really like how this turned out!
I also used it for the pre September challenge #1 over at Scrap-Friendzy. They had posted a layout that we were to use to inspire our layout. I used the overall design of their layout and the color pink.



This second layout was made using a sketch from one of the Back to School Crop challenges over at My Scraps and More a couple of weeks ago and is my #7 layout for my 30 in 30. Again I used some old photos of the boys that I've been wanting to scrap, but just never got around to doing. I love seeing those sweet "little" boy faces. They are both so big now!

Now I am all caught up  and I hope I can keep up from here on out!

Kelsey's New Bike

One of the challenges over at Colorful Creations this month is to use white and purple only on your layout. I am not a purple lover at all, and generally stay away from even buying purple paper, but when I saw these photos of Kelsey, I knew they would be perfect for this challenge. I've had these papers in my stash for a long time...we're talking over 5 years - so it felt good to finally get to use them.