Where does the time go?

Lily Bee has a great new line called Stationery.  The subtle patterns and colors are perfect for mixing and matching with the bolder patterns of the other Lily Bee collections, and they also look great on their own.  Here's a page I created using a couple of the Stationery papers and the adorable banner stickers from the Happily Lost line.  The cute little 3-year-old girl of mine in these photos just turned 9 years old a couple weeks ago!  Where does the time go???

I recently purged a bunch of my old scrapbook supplies and I came across several packs of Chatterbox wood frames that I bought about 5 years ago in my early days of scrapping.  I challenged myself to use an entire pack of them on this page.

I added droplets of Sea Foam Spritz to the paper and then typed my journaling on a transparency.   The beauty of printing the journaling on a transparency is that the words blend in nicely with the background and don't completely cover up the beautiful paper.

A fond farewell . . . my design team term with Lily Bee is coming to an end this month, and after much vacillation I've decided not to continue on for another term.  I want to slow down a bit over the coming months and not scrap quite as much as I have been over the past year (which has pretty much been ALL the time).  It's been a wonderful experience being on the Lily Bee design team, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity (thank you, Kristen!).  I can't wait to see who makes the new Lily Design Team!

10 Year Anniversary

Today my husband and I are celebrating our 10-year anniversary.   He proposed to me in a very special way.  The background story is that we used to go out for Chinese food every Sunday night when we were dating, and we topped off every meal with fortune cookies.  One Sunday night our waitress placed the usual plate of fortune cookies on our table.  I reached for one, unwrapped the plastic wrapper, and broke open the cookie to get my fortune.  I discovered that it was no ordinary fortune cookie.  Inside was a handmade fortune written by hubby (then boyfriend-soon-to-be-fiance).  In tiny letters he had written some beautiful sentiments, followed by the words, "will you marry me?"  Of course I said yes!!

I later found out that my husband had gone to the restaurant a few days before to get one of our regular fortune cookies.  He carefully cut open the plastic, then he used hot steam from boiling water to open the fortune cookie without breaking it.  After replacing the fortune with his own message, he steamed the cookie shut, then placed it back in the plastic wrapper and glued the wrapper closed with a dab of crazy glue.  He snuck it in his jacket pocket that Sunday night and secretly slipped it to our waitress. Thank goodness she didn't accidentally deliver it to the wrong table! 

The table favors at our wedding were beautifully embellished cellophane bags containing white and dark chocolate-dipped fortune cookies to commemorate the sweet proposal.  One of the messages tucked inside some of the  fortune cookies was this lovely quote:  "Grow old with me, the best is yet to be."   I used the quote as the title for this page:

I made this page with Prima products, including one of the new canvas sheets that I used as the base for the page.  The canvas comes painted with these colorful butterflies.  I added clusters of colorful embellishments to match the colors on the canvas underneath.

To highlight the photos and give the rest of the page some subtle sparkle, I coated the area outside of my stitched circle with Mod Podge, then I sprinkled glitter over it while it was still wet.

Thanks for stopping by!!

New Shimmerz Products!

I've been busy the last few days planning for my daughter's 9th birthday party yesterday. We had planned to have the celebration at a local miniature golf place, but when I found out last week that heavy rains were predicted for the day, I had to scramble and plan a party indoors at our house. So we had ten very energetic and sometimes bickering 8 and 9 year old girls here yesterday for 4 hours straight. Music blasting, girls jumping on the furniture and running throughout the house . . . EEEsh!  Our poor cat didn't know what to make of all the ruckus and decided to seek refuge in a quiet place under my desk.   What is it about this age? They seem to have a lot of disagreements with each other. The tears! The drama! The conflict! And that was just me!!!  But seriously, they all seemed to have a good time for the most part.  And I don't have to think about planning another birthday party for a while, so all is well.

I want to tell you a little bit more about two great new product lines that Shimmerz has added to it's line-up of gorgeous sprays . . .

Coloringz were created with bright, vibrant crayons in mind. They are super opaque, highly saturated colors without shimmer.  I love them because they are great for saturating lace and other items with rich, solid color. Yet they are still water-based and clean up with soap and water like the other Shimmerz products. My favorites are Mama Sings the Blues and Pink Stiletto.

Shimmeringz are non-pigmented, highly iridescent sprays that can be used on their own or layered with any of the other Shimmerz products. We're talking serious "bling" here!

And the good news is that Scrapbook.com  now sells Shimmerz products.  My new favorite color is Mama Sings the Blues.  So when you're doing your scrappy shopping there, you can throw some new Coloringz and Shimmeringz into your cart!

Happy Birthday my Sweet Rebecca

My not-so-little girl is turning 9 today!  Happy Birthday, sweet Rebecca!  Here's a Prima layout I made with pictures of her from a couple years ago.  She's still my little fairy princess!

Every year I make handmade cards for my girls on their birthdays. Inside the cards I write a long letter to them sharing my warm feelings about them, about who they are, who they have become, and I tell them how wonderful I think they are at their new age.   After they look at the birthday card and I read the note to them, I tuck it safely away in a box to be saved for them when they are older.   Someday -- maybe when they are 18 and going off to college -- I will hand them the box full of these cards that I've made for them every year since they were babies.  Here's the card I made for Rebecca this year:

*SIGH*  I just wish she would slow down with this whole growing up thing! 

Headbands

My daughters love to wear headbands.  Danielle, especially, is enamored with them.   There was a period of time when she would not leave the house without a headband on her head.  So before she outgrows the headband phase (which hopefully won't happen for a few more years), I've been having fun making some flowery headbands.

Here's Danielle modeling them for me. I made these first three headbands with Prima's gorgeous flowers and trim.  Prima now makes plain headbands that you can embellish yourself.

 

Here's a headband I made using paper's from Lily Bee's Lovely line. 

I made the flowers using various punches, then I coated them with Mod Podge to protect the paper.

The only problem now is that my girls fight over who gets to wear which headband.  *sigh*  Next time I'll make duplicates.

By the way, I widened my blog columns to (hopefully) make my blog look less cluttered and easier to read.  It looks fine on my screen, but please let me know if it looks wonky on any of your screens!  And pursuant to a request, I  added FeedBurner "subscribe by email" to the sidebar.

Have a great day!

Prima happenings

Have you seen all the beautiful new Prima products trickling into stores?  There's so much great stuff!  I have lots of Prima projects I haven't posted yet. Here are a couple:

Here's a layout using some of the brand new goodies. The new flowers and rub-ons are heavenly!

Here's a calendar I made using two acrylic sheets and some of the products from Prima's beautiful Sparkling Spring Collection:

Want to win some goodies?  Prima has a fabulous giveaway on their Facebook Page right now.  Be sure and "like" them and follow the instructions for a chance to win a great prize!  

Creating Keepsakes February cover layout plus a downloadable dog template . . .

I was honored to be asked to create the cover layout for the February 2011 issue of Creating Keepsakes:

Here's a close-up of the layout:

As seen on the cover of the February 2011 issue of Creating Keepsakes.  Copyright Creative Crafts Group.  Posted with prior permission from the publisher. 

Some people have asked me about the boy on the cover.  No, that's not my son (nor my puppy).  But they sure are cute, aren't they?!  I've also been asked about the paper pieced dog peaking over the title strip.  I made it myself by simply sketching the shapes on cardstock and cutting them out.  Then I added ink, chalk and pen for the highlights and markings. And since some people have expressed an interest, I created a template that you can download and print.  You can find my downloadable pattern on the Club CK blog: Doggie Die-Cut Template.

Tootles!!

 

A girl and her shoes . . .

You might have seen the paper shoes that I posted on my blog a little while back.  I made some of these shoes for the Lily Bee booth at CHA . . . one pair for each new paper collection:  This and That, Happily Lost, and Picket Fence.  After all, a girl can never have too many pairs of shoes, right?

This & That:

Picket Fence:

I used the fabulous new Shimmerz Coloringz and Shimmeringz to color the red lace and the blue flowers on this one. 

And last but not least, Happily Lost:

Now if only these were my size . . .

Have a great day!!

Catchin' Up . . .

Ahhhhhhh . . . sweet Friday.

Here's a Prima layout I did a while back.   The picture of my girls was taken at Claire's boutique.  For those of you who don't have a Claire's in your city, it's a chain of stores that sells thrinkets geared towards young girls -- costume jewelry, headbands, lip gloss, nail polish, hair clips, little stuffed animals, etc.  My girls LOVE Claire's and whenever we go to the mall they beg to go there.  When my parents are with us, they always give the girls a little spending money and let them pick out a thing or two.  Because Claire's is a big favorite of their's, I really wanted to take pictures of my girls shopping and do a layout.  But I quickly found out that Claires does NOT allow photography in their store, even if I'm only taking pictures of my children and not close-ups of their products.  I've actually been busted twice!  Shame on me.  I guess they are afraid that people might try and copy their products.  I did manage to get a couple pictures of my girls before I was told "no photos please," and I scrapped this page of them.  Hey, I figure it's good advertising for the store, right? 

I altered the Prima felt strip by first painting it with acrylic paint, then I coated it with Doodlebug's Lily White glitter (my "go to" glitter these days).

Have a fabulous weekend!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello everyone!  I decided to lighten and brighten up my blog a bit and go with a subtle background. Even though I loved my previous turquoise damask patterned background, I think a plain background is less distracting and it's easier on the eyes. What do you think? I also widened the margins and added another column so that everything isn't so cluttered. Simple is sometimes better when it comes to blog design, right?  I think it's also about time I update my blog header, so I'll be playing around with that soon. 

For Valentine's Day, I made a little project for the Lily Bee blog.  I used papers from Lily Bee's new This & That line to alter a Valentine candy box.

I made the paper ruffle and painted the edges with Fire Engine Red Shimmerz.  I sprinkled red glitter over the Shimmerz paint for good measure.  I added black Stickles to the beautiful damask pattern on the black and white Lily Bee paper.

Hungry? How about a little peak inside . . .

They look good enough to eat, don't they?  Not so fast!   I made these scrumptious looking chocolates out of Fimo polymer clay (the beads are the giveaway).

But here's the BEST part.  My jester husband saw the finished project and decided to play a little joke.  When I was in the other room, he snuck into my scrap room and found my Fimo clay.  He made his own little piece of "chocolate", complete with a "bite" taken out of it (he used the handle of a fork to make the teeth marks).  Then he replaced one of the the chocolates in my candy box with the one he made.  So imagine my surprise when I opened up the box to photograph it and saw a half eaten chocolate!! 

Funny man, that hubby of mine!   I think I'll keep it this way.

I hope you have a wonderful, chocolate-filled Valentine's Day!!

Mess, Mess, Mess . . . plus the CK Special Issue winner

Mess, mess, mess . . . the last couple of days have been all about cleaning up messes:

1.  My daughter, Danielle, got a frozen chocolate custard cup at school yesterday.  She didn't have time to eat it at lunchtime, so she decided to put it in her backpack and save it for later.  Say whaaaaaat??  I don't think she thought that one through.  You can only imagine the mess it made when the top came off and the chocolate custard spilled all over the inside of her backpack.   And since she had a playdate after school, I didn't find her little mess until the evening, by which time the chocolate had solidified in every nook and cranny.   Eesh.

2.  Our sweet cat had an upset tummy yesterday.  (Hairballs??  I'm not sure.  I'm new to this whole cat thing, so I'd appreciate any words of wisdom from any of you experienced cat mommies).  I'll spare you the gory details, but one of the spots was on my very cluttered desk.  He likes to sleep on top of the printer while I'm working on the computer, and it's right near a stack of papers, stapler, remote control, etc.  Not fun cleaning all that up, noooooooooo.

3  A container of Italian dressing jumped out of the refrigerator and spilled all over the floor.   Salad, anyone?

I'm hoping today is a mess-free day.  And I'm hoping that my sweet cat who's sitting here next to me on top of the computer isn't planning on leaving me any more "presents".

Sorry for the delay in announcing the WINNER of the Creating Keepsake's new special issue,  Scrapbooking Tips &; Tricks, Texture.  Without further ado, the random number generator site chose number 10, which is . . . .drumroll  . . . .

Renee!!  Congrats!  Renee, please email your address.

Turning to scrappy stuff, here are the results of a fun little page swap the Prima Design Team members did a little while back (but I never got around to posting it).  We swapped pictures of ourselves and scrapped each other.  I scrapped pictures of the very talented Julie Fei-Fan Balzer.  Julie has a beautiful and colorful artsy style, so I created this page of her "Julie style":

Here is the fabulous layout that Julie created with pictures of me:

I love it, Julie!   It was so much fun participating in this little swap.  Give it a try with one of your scrappy friends!

Back From CHA

I'm back from CHA and I had a blast!   It was fun to connect with so many wonderful friends and to make some new ones too.  I tell ya, the scrapbooking community is such a warm and wonderful group of people.  I'm thrilled to be part of it!  And of course there were LOTS of fabulous new scrapbooking products to see.  Trends I noticed:  circus themed papers and embellishments (I'm using some of them right now!), mustaches (huh??), more flowers and vintage-themed papers (love it all!), trinkets galore, banners (yep, they're still very in apparently), and lots of altered dress forms.  I saw many "must haves" that I can't wait to get my hands on.  Though I don't think I can see myself adding mustaches to my scrapbook pages.  Unless I can get my hubby to grow a mustache.  Hmmmmmmm.  

Here is one of the layouts I made for the Prima booth.  This is from the new Celebrate line.  I crocheted around the edge and added some Prima lace, then I created a little patchwork background.

As I mentioned above, altered dress forms were very popular at CHA.  I spotted them in several different booths.  Prima had several life-sized dress forms adorned with all the beautiful new papers and flowers.  GORGEOUS!!  I didn't know that altered dress forms were going to be so popular when I made this one for the Prima booth:

I used the new Prima laces to make the skirt.  I ADORE the new Prima flowers, lace and trinkets:

I have a lot more to share in the coming weeks!

It's giveaway time again . . .

Creating Keepsake's newest special issue is out, and it's a definite "must have" . . . Scrapbooking Tips & Tricks, Texture:

This special issue is full of ideas for adding texture to your pages to make them really stand out.   Ideas include faux stitching, layering, things to do with trims, and adding texture to your titles.   Here's a little peak at a layout I did for the magazine.  I made a 3D-shadow box pages using layers of paper popped up with dimensional adhesive:

You can purchase a copy of the issue HERE.  Use coupon code TEXTDT and you can get free shipping on orders of $25 or more (expires on March 31, 2011).

And once again the wonderful people at Creating Keepsakes are allowing me to giveaway a copy of this issue to one blog reader.  If you'd like to throw your hat into the ring, just leave a comment here before Sunday at Midnight, and I'll draw a random name next week.

CHA starts today!

CHA starts today, and I'm so happy it's right here in LA this time.   I'm going with the wonderful ladies from Creating Keepsakes magazine and some of my fellow CK Dream Members.  I can't wait!

Here's one of the projects I made for the Prima booth.  I used Prima's new Madeline line, which is one of my all time favorite collections.

I used some of Prima's beautiful new flowers and leaves, and I made the little starfish and shell out of polymer clay.

Tootles for now!

Creating Keepsakes Style Swap

I'm a lean, mean, blogging machine this week!  That's another old TV show reference -- from the Gong Show.  Remember that one?  I must have old TV shows on my brain this week.    Anyhow, I've been blogging a lot because I'm trying to catch up on posting my older projects so that I can post some of the new stuff I've been creating for CHA.  I have a whole bunch of Prima projects to share.  The new Prima products are gorg-e-o-us!!!  There are too many sneaks to post here, but you can see some of the new flowers and other goodies on the Prima blog.  Make sure you scroll down to see all the sneaks that have been posted over the past couple of weeks.

Creating Keepsakes has a fun challenge in this month's issue.  A bunch of the Dream Team members were asked to swap styles with another Dream Team member.  My style is described as "Shabby Chic."  This layout is more typical of my normal shabby chic style, with lots of layers, flowers, lace, stitching or crocheting, etc.:

As seen in the October 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. Copyright Creative Crafts Group. Posted with prior permission from the publisher. 

I was asked to switch styles with CK Dream Team member Linda Barber, who is the queen of "Clean and Simple" pages.  All of her pages are eye-catching, well-designed and include heartfelt journaling.  I find "Clean and Simple" a lot more challenging than doing detailed pages, and they take me just as long.  That's because to achieve a really good "minimalistic" page, all of the basic elements -- design, photos and journaling -- really need to stand out.   Here was my attempt at a Clean and Simple page:

As seen in the January 2011 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. Copyright Creative Crafts Group. Posted with prior permission from the publisher. 

The journaling on this layout says:  My sweet Rebecca, there’s something you should know.  I will always be there for you.  As you get older and experience life’s ups and downs, you can come to me for encouragement and support.  I hope more than anything that your life is full of happiness, love, and success in whatever you do.  But in times when you falter or you’re feeling down, I will be there to lift you up. 

I had a lot of fun stepping outside of my box on this one.   Can you believe, there's not a single Prima flower in sight on this page??  That was the hardest part for me about going Clean and Simple.  So I challenge you to try stepping out of your box and scrapping in a style that's different for you.  Give it a try!!

I'm off to the LA Convention Center to drop off my projects for CHA.  I'll be there when the show opens in a couple days, so if you're going, I hope to see you!