"Spring Has Sprung" RAK for positive energy

A couple weeks ago Amy Coose gave away a RAK over at 2Peas and on her blog as part of a "pay it forward" type of RAK to spread good vibes around. I was lucky enough to win her awesome prize package (thank you, Amy!), so now it's my turn to pay it forward. Here's a pic of what I'm giving away. It's spring themed with spring colors, flowers and an Easter mini album. It includes 1-2 yards each of 10 different styles of vintage-looking lace.


Post a comment here or on my thread over at 2Peas before the end of the day on Saturday, April 11th, and I'll pick a random winner. Just promise that if you win you'll post a RAK of your own to keep the positive energy going around!

My Graphic 45 altered project and a sale at AMM!!

When I was a little girl I loved to make crafts. I used to walk to a hobby store near our house and buy beads, felt, yarn, and all sorts of arts and crafts kits. One of things I used to buy were some little kits that contained a plain styrofoam doll bodice, and it came with different colors of fabric, trim, bling, and other things to decorate the bodice. Well, when I stumbled upon a plain styrofoam doll bodice on Etsy, I just new I had to order it so I could dress it up!



Sale alert! A Million Memories is having a sale now through Sunday, April 5th. Use coupon code 401 at checkout and get 20% off your entire order. This applies to everything in the store EXCEPT the monthly kit and the online courses, but you MAY use this for limited edition kits! Have fun shopping!

A Million Memories Design Team!!

I'm thrilled to share the news that I've been chosen for the Design Team at
A Million Memories!! Many of you who know me know that I've had my fingers and toes crossed since the call went out two months ago, so I was SOOOO excited to make the team! Thank you, Michelle!

I'm sharing this honor with an EXTREMELY talented group of ladies from all over the world (the list includes some existing DT members and some new ones):

Tonya Dirk
Hilde Janbroers
Karen Grunberg
Wendela Lam
Jennifer Findlay
Larissa Albernaz
Mia Caniza
Lucy Edson
Susan Dupre
Rachel Hall

WOWSA!! These ladies are uber-talented!

One of the things I love about the AMM kits is that they are consistently fantastic month after month. Here's a picture of the April kit:

It's packed with all kinds of Pink Paislee, Sassafrass Lass, and Prima goodies (just to name a few). I think there are still a couple kits left, and you can buy one here.

A Million Memories has a very friendly message board and an inspiring gallery, so if you haven't been over there, go check it out!!!

Happy Tuesday!

I had a fantastic time this past weekend at the Scrap Retreat House. It's a new scrap retreat house located in the French Valley area of Riverside, California. It was the grand opening weekend, and Christine and her husband have done everything in the house top notch! The house was beautiful, the scrapbooking tools were plentiful, and the accommodations were GREAT!

The best part of the weekend was the company I shared. We laughed until our sides ached. I didn't get much sleep and I only got two pages done the whole weekend, but I had a great time chatting and sharing stories. Thanks, ladies!!

Here's one of the layouts I made this weekend. I used goodies from the March kit from A Million Memories. I started with a piece of corrugated cardboard, tore it, then painted it with blue and green paint. I "borrowed" some dry wall tape from my husband's tool closet (sshhhhhhhhhhhhh, don't tell him), and I used that as a mask to get the little grid design on the cardboard. I then sprayed over the paint with several colors of Glimmer Mist to add some sparkle. I thought the rough and tumble cardboard would provide a nice contrast to the hand stitching, flowers, pearls and bling . . . a little masculine mixed with feminine . . .


One last thing to share for today . . . Graphic 45 has a great new ning site! Here's the link: Graphic 45. All you Graphic 45 fans can upload your own Graphic 45 projects and chat with other Graphic 45 fans and the Design Team members. Come check it out. We'd love to have you!!

Week of Cards at Graphic 45!

It's the Week of Cards over at the Graphic 45 blog. Pop on over and check out all the BEAUTIFUL cards made by the Design Team and some very talented Graphic 45 fans! Here are a couple of cards that I made:




I used Coffee Shimmerz on the black patterned paper to give it an antique look, and I used Gold Glimmer Blingz on the Prima flower to give it that old gilded look and make it pop. And speaking of Shimmerz, they just came out with some beautiful new colors! Ooh la la!!

And now I must run and continue packing for the scrap retreat I'm going to this weekend. I've never been good at packing for crops because I always like to have everything at my fingertips when I scrap, and therefore I end up bringing tons of stuff. I figure that I'll end up packing everything but the kitchen sink (but only because I know they'll have a kitchen sink there).

Enjoy the rest of your week!!!

Holy Guacamole!!

I think I just pulled a muscle . . . or a gasket . . . or something! I found out that I made the Graphic 45 Design Team! I knew that they were going to announce the new team members today, so I popped on over to the Graphic 45 blog (for like the 30th time today!) and I saw my name on the list!

I LOVE Graphic 45 papers, and I'm thrilled and extremely honored to be on the team! I'm sharing this honor with some VERY talented ladies (both the existing and the new G45 team members). Here are the rest of the newest Graphic 45 DT members:

Candy Rosenberg
Nancy Burke
Natasha Pryma
Sasha Holloway
Susan Lui

Thanks for letting me share the good news!

Playing with Shimmerz

I'm having a ball playing with the beautiful, sparkly Shimmerz paints! The wheels are turning in my head with different ideas about how I can use these wonderful paints on different things. Here's a layout I just finished. I couldn't resist making another clothes line with the cute little dresses cut from the Graphic 45 "Playtimes Past" paper collection.


I painted the little dresses with Shimmerz paints (Celery, December Sky and Royal Red) to give them a little sparkle. Here's a close-up:


I'm also thrilled to share a pub toot! I started submitting my work at the end of last year, and the first of my layouts that was picked up for publication has come out in print. It's on the page 72 of the March/April issue of Memory Makers:


It was exciting to see my layout in print for the first time. I'll have some other layouts in the magazines in the upcoming months too.

Lastly, here are a couple sneak peaks of the layout class I'll be teaching at Millie Papercrafts scrapbooking store on Sunday, March 22nd. If you're in the neighborhood . . .



That's all for today! Thanks for stopping by!!!!

Graphic 45

I picked up some of the newest Graphic 45 papers and I'm having a ball playing with them! They go perfectly with all the lace I've accumulated over the past year. Yes, I have a lace addiction. I've managed to amass quite a collection of vintage and newer lace -- most of it from estate sales, the local vintage flea market, and Craigslist. I figure that if I stretched out all the lace I have in one long line, it would probably reach across the state. I think I need to have another RAK giveaway soon.

Here's a layout I made with some of that lace and the lovely Graphic 45 papers (this is a picture of me when I was a little girl).


Oh, and one last tidbit for today. I'm going to be teaching a class at Millie Papercrafts in Los Angeles on March 22nd. It will be a vintage-looking layout using the new K&Co Cut 'n Paste line. I'll be posting more details and a sneak peak shortly!

Sparkly, Shimmery News!!

I'm so thrilled to announce that I've been asked to join the Shimmerz Design Team! I'm sharing this honor with some very talented ladies. You can can see the full list of new design team members on the Shimmerz blog.

You all know how much I LOVE bling and shimmery goodness, so I'm very excited that I get to work with the gorgeous Shimmerz paints!! I can't wait to get started!

Happy Valentine's Day!

In honor of Valentine's Day, I am dedicating today's blog post to my sweet husband. Muwwwwaahhhhhh! (That was a kiss). Our plan for Valentine's Day is to have a nice dinner at home with our girls. I think we're going to pick up some sushi from one of our favorite spots. When my husband and I were dating, we used to go out for sushi all the time -- at least once a week. These days . . . not so much. So sushi will be a big treat for us tonight.

Here's a little Valentine's card I made with an adorable vintage image from Fairy Davis Paper Goods for a challenge on A Million Memories (the challenge was sweet and simple: make a Valentine's card).


I think I posted this layout a few months ago, but since it's Valentine's Day I thought I'd post it again:

I hope you have a fantastic Valentine's Day!!!

Scrapperie Guest Designer News!

I can't believe it's February already! Can't you just feel the love in the air? Here's a little Valentine card I made:


And I'm very excited to share the news that I've been asked to be a guest designer at Scrapperie! Come check out the beautiful kits and the great message board. They're having some fun contests during the month of February!

A few things to share . . .

First of all, I have a TOOT! Scrapbooks, Etc. just requested one of my layouts for publication. It will be my first time with them, and I'm very excited!!

Here's a layout I did for a scraplift challenge at A Million Memories. I scraplifted the curtain idea from the very talented Hilde Janbroers. You can see her layout here.

I did a bit of hand-cutting on some beautiful Webster's Pages papers:




Lastly, I received this sweet award from Corien vd Oever: Corien does such STUNNING work, so this was a huge compliment coming from her. Now I'm supposed to nominate other people. I nominate all the talented scrapbookers who read this blog. I really appreciate your sweet comments and I enjoy looking at your blogs in return!!

Back to the old routine . . .

My girls went back to school this week, so that means we are all back to our regular routines. On the positive side, I have more time to take care of the things at work and around the house, and of course I have more time to scrapbook (yay!). On the other hand, I really enjoy hangin' out with my girls everyday, so I was a little sad to see them go back to school. I estimated that during the 3 weeks they were home I: took them to the park 8 times, wiped away 21 tears, heard the question "I'm bored, what should I do?" 8 times, mediated 27 sibling fights, answered 892 questions about everything under the sun, gave 475 kisses (and got just as many in return), and I loved every minute of it!!

Here's a layout I just finished using Melissa Frances' Ambiente papers (one of my favorite lines). Most of the products came from a kit from A Million Memories.


I painted the edges of the photos and paper with white paint. I also coated a piece of corrugated cardboard white, then I embossed the edges with silver embossing powder:


THE FLOWERS: Some of the flowers were white Prima flowers that I sprayed with different colors of Glimmer Mist. THE LEAVES: I used my Cricut to cut the leaves (hurray, I'm finally getting some use out of it!). I then inked the edges of the leaves, dry embossed the veins, highlighted the veins with a silver Sakura Stardust pen, and then folded each leaf for dimension. As a final touch, I coated the leaves with Diamond glaze to give them a little shine and to help maintain the fold.


And my little tip for the day: to keep the ends of my ribbon from fraying, I like to put a little Stickles on the cut edges. Not only does it prevent fraying, but it gives the ribbon some pretty sparkle!


And here's a little card I made for a sketch challenge on Scrapperie:



Thanks for visiting! Enjoy your week!!

Kit 'n Kaboodles Guest DT Spot

I'm so thrilled to share the news that I've been asked to be the Guest DT member this month over at Kit 'n Kaboodles!!! Everybody there has been so warm and welcoming, and the monthly kits are beautful. I've had the privilege of playing with the gorgeous January kit which features Kimberly Poloson papers and a black, white and red theme. Here are a few of the creations I made with the kit:







These great photos were taken by Melissa Walker-Scott.

You can see all of my Guest DT projects along with the BEAUTIFUL creations made by the very talented Design Team over at Kit 'n Kaboodles.

Resolutions

My main New Year's resolution this year was to spend less time on the computer and spend the time doing more important things. So far, I've been failing miserably at it! But change doesn't happen overnight, right? And although it sounds contrary to my resolution to spend less time on the internet, I have also vowed to keep my blog updated on a regular basis. I think I can handle that one!

Here's a layout I made with almost all Prima products (my fav!):


The quote says: "Hand in hand we will grow into the promise of tomorrow, taking with us the enchantment of this day."