My Father, My Hero

Father's Day is coming up and I had to take a few minutes to create a layout dedicated to my very special dad. Growing up, my dad was always busy: work, church, deacon meetings. He was very dedicated to making a way for his family.

As I became a teenager and then went to college and moved out, Dad went through lots of personal turmoil. He has had several accidents. Everything from having a tractor roll over on him to falling from a church roof. Through it all Dad never gave up. When he fell from the church roof the doctor informed us that Dad would be blinded in one eye. Even that didn't slow him down, much to my surprise. Most recently, last year Dad had 4 of the fingers on his left hand cut, losing 2/3 of the pinky. After 5 hours of neurosurgery, he came home within a week and was back at work within only a few weeks.

Though I don't have many warm "fuzzy" memories of time shared with Dad, there is not doubt that he loves each and every one of our family members. That is why I dedicated this layout to My Father, My Hero.



By the way, the layout design came from my latest purchase: Allison Davis's Volume 6 of Sketches for Scrapbooking. LOVE those books! This sketch is also the sample for my One Little Word Challenge over at Challenge Masters. Be sure to come check it out!

Join Us for an Online Crop!

Challenge Masters is hosting an online crop in honor of National Scrapbooking Day. (For those rare creatures out there who don't know.... there REALLY is a day dedicated to my favorite hobby!)

The crop begins today, May 5 and runs through May 12. There are lots of great challenges, a BINGO game, a guessing game, you name it! It's sure to be TONS of fun and there are lots of great prizes to be won!

My contribution to the crop is the ice cream sundae challenge.
I posted a list of several ingredients that could be used to create ice cream sundaes. Each of those ingredients was then assigned a scrapbooking "equivalent". Each scrapper now uses my list to determine which scrapbook "ingredients" she must use to create their own layout.

Here's my sample:



My ingredients of choice were vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, chopped peanuts, and whipped cream. The scrapbooking equivalents were sewing, glitter, ribbon, and rubons.

There's a link to Challenge Masters right over there----------------------->
on the side..... Click on it and come on over to check out the fun that we are having! We'd love to see some of your work too!

My Girl....

I haven't gotten to do much scrapping lately.
When I did finally get to sit down and work on a challenge or two I had to scrap pics of "my girl" Kari.

She's had kind of a rough week. She fell twice this week at track, the second time while doing hurdles at a meet. Both falls injured her left wrist. It was still sore on Friday, so Glenn took her to the doctor to get it x-rayed. Thankfully, it's only a sprain. She has to keep it wrapped for 3 or 4 days. She's really missing doing hurdles and the relay.....

As for the layout....



This page was for another challenge over at Challenge Masters. We were supposed to use words from the "Easter Parade" song as part of the title. I LOVE this pic of Kari. I snapped it when she was all dressed up for the spring dance.

Chop..... Chop......Chop!

This is the final week of Challenge Masters "Chopped" Contest. I have to be honest and say that I feel a lot like those reality show contestants who are standing on stage just waiting to hear whether they are the one selected to go home that week.

I have NO DOUBT that if this weren't the final week, I would definitely be on the cutting room floor. For some reason this week's challenge was just that.... a BIG CHALLENGE!

We were asked to select 3 of the elements used in the previous 3 challenges and use them in our layout. I started thinking about my page and decided to use white, circles, and sewing. I then got a basic idea forming in my head, but the more I worked, the more I felt other elements inching in as well.

My final design used white, yellow, lime green, circles, sewing, and scallops.



I'm not 100% happy with the final page, but all of my critics (i.e. my family) kept telling me that they wouldn't change anything, so I guess this is my finished entry.... LOL!

Chopped Week Three

I've been participating in the "Chopped" Challenge over at Challenge Masters and this week, I think I created my new FAVORTIE layout!! Our recipe for this week was to use white, cardboard, and stitching. As soon as I saw the recipe I knew exactly which photo I wanted to use. I had a photo of sweet little Kari, back when she one and a half or two years old, all dressed in white, sitting on a white carousel horse. I also knew what technique I wanted to use. I took 4 or 5 different border punches and punches strips of white cardstock. Then I placed them on a sheet of vanilla cardstock and sewed each one down. Here's a closeup:



As for the cardboard, I used my Big Shot to die cut 3 small butterflies. Then I pulled off one layer, painted them white, and added some coarse glitter. Here's a look at them:



Before I show you the finished layout, I have to give some credit to my biggest inspiration. Several years ago I started scrapping with some wonderful gals over at Scrappin Mojo. It was there that I met Niki Willaert. I immediately felt myself drawn to her feminine, nostalgic layouts and projects. I found myself oohing and aahing at everything she posted. The whole time that I was working on this layout I found myself thinking, "What would Niki do??" No joke.... I think I actually tried to channel her creativity into my work....LOL! I would love for you to get to see some of her work too. Visit her blog to see some of her beautiful inspiration! http://petalstopolkadots.blogspot.com/

Now for my finished layout.... Before I show it to you, let me say that it is much prettier in person.



This is truly my favorite layout, I think. I love the way all of the little touches blended together to create a frilly, lacy, girly page! Thanks Niki for your inspiration and Thanks Challenge Masters for the recipe!

Finally....

I finally got some scrap time tonight! My photos that I had ordered finally arrived and I jumped right in.



This layout is for week 2 of the "Chopped" Contest over at Challenge Masters. The recipe for this week asked us to use yellow, scallops, and dimensional flowers. When I first began thinking about my page for this week's entry I had visions of piles and piles of blossoms, but as I got started on the page I really didn't feel like it needed too many flowers. I created these fabric yo-yo flowers from scraps of fabric. Then I added a stacked felt flower and a couple of chipboard leaves.

I don't normally use yellow much, but I LOVE this paper. It is one sheet from the DCWV Cotton Bloom Stack. It has luscious, sparkly glitter dots all over it! Can't wait to cut into some of the other pages in that stack. They are all simply beautiful!

Still Tired.........

I'm still feeling pretty run down.
To give you an idea of what "tired" means.... we ate supper, I did the dishes, and I lay down on the couch around 6:00. The next thing I knew it was 8:15 and I was lieing there in the dark....

I am physically exhausted. Glenn is wondering if maybe there is something like low iron bothering me. I'm not really sure; I just know that I DON'T like being this way.

I haven't even had creative juices this week.

I did manage to finish one layout for the "Chopped" Challenge over at Challenge Masters. They posted a recipe that required the use of the following: lime green, circles, and paint.

Here's my resulting layout:



Kari snapped this photo of herself, reflected in the mirror on the sunvisor of my car. I knew it needed a fun layout. LOVED the lime green paper that I found tucked away in my stash! I painted the white photo mat and added some painted fuschia and apricot circles, punched paper circles that I embellished, and a title cut with my Cricut. LOVE IT!

Feeling Lucky....

A few weeks back I posted about Terri, over at Challenge Masters, asking me to be a Diva. Well, the time has come. Today I posted my first challenge.

I'm doing the "One Little Word" challenge and the word I chose for this month is LUCK. What other word would work for March???

Here's my sample layout:



I stamped the title with a stamp I discovered in the dollar bin at Michael's. I snapped it up because I saw lots of different opportunities to use it.

To create the shaded effect of the colors, I just chose 4 different shades of green ink. I started at the bottom and stamped the first image with the darkest shade and then restamped without reinking just a bit farther up the strip of paper. I repeated this with lighter shades of green ink, moving up the strip until the strip was full. I LOVE the effect that it gives!

Now it's your turn. Get out your supplies and create a layout or card using the word LUCK or one of its forms. Come on over to Challenge Masters and post it. (There's a link on the right side of the page. Just click on my Challenge Masters Diva badge.) I'm offering an RAK for someone who is lucky enough to complete the challenge and get her name pulled from the basket. While you're there be sure to check out the other challenges posted this week. There are some great ones!

Latest Projects

I thought I would share a couple of my "challenge" items from the Challenge Master website.

The December altered assignment was to alter a notebook. I have been meaning to do that for a while now, so it was very timely.



I used a lot of odds and ends on this one. I LOVE the way my distress ink blended. I really need to get that out more often!

For the December tag project we were to make Christmas tags, of course. I tried to make a couple a-la-Tim Holtz.....BUT they didn't turn out like his. I'm pretty happy with them though.



I'm really enjoying the challenges, and I think you would too. So.... if you are snowed in, like me, and you need some inspiration.... hop on over to Challenge Masters and join in the fun!

New Challenge Board

Sitting around here on my snow day and I got to cruising the web. While I was going through old bookmarks and deleting sites that no longer existed, hadn't been updated, etc. I discovered a brand new one.... (At least it was new to me!)

Challenge Masters seems like a great place to get inspired. If you are into challenges, this is a great place to visit. The gals are very friendly and have a gallery where you can post your finished projects too.

I've placed a link to their site in the sidebar. Just click on the membership badge and it will take you straight to their website, where you can check out their blog, forum, gallery, and all of the other fun stuff!