Trick or Treat Anyone?

Monday night was the final of three different trick or treat ventures. Gabe was fully understanding the concept this year, hold out your pumpkin and get candy. He was loving it, even his sister got into the Halloween spirit this year and dressed up and went out with her bff.  Here are my fave pics, already working on a layout too!

Gabe is doing the "Alex" from Madagascar pose- ROAR!

My Babies Too cute to spook

We take our pumpkin carving seriously round here.

Scott's werewolf extraordinaire, I think he outdid me this year.

My hoot owl, or as Gabe says Who How.

Gabe at our neighbors, how cute is that tail?!

My fave pick of all!

Hope you enjoyed sharing Halloween with us! I will have some layouts very soon!

The Color Room Challenge#68

So I got some time yesterday to create a layout to play along at the Color Room. They come up with the coolest color palettes and inspiration and so I felt, inspired. Here is the palette/inspiration sketch from "Her Room":

So here is my interpretation of it, I kept the sketch intact and added a lovely photo of my daughter and her bff. There's some fun masking, stamping and lots of layers! My favorite part is how the bottle caps combined with some vintage pearl buttons look like sweet little cupcakes!

Here are some close-ups:

Materials Used: Studio Calico/Elementary (base), SEI, Jillibean Soup/Kraft, My Minds Eye/Life Stories, Jillibean Soup/Corrugated Button Flowers (as masks), Making Memories/Animal Crackers velvet brads, Fiskars/effervescence & apron lace border punches, Flower  punch, E. Prima/pearls, Maya Rd./Maya mist-brown, pink ribbon, Scenic Route/gold letter stickers, vintage trim, vintage buttons, vintage bottle caps

This color combo makes me happy, makes me think of a bakery and pastries, lol. 

Let me know what you think of my latest. 

Have a great week!

Websters Pages March Challenge

One of my other favorite inspiration website, Websters Pages InspireMe has challenges every month. I was able to play along in their traditional category this month which was to create a layout with a shaped base. You can find the challenge here. They have an amazing design team that shares wonderful projects. This website is full of ideas, tips, sharing and fun, you really should check it out.

Here is my entry for the March Challenge, titled "My Veggie Girl"

Here are some close-ups:

This is a layout I did of my daughter and her choice to be a vegetarian. I used new Websters Pages- Spring Market paper, vellum and some Lullaby Lane and Wonderfall and Waiting for Santa alpha stickers. I created my own template to shape the corners for the challenge and used my eyelet punch to make the holes. There are lots of pop up dots and vintage buttons to top it all off. Let me know what you think!

Aspen's Sweet Sixteen

So my baby girl is now officially sixteen, can't believe it- the years have flown by. This weekend we threw her a  big Sweet Sixteen party complete with over 60 guests, D.J. (my brother Stace), 3 tier cake, ice sculpture, black lights, several gifts and yes, a car.  Her Dad got her a 2000 Black Honda Prelude, she was so surprised and very excited. Still can't get used to the fact that she will be driving herself around soon. She hopes to take her drivers test this week and get her license. Wow, what a week this has been. Thank goodness we had lots of help with the party preparations and several family and friends that helped us pull it all off. A special thank you to all of them for their efforts. We tried to keep costs down by doing most everything ourselves and Scott's work donated the banquet hall. Anyhow enough with the talk, the pictures say it better:



Aspen and her Dad in her new car.



The cake that Aspen chose, Grandma baked and I decorated.



Aspen with her little brother Billy.



All the kids at the party.



The ice sculpture, by the talented French Chef Marc.



Perhaps the rowdiest kid at the party, Aspen's littlest brother Gabe rolling on the floor.



Make a Wish

  Those are just a few of the highlights, hope to make some great layouts with the photos. Happy Monday!

The Color Room Palette #34

So I love to play along at The Color Room when I get a chance. They have weekly challenges and they give you inspiration via a theme photo, color palette and sketch. Here is this weeks inspiration block:

So one thing I love about my daughter having a face book page is that I get extra photos of her to work with. This one she took herself in a mirror? Amazing photo, I love it. Plus it shows off her new glasses, so sophisticated right? Anyway, I love how these vibrant palette colors popped against a black background!

She is growing up way too fast. But I am so blessed to have her.

Let me know what you think of the layout...

My Sketch at Scrap and Stamp

This week at Scrap and Stamp they are featuring a sketch challenge by yours truly, me. So you simply must play along! Remember from now on, you have two weeks to complete the challenge, so no excuses. The sponsor this week is Inktegrity Digital Images, be sure to check them out. Here is the sketch, it can be interpreted however you like as long as you add a stamp to it.

This is my take on the sketch, of course another double layout.

This layout celebrated the last day of school campout of my teen daughter and her friends. Love the Bo Bunny Sun Kissed lines explosive colors and playful patterns. They had a blast by the way.

The Color Room - Palette #26

Ok, so I fell in love with the newest color palette and sketch at the color room. Check it out here. Here is the sketch and palette below:

I knew I had to play along and my wonderful husband allowed me to create all day Saturday. I instantly pictured a layout for Aspen celebrating her 15th year. So I called it "Fab 15" and used patterns and a style that I thought Aspen would like. I was right she loves it, it is very much my core shabby chic style and I also love how it turned out.

Materials Used: Coredinations/Red cardstock base; Jillibean Soup/Clove of Fresh Garlic-Pasta Fagioli (red text paper); Pink Paislee/Love Potion-Cupid Collection (red flower & rosebuds); Pink Paislee/Front Porch-Bayberry Cottage (houndstooth); Daisy D's/Pintuck Antique Black (title black mat); Me & My Big Ideas/#5956 CC-170(black flourishes); Glitz Design/Digital CD Season 3-Hot Mama (Zebra & Earrings print); Fancy Pants/Silver Snow-Christmas Magic (gray pattern); Jillibean Soup/Herbed Houndstooth Alphabeans (Title stickers- Fab 15); American Crafts/White Roses & Netting; Queen & Company/White Pearls; Stickles/Red & White Glitter; Jillibean Soup/Red & Black Bean Stalks (black ribbon); White cardstock (journal tags); Computer font Journaling/Rockwell; Unknown/Black flower stamens; Fiskars/Scallop border punch (corners)

So using Aspen as inspiration really allowed for a fresh layout combination. I would have never thought to mix so many patterns otherwise. But I just love how it turned out, especially her beautiful smile. So let me know what you think!

Ink Tutorial Challenge

This week at Scrap and Stamp there is a tutorial on using a paint resist technique, check it out here. This is a layout that I used ink three different ways stamping, misting and masking, the layout itself was from a class I took with Studio Calico at CKC this year. It was lots of fun and I loved this photo of Aspen and Gabriel.

So that's it for now, I have tons of great photos from my recent trip Girls Getaway to Michigan and Gabe's First Amusement Park Adventure so hopefully I will get some scrapping time soon! Take care and become a follower for automatic emails of any new posts.

Ribbon Challenge

This weeks challenge at Scrap & Stamp was to use ribbon on your layout. The prize this week is from Alota Rubber Stamps, check out their website here. I had been working on this Alice themed Birthday layout for Aspen for awhile now so I used it and added ribbon. There are some good shots from Aspens birthday party and the movie theater. The background paper is Sassafras Lass and I added lots of Heartwarming Vintage ephemera and embellishments.

It's been a busy week and everyone has been sick at least once this week. Had five scrapbook deadlines to meet this week, so it has been a real  push, usually only one or two. Some great new stuff to share soon though, cool new beach theme project kit for a June class and a summer music themed mini album is almost complete as well for Scrapjazz article. Gotta run, need sleep.

Aspen's {Baby}??

So it must be your lucky day, two blog posts today- a first for me for sure. I just finished a funny layout about Aspen that I just couldn't wait to share. She is currently in Creative Living class and got to bring home the legendary "think it over" baby last week! She was really excited about it and overall it went fine but it was amusing to watch her handle a "newborn". The first crying fit from the baby gave Aspen a partial meltdown, but after that she held it together pretty well. A couple oops moments when she forgot to support the head and some neglect during the night (she is a very heavy sleeper) was about the worst of it. The best part of the entire experience is that neither Scott or Aspen are pressuring me to have another baby now, hee hee. The one small taste of what it would be like with two little ones in the house cured them right now. lol.

So in true scrapper form I created this layout based on a challenge over at Candy Shoppe Designs, I recently applied for their design team and wanted to play along in this challenge for the fabulous prize. A kit from Scarlet Lime is up for grabs, super cool stuff- check them out at: http://www.scarletlime.com/
The layout had to include raindrops or teardrops- explains the baby tears right. Anyhow enjoy!

Materials Used: Papers-Daisy D's/Medallion Grape & Sidewalk Chalk; Colorbok/Apricot Lattice; Scenic Route Paper Co./Douglas Cootey,Coral Splash; Crafts Etc!/Orange Friendship; Embellishments: Franks Navette Crystals; Vintage lace; pink ribbon bow; Stampin Up/Eggplant Envy & Blush Blossom Marker

Well hope this post brought a smile to your face, I know it did bring one to mine.

Alice In Wonderland

As you know my daughter Aspen turned 15 in February and we ended up having her party later due to a mother daughter weekend jaunt [so much fun!] Regardless, I don't think it was coincidence that her slumber party fell on the opening day of the new Alice in Wonderland movie. So we all went to see it , in 3D no less. It was lots of fun and so when I saw the new Fairy Tale paper line from Reminisce with Alice I thought of her birthday photos and of a May class project. So I have combined the two and this will be my first May class, not sure on the date yet. I also am linking this post to the fabulous NVS girls at http://nvsgirls.blogspot.com/ who are doing an Alice Collage challenge this month with a prize pack from The Snobby Walrus at http://www.snobbywalrus.com/index.html. I have another Alice sketch ready that is more my artistic style, hopefully I will get to it also. But I thought I may as well enter this one and see what happens. Whatever happens at least I got to share some fab photos of Aspens birthday celebration. Hope you all had a great Monday!

Here is the project photo the class will include a double layout, bookmark and gift card:

Spring Greetings!

So it finally, actually feels like Spring here in Ohio- Thank you God. It hit the 80's yesterday, couldn't believe it. It has seemed like a long and dreary winter season. So to celebrate I wanted to share the class kit layout I created for the class I teach at B&B on Thursday. It is titled Friends Forever and also has 3 cards with the project. The owner wanted to promote one of the new Bo Bunny lines and this is the limited edition "Jazmyne". It is really nice and every sheet has glitter, so it really sparkles. The photos are of Aspen and her best friend Darian when they were on their recent youth rally trip to WinterFest in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. They had tons of fun.
The next blog should be soon with photos of Gabe's first fishing adventure! Have a blessed Easter and enjoy your Spring season!