And now I wait.....

Now that my layouts are done for the Big Scrapper House challenge, I can sit back and relax. Yeah, right!! I'm as nervous as all get out and my fingernails are showing it! It has been announced that the house guests that were eliminated throughout the contest will somehow be the ones who 'vote' for either Kelly or myself, without knowing which one they voted for. Yep, you guessed it, CRAZY! Leave it to the owners, Frank & Von, of Life Preservers to add just one more twist to this rather crazy contest!

So, while I sit here waiting impatiently, here are the final two entries.....

For the #4 I had the hardest time trying to decide. I was thinking "4 legged friends" and featuring my pets, but animals can be so difficult when it comes to photographing. Then I got one of those DOH! moments and this is what I came up with......



The 4 seasons! I have such a beautiful garden all throughout the year and decided it needed showcasing all together on its own layout! Unfortunately, when I inked my number 4, it looked rather dull and I almost didn't use it. Since I don't have any opaque embossing powder my next thought was Diamond Glaze which worked like a charm. I need to pull that stuff out more often!

Onto the #5. I wanted my last layout to be a tribute of sorts to the actual contest itself. I thought of using my favorite 5 from the entire contest, 5 of ugliest, but then another one of those DOH! moments, which I seem to have alot of lately! I used 5 scrappy must haves and just love the whimsy and it made the perfect tribute to a fun and exciting contest!


I can't say it enough, but I've had so much fun and created some really neat cards and layouts during this 8 week contest. And yes, I have made a promise to myself, that I won't be this crazy again for, well, at least another 6 months!!

Godspeed

I'm a finalist!!

Yep, won immunity in the very last week and was guaranteed a spot in the Big Scrapper House finals at Life Preservers. For our final week, we are to create five different layouts. Sounds easy enough, but there's a twist....what else is new!! We had to feature the particular number in the layout and use that actual number somewhere on the layouts. This actually could lead to many interpretations, but here is what I did. For my first layout, I used one photo of one person, one paper line, and highlighted the actual #1 in my title:


For my second, I used a photo of two people, with two rows of pattern papers cut into squares, two strips of ribbon, two handstitched felt hearts, and the #2, again in the title.


On my third, I used a photo of three animals, with three rectangular blocks, three shades of brown, and inked the #3 in my title.


I still have two to complete before saturday and will be back to post those a bit later. For now, I'm off to get the emissions checked on my car. Thanks for stopping by!

Godspeed

Rice in soup.....

I learned something new today and I won't soon forget it. Never realized how small of an amount of rice to put in a pot of soup. Well, lets just say I'll be eating chicken rice with veggies soup all week! Kept adding more water and more water, and finally gave up.

I took a 2 1/2 hour nap this afternoon and feel much better. Hoping my crud is short lived and with the help of all my herbs and now this enormous pot of soup, I'll be kicking it good-bye within a few days. BTW, if you ever have a killer sore throat, try Throat Coat by Traditional Medicinals. It is a wonderful tea and makes your throat feel so much better! Been drinking it on and off today and it tastes pretty good, too, especially with a touch of honey. =)

Now that I feel better, I decided to hunker down and get my LEO Challenge #13 completed.


I love the colors of fall, but also know that the dreary days of winter aren't too far away. Trying really hard to focus on the beauty of the season instead of the negativeness of losing daylight at 4:30 in the afternoon. Time to work on that Vitamin D deficiency again!

Off to Hop! Godspeed

Zoo pics

We had a great time yesterday at the Portland Zoo and wanted to share a few pictures with you. Like I said we've been waiting for the lion exhibit to open, and we weren't disappointed. Doesn't he look comfy in his new home?


Close up of the King of The Jungle:


These three are beautiful!

They also have have a new exhibit where you can feed the parrots. Makayla was loving it:


And a few more, just because they're great shots!





Today I'm feeling a bit of the crud trying to take over my body, so I'll be back if it doesn't get the best of me. Have a great Saturday, everyone!

Godspeed

A time to share!

Here is a photo of Makayla smelling newly purchased mums. I don't think she appreciates the smell of them! This was a MUST to scrap:


Tomorrow, we're all going to the zoo! There's a new lion exhibit that we have been wanting to see and we get to spend the day with our favorite people. The temps are going to be perfect, there is no chance of rain, and we have the whole day to visit with the animals. What could be better than that?!

Godspeed

Happy Wednesday!

This week I decided to deep clean my home for the winter. Since its icky rainy here in the Pacific Northwest for about five months, I spend my whole summer outdoors and enjoy all that gloriuos sunshine. That said, I REALLY need to clean! Yep, its been ignored and I can tell. EEK!!

Problem is, I'm not only cleaning, I'm feeling the need to trash a bunch of "stuff" we never use anymore! Why we feel the need to keep this stuff is beyond me. Its taking me freakin' forever just to get one room done! By the end of this week, Goodwill is gonna get a pickup load of stuff. I just hope they'll take this perfectly good desk and office chair, cause I know Butch is tired of looking at them in his garage!

So, once I got my room of the day cleaned, I decided I needed some scrap therapy for moi. I pulled out my TSR kit and went to work with the Bella Blvd. Camped Out. That one looked to be the biggest challenge for me, so since I was already in the challenge mode with my purging, I decided why not give it a try. Holy Smoly am I glad I did!


I just love this photo of Makayla and Maggie, and scrapping it with these papers was so very easy to do! And I just love the look of those papers complimented with the Kraft cardstock. Whatcha think? =)

Till next posting, Godspeed

I'm a Hoppin'!

It's that time again for another Willow Traders Blog Hop. I love seeing what everyone's been up to in the week and can get some fantastic inspiration as well!

This week, I've been competing in a scrap-off at Life Preservers for the Big Scrapper House contest. After Scrapvivor here a few years ago, I swore I'd never get myself into such a thing again.... Unfortunately, it just happens to be the challenge for this particular week. Von split us into a Red Team & Blue Team. Whichever team scraps the most points, has the fewer number of scrappers eliminated. So, here's a sampling of my submissions:





Pulled out a few older kits I had laying around here and mixed in a few new that I just received. Thanks for dropping by.

Godspeed

Life Preservers Is In Da' House!!

Yep, this beautiful kit showed up in my mailbox and I'm just lovin' it! Cosmo Crickets Early Bird And October Afternoon's Cherry Hill lines with some really darling Etsy finds. Now I just need to decide which stack of cd's I need to get some pics from to start making a dent in this kit!


If you want to see more of the goodies offered for the month of September, check them out here! And while your at it, there are a few October kits still available and the November kits are already to be reserved.

Lead us not into temptation...... =)
Godspeed

Happy Saturday!

The house is quiet...no TV, no stereo, the dog and cat are sleeping, and I'm getting sucked into my own little scrappy heaven. Pulled out some ScrapRoom and Simply Obsessed kits, looked thru my stash of sketches, and gather up some recent photos. I am so ready for some scrap therapy!

After sitting for about 15 minutes trying to figure out which sketch to use, I decided to wing it. Here is what I came up with using Jenni Bowlin, Graphic 45, and some flowers I cut from old dictionary pages and pattern paper using my handy dandy original BIG red Sizzix.


Some of my best work comes from just winging it, how about you? Thanks for stopping by, and I'll have another post soon.

Godspeed

Blog Hopping!!

Until about two months ago, I never checked out too many blogs, but doing this at Willow Traders has been such a blast and I'm getting sooooo inspired with all the creativity that I've seen! So, here I am again and I hope you get inspired by my creations as much as I get by yours!

Here is my challenge for WT's LEO #5. We were to use a sketch from the May sketch submissions at Nuts About Sketches as our inspiration. I chose sketch #55:


And here's my interpretation:


Makayla loves our flowers in the garden and loves to take time to smell the roses whenever she's here! Once smelling this one she proclaimed, "too sweet!" I think another gardener has been born! =)

Be back later this weekend. Godspeed

Terrific Tuesday!

Why is it terrific you ask? Well, I managed to get two, you heard it correctly, two layouts finished of Makayla's 4th Birthday this past June! Over at Willow Trader's for the LEO #3 we were to incorporate a non-scrappy item that we recycled from the trash.

I've had this denim that I cut from an old pair of ratty jeans that I knew one day I'd find a scrappy use for. =) So, I used a scallop die cut piece of paper by Teressa Collins as a template to trace the denim, sewed it on, cut flower with another 6 to 7 inch piece and VIOLA!!


Didn't want to stop there, so used more of the denim pieces for the border edge and another flower on this side. This is for my Week 5 of the Big Scrapper House over at Life Preservers.


Never thought I'd use fabric on a layout, but completely am blown away that I did and not just one, but two!! I may have to drag it out more often. =)

Godspeed

Truly Unique!

That totally describes my subject matter in this layout! Makayla is such a sweet little girl, but the tomboy in her shows up quite often, especially when at the playground. This particular day it had just rained and I promised her a visit to the playground once it stopped. She discovered the slide was wet and asked me to dry it. Well, since I didn't come equipped with towels of any sort, I told if she wanted it dry, she needed to do it. Well, she did .... with her butt!! Where there's a will, there's a way. =) Decided to scrap those photos for Willow Traders September LEO #2:


And speaking of challenges, this week at The Big Scrapper House at Life Preservers, we were to chose between doors 1,2, or 3. Well, I chose three and there was a possibility that I could have been one of two eliminated from the game. It seems 11 other ladies chose the same door and it was two of their numbers that were drawn. WHEW!!

So, since I was safe, my challenge was to do a layout consisting of solid cardstock, doodling, buttons, and flowers. I jumped right on it and used up a bunch of little cardstock scraps I've been saving:


Now that I've seen my mojo again, I'll be back this Labor Day weekend with some more goodies to share. =)

Godspeed

Scrappy Goodness!!

This month's kit at The ScrapRoom is just what the doctor ordered to get my mojo back into the swing of things! Love the fall like colors of some, with a touch of whimsy in others to make for some gorgeous layouts.


This Double Shot kit is definitely a must have, especially for those Chicago pictures from this summer. October Afternoon has fast become one of my favorite paper manufacturers and this Road Map line is no exception! And honestly, I don't think My Mind's Eye has ever made a line that I didn't like!


Unfortunately, with the long Labor Day weekend, my kit is being held up this month. I guess I just need to practice the saying "Patience is a virtue!" But, I bet that person wasn't waiting for a yummy scrappy surprise in their mailbox either!

Godspeed

YAY!!!

Remember that Greatest Crop On Earth I was participating in?? I tied for first place and won a $10 gift certificate for scrapping supplies from Simply Obsessed!! YAY!! And I was notified by email this afternoon that this delicious kit starring Bo Bunny Gypsy is on its way to my doorstep:


Gonna be getting some fantastic mail this weekend. =)

Godspeed

I'm scrapped out!

As of midnight tonight, the crop is over! It was fun, but it was grueling trying to keep up and get everything in on time. Now the waiting begins to see who the top three were......

Here are some of the layouts and such I did in the past two nights. I actually accomplished alot more than I ever imagined I would, especially with working the past three days.





Notice the circus colors?! =) I'll be back to post what the results are.

Godspeed

Clean Up! Clean Up!

Everybody do your share! Sorry, that little jingle gets caught up in my head whenever I start straightening up! Makayla sings when we pick up her toys, so ..... you get the picture. =)

Speaking of pictures, I thought it would be a fun idea to snap one of the mess I've created since Wednesday. Here is what my scrap space looked like, that is before I started doing the laundry and needed that spot to fold the clothes! I can get rather messy, but believe it or not, I do know what was in that pile and it was just a matter of shuffling thur it. =)


OINK!!

So I'm off to work a short shift, but I'll be back later with some more fun stuff.

Godspeed

On a roll!

With the ongoing crop over at Simply Obsessed, I've managed to use up some of this never ending stack of photos I've accumulated. I know I'll never catch up, but its fun trying! I'm also trying to use up some of my hoarded stash before the new lines start showing up at my doorstep. I know, I know, good luck with that one, right!?! =)

Here are more cards that I've managed to get done in the past few days:


And a layout:



Thanks for the visit and I'll be back with more scrappy projects throughout the weekend! For now, I need to tend to the laundry and vacum up some dog hair! EGADS!! It's gets rather hairy around here with two dogs!!

Godspeed

Scrappin' my heart out!

When yer hot, yer HOT!! My creativity has been hotter than ever and I made very good use of it.

I've been participating in Simply Obsessed's Greatest Crop On Earth! for their 2nd Birthday Celebration. With the wide variety of challenges, I've managed two layouts, two cards, a tag for a future layout, two games, and lots of chatting. =) Here is what I've accomplished to date:






After a short 4 hour shift tomorrow, I'll be back to take on the days' challenges! Godspeed

Simply Obsessed Blog Hop!

We are starting the Birthday Celebration over at Simply Obsessed with a Blog Hop! SO is turning two this year and to kick off a week long celebration, we are bloggin'!

In keeping with that birthday spirit, I created a generic birthday card. I found the sketch over at Pagemaps Cardmaps in the December 2008 archives. Create a card using this sketch, link it here and share your work. Here's mine!


And your next stop is at Elizabeth 's. Enjoy!

Relay For Life - August 15th

Its starting to get a bit crazy around here! While finishing up a blog hop with Willow Traders I'm overlapping with the start of a new one over at Simply Obsessed. Forget the fact that we just finished up our Relay For Life 24 hour walk at 10am this morning.....I'm a bit drowsey, and thats an understatment. =)

I'd like to share a few pics from the event.






For those who have participated, you know the many different emotions that you feel within this 24 hour period. I find it rewarding to be able to keep spreading the word on early detection and seeing the people's faces when they finally "get it". Happy that God gave us the ability to love a total stranger therefore helping to raise money for this wonderful organization. Tearful as we walk the track during the luminaria ceremony to reflect on those names, knowing that someone has died because we couldn't find a cure soon enough. And sometimes downright silly because we have to keep ourselves awake somehow!

Yes, we laugh, we cry, we're happy and sad. We love them, we miss them. They will be in our hearts forever! Godspeed