circle of friends

I have gotten a few blog awards and never seem to be able to post them. Today I will! It's Sunday and I have nothing planned to post so here goes!

Jess, one of my Vintage Plum friends, has given me the circle of friends award! (Thanks, Jess!!!!)

Here are the rules for this award: To pick up the Circle of Friends Blog Award cut and paste the award logo and use it on your own blog. Nominate 5 other bloggers you feel have become part of your circle of friends. Link to your nominees within your blog post. Include these instructions on how to pick up the award in your blog post. Link back to the person who gave you the award in your blog post, to show your appreciation. Comment on their blogs to let them know they've received the award. So, while it may be hard for me to only pick five I will give this award to...

Heidi
Mo (I had to pick you even though Jess did, too!)
Nicole
Brenda
Emily

Thanks, girls, for inspiring me and for being such great bloggers and scrappers. You keep me on my toes and I've enjoyed getting to know you all!

creative imaginations contest

You all gotta help me out! I am a fan of Creative Imaginations (who wouldn't be when they make these wonderful rub ons). They are having a contest. The contest is this:

It's another "Tell a Friend" contest! Just refer a friend to the blog, and have them mention your name in their post! We'll pick one winner the week of August 2nd that refers the most friends! Good Luck!

Please go to their blog here and tell them you heard from me! I would be forever in your debt, and thanks!

sketchy thursdays - new sketch

Here is the new sketch this week for Sketchy Thursdays. Some past players said they were so excited to work with a circle last time we had one, that I decided to give another one a whirl.

Please post your entry to Mr. Linky in the right sidebar, in the comments section of this post or the Sketchy Thursdays Challenge Event spot on Memories Always - Forever by 11:59 p.m. (EST) Wednesday, July 29. I will post all of the layouts as well as announce a winner Thursday, July 30.

Have fun with this one! Thanks for stopping by and thanks for playing along!


Next week's winner will receive a prize from Suzy at The Memory Cafe. Visit her shop this week and check back to meet Suzy next Wednesday! There are some wonderful die cuts in her shop, check them out!

sketchy thursdays and a winner!

We have a Sketchy Thursdays winner! First, take a look at all the wonderful pages that were entered this week!

(And welcome to the newbies! We are happy to have you playing along!)

submitted by Pearl

submitted by Nicole


submitted by Mo

submitted by Megan

submitted by Loree

submitted by Kristin

submitted by Kathy

submitted by Brenda

Thanks again to Mo for her generous donation this week! I love those butterflies and can't wait to get the set I ordered from her store. Take a look! You should still be able to get a set from her.

The winner this week is... Kristin! Kristin, send me your shipping address to dianadesigns@rochester.rr.com and I will mail you the wonderful butterflies from Mo.

Thanks to everyone who played again this week!

I will post a new sketch later today and announce our newest Sketchy Thursdays sponsor. Some wonderful die cuts coming your way next week!!

meet Mo!

Maureen, a.k.a. Mo, a.k.a. MoMo Stamper is this week's Sketchy Thursdays sponsor. Mo has made a great set of butterflies to give this week's winner. I loved 'em so much, I already bought a set and can't wait to use them! Visit Mo's store here.

Let's get to know Mo!

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I grew up in Hawaii, but now I live in Bothell, Washington. I have been in this area since about 1990 and I love it here! I love the fact that we can experience all the seasons here. It's a beautiful state, and I EVEN LOVE THE RAIN! Just the other day we had some rain and thunder, and I was OVERJOYED!

My specialty is scrapbooking since that's what started it all! Before I got into blogging, I did a lot of two-page layouts because I thought the pages HAD to match when side by side. I've since changed my mind and usually scrap one page layouts. I create much faster this way!

Scrapbooking is therapeutic, fun and accomplishes the task of recording our family's memories for us to look back on and for future generations to experience, learn from and hopefully treasure.

I started scrapbooking around 1997 when I was 21 For some reason I CAN NOT find my scrapbooks! They may be at my parents' storage area or hidden in some corner of the house (so that no one can see the evidence)! LOL! COLLEGE YEARS! Need I say more?????

My favorite trend in paper crafting right now seems to be that the vintage feel IS EVERYWHERE! We're coming into this appreciation of the old....maybe because at the moment, we are unsure of our future as a society. There's something safe and secure that the vintage trend offers. It's making a lot of us appreciate what we had in the past.

Maybe this will allow us to make sounder decisions about our future and become more involved in social change ... because everyone can start as an individual and it doesn't really matter how they do that except that they just DO SOMETHING to improve the state of our environment, our economy and our finances. (Okay, that kinda went somewhere else! LOL!) Leave it to me to turn a simple scrapbooking trend into a call for social and environmental change!

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Thanks, Mo! I really liked getting to know you better (and here I thought I knew it all already, hee hee). Below is a picture of the butterflies similar to what Mo is giving away this week. Get excited!!!! And get those pages in by the end of the night. I'll announce a winner on Thursday.


And, if you saw the comments earlier this week about Lady Bird ... THIS is Lady Bird. She is a little Mo Mo Stamper mascot (Mo, can I call her that?) and is available for sale at Mo's store. Go and get her, she's adorable and I can vouch that she adds a great touch to a page!

pink ninjas - going places

Hi all! This layout is a combo of two challenges. The pictures of my son are from this weekend when he got his new motorcycle. He thinks he's tough now!

The prompt is from The Pink Ninja's blog. This week is Going Places. The sketch is a Scraplift Challenge I am hosting over at Memories Always - Forever. Take a look at both of these sites! They both have great ideas and fun people to play along with!



Supplies: Cosmo Cricket (pp), Sassafras Lass (pp), Chatterbox (chipboard), Basic Grey (letter stickers)

thank you to simply scrapping!

Thank you to the peeps over at Simply Scrapping for picking up my "Our Friends" layout from last week for this week's Featured Layout. I am humbled! If you aren't playing around over at Simply Scrapping, you are missing out. They are quite nice over there!

sketchy thursdays and scrap the boys

Happy Monday! Here is the page I did to go with this week's Sketchy Thursdays weekly challenge. I used the prompt over at Scrap The Boys for the motivation. July's prompt is "Real Boys..." I chose the education route and highlighted that my son loves to read, even choosing a book over a toy most times.



I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with this week for Sketchy Thursdays. And if you need motivation for those boy pages, I recommend Scrap the Boys. There are some great people playing over there ... lots of inspiration!


Supplies: Basic Grey (pp), My Mind's Eye (pp), Jillibean (pp), American Crafts (Thickers), Pink Paislee (letter stickers), Vintage Plum (pp-Bingo paper)
Embellishments from: K&Co, Sassafras Lass, Chatterbox and Sandylion
Tools: Fiskars (binding punch)

cards and a DT call

Here are some cards I made this week. Wanted to share some card inspiration today.

Also, there is a DT call over at Inky Impressions. If you are a card maker, head on over and check it out. They are having their 2^nd Design Team call and are looking for enthusiastic, friendly and talented stampers to help promote products and to provide inspiration to the stamping community, through personal blogs and online galleries.

This call is open to everyone!!

You are not required to use Inky Impressions stamps for your submissions but it’s a plus if you do.

All submissions must be received by August 3, 2009 by midnight (12:00 a.m.) Eastern Time and the new Design Team will be announced the week of August 9, 2009. Good luck to those that enter!