a color challenge for ya'!

If the Shoe Fits... Scrap It! is up with the next challenge for Fashionista Friday #8. We want to see your blue, white and silver creations! Nothing better than a color challenge to get you motivated to start your holiday cards!!

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A few ideas for the weekend: Join me over at Scrap That! for the online crop this weekend. I'm hosting the Bingo game beginning 9 a.m. (EST) Sat., so head on over now, pick your words and send them my way. I'm going to be posting a layout challenge as well as a card challenge on Sunday, so stop on by! I'd love to see some friendly faces join us over there.

Sketchy Thursdays is winding down the Nov. GDT challenge, the Lil Scrappin Mama Second Chance Challenge, as well as amping up this week's chance to win a kit from Scrapbook Kit Club. Click on over there as week make some winner announcements in the next day or two.

Lots to do—plenty of prizes to win! Have a scrappy weekend everyone!

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PS: Vote for Heidi!! She made it to Round 2 for the Torendi DT contest! Keep her in the race!!! VOTE!!

sketchy me

The latest sketch is ready at Sketchy Thursdays! Personally, I am loving this sketch and think I may do another page this week just for the fun of it. (A page that isn't about me!)

Here's my sample page. It is also an entry for The Studio's Oct. 16 Challenge. Check out the details here. The entry had to have new patterned paper, old patterned paper and be about yourself.

I have to tell you a little story. When I planned out this page, I fully intended to also use the prompt Phenomenal Woman over at Scrap That Poetry... and then I just couldn't do it! On one hand, the word 'phenomenal' is huge for the letters I wanted to use. And on the other hand, I felt incredibly embarrassed showcasing that kind of praise for myself on a page. Silly, huh?!

So, here is my weak, and not really great, attempt at also doing that challenge. I wanted to mention it though, because if you can manage to make it rock (like some of the ladies over there have), then try it out!


Don't forget to play along at Sketchy Thursdays this week. Our friend Amber over at Scrapbook Kit Club has the November kit sneak up for a peek and is giving one away to this week's winner. It could be you... but you have to play to win!


Supplies: Maya Mist (blue), Hambly (pp), Dream Street (pp), Evalicious, Prima (bling and bubble), Pink Pasilee (chipboard) and Creative Chaos (journal spot)

a revived sketch and some american crafts love

Flamingo Scraps is an online scrapbooking store that has quickly become a friend to both Sketchy Thursdays as well as me. Suzanne, Susan and the rest of the Flamingo Scraps peeps have picked up an oldie-but-a-goodie sketch from Sketchy Thursdays and are running a contest.

Here is my page to go along with that challenge. Head over to this page to see the details! (See that amazing, Prima jeweled flourish on the lefthand side of my page? Yeah... Flamingo Scraps sells them!)


I also found some of my American Crafts goodness to play along with the AC blog. They want you to use two AC products and black & white photos.

This is a page for my son's book. The pictures are from a family vacation we took with my mom, stepdad and sister. We live hours and hours away from each other, so to have the chance to travel to see my grandmother in NC this past May was way overdue! We had 10 days together, and Nate had his first chance to really get to know his aunt Ashley!

Thanks for looking at my blog today! I love when you all stop by!


Supplies: American Crafts (card stock, pp, Flair, Thickers, ribbon, fussy cuts), Prima (bling) and Making Memories (letter stickers)

a weekend crop for you!

If you didn't get enough online cropping in this past weekend, I have another one to tell you about! I am this month's Guest Designer over at Scrap That! And for October, we're hosting...

CROP-OCTOBER FEST!!!

GET READY.... GET SET... its time for CROP-OCTOBERFEST! Scrap That! is hosting an ALL-OCCASION, MINI-CROP... with LOTS of challenges and fun to get you going on some of those Halloween, Christmas and birthday LO's and cards you have been meaning to get too!

Be sure to check it all out in the forum on WEDNESDAY, 10/21 as there will be an official sign up area. And, YES... PREGAME CHALLENGES to start us off!

On Friday, 10/23 at 3 p.m., we begin posting challenges and it will carry through until Sunday, 10/25! Can't wait for you to come and join us!!!

You must be a member, so head on over there today! Thanks, and hope to see you there!

spookiness from a scrappy design

Happy Monday! Today is the day I get to share with you what I was working on for A Scrappy Design. I LOVE what Heather sent me this month... like the Haunting Tale Journal Spots that I turned into this accordion album. Pretty cool, huh? I folded a 12" x 4.5" piece of card stock and adhered the journal spots to that. Instant mini album!

See that spider button? A Scrappy Design makes that, too! It was the perfect embellishment for this.

This card was made using A Scrappy Design's Halloween Sayings and Spiders. A little twisted wire and the spider is suspended from the hole in the front of the card... ready to send a spooky message.

And more love for the Spiders set from A Scrappy Design. Here, I suspended it from a piece of twine to make it look like it was on the tree branch.



A Scrappy Design is having a sale: HALLOWEEN PRODUCTS ON SALE! All Halloween products are 25% off. Priced as marked. (Excludes Buttons) So, grab up these super cute items today!

a 'lil' bit to win and some cropping going on

As many of you know, today is a big day for a few reasons. First, I am off to meet Spiderman with my son this morning, so that is the most important event of them all—Super heroes are the best!

No, really... here is the big news for today in the land of scrapbooking. At Sketchy Thursdays today, we are rolling out another Second Chance Challenge courtesy of Lil Scrappin Mama. If you haven't guessed by now, the DT members each took a stab at the October kit and it was WONDERFUL! Great fall colors, awesome kraft paper and amazing embellishments that seemed to go on forever! (*swoon*)


Your challenge, for a chance to win your very own October kit from Lil Scrappin Mama, is to make a fall layout using normal fall colors (orange, brown, green) and then to add a splash of bright to it. Add teal, add pink... add some splash!! One random winner is going home with this kit, and it could be you! Play along and link your entry HERE!

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And, because the day just keeps getting better, this layout I'm showing here goes with the Sketchy Thursdays BONUS CHALLENGE over at Memories Always - Forever's Fall Festival Online Crop. I can't begin to tell you how fun this weekend is going to be!

I would love to show you the sketch.... I would love to show you the prize I'm giving away.... I would love to tell you all about the tutorial I am posting today!

There is so much I would LOVE to share with you... but I can't. You have to be a MAF member and play along over there. You have all weekend to complete even just one project for a chance to win, so no excuses that you're too busy! Hope to see you over there!

And with that, I am off to meet Spidey! Throwin' webs everyone, and I'm outta here! I'll see you on MAF this weekend!

loving my lil scrappin mama kit

Happy Friday! I am going to continue the week of fall colors by showing the two cards I made with my October kit from Lil Scrappin Mama. I can't say enough about it!

(And need to warn you that you'll be seeing more of it tomorrow, but that's only because you'll have a chance to win one. But that's OK, right? Hint hint... stop back tomorrow to play to win!)

This second card is the one I made for the FASHIONISTA FRIDAY: BLING IT ON challenge up at If The Shoe Fits... Scrap It! blog. Head on over there today to play along. All you have to do is use bling on a card or layout. Simple, eh? Can't wait to see what you all come up with!

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Don't forget the Memories Always - Forever Online Crop tomorrow! There will be a custom Sketchy Thursdays sketch, a few cool tutorials and of course lots of prizes!! Can't wait to see you over there!

10.15 new sketchy thursdays challenge

Here's the newest sketch, up and ready for you at Sketchy Thursdays! The DT had a lot of fun with it and we hope you will, too. This week's winner will get a kit from Scrapbook Circle kit club.

And this is my page for this week. My son loves bridges. He has since we went over a toll bridge in upstate NY two summers ago. He was fascinated with the fact that we needed quarters for the bridge.

Now he requires coins to go over (or under) any bridge, overpass, guard rail, you name it... if it looks like a bridge, he's gotta shake his fist full of coins and make a silly sound I couldn't possibly begin to describe. But it's adorable, I assure you.

This page chronicles his love for bridges. Thanks so much for looking! I truly do appreciate everyone who stops by my blog and visits each time I post!!

get meaningful: school days

Get Meaningful is back up today with the latest prompt: School Days. What was school like for you? For your kids? Take a minute to journal about your experience attending school or in watching your kids go.

I couldn't, for the life of me, find a decent, worthy-of-scrapping photo of me from when I was in school. So, I went with Nate's preschool experience.


From past layouts, some of you know that I love to take pictures of Nate before he leaves the house. These shots are from this past week, and he is looking particularly handsome... and being quite a ham!

I wrote in the journal spot a bit about taking his picture before school, but the hidden journaling goes deeper into his actual experiences at preschool. Let's just say that Nate isn't a stranger to the concept of time out. (smile!)


Supplies: (My Lil Scrappin' Mama October kit!) Dream Street (pp), Dream Street (chipboard), Jillibean Soup (pp), lace ribbon, staples, twine


Hope to see some new faces playing along at Get Meaningful for this prompt! I think it's a fun one!!