Crop Chocolate - Chocolatier projects

A while back I noticed a call for designers over at Crop Chocolate. It's a great scrap deals site and I was interested in designing with the kits they were going to send out.

Last week I received a box full of some Making Memories and Fancy Pants items.As the items appeared to be a bit "girly", I reached for some photos of my niece Reese. The first layout I made is for Blake's album. I used pop dots with the MM label stickers to add some dimension to my title.

I also made a layout for Kevin's album with the products. I LOVED the Fancy Pants' transparency and tried to get creative with the ribbon and make my own flower.

Crop Chocolate is closed until after Easter, but once they reopen, watch for my projects to pop up!

After the crop...

Since coming home from the crop last weekend, I've had so many ideas for layouts. I've tried to scrap a bit each night.

At the crop, I made a 2-page layout of Kevin's 1st grade field trip, but there were two photos that sort of told another story (about how he still wants to do things with me), so I wanted to keep them on a separate LO. I used the same products (Fancy Pants' Rough & Tough line) that I used for the field trip pages. It makes me sad to see how fast Kevin - my baby - is growing!Using the American Crafts "Love" kit that I picked up at the crop, I think I'm going to be able to scrap several photos of my niece Reese. (And believe me...there are MANY photos of Reese!) For "3Weeks" I scraplifted a layout that Shannon Zickel used as an example with the kit. I mixed it up a bit and made her 12x12 example into an 11x8.5.

I also took another Shannon Zickel 12x12 example and altered it into an 11x8.5 for "watch her grow." These photos of Reese from just one month apart crack me up!Finally, one last Reese LO for Kevin's album. I lifted a LO by Lynn Ghahary in the April issue of Scrapbook Trends. The other night I pulled out my American Crafts "Kids/School" layout and used the example Shannon provided with the kit with a few alterations to make this "Wild Wheeler Fun" LO for Blake's album. He loves spending time over at Uncle Terry's!As of now, we are officially on Spring Break! YAY!!!

We still have lots to do to get ready for Easter (it snuck up on me!) and with the forecast of pretty weather, we hope to spend a lot of time outside.

Hope you all have a wonderful Easter! I'm sure I'll end up with plenty of new photos to scrap! ;)

Crop with Shannon Zickel

For years I've been a huge fan of Shannon Zickel's work. I remembering seeing her layouts in magazines and then I started to follow her blog. In mid-February, I found out that she was hosting a "fun"draising crop just an hour from me. The registration fee was $30, but you received an American Crafts SPORTS themed kit with early registration. Hello? I can use sports themed products! I talked my aunt and my best friend into going with me. The three of us (im)patiently waited for the six weeks to pass until the crop. Saturday afternoon we arrived a bit early for the 3:30 crop. I knew we were in the right spot when we entered the church gym and I recognized Shannon's younger son from her layouts!

Shannon was great just as I expected and very, very fun to be around. We had a great time and helped close out the crop just after 2 a.m.!

In addition to socializing and taking advantage of some great bargains, I managed to finish 7 layouts.

Using the Sports-themed kit, I lifted a layout that Shannon had copied in our kit bag. These shots are a from November '07 when we went to watch Murray State play at Western Kentucky. Tom was a bit disappointed that Kevin cheered for Western - he's a fan of their mascot!
My second layout followed a sketch from Inspired Blueprints and won second place in the sketch contest. Yay! I won a Fiskars punch. I used an American Crafts Christmas kit that I ordered when I registered for the crop.

"Merry Christmas" was also based on a sketch from Inspired Blueprints and used the same Christmas kit. I didn't enter this one in the contest though. It's not my favorite layout, but I did finally scrap these photos that had never seemed to inspire me. I can never seem to get "good" photos at the school Christmas programs because of the (lack of) lighting.

I had some stories that I've been wanting to tell lately. The ruled paper from Sassafrass Lass' "Apple Jack" line worked perfectly to tell the story of Kevin on display at school for his love of reading. (My photo of this LO didn't turn out too good - I may try to retake it later...) I do love the simplicit of this layout. And, the colors make me happy. More ruled lines on Sassafrass Lass...this time to tell the story of Kevin's love for a friend's grandmother. The lady brings brown paper bags FULL OF CANDY to basketball games and Kevin stalks her. He ends up with a full sized candy bar or bag of m&ms! I actually cut the ruled pattern out of the sheet of paper and then adhered it to cardstock using pop dots.

While I had the Sassafrass Lass papers out, I matched these shots of Kevin at Build-A-Bear Workshop to some patterns and made a simple 2-pager.

Apparently smooshing my photos into the center of my 2-page layout and adding strips of pattern paper is my "go to" design. I had to laugh when I realized how similar "Lincoln's Birthplace" (below) was to "making monk e." (above). For these shots of Kevin's 1st grade field trip, I FINALLY used the Fancy Pants "Rough & Tough" line that I've had for a while now. I think it's one of the lines I've been "saving." Do you ever save products?

I was exhausted from the crop, but it was worth it. I have a bag full of new products and more ideas for scrapping than I have time to scrap!

Thank you Shannon and Crystal for a wonderful crop!

Jenni Bowlin Studio kit layouts

Every month I stalk the Jenni Bowlin Studio website to see what the monthly kit will include and whether or not she's added any new items to the store. Lately, my urge to order has been eased by knowing that Archiver's carries many of her products. However, when I saw the December kit, I just loved it. It wasn't really Christmas-y although it did have a lot of Christmas colors in it.

It was hard to pass up the kit!

I completed a non-Christmas LO using pics of Blake the day he came home and announced he'd made Safety Patrol at school. I added Thickers and Scenic Route stickers from my stash. I wanted to document our Christmas card this year and our letter, but didn't feel the need to have a traditional layout. I kept it simple with just a patterned paper background with our card overlapping an envelope like I used to mail our cards. I left the envelope open so our letter from this year can be removed and read. To finish it off, I added a red ribbon down the side of the page.

There was a challenge on a board to do a year in review LO. I did this LO for Blake using our Christmas card letter (cropped slightly) and the photo collage I included on our card. It's a great way to summarize the year for him.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this page!!! (I don't mean to brag - really!) The map of Canada on the October Afternoon paper had me stumped a bit until I realized there were a lot of waterways on it. Waterways...boats...my Raingutter Regatta layout was born. This page for Kevin just makes me smile. The boys made their simple boats with Tom and they worked quite well!

I guess I'm saving the best for last...

This layout really documents a memory I don't want to forget. I've eaten Krispy Kreme donuts my whole life, but they've always been purchased in a store. Every time I go to the mall in Louisville, I pretty much drive right by them. For some reason, after my birthday dinner, I decided to stop with the boys to check it out. It was cool seeing them make the donuts. We picked up 20 mini donuts for breakfast the next morning.

When we got home, I snuck a bite of one and couldn't help myself - "Oh. My. Gosh!" Blake asked me what I was talking about and I gave him a bit of the donut. His eyes got huge and he repeated what I'd said, "Oh. My. Gosh!" But he continued, "They're like heaven...God's gift to us."

Um, yeah...they were good!

Oh, and yes, that's a Krispy Kreme hat in the layout, too. We've made one more trip since then to get fresh donuts and one morning when I had a craving, I even stopped at the gas station by school to buy one. But they only sold half dozens. But, I bought them. And ate three... They weren't quite heaven, but they were still good.

Happy New Year everyone!!!

I finally scrapped...for me!

I received the best birthday present in the mail earlier this month. A great friend (who really knows my style well!) sent me a box full of Crate Paper's "North Pole" patterned papers, coordinating stickers and some ribbons. That day when I was out shopping, I came across some coordinating chipboard shapes and picked up four additional sheets of the paper line and some matching cardstock.

And the beautiful collection of supplies sat. And waited. For me.

Most of December I was busy juggling work and home life while also trying to work in making our Christmas cards and the many handmade gifts I planned before I started working! So, when I did have time to scrap, I wasn't able to scrap for me - I was too busy working on gifts.

The boys took their teacher gifts to school on the last day before Christmas break, I put my cards in the mail and pulled out my scrap supplies.

I am pretty much down to scraps with the North Pole papers, but was able to finish 16 layouts with it. !!! Did I mention five of them are double-pagers? ;)

Here are a few that I'd like to share.

This LO might seem a bit busy, but I like it. It took a while to finish! The multi-colored dots are the border of a die cut paper. I didn't want the cream center, so I cut it out (that took quite a while!) and then backed it with the big ornament paper which was then matted on the stripe. These photos are from THIS YEAR!!! The boys helped put the tree up over Thanksgiving weekend.

Last year we all got in on the cookie making/decorating, although I seem to be missing from the photos - imagine that! This LO is for Kevin's album. I mixed Little Yellow Bicycle mini alpha stickers with some puffy alphas by Making Memories.

I LOVE everything Charlie Brown!!! I have quite an assortment of Peanuts decorations. We keep them on the table by the front door and Kevin gets excited about putting them up every year. It's always so fun to walk by and see that every so often he mixes them up. These photos are from last year. This year, I cracked up when I walked by and saw Charlie Brown tackling poor Linus. Kevin has quite the imagination! I added some Jenni Bowlin Christmas tickets to this one. (Thanks Lisa for sending them!!!)This is actually one of the last layouts I finished (but I'm not going to take the time to upload them in order - sorry). The top edge of the dot paper is scalloped. Again, I added some JBS tickets that a friend, Lisa, slipped inside my Christmas card.

This is the last LO I finished today and I just love it. The pictures weren't really special, but I love how it all came together. The cream in the center is what I cut out of the center of the diecut paper in the first LO I posted above. I roughed up the edges. Then I drew a red border. It was missing something, but I didn't have enough paper left to mat it, so I cut strips of the stripe and slid them under the cream paper. Then I added strips of paper here and there. I taped a piece of rickrack over one paper strip and accented with some chipboard, too. Maybe it's the mixed alpha that makes me so happy.

My boys are growing up! This year they put their trees up ALL BY THEMSELVES! I got a good shot of Kevin with his tree. We had such a bad experience with rude Santa at our local mall last year that I was hoping to avoid a visit this year. However, when we went to Louisville to eat out for my birthday, we happened to pass Santa in a mall. Kevin begged to see him and we waited in the short line. It was a good experience for all of us.

To document Kevin's part in the school Christmas program, I added a star over his head in the photo so you can find him! Kept this one simple. Finally, I love this simple one. It could have been titled "Jesus is the reason for the season." I love my nativity scene(s) - yes, I have several. The boys always like to set the largest one up under the tree. This year it was all Kevin sitting it up for me. I was able to get a good angle for some pictures. I didn't do it on purpose, but I like how the right hand side of the page resembles one side of a Christmas tree the way the embellishments and alphas line up.

Yes, I have more North Pole layouts to share, but I'll save them for another day. ;)

Have a wonderful, safe New Year's Eve!

46 Layouts (59 pages) & 12 invitations for October!

I know I have a day left in October, but there will no time for scrapping on Halloween. I finished the Layout A Day "Croptoberfest" challenge at Personal Scrapper with 46 layouts (a total of 59 12"x12" pages) and 12 birthday party invitations. Yay me!

5 layouts that I finished wouldn't upload correctly and it's getting to late to fool with them, so I'll get them posted later. I do have several to share though...

Every time I'd sort through my paper crate, I'd see the free 8x8 pack of We R Memory Maker's paper that I got free with purchase a while back. I decided to pull it out and work with it. It took a while to piece the 8x8 papers to get them to work on my 2-page 12x12 LO, but in the end, I scrapped pics from 2006 that are now ready to go in an album. The scallops bordering the page were inspired by a LO I saw in Scrapbook Trends.

I made it to Archiver's last weekend and was thrilled to find a 12x12 pack of Fancy Pants felt shapes for 1/2 price. I knew I could use them at that price! I couldn't wait to use them with the Cosmo Cricket papers I'd picked up to use with the boys' Camp Invention photos (thanks for the idea, Debbie!). I now have all of their pics from that week ready to go into albums.

Here's one for Blake's album. He was so proud of that rocket!
This one is for Kevin...

Kevin had so many inventions, I had to make a 3rd page!

This page for Blake's album describes their mismatched clothes day and crazy hat day...

Who could forget crazy hair day?!?

This one is for Kevin's album...

I have so many ideas for more LOs, but no time to make them!

Croptoberfest mid-month update

It's the 22nd of October and I have already met my goal for 31 layouts this month for Personal Scrapper's Croptoberfest. As of last night, I'm up to 34 layouts. If you factor in double page layouts, I've actually completed 43 pages so far. I am still going to try to complete a layout a day just to see how many I can do this month. (Yes, I'm an overachiever!)

I actually completed this layout on the 9th. It would have been Mamma & Pappa's anniversary, so I planned to make a layout with one of their old photos. Instead I came across this photo of Grandma Smith and decided to scrap it. I was able to copy the photo the photo that my aunt Missy had. I pulled out my September Project kit from Scarlet Lime and used it with this photo. Although the project kit was Halloween-themed, everything on this layout except for the cardstock and alphabet stickers were in the kit. I traced another scalloped circle and hand cut this one so I would have the color I needed. This is one of my favorite pages.

On the 11th, Erica gave us a challenge to use scallops on our page. I used my new Marvy Uchida scalloped circle punch on "Tricked out!" I saw a layout by Shannon Zickel in Scrapbooks Etc. that had bats on a white background. I think she had used stickers, but I was reminded of some Heidi Swapp foam stamps (with bats) that I had gotten on clearance cheap earlier this year. Most everything else for this page was from the September Scarlet Lime Project Kit - that's where the glitter for the chipboard star came from!On the 12th, we were busy partying with family to celebrate Blake's birthday, but after everyone left, I found time to make one page. Kevin received a skateboard for his birthday LAST NOVEMBER and I was until this month finally getting pics of him on it. He plays with it all the time, but I just never seem to have my camera handy. I used scraps from the April Personal Scrapper kit to make this LO along with some other Fancy Pants products I had picked up at Archiver's.I stayed up late on Blake's birthday after everyone went to bed (I couldn't sleep!) and finished three layouts. They knocked out a couple of the October challenges from Leah at Personal Scrapper and all three used the new October kit, too.

"Shelling Corn" highlighted a fall tradition - the boys harvesting with Dad."Backseat Entertainment" mainly used up some scraps with a couple pictures that matched. The boys love using the new DVD player on roadtrips. (Here we were going to Evansville for Tom's birthday.) I loved that my new $1 set of Studio G wood mount alpha stamps matched the font in my Scenic Route stickers perfectly. Leah had a challenge to scrap your fall favorites. I pulled together pics from our trip to a pumpkin farm and also one of our fall display in our yard. Used scraps from the kit (made my own 'tags') and an assortment of alphabet tickers. On the 14th, I finished off Leah's final challenge for October. It was to create a month in review LO for September. Instead of using pictures, I decided to just list the highlights. Photos from everything will have their own pages at some point. I used the last little bit of the kit for this one. I also got back to work on our Florida vacation album. These are some pics from our last day there while we played in the pool after the rain finally stopped.

Erica challenged us to pull out an old PS kit for a LO. I found the July 2005 kit with scraps and was able to match up pics from Tom's birthday in '05 with it. I kept the LO simple and use the papers to make embellishments. It's a finished page...The final scraps of the kit sat on my desk for 4 days (I wasn't feeling well for a few days), but I used them up on this random shot of the boys in March '06. The title reflects their ages at the time. I added some naked chipboard. Since I finished off my October kit, I decided to pull out my barely touched October kit. I found these last day of school pics from '07 to work with it and Erica's "use 4 or more pics on a page" challenge for the day Monday. It's not my favorite layout, but it's done.For a past "sports page" challenge, I finally scrapped these pics of Blake with his basketball trophy from March '06. His trophy collection has more than tripled since then!Yesterday was all about me...I had a couple pics of souvenirs I brought home from our vacation this summer. Every day I sit at the computer with "my monkey" looking over the top of my monitor at me. I found the coconut bank at a roadside fruit/souvenir stand on the way home. I fell in love with it. I actually lifted a layout by blondegrrlie/Lindsey, since Erica had issued a scraplift challenge. I was able to use an assortment of scraps for this page.

Finally, last night I scrapped my new fall favorite. I can admit now that when I worked, I had an obsession with purses. I had way too many of them and spent way to much on them. When I started staying home, it seemed like all of my personal purchases came to a halt so I could prioritize (wink, wink) and purchase scrapbook supplies. While we were in Florida this summer, we found an outlet mall. My sisters were excited to find a Coach outlet. Although the purses were pretty, I wasn't impressed. Later we came across a Lucky outlet. My sisters were thrilled to find the expensive jeans half price. I wondered around the store while they were in the fitting rooms and fell in love with the Lucky bags they had. It had nothing to do with the Lucky brand - I just LOVED the leather bags. I finally broke down and spent $70 for this (all leather) multi-colored bag. It was regular $148! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. So, I had to scrap it - right? I even scrapped the tags that came with it.

Have a great week!