Copy Cat Thursday - I Just Can't Help It!

Good Morning!

So today, I'll be copying Kristina Werner yet again.  I know!  I can't help it, though!  I love her style.  Most of her cards are simple, but not simple looking.  That appeals to me.

You can find her original card here.  And here is my copy:

The card measures 3" x 6".  Stampin' Up! has envelopes that fit cards that size.  Fun!  Oh boy.  Just noticed how pink that photo looks.  I don't have time to fix it.  So just know that the card base is Vanilla, as is the patterned paper.  I love that patterned paper.  It's from Stampin' Up!  I think it's called First Edition?  Something like that.  Both sides are the same so if you punch a shape and want to flip it, you can!  I made another card with that patterned paper and the bird punch from SU!.  I'll post it soon.

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Card Class

Good morning!

Two posts in a row!  Don't get used to it.  ha ha.  Just thought I'd share what we're making at January Card Class.  Should be fun!

Well, I'm off now to do some shopping for stocking stuffers and Christmas morning breakfast. And it's not even 8 am!  Busy, busy, busy!

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Absent...

December has been extra busy for me this year....

Superman (my husband) finally got a job!  YAY!

But now with his work and school schedule, I have almost ZERO time to myself....

Taking kids here and there....

Helping with homework....

Christmas shopping....

Random errands that I used to send him to do....

The next year and a half will definitely hinder my posting time....

And probably my crafting time....

But I have to do a little crafting to keep sane....

I'll be holding card classes and Stamp Club in 2012 so I'll try to at least post those projects....

If not other random projects here and there....

This is what I worked on last week....

I wanted to make some vintage-y looking tags to put on our stockings....

Just to dress them up a bit....

Just for the fun of it....

Yes, we put our stockings on the back of our kitchen chairs....

Until we get a fireplace....

Check back Thursday....

I'll for sure have a Copy Cat to show you....

Plus, I'll show you what we gave to our next-door neighbors this year....

And the gift I made for Superman's siblings....

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Copy Cat Thursday - more Christmas

Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving!  If you celebrate Thanksgiving, are you the cook today? We will be having the smallest group we've had in years.  Just 7 of us.  After dinner and clean-up, we'll break out the Christmas decorations (it was all I could do to get my family to wait until this afternoon!  A few years ago, I came home one October afternoon to the tree fully decorated in the living room.  Sheesh!), then we'll eat pie and watch It's a Wonderful Life.  I'm really looking forward to this day!

Today, I copy myself.  Not that I put myself in the category of others I copy.  It's just that this design is a good standby and I was in the groove so I decided, what the heck.

I copied my brown glitter snowflake card to make this card here:

I already have 2 more Copy Cat cards in the wings so stay tuned for those. :)

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

100 Things I am Thankful for - Day 5

Today's the last day in Kelsey's 100 series.  The theme for today is THINGS.  Pretty easy.  Here's my 20.
Again, not a complete list.

I'm thankful for:

1 - my iPad
2 - my iPhone
3 - my dishwasher
4 - my exercise videos
5 - my treadmill
6 - my Kitchen Table Studio (and everything that's used therein ;))
7 - my computer
8 - my car
9 - my piano
10 - my potting bench (the last thing my Dad was able to make before he couldn't see anymore)
11 - our Apple TV
12 - our TV
13 - oatmeal
14 - my David Austin English roses (which perfume my "secret garden")
15 - my printer
16 - my big bathtub
17 - my Big Shot
18 - my vacuum
19 - bananas
20 - green smoothies

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

P.S.  There WILL be a Copy Cat Thursday tomorrow.  After you put the turkey in the oven, come check out how I copied myself!

100 Things I am Thankful for - Day 4

Second post of the day!

So here I am.  Back again to catch up.  Wasn't sure I would make it back.  Day 4's theme is PEOPLE.  Now remember, we're supposed to list 20.  Really?! Only 20?!  I would put every single person I've come across if I could because, really, everyone I've encountered has touched my life, for good or bad, and has made me the person I am today.  Hopefully, more compassionate from the bad experiences, and more grateful and loving for the good.

So, because Kelsey gave the nod to cheat, here are my "20" people (and/or animals) I'm thankful for (not in any order, except for the first two):  NOTE:  this is not even close to being a complete list. Just so you know.

1 - Jesus Christ
2 - my Heavenly Father
3 - my stud of a husband
4 - my 4 amazing children
5 - my parents
6 - my mother and father-in-law
7 - my Farnsworth girls
8 - my former boss, C.J.
9 - my current boss, Angie
10 - my good friend, Colleen
11 - my Primary presidency
12 - my blog friends
13 - my Card Class girls
14 - my other good friend, Tiffiny
15 - my sister
16 - my Aunt Colleen
17 - my two dogs (one of which is the rescued puppy from my Day 3 post)
18 - my 7th/8th grade choir teacher
19 - the cast of Larkrise to Candleford
20 - the Primary kids in my ward

I'm thinking I will make these lists into a mini-album, which I'll post when it's done. :)

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

100 Things I am Thankful for - Day 3

I'm a day behind.  Oh well.  I might get to Day 4 today.  I might not.


Today's theme is OPPORTUNITIES.  Kelsey is making me think!

Here goes.  I'm thankful for:

1 - the opportunity to teach card classes
2 - the opportunity to live in a free country
3 - the opportunity to worship how I choose
4 - the opportunity to own a home
5 - the opportunity to vote
6 - the opportunity to be active in my community
7 - the opportunity to keep in touch with family and friends through technology
8 - the opportunity to live close to parents
9 - the opportunity to use modern conveniences (I mean my dishwasher saves my life!)
10 - the opportunity to have good friends
11 - the opportunity to send my kids to school
12 - the opportunity to be employed
13 - the opportunity to be better each day
14 - the opportunity to have a husband to share things with
15 - the opportunity to choose how I spend my time
16 - the opportunity to live in a beautiful state
17 - the opportunity to be financially okay right now despite my husband's unemployment
18 - the opportunity to have rescued a near death puppy
19 - the opportunity to be creative
20 - the opportunity to make the world a better place

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

100 Things I am Thankful for - Day 2

So the theme for Day 2 is ABILITIES AND TALENTS.  This one is harder for me because in a way I feel like I'm bragging. But I'm really not. So here goes:

1 - I can find the bright spot in most situations.
2 - My talent for making cards.
3 - Playing the piano.
4 - Being organized.
5 - My faith that things work out the way they're supposed to.
6 - Sharing my talent of singing.
7 - My ability to grow flowers and produce.
8 - My mad baking skills (well at least for my killer peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and homemade non-canned pumpkin pie).
9 - The ability to take care of my family.
10 - My ability to feel compassion.
11 - My ability to see (something my Dad has almost lost completely)
12 - Being able to exercise.
13 - Making a cozy home.
14 - Helping others feel better about themselves.
15 - Being able to read.
16 - My ability to find joy in the every day things.
17 - Being able to focus on and be grateful for what I have and not what I don't.
18 - Using my small paycheck to make others happy.
19 - Being able to serve in my church.
20 - Being good at making my kids feel loved.

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

100 Things I am Thankful for - Day 1

I'm playing along with Kelsey at the StorySaving blog for the next few days.  She has a challenge to list 100 things we are grateful for, breaking it down into 5 themes of 20 items per theme.  You should join too!  Today's theme is PLACES.  Here's mine (not in any order):

1 - my home
2 - Pioneer Elementary
3 - my covered patio
4 - Strawberry Reservoir
5 - the temple
6 - my parents' home
7 - Thanksgiving Point
8 - my family room
9 - my friend Colleen's home
10 - my in-law's home
11 - Disneyland
12 - Charlotte, NC
13 - blog land (does that count as a place?)
14 - my local post office
15 - Harmon's
16 - Granger baseball park
17 - my front porch
18 - my church building
19 - my front yard growing up
20 - my husband's arms

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Copy Cat Thursday - handmade flowers

Good morning!

Another copy of a card from Kristina, which you can see right about HERE.  I'm sure it won't be the last either.  In case you're wondering.

I think it's really fun to make my own flowers out of paper.  It's always amazing to see what a couple of scraps of card stock and some sprays of water can make.  The green one looks a little like a head of lettuce, don't ya think?  I think that white one looks like a Gardenia.  It reminds me of a corsage a date gave me one year when we went to a high school dance.  It was gorgeous and smelled heavenly, but by the end of the evening, it had so many brown spots on it, I couldn't even wear it to church the next day. :(

The good thing about paper flowers?  You can touch them all you want and no brown spots!

So, again, not exactly like Kristina's card, but pretty darn close with the things I already had at home.  I think, though, that I need a new white pigment pen.  I've had it for at least 5 years and have hardly used it so I think it was pretty gummed up, thus the feeble-looking stitch lines.  It still has a lot of ink in it, which hasn't dried up.  Anyone have a solution for getting it unclogged?

Anyway, have a great day and...

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

Another Packaging Idea

But not in the way you think!  Sometimes I get on a super frugal craft kick.  LOL.  The other day, I was taking some Basic Grey fabric brads out of their packaging to put in the jar that holds my other specialty brads.  As I was about to drop the packaging into the trash, I noticed something beautiful on the back and thought "hey, that would make a great accent on a card!"  

Have you figured out what part of the card was packaging?  If you guessed the spray of roses, you're the winner!  It was fun to use an embellishment that was (nearly) free and so pretty. :)

This card will go to my good friend on her birthday next week.  She's MUCH more frugal than I am so she'll really appreciate it. ;)

Thanks for joining me at the Table today! :)

Copy Cat Thursday - Brown Glitter

Today's card is copied from Lisa Brown.  This one is so beautiful I don't know if I can give it away.  I mean the photo just does not do it justice.  It looks so rich in person. (I can gush like that because I didn't come up with the idea.  So I'm not really bragging now. Am I?)

I didn't even realize that Stampin' Up! sold brown glitter.  For as many times as I've looked through that catalog, I skimmed right by that fact.  Probably because I'm not a huge glitter fan.  I mean I like it, but I only use it on occasion.  But when I saw Lisa use brown glitter on brown card stock, I was so drawn to it!  And to use chocolate paper and glitter for a Christmas card, was even better.  How creative!  You can see her original card HERE.

I used my favorite-in-the-whole-wide-world snowflake stamp set.  Sadly, it's a long-ago retired Stampin' Up! set which means I will never, ever part with it.

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

I'm a Slacker & the Spooky Trunk Award

So, I should have done a Copy Cat Thursday post yesterday.....and I forgot.  And then I remembered.  But it was late and I was too tired to go to all the work of turning on the computer and looking for someone's project to copy.  Next Thursday, for sure.....probably. ;)

But I have been crafty.  I'll post the two cards I made soon so stay tuned.

Tonight is the Trunk-or-Treat activity at my ward (church).  Those of us who were in charge this time decided to invite all those bringing their trunks and treats to decorate said trunks for a chance to win the Spooky Trunk Award.  I was put in charge of the prize and was excited to do something fun and different!

I got this cute caramel apple at my new favorite chocolate shoppe.  BTW, I didn't notice he had 3 eyes until I brought him home.  If I had noticed at the store, I would have asked for one with 2 eyes, but oh well, he's still way cute.  He's an alien mummy.  And yes, there is too such a thing. On Halloween.

I've been eyeing (not with 3 eyes) the Frame It stamp set from Stampin' Up! since July and decided to order it.  SO glad I did because the largest frame in the set made a super cute embellishment for the tag.  You can't tell in the photo, but I used a piece of a window sheet right behind the frame to make it look more like a real picture frame.  Looks great in real life!  And isn't that black rose great?  It's from Making Memories, but not sure which line.  I think it adds some spooky elegance.

And here's the prize all completed.  I hope the winner is happy with their 3-eyed mummy gourmet carmel apple! Had to get a Snickers one for the hubs.  He's a snickers freak fan!  It wasn't decorated but oh man does it look delicious....hope it's still around by the time he gets home from school tonight, heh heh heh.

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Simple but Beautiful Packaging Idea

I think it's fun to make the outside of a gift look just as appealing as the inside.  It makes the recipient feel extra special.  And I especially love it when it takes no time at all!

I've had this plain blue wrapping paper for quite some time now so when Stampin' Up! came out with this big blue button, I was so excited.  It matches my wrapping paper so well.

I simply made a medallion with a 1" strip of my First Edition DSP using my Simply Scored tool, adhered the big blue button to the center, adding four small pearls to the center of the button.  Then I attached the finished piece to my ribboned package.  Beautiful!

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Copy Cat Thursday

Good morning!

Today I thought I'd share something new!  Now, in my perfect world this would be a regular Thursday occurrence.  Sometimes it might be, but sometimes life might get in the way.

I love to browse different blogs to get new ideas for cards, layouts, and other crafts.  I'm much better at imitation than originality so that's what these posts will be about.

Each Thursday on every Thursday that I remember ;), I'll post a project that I've made that was inspired by someone else's project.  I'll just be using what I already have in my stash.  These posts will probably, mostly be cards, but I think I might throw a layout or two or even a home decor project in for fun.

So meet the first Copy Cat Thursday card:

This was inspired by a card by Kristina Werner.  I'm always inspired by her.  You can see her original card HERE.

There are obvious differences between my card and Kristina's, like how her circles have words in them and that she uses letter stickers to complete the greeting, and that the scallops on my card are ginormous compared to the ones on hers, but overall, I think mine has a similar feeling.  On the circles, I used my ever-favorite technique:  Emboss Resist.  It's like magic to me every time!

Come back tomorrow when I share a gift packaging idea using a few pearls, my Simply Scored tool, a button and a bit of ribbon.

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Check out this blog!

Let me introduce you to Kelsey and her blog, Story Saving.

I met Kelsey many years ago. Twenty-three years ago, to be exact.  In the hospital.  When she was first born.  She's my cute niece who is talented in many areas.  She's a wife, student, quilter, photographer, bee keeper, digital scrapbooker, and all-around crafty gal.

She started her Story Saving blog to help us realize how important memory keeping and sharing our stories are.  Her most recent post talks about a great online journal service called OhLife!  I've been a member of OhLife! for about a year now, but reading her post taught me some new things I didn't even know about the service.  Thanks, Kels!

I'm excited to follow Kelsey's blog to learn how to better share my stories!

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Getting Crafty with Cookies!

Hello and happy Friday!

It's such a beautiful Autumn day where I live.  How's the weather in your neck of the woods?

I wanted to share a fun how-to video from Stampin' Up! featuring their new Cookie Press.  It looks SO fun.  This would be such a great project to do with your kids.  My kids think they're too big to bake with mom anymore but I may just have to purchase it to use with my future grandkids.  Yes, I like to plan ahead. ;)  Pair your cookie creations with a card, tag or SU! packaging and you have a fabulous Christmas gift for teachers, neighbors or anyone else!

Anyway, enjoy the video and if you'd like to purchase this or any other SU! product, simply visit my SU! website here:  http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/mykitchentablestudio/

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

November Card Class

Thought I'd share the cards we're making at my November Card Class.  Can't wait!

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Guess Who Else Loves the Big Shot?

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Ella Scrapbooking Bootcamp - Grids

Many layouts that I'm drawn to use grids.  Maybe it's the organizer in me but I love the look of a place for everything and everything in its place.

This is a little busy for a grid layout but once I started, I just couldn't stop fiddling with it.  Maybe I overdid it a little.  Maybe.

At first, all I had was the white embossed circle grid with the photo on top and the journaling around the edges.  I reasoned that I didn't want to add too much because the quality of the photo wasn't great and there were lots of colors in the photo.  But I knew it wasn't quite right.

That's when I consulted my personal graphic designer (a.k.a. the husband).  Now just for the record, he didn't tell me I needed to throw up buttons and bling and glitter.  He just said, "it needs color".  I probably should have had him elaborate.  I didn't.  He didn't.

So if I went overboard, it's totally on me.  No reflection of him, okay? LOL.

My daughter does like it, and does like reliving the story.  With more practice, my grid layouts will look and feel more natural.  I have to master this. ;)  Because, again, I love grids.

Well, that's it.  My last project in the Ella Scrapbooking Bootcamp.  My goal was to  complete and post every single drill.  And I did!  Card making is much easier for me than scrapbooking.  But I learned so much and can't wait to re-read and re-watch each drill to become a better designer, element maker, story teller and photo editor.  If you didn't sign up this time, make sure you do the next time it's offered.  Ella rocks!

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Ella Scrapbooking Bootcamp - Extracting Inspiration

This drill was a bit harder for me.  Sometimes it's hard for me to translate something I see to a layout.  Okay, it's pretty much ALWAYS hard for me to do that.  Unless I'm being literal with whatever text, embellishments or sketch I see.

I know I'm going to have to read Lisa Dickinson's Bootcamp PDF and watch the video several more times before it starts to click, but it was awesome!  She has some mad, mad skills, that girl.

I wish I could say that someday I'll be like her, but that would require continued education in graphic design, of which I have no ambition for right at the present.  Good thing I'm married to a graphic designer.

I heard Angie Lucas mention on a recent Paperclipping Roundtable that she consults her graphic designer husband when she feels stuck on a layout. DUH!  Why haven't I been taking advantage of that resource all this time!  Well, I for sure have corrected that mistake.  I consulted him (okay, not Angie's husband, but mine) for the very first time on a layout this week and he was very helpful.  Who knew?  I've converted him to gardening and now am wrapping my scrapbooking fingers around him. Bwahaha.

Okay that sure was a long, drawn out side trip.

For Lisa's drill of extracting inspiration, I wanted to incorporate elements from something I see everyday.  So when I logged into the computer a couple of days ago and saw these circle elements on our log in screen, I knew I wanted to use them.  But I had originally planned on being pretty literal and use the circles to house some flowers.

Inspiration: Log-in screen on my Mac.

But I just wasn't feelin' it.  Then I saw a layout by Linda Barber and knew I could use those circle elements as a starting point for a sketch.

I knew I liked the idea of the different patterns and colors in each section and I also liked how they were in a line.  So here's what my inspiration turned into.  A line of different colors and patterns:

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Birthday #15 + a bonus card!

Today is the last day of my birthday card series.  I hope you've found some inspiration in the cards I've shared over the last three weeks.  I've had fun sharing them.

This card uses two of my favorite things:  Emboss Resist, and my Slice.  Remember when rainbows were so popular in the 80s?  You know you sported those rainbow leg warmers, or that awesome shirt where the rainbow spilled onto the sleeves, right?  I totally did!  Well, I've seen more and more projects that are including rainbows lately.  I guess trends to cycle back around, don't they?

The bonus card actually wasn't made by me but by my daughter.  She wanted to make a card for her best friend who's birthday falls on 9/11.  Something extra special.  I think she did an amazing job for someone who doesn't do this often!

Thanks for joining me (and my daughter) at the Table today!

Birthday #14

This came from my own mind, too and it's just so happy!  The flower frames were the outsides of the flowers from day #10.  I so love that triple layer punch.  The brads are from an older collection of My Mind's Eye, I think.  Cute, fun, colors!

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Ella Scrapbooking Bootcamp - The Eyes Have It!

Before

After

NOTE:  Two posts in one day (or maybe 3....or 4 since I'm THIS CLOSE to being done with my Bootcamp drills.....scroll down for today's birthday card!

Wow am I learning some fun new photo editing techniques from Maggie Holmes!  I didn't even KNOW you could brighten eyes.  You have to be careful with this one, though.  Too much brushing of the eyes and your subject looks like they should be sleeping in a coffin and steering clear of garlic!

I decided to use this photo because my daughter is convinced she has green eyes.  I wanted to show her just how wrong she is! LOL  Actually she does have a few greenish flecks that are more apparent when she wears green.  But for the most part, they are blue to grey-blue.  She has beautiful eyes.  This is a subtle change that can make a lot of difference.

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Birthday #13

Bright colors, Martha Stewart Scallop Lace punch, glittery black letters, embroidery floss.  What more can I say? :)

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Birthday #12

This card, I'm proud to say, came entirely from my own little brain.  I really, really like it.  I've had the green matchbook-style card base for a few years so I thought I'd pull that out.  Then I started rummaging through my letter stickers.  These are several years old as well, but still look very in fashion.  And you can't go wrong with baker's twine!

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Ella Scrapbooking Bootcamp - Guiding Principles

Who knew you could organize your guiding principles in just 10 minutes?  Well, that's just what I did thanks to some really great prompts from Angie Lucas.  These are values that really describe me and my family and what we believe in.  A couple are inside jokes to us, which makes it even more personal.  I want my kids to be able to internalize these guiding principles so instead of putting this layout away in an album, I've chosen to make it part of our home decor.  I'm going to frame it and put it up in a central part of our home.  So here's my question to you.  Should I do a black frame or a turquoise frame?  Cast your vote in the comments!

Thanks for joining me at the Table tonight!

Birthday #11

I think this may be my favorite of my cards in this series.  Can you be in love with a stamp?  I think I am.  This Doily stamp is new from Stampin' Up! and I just can't get enough of it!  And embossed against this Island Indigo card base?  L.O.V.E.  I showed this to my mom the other day and she said it reminded her of the doilies my grandma used to crochet.

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Ella Scrapbooking Bootcamp - Emboss Resist

Yes, Bootcamp is officially over but thankfully I still have a few more days to post my projects!

While emboss resist isn't a new thing to me, I've never incorporated it into a layout before.  I thought this technique would lend itself to a Halloween theme.  The white embossing powder didn't like the black ink...or maybe it liked it too much.  I had a hard time wiping the black ink off.  I might have to try a different brand of embossing powder next time to see if that makes a difference.

This was a fun layout to put together.  Thanks, Nichol, for another great lesson!

And thanks to you, Ella, for a fun, inspiring, educational week! 

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Ella Scrapbooking Bootcamp - Connective Journaling

This was hard.  This is an uncomfortable story for me to tell.  But this is something I want my kids to know.  To not assume you know what you know.  To be loving and accepting.  Just like their Grandma.  As Angie Lucas talked about connecting one experience to another, I knew this was the story I wanted to tell in a layout.

Thanks for joining me at the Table today.

Ella Scrapbooking Bootcamp - 4 photo tricks

Before

After

I told you I had fallen behind on my Bootcamp drills so I'm taking advantage of a Saturday afternoon to play.  So, yes, this is my second post of the day and there might be one or two more posts before the day is over.  These photos are from Maggie Holmes' Four Photo Tricks drill.  She is so good!  This one was a little harder than the Urban one for me.  And this is actually the fourth photo I've tried to adjust.  The other photos still didn't look as good as hers after the tweaking.  Maybe I just need a new camera.  That probably would help.  But I really do like how the colors just pop in this after photo.  You don't realize how flat your photos look right out of the camera until you start adjusting them.  This has been so fun for me to step out of my Photoshop comfort zone!

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Ella Scrapbooking Bootcamp - Before & After Urban

I'm so not a digital scrapbook girl.  Photoshop in any form scares me.  But, I'm REALLY loving Maggie Holmes' photo trick drills.

This one involves an Urban look.  I opened up my free Photoshop Elements 9 trial, followed her easy step-by-step tutorial and Voila! a quick urban-ized photo.  That was fun!  It might even make me want to purchase the full version and buy actions and tutorials and become a real digital girl....whoah there, Nellie.  One step at a time.

Before

After

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Ella Scrapbooking Bootcamp - Scrapbook Stamping

Good morning!

I feel like I'm falling WAY behind in my participation with Ella's Scrapbooking Bootcamp so I thought I'd combine a few different drills into one layout.  I'm determined to do every. single. drill.

All these drills are from the mega-talented Nichol Magouirk.  She makes it all look so easy and her layouts and cards are so flippin' amazing!

So you can see my heart background there.  After I stamped it in all those yummy colors, it looked way too bright to me so to tone it down a bit, I added some vellum over the top so that my photos wouldn't get lost.

I then stamped that text border at the bottom.  Nichol does that a lot on her layouts and I love the look.

She also is famous for incorporating stamping into her journaling.  I didn't want to use my own handwriting for this one but, alas, my big computer was being commandeered by sons playing RuneScape or Bio Shock or something like that, so I just pulled out my black pen and started writing.

The last part was to stamp accents, which would be those cute little "YOU", "ME", "US" tags.

So there you have it.  There's a lot going on in this little layout, but I'm pretty happy with it.  And it made my husband smile and get just a teensy bit teared up.  That's what counts. :)

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Birthday #10

Good morning!

This isn't one of my favorite cards.  I'm okay with it, but I just wasn't feeling it with this one.  Do you ever have that happen?  I do love the flower punches, though.  Super cute!

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Birthday #9

This card is a take from this card by the fabulous Kristina Werner.  I love her ideas!  I also love Gray and Yellow together.  ;)

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Ella's Scrapbooking Bootcamp - Patterned Paper Drill

NOTE:  Don't forget to scroll down to see today's Birthday card!

I know with a pesky thing like A JOB I won't be able to complete the drills in Bootcamp as quickly as I'd like , but I'm determined to complete every single one.  It's been so fun! This layout is for Lisa Dickinson's drill.  She taught us some really great principles of combining different patterned paper.  As I look at this photo, I can see that the blue patterned paper piece should have been a little longer, but I really like how this layout turned out.  And yes, this is a less than stellar photo of my layout and even more, a less than stellar photo of my mom-in-law.  Maybe I'll use it in Maggie Holmes photo drill.  My trial version of Photoshop Elements 9 is downloading as we speak I type!

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Birthday #8

Again, I raided my stash of left-overs to make this card.  I've had these flowers and the wood grain patterned paper for several years.  I like to try to challenge myself to mix old and new. :)

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Ella's Scrapbooking Bootcamp - Grammar Free Journaling

NOTE:  Two posts in one day?! Scroll down to see today's Birthday card :)

Yesterday was the first day of Ella's Scrapbooking Bootcamp 2011.  Should exercise be fun?  Of course! This exercise of grammar-free journaling was super fun and interesting.  I had been wanting to do a layout comparing the similarities and differences about my kids for quite a while now but wasn't sure how to go about it.  Angie Lucas gave some great suggestions and I chose to use the comparison chart.  It worked perfectly!

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!

Birthday #7

I thought I would try a different style of card today.  Usually my style is clean and simple but sometimes I like to break out of my comfort zone.  And since the cards in this series are for the gals at my work, I thought I'd make them all different styles.  I'm really loving the color Gray right now and these fancy frames are so pretty!

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!