NSD pre-party....

Ok, tomorrow is National Scrapbook Day. I have no where to go so here I will stay and play with my supplies all day. I got an early end to my day today (go me!) and I have had my jammie's on since 3:45 p.m. ( I KNOW!!! GO ME!!!). At this very moment I am waiting for many images to finish cutting in my Silhouette machine and then I plan on making cards until the wee hours of the morning, catch a few Zzzz's and then up to work on actual scrapbook pages if I can manage to stay off the computer long enough!!

I will have goodness to share at some point.

Link me to your favorite NSD sites...where will you be spending your time tomorrow? I have so many and will list them before bed!!! :)

Happy Scrapping! :)

Alcohol Ink

I am not a person that follows trends. I usually join the bandwagon after the industry has moved on to the next thing or two. I have had alcohol inks for a while. I wanted to try them for years. Then I decided to bite the bullet and play with it. I hated my first few tries with it so I put it in the cabinet and forgot about it. Saturday morning I found this butterfly sitting on my desk. I had intended to use it for another project and bypassed it. I was going to put it away when I saw the alcohol ink applicator. I want to try to do some simple cards (simple and me don't go together well....I am much too detail oriented) but I thought I would give it a shot. I had so much fun inking this butterfly that I pulled a 2nd one out to layer it.

While the card is waaaaaay too simple for my liking...and blah...I love the butterfly. It's funny...I get e-mails delivered every morning from clean and simple bloggers and I absolutely LOVE their stuff, I hate it when I do it I am sure the recipient will love it. They love all my handmade cards. Me....not so much. But this card gets put in the technique pile. I tried a new technique and I am happy. I am also thinking about what colors of alcohol inks are next on my list.

Do you have favorite color in the alcohol inks? Please share! :)

u r Sweet! and a (not so short) story

So I am kind of bummed. This was another card for the sketch over at 2 sketches 4 You. I was so pleased with my little card. I didn't think about this one at all. I was having a bad day on Friday and I had to pick dh up from work (we are a 1 car household) and he offered to take me to my lss knowing it would perk me up (which it did!) Great guy huh? Love him! Anyhow, I bought the new October Afternoon 8x8 pad Fly a Kite. Oh my YUM! Is all I can say about this line. October Afternoon is one of my all time favorite paper companies and I couldn't wait to play with it. I got the paper, some inks from Tim Holtz and a bunch of other stuff. I came home dumped the contents on my desk and made this card. I was so pleased. But it was dark and cards don't photograph well with those energy saving light bulbs so I waited until morning when I photographed it and was going to post it.

Well, I got the photo taken, I even got it uploaded to Flickr. I was getting horrible pains in my back and they were becoming unbearable. Everyone I talked to that day (including a tweet from someone sweet) helped me realize that I either had a kidney infection or kidney stones. I called the Dr. and she thought the same. I wanted to wait until Monday before going to the Dr. as the ER takes hours and costs us so much money. But she said no....I had to go asap. So go I did. To make a long story short...everyone thought it had something to do with my kidney's. Until the CT scan came back. They caught a piece of my lung during CT and noticed something. They immediately sent me to Xray. Turns out I have a pretty bad case of pneumonia.

I was at the hospital for over 6 hours. I was spent by the time I got home. I ate something and ended up in bed at 8:30 last night. I completely forgot to post. So better late than never right?

The plus side of things....I get to sit and create until my hearts content today because the Dr. said to take it easy....and to try and stay upright as they think the pneumonia came from me being laid up with a bum back for almost 3 weeks. I thought I had a cough from post nasal drip due to allergies...and I rarely cough.

So there is my drama for the week. Sorry to overload you. I promise to make an eye appealing, fun post later. It's 8:00 a.m. I have so much time to play today!

Have a great one.


Products used:
Cardstock: Bazzill
PP: October Afternoon, Basic Grey (pink strip on inside flap (see image 2)
Punch: Martha Stewart
Letters: Prima Marketing
Glitter: Stickles
Hole Punch: Fiskars (holes in strawberry)
Strawberry: coloring page downloaded of the internet, then re-sized & pieced back together.

Sunrise flower (2 sketches 4 you)

This is my take on this weeks sketch at 2 sketches 4 you.It's also an entry for their DT. I have a few more sketched out...I love this sketch! It spoke volumes to me when I saw it. It's so very versatile. I am hoping to get the others done tonight. I made this one for a very special person whom I did a mini card drive for. I hope she likes it.

I decided to turn the sketch. While I love it vertical I think it works very well horizontal too. I wanted to push it a little farther so I changed the artisan shape to a flower and the loops to buttons. I had a blast making it.

I have a few ideas for the bonus sketch too. I am thrilled to have found this site. I love it! :)

Ok, off to have a family day!

Have a wonderful Wednesday!



Supplies:

Patterned paper: Basic Grey (urban Prairie)
Flower: Heidi Swapp
Stamps: Hero Arts (all occasion CL272)
Ink: Memories (Stewart superior Corp)
Other: buttons(AC Moore bundles, basic grey, chatterbox); and mesh (unknown but if you know who makes it please tell me because I desperately need more of this one!)
Thread: Gutermann

Poppies

Need I say more? :)

Poppies, sketches, baseball and the www

****I apologize for the bad photo. I took this picture at 12:30 a.m and the lighting isn't stellar and my camera's battery was almost gone...but I had to link it by 1:00 (CST). Also, the white portion with dots is the card. It's so much prettier in person***

So I recently was surfing the net and we all know how that goes. You can find some curious things, down right bizarre things and you can stumble upon GOLD MINES! Well I found one of those gold mines the other night.

I wound up at 2 sketches 4 You. A wonderful blog hidden away on the net. They post sketches. Well...I LOVE SKETCHES! I love how they simplify my life. I love how I can use a sketch and have every intention of following the sketch but end up in a completely different direction...a direction I would have never found had I not used the sketch to begin with!

Another reason I love sketches....it's baseball season. Now you are probably going..."what on earth does baseball have to do with sketches?" well I'm here to tell you EVERYTHING! I am a die hard RED SOX fan. I live in the heart of Red Sox Nation and we love our SOX! I also love to scrapbook/stamp/craft. Well it's difficult to do both at the same time. I find I am unproductive if I watch TV and create, unless I am coloring. Ok,so back to my point. My scrap area is right next to the living room, which is where the television set is, I can sit and create and listen to the game. It works perfect and I can jump up to yell at the tv if need be...but with the sketches I don't have to really pay attention to what I am doing. I can follow the sketches AND listen to my baseball games at the same time. It's a match made in my little piece of heaven! :)

So this is my take on the sketch at 2Sketches 4 You tonight. It's also and entry for their DT team. I thought I would give it a shot....I have nothing to lose right? So this is my take on it.

I had colored these poppies in the entire rainbow of colors the other night, made matching bows and pulled coordinated cardstock for each one. They were going to be a simple set for my soon to open Etsy store (stay tuned). But I was searching through my Silhouette images and came across this princess frame. I loved it. I also decided to take it further because the uber talented Tiffany aka PaperGirl mentioned orange and brown tonight and I love those colors but it made me think of a Receese's peanut butter candy bar. I just had a tooth pulled and cant really eat anything and I wanted one so badly that I decided to go with the brown and orange theme tonight too.

So there you have it. My warped little thinking, a craving and a bunch of inspiration from the Wonderful WWW! :) Have a great night! :)



Products used:
Cardstock: Bazzill
Silhouette machine image (princess_frames_set_2_c00129_21585)
Stamps: Hero Arts, raindrop background (S5101), Long stem flowers (H5350)
Ink: Versmark, Tim Holz, Memories
Other: ribbon (Maya road?), water color pencils, stickles (Ranger)

New Look....

Just wanted to give a shout out to the products that I used for my new blog look. This is the first time I have done my blog by myself. I will be doing it much more often now that I have figured it out. It was very fun and I am thrilled with the end result.

The background is from THIS kit at 2 peas by Jen Martakis. I love this kit and I know I will be using it a lot. Browse her kits....she rocks!

The header came from a digital kit at the Shabby Princess. It's called Clementine. There were pre-done headers you can buy but I preferred to make my own. I was inspired by theirs which you can see HERE.

I also used a few images from Hero Arts. They have some amazing digital kits out and you can find them all exclusively at 2 Peas. I used the Botanical Tulips,the wood cut owls and the flutterbies...which I loved. I colored the green one in myself. So much fun!

I have a few projects I am working on and I am hoping to get them uploaded tonight or tomorrow.

Until then....CHEERS! Have a wonderful day! :)

Mom vs Mommy

***NOTE Click on image to see it better. Blogger shrunk it on me. They are shown larger and separate below****

I am so excited to share this layout. I have had it in my head for a very long time. I just didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with it. I had been in a major scrapbook slump. I haven't done a page since January and that was for a class for die cutting machines on 2 peas. Ironically, the class was by Nichol Magourik. Then she posted THIS I instantly fell in love with the colors, the clouds, the word bubbles and the light fun of the layout. It all came together in my head and I got to work. Then my back went out. I have had this sitting on my desk for about 2 weeks. I pushed through the pain this weekend to finish it and I am so happy with the end result! Even my children and my dd's friends understood what I was trying to get across with this layout. I think that makes it a huge success...at least in my book! :)

I am completely in love with my Silhouette SD. I created this layout with nothing but my Silhouette, cardstock, pp and a few Hero Arts stamps. It was so fun and so liberating not having to worry about colors and patterns with photos. It really just opened up a whole new world to me and I didn't have to struggle with a journaling box because the layout was my journaling.

If you don't own a Silhouette I encourage you to purchase one. I could use just this machine and paper forever. Just so much fun and the possibilities are endless. Thanks for stopping by.

I am off to do find some card challenges for this week! :)

Cheers!





Products used:

Cardstock: bazzill
PP: Cosmo Cricket (grasses), October Afternoon (clouds), Reminisce (umbrellas & grid)
Stamps: Hero Arts: flowers (CG128: Happy Thoughts ); Frog, Mushrooms, bunnies(CL305: Happy Thoughts)
Pencils: Prismacolor
Other: Glossy Accents (Ranger), Stickles (Ranger)
Font: Monoglyceride (off internet)

Silhouette SD images used: spring tree (spring_tree_C20090902160838_20509), Fall Tree (fall_tree_c20090831162456 -20509); 3 thought bubbles (3_thought_bubbles_C00387_20509); sun & clouds (sun_clouds_C00139_24282)

I'm still here.....

I have been laid up with a very bad back. Just trying to get my mojo back. I've spent the last week working on a new header/background for my blog. I have a fun layout to share sometime this week too. Will post soon! :)

Michelle