monster high layout

I had the pleasure of working with some very girly papers and such for a friend of mine. She was going to cut my hair and I was creating the following layout for her in exchange. I had to first figure out the whole Monster High thing. My Kira has not gotten into them so it was a total learning thing. Plus the specific request was for a Clawdeen Wolf. Worked out pretty well as she is dressed in purple and pink!! Right up my alley!

Here is the completed layout in all of its glory.

I used Bazzill paper and some fun specialty papers from Michaels to complete this layout. The bling I had. I did have to purchase the tiger print ribbon but it was for a good cause. I tied the tiny bows myself. I have an amazing tool to help me do that. I used my Sybill (Silhouette original) to cut the title as well as her name. I used a font which was pretty close to the Monster High one. Thanks to my friend Bobbi for helping with that!! 

The layout is inspired by a PageMap and for the life of me now I cannot remember which one. But those are always a good place to start!! The claw print on the other page as well as Clawdeen and the skull head are all images I pulled from the internet and printed out on photo paper. I didn't like how it looked on regular cardstock at all. I then cut out the images to use. Clawdeen came out so darn cool. She looks like a sticker!! I used a couple of my Fiskars border punches (one on each page) and more bling!!

Happy to say that she did love these pages. Her problem now is to decide on using them for a birthday celebration or for Halloween pictures!!

christmas 2008 continues

And here we are again back to Christmas 2008 and all the fun it was. I have a much smaller pile now and am feeling very motivated to continue. Here are the latest two creations.

This layout was so much fun and yet so simple. Love it when that happens. I found the paper in a stack I had and it screamed for these pictures. I used my Fiskars apron border punch to mimic the gingerbread roof for the top of the page and for the top of the journal box. I used some chipboard letters I have had FOREVER! I added stickles and puff paint to the house on the background paper to give it a little pizzazz. The kids look so young!!

This next one I am loving so much right now. I do not want to put it in an album because I will miss it!! Sometimes it just happens. These are pictures I took after Alex got a haircut right before Christmas. You can see the major difference between the page up above and the one below. He ages so much in a few days with the haircut!! I used some Basic Grey papers that I had which worked with the colors in the pictures. Added in some chipboard stars that I covered with paper and inked the edges of. I used my stitching tool from We R Memory Keepers and used some embroidery floss for the sewed border around both pictures. Like I said, I am loving this layout right now.

Have a great one! I am off to make some cards. At least that is the game plan- we'll see how far I get.

last sketch challenge of 2012

I made it to the end of the year with doing a layout every month! This month's was especially hard and I almost didn't make it. I was sliding in pretty close to the cut off time. Hate when I get sick and can't function.

Anywho... here is the sketch we had to work with. Pretty neat and I think I shall keep this in the pile of sketches to use again. Basic in layout but can be embellished like there is no tomorrow. Or left pretty sparse as mine is. (told you I was on a time crunch!!)

And here is my take on the sketch. Pretty much went with what they had. The small picture on the left hand side was placed along the top like the one next to it and I couldn't get it back off to lower it so I added in a small white box to play off the white title on the second page.

These pictures are from Christmas 2008! I'm a few years behind. :)  Alex was big time into Blue's Clues and desperately wanted a Handy Dandy Notebook so he could play along with the show/ DVD/ VHS tape. Finding one was no easy feat and the price.... oh my word. Highway robbery!! The things we do for the kiddos. I will admit it was the best gift that season. He carried it around everywhere and wrote down his clues. I steered away from many embellishments mostly because I was short on time and I love the pictures so much I wanted them to be the focus. I used chipboard letters and rub ons for the titles. Happy to have this done and heading for an album!! 

Okay... honestly... between me and you.... (don't tell) this will be heading into an envelope of other layouts that need to be put into albums. But it did sound good saying it was going to an album. Remember... don't tell!! ;)

silly silly alex

Yup, it's that time again. Time for my monthly sketch challenge group showing. I have been so busy working on a bunch of samples for my card party, I really have had no time to scrap for me. Not complaining, just stating the fact. So it was lovely when I was able to grab some pictures and scrap! I think it helped with my card creating too.

Here is this month's sketch we had to work with. Pretty darn neat with all those embellies and such.

And here is my take on the sketch.

These pictures are so darn funny! One night hubby stole Alex's socks off his feet and then put them on his hands and used them to talk to Alex as well as tickle him. It was so funny!! The giggles were music to my ears.

These pictures were from 2009. The title was cut with my big ole red Sizzix machine using the Aphrodite Sizzlit font. The brads are from Queen & Co and I have had them FOREVER!! I used one of my EKSuccess border punches. Thanks for looking!

May you have a very silly kind of day!

sketch challenge, field day and birthday....

Yes I have been quite busy, but in a totally great way. Below is a sketch we were given to use in my sketch challenge group on FB. It is pretty neat and think it will be used again in the future. I can also see where I would add extra pictures!! I love taking pictures.

And here is my layout inspired by the above sketch. After I took the picture and loaded it to the computer, I realized I did not put the date on the layout so that has now been done. This was Christmas Eve 2008. Kira looks so tiny!! She got to make reindeer food in her class and then another teacher gave her the small bag of food. We had some very happy reindeer that Christmas!

Field Day for the kids was on Friday. The day started overcast and not looking too great. By the time they did the roll call of nations/ classes... the sun was out and stayed out all day. Which was a great thing since the school had rented two bounce slides and turned them into water slides!! The kids LOVED it. Even Alex who hates to have water on his face.

Each class was a different nation and they designed puppets and made flags from their nations. The theme this year was the Olympics. All the kindergartners were Ireland. You can see Alex in the front by the white of the Irish flag. And his amazing teacher in the red shorts on the left.

Kira's class was doing Fiji. Here's a picture of my little lady with her puppet which she made into a tree kangaroo and her flag. She did such an amazing job on her puppet! I love it.

And a friend of ours, took mine and Dave's picture after the ceremony. Something that doesn't happen often since one of us is always holding the camera! Aren't we cute?? I then went into the school and helped with Alex's class while they did their events.

Then it was Saturday and a special Saturday it was. My little baby girl turned 11! I mean seriously. How does one lose eleven years?? I swear she was just being born and look at her! Heading into sixth grade and looking oh so beautiful. I'm afraid to blink since she'll be in college then!

For her day, she wanted me to make her a Piplup cake. ummm sure. I can do that. I found this image on the web and posted it to Pinterest since I am like that. Dave printed it out and off to town we went. This was my first time making a layer cake and learned a few lessons. One... you don't need a ton of frosting in between the layers (but I do like frosting) Two... make sure to level them so the cake doesn't wobble. Three... if you are going to decorate with additional frosting... you don't need as much of the base frosting. We are getting on quite the sugar high eating this cake. Totally not complaining... just explaining.

The black gel we used, was fighting us a bit and running when we didn't want it to. Hence poor Piplup's lazy eye and his crooked beak. But the cool thing is that the gel was glitter gel so Kira didn't mind these imperfections and was quite excited to see it after her bath.

Tomorrow begins our last week of school. Not sure how much learning will be happening, but it will be the end. Alex will find out his teacher for next year on Friday and they are having a step up day. I do believe I will have to be there taking some pictures!!

disney 2008 continues (photo heavy)

I went away a couple weeks back to a friends place in Maine. I spent the entire weekend surrounded by some amazingly talented women. We ate, we laughed, we slept a bit and ate some more. We each even managed to squeeze some scrapping into the weekend as well. I brought along my Walt Disney World 2008 trip to see if I could plug away at more of that trip... and I did. Nineteen pages later I returned home. I had to put titles on two of them and a journal spot on another which I finally was able to do this week.

Time to share. I used PageMaps for all of these great pages. Sometimes they look like the sketches... sometimes not so much. But that is where my inspiration comes from.

Kira hanging with a small collection of dalmatians at one of the stores at Downtown Disney. Happy little girl there.

They have this fun fountain at Downtown Disney and Kira LOVES standing in it. It was warm so she was enjoying cooling off a bit... but not too much. I used the papers since they looked like water shooting in the air and it matched her outfit as well! I used my big red Sizzix machine and lowercase fun serif alphabet for the title.

One of my little guy on this trip. Unfortunately, he was at the age that once he was released from the stroller, he would take off and laugh at you to try to catch him. Needless to say, we didn't let him out too much. This was one of those times he was testing his boundaries.

Donald Duck!! He was so good with Alex. Alex didn't cry or scream. Just covered his eyes. I added in the circle of brads around the best picture. So much fun!

My silly silly girl. Sometimes she cracks me up to no end.

Waiting for the electric parade and the fireworks.

The kids got some new toys while we waited for more fireworks on this night.

Random smile pictures from around the Magic Kingdom. I stamped SMILE across the top of the layout with my Mickey head alphabet stamps. Very happy I picked them up when they were on clearance!!

Alex thought this was a great show! It was air conditioned, he could get out of his stroller and his television friends were there! Good time.

A few pictures from my mom's favorite ride which turned out to be one of Kira's as well.

Here Kira is hanging out in one of the shops at Downtown Disney. She took the little Tigger and helped him climb the tree in the shop. I totally loved the decorations and took pictures of them.

Alex climbing a light pole at the Hollywood Studios. If Dave hadn't been holding him, I think he would have gotten farther. He was intent on getting to the top where a bird was sitting. He then took off chasing the birds on the ground.

We had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe at Downtown Disney when we first arrived on the Disney grounds. Good food and fun times.

There they are. Now to keep the pace up and I might finish this trip someday. LOL

scrapping the weekend away

and did a bit of shopping at the Creating Keepsakes Convention in Manchester. My friend Jackie drove down from Maine to go with me. We had a really good time. And managed to not lose any wallets or purchases!! I'll have to post some pictures later of the fun we had with our missing friends mini her paper doll that we made. We had to make sure that the three of us had a good time. LOL

Anyways... I did manage to do some scrapping. I was going to work on Kira's 7th birthday, but I seem to be missing some pictures. Not sure how that happened so I put those on hold after I finished this first page. I'll go back once I locate those pictures. I used some cardstock stickers that had been hanging around for awhile. I used the Hello Kitty papers as it was a Hello Kitty themed party. This picture I took before the celebration began. She's such a ham. I did use a pagemap for this but forgot to write down which one it was. Bad me.

Then since I couldn't work on the birthday stuff, I moved along to our 2008 Walt Disney World trip. Alex looks so small. And he was. But it is fun to see him way back when. And Kira too was a tad smaller.

I used a pagemap from May 2009 for this layout. I used some Mickey heads buttons that have been hanging around here for awhile, as well as some of the confetti that was used on one of our tables while we were dining at Disney. The kids loved the Tea Cups. So cute!! Added some stickles to the Sizzix cut tea cups. There are also hidden Mickey's on all the layouts I've done. Something I picked up from an amazing scrapper on Scrapbook.com Scrappycath. She hides Mickey heads on her Disney layouts as well and I thought it was so clever. Kira LOVES looking for them on the pages. It's fun to hide them as well!! I really should keep track of how many are on each page, but I don't. LOL

Mickey's House. I have had the paper piecing FOREVER!! It was made by my friend Nancy. I had to wait till I scrapped these pictures to use it and it was perfect!! I used a pagemap from June 2006 for this layout. The Mickey head strip I cut with a pair of deco scissors I had purchased at Disney. So much fun!! Love Mickey's fun house. Papers... been collecting them for years.

Outside of Mickey's house on your way to the Judge's Tent to see Mickey, you get to walk through the garden. Fun things happening there. I punched the Mickey heads out with a punch of mine. It was worth it for this layout. I pulled out my red Sizzix machine and used my Playground Sizzlit font for the title. Yup... bringing back old school tricks. I used a pagemap from August 2007 for this layout.

Finally got into the Judge's Tent and got to wait in line to meet Mickey. The line goes slow but it is air conditioned so it balances things out. The first page is a pagemap from May 2008 and the second is a pagemap from September 2008. I couldn't find a two page one that I liked for all the pictures I had. Alex was doing well with keeping up with us, until he got into the dark-ish and cool tent. Then we lost him to sleep. He missed meeting Mickey at that time but we got him in the picture so that he knows we didn't just leave him in the stroller somewhere!! Poor thing. As soon as we walked back outside into the sun and heat, he woke right up.

I used a rub on for the title on the second page that is from Creative Imaginations as were the brad on the large picture and the sticker on the Alex sleeping picture. I picked up the ribbon at Michaels awhile back from their dollar bin. Lots of stash being used.

Snow White is Kira's favorite princess. In fact the only princess she does like. So we got to get her picture twice!! Both of them were so nice to Kira and made her feel special. I stickled the chipboard letters since I thought Snow White could use some bling. The full length Snow White is a Jolee's 3D sticker as are the birds. I used a pagemap from March 2005 for this layout.

Not too bad considering we spent most of Saturday shopping at CKC!! Thanks to Jackie for coming down and hanging with me. Now I am getting inspired to continue working on my Disney vacation pictures, which is good since I have two FULL photo boxes to work with!!

new sounds around here

We picked up Kira's sax today from the music store. They didn't need to repad the whole thing, which is good as that is hundreds of dollars but did a tune up on it (it was stored in the inlaws basement for about 25 years) and it seems to be good. They said it should last a year or two before we need a major overhaul. By then we should know if it is something that Kira will want to continue with or not. And it is MUCH MUCH cheaper than renting an instrument. I almost swallowed my tongue when the rental amounts came out. Highway robbery!!

Anywho... Kira could not wait to get home and try it out. Daddy took some time to show her how to put it together and what all the bits and pieces were. And then it was time for some noise!

She really picked it up quickly on getting a sound to come out and man, can she hold a 'note'. I knew her strong lungs would pay off one of these days! She has had it out a couple of times with the cleaning up afterward. I really really hope this continues once she starts her lessons. I know daddy is quite proud of his little girl. Very exciting. Her first concert will be in September at the Newmarket Heritage Festival. I know you all want to check it out!

And I managed to squeeze in another layout. I created the mosaic picture with Picasa 3 and added the title for each day. It is a fun week for the kids when they can have some fun and unite as a school.

Need to get a picture of my latest creation but the sun is not cooperating with me. It may have to wait until tomorrow.

look who has been scrapping!!

Why yes that would be me!! I am so excited to be playing with my paper and pictures again. Of course all of this is while potty training Alex (who does not want cooperate), breaking up the sibling fights that always seem to happen, keeping the house clean, laundry and grocery shopping and taking care of my hubby who works beary beary hard for us! Glad to be sharing some recent stuff. Well... the pictures aren't recent but the layouts are! LOL

Easter picture with the big man himself 2009. Alex sat next to him and held his paw!! Big steps on that one!!

The egg hunt in the house. As you can tell by the kids feetie pj's it was quite cold that Easter. It was so cold and icky that we didn't even go to the Rec Center's egg hunt. No need getting everyone sick for some cheap prizes. Alex did a little dance every time he found an egg. So cute. Kira was too darn fast for me to catch more than a couple of shots of her finding eggs.

Checking out what they got!! Alex was willing to share some of his treats... until Daddy actually ate one!! Then all bets were off.

We celebrated Nana's birthday while they were here and got a pretty cool looking cake out of it! Both of the kids had to help her blow out the candles!!

One of my favorites I have done of Alex. He started doing this pout face and knew I would have a ton of great photos to use on it! So glad he outgrew that stage!!

Title says it all! He is a force to be reckoned with! And all of that in under 10 minutes!!

Kira's second grade field trip to the Seacoast Science Center. They were studying the tide pools. Lots of fun and neat things to look at!

Off to see what other pictures inspire me and have a little more fun with my papers. I have missed them and glad I am once again creating. More to come!!