Summer Festival: Words to Live By

The past few days I've been participating in Big Picture Classes' summer festival: words to live by.  What a great challenge!  No, I didn't finish the 12 day challenge, but I came close and will continue to work on it.  Each day we were given a word to scrap by some of the biggest names in the scrapbooking world.  What fun!  I seemed to only be able to do every-other word with ease as some were quite a challenge.  I'm still not sure what to do with "nest."  Many times an idea would come to me right away and I'd just go with it.  As the challenge went on, I found a style to my pages that I tried to continue and went back to my stash of older product, finding old favorites by Jofia was especially nice.  I just love the dreamy style she has.  So here are the days I have completed.  My goal is to get the rest of the words finished by the end of September, and perhaps add even more.  I know I have an old, empty 8x8 or 6x6 book around here somewhere that needs to be filled.

This is my first experience with Big Picture Classes, but I enjoyed what I saw.  It's a great community and I was inspired by so many scrappers.  I hope to take some other classes in the future.  

Shhhhh, I have a secret

That's right, I have a secret.  I get to reveal it this weekend so stay tuned!  Until then I have to tell about the wonderful, scrapping weekend I had last weekend.  With the hubby out of town and rain, what's there to do besides scrap?  It was made even better by a fantastic "monstrosity" of a weekend from Keystone Scraps.  They held a series of speed scraps over at Mousescrappers and what fun!  Despite the timezone challenge, I managed to make all five speed scraps and come away with a wonderful, new monster themed kit!  Perfect for my little monsters. 

There's something about scrapping with a time limit and restrictions that really get the creative juices flowing.  Or maybe it's scrapping after midnight that does it--can't remember how many of the pages I did after midnight.  At any rate, it was great fun and I am very happy with the pages that came from the challenges.



This is my favorite from the bunch.  I used Britt-ish's Alice kit, Tanya's Templates and Shadows.
I even got a gallery standout from Scrap Matters!

My little guy helped me with this one.

Another that I had fun with.

Only a couple more days until I can spill my secret.  Time to get some more scrapping finished!

Busy, busy, busy!

Seems like it's been ages since I've scrapped,  but it's only been a few days.  I feel like I've been neglecting the computer and Photoshop.  It's been crazy here with scouting and life.  I have no excuses today though and should be scrapping.  Scrap Matters had their 4th birthday last week and what a fun time in the forums and with some great challenges.

Speed Scrap!  It's Obon here in Japan and this is the Bon Odori at our local temple.  The most challenge part of this speed scrap was making sure to have 20 elements on the page!
Backgrounds and Elements by Britt-Ish Designs: Imperial Girl
Lanterns are by Genevieve and recolored, so sad she's retired.

Another speed scrap!
Love this kit!  The California add-on to WM[squared]'s Great Escape kit.
These pictures are from our last trip to the city, oh so long ago!  They were also taken with our ancient camera and when I uploaded them to the page, they were the size of postage stamps!  How far our cameras have come.



Went into Tokyo last weekend for the Ultraman Festival.  What fun!  We went somewhere new in the city, Sunshine City, and I know we'll be back.  In addition to a lot of shopping, there is also a museum and aquarium here too that the boys want to go to.  I enjoyed putting this page together and had fun with my photos.  The title is an extraction of one of the signs and the background an overlay I created.  There were a few bins of little Ultraman finger puppets that I took a picture of.  Really like how this turned out.

Deep Thoughts. . .

A picture can say a thousand words, or it could really just leave you wondering.

all items: Peace, Love and Flipflops @ Scrapmatters

Scrapmatters Made my Day

Earlier this week, I got a pleasant surprise.  On reading some of the comments on my latest page, I discovered that I had made it to the Gallery Standout blog!  This is such a compliment after all the work I had put into the layout too.  While on our road trip last year (was it really a year ago?!?!), I took pictures of signs.  Any sign, crazy signs, road signs. I thought it would make for a fun page.  When we returned, I found a template of 100 things, one hundred little squares.  This would be perfect!  I started the page ages ago, but figured I needed to just get it done, and spent hours completeting the page.  I love the state stamps that I got from WM[squared] and had stack the states in my head when I piled them on.  26 states represented on this page.

Woo-hoo!!! I'm on a new Creative Team

I'm so excited!  I decide to start scrapping again last week, see an add for a CT call to one of my favorite scrappers--so happy to see her designing--and I made it!!!  I am now a happy member of Tanya's Crossbone Cuts Designs team.  Her new store is located at Scrap Matters and is growing fast.  She just released an amazing summer collab with Wendy at WM[squared].  Peace, Love and Flip Flops is a fun new favorite of mine and I was actually downloading the kit when I found out I was on the team!

This comes bundled or individually.  I'd go with the bundle though, the word art is fantastic!

I've already started scrapping with this too and got a couple layouts done, one for the long, over-due travel album.

This is a page I've been wanting to do since taking all these photos.  I still need to do August, but thanks to the travel challenge at Scrap Matters, I've gotten half of it completed!

This is from our latest trip to Disneyland.  The colors in the kit were perfect for this impromptu parade!  I did this page for the template challenge at Mousescrapers.

It looks like I will be back into scrapping for good now.  Yea!!!  It's about time.  I've been fanatically scrapping the last week or so, staying up way too late, but getting several pages done.  I need to set a timeline and my goal is to get our Road Trip scrapped and printed by Christmas.  Wish me luck!

Look what I did!

I've always wanted to customize my blogs more than just the header and it seems I have figured it out, thanks to some helpful girls at Scrap Matters and some blogs! Now I just have to smooth out some bumps and learn a bit more, but I'm almost there. Here's the template I made:I created this with Sahlin Studio's Enjoy the Moment. A great kit for those happy, Disney-esque pages! I've really fallen in love with Krista's designs lately and even applied for her CT--wish me luck!

Now to complete a new blog header!

Hello out there?

Hi! Look at me, I'm not only blogging again, but I'm also scrapping again! What a blast these past few weeks have been. I've been scrapping like crazy. I recently found Scrap Matters, a super cool, Disney friendly digital site. I put in a request for outdoor/travel kits for our upcoming adventure and was let to a cool kit there. Ahhh, it was love at first site! Not only did I buy the kit, Road Trip, I also joined, rather late, their annual Queen of Scrap contest. This contest went the entire month of May. When did I join, May 24. Not only did a join and do well, I finished over 60 layouts and won their Rising Star voter's choice award. How cool is that?!? I have since spent too much money on kits and too much time at the computer. But, I thought I'd share a few favorites from the contest and the kit that started it all.

Some of my favorite new pages, all with a Disney theme of course!

I'm hoping to have some more scrapping adventures to share soon. Until then, happy scrapping and crafting!