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!

Could it be? Have I actually scrapped some pages?

I'm not sure how the time always gets away from me or why I tend to do things in spurts.  I don't think I've scrapped a page in over six months before this week.  But why?  What's my excuse?  It's not like I don't have enough kits or photos.  I have so many photos, I could probably scrap for months non-stop!  So much for "completing" that vacation album from our trip last year.  Eww, still have a TON to do there.  I could go on with the excuses I suppose, but instead, I'll just share what I've been doing. 

I love challenges.  They are so motivational and inspiring.  The ones at Mousescrappers are fun and usually come with cool participation prizes, but I'm more apt to just join in the challenge than worry what I could get from it.  I also like how the Sweet Shoppe and Scrap Matters have their challenges set up, after all, who doesn't like a discount?  So, in the past couple of days I've done some template challenges.  I LOVE templates and pretty much use them for the majority of my pages.  We went to Disneyland and Tokyo this week so I've got some new inspiration and photos to use.  It also helped that we had some downtime at the hotel and I used it to scrap.

Scrap Matters Tuesday Template challenge with their Wizarding Magic Collab kit.
This photo is at the theater in Roppongi Hills

LOVE this template, it is part of a set offered at Mousescrappers.
Kit is from Scrap Matters, Island Cruising--perfect for those Disney Seas pages!



New Addition to the Electrical Parade!!!  How cool is this?  I also love Britt-ish Designs kits.  She designs with Disney in mind and has some awesome kits for your Disney adventures.  In addition to Arabian Adventures, I also used her new Baby, You're a Firework.  (Be sure to check out her blog for freebies!)



Latest trip to Disneyland.  Who would have thought that in the middle of summer, kids could get in for half price, or the park would be the least crowded of any of our trips so far?  It was such an amazing day!  Here I used another Mousescrappers Template and Just Plain Fun, by Britt-ish Designs.

OK, so I have no excuses.  I have plenty of photos and materials to scrap with.  Now to just sit down and DO IT!!!  Until next time.

Learning All the Time

I'm constantly amazed at how many new techniques I learned this week, or things that I've discovered about computers and my software. First off, we recently got a laptop with Windows 7. I was a bit hesitant at first since I had pretty much just gotten familiar and used to Vista. I have to say though that it wasn't that bad of a transition. One thing I realized last night that I really like is how my font folders show up. Previously, whenever I wanted to check what a font looked like before installing, I had to open the file to see it. Not any more, Windows 7 shows a sample of the font on each file!

Now, in wanting to share this tip, I learned yet something else, the snipping tool. I had never heard of this before, but it's a great way to get screen shots. Do a search on your system for "snipping tool" and it will show up. I now have it as a short cut.

Next, a Photoshop technique for you. I have been using PSCS3 for a couple years now and LOVE it, yet I know there is so much I still have to learn. Thanks to the Saturday Special, over at Scrap Matters, I learned an easier way of importing several files onto my pages--scripts. Who knew. Basically, you want to open File--Scripts--Load Files Into Stack. This not only opens the files into one to make it easier to drag onto your page, but it also leaves the name of the file in your layers making it much easier to locate. You can see a tutorial of this fantastic techinique at the Scrap Matters Blog.

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!

Blog Hop! Chirstmas Cards and Tags in 10 Minutes or Less

What a fun challenge this month! Most of my cards are pretty speedy anyway, so I knew this would be fun, except for not having any Christmas stamps. Time to place an order! I went with two very versatile sets that gave me the most bang for my buck: Vintage Santa and Flourish Trees of Hope. I just love all the trees and prases in Trees of Hope. I figure I will get more use of this set than just for Christmas. With Vintage Santa, all the Christmas greetings drew me to the set along with the snow flakes. I can leave them in a trio or cut them to have individual flakes. Finally, this is just one, cool Santa! For the blog hope, I've come up with five new projects, some cards and a gift tag.

VIntage Santa, Inspiration Avenue

First up, a very simple Christmas card. Some green Bazzill, a bit of Reece SWIC paper and a couple stamps. I added a hint of glitter to the tree with my stardust gelly.

Santa is pretty good on his own, so again a simply stamped card with a hint of color from Reece, a touch of sparkle to the snow flakes. I love doing cards that are not your typical folded half sheet.

I found myself using too much green, so the snow flakes drew me to blue. I really had a lot of fun mixing these two sets.

A fun gift card. I was inspired by a card from Laurie over at Soapbox Creations. I really liked the punched out santa here.

Finally, this card was a bit more complicated, but with a stamp positioner went very quickly. I used one of the trees to create my background pattern. (One of my first thoughts in seeing this set.) I cut out my kraft square, then took a pencil to quarter it off and find the center so I could position my stamp easier.

Please enjoy these other blogs for many more ideas and lots of great inspiration!
Laurie W

Teresa

Diane

Jen

Rita

Shirley

Julie

Kim

Laurie U

Kay

Melisa

Stacy

Halloween: All About the Treats!

Halloween has come and gone, but I wanted to share some of the treats I made this year. I had a lot of fun playing a various treat covers, my favorites though were the ghosts. This is a pretty old idea, but rather than using tissues or tissue paper, I find coffee filters to be oh so easy to use. They're already cut to size, inks don't tend to bleed very badly and they're cheap. I made about 150 of these little guys this year for hubby's classes. Their team has a cow theme so I had to make my little boos have a moo theme.

Next, I used one of the black and white digital papers and shrunk to just fit a mini candy. This worked great to still maintain the detail of the paper. I then had fun with the skulls, dressing them up with my Spica and Stardust gelly pen.

And what holiday isn't complete with popcorn? This is an easy gift wrap to do and oh so versatile. It makes for great teacher gifts.