My response to Jen's challenge

Well, Jen...you challenged me to make a card based on the 365 Card Challenge #58...fish. That one required some thought, since I don't have all of the cute stamps that Jen keeps buying...and buying...and buying. LOL I have been planning on sending a card to a special needs adult in my church, so I thought this might be a fun challenge to do for her. Here is my card. In all of it's simple glory. :) And I did flock the fish and stickle the eyes and bubbles. And the color choice was based on goldfish crackers. LOLFor MY roll the die challenge, I decided to make a mother's day mini album. I picked a pale blue, cream, greens and chocolate brown as my color pallete and tried to keep it light and simple. I put pics. of each of the grandkids in it and left a spot at the end for my soon to be nephew.

So, is anyone else trying this or is it just me? LOL Come one now. Don't leave me out here all by myself. You know you want to try it! I'll try to show you some more challenges I am participating in later this week.

Double Dog Dare You Challenge #3

It has been an exhausting few days. I am on pins and needles waiting for the phone call to tell me that my sister is in labor with her first baby. I can't wait for my new nephew, but am afraid that I will not make it in time or at all. Distance and kids school scheduals as well as church might put a monkey wrench in my plans to be there for the birth. I am hopeful, though. I really want to be there for her.

New babies always make me nostalgic, so I was quickly able to finish the journaling on the One Little Word Challenge that I started last week. I had the page finished, but the words just would not come. The word to use was No and I immediately thought of my Grandmother and how I have no regrets about moving from Puerto Rico back to Indiana to be with her during her final days of cancer. It was a very scary and stressful move (no money...no place to stay...no job and a new baby/husband), but I am so glad I took that leap. My grandmother was able to spend her last days with her first Great Grandson and I was able to care for the woman who made such a difference in my life. During those difficult days when she was bed ridden and needed me to care for her most personal needs, she expressed such concern about being a burden. My greatest joy was holding her face in my hands and reassuring her that it was my pleasure to care for her. Okay, before I start to tear up, I will just post the layout. This is my grandmother. Warm sweater in the hotest of weather...big purse fill of kleenex and hard candy and hair arranged carefully over her ears (she hated her ears). I love this woman.

Here is the next challenge for this week from me. We will be making a Mini Album...inspired by a color combo...using stamping and focusing on blue. I see alot of people check my blog, but no one has posted their link yet. Why don't you be the first one? Come on...don't make me do this all by myself. You might be suprised at how easy it is. LOL

My other challenge for this week is from my friend Jen. Since she has NOTHING to do right now (yeah, right), we thought we would do some challenges together and post the results on our blogs (check out hers at http://www.myscrapcloset.blogspot.com/ ). She challenged me to make a card based on the Day 58 challenge from 365 cards ( http://365cards.blogspot.com/ ) Hmmm...fish? A card with fish? Let's see what I can do with that. LOL I will post it when I am done.

In the meantime...here is Mr. Linky. PLEASE post your challenge project...don't make me beg. LOL

My Roll the Die card complete!

In case you have forgotten in, oh, all of 3 days, here was the Roll the Die challenge for this week:

Card...no problem. Green...got it ( I put a nice blue/teal with it just for fun. I really like that combination). Ribbon...got it covered. Fashion. Hmmmm....fashion. Okay, I will admit it that this SAHM does not exactly follow the fashion trends. In fact, I would be a great candidate for What Not to Wear if anyone would like to nominate me. LOL I have liked some of the cool graphic T's that have been out for a little bit now, and think that if they were glittered they would be even better...so I translated that into the cutout flower that I stickled to within an inch of it's life. :)

As always, if you would like to play along, simply post your version of this project somewhere (your blog...a scrapbook forum or gallery) and paste the link below in Mr. Linky. I would love to see what you create!

My Bit of Creative Heaven

I have had a few requests (okay, 4) to see my scrap space (that I hautily refer to as my studio...sounds fancier, doesn't it? LOL) We have 2 kids and are blessed to have a 4 bedroom house. Originally my room was the "office" (can you see why I would rather call it my studio?) that I was to share with my husband. LOLOLOLOLOL Sorry. That was totally funny, though. He can "work" just as easily from the couch, so I took over. He is "allowed" to store some things in that room, but I am working on getting all of stuff out of there. :) We do have a guest bed in there (super comfy Jen!) and a really nice (salvaged) 7 foot/2 person desk that I need to clean because Isabel painted an album on it and missed the newspaper. I didn't take photos of those spots. Just where I work/play/think/get away from my DH and kids.

Here is the view from my doorway. The light colored desk is actually my Grandmother's old sewing machine. I don't sew, but thought it made the perfect cricut desk. The big square table next to it was made by....are you ready for this....BILLY! It was a wedding present to me (we sort of did it together) and it is the perfect size. I love how deep it is. Under it is a 3 drawer system that hold my adhesive, blank cards and bind it all supplies. The white wire shelves hold my embellishments/chipboard/cuddlebug/bind it all and cute cookie jar with my new embellishment purchases. Yep. I like to look at them for a while before I put them away. Nothing wrong with that. LOL

I am SO lucky to have a double closet. Boy, do I need it. This side houses my paper and my pretty storage cubes. The cubes have mini albums to make, glitter/flocking/embossing poweders, punches, stickers/rubons/flat embellishements and, um, my chocolate stash. SHHHHH... The shelves above hold my stamps and some misc. stuff I need to sort through.

The other side of my closet looks a bit muddled, but the top shelves have my magazines and idea books (as well as binders where I store sketches that I print out) and the walls have holders for my movies (the ones no one wants to watch with mommy) and the bottom bookcase has things for me to alter and more stuff I don't know what to do with. LOL

Next to my closet is a great wire shoe rack that is PERFECT for my cricut carts, Ikea jars of buttons/flowers, ink and paint. Those cool buckets next to it are from Ikea and are on a rail system (also from Ikea) Super cheap. Seriously...just a few bucks. And it stores all of my ribbon.

Okay, the sad news is, that to be a good mommy, I have decided to swap rooms with Isabel (her room is TINY and has the smallest closet in the house). I really think she needs a double closet to help her have more play space. Sigh. I have NO idea how I am going to fit everything in her room, but I think we will swap this summer. I love to reorganize, so that part will be great. Sometimes it is hard to be a good mommy. :)

Double Dog Dare You Challenge #2

Are you ready for the next Roll the Die Challenge? I hope you played along with the last one and would love it if you would post your link to how YOU interpreted the challenge. :) I would love to see your work!

Our next challenge is : Make a card...use some type of fashion to inspire it...use a good amount of green and include ribbon. Sound easy enough? Make sure you link up when you finish your card so we can check it out.

One of the challenges I joined in this week was the 52 Sketches sketch #13. http://52sketches52weeks.ning.com/

Here is the original sketch:

And here is my version of it. And yes, I got a bit flower crazy. LOL I was just hanging out with sick kids and had all the time in the world to layer and embellish this page. Days like that are fun to have, aren't they? Calm kids and buttons spilling out all over the table. Nothing better. I chose this color scheme when I was putting away some scraps (the blue papers) and they fell on top of a yellow paper. I really liked the softness of it. They only thing I wish I had done differently was matt the patterened papers in black. I think the inking on the edges has a similar effect, just less pop.

Enjoy and I will see you in a day or two with a challenge from another site that I have been working on...One little word.

Good Scrapin Day!

I never want my kids to be sick, but having a sick day with them when they are just mildly ill is working out all right for me today. LOL I found a great card sketch on Mojo Monday's blog (http://www.mojomonday.blogspot.com/) and decided to give it a shot today.

Here is sketch # 82:









Here are my takes on it:

I also have not been doing a good job about using my stamps, so I thought I would ONLY stamp a card and see how that went. I liked it, so I made a set of them in different colors:

Give the sketch a try and don't forget to post what you have created! I would love to see it!

Double Dog Dare Challenge #1

Well, here it is. My first challenge. I decided to roll the project type, color and embellishement dies and here is what we got:

Altered item, use yellow and add bling. Think you can handle that? I double dog dare you! Here is my altered item. I used a giant clothes pin (yeah, I just happened to have a few hanging around that I hadn't done anything with yet) painted yellow and decopaged with patterned paper. I added some felt flowers with rhinestone brads, ribbon and stickled some buttons and here you go. Great addition to my scrapspace.

If you take the Double Dog Dare, then post in Mr. Linky so I can see what you've got!

Let's Roll the Dice

Have you noticed how the more scrapbooking suppplies you have, the harder it can be to create sometimes? Don't get me wrong. I love my Patterned Paper, buttons, ribbon, glitter and paint, but sometimes, I just don't know what to do with it all. Are you feeling me yet? Instead of just sitting at staring at my supplies, I decided that I needed a jumping off place. A way to get my things rolling. Literally.

These are my Inspiration Die. Intrigued yet? Each altered block has a theme and ideas to help me challenge myself with my creative projects. We have a project type block which lets me know what I will be making: card, 1 page layout, 2 page layout, altered item, mini-album or gift. Then I see where I will be getting my inspiration: fashion, online gallery, household item, magazine ad, sketch or color combination. I then move onto what colors I will be using: brown, orange, yellow, green, blue, red and which embellishements to focus on: paint, stamping, chipboard, metal, bling or ribbon. I can roll just one or several, but the combinations are endless. Wanna play with me? I will use this blog to do my roll the dice challenges as well as showing you my take on challenges that I join in on. I hope you will play. I Double Dog Dare You!!