Queen of the Crop

This is my dd & my cousins son, who are the best of buds! The two of them just light up when they see each other. This picture is taken at the Elmwood Park Zoo on the playground. I used Basic Grey Obscure paper. This lo was created for the From Here 2 Scrapternity January crop challenge to alter chipboard. Which was a huge challenge for me because I have never "dressed" naked chipboard before. I painted it blue, didn't like it, so I painted it pink, didn't like it, painted more blue.....still did not like it. So I inked the edges in blue. Still not thrilled with it, but it fits well on this page. I guess it is just out of my comfort zone. Maybe if I do it more often, it will be easier. :o)

This lo is of my oldest daughter & her preschool teachers last year. They were taken at the end of year picnic the school had. As you can see, my daughter adored them. She actually has the top one this year as an aid. (we love her!!!) This lo was created for a challenge I hosted at From Here to Scrapternity . I issued the challenge to create a lo w/o using any pattern paper. I was then asked to host a challenge at the last minute for The Everyday Scrapper & they ok-ed using the same lo & challenge. Whew! Double duty! I hand made the flowers using a template. I think I may be addicted now. :o)

I can't believe it has been almost a month since my last post!! What have I been doing? Well, let's see. Kids, husband, husband traveling, school, day to day life.....& not to mention the 3 crops that I have been having a ball at! From Here to Scrapternity had another fabulous online crop, that I helped host being January Guest Designer. Then I had a weekend at the Hamburg Hideaway , where I got an amazing amount done!! At that same time The Everyday Scrapper hosted it's first ever online crop, which was a wonderful time!! With that being said, I sure do have a lot of catching up to do! So, with out further delay, here are my past 3 Nuts About Sketches designs for the DT. I am sad to say that my term is coming to end in February, & I have finished all my sketches. I am really upset about this, & hope to design again for Shawn in the future. But here are my past 3 takes on the sketches: ----------------------------------------------------------------...

Look what I found over at I Spy Craftiness . A fabulous giveaway! Here is the scrappy prize: And below is what you have to do to be entered into the drawing. Give it a whirl & see if you can be a winner! -------------------------------------------------- I think we need to have a giveaway to get us through the rest of the week! What do you think?!? Malinda has put some awesome goodies together for you! Over $25.00 worth of product! The rules are simple: To enter, please do any or all of the following and then leave a comment telling us which ones you have done. Leave a comment here, telling us what you love about I SPY so far ~ 3 entries Become a follower of I Spy ~ 2 entries Become a fan of I Spy Craftiness on facebook ~ 2 entries Tweet about this giveaway ~ 1 entry Facebook about this giveaway ~ 1 entry Blog about this giveaway ~ 2 entries The contest ends on Tuesday, January 26th at Midnight! We will do the drawing and post the winner on Wednesday. Have a crafty day!!

The Everyday Scrapper Website & Forum contributors are pleased to announce that we will be hosting our very first Online Crop, from Wednesday, January 20th to Wednesday, January 27th. Details: On January 20th, this category of the forum will have 7 challenges, all with prizes, for you to enter. Each challenge hostess (7 hostesses, 7 challenges, 7 prizes) will post her own challenge with an example layout and a photo of the prize. You have until midnight (eastern time) on January 27th to submit your layouts by posting them on the challenge thread you are entering it for. Winners will be selected by random.org and announced January 28-30th on the same thread the challenge was posted on. The rules: - Participants must most their layouts on the appropriate thread. - Winners of the challenges have 7 days (after the winner is announced) to claim their prize by PMing the challenge host to claim their prize before a new winner is announced. - No combining of challenges - one layout per ch...

Here is my most recent creation for the Nuts About Sketches dt. Please forgive the clarity of the photo, I just could not get a good pic of this lo! I even tried the following day to see if I could get a better pic, but it still came out blurry. But you get the jist of it. This is of my dd, Emma, when she was about 9 months old. She always seemed to pose. Hmm, some things never change, she is almost 5 & still a poser! :o) There will be a bonus double page layout this week over at Nuts About sketches, so be sure to keep an eye out for that!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another note, don't forget about the From Here to Scrapternity online crop this weekend! It is from Friday, Jan. 15 - Monday, Jan. 18. There are fabulous challenges, & awesome games & prizes. So, head on over & get in on the fun. Since I'm GDT this month for them, I will be hosting a few of the challenges. What will I post?? Got check...

It has been quite some time since I have made an entry on my blog. I have done some projects & some design team work, so I will make one big post, so check out what I have been up to, in between the hectic holiday season!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This lo is of my dad with the girls. He has some funny obsession with Spam, & had given both girls tatoos of Spam. I have an ongoing album for my father, that I add to for occasions (birthdays, Father's day, Christmas, etc), & this is one of the pages that I did for him, along with it being a Nuts About Sketches design, Week 87. My journaling is a warning to my Dad about "brainwashing" the girls & to cut it out. lol. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a lo of the day we went to Dutch Wonderland. We were having a grand ole time, then it started pouring!! We ran for cover, & when it stopped rai...

Guess what..... I have been selected to be the Guest Designer for From Here to Scrapternity for the month of January! I am so excited. They will have a fabulous online crop (see my blinkie top right) that I will be a part of, & they will send me some wonderful goodies to play with. If you get the chance, run on over & check out the forums/site. They are a great group of ladies, & I am lucky to have found them! Here is my write up : http://www.fromhere2scrapternity.com/about.html

As promised, here is the double page lo for Nuts About Sketches . Please head on over there & check out the work of my fellow dt members. These pics are of Emma when she was 7 months old, & I was making the calendar for the grandparents for Christmas. That was my 1st calendar, & I did a theme each month. Obviously, this was for July. She was so good, & fun, while I was snapping away, trying to get the perfect picture. She was/is so stinkin cute!!!

Well, happy Monday!!! It was a very good weekend for me. We got our tree, we had some quality family time while decorating & trudging through the fields to get our tree, then yesterday we had no plans at all. I got a little scrap time, & all was good! :o) Today is the reveal for Week 86 for Nuts About Sketches . Below, please find my submission. This is of my silly girls in October. Whenever the camera comes out, they just start acting all goofy. Making faces, dancing around, it is quite comical. This time was no exception. I was trying out dh's work camera, since it is so much smaller, to take with us on a hayride. It would fit in my pocket, vs. having to be lugged around. Plus I was going on the hayride sans dh. Just me & the girls. Anyway, they started doing their "comedy act" which was fun & funny. Goofballs! Gotta love em! Stay tuned for a bonus double page lo from Nuts About Sketches on Wednesday. -------------------------------------...

I found this great giveaway happening over here . Here's what's at stake! Go on over & see if you can win! Or how about if you LOVE URBAN SWANK paper...then head on over to their blog so that you can win a yummy prize pack! Urban Swank

This is my latest creation for the Nuts About Sketches DT. It was yet another wonderful sketch by the lovely Shawn. You should head over & check it out, along with all the other wonderful los by my fellow dt members. The lo is of my dd & the day we found out she no longer needed to be on a monitor. As most of you know, she was born almost 10 weeks early, & spent 5 weeks in the hospital. When she came home, she came home on a heart & apnea monitor. It was a peace of mind to make sure that she was ok, but boy was it a pain to lug around! Plus it would go off all the time as false alarms! So, this is the day that we got the call that we could get rid of it. Pics of the actual monitor, & pics of Emma w/o it!! Woo-hoo!

I just realized, I never posted my los for Nuts About Sketches the past two weeks! Where is my brain?! So, without further ado...... Week 83 - Nuts About Sketches - Paw-Paw's Boat This is the first time that Emma went on Paw-Paw's boat with my mom & dad. You wouldn't know it from her face, but they said she really enjoyed it! Week 84 - Nuts About Sketches - Wiggles My youngest, Audra, LOVES the Wiggles. We watch them at least once a day, if not more. The cd of songs is in the car, & she pretends to be Jeff. So, when they came to Hershey, I couldn't resist. DH was away, so I called my parents to see if they wanted to tag along. My dad being newly retired, didn't think twice, & they came with. I don't think he even knew who the Wiggles were (I think he thought they would be big furry animals or something), but he seemed to have enjoyed himself!

This is a double duty lo. I used a sketch that I found at the Everyday Scrapper , but used it for a challenge at From Here to Scrapternity . The challenge was to add just the facts: Who, What, Why, When, Where. It is about the bassinet that Emma is in. It has been in the family, on my husbands side, for 60+ years. My mother-in-law was in it as a baby, as well as her brother, then her children, & cousins, & other family members, now passed down to Emma (& Audra 2 years later). I was a little leary to use it at first, with it being so old, but the way my mil fixed it up, it was perfect & we got a lot of use of it.

Yet another lo created for the From Here to Scrapternity online crop LAST weekend. The challenge was to hand stitch on your lo. I stitched the ladybug trail. This pic is of Audra at 7 days old. She was such a porker!! Just get a load of those cheeks. She looks completely different now. It makes me sad to know that she is almost 3!!!

Another lo created for the From Here to Scrapternity online crop. This challenge was to compare, & list 5 different qualities. Here, I compared baby pics of Tony (bottom R), Emma (bottom L), Audra (top R), & me (top L), all about the same age. I was actually comparing who the girls looked like, Tony or me.

This lo was created for a challenge at From Here to Scrapternity . The challenge was to scrap about something that you were thankful for, but it could not be about family, health, or job. So, I printed pics that I found on the net & I came up with being thankful for the Big & Little things. The little things being: coffee, sales, naps, chocolate, pizza, books & scrapbooking. The Big thing, Jesus, ever present in our lives!!!

And another challenge from the fabulous online crop over at From Here to Scrapternity , this past wekeend! This was a sketch challenge. & you know those are my favorite!!! Here is the sketch that we worked with: And here is my lo: The challenge also called for it to have purple on it. Well, I finished my lo, & went to cross of that I completed it, & low & behold, there it was, "lay out must include the color purple." So, I grabbed a scrap, turned it over to the white side, inked it purple, & placed it on my lo! Can you find it? And just for giggles, I am going to keep it there too. I will always remember why that strip of purple is on my Christmas lo! :o) This is Emma at about 7 months old. I had taken these pics for the Christmas cards that we send out. She was so stinkin cute in that Santa suit!

Lots & lots of los! I was a busy gal this past weekend. This was another challenge at From Here to Scrapternity. It was another scraplift challenge. As you can tell, I really like them! Sometimes I stray & make them my own, sometimes I keep them very similar. This one was a great lo, so didn't need to change much. However, I have girls, not boys, so this is the girl version: Here is Nichole's beautiful lo: And then here is mine: I have always loved this pic! It is still framed on top of our entertainment center. Audra is just a few days old, & Emma was so into her. She was picking at her hair, her ears, her lil fingers, but she loved her toes. ....So, when I saw Nichole's lo, it was a no brainer what photo to use. I was a little lazy when it came to the stitching though. I only did 4 12x12 stitches!!

This was 2 separate challenges, on 2 separate sites. However, I did them the same so I could use as a double page lo. These are definately not my best work, however, it works for the pics that I used. I totally went back to basics on this one. Just paper, stickers, buttons, & doodling. I guess for nostalgia I should've pulled out the elmer's, huh? Anyway.... This one was done for Scraptacular's sketch challenge: And this one was done for From Here to Scrapternity 's Song Challenge: As the lo states, this was when we went to Sesame Place in 2007. Emma was 2, & Audra was 5 months old. I have a lot of pics of the day to scrap still, so don't be surprised if you see more los of this subject in the future.