April Christmas Cards

I got back from New York City today and I am exhausted! So, here is just a photo. I'm sure you can see the rest.

April Scrapbooking Challenge

I hosted this month's Scrapbooking Challenge at my online group, R-C-S. The challenge:

1 - 2 -3 Challenge

1 - Use only 1 word for your title

2 - Use 2 photos on your page, and only two.

3 - April showers bring May flowers so use 3 flowers somewhere on your
page



My title was actually 2 words but 1 phrase - Honolulu, Hawaii. Both of my photos are looking down on Honolulu from Round Top Drive. Amazing views, huh? Lot of concrete! I have three flowers along the middle of the page along with lots of circles, buttons, and chipboard buttons. I don't use lots of circles on my pages and I don't really clutter things like this, but I love the way it turned out. Here are a few close-ups of the circles and flowers.









Thanks for dropping by!

Penguins and Snow Men

I don't have much time to post since I am working on my tax returns so I will be quick. Yes, I know. I am way early for my tax returns but we already had all of our information and I hate doing them, so I decided to go ahead and get it over with.

Now, on the Christmas cards. I really liked having all of my cards ready to go by November 15th last year which is why I am doing Lynne's Christmas Card Challenge again this year. I got two new Christmas stamps from the Michael's dollar bin and decided to break them in. For the most part these cards are all similar with tiny details being the exception. I loved the polka-dotted paper from last year and since I am following a strict budget this year, I must use stash as much as humanly possible.

Here is the cute little penguin. I added red ribbon along the middle of the card to break up the papers and turned the image to add emphasis on the main image of the card. Here are all three penguins. Notice the small changes like different hat colors and different ribbons on the card.







Here are the snow men. There are also slight differences between these two cards. I like the snowball-like ribbon and thought it fit well with my snow dudes. We had another challenge added to this month but I finished these cards a couple of days ago (notice my slow uploading time?) so I might get a little creative sometime this weekend and make a few cards using the challenge. I have a busy weekend. Saturday is my sign-ups for Team in Training and I promised my pooch I would take him to the Dog Park. He really enjoyed his first trip last week and I think it is a good idea for him to interact with other dogs.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you like my Snow Dudes and Mister Penguin.

Lots of cards

If you followed my blog last year, you will remember me participating in a monthly Christmas Card Challenge. The gals at RCS and I are at it again. My goal is to complete 5 Christmas cards a month so I am not frantically trying to get my cards done on December 1. Each month, a participant also posts a challenge to go along with our Christmas cards if we want to participate. Here is the challenge for January:

I know for me, when I look at my stash, I can get a tad overwhelmed,
so challenges and ideas help me focus.

Remember - these are just to provide some inspiration or a little
extra fun - they are not required, and there is no pressure!

Here is the first challenge you may wish to incorporate when making
your CCCs.

"Cleaning up"

I know some of you may be super organized and already have everything
put away after the Holidays - but for any of us that have extra small
bits of wrapping paper, small bags, Christmas cards from that distant
relative that you don't want to keep, but you like the design of....or
even a spare ornament hanger you found in the carpet....

Find a way to incorporate those last few bits of your 2008 into your
first set of 2009 cards.

I didn't have anything lying around as I had all my Christmas cleaned up by the 2nd of January. In a small apartment, you can't just leave things like that lying around or you won't have a path to walk. I did however, keep to all scraps/stash to make my cards. I did 5 of the same card with the only difference being the sticker found in the bottom right corner. These are simple and not too Christmas-y for those friends that don't celebrate. I found last year I didn't have enough generic wintery-type cards for some friends so I am hoping these work this year.





I also got a few thank you cards finished. Five down, only 20 more to go.

Three of this one: Each card has different photos of flowers, otherwise they are the same.





Two of this one: These are identical.

I am Alive

How horrible of a blogger am I? Having a career seriously cuts into time that is normally spent doing fun things. I might have to rethink this whole having a job thing. However, I am hoping to get with the program and start updating this thing and visiting all of my scrappin and stampin friends more. I miss ya'll!

At my online scrapping group, I am hosting a monthly scrappin challenge. The challenge this month was presented by a lovely lady, Sandy, and her challenge goes as follows:

Are you ready for the January 2009 Scrappin Challenge?
January is the month everyone seems to be into goals and
resolutions.......feeling the need for a new start......decluttering their
lives.

My challenge is a one or two page LO (digital or traditional) of your goals
for 2009. I don't care what kind of photos you add to your LO, be they
objects, scenery, etc....But, there must be one current photo of yourself on
the LO.

Most scrappers find themselves behind the camera, not in the photos at all.
I know I just printed 200 photos from March-June 2008 and I am in only one
of the photos. It will be hard for my family to find out what I looked like
last year. This way we can leave at least one for 2009.

Also in keeping with the decluttering theme you must only use supplies from
your stash - no purchases!!!

REMINDERS:
1. Scrapbook goals for 2009
2. At least one current photo of yourself
3. Only stash - no purchases

So lets get started and remember you must have your LO posted by January
31st at midnight.

Here is the page I created for the challenge. I used all scraps and things I recieved from my Secret Santa this year. She did a fabulous job getting me things like those cute chipboard buttons. The paper is from TLC - the Sweet Pea kit - which I receieved from my friend M-C but hadn't used yet. I took mty Storylines Stencil and created the wavy edge of the patterned paper just to break up the colors some. The photo frame is also from the kit. Speaking of the photo, this was taken on New Year's Eve so I thought it appropriate to place on my first layout of the new year. It is also one of my favorite photos of Brian, Shrek, and myself.



I used these great chipboard buttons that I got when I was living in Hawaii. I can't believe I still have letters left! I thought Goals was a more appropriate term since I can't seem to actually keep a resolution. Perhaps it is the wording, right? I really like how the chipboard buttons and letters add depth to the page. I added two tags to the page; one says Happy New Year! and the other says 2009. I used white ribbon to attach those to the "L" chipboard letter and placed another chipboard button in the middle of the "O". I suppose you guys are wondering what my goals are. Thank goodness for my digital camera because now you can just read them youself...

I added the definition of goals to the journaling. Now sure why but I thought it was appropriate. If you are interested I am posting my progress on my goals at my other blog, Carolina Transplant.


Now this page is, in my honest opinion, too cute to place in an album. Plus, I think having your goals in a place that you can see them and be reminded every now and then is a good thing. Therefore, I placed them on the side of my scrapping storage bins. I really like how it looks there.



For the readers:

1)What are your New Year's Resolutions or Goals?
2)How are you putting those on paper, whether on a scrap page or in a journal?
3)If you have scrapped a page, share it in my comments. I would love to feature them!

My Scrap Space

Since moving to Colorado, we definitely upgraded our apartment space by about 600 square feet. It is still a 1 bedroom so no extra space for a scrap/stamp room. The solution: I scrap and stamp on my dining room table. Our table is small so I usually end up with a mess around the entire table, all over the floor. Hey, I have to have a little room though, right? Since the move, I also had to get rid of most of my scrappin and stampin stuff so now, everything I own can fit inside 1 tote (yes, only 1 tote). That tote sits next to my dining room table, much to the dismay of my boyfriend. =D I thought I would share a few photos of my dining room after my stamping process was all over.

As you can see I have a very small space to actually work with. The perimeter of the table is filled with all of my supplies and of course, the most important tool, my Mac.

Here is the floor around my table, absolutely destroyed, littered with supplies. I try to keep things semi-organized so I can find things in the floor but this rarely happens. I should be ashamed that my house looks like this after a mini scrap session, but this is who I am.

More floor and more mess. It usually stays like this for a day or so. I am just so worn out from all my hard work that I don't want to clean. I'm sure all your stampers understand.

However, at the end of the day the mess is all worth it because I have a set of cute Holiday cards that I am sure my friends and family will love. Little do they know the sacrifice I go through to create such cards. The constant mess littering the floor and table when we try to eat dinner. The constant threat my the boyfriend to throw it away if I don't clean it up at once. Look what I have to show for it. One day I will actually organize my things. I have been meaning to make a couple of purchases that will organize my scrappin stuff but after buying a car (and an awesome car, if I may say so) those things got put on the backburner. Then I purchased plane tickets home for Christmas so it looks like organizing will not be happening for a while. When (or if) it happens, I will be sure to share that too.

Carnival Giveaway Winner

Thanks to all who entered my Carnival giveaway! A huge CONGRATS to lucky number 11 - Natalie!

Here are your random numbers:

11

Timestamp: 2008-11-22 02:29:02 UTC

Natalie's favorite Christmas carol is O Holy Night, a fantastic carol I might add. Natalie, be on the lookout for an email from me.

Thanks again everyone!!!

Carnival Time - Join Us for a Give-Away

EtsyGreetings, a handmade greeting card street team at Etsy, is hosting a blog carnival all this week. I am giving away a set of 5 hand-drawn holly flat cards with envelopes. You can find other cards I have created at Crystal's Creations, my Etsy shop.



It is so SIMPLE to participate in my give-away. Christmas is my favorite time of the year and it is just around the corner. I want everyone to get excited with me. Simply leave a comment on this post telling me what your favorite Christmas carol is. If you don't celebrate Christmas, tell me what the favorite part of your winter holiday is. I will choose a winner using a random number generator at the end of the week.

To enter to win other fun prizes offered by the many talented members at EtsyGreetings, stop by our blog for a linked list of all the giveaways happening this week.

November Christmas Cards

Here are my Christmas cards for Lynne's Christmas Card Challenge over at R-C-S. I am so glad I participated. I haven't counted up the number of cards I have but I know it is more than enough. Now to just finish (yes, I said finish...as in I have already started) my shopping.

This is another card I made for my co-workers this year. It is flat so nothing fancy. I used my Stampendous Santa Tree image and my NEW Elzybells sentiment which reads, When you stop believing in Santa Claus, you get underwear for Christmas. Isn't that cute!?! I colored the image in with markers and set aside. I will be doing a large batch of these.

Card #2. I used TLC cardstock with Making Memories Green Polka-dotted paper. My stamp is one of the cutest Elzybells images I have seen. I matted it and catty-cornered it on the card front then added a cute red gross-grain ribbon. The sentiment on the inside reads, Wishing you a Christmas filled with angel wishes and reindeer kisses! Everyone with me...Awwww!

Here is #3. I used Beate's Weekend Sketch as the layout. I thought it turned out very cute. The polka-dotted paper is from Making Memories. I rounded opposite corners of the image before coloring it in. To finish if off I added faux stitching around the outside and cute ribbon to fill space in the right corner. I love Beate's sketches; I just never seem to have time to play along.

Card #4 if fairly simple. I rounded opposite corners of the card than added this cute snowflake paper, also from MM. I stamped the Santa Tree image and mounted it on green cardstock. To bring more green into the card, I colored a few of the snowflakes in.

Last, but not least, this is cute card disguised as a gift. I added this yummy candy stripe paper from MM on green cardstock. I added a green strip across the middle and distressed the edges. The sentiment on the tag is the same Reindeer kisses sentiment used on a previous card.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope ya'll had a great weekend!

Happy Halloween!

Hey Everyone. I hope you had a wonderful Halloween. The weather here was awesome but we didn't get one trick-or-treater! I was kind of sad. I thought I would share some pumpkin carving photos.

My finished pumpkin. Scary Wolves.

He really wants to try some pumpkin

My dog is so confused

Scary,huh?

Take a look at the knife!

Thanks for stopping by!

Fun October Pages

Hey everyone. Remember that October challenge I posted a while back? There were so many great pages that I just had to share.

Lori did an amazing job with this digital layout. Isn't her title FUN?







M-C put together this DPS. Her page has so many details. Did you see those crazy pumpkins?


















Here is Lynne's page. Her title font is so cute and I love the stripped paper.











Some of the gals uploaded their pages to Webshots so I was unable to download them. However, no worries. You can still check out their pages. Here is Kate's page. I love the digital layout she did. Last (but not least, I hope) if you missed my page you can see it here.

If you completed the challenge and I missed you, could you please leave me a comment with the URL of your page? I would love to post it!

Thanks everyone that played along. October was so much fun. I will be posting the November challenge soon.

Thanks for stopping by!

October Monthly Challenge

Hey everyone! I am heading up a monthly scrapbooking challenge at one my online groups. This month's challenge focused on Halloween, of course. Here is the challenge:

Could the theme be anything other than Halloween?! Using the colors of green, purple and/or orange create a 1 or 2 page LO using Halloween pictures you already have from past years. If you're caught up (hardee har har) create a 1 or 2 page LO in anticipation of a Halloween picture you will take this month. Halloween pictures can be pictures of anything from costumes, a party or a really cool Jack-O-Lantern you carved.

I'm adding one more component to this challenge. It stems from me having to move all my punches to a larger drawer. I seldom use them and having to puzzle them into a small drawer was frustrating. As I moved them to a larger drawer it reminded me of all the cool punches I have. So, I'm challenging everyone to dust off and use a punch on the October challenge LO also. Any shape punch you have just tell us what you used. Of course, I didn't have any photos that needed to be scrapped so I left the orange panel for the photos from this year. I am already ahead of the game I suppose.

I think the main reason for this challenge is to get us all back into creating scrapbook LO's. If you find the challenge stifling rather than encouraging feel free to do whatever you want. I want to see us all sharing our LO's each month.

If you're a digital scrapper everything goes except for the punch. Can you create a punch like shape with your digital programs?



And here is my page. Sorry for the mediocre photos. My good camera is on the fritz. Guess that means I know what is on my Christmas wish list. These papers are from Top Line Creations and were a gift from my friend, M-C and I just love them. This is my first experience with TLC and I am loving it.

For the punch part of the challenge, I had to get creative because I think I own 2 punches, a circle and corner. How sad is that? I guess I manage okay. I used my circle punch to create these cute pumpkins. I used markers to draw cute little faces and stems. In this photo you can also see I added a border to the orange photo mat with a marker.

After looking at the page I felt it needed something. I decided to add this cute spider handing from the top of the page. I colored each spider in with markers. I think he is just the cutest. You wouldn't believe it. After I complete this page, for some reason this little guy disappeared. I can't find him anywhere. I guess that is what happens when you keep your scrappin materials in a tote. Oh well, I guess the things made with him will be unique. I finished the page up by adding a matching pumpkin sticker also from the TLC collection. The stamps came from the Dollar Target Bin (another reason I am not too worried about the little guy).

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend. Halloween is coming up! Do you have your costumes?

Thanks for stopping by!

It's Fall

Can you believe it? Death is on its way. To understand exactly what I mean by that, see my other post HERE. The weather is chilly here in Denver and I heard on the news earlier we could see snow next week. WHAT?!? Snow? It is only October!

To celebrate the fall season, I have a couple of fall cards to share with ya'll.



This is my first project ever that uses vellum and I loved it. Such a simple piece of paper gives such a great look to the card. The words you see are the top vellum layer. I am usually not a huge fan of burnt orange but I really enjoyed this color on this card. Maybe I am really excited about the fall in the air.



Spiders, spiders, everywhere. I am terrified of spiders. We ventured into the pet store today (which really bothers me but that is a post for another time) and came upon the biggest tarantula I have ever seen. I almost threw up in the middle of the store. I just can't do it. However, I do think this little spider is pretty cute. He is popped up for a little dimension and on the same cute polka-dotted paper.

Thanks for stopping by!

More Christmas Cards

Hey everyone. Thanks so much for all the well wishes about my new job. It is going great so far and I love knowing that a paycheck will be coming in. I have been in Denver for 2 1/2 months now and I love it. I am so happy we decided to come here. I am still not used to the cold, but I can now stand (sort of) 60 degree weather. I am very excited to see snow again, although I am not sure I am ready to go outside in it. I will be happy to view it through my window.

Speaking of cold weather and snow, I will definitely experience a white Christmas this year. At least I better! Here are my Christmas cards for the month of September. I made two of each design. One of each design will be sent overseas to our soldiers and the others will available for purchase in my Etsy store. I am doing a very cool project this year called Mission Soldier Support where any card (Christmas or otherwise) purchased in my store from October 1 to November 7 can be sent to soldiers overseas. Simply put MSS or Mission Solder Support in the comments to seller (me) and I will place that card to the side and ship it to our project coordinator with the other cards to be sent overseas. Pretty cool, huh? I am very excited and proud to be a part of this. So, here are my cards. If they are not listed in my shop when you read this, they will be listed soon.















Thanks for stopping by!