12.31.11

This year has been filled with ups and downs.  It has been our second year to be a family of four, and with that there continues to be many adjustments.  Santiago and Paolina have grown up so much and have had so many milestones.  We have experienced more colds and flus than I prefer to dwell on.  We closed a business.  We decided to sell our house.  All of these things have left me little time to scrapbook and even less time to post on my blog.  Despite all that, I look back on this past year with many fond memories.  I also realize, upon taking inventory, that I actually completed quite a fair number of layouts...well over 100.  Not to mention making several mini albums, many many greeting cards, as well as my annual Christmas cards.  So to reflect back upon 2011 I thought I would post my very favorite 12 (in no particular order) projects completed this year.  

All but two of the above projects were for challenges over at Colorful Creations.  I truly love that site and can honestly say not only have I had fun with their challenges (and thus completed sooo many layouts), but I have also formed friendships with the amazing girls that run the site as well as fellow members.  So it's with great pleasure that I have joined the Colorful Creations blog sketch team.  Starting January of 2012 there will be some amazing sketches to work with every month and I hope you will visit and join in the fun!  I will have more details, as well as a sample of their first sketch of the year, posted tomorrow January 1st.

Happy New Year all!

Colorful Creations Blog Hop Winner

Well let me start off by offering an enormous apology for completely forgetting to post the winner of my blog's portion of the Colorful Creations Blog Hop.  If it's any excuse at all, we have been passing around sickness in our household for over two weeks now, and of course there was the Thanksgiving four-day weekend thrown in the midst of it all.  My mind just hasn't been on my blog.

So without further ado, the winner chosen by random number generator is...drum roll...Nicolle Kramer.  Nicolle, please send me your snail mail addy so I can get a prize off to you.

And thanks so much to everyone who took the time to visit my blog, post comments and to participate in my tag challenge.  They were all such great projects!!

TAG, You're It!

Welcome to the Colorful Creations Tag, You're It! Blog Hop!

You should be arriving from Marivic's blog.

So how does this blog hop work?  You will need to visit each blog and leave a comment that you have been there.  Your last stop will be the CC blogspot.  To qualify for the prize you will need to leave a comment on each blog letting us know you have visited all the blogs as well as complete each blog's project.  A winner will be randomly selected.  You have from November 11th - November 12th (12:00am EST) to complete the hop.  All entries must be uploaded to the blogs by Novemeber 16th, and a winner will be selected on November 17th.  Along the way you will find some design team members offering up their own RAKs and prizes!!!

Our hop is being sponsored by Marivic Clifton who will be offering these beautiful tags to the grand prize winner of the hop.  In order to be eligible to win the grand prize you must participate in each hop and leave a comment on each blog that you are now a follower of that blog, and your name will be included in the drawing.

In case you get lost along the way you will find a complete list at Colorful Creations.

Soooo....my challenge for you is to create a card using an altered tag.  You may distress it, stamp on it, paint it...the possibilities are endless!  Personally, I have gained a ton of inspiration from the techniques that Tim Holtz uses for distressing & altering.  There are several demos available on his website, and one demo in particular that I believe shows some great techniques for altering a tag HERE.

I also have an example of a card I created using an altered tag.

The tag was altered with lots of glimmer mists, a Stampers Anonymous stamp, Glossy Accents, distressing around the edges and some fibers.  After attaching the tag to my card, I added a transparency and a 3-D butterfly both from K&Co, Dymo labels and some altered Thickers.

I hope you are able to find some inspiraton...and don't forget to leave a comment so that you will not only be eligible for the grand prize but also be eligible to win a small prize that I will giving away randomly.

Your next and final stop on the hop is the Colorful Creations blog

10.15.11

We're headed out to a party for our friend who is celebrating his 30th birthday.  Just thought I would quickly post the card I made for him

10.14.11

Here are my submissions for rounds 4 through 6 of So You Think You Can Scrap over at Colorful Creations.

09.26.11

So back in July I participated in a blog hop for Color Combos Galore and was fortunate enough to win a prize from Lilith's scrapbooking venture.  It took several weeks to arrive all the way from Belgium...but it was well worth the wait.  It was an absolute plethera of scrappy goodies, and I just wanted to share the layout I created for a challenge over at Colorful Creations using just a little of what she sent me.

09.25.11

I never understood why my mom was so relieved for summer to be over and to have me back in school when I was a kid....until now that I have kids of my own.  Last October we enrolled Santiago in preschool for just three mornings a week, but it was amazing how much I was able to get done in those 15 hours!  Not to mention I was able to spend a lot of alone time with Paolina which I wasn't expecting to get since she's our second.  This summer, he took a break from preschool  so I had them both home with me all day long.  Wow was it a long summer!  It doesn't help that I don't have a car, so we always have to walk everywhere we want to go, and that there was almost a whole month of unusually high temperatures which kept us indoors.  We were all going stir crazy.  I completely ran out of things to do with the kids and found myself parking them both in front of the TV (something I said I would never do LOL) the last week before he went back.  And as far as scrapping goes, I was lucky to get one layout or card done a week.  Well, Santiago is back in preschool, our house finally looks neat & tidy again, and I've actually been able to get some projects done.  And just in time for a super fun challenge that is running over at Colorful Creations called So You Think You Can Scrap.  Each week a new challenge is posted and all of the participants who RSVPd during sign ups have one week to complete the challenge.  As long as you adhere to the challenge rules and complete it on time, you will automatically go on to the next round.  Below are the layouts I have submitted for the first three rounds.

 This is me 38 weeks prego with Paolina.

This layout has photos of when we went back to St. Louis two summers ago for a family reunion that my grandma had organized. While we there, Noé andl I visited the church we had attended and had been married in. Since we had left they had renovated their chapel into an art gallery. It was very cool to see all the modern art hanging in a room with Italian wood carvings & stained glass window. Very eclectic! Now that I've submitted the layout for the challenge, I'm realizing it's missing "something" and that I really need to add journaling as well.  So I have a feeling that I will go back and do just that.

And here is Santiago when he wasn't quite a month old, napping on my mom's lap.

Today the participants who qualify to go on to the next round were announced and tomorrow a new challenge will be posted so stay tuned for more of my creations!

08.20.11

Just a quick post of a card I did for the first Color Inspiration Challenge over at Scrappily Ever After.  Here's the inspiration:

And here is my interpretation:

08.16.11

Well, so much for the great start this month.  In the last few weeks, I've barely had the opportunity to get any projects done.  I just wanted to quickly post the card I made last night for this week's color combo challenge over at Color Combos Galore.

And here is the thank you note I made

 Please head over to Color Combos Galore and check out this challenge which ends this Thursday!