SBVC133 - Ribbon Rewind

Very easy challenge this week..

This week we are revisiting a previous challenge - Ribbon. Let's see the creative ways you can use ribbon on your page(s).

SBVC132- School Style

I know many of you are out school shopping or maybe you have already completed it. I'm about half way done. As I was out shopping with my boys I saw some really cool looking tags on the clothing. I was wondering if there was a way to include the tags into a scrapbook page. Low and behold I was reading an email from ScrapbooksEtc.com about school pages. One of the samples included a tag.


Scrapbook Pages That Recycle: Use Clothing Tags as Scrapbooking Accents

So this week's challenge is a two parter: 1). include a clothing tag on your page and 2). include some stitching faux or machine.

This is not just a school challenge it can be for any occassion (maybe that perfect black dress for a wedding or night out on the town).

SBVC131 - Bingo!

Good morning scrappers!


I’m happy to say, I’m the guest hostess today! Diana’s taking a little break and will be back next week.

For this week’s challenge, I thought we’d play a little game of Bingo. This will help us use our stash of items we may not normally choose for a layout.

All you need to do is choose a row from the attached Bingo card (open below) - down, across, diagonal (or "X" if you want to be really challenged.) Use those items on your page. You are not limited to the items listed, but use at least those items. Feel free to play if you're a digi scrapper too!!

My Sample: Mommy's Cake for U

I used the “G” row down: at least 2 flowers, 5 or more buttons, 3 ribbons, a punch and 2 patterned papers.

Bingo Card

SBVC130 - Hobbies

What are your hobbies other than scrapbooking & cardmaking? Do you like to garden? Do you play an instrument? Do you like to go shopping? Maybe you even make your own beer or wine...


Whatever your hobby is scrapbook it. If you have one too many hobbies, then maybe you have a child or grandchild who likes to build things. Go ahead and scrap them.

SBVC129 - Chillaxin

For this week's Variety Challenge I want you to show how you Chillax (chill and/or relax).


You MUST use Chillaxin as your title.

SBVC128 - The Great Outdoors

During the summertime we tend to spend alot of time outdoors; ie camping, hiking, swimming or just enjoying the summer sun.


My challenge to you this week is to scrap those outdoor photos. I also want you to include some kind of embellishment that represents the activity.

On my Bugs layout I included a small twig.

For a water effect use some faux bubbles, like the ones on this layout.

Or if you are at the beach you could collect some sand or shells. This sample I have a bottle filled with sand from the Bahamas. On this layout I used a textured spray paint for a faux sand effect.

SBVC127 - Show your Patriotism

Let's show how our families celebrate the Patriotic holidays, whether it is an American holiday or Canadian holiday.

SBVC126 - Negatively Speaking (not really)

Thank you Anavon & Donna for filling in for me the past two weeks. Hopefully now that summer vacation is underway life won't be so hectic.. Ya right who am I kidding... lol...


For this week's variety challenge I don't think I'm repeating on and am sorry if I am. We are going to use the Negative Film strip (faux of course) on our pages. I will post my sample later on since I just bought the Tim Holtz die cut.

My old sample is of my dad with his Emmy award.

SBVC125 - Clean & Simple Father's Day

Thank you Donna for filling in for me this week.

Hello scrappers. I'm Donna and I will be hosting this weeks variety challenge.


With Father's Day right around the corner, i thought it would be appropriate to brake out those pictures of dad's and get them scrapped. It can be your own dad, your DH, a grandfather, a brother, nephew or a cousin, even a close friend. Who ever it is, he should be a dad.

And since we're scrapping dad's, I thought it would be fitting to keep things simple. By this I mean limit the embellishments (ie no flowers or bling).

For my sample, i scrapped some pictures of my DH cooking up a breakfast feast for my family. I just used cardstock, a few stamps, chipboard letters for my title, a marker and some brads. Simple and took all of 30 minutes.

SBVC124 - Pillow Fight!

For starters I want to thank Anavon for filling in for me this week.  Thank you!!!  Now onto the challenge.

Good Morning Everyone... For all you newbies, I am Anavon from Annie's Pantry and I am your guest host today. We would like to excuse Diana (princessdi69), she is out on a field trip. And like the old saying goes... "While Momma's away, the Kids will play!" hehehehe....


Today, I challenge Everyone to a great big, gigantic, humongous PILLOW FIGHT! (Inspirational of course)

My Family and I are getting ready to move into a new beach house and so I have been on the search for some new accent pillows for the sunroom. And in doing so, I came acrossed several that I thought would be great inspiration for some scrapbook layouts. I like my pillows to have color, style and charm....

So with that is mind your challenge today is to come have an inspirational pillow fight with us. Just choose a pillow that inspires you and create a page or layout that shows off that inspiration. Then share it here with us... here is a couple of websites filled with pillows that you could choose from.

Decorative Pillows

Accent Pillows

Classy Pillows

For those of you who like to just grab and throw... I have included three pillows below that are perfect for that quick, pick-up and whack sort of page.

Please post your pillow choice also, so that we can see what inspired you.

Here is my sample and pillow of choice today.... Hillstown House

SBVC123 - Watercolors

Today's challenge is to use watercolors on your page.


There are so many different ways to use watercolors on your page.  You can find directions for the following techniques on SCS resources section.

Watercolor Wash

Watercoloring with Markers

Watercoloring with Water Crayons

Watercoloring with Water color pencils

Wet Paper watercoloring

I was reading my latest Scrapbooks Etc. magazine and saw a neat technique on page 11. It uses Diamond Glaze and alcohol ink on a covered chipboard accent. They call this technique marbled but it kinda looks like watercolor.

SBVC122 - Kids Art

This week's challenge it to show off your kids or grandkids artwork. My youngest son made me the nicest card for mother's day. They had to draw a picture of their mom and write what their favorites things were.


I am working on my layout and will hopefully have it completed by tomorrow morning.

SBVC121 - Wedding Invites

This weeks variety challenge is based on a challenge wedding invitations. This past weekend was a Mini VSN and for challenge C you were to make a shower card (ie bridal, baby etc).


So for this week's variety challenge I am going to post a few links to some wedding invitations.

Yes, I know it sounds more like an inspiration challenge BUT you need to work in bling, ribbon, lace or any other embellishment that corresponds with the invitation you use. For example if you use the Birdcage design you could use the obvious birds on the page or maybe even an old broken piece of necklace for the chain.

PLUS, some of the invitations have a color swatch to change the cardstock or print. Some of these swatches will work great as a color combo challenge. So the bonus to this is to incorporate those colors into your layout.

Birdcage Invitation

Simply Dazzling

Petal Clusters

Leaf Flourish

Natural Pair

Asian Blossoms

Have a great time with this challenge.

SBVC120 - Puzzling Idea

I love doing crossword puzzles and jigsaw puzzles.

Today's challenge is to do use the Crossword idea or use puzzle pieces on your page.

Jigsaw Puzzle: I happen to own the Coluzzle Puzzle Template. I wanted to make a collage out of some odds & ends pictures.

My Puzzle Sample - Busch Gardens

Here is an idea you could use: Crossword Puzzle Page

Make the whole page look like a giant crossword puzzle. The one I saw was 10 squares across and 11 squares down drawn with a black pen. The black squares were paper. The black squares were on: Row 1 #4; R 2 - #3,9; R3 - #3,10; R4 - #2, 10; R5 - # 3, 4, 5, 7; R6 - # 5, 8; R7 - #1, 9, 10; R8 - #2, 6; R9 - #3; R10 - #8 and R 11 - #5, 10.

Starting on the 6th square of the first row the word "Friends" was written down. On the 4th row the word forever was written between the 2 black squares so that it intersected with the 'e' in the word "friends".

You could use other titles. You could put the photos of friends or small wallet size photos exchanged by many students in the small white squares or those with dark backgrounds in place of the black squares. You could make the squares bigger and have less squares.

My crossword Sample: Kyle & Nick

SBVC119 - Heavy Metal

This week's challenge is to use metal on your page.

You can use any kind of hardware.

Perhaps you want to give the Faux Metal technique a try.

Maybe you have some Pearl Ex hanging around being ignored (I know I do). Try one of the Pearl Ex Techniques. Melted Pearls or Heated Pearls .

Bonus: What is a little Heavy Metal without Rock & Roll. Yes, use the Rock & Roll Technique somewhere one your page.

SBVC118 - Men In Our Lives

While I was away in NC we had a lot of rain. When we got home our basement was flooded again. So I was dealing with that yesterday.

I will post the challenge soon.

**** Edit with challenge.

This week's challenge will be the Men In Our Lives.

Show us some masculine pages of the men that are dear to you.

Sample: My Guys

SBVC117 - Pets In Our Lives

When I think of family I think of my kids, dh, sisters/brothers, mom, dad etc.. But how many of us think of our pets that way? I have noticed in several magazines lately more and more people of making layouts of their pets.

So that is my challenge for you this week: Pets.

If you don't have any pets then how about doing a layout of the ducks at the pond or the lizard that the kids caught.

Here is an old layout of My Dog Kimmie. (unfortunately we no longer have her. Kimmie has gone to that great dog park in the sky)

SBVC116 - Luck of the Irish

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!!


I'm going to make this an easy challenge. Three elements - you can do one or all...

1. Monochromatic Green Page

2. Clovers

3. Gold (respresenting Pot O' Gold)

SBVC115 - Spring has Sprung

Spring has sprung here in NH.. I have been spring cleaning like crazy and have totally gotten wrapped up in it that I spaced the challenge.


This week's challenge is based on a color palette. I also would like for you to include something that buds (flowers, trees etc) and a Spring saying/poem/song.

SBVC114 - Glasses & Goggles

I know we all have these photos. The cute photos of babies/toddlers wearing sunglasses. Or maybe a child wearing swim goggles.


That's it. simple and easy this week.

Here is an older page I made of my oldest son.

SBVC113 - Slim Shots

This week's SCS SBVC challenge is to use slim photos or maybe I should put it as narrow shots/photos. You know the ones I'm talking about. The one of the tall buildings. Or they can be cropped photos of your kids/grandkids.

That is it.  Simple and easy.. 

SBVC112 - Love is In the Air

With Valentines Day coming up I figured I would incorporate that into this week's SCS SBVC challenge.

There are a couple of requirements for this week's challenge:

1. You must include a heart on the page. It can be chipboard, a cutout from pattern pattern, etc.

2. You must include flowers on your page. It can be paper pleated, ribbon, dahlia fold, felt, scrunchy paper flowers etc..

3. You have to include a poem on your page. It can be a funny one or a serious one..

Bonus: What woman doesn't like to receive some bling on Valentine's Day. So let's see some glitter, rhinestones or any other bling on your page...

My husband's challenge for you all is to include Brown paper that represents Chocolate.

Scraproom makeover

As many of you know I have been organinzing and making changes to my scraproom.  When we first moved here I thought I would keep the color of a more neutral tone, tan as a matter of fact.  With the lighting being so poor down here it was a bland boring non-inspiring room.  I had plans to so some accent painting but it fell flat.  I really could not "picture" the room done the way I thought I wanted it. 

This picture of my sewing machine desk just shows a small amount of the color.  Please do not pay attention to my messy craft counter but I wanted to show you the opposite end of the room from the sewing area. 

I know one thing for sure, I wanted to paint my walls a fun and exciting color.  I picked a Turquoise color.  At first I felt like I should be swimming in a fish bowl.  To this day I still love the color on the wall. 

I'm a little embarrased to post this picture, I thought I had a better one.  This is generally what my scraproom looks like.  Yes, shame on me for not keeping the clean gene as I was growing up. 

As time went on I really wanted to spruce up my room.  Plus try to keep it clean... lol..  It wasn't until this past December 2009 I realized what I wanted to do.  I was shopping for gift wrap at Target and found a wonderful Damask flocked print paper.  Oh my goodness I fell in love with it.  I bought one roll that day because I "had" to.  I decided I would use it as a wallpaper for my ugly white cabinet in the corner of the above photo.  I made four rectangle panels out of the gift wrap and then modge podged them to the doors.  Then we bought some basic trim for the edges of the paper panels. 

I really like how the doors came out.  So the next thing I did was rip off the curtain panels under my craft counter.  I had a large piece of black & white gingham print fabric that I stuck up in place of the old one.

The room seems to be coming along to my liking now.  One change I'm hoping will happen soon is to get a black counter top instead of that ugly green. 

On my counter I made a box to store my Cuttlebug Embossing Folders.  I found this idea on Splitcoast by a username of Wenchie.  It was a great little project to make on weekend.  I used my flocked gift wrap all around it. 

Also on my counter is my Cricut machine.  I had some leftover fabric from an apron I had made.  I used some old black on black print fabric for the sides and the flap parts.  I wante to add a little bling to the cover so I used a old decorative pin I had laying around. 

On the other end of the room is my sewing area.  I have an old sewing desk that I stripped and restained.  I used Minwax Bombay Mahogany.  I wanted a bulletin board above the desk so I took my old corkboard painted the trim in black.  Then I took a piece of foamcore board applied batting to it, covered it in a piece of damask fabric and added some ribbon to make it into a French board.  Love the look of it. 

Here is a picture of the sewing desk after the stripping/staining (this wall is painted the turquoise like the rest of the room).

So far I am very happy with the way the room is coming along.  I do have a few other things to make and to hang on the walls (shelves above the computer desk and sewing area would be nice).

Thanks for stopping by and seeing my little piece of happiness. 

*** Update 1/5/11

Here are some more photos of my finished room.

    

Left Cabinet

Right Cabinet

Foamcore Stamp pad station & Unity stamp binders

Shelf my husband and I made. 

This last photo is of my working counter.  You can see the obvious transformation.  My husband bought me these base cabinets from IKEA for my birthday this past year.  While my husband was working I took the green countertop off the braces and took it to the garage where I sanded it and repainted it black.  We realized we needed to cut the front lip off of it in order for the doors and drawer to open.  I am very happy with the way the room looks now, well not right now because it is a mess due to the holidays and crafts...

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you enjoyed the room tour.

SBVC111 - 5 Senses

Recently I have been reorganizing and clearing out my scraproom. Can you believe I have over 120 craft magazines. I sat here one night going through each and everyone of them. I ripped out the pages that gave me inspiration, techniques or a sketch I liked.

So today's variety challenge came from the Creativing Keepsakes May 2009 issue.

The challenge is to scrap one of the five senses ~ Sight, Smell, Sound, Taste and Touch. I want you to journal how the one sense pertains to the photo(s).

It could be the first sunlight coming through the trees in the morning.

Perhaps, the smell of your cup of coffee or tea in the morning.

Maybe even the smell of your little baby after a baby.

The possibilities are endless.

SBVC110 - Mosaic

I have always been in awe at mosaic art. I love the look of outdoor tables with the mosaic pieces. In the past I have made stepping stones for my yard in mosaic patterns.


So this week's challenge is Mosaic. I have seen a few different ways of doing this. My sample below (I will upload the page when completed tomorrow morning) has some mosaic done for the sun and waves.

I hope you get a chance to try out the mosaic technique.

SBVC109 - Fabric of our Lives

Fabric, Fabric, Fabric is everywhere...  I think I enjoy collecting fabric more than sewing it.  I have quite the stash of fabric accumulating.  Sewing is one of my other favorite crafts. I have seen in a couple of magazines lately where people are using fabric on their pages. For example, January 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes mag page 58 talkes about fabric and shows a fabric flower on page 59.

So your challenge this week is to use fabric on your page. It can be in strips,  "patterned paper", die cuts or a 3-D flower.

My sample: Cucina Italiana

I hope you have fun with this challenge!

Tropical Flowers

Recently my husband's family lost their brother Michael. Michael, you are loved and will be missed dearly. God rest your Soul.

After the funeral we were given the option to take an arrangement. I chose a gorgeous tropcial one. When my husband brought it home I had no place to stand this enormous arrangement (similar to the first photo).  So I asked my husband first if it would be okay to take it apart and make a different arrangement.  He said "absolutely."  After about 25-30 minutes I finished my first tropical arrangement (second photo).

New Year's Eve Challenges

This past New Year's Eve Faith (aka Markie's Mom) from Splitcoast brought us 5 great challenges. 

Every year our family has friends/family over for NYE but with three of us being sick we decided it was in the best interest of everyone to cancel the festivities this eyar.  Hark, we haven't done that since Y2K.  I can tell you it didn't feel like NYE without anyone over.  So when I saw the challenges on Splitcoast I knew I needed to keep my mind preoccupied. 

I managed to get three challenges done. 

NYE09A - Countdown the New Year.

NYE09C - Bringing in the New Year - Clean & Simple

 

NYE09E - Glitz & Glam

WT251 - It's about Time

One December 31,2009 Julia S from Splitcoast challenged us to use Time somewhere on our page.  Click on Time for the original challenge. 

Back in October Kyle had run his first 5K.  He did pretty darn good for a newbie.  I had a clock face stamp that I used for the "time" part of the challenge. 

SBVC107 - Resolutions

Thank you Melissa for stepping in for me last week.

This week's Variety Challenge is to scrap your 2010 New Year's Resolutions.  You can find the original challenge post here at Splitcoast Stampers.

I had a lot of fun making my sample for this challenge.  The patterned paper I used I found on clearance at Target for .99...   Yes, that is correct .99 cents. 

SBVC106 - Party Page!

My friend Melissa stepped in for me the week of New Year's eve for this week's Variety Challenge 106.  Her challenge for everyone was to scrap a page showing a party of some nature, ie New Year's Eve, Birthday Party or any other celebration.  You can find the original Splitcoast Challenge thread here.

I was able to complete this challenge this past week after I began feeling better. 

Here is my layout showing us Ringing in the New Year of 2009.

Creating Keepsake Convention Class - Kiss the Cook

I figured I would wait until the 2009 Convention was over to post this cookbook.  Kathy and I took this class last year and it was fun to make.  As most of you know I love to cook and was excited about this class. 

Each of the pages has pockets for recipe cards.  I think this would work great if there were actual recipe pages. I plan on making on of these or similar for each of my boys to take with them when they move out on their own.

SBVC97 - Best Buds

This week's Variety Challenge was to scrap your best friend or best buddy.

Here is a link to the Splitcoast Stampers thread for the original post.

My first layout is my best Friend = my husband.  The second one is of me and my friend Melissa.  The third one is me, Melanie and Donna meeting for the first time.

Losing My Mind

Wow I can not believe how long it seems since the last time I updated my blog.  For the amount of time I am at my computer you would think I would update it everytime I make something.  Well I'm hoping that is going to change this New Year.

I will post some of the things I made in the recent months so I can get caught up.