Super Proud of This Kid

I missed it! I had a Ten Things up on Tuesday and I totally spaced it out. I think that this surgery is getting to me as I try to plan and organize. We also have my nephews graduation this weekend and I have been busy getting some things ready for his party. Can't believe that kid is already graduating. I can remember him as this tiny toddler running down the hall to my classroom when I first started teaching. He was the cutest thing. Still cute today!

Congrats to you, JBird! You are an amazing young man and I am excited to see where you go from here. We love you tons!

Now for my layout from Tuesday that I forgot. Our ten things was for titles. I chose to follow the curve and use different fonts and types of letters. Mixing it up is a fun way to go with a title and definitely creates some visual interest.  Head over to Practical Scrappers and check out what some others did with their titles. There is no reason or excuse to be boring again :) 

Have a fabulous Memorial Day weekend.
Lisa

Sketch Time at S.W.A.T.

I am definitely missing in action lately! I have been so busy with end of the school year stuff, getting ready for my surgery next week and attending to all the other details that life keeps throwing our way. This weekend has been all about getting it done! I made my list yesterday and just started methodically going through each one and marking it off. I love the feeling of checking something off, the problem is I don't see the list getting any more manageable yet. Today I am hoping to get my plants and start working on my garden.

Yesterday was another drill day for S.W.A.T. This time it was a sketch challenge using a sketch created by design team member Becci.

I worked with some older photos of my boys on their first day of school in 2004...yes I am that far behind sometimes! Aren't they sweet?? Where did those cute boys go anyway? Just kidding. They are still adorable, just in a teen age, stinky boy way. :) While I didn't follow the sketch in the exact way, I took the basic elements of the sketch and tried to make it work with what I had. I still feel like the bottom right side is missing something but I am going to let it sit and grow on me or wait until I come up with that perfect idea. 

Head over to the blog and join us by linking up your take on the sketch. There is a fabulous prize pack filled with papers and embellishments you will love.

Thanks for checking in. And Heidi, if you will contact me with your shipping info I will send out the prize that you won all the way back on NSD!

Lisa

Ten Things Tuesday- Fabric

Hey everyone. We are just back from a long weekend in Nebraska and today has been a catch up day. And maybe a little bit of a pouting day as I miss my super friends already. We had the best weekend catching up and hanging out with everyone.
Today is a Ten Things Tuesday over on the  Practical Scrappers blog. Our challenge was to use fabric on our project. Fabric is something I don't use a lot of. I am most definitely not a sewer. I was kicked off my mother's sewing machine during our junior high Home Ec class and never tried again. Never! It was bad. Luckily there is no sewing involved in today's project but there is fabric and I found that it is really fun to play with.

You can see that I used this pretty brown and blue patterned fabric as the background for my card. I frayed the edges a bit to give it a fun look. Then I took a large gluber and a long strip of blue fabric and ruffled it around the edge of the gluber. I topped that with the orange fabric circle and then punched  a scallop out of some scrap paper. Finally I topped it with a button made with my Epiphany Crafts button punch. I like how it turned out. The colors are fun with that little pop of orange.

Take a look at the rest of the ideas the team has for fabric on your layouts and cards. And don't forget to scroll up to my last post for the giveaway. I had some posting problems and couldn't get them fixed from out of town so I am going to leave it open for the rest of this week. I will pick a winner this weekend.

Lisa

Celebrate NSD and a giveaway!

Happy National Scrapbooking Day! I know it's a day to celebrate all things scrapbook and get your crafty skills going, but that is not in the plans for me today. Not to worry though, I do get to see my best scrappy friend and spend the day with her which makes it the best kind of day. After moving away 11 months ago we are heading back for the weekend so David can participate in the marathon taking place this weekend. It will be a weekend of catching up, laughing and I'm sure tears on the back end.

Today is also the first Saturday challenge at S.W.A.T. This challenge is a fun challenge because we are playing Tic Tac Toe! All you have to do is connect 3 of the squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally making sure you follow the directions in each block, add it to your layout, and link it up on the S.W.A.T. blog to win an awesome prize.

I chose to combine the three squares along the bottom. I actually used more than three manufacturers as there is a little bit of American Crafts Amy Tan line, October Afternoon, Basic Grey Chipboard Alphas, Studio Calico tiny Alphas and Jillibean Soup. I used my ink to splatter dots around the page randomly. The chipboard was the alphabet letters and numbers.

Super fun and super easy. It's a great challenge to use up your supplies too. Try digging into yours and play along. Also hop over to the blog to check out the other designers layouts and the great prize.     It is well worth playing for.

Now for the fun giveaway. I have been sorting through and cleaning out my scrap room and I have piles of stuff, good stuff, great stuff... but too much stuff :) I have put together a little surprise goodie box to send to one of my readers who is looking for a little happy mail to brighten their day. All you have to do is make sure you are a follower of my blog and answer this question. What are you doing today? If you are crafting, what are you making? I will pick a winner next week and post it on my blog so be sure to check back.

Have a super day!

Lisa

Burlap anyone?? Come Off the Page With Me.

It is becoming the trend to use some more natural materials and fibers on the different crafting projects being created. I love the look of canvas, burlap, linen etc. used on a layout. It adds a different textural element to the page. Today I went off the page though and am sharing a fun little gift I made for a Secret Sister swap that I was part of in February. I have met an amazing group of gals through an online forum I take part in and have quickly made friends from both here in the US and even as far as Jamaica. When I first got my sister's name I panicked because this girl has talent! She amazes me with her creativity and is constantly sharing layouts or projects that make my jaw drop. Talk about pressure! So off to Pinterest I went and started looking for some burlap projects because I know that Rebecca has a thing for burlap. This is the idea I came up with after looking around and seeing different ideas displayed. I don't have a specific pin that inspired me because I kind of took the best of several ideas and then began creating on my own.

I started with a wood plaque from Hobby Lobby (gotta love that place!) and found a wooden initial R. After grabbing some paint (black, bright blue and some bright green because I know how much she loves those colors)  and stopping by the material counter to have some burlap cut for me I headed home and began creating. I started by painting the wood pieces all black. Then I took a dry brush and swiped some blue over the black background. I used a little sanding paper to add some of the distressed look. I wasn't sure how I was going to attach the burlap but I ended up using some craft glue behind where the R would be and also added some behind the metal brads (backs cut off) that I used in each of the corners. Knowing Rebecca is a flower girl to the core, I had to finish off with a couple of flowers in her colors to tie the project together and finish it off. I had so much fun creating this gift for my online buddy. Amazing how the Internet brings a whole new world of friends to our doorstep that we would otherwise never know.

This project is also up on the Practical Scrappers blog as part of the Ten Things Tuesday post. There you will find 10 different ways to add the texture of burlap to your page and 3 bonus projects from some guest designers. Come have a look at some awesome ideas and then add a project of your own to the blog. We'd love to see what you create.

Lisa

Feeling Behind!

Wow! I am really feeling behind the ball this week. I have been waiting and waiting for insurance approval for a trial  of a spinal cord implant. Then last Monday evening the doctor's office called and said they had just received the approval and would like to do the surgery on Wednesday. We have waited so long for this procedure that we decided to jump in. Sooo... I am at the tail end of the trial and feeling pretty good. I will have the wires and leads removed tomorrow and we will make the final decision on going forward with the permanent implant. The purpose is for helping to reduce pain I've been having for several years now due to nerve damage done during surgery on both of my feet. Praying this is the answer.

Anyway. I was talking about being behind. Last Saturday a new drill went up on the S.W.A.T blog. This one challenged us to double down and show our skills on a two page sketch created by our very own design team member Janessa. The sketch was fabulous to work with and we all know that I am a double page layout lover so this was right up my alley. I had some pictures from the Wray Days parade several years ago. It's funny to look at these pictures because we are usually overheated, sweating and miserable since this weekend is at the end of July. For some odd reason the weather was off this year and we were miserably cold instead. Since we had travelled thinking warm summer weather we had nothing warm to wear the entire weekend and had to go to the good ol' local Alco to grab whatever warm gear they had. Amazingly they had sweat outfits that actually fit the boys. Anyway, despite the cold weather the boys had their fun collecting lots of candy as usual :)

Here is the sketch we worked with:

And here is my take:

The Simple Stories Urban Traveler collection was a perfect color combo and fun line to use for the parade. I was lucky to have picked some up the last time I was in Archivers. I also used some My Mind's Eye Washi and burlap Thickers.

Head over and try your hand at the  sketch. Even if doubles aren't your usual thing it's good to stretch yourself once in awhile and it's easier than you think. Janessa's sketch makes it easy to carry elements from one side to the other to tie the pages together and keep the eyes moving across the layout. Try it out and link it up. There is a fabulous prize involved and a chance to be a featured designer on the blog.

Lisa

Hexagon Heaven! Ten Things Tuesday

Good morning. It is a snowy spring morning in Colorado. We were supposed to get a rain/snow mix but it turned into a little more than that. Lots of good moisture that is very much needed though and since it's Colorado I expect that it will be melting very soon.

Today is all about the hexagon. Such a fun shape but sometimes hard to figure out ways to use it. Today on the Practical Scrappers blog the designers are showing different ways to use hexagons on layouts and cards. I have to admit that I started out with one idea in my head and a completely different set of pictures. Unfortunately, what I saw in my head would not come together on my layout. I don't know if it was the day, the mojo, or just a bad idea but I finally gave up in frustration and started with something totally different. So here is take two and I have to say this one makes me happy.

I love how the hexagons turned out for this layout. I used my Cricut to cut a few out of the white background as well as the title. Each of these were backed with different patterned paper. I used some wooden hexagons from Studio Calico that I had in my stash and painted a couple black. I added both the natural wood ones as well as the painted ones to the layout to give it a little visual interest and used one as the dot for my exclamation point.
This layout makes me happy for another reason as well. When we first moved to Nebraska 10 years ago we got tons of grief from our family and friends as the Huskers were the big rival to the Buffs at that time. We had a CU Later going away party and were given every kind of CU memorabilia you can imagine. Liking the Huskers was not looked upon fondly by those we were leaving behind.  The problem with this? If you want a social life in Lincoln, Nebraska during the football season (and really all year round) you had to learn to embrace the Huskers. Seriously, it is a culture out there! David and I realized that we had to at least open ourselves to the idea after the first season ended so we slowly began to pay attention to who, what, and when and go along with the flow. We even hosted Husker game day parties :)  Chris immediately embraced the idea but that was to antagonize his brothers and uncles. Nathan?? No way was he going to turn. He was already a Colorado fan to the core and he took to heart his uncles threat to never let him in his house if he betrayed the Buffs. It took 9 years for all of us to fully embrace the love of Husker football AND buy the gear to prove it,  but we all finally did... Nathan included. Of course this was just in time to move back to Colorado. That's okay, we will keep our Husker pride and remember our Nebraska friends proudly!

Go Huskers!
Lisa