Pike's Place Market

Each month, the yahoo group, CTMH Friends, has an Imagine challenge. A layout is chosen from Close to my Heart's founder, Jeannette Lynton's book, Imagine, and you have all month to submit your layout. This layout is using the Conclusion Combo layout. I turned the right side pattern on it's side to fit my pictures better. Other than that, I just picked my pictures, picked my paper, and cut according to the cutting diagrams. All of the hard work was done for me. I just had to do the fun stuff like creating a title and adding embellishments. Now if I can just finish scrapping all my other Seattle pictures, I might actually accomplish something this year!!

Thanks Jenn!!!

I have an absolutely fabulous sister-in-law in Alabama. She has two boys of her own and another one on the way. However, instead of scrapping pictures of her own boys, she took the time to make this layout of my oldest's first trip to the beach. All I had to do was add the title and stickers. Didn't she do great? Thanks Jenn!!!!

It's already time again for the KWerner color challenge. I'm actually proud of this little creation. It's a photo frame made from two coasters. I'm going to give it to a friend who just had a baby girl. I think it would be perfect for her desk at work once she gets off maternity leave.

My colors were vineyard berry, goldrush, sweet leaf, and chocolate. The flowers and butterfly were made using a dry embossing technique; and everything was attached using glue dots. Enjoy!

Do I have an umbrella stamp?

I can't take credit for this month's scrap tip. It's an idea from my sister-in-law. It's a wonderful way to keep track of which stamp sets you have in your collection. It comes in handy when you're looking for a particular stamp such as a flower for a card or an umbrella for a rainy day layout.

Here's what you do: Put a picture or a catalog cut-out of a stamp set on a 6x6 piece of cardstock. You could also stamp all the images from the set if you want to. Do this for all your stamp sets. Then place these cards in a 6x6 album arranging them in whatever order you like. My book is arranged by holidays first then "word" stamps (happy birthday, thank you, etc) and finishes with alphabet sets. Now when you're looking for a particular stamp, you just have to flip through your book instead of pulling out every single stamp set in your collection. This will save you so much time, you'll be amazed. You'll also be surprised that in fact you do have an umbrella stamp. You just totally forgot it was part of one of your stamp sets. :)

Note: You can also create pages for your ink pad collection. Just highlight the item code for the ones that you own. You'll know exactly what you have on hand; and it will help keep you from ordering unnecessary duplicates. Happy organizing!!

Unit Challenge-9/12/08

Our unit has started doing challenges to help get our creative juices flowing. I've missed the first two; but I did get one done last week. Our challenge was to do anything using fall colors or fall holiday themes. The catch was it couldn't be a layout or a card. So here's my entry---a Halloween squash book. It was so much fun to do, I'm going to use it in an upcoming workshop. The technique is so simple, I think everybody should know how to do this!

Here's my entry for this week's Color Inspiration. I had to crank this out in less than an hour so it's kind of rushed. My colors are hollyhock, baby pink, and heavenly blue. The stamp sets are In My Heart (the upcoming CTMH December stamp of the month) and Heartthrob. Thanks for looking!

OK. Here's my first entry in the KWernerDesign challenge. Not too shabby for 11 o'clock at night after a full day of work, errands, and cranky boys, huh? I used CTMH colors Honey, Hollyhock, and Sweet Leaf. The stamp set is Adorable. No really, that's it's name. Adorable. So what do you think?

Purse Album

Have you ever seen such a cute album? On the outside, it looks like a purse, on the inside it holds 8 4x6 photos. How cool is that? I scraplifted the idea from the Close to my Heart consultant bulletin boards then I created this one using the "Let's Get Together" paper line. Too cute, huh?

Scrap Tips

This posting is going to be about sharing tips for fellow scrapbookers and crafters. I will try to add a new tip each month. If you have any great ideas--please feel free to share!

July: How to store scraps

Scraps--we all have them. We all refuse to throw them away. We all have no idea how to organize them. Until now! Here's the best solution I've found: get one of those plastic storage boxes for 12x12 paper (see photo). I bought mine at Hobby Lobby at half price. Insert one 12x12 page protector for each color of scraps you need to organize. One for blues, one for reds, etc, etc. (I also put a full sheet of each color in the back of each protector so I would know which was which.) Then sort your scraps into the appropriate page protector (see other photo). Now you can easily find the right color of scrap paper for that next project. Cool, huh?

Dierks in Motion

In January, he rolled over.....

In March, he crawled....

And now he's walking!!! (sorry it's sideways--I'm new at this)

SERE Training

For those of you who don't know, I have a brother stationed at Fort Rucker, Alabama getting ready to go through Flight School. Someday he will be flying helicopters. One of the "schools" he had to go through before entering flight school was called SERE training. Just cross GI Jane with Rambo and you'll get the picture. Anyways, he sent me his description of each part of the training so I would know what each letter stood for. I liked it so much that I had to scrapbook it. So here's my SERE layout for all to see. I hope you can read the descriptions. Enjoy!