Sketch Challenge!

My doing well with my refocus on layouts! I am so far behind how many I had done by this time last year....

PageMaps is celebrating their 7th anniversary and hosting all sorts of contests and challenges for the month of May. I love sketch challenges so you know I will be posting a few!

Here is the first one I have done.

The sketch:

My layout!

Hmmm, I think may need to add a little something in the upper left corner. I'm also wishing I had distressed the edges of the beige paper. Darn.

Products:

Echo Park: Paradise Beach paper

Fancy Pants: Beach Bum & Beach Babe brads

MM: Vintage Findings tags

My very last CC Design Team post...

*insert sad face here*

This is it. My very last Crop Chocolate design team post. We do  not know what the future will hold for our beloved Crop Chocolate, but we do know that they are working hard to think of ways to keep the social side open. But we all know that even just that requires a lot of time, energy and still some expense. So we will all just have to sit back and hope for the best.

For our last project the design team swapped sides. Those who were on the altered project side, swapped with the cards/layouts team. I was happy to have a 'break' and do a layout! And now since this is my final project for the team, I am really glad that it showcased what I love to do: scrapbook family moments and memories.

I also included a super easy tutorial on how I make washi tape feathers!

Check out my blog post here or go straight to the tutorial on Instructagram!

The layout:

Thank you for all of your kind words and encouragement as I learned and grew as a part of the design team. I'm going to work really hard on "catching up" on my scrapbooks!!! Well at least tackle the few hundred pictures I had printed a few weeks ago!

National Scrapbooking Day!

I'm back again today to share the entries I made for the National Scrapbooking Day challenges hosted by CropChocolate.com.


Challenge #1: Homage to Summer! Incorporate a sunburst into your project.

I absolutely LOVE how this layout turned out! It was a bit tricky because I was also making this for the current facebook challenge at the Scrapbookin' Adventures facebook page. And that challenge was tricky! We could ONLY USE patterened paper, alpha stickers, ink, chipboard and twine. And of course whatever tools and adhesive we needed, but no other products!

I LOVE this! I used Echo Park's Splash collection for the paper. (That frame is a leftover from a piece I cut with my Cricut last year and just new I would be able to use someday!). I also used some Maya Road chipboard for the banner, the hearts and stars and under the beach ball. Distress Ink for the edges and white ink for the little hearts and stars. And then some MME Miss Caroline twine on the banner.

Challenge #2, #4 and #5

I combined my own tic tac toe challenge with the Bling, Bling, Bling challenge (use 2 different types of bling) and the BUG challenge (use a bug and do something outside of your comfort zone).

I picked the lace, patterened paper, and heart row from the tic tac toe challenge. For the Bug challenge I added tiny little butterfly brads and the outside my comfort zone is the 8x8 size of this layout. I find it so hard to get everything I want onto the smaller size! And the two types of bling are some glitter glue I added to a flower and the little flags at the top and the glitter Thickers.

Products: MME Miss Caroline 'Howdy Doody' papers and brads; Thickers 'rainboots'; MS glitter glue; MM butterfly brads; lace from my stash.

Challenge #3: Buttons & Bows

This is another entry that I just LOVE! I had pinned this card months ago and I know I will be making more cards like this!

I used MME Happy Go Lucky; a Fancy Pants button; MME twine; Unity Stamp Co stamp for the clouds and Craft's Meow Stamps for the owl and branch.

Challenge # 6 Add a Window and #7 Neverending Card

Confession: I only made the base for this card and let my sick 9 year old do the embellishing! I helped her find a spot for the window, sun and clouds and she did the rest (oh and I tied the ribbon into bows...).

We used Echo Park's Hello Summer collection for all of the paper and embellishments and just added some sheer, white striped ribbon for the bows.

Challenge #8 A Sketch plus use something old and something new

My something old is the Bo Bunny Blast Off collection that I still love! And my something new is a tab and alpha stickers from the new Fancy Pants Down by the Shore collection.

And those are my challenge entries done!!!

Happy National Scrapbooking Day!!!

Well! Let's start this post with some GOOD NEWS!

Saturday May 4th is National Scrapbooking Day! You will find 8 different challenges you can participate in over at CropChocolate.com.

All of the current Design Team members teamed up and created the challenges.

I teamed up with Julie, and this is what we came up with:

So come on over and join in the fun!



************************************************************************

Now for the sad news.....

My very favorite website is closing it's retail doors. Crop Chocolate has become so much more than just an online store. There is a close-knit community there of loving, like-minded (most of the time!) people. We are very hopeful that some form of the on-line community will remain, but May 10th will be the last opportunity to place an order. I placed my final order yesterday and it was a sad moment.

So thank you Crop Chocolate, for so many things. Friends, supplies and my first (and second) opportunity to join a design team. We have seen so many good things come out of you and look forward to what the future will bring you and us.

*sniff, sniff*


************************************************************************

Okay, enough with the sad and sappy!

Go create something beautiful and help CropChocolate celebrate it's final retail days and the amazing community that has grown from it!!