I've got news! I'm joining Pixels & Company's Guest Creative Team!

Happy Friday everyone. I have news to share!

My new digi home – Pixels & Company – made an announcement this week of their new Guest CTs (creative team members) and guess what? I get to be a part of that awesome group!

I don’t know what happened, but I somehow completely forgot to share this news on my blog. Well hey, better late than never, right? Shout it from the rooftops … I’m joining P&Co.’s creative team! To say I’m thrilled to be joining such a talented group of digi scrappers would be an understatement! I have to admit … I’m having a blast creating pages using their wonderful designs. What a treat for me!

Be on the lookout for lots of pages created using P&Co’s product. And remember … I’m still creating for Tiffany Tillman of Simply Tiffany Studios (she’s at P&Co. as well!) so I’ll be posting lots of stuff created with her designs as well.

So … if you’ve got a minute … head on over to Pixels & Company. It’s Friday and you know what that means … it’s New Release Day. There’s lots of awesome new digi goodness available today!

Enjoy your day!

Well, hello there weekend! {New Releases from Pixels & Co.}

I love scrapping pages that show pictures of us enjoying the beauty of summer weather. I wonder if I'm saying that because winter and oh so very cold. Oh how I miss the warm weather of summer!

There are a couple of awesome new things coming out tomorrow at Pixels & Co.  Simply Tiffany Studios has "Wicked Crooked" templates and The Ardent Sparrow has a couple of really great kits called Life Unscripted. There are paper, element, word phrases and cards kits. Check out the previews:

Here's the full list of credits for this page (ALL available at Pixels & Co.):

Simply Tiffany Studios: Wicked Crooked templates

The Ardent Sparrow: "Life Unscripted" Cards, Papers, Elements and phrases

Creashens "Euphoria"

Robyn Meierotta: "In Neutral Stitches"

Karla Dudley: "Essential Staples"

2013 Project Life: Week 5: January 27 - February 2

I'm a couple of days late posting my Week 5 Project Life pages. My plan is to put these pages together Sunday mornings but I had a bit of a wrench thrown in my plans. I didn't have a laptop ... well, actually, there was a laptop I could use BUT it wasn't MY laptop and it didn't have Photoshop or my pictures or anything else I needed.

If you're wondering, what happened is that Friday night my laptop went all wacky on me again. For ages now it's been acting up. Actually ... I can pinpoint when the problems started occurring. It was August 3, 2011 when I had my "unfortunate coffee incident." I was walking with a cup of coffee in my hands and I tripped. There was only about a sip of coffee left in my cup but that sip landed right smack dab on the keyboard of my laptop. Let me tell you ... that is a VERY bad thing. We did repairs but my laptop never was the same again.

Anyway ... long story short ... my computer was completely dead for a period of time Friday night but it did come back to life eventually. I promptly made a Saturday morning appointment at the Apple Genius Bar (I LOVE those guys!). We figured out that we could replace the logic board for a whopping $500 but we still wouldn't be sure that would fix all the issues. I would continue to be fearful knowing that at some random point in time my laptop could corrupt my data. Obviously I couldn't do that SOOOOO ... I ordered a new laptop. I'm in LOVE with my new laptop. It's so incredibly fast and beautiful. (Yup ... I do love technology!) Still ... I had to be without a laptop for a couple of days while they migrated my data ... then, when I got my new laptop back I threw another wrench in the plan by being sick and not being up to scrapping. Darn. Darn. Darn.

Now I'm feeling mostly better and can scrap again! Yay! So ... Project Life had to come first because I don't want to get behind. Even these couple of extra days made it just a teensy bit harder because I couldn't remember what all I wanted to include. Oh well ... I'm happy with the way my pages turned out and I think I captured the essence of my family's week.

Credits for this page are: Becky Higgins (AC Digitals) Turquoise and Cobalt Edition kits; Creashens (Pixels & Co.) Euphoria paper pack; and Splendid Fiins (Jessica Sprague) Just My Type Days overlays

In Good Company! - Annual family getaway

I'm taking a look through my 2012 photos and am assessing what I have and haven't scrapped yet. The list is getting pretty short, but there are still a few events/items that I want to put together for the year before I send my book off to print. The photos on this page were on that short list. In October my family went away for a weekend getaway to southern Minnesota. One of the nights we all went out for a German dinner at Veigel's Kaiserhoff in New Ulm. We had such a great time! 

I've still got a bunch of photos from that weekend that I need to put some thought into and figure out how I want to put them together so you can look for more photos later! We make lots of fun memories on these weekend getaways!

Credits:

Shabby Princess "Yours Truly" (kit)

Shabby Princess "Gabby" (ric rac)

Shabby Princess "Plentiful" (tape)

LivE Designs "Needs+Wants" Date Stamps

In Good Company Collaboration @ Pixels & Company (stitching, title, chalkboard tag)

Katie Pertiet "Filed Photo Frames"

Katie Pertiet "Lil Bits Tags No. 4"

Karla Dudley "Clear Essentials" (staples)

Karla Dudley "Kraft Essentials" (white typewriter paper)

Mye de Leon "Simply Me" (flowers + ric rac flower)

It's time for Pixel's & Co.'s grand opening! ... There's even an iPad Mini give away!

Head on over for some fun! It's Pixels & Company's grand opening celebration. The fun starts today!

A couple of recent scrapbook pages!

I've got a couple of recent pages I'd like to share today. They're all using some digi goodness that is coming out today at Pixels & Co. (along with some other goodies from there!)

This first page is from an afternoon/evening I spent shopping at the Mall of America with my daughter and my awesome niece. My niece came into town earlier this month on her way back to college. She stayed overnight one night and the next day she, my daughter and I went to the MOA shopping. We had lots of fun! I enjoyed being one of the girls! Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely HATE shopping ... BUT, since I was shopping with the girls it was fun. Weird, huh?!

Here's another page I created this week. It's photos from an evening last month when we had friends over for dinner. Of course my daughter was in charge of making dessert. She's an awesome dessert maker. With  my daughter's cupcakes it was the perfect page to use Jennifer Valencia Photography's Photo Flair Cupcake brads (coming out today). Aren't they adorable? I'm sure I'll be using the cupcake brads on plenty of baking pages for Lauren. (I'm sure I'll be making more!)

Shopping page:
Simply Tiffany Studios (Pixels & Co.) "Love Eyes Template"
Karla Dudley (Pixels & Co.) "Clear Essentials 1"
Scott Girl Designs (Pixels & Co.) "Date Stamps 2"
Scott Girl Designs (Pixels & Co.) "Fastenators"
Karen Funk (Pixels & Co.) "Simple Stitches"
Design by Dani (JessicaSprague.com) "Hello Gorgeous"
Lauren Reid: 365 May (photo corners)

Good friends page:

Simply Tiffany Studios "Stuffy Templates 6"
Gennifer Bursett "Made of Awesome" Papers and Elements
Karla Dudley "Jumbo Sentiment Cards 3"
Karla Dudley "Kraft Essentials"
Karla Dudley "Painted Edges"
Karla Dudley "Frame Essentials"
Karen Funk "Simple Stitches"
Mye de Leon "Vintage Christmas"
Jennifer Valencia Photography "Cupcake Flairs"

There's no place like home ... except of course the MALL!

My daughter LOVES to shop. She certainly doesn't get it from me. It must come from her grandma (my husband's mom). I snapped these photos of my daughter at the end of December when she simply H*A*D to go to the mall. As she said "Mom ... Bath and Body Works has lip gloss on sale for $3.00. It's normally $7.50! I HAVE to go to the mall!"

That girl cracks me up. And yes ... I went shopping with her. She's not taking me all the way into her world of shopping ... but I can survive at the mall. I still sometimes have to let her know how much shopping I can bear to do on a particular day. Sometimes it's simply that we're going to ONE store and that's it. Sometimes I can do more. It all depends. So I guess I'm still not a real shopper yet. (The big stuff has to be saved for Grandma!) Ha!

So ... scrappy friends ... tomorrow is Pixels and Company's grand opening. It's gonna be BIG!

FYI, I created this page using all digi goodness that can be found at P&Co!

credits:

Robin Meierotto's "Sweet Life" kit

Creashens' "Euphoria" paper pack

Karla Dudley's "Painted Edges"

Karla Dudley's "Frame Essentials"

Scotty Girl Designs' "Fastenating"

Gina Bursett's "Snippy Alpha"

Karen Funk's "Simple Stitches"

Font: CK Storybook

A Digi Re-Do: Made of Awesome Page

I created this page the other day using photos of my son. Have you noticed that I really like using large photos on my pages? I was happy with the page in its original form, but after I looked at it for a bit I felt like it might look better if I made a couple of little “tweaks,” so I gave it a try.

While I really liked the large blended focal photo of my son and the smaller blended photo, since those photos were lying on a base of black chalkboard paper I thought I’d try changing those photos into something that made the photos look more like they were drawn with chalk.

I played around with a Photoshop Chalk and Charcoal filter on each of the photos and I really like the effect it gave. After applying the filter I needed to play around a bit with the masking to get the photos to look the way I wanted them to on the chalk paper but it was a fun little change. With the smaller framed photos without any effect used on them, I thought I may as well go with the fun chalk look. It’s digi so it’s fun to play!

Hmmm ... I do like the large photo with no effect as well. It's hard to decide. (I haven't printed yet so I can still change my mind! LOL!) So … what do you think? Which look do you prefer?

NEW PAGE:

ORIGINAL PAGE:

Credits:

Gennifer Bursett (Pixels & Co.): Made of Awesome

Simply Tiffany Studios (Pixels & Co.): Artistic Photo Masks

Last chance $1 sale at Pixels & Co.!

This is it. There are only two more days left to grab the loads of brand new $1 kits at Pixels & Co. And hold on to your hats. In just a couple of days you can check back for Pixels & Co.’s grand opening celebration!

Come and visit!

 

Hanging with the Cousins/Siblings

I just realized I forgot to post this page. I started scrapping it ages ago. (A couple months at least.) I never finished it and completely forgot about it. I ran across it the other day and added just a couple of finishing touches and called it done. Just thought I'd share - it was an afternoon/evening spent at my sister's house hanging out with the cousins/siblings. A good time!

For this page I used:
Simply Tiffany Studios: Barely There Brushes
LivE Designs: Creasers
Splendid Fiins: Splendid Template 5, Very Krafty Mixed Bag, Very Krafty Neutrals, Evidence Date Stamps, Delicious Berry Blue, Brilliant Full Collection and Keaton's Closet Alpha.

Hmmm ... looks like a lot of product by Splendid Fiins. I LOVE her designs!

A football adventure!

My daughter and her friend had an opportunity this fall to go to the Minnesota Vikings football game ALL - BY - THEMSELVES. {No grownups! How cool is that for them?!} They were so excited! Friends of ours have two season tickets and for this game it was their daughter's turn to go. Her Dad was traveling so she got to bring a friend and she chose my daughter. They had such a great time and I think felt pretty grown up being able to go to the dome all by themselves. Pretty big stuff for these girls!

Thankfully I don't go anywhere without my iPhone so when I dropped my daughter off I was able to snap a few quick photos of the girls getting ready to go. Love that!

Now ... on a digi scrapping note, I got Karla Dudley's Everyday Storytellers Templates today. Can I say I'm in love? I adore the acrylic pockets and stitching. So fun! 

The full list of digi supplies I used for this page are:

Karla Dudley: Everyday Storytellers #3 Templates; Remarkable kit (recolored); Kraft Essentials (grey kraft paper); Jumbo Sentiment Card (the "Adventure" wordart)

Katie Pertiet's Type Inspiration 090812 (the "Whole Nine Yards" wordart)

Robyn Meierotto's Word Art Thanksgiving (the handwritten "Football")

2013 Project Life: Week 4: January 20 - January 26

Four weeks done in 2013 for Project Life already. It's going fast. So far so good! My Sunday morning timeslot for putting together my pages seems to be working for me. This week I put a few photos and quotes in my shell weekly page. You know, instead of being a timesaver that ended up just kind of confusing things. What I put in didn't end up being where I wanted it to be and I had to move them around and stuff. I don't think I'll do that again.

I've been using the Momento app on my iPhone where I've been jotting down notes and quotes and stuff. It pulls in my social media posts (so far only Facebook). I've really liked that. I think I'll keep up with that.

I'm sure, as I go along I'll fine tune the Project Life process, but so far that's what is and isn't working for me. I know I love Project Life so far and I really love the end product of so many of our daily memories scrapped on two pages. So I'm thrilled!

FYI ... for these pages I used all product from Pixels & Co. (Great stuff!) I used Gennifer Bursett's Made of Awesome kit, Simply Tiffany Studio's Contextual Template Cards No. 2 as well as her Blending Cards, Celeste Knight's Bright Journalers and again this week I used Wild Blueberry Ink's Photo Tabs No. 2.

That's it for now. Here where I live the roads are yucky. It's cold and snowy and a lot of freezing rain. I'm not looking forward to getting out on the roads tomorrow. Wish me luck! Have a great week!

An Everyday Happy Moment

I love scrapping every day happy moments. It's the stuff that I really do want to always remember!

Now for you scrappers .. I used Mye de Leon's absolutely GORGEOUS Simply Me kit. I just loved it. The colors were so pretty! FYI, if you're looking for Mye, she's now at the new Pixels & Co. digi store. Love that place!

Made of Awesome

Let me tell you that when I asked my son (who was soon to be turning 16 years old when I took these pictures) if he would go out in our back yard and snap a few photos of him he didn't hesitate. He was totally open to the idea. I was a bit surprised - and quite pleased. What a great kid! (When I ask my daughter that sort of question she's all for it. With him I'd expected it to take some coaxing. I love surprises sometimes!)

Simply Tiffany Studios Artistic Photo Masks (Pixels & Co.)
Gennifer Bursett's Made of Awesome (Pixels & Co.)

Photobooth Memories

This page was fun to put together this afternoon. I enjoyed digging through my digi stash and pulling bits and pieces from bunches of kits. Sometimes I'm a kit scrapper (and create a page using just one kit). Other times I like to do some searching. Scrapping is fun both ways.

For this page I started with a Peppermint Twist template from Simply Tiffany Studios. I changed it up a fair amount (which is what templates are for, right?! ... the great basic design and then time to play!) I've really enjoyed scrapping with Karla Dudley's kits lately so most of the stuff I grabbed and use on this page were from her kits. So ... here's what I came up with this afternoon ...

And the official supply list is:

Simply Tiffany Studios: Peppermint Twist Templates

Karla Dudley: Ashbee, Life Recorded, Album Cards, Sunkissed, Remarkable, Digi Essentials

Ardent Sparrow: Life Unscripted Cards

Paislee Press: Photobooth

One Little Bird: Boardwalk

Katie Pertiet: Postage Stamp Mega Pack

Homecoming: What's more important? The game or hanging out with friends?

I put together a page about our my daughter celebrating homecoming for our high school this past fall. She had a great time and I loved how "into" the whole thing she was. School spirit ... it's a good thing. I've had this page sitting on my computer started but not completed for a couple of months now so I thought I'd finish it up today. My 2012 album is coming together!

I created this page while I was taking Tiffany Tillman's brushwork class at Renee Pearson.com. I'd really recommend the class BTW. She had so many tips and tricks to share with us! I also used Katie Pertiet's Open Up Frames No. 2, Lori Whitlock's Office Oriented papers and elements (awesome, awesome kit!) and some altered word art from Echo Park Hybrid's Touchdown kit.

2013 Project Life: Week 3: January 13 - January 19

I just finished up putting together week 3 of my 2013 Project Life layouts. It sure is fun to document so many of the "everyday moments" of life!

To create these pages I used Design by Dani's Snap Happy Kit and Everyday Amazing journaling cards as well as Gennifer Bursett's Mo Awesome elements and Photo Journalers Vol. 1 and also Wild Blueberry Ink's Kraft Photo Tabs 2.

August 2012 - Monthly Recap

Really ... this is it for the night. I've done a LOT of digi scrapping today. I met up with some local friends from the J*S website and did some scrapping and then, when I got home, I found myself with an empty house for a couple hours so I finished up a few more pages. It felt good to create so many pages! My final page for the night was a recap of a variety of photos from last August. It's fun to put together the mish mash of random photos that otherwise wouldn't be scrapped!

I created this page using Becky Higgins' Turquoise Edition Project Life Kit, Karla Dudley's Essential Stitches and Katie Pertiet's Date Monogram.

Evidence of Everyday Life ... the good stuff

Evidence of Everyday Life ... 

This is the good stuff.

Digi Stuff: 

Splendid Fiins: Evidence Date Stamps and Hot Mess

How Does Your Garden Grow? (Our 1st time ever container vegetable garden)

At my daughter's urging we had a container vegetable garden this past summer. It was our first try. She's wanted to have a vegetable garden F-O-R-E-V-E-R, but for those of you who know our house and our neighborhood ... that is just not an option. We have WAAAAY too many trees and too much shade. So ... we tried a container garden this year. We could just put the pots where we had sun. It was awesome! We had so much fun with it.

(In hindsight - as I scrapped this page - it sure would have been nice had I taken a picture of the full garden at the END of the season when everything had grown big instead of early on when everything was just a baby plant. Hmmm ... next year! LOL!)

For this page I used:
Simply Tiffany Studios Artistic Photo Masks (Pixels & Co.)
Gennifer Bursett's Mo Awesome Papers (Pixels & Co)
Katie Pertiet's: Collagable LT No. 10 and Summer Words (Designer Digitals)
Jodi Lee's Vintage Floral Texture Set 4 (Jessica Sprague)

A Summer of Projects

These pages were super fun to put together. It's fun putting together pictures from a range of dates and events - of course with a singular theme. These clearly were about some house projects we (OK, more so my husband) did this spring and summer.

My journaling reads:

We did a bunch of house projects this spring & summer. The projects ranged from getting new chairs for the living room to completely redoing the family room (walls, furniture, . . . everything), to painting the outside window trim, to replacing the railing. Lots of stuff!

I’m absolutely thrilled with our new living room chairs. They’re so incredibly comfy and I adore the fabric we chose. At first I worried the fabric might be too funky but I worried needlessly.  It’s awesome and to me the chairs give the living room a library like feel. (I practically live in them!)

We also decided it was time to “bite the bullet” as they say and redecorate the downstairs. (It hadn’t been painted since we finished the family room 16 years ago and we were tired of it being the home for all the “dead and unwanted” furniture. We picked out a leather reclining sofa and two reclining chairs with wood arms. We love it all! Again, it’s kinda funky fabric but I adore it too. After choosing fabric for the furniture we picked out coordinating paint colors and Scott painted the family room. We’re thrilled with the way it worked out and spend a ton of time downstairs now! Yay!!!

Along with the new chairs and sofa in the family room came a new TV stand and bookcases for the back wall. Assembling the TV stand and bookcases was a complete joy for Scott. He just loved it. Just kidding! Assembling the new TV stand took into the wee hours of the morning, and then there were the Ikea bookcases. Don’t get me started. We love the finished bookcases but we did not enjoy the chaos of shopping at Ikea and assembling all those bookcases was not a treat for Scott. Of course he did it. He’s awesome like that! Note, I sure do appreciate all that Scott does!

To create these pages I used:

Katie Pertiet's AMAZING Filed Layered Templates
Echo Park Hybrid's Fall Fever (wood paper)
Lori Whitlock's Office Oriented (paper)

Cousins make the best Friends

I created another page today using Splendid Fiins' product. It was a super quick page ... I just wanted to show off a fun photo I took of the cousins this past Thanksgiving weekend. I sure do love these kids!

For this page I used:

Splendid Fiins' Mixed Bag Epoxy Stickers, @ the Office paper pack 2, Evidence label stickers, Brilliant full paper collection and Classic Album Set

I also used Katie Pertiet's awesome word art from a Bracketed Sentiments kit

Digi scrapping IRL with some local J*S friends

I spent the day today scrapping IRL with some local friends I met from Jessica Sprague. It was great fun - and it was productive too! Love it!

This is the first page I completed today. It was about my daughter getting ready to start middle school. It was fun for her. She sure does LOVE middle school!

I used a bunch of Splendid Fiin's stuff to create this page. I've gotta tell ya - I love Splendid Fiins' digi designs!

I created this page using:
Splendid Fiin's:
Evidence Date Stamps; Evidence Polaroids; @ the Office paper packs 2 and 3; Go Big Template
The fonts I used were Rough Typewriter and Adler

July 2012 Recap - Random Snapsnots

My random snapshots - monthly recap pages - for 2012 have been moving right along these last couple of days it seems. I intended to sit down at my computer and make a list of pages I still wanted to scrap for 2012 and found that I was finished with pages for July so I thought I'd do that monthly recap page tonight. (Maybe I'll make that list tomorrow!) I created so many pages for July I only needed a 1 page random snaps page. Cool! It's fun putting these random pictures together.

For this page my digi supplies used were:
Becky Higgins Project Life Clementine Edition

Karla Dudley: Life Recorded (captured wordart); Digi Essentials (stitching)
Design by Dani: Hootenany (cupcake)
Splendid Fiins: 2012 Calendar Card
Katie Pertiet: Word Strip Labels
Echo Park Hybrids: Woof (dog tag)
Fonts
Very Fine Serif & Toadfrog

Recap for June

These summary pages sure are fun to put together!

Supplies on these pages:
Design by Dan at Jessica Sprague: Everyday Out Lout cards; Everyday Eclectic Cards; Boy Crazy papers; FaLaLa
Splendid Fiins 2012 Calendar Cards
Karla Dudley: Digi Essential Stitches