Happy Independence Day Weekend

I love summer. The hot weather and laid back attitude is just my style. Some of my best childhood memories are from the summer and I love the little snippets of those memories that wash over me when I walk across grass at night, or drive to the grocery store at 10:00 o'clock with the windows down. Oh! This makes me want to make so many pages to document those memories.

I have a few pages to share with you and some great digi news. First up ... Amber Shaw is moving to Scrap Orchard on August 1st.  I am over the moon thrilled for her and happy for me too. Scrap Orchard is my favorite store and my little digi-home. She has a ton of products she is retiring and they are marked down 70% until her Pickleberrypop shop closes. Don't miss out, there are some cute cute kits that are going away. SHOP HERE

Boom Boom Sparkle by Dream Big

Cheri at Dream Big Designs is on her final countdown. She has a sweet baby coming at the end of the month and in the meantime is turning out amazing kits left and right. I had a July baby once upon a time, and can totally empathize for how she must be feeling right now. That, I must say, is a huge disadvantage to summer. I think it's much easier to be pregnant when it's cold outside.

Her newest release Boom Sizzle Sparkle is full of great firework goodness. Perfect for Disney, Sea World,  baseball games, and of course the 4th of July. I decided to play with the journaling cards and InstaLife cards. I can never decide if I want the square or rectangle, so I'm delighted to see that Cheri includes both in her BUNDLE.

{Side note. If you want to print out the cards to use in hybrid projects, pocket scrapping,  or note cards, use the full bleed, untextured versions and send them to your favorite printer. They are untextured so you can pick your favorite paper texture. For my scrapbooking, I use the textured cards so I can mix and match them with my paper. If I wanted to do a more glossy, magazine, "flat" page, I'd use the untextured cards.}

For my page, I used a Scrapping with Liz template, the cards, word art, and little embellies. To keep the patterns small, I merged some of the cards together to give me a larger mat. As long as you make sure that you apply your shadow AFTER you have merged the cards, you should be good to go. I'm so happy that I now have this bundle in my stash, it will be used for many more pages in the future!!

April Madness using DBD's Boom Boom Sparkle

Jennifer at Little Rad Trio has also been busy. In addition to renovating her house and dealing with the aftermath of a storm that decided to strike just as the roof was removed, she has some new releases. This is for the MScraps monthly Memory Mixer where designers create papers and elements in the same color palette for easy mix and matching. The more purchase, the greater the discount is. Jennifer made an adorable kit called Simple Pleasures that highlights all those things that we love: our coffee, chocolate, books, pets, and just relaxing. The pinks, browns, and blues in the kit are very soothing as is the softly muted palette. I made my page to remember a lovely morning at one of my favorite local restaurant/coffee houses. It's always very busy and I wanted to make sure we grabbed a table overlooking the street, so I went a little early, had coffee, and digiscrapped until my friend arrived. It was such a nice day. It's always fun to drink your coffee out of a bowl!! LOL. Good thing I didn't spill.

I must disclose that I cannot believe that I forgot to use the graffiti on my page. I LOVE graffiti and paint!! What was I thinking??? Never fear though, I am currently revising my page for the Bring it Challenge over at Scrap Orchard. This month, you have to scrap on the diagonal. The new and improved page will be on my July Challenges board and will be on the diagonal with lots of this great graffiti.

Friends using Little Rad Trio's Simple Pleasures

Once I finish this post and then go outside to check the chemicals on my pool, I'm going to get started on my Iron Scrapper Week 1 layouts.  I completed my digi shopping and picked up the North bundle and some Fresh Fruit. I cannot wait to see what I make! I don't think I ever know what my page is going to look like before I start. You never know, it just might be an EPIC page!

See you later! :)

So much Scrapping Goodness

I have several fun pages to share with you this week! The designers have been super busy. It feels like every time I go online, there's a new kit! Now that school is out, I feel like I'm getting a handle on everything again!

I made a freebie for Dream Big Designs. It's on the Dream Big blog. Grab it soon, before the link expires. I made the card to go on a page in my kids' school albums. I hope you like it.

Amber Shaw teamed up with the dynamic duo Bella Gypsy. Their Wild Boy kit is awesome. Because I'm still trying to finish up the cheer trip to Disney in March (I have a free Shutterfly coupon that expires on Tuesday!), it was perfect for the parade at California Adventure.

 

Wild Boys by Amber Shaw and Bella Gypsy

It's also Pickle Barrel time again. Amber created a super fun Geocaching kit called Cache Me. Grab the elements, papers, and a coordinating template.

Dream Big Designs released super cute InstaLife and Journaling cards that coordinate with the Splash Zone kit. If you don't have the kit already, you really need to grab it. The orange and blues are fabulous for your summer pictures.

Splash Zone by Dream Big Designs

Little Rad Trio has been super busy as well. The move to MScraps is complete and Jennifer is quickly filling her store with new kits and templates. I made a page with her new template set Seven-Eight Don't Be Late. As for content, it's mainly the Way to Go kit with a little bit of Retirement thrown in. 

Little Rad Trio's 7 8 Don't Be Late and Way to Go

 This next kit is a newer release from Little Rad Trio. It's called Is the Grass Really Greener? Isn't that chevron paper awesome? If you are a lover of green and browns, you need to add this to your collection.

Little Rad Trio's Is the Grass Really Greener?

 I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but I LOVE the challenges at Scrap Orchard. In particular, I love the MIS challenges. (Make it Snappy). This one was from last week. It was the template challenge where Fiddle Dee Dee donates a template and then everyone who participates gets a 40% off coupon. She is so generous and makes lovely templates too. I was super excited to use a new kit that I actually bought! This is Once Upon a Time by Megan Turnidge with a Fuss Free Freebie from Fiddle Dee Dee. One more page closer to finishing Disney!! Yippee!!!

Chalking Up More Layouts

Are you here for the Dream Big Designs birthday blog hop? The April 22nd post has all the information for you. I hope you enjoyed my card and all the other goodies on the train!

This week I have two layouts to share with you. Dream Big Designs released a super cute kit called Chalk Art. If you have little ones around with sidewalk chalk and bubbles, it is the perfect kit. Even if you don't, it's still a great addition to your digi collection.

The colors are lovely and Cheri included many great embellies. With the bundle, you get the base kit, stickers, layered graffiti and journal cards.

It's Fresh Fruit at Scrap Orchard this week. Find it here.




I originally tried to take a picture of my patio with April written on it. It was *going* to be the title for a Project Life-ish layout with all my random April pictures. Unfortunately, my sweet pup couldn't STAND not being the center of all my attention. She photo bombed my pictures and then laid down right in the middle of my shot. This is all after she snaked my chalk when I walked into the house to grab the camera. I was all ready to blame my typical trouble maker German Shepherd until I spied the chalk build up in the corner of the Golden's mouth. In all honesty, when I finally gave up on taking any more pictures, I did briefly give her the chalk in the bottom left picture. I figured since she had derailed my original plans, I may as well get a picture of her eating the chalk. Lest you worry about my treatment of my pooch, it was short lived and I only took one picture. I promise!! :) I know for a fact that she's eaten more nastiness than a few bites from the chalk.

Love Her using Chalked Art and Fiddle Dee Dee template

I also used Chalk Art to complete a challenge over at Scrap Orchard. This is for the SCRAPO challenge. The pictures are not that great, but I guess that's what I get for forgetting to bring the good camera to the football game.

Game Time using Chalked Art

I want to share how I made the title. I started with PWSerifScratch font. I used the red flower in the kit and kept duplicating (Cmd J or Alt-drag with mouse in Mac PSE 11) and clipping the flowers over the alpha. I then simplified and stroked the words. (I color sampled to match the cream in the polka dot paper.) I decided that I did not like the spacing, so I cut up the title (rectangle marquee tool and Cmd J) and smooshed it together so it slightly overlapped).

That's all for today. I know that I'll be digi shopping next weekend for NSD (iNSD) and I'll have a layout with a new release from Designs by Amber Shaw. See ya later!!

What Am I Doing? and Digi Challenge Thoughts

Why in the world am I blogging? Do I think that I have some oh so important wisdom to share? Heck no. I see so many blogs and ideas out there that I have a difficult time even dreaming that I could come up with something new and interesting.

In the past month, I have been given the fun opportunity to join the creative teams of two digi designers. I've only just started, but so far it's been pretty cool to get to know other talented scrappers and see a bit "behind the scenes" of the digi world. I have to confess that there was a tiny bit of a thrill to see a newsletter hit my inbox and see one of my pages pop up.

I will use my blog to help promote the designers I work with ... it's part of the gig of being on a CT; but, I do want my blog to more than that too. I'm not entirely sure what it will look like, but hey it's a blog and I'm excited that I have a place to share what I'm thinking about regarding scrapbooking and family storytelling.

That said ... here's my first "big" thought. Get ready for it. It may rock your world. Uh, no ... it really won't ... sorry. Here goes anyway:

Digi Challenges

Do you do them? I do! I LOVE them and I have three reasons:

Dream Big Designs Party Girl Shop

1. You get free stuff. Most of the digi stores that offer challenges have some sort of reward in place for doing them. My favorite place for digi challenges is Scrap Orchard. I earn Plum Perks which equates into cash off of future purchases. I'm a sucker for free. Each day there is a new challenge. Since joining Designs by Amber Shaw's team, I've started doing a few challenges at Pickleberrypop. There you earn percentage off coupons based on how many challenges you do. That's cool too and they post the month of challenges all at once. Several other designers have their own challenges where you get the opportunity to "win" a gift certificate after the month is over.

SO Vintage Sprout March Mega

2. I hate looking at a blank page and the challenge gives me a framework for making the page. The challenge I'm looking at for today at Scrap Orchard is to create a page highlighting a personal struggle using a lot of layering of elements and papers. I totally dig this! I'm still figuring out what I'm going to do but I have a couple thoughts mulling over in my little ol' mind. I often add another layer to the challenge and figure out a way to make a page that works with one of the albums I am making. It may seem weird, but I find the challenges to be freeing. The rules of the challenges help me become more creative. I zero in on the content, template, and theme of the page.

Captivated Vision and Laura Banasiak

3. The most important reason I love the challenges is they help me dig back into memories from my youth and bring out important pages I never would have made. Sometimes they bring some tears to my eyes, but those are good tears. The cleanse the soul kind.

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Thanks for reading my rainy Thursday ramblings. I'm off to throw dinner in the crock pot and see if I can whip up a page for today's challenge. I'll be back tomorrow with Amber Shaw's new kit. Oh, and don't forget that Dream Big Designs' sale at Scrap Orchard starts today and continues through Tuesday, April 9th.