Two new challenges!

I have two new layouts from two different scrapping challenges to share with you today!  And as you will see, I used photos to depict a milestone in Anne's life for both layouts!

The first layout I made is with Miracles Momma Designs Sketch #31!  I am on Heather Landry's sketch design team and am absolutely loving being a "Miracles Momma Designs Diva!!"  I really mean it.  Heather and the rest of the team are encouraging, very talented, but most importantly, extremely nice!  And we just welcomed 2 new design team members! Please check out Heather's blog to see the layouts Heather and her divas made using sketch #31.

Here is Heather's awesome sketch:

For my layout, I used photos that I took the night of Anne's VERY FIRST school dance.  Yes, I guess it had to happen some time, so why not sooner than later?!  She was very excited and actually won a door prize afterwards. Here is the layout that I created with 3 of the photos that I took that night:

I used my January kit from Scraptastic entitled "Chasing Pavements" with all of the cool elements that came along with it to make my page.  

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The second layout I would like to share with you is made with photos taken during Anne's birthday party at Bounce U.



We have not had a "kids" party for Anne since she was in kindergarten, and since she turned "double digits" this year, we decided to allow her to have a party for her friends from our neighborhood, school, and her karate class.

I utilized the colors from Color Me Scrappy's Challenge #28 as follows:

Aren't the Bounce U colors perfect here?  I thought so!!!!
In addition, I got inspiration using January's sketch from My Creative Sketches:

And without further ado, here is my layout:

Anne's lips look so funny (don't they??) because she and her friends were smearing the cake icing all over their faces and having an absolute BLAST at her party!  Here are some of her party pictures:

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As you can see, a good time was had by all!  I am so happy that Anne's friends were able to come out on a week night to help celebrate her big day!  I am still overcome with emotion at the thought of her growing up so quickly.

In conclusion, all of you scrapper should check out Miracles Momma Designs and Color Me Scrappy this week to get some wonderful scrappy inspiration!  Heather's sketch and digital template is FREE, and if you enter into Color Me Scrappy's challenge, you have a chance to win a great prize from:

Peace Love and Scrapbooking!

Have a great Friday everyone.  If you live on the north east coast of North America, try to stay warm.  It has gone from 60 degrees F to 18 degrees F here in PA in a very short period of time.  Crazy!!!!!

Thanks for stopping by my blog today.  Warm HUGS to all of you!!!

Scrap Africa's challenge #13!

I have been inspired by Scrap Africa's blog ever since I came across it a couple of months ago!  Not only do they have a wonderful sketch challenge in the beginning of the month, but 1/2 way through the month they have another fun and inspiring challenge!  Challenge #13 is all about using postage stamps on your layout: 

 "Use postage stamps on your layout, old, new, rubber stamped stamps, whatever you have in your stash!!"

I loved the idea of using postage stamps from my stash, and I had an acrylic stamp set that I have been wanting to use, so this gave me the perfect chance to play with it!  I used a fun tutorial by Mandy Harrell for my border.  If you are interested in how she makes this kind of border, please see her amazing blog:  For Scrapping Out Loud.  And specifically, Mandy's "frilly border" tutorial is here!

Here is my layout:

I love this photo of Anne!  I took it at Jacobsburg Park this past September.  To me, her happiness shown here really expresses what Anne is all about!!!

I used green cardstock and patterned paper from the "Up Up and Away" Collection by Mindy Terasawa.  I also used the Close to my Heart acrylic stamp set entitled "Pure Love" for the postage stamp and the other stamping I did on my page.  The inks are Donna Salazar's mixed media "Inx."

Thank you, Scrap Africa, and Mandy for the inspiration!  I really appreciate it!  If you have time, please check out their blogs!

And thank you so much for stopping by mine today.  Happy Weekend, everyone!

Color Me Scrappy!

The newest Color Me Scrappy Challenge is ready to go on their blog today!

It's a different, but very cool color scheme as follows:

And the "twist" this week is to use shells or pearls on your page.

Don't forget!!  Everyone who participates, gets placed in a raffle and has a chance to win an awesome prize.  

is their sponsor this month!!

At first glance, the colors may seem kind of difficult to scrap - I know I thought so.  But if you think about it, it is just a monochromatic color scheme, and after starting, I really loved working with these colors!

I used a photo that I took of Anne when she and I went to Jacobsburg Park (In Nazareth, PA) this past fall.  I was trying to get a sun-flare or silhouette photo as part of the photography class that I was taking.

Here are some of the photos I took that day:

My favorite:

And my layout for the challenge:

I used lyrics from the song "Unwritten" for my journaling because I am giving this page to Anne!

"No one else can feel it for you

Only you can let it in

No one else can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken

Live your life with arms wide open

to the years where you book begins

The rest is still unwritten . . . . ."

~~Natasha Bedingfield~~

Great words to live by, don't you think?   . . . and the colors were easy and fun to work with!!  So head on over to Color Me Scrappy and give it a try!

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today.  

Happy 10th Birthday, Anne! and MMD sketch #30!

Today is Anne's 10th birthday!  I can't believe that she is double digits already!  It seems like just yesterday we were in China adopting her at 10 months of age.

Here is a photo taken in China:

And one from today!

I still marvel at that amazing smile she has that melted my heart back in 2003!

Happy Birthday, sweet Anne!

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And . . . I would also like to share a wonderful sketch with you today!

Heather Landry's latest sketch - sketch #30 -  is up on her blog!  I was so excited when I saw this sketch and couldn't wait to use it!  

Here it is:

My layout entitled "Ho Ho Ho"

I named it "Ho Ho Ho" because it features photos of Anne and her cousins, Owen and Logan, sitting on Santa's lap this past Christmas.  My mom belongs to the Fearless Fire Company, and has invited my sisters, our children, and me to their Christmas show/party every year for the past 15 years.  (Thanks, MOM!!!) For my layout, I used paper and chipboard from the latest "Cosmo Cricket" Christmas collection.  The vintage feel of these papers and chipboard really caught my eye!

Please head over to Heather's blog, Miracles Momma Designs,  to get a look at more examples from her design team. (We are called her "Miracles Momma Designs Divas!")

 You can check out her sketches and also download a free template there, too.

Thanks so much, Heather!

Have a wonderful rest of your week!  Thanks for your visit to my blog today!

Time flies! (and Color Me Scrappy Challenge #25)

Good Morning everyone and happy Sunday!  I am sitting here just thinking about how fast time has flown by, especially this past year.  Katie is back in college for her second semester (already!) and Anne is going to be 10, yes, 10 years old this Tuesday.  Double digits!  When did she grow up? And in the blink of an eye!

I have some photos to share with you - she had her first school dance on Friday evening.  She is in fourth grade, and her dad and I thought it might be a little to soon to be having school dances.  But we found out that it was mostly playing games and participating in a raffle, with some dancing thrown in there just for fun. Here she is - all dressed up and ready for the dance:

and when she got home, Anne was so excited because she won a raffle prize - a movie basket!!  With her favorite food of all times - popcorn!  YAY Anne!

In case your wondering, we finally did take our tree and Christmas decor down yesterday.  We like to leave it up for Epiphany, but the time just got away from us this year.  Lucky for us, we have an artificial tree given to us by John's parents 4 years ago when they moved into an apartment.  I was very surprised to find lots and lots of "fake needles" that needed to be cleaned up after we put our tree away this year.  I thought one of the perks of having an artificial tree was no clean up.  Boy was I wrong!  We took decorations down, packed boxes, cleaned, vacuumed  and put boxes away mostly all day yesterday.  Whew!

And now on to this week's Color Me Scrappy challenge:  Challenge #25!  It's Team A's turn, but when I saw the awesome color scheme, I wanted to participate using some of my Christmas photos!!    

Here are the colors:

The twist is to use the word "link" in your title or journaling.

And my layout:

I used the photos that I took at my mom's home on 12/23/12, 

when my nephews and Anne decorated their gingerbread houses.

So . . . if you have Christmas photos (or any pictures for that matter!) that need to be scrapped and want a fun challenge to participate in (and the chance to win a prize!!) head on over to 

Color Me Scrappy!

Have a great Sunday, everyone.  And thank you for stopping by my blog today!

Happy second Wednesday of 2013!

Good Morning everyone and happy Wednesday!  I can't believe that we are into our second week of 2013 already.  It has been a whirlwind of a holiday season for us, and have enjoyed having Katie home with us for 2 weeks!  We just took her back to Penn State this past Sunday . . . nobody warned me that it would be just as hard to drop her off the second time as the first, back in August of last year!

I forgot to bring my camera, but managed to get this photo of the book store with my cell phone.  Katie figured out that renting books that aren't in her major is much more cost effective than buying them, so the book bill was not as bad this semester!

I also want to share with you the latest sketch challenge at Scrap Africa. I came across Scrap Africa's blog last month and I absolutely love it! I really found a lot of inspiration there, and I know you will, too.

So without further ado, here is their Sketch #13:

And my take:

I used a photo that I took in our backyard after a recent snow storm.  I also got a new snowflake template for Christmas, so tried using gel medium mixed with white paint for my background snowflakes, along with the chipboard ones that I had on hand from Basic Grey!  (The background paper is Basic Grey, also.)  For my journaling, I used the lyrics from a favorite old song, "I Am A Rock," by Simon and Garfunkel.

Thank you, Scrap Africa!

And a great big thanks to you for stopping by my blog today.  

Again, I would like to wish you all a happy and healthy 2013, filled with many blessings 

and lots of scrapping!

Color Me Scrappy's Challenge #24

Hi Everyone!  Today is the first challenge of the month and the new year at 

Color Me Scrappy!  

I am so excited to play along with this one because there is a sketch and a color palette!

Here's the sketch:

And the colors:

The colors and that amazing sketch were so much fun to work with. 

Here's what I came up with:

To see what the other design team members made, check out Color Me Scrappy! 

This month's sponsor at CMS is

Peace, Love, and 

So . . . if you are in the mood for a fun challenge and want a chance to win a gift card to 

Peace, Love, and Scrapbooking, 

check out 

Color Me Scrappy 

this month!!!

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I almost forgot to share the layout I made for Team A's challenge last week!  

Here are the wonderful colors:

And my page using photos from Christmas morning.  The twist this time is to use a black background!

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Thanks so much for stopping to visit my blog today.

 . . . . . . . I will leave you with a photo that I took this morning . . .