Scrapping Christmas past

Hi all!

And so begins the snow days....I scrolled through the posts on FB of moms rejoicing to children sleeping in - Pezza was up at 5:10 today!  She told me yesterday she wants to make craft videos again like she did when she was small - I doubt anyone reading this will remember the days of Pezza Way videos and her guest spot on Tim Holtz's blog at the age of 3...The problem is that she is 8 now so they probably won't be as funny/popular.  Not to mention I have no following left to watch them!  Though I recently signed in to my YouTube account for the first  time in years and was surprised to see people still watch all my videos!  Maybe I will make some too.  I have a hard time thinking of ideas - seems everything has been done to death but then I watched a scrapper's video for the first time who is insanely popular.  It was literally a video of her glueing her stuff to her page and people were falling all over themselves with adoration and appreciation so maybe I am selling myself short?

ANYWAY, I scrapped yesterday!  I have been determined to get back in my studio.  I am currently working on kicking the last of the meds I was prescribed for post partum depression - that shit is NO JOKE!  The withdrawals are scary.  The last one took a total of 1 1/2 years to get through.  This one has more severe withdrawals and should take about a year.  So I am trying to be aware and take care of myself and one of the ways I do that is through being creative in my studio.  AND HEY, catching up on my scrapbooking really would be a great thing!

I have been selected to host one of the scrapbooking challenges over on Splitcoast Stampers so I have been getting myself plugged back in over there, especially with the scrappers.  It is a much smaller community than the card makers so if you are a scrapper PLEASE come join us!  We need more folks!

As I sit here looking at the photo I am realizing the date should actually be 2008 UGH!  Luckily an easy fix....  Pretty sure anyway.  BUT the good news is this is the last 2008 layout I have, then I have 3 for 2009 and I will be on to 2010.  Not terribly bad....  I have quite a number of layouts done for more recent years too so I am not too badly behind.  On Splitcoast there is a goals for 2015 thread where people are talking about how many pages they want to get done this year and most of them number into the hundreds.  I have all my pics sorted so I counted them up and I have 64 mostly 2 page spreads I would like to get done.  (We will not discuss my wedding pics still not in an album....)

The challenge I used for this layout on SCS (Splitcoast Stampers) was the stashbusters challenge.  We had 3 things we had to use - a frame, a die cut and eyelets.  EYELETS!??!?!  ACK!  How old school is that?  I nearly skipped it but then I said NOPE I am doing it.  And I even remembered how to use my crop a dile!  And guess what?  I like the eyelets - can you see them above the holly?  cute right?  The holly came from an SVG cut file from My Scrap Chick and I did the numbers in MTC too.  I use a Black Cat Cutter for my SVGs - love it.

I usually cut all of my stuff out of solid paper and then I see people use patterned paper for their cuts and I think Oh I love that!  Well this time I remembered too!  Actually I couldn't find the solid paper that went with these CTMH patterned ones and THEN I remembered how much I like cuts using patterned paper.

Additional challenges for this layout:

• Clear it Out - Anything Goes
• Crafting When We Can - Anything but a Card

I also have a couple Scrap Wrap albums for sale.  I have been using these for years and they are amazing.  However Pezza does not like the patterns on these two :P

This one has lots of glitter on the fairies which did not show up well in the photo - super cute right!??!  They have 25 pages in them and you can easily order refills too.  The other one I did not take a picture of yet is sports themed - all sorts of small sports balls across it - I can take a photo if anyone is interested.

They pages are held in by super strong velcro and these things are indestructable.  Pez has dragged them around for years!

These are mine so you can see the spine of them - see how totally expandable they are?  Yea the one on the right is a bit full....

They retail for $45 but I am selling them for $30 plus shipping.  Let me know if you want one!

Cut It Up challenge time!

Hi all!

I hope y'all had a wonderful Turkey day and stuffed yourselves silly!  I know I did - on both counts!  We headed to the in-laws for lunch and then a friend's house afterward for a bit.  So shopping for me as I think all of the stores should stay closed on Thanksgiving!  Plus it ruins the insanity of Black Friday - I liked it better when it ALL started at 4am on Friday.  I was a faithful participant for ages but now it seems lacking.  I can't go out anyway this year as Kevin cannot watch Pezza and I am not bringing her out in that.  She is not a good shopping companion on a normal trip!  The only thing I am planning to do is take advantage of the 50% of entire purchase from noon - 10pm at Michaels.  I have been wanting to add to my acrylic paint stash and those little tubes can run as much as $10+!

Little Miss Pezza Lou Who turned 7 this month (and we all lived to tell about it!)  I decided to go the digital route for her party invitations - easier to mass produce!  I used the It's Your Big Day collection from Sweet Shoppe and put these together:

Then it came time to make her Thank Yous which fit in perfectly to our next challenge over on the Cut It Up challenge blog.

This time I did a hybrid - part digi and part paper layers.  I removed a couple layers on the digi invite and then printed them all out.  I cut them out, Inked the edges and mounted them on turquoise cardstock (I did the same thing with the invites too.)  Next I designed the "Thanks" in MTC and I cut the shadow layer from white and the Thanks layer in pink using my Black Cat cutter.  I inked my edges, adhered them to the card fronts and then added 3 little Pezablings in the bottom right corner.

Prizes up for grabs for the current CIU challenge - $5 gift certificate to Digital Delights by Louby Lou!  So come join us - work on your Christmas thank yous and be ahead of the game!  Don't forget to stop by the CIU Blog to see what the rest of the design team has created!

CIU is Counting down!

Hi all!

Today marks the start of the next challenge on the Cut It Up Challenge Blog!  The challenge is to make some sort of Advent or countdown project - I must say the design team really out did themselves!  Once you reach the end of this post I encourage you to go to the Challenge Blog and check out what the rest of the ladies made!

I decided to make a countdown calendar Pez could mark off as each day passsed:

 

Kadoodle Bug Designs is one of our sponsors for this challenge ($10 Gift Certificate) and she has a fantastic photo tag set cut file (along with LOTS of other wonderful cut files!)  I cut it out extra large - it's about 8 inches high or so!  Then I made the countdown box in Word.  All of my edges are inked with my go-to inks - Tsukineko Brilliance dew drops.

I wanted to give his hat a little pizzazz so I added some embellies - the other sponsor for this challenge is ME!  Yep - a $25 dollar gift certificate to shop on my website Pezadoodle Designs.  It is STILL up and running and has the last of my inventory ALL at 40% OFF - including the extremely versatile Pezabling sparkling squares like I used here on his hat.  You really can't beat that!  I also gave him a little clay poinsettia embellishment - these are super easy to make and you can watch Pezza show you how in this video:

Now head on over to the CIU challenge blog and see what the rest of the team has created and then enter a creation of your own!!!  I would also love it if you head on over to my website and do some shopping!  Pezadoodle Designs has great original rubber stamps as well as a variety of other things!

Giving thanks....new Cut It Up challenge

Hi all!

I hope y'all all had a scary night of trick or treating!  We had some friends over for pizza and then headed out.  Each year Pezza covers a little more ground.  Eventually we'll be doing the whole neighborhood!

She had a blast but she was tired this morning!  She usually gets up on her own but today I had to go in and wake her up.  When I went in to her room I said Pezza....and she said NO!  But we managed to get ready in time and then we went to the door to leave and it was pitch black outside!  I had to check the clock 3 times to make sure we had the time right!

Today kicks off a new challenge over on Cut It Up - the challenge is to do a Thanksgiving project and of course you must use a die cut.  The prize up for grabs - Stampin' Up! goodies from Norma Pimentel.  I have been using this design team position to do some scrapbooking - it's been a great motivator for me but I paused on this challenge - you can only have so many layouts of a turkey dinner KWIM?  And then I had an idea and came up with this instead:

I decided to do a snapshot of what we are all thankful for right now.  I had Pezza write hers out and the rest of us typed ours up.  It's so cute to look back on little kid hand writing and how they lay things out!

I got my cut files from Designs on Cloud Nine - they are part of a set that includes some ADORABLE owls I am hoping to have time for soon!  I cut it all out on my Black Cat using Make the Cut software.

 I gave my acorns some texture with an embossing folder and ink.  Then I wanted to give my leaves some pizzazz and I knew the new Silks Acrylic Glaze colors would be perfect!  Especially if I applied it using Saran Wrap.

You can see the shimmer here - the orange leaves have Chestnut Brown, the yellow leaves have one of my all time FAVE Luminarte colors, Golden Monarch, and the burgandy leaves have one of the amazing new Iridescents, Copper. 

I hope y'all can join us for the challenge on Cut It Up!  Head over to the blog and check out the rest of the Design Team's projects!

Getting spooky for the latest Cut It Up Challenge!

Hi all!

Ahhh Friday.  I am hoping to get some fall decorating done around here - you know before fall is OVER.  I can't get to the bins by myself so Kevin was finally able to help me last weekend but our week just flew by without us ever touching it!  So we just tripped over the bins all week instead.  I LOVE pumpkins - all sorts of pumpkins and pumpkin type decor.  I already have too many and still had ideas for more!

We have a few Halloween items to put out too but I like to keep it mostly Fall so it can all stay out longer.  Thankfully we got Pezza's Halloween costume back in September because a neighbor was telling me they have been very difficult to find already.  Equally difficult to find already - current release Halloween scrapbook papers.  Today is the new Cut It Up Challenge reveal and our theme is Halloween.  I went to get the new Doodlebug papers I saw at CHA - sold out.  ACK!!!!!  SO disapointed!  Hopefully I can still find some online for this years Halloween pics but for last year's that I scrapped for this challenge I had to scrounge around in my stash.  I was very unhappy BUT I ended up liking the layout after all so I am going to let it go!  Hahhahah!  But as soon as I am done typing this I am getting my order in over at A Cherry On Top!

So yes our challenge was to do something with a Halloween or Dia De Los Muertos theme AND use a die cut of course! Last year Pezza was a cat - I know big surprise!

So how ridiculous is my daughter?  Look at those poses!  Sheesh.  Anyway  I used some SVG cut files from My Scrap Chick and cut them on my Black Cat Cutter.  We just got Boo'ed today so I may need to go back over to the site and grab some of her Halloween treat bag toppers!

Each of the little characters is so cute!  I inked all of my edges with my Tsukineko inks - love them!  My ghostie's bubbling brew got some stickled bubbles too!

I used my Peachy Keen face stamps for the faces.  Unless I cut my characters out really large messing with the teeny facial feature cuts drives me batty!

Just had to add the cute little haunted mansion!

 

I just had to throw in this cute little kitty digi from Louby Lou!  1. it's a cute kitty, 2. I don't color nearly enough anymore and 3. Louby Lou is our sponsor for the challenge this go 'round!  As usual she is colored with colored pencils - Faber Castell Polychromos this time I believe it was.  now do you see that cute little sparkly green embellie in the corner?  Anyone here remember those?  I carried them in my online store.  I am on a mission to get rid of my inventory and finally take the store website down as it is costly to continue to maintain.  So GO OVER THERE and pick out a few colors for yourself!

I discovered a fun and easy little trick in Photoshop I have been playing with and wanted to share it with all of you.  An easy way to add a title or single word piece to your layout is to put it on your photo.  I made my date into a little frame.  Here's how:

1. Open a new blank photoshop file.  Size it as big as your picture - in this case 4 x 6.
2. Choose your shape tool - pick your rectangle and then specify the size by clicking on the little arrow so the drop down menu appears.  You can see it below just under the word Window. 

3.  Choose fixed size and then put your measurements in - in this case I put 3.75 x 5.75 and made it white since I wanted my frame white.  Click on your blank page and the shape will appear.

4.  Now we are going to do the same thing but this time make it slightly smaller - I did the next one 3.5 x 5.5 and made it black,  Click on your page and it will appear.

5.  Now move them so that the second one is perfectly spaced inside the first one - the white edges are your frame.  Merge the two layers

6.  Choose your magic wand tool and click on the inner shape - it will be highlighted by the "marching ants."  Now choose your eraser and erase the whole thing - only the inner shape will get erased.  Click again to get rid of the marching ants.

7.  Choose your type tool, pick a font and make it the same color as your frame, type what you want.  Position it on your frame the way you want it.

8.  Choose your eraser, make sure to select the layer with the frame, erase the portion of the frame that appears behind your font.  Merge layers.

9. Now you can drag your frame onto your picture!

Now come join us on the Cut It Up Challenge blog and check out the rest of the Design Team's projects and then submit yours for the challenge!  You could win a $5 gift certificate to Louby Lou's Digital Delights!

So what do you think of the layout?  How about the frame tutorial?  Let me know!

Labor Day challenge at Cut It Up!

Happy Friday!

We have made it through the first week of school here in the Wills house.

I would like to know HOW it is that I spent 6 years and 10 months trying to get this kid to sleep past 4:30 am and now that she has to be up for school by 6:30 I am dragging her out of bed - REALLY????  Luckily things have gone quite smoothly and I am thoroughly enjoying the routine and the peace and quiet during the day.  I get much more done when I am on a schedule!

I am excited about today's post - it is my first post for the Cut It Up challenge blog!  Our challenge this time is Labor Day - make a project celebrating pregnancy or new babies and remember to use a die cut!  I was unsure what I was going to do at first but then it occurred to me that I have LOADS of pictures of new babies - baby kittens!  So here is my layout of the Candy kittens:

This was our second litter of rescue kittens - Mom, Candy, 1 boy, Twizzler and 3 girls, Peppermint, Skittles and Taffy.

I used this cute cut from the Cricut cartridge Kate's ABCs - there are several really cute kitty images on it.  Pezza picked this one out.

The scalloped borders are cut using the Elegant Edges Cricut Cartridge and I did the title in Make the Cut - I love the shadow feature it has now!  Makes things SO easy.  I cut it using my Black Cat Cutter.

I hope all of you who also like using die cuts will join in on our challenge!  

Our prize sponsor is Too Cute by Jessica - she has a great selection of cutting files so go check her out and then enter the challenge for a chance to win!

Now I am off to run some errands and hopefully play a bit in my studio!

Beach Girl LO for the CMC Challenge

Hi y'all!

I knew it had been awhile since I blogged but a month?  Wow!  Apparently it's been BUSY around my house! I mentioned our little foster kitty family, The Breads, were really struggling as all the foster babies do.  Well that was grueling to say the least.  However, I am happy to report with loads of love and attention and lots of careful eye med administration they have not only ALL pulled through but NONE of them are blind!

Pezza the Cat Whisperer

We have been talking about needing to adopt a buddy for Bubba so we are seeing how him and the little boy, Bun do together...

Little Bun-ny was the sickest by far but he has bounced back and while he may not be able to see perfectly he CAN see.  Plus he's a boy and I really like the boy cats.  They are very different than the girl cats - girls are prissy and stand off-ish and boys are more lovey and dopey and silly.

Of course they all love Kevin as usual!  Doesn't he look THRILLED???

We took a trip to Myrtle Beach over Memorial Day weekend - HEAVEN!

Hollyn LOVES it at the beach as much as I do

We stayed at Ocean Lakes and I was in LOVE.  This place is awesome!  HUGE with loads of amenities right on the beach.  A combination of RV sites, RV rentals and individually owned little beach houses.  I spent my high school years living right on the beach in San Diego and I did not really miss it much until we spent the week in Myrtle.

Of COURSE I wanted to move there.  Kevin reminded me I want to move every place we go.......Since Pez and I get up long before hubby is interested in getting up I made my coffee and we went and walked on the beach.  We played in the ocean, swam in the pool, biked around the resort, saw a Pirate Show (similar to medieval times dinner shows), went to Ripley's Aquarium and got to pet rays and sharks, a fantastic trip!

The downside of Myrtle Beach is the drive.  Made even worse by towing a 28' travel trailer IN THE RAIN.  We will skip the part about how ugly it was backing in to the site and hooking up in the DARK and RAIN...  BUT I did make good use of the drive by finally going in and organizing all of my pictures so I can get them printed and scrapped.  I got them weeded out, grouped and even did the journaling.  Those are my big 3 road blocks to getting any scrapping done and with that out of the way I can move forward!

We went to Myrtle for the first time last year for Kevin's brother's wedding but only stayed briefly.  I told Kevin I wanted to come back for a longer stay.  Today's project is a layout of pics from LAST year's MB trip for the new coloring challenge my buddy Suzanne just posted on the CMC Classroom site:

color ANY IMAGE with

Any Colors that Inspire Thoughts of Summer

We want to see you use YOUR COPICS, ProMarkers, other alcohol markers or Colored Pencils!!

Our fabulous Sponsor for this Challenge is:

Milk Coffee Digi Designs

1 lucky winner (chosen at random) will win a $15 Gift Certificate to

spend at Milk Coffee Designs

I was really inspired by the colors of the beach cottages at Myrtle and used them to do this layout of LAST year's pics:

As always I used a Page Maps sketch - from May 2012 I think - it was a 2 page 8 1/2 x 11 but I just extended it to 12 x 12.

I chose this cute little mermaid from Milk Coffee Digis and colored her up with my colored pencils.  If you would like to learn to color with pencils OR improve your coloring with pencils check out my classes over on the CMC Classroom website!

My die cuts are from several different Designs on Cloud 9 SVG file set and cut using Make the Cut software and my Black Cat cutter.  I designed the title piece using Make the Cut software, a font on my computer, a dingbat font from Lettering Delight for the shell, and a sun from one of the Designs on Cloud 9 files.

 I hope you'll join us for the coloring challenge!

A turkey day LO

Hey y'all!

How is everyone?  It's the usual wild and crazy shenanigans around here.  I am beginning to think I am the Queen of Plans-Too-Much :P  Before I get into anything I wanted to touch on a topic I mention here occasionally.  Y'all know I have been waging battle against depression.  More specifically getting a handle on NOT taking my meds.  The good news is - I think I might FINALLY be winning - as much as one wins that battle.  The medication seems to have finally left my system and I am stabilizing - which translates into almost no crazy lunatic angry bitch episodes

But it is still tough sometimes to navigate.  I used to read a blog called Hyperbole and a Half.  Along with a butt-load of other people.  She has been waging the same war and has returned after 18 months with a post about it - a follow up to her initial post about it 18 months ago.  Both are raw and so true - you can read them here - Hyperbole and a Half.  Meanwhile I am still going med-free.  Some days are tough but others are really good.  I know that it's possible there could be a better medication choice for me but I am not there yet.  A plus side - i have lost just shy of 20 pounds of the 53 pounds I gained while on the meds!

One last update for ya - our little foster kitten family - The Breads.  When they came to us Biscuit, the mom, was very scared and had a cold.  The kittens were small, especially Baguette, the runt.  We got Biscuit on meds and I was hand feeding the kittens to supplement what they got nursing and everyone started gaining weight.  Biscuit began to relax and was less scared.  BUT saving rescued kittens is not for the sqeamish or faint of heart.  The kittens got sick too, especially Bun, the little boy.  After a grueling routine of administering 4 different meds a total of 7 times a day and stressful eye cleansing routines we decided they were not improving as much as we had hoped and last night we took them to our emergency vet hospital.  Any positive thoughts and good vibes y'all can send to these poor little things is greatly appreciated!  I think my hubby has trouble understanding why I put myself through this BUT (and maybe this relates to my topic above) it is really important to me that i don't just live but that my life has meaning and this is one of the things that makes me feel meaningful.  To me a life that doesn't include doing something for some OTHER life besides your own and your immediate loved ones just isn't a worthy life.  And so our hearts are with our little furry babies and we are hoping they pull through.  And if one or all don't make it we will continue to put our efforts into saving tiny little fuzzy faces when we are blessed with the opportunity to do so.

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One thing that has been changing in my life is my studio focus - I started off as a scrapbooker and I am leaning back towards that.  Cards are great - smaller, easier to whip out and give a bit more instant gratification but I was beginning to feel wasteful since I have enough cards for 5 lifetimes!  Except kid birthday cards which you may see show up in a future post.  Scrapbook pages feel more useful to me.  Of course I still do the mixed media art work too!

Anyway I am slowly catching up and liking my system for doing so which you can read HERE.  This is a thanksgiving LO that haas sat around my studio half finished for ages!

I LOVED this paper pack from Close To My Heart - fall colors but not the typical fall colors.

I liked these pics because it was the first year Pezza really got in there and helped me cook!  Plus I hardly EVER have pics with ME in them!  This photo is not great - the pics are not actually that dark!

That awesome turkey is from Treasure Box Designs and cut using my Black Cat.

As always my sketch came from Page Maps - I couldn't scrap without them!  I am SO out of touch with scrapbooking and scrapbooking blogs though!

Do you have a favorite scrapbooking blog or scrapbooking challenge blog??????  PLEASE share it with me in the comments!  Especially ones using Cricut or other die cutting machines!