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!

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!