Fun New Toys

I hope all of you had a great Christmas! I know we sure did. Now that all the snow is gone and I've been finished making Christmas gifts, I've had a chance to play with all of my new toys from the new Spring CTMH Idea Book! I LOVE them. On the day after Christmas, I worked on layouts all day long and stayed up until midnight paper crafting.

For this layout, I was inspired by the layout on page 108 in the new Idea Book for the tree. I used papers from the new Unforgettable My Reflections kit, along with Bird Basics and Aspiration stamp sets, White Daisy Just Blooms flowers, Winter Buttons, Clear Buttons, Sorbet ribbon, Spring Blossom brads, Antiqued Copper brads, Chocolate Waxy Flax and Juniper, Sorbet and Cocoa ink. My scrap club members will be completing this page in February!

More Sledding Video

Two more sledding videos - Ava and then Alex.

More Snow Photos

Our little sledding fanatic - she can't get enough and especially loves sledding on her tummy!
Eskimo kisses!
The two sledding pals. They love getting pulled by Daddy on this sled!
Tony wearing a cap of ice covered with snow that he pulled off one of our boxwood bushes from the front yard!

More Sledding Fun!

More video of sledding from Friday! Thanks Karen for your help!

Sledding Fun

Here's a video of the kids sledding on Friday. Super fun!

We have tons more snow today, about a foot now. We're going out to play in it after the kiddos wake up from their naps and I'll post more video and pictures tonight!

Merry Christmas!

Snow Days

We got our largest snowfall yet overnight and Alex and Ava were super-excited to get outside this morning to play in it. We had the "flexible flyer" sled that Poppa and Lulu gave us and they both loved riding on it while Daddy pulled them down and back the driveway. Ava especially loved riding on her tummy! We feel so fortunate to have had Daddy home from school all week!

Sneak Peek at the new Spring Idea Book!

Here are photos of a couple of my absolute favorite kits in the new Spring 2009 Close To My Heart Idea Book: Stardust and Emporium!

The book is live on January 1st - contact me to get your copy or come to my New Year Scrapbooking Extravaganza on Friday, January 9th where I'll have lots of goodies to give away and new product to show!

Super Fun Quiz

I just found this quiz on my friend Tina's blog and I love it! I took it and based on my answers, it was right on about me! It tells you what scrapbooking item you're most like.

http://www.quizilla.com/quizzes/645550/what-scrapbooking-item-are-you

I'm the adhesive. I help people and keep things together, but sometimes overlook myself in the process. Hmmm - I'm off to go relax and watch a movie right now!

Enjoy!

Busy Bee

Wow, time flies. I know it's been a long time since I've posted - I've been working on tons of projects getting ready for Christmas! Here's a sneak peek at my upcoming challenge with the beautiful new Key To My Heart paper packet and stamp set that Close To My Heart is offering as a special from December 16-January 31. You won't want to miss out on this challenge! These gorgeous papers are using all four of the new CTMH colors - Tulip, Juniper, Creme Brulee and Sorbet.

One Card, Two Looks

These two cards are the exact same pattern from the Originals book. I love how versatile the patterns are. I used the top card for a sympathy card with a sentiment inside, and the bottom card for a thank you note. With a change of colors and pattern papers, it makes the look totally different. I used all CTMH products - top card is Silhouette papers, clear button, natural hemp, and black brads. Bottom card is Boom-di-ada papers, autumn button, buttercup waxy flax and gold brads. I used dimensional elements flowers, Playful Flourishes and Cottage Floral stamp sets on both cards.

Getaway Anyone?

How does a weekend escape full of scrapbooking, paper-crafting, friendship, food and a gorgeous natural setting sound to you? I just opened the registration on my first annual crafting retreat - check out the website below for all the info and contact me soon if you want to register - space is limited!

http://creative-escape-allison.blogspot.com/

Favorite Photos

At the time of the blog post below, I didn't have the printed photos yet, but here are some of my favorite photos of my two children from the last couple of months that I'm going to add to the Magic Moments layouts!

Magic Moments Layouts

These layouts are for my November Scrapbooking Club. They are using the Magic Moments paper and stamp set, along with stick stock twill, chipboard letters, brads, hinges and Cocoa grosgrain ribbon. It's hard to see in these photos but on the second layout, I put a chipboard "H" on a piece of twill and put "H is for Hugs" for the accent. The title on the third page is "best buds". I also tried a new technique on page three of folding little 1x2 strips of coordinating cardstock and background & texture papers and adhering them behind the edges of the main photo mat. It was super easy and I love the effect!

Christmas Cards Choice #2

These cards are the second choice for my Christmas Card Workshop attendees. These are using the Evensong papers, Evergreen stamps with Cranberry, Olive, New England Ivy and Colonial White.

Christmas Cards Choice #1

Finally, I got a chance to make up my first batch of cards for the Christmas Card Workshop coming up in November. I'll have two design/stamp choices and this is choice number 1 using Aspen papers and the Feathery Flakes stamp set. Guests of the workshop will make five cards of five designs for a total of 25 cards. I kept them pretty simple, so these won't take forever to make. Keep checking back - I'll post cards using Evensong papers and Evergreen stamps soon.

Floating Snowflake

This card was inspired by the October issue of Papercrafts magazine. It is a "floating" snowflake stamped using the Feathery Flakes stamp set. I stamped two snowflakes and adhered them together with a piece of waxy flax in between. I used the Coluzzle circle cutter to cut out the circle and adhered the waxy flax to the card with mini glue dots. I used the Aspen paper packet, new Twilight corduroy brads as well. Super fun!

Almost Two Years

Since I made Ava's invitations and I'm thinking a lot about how much has changed since she was born almost two years ago, I wanted to post a couple of photos of her. The first one was taken when she was just a week old and the second was taken last week at her little gymnastics class. I love to put photos together that show growth and change - it is so fun to look back and see those changes in my scrapbooks.

Birthday Invitation

Here's the card I created this weekend for my daughter Ava's Second Birthday. I love how it turned out.

I used paper from the Boom-di-ada paper packet, Barn Red and Colonial White cardstock, Just Blooms Big Pinks flowers, antiqued copper brads and the Blooming Flourishes, Spot On Backgrounds and Simple Invites stamp sets with Barn Red and Olive ink pads. I used the sponge daubers to add Barn Red ink to the flower.

Some Cards I've Been Working On

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile! I've been busy making tons of projects. I'm posting these two cards now and will post lots more soon, so keep checking back.

The above card uses the September Word Puzzle (not just for school) with one of my favorite new color combos - Outdoor Denim, Creme Brulee, Tulip and Sorbet. I'm loving these new colors CTMH put out in the new idea book. On the sentiment, I stamped in Outdoor Denim ink and quickly put clear detail embossing powder over the top before heat embossing it. It's more subtle than embossing with Versamark, but I like it. I finished it off with some Colonial White brads and now I have a nice, fresh and versatile card!

I made this 8x3.5 card for Halloween party invites. I used some background and texture paper from the Enchanted My Reflections paper packet, along with Pansy Purple, Barn Red, Garden Green and Autumn Terracotta. I used the new Spooky Smiles stamp set for the pumpkins. I also played around with the Placement Guide stamp set - this set allows you to stamp a guide with small dots arranged in places you want to hand stitch on your artwork. In this case, I stamped the two small corners, used the paper piercer to poke holes for the stitches and then used a needle and embroidery floss to create the hand stitched accents.

October Scrap Club Layouts

These are my layouts for my October Scrap Club coming up on October 6th at 6:30pm. Check out my website for more details on the club.
There were made using the new Perfect Day papers, Cocoa, Juniper and Colonial White cardstocks, Whooo Loves You stamp set (super cute owls and mushrooms), Colonial White eyelets and Chocolate Waxy Flax.

I made this chart for my son to help him have some "motivation" for completing chores around the house. All supplies are CTMH:
Game On papers, Dutch Blue grosgrain ribbon, Star Struck, Homestead Alphabet, Charm Uppercase and Lowercase and All Star stamp sets. I used adhesive-backed velcro to attach the stars on for the chores each day.

I've got a blog!

I've finally done it! I've set up this blog. I'm hoping it will be a great resource for my customers, friends and family and a great place for me to post artwork, workshops, techniques, tutorials, ideas, photos and more! I hope to post at least weekly to start out with - we'll see where it takes me! Thanks for looking! :)