Valentine's Day Cards

I'm doing a card swap with some friends. We'll each make cards for everyone else and then we'll get some wonderful cards back. The black and pink tiger striped card is going to a friend's daughter's first grade class in Utah. They're trying to get cards from all over the US, so this is one for them from Texas. I love using up my scraps this way. It's a lot of fun to match up the pieces and see the cards go together. For the left side of each card, I used my Cuttlebug to emboss and then the "love stamp" is cut and embossed with the Cuttlebug. I used VersaMagic ink to highlight the embossing. I read an article in Creating Keepsakes a while back that talked about trying pleated looks with ribbon and patterened paper. The ribbon looks good, but it is a little time comsuming to get it all looking just right. But, hey, what else would I rather do on a lazy Saturday morning?

Scrap Whispers Next Challenge

This challenge for Scrap Whispers was fun and easy to do. Use flowers. Now I have flowers, boy do I have flowers, in my stash. So this was a good way to use up some of those flowers. These pictures are of a trip the kids took with family this past summer. They went to Inks Lake near Austin and just had fun in the water. Archie even did a little cliff diving!

Details

I loved all of these photos from Kat's senior photo shoot with the incredible Christa (see link for Green Shoes Photography at right). Christa not only caught Kat's various personality traits well, she caught the little details that make Kat, well, Kat. I was looking for a way to tie them all together and found this EK Success label. Then I looked closely at the center photo here and it looked as if Kat was examining a leaf closely and it just all came together. Literally. It took maybe fifteen minutes to put this one together once I decided on paper. The striped paper is from Me and My Big Ideas. The brown polka dots are from My Mind's Eye.

Scrap Whispers Challenge/Truth or Dare Challenge Layout

This layout is a "kill 2 birds with 1 stone" layout. The Scrap Whispers challenge for this week was to spend time journaling. My Truth or Dare challenge for my own T or D Circle Journal was to "create a layout using photos of reflections." I cut the title with Cricut Design Studio using the Old West cartridge. The journaling comes in 2 parts. On the left page is a Bible verse: And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's Glory are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18. The other part says: "It has always been my goal to lead my children in their faith so that they will reflect the Lord in their lives. I often thought that meant the future, but so often that meant the future, but so often right now, I see it as they go about their normal lives. They have such reflected glory."

The pictures are from a photo challenge last year. Oh and if anyone wants to say I didn't follow my own rules in putting my picture with the journaling in the layout, look behind the flash in the top photo. That's me!

Truth or Dare: Adventures in Circle Journals

A circle journal, for those that are unfamiliar with the term, is a scrapbook that is passed around a group. Each member of the group starts her own book with a particular theme. Often each person chooses a different theme, but for this particular circle journal (CJ) each person is doing the theme Truth or Dare. Each member is starting her own book with truths (regular challenges) and dares (harder challenges). We will mail these books at the first of each month, completing a layout based on either a truth or dare for someone else's book each time until we get our own book back at the end.

This is the fourth CJ I've done with several of these ladies and it's been so much fun. I'm excited to get this one going!

My Cricut and Design Studio got a workout getting my CJ set up. The title page words were cut with the Opposites Attract cartridge. Next comes my intstructions pages. I chose to scrap the definitions of "truth" and "dare" just for fun. Then for my sign in pages with the challenges, I used the card feature on the Paisley cartridge (thanks again Amy C.!!!!) As you can see from the Dare page, each card has a cute little cut-out that allows the background pages to show through. Kat choose the background paper. She saw it going through Hobby Lobby and told me I HAD to get it for my CJ. So of course, I did :D. My only disappointment here is the scan of the dare page. The letters are actually hot pink foiled chipboard and they scanned very dark.

Okay, girls, let's get this going! Cheri, mailing soon! Have fun!

Scrap Whispers Challenge 2

This week's challenge at Scrap Whispers was to use watermelon as an inspriation for our layouts. So this one uses a variation on the watermelon's colors. Instead of light red and dark green, I choose light green and dark red. I cut the scalloped sheet in half and placed each half on a page then added 27 pictures from a trip to Fort Worth Zoo. That was only a few of the images we had from that day! It's a great zoo to visit. Oh and the "bat phones"? They allow you to hear bat sounds, but mostly my Batman loving daughter had to have a picture of the old tv show words around the Batphones.

Scrap Whispers Challenge Layout 1

Remember the New Year's Challenge 4? To lift this layout? http://www.scrapjazz.com/gallery/image/layout/539078.html

Well, I've done it and combined that with the first Scrap Whispers challenge layout of this new round. The challenge was to use purple and turquoise on a layout. I thought these pictures from Kat's senior photo shoot just fit with Jael's layout and wanted to wait till I got them to do it. I'm so glad I did!

These photos were taken by Christa Holland from Green Shoes Photo. See her link at right!