More Christmas Fun

I had big intentions for this year to spend more time with my crafts, especially scrapbooking and card making because those are my two favorite crafts to do.  I got off to a good start and then... Well, I've already hit a slow point.  And we're only one month into the year.  But, I think I've figured out the problem.  It's this thing I have called a "J-O-B" that keeps interrupting. Ha ha!  Seriously, I AM very thankful to have my job.  So, please, don't misunderstand.  I've been without one before and, well, I can say with all certainty that life with one is much better.  It helps pay for the necessities in life like food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and craft supplies.  Soooo, given the other options, I think I'll keep it.  I just wish there were more hours in the day so I could both - job and fun. :)

Today, I'd like to share another Christmas page I made with my January Counterfeit Kit Challenge kit.  (What's a Counterfeit Kit Challenge kit, you ask?  See my post here.)  And be forewarned, this is another page about a Christmas from way back in the past, when my son was only 1 year old.  (He's 26 now so, yeah, I'm not what you'd call an "up-to-date" scrapper. Ha ha!)

I started with the January Double Page Sketch over at Stick It Down.  (When you go there, you'll see the sketches over on the right side bar.)

I have to admit, at first glance, I was stumped with the sketch.  But, if you ever find yourself in that situation, don't fret.  Just start flipping it around until something strikes that creative cord in you.  When I turned the sketch upside down like this:

I saw what I wanted to do!

And created this two page layout:

And here's each page a little closer:

And THAT is why I love sketches.  They give you a starting point, help stretch your creative muscles, and sometimes push you where you might would not have probably gone on your own.  But, most of all, they help put pictures to paper and pages in the scrapbook.  Especially with people like me who are brain tired when they get home from work and need that extra little jump start. 

I already have another page started with the help of another couple of challenges.  Just hope I can find some time to squeeze them in before the end of the month. 

Happy crafting, y'all! :)

Happy Birthday Wishes

Happy Friday, everyone!  Hope you've had a good week!

Today I'd like to share the card I made for my granddaughter's birthday coming up next week. She will be turning 5 years old (hard to believe already) and she is definitely into the whole princess thing!  With her sister, she loves playing dress up, wearing tiaras, and singing along with their favorite princess movies.  Yet, she still loves to rumble and tumble with her younger brothers, been known to roll in the mud, and can be a bit of a daredevil.  (They say your kids pay you back for all the stress you caused your parents, so that's your payback, my son. Ha ha!)  She is a complex girl, to say the least.  But, oh so fun!

Here's the card:

I used the January card sketch from Stick It Down.  (If you go to their site, you'll see all the wonderful fun sketches on the right sidebar.)

The princess stamp is one of two that my mom bought me at a local thrift store.  I do not know who the manufacturer is, as there are no markings.  I used stamps from three different Stampin Up sets to stamp the different styles of stars, and I punched the pink glittery stars from glitter paper using one of my old (very old) Provocraft hand punches.  Remember these?

Yep, I still have them!  They're still useful!

After I'd stamped everything and colored in the princess using my granddaughter's two favorite colors (Pink and Purple), I then realized that I didn't have any pattern paper to match.  No worries, I just created my own.  I took my ink spots of SU Wisteria Wonder and Blushing Bride (same as I used for some of the stars) and "smooshed" them on my craft mat.  I then misted with water and laid my white cardstock down in the wet ink for a minute.  I love the watercolored, dreamy look pattern it made.

Well, that's it for me today.  I hope you have some time this weekend to craft.  :)

Oh, what Joy!

Hello!  And Happy Monday to you!  I hope you've had a great start to the week.  Myself, I have a hard time going back to work on Mondays.  I wish we could just skip that day.  But, then I think Tuesdays would get the bad rep so I guess we'll just leave things the way they are for now. :)

Today I would like to share my first scrapbook page that I made with my January Counterfeit Kit Challenge kit I've called "Very Merry."  (If you need a reminder what was in there, or if you want to know more about what Counterfeit Kit Challenge is all about, see my post HERE.)  I also would like to enter this page into the first sketch challenge for the month over on the Stuck?! Sketches blog.  Here is their sketch:

And here is my page I've titled, "Oh, what Joy!"

This little guy in the pictures is my son on his very first Christmas when he was only 3 weeks old.  You know, back in 1991.  Yes, my son is now 26 years old so he's not that little guy anymore!  I didn't start scrapbooking until he was around 10 or 11 years old, so I still have all his baby pictures to scrap.  Plus, I'm not a chronological scrapper.  I just scrap whatever pictures I'm in the mood to do. (Which may explain why I don't have that many finished albums, but that's another topic for another day.)  I also have a tendency to put off scrapping pictures that, to me, are extra special and I want to make sure I get them "just right." Please, someone tell me they feel the same way???  But, I'm trying to let go of that "need for perfectionism" attitude, and I thought it was time to finally get these pictures scrapped.

Of course, it's obvious that I moved some things around from the sketch, but I hope you can still see it in there.  The sketch was a bit of a challenge, at first, but then I just started playing around and ended up having a lot of fun with it.  I used my Cricut cartridge "When I Was A Kid" for the snowflakes and I inked them with SU Soft Sky blue ink, just so they'd stand out a little more from the background. Plus it tied in with and pulled out the blue from the pattern paper.  See the red paper in the back with the snowflakes?  It was a bit of leftover from some project or another, and the word "Joy" that I used in the title was actually printed on that paper.  I fussy cut the word out, put it on cream cardstock to match the main background, and fussy cut it again.   And since I only had the one piece of cream cardstock to use for the background, I did the old trick of cutting a square of the cardstock out where I knew the red pattern paper would cover the hole and then I used the pictures to cover the hole in the red pattern paper where the word "Joy" had been cut out.

Double Cover Up Duty going on there!  Ha ha!  The page looks a bit odd from the back, but no one will see that side.

Everything I used for this page came from my January CKC kit except I did pull some white cardstock for photo matting and cutting the snowflakes, I used a piece of blue cardstock from my massive and ever growing scraps files to cut "Oh, What" for my title rather than cut into a full sheet, and I used a Cuttlebug font die set to cut those two words.

So, there you have it.  And it feels sooo good to finally have these pictures in the book, plus I used up some stash.  I call that a win-win situation.

And not bad for a Monday. :)

Very Merry

I love and have been lurking enjoying for quite some time a scrapbook challenge blog called Counterfeit Kit Challenge.  They highlight a current subscription kit and challenge you to create your own out of stuff you already own and then post challenges and ideas of ways you can actually use your kit.  If you've been crafting for more than 10 minutes, then you know that you have a tendency to create a somewhat substantial stash.  I have been scrapbooking/card making for more than 15 years so, yeah, I've got plenty of a stash.  So, this challenge is right up my alley.

This month's highlighted kit is the November 2017 Cocoa Daisy Kit "Fair Isle":

There's lots of reds and greens and Christmas-y things.

Now, before I went to my supplies to pull my counterfeit kit, I said I wasn't going to do a Christmas-y kit.  I was sooo over and burnt out from Christmas that I wanted to take it in another direction.  But then I got to my craft space and realized two things:  (1) My goodness, I have a lot of Christmas photos to scrap, not including even more photos from this year that I haven't even printed yet; and (2) I already had the beginnings of a kit that fit the bill!  Score!  I usually organize by color, but I do organize some things by theme, such as Christmas.  I also will sometimes put together page kits when I'm just sorting and organizing and realize that things look good together.  Combine some of those me-made page kits, some leftovers from very old purchased kits, some recently purchased Project Life cards (that I like to use just on regular pages and cards) and voila!  My kit was born! I present to you my kit I call "Very Merry" (totally stole that from one of the PL cards you'll see in the picture):

I didn't pull a lot of embellishments or letters, so I may add more as I go.  I did include some punches, a Cricut cartridge, and some stamps that I'd like to see if I can use.  I want to make a more conscious effort to use my tools more this year in my scrapbooking and cardmaking.

Now, I don't think I'll end up using all of this kit, especially all of those PL cards.  There's just soooo many!  But, I wanted to include them so I have plenty of options.  I figure at the end of month, I can just put back what I don't use.  No harm, no foul.  But, if I have them out in front of me and in my go-to-kit-box, I'll be more likely to use them.

So, there's my first CKC kit!  And I'm already working on my first scrapbook page from it! :)  And you know the funny thing I've discovered?  I'm not as burnt out and over Christmas as I thought.  The pictures I'm scrapping are from my son's first (uh, many years ago as he is now 26 years old!) and it's been sweet.  Maybe it's just the stress of preparing for the holidays that I was actually burnt out about, and not the holiday itself.  Thank you for the realization, CKC! It makes me feel better. :)