Name Layout Challenge

Back in November Tracey posted a fantastic challenge for her DT layout challenge at the Scrapping Turtle. We had to create a layout using items related to the letters in a name (we were able to choose whatever name we wanted). I chose the name Heather and this is what I came up with:

H = Heidi Swapp Carefree Pink School Stripe paper 

E = eyelets, edge distressor 

A = American Crafts paper (flower) 

T = Teresa Collins paper (title oval) 

H = hearts 

E = edge punch 

R = Ranger Stickles

Scrapping Turtle Design Team Challenges

I realized that I didn't post some of the projects I have created for some of the Design Team challenges at the Scrapping Turtle.

Mellissa ran a Tags Galore challenge for several weeks. I had the best of intentions, but life got in the way. Here are two that I created based on a PageMaps sketch:

I created this card based on Vicki's fabulous guest Design Team card sketch:

Tanya gave us a wonderful card sketch to work with and that was the basis for this card:

This card was for Anne Marie's challenge to create a non-traditional Christmas card. That meant we couldn't use the traditional colours:

Marissa challenged us to create a round card. I made mine into an ornament shape:

Anne Marie challenged us to use a sketch by Allison Cope from her So Sketchy site. This is the layout I came up with based on this sketch:

Altered Notebooks

I created some altered notebooks for a Secret Santa gift for a very special friend of mine. She uses a lot of notebooks in her creating and designing, so I thought it would be wonderful to give her some pretty ones to work with.

I also made her a framed plaque (which I will not be sharing for privacy reasons) that included a photo of her house, her last name done in the Quickutz Katie font, and 'picture' of her and her family created with Stampin' Up's All In The Family stamp set (stick people). She was really touched by my handmade gift.

Happy Christmas Eve!!!

Twas the night before Christmas, I'm glued to the tree.

I'm wondering what Santa brought just for me.

Could it be inks or paper or paste?

Or a stamping kit, I said, with a smile on my face.

And that's when I heard him,

"Hi Santa," I said

"You know....good little girls should be in their beds ".

"I know I should Santa, and now I've been caught.

But I was just so excited to see what you brought."

"Well, let's take a look in this room where you work."

He shook his head quickly, And left with a jerk.

I heard him exclaim as he put it in gear.

You've got enough stuff, I'll see you next year!"

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!

Turtle Layout Challenge

This week is my week for a Design Team layout challenge on the forum at the Scrapping Turtle. Since this week is Christmas I opted for a Christmas themed challenge. Choose one of the fabulous Christmas cards posted in the Scrapping Turtle gallery and scraplift it to make a layout. I chose a beautiful card by Audrey that is posted here.

To create my layout I used the Little Yellow Bicycle Christmas line from last year. I'm so glad that I finally used some of this beautiful line. The photo was taken when Sara and Sammy met up with Santa at Southworks a few weeks ago. They were delighted to just 'bump' into him as we were walking through the mall.

Join us over at the Scrapping Turtle to see what my fellow Design Team members created for my challenge. They are fabulous!!!!

December Turtle Reveal Day

Today was the Design Team Reveal Day at the Scrapping Turtle. This month we worked with lines from Kaisercraft. I've had the pleasure of playing with the Lilac Avenue line. Love it!!!! The double sided papers are beautiful and the embellishments are fabulous!!! There are black and white rub ons, colour rub ons, die cut elements, alpha stickers, embroidered patches, inks, stamps, and brads that coordinate with the line.

In addition to my Sneak Peek from earlier in the month, I created two layouts and a set of three altered items.

Make A Wish:

Products used: Bazzill cardstock, Lilac Avenue Wisteria, Lilac Avenue Die Cut Elements, Kaisercraft Rhinestone Strips (purple), Stampabilities Just Dandy and Dandelion Wish, Copic Markers, Gelly Roll Clear Star pen, Zig marker, Ranger Distress Ink Black Soot, Quickutz Grass border die

Friends:

Products used: Lilac Avenue Sweet Pea, Lilac Avenue Violet, Lilac Avenue Dandelion, Lilac Avenue Snap Dragon, Lilac Avenue Inks (Amethyst and Splice), Lilac Avenue Rub Ons, Lilac Avenue Die Cut Elements, Lilac Avenue Brads, Lilac Avenue Alpha Stickers, Bazzill cardstock, Quickutz Scallop border and Nesting Flowers dies, Bazzill paper flowers, Maya Mist (Amethyst Metallic), Kaisercraft Rhinestone Strips (purple), Zig marker

Friendship Gift Bag:

Products used: Lilac Avenue Lavender, Lilac Avenue Violet, Lilac Avenue Sweet Pea, Lilac Avenue Brad, Bazzill cardstock, Fiskars Treading Water border punch, Epic Six Exclusive Die, Maya Mist (Amethyst Metallic), Quickutz Nesting Circles dies, ribbon from bulk wall

Friendship Gift Bookmark:

Products used: Bazzill cardstock, We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, Lilac Avenue Ink (Splice), Lilac Avenue Wisteria, Lilac Avenue Sweet Pea, Lilac Avenue Rub Ons

Friendship Gift Tree:

Products used: styrofoam cone, Maya Mist (Amethyst Metallic), Lilac Avenue Lavender, Lilac Avenue Sweet Pea, Lilac Avenue Dandelion, Lilac Avenue Rub Ons, ribbon from the bulk wall, Gelly Roll Clear Star pen, Quickutz Nesting Circles and Nesting Stars dies

I hope you will visit the Scrapping Turtle forum to see what the rest of the DT ladies did with their lines. Fantabulous!!!!

Letterpress Giveaway

Have you heard about the new Letterpress? It's designed to be used with the new Quickutz Epic 6 tool and involves printing word or designs with ink while debossing the design or words into thick soft paper. It will make your projects look elegant and stylish.

Interested?

Lifestyle Crafts has a fabulous giveaway going on right now. The winner will receive the L Letterpress Combo Kit which includes: 

L Letterpress

Epic Six Letterpress and Die-cutting Tool

Clear Packing Mat with Grid

Paper Placement Guides

Ink Base

Brayer

Ten A2 flat cards

Nine Printing Plates

Tube of Black Ink

Circle Cutting Dies

PLUS a custom printing plate valued at $39.99!!!! Isn't that amazing?

Check it out here to find out how you can enter and get up to three chances to win this fantastic giveaway.

QA Cards

One Saturday per month Lori at the Scrapping Turtle brings us a fabulous Quickutz class for the Quickutz Anonymous members. She creates fantastic layouts, cards and calendar pages using a variety of Quickutz dies -- often finding unique ways to use the die on the projects. I still need to add photos to several of the calendar pages and some of the layouts before I can photograph them, but I do have a few of the recent cards to share with you.

This pretty Autumn card was created in our October class (if I remember correctly). I love how Lori had us use the negative part of the die cut image (tree) for this card. 

In November Lori brought us three wonderful cards to create. 

This fabulous snowman card used stamped acetate, glitter paper and a Snow Marker that puffs up when you heat it with a heat gun. The sentiment says "Every snowflake brings to mind how special you are - you're one of a kind!". Isn't it a cute card?

This Christmas card is absolutely gorgeous!!! I love how it sparkles and shines. The photo just doesn't do it justice. Like I said, it's gorgeous!!!

I love this fun card using some of the Paper Doll dies from Quickutz. What a unique idea!!! I told you Lori finds creative ways to use the dies --- I never would have thought to use just the legs and feet to create a card, but this one is fabulous!!!!

I haven't yet taken pictures of our December QA class projects. I'll get those up as soon as I do. I'm already looking forward to our next QA class to see what wonderful creations Lori will have for us :) Thanks Lori!!!

December Product Highlight of the Month

For the month of December the Scrapping Turtle product highlight are the fabulous Maya Mists. I have had some fun playing with the Maya Mists on two projects so far this month. I used Maya Mist for the flowers on my sneak peek layout and I also created this layout that I really love. 

I used the negative part of the tree border die cut (Quickutz) as a mask (I actually cut out three of them) and spritzed the white cardstock with the green Maya Mists to create the background trees. I also spritzed the green cardstock to add a little extra sheen. I then attached the green trees to the cardstock so that the Maya Mist trees were like a shadow behind them. I added some snow using my white pen. I finished the layout off with some photos of Sara in the snow and some American Crafts Thickers. I am very pleased with how this layout turned out.

Maya Mists are on sale at the Scrapping Turtle for the entire month of December. Pop in and grab some today.

The Character Cafe

The Character Cafe is having a blog hop to celebrate the release of their latest images. It is called the 12 Hops of Christmas. The images are all fabulous and the projects all of the ladies have created are wonderful. 

To start the blog hop, go to The Character Cafe's store. Read all about the great blog hop and what you need to do to win the fabulous prize that is up for grabs. Then follow the links to hop through the blogs in order until you reach The Character Cafe's blog. Make sure you do all the blogs in the correct order AND leave comments along the way :)

Turtle Sneak Peek

Today was Sneak Peek day at the Scrapping Turtle. It is usually the first of the month, but this month we extended the anticipation for a few extra days. This month I am working with the beautiful Lilac Avenue line from KaiserCraft. All of the papers are double sided and there are alpha stickers, die cut elements, rub ons (in both black and white and colour), brads, embroidered badges, inks, and stamps to coordinate with the line. KaiserCraft also has bling and flowers too.

Since my wedding colour was purple, I was inspired to create a wedding layout with this line. The flowers were sprayed with Maya Mist to coordinate with the layout. For my sneak peek I used:

 
Lilac Avenue Snap Dragon 
Lilac Avenue Sweet Pea 
Lilac Avenue Brads 
Lilac Avenue Amethyst Ink 
Lilac Avenue Alpha Stickers 
KaiserCraft Rhinestones purple 
Maya Mist Amethyst Metallic Mist 
Bazzill bling cardstock 
Bazzill Paper Flowers (Tropical White and Gerb French Vanilla) 
Brad from the bulk wall 
Quickutz Scallops border, Vine border, and Bride & Groom

Copic markers

Please visit the Scrapping Turtle to see the fabulous Sneak Peeks created by my fellow Design Team members. They all did a fantastic job with their lines!!!

Stampin' Up Workshop

This past Sunday I hosted a Stampin' Up party with my awesome demonstrator Denise. She designed three great projects for us. We had such a great time together. The projects were fabulous, the company was out of this world, the conversation was uplifting, the snacks were delicious. It was a great afternoon all around.

 Check out these great projects that we did.

Isn't this one gorgeous? The colours, those snowflakes. The snowflake circles are heat embossed and look very pretty --- the photo doesn't do them justice.

I love the colours on this card. It is so pretty. I already sent it off to one lucky recipient --- I hope she likes it.

This is a cute Post It note holder. There's a whole pad of Post It Notes inside. Love it!!!!

Thanks to Denise and my wonderful friends (including my Mom) who made my workshop such a great success!!!

Check out Denise's website here.

November Mystery Kit

I had a fabulous time working with this month's Mystery Kit from the Scrapping Turtle. What an amazing combination of supplies --- such a beautiful kit!!!! Everything you see on this layout was part of the kit, with the exception of the cardstock and the ink. You can't really see it in the photo, but there is clear plastic in the centre of each of the paisleys (on top of the patterned paper).

I call this layout "Relax, Savor, Enjoy" because of the ribbon. That seems, to me, to perfectly describe this photo of my Sara.

November Product Challenge Layout

I finally created my layout with the November product challenge kit from Two Scrapbook Friends. I really enjoyed this kit using some Scenic Route paper, Sassafras letters, and Bo Bunny dotted cardstock. It was perfect for this photo of Sara playing in the leaves.

House Mouse Shaker Cards

I was so lucky today!!!! I got to spend part of the day at the Scrapping Turtle with some wonderful friends creating six fantastic cards. I took Bev's amazing House Mouse Shaker card class and had so much fun!!!!! Bev designed fabulous cards that are so much fun to create. We coloured House Mouse stamps with Copic markers  (two of my favourite things by the way), heat embossed the corners of the shaker box mats, and created these cute little shaker boxes. Inside each shaker box is some glittery snow. I love them so much I don't want to give them away, but Gary says I have to. I wonder who will get one?

Here are a couple of the cards that we made today, to give you an idea of how amazing Bev is.

Thanks Bev!!!! You rock!!!!

Bohemian Rhapsody

I love the Muppets and have for as long as I can remember. I have been a fan of the genius of Jim Henson my whole life. My favourite Muppet is Animal, but I truly love them all (well, Miss Piggy isn't exactly at the top of the list). 

Here's a fun video of the Muppets doing Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody (love it!!!!!). You can view it on YouTube here.

Man I love these guys!!!!

(Thanks to Shelley for sharing this)

Thanksgiving Wishes!!!

Wishing a safe, happy and joy filled Thanksgiving to all of my friends and family in the U.S.!!! I hope your day and your lives are richly blessed.

Although we celebrated Thanksgiving here in Canada in October, I'd still like to take a moment to list some things that I'm thankful for. Tara gave me the idea for this. She posted a challenge on her blog for today, asking us to name five things we are grateful for right now.

1. My family --- Gary, Sara and Samuel, my Mom,  my brothers and SILs, my cousins, and the rest of my extended family.

2. My friends --- both the ones I see on a regular basis, the ones I only see occasionally, and those I only see online.

3. The support of my family and friends -- I wouldn't be able to get through without you.

4. My Mom surviving her heart attack with such a good prognosis. I am so relieved to still have her with us. Love you Mom!!!

5. Most importantly --- my Lord and Saviour, without whom none of this would be possible. He is my rock, my strength, and my salvation. I love you Lord!!!

God bless you all!!!

Projects

I've been meaning to post these for awhile, but it kept slipping my mind. I created these projects in August for my Design Team application at the Scrapping Turtle. I tried to use a lot of Quickutz on my projects. I was accepted to the team, so I guess my projects were a hit LOL.

Layouts:

Card:

Altered Project (I love this paint can):

Blog Candy

Crafty Dragons is celebrating her first Design Team post with some yummy blog candy. Check it out and find out how to qualify for your chance to win by going to her blog here.

Rusty Pickle Digi Stamps

Did you know that Rusty Pickle has a fabulous line of digi stamps? You can see them all here. They also have their first ever Design Team for their digital stamps and are doing a special giveaway to celebrate the DT reveal. It is happening today, tomorrow and Wednesday. You can start at my friend Billie's blog and follow the links to all of the other fabulous blogs to see what they've done with these wonderful digi stamps.

Have fun!!!!

Have You Visited?

Our Spooktacular Friday the 13th online crop at the Scrapping Turtle? We have challenges, games and a great make and take. The crop is ongoing all this week, so please pop in and join in the fun.

I have two games and three challenges in the crop. My first challenge is the Harley Inspiration challenge. I have posted two Harley Davidson ads for inspiration. You get one ballot for completing a project based on one of the ads, two ballots if you do a project for each ad. I did a layout for the first ad and a card for the second ad.

My second challenge is It's All About Colour. You must create a project using only black, white, pink, blue and silver -- and there must be something metallic on your project as well. I used metallic silver ribbon and silver paper on my card. I used my Threading Water punch on this card.

My third challenge is the Punch It challenge. You must use at least three punches on your project. Here is the card I created as an example. I love this pumpkin stamp by Art Gone Wild.

I am still working on the challenges posted by my fellow Design Team members. Good thing I have the rest of the week to complete them LOL. So far I have completed Mellissa' Layout Sketch challenge. She posted a layout and added the requirements of black and white photo and the colours orange and black. There is a bonus for using Basic Grey paper. I used Basic Grey Indian Summer for my layout, along with lots of Bazzill cardstock, Doodlebug alpha stickers, and my Quickutz Bracket border and Nesting Leaf dies.

Please join us in the forum and give some of the challenges a try. We'd love to see what you create.

November Design Team Reveal

Yesterday was the big reveal day for our November Design Team work at the Scrapping Turtle. I had a lot of fun playing with the Fancy Pants Little Sprout line. I still have lots of supplies left over so I'm not done creating with it yet.

Here are my projects for this month:

Three layouts:

A wall hanging:

And a card:

Please visit the Scrapping Turtle to see what my fellow Design Team members designed with their kits this month.

November DT Kit

Well here it is the 15th of November and that means it is Reveal day for the Scrapping Turtle Design Team's November projects. I was thinking about that when it suddenly hit me --- I forgot to post my sneak peek from the 1st here on the blog. So before my reveal is ... well ... revealed, here is my sneak peek.

This month I have had so much fun playing with the adorable Little Sprout line from Fancy Pants. I love these fabulous double sided papers. The line also includes title strips, stickers, journaling cards, ribbon, rub ons, and fantastic glitter cuts. Love it!!!!!

Here is my sneak peek:

In addition to the patterned papers, I used Bazzill cardstock, a glitter cut, and my Quickutz Scallop border die. I hand cut the flower and pop dotted it on the page. I alsto hand cut the journaling block from one of the journaling cards and pop dotted it. 

Remember

Thank you.

To all those who have fought for our freedom and made this country the great one that it is today.

Thank you.

For the sacrifices you made so that we may know freedom and democracy.

Thank you.

For protecting us.

Thank you.

For giving your all in service of your country.

Thank you.

To our veterans and to those currently serving in the protection of our freedom.

God bless you all.

Economic Stimulus Challenge Week 8

Carolyn gave us another wonderful challenge this week at the Scrapping Turtle. She called this one "Something". 

We were required to use:

1. something inky

2. something see through

3. something shiny

4. something purple

5. something Reminisce

For my layout to meet the challenge requirements, I

1. inked the edges of the papers, including the torn edge of the title piece

2. used a Little Yellow Bicycle Clear Cut over one of the photos

3. added Stickles to the title, used a Clear Cut with glitter, and used paper that was shiny

4. used papers that had purple in them, used ribbon with a purple edge

5. used Reminisce I Want Candy and Spooktacular papers

Here is the card I made with my scraps. I also used a Hero Arts stamp:

Thanks for the challenge Carolyn!!!!