Paper Jewels and Critter Challenge Blog Hop

Due to some issues at blogger... we have extended the deadline until Wednesday at 10am est.

Hoppy Monday! Welcome to the blog hop that has been sponsored by both Paper Jewels and the Critter Challenge Blog.

I hope you are enjoying this fabulous Blog Hop! You should have arrived here from Tracey - if you didn't, please don't hesitate to hop right on over the Critter Challenge Blog - to start. You don't want to miss out on any of the prizes you might find... there are several "Eggs" to find and in order to win a prize you have to comment on all of the DT's blogs AND participate in the challenge posted on the Critter Challenge Blog!!

I hope you join us, and make sure you post your creation on Critter Challenge Blog by Wednesday at 10am EST.

All winners will be placed on the Critter Challenge Blog in the evening on Thursday. Please check back on the Critter blog to see if you won.

Thanks for visiting.. now hop on over to check out Darsie's creation!

Critter Challenge Blog - Challenge #7

I know, I know.. normally the Critter Challenges start on Monday... but we are a day early because we have an exciting blog hop happening tomorrow. This gives you an extra day to get your creation for this week done!

So.. normally I'm much better prepared, but with the kids getting ready for Spring Break (woohoo!!) I didn't get my design made until late this past week. But I am so glad I waited. I went to a weekly crop night at my LSS and found this lone piece of paper (Basic Grey - Offbeat - Carefree) sitting on the sale table. I picked it up and thought.. eww.. what on earth would you do with that. I put it down and got working on the pages I'd brought with me. While sitting there.. I remembered this photo I had.. last year, while staying with an Aunt.... my youngest discovered birds. He spent hours, looking, reading, learning about birds... this little guy was his favourite! So I jumped up and scooped the paper... my mom's response.. "What on earth are you going to do with that?" I reminded her about Carsyn's infatuation with the Pine Siskins. She was skeptical, but trusted me.

This has become my favourite layout. With the awesome sketch provided from the Critter Challenge Blog I created a layout my son loves and will treasure remembering all that he learned about this tiny bird.

Thanks for visiting... make sure you play along.... and join us tomorrow for the Paper Jewels/Critter Challenge Blog Hop!!

Supplies:
Basic Grey - Offbeat - Carefree
Basic Grey - Bittersweet - Belgian (from my scraps)
White - from my scraps
DCVW - Metallic Blue
Ribbon - DCVW
Everything is inked with Versa - Pinecone

Critter Challenge #6 - Life Imitates Art

Technically it isn't my week to post.. but I love to play along... so here is my 'thoughts' on the

Critter Challenge Blog's Challenge #6

The challenge was to use the colours from Donald Duck to inspire your creation.

I was going to do a picture of Donald's Boat from Disneyland... but thought that would be too easy!

Here is my darling husband emulating the Lego creation.

There is still time to play over at the Critter Challenge Blog... so head on over there and enter to win a fabulous prize from Paper Jewels!

Goofy's Kitchen

Here is a quick and easy layout using more of the LOTWs (letter of the words) that I did for a swap on Split Coast Stampers.

We absolutely loved Goofy's Kitchen and while it was an expensive dinner, we are so glad we did it. This was Carsyn's birthday dinner and the boys had such a blast interacting with all of the characters. We were one of the last tables there, so they got a lot of attention.

More layouts detailing our fun night coming soon!

Critter Challenge Blog - Challenge #5

For this week at the Critter Challenge Blog, our fearless leader - Melanie (have you checked out her blog yet? if not.. you should - she will provide you with lots of inspiration), provided us with a sketch. There were not extra rules, additions, colours.. just the sketch. She did ask that we create our card or scrapbook page as is. Meaning, we were not allowed to flip the sketch, we had to create it as it was.

Here is my take on the sketch. This is a picture of my boys on their way up into Tarzan's Tree House at Disneyland. The paper is from a stack that I've had from when I started scrapping... I believe it is American Traditional Designs. I inked everything to distress it... the "Brother and Friend" tag (sorry not sure who it is made by) is acetate that I put over a piece of white paper and popped up. The brads came from the dollar store (I'm a cheap scrapper!)

And here's the sketch.........

Don't forget to play along with us at the Critter Challenge Blog because we

have a fabulous sponsor for the month of March (and different fabulous sponsors all year long!!) If you haven't been to the Paper Jewels store yet, you should.. Jenny has amazing prices and just recently added new stamps and also a few embellishments. which are super cheap... even cheaper than my LSS which is known for its low prices!


Play along....... check out our sponsors..... check out our fabulous DT (their blogs are all listed on the left!)

Blog Hop Coming Soon!!

Look what's coming.. are you ready? More details coming!

Critter Sketch Challenge #4

This adorable card suits the theme at Critter Sketch Challenge Blog.

The challenge this week is "to make a card using an image that has a flower in it. The image itself can be a flower or it can be an image that has a flower somewhere in it. The second part of the challenge is to use the color combo of blue, yellow, and green."

Our sponsor Paper Jewels has some really cute images with flowers in them. However, you do NOT need to use one of their images.

I chose to use the adorable Mimo with Roses image. He's just so cute!!

Challenges Entered!

ColourQ - cQc #23 - Tangerine Tango, Tempting Turquoise, Curry, Old Olive, White

Cupcake Craft Challenges - #81 - Flower Power
Pixie Cottage - Green
Creative Belli Challenge - #86 Eyelets

Love is in the Air

So my online friend Tracey sent me a PM the other day "Can I Recruit You?" She is one of the very talented ladies on the Sew Many Cards Scrapbooking Layout DT. She was challenged to recruit at least one person to play along with this weeks challenge... I was honoured that she asked me!

The challenge was to use an old.. or new technique... the technique I used was to use ink to give dimension. First I cut the leaves out on the cuttlebug, then ran them through the embossing folder and then took 4 different colours and inked them to make them look more real. I also inked the edges of the stamp - and used the ink pad to soften the "white" of the paper. If you don't have a Pinecone Ink from Versa then I suggest you purchase one - it is simply the best colour for inking anything!

So here is a layout I did of my hubby and I. These pictures were taken last fall while we were at the pumpkin patch. I absolutely love them.. and that is saying a lot as I rarely like pictures of me. Must be the good camera! :)

Ready, Set, Splash

Here are some more pictures from the Shamu show. The boys wanted to sit in the "Splash Zone". Not me... so we sat up high and the boys went down and watched the show upfront!

The boys don't look soaking wet as they had dried off a little before I got the last picture. But they loved every minute of it!!


Products Used:
Coordinations Cardstock
Bazill Bling for the letters
CTMH Star paper

"Believe" - Shamu

Here is some of the pictures from the Shamu show called "Believe". It was totally amazing and I just love watching these magnificent animals interact with their trainers. The story behind this show was captivating.

Penguins!!

I've been in LOVE with penguins since I was 11 years old.. they are my life and there isn't one place in my house that you won't see a penguin somewhere! I love them so much that my whole wedding theme was based around penguins, from the cake topper to the tiara I wore, everything was penguins! :)

So.. when we hit Seaworld, I didn't care if we didn't see anything else but the penguins! This was definitely a highlight of my trip, we were so close we could almost touch them. I was sad that I couldn't get any pictures of them in the Arctic environment, as it was their winter time it was just too dark with my crappy little camera.

I bought this paper at Seaworld. So cute!

I really wish I could have my own penguin as a pet.

Angel's Baseball

One of the things we set up to do before we left was to purchase tickets to an Angel's Baseball game. Four tickets, in right field, cost us $28. Seriously, I can see why Baseball is America's game when it is this cheap to go. Heck, I could guarantee I would become a fan if I could take my family for less than $30. Now, the food on the other hand.. that was ridiculous. It cost us $80 for lunch. No, that isn't a typo... eighty dollars for 3 burgers, 1 chickenstrips, 4 fries, 4 drinks. It was so stinking hot (hottest day of our trip at 92F) .. we had to buy two drinks for everyone.. so food purchases was $100. OUCH!! But it was a nice, relaxing day and the boys and I got to experience something new.

We had one of the security guards take our picture outside of the stadium. The boys even surprised us... they had a chance to run on the bases, but didn't want to stand in line, in the heat, and they decided it that they were hot and ready to head back to the pool. Thank goodness!!

Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty

So here we are.... March is here.. can you believe it??

I'm back to photos from our trip to Southern California. Be on the lookout for more layouts from Disneyland, Anaheim Angels Baseball Game, and SeaWorld. Maybe by the end of the month I'll even be working on our Legoland pictures. You'll have to wait and see!

Here are the pics and autographs from Cinderella and Princess Aurora... Sleeping Beauty to us oldies!!

I absolutely love the picture of Carsyn looking up at Cinderella.... he thought she was pretty cute and was all flustered when she was talking to him. We loved the one on one interaction we got from all of the characters at Goofy's Kitchen!

Wii Love Christmas #2

Another page from a swap. Last month I used a two page layout to show these pictures. This time I chose just one page.

Critter Sketch Challenge #3

Wow! Can you believe we are already at week 3 at the Critter Challenge Blog!! That also means that it is time for Challenge #3!!

This week is also exciting because it kicks off our sponsorship month with Paper Jewels.

Paper Jewels is an amazing, fun new store that has wonderful customer service. They carry Bildmalarna images which are out of this world precious. Proud owner, Jenny, is now taking pre-orders for Ching-Chou and Kiuks Fantasy Art collection. Jenny has a wonderful store and her customer service is TOP NOTCH!!! Paper Jewels also hosts monthly challenges so if your a challenge type of girl pop over to her challenge blog and check it out.

At the end of March you'll have a chance to win a gift certificate from Paper Jewels.

Play along each week to increase your chances to win (see the Critter Sketch Blog for more details.)

Another important person to introduce you to is our fabulous guest sketch designer Kelly Haberstroh. Kelly is an Air Force wife and the mother to two beautiful little girls. She is a substitute teacher and Stampin' Up addict!! Kelly has amazing talent and you'll love seeing her work. Along with being a Stampin' fool, she created the amazing sketch for us to play with this week. THANK YOU KELLY!!!! Love Ya!!

Here is my project. These pictures were from our trip to San Diego's Sea World last summer. All of this paper is from my stash. The title was glittered using the "Warm" ultra fine glitter, I the camera seems to have picked up the "blue" tones, but "in real life" it is more orange/pink in colour. The font was cut with my Cricut - the Winnie the Pooh Font - Marker.