HMITM + WIP = Fun

Our current challenge at How Much Is Too Much coincided with the receipt of my February Work in Progress kit, and our challenge just seemed to be made for the October Afternoon Modern Homemaker stuff that was in the add-on kit. Our challenge? To scrap about our favorite drink and to use:

5 embellishments

4- patterned papers
3- word title
2- circles ( can be buttons or brads)
1- photo

The perfect opportunity to scrap about my tea obsession. As it turns out, I had just recently made this layout documenting my favorite tea, so I decided to add a twist to the challenge and scrap about my tea cupboard. The photo turned out kind of blah so I added a diffuse filter to it. I always have a hard time with the challenges that limit the number of supplies, so I was a little "flexible," with my interpretation of the 5 embellishments--1) the chipboard lady, 2) the tags, 3)the cluster at the bottom, 4) the vintage tea ad, 5) the hidden journaling card.

And some details... The OA chipboard lady was such a fun embellishment. She's quite large for my 8 x 8 page, so I decided I'd make her a big part of my design. I've placed her so that she's doing a sort of Vanna White on my cupboard. I adorned her apron and her collar and added a pearl earring.

I tucked a Making Memories journaling card that came in the kit behind the checkered paper to hold my story, which reads:

Every afternoon, I come home and open my tea cupboard and decide which tea I'm going to enjoy that night. Right now, I have exactly 64 different teas. Sometimes I'll drink one flavor all evening, cup after cup; other days, if I'm in the mood for variety, I'll select a bunch of different ones. Opening my tea cabinet every afternoon makes me happy. {Journaled January 27, 2011}

I found the vintage Lipton ad at The Graphics Fairy. I recently found her and she has the most awesome vintage images and shares a new one each day--for free! What a generous soul! And how cute is that little OA chipboard scale? I've been loving pearls lately--so easy to add that little extra shine and dimension.

Love the pretty satin bow that came with the WIP Project kit (I got all three this month!) and used it to adorn one of the tags I used to hold my title.

Come see what the rest of the HMITM team did for this fun challenge, and I hope you'll play along! The WIP kits are still available, so snag yours while they last! This was such a fun kit. The WIP Gallery will go live tomorrow, so I'll share more layouts in the coming days. Thank you for stopping by my blog and reading about my page!
 

A Lovely Juxaposition at Color Combos Galore

Last night, Challenge 177 went live at Color Combos Galore! This week, we have a lovely juxtaposition of fresh spring color and the drama of black and white. I think the names I gave the colors are especially fun this week:

Here's the page I made. I always find it a fun challenge to find just the right colors, and I found the perfect teal the Bloom & Grow collection from My Mind's Eye. For the black and white papers, I cut out pieces from a couple of Teresa Collins papers (the damask and the frames), and the houdstooth is an old CherryArte paper. The banner is from My Mind's Eye's Fine and Dandy collection. I love mixing old and new stuff. I even dug out some old Autumn Leaves papers (the yellow behind the teal).

Our Designer's Challenge was to use flowers, metal, and lace. I have so many flowers, it was easy to find just the right colors. For the metal, I knew I wanted to use this little frame I got from Michael's eons ago--from that Card Connection line that was popular, and I added a chipboard heart under the glass. The Chatterbox chipboard was just the right shade of yellow.

I trimmed a banner from the Fine and Dandy paper and added it under the flowers. It's funny, I've had this bit of lace sitting on my desk for months, not knowing what to do with it, and it turned out to be the perfect size for this page.



I added another bit of metal up near the title. My sister and I stumbled onto a Hobby Lobby about a month ago when we were going on a "field trip" to a LSS an hour and a half away--I didn't even know we had that store so close to us! They were having a 40% off sale on almost every scrapbook supply, and I filled up my cart, including these pretty metal flower brads.

The letters are BasicGrey and I thought the color was close enough. I LOVE these microchip letters and I buy them whenever I see them because they're the perfect size for my 8 x 8 pages.

I found these pretty layered chipboard butterflies by K&Co at Michael's recently.

I love to tuck little phrase stickers onto my page here and there. This one's from an old sheet of stickers by Creative Imaginations that look sort of like fortune cookie sayings.

I added a little color with BasicGrey pearls to this damask design I cut out.

Thank you for stopping by and reading about my layout. Head over to CCG and take a look at the beautiful pages from our design team and guest designers. I hop you'll play along. There's an awesome prize to be won, provided by our sponsor, Stash to Treasure.

Pieces of Me

So our challenge over at Creative Prompts for You this week is an All Play, and each member of my team had to contribute a piece of the challenge. Here's what we came up with:

Nicole - POP IT! (use pop dots for your photos or make those embellishments pop)
Me - Use ledger paper and polka dot paper
Wendy - use your fingerprints on your project
Natalie - use lots of ribbon

Wendy's challenge about the fingerprints threw me. I was majorly stumped. And then it came to me, and here's what I came up with. I used Studio Calico's Who's Who kit, plus one of the add-ons and some bits from my stash to make my page.

Since I'm a "let it all hang out" sort of person, I'll share my journaling that's tucked into the pockets, in case you care to read it:

I like my hair--the strawberry-blond color, especially how it looks in the sunshine. And I like that it's curly, except for when it has a mind of its own. Oh, and except for now it's getting white, and I'm afraid to start coloring it. I like the color of my eyes and how they sort of change color depending on what I wear. I like my eyelashes and the shape of my eyebrows, even though Mom keeps telling me I should wax them or at least pluck them. But I like my bushy eyebrows, thank you very much. I like the basic shape of my body--the one I'd have if I were thin. I like my hands and fingernails, when they're polished. Mostly, I like my brain. I'm smart and creative. I'm starting to not mind my Flintstone feet now that I'm getting pedicures. I hate my fat thighs and hips. I hate that I'm busty. I hate the moles on my face, and I'm happy I got the ones I despised on my neck removed. I hate that my teeth take after Mom's so that I have to have two bridges to cover the gaps. I hate that my nose is red and I have to cover it with bisque before I can apply foundation. I hate that I'm getting wrinkly, but I'm grateful that I've stayed out of the sun so I'm not as wrinkly as some of the people my age. I used to hate my nose wrinkles until I found out they were nose crinkles from smiling and laughing. I hate my knees that hurt from carrying around excess weight for too long, though they're getting better as I lose weight. I'm looking forward to making a more positive layout when I reach my goal weight. {Journaled January 18, 2011}

Here are a couple of close-ups:
 
I just love the tiny micro letters that BasicGrey is making--so good for my small pages. How adorable are those little animals from the Sassafras Las Papers? I had to cut a few out and have them peeking out from different spots on my layout.
 

 
I used embossing powder for the stamped bookshelf and then mounted it with pop dots. The chipboard pieces layered on the flower are Sass, too.
 

Love these new pockets from Ki Memories! I got the butterfly images somewhere online, printed them on photo paper, cut them out and put them on with pop dots.

Here you can spot my thumbprint under the word "of" in my title. There's another one of those Sass animals peeking out. I added a pearl to his hat.

 
Mor pics of those happy little peeking creatures.
 

The ribbon part of the challenge was hard for me, too. I have SO much ribbon, but I hardly ever use it. This was a fun excuse to dig some out. I added some tabs at the top of my page.

 
Thank you for visiting today. Pop over to CP4U and see all the awesome creations by the rest of the team--they were WAY more creative with the fingerprint prompt than I was!
 
And I hope you'll give the challenge a whirl. You have until the end of January to submit your creation based on this challenge. This month's winner will be randomly selected of all the participant entries for the entire month. This month's prize is a $20 gift certificate to the scrapbook store of YOUR choice in either the US or Canada!

All Caught Up in the Reverie

We have a new challenge up at Color Combos Galore! Here's some music to set the mood.



Here's the Inspiration Board:

And here's the page I made, for my book called "Reasons," which documents all the little reasons I love my husband.

I drew some clouds, cut them out and embossed them with my Cuttlebug and then distressed the edges with my Zutter Distrezz-It-All that I got for Christmas. (I'm still trying to get the hang of it, as you can see at the bottom of my layout!)

I've had these gold Hambly rubs in my stash forever and finally opened the package for this layout.

And of course I had to use my Reason No. stamp from Catslife Press. I used Stampendous Moonstone embossing powder.

I love these blue glittery foam Thickers and combined them with some old Doodlebug letters, which are the perfect size for a longer title.

Come see what the rest of the team, along with our guest designers from Stash to Treasure, our January sponsor, created, and I hope you'll play along!

Thank you for stopping by!

More Work in Progress Layouts

January is getting away from me! Here are some other pages I made with the January Work in Progress kits. Speaking of WIP kits, the February kits are up for sale--the add on and project kits are already sold out, but the main kit hasn't yet sold out--gotta grab your WIP kits quick, as they usually go fast! Here's a peek at the February main kit -- you can see the entire kit and list of contents here.

So here are the other layouts I made with the January kit. Lately, Maggie, my old lady cat, has been tearing around the house and then she just flops on the floor, like she ran out of gas. Not the greatest pictures of her on my kitchen floor, but I wanted to document this little quirk about her.

The kit came with a really cool item--a Jenni Bowlin paint dabber. I used it on the embossed circles on this cardstock. So fun to play with! The black polka dot thingamajig at the top of my layout is cut of the edge of one of the journaling spots included in the kit.

I used another bit from that same journaling spot to tuck behind the paper. LOVE those fancy BasicGrey brads that came in the kit. Such yummy colors and perfect with the happy Crate Paper colors.

I cut a little bird from one of the papers and perched him inside the o of my title.

Here's another page I made mixing the January Main and Project kits. I journaled on the back about how my husband keeps these rugs in the closet all year so the cats don't scratch them, but takes them out on Christmas when we sit on the cold floor and open our presents.

Some closeups...I used the chipboard circle to frame the rug and also hold the title. I added some pen work to the chipboard pieces.

Trish always includes nifty trims in her kits, and I added a bit to the chipboard tree.

Finally, here's a page I created using the main kit for this blog post I made about Storypeople. If you've never been properly introduced to Storypeople, you must go meet them now!

I had some shoes like this back in the 80's, and I wore them until they were no longer wearable and then could never find another pair--until a couple of months ago. I was so excited that I bought three pairs! (Don't want to have to wait another two and a half decades again when this pair wears out!) So, when my husband saw them, he started looking for a pair, but couldn't find any. I found a pair for him online and suprised him at Christmas. We wore our shoes to my sister's house on Christmas, and she snapped this photo. I added a shadowy edge to it in Picnik. (Sorry for the crummy photo--weather forced me to take it indoors.)

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look at my pages!

A Warm and Invigorating Palette at Color Combos Galore

Challenge #175 is live at Color Combos Galore! We have an energizing palette and a Designer's Challenge that will make you feel all warm and cozy!

Here is the page I made, documenting my new favorite tea, Bogart Blend by Leland Tea Company. It is AMAZING and you must try it! I used Picnik to posterize my photo. I had to photograph my layout indoors again, so please pardon the imperfect image.

My layout was inspired by this Sketch #137 from Creative Scrappers:

I just had to use those cute little birds in a teacup from a Webster's Pages paper. I added some Stickles and an orange pearl to the top of the bird's hat.

The dark green threw me at first, and then I decided to add the cardstock circle and found a dark green BasicGrey fabric brad and added some greenery to the flower at the bottom.

Once I added the sparkles to the teacup, I needed more sparkle, so I added some Heidi Swapp bling to the photograph and a jeweled swirl over the lanterns I'd cut out of another Webster's Page paper.

The chipboard piece is from Crate Paper's Restoration collection, and I added some orange pearls. I love trying to mix some older stash with newer stuff, and I used this rub-on and the Making Memories definition sticker that I've had forever.

I love the look of white space, but whenever I try to leave some on my page, it always feels empty. Maybe it's because I scrap 8 x 8 and have to crowd things into such a small space. Anyway, the white space at the top was bothering me, so I added the punched piece at the top with pop dots. I thought it gave the illusion of white space and also added a little canopy to top of my page.

Thank you for looking at my page. Head over to CCG--this week's reveal has got to be one of my favorite yet! We have lots of guest designers from Stash to Treasure, our January sponsor, and be sure to read about the awesome prize up for grabs on the main page.