You Make Me Smile {Bramble Fox NSD Challenge}

Bramble Fox is having a huge event for National Scrapbooking Day this year, with loads of fun challenges called "Can't Live Without." Each design team member is posting a challenge to use one of her favorite products. My challenge is to use WORDS--word stickers, rub-on words, embellishments featuring words, text patterns, etc. I love how they add extra color and interest to my page and also help to convey the story I'm telling. They also do a great job of moving the viewer's eye around the page.

Here's a page I made for this challenge, another one for one of my students.

Here are some details. My first Bramble Fox Perspextive I used is this awesome smile frame. For those who've been following me for a while, you know I love monsters for scrappy pages, and Sassafras Lass' monsters are my all-time favorite. I added some words to my page in the form of speech bubbles I fussy-cut from patterned papers, as well as this frame.

More words in this shot--this fave tab, one of the Perspextives in a recent Fox Box. You should really subscribe to the Fox Box because each month you get a lovely assortment of embellishments.

These darling hearts from the Hearts Galore pack are a perfect accent for any page. I cut that frame from the Sassafras Lass monsters paper and added old Doodlebug rub-on letters for part of the title. Those letters are over 15 years old, but they rubbed on like butter! And seriously, how cute are these monsters?

Confession: This is one of my favorite papers ever, and I had bought 3 sheets, I think. I was so worried I'd run out of monsters, I went in search of this paper. I looked all over the internet until I found what was probably the last sheet--and it was in a pad of paper, so I bought a 20-dollar-plus-shipping pad of paper to get two sheets of these funky monsters!

So, I hope you'll come play in my challenge. If you have Perspextives, we'd love for you to use them on your page, but you don't have to have them to play--and this would be a perfect opportunity for you to win some of these amazing embellishments. The DT got to pick out the prizes for our challenges, and my pick is my very favorite Perspextive, Jar of Hearts:



Add your layout to my album on the Bramble Fox Friends Facebook page, for chance to win this lovely piece. You're welcome to combine this challenge with any other challenges out there--my other favorite challenges are Paper Issues challenges and CSI:  Color, Stories, Inspiration.

Oh, and as a bonus, there's a discount and a special



Each designer will award their favourite Perspextive set (plus some mystery pieces). Plus there will be overall winner who will receive this goodie bag of Perspextives.

Cuddle Moment {CSI Cold Case + Paper Issues Scraplift Sunday}

I made another page for CSI's February Cold Case, and I also played with Paper Issues' Scraplift Sunday challenge:

Here's Jennifer's amazing layout that we had to scraplift for this challenge. I fell in love with this the minute I saw it. I have that same scallop paper, and was hoping to use it, but then plans changed, as they often do when we sit down to scrap!

So, here's the Cold Case File--these new Case Files are intended for players to dig deep into their old stash.

And here are the clues:

Here are some details. When I made the clues for this Case File, I had in mind those owls from an old Sassafrass Lass paper, but when I sat down to scrap, I saw Jennifer's layout on my computer screen, and it made me think of the borders on Sassafras Lass' papers. I had this beautiful photo of my friend and her kids sitting on my scrap desk, and when I pulled out my Sass folder, there was the Indie Girl collection, and the colors and the vibe matched perfectly, so I went with these decade-old papers. I'm notorious for buying papers without pictures in mind, and the papers go unused until the perfect page comes along.

I found this old metal frame that had a vintage feel and the pink matched nicely with the Sass papers. That grid paper is also really old, by Scenic Route. Another clue was to use buttons. I have SO many buttons, so I knew I needed to take the opportunity to use some on my layout.

Old flowers were another clue, and boy are these old. Remember these old Prima flowers--they were probably the second kind of flowers they came out with--remember how they came in milk bottles? I fussy cut some flowers from an Indie Girl paper to make a cluster with the buttons and added some old K&Co. word stickers that perfectly matched the salmon color in the papers. I was pleased to find these blue Thickers that matched. I used the asterisks for the centers of the flowers.

I hope you'll come play in our challenges. Look at the sponsors we have donating prizes this month at CSI:

And come play with us at Paper Issues too. Besides the Scraplift Sunday challenge, there are lots of other challenges to play in at Paper Issues. You could win a gift certificate to the store! While you're over at the store, if you do make a purchase, please use my code, and you could get 20% off your entire order!

You Are Super Cool {Stuck?! Sketches May 1 Reveal}

We've got a new sketch up at Stuck? Sketches. As always, Laura made a super-cool sketch for us to play with:

I made another page to give to one of my students:

Here are some details. I cut out the super-hero monsters out of my all-time favorite Sassafras Lass Monstrosity paper. I have a thing for monsters on my scrapbook pages, and these are just so fun! When I saw that the green monster had a cape on him, I thought of super-heroes, and decided on the title You Are Super Cool. I based all my colors and product choices on those monsters. I think the background paper is from a BasicGrey paper pad. The other papers on my page came from my scraps drawers. I had to add googly eyes to my COOL word, which are old BasicGrey chipboard letters. The star is a clear sticker by Simple Stories.

That awesome circle chipboard piece is by 2Crafty--I have scads of their wonderful chipboard pieces from when I was on their design team. I colored it black with a Faber Castell PITT pen and added enamel dots to some of the circles. 

I used another clear sticker from Simple Stories on the tag--it was the perfect shade of yellow. I cut an old October Afternoon paper along some of the dots to create a zig-zag border. How perfect that I had that stripey fabric brad in my stash to match all the colors on my page!

I used some blue watercolors on the background and added some tiny black triangles from a Kaisercraft stamp, and at the last minute, I decided to add that #Cool in the corner, another clear sticker from the same Simple Stories pack as the other bits.

You'll want to come play with this awesome sketch. Not only will you have a blast, but you can also win a gift certificate from our generous sponsors:

Take Off {CSI Case File No. 134}

We've got a new Case File open for investigation at CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration:

Here's my page. This is my nephew and brother-in-law. Clues I used... Evidence: monsters, bird, space elements, transportation elements, metal,  stitching, circles, and darn-it I meant to add clouds but forgot! Testimony: Thank-you note.

Here are some details. Most of the stuff on here is really old.  I love the Sassassfras Lass Monstrosity paper so much that I searched all over the internet when I thought I was going to run out and paid a small fortune for what might have been the last pad of paper on earth just to get two sheets of the monsters. I added Glossy Accents to his eyes  to make them glossy and dimensional. The background was made with a Crafter's Workshop stencil and texture paste mixed with acrylic paint. That stamp is by We R Memory Keepers--I used embossing powder (sorry for the glare). That clip is by Evalicious. The blue grid paper is by Scenic Route.

The numbers in the sketch were a perfect element for this page. I used them as a sort of countdown to take-off. I couldn't make the pictures round, so I added the twine to frame my nephew and add a circle element.The yellow paper is by SEI and the orange ruler paper is by Crate Paper. The stars paper is My Mind's Eye.

The rocket die-cut is by Crate Paper. I added Glossy Accents to the rocket windows. The little chicken is sort of out of place, but the colors were perfect and I needed a bird for one of the clues, and it's sort of a fun and silly page, so I went with it. I was so irritated at myself for outlining my letters from right to left. I didn't realize I was smearing the ink on the e. Grrrr.... The dark blue sketchy paper is really old Autumn Leaves and the light blue with the dots is SEI.

The Let's Go Stamp is from that same We R Memory Keepers set. The arrow was cut out of an Echo Park paper. I decided not to trim the ends of my stitching off because I thought it gave my page some fun texture.

I hope you'll come join us for this fun Case File and definitely come check out what the rest of the team and guest designers made. Quirky Kits is sponsoring us this month, and if you play, you have a chance to win this awesome prize:

The Incredible Wandering Bone-Crunching Car {CSI Case File No. 83}

We have a new theme for August at CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration with a whole new set of Case Files. Here's the one we just opened for investigation:

I'm back with another episode of Tracee & Debbi's Excellent Adventures. Tracee's layout puts mine to shame, but I'll share hers here.

Clues I used for my page... Evidence: stripes, labels, tags, travel accents, jewels, stamps, circles, punches, grid pattern, ledger pattern (all of them!); Testimony: Document a journey (of sorts).

Here are some details. As always, I've used a mix of old and new(ish) on my page. I was so happy to find this BasicGrey brad in my stash! the background ledger paper is pretty old, by 7 Gypsies. The labels I used are mostly by October Afternoon. I had wanted to use a different, larger compass, but couldn't find space on my page. I found this little one by Hampton Arts in my stash.

I never pass up an opportunity to use a Sassafras Lass monster. I have a confession to make. This is one of my favorite papers ever, and I had bought 3 sheets, I think. I was so worried I'd run out of monsters, I went in search of this paper. I looked all over the internet until I found what was probably the last sheet--and it was in a pad of paper, so I bought a 20-dollar-plus-shipping pad of paper to get two sheets of these funky monsters! Anyway, when you read my journaling, you'll get why I used him. Other papers I used are by Mustard Moon (brown ledger), Sassafrass Lass (red circles); Webster's Pages (diagonal Stripe); October Afternoon (map paper); Echo Park (arrows and tag).

I used an arrow to point the reader to my journaling on the back. It's hard to see but on the ledger paper near that arrow is printed "I can explain." My journaling reads:

Tracee and I spent a lot of time in my little car because places are very spread out here in the U.S. My GPS led the way to unfamiliar destinations, and as we discovered, she sometimes wanted to take us places we didn't want to go, like highways when we wanted to go on the country roads and country roads when we wanted a faster ride on the highway. On our trip to Fredericksburg to visit Scrapdoodles, she took us down a little country road near my house that I'd never traveled. The little windy road seemed to go on and on forever, and I glanced down at my GPS to see how many miles until the next turn and just as I did, we heard--and felt--a great big crunch. It all happened so fast and Tracee was just about to say "Look out" when it happened. Seems I ran over a dead squirrel. My car being the little car it is feels every bump and hole in the road, and boy did we feel that crunchy bump!

Tracee and I laughed about it the whole way to and from Fredericksburg. Once there, Miss GPS decided she'd have us wander around and around the shopping complex (which tends to be a place I get lost anyway) in search of the store--all the while Tracee made fun of me. Getting lost in shopping centers happened again and again during her stay, but luckily the bone-crunching was only a one-time episode.

Here you can see one of my scrapbooking faux-pas. I meant to put a brad in between bone and crunching, to serve as a hyphen, but I forgot until after I had posted the reveal. I do plan to add one, but it was raining today so I wouldn't have been able to take a proper picture anyway, so just use your imagination. :) Maybe you can tell me what color brad I should use. The letters I used are by Webster's Pages (the); unknown (incredible); Lily Bee (wandering); Sassafrass Lass (bone-crunching); BasicGrey (car). That's an old 7gypsies photo turn with a BasicGrey brad, and the circular ledger mask is by Studio Calico.

You need to hop over and see what the rest of the team and our guest designers made. We have 2Crafty sponsoring us this month, so you'll want to play for a chance at winning some of their awesome chipboard!

Viva Las Vegas {Creative Scrappers Sketch #230}

We have another terrific sketch by Jenny Evans this week at Creative Scrappers:

I made another page for Monica's book. If you know Monica's story, skip ahead. If not, read on. Monica is my best friend's daughter.  Her 23-year-old husband just died in July after a 6-year battle with bone cancer. Monica and James have thousands of photos on their Facebook pages, and I've been grabbing them from there to make Monica a book so she'll remember the many happy memories in their short life together. 

I had overcast skies, so sorry that my picture isn't that great. I used a lot of scraps that were on my scrap table leftover from some previous layouts to make my page.

Here are some details. My background paper is by My Mind's Eye. That striped red paper is really old 7 Gypsies. I think the number paper might also be 7 Gypsies. Not 100% sure because I only have bits and pieces of it--this was a little scrap that was sitting on my desk. The little monsters are from Sassafras Lass. How I love those little monsters, and I've been so sad because my supply of them has been dwindling and they no longer make the paper. I looked and looked for that paper and found it somewhere, but you had to buy the whole paper pad. I finally bit the bullet and ordered it and it came in the mail the other day.

Thanks, Tracee, for the idea of adding some pennants to my twine. I put them on a little haphazardly to emphasize the playful feeling I was going for. The 25cent paper is also by Sassafras Lass, as are the arrows. You can see I used BasicGrey paper, along with a Hambly transparency (these were also scraps sitting on my desk.

The red circles are from a Sassafras Lass paper. The game spinner is by Tim Holtz. The vellum were scraps from my desk--a few had stars punched out of them from the last layout I made for Creative Scrappers.

That stamp is one of those word ones that have the handle that twists and new words appear. I just stamped the same word several times. Thanks, Tracee, again, for the suggestion of tucking some stars behind the stitched-on vellum. These are wood veneer stars by Studion Calico.

Here's another goofy Sass monster. The bingo card is Jenni Bowlin. The red polka dots are by Jillibean Soup. I thought that blue vellum was perfect to go with the blue in the Vegas sign.

As always, there are lots of fantastic pages by the team--go check them out here.

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog and reading about my page!