Farewell 2009

...and Farewell 52 Sketches 52 Weeks. All the best to you Julie and your future endevours. Here is the final sketch ~

One of my goals for the New Year is to go back and scrapbook my Hawaii vacation in 2006. This was before I "really" started scrapbooking so I have to laugh at some of the photos I have. Oh, to go back knowing what I know now :)

This is formal night, the 3rd day on our cruise around the islands. I have a second page to go with this of us in front of the restaurant, but I need to put my scrap stuff away right now and clean for the festivities tonight.

Happy New Year !!

Valentine Cards

I'm starting early, stocking my virtual shelves with a few Valentine cards. I just love this Animal Valentine Set from Stampin' Up! Not even sure if its available anymore.

I used left over patterned paper from my thank you cards I posted a few days ago and shimmery yellow ribbon from my endless stash ;) I inked all the edges in brown for a soft touch.

You can check them out in my shop here.

Thank You Cards

I made a few thank you cards for my friend Randi this weekend. I am so happy with the way they turned out and hope she loves them as much as I do.

Here are 3 Christmas themed ones I made, using teabag flowers I received in a swap from my friend Carol. Aren't they so pretty?

Randi just had a baby girl (who she named Meredith - love it!) and I made these 3 thank you cards very girly. I love the brown inking. Can you tell I love my new embossing stuff?! ;)

These cuties are my favorite though. I cut and paper pieced the penguin using my Cricut/SCAL. If you would like the file, e-mail me at suzyq28024[@]gmail.com. I love the embossed snowflake. He's also on the inside.

The penguin cards are available in my Etsy store (I made a bunch hehe).

December Daily

I left off on Day 11 on this post. Here are the following 10 pages that I finished today :) I am really enjoying working on this album!

Day 12 - I used the sketch from Stuck! sketches. This is a picture of the white board in our office with all the football stats. I was in the final 4 pool at work but unfortunately went out on the Broncos vs Raiders upset!! :(

Day 13 - My sicky first graders caught up to me on the 13th. I spent the day in bed with a box of tissues, saltines, 7up, chicken noodle soup and my advil cold and sinus. My hubby took good care of me and luckily the bug only lasted 24 hours.

Day 15 - My secret Santa gift from my Scrappin-N-Chattin group came in the mail. My friend Sandi spoiled me with embossing powders and a heat gun. I can't wait to work on more cards!

Day 15 - Spent the evening scrappin while my puppy was nappin. We bought him a dog bed for Christmas (he is being weened off his crate) and as you can tell he hated it LOL. Even though he lays on it a lot, he will not give up his blankets. He drags them all over the house! I used a file folder from a pet swap - hidden journaling behind. Love the stamp they used on the front.

Day 16 - the Christmas card photo shoot. One of the many hilarious shots of Jax in his reindeer suit. He humored us for a whole half hour :) He's such a good sport!

Day 17 - Yes, a print out of an email my hubby sent from work. It says I have good news for you and we are going to dinner to celebrate. He said he is allowed to work from home the week between Christmas and New Years. Hooray!

Day 18 - Wrapping gifts in the living room :) I love how it shows Jax on his new bed in front of the fire, our tree, wrapping supplies and gifts all over the floor, Frosty on tv and the "winter storm advisory" scrolling across.

Day 19 - Let it snow! We got a total of 2 feet dumped on us. It came Saturday into Sunday.

Day 20 - Playing in the snow with Jax (it was too deep for him). I love how the journaling is on the photo.

Day 21 - Digging out of the blizzard and going to McDonalds for dinner. This was last Monday. We did get a 2 hour delay!

Thanks so much for taking a peek at my album!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Wishing you a weekend filled with good company, delicious food, and new scrappin' goodies :)

Double the Fun

I said how much I loved this week's 52 sketch and that I would probably use it again in my last post. Didn't realize it would be another layout today :) I just love this picture of my "baby" brother and I. We only get to see each other once or twice a year for various reasons. The background paper is so glittery and fun - SEI's Glitzmas collection. I love it!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow !

I am one of those lucky scrappers on the East Coast that got about 2 feet of snow dumped on them yesterday :) I spent all day Saturday turning my scrap room upside down, reorganizing all my drawers and cubes, purging stuff I won't use, and categorizing things better. It's amazing how much you can accomplish when you have space to work and know where everything is (and what you have!) LOL.

First, I finished the 2nd page for my layout that was featured on Pam's blog. This is the breakfast that my friends at school did for me before my wedding. It is nice to work with a great bunch of people that care so much about each other :) I used more of my Little Yellow Bicycle Autumn Bliss collection.

Next, I used the sketch from 52 Sketches, 52 Weeks. I love it and will probably use it again soon.

I am beginning to scrapbook Christmas 2008. It is fun to scrap the holiday we are in right now, while I'm in the Christmas spirit :) This is a tradition we started our first year together. Opening one stocking stuffer a day leading up to the 12 days before Christmas. "On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...." LOL, we are cheesy I know.

Then, I used the sketch from The ScrapRoom blog. I love this one too! I love one photo sketches because more and more I am doing 2 pages with 1 focal photo and then a bunch of candids.

I used a wedding photo, my hubby and I right before we left the church. There was SO much going on during this time, I decided to make the background busy with the vellum swirls, but keep the photo black and white. The flower is from Precocious Paper. Love them!

Thanks for looking! More layouts on the way as we watch football, work around the house, and attempt to dig ourselves out of the blizzard :)

Featured Artist!

I am the featured artist today on Pam's fabulous blog Fresh, Fun Ideas for Scrapbookers.

You can see my article on making your own stitching templates here.

Thanks again Pam!

2 New Layouts

I worked on 2 layouts this week for the challenges at Scrappin-N-Chattin. The first one was to use at least 6 squares of the same size. I decided to do 6 squares at 1.25" each for my title. This is a 2 page layout of Dave and I crabbing in North Carolina this summer. I can't wait to scrap more of this trip. It will probably fill a whole album. They say "Christmas in July" I say scrapbook July at Christmas LOL.

I used my SCAL/cricut to make this little crab. I love to add google eyes :)

Here is how they look together. I love the picture of Dave in his backwards hat, feet over the dock.

Another challenge was to use flourishes. Can't go wrong with a wedding layout for this one :) I decided to do a 2 page layout of our first dance. I used a Bazzill stitching template for the flourishes.

The middle photo is on pop dots for added dimension. Click on the photo see it larger.

This was our first dance song. The white lettering are Thickers and the maroon lettering was down with my SCAL/cricut.

And how they look together.

Thanks for looking!

December Daily - Days 10 and 11

How great it feels to be scrappin' again after taking a week "off". So much going on here with school and the holidays and other committments. But I'm so glad I made a list each day of what I wanted to do for this album, or else I think I would of held of till next year. Grab a cup of hot chocolate because this is going to be a LONG post of days 1-11 that I scrapped last night and this morning. I broke it up into 2 days each to be more managable. I would love to hear your comments. This is my first big mini album :)

You can catch up with what I've been doing on my December Daily posts here.

Going in reverse order, yesterday was all about babies. I had a baby shower in the morning, did some Christmas shopping, and then stopped by to visit my cousin's new little girl. Such a fun day!

Friday night, Dave went to the store and picked up groceries on the way home. We are helping each other be healthy in the new year. I had to laugh when he said he got "his and her" salad stuff because we have very very different tastes. He loves the dark greens and veggies and dressing etc. And I love the lighter greens, olives, bacon, and no dressing LOL.

This is on one of the bag end flaps, so I am experimenting with halving my pictures to make it work. No journaling on this page, just a fun picture of our salad ingredients.

Keep reading, lots more posts below :)

December Daily - Days 8 and 9

I think it's good to document the good and the bad. This week was really stressful/overwhelming for me - hence not a blog post in a week. It felt good to scrap again! Yes, I took a picture of my gas tank on empty on the 8th. It just fit perfectly with my mood! I really was "on empty". I took a half day from work to kick the cold I started and rejuvenate.

The 8th was my student teacher's last day with us. I took lots of pictures of her and the kids and all the fun we had at the "surprise" party. But, I decided to take a few pics cube of this awesome photo cube she made for me. I forgot all about some of the pics she had of us and the classroom. She also had it engraved, which was so so sweet.