Embrace Life.

Now, don't faint...but I stamped!! I actually stamped! It's been 4 months since I've made a non-digital card. Wowee!

I've been eyeing this flower stamp for a couple of days.

So if I was interviewed by some of my past stamping club members, they might ask me these questions:

Q: Did it feel weird to stamp after 4 months?
A: Yes!

Q: Did you remember where you put all of your supplies after unpacking them?
A: No, it was hilarious because I didn't know where some things were. I definitely need to get aquainted.

Q: Do you still have a glitter obsession?
A: Yes! Of course!

Q: Did one of your kitties "help" you while making this card?
A: Yes, actually Tigger was visiting me. He jumped from the table to the closet and then from the closet to the table onto my paper cutter. Stuff went flying as well as Tig. Surprisingly he didn't even get a big tail after all of that.

Q: Do you think you'll stamp more in the early future?
A: I hope so! We'll see!

Dates Challenge

Little Dreamer is having a challenge this week. And there's a FREEbie! Check it out HERE!

These are the layouts I created with this dates challenge in mind.

How much

Good Monday morning to ya! What a beautiful morning here! We've been blessed with some AWESOME spring-like weather here!! It's been 50 degrees for days now and clear skies. CLEAR! It's totally awesome! I've seen bumble bees and the crocuses are in bloom! So maybe all of the sunshine is warming up my creativity. I like that!

Last night I created this page. It came together really quickly. I wanted to use the light turquoise paper. And then when I was looking through my digi stash I found the "this is how much you mean to me" freebie from Ali Edwards that I hadn't even extracted yet. So I extracted that and wondered what photo(s) I should scrap on the page. I saw these pics of Tigger from the beginning of December and I was on my way to creating. I wanted a ruler, so I scanned the ruler I have. I just really enjoyed myself as I was creating this! These pictures of "Mr. T" aren't your typical cat pictures, but they are what we see day in and day out of this little (big) fellow. One thing that's hard for me about scrapbooking pets is that I know someday they won't be here and that just really makes me sad. I just love our kitties! Oh, and one of the goodies I purchased from Designer Digitals the other day had a postage strip that says "My Boy" on it and when I saw that I knew I had to use it for this page. I often tell Tigger, "You are my favorite boy kitty." Haha!

Have a super wonderful day!

Sunday page

Today I was in a creative mood and so I had some fun! I've been inspired by some things I've seen at Designer Digitals. They had a sale over the weekend, so I decided to take advantage of it. It's been awhile since I've purchased digital product. We are starting to take more pictures again (the last few days of sunshine have helped with that), so that is good!

Love

Ours, Mine, Not Yours!

That's a funny name for a scrapbook page, huh? This is actually a second draft of this page. You can see the first one HERE. I'm not very impressed with it. Each time I would see it in the Little Dreamer gallery or in Picasa I would make a funny face (those who have seen me probably know the face I'm talking about). And you know me...sometimes I just *have* to redo things. Sometimes when I am creating layouts for the design teams I just want to get the project done so I can check it off my mental list, but I realize that it's never really good for me to do that. I have to be in the mood to create and be true to my style. I'm pleased with this page!

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Little Dreamer has some really pretty new kits and templates!

Digi Dare #167

Good Tuesday morning! Today I wanted to share a page I created last week for the current Digi Dare. This is my first time participating in their dare, but I have been following the dares for awhile now. It's like taking scrapbooking out of the box for me. Last week I was in a creative mood, but I wanted to do something different, so I did!

For this dare we had to mention at least 5 emotions, the color red had to stand out, and to use at least one symbol of Valentine's Day. This is what I created:

Shine & Peace

Hello! I hope you had a sweet Valentine's Day with your sweetheart! We had a nice day! Quent took me out to eat on Saturday evening since our favorite restaurant was closed on Sunday. We had a delicious dinner topped off with creme brulee (sp?)! We had a really nice weekend together!

I don't have a page to share with you today, but I do have something. This is a wall hanging decoration I made for a friend of mine. She wanted bright colors, so that's what I worked on creating here.

Saturday Pages

Yeah! It's the weekend! And for some it's a 3-day weekend!
Have a great weekend!

Makita Studio GIVEAWAY

Don't you just love free stuff? Makita, from Little Dreamer, has a little treat. She talks about it HERE!

Happy Friday!

Going to the sun

Whenever I think of Going to the Sun Road I think of my dad and Kelly. They got married in Missoula, Montana and their honeymoon was an 800-mile bike trip (Dad, correct me if that mileage is wrong) up into Canada. When I was about 12 years old, a few years after they married, we went on a family vacation to Montana and visited most of the spots they had on their honeymoon. One of my most favorite places in the world is Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park, Montana. So I knew when the day came that we would go back to Montana, I had my heart set on this beautiful, winding road through the mountains. I remember the first time I ever went on it: the mountains and the west captured my heart ever since that day. I'm so thankful that my dad and Kelly took us on trips like these because I got to experience places I never would have seen from my home in Michigan. (Thank you Dad and Kelly!) And with that being said, this page captures my excitement of being to that very same place once again.

Lake McDonald

I thought I would post another page tonight. This was created using Michelle Underwood's newest kit called Beautiful Ending. I just love the papers in this kit!


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Vacation Pages

Hello! This past week has been pretty busy. I've taken on some new responsibilities so I haven't been doing much on the computer. I've actually been enjoying that. I've been looking at what I do each day and asking myself what my priorities are. So I've been getting things in order and realizing that I don't want to spend as much time on the computer. I'm sure I'll have my creative moments that I'm on here, but for the most part I want to be disciplined even in this area. I want to get back to the basics. I want simplicity. And with that being said, here are some super simple pages.

I really like how the pictures are displayed in these layouts.


I find that sunset and sunrise pictures are hard to scrap, but I really like how this one turned out.

And the spreads below are some of my favorite pages I've made so far for this album. I love the rich and vibrant colors! And I just love how the pictures are the focal point. I've also been having fun with fonts and word play.

Stamping Party

I don't think I've posted this page before, but if I have, I apologize. I created this quite awhile ago. It's a page of a stamping party I hosted back in June. It was my first time hosting one without me being the demonstrator and it was a lot of fun! I miss all of the ladies so much!



This page is void of color, but I really like how it's basically just a monotone page. Whenever I say or hear the word "monotone" I think of a science teacher I had in high school. Hmmmm...

I've been working on a lot of design stuff and haven't been scrapping as much lately, but I plan on focusing on that again soon. Quent just finished editing all of our Montana trip photos so I plan on diving into that project more aggressively. Which reminds me that I really need to continue working on journaling for that trip.

The Rehearsal--the process

There's been a few times I have posted about the process of how a page can change until you get to the final draft. I wanted to show that again today for the page I created for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's wedding rehearsal.


This was my first draft. I liked the colored pictures, but I think Nate's flannel shirt (gotta love Alaskan!) was making it challenging for me. I liked the hearts, but they weren't doing anything for me on this page. I liked the green background paper, too.

So then I created this page. I wanted to use some of the new papers and tempates from Little Dreamer. I wasn't really in love with this page, but I thought I would just stop. But each time I would see it on my blog or in my Picasa files, I would like it even less. So I knew I had to change things.

And so this is what I came up with. I like it much better! It's fun, bright, and I love the stitching on it. I'm really into digital stitching these days! For this layout I combined part of a template from Christine Newman from Little Dreamer, some stuff from Designer Digitals, and my own designs.

Happy Friday!

Our House

I took these pictures and created this page today. Whoohoo! I haven't taken hardly any pictures this year. That's been the trend. Must be those dark winter months in the beginning of the year! Our grass is pretty green though! I don't think these pictures are *too* exciting, but I thought it would be fun to document where we are with our house right now. I forgot to add something in the journaling, but maybe I'll add it somewhere on another page someday: ever since moving to Ketchikan I feel like I've changed in how I decorate our home. I used to want everything to match perfectly, but now I don't care so much. Our kitchen has this bright red wall that the former owners painted. I kept on thinking that I would paint over it, but the other day Quent said he liked it. So I guess I'm ok with it if he is. I value his opinion. In the kitchen we have red walls, yellow counters, blue dishware, fruit decorated rugs on the floor...and I LOVE it! I just love all of the color being splashed together like that. Before I would have kinda freaked out. I feel so much more relaxed about it! And I also notice when I look through magazines where they show pictures of people's rooms in their home, I am attracted to the rooms with lots of different colors. I just love it!

Capture

I think my creative groove has left me for a few days, but I'm still wanting to create. This is a layout I created last night. It's pretty simple!



CD Muckosky is featured on the Daily Digi today. It was talked about on the Little Dreamer blog. If you scroll down all the way to the bottom one of my layouts is featured in the post. I was excited to see that!

Sweet + Tart

It is GORGEOUS outside today! I went on a walk with a friend along the ocean and I just loved feeling the sunshine on my face. I even had to wear sunglasses! That's a big thing for Southeast Alaska, especially in Ketchikan!

I worked on this page a few times over the last few days. I'm not totally sold on this page, so I might change things later. Sometimes I just get to a point where I just tell myself I have to be finished. Ha! I love these papers from the new kit from Little Dreamer called Sweet + Tart.


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Now for the news...

After many years of submitting layouts to Creating Keepsakes, they are going to publish two of my layouts. They will be in the July/August 2010 issue. That's all I'm allowed to say. Ha! I can't tell you how excited I am about this. It's been a dream of mine for so long. I was jumping for joy when I got the email! I feel so blessed! Yesterday I was thinking about something my friend Winter said once about submitting. She said to submit, submit, submit and to not give up. I'm saying "Amen!" to that! So I encourage you to do the same! Just keep on pressing in! No matter what it is!

Beautiful

I'm not sure what the title for this page will be, nor do I have the proper journaling for it yet, but I wanted to share it anyway. This was one of those pages that came together really fast, or at least in the beginning. My struggle was what kind of background paper to use. Since I wanted to use all of my own designs to create this page, I wanted to make my own paper, too. I realize that when it comes to backgrounds I like having neutral colors. I want the pictures to pop off the page as much as possible. My biggest challenge with designing scrapbook product has been the paper. That surprises me because I thought it would be the easy part. I want to create designs that *I* would use. I love funky, bright, and busy patterned papers, but I only like them in small dosages if I can help it. It depends on what kind of layout I am doing.

Thank you all for your sweet comments! I smile while reading each and every one of them! I'm glad you like my designs and I'm so thankful you are cheering me on. Your support is very much appreciated!



And soon...I will share some exciting news with you! Have a happy Tuesday! Stay true to your style!

Templates by List Girl

I have been saving these layouts for a long time because I wanted to wait until Christine (List Girl Designs) opened her store at Little Dreamer! I'm so excited for her!! I was sad to see Tiffany Tillman leave Little Dreamer with her templates, but now I'm very excited that Christine will be selling her templates through the store. I really like her style! One thing I enjoy about using her templates is all of the pictures I can add to one page. There are many layers for each template.


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For this layout I used pictures from Christmas Eve plus some fun Christmas paper.

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I did some alterations to the template by combining some of the layers so I could fit bigger photos. I really like how this turned out! I like the simplicity of this layout.

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We had a lot of pictures from this time we went on a walk, but I wasn't interested in scrapping 10 pages for it, so I really loved the option of putting all of the photos from our adventure onto one layout. I can't remember how many layers there are for this one, but I think it's like 42 or something close to that. It took me hours to complete this page because I had to pull pictures over from Picasa, crop and find the perfect spot. It was all worth it and it was very theraputic! And at the very end I decided to add journaling around the "L". It's very messy, crazy journaling, but I like it like that!