Five Fabulous Kits!!

Yep, you heard right! ScrapbookDeals4U is offering FIVE fabulous kits this month featuring FIVE fabulous must-have paper lines from FIVE fabulous maufacturers:

Kit #1 Features Cosmo Cricket's Snorkel line, just waiting for your summer beach and pool photos :

Kit #2 is stuffed full of the bright and cheerful "June Bug" collection by Basic Grey and is busting at the seams with coordinating embellishments:

Kit #3 features the bold, bright graphics of Scenic Route's "Garden Grove" collection:

Kit #4 is filled with the "Delight" collection by Fancy Pants, and the fabulously talented Kelly Goree has agreed to guest design with this adorable kit! Pop over to the message board later this week to see what she's done with it. It's sure to be inspirational and wonderful!

And finally, Kit #5 features the bright, beautiful "Cherry Hill" collection by my personal favorite, October Afternoon. And because I have friends in high places (thanks Martha), I was lucky enough to design with it this month!

I opened my kit, pulled out all the pretties, and from that point on, the layouts practically designed themselves! Everything in this kit coordinates so perfectly, making it easy to throw together wonderful pages in a snap! Here are my designs:

A Grandmother's Love is For Keeps: I just love this photo of my grandmother and my nephew, and in black and white it really pops off the colors in this kit, since they are mixed with black as well. I love the romantic feel of the dictionary background paper, and how cute are those teeny felt butterflies? I did add some tiny alpha's from a previous kit, and a couple of rhinestones from my stash...gotta use that stuff up!

The Wonder of it All: This is another favorite recent photo of my nephew as he stares out the back door longing for freedom. I wonder all the things he's wondering, hence the title. Everything here is in the kit, with the exception of the blue buttons I pulled out of my button jar. Isn't that yellow scallop border on the left side of the page super cute? I cut along the pattern of one of the papers in the kit, and voila! Looks just like one of those fancy punches, huh?

It's a Good Life: This is my brother, sister in law, and nephew on his first birthday...the paper in this kit is perfect for photos on a summer day in the park! And seriously, how cute is that die cut bird? Cool little FYI about the die cuts in this kit is that they're double sided, so no matter which way you want things to face, it's fine...just flip them over!

42...It's Just a Number: It's the mantra I've been repeating to myself since my birthday a couple of weeks ago...*sigh*. Really, I'm still 41 in this photo....don't tell anyone! I had to add some alpha's from my stash, after I ran out of e's...truth be told, I'm a major sissy when it comes to mixing alphabet fonts and colors.

And to celebrate the kids' return to school, SD4U is hosting it's own 3 week long back-to-school contest that sure to challenge and inspire you! It's called SD4U's Cramfest (like cramming a year's worth of classes into three weeks!!) and I promise it's going to be a ton of fun! Join us, won't you?

Getting Back on the Horse

I won't bore you with excuses about why I haven't blogged in over 3 months...suffice it to say things got a little hectic and something had to give. Things have calmed down a bit now, so I'm getting back on this horse I loosly refer to as my blog.

Ok, that being said:

SD4U has revealed it's August Kits, and they are awesome as usual! The first one features the Bloom & Grow line from My Mind's Eye, and to say this paper is beautiful is an understatement. Just look at this gorgeous kit:

The other kit features the super fun Summer Soiree line from Fancy Pants, and as usual it's packed with adorable, perfectly coordinated embellishments. Check it out:

What a blast I had playing with this kit! I'm really into orange right now, being summer and all, and this kit packed a punch of it. Paired with navy, yellow and red, the color palette screamed HOT, HOT, HOT...And HOT it is!

Here's how my one year old nephew is beating the summer the heat. He's at Sea World playing in one of those spicots that shoots a stream of water straight up from out of the ground. I think he was more impressed with the water than all the things that swim in them...sorry Shamu!

This is a shot of my Grandma sitting on the beach in Puerta Vallarta last April...man that beach is gorgeous! For this layout, I cut the sheet of journaling blocks apart and scrambled them all around the page so I didn't have to cut into each paper separately to get all the patterns in there.

This is my nephew again, playing in his new sandbox...it should get a lot of use this summer, he adores it!

And a quick little card...I'd been dying to try making one of those cute pinwheels I've been seeing all over. Aside from a poke or two on my finger from the paper piercer, it was pretty easy, and so cute!

If you decide on either on of these kits this month, I promise you're going to love either one!

Let's Make Some Cards!

Join me on Thursday, April 16th at the Scrapbook Garden for this fun class featuring greeting cards for several occasions including Hello, Birthday, Thank You, and Easter! The class will be from 6-8 pm and, as always, will include snacks and raffles while we play! Hope to see you there!

Besides your basic tool kit, make sure to bring the following supplies:

• Favorite Liquid Glue
• Chestnut Roan Chalk Ink
• Creamy Brown Chalk Ink
• Scissors
• Corner Rounder
• Black Detail Pen
• White Gel Pen
• Glue Dots
• Quickie Glue Pen
• Clear Star Pen (Stardust)
• Foam Squares or Pop Dots

Kazan's Sketch #23

2S4Y makes card making so fun and easy...I never get bored with it. And so does this new "Alyssa" patterned paper collection from BoBunny...isn't it fabulous? Something about pastel colors paired with black just looks so stunning, I never get tired of it. Here's my entry for this week's sketch:

I hand cut some of the flowers from the patterned paper, and added them onto the original flowers with little foam squares for some dimension. I added the teeniest bit of stickles onto the little dots around the flourishes for an understated touch of shimmer. The journaling spot is a CTMH stamp, cut out and mounted on black cardstock, then stamped with a Heidi Grace "thank you" sentiment.

As always, thanks for stopping by and taking a peek! :)

Laugh Everyday Card

I got a couple of samples of the super cute Cosmo Cricket "Girl Friday" paper while I was at CHA, and I finally busted out last night for this card based on Laura's Sketch #21 at 2Sketches4You:

The color combos is *so* up my alley with pink and green and soft blues...it's gonna be perfect for Easter! And lucky you...I hear it's coming to a SD4U kit very soon!

Also, it was a loooong time coming, but I finally updated my slide show at the left! Check it out if you get a chance :)

Gettin a little scrappy!

I've been dying to use the "Night Light" Collection by October Afternoon. I got it from my Secret Santa (Thanks, LY!!) for Christmas, but I got so busy in January and February that I never got a chance to play with it. So the other day I was over at Julie's site, 52 Sketches 52 Weeks, and was immediately inspired by this week's sketch, and finally grabbed my OA collection to make this cute layout of Clayton:

He's sportin' his dope new baseball cap, and these pictures just make me want to say..."Yo baby, wassup?".

I also played around with this week's Inspired Blueprints Sketch (#11) and came up with this layout of my homegirls and I:

I just love this quote I got from a Mini Book the girls and I made at our scrap retreat (Thanks again, LY...you're just so darned inspirational girl!).

I got NO cards, can you believe it?

I'm looking forward to the April Kit from SD4U...I heard there's Basic Grey and Bella Blvd involved...can you say "sweet"!!? In the meantime, there's lots of Birthday activity going on over on the message board! A challenge every other day until the 24th or so, plus games and prizes....fun stuff! Pop on over and take on a challenge or two, if you're not doing anything :)

Finally!! I can reveal my projects with the SD4U's "Minestrone Soup" kit...I've been dying to share them because I just know you are all going to ADORE this kit as much as I did!

First up is a lyout featuring my daughter and her boyfriend:


Absolutely everything on this layout was in my kit...I love how everything goes together so perfectly with no effort at all. The #1 reason I love kits!

Then there's this little wall hanging I made with the Maya Road butterfly coaster album in the kit. As soon as I spied it in there, I knew I wanted to do something special with it:

So I ran the Coredinations cardstock in the kit through two different cuttlebug embossing folders, and lightly inked over the raised areas with french blue and alabaster chalk inks. The letters were plain white chipboard (from Creative Cafe) and I painted them green, stamped a flourish on them with white staz-on, and then spread glossy accents on top. I'm really happy with how this came out! It's hanging in my scraproom, and it makes me smile!

A Mini Book featuring my handsome hubby and I, just because!

I used one of those cute litte BoBunny books I'd been holding onto for a bit. The whole book was inspired by another cute mini book I made while at Lytle Scrapper's Scrap Retreat a couple of weeks ago!

And another layout, this time featuring that cute nephew of mine:

These pictures of Clayton sucking on a graham cracker (because he has NO teeth) just cracked me up when I first saw them, and I immediately knew a layout was in order! I based the layout on sketch #10 at Inspired Blueprints...love that site!

And lastly, a card of course! Because I simply don't think it's possible for me to play with a kit without making one:

I used my Clear Stardust pen on the butterfly here, and I can't believe what a statement it makes! Goes great with the Martha Stewart brown glitter I used for the flourish and sentiment!

So that's it! Thanks for taking a peek, I hope these inspire you just a little. And if you're on the fence about this kit, JUMP down and get yours before they're gone...You will NOT regret it!!

xoxo