Cambridge Teacher Cards

Cambridge Teacher Cards

So I had the cool and unusual Bo Bunny Cambridge line to use and even though it did not strike me for back to school teacher cards, I found there really were some great things about it!

The line certainly has a "college" feel to it if you ask me, but no one did, did they? LOL! I can also see the papers well suited for anything masculine, military, police or even Xtreme sports! Also a great line to pick up for Fathers Day card paper, or anything Dad themed!

I started with premade cards and did some stamping with Imaginisce Snag Em Stamps. Used the title block and tag from Cambridge, cardstock stickers and their Combo paper.

The apple, notebook paper and crayon were all Snag Em's!

This one was for Scotti's kindergarten teacher last year. She and I became good friends last year and she recently lost her Father. So this card did double duty as something for her strength and for "back to school". More so, it was so I could tell her I was thinking of her....

Kinda funny but this one is my favorite. Not sure what's going on with the coloring in this photo, something is off...but you get the idea! The apple stamp was done with Distress Embossing powder. Cool stuff if you haven't tried it!

I actually have been doing a TON lately! Keeping my house ship shape but also a ton of crafting...this is just a little taste of what I have to share, but some will have to wait!

Oh wow! Generations Crafting still has some AWESOME valued stamp sets on CLEARANCE! The entire set of these school stamps are just under a few bucks!!!! Check them out here...new to stamping? Here's a great start!

Cousins ~SOUS August 20~

Cousins

Can I tell you all how much I have enjoyed crafting lately! I feel a renewed sense of myself and a fresh desire to create! Maybe it has to do with my son being so close to sleeping through the night. At 14 months Cody gets up around 5- 5:30 am and that usually means that I am still up. Now I got to work on him sleeping that last hour. The point is, sleep can do wonders for a person! LOL! Now if I could only shed 10 more pounds, I'd be a whole new woman (I have recently lost 13 but seem to have leveled off and not lost anymore)...and OMG...what does any of this have to do with my page today? Nada! hehe...onto the project then!

I really think the sketch this week at Stuck on U Sketches is super cool and has a ton of potential for many interesting ideas! As soon as I saw the sketch I knew I wanted to layer a sun and beach ball. I designed it using Design Studio but still felt unsure, I had to cut it and put it together to really see if it would work.

In June my cousin visited from Maryland, oh my gosh...I think its Maryland, LOL! And her boys got to visit my kids for the very first time! Unfortuntly I had an unagreeable Scotti who refused to be in this photo. There are my 2, Jordyn and baby Cody. My niece Maddie and then Ryan and Quinn.

Ryan and Jordyn got along so well. They played all day together! It was the first time I think that I have ever seen my daughter play so much with someone other then her brothers. And it was the first time that she seemed so taken with someone! She adored him and makes me wish so badly that we could all live closer together. Then Scotti and Quinn paired up and they all had a wonderful visit!

Here is a good photo of the layering. I welded a large unequal square frame from Mickey Font to the sun from Going Places. I cut another square in the blue because I thought it was too much yellow. I cut down the blue to leave a small stripe of yellow on the outside of the blue. Once I layered the beach ball again'st the sun I wanted something else so cut a pink circle. That gave me another color to play with as well.

I also pulled out my Cuttlebug for this. Using Traffic Jam for the blue in the beach ball. Swiss Dots for the flip flops and beach ball circle and the Braches folder for the darker green leaves. Leaves, font, flip flops, beach ball and gecko were all cut from Lifes a Beach.

I also inked all of the cuts with Distress Inks. Blue, green, yellow and burgandy. Flowers are Prima and I added Skittle centers. Do you remember the silly Skittle craze on the Cricut mb years back? We were a silly lot running to the store and having to get what the other had...oh wait, we're still kinda like that! LOL!

Please take a chance to see what Sandi and Nanne had done this week as well. I have to say that this is one of my favorite weeks as a DT!

And if that's not cool enough we had the pleasure of having Fern Riley as Guesst Designer this week. I am pretty sure any of you that know me, are going to know her. But if not, please check out her blog! She is AMAZING, one of the best of the best!

Also have you been by Stuck on U Sketches?

Have you seen the news?

We are looking to grow our DT and you have until September 3rd to submit your work for a chance to join us and also we are hosting our first swap. A Fall mini album swap, and yes, I'm part of it and so in Nanne and a bunch of other AMAZING ladies have joined up! So come on by for a visit, will you?

School starts monday here! Another Summer gone (well almost!)

My mini album giveaway goes to......

Thank you to everyone who left comments on my mini album post that also happened to be my celebration of my first year of blogging!

I have met such wonderful friends this year through blogging, something that I did not anticipate when I started this....

and to my excitement my son chose the number 13! and that would be one of those great friends that I have made through this blog....BEATRIZ!

Woo hoo! Congrats and thank you for your warm comment my friend!

If you could please email me at mrsbealash AT aol DOT com (thanks!)

And thanks to everyone else too!!!!

Feeling the mini vibe? Check out Stuck on U Sketches if you have not already because my girlfriend Nanne is hosting a mini album swap there! Too fun! Check it out!

Pretty Please...~Generations Crafting~

Don't forget to comment on the post for your very own mini album! Post link right on my sidebar...I am on vacation but will come home and pick someone, you have until monday!!!! Thanks and good luck my friends!!!!

Pretty Please with a Cherry on Top!

Well this is a DT project for Generations Crafting. Basic Grey came out with 2 similar lines, Oliver and Olivia. Luckily I am using the Oliver line which is great for me since I have 2 boys!

I thought the title was just perfect for this photo of Scotti. We were sitting out front and I stood above him with the camera and this is the pose he gave me! too cute!

When I came across this cut in Just Because Cards, I knew it could not be any better for this photo! Of course this took awhile to decide what to do when it came to the papers! And I also knew that this sundae would be cute too! Anyways can I tell you how hard cutting this was! I designed it in DS but had to change things. I don't know what is up with my Cricut but it tore up so many sheets of paper trying to get this cut! So the darker blue paper didn't end up being Basic Grey because I ruined all that paper to match! Well it ended up great...thank goodness!

Wow, can I tell you that I am so thrilled with this sundae that I am thinking of remaking some again, just to have more! LOL! I just think the paper makes it really neat and different!

Buttons are Basic Grey as well and can be found here!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you.....

Happy Birthday to my sweetest boy!

6 years ago today at 7 am I got a call that our birth mother was in labor! Only 12 hours after finding out that we had been chosen by her and a week and a half early! And only 4 months into the adoption process. We called everyone and jumped in the car. A short time later and only 15 hours later...I was a Mom for the first time (insert tears at this point!) I was holding my little boy! My dream of my lifetime! My youngest sister was adopted and from her birth I knew that is how I wanted to be a Mom. So my husband and I adopted our firstborn even though we were both capable of having children bioligically. This was my lifes calling! And now 6 years later...he's still my joy, my best buddy and my first born! I feel lucky beyond my wildest dreams to have the family that I have!

Mommy loves you Scotti (and Jordyn and Cody!)

Just wanted to give him a little shout out! Thanks!

Celebrate Life

PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO CLICK ON THE PHOTO ON MY SIDEBAR, LEAVE A COMMENT FOR YOUR VERY OWN MINI ALBUM (CUSTOM MADE JUST FOR YOU!)

...I AM CELEBRATING MY FIRST YEAR AS A BLOGGER!!!!

Celebrate Life

There are so many wonderful challenge blogs these days that when you do make something...it is bound to belong somewhere, in some challenge! Right?

Well I knew how much I have been dying to play along with a couple challenge blogs so I decided today was the day!

Okay so it happens that a few of my wonderful bloggy friends participate in these challenges as part of their DT so I wanted to show my support by playing along as well!

This LO is being submitted for the following 3 challenge blogs:

Sketches in Thyme~ for the sketch (or my version of it!)

Practical Scrappers~ Summer themed

Frosted Designs~ Celebrate Life...hence my title!!!! (I think they were thinking birthday or celebrations of that nature but I took it literally!)

I also got to use some of my new papers I had gotten last week when shopping at J's. The Neutral stack from DCWV. Though I don't love how it cuts in my Cricut, I DO love me some reasonabley priced paper! And also a value stack of Kraft cardstock (50 sheets on sale for $2.50!!!) Okay way off topic...

For the Summer themed challenge at PS, I came up with this big beach ball as the center point of my LO and also following the large circle piece in the sketch (sketch can be found at the Sketches in Thyme link above). I cut this from Lifes a Beach and embossed the layering and added orange faux stitching.

My grass layers, cut twice, same size but one flipped on the same Kraft cardstock as the background. I added some doodling. Quite a lot around the page with the white gel pen. Also my brand new butterfly punch from Fiskars.

My clouds are from Zooballoo and embossed with the Notebook folder from Tim Holtz, Alterations Texture Fades. First time using it and I LOVE it!!!! Also my hand made kite.

And my literal take on the challenge at Frosted Designs. I thought this was a great title for these sweet photos of my baby at the park! Was really wanting to scrap these and am so happy to have finally done so! I also brought the kite string down into the title.

For the title to stand out, I cut and layered over cereal box for some dimension. You have GOT to try this if you haven't already! I chose the orange paper for the small amount of orange in my son's outfit in the photo. All the color inspiration came from that darling little jumper!

Thanks so much for looking!!!

And if you are new to my blog....please check out Stuck on U Sketches...another wonderful spot with sketch ideas....we're now going to 2 week challenges so hopefully that will give you time to play!!!!!!! And there is an original sketch this week, by yours truely!!! =o)

Our Family ~SOUS August 6~

Our Family

Don't forget to leave a comment for you chance to win a custom mini album, click on the pic on my sidebar!

Ok everyone, ready for lots of news?

First off today at Stuck on U Sketches we have an original sketch by.....ME! So far I have had a terrible time doing sketches. I can do pretty basic things with my office program and after hours and hours of trying still can not figure out how to add graphics that actually work! Now personally, I don't need those because all I want is the bones of a sketch. I mean, most of us are not going to follow a sketch that closely anyways. But today's reveal at SOUS is something I put together. Simple but with some neat ideas.

I am a little bummed that my girlfriend Nanne is on vacation this week so she wasn't able to take a stab at my sketch but both Sandi Clarkson and I have something to show you and I'd be beyond thrilled to see what anyone else comes up with!

And here is my own interpurtation of my own sketch...not totally dead on but I knew I had to take the paper stripes on the side and turn them into trees. I usually find some inspiration from the photo I want to use and that's exactly what happened! That and I had just purchased DCWV Green Stack! Perfect for some outdoor pix! (now for some reason I am not too thrilled with how this photographed, it looks so much better in person...hum?)

Both the cork letters and metal "family" were clearance finds at my J's.

After a ton of drama of how to go about my trees I decided to everything free hand. It wasn't easy but ended up pleased with the abstract result. I fussy cut some characters from the paper stack and popped them, they look really cute in those trees IRL. Now glued the twine around my shapes wasn't so easy and especially because I had my little crafty helper wanting to do everything with me (thanks Jords!)

Just thought this was funny....

And my little journaling spot. Now that I am sitting here writing I realized that I did indeed mean to put a small photo here but must of forgotten at some point. I added another fussy cut piece and a tiny paper punched flower and twine.

Now for the other news....Nanne, Sandi and I have decided to go to every other week for our challenges! We are excited about the change and nervous too! I hope this will give everyone more of a chance to play with more time to do in it. And give everyone time to do a little more of everything else!!!! So much to do, so little time!!!!

Now that's not the end of our news but the rest will have to wait for another time! What a tease I am! LOL!

Don't forget to click on my August 5th post to see about my First Year Blogiversary RAK! Hugz!

One Year Blogiversary and a RAK!!!!!!

I have a great project to share with you and today (no, actually it was last month but last month was a little crazy so it slipped by me!) is my ONE Year Blogiversary! I was just shocked that it had been so long already! Wow! I guess I started it just after my little baby boy was born! I can not believe how much my scrapping has improved in the last year...I think there is a big difference and I look forward to more growth as a crafter in this next year! Please see the bottom of this post for the RAK info...

Hugs, Leah

Julie's Mini Album

This post will be pretty photo heavy and I am going to let most of the photos speak for themselves.

All the paper in this mini album is from DCWV Safari Kids stack, as well as some of their matching embellishments.

Other embellishments include the IRock tool, other assorted gems, Prima flowers and twine.

I made the album out of cereal boxes. Each page cut to size and then a long piece to act as the cover. This is the first time that I have ever constructed an actual mini of my own making. It took some time to put together but I was so pleased with it!

A question I had always had when thinking about making a cereal box mini...was a single "sheet" of this enough, thick enough to hold its own? And the answer is yes! A single piece of cereal box covered both sides with cardstock is sturdy enough!!! Glad I found that out because now I am not so afraid to make more of these!

Oh I almost forgot another detail would be the inking. All the inking was done in 2 shades of Distress Inks. Broken China and Vintage Photo.

Now for that RAK...to celebrate this occasion I was thinking of what I could do and I thought I would take example from this post and make one custom mini for one of you!!! So, only if you would like to follow my blog, that would be great but otherwise, please leave a comment here on this post with an email address to contact you. I will email you with a few questions so that I can make sure that the mini will be something that you will really like! I just hope that you'll leave me some time to make one because its not something I want to rush!

Lets see, you have until August 16th to leave a comment. I am on vacation coming up next week so that will be the day I return! It will give me something to look forward to when I get home!

Thank you to the friends I have made through this blog and to those that come by and leave comments, and even for those that visit and don't always have time to comment (as that's a part of life).