CREATIVITY

So my question is this: Do you still make Valentine Cards? I did a lot of scrapping early in the month with some beautiful papers and embellishments from Scrapmuse Kits and it got me thinking about when I was young and made my Valentine Cards. I loved playing with paper and glue way back then. :)

I don't know exactly when it happened....probably when more moms went back to the workforce...but somewhere along the way people stopped making their Valentine Cards. We would go to the store and purchase them. 40 to a box. 6 different designs. And you could choose who got which one. If they included a sucker....they were even better!

I missed creating them, but I still got to decorate my Valentine Box at school....or the big envelope that we would leave on our desk....just waiting to be filled with lots and lots of Valentine's. And I didn't want to open them all at once. I wanted to take my time and savor it.

I know some people think with disdain at Valentine's Day and call it a "hallmark holiday", but it doesn't have to be that. You can choose to make it special. You can make your own Valentine Card(s) and let people know that you care about them.

So my challenge to you is this: take the time to make at least one Valentine Card this year. For your spouse, a grandparent, a grandchild, or even someone that is very special to you that you haven't seen for a very long time. You are going to love doing this!

Get out your construction paper, scissors, rubber stamps, make a heart to embellish it....let your creativity go. And if you are looking for some great papers and embellisments (if only I had this stuff as a kid!!!) you can get the Sweet Nothings Kit at Scrapmuse. It will make a ton of Valentine Cards for you! :)

Here's a little something I created with it:
                        Please excuse me, but this layout is being published.  It will be back soon! :)

Hopping Along!

Another fun thing I've been doing is following a blog hop this weekend. Pamela Young has been our Guest Designer over at Scrapmuse this past month. And she has a challenge site that is a lot of fun & tons of inspiration. You can check it out for sketches & challenges here: http://scrapbookchallenges.ning.com/

There's still time to play along if you want to! Just start here: http://pamelasworldofscrap.blogspot.com/ and follow the hopping from blog to blog.

This is the latest sketch:

And this is my take on it:

One of the best parts of challenges is seeing what everyone else does with it and how different they all look. You can check the layouts out here: http://scrapbookchallenges.ning.com/forum/topics/hop-on

Enjoy! And thanks for looking!

25 Years!

This year will be our 25th anniversary year...wow!

When I was young and first married I remember thinking our parents were pretty old when the 25th rolled around. I no longer think that. :) Convenient, eh? Now I think of it as romantic and as a measurement of life. Just a stop in the journey of marriage, but such a cool one!

Here's my first layout celebrating such a time:
         Sorry, but this layout is being published.  It will be back in October '10. :)

I used my Scrapmuse Specialty Kit "Sweet Nothings" for it. The Irene's pink flowers are to die for! So gorgeous and they just seem to have so much movement. I love them to pieces! The GCD black glitter (love me some glitter!!) letter stickers are amazing as well. I've never seen so many letters all in one package! You could probably journal with these letters there are so many!!!

More to come as the paint dries. Yep! I'm playing with paint with this kit. Want a kit of your own? With chocolate? Uhuh, Missy sends candy with her kits! Just one of the little extras she packs into her kits...gotta love it!

Okay, here's the link to get yours: http://scrapmuse.com/shop/index.php

Happy New Year!

We brought in our new year surrounded by wonderful friends, tons of great food, fun games & fireworks! It was so much fun to have a group over and just celebrate today....and all the new tomorrows. We are so very blessed! I pray that you are blessed as well.

On a scrapbooking note....it was almost the END of the evening by the time I realized that NONE of us had taken any photos. And thus the paparazzi began. About 20 quick photos to say we really had been all together and had a blast! :)

Missy at Scrapmuse has debuted the January kits too! I'm having a great time working with mine and can't wait to share it with you. But first........the Main MegaMuse Kit "Parisian Nights":

Isn't it gorgeous? So pretty and romantic!

I love her two options for Specialty Kits this month. As always she has two separate kits that lend themselves very well to a "boyish" or "girlish" point of view. With that said, they still are very versatile for a wide range of photo ops.

The first is "Sweet Nothings" and this is the kit I had the great pleasure of working on this month. It's full of pink goodness! I'll share my first layout with you tomorrow....but for today, here is a photo of the kit in all it's glory:

Isn't it beautiful?

Last, but definitely not least is Specialty Kit #2 "Space Cowboys." I love the whimsical feel to this kit! And those alphas are so cute!!! Yes, I have a thing for alphas! :)

Be sure and get yours at http://scrapmuse.com/ And while you are there, please stop by the forums and say hello! We'd love to have you.

Just a couple more.........

So I've had fun playing with my December Scrapmuse Kit! The new one just arrived (you are going to LOVE it!!) and I thought I'd better post these before I had more stuff to share.

Here's a quick and very simple card that I did for a sketch challenge over at Sketchy Thursdays:

And a layout of our quest for the 'perfect' Christmas tree:

And my super sweet nieces & nephew at Christmas:

And a darling photo of my niece & my grandma on this one:

Now keep in mind that these are made with my scraps from the kit and I did add plain cardstock and also the lined & grided papers. Fun stuff though!

What I've Been Up To....

I had the privelege and fun of putting together some fabulous necklaces for the Christmas gift for our women at church for our holiday event. My friend Carin and I cut, mod podged, sanded, epoxied, glued and strung 500 of these babies!

Here's a photo of the finished pendants (the bird in the middle was a prototype that I purchased). There's a little glare from my flash, but you can see how fun they turned out. And yes, they are made from Scrabble tiles. And FYI there are 100 tiles per scrabble game. If you haven't lost any. *wink*

When it was time to run a ton of cardstock through my trusty little cuttlebug to create these boxes. A little folding, a little tape, a whole lotta help from my friends......add some tissue paper, ribbon and a silver crown and voila!... a beautiful gift fit for a Princess. And since we are all daughters of the King......it was perfect!

Oh what fun, it is to..............

scrap! With the ScrapMuse December "School Boy" Specialty Kit! :)

Seriously this was a FULL kit. I love that it had a nice mix of printed papers from different manufacturers (like Cosmo Cricket boyfriend line, Bella Blvd super stud & Kaiser Craft. I love that it had rub ons that went on like buttah! Oh they were sooooooooooooo nice! Love the giant red rick rack too......yum!

Here's pic of the kit:

Here's a link to ScrapMuse: www.scrapmuse.com where you can see this kit as well as another specialty kit "Family Times" & the December Mega Kit..........(I *love* this name!!!) "Glitzmas". So cute! And filled with LOTS of fun new things. Including Shimmerz!

For some reason the Bella Blvd cardstock sticker letters look black here, but they are really blue. However, in my first layout that I'm going to share I did use black Staz-On ink to make them black. Irony.........

So here's my first layout that I did. This is Wes about 14 years ago. It was a blast to reminisce and work on an older photo.

The journaling reads: Kiddo, you have been on the move since the day you were born. Growing up with older brothers & living on a dairy farm put you on the fast track early.

Of course I used the {dare devil} rubon. *wink*

Thanks for sharing with me! Let me know what you think of the kit.