I love Lucy!

No, not THAT Lucy! I'm talking about "Lucy Bird," one of the new spring lines from Imaginisce. I'll admit: when I first saw it, I found the flowers a bit overwhelming. But once I started playing with it (ready for a bad pun?), it grew on me. (Sorry!) And it does feature a bird, which always seems to win me over.

I posted one of the layouts last weekend with my sketch, but I did two other layouts AND two cards with this line. Wanna see? Okay, twist my arm.

You might need your sunglasses for this first one...seriously.

Yep, it's pretty bright. But I guess that's kinda the point. And apparently, I'm on a "sun" kick lately, because this next one has a sun on it, too. Hmmm...

For the card, I used my Slice to cut the flower shapes. The middle one is a rub-on, topped with a Hero Arts sentiment stamp.


And then I created this card for the Clip It Up blog. In addition to the Lucy Bird paper, it has scraps from two other Imaginisce lines, Perfectly Posh and Sweet Cheri, which gives it a totally different look!


If you haven't checked out my Clip It Up project for this week, hop on over and take a look. It includes instructions for the button heart, along with another button idea!

Thanks for stopping by!

Hey, I CAN sketch!

I'm typically one of those scrappers who just starts throwing elements down on a page and moving them around until it "works." While I sometimes have an idea in my head for where things should go, I never commit it to paper. Frankly, I've just never been that organized.

But this month, Scrap-Friendzy asked each of its Design Team members to create one original sketch for the January Sketch-a-Thon. My first thought was to take the easy way out and sketch something I'd already created. But that would be cheating, right?

So I figured "what the heck?" and created a sketch. Don't laugh.


Aside from the goofy bird, I'm pretty happy with it. And it worked perfectly for some photos (taken by Jacqueline Reitz) that I'd been struggling with.

See, there was a reason for the goofy bird after all! :)

Most of the materials are from Imaginisce's new Lucy Bird line, which is full of bright, flowery prints and, of course, birds. I personally love birds, so I decided to have some fun with it.

For those of you keeping track, we're up to sketch #17 on Scrap-Friendzy's Sketch-a-Thon, and I'm offering a RAK for one lucky scrapper who completes this sketch. Check out Scrap-Friendzy's "Sketch-a-Thon" forum (click on Sketch #17) for more details on how you can be in the running.

Thanks for stopping by!

They're BAAA-AA-CK!

It's been a long 30 days for me without my daily Paper Popsicles fix. For those who didn't know, Paper Popsicles shut down on Dec. 15 (sob!) and went on a little break, with promises to launch something new and exciting on Jan. 15. So today's the day!

What's the Scoop? is their new division, and they have a weekly schedule of ideas, challenges and examples to get your creative juices flowing. And today, they're offering a RAK to help chase the 'winter blues' away. I know I can certainly use that!

As for me, I've survived a week of business travel and I'm hoping to finally get in some crafty-time in my lonely, abandoned scraproom this weekend. I'm up on the Scrap-Friendzy
Sketch-a-Thon this Sunday (that's the 17th for those of you who use calendars) with a sketch I created myself, so be sure to check back on Sunday for a glimpse of my very rudimentary sketching skills. It's sure to be an adventure!

Crazy Days

It seems to be a universal truth: the days that I really *need* to scrap (i.e., to escape from my crazy life for a few hours and do something I enjoy), I can't. I have no time. The very reasons I need to scrap (I've had a positively insane week at work and am preparing for a birthday party for 6-year-olds tomorrow), are the exact reasons I can't. Because I still have work I need to do, and I have about 700 errands I need to run today to get stuff for this party. Hmmmph.

Sadly, there's no end in sight. I'm leaving on Monday for a business trip and won't be back until Wednesday. Thursday will be spent catching up at work, then attending a parent meeting at my younger daughter's preschool. And then it will be Friday again...will that be the light at the end of the tunnel? I'm kind of afraid to get my hopes up. But maybe...just maybe.

Until then, I'll leave you with a layout I did for the Scrap-Friendzy Sketch-a-Thon. If you're not over there playing along, you're seriously missing out. There are some fantastic scrappers doing incredibly inspiring layouts every day, and I can hardly keep up. But the great thing is...I don't have to. I just do what I can, and they all understand because they're fighting crazy schedules too.

I created this layout based on a sketch by Liz Chidester at The Scrappiest. (By the way, Liz is over at Scrap-Friendzy playing along now, too!). It's a silly photo, so naturally, I had some fun with it.


Papers are by Studio 8, Making Memories and We R Memory Keepers; chipboard is Fancy Pants, coated with acrylic paint and Shimmerz; die-cuts were done with Slice and Quickutz; edge punch is Fiskars; letter stickers are by White Blossom; brad is Recollections; ink is Distress Ink in Frayed Burlap.

The layout is based on this sketch, which I flipped to accommodate my horizontal photo.


And now, I'm off to run errands. Wish me luck!

Breaking News!

Well, it's been another exciting day! And not because I had to go back to work (which was not so much exciting as hectic). But I digress. The best part about my day was a really nice phone call that came in this afternoon from a lady named Renee. Also known as Simply Renee, creator of the Clip It Up!

I've been invited to join their Design Team as a Project Designer, which basically means that each month, I'll post one of my projects on the Simply Renee blog, along with some tips and instructions. It also means I'll get some more (desperately needed) Clip It Up goodies to help organize my scraproom, and I'll be posting product reviews of those as well. Read all about it and check out the other Design Team members here.

And I'm still plugging along on the Scrap-Friendzy Sketch-a-Thon. Last night, I finished my interpretation of a sketch from Creative Scrappers.


Patterned papers are from Basic Grey (Nook and Pantry) and Crate Paper (Cottage Collection); the chipboard pear is by Maya Road; punches are Martha Stewart; die-cut letters are Quickutz; journaling spot is Basic Grey; pink letter stickers are by My Little Shoebox.

And here 's the fabulous sketch it's based on (by Allison Cope):


Thanks for stopping by! And be sure to watch the Simply Renee blog the week of January 18 for my first Design Team post there!

Sketch Junkies...It's Your Lucky Month!

Scrap-Friendzy is hosting a Sketch-a-Thon throughout the month of January -- one sketch a day to inspire and motivate you to dig into that growing stack of photos or rebuild your dwindling card stash. And yes, there are prizes...one grand prize, plus some RAK's to entice you along the way.

I completed a layout for Sketch #1 last night, and I'm really hoping to get at least one more done today. Because tomorrow...(whont, whont, whaaaah)...I have to go back to work. But until that blasted alarm goes off tomorrow, I'm planning to enjoy every second.

Here's a look at the layout I did last night for Sketch #1 (from Liz at The Scrappiest). I used the Perfectly Posh line from Imaginisce for these perfectly posh photos of my little fashion plate.


And here's the sketch it was based on:


And there are plenty more sketches where that one came from! Hope to see you there!

Oh, and Kim! You asked about the button jars...I got them at Hobby Lobby. They have the best selection of jars I've found anywhere.