Page Maps

This month, Webster’s Pages has teamed up with one of the leading sketch designers in the industry…BECKY FLECK! Becky has been creating easy to use and incredible sketches for years now and has also released her own sketches book titled Scrapbook PageMaps:Sketches for Creative Layouts. This month the Webster’s design team has been able to play with Becky’s amazing sketches. From 12×12 single page to 12×12 double page layouts with 8.5×11 sketches sprinkled in between, there is certainly a Page Map or two that will spark your creativity. Here is the fabulous sketch I got to play with, and my take with a page I did of my two sweetie peas.

Papers are from the Life’s Portraits and Garden Gala collections, along with a bit of Life’s Portraits/Lullaby Lane 6×6 Petite Paper Pad.  Life’s Portraits Storyteller Alpha Stickers, Phrase Stickers and lots of yummy Webster’s trims.

I hand-cut the scroll for the title from the Petite Papers and added a touch of color to the piece with ink and a watercolor brush. Layered it with a Hambly rub-on and attached it to the page with pop dots for dimension. Added lots of scallops, Prima pearls, machine stitching, and antique buttons.  And of course I used one of Webster’s gorgeous olive Bloomers.  I just cannot get enough of those Bloomers.

we want to invite YOU to join in on the fun. Please visit the PageMaps site to take a peek at the not 1, not 2 but 10 different sketches for you to pick from! Find inspiration from our design team or try your own spin at your favorite Page Map…and if you make sure to use Webster’s Pages products on your layout, come on back to inspireME and post your layout in our gallery. We would love to see your creations.

But wait, there is more! We are offering a HUGE giveaway via the Page Maps blog. This amazing prize pack could be YOURS:

And lastly, but not least, we will wrap up the event with a live chat at inspireME with Becky Fleck on Tuesday, June 15th at 6 pm PST.  Use this handy time converter to see what time the chat will be in your neck of the woods. Surely a great time will be had by all as we pick Becky’s brain, chat with friends…and what would a chat be without a prize or two? So mark your calendars now so you can join us in the fun!

Thanks so much for stopping by everyone!  Hope you have a wonderful day.

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Cardalicious #11

Hi everyone!  Where has the day gone?

I honestly cannot believe how fast the days are flying by.  I have so many intentions of accomplishing a huge list of “things to do” during the day, but it just doesn’t seem to be happening.  Some of that may be due to the fact that I’ve got my little peanut home with me.  Nik tracked out of year-round school yesterday and will be home with me for the next 2 1/2 weeks.  I sure love having my girl around, and we’ve been having some special one-on-one time that I’m really cherishing.  Guess all those other things just don’t seem as important.  They can wait, right?

Today Nik and I went for a bike ride together.  I haven’t been on a bike in years!  I’m wondering if I’m going to be able to get out of bed tomorrow.  Might have a few clenched muscles to deal with. But it was worth it, for sure.  Just look at her happy face.

And check me out.  I’m actually on that thing.  Had to get Nik to take some pictures of me to prove I really did it!

Not only did I really do it, I enjoyed it as well.  I hope to take many a bike ride over the next several weeks.  Then maybe I can get Peter to bike with me when he tracks out next.  What do you think the odds of that happening are?

In scrappy news, the new challenge is up at the Cardalicious blog, and I have my card to share.  This week’s challenge is to make a card using a journaling card/tag and the colors green and orange.

I used a combo of green and orange patterned papers from Fancy Pants and Webster’s Pages, ribbon from SEI, and epoxy buttons from MM.  Went a little crazy with the journaling card part of it.  Both the greeting pieces and the focal flowers I cut from some Webster’s Pages journaling cards.  But, I didn’t think that was so obvious, so then I threw in a Hambly journaling transparency behind one flower and a My Mind’s Eye journaling card for good measure.  Think I’ve got it covered now!

Hope you all will come and play along, and do check out the blog for some wonderful inspiration from the other DT members.

Have a great evening!

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A Three Day Weekend

Ahhhhh!  What could be better than a three day weekend?  Except maybe a four day weekend, which we might be getting if the weather forecast comes true.  I’ve learned to not believe it until I see it, but they are predicting snow in our area tonight and tomorrow.  I know some of you are thinking, what’s the big deal……but we would be SO excited to actually see some of the white stuff.  When I first moved to this area, we had snow every winter.  Lots of ice storms, too, which were definitely not fun.  But we haven’t had snow in years.  Not any that you could actually play in, maybe throw a snowball or two, sled down a hill.  I’ve been trying to figure out how to do a snow dance, but so far it’s not helping.  Keep your fingers crossed for us, will you?

This cooooold weather we’ve had this weekend has been perfect for bundling up indoors and doing some scrapping.  I had some of my Paper-Playground pals over for a long crop, and we’ve been cropping up a storm.  Get it?  A storm???

I know……..not funny.

Anyway……one of my weekend projects was my challenge page for the Random Chaos blog this week.  Are you all ready for a new challenge?  Just use some bling, epoxy stickers and the color pink on a layout and come play along with us.  Here is what I did.

Photos of my recent visit to Raleigh to see A Chorus Line. I had saved the playbill and parking stub and included those on my layout as well.  Love the idea of including everyday items on my pages, but rarely do I actually do it.  The pink of the stub ended up working perfectly for this challenge, even. Since the playbill is not acid free, sandwiching it between two transparencies is a safe way to include this type of ephemera on your pages. I added a touch more pink with a double layer of ribbons from American Crafts and Webster’s Pages, and my epoxy stickers are alphabet stickers from SEI.  For the bling part of the challenge, I added a small gem to the intersections of the rings on the Hambly transparency and on the dot of the “i” in my title.

The additional supplies came from my “shop from your stash” kit that I had made up last month.  My scrappy friend, Kim, came up with this great idea to put together your own kits from your stash, and I am slowly playing along.  Background ledger paper by Crate Paper, printed transparency by K&Co. and a vintage belt buckle that was my grandmother’s.  Love that belt buckle.

Well, still no sign of snow!  I guess I need to get back to my dancing!

Have a great day everyone!

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Random Chaos #34 and News from InspireME

Good morning everyone!  I am SO excited to show you all my page for the Random Chaos challenge blog this week.  Janelle could not have picked a better challenge for me if she tried.  Any of you that have read my blog in the last week or two have seen how much I love all things Halloween.  So you can probably guess how happy I was when this week’s challenge ended up being to make any project (page, card or altered object) relating to Halloween.  You all REALLY should go check out what the other designers did.  There is a little bit of everything, and oh my, is there some great stuff.  I am so in love with Rachel’s altered project! It is so worth going to see. Here is what I did.

I chose to scrap this tiny photo of me when I was 7 wearing the witch costume my mom sewed for me.  I loved this costume more than any other I ever wore, and I managed to wear it for several years.  Mom added a whole new strip of fabric at the bottom so that I could continue to wear it as I grew, because I couldn’t stand to part with it.  She’s kept it all these years and I’ve since passed it down to Nicole, who has also worn it for Halloween.  That makes me pretty darn sentimental.  This costume is, without a doubt, one of my favorite childhood memories.  So even though this photo is really itty bitty, I’m still so glad to have it.

I had fun combining a bunch of different products and manufacturers on here.  I used a mixture of papers from Scenic Route (both black patterns), Webster’s Pages (the beige), and a touch of KI Memories( the orange strip).  Also used an overlay from Hambly in the background.  The chipboard buttons are from Making Memories, the ribbons are Stampin’Up and Making Memories, and the velvet alpha letters are from American Crafts.  I went back to my friend, Shanna’s, blog and downloaded a few more sizes of her awesome “scrolly frame” template to use as my photo mat.  Shanna has all sorts of fun templates that she is generously sharing with us all, so do go take a look!  And last, but not least, I added a few floral and leaf cut-outs from the gorgeous, new Reflections of Nature paper by Webster’s Pages.  I love the “ghostly” look these light flowers add to my little Halloween page!  I sure do love me some Webster’s!

And speaking of, there are a few new things going on over at Webster’s community blog site, inspireME, that I wanted to tell you about.  The first is a challenge that was posted this morning for the month of October.  The challenge for October is being led by design team member Iris and is to scrap photos of a favored or treasured object.  Be sure to check out the forum for all the latest information.

The second thing to note is that we are going to be holding our first ever live chat at the inspireME site tomorrow evening at 10 pm.  The chat is open to all inspireME members, so if you haven’t joined yet, you still have plenty of time to do so.  Here is what design team leader, Terri has to say.

Please join us for our very first LIVE chat, Wednesday, October 1, 10pm EST. It is scheduled for 1 hour.

This will be a chance for you to “meet” one of the owners of Webster’s Pages, chat with our design team members and guest designers, ask any questions you might have about products, share ideas and just have fun chatting about paper crafts.

We will have a few giveaways and Brandin will announce the winner of our quarterly banner drawing too.

The Chat is easy to access. That night a Chat option will appear on the inspireME menu, and when you click it, it will take you to the Chat room. You need to be a registered member of the site to have access to the chat.

Look forward to seeing you there!

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Random Chaos #33

Good Monday morning everyone!  Hope you all had a nice weekend.  We took it pretty easy, and didn’t stray too far from home.  The weather was beautiful.  I’m starting to really notice a shift in the air and can feel fall coming.  It’s getting cooler and have you noticed how much earlier it’s getting dark at night?  It is SO dark at 6 am when Peter has to wake up for school, too.  And, he needed pants this morning instead of his usual shorts.  Yes, I think fall is definitely in the air.  Well, that was the excuse Nik and I used yesterday when we decided to bring a few more Halloween decorations up out of the basement.

My mom kept saying we are two weeks too early.  Guess she’s not as fond of the Halloween stuff as we are. At least we didn’t bring up EVERYTHING.  There’s still a lot of stuff yet to pull out of storage.  We just took out a small sampling…

Had to bring out this guy.  He’s one of our oldest and most favorite decorations.

This is Big Jack.  That was the name on him in the window of the paint-it-yourself ceramic place where we saw him.  Nik was 3 years old.  We were up at the grocery store that day when out of the corner of my eye we spied Big Jack in the window a few doors down.  And who could resist?  In we went.  Nik painted all of the orange, and I painted the green leaves on the lid.  Every year when we take him out, we re-tell the story of how he was created.  I think Nik likes this decoration more than any other we have.  She’s already asked if she can have him when she grows up. LOVE that.

Here’s another one of our oldies but goodies.

Nik and I made this together in an art class I signed her up for when she was 2.  It is made out of a brown paper grocery bag and some construction paper.  As I recall, she needed lots of help on the face cut-outs, but she did manage to do most of the painting herself.  Every year, a little more paint flakes off, but I love this guy to pieces anyway.

And here’s one last little scene we started on yesterday.  Still needs some work, but it’s a cute start.

And now for some scrappy news, it is time to share this week’s challenge over at the Random Chaos blog.  I really enjoyed this one.  This week, the challenge is to use two photos, ribbon, and at least two pieces of chipboard.  You all should hop over and see what the other designers did.  There are some really great, diverse pages there.  Here is what I did.

My two photos are of Nik the morning of her school’s field day last May. She is wearing her class’ fourth grade T-shirt, so I wanted to get a shot of both the front and back of her.  I love how happy she was that day.  Field day is by far one of the best days of the school year.  Great memories.

For the ribbon part of the challenge, I included two different pieces on my page.  I used some velvet scalloped trim from Creative Cafe as a border across the whole page, and a smaller piece of Fancy Pants lace trim directly below the photos.  To meet the chipboard requirement, I decided to use chipboard letters from Scenic Route for my title.  Very easy way to get some chipboard in, huh?  The paper on here is a combo of Cosmo Cricket, K&Co. and Scenic Route.  Also threw in a few small journaling pages from Making Memories, a bling heart from Me & My Big Ideas, and an overlay from Hambly.  A few gems from MAMBI add the finishing touch.

Hope you all feel inspired to give this fun challenge a try!  And if you are looking for even more inspiration, check out this new blog that Janelle Richmond has started.  Mini Mania is the name, and it’s all about mini albums and other coolio projects!  Does this girl never sleep???  My hats off to you, Janelle!  You are one amazing lady!

And by the way……..Janelle is looking for a few guest designers.  Be sure to check out the new blog for further info.

Have a great day everyone!

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Random Chaos #18

Well, things have been a bit crazy today, and I’m relieved to say that now we are finally winding down. Today was just one of those run, run, run days….and this is still our vacation! Nothing thrilling, just errands and hair cut and carting friends around and swim practice. But at least we are now done for the day, the kiddos have been fed and I can finally sit down at the computer. Aaahhhh……..

So that means I can share my page for the Random Chaos challenge blog. This week’s challenge is to use shaped cardstock or patterned paper anywhere on your layout. With all the great scalloped and die-cut papers out there, this was a fun and easy challenge to do.

All the patterned paper on this came from a 8×8 specialty paper pack that Making Memories made exclusively for Archivers. The colors in this pack PERFECTLY matched my daughter’s funky swimsuit. I’ve held onto this photo for years waiting for just the right stuff. The felt alphabet is from Creative Imaginations and the letter stickers are American Crafts that I lightly inked to match. The trim is from Fancy Pants, and the buttons are Foofala. I cut the felt fishies from craft store felt and hand stitched some “waves”. And lastly, there are a couple of transparency swirls from Hambly.

This picture of Nik just makes me want to sigh.

Sigh……..

This was her first trip to the ocean. Look at those pudgy little legs. How come they grow up so fast?

Have a great night!

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