Sweet

All I can say is this Graphic 45 is just too awesome for words. I have some great pict of of my mom and aunt when they were little. This is my aunt. I also added a Prima journaling page and some Maya Road ric rac, and some Thickers (which are on sale at the Crafty Scrapper).

No Frill Crop

No Frill Crops at the Crafty Scrapper are anything but no frills! We had the best time last night! It was even more special because it was our friend Joanna's b'day celebration. Here you can see her TRYING to blow out the candles of the cake Heidi is carrying as Debbie and all the other gals sing and look along.

I really felt the creative juices flowing. I made a book for a class I will be teaching. I did the challenge that Sherri posted earlier! What fun! And made 4 LOs with some fabulous new paper from Graphic 45. I will be posting those later!

My Current Love Affair with Basic Grey & Cosmo Cricket

I admit it - I am fickle. If there is a new paper line - well that's all it takes - it is my new favorite.
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I am not sure if this Basic Grey is all that new, but I am totally truly madly in love with it. I also want to give a shout out to Cosmo Cricket too because I am two timing Basic Grey these days with Cosmo.
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This card is truly easy breezy. I created a grid with my computer and then just adhered squares of the different papers. A layered and stamped sentiment, and I was done. It took my longer to think it up than to execute it!
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Is it a paper-sickness? Maybe. I'm ok with that.

Susie

Something Fun

Last week we told you that we would have a challenge of sorts and details would come out on the 15th. Today is the day!

We have put together a summer Summer Birds and Butterflies Kit of 8 papers, 5 ribbons, letter stickers, a stamp, buttons, brads Maya Road jewels and birds on branches. Also included is a vintage fold a note and bird cards. All of this is packaged and for sale at the store. Most of it is also available separately at the store as well. We are hoping that something in this broad array of items will call to you. It looks much better in person, but if you cannot pop by the store-the picture is here. If you want to order the kit-send an email to the store indicating you would like to purchase the July kit. Cost is $18.99. Shipping would be additional and is actual shipping costs.

What we would like to do is to challenge anyone/everyone to use this group of supplies and show us what the end result is. A couple of the design team members will also participate, but will not be eligible to win the prize we have set up. I didn't want them to post their ideas at this point, because I'm anxious to see what everyone comes up with for this individually-I think that it is so fun to see what everyone comes up with using similar/same supplies.


To show us your work either put a comment here with a link to your work or email it to carolyn@thecraftyscrapper.com. Put 'July Challenge' in the subject line of the email. We will review all submissions on July 31 (so have your picture to us or tell us where to find it by Midnight July 30)and announce the winner of a $25.00 gift certificate to the Crafty Scrapper on August 1, 2008.

The Fine Print: Projects may be layouts, altered work, books, etc. Decision made by the judges is final. By submitting you allow us to post your work on our blog and you allow us to ooo and ahhh as necessary.

Thanks! Have FUN.

Caroline from Maya Road is coming back to the Crafty Scrapper........

If you haven't checked the events page or gotten your email, here is the skinny on the Maya Road Class.Caroline is coming back and teaching two classes filled with new stuff from their summer CHA release.
Be sure and sign up fast, they are filling up quickly. Check below for all the info........
Saturday, August 16th, first class is their adorable chipboard tree album noon-2pm. Second class is a mixture of their 5 ring round sheer album and chipbard album called summer time 3pm-5pm. Each class is $50, if you sign up for both you will receive $10 off and goodies from Caroline from the summer show.

Some Maya Road Goodness........

I am sure you all have been looking at all the sneak peeks Maya Road has been showing, here is one of their new albums. As most of you know the convention was a little stressful, well Caroline from Maya Road sent me this album to cheer me up, and boy did it. With our new camper all I want to do is go to the Lake and scrapbook about it. Thanks Caroline for the album and all the great pep talks on balancing life.I still have a couple more pages to do, but I have had more fun doing this album, and notice all the Maya Road goodies inside. If you have not used their sheer journaling cards, you must, they make journaling fun! Also can you see Tim Holtz new metal embellishments? I added the keys to the ring and the hinges look like fish hooks.
We leave for the Lake this Wednesday, and I have already started my new album for that. I am afraid the girls at the shop think I am never coming back, but I am still around and have a lot of things in the works. Don't forget to check out the 2 classes Caroline at Maya Road will be teaching at The Crafty Scrapper August 16th, you can see them on the events page of the website. Sign up soon it is filling up fast!

Our Home by the Sea

A book of seasons...is the name of this album that I made the other day at the Crafty Scrapper. The album is a sheer house from Maya Road. I really love the look that the sheers have when you place paper behind them. The papers I used today were mainly Creative Imaginations, but I also threw in some Flair and some K&Co papers.




It is so easy to write on these sheers using a Slick Writer. And every once and a while, I have used some Icing from Glitz.



Since I so do not have a house near the beach....I used the pictures of my Uncle Jim's family. He sent me precious pictures of his family all through the year on the beach. I hope you enjoy them.

Spring

Summer

Fall

Winter


I hope you enjoyed the little journey through their year!

Pre Teen Crop

We had another fun pre-teen crop.
We made a mosaic frame to match our rooms. Everyone incorporated their own style to make their frames. We had a blast and the pizza pick of the day was sausage and cheese. Of course the Texas girls love their Dr. Pepper and Miss Carolyn brought delicious M&M cookies. We are having a blast with these young scrappers this summer!

We

Having a fun time scrapping this summer! I have just been celebrating my boys accomplishments this year. I couldn't be any prouder of my Luke. Now...he is a good sport. Not everyone is used to their mother jumping coming up to them during a performance and taking a self portrait. (They were on the gym floor and the parents were leaving.) He is a really shy guy but I think he secretly likes it. This is a LO using Cosmo Cricket. The only hard time I had was deciding which side of paper to use because I wanted to use the reverse side or keep the saying on the reverse! Every inch of the paper is simply FABOO!

My 1st Bunco Night.............

A couple of weeks ago a good friend asked me to be apart of a Bunco group, believe it or not I have never played. I am also shy about going places were I do not know anyone, yes I know thats hard to believe, but its true. But I thought why not it would be good for me to meet new people. The first night was Luau night and you had to dress Luau and make a Luau dish. As my friend Marie has gotten me hooked on google, I found this recipe.
Chicken Wraps
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts halves
1/2 pound bacon
1 (20 ounce) can pineapple chunks
18 fluid ounces teriyaki sauce

1. Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces. Wrap with about 1/3 slice of bacon, thread onto toothpick, and top with pineapple chunk. Marinate for 4 hours or longer in teriyaki sauce.
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
3. Place marinated appetizers onto parchment lined baking sheets. Bake for 20 minutes or until chicken is done and bacon golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Serve hot.

With a little Kale and some bright summer flowers, you have a great Luau dish!
I selected not to post a picture of my outfit, but I did actually win "best Luau outfit". I had a blast, and so enjoyed meeting new people....its good to step out of our confort zone. Now I have to come up with a theme for the night I host....any ideas?

Happy LATE 4th of July......

Sorry this is late but we have been on the lake with no phones or computers...so here is a little sparkle wishing you a Happy 4th, hope everyone had a great weekend!

If you have been to the shop lately, you probably know that Nolan and I bought a camper last week. We have been saving for one and a perfect camper came our way. I was off to the dollar store (LOVE this place) bought everything we needed so we could always have it stocked and ready to go. Thursday we left for Big Brown to camp. We have always enjoyed camping in a tent, but at 40, we have decided it was time to move up to a camper. And after this weekend I am here to tell you I LOVE THIS CAMPER. We had so much fun we didn't want to come home.
We swam, relaxed, ate, visited with friends and family and fished all weekend, at one point Nolan and I each had 3 fishing poles going. And of course Denton had his Superman pole!
On Friday some family came out to visit and brought their boat. Michael, who owned the boat was Denton's new BFF. He rode that tube forever and was never scared. At one point his little body was bobbing up and down and I couldn't tell if he was OK or not, he then yelled "GO FASTER"! So now he wants us to save for a boat and tube, he says its better than Flip Fusion.

People who know me, know that I grew up on the water. All my Uncles owned boats and raced them, I would spend all summer up at their house. I learned how to ski at 10years old and by 15 was doing tricks on a single ski. But that was 25 years ago and of course I was in better shape, so when I was asked if I wanted to ski, I thought "OH NO it will never happen!" Well guess what?
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YES I did it, and I even got up on the second try. I guess its like riding a bike, you do not forget. I will tell you that my ankles, back, legs, everything hurts today....BUT it was SOOOO worth it.
Hope you all had a great weekend too! We have already planned our next lake trip in two weeks, you guys may not see me much this summer........

Team Challenge

Isn't it interesting how each person sees things so differently. For a fun challenge three of us took the same products to see what we would come up with. The direction we set was that we were to do a layout, we had to use all of these products and we could not add products to the layout. We would allow use of a pen or something like that to work on the layout.


The products chosen by one of us (ok, me) was a sheet of the Simply Luxe red polka dot paper--one side is red with white dots and the other side is white with red dots. There was a sheet of the Daisy D paper with the little monkey faces on one side and taller monkeys on the other side. There were Creative Imagination (Creative Cafe) sticker sheet with the alphabet and other stickers and two ribbons from American Craft. Also put in the mix was one chipboard tag from a Maya Road Album and 3 black buttons. These items were not patterns that are often put together and so it made them a little more difficult to use, or so the plan was.

A couple things happened that affected the results, one bag did not end up with the tag in it, so it didn't get used. one of the sticker sheets was short a 'y' and an 'o', which was corrected, but the picture I took didn't have those on it, you'll see where that was. Anyway, here are the three layouts.






Each is very unique in the styling. Not a surprise was that each of us used a picture of a child in the layout. I think the monkeys called for that. Anyway, we had fun doing it. Hope it inspires you to do new things---1) try some papers that don't fit your normal scheme for layouts 2) try something new with the style, 3) have fun. You can see there is no right or wrong, just our own style.

To try to help with motivation, we are going to do another design team challenge with specific products to be used-like we did here. There will be packets of the products at the store to allow anyone else to join in that wants to. At the end of the time allowed, we will post all of the different layouts and will vote on our favorite done by someone not on the design team. This person will win an awesome prize! All of the details will be announced next week (July 15), so Stay TUNED!

Luggage Tag Project

Just wanted to share a project I did for some of us who went on the Alaska cruise last month.

If you have ever been on a cruise, you know that at the end of your trip, your luggage sits in a sea of other luggage that looks JUST LIKE YOURS. So I made luggage tags for four of the families who cruised to Alaska.

I was surprised at how quickly we all found our luggage when it was time to leave the ship.

Oh how I miss that ship! No one here cleans my room, makes my bed or serves me dinner on fine china!

I plan to make some even fancier tags for my upcoming trip to Utah with my friend Rebecca. CKU here we come!

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Susie

1st Pre-Teen Crop of the summer........

Today was our 1st pre-teen of the summer. The girls had a blast, so did Heidi....not sure who had more fun! You did a great job Heidi.
Check out more photos HERE!

pre-teen crop

We are in for the summer time fun! Croppin about ourselves in a book we made by ourselves! We learned a LOT of new techniques and had fun with Love Elsie, and Carolle's Creations. Journaling is the FOCUS of our album because our handwriting is our STAMP on life! But we also played with chipboard, lots of embelee's , we made our own album's!!!!! And did I mention Pizza and Soda Pop???








OK girls.... we decided July was the month to do this EVERY week! So ....sign up, get your Mom to crop while you are having FUN creating a one of a kind project!!! Let's Have a blast!!!! Goodness Knows there is plenty to scrap about!

Heidi