Collab Kits Galore

Jenn has two collabs in her store today! The first one is a great collab she did a while back with Meghan Mullens and I'm very happy to see it back in the store!

I made a pretty card with it:

Credits:

Press Play by Jenn Barrette and Meghan Mullens

Next, she has a brand new collab with Melissa Bennett:

I'll be scrapping with this very soon! :)

Whoa!

I cannot believe it! I was picked as one of the finalists of the Scrap Your Freakin' Heart Out contest at the LilyPad.

I entered 2 LOs for this week, and what is most surprising to me is that I won with the one that received only very few comments in the gallery (the other one had literally 10x more comments!).

I know I don't have a shot at the grand prize (sigh...) because the other two finalists in the Design category have made fabulous pages that really deserve to win, so I need to come to terms with the fact that I won't get a guest spot at the store. :-( But winning that $30 gift card is pretty awesome, considering the incredible talent that I 'competed' against! Pinch me, I cannot believe it! ;) And I'm super excited to be going shopping soon!! :D

More CD Calendar Pages

I put together a couple more CD calendar pages. I realize this isn't exactly a priority right now, because I've decided to keep this pretty little calendar for myself, but I was eager to do some more hybrid with these lovely kits by Jenn Barrette since we're in the right season, so I made the October and November pages. Here goes October:

Credits:

2011 Calendar Template by Mari Koegelenberg Creations

Nevermore by Jenn Barrette and Lauren Grier

Pumpkin from Pumpkin Spice by Jenn Barrette

I am completely obsessed with that owl paper. It is the best Halloween paper ever!
And a close up of the glossy and crackle accents I used:

And November:

Credits:

2011 Calendar Template by Mari Koegelenberg Creations

Pumpkin Spice by Jenn Barrette

Yum, I am craving chestnuts! I hope we find some at the store this weekend. :)

Gearing up for Halloween

Halloween is less than a week away and Mari Koegelenberg is having a week-long sale (ETA: the sale hasn't started yet, but will very soon!) on a kit that works great for both creating hybrid spooky projects and scrapping your Halloween pictures:

I had fun making a shaped little card with it:

And here's a look at the back of the card too:

Too cute to spook! :)

Last Week

I've been playing in the Scrap Your Freakin' Heart Out contest at the LilyPad in the past 3 weeks. I've had a blast! I really loved my week 1 page; I was pretty happy with my week 2 page also.
For the final week, I did this:

Journaling:

Oct. 23 2010, just another gorgeous fall day....

We have been living in this house almost three years now. It feels like home. We are so lucky to have such a gorgeous backyard, with bunnies, squirrels, foxes, deer, groundhogs... When I think back to our life in the big city, there is nothing I long for now. That life is gone now; I enjoyed it while it lasted, but now that I have tasted what peace being in the nature gives me, I have no desire to go back. I like to sit here and marvel at the seasons that go by.

Credits:

Paper, house, tree, flower and heard from Cottage Garden by Kaye Winiecki

Paper branch, green paper and acrylic alpha from So Grateful by Sahlin Studio and Sugarplum Paperie

Fancy Flourish Stamps by Jenna Desai

Foam Stamp Alpha Black by Sahlin Studio

Unseamly Stitched Alpha by Jenn Barrette

Fonts: Revista, Traveling Typewriter, CK Noah

I loved the idea I had for this page (taking pictures in my backyard in a full 360 degree turn), but it's a real pity that the pictures look so small in the 600 px web version! Plus, I botched the exposure in a couple of the shots, stupid me! Oh well. :)
It would be fun to do this again when the snow arrives, and then in spring when the leaves grow back, etc. Sounds like a nice plan! ;)

Since you can enter as many pages as you want in the contest, I also made this page, because I had been thinking for a while to document this, and this challenge convinced me it was just about time to do it. I'll be printing this and putting it in my art journal.

Journaling:

There was a time, not too long ago, when I believed that the world was a good place. Good things happen to good people, bad things to bad, right? Well, not exactly. Not anymore.

The world is a scary, evil place. There are days I cannot even get myself to read the news because the knot in my stomach is too tight and I cannot bear to hear any more bad news. But there’s no running away. A dear friend of mine was

brutally attacked and I will bring with me forever the shock and dread I proved when I first heard about it. That was the day I finally understood, and there’s no going back.

Most of the bad news we read in the papers don’t happen to criminals who were bound to end up that way. They happen to nice, normal people like us too. And it is so scary.

When I was little, I loved to ride the bus in my city and look at all the people walking on the street, wondering who they were and regretting not being able to get to know them all. Now, I think I was such a fool back then. Now, I keep away from people as much as possible. Keep at a safe distance to feel safer, but is anybody ever safe?

I don’t know if this fear will ever leave me. I hope one day to gain back a brighter view of the world. I long for that naive attitude to come back. I am hoping it is just buried beneath all the horror and waiting to resurface.

I long to reconcile the sheer happiness and contentment I feel about my personal little world with the dread of the big world. I long to find that balance.

But I can no longer be deceived. The world is not a happy place. I really don’t buy that anymore.

Credits:

Background: black paper from Mod Me by Jacque Larsen blended with newspaper print paper from Capture the Moment by Kate Hadfield and Designs by Liii

Fonts: SS Whimsy, CK Cursive

So anyway, I didn't win (so far... LOL... voting for this week hasn't even started yet) but I am not really disappointed because there is some serious, amazing talent in the gallery and the people who have been chosen so far all really deserved it. But of course one can hope, right? :)
The prizes for this contest are just amazing. There are 3 weekly winners (one for Design, one for Photography and another for Journaling) and they each win $30 to the TLP store. The contest runs for 3 weeks, and after that one of weekly winners is chosen in each category to be the overall winner: and among other great prizes, the 3 overall winners get to be a guest CT for 1 month! So yeah, it's not hard to see why I'd love to win. ;)

If you have some spare time, go check out the galleries for this contest. The pages there are just amazing!

I Forgot!

I forgot to show you another new product by Jenn that was put in the store yesterday: this fabulous alpha!

I am a sucker for alphas, and this is an absolute must have!
I combined it with another of the kits Jenn released at SSD in the past few weeks that is perfect for this season:

Those owls are so adorable! I made a page for my calendar with it, but I turned into a LO as well because I liked how it turned out:

Credits:

Pumpkin Spice and Unseamly Stitched Alpha by Jenn Barrette
Photo action by My Four Hens Photography

Font: Vintage Typewriter

Only 1 more page to go for the calendar. Yay!

Told You I Would Be Busy!

I told you I would be busy catching up with Jenn's latest kits, so next I scrapped with this jaw-dropping kit:

The colors are just amazing and inspiring! So here's what I did with it:

Credits:

EZ Wishes {Number Blocks} by Erica Zane

Pieces of You by Jenn Barrette

Ever since I've seen those number templates in Erica Zane's store I've known I would use them for my calendar cover, and I finally did! ;) I LOVE how the cover turned out!! Now 2 more pages to go, then I can finally have them printed. :)

Also, today Jenn is re-releasing her gorgeous Fly Free kit in her store, and it's 20% off! (you can check it out in action two posts down)

Have a great weekend! Mine's been going pretty well so far. I have work to do, but I haven't started yet; I have finally finished the ScrapMatters Nov. newsletter project on which I've been working for the past week, and this time I cannot double guess myself because I had a very special friend come visit and show his approval! :D

He liked it and I've decided he's a much better sport than DH! :)

Some Very Cool News!!

Finally I can spill the beans! I am so excited and happy and I've been dying to tell everyone!! :D
As you probably know, as of October 1st one of my favorite designers, Jenn Barrette, has left ScrapMatters to move to the Sweet Shoppe Designs. She recently had a CT call, I applied, and she picked me to be on her hybrid team!!!!

How amazing is that?? I am super excited to be on the team! And even though she's been at her new home for just under 3 weeks, she has so many beautiful new kits already! I can't wait to be all caught up with all her creations! You can check out her shop here.
I started with her Halloween collab with Lauren Grier:

The papers in this kit are stunning! I put together a card in no time:

Too bad you can't really see the glossy accents I used on the clock from the picture. This card turned out so pretty and is already in the mail on its way to my mom!

CD Calendar

I really don't know how to stop: I'm working on... let's see, 2 hybrid projects (the Dec. daily - which by the way is huge - and the Nov. newsletter project) and one digi project (2011 8.5x11 calendars) all at once, yet when I saw these new templates by Mari Koegelenberg for a CD calendar I couldn't help myself. So I am now doing a CD calendar too. ;)

These pages are so easy to put together! I have designed 4 pages (but only printed 2 out so far because I ran out of time) and what took me most time was picking the pictures. :) Here's the cover:

Credits:

2011 Calendar Template by Mari Koegelenberg Creations

Fly Free by Jenn Barrette

Mari also put in the shop today one of the gorgeous kits with which she won the designer contest at DSA:

So I used it for my September page:

Credits:

2011 Calendar Template and Fallin' For You by Mari Koegelenberg Creations

I'm having so much fun putting some pretty embellishments on these calendar pages! ;) At first I wanted to do it with pictures of us, but then I got bored because I'm already doing the digital one and there's only so many pictures of us, so I decided to go with some of my favorite pictures. I'm not sure yet if I want to bring this calendar at work or keep it safely at home, we'll see! :)

Don't You Just Love A Great Sale?

As you may have noticed, the $2 Tuesdays at the Digichick are long gone. But, being the great person as she is, Mari Koegelenberg has decided to make her own weekly sale: each Tuesday, one of her kits is put on sale for 25% off, for a whole week. This week, here's what you can score:

I used it to make a quick card to send to a friend:

(sorry for the poor picture, I had to up the ISO quite a bit...)

Work in Progress

OK, in one week, I only worked on the album 20 minutes tonight. But hey, at least what I did is pretty important, it's the cover! ;) I need to find more time to get this done fast!
I simply used a reflective tape to cover the chipboard of the album. (Pictured: back cover)

Too bad the picture does not show how nice and shiny it is. On a whim, I inserted a tree shape cut out from a cereal box on the back cover before applying the reflective tape. So pretty!!

We Have a Pumpkin!

We've been in this country 3 years and we've yet to carve a pumpkin. :/
Three years ago, DH was out of the country (for a 5 week trip nonetheless!) during Halloween. Two years ago, we went to a tea party at which they showed us how cool it was to carve your own pumpkin and we promised "we'll carve a pumpkin next year!". Last year, DH was busybusybusy so by the time we got around to looking for a pumpkin (Oct. 30th or thereabouts) they were all sold out. But this year, we made it! We secured our pumpkin! Now, I don't know if we will actually get around to carving it, but at least it's a step forward, right? :D

Credits:

Background paper from Hoo-hoo-hoo by Karah Fredricks

Foam Stamp Alpha Black by Sahlin Studio

Alpha from Around the World by Sahlin Studio and Britt-ish Designs

Stripey Line Alpha by Kaye Winiecki

Doodled pumpkin from A Day of Giving by Valorie Wibbens

Other pumpkin (used also for photo mat and frame) from Halloween Goodies by Britt-ish Designs

Heart from Cottage Garden by Kaye Winiecki

Font: Traveling Typewriter and Pea Olson

I only accomplished about half of the stuff I'd been meaning to do this weekend. :-/
On the plus side: got a much needed haircut; came to the lab to take some pictures I need for a presentation; did the above LO; started the hybrid project for the Nov. ScrapMatters newsletter.
On the minus side: not finished the hybrid project for the Nov. ScrapMatters newsletter; not finished the 2011 calendar I need to get printed soon so it can get here in time for Christmas; not done a hybrid card I was hoping to squeeze in.
Why are weekends never long enough??

Anyway, I have some very very exciting news I'm really giddy about. I should be able to spill the beans soon! Stay tuned! ;)

Getting Ready for Christmas

Getting ready for Christmas with a fall page??? Yes, because I made this for the October page in my 2011 calendar, that I will give to our parents for Christmas as usual. :) And since I loved the page (especially the blending of 2 papers for the background, isn't it pretty? ;) ), I turned it into a regular LO too:

Credits:

So Grateful by Sahlin Studio and Sugarplum Paperie

The Alpha Files no. 1 by Krystal Hartley

Font: Traveling Typewriter

I've owned this (and 2 others - pictured in the post below) brush alpha by Krystal Hartley for almost a year and hadn't used it so far, for some reason (forgot about having it.......) - but it is SO pretty and versatile! I'm glad I dug it out again! :) I love stamped alphas and having them as brushes makes them so much easier and quick to use. :)

Anyway, I'm down to 2 pages to go for my calendar, plus the cover. Now I'm hoping to find a good offer like the past 2 years to get them printed. And I need to order them quick so they can get here before my trip home for Christmas!

Charity Collab: My Inspiration

I was given the opportunity to scrap with a gorgeous new charity collab for breast cancer awareness put together by some of the designers at The Digichick. All proceeds from the sale of this kit will be donated to the American Cancer Society. And it is such a gorgeous kit!

All the lovely pink in this kit made me want to scrap a page about the most important woman in my life, my Mom. We live far away and I miss her a lot!

Credits:

My Inspiration charity collab for breast cancer awareness ** LIMITED EDITION– Available October 14-31, 2010 only! **

Completely Curved by Sya's Blueprints (retired)

The Alpha Files no. 4 and 5 by Krystal Hartley

The journaling ended up being a bit too personal so I'll work up a softer version before I show this to my mom. :) I am sure she will love it!

Spookville!

Halloween is coming up and Mari Koegelenberg has designed the cutest Halloween kit ever!! It's new today and 20% off!

It's just sooooo pretty! The colors and the patterns are so unusual and eye catching, and look at that adorable girl and the cat!
I used it to make two additional tags for my Halloween banner and I just love how they turned out! (And, as you can see, my black soot distress ink has arrived! Yay!! ;) )

Credits:

Tag shape from Tag Sale Rounded Tag Templates by Geeky Diva Designs

Spookville by Mari Koegelenberg Creations

I cannot wait to hang this pretty banner in my home... Almost 2 weeks to Halloween, maybe I can put it up this weekend! :D

For more Halloween inspiration, check out Craft Critique's Halloween blog Carnival!

Just for fun

Journaling:

In the last couple of years I have discovered and developed three passions (scrapbooking, photography and hybrid crafts) and I feel like I will never let go of them as long as I live. Having a creative outlet is now more vital to me than the air I breathe, at times, because it makes me feel free and it reminds me of the life I want to live and of the beauty and grace I am blessed with every day.

Credits:

Capture the Moment by Kate Hadfield and Designs by Lili

Vintage Carnival by Sahlin Studio and Jenn Barrette

Vintage camera sticker and arrow tag from Around the World by Sahlin Studio and Britt-ish DesignsFree Spirit alpha by CD Muckosky

Fonts: Pea Olson, CK Parsifal, Vintage Typewriter

Photo actions by My Four Hens Photography and the Pioneer Woman

Halloween Decor

Since I saw Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas project last year, I've been wanting to do some tags. So when I was thinking about a project for the October newsletter of ScrapMatters, I put tags and Halloween together and ended up with this Halloween tag banner:

Credits:

Tag Sale Rounded Tag Templates by Geeky Diva Designs

Spooky and Halloween Chic by The Design Girl Boo Bash and Ticket Tape - Halloween by WM [squared] designs After Midnight by Jennifer Labre

As you can see, there are 4 tags so far (but in the meantime I've done 2 more - I will be able to show them off in a couple of days! ;) ):

I had so much fun doing these tags!! I decorated the back of the tags with patterned papers.

Both my local AC Moore and Michael's do not carry Black  Soot distress ink by Ranger. Seriously, that's a shame!! So since I needed to get this project done, I decided to try out some black glitter instead. (In the meantime, I have purchased the black soot distress ink online and used it for the 2 missing tags that I will post on Thursday.) I bought Martha Stewart's glitter and I am IN.LOVE!!!! It is so sparkly and fun! OK, a bit messy, but soooo pretty! :)
Here's a closer look at my tags:

I used velvet fluff on the spider web! Fun!

For more Halloween inspiration, check out Craft Critique's Halloween blog Carnival.

Happy Tuesday! :)

It Has Begun!

At this point, I'm not at all sure I'll ever see this project finished... but it has begun, and I'm loving it! ;)

Although I must confess that at times like these I wish I were a traditional scrapper, so I wouldn't have to go through all the printing & cutting... ;)
Anyway, I bought some new Distress Stickles today... very yummy! You can see them in action on the "19". :)

Hybrid Christmas Planner

Back in August I worked on this project for the Sept. newsletter at ScrapMatters and I loved every moment! It was quite an endavour to get it done, but so worth it! I am literally counting the days to December when I can use it and show it off to my family! :)
But since I realize most normal people don't get excited about Christmas in September, I decided to wait a while to share this project. Now that the leaves are falling and holiday season is in the air, it might be the right time to do it. Also, this month's Getting Hybrid challenge at ScrapMatters is all about creating your own holiday planner, so I hope you're inspired to join us!
I used this adorable kit by Stolen Moments for my planner:

and since I'm obsessed with pink and green for Christmas this year, I recolored the blue paper with the trees to make it fit my mental picture.

Credits:

Cotton Candy Christmas by Stolen Moments Designs

I created all the embellishments (minus the bells, the buttons and the beads of course ;) ) from scratch. It was so much fun!

Calendar grid from Desktop Calendar Templates 2010 by Simply J Studio

Sooooooo pretty! :D Posting these pictures now really puts me in the mood for doing my December Daily album! I have no idea if I will find time to complete it, but I sure want to give it a shot, starting this weekend! :)