Wow!

The first week of school with students just zoomed past.

Over this (much deserved) three-day weekend, I hope to get started designing the Simply Scrappin' Kit Club pages for September. We'll be using the new UR Sweet kit that came out this month. It has beautiful Taken with Teal, Rose Red, Basic Grey, and Old Olive DSP, cardstock, and embellishments.

Also, our October hostess has already chosen her kit. We'll be doing Best Ever, the new birthday kit that uses three new In Colors (Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze, and Kiwi Kiss) along with Whisper White.

If either of these kits strikes your fancy, join us! I'd be happy to order the kit for you from SU! and prepare it along with the kits for the club members who meet IRL.

Remember: each double-page spread is individually packaged to make putting it together (using jpgs of the finished pages) a breeze. So for $33.75 plus shipping, you'll receive 5 double-page spread kits, a separate card kit that includes envelopes and the supplies to make 3 cards, and have enough left over embellishments to create a few projects of your own!

I hope to add a PayPal button soon to make the process easier for you.

Happy scrappin'!

Cards, Cards, & More Cards!

These are the cards my Simply Scrappin' Kit Club members will be making today with the Boho Blend kit. I usually don't post the cards we make, but since we're doing two kits today and some people will be finishing them up at home, I wanted club members to be able to see the cards, too.


These are the cards we'll be making from the Rose Cottage kit. The one in the middle is my favorite. I just love those baroque flowers!

Final Rose Cottage Pages

I just finished the final Rose Cottage Simply Scrappin' Kit pages for our club meeting tomorrow. I have to say that I'm sad to be finished with this kit. It has definitely been my favorite so far.


This is the left-hand side. I decided to color block with the left-over pieces of DSP. The rose red DSP on the right-hand side is big enough to mat a 4 x 6 picture if anyone wants three pictures on this page.


This is the right-hand side. I left room for smaller pictures above and below the vertical one, or people can use the space for titles or journaling.


This is how the pages look put together. I hope everyone at the club tomorrow enjoys them, and I can't wait to get started designing the UR Sweet Simply Scrappin' Kit pages for September's club meeting.

More Rose Cottage Pages

This is the left-hand side of the new Rose Cottage Simply Scrappin' Kit layout club members will be making on Saturday. I double matted the vertical photo with chocolate chip and river rock cardstock so it will really stand out.


This is the right-hand side. I am totally in love with these baroque flowers. If you've never ordered a Simply Scrappin' Kit, you would not believe the amount of cardstock sticker embellishments they give you. There are plenty left over after we make our ten pages and three cards to create TONS more with added cardstock.


This is how the pages look put together. The title could go at the top or bottom, and there's plenty of room to journal between the pictures. The vertical photo frame would also make a nice journaling box.

I tried to make these pages simpler since the previous ones were so over the top, but I'm just lovin' this kit, and it's hard not to use a little bit of everything on each page!

Rose Cottage #3

It's a good thing I accomplished so much this weekend. I've only been back at work two days, and I'm already exhausted!

Yesterday the other DI sponsor and I made enough chocolate covered pretzels in two and a half hours to fill fifty bags, so our fund raising should be off to a great start when the kids come back. Today we'll be focusing on making samples to show them for the craft fair in December. Thank goodness for the wonderful ideas I've gotten from SU! and SCS.


This is the left-hand page for the third Rose Cottage Simply Scrappin' Kit layout. It's based on my favorite Stacey L. King sketch. I couldn't resist using it again since the kit had the perfect squares and flowers for it; I also love how this DSP has the beautiful swirls on it.


This is the right-hand side. The DSP has lines on it that would make a perfect journaling spot about a major event. The large space on the right would also be good for a large title or for showcasing a special photo.


This is how the pages look when they're put together. I must say the cardstock stickers in this Simply Scrappin' Kit are some of my favorite. They really give the pages an extra "punch." Too bad my crooked pictures don't do them justice!

Just Another Manic Monday

The weekend flew by! I finished the first set of Rose Cottage pages at 1:30 am on Saturday, went to my team meeting in Allen, spent the rest of Saturday with my husband, and completed two more sets of pages yesterday. Now I'm running around trying to get everything ready to start work on the craft fair at school this week. Manic doesn't even begin to describe how I feel!


This is the left-hand side of the second Rose Cottage layout. I started out with a picture I'd printed from SCS and ended up tweaking the way I placed the photo mats and embellishments to fit my space.


This is the right-hand side, once again adjusted to fit my space. I think the original designer's photo mats may have been for smaller pictures, but a lot of my club members don't like to cut their photos down, so I'm trying to include more pages where they don't have to.


And this is how they look when they're together! The more I work with this kit the more I love its baroque elements. I left the space in the lower right-hand corner blank so they can add their titles or journal there.

When I get home from work today, I'll take pictures of the pages I completed last night and post them tomorrow. I tried something new with them and am anxious for feedback to see if it "worked."

First Rose Cottage Layout

This left-hand page is actually a variation of the page pictured on the outside of the Rose Cottage Simply Scrappin' Kit package. I liked it so much I decided to tweak it a little and use it for my layout.


This is the right-hand page I made to go with it.


This is how the pages look together. I'm really loving the images used in this kit. They come from the Brocade Basics stamp set. I'm definitely adding this set to my ever-growing Wish List!

Wow!

I didn't get to go to the SU! convention this year, but I just got back from a team meeting where my upline taught us two techniques and a project she learned! It was almost as good as being there!

Plus since my team meeting was two hours away, my husband and I made a day of it and even took the German Shepherd so the two of them could go hiking. Needless to say, my husband took lots of pictures for me to scrapbook while I was "working"!

Friday night, I completed the first double-page spread for the August Simply Scrappin' Kit Club that uses the Rose Cottage SSK. I'll try to get the pictures taken and posted some time this afternoon, but I wanted to work on a few more pages this morning and take all the pictures at once.

Happy scrappin'!

Back to Work

Today will be my first day back at work for the 2008-2009 school year.

I'm really looking forward to sharing with you the items my students make for our December Craft Fair, the pages I create with the Rose Cottage Simply Scrappin' Kit for our August Club meeting as well as the UR Sweet pages from the new catalog for our September Club meeting.

Also, be on the lookout for an announcement about our next ribbon share. There are so many beautiful new ribbons in the Fall/Winter 2008 Catalog that I'm having a hard time deciding where to start. I want them all!

Final Boho Blend Layout

This is the left-hand page of my last Boho Blend layout. It can go in any direction, but I'm going to put my title on the Very Vanilla strip at the top and put a vertical picture on either side of the rub-on flowers.


This is the right-hand side. It could also go in any direction, but I decided to arrange it so I could put horizontal pictures on top of the Old Olive dotted DSP. I also used the new scallop border punch to create strips to go underneath it to mirror the scallops on the die-cut sticker strips that came with the Boho Blend kit.


This is how they look together. I'm really pleased with the way they turned out. Especially the rub-ons. These Old Olive ones are left over from SAB, but I can't wait to order the ones in the new catalog.

On a Roll

I'm really feeling the pressure of going back to work on Friday, so I've finished the last two Boho Blend double-page spreads today.

This one is based on a layout by swain78 over at SCS. I wanted something different, and these squares definitely contrast with all the rectangles in the other layouts. Plus the pages were easy peasy to make.


This is how the pages look put together. I like them much better IRL, but this photo gives you the idea of how I alternated the squares of DSP. I also added small dots of Pumpkin Pie cardstock on top of the label stickers to give a faux brad effect after I cut the stickers in half.


Tomorrow I'll show you how I used Old Olive rub-ons on the final Boho Blend pages.

Latest Boho Blend Pages

I just had to use the exclusive SU! Top Note die in a different way on this layout. I cut it in half and placed it under the top border on the left-hand side. It can be used for a title box, a journaling box, or even a sub-head if you want to put the main title on the top border. So many possibilities!


This is how the completed layout looks, and I must admit that I'm getting a little bored with the design of the right-hand side and its variations. My goal for the last two layouts in this SSK is to come up with something different that will still meet the needs of the members of the Simply Scrappin' Kit Club. Wish me luck!

SU! Exclusive Sizzix Die

These is my 2nd Boho Blend double-page spread, and as promised, it uses the new SU! exclusive, Top Note, Sizzix die! The spread is loosely based on a Becky Fleck Page Map from her awesome book. It was her idea to round the corners of the mats, and I really like it! You can fit 2 - 3 vertical pictures on the left-hand side and 2 horizontal pictures on the right.


Here's a close up of the page with the Top Note Die. I decided to use it as a faux sheriff's badge, but it could also be a journaling box, a title box, or when folded in half, a topper to a treat bag!

I love all the new things SU! has to offer in the Fall/Winter 2008 catalog and can't wait until after 12:00 mountain time when I can place my first order!

Final Crew Kids Boy Pages

These are the final pages I made from the Crew Kids Boy Simply Scrappin' Kit. The idea for the buckle made out of the fancy square die-cut sticker was actually shown on the front of the SSK package!

Since I'd already used the All Boy pages for our dog, Shadow, I decided to dedicate the Our Boy page to my husband. The other page of the spread finishes out his mother's birthday pictures, and the journaling around his pictures tells how happy I am that his parents have shared him with me for the past 28 years. Time flies when you're having fun!

More Crew Kids Boy Pages

This is the fourth double-page spread from the Crew Kids Boy kit. It's based on the same Stacey King sketch I used for one of the Crew Kids Girl spreads. Can you tell I love this layout?

I waited to post this one until after I'd announced the SU!/Sizzix partnership since it uses a Sizzix alphabet for its title. I can't wait to order the alphabets we'll be offering from SU!

Although I wasn't able to attend convention this year, I have it on good SCS authority that one of the Sizzix alphabets is supposed to fit one of our new chipboard alphas perfectly! How easy will that be?

SU!'s Partnership with Sizzix

Okay, I usually don't post twice in one day, but UPS arrived with my new SU! order that contains my wonderful Sizzix dies.

Yes, SU! and Sizzix have partnered together on an SU! Big Shot and exclusive dies as well as including 29 Sizzix dies that compliment our SU! products. These Sizzix items will be available in our holiday mini catalog, but I couldn't wait to give you a preview!

Naturally, I had to use something on my first Boho Blend double-page spread. I chose the Swirly extended die for this page. I used SU!'s 2-Way Glue to attach it, and it worked really well.


This is the left-hand page. Sorry it's crooked, but I took two photos, and this was the best of the two!


This is the right-hand page. I used the scallop punch on Pumpkin Pie cardstock to put behind the sticker at the top and make it "pop."


This is how they look together. Doesn't the Sizzix die add punch to the page? I'm planning to use one of the exclusive SU! dies on the next Boho Blend double-page spread. Maybe as a journaling box? Hmmmmmmm.

Rub-ons

If you haven't tried SU! rub-ons, you're really missing out! These stars and the arrow came from the Anchored set that will also appear in the Fall/Winter catalog along with a lot of new seasonal rub-ons I can't wait to order.

And people who scrap with me know I'm not much of a journaler, but SU!'s white gel pen is so-o-o-o smooth I couldn't help myself!


The word, ADVENTURE, is also from the Anchored set and perfectly describes my husband's cat!


This double-page spread is also from the Crew Kids Boy set and shows its versatility. My husband is known for taking a series of pictures about a single event, so I try to design layouts that will spotlight his photography.

I'm fortunate to have a husband who supports my scrapbooking by making sure I have lots of pictures to use.

Another Crew Kids Boy Page

I prefer posting pages without pictures, but since my camera wasn't working at the retreat, and I was on a roll, you get to see how I made the Crew Kids Boy pages work for me.

This is the left-hand side of a double-page spread about Shadow, our half German Shepherd/half Siberian Husky "son."



This is the other half. On the pre-made cardstock sticker embellishment, you can see where I changed the word "hands" to "paws" and the word "toys" to "bones."



All the photos were taken while my husband was on vacation. When the two pages are put together, they look like this:

First Crew Kids Boy Kit Page

Even though my husband and I were unable to have children, I found the pages from the Crew Kids Boy kit very versatile. While the new in-colors are wonderful, I'm definitely mourning the loss of Wild Wasabi. It seemed to go well with everything.

This is one of my favorite layouts from the kit. It is the left-hand side of a double-page spread, and I used it to highlight the restaurant where we met my husband's parents for his mother's birthday.


Remember: This kit is only available while supplies last or until August
10th.

Back from the Retreat

Just returned from the retreat at Highland Lake Lodge. What an awesome weekend!

French toast, Oriental chicken salad, grilled pork loin--the food was to die for. Plus I completed 40 pages.

The bad news is that my camera battery conked out again, so I didn't get pictures at the retreat or pictures of the Crew Kids Boy pages without pictures on them. As soon as it recharges, however, I do plan to post a few pics of the completed pages.

The Simply Scrappin' Kit Club has met twice (next meeting August 24th), so I had 5 Summer Days double-page spreads, 5 Crew Kids Boy double-page spreads, and 5 Crew Kids Girl double-page spreads to finish as well as the page kits from the Scrapbook & Card Buffet back in May.

My wonderful friend, Carol, made each attendee a name frame. The one pictured below is mine. Thank you, Carol!