Been a Bad Blogger

Sorry for the silence.

We were in San Francisco all last week (I had set my blog to post while I was gone) and now that we're back I'm totally knackered. Sick kids, sick me... blah.

I took oodles of photos, here's a few:

Sausalito:

Chinatown:

Presidio Promenade (after walking across the Golden Gate Bridge):

California Academy of Sciences, where T discovered a love of Astronomy:

Ferry to Alcatraz:

Speaking of oodles, I'm taking the Oodles of Doodles class at Get it Scrapped. The Oodles link is to a free warm-up lesson. It's very fun - your kids will like it too - and I'd love to have some of you as classmates.

Across the Street

With all my complaining about Utah, I thought it due time to show you why we love it so much.







And here are a few of Brayden and of the boys together. There were a lot more pics of Brayden... he loves being in front of the camera :-)

Victoria Case Challenge #3

Do you remember my Willy the Worm card? I won that challenge and the prize was being the guest designer for Challenge Three. Thanks, Victoria :-)

The challenge was to use this sketch:


and here's what I made:



I used one of the digital stamps from the monsters collection (scroll to the bottom of the page) and paper and stickers from Sassafras Lass.

By the way, any day where I get to use googly eyes is a great day indeed.

Did you see that Victoria Case has a new free image available - and it's awesome! Check it out here.

Happy Thursday everyone :-)

Seeing Grey

Here's a couple more TSR Guest Designer projects. I really enjoyed working with the grey paper. It just added a sense of occasion and elegance to everything. I'm planning to use a lot more grey in the future.




Hope your Wednesday is great - we're half way to the weekend :-)

Bare Backsides???

This is my absolute favorite scrapbooking "cheat". I learned it from the estimable Brenda Carpenter and I use it all the time.

Many of my pages have bare backsides. *giggle* Seriously.

Loves Mud:


Back:


I left the skinniest border here - all you really need is however much you want to show plus enough room for adhesive. By being so efficient with my paper I was able to make these two cards with the scraps:



So Big Now:


back:

I realized I didn't have any more orange paper for matting or journal strips so after (I do not advise this) I'd attached it, so I more or less ripped out the middle next to where I had glued it down. Messy but if you look at the complete LO above you can see how much paper I salvaged.

Easter:



I was careful to leave the border large enough to retain the polka dots but thin enough to allow maximum use of the paper. By doing so I was able to use the pink side to mat some of the photos on the LO, provide visual interest (the circles) and still had enough left to provide the polka dot and pink sections of this LO:



This technique has allowed me to use my paper to it's maximum potential.

All these pages were made from the May kit from The Scrap Room

Bombshell Stamps Flickr Group

I started a Flickr group for Bombshell Stamps. You can see it here

Pop in and see great projects by folks like

Melyssa:



Syreeta:



Katie:




Hope you stop by :-)

Cardboard LO

Ah, don't you just love up-cycling? I was cleaning up a pile of ... well, stacked stuff... and found a marvelous bit of packaging. This cardboard panel was just the right size for scrapbooking so I peeled off the top layer and pried my fingernail off the nail bed in the process. Evil stuff cardboard - but, sometimes you need to make an appropriate sacrifice to the craft gods if you wish to have any sort of abundant mojo :-)

Next I painted the cardboard with blue and green paint and set it aside to dry. I have been making a lot of cards lately and my little trash bucket was running over with trimmings. I was able to make all the stamped details on this layout with discarded bits or the back of smudged stamp-failures.

The paper, ribbon etc. were all bits left over from other projects. I colored in several of the grid squares to match the stamps. All in all it was a tremendously fun endeavor.


Here's some close ups:





And in keeping with my theme, this project met with my commitment to contribute a recycled cardboard project for the Green Team Scrapbooking and Paper Crafting Friends (great site, go join ) and to try my hand at using stamps on a LO - a tutorial hosted by Glittery Katie, Miss June, at the Bombshell Stamps Paper Craft Planet Group. If you haven't got involved yet at Paper Craft Planet you should scamper over there and sign up. The place is RAD!

Supplies:
Stamps: Bombshell Stamps. orange flowers from Bombshell Angel, Bird, Til Death and flower in photo corner from the retired "Til Death set.
paint: Delta
Pearls: Martha Stewart
Flowers: Bazzil
Cardstock: Bazzil
Patterned Paper: Fancy pants and K and Co

P.S. You know how I did the red, white and blue card yesterday for Kathi's challenge? I forgot to mention that you don't need to use Bombshell Stamps. You can use whatever you have... I'm not even sure you have to use stamps at all. I can ask her. So if not having any Bombshells is keeping you from playing along; don't let it.