Mi Familia

It's almost state fair time around here, which means scrapbooking is taking a backseat to my submission for the cake decorating contest.  But I do have this to show you all!  My in-laws came to visit, and I sat them down with the kids for some pictures.  Let me tell you, out of 100 pictures this was the best one; trying to get all four of them to both hold still and look at me was next to impossible!  But I took it and made them this as a souvenir of their visit.

I've had my eye on these 12x12 frames at Archiver's for quite awhile, and I've just been waiting for the magic combination of an excuse to buy one and a coupon. 

Oh, and I managed to get my Spanish spellings right this time!  Thank you google translator. 

One for each kid!

Taking this chance (while my kids do the magical double nap - SCORE!) to post these.  From my laptop on my front porch swing, in the GORGEOUS fall weather.  Lucky me, all around.

Two challenges, and turns out, one for each kid!  :)  You'd think I had no life... BUT last weekend I had a girls weekend, so I'll scrap some of that later this week, so we can all take a break from my kids.

Color Me Scrappy #11

Love these late summer colors:

 Especially the multiple grays; so elegant!  I swear I would decorate my house in these colors... if I could afford to redecorate my house.  Here's my entry for the challenge:

Does it make you want a Freeze Pop?  :)

Again I got to buy something I've wanted for awhile, the gray ruffle.  I also cut a piece of the ruffle to make the yo-yo in the corner. 

ScrapFit Workout #75

The challenge with this one was to use twine in a creative way.  Their design team had some GREAT inspiring ideas; I especially liked the way that Lynn and Leah wrapped letters with twine.  It got me thinking, is there any other way I could make letters with twine.  So this is where that got me:

Thanks for the spark of inspiration ladies!  Once again, thanks to both of these challenges, I went where I know I couldn't have gone thanks to you!

My first DT fav!

The ladies at Color Me Scrappy chose my layout from Challenge #10 as their favorite!  Wow- I love all their work and it's really cool to be recognized by them this way.  Especially cool, being that they are the first challenge blog I started playing along with! Thanks, CMS! 

Almost done with my entry for Challenge #11...  tomorrow!

Summer Vacation DIES HARD

Took a break when things got busy in the summer, but that's over, in a big way!  Let the fall begin, I present to you... six challenges!  :)

Color Me Scrappy #10

The color scheme this time around was a unique garden-cactus-inspired one.

We had just taken these photos of the Bean, and they worked perfectly, and even better, I was able to shop my own stash for most of the supplies:

My husband called me out when I got home: I spelled Mijita wrong!  Sorry, my Spanish spelling isn't so great.  

Scrapfit #73

The ladies at Scrapfit challenged us to use the words "I remember".  I began with my new best friend, Picasa, and blurred the edges of the photo, to ramp up that old memory feel.

The colors are more purple than brown in real life, but you get the idea.  I LOVE this ribbon, I now own it in two colors, as this page was the perfect excuse to buy more.  What I don't love: glitter.  The letters are the kind that are sticky on both sides, so you can add any color glitter, and then stick them on your page.  I used "holographic" glitter (I guess that crafty for clear? white? silver?).  And now that glitter is EVERYWHERE: my clothes, my bag, my scrapbook.  I have no choice with the unused portion of the letters, they will have to be holographic because it's all over the place.  I used a paint brush to get as much off of the page as possible for this picture.  When I was complaining about it, a friend told me about this post on Pinterest:

Amen to that.

ScrapFit #74

A challenge to work with this sketch:

And this is my contribution:

My journaling is barely visible in the scan... ah well, the better to hide my despicable handwriting!

Another Freakin Scrappy Challenge Aug 1

The challenge for the beginning of the month was to scrap a pet; really quite serendipitous, since my 10 year old pug was just recently diagnosed with cancer and given a couple months to live.  So I've been taking lots of pictures of him, the sweet old thing.  Here he is:

Love this bandana paper!  And I played with a little distressing ink around the borders, which I never do.  Now I want the little distressing tool to artfully tear the edges of paper.  Weaseled my way into another purchase.  :)

Another Freakin Scrappy Aug 15

And for their next one, this sketch!

My take:

Isn't she Hardcore!  And so fresh and clean.  

Punky Scraps #50

My fav for the week, a challenge to use this picture as inspiration:

I loved being pushed out of my comfort zone with this, and am really excited about the result.

Not to mention it's a sentiment I hope the Bean really takes with her.  

Til next time...

Color-Me-Scrappy #7

WOW, what a weekend: just got home from a two-day crop with a bunch of great ladies, including the indomitable scrapper Star.  I'm simultaneously creatively charged and exhausted!  I'll show off an array of my pages tomorrow, but for now, my Color-Me-Scrappy entry:

I loved these candy-inspired colors!  For me, working in an all-neutral palette is more challenging, even than this, where the colors may not instinctively seem to "go" together.  My favorite piece was finding the perfect little tag in my stash (AKA, mountainous pile of scrapping crud) to complete the title.  Is this why I should never throw anything away?

Found another great challenge blog: Another Freakin' Scrappy Challenge!  Realized the deadline for their June challenge is, um, tonight, so I threw together this entry. 

They're having a Design Team call, at which I think I might throw my hat... in that spirit, I'll also post this page that I made for a DT call awhile back! 

OK, Wonderful Hubby being very patient and playing iphone games while I work, so I better go to bed! 

ScrapFit #70

Thank you, ScrapFit Challenge blog.  You make me feel like I worked out, when I haven't come within a mile of my gym for two weeks. 

I did work out though.  I flexed my imagination muscle.  HA.  (rimshot, ba-dum CHING)

Here's what I came up with for their 70th challenge:

I was pumped about this one, because I've been looking for an opportunity to use the "Polaroid" function on Picasa for awhile!  I loved Polaroids; I'm a junkie for instant gratifcation (and blurry tiny plastic-paper shots?). 

I guess Polaroids are hip now?  They just stopped selling the stuff in 2009.  If only they had known!  Ah, the irony of Polaroid going bankrupt because of the digital photography movement only to have people use their computers to edit their pictures to look like Polaroids.