New Piggy Tales

I know, I know. I've been missing in action for the past while. I've been busy working on some new projects - one of which I'll tell you about very, very soon (Dec 1st!). I got some of the new Piggy Tales product and had lots of fun making the following.

This first one uses the Simple Simon collection. It's back-to-school themed so I first I *had* to scrap T's first day. As you can see, things went well. He looks anxious before he got on the bus but VERY happy when he got off! I used the papers, chipboard shapes stickers, chipboard letters stickers, cardstock letter stickers and rubons. The cardstock is from Core'dinations and the digital storyboard frame is by Katie Pertiet (www.designerdigitals.com).


Next up: the Bat and the Weasels collection. This is a bright and cheery halloween line with lots of purple, green, orange and black. I really like the little rubon shapes - they can add fun little details to the chipboard shapes. As usual I used Core'dinations cardstock and Katie's cluster frames.


Sticking with Halloween, I whipped up a few simple cards. Ihave a little phobia about cards. I guess I know too many amazing cardmakers and I get a little freaked out when I'm about to make a card but I had fun with these and kept them super simple. Simple works for me ;)


I used my favorite punch on two of these - the EK Success slimline zig-zag border punch. It's much more me than scallops are!

Going green...

I have a little thing for the color green. Look through my layouts and you'll see an abundance of green throughout my projects. Curious fact: I didn't actually notice this myself. Somebody else (ahem Kimber) had to point that out to me a while back. :o My love of green has spilled over into other parts of my life now too - in the last post you'll notice the giant green bag that I now tote around. It's my turn to host the how much is too much challenge and I decided to come up with a green challenge - i.e. bust out green papers, embellies, what-have-you and make a green layout - even better if you use recycled or environmentally friendly products! I didn't recycle anything on this layout (apart from the design!) but I did use a bunch of green items from my stash:


The design is based on Katie Pertiet's Caught on Film layered template -- I swiped the frame from the template for my photos and printed it on photo paper. The cardstock is Core'dinations, patterned papers are Jillibean Soup, October Afternoon, Fontwerks and Daisy D's. The alpha and stickers are by Scenic Route, the ribbon and calendar spot are Jillibean, Jenni Bowlin ticket with a Making Memories really old sticker and the buttons are from Little Yellow Bicycle.

If you want to play along with the challenge just post your layout on the thread in the pub on 2peas!

Pretty excited about...

quite a few things these days! The long awaited new eBook from Designer Digitals is finally available:
It's in the Framework has 98 (gasp!) layouts from fellow Designer Digitals creative team members showing a myriad of different ways of using frames. If you have seen any of my layouts (both paper and digital) you'll know that I have a serious thing for DD frames! I was so thrilled to contribute 19 layouts to this eBook. Unfortunately I can't post any of theme here but take my word that some of my favorite layouts are in this book! The other contributes were Steph Vetne, Katrina Kennedy, Crissy Hunt, Katie Pertiet and the editor Wendy McKeehan -- every one of them are amazing scrappers. In other Designer Digital news the 4th Quarter Sale starts today, November 5th at 6pm EST and runs until the 10th.

I popped into the Scrapbooks and Cards Today blog and saw that my favorite mini "10 days in Ireland is featured on the blog today.


Click on the link above to see the entire album.

And finally, my review of Snippets by Lain Ehmann is up on The Scrap Review. I had tons of fun doing this review. It's a happy little book with lots of inside jokes for us scrapbookers. I made a few layouts inspired by Lain's essays.

This one was inspired by Lain but also by Anna Aspnes' new grumpy word art! It's not all sunshine and roses in this house ;)


Credits: Spot Dots no 13, Notebook Journalers, Around Words brushes and Photo Clusters no 24 by Katie Pertiet; Stitched by Anna Baby Blue, Work Hard Play Hard elements, Dripped Stains brushes 1 and 4, Grumpy Word Art no 1 and Scratched Overlay no 2 by Anna Aspnes; Journaling Spots by Lynn Grieveson; Text Byte no 26 by Pattie Knox; Spookable Kit by Mindy Teresawa. All from http://designerdigitals.com

I've been thinking about doing a layout about what's in my bag for quite some time. It's amazing what gets jammed in there!

Credits: Caught on Film layered template, Black chipboard alpha and Alphabet strips by Katie Pertiet; Ghouls night kit by Andrea Victoria. All from http://designerdigitals.com

I think this one might be my favorite - 10 (tongue in cheek!) ways my life has been improved by scrapbooking.

Credits: 10 things layered template by Ali Edwards; Roughed up alpha dots red and Photo Cuts no 4 by Katie Pertiet; Upcycled Art no 4 by Anna Aspnes; Esryn by Michelle Martin; Everyday Basics Green by Mindy Teresawa. All from http://designerdigitals.com



Happy Thursday everyone!

Ever wanted to make a mini album?

This one is for the local peeps! I'm teaching a class through the Bedford recreation department and for a mere $24 you will make a fabulous mini-album, just in time to give as a gift (or even keep for yourself!). The class is on Thursday, 11/19 from 7:30-9:30, at the Town Center. I'll provide the scrappy supplies and direction - you just come with the photos. Here's some photos of the sample that I made. I used photos from 5 different Christmases so show our Christmas card photo along with out-takes from each year.


Click on the photos to view larger versions. My mini includes 10 photos but we can work with whatever number you bring. Also, it doesn't have to be Christmas themed -- it can be your favorite summer photos, baby's first year, Halloween or whatever!


For those that are interested - I used Core'dinations cardstock and October Afternoon patterned papers. Please feel free to contact me with any questions about the class. You can register online at the Bedford Rec site

This girl

amazes me every day. She's interested in everything, nearly always has her head stuck in a book or she's dancing (fortunately she hasn't taken to doing both at the same time!). I've been worrying about her a lot lately - I know first hand it's not easy being shy and reserved.


Credits can be found at Designer Digitals - Your Smile

Happy Friday everyone!

Whoosh! And there goes October...

Seriously? How did it get to be the end of October already? The kids have their costumes (I'm using the term loosely with regards to Tommy), I've bought candy and we are ready for Halloween. Somehow though, I feel like October slipped by me far too quickly. In my defense, I have been busy - volunteering at school, teaching my first class locally, traveling overseas for a weekend, working (yes! I have a wonderful new job working for Bedford TV), worrying and obsessing (it's my nature, I can't help it) along with all the usual things we do every day.

I did manage to squeeze in a bit of scrapbooking however -- it just wouldn't be me if I didn't, now would it? Here's one from my trip to Ireland for my friend Tara's wedding. I got the most awful photos at the wedding because I took my point and shoot - word of advice, if you want photos that are scrapable, don't use a rinky-dink P&S. Sigh. Fortunately I know a few photo gurus and Mel was able to fix this one up so I could use it (thanks Mel!!):


Credits can be found at Designer Digitals - friends.

And here's another one I did using Core'dinations and some new October Afternoon. The photos are over a year old but I was holding off to scrap them because I liked them so much. Silly, no?


I went a little overboard with the EK Success scallop punch but I just love those big scallops. I wish the punch didn't keep sticking on me. Any suggestions on how I can fix that? I generally end up thowing it against the ground a few times to un-stick it and I'm pretty sure that's not the recommended method!

I just finished up my mini-album for the class I'm teaching in October. I'll post photos once I get my act together and take them! Until then, have a great week!

I did it again...

I forgot to update this blog. I have the best of intentions but sometimes life just gets in the way. We had a busy week last week, some fun, some work and what it comes down to is that I spent a little bit more time watching tv at night, than sitting at the computer! That's not so bad I supposed. It just means that I have a lot of stuff to share now :)

First up - a project that I did for the It Takes All Kinds blog. This month's theme is Fall and I was inspired by some wreaths I saw in magazines and in stores and decided to try making one for myself. I was pretty pleased with how it turns out even if it should be a little bigger to hang on our front door.
The ITAK blog post has information about how I made it - it really didn't take a long time and the Core'dinations cardstock is perfect for this project!

We went to the Topsfield fair during the week. Topsfield fair is the oldest agricultural fair in the country and the crowds are insane on the weekend. So much so that we didn't even make it to the entrance the past two years because of the traffic. This year the kids had a half day on Wedndays so we were able to go during the week. The weather didn't want to cooperate and we almost didn't go but despite all our mishaps I'm so glad we did!

Credits for this can be found at Designer Digitals

In other news this week - Cathy Zielske is now designing templates for Designer Digitals. The first few went on sale this week. The one I used will be available next week:

It worked so nicely for these photos from our time in Killarney this summer. Credits can be found at Designer Digitals.

Friday I posted a new sketch at Get It Scrapped -- you can check it out in the sketch forums. Katrina's new class, Your Kids, Captured Through The Lens, just started today and I'm about to go do my home work. I hope some of her ideas will help me get some good photo of my monkeys! :)

Speaking of which - here they are in all their glory. This one is for this week's HMITM which I unintentionally cheated a little on. This week's challenge is to use 1 stamped image, 1 felt embellishment and 7 stickers (non-letter stickers, although you may also use those on your layout). I missed the image part of the stamp requirement and used letter stamps. Oops!

Supplies: Core'dinations cardstock, October Afternoon paper, 7Gypsies stickers, American Crafts thickers and felt flower that I made into a pear! Martha Stewart punch (leaf) and Studio G stamps.

And before you say it, no, I don't have a problem with green. I don't. :P