April 4-6 Cyber-Crop & April Showers Bring May Flowers Sale at MBI

Clear your calendars April 4th through 6th and come crop with MBI! They'll have challenges, including sketch challenges, technique challenges, mystery supply challenges, and more! Join them for games and contests, and take advantage of 15% off your entire store purchase during the Crop weekend! I'll be there...hope you are too! Click here for more cyber-crop details!


**** SOME GREAT REASONS TO DO SOME SCRAPPY SHOPPING AT MBI ****

This April, Memory Book Inspirations is "showering" you with free mystery gifts with every purchase you make at the MBI Store! All you have to do is spend at least $5 in retail product purchases (shipping not included) in the store, and they'll send you a free mystery gift!

Here's how it works:
Spend between $5 and $10 and receive a gift valued at approximately $1
Spend between $11 and $20 and receive a gift valued at approximately $2
Spend between $21 and $30 and receive a gift valued at approximately $3
Spend between $31 and $40 and receive a gift valued at approximately $4
Spend $41 or more and receive a gift valued at approximately $5

Now is the perfect time to stock up on your favorite items from Heidi Swapp, Doodlebug, Karen Foster, Tim Holtz, Daisy D's, The Crafter's Workshop and MORE! This sale starts on April 1st and ends at midnight on April 30th! Click here to head on over to the MBI store and start shopping!

Just in time for spring and Easter festivities...

my new Anna Williams handbag arrived in the mail! I'm so excited because it's awesome! And what makes it so awesome is that it was customized by me. My friend, Natalia, brought over a big tub of purse designs and another tub of equal size filled with over 100 fabric samples to choose from. I could have had like six different fabrics on this bag and a number of different closures. I choose three fabrics and a ribbon accent and it's GORGEOUS! I think I could be addicted to these bags already!

Thanks, Natalia for taking the time to come over let me look through all your treasures! And having such a great eye and helping suggest this winning combination! I really do LOVE it!

Outside of purse: dark denim, patterned fabric and ribbon

Inside of purse: gingham with the patterned fabric cell phone pocket

Friday Sketches at Memory Book Inspirations

Join us over at MBI for our Friday Card Sketches. This week's sketch is easy peasey and could easily be created using your stash of scraps.

I made mine with sort of a matchbook fold because I wanted it to be a gift card holder. The inside has some adhesive so a gift card could be attached without the worry of it falling out.

Be sure to link your creations back here so I can see...

Easter Jelly Bean Box Class at MBI

Check out these adorable jelly bean boxes! They are just perfect for Easter and they take no time at all to put together. Click here for a tutorial on how to make them...

Technique Tuesday Textiles

I've been trying to put a layout together for GQ's scrapbook of each set of grandparents and great-grandparents. Since my FIL always seems to be taking the pictures when we're together it's hard to get a good shot of FIL & MIL together. But I got one! We took a trip down to Spartanburg and Greenville, SC and after we finished eating lunch I remembered to take a picture of them for this page. Yeah, me!

Technique Tuesday was giving away free textiles to try on paper crafts. I signed up and even though I was late on the sign up, they were nice enough to send me some anyway. Isn't that great? I was so excited when they came in the mail, just in time to do the grandparent's layout. And I found a way to use them on the layout that worked perfectly with this page. They are basically a blank slate, you can do anything with them. I used a sketch that was posted on Pencil Lines to start with. (I sometimes have trouble finding inspiration on one picture sketches and found some great inspiration on Pencil Lines.) After I added my basics...photo, some accent pieces of paper I was ready to embellish. I have a great stamp from Hero Arts that I haven't used in a while and thought would be perfect on this layout. I stamped my big flower on the textiles after stamping off once so the image wasn't too strong. Then I inked around the entire textile to give it more depth. After adhereing to my layout I added some buttons for the center flower and stitched some stems with embroidery floss. The layout still needed something...so lastly, I stamped flowers down the left side of the page to help balance it out. I did this by stamping off once or twice before doing my final image to give it a worn or aged feel. I really love how this layout turned out and I'm very proud of it.

Big thanks to Technique Tuesday for letting me sample your textiles and see how creative I can really be!

Friday Sketches at MBI

There is another card sketch posted at MBI, click here to see. It's a very simple one that you could do a million different things with. The card below, in my *ME* time post was made using this sketch. I'd love to see what you create with this, be sure to post it in a gallery and link back here so I can take a peek!

Have a good one!

Some *ME* time...finally!

I haven't had time to make a card or scrap a page all week. I was starting to feel pretty cranky because I didn't have any *ME* time. Started off the week with some sinus issues and seasonal allergies, then hubby had a few late days at work and finally it has just been gorgeous outside so GQ is keeping us outside a lot (leaving very little time inside for chores or play.) We've been out so much that we were sunburned by the end of the day yesterday. Not used to this early of a spring, so I wasn't prepared with the sunscreen. Now I will be!

Anyway...I made a card using a white cardstock base, which I NEVER do. But I thought it would be a nice change of pace for me. And I love the citrusy colors of my ribbon, so I took my inspiration from that. Nothing too fancy, just stamped my flowers and added some stickles, put the ribbon through and smacked it on that white cardstock. Ta da!

I feel better...I have been creative today. Hopefully I'll have more time tonight, I have something else up in my head that I'd like to try :D

Looking for somebody to scrap with today?

Head on over to Memory Book Inspirations and join us for a Tuesday Mini Crop. There are a few different challenges going on and just chit-chatting and inspiration sharing throughout the day. Right now it's early and everybody is just getting started, but as the day progresses they'll be more and more going on. If you can't make it on early be sure to check around 6pm to get the details on a scavanger hunt that has some scrappy prizes! Should be lots of fun!

A sketch by Amy Rysavy - AMYRS18

I love to look at Amy Rysavy's blog, Prairie Paper & Ink. She has awesome cards and sketches. ( the way she can color an image is amazing! ) I've always been too shy to make a card and post the link on her blog, because I don't feel like my stuff is up to par with all the talented people whose blogs I look at. But this week, I decided to give it a whirl.

I used one of my Bella images and some Stampin' Up patterned-paper and cardstock. I changed up the sketch a little bit for my card, because after I started stringing the beads on the wire and the kiddo started helping I had beads going every which way but on the wire! And I was making six of these cards, so it started to become a bit time consuming. In addition to the beads I did some paper piecing w/the apron. And added Stickles to the cake and a little diamond glaze to the boots to make them patent leather looking...didn't turn out quite as I had planned but I liked the end result.

Look what I got in the mail today!

I had my very talented jewelry-making friend, Melissa Jennings, make a cute little cell phone charm for me. Isn't it adorable? I love it! She used Swarovski Crystals in pink, since October is my birthday and they match my phone. The charm is PERFECT for me because it's completely true, I LOVE TO SCRAP! Hubby thinks it's completely hilarious that I have a charm on my phone that says that I love to scrap. I admit, it's a little funny, but I just love Melissa's work and thought it would be a great addition for my phone. Now when I'm visiting my grandparents we won't mix up phones...grandma has a pink Razr too (but her phone hasn't been dropped a million times by a 3 year old, so it's not quite as banged-up looking as mine)...isn't that funny? :D And I ordered a new purse from my friend, Natalia. The bag I picked doesn't have an outside pocket on it for my phone so I needed something to grab when it's ringing in my purse. See, I NEEDED it!

Friday Sketch Time Again...

I LOVE Fridays! Who doesn't? For me, it means that hubby gets home a little earlier from work, we do pizza for dinner and we have a nice weekend together with no real plans on the calendar, just enjoying our beautiful weather and our family! And Friday also means the reveal of a card sketch at MBI!

This week we're not doing a sketch exactly, we're doing a criss-cross card that I learned to do from Beate John's tutorial. She's a very talented cardmaker and this is a fun and easy card to make. I've used it for many different occasions...birthday invites, thank-you notes and now a baby card.

I've shorted up the instructions, mostly to fit my needs. Click here if you'd like to see...

Happy Friday everybody! Hope you enjoy your weekend!

Using some stamps that haven't seen daylight in a bit...

I threw together a little birthday card this afternoon while the kiddo was doing an Easter craft project beside me. I tried something new and added a glaze onto the stamped image to sort of make the fish look wet. Hopefully you'll be able to see that in the photo. The inside of the card reads:

happy birthday!

hope it's fin-tastic!

I thought it was cute, hubby thought it was corny. What does he know? LOL!

Just wanted to share...

a page that I finally completed for my kiddo's scrapbook. After we moved I wasn't able to find this picture of him that I had taken for his 3rd birthday. I was so pumped to have found it and finally put into his book! I just bought some cute boy paper that worked out perfectly for it, too.