Stamped Cards (for MIM technique challenge)

In the spirit of fulfilling my New Year's Resolution, I submitted a card for publication tonight. We'll see if it gets picked up or not, but I am resolved to submit at least one thing every month (except for last month, but I am considering my guest DT spot with SPS as my submission for the month) because if I never submit I will never get published. Right?

But because I can't show you the card I submitted, let me share two others with you. These are the fruits of my Copic coloring last night, and they fulfill my stamping on patterned paper requirements for this week's MIM challenge!



I am really impressed with how vibrant the Copic markers are, even when you color on drab orange patterned paper. It's pretty amazing that the colors don't get muddied in the mix! So in these cards I got to...

1) use my Copic markers! Woohoo!

2) Use my Frolic stamps by Katie Pertiet! Woohoo!

3) Use my new Prima flowers that I bought a couple weeks ago! Woohoo!

That's right... I'm playing with some of the things that I've been wanting to play with. It's nice. Well, Leif is working late tonight, so I'm down to the craft room to play or clean!

They asked me to be....

... a GUEST DESIGNER!! I am so excited, and have been wanting to spread the word since I found out a few weeks ago, LOL! Sweet Pea Scraps asked me to be their March guest designer! So here's the kit (more pictures of it up on the blog)...


... and here's some of what I did with it (journaling under each layout):

All of my life I have made up songs. I've done it since I was a little girl. They're usually silly, nonsensical songs, too. What I never would have guessed is that these songs would have such a calming effect on my baby girl. When Eliana is crying inconsolably, I start to sing. Anything. And when she hears my voice, she starts to calm. The longer I sing, the calmer she gets, until she finally falls asleep. All I have to do is sing.

The first time they saw you.

Robert and I are almost 4 years apart in age. Growing up, that was a pretty significant gap. Now that we are both adults, though, we get along great and love to spend time together whenever we can. It's not often enough.

At 28 years old I feel like I am on top of the world. I have been happily married for 7 years. I have a wonderful husband and a beautiful daughter and I am happy. We live in a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains and have a beautiful house with a big back yard. We have been blessed with so many things and sometimes I just have to stand back and take it all in. Life has valleys and hills, and right now I am on top of the world!

Some days Ellie needs cookies. And on those days she lets me know by pulling the giant Costco-sized container of animal crackers off the pantry shelf and carrying it into whichever room I happen to be in. Then she sits down near me, making sure that I can see her, and unscrews the lid, then reaches in and takes a cookie. She shoves it inter her mouth and makes and exaggerated "MMMMMM!" sound. Usually she puts the lid on the cookie container until she wants another, then opens it up and the process starts over. It is pretty funny to watch. First because the container is half the size that she is, yet she can carry it all over the house. Second because she knows how to get them for herself, yet feels that she MUST eat them in my presence. And third because she has yet to make a mess in this whole cookie process. That is pretty much the only reason she gets away with it. That and because she is so cute when she does it.

You would never guess by looking at this picture that it was 50 degrees out. But it was. It was teh perfect day to build your first snowman, so we did. Well, Daddy did. I took pictures. You just sat around, pointed, and told Daddy where to put the snowballs. You liked sitting in the snow, but not standing in it, and certainly not walking in it. In fact, if you wad to walk in the snow, you would just stand still and say, "Stuck! Stuck!" until I came to get you. And then you would give me this look. It was not cold, and you were not stuck, but there was nothing we could do to convince you otherwise.

This cracks me up! Every time she rides her horse she says, "Doodleloo doodleloo doodleloo". It's hilarious and took me a while to figure out that she was trying to sing the finale to the William Tell Overture since that's what I hummed the first time I showed her how to ride a stick horse!

This is the first time I ever held you.

I'm pretty unhappy about how badly the photos turned out - there is so much texture and sparkle to these photos that just doesn't come through the camera lens. But I had SO MUCH fun with this kit! And I actually scrapped some of Ellie's hospital pictures... something I hadn't been able to do yet! And I'm happy with how the layouts turned out. No, I LOVE how the layouts turned out. Mine, and everyone else's I've seen done with this kit. Well, okay, that is only one other person, but check out Jana's layouts and tell me they don't blow you away! They're awesome, and if I had a second kit I would scraplift every single one of them. I did find it amusing, though, that Jana thought it was a very soft kit, while I thought it was one of the brighter ones. How she got so many soft and subtle layouts from the same papers I got funky layouts from I'll never know! Oh yeah... another note... I got to use my Copic markers from the kit club on the Doodleloo layout! Woohoo! With all the things I needed to accomplish by the end of the month I haven't played much with the markers yet, but I'm in the process of cleaning my scraproom right now (says the lady who is still typing away on her blog...) and once it is clean I'll be playing with Copics! Anyone know where to get a cheap blender pen?

2008 Scrap Resolution....

Last year I resolved to scrap my heart... my real feelings, more than just the date and time and "special" events. And I think I did a good job with that. I definitely made progress in that area. This year I have an entirely different resolution.

In 2008 I resolve to get my work published!

Leif tells me that's more of a goal than a resolution, so I guess the actual resolution is to keep trying, keep submitting, and keep at it until I get published. This one is a little more challenging since it isn't up to me to do the publishing, but it IS up to me to submit! So I worked a little on that tonight. Wish me luck!

Scrappin' Again!

So despite the utter destruction of the craft room, I got some scrapping done tonight. I'm participating in a couple challenges with this entry, but mostly I'm happy that I finally got a little more scrapping in!


The first challenge is to scrap a layout about any New Years Goals (or Resolutions!) that you have for yourself for 2008. The second challenge is to create a 2-page layout, any size, about you. Journal your thoughts, your dreams, your accomplishments. Or... make it a layout about your 2008 goals and/or dreams. So... I decided to kill two birds with one stone and call it all my creative processing since, for the first time in a long time, I actually have a resolution this year! The journaling reads:

She is a toddler and I am her Mommy.
At 17 months old she imitates everything.
Everything I do and everything I say
is seen by her little blue eyes
and shapes who she becomes.
I am her model of compassion
and faith and patience and love.
I am her example of what is right and wrong.
From me she learns how to speak to those around her
and how to act when things don't go her way
and how to believe in a God who is bigger than all of us.
Who I am shapes who she will become and so I resolve in 2008 to live deliberately.
I resolve to model for my daughter words that are thought through before they are spoken,
actions whose consequences have been weighed before they are done,
and a life that is lived before her on purpose.
The way I live my life shapes the way she will live hers. And so I resolve to live deliberately
because I am the one she imitates.

2007 Scrap Resolution

While I am not making any personal resolutions this year, I am making a scrapbooking resolution. I wasn't planning on making any, but then Memory Makers magazine was asking people to email in their scrapbooking resolutions. I thought to myself... "If I really want to accomplish something in my scrapbooking this year, what is it?" And this is what I came up with:

“

In 2007 I resolve to scrap my heart. I want people browsing my albums to see ME - —to know my passions, to feel the love I have for my family, to cry at my pain and to overflow with my joy. I want to convey emotion in my pages— - sometimes with words, but more often by my color choices, layout design, photo content and titles.

That's what I want to do this year. I will be doing plenty of pages for the LSS, but I don't want my work to become mundane. So I resolve to scrap my heart out. =)

What's even more exciting to me is that the new Memory Makers email newsletter came today and they quoted my resolution in their "From the Editor" section. It's not quite the same as having my work published, but it's enough to make me excited today.