Mango Island

Crafty goodness

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and you're able to roll out of bed. I know I'm going to be hitting the gym next week to burn off all this ham and bread I've been eating. Our Thanksgiving was good. We spent the morning with my dad and his wife and mother-in-law and then quickly came back to spend time with my mom. Luckily eating wasn't involved in that visit. To top off the night we went to my father-in-law's house to eat with him and my 2 brother-in-laws. I tried not to eat too much at each place but the gorging happened the day after. Left overs! Oh yeah.

It's day 3 of my long weekend off of work. I've been spending this time crafting away. This holiday class I'm taking is keeping me busy! I still haven't taken any pictures of what I've come up with yet, but I'll make sure to upload it before the weekend ends.

Today is also Saturday so that means it's time for Unscripted Sketches. I picked up these cute Yule card embellishments by Making Memories and was itching to use them. I opted for a transparency cover because I love transparency. I traced the bracket out of paper and used it to cut the transparency card I had, which I then trimmed off the rest of the card and adhered it to the brown cardstock. I wanted to make the transparency stand out a little so I added the glitter border. I'm all about glitter right now so I also touched up the rest pf the embellishments too.

I also finished a LO for Sketchy Thursdays. I stole one of Miss Akela's pics that I think is just adorable. She loves to take self portraits of herself and this is one of my favorites.

I wanted to use supplies that were an expression of Miss Akela. She's a little punk girl who has this mad style. I definitely had a hard time finding punk supplies that fit her so I'll need to reup on some. I like how it turned out though. Hopefully she'll like it too.

Supplies:

Papers: Roxie, Love Elsie, KI Memories

Frames, tape, skull & crossbones, wings: Accidental Fix, De Crow Designs, We R Storytellers

Ribbons: Paging Miss Bettie, Traci Reed, Sweet Shoppe Designs

Word strip: Inspire Me, Jomi, The Digi Chick

Word art: Photo captions boys, Art Warehouse, Designer Digitals

Round stitching: Autumbn Lines, Anna Aspnes, Designer Digitals

Have a fabulous Saturday! I have tons of things to do today. Going to finish up sewing these pillow case covers for the couch and some pants for the hubby. I think we're going to get our Yule tree today so I'm excited about that. The best thing I love about the holidays is the Yule tree and the decorations.

Peace.

Digi scrapping just doesn't get any better than this

You know the feeling you get when things just flow when you're doing a LO? Yeah, that's pretty much the feeling I got when I put this together, which BTW, was like in less than 3 hours. That's pretty good by my standards!

I am loving this week's sketch from Sketchy Thursdays. After I picked out the pics I already knew what kit I wanted to use with it.

Supplies:

Paper, hand drawn flowers, blue ribbon, coffee stain, title, frame and heart: Cafe Latte, Tracie Stroud & Nicole Seitler, The Digi Chick

Sequent hearts: Glitzy Bits, Sugarplum Paperie, The Digi Chick

Brown ribbon and bracket journaling tag: The Good Earth colab kit, Sweet Shoppe Designs & Scrap Orchard

Tag w/heart: Freebird, Lauren Reid, Sweet Shoppe Designs

Word art background: From Wordie Bird Art Challenge, LDrag Designs

I played around with the opacity on the red patterned paper, the title and the bracket journaling tag to tone down the brightness of the colors so they don't stand out as much. I really wanted to make everything muted to go along with the pictures.

Anyhow, this is my second post of the night and I must get to bed now, though I would LOVE to do an all nighter and just scrap till my fingers fall off, but will need all my brain power for work tomorrow.

Peace.

Found: New sketch blog I love

I stumbled upon Sketchy Thursdays from one of my fellow Unscripted Sketches DT who was trying out for the guest DT spot. I love this blog because it gears towards sketches of LOs rather than cards, which is really outside my comfort zone.

So I tried my hand at this week's sketch with a LO I did for another one of my dear friends of her cute kids.

Supplies:

Background paper, paper used as mask for dot splatter and paper strip: Our Story, Kelley Mickus Designs, The Digi Chick

Scribble border: Life 365 Hodge Podge #3, Weeds and Wildflowers Designs

Photo frame: Beautiful life, Thao Cosgrove, Scrap Girls

Word strip: A breath of fresh air, Gina Marie Huff, Weeds and Wildflowers Design

Paint splatter: So happy together, E.M. Designs, We R Storytellers

Stitching: Embrace life, Sandy Krieger, Two Peas in a Bucket

Butterfly and button: Butterfly fancy, Audacious Designs, We R Storytellers

Flowers: Lovey dovey, Audacious Designs, We R Storytellers

Heart chipboard: Little love bits, Sugarplum Paperie, The Digi Chick

Font: CK Ali's Hand

I can't wait to start on the next sketch. This was a lot of fun!

Peace.

Is Sunday over already? That means it's time for Weekly Rewind

The weekend flew by! I can't believe it's Sunday already, which means it's almost time to go back to work tomorrow. *sigh*

I'll make the most of whatever is left of this weekend, but first I want to post the Weekly Rewind.

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The week was pretty uneventful. Work has been busy, with lots of time spent on doing research for this compensation program. This makes for one boring day due to lots of reading, some of which, is legal reading. Ugh. That's the problem with working in the Human Resources field- you have to stay up to date with laws and read a whole bunch of boring legal terms. But I love what I do, so I won't complain too much. :)

It rained unexpectedly on Friday for about a day. Joey loves the rain, for the obvious reasons, like splashing in the water, but it also means that he gets to play with the umbrella.

Today, Joey and I decided to make gingerbread cookies. It was the first time he got to make cookies like this. He had a blast! Perhaps next week we'll make more cookies. I've been in a baking mood, for some reason. Must be me getting in the holiday spirit.

Saturday was Digital Scrapbooking Day so I spent the day downloading massive freebies and even doing a LO!

 

Supplies:

Template: Juli Fish, The Digi Chick
Paper: Harvest, Three Paper Peonies
Green leaf, ribbon, alpha, ribbon: Calico Harvest, Sugarplum Paperie, The Digi Chick
Orange leaf: Masking challenge, Katie Pertiet, Designer Digitals
Journaling tab, flower: High of 75 degrees, Sugarplum Paperie, The Digi Chick
String: Some like it hot, Zoe Pearn, Sweet Shoppe DesignsWord art: Title it vol. 2, Kathryn Wilson Designs, We R Storytellers

No, this is not my cute daughter, but a friend of the family's daughter. I told her I MUST do a LO of her because she is the cutest little thing around. She is going to be a heartbreaker, for sure. It's a nice change from doing LOs of Joey. I'm going to be working on another LO for another friend of her kids, which I'll start on after I finish this blog post.

Oh, yesterday I also picked up Log Your Memory, as featured on Ali Edward's blog. I downloaded the eBook, but will get it printed at work tomorrow. I plan on doing a review on it sometime this week once I've had a chance to really look at it. I'm super excited about this purchase!

Well folks, I guess that about sums it up for this week. Hope you had a fabulous week and hopefully you have been playing along with me. If you do, post a link to your Weekly Rewind.

Peace.

I {heart} digi scrapping

Just a short post to showcase my new page called, "5 things that make you happy". It was done for a journaling challenge over at The Digi Chick and I couldn't resist because I knew exactly what I wanted to journal about.

I especially loved doing this page- can you believe that what I actually started with looks nothing like the end result? That's the great thing about digi. You mess up you aren't wasting any supplies. I {heart} digi scrapping.

Supplies:

Blue and brown polka dot paper, star- Groovy Boy, Mindy Terawasa, Designer Digitals
Blue circle paper- Love me forever, Sweet Blossom Designs
Postage frames- Katie Pertiet, Designer Digitals
Bracket journaling card- School, Three Paper Peonies
Number stamp and cirlce- Add it up, Audacious Designs, We R Storytellers
Button- Butterfly fancy, Audacious Designs, We R Storytellers
Brown journaling tag, stitches- Fresh outlook, Audacious Designs, We R Storytellers
Leaf, ribbon, word art- Just be you, Audacious Designs, We R Storytellers

Love stamp, Lovely dovey sentiments, Sugarplum Paperie, The Digi Chick

I've got to make this quick. I NEED to get to bed. For you Twilight fans, check back tomorrow as I'll be posting a new, new clip of the werewolves from New Moon. It's SO bad ass!

Until then.

Peace.

Cutest pumpkin in the patch

I've been itching to do a Halloween page with the pictures of Joey I took last Sunday. It's been years since I did a Halloween page; I think when Akela was in 3rd grade was the last time I did a page. Yikes! Better catch up, I guess.

So pretty much all week I've been looking for free Halloween digi stuff and found some really cool stuff. Of course I also had some juicy supplies in my stash too that have been dying to be used.

So here's what I came up with. It took a moment to get the mojo going here since I am picture placement handicapped. I looked through my eye candy of pages that I like on Evernote (BTW- This is a MUST HAVE to have and it's FREE!) and enjoyed how everything just flowed in this. 

Supplies:

Cream and green paper: Thrilling October free kit, Cherie Mask, Two Peas in a Bucket

Orange paper: Spook-A-Licious, Heavenly Scraps

Black paper: October Halloween, MyItsybelle Designs

Halloween silhouette: Studio C, Cassandra Bruno

Frames: Stitched up frames No. 1, Katie Pertiet, Designer Digitals

Flowers: Color challenge, Katie Pertiet, Designer Digitals

Lined word art: On the line word art, Sugarplum Paperie, Nicole Seitler, The Digi Chick

Pumpkin label: ABC labels, Mira Designs, The Digi Chick

Alpha: All inked up, Sugarplum Paperie, Nicole Seitler, The Digi Chick

Stamped background: Whimsy, Three Paper Peonies

Date label: Scrap me if you can, Simply Scraps

Holy crow that's a lot of supplies! Credits are great, I get it; they are SO time consuming though- listing them. Geez.

OK, moving on. After playing around with this all week I am very satisfied with how it turned out. The trick for me when I'm at a loss for inspiration or can't seem to put the finishing touches on something is to leave it out or, in my case, leave it up on the computer and every time I walk by it a light goes off and things get added. Is that how you work too?

I think my problem is I'm one of those in between scrappers: Not simple but not overbearing either. Trying to find the balance is rough and sometimes maddening!

Now that I'm finally finished with this I can head to bed with a clear mind- actually I'm already thinking about the next page. Crazy, but I am constantly thinking about scrapbooking. I'm sure I'm not alone here.

OK, enough rambling. I NEED to get to bed. Have a long day tomorrow with lots of meetings.

Peace!

Scrapping fool!

 

Seriously. The mojo is flowing like a river. I want to scrap non-stop ever since I picked up the new Paper Crafts Holiday Cards edition. Of course I have yet to start on any of those cute projects but isn't the magazine still doing it's job by giving me my mojo back? Thank you, Paper Crafts.

I've got two LOs to show you. One that I worked on last week and of course this week's Unscripted Sketches (see, mojo!).

Supplies:

Template: Ikea Goddess, Weeds & Wildflowers Design

Paper, ribbon, tree and bird: Feels like home, Sarah Bennett

Word art: Friendship word art, Audacious Designs, We R Storytellers

Glitter circles: Glitzy bits, Sugarplum Paperie, The Digichick

Stitching: Mon Noel a moi, Thaliris Designs

And this week's Unscripted Sketches:

Supplies:

Paper: Boys Rawk, Mindy Terasawa, Designer Digitals

Ribbon (brown and blue): Worn strips No.2, Lynn Grieveson, Designer Digitals

Journaling spot: Katie Pertiet, Designer Digitals

Bracket template: Shapes collection #4, Studio Jen, Scrapbook Graphics

Word art: You, Ali Edwards, Designer Digitals

Net: Boys Club, Sweet Blossom Designs

Love ribbon: Family Tree, Audacious Designs, W R Storytellers

Alpha: Out-of-a-box, Katie Pertiet, Designer Digitals

Heart: A breath of fresh air, Gina Marie Huff, Weeds and Wildflower Design

Bracket: Playground pop, Peppermint Creative

Trinket: Vintage dreams Retro Diva, Lori Barnhurt & Michelle Coleman, Little Dreamer Designs

Tree: Fresh outlook, Audacious Designs, We R Storytellers

I realized when doing the US LO I feel like I have more girly stuff than I do boy stuff though the majority of my designs incorporate my main subject: Joey. Since Akela does not allow me to take pictures of her I am just going to steal her pictures. LOL. So look for her in my designs more often.

Well, I must get going. Joey is dying to get outside. I'm so excited that we are getting Direct TV today. Can you say DVR and On Demand? LOL We only got it for the Sunday NFL ticket for the hubby. That's the reason we got cable, also, in the first place. Bad, I know. But hubby has to have his football and basketball.

Have an awesome weekend!

Peace.

Hello Unscripted Sketches. Oh how I've missed you.

Good morning peeps. I've been so excited all week because I'm participating in Unscripted Sketches this week after being on a long hiatus. This sketch was calling my name and it was perfect for the Studio Maya boxes over at Scrapbook Graphics that I've been dying to use forever.

Supplies:

Pink paper, ribbon, flower, flourish, glitter splatter - Some like it hot, Zoe Pearn, Sweet Shoppe Designs

Green paper- Click, Kelley Mickus, The Digi Chick

Black paper- Our story, Kelley Mickus, The Digi Chick

Alphas- Gina Marie Designs

Button- Hopelessly devoted, Studio Tangie and Sugarplum Paperie, The Digi Chick

Damask Journaling- Shabby Princess, Damask and Dots, Shabby Princess Designs 

All of the buttons I used here are either from the Flair application on Facebook or stuff that I found on the internet. They represent me right now. Don't they fit perfectly inside the boxes? Love it.

Anyways, this is a short post. Joey and I are going to run some errands today. Hopefully I'll get some scrapping time tonight.

Have a great weekend!

Peace.

Can you say digi scrap?

It feels like it's been ages since I actually sat down and do what I love most- digiscrap! I saw this perfect template for an ad challenge by Katie Pertiet on Designer Digitals to use with the beach photos from Tahoe that so happen to be sitting on my desktop, for whatever reason I seem to have forgotten now.

Over the course of the last few weeks I've been a shopping fool, buying all the cutest digiscrap supplies from designers outside of Designer Digitals. So as you can imagine I've been itching to use my new found supplies!

I recently just picked up this great beach kit from one of my fave new designers, Audacious Designs, over at {we are} storytellers, (which I found out a few weeks ago was closing down their store. Waaa! So disappointed! I'll have to make sure I track down this designer as i cannot get enough of her stuff!) in collaboration with Leora Sanford, from Little Dreamer Designs.

The majority of this uses the Beachside Bungalow kit, with the exception of the yellow flowers (Fresh Outlook kit, also by Audacious Designs) and the word art (Family Tree, also by Audacious Designs). See! This girl has talent. I probably picked up 10 of her kits, word art and fonts.

This is a good start for me to get back into the swing of things. I cannot wait to get started on my LOs!

Well, I need to get to bed. I've had a very long day. We went on a mission today down to Monterey Bay Aquarium to check out the last day of the seahorse exhibit. It was awesome! I still need to download all the pics and will post here soon.

Till next time. Peace.

Did you miss me?

Supplies: Urban Jungle, Rhonna Farrer, Two Peas in a Bucket

I'm baaaccckk. I just realized the last time I did a blog post was in July and it's now August 16. Yikes! It's not like I haven't had anything to blog about, but sometimes I get lazy to blog since it is a time consuming process.

I've really thought about the whole blogging thing- no, I'm not giving up on my blog, but rather doing some deep thinking on where I want to take it- add some creativity to it like using my digital scrapbooking supplies to aid in my postings. I think you'll find the eye candy on my blog more enjoyable... hopefully!

A lot has happened since I last posted, but honestly, I can't really remember what I did. Crazy, I know. Except (!) finish the Twilight series (again).  Jenny, the new Twilight girl, has also finished the series for the first time and can finally be on the same page with the Edward obsession, yay!

We just came back from a well needed vacation from Lake Tahoe. It was awesome, and probably the best Tahoe vacation we've had yet. You see, we have been going to Tahoe every year for the last 6 or 7 years. Always in August when the weather is the best= warm, warm and warm!

We rented this huge house in Carnelian Bay, north Tahoe. Plenty of space for the amount of people we had. This thing had a hot tub, 2 living rooms, 5 bedrooms, an open floor living room and kitchen and a huge back yard.

 

The hot tub was crucial! Joey didn't want to get in it, but was not afraid to hang on the side and splash all the water out. Sometimes we would just sit on the edge of the hot tub and put our feet in during the day. So relaxing!

Our week consisted of beach days, shopping, hiking, eating, but my favorite part of the trip was rafting down 5 miles down the Truckee River. Every year we drive by Truckee River only to see a sea of rafters having so much fun as they cruise down the river. This was the year we would try and I must say that I think all of us could agree that this was the best part of the vacation.

I have more pictures to share, but I have to get to work tomorrow and it's already very late. Just wanted everyone to know I was still alive. Thanks for coming back to visit!

Peace.