In Focus?

Hello everyone!
It's Monday & I'm here to share my
first creation using March's beautiful kit:  Daffodil Hill.

Gorgeous colors! I love it all so much. Reminds me of Spring,
fresh & vibrant colors popping through. You will LOVE this kit.
Get it now! Get it right here:  Noel Mignon March Daffodil Hill Kit

I'm sharing a little tip from a HUGE mistake I made.
Ever have the perfect layout in mind only to start making it...
it looks NOTHING like what you pictured?
Well I did!
Instead of getting mad at my creation & throwing it away..
I simply took it apart & cut tags & shapes from it.
Here, let me show you what I mean.

Here's my layout:

notice the banners on the left?
I cut them all freehand.
The yellow cardstock banners were the "boo boo's."

I originally misted the October Afternoon mist that comes
in the kit onto the Studio Calico mask that also comes into the kit.

I did this on the yellow cardstock.
Well...I wasn't paying attention and
let my mask move.
Oops. That was my intended background.
Not anymore! It turned into banners...AND....

look up on the top right.
Hearts!

So just remember the next time you happen to say..."OOPS!"
put it aside. You'll think of something fun to make out of it.

My layout title is about my photo. Look closely at it.
Can you see WHO's in focus? That's my husband. The kids are out of focus...
not on purpose, well not really.
I caught HIM catching ME taking a picture of THEM.
Priceless. Had to scrap it.
I love my little family!

Thanks for letting me share with you today.
I hope you have a great week!

~Leslie

Orange X thingys.

I remember going to my very first crop like 8 or 9 years ago.

It was here in town and I went with my mom.

I even remember seeing the flyer for it at a local scrapbook store that I drove 45 minutes to get to because I needed to feed my habit.

**Bama Scrap Blast**

"36 hours of Non-Stop Cropping!"

Anywhoooo the crop started on Friday and went through Saturday evening.

We didn't get there until Friday evening because for some reason I did not take off work.

We were the last people to get there dangit!!

:)

As we sat there for a little while we noticed that everybody had these orange X thingys on their tables.

They were everywhere!

But not on our table!

We decided that this must have been a freebie we missed out on because we arrived so late.

So my mom, always on the look out for a deal, proceeds to ask the nice crop director {bless her} about the orange X thingys that everyone seemed to have but us.

I don't know for sure what she said to my mom, but I am pretty sure she nicely told her that she was crazy, go get your own orange X thingy at Wal-Mart, and leave me alone because I have some wacky crop games to play!

And then the nice crop director proceeded to demonstrate how the mysterious orange X thingy was, in fact, a super neat sticker maker and all cool kids have them.

We couldn't wait to get one!

Sooooo we proceeded to scrap as late as we could stay awake.

Then we stopped by Wal-Mart on the way home at ~3:00 in the morning to purchase our very own orange X thingys!

When we got back to the crop the next morning after very little sleep, we were totally in the IN crowd with our brand new orange X thingys!

*****

Now that story was all a lead in to this layout.

{and if you are still reading this, bless you!}

I still have that orange X thingy we bought at Wal-Mart that night.

And, yep, I still use it!

So I thought I should make a layout to preserve that fun memory!

I used my "Summer Wind" kit to make this...

Thanks for stopping by the blog today!
Have a good one!!
:)
gretchen

Making cards with Primrose Lane!

Good morning!

I am still working through my Primrose Lane kit!

(i still have so much left!)

One of my favorite sheets of paper in the kit is this fun piece from Echo Park.

When you cut this sheet up, the individual pieces are perfect for cards!

So I used it to whip up a couple of quick cards...

Quick and easy!

{I am loving using simple string on my cards lately!}

That's all I've got today!
Hope your week is going great!

Thanks for stopping by!

:)

gretchen

A Special Project with the Office Party Kit

Included in the Office Party Kit were these super COOL, Roma Book Covers by 7 Gypsies. They are amazing and I knew I wanted to do something special with them.



My husband's birthday is next month. We have gotten to the point in our marriage where we end up getting something for the house or yard for our birthdays (LOL!), but I always try to write him a long card so that he is reminded how much he means to me. :)

I decided this year it would be fun to make a notebook album of sorts and then over the next month or so, write in all the big and little ways he makes me love him more and more everyday. :) I think I'll even get the kids in on the action. Wouldn't that be fun to open and read? I think it would even make a special gift to give the grandparents for Grandparents' Day (coming up on September 12th).

Here is the cover of the book.



And a few inside pages.






I used the patterned papers from the kit to create the pages. Next I used my Crop-a-dile to punch holes through all the pages and the chipboard covers. And finally, I used all kinds of bits and goodies from the Office Party kit to accent the pages. I love the way it came together and I know my husband's going to love it even more after reading all that we will write in it. :)



Have you stopped into our FUN IN THE SUN crop on the message board yet?! We are having a week of inspiring challenges and fantastic prizes!

Today I posted my challenge, a sketch challenge.



Here is my sample page using the Office Party kit .





Tomorrow night I will be hostessing a rousing game of BINGO in the Chat Room.



Come on in and play along!
See ya!
Jana

Kit Item

Good Morning Everyone!! Amy here. :D Today I am going to share with you a LO using my favorite kit item!!! I actually have three whole packs of these but hadn't used any of them yet. :P So when I got my Sunkissed kit (sorry, sold out!) and saw that it had a couple of the Maya Road Kraft envelopes that I had been hoarding and wanting to use for forever-I knew it was time to finally use one! :D Love love LOVE these! And I still have tons more to use so I have to start thinking of ideas to do so.

But the LO I made only used one, I wanted it to hold all my journaling. This LO is actually one of my favs that I have made in a while! :D I really like how it turned out, and the colors from the Sunkissed kit were just fantastic so it really made this a fun one to do!

The patchwork background on the top was super easy to do with my sewing machine! I just cut the squares and rectangles out and lined them up-putting just a tiny bit of glue on the back in the middle. Then when they were all dry, I stitched up the edges! :D (I can actually see though that I missed two spots though! :P Looks like I'll need to fix that! LOL!) But what was fun was I even stitched the kraft envelope on! :D (Have I mentioned how much I love those little things?! :D) Then the bottom border was pretty easy. It is just strips of paper cut with border punches and then the freehand cut paper at the very bottom. That bottom one was kind of different for me but it was fun! :D Trying something new. Then the title, and a few minimal embellishments make the rest of the LO. :D The only time consuming part is the patchwork background. But the work is well worth the effort.

And here is a little close up of some stitching and the gorgeous flowers!

Hope everyone is having a great day!!! Be sure to stop by the Noel Mignon message boards to check out the sneaks for the new kit coming out soon!! The sneaks are gorgeous so far!!! :D

~Amy

Using Your Kit....

Since Noel jam packs each kit with tons of goodies, sometimes a few might get neglected or overlooked. Especially the fabulous stamps that are in most of the kits. (Or maybe that's just me? LOL!) Like this one from Imaginence. I decided to stamp it four times to create a dimensional flower.

I chose 4 coordinating colors and stamped directly on white tissue paper. I cut each flower out with scissors and proceeded to fold it twice. In half....then in half again. Stamp another flower on cardstock so that you have something to adhere the four flowers to. I glued them down in the center of the cardstock flower and added a piece of felt cut into a circle and a brad.

I "floofed" up the flower a bit, added a couple of leaves, and cut a few large white flowers with a die cut and white tissue paper to "ground" my colorful flower. All of the papers and stickers are from the Sun-Kissed kit. The embossing and clouds are from Papertrey.

Don't forget to take a peek at Noel's newest kit called Office Party! Such a fun kit!!! And don't forget...there are a couple of more days to participate in the "White Space" challenge!