One last Thursday with Kimberly! :)

Hello to all my favorite Noel Mignon friends! 

I just want to say how much I have LOVED every single month designing with Noel's AMAZING kits...and it's even better to have an AWESOME fun loving team to work with month after month! 

This has been one fun journey that has kept my JOY in this fun craft growing, and I am so thankful to Noel and all of the great wonderful people on the boards! It's been totally a great experience/bonding with great people! 

All of the changes to the site have been smooth and so great too...LOVE! 

I know you all will enjoy the new Team Noel has in store for you all...they too are my friends and super inspiring also! 

I have one last layout to share with you all using products from the June kit Summer Winds

I LOVED working with this kit...and it is loaded to the max with ALL of my personal favorites! 

I added a few little extra's to this from my stash of goodies from Greatest View products...as I was their June Guest Designer. It was fun to be able to incorporate This kit with their products as well. 

Sometimes it's fun to use one photograph repetitively on a page. For this layout, I used one photograph with different effect applied to each one, and made it an enlarged banner strip down the right side of the enlarged photograph. I really love how this all came together. 

Thanks so much for having me...and I will look forward to staying in touch with all of my friends I've made here and will continue to treasure! 

Ciao for now... 

xx

Loves,

K

Thank you Noel!

{made with the Summer Wind kit}
*****
All good things must come to an end.
**sniff**
This is my last post as a design team member here. 

Time to move on and I do not want to over stay my welcome.
:)

**sniff**
And, besides, Noel has a fabulous team lined up for you starting in July!!

I have loooooved being a part of this team!

Noel is a sweetheart and her kits are the best in the biz if you ask me!

She is great at keeping her store stocked with the latest & greatest too.

I love the community here and I do not plan on going away.

You can't get rid of me that easily!

So thank you so much Noel for letting me a part of this team!!

I have loved every minute of it!

Love,

gretchen

Summer To Do List Dry Erase Board

I know you may have already seen this around the internet, but it's the first time my family has made one of these cute "Summer To Do List" boards, so I thought I'd share mine here with you! 

I found this large frame at the Dollar Tree. I have not seen big ones like this there before! I planned on painting the frame, but for now, I think I like the natural wood look for the summer time. I am thinking I can change out the inside design for each season. 

I pulled out the Summer Wind kit and began playing with papers. 

Hmmm... 

I was worried about that pattern being too busy to write across, so I switched it for a lighter paper that has lines on it... easy for writing neatly! :) 

Then I began layering: 

It's amazing what matting a piece of paper can do for it:

Then I pulled out the Silhouette and customized a pre-made banner from the store with my own text:

While it was cutting, I cut out a couple of stickers and laid them where I wanted them to go... sometimes I will do this before actually peeling off the sticker so I can move it around and get the right placement:

My cute little banner:

I put some darker patterned paper behind the letter so they would stand out better:

Time to adhere everything! With a project like this that is going to be behind framed glass, you have to be careful to not get too lumpy bumpy, otherwise it won't fit. 

My final product! (It's so hard to photograph glass without a reflection on it- sorry guys!) 

Ready to go with our list on it! I can't wait to reuse this each year. My kids LOVED making our summer list too! :) Now it's time to start checking off boxes. 

Already scrapping Father's Day!

Other than having fun, new scrapping products to use, I think I am most inspired by good pictures.

And that is why I could not wait to scrap pictures from this past weekend!

Yes, there are many other events and pictures that I still need to scrap and get into my albums.

But I really wanted to scrap these pictures from Father's Day!

{stomping feet and pouting}

So I grabbed my "Summer Wind" kit and got to scrapping!
Here is what I made...

I love all the bits and pieces in this kit!
:)
Have a great day friends!

gretchen

Point & Shoot

Happy Monday, Everyone! Jana Eubank here to share another Summer Wind scrapbook page with all of you.

A couple of months ago, my family and I went on a quick vacation to Disneyland. Before we left, I bought a new Point and Shoot camera to take with us. I had so much fun experimenting with my camera at the park while waiting for my family on all the rides. I loved the way they came out and decided to combine several floral shots together on this page.

I chose to use neutral colored elements in light blue, tan, and cream to let the photos really shine. Most elements come from the Summer Wind kit, but I also added the Pink Paislee Butterfly Garden Wooden Shapes, Crate Paper Emma's Shoppe Phrase stickers, and Crate Paper Portrait Layered Chipboard stickers.

Thanks for taking a look!

Jana Eubank

BeYoutiful

Happy Friday, friends! 

Just a quick layout from me today.... using the beautiful colors that make up the Summer Wind kit to complement this picture of my cutie oldest. 

I had fun with the layering on this one... first, I cut out a butterfly & torn notebook edge with my Silhouette machine and layered it over another sheet of patterned paper. Then I tucked in a tag, a chipboard embellishment, a brad, and a foam sticker. The final touch was stamping that cute key stamp, cutting it out, and hanging it on the page with a brad and twine. 

I hope you're having fun just playing this summer, whether it's with water & floaties or paper & adhesive! :) 

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

iPad Love

We have had such a great time this past week at the Summer Lovin' Crop on the Noel Mignon Message Board. One last reminder . . . today is the last day to get in your challenge entries!

My challenge was all about revisiting scrapbook techniques from the 90's . . . but adding them to your pages with an updated twist. Here is my challenge sample page using the June 2012 Summer Wind Kit.

iPad Love

The two techniques I used on my page were premade die cuts and a handrawn title. I layered together several die cuts at the bottom of my page along with one of the mini transparencies from the kit.

To create my handdrawn title I found a font on my computer that I liked, sized my title, and then traced it onto ledger patterned paper by holding both sheets up together on a bright, sunny window.

Happy Scrapping!

Jana

Summer Lovin' Crop- Colorstory Challenge!

 Colors can completely affect your mood and communicate a certain feeling... and I loved the sweet, airy feeling this color board gave, with that little pop of red for unexpectedness! 

(The colorboard is originally from here:http://tarisota.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/03/pinspiration.html) 

So your challenge is a simple one today... use this color board as inspiration for your layout! I love color challenges because it's always interesting to see which color people choose as the dominant color. 

Here's my take on it, using the Summer Wind Kit: 

(And if you have the Summer Wind kit, you're especially in luck since this is the same color story as that kit! Don't have the kit? Get creative with your stash, paints, inks, and photo colors!) :) 

Come join us on the board- you have through Monday to complete the challenges and win some prizes! 

Sketch challenge!!

Hi again!

Every good crop needs a sketch that you can play with, right??!
Well I've got one for you today!

This sketch is kind of my "go to" sketch when I need something to jump start my creativity.
It is also a good sketch to use for a single-picture layout where you have a lot of journaling you would like to get on the page.

Here is one of the first layouts I ever did with this sketch...single picture, title under the picture, big embellishment over to the left of the layout, and plenty of room for journaling under the title.

Here is another one where I stayed pretty close to the sketch.

The background patterned paper is just a lot busier so I used black cardstock to help set the picture, title, and journaling apart from the background.

Here is an example where I used 2 cropped pictures instead of a single photo and then I moved the title and journaling more toward the left side of the page.

And then I used this sketch to help me create my layout for the Scrapping the Music challenge!

I did change the sketch up a little bit though on this one.

I moved my picture where the large embellishment usually is and moved the title more toward the bottom of the page.

{kit used: Summer Wind}

I love that sketches are versatile enough to change and manipulate so that you can make them work for whatever you need!

*****
You have until June 11th to make something with this sketch!

Post your layout on this thread over on the message board so we can see them and for your chance to win!

Happy scrapping!!
:)
gretchen

*****

Don't forget to play the Blog Trivia game on the post below!

Taking Chances

Hey Noel Mignon Friends! Have you heard? This week we are having a Summer Lovin' Crop on the Noel Message Board. Be sure to stop by each day this week to see all that we have in store for you . . . including challenges, games, chats each day, and of course . . . prizes!

Here is a sneak peek of the challenge I posted today. Click here to come and check it out.

............................................................................

As Virginia mentioned last week, Noel Mignon has teamed up with Scrappin' the Music Challenge Blog. Come and play along for your chance to win a $20 Noel Mignon Gift Certificate.

Here is a look at the page I created for the challenge using mostly the June Summer Wind kit.

The phrase in the song that stuck out to me was "I'm gonna go and take a chance" and that is what I wrote my journaling about on the hidden journaling card. My journaling starts out like this, " If there is one thing I could go back and tell my young self or to teach my 3 daughters it would be to believe in yourself and don't be afraid to take chances. The world will always make you doubt yourself, but your divine nature is that of immeasurable potential. Do the things that you love to do, that make you feel happy and fulfilled."

I used a Hero Arts stamp set with the silhouettes of three young ladies to represent my "advice" towards my three daughters. I wanted my page to feel feminine, but then splashed a bit of black paint across it to represent the "taking chances" message of this page.

Thanks for coming by! Hope to see you at the Summer Lovin' Crop on the boards!

Jana Eubank

Scrappin' the Music!

This month, we have been invited by our message board's own Michelle Rydell to partner up with Scrappin' the Music! Here are a few sneaks of my layout, using the Summer Wind kit (there's a couple left- hurry and grab them before they sell out!).... if you click HERE, you can see my full layout, along with the rest of the team's projects!

This month's prompts are really fun... you should totally join in! And the bonus is- if you do, you will be entered to win a $20 gift certificate from the shop! 

***********************************************

My other little project I wanted to share today is another from the Summer Wind kit. A while back, Noel posted a great idea using the Fancy Pants Brag Book as a place to store all of the little "tokens of affection" she receives from her fellas. I fell in love with the idea at once and ordered a brag book... and then let it sit on my shelf until a week ago. Ha! 

I decorated it with the Summer Wind kit and a piece of My Mind's Eye chipboard from my stash. 

It is SUPER easy to just pop in a few notes, cards, photos, and other ephemera from my kids and hubs using some colorful washi tape. I love this easy process.... and then I can flip through, rather than looking through a box of these precious items!