Looking thru the Window ...

Jen U recently added some great Old Window Frames to her store. And they have started a creative streak agalore! I think I have a series going here --- check out my latest LOs. Images are clickab;e to see credits.)

I should have extracted one of the small swags that I made to hang on the chairs at the wedding for this LO, but these digital flowers were just too pretty not to use! Maybe I'll redo this LO.
I used flowers and branches from Jen Ulasciewicz, New Life Dreams, Natali, Annie Manning, Bluebird, Laurie Anderson and ON Designs.


Everything in this LO (except Gage!) is form Jen U.


Along with Jen;s window, everything else here is from
Gisela B's Nature Calls kit.


Here is my Amazing Digi Scrap Race Challenge 5 LO. We had to "interview" an inanimate object. So I chose the restaurant where I work. I've been wanting to scrap it for a while so this was a fun take on it. To print it I might take out the interviewing parts, and leave it as regular journaling.


And finally, Tayler and I shared a birthday cake at Cheesecake Factory and I loved this photo of the two of us blowing out the candle! She's the best birthday present ever !!!

The Freebie has landed...

Yup, this morning I posted the free INSPIRED kit from Tangie Baxter Designs over at our CT blog The Loft.

If you downloaded it, don;t just let it sit there --- create a LO using at least 4 of the products in the freebie, post it to any gallery, and link us up here and the creator of the most inspiring LO will get a $10, yes $10, gift card at Tangie's shoppe!

And you will be wanting that GC to pick up some of her awesome and FUN new DIGISTRATIONS! What's a Digistration?? Well, check out TBD!

OK, I'll give you a tiny preview:

They are basically a way to set the scene on your LOs! And let me tell you, once you try them, they are addicting!!!

Up for a Challenge? and a freebie????

I am hosting this weeks challenge over at The Loft (the blog for Tangie Baxter's creative team !!
Lucky me, I get to give away a freebie mini kit for yu to create your challenge LO. Be sure to check The Loft on Friday, March 14th to grab this lovely kit that will Inspire you to create a memory.

In the meantime, wanna see my latest LOs?? I got quite verbal this week!
Both challenges for ADSR required a LOT of journaling. For someone who was at the top of their class in English and writing, I, for some reason, haven't translated my love of writing over to my scrap pages. I seem to get so involved in the visual part of my pages that I forget to leave room for the journaling! But there was no escaping that this week. Another big change for me was that I did both pages about, get this, myself.

The first LO shares my fear of dying young like my mother and leaving my children without a mother. It's hard to write about something that most of us are afraid to talk about. The response I got from other women who lost their Mom's has been so touching. It was comforting to know that I am not the only one who seemed to view my life expectancy in terms of how many more years I had until I reached the age of my Mom's death. That number sort of looms over you like an expiration date. That scary number. I am relieved that it is now behind me -- now on to the rest of my life!

For this Challenge LO, it had to be about yourself, and fill at least half the page with journaling
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The journling is my Pushing 50 blog entry. I love love love those Vintage Frames from Jen U!

Challenge 4 for ADSR was from OScraps. It required: at least one large Picture, some blending and Spill It Journaling (at least 1/4 of the page had to be journaling). I've always loved this conversation between my daughter Pam and I right after she gave birth to Tayler.

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Journaling: I had gone to visit my daughter Pamela just three days after she had given birth to her daughter, my first grandchild Tayler. I was just sitting there as Pam gazed lovingly at the baby sleeping soundly in her arms. After a few minutes, Pam looked up at me with that “baby love” look and said, “Oh, Mom, I’ve only had Tayler for three days and already I love her sooo much. I can’t even imagine my life without her. Did you feel this way about me when I was I born?” Without a pause I said,“Pam... I still do.”

It was at that moment my daughter finally understood a Mother's Love.

I did this one, too, because I wanted to use Kathryn Wilson's Stripped tranparency and word strips (only $1!), Tangie's new Threaded Ribbon and Jofia Devoe's Diamond Rain. Hey, why not use them together???

ADSR Challenge 2

submitted their Challenge 2 LO last night for the Amazing DigiScrap Race. I think it came out awesome!! We decided to do a He Said-She Said Lo about our realtionship with our husbands and scrapping. Check it out:

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--- JOURNALING ---
CATHY SAID: Honey, can you come look at this?
KEITH SAID: Be right there...just one more minute...
CATHY SAID: Does this look better here . . . or here ?Which color background, pink or yellow ? Which looks better. . .flowers or hearts ? Should I put the journaling here . . .or here . . . or is it better here ?
KEITH SAID: Okay... uh huh...yeah...
CATHY SAID: Should I move this photo 1/4" left or 1/2 inch right? Do you like it better like this... or this?
KEITH *THINKING* You wanted me to get off my video game for THAT?? Why don’t you get off that stupid computer and do some laundry??
STEPHANIE SAID: Hey, look at this layout. What do you think? Does this cardboard look OK or should I skip it? Something is missing... Does this drop shadow look realistic to you?
BRAD SAID:What is it supposed to be? Cardboard?What is it there for?I think you should try something else...
BRAD *THINKING* Why is she waking me to look at a piece of torn cardboard? Since when is trash a decoration ??
STEPHANIE *THINKING* Why did I even ask?He just doesn't get it!If he only knew what it takes to do this...
BRAD SAID: zzzzz....

I guess some other scrappers like it too, since just minutes after I posted it at DST it was listed as a Gallery Stand Out and won Layout of the Day at Digitals.com today!

I am sure many of you ladies can relate... LOL

Oh, and a big thank you to CZNY who RAKd me her fun Thought Bubbles when I did an ISO forum at DST. Look for them coming soon in her shoppe.

A Coupla LOs

Last night I couldn't sleep. My sweet son KC had brought me home a Haagen-Daz ice cream bar and the caffeine in the chocolate kept me up all night. So what did I do? Scrap of course!

I did this LO using Tangie's new kit The Bounding Main and Pink Sea. Her kits always have the coolest names! I added some items from JenU's Down by the Sea and the greenery is from Lorie Davison's gorgeous new Water Spirit kit. If you've ever seen Lorie's kits you know they are packed with tons of whimsical, beautiful papers and elements !!

The photos were taken on a sunset cruise I took with the kids this past summer in North Carolina. We left from Beaufort, passed the Rachel Carson Reserve with its wild horses, passed Fort Macon, under the bridge, went up toward Morehead City and came back under the bridge at Atlantic Beach. I love this photo of Gage.

I also did this one of my sweet NINE year old granddaughter Tayler and I blowing out a birthday candle. My daughter and SIL took us to the Cheesecake Factory for my birthday a few weeks ago and of course they came out and sang to us!

Tayler's birthday is the day before mine -- she's still the best birthday present I've ever gotten!! (even if it was a few hours early.) Funny story about that too:
Pam was in labor and didn't want to push. She felt it all in her back. It was already evening the day before my birthday.
So I told her "OK, don't push -- then you'll have the baby tomorrow and we can share a birthday."
Pam said, "This baby is going to have its OWN birthday" and pushed her out before midnight!

New Scrap Goodies

Have you been to Jen U's new store yet??? No??? Well hurry and get over there --- you know how gorgeous her designs are and right now she is having a Grand Opening sale -- 25% off !!
Her latest toy for me to play with --- these:

Jen bought some vintage Italian frames to put in this kit!

Recently there was a Designer/Scrapper thread over at DST were scrappers could offer to create a LO for a designer. The scrapper could request a kit, or the designer could offer one. Well, I was given two amazing kits!!! The first was from NewLife Dreams ofering me her beautiful annd jam-packed Something to Remember kit

I used several elements on my ADSR Challenge 1 LO that you saw in my last post.

I also used the butterfly pin from this kit on this LO
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The other offer i got was to create a LO using the kit of my choice from Gisela B over at Scrapbooking Heaven. Have you seen her stuff --- wow!

I chose her Nature Calls kit and created this outdoorsy LO of my baby Bear --- isn't he soo cute!!! He looks like such an old man with that white beard. He actually turned 7 on Martin Luther King's birthday.

Gisela and Mareen liked my LO enough to invite me to be on her CT! I can't wait to get my hands on her new spring Kit JOY.

Speaking of CT's, the other fabulously creative ladies I CT for have some new items you should see:

Mikkel Paige has the adorable clear acrylic alphas -- two kinds! Did you see them on my First Frineds LO??

And Tangie Baxter has these cuuuute children Silhouettes

and these versatile mix-and-match Round Tags with a bunch of frames, backgrounds and fasteners -- I know I;ll get a lot of use out of these! I used the Silhouettes in the First Friend LO too.

So what are ya waiting for --- get off my blog and go grab some of their stuff!!!!

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Prom LO

So in June my son KC took his first love, Taylor, to his high school prom. They were such a gorgeous couple -- they looked like they stepped out of a fairy tale! She even wore a tiara and a blue dress reminiscent of Cinderella!
So I finally got around to scrapping some of the photos (here is my LO)
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The only problem is, they broke up a few months ago and now he doesn't even want to see the photos!
Oh, well, they did go to the prom together, and it was memorable for us as well as him, so hopefully one day he will look at the photos taken that day and remember it with wistful memories instead of hearbreak...

ADSR

So, Stephanie (HapEScrapr) and I have entered the Amazing Digi Scrap Race.
I didn't enter for the prizes (although they are a great bonus!) but rather for the chance to get to know Steph better, find some great new digiscrap websites & designers, and mostly, to spark some major creativity.
Challenge 1--
1. You have to use this template:

2.Use your favorite color on the layout. Try to make at least half of your layout in your favorite color so we can all see what it is.
3. Share with us a picture of your favorite person or animal to scrap about on your layout. I want to know who or what is closest to your heart.
4. Go through your collection of digital elements and pick out one of your favorites. Then use at least three times on your layout.

So here is the Lo I came up with: (my favorite color is pink, but I was feeling kinda silver that day!) And I have 8 people closest to my heart (I am missing DH Keith but he is OK with that).
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And here is my partner Stephanie's LO:
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Cute kids, huh?????

The last Scrap event I entered was the Stand Up & Scrap Challenge -- I totally shocked myself by coming in 5th in the Intermediate division and tied for 12th overall out of over 250 entrants. Not too shabby for someone who had just begun to scrap digitally a few months before. But when I entered, I set a personal goal to get into the top 10 once during the 6 weeks of the contest ---and I did it!!

BUT the real reward of entering was seeing all the wonderful, creative LOs made by the other contestants. Every week they just got better and better, influencing me, teaching me, and inspiring me.
So ADSR participants -- are you up to that challenge???