Where did I go?!?!?

Hello readers, if theres anyone out there actually following my blog you are probably wondering what happened to me and where I dissappeared off to. Well, I haven't ben far.... I've just been really busy, and now things have finally slowed down at least for now so I can play a little catch up here.

First thing to keep me busy, was helping out in the moving of an online group that I am an assistant manager of, many of you know what I am talking about...... Scrapping Friends! Anyway, there was a LOT going on behind the scenes to get the group moved over to it's new home on Yuku, before the 21st of this month which was when MSN had announced they were closing their groups forever. It's been a bitter sweet journey, so many new things to get used to and even though msn was a royal pain in the *** most days it was still the one place I called my online home for many years. The important thing though, is that we kept going, all our friends have moved with us and we get to continue to be the fun and supportive group of friends we always were.

Next on my busy Agenda.... my oldest son's 7th birthday! I don't know how it was that he got to be 7 already but it came and went in a flash! He had a great time at his party and is still enjoying all the goodies he got for his birthday. He loves Pokemon, so we did a pokemon themed birthday complete with pokeball cupcakes for his friends! He also got a lot of pokemon cards from his friends.... he had MAYBE 20 before his party and as you can see in the photo below he has a LOT more than that! LOL He also got a wii, and a few games/attachments with that. He was so excited! and he's goot at it too... kicks my butt at bowling every time we play! LOL





I spent over a week on cleaning patrol getting ready for his party and in the 2 hours his friends were here it was trashed! LOL That's how it goes though.... it's not too bad, a day of nit picking and it should be under control once again..... then in a month we get to do it all over again for Robbie's birthday!

In there somewhere I did manage to squeeze in a little scrapping time and got some cards made and a few small pages, nothing major, but hey at least it's something. :) Currently I am 7 pages behind on my layout a day goal for this year, so I'd like to get back on track at some point this week.

So there you have it...... the past 2 weeks in a nut shell. Hope you have a pleasant day!
~Jenn

Just Some Cards

I needed to make some "Thinking of You" style cards for a friend as a prize to a game we played. These are my usual style, I pulled some scraps out of my scraps bag the looked good together, grabbed a few sheets of cardstock and away I went. I didn't use any sketches to make these but will be making my own sketches for them.... is it wrong to create sketches backwards?? I say what ever works to get a sketch made for the next scrapper to use :)

All cards were inked with Cats eye liquid chalks, I used some super tiny Primas, Stickles, Liquid Pearls, Kaiser bling, and of course my Studio G Stamps.









So this is what I picked at all day long! I only had time for bits and pieces here and there so I thought I did pretty well considering :)

till next time.......
~Jenn

ATC Valentines

So I was challenged and inspired by Marti over on the Pezadoodle blog to get creative and make some ATC Valentines AND to use those Studio G stamps we all know and hoard and LOVE! Her challenge ends February 14th so it you want more details and you want to try this challenge out pop on over to her blog and check out the details! :)

Now I have to admit I am not a fan of Valentine's Day.... I never make cards, I never buy pretty and lovey papers and embelishments, and hubby and I just don't do the exchange of cards and the over priced gifts. We buy stuff for each other all the time, and besides... he knows BETTER than to buy me a card, or jewelery or flowers... yup, he has learned that if he wants to surprise me with a special something it better darn well be something I can use in the Scraproom! lol Anyway back to the point, because I'm not a big V-day fan, It was a litle difficult to keep these in theme.... especially when I only had 3...yup thats right 3 valentines/love related sets of Studio G's! LOL

So here are 4 that I came up with:

My favorite of the bunch is the bottom left corner. I love the roughness and different heights the flocked heart has, I ran the chipboard through my Xyron X sticker maker as the adheasive for that one. I love experimenting with different ways to flock. hehehe (My favorite is still to paint the piece then had a layer of white glue then flock. :))

The chipboard flourish on this card and the chipboard bracketed piece on the next card were from a 7 Gypsies ATC chipboard kit.... a lot of neat lil pieces in those packs and they are pretty cheap too (I got them from LoriMart ;)).

My next favorite...."Always Love You" I totally messed up on this one, I touched the ink while it was still wet after I stamped it, and smudged it... at first I was mortified, then I decided to continue to mash my thumbs in to the project and wholla! a true one of a kind masterpiece.

This "x's&o's" one I made for my son... I'm going to hide it in his lunchbox on Friday so he gets it at his valentines party at school. He loves all things with x's so I used an x&o's stamp, and brad on this card.

and the pink/brown one is the reason why I should never ever EVER attempt to work with pink.... I plain ol suck at it! Maybe there was a creative reason behind why I had 3 boys! LOL I do love the pink/brown combo of colors though. ;)

The lil woven please tag flips to show this....

and here the stamp I use on the back of all my ATC cards.... I bought this one from Oriental Trading Company. I think it's a pretty neat way to finish these cards off (and please excuse the fact that I desperatly NEED a new ink pad...LOL).

So that was my fun for last night and bits and pieces of today. Hopefully tomorrow I will get the chance to play with ome pretty cute papers I recieved in the mail today from a friend... DCWV Sweet Stack papers! I'm so excited!

Thanks for stopping by today, and thanks Marti for the fun challenge, it was great getting those stamps out and giving them a try, I'm sure if they could thay's thank you too!!! lol

~Jenn

*******UPDATE FEBRUAY 13TH MIDNIGHT*******

So I've been looking back at these ATC's and I just have to say I'm not 100% in love with them.... not just because I don't normally do lovey things... but they don't say to me "Hey I made that... that's a lil piece of me". So, tonight I made one that was totally me and still managed to stick with using a love themed Studio G Stamp!!

everything again inked with Cats eye Liquid chalks, scrap cherry paper and bazzill, cuttlebug paisley embossing folder was used on the red, Heidi swap mini joural notes and chipboard cherries, and of course studio g "love you with a cherry on top". Oh, and I went a lil crazy with the liquid pearls....LOL

Now this one I am very happy with! :) Now I can sleep better knowing I know have an ATC that 'says' Jenn :)

The Challenge

I have been wanting to post this for a while but due to challenge rules I was not allowed to post this layout publicly until voting had closed, which actually happened last night.

The challenge was set up like this. Anyone who wanted to participate was to send the hostess $1 and in return we each got a pile of supplies that we had to use on our layout. Everyone was sent the same amount of paper and the same embellishments (besides the fact that they varied in size, color, pattern etc) I do believe there were 2 pattern papers, 1 'ugly' paper, and 9 embellishments (and we had to use 8 of the 9 embellishments), and and we had to include chipboard and the word 'love' somewhere on our page also. We were allowed to make any sized page we wanted to, and use as much or as little of each of the papers also. We were also allowed to add whatever else to the page we had as long as we did use the materials we were given according to the rules. Then everyone e-mailed a photo of their page off to the hostess, and a poll was set up for voting.

This had to be one of the most challenging challenges I've ever done... I was being 'forced' (willingly...lol) to use things I wouldn't normally use and I had certain criteria to follow, and I couldn't talk about or show anyone what I was doing (that was the hardest part!) AND I chose a really hard photo for me to face and scrap.

So I got the package in the mail, opened it up right away and my first thought was what the heck am I going to do with this? After 20 minutes of looking it over thinking I'll never pull it off, a photo came to mind, and the rest was a piece of cake! I decided to do 8x8... then I started looking trough a ton of pagemaps but nothing was saying "this is the one" so I winged it without ANY pre planning, I just started cutting and sticking not knowing what the next move or placement was going to be.

and now that I've talked your ear off, here is the layout I created:
(click on it to see a larger image)



This is a photo of my Dad and my Grammy. Grammy is still here, but my Dad past away 4 years ago on the 18th of February of Cancer. I was given his photos to make a scrapbook almost right away, and I just haven't been able to bring myself to pull them out an really work with them. I have taken them out and scanned them to keep originals but even that took me years.

This challenge was so amazing in that it gave me inspiration and I will even go as far as to say it gave me the strength to pull out this photo and scrap it to the best of my ability.... and trust me folks, I had no idea I had it in me to create a page like this....normally I will pick apart any creation I make pointing out it's flaws and what I could have done to make it better, but not this one.... I can't find one single thing wrong with it.... it's Perfect.

With all that said I DID win the challenge (yay me)... but honestly I had more fun completing the challenge and seeing what everyone else came up with for their layouts than the actual winning part... that was just the cherry on the top ;)

~Jenn