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Category Archives: Crafty Goodness

Evening Elegance

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Today is release day for a fabulous digi-kit from Amy’s Designs. It is called Evening Elegance and it is perfect for portraits or other fancy photos. Amy actually gave it away in 6 pieces in February and March, but if you missed your chance to snap it up for free, don’t despair, you can purchase it on sale this weekend.

I have two layouts to share using this kit. First up is one of my sister-in-law Tami. I have very few photos of her, but I really like this one taken in 2010 at a family reunion. The only thing I don’t like about the photo is the busy background. I felt it was distracting from her pretty face, so I extracted just Tami from the image. However, I didn’t like her without the shape of the photo partly because extracting hair is hard, so I put another copy of the photo behind the extraction and radially blurred it. I need to practice some more so I can just remove the distractions. I used Creative Scrappers Sketch #203 as my starting point.

Digikit: Amy’s Designs – Evening Elegance
Sketch: Creative Scrappers Sketch #203
Font: House Sitter’s Club

This second layout is of Jessica. I had bought some cookie dough with a Minnie Mouse design (why that was considered Easter cookie dough is beyond me) and she had fun placing the pre-shaped dough on the cookie sheet and then eating the cookies after baking.

Digikit: Amy’s Designs – Evening Elegance
Template: Connie Prince – Backyard BBQ
Font: Simply*Glamorous

Have a fabulous weekend!

Easter Blessings

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Our Easter celebrations this year were pretty neat. Jessica had an egg hunt and picnic at her school the Thursday before Easter. Then she and her Daddy dyed eggs Saturday night. Sunday morning, she checked out her Easter basket before we headed outside for her to hunt for eggs. Last year, it took her a little bit to understand the concept. This year she had no problem and had a blast finding all the eggs and then coming inside to open them all. Afterward, we headed to the late Easter service at our church. Next year, I think we might do the egg hunt after an earlier service since the grass was a little wet from dew at the time we did it. We took a few family photos in the front yard once we got home from church before eating leftovers. That night we had a brisket that I baked most of the afternoon. I used Scott’s Beef Brisket recipe out of one of my Taste of Home cookbooks. I substituted Dr. Pepper for Cola, since that is what I had and it was quite tasty and very tender.

I had hoped to scrap more of the photos from all the above mentioned events before blogging about Easter 2012, but alas I’ve only had time to do one layout and I’m not sure when I’ll get around to the rest, so here it is. Yes, Jessica is wearing the same dress she wore for Easter last year (then it was humongous, now it is a little on the short side). No, James and I did not plan to both wear blue.

Digikit: Amy’s Designs – New Again
Wordart: Memories by Digital Design – New Again
Font: Tropicali Script BTN Bamboo
Scraplift of My 1st Kiss Concert

Have an awesome day!

New Again

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Today is release day for the newest kit by Amy’s Designs. New Again is a soft Easter kit to help you preserve all your wonderful Easter memories.

Memories by Digital Design collaborated with Amy and made some lovely wordart to go with the kit. Both the kit and the wordart are on sale for 50% off this weekend.

I made two facing layouts. They’re from our Easter celebrations last year. I tried to make it look like Jessica was reaching out of the frame to give you an egg. Do you think I succeeded?

Digikit: Amy’s Designs – New Again
Wordart: Memories by Digital Design – New Again
Font: DirtyDarren

Journaling reads: Since the closing on selling our house would be on Tuesday, our Easter celebrations were pretty low-key. We didn’t even make it to church as we still had so much packing left to do to be moved out by the next day. We tried to make it special for Jessica by having a little egg hunt in our backyard. It took her a little bit to understand what she was supposed to do, but once she figured it out, she was off and running to find all the eggs.

Have a blessed Easter weekend!

Prehistoric Pals

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I meant to post this yesterday, but alas we didn’t get home from our weekend road trip until 7:30 and after putting the girls to bed we just vegged in front of the TV. Anyhoo,  I have two layouts to share with you today.

First up is a layout about Jessica’s Tiny the Pteranodon action figure. At the time of Janette’s birth, she was really into Dinosaur Train, now it’s Franklin. She likes to tell me she wants to watch “my Franklin.” Journaling reads: “The weekend before Janette was born, we took Jessica shopping at Target so she could pick out a gift to give to her new sibling at the hospital whenever the baby decided to arrive. She didn’t completely understand, but we helped her choose a monkey toy that plays music and has a teething ring. The day after Janette was born, the girls exchanged gifts when Nanny brought Jessica to the hospital to see Mommy and baby. Janette gave Jessica a talking Tiny action figure. Jessica was quite excited about Tiny, which is quite evident by her tight grasp of Tiny in these pictures. ” I used a technique to make the main photo have a glowing effect. I also blurred the busy hospital background. If you want to see the original photo, click here.

Digikit: Queen Wild Scraps & Scraps by Andrea – Prehistoric Pals
Fonts: Doctor Soos Bold (title), Darlin BTN (journal)

Second is a layout from our spring break road trip. Journaling reads: “Tuesday morning, we headed to Let’s Jump, an inflatable play place pretty close to the Witgen’s house. All of the kiddos had a blast. Even Janette had fun bouncing on the edge of one of the slides. The slides definitely were the favorite inflatables. Jessica wouldn’t even set foot in the bounce house with Trevor and Cameron. We were there during the under 5 playtime and they all showed patience when some of the smaller kids were slow in climbing the stairs to the top of the slide, which made us moms proud.”

Digikit: Queen Wild Scraps & Scraps by Andrea – Prehistoric Pals
Template: Queen Wild Scraps – Freebie Friday March 2012
Fonts: Grinched (title and date), Just Me Again Down Here (journal)

Both of these layouts were made with this awesome new dinosaur collab out todayyesterday by Queen Wild Scraps and Scraps by Andrea – isn’t it cute? Full of dinosaurs, prehistoric plants, and lots of fun patterns this kit is perfect for scrapping any dinosaur photos you have! Been to a dinosaur museum lately? Or do you have tons of photos of your kids playing dinosaurs? Then this kit is perfect for you.

Be sure to grab it this week because it will be 50% off – that’s just $3!! And that’s a steal of a deal for the HUGE kit. It includes 60 unique elements and 30 papers and a full alpha – all carefully quality checked.

Don’t forget to pick up the add on which includes 8 worn papers and 8 cardstocks. It will also be 50% off for the first week.

Or you can grab everything at once in the bundle – it will be 35% off for the first week.

Here’s what the two creative teams did with this fantastic kit:

Andrea:

Becky:

Brooke:

Cori:

Henriett:

Kandi:

Kendra:

Kim:

Lahni:

Lauren:

Stephanie:

Tammy:

And be sure to check out all the blogs (see the links on Lahni’s sidebar) because some of the girls have some freebies for you. And make sure you check out Andrea’s blog too because her CT also has some freebies.

And here’s my freebie:

Click on the image or here. I would love to know what you think, so please leave some love if you download.

March Sketch for You to Try

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My sweet nephew Cameron turned 4 yesterday. This weekend, we’re going up to Keller for his birthday party. Jessica is super excited.

I decided to make him a birthday card using this month’s Sketch for You to Try. I started this card when I went over to my friend Lori’s on Sunday to stamp, but since I took Janette with me, I didn’t exactly accomplish a whole lot. I finished up today, just in time as Saturday is the last day to submit a card. I’m now 3 for 3 for 2012. Hopefully, this year I can make a card with every sketch for the year and get in the drawing for the prize at the end of the year.

Stamps: Bugaboo Stamps – Monster Bday Balloon; Stampin’ Up – On Your Birthday
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive
Designer Paper: Stampin’ Up don’t remember the line right now
Ink: Dell laser printer; Stazon Jet Black
Accessories: green ribbon that Lori hooked me up with
Tools: Prismacolor colored pencils

Thanks for stopping by and have a fabulous day!