“Just Swingin”

For a long time I’ve wanted to take a photo of the kids swinging while laying on the ground under them.  Came out a little underexposed, but it made a great LO anyway!
Supplies:  Cosmo Cricket, American Crafts, WRMK, My Minds Eye, misc

Blog Hop Winner & Faves

Time to share my favorites from those of you who shared the page you created from the sketch for the blog hop.  Why did I think it would be easy?  I had ahead of time decided I would pick three.  Seemed like a fair number, 14 entries, 3 is good right?  Not easy though!!!  Thanks to everyone who linked up - it was fun to look through them all.

My first choice is by Kelly.  I really like the vintage flare to the page (and wish I could do that).  I love the detail of the tearing/distressing on the top right corner and again on the bottom line.  And the rosettes on the bottom, that is going on my shopping list :).




The next page is by GrammaChurch.  I love the hand stitching.  And great use of Sassafras Lass paper, this is a pattern I have in my stash I do believe that I'd always struggled using.  Now I've found my inspiration!

 

The last one is actually a card.  Before hand, I wouldn't have said I would pick a card, but Heather interpretted the sketch so fantastically into a card, I just have to share!  (and she chose my favorite company too - Cosmo Cricket).  Watch out for this girl - she's young, but super talented!  I wish I had that much talent when I was her age :)

 

 

And now....the random winner...........congrats to......

 

blsd2scrap

 

e-mail me your address at lovejoypaper (at) hughes (dot) net and I'll get your prize sent out :)

 

Thanks everyone for playing along! And stay tuned for the next hop in October. 

 

Oh - be sure to come back on Thursday - when you find out what BIG thing I've been working on....

“Up & Down”

Life & sledding have a lot in common.  Lots of ups & downs.

I think the designers at Cosmo Cricket for sure must have seen my daughters snow clothes when they designed this paper!  It was a perfect match. 
And for the snowflakes, I used my flower Papertrey Ink Die and cut off the tips making snowflakes that mimicked the paper pattern.

Friends I’d Never Met

I spent the weekend in Wannahatchanegg (better know to Washingtonians as Wenatchee) meeting a group of girls whom I’ve known for almost 4 years.  Well, virtually known. 

We all met on the website hosted by Creating Keepsakes.  I’ve always said they were the best friends I’ve never met.  Now I have to find something else to say!  LOL…..

It was a wonderful weekend of laughs, scrapping and a bit of mischief (still don’t know who that was).

I’ll have more pictures to share over the week, but at the moment – I need to get back to real life.  But here’s a group shot.  It was an absolutely wonderful weekend, I actually did some scrapping, no one ended up in jail, and the damages were very minimal (more on that later).

Thanks for the lovely weekend girls!

“Summer Girl”

I’ve had a stack of random pictures of my kiddos laying around that I keep sorting through and keep passing over because they don’t connect with more than one photo at a time.  But I realized a couple days ago that all these photos were summer photos.  There’s the link!

 
Supplies:  October Afternoon, We R Memory Keepers, K&Company

“With a smile”

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays.  I think it’s second only to Christmas.  This year we went to a small rodeo that had events for the kids before hand.  It was awesome!!!

I knew I had to scrap this, the first “race” my son has done.  It was totally fun.  I found this sketch from Sketch Support and thought it would work perfect with a 4th of July theme!

I can’t remember the exact journaling, but it’s something to the extent of “I’m so proud of you C for jumping in and trying something new.  You had a great time, but the best part was when I got home and looked at the pictures and realized you had a smile on your face the entire time.  You didn’t let the competition be too serious and just had fun.”

Supplies:
My Minds Eye (paper)
Fiskars (punches)
Misc (buttons & floss)
Cosmo Cricket (ledger alphas & chipboard alpha)

“Rust”

I love old stuff.  Everytime we go into a junk store antique store I have to remind myself two things:
1) my bank account is not unlimited
2) my house is small!  LOL
So since I can’t buy old rusty stuff, I take a photo of it!  It has a story to tell.  I wish I could hear the story.  But since I can’t, I sometimes make up my own.

Supplies:  Cosmo Cricket, Misc, Coordinations, Paper Trey Ink buttons, Fancy Pants alpha

And remember, I have something BIG starting Sept 1!!!! Be sure to check it out!

How Cool is This??

On Saturday, I had the following post on my other blog Redneck in Heels.  Yesterday, I saw a call on Becky Higgins blog about how to document natural disasters and events in our lives.  I submitted this picture and a brief story about the fire and how I document the fires for year to year reference.

But just a bit ago, the awesome Briana at ClubCK told me the picture was featured on Becky’s Blog here.  And Laura said it was the featured photo for the post on Facebook!  Wow!!  I’m so excited!  It’s just a silly little picture, but still – how cool is that??

(Scroll down to see the original post)

“Too Close For Comfort”

We took the kids outside to swim about an hour ago and I looked up and saw what one never wants to see in the high mountain desert, smoke.  Called the fire guy, grabbed the camera and hopped in the car to see how close it was.   We do have fire prevention measures to employ, but you have to have time to do that.   And it’s not cheap being as how it’s a one time use, so we had to know what we were dealing with. 

 

Anytime you see smoke near your home though, it’s an immediate action mode to see if you need to do anything.

 

This is what I first saw.  The burned out trees are on our property, and I believe our property goes partly up that hill.  From our house, we couldn’t tell if the fire was on the hill or behind or exactly where.

 

In a matter of minutes it grew to this.  You can see that in the top picture it is only as wide as the bunch of three trees near the left center to the two lone trees on the right center. 

 

We jumped in the truck to go see what was going on and if we’d need to do anything.

  

As we drove (just about a mile down the road, but circling so we weren’t getting any closer to the fire, we could see it was a fair distance away.   And thank God the wind is blowing in the opposite direction of our house.  It appears to be about 2 miles from our house. 

We did see the fire crews coming through with a bulldozer between our land and the fire.  The speck of silver about 1/3 of the way up the right edge of this picture is our house.

I attempted to do a panorama to show the distance between our house and the fire.  The right side of the picture, the silver rectangle about 1/3 up the frame is our house.

 

We decided to come home and just keep an eye on it.  With the wind blowing away from us, and the distance, at the moment, it appears we are fine.  As I look out the window again to check it, it appears the crews have a good control on the fire.  Thank you guy – and thank you Lord!

“Captain Cody”

I don’t do a lot of double page spreads.  I often don’t have enough photos to fill the space.  So sometimes I like to shake it up and do two page spreads as 8.5 x 11.  And the fantastic thing about using 3 ring albums is that the smaller page protectors still fit into the album.  Love that!

This page is also a great example of using a product out of context.  This paper was from We R Memory Keepers.  It was from the Merry January line.  The blue of the sky and yellow of the playstructure made it hard to find a paper choice to work with.  But then I realized these colors were perfect.  So I took it out of context (which worked great aside from the fact that I had no matching elements, but come on buttons!)

And remember, I have something BIG starting Sept 1!!!! Be sure to check it out!

“Anatomy of a Throw”

I rarely use numbers on a page.  I can’t identify why, but I just am not attracted to them. But I challenged myself to put the numbers on this page for the sequence.  It’s good to challenge oneself.
Supplies:  Basic Grey, American Crafts, Cosmo Cricket, Paper Trey Ink, Pink Paislee

And remember, I have something BIG starting Sept 1!!!!  Be sure to check it out!

Beautiful Craftsmanship

I always tell the kids that they will have no excuse to not have skills at something.  They’re getting a pretty good dose of talent from both sides of the genetic pool…..Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying I’m the best or most talented person, but I’m at average at least in where my talents lie.  But their dad, well, that’s another story.  I do have to say, he has an exquisite talent.  He is an amazingly talented woodworking (efficient as well).  I’m always taunted by the many different jobs that come through the cabinet shop.  I love to see and touch the velvety finishes.  It’s simply stunning.  If only they could all live in my kitchen, but alas, they must go because there are bills to pay.  Sigh.

But rarely do we make it back to a home to see the finished project (we usually never make it back because we do the job right in the first place – and the few homes we manage to make it back to, it’s usually because we’ve become friends with the homeowner through the process,what an incredible blessing!).

Well, Friday, we had the pleasure to go back to the most recently finished home we’ve done cabinets and millwork for.  Yes, the millwork framing the windows was finished by us to match the cabinets.  And I also have to say that he made the doors on this cabinet job.   Most shops anymore just buy doors.  Not us, all doors are handcrafted with hands, a brain and a few power tools (no computerized high tech stuff – good old fashioned skill and brain power).  The finishing is done the same way, by hand, skill  and art.

On the personal note, I was very excited to go back and photograph this home.  It was a beautiful home, all open and easy to photograph.  (although, it did prove more challenging than I thought because they had additional mirrors I wasn’t expecting).   But I’m thrilled with how the photographs turned out and I would like to think this first one is magazine worthy, in terms of both kitchen and photography.

     

If you’d like to know more about our cabinet shop, check out our website at Three Nails Woodworking LLC. (We can ship across the country if you’re interested, fees apply).

Thanks for taking a few minutes to let me brag. 

Thank You & Winner

Thanks everyone for participating and following along with this awesome blog hop!  We had a fantastic show of talent shared by everyone!

But now, what you're all curious about, the winner.....
caroleb - congrats Carole!

If you want to play along with the sketch, you have until Friday night 11PM to share your link and I'll draw a winner AND share some favorites next weekend.

Be sure to come back on the 1st of September for sure to see the NEW BIG thing I have planned!

August Blog Hop

Welcome welcome!!!  Hi to everyone joining in for our August Sketch Blog Hop! 

I believe there are some wonderful pages to come in the following blogs.  So you know what’s in store, we’ll all be working from the same sketch:


I can’t wait to see what everyone does with the sketch and how it is interpreted differently. 

Now personally, I have a hard time working with a sketch.  But being as how I made the sketch, I made it work for me (by doing the page first and then drawing the sketch from the page – yes, backwards I know!)

Here is my version.
Supplies: Simple Stories Destinations, misc floss, cardstock

Hop on to the next person Ashley to see what she has in store!!   If you get lost along the way, come back here to find your place.  (At this moment, if I may, I'd suggest you open the link for Ashley by right clicking and then click "open in new tab" or "open in new window" because there are a couple broken links that are in process of repair, but not done yet - if you still have my blog open, it will be much easier to get to the next blog).

Amanda – YOU ARE HERE
 Ashley
 Jennifer
Kathy
 Amanda
Laura
Cassie
 Andrea
 Steffanie
 Toree
 Adele
Shanon
 Heather
 Mandi
 Linda
 Devra
Andrea
Laurie
Veronica
Traci
Jackie

After you’ve made it through the list, we’d love to have YOU play along as well!!!  Here’s how:

• Create a page (card or altered project) based off the sketch.
• Post it to either your blog or online gallery.
• Come back HERE and leave post the link here 

Saturday, Sept 3, I will draw one person who shared their version randomly to receive this prize:


Because we have to celebrate the last few days of summer, a kit of Cosmo Cricket papers, chipboards and stickers along with some coordinating cardstock, ribbons and buttons.  
I will ALSO highlight a few of my favorite pages shared on my blog Saturday, Sept 3.

------------

As a second chance to win, I will be giving away a pair of crystal earrings to a commenter who comments on this blog and who is/or becomes a follower! 

Happy Hopping!!!

“Just Us”

I love doing simple pages with some focal detail points.  One of my favorite ways to do that is with Bazzill stitching templates.  Love these flourishes, layered with flowers and buttons.

And I pulled some paper deep out of my stash for this one!!

**WINNERS**

Thanks to everyone who played along last week!!  It was fun and I’m so thankful you all joined me.

Alright….let’s get to the good stuff……

Winner #1 – Steffanie (houses stamp)

Winner #2 – Veronica (kimono stamp)

Winner #3 – Moongirl (birdies stamp)

Winner #4 – Ashley Horton (earrings)

Winner #5 – Krissy (earrings)

Winner #6 –Brandy Holland (Cosmo Cricket kit) (and a new follower too! Thanks Brandy :))

Winner #7 – Jessie (camera slipcover)

Winner #8 – Odeyjay (earrings/necklace)

Winner #9 – photochic (vinyl cut)

GRAND PRIZE – Veronica!

If you all can e-mail me your addresses (I know I have some, but some of yours I don’t have) to lovejoypaper (at) hughes (dot) net I’ll get all the prizes sent out as soon as I get your addresses!!!

Thanks for playing everyone!

Giveaway #7, #8 & Grand Prize *CORRECTED*

Hi everyone.  First of all, my apologizes for yesterday’s blank post!  I must have accidentally deleted all my pictures and text when I hit post….oops!!!

But because of that, I will leave this post open for another day.  So be sure to enter!

Alright – first up today is an earring & necklace set.  Handmade with crystals, montana blue & a turquoise color on a antique brass hardware.

Next up is a vinyl cut measure 6 x 24”.  Winner will get the choice of burgundy, silver or chocolate brown (or a few odd colors if you want fun!

And finally, the grand prize:  This collection from Echo Park For the Record.  This was one of my absolute favorites of the spring.  I had to buy multiple sets because I had it secretly in my “too pretty to use” stash so I had to buy more than one so I’d actually use it!  LOL

Here’s how to enter:

• Leave a comment sharing why you scrapbook (or if you don’t why you follow me… LOL)
• Be a follower (leave a comment to let me know if you are or become).
• Share the giveaway (leave another comment!)

 

Come back tomorrow to see all the winners :)

“Girl in Pink”

I did this for a Club CK one hour challenge.  I don’t often share my one hour challenge pages because they usually don’t quite feel finished.  But I really liked this one.

The challenge was to use “honeysuckle” pink on a page.  Really?  Oh, that’s right up my alley!  LOL
So to work I went.  I’ll admit, I often cheat and do one hour challenges as 8.5x11 pages because it’s easier to scan them than to photograph them in a quick period of time.  And I managed to get this one done in about 15 minutes (please don’t throw your ATGs at me, I can’t help it…)

Supplies:  We R Memory Keepers (paper), Prima (flowers & bling), Memory Makers (ledger alphas), Doodlebug (pink alpha) American Crafts (ribbon)

Giveaway #7 & #8 & “grand prize”

Giveaway #7

I had a lot of fun reading the responses yesterday for the time I’d have my desk clean.  Sadly, no one hit it…..I’m ashamed to admit, it still looks like this:

Gotta get back to work because I still have about 50 thank you cards I need to make.

But first, today’s giveaway:

 

This is a pocketed slip cover for your SLR camera strap.  The pocket will fit either your ID and a debit card and a bit of cash, or an extra camera battery. 

To enter:

• Leave a comment with the following:  SLR or point & shoot (if the winner has a P&S camera, I will have to make another option because this particular one won’t work)
• Be a follower (leave a comment if you are or become a follower).

Alright – I have to get back to work, but tomorrow, I have *planned* (let’s hope I can get it done) 2 giveaways and the grand giveaway!!

 

Come back on Monday to see who the winners are!!

Giveaway #6

Morning everyone!  I’m running a little late here today, but isn’t that life!? 

We went to the Omak Stampede last night.  It’s the big festival around here.  We took the kids to the carnival and had an absolute blast!!  Rode a few rides with them (what was I *thinking*….but it was totally fun!!!).   The kids went to bed late last night, but fortunately slept in about the same amount of lateness this morning.  YAY!!!

But in the midst of a crazy busy week (of which none of it I had really planned) everything in the house has been placed on my scrapdesk to be sorted………Guess what I’m doing today, because there is no way I can scrap until this desk is clean!  Sadly, I have other more pressing things to get done first today. (insert cry).

Alright…lets get to the good stuff right……

Today’s giveaway is a collection of Cosmo Cricket Salt Air pieces (and I plan to add a few other ribbons, buttons & cardstock to match – just didn’t have them pulled for the picture). 

Here’s your chance:

1)  Leave a comment guessing what time I will have said desk pictured above cleaned.  (winner will be randomly selected – time is just for fun :) )

2)  Be a Follower (tell me if you are or become one)

3)  Share the Cosmo Cricket goodness somewhere and come back to leave another comment!

Thanks everyone!!!!  Have a great Friday.

Giveaway 4 & 5

This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home.  This little piggy wore earrings……..

Another use for the super cute piggy bank :)

Anyway – today’s giveaway are handmade crystal earrings.  Two pair, one for each of two winners.

Here’s your chance:

• Leave a comment
• Be a follower (leave a comment if you are or become – both count!)

(Even if this one doesn’t interest you, be sure to leave a comment for an extra chance for the grand prize!!)

Let the Fun Begin!!! Giveaway 1-3

Shall we get started??  As promised last week, I have 4 days FULL of giveaways.  Lots to celebrate around here: 70,000 hits (yay!), 800+ posts, a birthday this week and some pay it forward giveaways!!!

I’ve been planning this for a while as a thank you to all who stalk, er, read my blog.  Seriously, I’m making a joke, but really, I SO appreciate all of you taking the time to read, look and comment!  Really!!  Small town girl me, is often left speechless (okay, not speechless enough) that people care to look at my work.  But I’m so grateful, so it’s time to return some favors!!

Today (because my last two days were totally thrown off “plan”), lets start with the Pay It Forward.  I won these little adorable stamps last week, but I’m not a big stamper, so I’d much rather see them go to a home where they would be used and loved.

*In addition* I have a grand prize page(s) kit that I’ll chose the winner for at the end of the week.  Every entry through the week and the entry on that post will get you a chance to win it, so be sure to enter on each post daily for you chance to win it!**

I’ll be sending one set out to three different people.  Here’s how you can win:

• Leave a comment telling me which one you like:  Houses, Birds or Kimono
• If you are a follower (or if you become a follower) leave a comment to tell me
• Share this “Giveaway week” somewhere, Facebook, your blog, an MB….and leave a comment telling me.

Check back on Monday morning to see if you won!!!

Too Much Excitement! LOL

I have to say, I usually lead a very boring life.  No, really very boring.  The most excitement I get is when my husband crashes the forklift into the shop, catches the finish room on fire, jumps off a running horse or locks his keys in the truck.  Oh, wait, that doesn’t sound boring does it.  I guess I should say that’s about as much excitement as we have over three years. 

Yeah, I have a boring life.  I live on a mountain, can’t see any neighbors and live a pretty quiet life (well, maybe not so much in volume because my kids really are very noisy). 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t live a bad life.  I actually quite love my life.  Mishaps and all.  And along the way, I’ve made some incredible friends.  I do have to say one thing about living on a mountain that has change my life is my “virtual” friends.  The friends I’ve met over the internet whom I visit with nearly daily, but most of whom I’ve never actually met. 

Some people think that is very weird.  But I don’t.  I mean, people meet their spouses via online dating right?  And even before this crazy thing called the internet, people had “relationships” with people they’ve never met via the old fashioned pen pal forum.  Sure it wasn’t nearly as fast, but is it really any different at it’s core?  I don’t think so. 

Regardless, I’m very fortunate to call these people my friends.  Over the last week or so, I’ve had a big pile of mail collecting.  It all started with that box marked “oink”.  OINK?  Hmmm….Don’t they know I already have a pig?  In addition there was quite a pile of mail!!

But before I go on too much farther, I have to explain how the day started.  Really crazy.  We had some neighbor drama (of which I won’t go into full details), but let’s just say it involved Bulls (in both the animal form and other form…..)…..bulls and neighbors.  Lovely combination…..er, blood pressure elevating combination.

Okay, back to the box….So my day started out in a kinda stressed manner.  Then about 1 (I think – frankly, I was so overwhelmed from the drama I don’t quite remember), the dogs go nuts.  What?  We run to the windows (because I told you, I live a dull life and what better thing to do than look whenever the dogs bark?).  One of my “virtual” (who is no longer virtual BTW) friends is on my porch!! 

What????

(Remind me to get the picture from her…)……Wow – Becky drove over 4 hours just to say Happy Birthday in person.  Wow…..now that’s a friend right?

So she comes in and we chat for a while.  She then gives me “permission” to open the boxes.  We start with the first one.

The customs label (because it came from England) says Piggy Bank on it.  So does the box.  Could it be true???  Hmmm….I don’t know…..I kinda hope so because the picture on the box is mighty cute!

Oh – man, I totally need the picture Becky took here to insert….

It was!!!  LOVE it! But the cooler thing is that it was custom “inked” by the incredibly talented Adele!  Seriously?  Man, the girl can do everything. 

The card says it’s for my “fund” to go to our crazy girls get together later this month…hmmm????? 

So I began to open each of the 28+ envelopes. 

Must insert here a BIG THANK YOU!!!

And I totally start laughing.  Each envelope has $1 to $5 in it.  I’m totally rolling on the floor laughing because the girls $1 at a time are sending me to our “crop!”  So incredibly funny (because at one point I said a big job we had fell through and we had no work for August, thus no Amanda go…..the girls decided that couldn’t happen – see – I told you they are awesome friends!)

And just to prove I’m not totally stuffy:

I also have to insert here:  Thanks Vicky for the revenge….I sent her a card full of glitter months ago….and this is what I got…

Very very careful….although, I would have expected more from her ;)

 

I also thought it was kinda funny, holding a mighty thick stack of ones that I happened to be wearing a spaghetti strap dress…urgh…yeah….just for fun…..  

I have to say THANK YOU!!!  to everyone.  Really, I was incredibly touched, and honestly have no idea what I have done to have a bunch of friends like you. 

I can’t even begin to tell you how awesome it is to have friends whom I know even though I’ve never really met, would be there.  And my husband was incredibly impressed that you all went through all this work  for little old me. 

THANK YOU and be blessed.