August Papertrey Pages Challenge!

Yay! 2 more pages done!!

The challenge this month was to use felt and flowers, either together or separately- I did both!! The photos are #6 Grandchild Wes when he was just three months old~ Freddy Firefly was the first thing he 'wanted' and went for with intent!

I started with scrapbook paper from a company called Adorn It. I have never seen them in my LSS's, I got these at a CKC show. Cutest little bugs all over, reminiscent of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

I used 2 purchased felt frames, from a company called the Summer House- the web address says http://www.rubyrock-it.com/. I have not gone to the website to check it out yet, but will soon! These felt frames are wonderful! Stiff-ish felt, laser cut; I just trimmed the photos and used a dab or two of white glue to hold the frame to the photo.

You can also see my felt flower, using Papertrey's Spring Moss and Hawaiian Shores felt, cut with Papertrey dies, and topped with a Hawaiian Shores button. The yellow felt is from Michael's. I also have some button flowers along the edge of one of the photos.

Oh look, that little lady bug seems to have chewed on my leaves a wee bit! Pure Poppy and Hawaiian shores buttons are mixed with some renegade buttons from the stash.

The right hand side of the pages has a cutout from another of the series of paper, I layered it with a light colored lime green to separate it from the rest of the green page. It's hard to see, but the photograph is of Wes's hand finally grabbing Freddy- then he would swing his little hand as it clung to Freddy's wing~ what fun for a little guy!!

Lot's of buttons here, too!

Playing with Freddy is so tiring!! Another felt frame, and another leaf eaten by a bug!! The paper series came with a journal block; mine is just sitting there so I can trial some journaling on a scrap paper, then see if it fits, then write it out and stick it down- that's for another day!!

I am enjoying my Papertrey Pages challenges, and can't believe I have almost 10 layouts so far! If I am lucky, I will have some scrapbooks to give the girls this Christmas! Let's hope!!

try again

Sometimes the baby cards are just so sweet, I hardly want to give them away! This is one~

I have done a couple of 3-D cutouts, but the cutting can be so tedious I can't do more than one at a time. I don't know how to make that determination before I start, but this one was not all that inticate or time consuming.

If you'd like to do something like this, Frantic Stamper has lots of them!
http://www.franticstamper.com/ , go to Dutch 3D on the left hand side. While the punch out ones come apart pretty quickly, there are little paper blebs that have to be cut off, and I think just cutting smoothly takes less time.

This little baby has 4 layers, all on PTI's Sweet blush- 3D images are so intricate they don't need much embellishment, in this case just a couple of pearls, a little glitter on the scalloped edge, and a ribbon!

Washday

Another day, another wash~ lol~ Another card I can't see... I have to remember what I sent to the DD!

I was so proud of myself for using an embellishment- those funky brads!- that I have had for about 5 years... and this was the first time using them!

The blue polka dotted paper is an unknown; the stamp is from SU's older but still wonderful set, Feathered Friends. I colored the onsie and the rest of the wash with Copic B21 and 41. the yellow CS is Papertrey's lemon Tart, and I don't know what Copic I used for the bib but it is a little bit bright, I'd say.

Those brads have cuts in them to sit string or floss into. They were meant to be able to go around corners with string- this is PTI's of course.

Best Buy told me they won't repair my computer twice, so a new one is on it's way and due to arrive on Tuesday. Sounds like a good thing, except it means I lose all of the software I loaded- not sure if I will be able to convince Microsoft to let me have another copy of PowerPoint for free!

I'm still down 13 pounds, and I haven't even started the August Papertrey Pages- gosh, such summertime woes! I thought the living was supposed to be easy!

Pink

I am hoping I just published a photo of a blue boy card, and am now posting a pink girl card. Scroll down to see the 'directions' for the blue, and they apply to this pink one as well.

If you can't see either, just call me crazy.

Blue

If there is a photo here, lol, I can't see it! If it's there, thanks for the DD who posted it- if there isn't, chalk it up to dial up nastiness. Should be getting a new laptop on Saturday, so also should be able to start uploading all by myself soon!

It's supposed to be a baby carriage from Heartfelt Creations, I bought it earlier in the spring at the CK Scrapbook show but never used it until this month. It was stamped in Memento Black on PTI Stamper's Select, then colored with Copics to match the PTI Lemon Tart cs and Spring Rain Polka Dots paper- all from PTI here, of course! Put a trail of silver glitter glue around the scalloped edges of the layered panel, then tied on a Lemon Tart bow.

The nurses didn't like this one, they said it was too girly with the yellow roses- What? Did they not see it's blueness? I guess I won't be putting any rosebuds on the boy cards this week, lol lol lol!!!

So frustrated!

Gee, I hope I am not becoming a grumpy old lady, lol... or is it true that in the hat of the summer I am not so forgiving and accepting????

The laptop is broken again-the fix lasted all of 4 days- the nice Geek Squad people will fix it again, but now it is gone for another 2 weeks.

My dialup won't upload photos for some reason, and now when I open blogger/my blog at the DD's house, it won't log me in- just takes me to a google search for blogger. Usually I can laugh these things off and wait for another day- but I have so many cards to show! I have been trying for 2 days to update my blog to no avail... Blogger on my dial up computer says the photo upload is done, but it never shows up on the posting in progress. What's up with that??

And to top it off, every time I open my blog in blogger, it says there are errors on the page... and then I can't do something...

To top it off, I have been stuck at a 12 pound weight loss for almost a week. Ok, it is tru that the fresh vegetables out of the garden are heavenly, and maybe I have been eating a bit more than I plan. But still, somewhere I read that if you cut down your calories by 200 a day, you are supposed to lose 20 pounds in a year. Or something like that. I have been cutting down about 500-600 calories a day, and will be happy if I can get to 20 pounds in one year.

Sigh- I'm just feeling a wee bit grumpy today.

Papertrey Pages July Challenge- and a 20 weeks update!

So, here it is! My July set of pages, lol...it's only August 3rd, right? How is it that the longest days of the year are here, but I seem to get less done this time of year?



The challenge this month was to use kraft paper, and to make your own embellishments. So without further ado, here's my entry!

How the heck do you guys photograph photographs without getting a flash of light in them? I know the answer is don't use the flash...but if I turn off the flash I need to use bulbs...and that makes a glare as well. I finally photographed from above, but that makes this weird angle. Darn.

I started with 12 x 12 kraft, and stamped Star Prints across the middle with Dark Chocolate. Next I made a background paper with Faux Ribbon and Blue Danube Memento ink plus a T-4 Copic just running the thick end across the white area between the ribbon stamp. Make sense?

Used the new Billionaire Cricut Cartridge from Walmart to make the sentiments, then used a white Sigma marker to make the leather look lines.

The cute little horsie is felt, made using a Sizzix die. His little bandana is Papertrey's Star Prints paper (Pure Poppy). I used white paint to do his eyes, nostrils and hoof accents.

He's hanging over a fence punched out with a Martha Stewart punch. It wouldn't punch through Papertrey's Dark Chocolate paper, so I had to use a thinner paper I had. The blue paper for the words is also a thinner paper; I had to match the color of Wes's shirt, and it is perfect in real life! The word 'heart' is done by cutting out the word twice- there isn't a shadow feature on the cartridge- I used the Star Prints paper for the top layer.

Now just look at this...

... and this... Makes me laugh just to see the pages sitting next to each other- can you tell they are brother and sister??!!??

Now for the update: I challenged myself to do 20 pages and lose 20 pounds in 20 weeks- as of August 1 (13 weeks) I've lost 11 pounds and made 9 pages. Not too bad! I would rather have made 11 pages and lost 13 pounds... but beggars can't be choosers!

ETA: I hate it when you see something after the post is done! I am going to go upstairs right now and turn the bottom left horses' head to face the other way, lol....

I Was RAK'ed!!

And it was wonderful!! (ikes, that sounds sort of pornographic, or something)

Mary K., who is really Mary I., sent me the most wonderful pink and blue baby ribbon you can imagine...little rocking horses all in a row! Imagine my delight when I received one of those manila squishy envelopes in the mail- and I wasn't expecting anything!

Oh, but how to use it??? It isn't easy, lol! And since I really need to make 10 boy cards today, the pressure was on... here's what I came up with...

...lol...lol... for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to use that ribbon. So! One sorry little rocking horse all alone-



Now, stay with me here- this is the outside of one of the quick CAS cards I make when I am in a hurry. You can't see it, but there are 4 rows of score lines under the train, just to help ground it. Thing is, when I went to glue the ribbon on the back of the front, lol, I put the glue on the wrong side of the inside. That meant I had to put a layer in there, and since there are score lines on the other inside side, I put a blue layer in there, too. Just as I thought I was finished...

...a little blue horsie jumped into the card and asked to be glued down. I thought it best if I complied with his wishes!

So, Mary, out of the 10 feet of rocking horse ribbon, today I used 3/4 of one inch!!