Burning Questions?

You might be wondering... hmmm, I wonder where Lisa's scrapbook page is for Ella's Pink Elephant challenge? Okay, maybe you weren't! LOL!!! But, just in case... I regret to say that I've stepped down from the Ella's Pink Elephant scrapbook challenge for now. I've got a lot of "projects" coming up and need to make room in my schedule.

I hate to do it because I LOVE that challenge (and LORi and all the girls on the team), especially since it got me going on my scrapbook pages again...but I will try to play along whenever I can. I am definitely getting back into scrapbooking, but it's sort of a process for me and not something I do well under pressure (LOL!). So stay tuned... you'll see some pages from me again, no doubt about it!

You should definitely play, though... LORi's got an awesome sketch for this week's challenge... and check out all the amazing pages created by the ultra talented design team!

You might also be wondering what happened to Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge. Well, we're just on a little vacation this week... but we'll all be back next Friday with a new sketch!

Don't forget, the special offer on Key Ingredients subscriptions expires tomorrow (Saturday, June 19th)... subscribe for six months and get a free stamp set designed especially by Taylor at the end of the six-month period (or by extending your current subscription for six more months). AWESOME!!!

And, since you didn't ask, guess where I've been for the past two days? CKC - Riverside with my friends Betty Roberts, Alicia Garcia and Kim Yu, that's where!!! Betty, Alicia and I did the preview crop yesterday afternoon, and then a 10-page class last night sponsored by various companies. Then I went back today for the start of the shopping and spent the day with sweet Kim! We shopped shopped shopped and took a 4-page class.

Even though it's a relatively small show (they seem to be shrinking with the economy), we did our part to keep crafting businesses going by spending too much money! Okay, can you really spend TOO much money on craft stuff? Nah!!! We NEED those things!

I scored the new Olivia and Oliver papers from Basic Grey at the embellish it! booth. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! And there were lots of dollar deals, and so much other stuff, I've actually forgotten what all I bought! I know there are three teeshirts (buy two, get one free!)... one of which says, "Just Shoot Me Now" with a picture of a camera on it, which I think is hilarious, especially since I live with all males...and a funky watch in there somewhere, too! LOL! After I get off this computer, I'm going to immerse myself in the pleasure of opening my packages and drooling all over again... and then try to figure out where to put it all! Oh, and finish all those layouts that I didn't have time to finish in class... which is just about all of them. Fun!

Back soon with more! Love to you all!

What's Black and White and Red All Over?

A newspaper! Get it? Bwaaahahaaa! Raise your hand if you remember that silly joke from way back when!

It came to mind because... yes indeed... it's time for a color challenge at Ella's Pink Scrapbook (aka The Pink Elephant)!

Actually it's sort of a non-color challenge... use a BLACK & WHITE PHOTOGRAPH in your layout!

Lucky for me, I have TONS of beautiful black and white photos of my parents. I'm working on a scrapbook for my dad of all his old photos. That's been quite a project... a work in progress for more than a year... but I'm getting close. I'll be sure to share a few pages with you one of these days.

In the meantime, since the layout I did of my beautiful mother on May 12 was such a hit (thank you so much for your kind comments!), I decided to create another page taken of her while she lived in Panama (see the story in my Bathing Beauty post). I believe I mentioned that because she worked in a photo lab, she was the subject of many pictures. This is one of my very favorites. I can't tell for certain because it's black and white, but I imagine the sky was piercingly blue and her skirt was very colorful. My mother loved color... I get that from her. So I found some colorful Graphic 45 paper that's also vintage looking.

Right after I finish this post, I'm going on eBay to buy another lamp for photographing my pages. My cards look okay, but my pages pale in comparison to what they look like IRL. I also bought a book called Digital SLR Cameras & Photography for Dummies. I just have to find the time to launch into it.

Speaking of which, I'm thinking about replacing my Canon EOS Digital Rebel, and I'm sorely tempted to buy a Nikon (I admit to being swayed by Ashton Kutcher's commercials). If you have an opinion on which is better, I'd love to hear from you! The guy in the store told me primarily it's speed... that the Canon is better for action shots. I don't take many of those. Anyway, please chime in if you have any advice!

Back to my layout... it's loosely based on this sketch by Julie Bonner. Mainly, it's all about the Graphic 45 paper. It's a shame you can't tell from the picture how cool the rhinestone "ribbon" looks. I put little rhinestone flowers in the center of the paper flowers I made to play off the ribbon, and then more rhinestones around the journaling.

Here's another thing I'm realizing about scrapbooking... that I'm nearly always ill-prepared for journaling and titles. I think I need to start jotting things down as they come to me because I get a brain freeze when it comes time to make the page. I'll probably end up changing out the journaling on this one... or not. Who knows. So many pictures, so little time.

So why not get out your black & white pictures and make a page this week! You KNOW you want to! For more inspiration, please click on over to The Pink Elephant and take a look at what the rest of Ella's girls created!

Thanks for stopping by today, my friends! I hope you have a fabulous day!

Clayton

What time is it? Time for a Sketch Challenge at Ella's Pink Elephant!!! You have got to click on over and see all the amazing pages created by the newly expanded Scrapbook Design Team!!!

Lori has come up with a really fun sketch for us to play with this week. Unfortunately, I think my page is still a work in progress. There's something bothering me about it, but I can't put my finger on it. For one thing, I need to include more details about the place and date of the photos, and maybe do a better job with the embellies. Sometimes you need to step away from the page for awhile to get perspective. When I change it up, I'll post the revision.

This is my third son, Clayton (or Clay, as he prefers to be called), when he was four in the spring of 1997 at First Baptist Preschool. Next Monday Clay turns 17. I find myself longing for that four-year-old these days. Let's just say that the teen years are very trying...for some more than others (ahem).  But I love him just the same.

So why not come along and play with us this week? You know you're behind on your pages and NEED to do some scrapbooking, right? (*grin*) We're providing a great sketch and some amazing inspiration, so you're all set!

Have a wonderful day!

Bathing Beauty

Hello my friends! It's time for a Color Challenge at Ella's Pink Scrapbook! And the challenge color is PINK!!!

I missed last week's challenge, which was to make a layout celebrating motherhood, so I've sort of combined the two in this week's page. That gorgeous woman is my mother, Frieda Clark Allen. This picture was taken while she was working as a civilian for the military in the Panama Canal Zone. My mom had previously served in the Army. I think she ended up in Panama as a civilian because of an earlier marriage that ended in divorce.

I only recently found out that my mom was married twice before she married my dad... she took that secret to the grave. Well, not from my dad, but certainly from us kids...although my sister Linda later confessed that she found out by accident somewhere along the line, and so did my brother, but neither one said a word to me or our other sister Kim. Anyway, this all came up in conversation with my dad when he visited us last year and we were going through old pictures.

I'm not upset. Just sad that there were things about my mom I never knew. And the circumstances of those two marriages and why they ended was rather shocking. But I guess we all have things we don't want to talk about, especially with our children. I know I have my secrets...

Anyway, my mom and dad met while he was stationed in Panama, and that's where they married. Dad believes this picture was taken around 1955. She worked in a photo lab and was the subject of lots of pictures. And no wonder... she was amazingly photogenic. I have so many beautiful pictures of her to scrapbook. This is but the first of many to come.

Once again, I turned to my scrapbooking idol Julie Bonner for the sketch. That gorgeous DP is by Prima, as are the chipboard pieces. The lace is by Websters Pages, and the ribbon is from Papertrey Ink. And check it out... the title "bathing beauty" is the very first title I cut using my new Cricut Expressions and Gypsy, which was my Mother's Day present. Woo hoo!!! The learning curve is a bit tricky, but I'm catching on, thanks to my friend Alicia's awesome video tutorials.

I tell you, I'm loving my return to scrapbooking!!!

Why not join us this week at Ella's Pink Scrapbook? What could be easier than incorporating PINK into your page? And be sure to stop by and see what the rest of Ella's girls have created.

Have a great day!

My First Baby, My Heart, My Little Love... Ian

I'm late late late with this post!!! Please forgive me! I'm still trying to catch up with my life this week! I've been busy busy busy, but it seems like I'm not getting anything done. How frustrating is that?

What time is it, you might ask???? Time for another awesome challenge at Ella's Pink Scrapbook (aka The Pink Elephant)!!!

We've got a theme challenge this week: PAPER FLOWERS: use flowers hand made by you out of paper on your layout. I LOVE to make paper flowers. I've got many new styles I want to try, and this was one of them... taking a stip of paper and folding it over and over again as you go around until you create a circle. Not bad for a first try, if I do say so myself.

The picture I scrapped is very special to me. It was the first portrait taken of me and my first baby, Ian. I did it as a surprise for Paul for Father's Day. Ian was only about 4 months old. I still remember driving over to the photo studio wearing what was then my favorite dress, made of taffeta no less! It was raining that day. The photographer was able to make Ian smile so easily. All he did was bounce a ball!

Look at that adorable face!!! I swear I can still feel holding him in my arms, so indelible is the memory and the love. Ian will always be extra special to me because once upon a time, he was my one and only, and I was his.

I'm sorry I can't tell you who the DP is by... there were no labels. They were part of a Scarlett Lime Kit, which always comes with a hodge podge of wonderful goodies. The sticker embellishments are by Kaisercraft, and those are black Candy Dots on the right circle. The sketch is another fabulous one by Julie Bonner.

I didn't mean to round the edges of the photo, but I had cut them kinda wonky to fit the picture into an oval frame, so I had to smooth them out. Avery says it looks like a door. ha!

Good news: I've figured one thing out that I'm doing wrong when taking pictures of my pages, and that is not having lights shining from both sides. I need a second light! It doesn't make much difference for cards, because they are small, but it's making a big difference on pages. I will get another light and see if that helps. Wish me luck!

Thanks for stopping by today! Please come back tomorrow for another preview for Waltzingmouse Stamps.

Mommy 'n Me

Hey hey hey! It's time for a Recipe Challenge at Ella's Pink Scrapbook!!! Challenge #4 is to use paint and chipboard in you scrapbook layout!

Okay, I'm still working on improving the photo quality of my pages. I swear they look so much better IRL. I just need to find some time to play around with lighting and editing, so please bear with me.

My page was inspired by this awesome sketch by Julie Bonner back in the 52 Sketches in 52 Weeks days. It's a wonderful source of inspiration, as is Julie's current blog Starting Now.

I used DP from the Cousins Collectionz by Junkitz, which was part of a kit from the now-sadly-defunct Scrap Goods kit-of-the-month club back in June 2005. Now that gives you a little hint about how FAR BEHIND I am with my scrapbooking! Which is why I'm so glad to be part of Ella's Pink Scrapbook Design Team. I am really enjoying getting back to my roots in scrapping.

I painted the edges of the blue base cardstock with white acrylic paint, as I also did with the pictures (inspired by my BFF Des, who does this frequently and I think it's the coolest look). The bluebird is a chipboard image from Stampin' Up, which I painted blue and orange with a touch of white here and there.

These pictures were taken at the Mommy 'n Me Mother's Day Tea at Avery's preschool back in May 2002. I was much thinner back then, but no more photogenic than I am now. (blech) Of the four pictures taken, Avery looked sweet in all of them, but this is the only one that I could stand of myself. So I simply cropped Avery out of the other three...problem solved!

Gosh, I just love my little baby boy. He's my sweetheart for sure. One thing that's fun about scrapbooking is looking back and remembering special times. So why not join us this week? Get out your chipboard and paint and get to work! And be sure to check out what the rest of Ella's Pink Scrapbook girls have done with their chipboard and paint. You will LOVE it! And get this...so funny...we've all scrapped our BOYS. How rare is that? Let's hear it for the BOYS!!!

Betty Roberts: The Scrap Happy Witch

Jenn Koss: Scrappin' for Life With Jenn

Krista VanTol: Crafty Little Pigtails

Trudi Wilber: The Pink Petal

Have a scrap happy day!

Easter 1985

Hey there! It's Thursday (tax day... which I just now realized, and I haven't done my taxes yet... yikes!) and time for our third challenge at Ella's Pink Scrapbook! The challenge is to make an Easter page.

Please bear with me until I figure out how to take better pictures of my pages. I'll try again during the daylight hours.

This is a picture of my eldest son, Ian, on his first Easter. He was really the only one of my boys who was consistently willing to sit on the Bunny's and Santa's laps. I have precious few of the others boys doing likewise.

I look at this and can't believe it's been 25 years! Look how chubby he was. He was 9lbs 14 oz when born in January and was already big and chubby by spring of that year. What a precious baby he was... and still is. He'll always be my baby, my first born. Life was so much simpler back then. (sigh)

The sketch is by Pagemaps, and the DP and embellies were part of a kit from Scarlett Lime. The papers are Websters Pages (background and circles) and Kaisercrafts (yellow). The lace is Kaisercrafts. The butterflies are Jenny Bowlin. The buttons are from Papertrey Ink, as are the stamps I used to stamp Easter 1985 underneath the picture (which you can barely see). I hand drew the faux stitching around the circles, and used rub-on faux stitches for around the background page.

I hope you'll join us this week at Ella's Pink Scrapbook! If you're like me, you're years behind getting your Easter pages done! I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Have an extra special day. Me, I'll be doing my taxes and praying I have money coming back.

Piano Recital

Thursdays are so much fun now that it's the start of a new scrapbook challenge at The Pink Elephant! Challenge #2 is to give an old layout a new make-over. This was especially fun for me because I have several pages that I did about ten years ago when I first started scrapbooking that NEED make-overs, and badly! 

Here's the one I picked of Collin's first piano recital on October 12, 2000:

Pretty bad, eh? That was the Old Style of Creative Memories scrapbooking... crop your photos, add a few stickers and a bit of journaling, and you were done.

Here's my new version:

Better? Actually, it's wayyyyy better, but the picture quality is terrible. I'm still trying to learn how to take good photos of scrapbook pages. I'm going to take a picture again in the daylight to see if I can sharpen it a bit. Edited to add: well, I tried taking another picture in daylight, and it is a bit better, but still not great. I'm really frustrated because it looks so nice IRL. I guess I need photography lessons.

My page followed this wonderful sketch by Julie Bonner. That girl is an amazing scrapbook artist. I used cardstock, designer paper and embellishments from a monthly kit put together by Scarlett Lime (except for the piano and red cardstock). I LOVE Scarlett Lime kits... you really should check them out. The background kraft cardstock and die cut letters ("recital") are by Jillbean Soup. I'm pretty sure the DP is by Jenni Bowlin. The faux buttons definitely are, as is the strip behind the word "recital." The swirl is by Prima. The piano is by Li'l Davis Designs, and the dark red cardstock is Prism.

I am so glad I joined this scrapbooking design team. It's so much fun to get back to my roots of scrapbooking! Why not join us!!!

Have a wonderful day!

Debut of Ella's Pink Scrapbook!!

Yay, it's time for the debut of a new scrapbook challenge at The Pink Elephant, which we are calling Ella's Pink Scrapbook!!! I'm very privileged to be a part of the inaugural design team!

The name of the game this week is to show off your favorite scrapbooking technique. Well, I have a confession to make... with all the busy-ness of late and some health issues, I didn't have time to create a new layout for our first challenge. So, instead, I pulled out the last one I made (close enough, right?).

What, might you ask, is my favorite technique? Well, at that time it was CASE-ing!!! {LOL} What is it they say, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"? Seriously, though, I found this amazing artist on eBay... her name is Eileen Gutierrez, known as craftyemg. Oh, dear me, she does fabulous work! I have a particular fascination with "tear bear" images, and Eileen does the best I've seen. So I CASED a two-page Christmas layout she did. I made all my own paper-pieced images and "tear bears." They are certainly similar, but not exactly the same... I could never match Eileen's work, but it was sure fun to try!

Here's Eileen's version:

And here is mine:
I used Fruitcake DP by Basic Grey

Page One - there is another photo tucked
behind the photo on the right

Page Two - Still in Progress

The empty plaid DP is space for journaling

Have I mentioned I'm terrible about journaling?

Those cute little boys in the matching jammies are my eldest sons, Ian and Collin, who are now 25 and 22. Ah, those were the good ole days when I could actually get them to wear matching jammies on Christmas. The most precious picture of all is Ian writing a letter to Santa as Collin looks on. I'm tearing up just thinking about it!

Okay, I promise to create a brand new layout for next week's challenge, and I promise to work on taking better pictures of my scrapbook pages. In the meantime, I hope you'll join in the fun with us! I'd love to see your favorite scrapbook technique in action. And don't we all NEED to catch up on our pages????

Before you go, be sure to click over to The Pink Elephant and see what the rest of Ella's Pink Scrapbook friends have created to inspire and delight you!

Design Team Calls!!!

Note: This is my second post for today. Please scroll down to see my post called Howdy!

I'm popping in to alert you to two Design Team Calls!!!

The first is for a brand new scrapbooking challenge at The Pink Elephant called Ella's Pink Scrapbook!!! I'm so excited to be a part of the inaugural design team! My first passion was scrapbooking before I got into stamping and card making, so I'm glad for the chance to hone my scrapbooking skills and make some progress on my pages. And I'm counting on YOU to join us starting April 1st (no foolin')!

If you want to be part of this exciting team, click on over to The Pink Elephant for all the details on how to apply.This will be so much fun!!!

Another amazing and truly unique challenge blog on the horizon is The Burtonesque Dolls founded by the awesome, multi-talented, and much loved Betty Roberts. This one starts up in May, and I'm thrilled to be a part of the adventure! We're looking for more "Dolls" to join us. If you're interested, hop on over to The Burtonesque Dolls DT Call  blog post for all the deets.