Ronda's December Reveal

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, and you are enjoying your time off over the holidays! My reveal is late this time, for those of you who don't know, I had to have an emergency Appendectomy the Friday before Christmas. Talk about baaad timing! LOL! Anyway, it has thrown everything way behind for me, and the reveal being one of them.
So this month, Heather put together a great kit that features more masculine papers and embellishments, which worked perfect for my son's pics!!! This kit is PACKED full of fun goodies to work with!

"6th Grade"
(flowers are handmade gifts I received from Anna (artgirl)! Aren't they the cutest?! )

"Band Rocks"
"U Rock"
Thanks for checking it out!

~Ronda

Trish's Reveal....

Well, all I wanted for Christmas was my computer and internet back and my darling husband home for a visit.... guess what? I got both! I am hanging my head in shame because I was supposed to post yesterday (so sorry) but my extended internet access had me out of the loop!

January's kit is awesome! It is full of grungy papers and hard metal embellishments! I have scrapped so much pink and bright stuff lately that this was a challenge for me! Luckily, I have a grungy boy in the house from which to draw my inspiration!

For my first page, being stuck in a rut, I was unable to get away from creating girly pages, so I used the MM journaling block pages (the gingham stars) to create a background paper and then crinkled up the stripe paper. The whole thing is sewn down to make a pocket which holds the journaling - some observations about my 9 year old daughter (pictured here at about 9 months).

I was inspired by the stars on the Rusty Pickle paper and remembered I had some pictures of Brody taken at school in a western theme (weird, I know, but they invited some photographer to come with a pony...) So, I created "The Reluctant Cowboy"

Finally, I found those great "boy" themed Rusty Pickle stickers (this kit has so much I had almost forgotten them!) and as I read the word confetti strips I realized that they all described my little trouble maker.. so I created "Beware of the Boy" using the stickers and a piece of the Rusty Pickle paper, simple, yet makes an impact!
I still have 2 pages in progress on my desk using January's kit and probably enough leftover for some cards! (Did I mention this kit is packed?!)... Thanks for taking a look! Hope you are inspired enough to go grab a kit of your own!

xoxo

Trish

Sarah's January Reveal

Wow! What a great kit this month! There are so many fun little things in this kit, I just don't know where to start. All the stars and metal - I had to hold back on using it all on one layout. The Making Memories foil die cuts (available as an add-on) are awesome too. I love all the fun boy sayings on them. Having a girl I am usually creating pink girly pages so this was a welcome change. Before my daughter was born I mostly scrapped my nephews and doggies, but have fallen behind lately. This kit was the perfect reason to go back and scrap these older pictures.

This layout is of my nephews at the park a few summers ago. As soon as I saw those cute stamps I knew I had to take these pics out. It is a little hard to see in the picture, but the tractor on the stamp looks just like the one my nephew is sitting on.

The second layout is of my doggies Bacon and Kody. They are always into some kind of mischief so I used the big sticker from the sticker sheet as my title. They are laying under a hot pink blanket so I chose to use a black and white photo. I used some white leftover cardstock to make a little dog bone and added the mischeivous sticker. The journaling says: "When I see the two of you like this, it makes me wonder what you just did."

And last- I created this bday card for my friend's little boy who is turning one. She really isn't into the cutesy stuff so I thought she would like this "all boy" card.

Thanks for putting such a great kit together Heather!

Lindsay's January Kit Reveal

January's kit is DA BOMB!!!!!!! This kit is filled with fabulous papers and fun embellies; glittery stars, rockin' patterned papers, and funky metallic accents!

This layout is based on the newly released Sketch #83 over at Creative Scrappers. Patrick loves riding the race cars at the beach every summer and this kit was perfect for scrapping these photos! I had so much fun creating a "road" of fun circular die cuts (available as an add-on) and the YUMMY Tim Holtz gears from the kit.

Who hasn't tried Rock Band or Guitar Hero? Patrick jammed out on Guitar Hero last January at our family holiday party. I used up ALL of the yummy glittery stars included in the kit on this page!

I know we have TONS of birthdays coming up in the next few months and wanted to get ahead by making some fun gift tags. These will be perfect for Patrick's friends and our nephews.

This kit just keeps going! I haven't used up all of the great embellies and will have one more page to share later on in the week. TFL!!

Heather has once again pu together an amazing kit that can be used for all types of projects or layouts. How about creating a fantastic KEEP OUT sign for your kids' door?

GRAB YOUR KIT TODAY!!!!!

Sarah's December Make N Take

Hello there. I hope everyone is having a great December so far. Just think, in a few weeks the days will start getting longer again and we will be playing with all our fun christmas gifts! Hopefully in between the hustle and bustle of Christmas shopping and baking you will have a little time to create something scrappy. If you do here is a very quick way to decorate pins. I call all pins t-pins because really I don't know the difference between them. But I will just call them pins here. OK, so here goes:

1. Gather your supplies-

You will need pins, beads of different colors and sizes, and a strong liquid adhesive like glossy accents or diamond glaze. I bought the pins and beads at a Joann's when they were 50% off.

2. Thread the beads on the pins in the desired arrangement.

4. On the bottom of the last bead add a little of the adhesive covering the entire opening of the bead and let dry.

5. These are different pins I made. You can embellish them with ribbons or other accents.

And here is a card I used one of the pins on.

We would love to see your own decorated pins! Thanks- Sarah

On the 12th Day of Chrimtmas

my TRUE LOVE gave to me.....


star to put on my tree!!

I know I know pretty boring. Oh well.

My family has an ornament exchange every year - all ornments have to be homemade. I love this. There are so many unique ornments from everyone. I love to see the different ideas that everyone has.

This is the ornament I made this year:

I purchased some rustic stars (because I like the more pointy ends more than a paper mache one) and I mod podged paper Pink Paislee Mistle and Co paper on to it. I used the little snowflakes that came in December's kit (Painted white and glittered), cut out a star and glittered it and then put tiny jingle bells on it and then purchase some silver glittery branches to add some fun. I love the way this turned out.

I hope you have had fun with all the super cute and fabulous ideas the DT has given you for gifts, decorations and ornaments. I hope they have inspired you to make your own. If you do please make sure you share them!

I hope you all have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

11th Day of Christmas!!!

Wow! Can't believe we are down to #11 already!! This month is flying by!!
I hope you are enjoying all the awesome projects the DT has shared with you as much as I have! We REALLY have some AMAZINGLY talented girls here at SO!!

Today, I have a gift/decor idea to share with you! It's a Christmas Canvas!!!
I used a 12x12 Wooden Canvas from Kaiser crafts. The papers are Bo Bunny "Believe" line, and the flowers and bling are from Prima. Oh yeah, and LOTS of Stickles....Cinnamon, Platinum, and a little bit of Copper. This was SOOO much fun to do!


You can create this project and use it for your own Christmas decor, or you can make one as a gift for someone else!! When it is complete, you can hang it on the wall, or display it on an easel, like mine is.
Have a wonderful weekend!!
~Ronda

A Photography Challenge for You!

With the holidays just around the corner, I feel crazy coming up with more things for me to do - like upoad the 1,000s of pictures I have taken in the past few weeks! I thought I would challenge you to use something you probably already have.

I do not scrap older photos often. I have thousands - almost a million I feel - of my kids. When I saw the December kit with the Collage Press paper, it had a crisp vintagey feel to me. I felt the papers were perfect for any photos - new or old.

I had so much fun scrapping this old photo of my sister from 1983 - I love the nightgown she has on and my uncle peeking out from behind her. I love that you almost can't make out the black carpet in my grandparents' living room because of all of the presents on the floor.

My challenge to you is to scrap an old photo - it must be AT LEAST 10 years old. Post it in the Gallery and link it up to the Challenge Thread on the Message Board. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

On the 9th Day of Christmas

I gave to my family

ornaments to dangle on their trees!

I created this with a Jenni Bowlin chipboard shape and Collage Press paper and buttons from this month's kit. I used an old photo of my Dad with his brother and sister at holiday time. I plan on giving this to my aunt when she visits next week. TFL!!!!

On the 8th Day of Christmas...

My true love gave to me

This adorable snow globe

To fill my heart with glee.


Okay, so that was a little cheesy, but you get the idea, right?? :) I have to admit, I almost NEVER make holiday decorations. I buy them. But when I saw THIS cute waterless snowglobe, I knew I wanted to make one of my own (mine is definitely NOT better than the one I found, but mine makes me smile & that's what counts). So I hopped on over to Martha Stewart's site (cuz she has ideas for most everything your happy little crafty mind can think of) and found a template for a house. Perfect. So I played with it a little bit, kept it simple, & LOVE how it turned out. Now wouldn't you want one of these lovelies in your Christmas decor?

a little close up

Want more details?? Hop on over to my blog for more pics & remarks :)

I can't wait to see what "my true love" brings tomorrow!!

--Anna

Card Idea December 8

hey there!!!

I am still trying to figure out what I am doing for my own Christmas cards this year, but I found some cute ideas online i wanted to share with you! They are all from Martha Stewarts site. ( I HEART her stuff)

Anyway, there is the directions to this fun card, which I think would be adorable for my son to help make for his classmates:

and then they share this idea to make with your old cards from last year, or maybe fun vintage cards you can pick up at an antique store?

And if you didn't see it in the forums I shared THIS LINK, which as adorable free downloads which would make SUCH cute embellies a Christmas card!

Lindsay's December Reveal!

I know I say this each and every month, but this kit is BY FAR my most favorite! Heather put amazing embellies in this kit and I can't stop using them! The Prima stars and Kaiser Craft rub-ons are absolutely divine! And the Collage Press!!!!!!!!!!! I love it and wish I had ordered more - it is a great paper collection to work with!

This first layout is based on this week's sketch over at Creative Scrappers. I LOVED working with the frosted stars from Prima - they are so pretty! I love this photo of Michael in front of our tree last year - he couldn't resist reaching for it - even though we put a baby gate around it!

Matt and I cut down our first Christmas tree - we went to a local farm and enjoyed every minute! We were newly married - only 2 weeks and we had so much fun! The little Cristmas trees are inspired by Julie Bonner and cut from patterned paper in the kit.

I love this page - my sister got a generic Barbie Dream House one year and I was so VERY jealous. I hadn't wanted one and knew she had asked for it. But when I saw that big house I wanted it so very badly. We loved that it was taler than we were and we loved the open sides. I love this photo of her!

If you have not gotten your December kit - ORDER ONE NOW!!! It will not disappoint! TFL!

December 7 Decoration Idea

Happy Monday!!!!

This morning I am going to share a decoration idea I made for my home.

My oldest son is three and just like any kid he struggles with being well behaved all of the time. His preschool uses the Red Card, Green card system to express to him how he acted that day, so I thought it would be fun to make a Christmas version at home, since, you know, Santa is ALWAYS watching!!! :)

Here is what I made:


The sign flips over to read "bad" on the back. My favorite touch is the smiley face on the "good" side! SO far he has really been liking it and it has been a good reminder for him!!

Hope that gives you some fun ideas!!!

GD - scrappyjen December Reveal

Wow! Look at these fabulous LO's and altered projects that Jen created with the December kit! I love them all!!

Look at these super cute Holly leaves!


Great work Jen! I love all of your projects - you really ROCKED this kit!!

On the 6th day of Christmas...

Sarah was back with some gift ideas!

I have seen these cute little cookie pails popping up all over. I bought the container for a dollar at Michaels and then filled it with some sugar cookies (that I bought, but shhhh, it will be our secret). I am going to give it to the secretary at our school as a little Christmas surprise. I am also going to to make some for my fellow teachers and family. I tried to keep it simple so it would be easy and fast to make lots of these. And isn't this paper cute? I used the Cosmo Cricket Jolly by Golly collection.

And if you eat cookies you need some hot cocoa to wash them down. I used a cellophane bag (you can buy packages of these at crafts stores) to hold my hot cocoa packet and left over paper from the Dec. SO kit to decorate it.

Have a great weekend!

On the 5th day of Chrismtmas

Sarah gave to you...

a candle decorated for the holiday. Sorry, I couldn't think of anything that rhymed! I got the idea for this candle from a Pottery barn catalogue. They were selling something like this for $20. The wheels starting turning in my head and I came up with this similar candle for under $2!

I bought the candle (vanilla scented- yum!) at the dollar store and used a piece of scrap red cardstock. I cut the words and heart with my cricut, but you can also use letter stickers if you don't have access to a die cutting machine. I used my xyron to add adhesive to the letters and adhered them (a tape runner would also work- like tombow). I then tied a left over scrap of ribbon into a bow at the bottom. I thought it still needed a little something so I added a few rhinestones from my scrap bag to give it a little extra shine. Easy and simple, but it looks really cute on my dining room table. I don't think I would light it (not sure how the paper would hold up and I don't want to set any unintentional fires), but I think it looks too pretty to light anyway.

I also found out while making this that my daughter Frances is afraid of the cricut machine. I set my letters and pressed cut. When it started she ran (well crawled) away and won't go near the thing now. It was pretty funny. She kept giving it a weird look all night.

I hope you give this idea a try. I would love to see!

December Reveal From Trish!

Phew!

This month is already really flying by and I hope that my string of bad luck lately doesn't mean I am getting coal from Santa this year! In the last week my internet was dug up by construction workers and then my computer caught a nasty virus and has now crashed!

Regardless, I know my luck couldn't be that bad when I saw this fabulous December kit from SO!! I was sooooo excited to work with this month's kit! I love the bright colors and the fun embellishments Heather snuck in there! I had NO problem making these 3 projects, with extras to boot!

(Please excuse the photo quality b/c I had to take these with my phone - no computer, no camera hub... you get the idea!)

Thanks for looking (and listening.. LOL!) - now run and buy one of these kits before they are gone!

xoxo

Trish

On the 4th Day of Christmas....

My true love gave to me

Some really fabulous, really fun,

Really cute paper trees!!



I've had some styrofoam cones in my scrappy stash for FOREVER & decided this would be the year to alter them. I had some paper left over from the December Collage Press kit so I started cutting, adding sparkle & pinning. I just love how these little cuties turned out :) (Oh, & check out my blog to see some close up shots of these 2 lovelies.)

--Anna

Anna's December Reveal

Okay, I'll admit it - I hardly ever bought anything from Collage Press before. I have no idea why. So when I got this kit in the mail it was love at first sight. True love. Like Collage Press is one of my faves now. I had so much fun playing with this kit. It's great for scrapping all those winter pics. And all the pink, aqua & creamy colors make it great for scrapping pics from the rest of the year too!

We took a family photo last December while visiting family in Illinois. I thought the paper went with my sweater perfectly, so I grabbed it & started layering. The chipboard behind the photo sparkles with Bed of Roses mist (that I picked up in the SO store) & then I layered some chipboard snowflakes (that are just too cute!) in the corner. I LOVE the paper with Pride & Prejudice lines on it. I actually caught myself reading it a few times instead of scrapping! I have a thing for Jane Austen books & movies. I randomly sewed some wavy lines on top of it. And when I finished, I discovered my last set of wavy lines didn't sew right (the thread came unthreaded without me noticing) so I just took out that line of thread, left the holes & actually love the way it turned out. Don't you just love mistakes that have a happy ending??

I couldn't wait to get my hands on this airplane paper. Our flight to Illinois was my daughter's first flight across the country. She loved every minute of it :) (Which is good because it's a 3 hour flight!). I drew the banner by hand, sponged some ink on the edges & then added some brown chalk on top of that in the corners. Then I attached some pink floss to a small twig (yes, it's real) and voila! A super cute banner! And I was sure to add some sparkle to the LO too by using up all the sparkle brads that came with the kit.

I hope you all have a super fun & fabulous holiday season this year! And don't forget to grab one of these cutie kits from the SO store!! Then post your work in the SO gallery for everyone to see :)

Merry Christmas,

--Anna

Guest Designer ScrappinJen!

We are so lucky to have the very talented Jen be our GD for December! I can't wait to see what she does with the kit, but in the mean time here is a little bit about Jen.

1. Where do you live? wherever the United States Navy sends us… currently outside Norfolk, VA
2. Do you have any kids?HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sorry, that was a funny one. Yep, we have 5 kiddos under 9.
3 Do you have any pets? Not a chance. (See answer #2).
4.What was the last book you read? I’m almost embarrassed to admit. I’m still reading the Harry Potter series. I think I’m on book 5. Not a lot of time for leisurely reading amongst the laundry and groceries.
5.Do you like to cook? Love to cook. Probably comes from the fifteen years I spent working in the restaurant business growing up.
6.What's your favorite food? I never met a baked good I didn’t like.
7.Do you have brothers and sisters?Yes, one sister in Heaven.
8. Which sport do you like?Love to watch college basketball. Go Boilers!! <3>9.Have you ever lived in another country?Not yet, although my husband’s job could send us to Japan one day.
10.Have you ever met a famous person? Lots of political people including President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister (from England)Margaret Thatcher
11.How do you spend your free time? Another funny one. I play with paper & glue, that’s it.
12.What super-power would you most like to have, and why? I’m not sure if this qualifies as one or not but, I’d like a super power to magically put away all of my laundry. Nothing big, just that. I’m a simple girl.

Welcome aboard, Jen! Can't wait to see what you have in store for us!