Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to all! I just wanted to share some Halloween items I put together for my son's Nursery School Halloween party yesterday.

I hosted the Halloween party yesterday and I put together personalized party bags, gave out mini pumpkins and a little pumpkin decorating kit.


Each party bag contained goodies such as, bubbles, play-duh, Halloween stickers, pencils, straws, stampers, cookies and candy. I am sure everyone loved what they received.

I personalized each bag by using a graphic software I own and use very frequently. I put each child's name above a black cat. Each name was black with an orange shadow. I punched each out with my circle puncher. I backed each one with a circle punched out of orange construction paper. I stamped an image of a spider. I used my stamp markers to make the spider purple and black. And then I had wrote, love Thomas behind each one.



I wanted the kids to be able to decorate the pumpkins I handed out, so I made each child a personalized decorating kit. I used old fashioned paper candy bags and filled them with Halloween foam stickers, such as ghosts, bats, pumpkins and a title "Trick or Treat". I also include letter foam stickers so each could put their name on their pumpkin. On each baggie, I put the child name, for example in the picture, this is one is "Thomas' Pumpkin Decorating Kit". The child's name was in black and the "Pumpkin Decorating Kit" was in orange and unfortunately it is hard to see in the picture. I also included a pumpkin graphic. The teacher was very impressed with my idea!






When we got home last night, I helped my son decorate his pumpkin. He had fun doing it, I hope the other kids did too!

I had fun hosting the party. I can't wait to host the next one and come up with more creative ideas!

Great Finds!

I went out to Michaels yesterday for their 4 hour Halloween Blow-Out Sale. 15% off the entire purchase, inlcuding sale items. That was a great deal considering you can hardly ever use a coupon on sale items. I was lucky enough to get the coupon in an email invitation. I printed 3 copies and went with 2 of my friends.

I went to a Michael's I usually don't go to and I didn't even know where the clearance section was but I just so happen to end up there and that is where I found my great finds! I would even say they were lucky finds.

I found a bunch of Martha Stewart scrapbooking items there. I always look and admire the Martha Stewart line but never purchase it just because they are a little more pricey than the other brands out there.

I got 2 sets of stickers on clearance for a $1.99. But the lucky finds were, border punches! I have been dying for border punches. I got 2 of them! They were originally $14.99 and were on clearance for $9.00 and I was able to use the coupon!

I got the "Cornice" and "Simple Scallop" punches. I can't wait to use them!!

Went Shopping!

Well online shopping that is! After posting some of the items on my wish list, I got the itch to get some of them already! I went onto scrapbook.com, accessed my wish list there and kept dumping the items I wanted into my cart. And about $40 later this is what I got:


- (1) Making Memories - 12x12 Diecut Paper - Noteworthy Collection - Audrey - Scallop Ledger

- (1) Making Memories - 12x12 Diecut Paper - Noteworthy Collection - Ava - Ric Rac Ledger
- (2) Making Memories - Noteworthy Collection - Addie - 12x12 Diecut Circle

- (2) Making Memories - Passport Collection - 12x12 Die Cut Paper - Stamp

- (1) Making Memories - Noteworthy Collection - 12x12 Die Cut Paper - Delaney Stamp

- (2) Making Memories - Animal Crackers Collection - 12x12 Scalloped Paper - Ella Scalloped Circle

- (1) Making Memories - Noteworthy Collection - 4x6 Spiral Bound Notebook for Journaling

- (1) Fancy Pants Designs - About A Boy Collection - 12x12 Double Sided Paper - Peace

- (1) Fancy Pants Designs - About A Boy Collection - 12x12 Double Sided Paper - Rockin'

- (1) Fancy Pants Designs - About A Boy Collection - 12x12 Double Sided Paper - Wild Child

- (1) Fancy Pants Designs - Glitter Cuts Transparencies - Blue Frame

- (1) Fancy Pants Designs - About A Boy Collection - Rub Ons - About A Boy

- (1) Fancy Pants Designs - About A Boy Collection - Die Cut Titles and Tags - About A Boy

- (1) Fancy Pants Designs - Glitter Cuts Transparencies - Large Blue Swirl

- (1) Making Memories - Fa La La Collection - Christmas 12 x 12 Scallop Circle Paper - Fa La La

- (1) Making Memories - Fa La La Collection - Christmas 12 x 12 Specialty Paper - Artisan Solid

- (1) Pink Paislee - Office Lingo Collection - 12x12 Die Cut Shapes - Office Lingo

- (2) Making Memories - Paperie Rouge Collection - 12 x 12 Die Cut Paper - Artisan Small Floral

- (1) Sassafras Lass - Life is Beautiful Collection - Journal Tag 12x12 Cardstock Stickers - My Dearest

I will be stalking the mail man for my package - there is lots of scrappin' to be done when this delivery arrives!

My Favorites

I have done a few layouts this year and here are some of my favorites from earlier this year which I have not yet blogged about:

1st Snow

This picture did not come out as great as I would have liked but... it is a great layout! The background paper is blue with white and silve snowflakes. The word snow that is on an angle is chipboard and the 'O' in snow is a cleaver little snowflake. Some of the snowflakes that are on the corners of the journaling and photos were made for me by a fellow scrapper and have blue glitter in them - so perfect for this layout! At the bottom is a Jolee's winter title. There wasn't any better way I could have captured this moment for my son!

Cheers!

What a great picture. My son and my father in law, toasting to a great dinner. My father in law with his glass of 'vino' and my son with his cup of water. Priceless.

I went with a green and brown theme on this layout. It went well with the colors in the pictures. There are lots of great touches here. Riboons, swirls, pop-up words, etc. The title came out great. When I created this layout, I had just purchased by Fiskars circle side punch and I cut out the circle to matt the letters which I cut using my Cricut. I used a lot of antiqueing on this to give it the old feel.

Cool Guys

This is another great one! I had the perfect paper, which is very masculine and did a lot of layering behind the picture, all in different shades of blue.

The brackets around the 2 and the word guys are all raised using my favorite product, 3D-dots.

I added ribbon to the mat of the picture by stapling it down with blue staples. A nice little touch, if I do say so myself!

I framed the light blue mat with my Daisy D Zig Zag tape runner. I made a mistake in the lower right hand corner but I easily disguised it with a chipboard flourish - no one could be the wiser!

All of the letters in the title I cut out using my Cricut and antiqued the edges with my ColorBox Cat's Eye inks.

Play Time

This is a nice and bright layout. Primary colors normally seen and used amongst kids.

I used a piece of green string on the top and put it down with yellow mini brads and strung metal letters, "Play Time". I thought that was a unique way to display the title. I am not sure how I just thought of it, but I did!

The other embellies are a Soft Spoken set. And I made the paper clip by gluing down a foam ball sticker to it.

Christmas 2007

I did this layout in July. I was part of a Christmas in July swap on myspace where we traded all Christmas items and after doing that, I was put in the Christmas mood!

I think this might be the first time I used 4 pictures in a layout.

There are a lot of cute Christmas items on the layout: ribbon, buttons, gifts, etc.

I punched the corners out with an ornate corner adorner - a little fancy for the holidays. The red paper behind the matted picture has a border of Christmas phrases and song lyrics. Not sure how I got that paper but it was a nice addition.

And of course how could I go wrong by adding pictures of my Christmas tree and my son opening his gifts Christmas morning.

Wish List

There are items out there, some new and some not so new that I want to add to my supply stash. Some, I just have to get out there and buy and others, I am just waiting for the right time, but as life has it, there are other things that fall higher on the priority list than scrapbooking supplies :)

I have the basic Provo Craft Cricut and I have about 8 cartridges right now.I would love to add these two, Storybook and All Mixed Up.

The All Mixed Up cart looks like something that would work well on my layouts since the are predominately kid oriented. This cart gives off the impression of a child's handwriting!























Glue Arts - GlueGlider Max Adhesive Runner.

This baby rocks!!

This is industrial adhesive! I just imagine the wonders I can do with this, instead of sitting holding the roll of glue dots in one hand and try to hold an embellie or picture in the other hand and trying to manage getting the dots on!

Only down fall is that it is pretty expensive. Runs about $50 and then the refills are about $20.


Fancy Pants Designs - About A Boy Collection

These 3 items all coordinate and I have been eyeing them for sometime now.

The colors are captivating. The chocolate brown background with the pop of oranges, blues, green and the hint of yellow. LOVE it!!

I have seen great layouts created using this series and I want to jump on that band wagon! Oddly enough in my almost weekly trips to Michaels and/or A.C. Moore I have not seen these in the stores. It seems I will have to eventually order them online and I have seen them and have them on my scrapbook.com wish list.

The coordinating sticker and chipboard I love. The best part is you can use them with other papers.

I love the "cool boy" look of everything and that is exactly what I need to scrap for my little guy.

The best part is all of these items are really inexpensive, all under $5! The question is "what am I waiting for?"!



Making Memories - 4x6 Spiral Notebook for Journaling.

The 5th Avenue Collection in black & white, is my favorite. Each time I see this in A.C. Moore my friend and fellow scrapper reminds me that my scrapping style does not call for such elegance. There was no put down there, it is just the mere fact that I scrap for my 3 year old. But one day, if I ever a chance to make that adult album, this will be one of my first purchases!

The Noteworthy Collection in the brighter colors is more my style but I haven't seen it in the stores. I will get my hands on it sooner or later!

I love to add journaling to my layouts and I love how these are big and stand out!

Heidi Swap - Chipboard Clocks

These little clocks are the cutest thing and I am sure I could make them work in a layout or two. I would definitely work with the brown ones.

They also come in pink and with the pink... oh are my wheels turning or what?!

I have been asked to do a scrapbook for a friend who is having a baby girl and I think the pink clocks would work wonders on a layout showing the date and time the little girl comes into the world. I will definitely have to pick these up!




Fiskars Border Punches

There are many varieties of border punches and different brands. A most common brand is Fiskars and there are many straight edged and circle borders, like flowers, designs and even holiday themed.

Each time I am in a craft store, I always pick one of these up to buy but then put it down because I am not sure which design I want and if I really want to spend $15 on it. I know I will one day.



I think I could do a lot with these and put a little pizazz into my layouts. I just wish I could find one a little more kid oriented. I will have to keep my eyes open.



A fellow scrapper that I have be-friended on scrapbook.com uses embossing on almost all of her layouts and beautiful layouts they are. I know she uses Heat Embossing but I do not know much about it. This is something I would like to learn but I think before I wish for items (I honestly don't even know what is needed) I should really do research first. Maybe "Embossing for Dummies"?? Hmmm....


Ultimately I wish for a scrap room! Right now I scrap on my dinning room table and what a sight for sore eyes! It is terrible. If I could only learn to clean up after myself, it wouldn't be so bad. But I have that mentality, ' why clean up now, if I will end up making the same mess tomorrow?'. The only way I will ever get a dedicated scrap room is if we move and buy a bigger house!

It's Arrived!

The new issue of Scrapbooks Etc. came in the mail yesterday!

I can't wait to get home tonight, curl up on the coach with a good cup of coffee, this issue, and my post-it flags to mark what I want or want to try :)

Right now this magazine and Simple Scrapbooks are my 2 favorite subscriptions!

Be on the look out... new layouts might be on the way and any of them can be a lift from this issue :)

New Look

I decided it was time to spruce up the page.

After admiring the layout CraftyMugs "This and That" blog, which I LOVE, I linked into Simply Fabulous Blogger templates and this is what I got for FREE!! Isn't it great!

Many thanks to Lena at Simply Fabulous for such a great template!

Birthday Card

I joined a Card Challenge on Myspace. The only card I ever made, if you even want to call it that, was my sons Birthday invitations this year (which came out fabulous!) (see older posts), so this would be a challenge for me.

The challenge is due today and needless to say, I did it last minute last night. I hadn't thought about the theme of the card. I was leaning toward a Halloween card since it is the season, but when looking through my stash I found some items to go together.

The end result, a birthday card for a girl.

If you have been keeping up with my blogging, you've probably noticed that I have NEVER scrapped anything girly - everything is always boy related. And I have to say, this was fun and it came out pretty cute!

I used a pretty background paper, white, pink, green and brown striped. It was from a scrap pack I have and the size was small, so it was perfect for this project instead of cutting down a larger sheet of paper. I glued it down to heavier card stock that I folded.

I was able to find green ribbon that coordinated nicely with the background paper. I adhered that ribbon with my favorite item, Glue Dots. Found the beautiful Butterfly sticker in my stash and placed it centered on the ribbon. Beneath, I simply took a stamp and with my Brush Markers, I was able to use 2 colors that coordinated with the butterfly on the stamp. I just stamped the image on white card stock, cut it out to size and antiqued the edges with my ColorBox Cat's Eye Ink, another favorite product I use pretty often. I added the stamped image with a 3D Dot.

And that's it - I was done. It wasn't so challenging after all!

I will let you know how I did!

Award!

Today I found a great blog. A fellow crafter! And what a great blog it is. And from what I gather she likes my blog too because tonight she gave me an award!

My first award!!!

Please visit her blog where she explains the award.

http://craftythisandthat.blogspot.com/

I am suppose to bestow this award to 8 blogs.... I don't think I follow 8 crafty blogs! I will have to give this some thought.

Thank you CRAFTYMUG for my award!

Stay tuned...

Ed Hardy Boy

My husband is a designer snob. And the newest designer in his wardrobe is Ed Hardy by Christian Audigier. All of the Ed Hardy line is inspired by tattoo's and is is commonly called "Tattoo Wear".


There are a few t-shirts in my husbands closet but the most recent t-shirt made it home and in the wash and dryer. As soon as I took it out of the dryer my son wanted to wear it. It fit him huge but it made him laugh and happy and kept on showing my husband that he was wearing his shirt.


And of course, if you know me, any moment is a camera moment, so this made for a few good pictures.


And of course, a few good pictures means a good scrapbook layout!


I have been in the green kick lately with my layouts, if you haven't noticed and this layout would be perfect with green since the t-shirt was in the green family.




For the 12x12 background I used this funky paper by CherryArte and I never thought I would get to use it because of the color scheme but amazingly it was PERFECT for this layout. I took a green sheet of paper that has faint little dots in it and cut it down to the right size and set it down with my very favorite 3D-dots. I added green corner stickers to the one side of the layout just to give it symmetry.


I matted my 2 pictures in a funky black and white glittered card stock. This time around I kept my corners sharp, I didn't round them like I normally like to. I placed them on the green paper which would be my common area.


Another item in my stash that I thought I would never use is the black glittered skull. And again it goes just perfectly with this theme. The black arrow was in the same set as the skull.


My favorite addition to this layout is the Ed Hardy hang tag that came off the t-shirt. It was made so well with heavy card stock and material that was stitched onto the card, it would have been a shame to toss it. I also kept the thread along with the medallion on it for that extra jazz. My husband must have tossed the others from his other shirts because they are no where to be found and I only I would appreciate such a thing!


The title "Like father like son" is a Bohemia rub-on and I used some green scrap, rubbed it on there and put it down with 3D-dots.


I also used green scrap as the background of my journal square and I antiqued the edges with green ink. And not to throw anything off, I put that down with 3D-dots as well!


Overall, I am pretty happy the way this came out. It is simple, not too much going on, but something like this doesn't need all that commotion!



I hope you like it.

Aquarium Layout

I took my son to the New York Aquarium in Coney Island for the first time last year... he was 2 years old. We have visited the aquarium a few more times since and I may or may not scrap those pictures. Only time will tell.

I have been holding onto this 1 picture... I took many but this one stood out the most. After exactly 1 year it finally dawned on me.

This is the layout I came up with. It is pretty simple but it says a lot.

I had purchased the 12x12 "Our Trip to Aquarium" paper for this trip and held onto it with the picture. The dic-cut shark is a Paper House product that I found on ebay. It was a set of 3 but I used just the one and saved the other 2 for future projects.

I used 3 different matts behind the picture and the largest one, I used 3D dots to raise it. I also raised the shark as well as my circle journal. It is hard to tell but you can see the shadows from the 3D effect and it looks pretty cool.

Thankfully I saved our ticket stubs as well as the map and I was able to incorporate them in the layout. I placed the map on the layout just so you can still open it and see the inside. I attached the tickets with a binder clip that I received in a scrapbook swap (actually a package with a few different colors and the opposite side, not shown, has words on it - I believe vacation themed).

The "New York Aquarium" epoxy sticker was from a sticker set I purchased for my son that trip. He used up all the fish stickers and put them in his sticker books and I stashed that one for me! He never missed it :)

One of my favorite parts of this is the seaweed and glittery fish. These are from Jolee's By You. When I opened the package, I thought the seaweed would be a one piece sticker but it was not. Each piece of seaweed was separate but it worked out pretty well because I used the 3D dots on those as well and each one is layered on top of one another and it looks so regal. And the fish add the color that the layout would have been missing.

I hope you like it just as much as I do.