What's new?

When I started this blog, I promised myself to only blog about scrapping.
Sometimes that's hard when there's not a whole lotta scrapping going on in my life.
I'm not part of any design teams.
I'm not trying to promote the latest kit from a club.
I can't show off my latest layout that got published in a glossy magazine.
It's just me and all those family photos that I'm trying to get scrapped into an album.

If I hadn't promised myself to keep this blog strictly scrappy, I could tell you about:

1. how I joined Weight Watchers online a month ago, and  how I have lost lbs 10 by doing basically nothing else but counting points (and how fabulous I feel and so much more energetic)

2. or I could go on about homeschooling and what I like and don't like about the curriculum I chose ( and how I'm so happy I made this decision, because I love teaching my kids)

3. or I could go on (and on) about how to survive when your husband is gone ( in a frickin' war) for 7 months and we have just done half of it (and how the only way not to go totally nuts, is to stay busy. See #1 and # 2)


BUT this is a strictly scrapbooking blog, so I will only talk about that.

Many of you have asked if I will have a new design team or new guest designers for my sketches. The truth is that I haven't made up my mind yet. I have only two guest designer left on my list and after that I don't know what I will do.
One thing is for sure. I will keep on doing sketches and if I want someone to help me create with those sketches, I will let you all know here on the blog.


I want to show you my latest layout. I really, really like how it turned out.

I stamped, misted, stitched and used the Cricut.

All the flowers are cut out with a new Cricut cartridge from Close To My Heart (CTMH). And then, they were so smart to make matching stamps to go on top of the flowers.

This "Art Philosophy"  cartridge has 700 shapes, many of which coordinate with the CTMH stamp sets. There are circles, flowers, snowflakes, leaves, tags, cards, 3-D images, ornaments, frames, hearts, acorns, brackets, borders, birds, trees, Christmas trees, flourishes, decorative corners and tabs, arrows, keys, lace images, and a font with a font layer.

When you get this cartridge you also get 3 matching stamp sets and 3 sheets of dimensional elements.
The price for all this is $ 99 and you can only get it from a Close To My Heart consultant. Not from EBay, not from Provocraft or any other website you'd normally buy your Cricut stuff from. 


If you are smart (like me) you will host a CTMH party and you will get it HALF-OFF! Click here to contact my friend who sells CTMH.


That's it for today.
I'll be back soon with a giveaway.
Take care!

Sketch # 51/ Guest designer April Walker

Hello my dear blog readers!
I have not forgotten about you or the blog. I know it hasn't been much inspiration going on here lately and I will try to change that.
I started homeschooling the kids last week and it has taken up all my time.

Even though I can't inspire you today, I want to share some inspiration from one of my fabulous guest designers. Her name is April Walker and here is a little bit about her:

I’m April, 33 and live in the beautiful mountains of NC.  I’ve been married for almost 13 years to my amazing hubby Mark, and we have two gorgeous daughters, Emily & Madison.  I started Scrapbooking a little over 3 years ago and I am SO thankful for that!  Before Scrapbooking, the only hobby I truly enjoyed was photography, but taking tons of pictures and just sticking them in album after album got pretty boring. I knew that I wanted to start doing something more special with my pictures so one day I started looking around online to see what I could discover.  I stumbled across the scrapbook.com community, started looking around at all the amazing creativity posted there, and I was totally hooked!  I went out the next day, got some supplies, and got to work.  Since that day, each and every time I sit down to start creating a layout, I feel so happy and blessed that I discovered a hobby that I could enjoy doing, while at the same create memories for my family.  There’s nothing better! 

Here's the new sketch that April worked with:

And her two gorgeous takes on it:

Here are more pretty layouts from April. These are based on some of my earlier sketches.

Sketch # 7

Sketch # 28

(  This is my favorite! I just love that photo and those muted colors together)

Sketch # 30

And last, but not least, enjoy some of April's own favorite layouts:

 

Thanks April for sharing your work with us. I feel very inspired to scrap now. I think I will go and make something in pink;)

To see more of April's creations, be sure to visit her blog here.

My Top Ten list # 9

Another thing I can't scrap without...

# 9 Scrapbook.com

I joined scrapbook.com (Sb.com) in 2006 and that's when I started with scrapbooking.
Back then I didn't know what a layout was, nor patterned paper or embellishments.
I have come a long way since then.
It's thanks to Sb.com that my scrap style has developed into what it is today. That place is just bursting with inspiration, ideas and positive atmosphere!

I have also met so many awesome people there from all over the world and some of them I have met in real life and consider close friends.

Scrapbook.com is not only filled with TONS of inspiration and wonderful people. They have challenges, tips, classes, forum, videos and of course they have the superstore.
Sb.com has decent prices on a huuuge selection of scrapbook brands. Their costumer service is outstanding and the best part is- they ship international!!

I used to hang out at sb.com for hours every day just to look and comment on other peoples creations. Plus I would host monthly challenges.
Today I will pop in there once in a while to see what I'm missing;).

I still use the gallery, mostly as a "storage". Every time I make a new layout I will post it there.
At first I wanted people to comment on my scrapbook pages and give me feedback. Nowadays, I really don't care if others do or do not like my work. Know what I mean? I scrap only for me and my family and that's all that matters.
But hey, if I can inspire someone on the way, of course that's a bonus.

Here's some of my earliest layouts from 2006. Not all that bad, but not all that good either.

If you've never been to scrapbook.com you are truly missing out. It's free to join and I know you will not regret it:
www.scrapbook.com

My top ten list # 8

I'm finally getting around to blogging and I want to start with finishing off my top ten list. "Things I can't scrap without".

I only have a few left and here is:

#8 (My) sketches

I'm not saying that my sketches are better than anybody elses, but I  do like them and there is still so many of them I haven't tried yet.

I print all of my sketches and put them in a soft binder.

I always have them close by and bring them to every crop and retreat.

When your mojo is gone and you haven't scrapped for a while, sketches are a must-have. They give you inspiration and a jump start to your layout.

Here's a few layouts that I made this last week:

The good thing with sketches are that you can use them over and over again. Just twist and turn them and you will have a new version.

My sketches can be found here

and there is plenty of awesome sketch blogs/websites that you can find by using google.

So if you haven't tried it before- scrap with a sketch today-they are all free!