Valentine Blog Hop

Love is in the air and the Challenge Master Divas are celebrating by having a blog hop!

The hop is going to run from Friday January 28th until Sunday January 30th. We have lots of prizes, fun and inspiration for you this weekend. If you have arrived from Jamilie's Blog you are on the right track. If you just got here then you need to head over to our Stash/Tag Diva Tammy's blog to get started.

All of the Divas are creating love inspired projects for you to enjoy. We also each have a word for a secret phrase. You need to stop by each blog and collect the words (they are all jumbled so you will need to visit each one) and once you have unscrambled them, send the phrase to tealeaf@shaw.ca to be entered to win one of the two grand prizes. We each have a small blog prize as well so you want to make sure that you stop by all the blogs and leave us some love, so that you have multiple chances to win!

Another way to win, is to create your own love inspired project and remember it can be anything you love (a person, a place, a thing, a hobby..whatever love means to you) and upload it to the Challenge Master’s Gallery in the forum. You will have until Sunday February 13th to enter your projects and then after careful deliberation a winner will be announced on our challenge blog! The grand prize winner will receive a great prize pack donated by our Stash & Tag Diva Tammy! You don’t want to miss out on this so start creating! You can enter as many times as you wish as long as you create new projects each time.

Here's my project for you......a cute little mini book:

Materials: My Mind's Eye "Love Me Do" line, Prima Flowers, Misc. Lace

One lucky commenter will win this RAK from me.  It's a Basic Grey 2011 Calendar Kit! 

 In order to win you must leave a comment and tell me one thing you LOVE. Don't forget to put that in, only those comments will be entered! The winner will be announced on Monday, Jan. 31st. The winner must contact me with their addy.

My word for your secret phrase is:

LOVE

Now, on to your next stop......the very creative KAREN

SWAK & More!

Warning....this is loaded with pics! 

 How's everyone?  Seems like there's lots of crafting going on out there from the looks of my blog reader!  I thought I'd share a couple of LO's with you today.  I made some these past few weeks that I REALLY love.  You know you love it when you get to the end and KNOW (without a doubt) that you don't need to do anything else to it. Oh Happy Day!

Materials Used: Crate Paper- (Restoration) Pattern Paper, Chipboard, Rub-ons; Prima -  Flowers; Pink Paislee -Chipboard Letters; Misc: Lace; Mini Alphas-October Afternoon

Materials: Sassafrass Lass: Pattern Paper, Chipboard, Flowers, Letter stickers, Chipboard Letters;  Misc: ribbon

The above layout is a scraplifted design. 

Not sure where it came from so if you know holler at me so I can update ;)

Materials: Bazzil -Cardstock; American Crafts -Remards (Holland); Dear Lizzy - Ribbon; Crate Paper - Snow Day PP, Restoration PP; Lily Bee Designs - Lovely PP, Flower; Sassafrass Lass - Mix & Mend PP; Jenni Bowlin - Crepe Paper, Ribbon; Misc: chipboard, Paint, Pearls

Thanks for stopping by today!  I have a few more things to share with you but my connection is being really slow so maybe tomorrow :)

Altered Challenge at Scrapbook Challenges

Today's my day to give you an Altered Challenge over at Scrapbook Challenges.  This is a new category over at the forum and I'm excited about it.  One of my goals for the year is to do more "Altered" things so I'm glad this will help me on my adventure.

My challenge for you is the theme "Love".

You can interpret it any way any how by showing me something "Altered".

Here's my examples:

An altered Prima Flowers box turned into a Candy Box!

A $1 store frame turned into some fun Specimen Art.

Can't wait for you to come play with us, we have an awesome sponsor this month: HELMAR!

Valentine's Day Linky Party!

So, it's time for a Valentine's Day Party over at Paper Issues. 

 Have you created anything for us? 

We have a great sponsor this month: SEI! How would you like to win these goodies!

 All you have to do to be entered is link up! Old project, new, it doesn't matter.

The only requirement is that you use paper!

Project Life 365 Days of Photos

I've taken on a daunting task this year.  I decided to participate in Becky Higgins Project Life. This is where you take a photo every day for a year.  I purchased Becky's kit to help me along so I have more motivation as well as an easier way to put it together.

On the Challenge Masters forum I found out about Shuttercal a free site where you can upload your photos into a calendar.  I signed up and started uploading.  There are many scappy friends on there and we're working to keep each other accountable :) It's really helped and it's so fun to go look at everyone photo's and get to know them in a different way.  I've added my link to my Shuttercal account with the Project Life blinkie (on the right) if you are interested in seeing it. It's a great place to store the photos and add a little journaling blurb to each photo so you don't forget what the photo was about.  I'm hoping to show you some photos of the Project Life kit as soon as I get a chance to open it up!

For now, here's my WEEK 1 photos.  If you are interested in knowing more about the photo go to the "Project Life" link to the right and you'll be able to pull up the photo with the journaling. I'm not going for wonderful photography skills here I'm just trying to capture the moment or memory.

Thanks for stopping in today!  Have a great one!

Wreck this Journal

I was blog surfing a few months ago and came accross a fellow crafter who mentioned this book Wreck this Journal.  Well, a few weeks later I saw a post from another person about this so I got curious. I checked it out.  It's been out for a while but I hadn't heard of it before.  It intrigued me so I bought it.  While I was waiting for it to get here I checked online and found some posts on You Tube about it.  I was getting excited about it. 

When I originally read about the book it said it was a great help in motivating and sparking your creativity. It also talked about how it helps you basically "get out of your box" so to speak. Here's the synopsis they give about it on Amazon.

Synopsis

For anyone who's ever
 wished to, but had trouble starting, keeping, or finishing a journal or sketchbook comes Wreck This Journal, an illustrated book that features a subversive collection of prompts, asking readers to muster up their best mistake- and mess-making abilities to fill the pages of the book (and destroy them). Acclaimed illustrator Keri Smith encourages journalers to engage in "destructive" acts-poking holes through pages, adding photos and defacing them, painting with coffee, and more-in order to experience the true creative process. Readers discover a new way of art and journal making-and new ways to escape the fear of the blank page and fully engage in the creative process.

When I read this I knew I needed to try this.  It sounded so fun and I knew it would get me out of my "box".  I tend to be very neat and organized.  I have a hard time getting my creative side going when it comes to new techniques, etc.  I try to get all my stuff out and make a creative mess but I JUST CAN'T!  So I thought this may help.  I'm going to see what kind of jouney it takes me on.  I'm already having a hard time just looking at the new clean crisp, unopened book thinking about how it's going to be when I'm done.

My daughter saw the book and wanted to open and look through it.  I just about strangled her over it.  I was like "NO, you can't, I don't want to know what's in there!"  "Don't crease it, I haven't started yet!" Geez, I need help. Needless to say I'm going to show you my journey from time to time.

If you've done this book I'd love to hear from you or see the final product!

Here's the beginning of the jouney.....

Love Shack

Remember the song by the B-52's ?  I just can't get it out of my head!  This is why....I created this little "Love Shack".  I had this birdhouse from the craft store for ages and I just hadn't gotten motivated to use it.  Well, I recieved this cute paper as a gift and though this would be perfect for this.

My Mind's Eye "Be Loved" Pattern Paper; Misc. Cardstock Stickers, Tim Holtz sizzix gate die

Go Green with Flowers

Challenge Masters has some new challenges up this week for the month of Janurary.  I have a new "Go Green" challenge.  The challenge is to use handmade flower on your creation and save your stash.

Here's a quick card I made using scraps too!

Here's a layout with handmade flowers...

Challenge Masters has a Valentine Blog Hop coming up at the end of this month so mark your calendars for JANUARY 28-30TH and join us for lots of love inspired projects, lots of prizes and most importantly, lots of fun.

We hope to see you there!

ATuttleTime: Pink Carnation

Thank you to Angie for using one of my tutorials :) Go see her cute card....

ATuttleTime: Pink Carnation: "My sister, who I hope is not following this blog yet, introduced me a wonderful series of books. I don't have the time or patienc..."

Do you want to know????

Who won my RAK from Scrapbook Challenges?  I used Random Generator to pick a number between 1 and 100 and the winner was 78!

Congratulation to:

Janet, please contact me here or on Scrapbook Challenges to get me your information.

Seasons of Change Blog Hop Today!!!

Welcome to Scrapbook Challenges Seasons of Change Blog Hop! If you have just stopped in, please join us and start at Pamela's Blog. It officially starts at 9am (MT) today and will go through Sunday at Midnight (MT)--which is the deadline for qualifying for prizes.

In case you didn't know, Scrapbook Challenges is a fun group filled with great people. They have weekly sketches and challenges. There are monthly sponsors for the group with fabulous prizes to win.

If you have never been to my blog before my name is Jackie. I'm glad you are here. I am happy to announce that I am one of the returning members of the design team! I'm very glad to be able to come back and be part of this great  team for another term. You will truly enjoy hopping along to see all of the design team. We have some wonderful talent, new and old.

Today, every blog you hop to will have a layout that they made that is based on this sketch created by Pamela:

Here's my take, I used My Mind's Eye "Be Loved"

There are some wonderful Prizes being offered, here they are:

1. For one person who leaves a comment on all the blogs in the hop, they will get the new Spring Market collection from Webster's Pages, including chipboard buttons and twine.

2.  For one person who does a layout based on the sketch, they will get the Be Mine collection from Echo Park Paper Company.

3. For inviting people to join the group, one person will get a collection of adhesive from Helmar.

4. For one new member over the weekend, they will get some new stamps from Unity and Webster's Pages. These a NEW release stamps that will match with the Webster's Pages.

I have a little RAK to give out to someone, just leave me a comment on this. It's some cute embellies from Creative Charms. You will need to check back here on Monday to see if you won.

Now, it's time to HOP ON TO:

AMY

Just for fun...

Hi friends :)  I hope you all had a wonderful new year! It seems I've been really busy and haven't had time to post anything.  I've been working on a few DT assignments for the weeks to come and I did manage to find some time to play for myself.

I saw this sketch at Sassy Lil Sketches and new I had to play along.  I had these pictures to scrap and I knew that this was the sketch for me!  This is a photo from our trip to Savannah of my son.  He picked up this leaf and went to my oldest daughter and told her this was her "heart"

 (or something like that...it was really sweet).

Pattern Paper:  My Mind's Eye (Love me do)