Simply Delighted

Yesterday, I got a call from Renee. Of Simply Renee. Owner of Clip It Up. You know, manufacturer of some amazing scrapbook organizational products. Anyhoo, I made their Project Design Team! So excited to be a part of this talented group.

Project Design Team

Aphra Bolyer (Woo hooo....that's me!)
Rhonda Van Ginkel
Tina McDonald
Lesley Langdon
Jenifer Cowles
Danielle Wycough

Organization Design Team

Bree Tetz
Carol Sheetz
Joan Liddle

We'll begin posting organizational ideas and scrapbook tips and techniques beginning July 14th HERE at the Simply Renee Inc blog. Be sure to pop in for lots of ways to simplify your scrappy life.

Oh, and speaking of simply delightful. Have you seen these two beauties by My Little Shoebox?

These are two of My Little Shoebox's new lines. Every other day they are being revealed at the blog HERE. You don't want to miss them because they are fabulous!!!

Well, I'm off to get my scrapbook room all cleaned up before its debut in blogworld. ;-)

New Season

This Spring was my oldest son's sixth season to play baseball and my youngest son's first season out of the stroller. Oh my word. What a difference a stroller can make! I spent most of each game chasing my preschooler and trying to get him to sit down and very little time watching the game or taking pictures. It's a good thing I took this sweet photo of my player on the way to his first game!

New Season

Supplies--Paper, Die Cut: October Afternoon Thrift Shop; Chipboard: Maya Road; Ribbon, Corrugated Alphas: Jillibean Soup; Alphas: Thickers; Button Flowers: Evalicious.

How fun is it that I was able to use October Afternoon's Thrift Shop line for my son's baseball layout? That makes a momma of two boys a happy, scrappy camper!

This layout is based on Creative Scrappers sketch #110 that went up on the blog this morning. Be sure to go over there and check out the sketch and the rest of the team's takes. Pure eye candy!

See you soon!

Paper Poppy Giveaway at Lily Bee

The Paper Poppy Kit Co. is giving away the June kit over at Lily Bee. Be sure to head over to their blog HERE and leave a comment to win one of the last Little Miss Sunshine kits.

And be sure to head over to The Paper Poppy blog next week for Sneak Week. You'll get to see sneaks of the July kit and the designers' layouts. AND there will be another giveaway! Hope to see you there.

Hip Hip Hooray

Kristine Davidson redid my blog today! And yesterday. And the day before. And she was sooooo patient while I got her to tweak this and that. The result is spectacular!!!

Gosh, that hot air balloon. And those clouds. And the scallops. Oh, and the font. LOVE it! It all came from this amazing digi kit by Kristin Cronin-Barrow.

Anyhoo, if you're feeling the need for a blog makeover, be sure to check with Kristine. Her work is phenomenal and her rates can't be beat. See you soon!

Banners and Baseball

This week at The Paper Poppy, we're showing you our last projects created from our June kit "Little Miss Sunshine." Sniff. Sniff. We have loved her so. (Don't pout too much. The July kit is AMAZING!)

At the Ballpark: This baseball season was all about entertaining my three year old while still trying to catch of glimpse of my nine year old. These pictures are my little guy eating M&Ms and coloring. Eating and playing. That's what it took. LOL!

So, are you sick of banners yet? I know I'm sure not. Especially if I change them up a bit. On this layout, I cut small triangles from a sheet of Lily Bee, pop dotted them onto the page, and added black buttons in between. LOVE all that texture!

Stars. Another staple for scrapping boys. I attached the red and white polka dot paper to a piece of thin cardboard and then used my Sizzix to cut out a set of stars. Each one got finished off with a Lily Bee chipboard flower and a yellow button. With floss, of course.

Well, that's it for me today! Stay tuned for the rest of the week. Lydia, Frances, and Liz saved their best for last.

Happy Father's Day!

Since their dad is in Alaska, the boys made signs to post here! We love you!

Hope all the dads out there are having a great day and being spoiled by their kiddos. See you soon!

. . . cheerio, mate!

toasted whitewheat bread, moove over butter, sugar-free grape jelly, and strawberry yogurt cheerios. breakfast of champions. just saying.

Smooches . . .

to the ladies at My Little Shoebox for choosing me and calling me to be on their 2010 Design Team!

And this card is for all the ladies whose names are being posted today for making the team! I am honored to have my name listed with all of yours and I look forward to working with you and getting to know you.

Front

Inside

Supplies--Paper: My Little Shoebox Sky's the Limit, Whoo Loves You?, Enjoy Life and My Neighborhood; Alphas: My Little Shoebox Turquoise Mini Alphabet Stickers; Other: Buttons, Stick Pins.

You can see the official announcement and the list of talented ladies that I am lucky enough to be working with HERE at the My Little Shoebox blog.

Thanks for stopping by. See you soon!

Gotta Love the Rub-Ons!

So far this month at The Paper Poppy, we've posted a sketch and an art challenge to inspire you. This week, we are going to highlight some of our favorite products from the June kit. Not an easy task for me because I love soooooo many items in the kit. But since I just have this one post, I think I'll focus on the Lily Bee Rub-Ons.

Odd, really, because I don't normally use rub-ons. But the Lily Bee ones are bold, oversized, and somewhat neutral. All their sweet sentiments were just perfect for this mini album that I created for my husband for Father's Day.

I decided that I would use the GCD Cossette papers for the background of the mini. I thought the black and white was a little bit more masculine and would let the Lily Bee embellishments really pop. For example, how much do you love the Glimmer Misted doilie and yellow Prima alphas jumping off that zebra print paper? Mmmmm . . . nice.

These Lily Bee Die Cuts inserted throughout the album really make me smile. I cut off a little piece so that they would have a nice flat edge and then embellished each sort of like journaling.

Look how well the blue "enjoy" rub-on looks on the GCD chipboard. I was surprised that it showed up so well. I love it against that black. Ok, now let's focus on my favorite accent, maybe in the whole mini. That polka dot flower! It was made from the edge of one of the die cuts, smushed up and stuck to the back of one of the Lily Bee chipboard flowers and topped off with a Melody Ross brad. Some pretty technical scrapping right there, ladies, I know.

I peeled off the top of one of the GCD chipboard pieces and chalked it yellow. The leathery finish was such a nice surprise. And again, the Lily Bee Rub-ons did not disappoint.

For this one, I added the rub-on to a piece of yellow cardstock, mainly because it was too hard to add it to the white die cut because the other side was embellished so heavily. To give it a little more dimension, I replaced the letter d with a chipboard one. I HAD to use that animal print again. LOVE it!

Since the rest of the mini is so masculine (har har), I thought that I could girl up this page since there's a picture of me on it. Nothing says feminine to me more than that organza rosette ribbon. It was killing me that I hadn't been able to use it yet. Eeek! Cute stuff. And then I added some more rolled flowers. Quick, easy, pretty! I don't know if you can tell, but my photo is mounted on the Prima stamp packaging and there's a stamped photo corner as well.

And then here's the last page where I'll add a gift card for my husband. That'll be his favorite page. LOL!

So, what is your favorite product in the June Paper Poppy kit? Not sure. Well, Lydia, Frances, and Liz will be here all week to share theirs. Pay attention. There might just be a quiz this weekend. Hint. Hint.

See you soon!

My First CS Reveal!

Wooo hooo! Today is my first layout reveal at Creative Scrappers. Here's the sketch by Nicole Nowosad. LOVE it!

Easter Eggs: My cute little fellow all dressed up in his Easter best hunting for more than just eggs. Such fun! I chose American Crafts' Botanique line because of how well it matched my little man's clothes. And, hey, I don't need a whole lot more reason than that to scrap my boys in pink. Aside from flipping the sketch, I pretty much left it the way it was. If it ain't broke . . .

Be sure to stop by Creative Scrappers and see the rest of Team P's take on the sketch. *swoon* See you soon!

Paper Poppy Challenge Week Layout

This week at The Paper Poppy is Challenge Week, so all week the design team will be showing off our layouts based on the monthly challenge. So, what is the challenge? It's a little different. You are to create a layout inspired by the artwork of Mary Englebreit. Her style and images are a perfect match for this month's kit. You can see some of her work at her website HERE.

Here's the image that I chose as inspiration for my layout. I was inspired by the black background, the bright colors, the grid, and the flowers.

Potty Talk: My three year old is a serious chatter box. He talks just about every waking minute of the day, whether someone is listening to him or not. And if he's not talking, he's singing. Right now he's potty training. He sits there FOREVER. Probably because he's too busy talking to take care of business. LOL! Such a funny age.

I LOVE a grid layout and find that it really helps when I have a lot of patterns that I'm trying to use. To break up all the harsh lines, I added several circular elements: Lily Bee die cut, Lily Bee chipboard flowers, and rolled paper flowers.

Thanks for popping in today! Hopefully, you'll be inspired to try the Mary Englebreit challenge. If so, link up your layout at The Paper Poppy by June 25th for a chance at a July Add-On.

Paper Poppy June Sketch Layout

Happy Thursday to ya! It's my day to show off my Paper Poppy Kit Co. sketch week layout. Funny enough, I didn't even stick to my own sketch perfectly. That's the beauty of a sketch, though. You can adapt it to fit your needs. For this layout, I really wanted to use two photos and my tag looked better at the top and bottom than on the side.

I love the Lily Bee die cuts that come in the June kit. I cut this one in half and added it to the top and bottom of my layout. I didn't want to hide a single bit of it.

I love the giant GCD chipboard alphas that are in the June Add-On, but the colors just didn't pop quite enough for my bold, bright layout. Soooo, I covered them with the super fun GCD zebra paper. Add a red jewel for the dot, a little outlining, and those letters really pop now!

You have got to get some of these yellow Prima alphas. They are canvas and have a fabulous texture to them. And the yellow is such a deep color, matches perfectly with the Lily Bee papers. To make them stand out even more on this die cut, I outlined them with my American Crafts Memory Marker in Charcoal.

You can see the sketch HERE at The Paper Poppy. Won't you play along with us for your chance to win a July Add-On. Thanks for popping in!

Imaginisce June Sketch

Can you believe it's the 1st of June already? 2010 is just about half over, and I'm still just getting used to writing it on my checks. LOL! The good news is that there's another sketch challenge posted at Imaginisce today. Check out the super fun sketch that Kim Holmes created for us.

His Smirk: For my take, I used the Splash Dance collection since the colors matched my son's skin tones and shirt so well. He is nine years old, and I am getting this expression more and more often. Grr....tweens!

Be sure to head over to the Imaginisce blog HERE and see which other designers have posted sample layouts on their blogs. And, as always, there's a great prize being offered to the winner of this month's sketch challenge. Happy Scrappin'!