Mediation Monday

Good evening blogland friends! I hope you enjoyed your weekend. I know I sure did. I just got back late Thursday night from a trip home to New Orleans &Mobile. It was a great trip and I was sad to leave, so many people to see and things to do while I was home! Hubby wasn't able to make the trip with me, we have been really focusing on our finances this year to try and get in the right position to buy a house in the next 10-16 months. So when we got our tax money back, paying off some bills was top prority and getting an extra plane ticket wasn't. He was sad to not be able to go with me, and visit my parents, but he also would have exhausted all his vacation time for the rest of the year. Here are just a few photos from the days in New Orleans, for my best friends wedding, and then some from home. When I got back hubby and I had two great days enjoying the fabulous weather here, Fleet Week in Downtown Portland then a drive out to the coast to meet a contracter at the beachhouse, we are trying to get the renovations done and his mom moved out there asap!! Enjoy the pics:

Fairhope, Alabama :

Amos my parent's cat

Fleet week:

Oceanside, Oregon:

During vacation I did have alot of time to myself, on the plane rides and such and I was able to think about somethings. An upcoming promotion that I will hopefully be getting by the end of the summer, which is ideally bringing more hours on my plate than I already work but more $$ as well which we need. Also I thought alot about my creative journey and how I would LOVE to one day have it soley as my job. But it takes alot of hard work to get there. I have been on an international design team for over a year now and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time on it. Not to mention the inspiration from other ladies, and the exposure it has given my blog. But the more I thought about it, with what lies ahead, I think it may be time for me to take a break. I have so many creative things in the works and I barely get free time to myself in between work, trying to stay fit by planning heathly meals for us for the week, walking as much as possible, and all the other responsiblities of life. So I have decided to take a leave next term from this team, and regroup and refocus and see where I am in 6 months. I had so many people from the wedding (bridesmaids and family members) tell me that I should be selling my custom guest book and wedding signs etsy. Well that is another story. I have alot of ideas and have listed etsy items before, but I guess now with renewed interest I should try again. I hope to head in that direction and at least have a few things listed by next month. That is the goal! Pics to come soon from the wedding of the signs I did, just waiting for the photos to come to me from the bride ;)

 Enjoy your week and I hope you get some creative time to yourself this week! I will be spending the next few hours in my studio and I hope to have lots more to share with you soon!! Until next time, Peace Y'all~

{Made in the Shade} my first DT post!!!

Good morning! Katie here to share with you my very first design team post for Scrapping Frenzy!! It's so exciting!!! I hope everyone is excited as I am for what's to come in the next few months from the DT. We have lots of fun things planned for the blog as well as fun events at the store including CLASSES which are my fav! I hope to see some of you there!! One of our themes this month is summer fun,  and I thought these photos would be perfect for that! Okay, on with the fun stuff, my first LO!!

I used papers from my DT pack as well as the red baker's twine to make an unexpected color combo for these beach pictures taken last summer in Gulf Shores at a house we had rented on West Beach. I really wanted my photos to be the center of attention because I like them so much so I chose a monochromatic kind of color scheme. I used the solid peachy-colored side of one page and spruced up my background with some mists, of course! Also my photos I used the shimmery solid sand colored cardstock and distressed the edges and also inked them to make them stand out. My favorite part was fussy-cutting some of the designs from the Basic Grey paper, Out of Print is one of my all time favorite lines! So I fussy-cut some of the paisleys and pop dotted them onto the page to make them stand out. To finish it off, I added a title I cut from Cricut, some flowers and pearls and bling and other things I had in my stash. This is how it turned out, tell me what you think: 

Okay, I hope you enjoyed seeing some inspiration today, I know I sure did enjoy sharing it:) Until next time, have a great week and enjoy this summer weather before it gets too hot! 

Scrapping Frenzy Supplies:

Sand colored shimmery card stock

Cloud 9 Design-"Sweetheart Collection" 'bloomin' love'(background paper)

Basic Grey "Out of Print" 'batik' (fussy cut pieces) 

Red/white Baker's Twine

SmoochSpritz by Clearsnap in 'caramel mocha' and ' cherry ice'

Tattered Angels Glimmermist in 'Sun Sisters' 

Stickles in Tropical Tangerine

Colorbox fluid chalk ink cat's eye in 'blush rose'

 sticky thumb pop dots

Other supplies: 

pearls and bling by Michael's  

fabric button- Purple Pumpkin Crafts 

paper flowers by Recollections

kraft paper

stickers by Jolee's boutique 

back to life!

Hello everyone! It's been 11 days since my last post... and I must apologize for that, we were on vacay in Portland, Oregon until this past Wednesday. I had 2 more days off when we got back but I really needed to catch up on sleep and I was just trying to get used to the routine again. Went back to work for my first day yesterday, which thankfully went pretty smoothly...just getting used to the idea that retail madness is right around the corner...one of the many perks of working at the mall. *just kidding I absolutely hate working at the mall* Anyways, I do have some exciting news to share before I show y'all and LO I did before I left, JIMMY AND I ARE ENGAGED!!! Yep, he asked me while we were on vacay. So in addition to all this crafty stuff on this blog, I am thinking about starting a wedding-only blog or something. We'll see. Still in the very early planning stages for sure. Don't even really have a definite date pinned down but we are thinking sometime next fall probably. The heat down here in the South in Spring/Summer is simply unbearable and I won't be sweating on my wedding day anymore than I have to! So that's really exciting...I will 

share more details when I get my other blog up and running!

Okay, so before we left I was working on this LO for the sketch challenge over at the Basic Grey blog. Unfortunately, I was being a major slacker and didn't finish it in time for the challenge which is a total bummer, I really love their paper and the prize was any collection pack of your choice! UGH! Maybe next time! Any-who, the LO did turn out really cute and I ended up finishing it like 2 days later, the day I was supposed to be packing for our trip, I worked on it for a bit. I did get all the packing done, including Jimmy's at the very last minute though! Gah I swear I really didn't end up wearing all the stuff I brought though!! As always I over packed! Anyway, so this is how this LO turned out. This was the inspiration sketch;

I stayed pretty true to the sketch, not changing it up too much cause it was so cute to begin with! It was difficult to get all my photos to fit though because I cut them a little larger than the original called for. So I ended up moving them over a bit and also added one underneath the main page divider. Also my title is kind of put above that instead of near the bottom with the flower cluster. I like the colors of this page and the mixture of the different Basic Grey lines. Also I used lots of elements besides just paper flowers 

to add texture and dimension. 

Here are a few closies of the different types of embellishments I used.

 prima flowers, chipboard eggs covered in stickles.

 i love this pic! you can see the pretty 'out of print' paper behind the tulips that 

I made stems using baker's twine.

Thanks for stopping by today! More updates of crafty stuff very, very soon I promise! I will be working on 2 mini gift albums for 2 very special someones that I've got to finish in just a few weeks, can't wait to share that with y'all! Hope everyone has a very Happy Sunday.... I'm off to breakfast with the future MIL and Jimmy, then work! Until next time~VV

Supplies List:

Basic Grey paper- "Origins" collection 'pure'

Basic Grey paper- " Out of Print" collection 'giclee'

Basic Grey paper- " Lime Rickey" collection 'rob roy' and 'lemon drop'

blue cloud journaling block- Basic Grey Lime Rickey collection sticker

cardstock- pale yellow

Chippies- American Crafts 'Holiday House' Spring collection

Prima Flowers

white sticker letters- K&Company

pink & blue baker's twine

vintage buttons

pearl brads & flocked journaling block- My Minds' Eye turquoise Lush collection

Ranger Stickles- yellow and light green

Colorbox chalk ink- Chestnut Roan

mixed media: altered 6x6 chipboard beach trip album :)

Hi everyone! I am already feeling withdrawals from blogging, and it's only been 10 days since my last blog post! Sorry for the delay everyone... I plan to update at least 1x per week but man I feel like I have been running around like crazy lately...like a chicken with it's head cut off! I have my couch re-do project still in the works...pictures to come when I'm done!!! Also I think I might post my Halloween wreath cause it's super cute and funky, and well it's just that time of year!! Work has been pretty busy, and I'm still working on projects here and there trying to get our house in shape before the end of the month...2 big things happening then, Jimmy graduates and we have out of town company from Chicago coming. So I'm not even halfway done with my list, and to top that off we're going on VACAY to Portland, OR in less than a month now too! I'm super excited about that trip but seriously I'm an Alabama girl born and raised, so I need to shop for some better fall clothes. Anyway, enough of my rattling on... I did manage to complete another small project, an altered mini chipboard album of our beach trip this summer for my other Aunt's bday, which is Dec 3rd, so I guess I'm actually ahead of the game on that one. But I completed it in just 3 late nights this week, which is pretty darn good (considering I worked 43 hours too makes me proud)! It turned out well for my first time really working with a chipboard album. Here are some pics, check it out and let me know what you think! This is the whole album, standing up cause I made it so fat. 

It's about a 6x6 scalloped square.

 These are the first 2 inside pages. I used paper from a large paper stack that I bought last year by Me & My Big Ideas called 'Fashion District'. Alot of the floral patterns in it remind me of something tropical, so I used most of the papers on this album from it. I also inked all the edges of all the pages with a Colorbox chalk cat's eye in Chestnut. Also I matted all the photos in the album with white cardstock and inked them all in different colors, depending on the page. 

 For these two pages, I inked the photos with a Colorbox chalk cat's eye in lipstick. Also I added several different textured embellishments for interest, a felt flower with a rhinestone, a 3d sticker and another flower sticker that I added some bling to.

 The title of this page came out of the 'Travel' pages kit from Me & My Big Ideas. I loved this kit because I used a little bit of everything in the kit on 2 projects already and I saved my fav papers and embellies from it for when I finally do MY beach trip album. (HA if I"m not too tired of these pictures by then LOL) To the chipboard title, I used extra pop dots and inked it in Chestnut. I also tied several scraps of ribbon and fibers from my ribbon box to the 2 sides of the title. 

 This is a close up of the first page of the album. I used my tear tool to tear paper on both edges and then matted the title and a photo of the house we stayed in with kraft paper. For the flower embellies, I used paper flowers by Prima, also a felt flower, buttons, bling, a pearl dew drop and a fish sticker which I covered in 2 coats of liquid glass to make it appear more raised. At the bottom I used small alpha stamps to stamp the name of the place where we stayed.

 For this page, I used more papers from the 'Fashion District' paper stack, also some round sticker letters from the Me & My Big Ideas kit, which I covered in liquid glass. Also I used a few Jolee's embellishments and a cut out from the 'Life's a Beach' cricut cartridge. On the sun and also the Jolee's flowers, I used Distressed stickles by Tim Holtz in 'scattered straw' and also regular stickles in lilypad.

 For this page I used another chipboard title, putting it on with pop dots and added some ribbon for simple flair. the 2 palm trees are from 'Jolee's by You' and I blinged them up with some lilypad stickles.

 Here's a close up of the letters and stuff.

 On this page, I used one sheet of 12x12 flip flop paper by Jen Wilson from the 'Breaking Free Adventure Series 1' that I bought as a single sheet, and I swear I have used it so much already! I need to find a whole pack of her stuff! I cut out the title from the 'Life's a Beach' Cricut cartridge, and added some clear turquoise dew drops for the dots of the I's. Also the journaling block is from My Mind's Eye LUSH collection in Orange. I used the rest of the Jolee's accents here, and added more lilypad stickles to the flowers.

 Close -up of the title that I cut out on cricut and added some stickles to.

 Close up of other cricut title that I added dew drops to.

 For this page, I just used some hot pink flocked letter stickers that I found in my stash, a few stickers, and added some lilypad stickles to the centers of the flowers on the patterned paper background. 

 On this page, I inked the photo and the journaling block with a Colorbox chalk cat's eye in Butterscotch. Also I inked the other patterned paper in the background with Chestnut. I layered another journaling block from My Mind's Eye LUSH collection in Orange, as well as some Jolee's accents, the oranges and the flamingo and the flower. Here's a close up.

 This page is one of my favorites, cause both of the pictures are so good and also I used 2 different colors of stickles on this page. One is Aqua and the other is Lilypad stickles over top of a clear sticker from the Me & My Big Ideas Travel page kit. I wanted to keep this one simpler to focus on the great photos!

 Here's a close up of the stickles work:

 For the last 2 pages, I used my tear tool and ruffed up the edges of several patterned paper scraps, mostly from the 'Fashion District' stack by Me & My Big Ideas.There is also a few small scraps of Basic Grey paper in there from the 'Lemonade' collection. I used paper flowers from Prima, The Robin's Nest dew drops, some bling, Colorbox chalk inks in lipstick, chestnut, and butterscotch. To add another element of texture I added one of my fabric paper clips from Pier 1 Imports to one side of the photos. Also the journaling block is another one from the My Mind's Eye LUSH collection in Orange. Here are a few close ups. 

 For the outside decoration, I used lots of fibers, notions, and ribbon to the ring itself. Almost too much cause the album barely closes! LOL! Also for the finishing touch I put a tag on there that I made at a tag swap last year at Croppin' on the Coast in Gulfport, MS. Still one of my favorite tags I've ever done! The crab has googly eyes...how could you NOT love it?!

Okay, so now all that's left for me to do is wrap this baby up and get it in the mail in a few weeks...just in time to surprise my other Aunt on her bday ;) My favorite part is when they call me, all hysterical, crying about how much they LOVE it.I hope yall LOVE it too. Until next time, scrappers~ VV