My First CHA - A Recap

I am usually NOT a lucky person.  I never win raffles; I don't even win at Bingo.  So imagine my surprise when the incredibly talented TINA WALKER invited me to attend CHA Winter 2014 in sunny Anaheim, California.  I am a h-u-g-e fan of Tina's.  Not only does she make all sorts of lovely things as a design team member for MY MIND'S EYE, but she is an incredibly talented mixed-media artist and the owner of FROG DOG STUDIO, a monthly mixed-media kit club.  Tina and I have been "facebook friends" for quite a while, and I jumped at the chance to meet her in person!

For the two or three of you who read my blog and are NOT into scrapbooking or crafting, CHA is a huge trade show that happens twice a year.  The newest lines and the next big thing in the crafting industry are made available to buyers so that they can determine what products they want to stock in their stores or provide in their kits.  And in addition to the new products on display for you to touch and drool on admire, all the big names in the industry are there!  The icing on the cake?  Quite a few of my crafty friends were going to be there, too.  To say I was like a kid in a candy store was an understatement!  There are not enough thumbs-up or like buttons in the world to convey just how excited I was - seriously.

Of course I INSTAGRAMMED all about it!  And, just in case you missed the flood of pics on Instagram or Facebook, I am sharing a few of my faves here. 

I am pretty sure I took a picture of every single piece of paper and ephemera pack that was being displayed by every single manufacturer.  I won't make you sit through all of them - pretty sure Blogger would ban me for life if I tried to upload all of my paper pics here!  But I will share one of the crate wall at HEIDI SONBOUL'S booth - simply because I have so much fun saying the name of her new company.  Chickaniddy.  chick-a-niddy.  chickaniddychickaniddychickaniddy.  Yep, it makes me smile saying it.  And all those fun crates made me smile, too.

So...what made my very first CHA so incredibly special to me?  These people (and a fun lil' adventure or two):

I flew in from H-town with my wonderfully talented friend, HEATHER LEOPARD.  Before we even got to our hotel, we had to make a stop here:

Say what you will, but I am a huge luvah of the double-double with a chocolate shake!

I spent a lot of time hanging out with these two wonderful ladies - Tina and Melissa - who renewed my love of all things mixed media:

So many light bulbs went off as they answered my mixed media questions that I am positive you could see my head lit up from outer space!

I loved hanging out with the friends I knew and making new ones, too:

And it was super cool to meet my Facebook friends "in real life" like the CHIC TAG girls Malika Kelly and Jennifer Haggerty:

Yep, that would be me with my eyes closed.  Maybe I was trying to show everyone my expert application of eyeshadow?????

Heidi Swapp taught Melissa and me how to expertly apply mist on a stencil:

She even graciously signed my work and posed for a picture with me...

...as did my idol (because she designs many of the MY MINDS EYE papers that I hoard as well as does all sorts of cool home design/decorating projects) JEN ALLYSON (nicest.person.ever.)

See that dazed look in my eyes?  Pretty sure my brain had just finished short-circuiting...

And...most totally adorable picture?  The one of me with Baby Jack...

...oh, and his mom, Amy Tangerine.

And, of course, you haven't fully experienced CHA until you've had your picture taken with Tim Holtz...

...who, as it turns out, is just as fond of the cheesy grin as I am - ha!!!

And...there were purple cows...

And Disneyland with my besties...

...where we rode rides, and talked, and laughed until our sides hurt...

Until next time...I'll be back.

Dear Santa...Please Stop Here

This layout is proof that I am a problem-solver.  That's right - me - a solver of problems.  Oh, I haven't figured out how to end world hunger.  I haven't even figured out how to use the various remotes that sit on our coffee table.  But - I have figured out how to create a Christmas layout when I cannot find where I decided to store all my new Christmas papers!

See, this is what happened.  My BESTIE and I made a pre-Thanksgiving trip to our favorite scrapbooking store just days before Thanksgiving.  But, when I returned home, I was trying to get my house spic and span for my mother's yearly visit to Casa de Chaos (which is aptly named, trust me).  And...I violated one of the 10 Commandments of Organization.  THOU SHALT NOT PLACE ITEMS IN A SPACE THAT IS NOT LABELED AND/OR EASILY VISIBLE.  Guess what happened when I wanted to use my nice shiny new Christmas papers?  If you guessed I couldn't find them, you would be absolutely correct!!!  Rather than waste precious time when my mojo was actually in residence, I pulled out my regular, everday papers and used them to make a Christmas-themed layout.  The only holiday items I used were 2 Christmas brads and holiday rub-ons left over from last year which were in the appropriately labeled box.  

Which papers did I use?  Well, I shamelessly mixed things up from a few different MY MIND'S EYE Collections (I'm a rebel that way), namely the COLLECTABLE COLLECTION and the SWEETEST THING COLLECTION.  And because I was playing with My Mind's Eye papers, I decided to play along with the DEAR SANTA CHALLENGE.  

Want to see a few close-ups?  Here you go:

To create this...er...cluster piece thingy...I started with a Bright-Eyed Label from the Sweetest Thing Bluebell Collection because it looked like a snowflake to me.  See, you can just see the edge of the "b" sticking out at this angle.  I wanted a little extra-layering so I put one of the Happiness decorative flower-brad combinations on top (from the Collectable Collection), although I switched out the actual brad with one from last year's Christmas collection.  My cluster thingy still needed a lil' something extra so I hand cut three tags and added "Ho Ho Ho" rub-ons to them before layering them along the bottom.  A little artfully arranged loose thread and I called this cluster complete!

Of course, I couldn't use these papers without doing some fussy cutting.  And although my stickers came from a non-holiday themed collection, they work absolutely perfectly for this Christmas layout!

These rub-on snowflakes and little splatters of mist add nice subtle layers behind this fussy cut piece, don't you think?

Even though my papers were from different collections, they coordinated so beautifully that I wanted to use them ALL on my layout!!!  See?

So - what do you think?  Was I successful in creating a Christmas look with my non-Christmas papers?

#supercool - Practical Scrappers

 

The Huntress, who is now a bona fide teenager is always posing like this - flashing a peace sign and giving a big, glassy-eyed fake smiley face.  I actually asked her one time W-H-Y she kept posing like that and I got a reply that went something like, "(shrugging her shoulders) I don't k-n-o-w.  It's just (rolling her eyes and acting like my i.q. is entirely too low to ever understand), like, how I like to pose okay?  I believe in peace.  Sorry you didn't have Facebook when you were a kid."  Seriously, that was what she said to me.  Although my teen is all about peace and love, I'm not quite ready to sign her up for the Peace Corps just yet.  After a little cyber-stalking, it seems that 93.999% of the Huntress' peers are all striking identical poses.  The other 7% are a little behind the times and haven't figured out that the duck face is so five minutes ago...

 

Now you know me.  I'm hip.  I'm trendy.  And by golly, I'm always up for embarrassing showing my child I've still got some coolness in me.  So, after hours of intense practice in front of a mirror, I think I have got the look down perfectly!  What do you think???  Oh, and I am sure it was entirely accidental that my teen de-friended me on Facebook...

 

Want to make a layout like this one (with or without the awesome pose)?  I used this SKETCH by My Minds Eye as well as papers from the CUT AND PASTE COLLECTION.

 

As part of a PRACTICAL SCRAPPERS assignment with the On Trend Team, I used a stencil and a black marker to create a bottom "layer" of pattern around my photo

 

 

I fussy cut patterns from one of my papers and sewed them on at an angle to mimic the stenciled pattern on my layout.

 

 

And, of course, my layout would not be complete without my super long title, complete with a hashtag!

 

 

That's it for me!  Have you embarrassed your child lately???

Banners and Arrows and Sketches, Oh My!

Today at PRACTICAL SCRAPPERS, we are playing with banners and flags - which is one of my mostest favoritest never-want-them-to-go-out-of-style trends!  I'm not kidding - just this morning there was a poll on Facebook asking what trend we never wanted to go out of style.  And my answer was, of course, banners!

 

I have had the Lula Bug with me all weekend, and the pool was calling our names, so my free time to scrap was pretty much set to zero.  But, you have to live life to be able to document it.  So that is what we were doing - living life! (and maybe getting a lil' bit sunburned in the process)

 

Anyway, what that means is that when I found a way to combine a fun June sketch challenge over at MY MINDS EYE with Monday's Practical Scrappers assignment to create a layout with banners and flags, I jumped at the chance.  In case you didn't see it, the sketch can be found HERE.  And you see my take on it above - a lot "fuller" than sketch, but that's what I love about scrapbooking.  Everything is open to interpretation!

 

I had so much fun creating all the details on this layout.  Want to see a close-up or two?  Why, of course you do!!!  Here you go:

This is my banner that I made with my Silhouette Cameo.  I love the fact that the banner file already included the word "today" as a cutout.  So that the word could be seen clearly, I layered a solid pink eyelet trim behind each cutout. I also machine stitched just about every sheet of paper on this layout, and I added pop dots in several places to further accentuate my layers. 

 

Here is an even closer close-up:

 I absolutely love all the rich detail of MME's Find Your Wings and Fly Collection!!!  And MME always has just the right ratio of shabby chic and trendy.

 

Part of the MME sketch challenge was to use arrows, so I made sure I included several of those in my layout, too.

 

That's it for me today.  Be sure to come back tomorrow to see a new reveal and to find out who has won prizes from this past weekend's blog hop!!!

My Girl (My Minds Eye)

Have you heard the news?  My Minds Eye and Gossamer Blue have teamed up to host a fun little contest for a Guest Designer.  As soon as I read that, I felt like a little kid in a classroom, jumping up and down with my hand raised in the air, yelling, "Pick me! Pick me!"  And this is when I haven't even come down from my high of winning the My Mind's Eye Groundhog Day Challenge (found HERE)! But I can't help it *major whining here* It's My Mind's Eye *pouting and whining at the same time now* and it's a GUEST DESIGNER *whining, pouting, and a tic has started in my left eye*

 

Anyway, it just so happens that the week before I toddled out of my friendly neighborhood Archivers with a whole lotta MME goodied from the new My Girl Collection.  So, this layout would have been made anyway, maybe not today - but soon.

 

I started with a fun sketch by Liz Chidester that I found HERE.  Her sketch style just happens to fit my scrapbooking style, so her blog is definitely saved on my Favorites Bar.

 

I L.O.V.E. the sticker sheet that came with this collection.  The "my girl" arrow is actually the bottom strip of the sticker page.  I thought it was cute and would look good on my layout, so I cut it out and shaped it into an arrow.  The only thing that is not part of the My Girl Collection is the "take note" tab which is part of a journaling card from a different MME collection.  I cut it into strips and used the lined part of the paper as part of my title/journaling.

 

 

See, here's the title/journaling.  The title was part of a small journal card that I just cut up and outlined in black marker.

 

I love all the subtle layers this layout has.  You don't really realize how intricate it is until you hold the layout at an angle - like this...

 

 

That's it for me tonight.  Tomorrow is a new day and, with it, a new box of fabulous goodies for some projects that will be coming soon to a blog near you!

My Mind's Eye Challenge Layout

 

Let me start by apologizing because the quality of this picture is not that great - and I really DO apologize.  The weather here is forecast to be pretty crappy for the next few days, and I could NOT get a good picture today.  (and I am too impatient to wait).  Moving right along...

There are some really fun challenges going on all over the web right now - so many that I really, really, really want to play hookey from work and stay home and play with my scrappy supplies!  But that's not a very smart idea, so instead I have had to choose just one or two - including this fun Groundhog Day February Challenge over at My Minds Eye, found HERE.  The challenge - to scrap Groundhog Day (Duh!) - any way you want to (including using the movie idea, which is kind of what I went with). 

So, in the movie, you know how the day keeps resetting - over and over?  I have been having that feeling quite a bit watching Little Lula.  She has the same temperament, similar likes and dislikes, even the same looks and facial expressions as Hunter.  I feel like I am seeing a repeat of Hunter in Lula.  And that worked perfectly since I wanted to use this picture of the two of them pretending to be wild animals and chasing each other around the house.

 

My papers are from MME's Follow Your Heart Collection, which I found after doing some heavy duty re-organizing this past weekend.  Most of my embellishments are also from various MME collections (with maybe one or two October Afternoon embellies added in because they went so well with the other MME stuff).  The hexagon background was cut out using my Silhouette Cameo (yes, I have to say it - LOVE my Cameo) and then distressed a little (read: cut up) by yours truly.  And that's it - other than I had just been saying how I have been gravitating towards brighter, bolder colors lately, but all it took was one look at the lovely papers in this collection to remind me why I have always loved pastels. 

That's it for me, except for a few close-ups:

I pop-dotted a few random hexagons for visual interest.  I splattered some glimmer mist because - it's just no fun if you can't get a little messy.

Another angle...

Loving that pom pom ribbon that was part of MME's Christmas Collection.

 

Handmade pennants that I doodled on and sewed across:

 

I love clusters!

Practical Scrappers - Last Minute Gift Idea

I'm up at PRACTICAL SCRAPPERS today with a fun little last minute gift idea that will keep you out of the crazy parking lots and in your craft room - for a completely legitimate goodwill-to-your-fellow-man reason. 

I love sending out small personal gifts to my family and friends - and if you can't be with someone in person to share the holiday, the next best thing is a cd full of family photos, favorite recipes, video clips from your favorite moments this past year, or simply recording an "I love you" from each family member.  But rather than send a boring, ordinary cd case, why not dress it up a little?  Go ahead - add a little bling!  And pretty paper!

The very simple details for making this are on the PS Blog.  My tree, snowflake and envelope on the inside cover were all cut out with my Silhouette Cameo, using cutting files designed by my favorite, LORI WHITLOCK.  My papers were from the Holly Jolly line by MY MIND'S EYE- an oldie but a goody that I found sitting (still packaged) lonely and forgotten on a shelf in my craft supplies closet. The MME site says it's been discontinued and is no longer available, but they obviously have never looked inside my craft closet!

Here are a couple more pics:

 

...and the inside cover, which I kept simple with a tag containing a personal note.

That's it for me.  But be sure to check back Thursday, when I will be back with a fun holiday-themed layout using a sketch from one of my favorite sketch sites.  Until then...

Happy Christmas Crafting! [Only 21 days left - yikes!]

Halloween Fun with Practical Scrappers

 

I love Halloween - it's probably my second favorite holidayof the year.  Because of that, I have lots and lots of Halloween-themed papers (in fact, I would almost go so far as to say I have too much - I know, that's preposterous, right?!)  So, it was pretty much a no-brainer that I was going to sign up when I saw PRACTICAL SCRAPPERS was doing a feature on Halloween cards and layouts. 

 

I decided it would be fun to make a few easy Halloween cards.  I will NEVER be a cardmaker, but I do enjoy making cards.  And these cards ended up looking pretty sweet, don't you think?

 

I discovered - after purchasing lots and lots (and lots) of stamps (and all the supplies that go with them) - that while I love the look of stamped images, I don't so much enjoy stamping and coloring.  In fact, I don't enjoy it even a little bit.  So I pretty much work with whatever papers and embellishments I have on hand - and that seems to work out just fine - especially when the papers are as cute as these!

 

I used papers from MY MINDS EYE's Blackbird Collection.  I only had a few pieces of paper left, one of which included these cute little kids.  So, I did what I always do when I really like an image on a piece of paper - I cut it out and put it on my card.  I included the Boo phrase from MME's Haunted Collection; added some twine, a border punched accent piece, a couple of bats, and a tiny button; and I was done.

 



For my next card, I mostly used papers from ECHO PARK's Apothecary Emporium; however, my tag and October 31st piece are both from MME's Haunted Collection.  I sewed several of my borders, as well as a small square of burlap behind my October 31st tag to add a little visual interest.  Although this card was super quick and easy to make, I love the final result!

 

That's it for me today, but stay tuned - I have more Practical Scrappers projects coming up this week!