I know I talk about Bad Girls alot on my blog but I just love the kits and all the goodies Wendy finds for us to create with. I am learning so many great techniques from the designers and stretching myself farther than I thought I could artistically. I am seeing a shift in my normally "clean" scrapping to a more shabby chic-ish approach and I love it! I have always been a fan of inking and distressing paper but I never thought to roll it so I gave it a try in the Apron Challenge layout. I think it has just the right amount of embellies without going overboard. I'm especially proud of the leaves I made from ribbon for the flowers. When I got my add on kit called Pixie Playground the one thing that drew me in fast was the ribbon from Artsy-licious and the purple prima flowers. I couldn't wait to put them to use.

This month's challenge was "all about junking your page up as much as possible"

I was in such a scrapping mood I scrapped up 2 more pages with my July kit and the ideas just kept coming. The perfect photo's also help :) We had given a Lily a bath and a friend of mine had a phone conversation earlier that day about how much my daughter's hair has grown. I decided to mark the occasion and what better way then soaped up at bathtime!

And finally A Brother's Love was fun because I love the Say It In Crystals by Prima and as you can see they look great on a masculine layout as well. The photo frames that came with one of the add-on kits are fun and funky, I can't wait to use the angel wings for a layout with my Lily. I have an idea of her in this little ballet tutu I picked up for her but that's for later...

Bad Girls Birthday Scraplift Challenge!

Wow it was FINALLY my turn for the Bad Girls BirthdayScraplift Challenge!! I saw the post last night at 1 a.m. so I couldn't start til the morning but I dreamt about my layout last night...too funny.

I had so much fun with this challenge and the girls in the group are so so talented I was nervous about how my layout would look compared to theirs but I just decided to stay true to myself and my style of scrapping and have fun. I found the cherry paper first and loved the skull and cross bones in the cherries so the other ideas followed. I was up at 7a.m. working away, here it is!

The party is in full swing, where's your party hat?

WooHoo The Bad Girls Birthday bash is in full swing and time is tunning out for you to get here! I've got my party hat and dancin shoes on! There are such fun things happening in this group and you've got to come join us! This weekend is the Crop a Thon and I for one am planning on some serious scrapping. Plus! It's almost my turn to scraplift!!! I can wait. Here's a sneak peek of my special stash I set aside for this project except the giraffe stamp and litle one stamp. They

aren't bad enough for this layout! I know I will hardly be able to sleep tonight!

A Royal Success!!

We celebrated my daughter's 1st birthday toady with a little Princess Party at a park near our home. It was a small party with a few of our close friends and Lily's Nana Virginia and Aunt Melissa. We had a really great time but I missed my parents so much and wish they could have been there. We are all meeting in Hawaii for vacation in August and plan on celebrating as a family then but still it's harder when these family events come along and thoise you love most can't be there. I also wish my best friends Tami and Suzanne could have joined us as well. We had good food, sandwhiches prepared by Nana Virginia and cake from Angel Made Bakery. We gave Lily her own little cupcake and she went to town.

She had a purple butterfly ring that she licked the frosting off of first.

Then she really started to shovel the frosting in her mouth

She pretty much finished off the entire cupcake in minutes.

The kids played at the park and Lily walked all over in her walker and enjoyed watching the other kids. When it came time to open gifts, she really cleaned up with lots of toys and books and alot of Elmo themed stuff. It was a great day.

I Just Love this Dawn Gal...

Ok I am such a fan of this Stampin Up Rep. Bless her heart for creating these awsome tutorials that you can watch and teaching us all how to make amazing and funcards. This is a card I did for a fun swap called an envelope card. Check it out here and make your own!http://dawnsstampingthoughts.typepad.com/dawns_stamping_thoughts/2008/03/envelope-card-v.html

Here's one I did with a beach theme...

A peek inside

And...filled with some goodies for my swap partner

Grrr, I hate it when things just don't go my way!

I have no one to blame but myself really but I placed my order for supplies from CTMH for this Friday's layout workshop last Thursday and nothing has even shipped yet. Apparently with the Stampaganza promotion they were flooded with orders up until the last day of June and they just prcessed orders placed on the 30th today. Luckily the girls are understanding and willing to reschedule to next Friday eve. Still irritates me but I'll get over it.

On another note, an altered container I made may be published in an online craft mag. I will keep you all posted as I am uber excited! I also submitted my 2 Sweet page to Creating Keepsakes magazine for their cool technique editorial. I thought my glitter technique on the black and white photo to add a touch of color was pretty cutting edge.

S0 tonight I am working on a 12x12 layout for my friend Elise. I snapped a few pics of our kids playing together awhile back and since she's moving away soon I wanted to add a creation of mine to Sam's scrapbook. Man that kid is cute! I am so into scrapping girlie girl right now I am hitting a slight creative block with a more masculine page. He just turned 1 and thank goodness I crafted his birthday card(pictured below) some time ago. I'll post my layout later when I finish.
I don't know why but the last couple of days I just haven't felt like scrappin. Of course I am sure that feeling will change when I get my July bad girls Kit with all the fab goodies she's got in store for us this month.
I also saw some stinkin cute Making Memories stamps on Overstock.com I want. Right now shipping is only 2.95! So cool. They are these adoarble owls. I am really into the owl thing.

How do you scrap with an 11 mos old at your feet?

Oh that one's easy! Fill two containers with embellishments and just shake, shake, shake... I worked on the DDD in Bad Girls today and it really was a challenge. You had to use only one product once. This is what I came up with using Heidi Swapp flowers, prima flowers, making memories brad, doodlebug glitter words...you get the idea. Only problem was I am out of ink for my photo printer so I had to use a photo I had printed awhile ago. I like how it turned out. I like the black in the layout.

So this is good for the contest but to me it just looked unfinished and I would seriously go to bed tonight working in my head what else needed to be changed or added. Well I just couldn't do that! So here is Always my Baby revisted...

A new card technique I learned

I finally had the time to do the two weekly challenges in CMM's (card makin mamas) on CafeMom. The first was a pop up card that had to be a summer theme. I just got this stamp set as part of my free stamp from the Stampaganza promotion. I really like the way it turned out.

The second card was a sketch challenge also on CMM's. I decided to use my cuttlebug and colorbox ink to ink over the embossed images. I also used dimensional elements chipboard for the scalloped circles on the card and used brads to adhear the flowers to the chipboard.

Scrappy Saturday, my favorite day of the week!

I hope you all had a great 4th! The Smith family enjoyed the 2nd Annual Charbonnet-Love BBQ in Playa Del Rey. Alot changes in a year, I was still pregnant with Lily at last year's BBQ and anticipating her arrival. Here's a few shots of the fam and cute little Lily stealing the show...

Mommy and Me

Cutie Pie!

This Friday is my workshop and I have been designing this month's project, a two page layout with Blue Ribbon Paper. I scraplifted a layout idea from the cover of Scrapbooks Etc. one of my favorite magazines. Here's a sneak peek

Happy Independance Day!

Happy 4th to everyone. I hope you are all out enjoying your day with your families and BBQ'in!We are relaxing here at home before we head out to a BBQ with our good friends Will and Dominique. We'll be enjoying Will's expert BBQ'in and a great view of the fireworks show in Marina Del Rey. It's Lily's first 4th and of course mommy got her a cute outfit to wear. I even found a really cute pait of baby flip flops at Target, too cute! Now if she only would have smiled for mommy it would have been picture perfect. Her 1st birthday is fast approaching and she really is getting more independant. She likes to feed herself off our plates and snack her stars and wagon wheels. She has 7 teeth now and I think # 8 is coming since last night she kept us up from 2-4am. She wasn't cranky, she just wanted to play...

As for scrapping, I have been pretty busy this week. I got my add-on kit ordered from Bad Girls and can't wait to play with it. They usually ship between the 10th and 15th and since I already subscribe to the monthly kits, I am really going to have lots and lots of goodies to enjoy.

This week I completed a layout for June's Apron Challenge. Apron challenge? What's that? (you say) It's a great contest Wendy has in Bad Girls where the winner gets a Bad Girls Swarovski embellished Apron to scrap it up in. I would just DIE to get one :)

This layout is very personal to me because I became overweight at the age of 20 when I had a terrible relationship that was abusive mentally and physically. I never had a weight issue and before we met I weighed a healthy 135. I had so much self confidence at that age but I had just moved to the city with him where I had no friends or family. Unfortunately I learned alot of life lessons fast. After gaining weight from being unhappy and dealing with the stress of his abuse and cheating I finally broke free from him and moved on but the weight stayed with me. Over the years I have yo-yo'd with my weight and diets and never really had the courage or determination to conquer my biggest personal issue with my weight. With the love of my husband and his constant support and encouragement and help in facing my life issues head on and taking control, I had an Ah Ha moment so to speak at the end of May. I realized that the young girl I once was is no longer who I am today. I finally see that I am in control of me and no one else. I was ready to take Shemaine back from Dana (the ex) and be happy in everything I do. So I started walking and going to the gym, eating healthier and I joined a weight loss support group on my favorite mom site Cafe Mom. Well I've lost 16 pounds so far and for the first time in my life I see the goal I have for myself in front of me and know it's totally within my reach. I wanted to scrap this feeling and this time of self discovery and motivation as my submission to the challenge. So here it is...

A close up of the dragon fly I made from cut out images on cardstock

Here I used paint by Making Memories and painted on a paper towel and cut it 8x8 to use as cardstock. On the left side of the layout I painted a piece of paper towel and wrapped it around an acrylic block and stamped on the cardstock using the design of the paper towel. I also used the paint to ink the outter edges of the cardstock and the chipboard.

I am pleased with the funkyness of the layout and chose to black and white the photos for contrast. I had alot of fun with this.