Ginger Scraps Essential Basics: Green

The girls over at Ginger Scraps have gone crazy... with COLOR!  Once a quarter the girls put together a HUGE collaboration project to help support Ginger Scraps.  They were running a little behind so they came up with one amazing theme and 2 huge collections- Ginger Scraps Essentials.  The Essentials are 12 different full size kits, each set to a specific color.  I chose to work with the color green.  Here's the page I made:

And here's the green kit:

You can also get the entire collection of colors:

As well as the collection of Colors AND Neutrals:

Vintage Paris Art Studio by Finecrafted Desings

Evelyn of Finecrafted Designs has out done herself, yet again.  I am so fortunate to be a part of this amazing team of talent.  Sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky.  Evelyn's latest stroke of creative genius is Vintage Paris Art Studio, a fun kit that brings you right into the studio with some of the most amazing artists in history.

Here's the page I made:

And here's the kit:

Army Forever by Paula Kesselring

I'm not sure what came over me, but I had an overwhelming urge to write and get this all out on paper.  Paula had just recently created the Army Forever kit and it felt like the perfect design to use for my journaling.

Here's what I came up with:

Here's Paula's kit:

And here's the template set I used:

Gallery Stand Out at Deviant Scrap

I just found out yesterday that my page was picked as a Gallery Stand Out at Deviant Scrap!  I was so excited when I heard the news.  It isn't very often that one of my pages is picked, in fact in all my life I can probably count on one hand the times it's happened.  It doesn't hurt my feelings that my pages aren't picked, after all, I don't scrap or make art for world, I do it for me and if I'm happy with it that's all that matters.  BUT, when I do get picked it makes me feel all warm inside to know that someone out there likes my work as much as me.

Here's the page that was picked:

June Featured Product- DSA

Each month Digi Scrap Addicts features a hand picked product and the Creative Team gets a chance to really make it shine.  For June the featured product is Heather Roselli's kit called "My Wish For You".

Here is the page I made:

And here's a preview of the kit:

Project 365 (week 9)

Wow!  I haven't been doing a very good job of playing catch up with posting my Project 365 pages.  I'll be SO glad when I get caught up LOL

Here's week 9:

Odd People & Borders by Crowabout StudioB

Each time Nancy, of Crowabout StudioB, comes out with a new kit I'm certain she's out done herself and this is as good as it's going to get.  I swear, it's like she's in my head!  I LOVE her funky style.  Her "odd people" are always so much fun and by far my favorites.  Guess that's why Odd People & Borders is my new favorite Crowabout kit.

Here's what I made:

And here's the kit (available at Deviant Scrap):

Street Dollies by Clementine Design

Clementine has the must unique style of all the designers I work with.  She's extremely eclectic yet a little old fashioned and this always shows through in her work.  Clementine's newest kit is called "Street Dollies" and it is a hoot!!  When I set out to work with Clementine's designs my pages just fall into place.  I know I've said this before, but it feels like something is working through me.  It's like my emotions just jump right through my fingers and put the page together all on their own with absolutely no input from my brain.

My page using "Street Dollies" is a little eerie.  I'm not entirely sure what it means.  Nothing is meant by it.  At least not intentionally.  Maybe there is something lurking beneath the surface that hasn't come to pass and I don't know about it.  Not sure really.  I just know that the moment I saw each one of these elements I knew I would be using them.  And very little editing was done to them by me, it was like they came to me just the way they were meant to be used.  Look at the monkey, how he's looking up at the 2 girls, that look on his face, is terror or knowledge?

And here's a little preview of the kit:

A Non-Chat Chat

In Play by Meredith Cardall

I'm a HUGE soccer fan.  I love the Seattle Sounders.  Sadly, I never get to see them play as a result of not having cable tv and no money to actually go to a game.  But I still root for them, and always will.  When it comes to playing soccer... well, I don't do that.  I don't have kids, so obviously, no photos of kids playing soccer.  When Meredith came out with her soccer themed kit "In Play" I thought "oh no! I'm not going to be able to do anything with this kit"  And I mean to tell you, it is chock full of soccer elements.  Come to find out another gal on Meredith's team is in the same boat as me and she was able to make a stunning page with this soccer themed kit and not a single soccer element was used.  Well, I figured that if she could do it then so could I, especially since I love to take a themed kit and make a page completely unrelated to the theme- it shows the versatility of a kit, in my opinion.

So... I literally spent hours making this page.  I finally went to bed with the page unfinished and got up the next morning to put even more time into it.  I don't know how many times I deleted and moved things and in the end the page I ended up with was not even remotely close to the one I started with and eventually discarded. It was a challenge alright, but it was fun.

Here's my page:

And here's the kit:

And I also used a template by Little Green Frog Designs:

Project 365 (week 8)

During week 8 I started getting sick.  It was some sort of crazy stomach bug that was going around.  The really weird part was that Leonard never got it, and I heard similar stories from other people, where they got sick and their kids or significant others did not.  Anyway, some days I felt really good and other days I could barely get out of bed.  The really bad part only lasted about a week, but it lingered for about 3 weeks or more.

Project 365 (week 7)

This is the first week that wasn't published in my other blog, so if you've been waiting for the new stuff, here it is. I was having some fun this week, trying to get some good motion shots, like the one of Kaycee jumping up on the bed.  It was a bit of a challenge and I still didn't get it quite right, but it's something to play with and keep practicing.

Mommy's Little Monster by Unforgettable Moments

I thought this kit was just TOO adorable to pass up.  I love the little monsters with ooglie eyes and the colors are amongst my favorites.  Because my 2 children are black and tan Yorkies I tend to use a lot of neutral colors in my pages, so the colors of this kit alone grabbed my attention.  I usually get a kick out of taking a kit that has a theme (such as this one) and making a page that has nothing to do with the theme, but I knew I had the perfect picture for this one.

Here is what I created:

And here is the kit I used:

And the template:

Project 365 (week 6)

Week 6 was funny.  I realized that what was making this project so easy for me to stick to was that I didn't have to find a subject to take my pictures of each week.  Having a set subject really made it easy for me to do and stick to this project.

I'm still playing catch up in posting my pages.  I'm actually working on my 11th week currently, which isn't really caught up, but I'm getting there.

Camp Out Buffet by The Ginger Scraps Girls

Each month the girls over at Ginger Scraps create a collection of mini kits based on a chosen theme, the mini kits all coordinate and you can choose which of the kits you like, as opposed to buying one huge mega collab kit that  has WAY too much stuff in it.  They call it th "Buffet" because you can pick and choose what you want.I think it's also a great way to try out a new designer you may have been spying on, at just $2 per kit, you can't go wrong.

Here's the page I made using 3 different mini kits from the "Camp Out Buffet":

And here are the 3 kits I chose to work with:

by Pixels by Jen

by Connie Prince 

 by Pretty in Green

Project 365 (week 5)

Week 5 I started feeling like I was taking the same pictures over and over.  I started trying to pose the dogs in different positions and get them into different places to have a change of scenery.  Still enjoying the project and having lots of fun.

Paint with Boldness by Beth Rimmer

I've been participating in a digital Round Robin over at Deviant Scrap.  A Round Robin is journal swap where a group of people make journals and swap them through out the group, each person in the group creates a page in the journal then sends it on to the next person and the last person sends the journal back to it's original owner who has a beautiful book full of hand made pictures to ogle.  The digital version is similar, we each chose a "theme" for our journal and then we got a list of people who are participating.  Twice a month we make a page with the appropriate theme and send it to it's owner, each time moving down the list of participants.  My current partner's theme is "Time Flies" (and boy does it!).  I decided to use Beth Rimmer's new kit "Paint with Boldness" to create my page for Lee.

And here's the kit (available at Deviant Scrap):

Have you heard?

Meredith Cardall Designs is now exclusively available at 9th & Bloom!  Isn't that exciting?  I know it is for me!!  Click on the ad to go directly to her new shop and get your MCD fix.

Project 365 (week 4)

Week 4 was funny because I did a fairly good job staying caught up, even though this was the first week I missed taking a picture, but for whatever reason, I forgot to post it to the blog.  So here it is... Week 4:

His Spirit Moves Me by Finecrafted Designs

A new collection has just been released by Finecrafted Designs.  It's beautiful with a realistic Christian theme.  Not being particularly religious I was concerned that I might have trouble working with this kit, but all of sudden I was struck with inspiration and here is what I created (click the image to go to my gallery):

And here are the items from the collection that I used to make this beautiful page:

Project 365 (week 3)

Week 3 was pretty cool.  I never thought I'd make it that far!  This is where I first started to fall behind.  I did learn 2 lessons in week 3:

1. There are always lessons to be learned from this project
2. always, ALWAYS, always take more than 1 picture

And... here is week 3: