CTMH January Blog Hop

Happy New Year!  What amazing things do you think are in store for you in 2011?  I can hardly wait to find out what God has planned for me.
Welcome to the first SOTM Blog Hop for this new year.  If you arrived from Lori's blog, then you are on the right path.  Is this your first time hopping with us?  It's super easy.  At the end of each blog post, you'll find a link to click on to hop you to the next one.  When you get back here, you've hit them all.
The stamp-of-the-month this month is just gorgeous, full of beautiful images like a bird, a butterfly and a dress form created out of wonderfully inspiring words.  I was so excited when my new product arrived that I had to work with it for this card.  I'm sure you'll see lots of artwork on the hop made with the new Wings paper.  It's stunning!

Here is my card:

I used a clear card as my base. Then added the Wings paper, Black Mini-Medleys and the Wings Level 2 Assortment (that fabulous black ribbon), all of which are new products available this month!  I stamped the butterfly in Vineyard Berry on the Colonial White piece and then on another piece so I could cut it out and pop its wings, using the Rock 'n' Roll technique in Black on the top one.  Look closely at those fabulous words.

Here is a photo of the inside:

I again stamped the butterfly rockin' and rollin', but in second generation.  I don't have a close up of the words there, but click on the image and you can see it bigger. All the papers except the inside patten were ink distressed with Black.

I hope you like it as much as I do!  And if you are a customer of mine, or don't have your own consultant, email me to find out how you can get these products and unlock some more amazing deals this month!

Now it's time for you to hop on over to Nancy's blog and see what wonderful things she's made.  Happy Creating!

I'm Giving Away Blog Candy!

Merry Christmas everyone!  I know I'm a few days late, but I still wanted to say it.  I hope you had a blessed Christmas spent with family and friends.  We were able to spend Christmas Day with my husband's mom and sister and her family for the very first time!  It was so nice, extra special.
Anyway, I've finally decided on my blog candy.  I've now reached 104 followers!  Wow, I can hardly believe it. So fun!
Here is what one lucky follower will receive:

This blog candy includes ten, yes 10, cards made by me.  Some of them are from past Workshops-on-the-Go so they may seem familiar.

How do you win?  Well, you get one chance just for being a follower.  Post a comment and you'll get another chance.  Share my blog candy on your blog and then let me know and you'll get another chance!

I'll draw a winner one week from today, Wednesday, January 5.

Happy Creating!

Studio J: Don't have it? Studio J it!

There are so many things happening at my house right now, in fact it's felt like that for a few months!  I'm so looking forward to the Christmas holidays, which have officially started now that my kids are off school.  The holidays mean I can take a bit of a breather.  We can have pajama days here at home, take our time in the morning, and there aren't a million things pulling me in all sorts of directions.
Another thing I love about this time is spending time with family.  For the first time we will be able to celebrate Christmas with my husband's family!  They just recently moved to our province, only an hour and a half away.  My family (brother and his family, sister, mom and dad) have always been close.  We get together a lot.
Here is a layout I did of one of those times.  I think it was just a normal Sunday afternoon.  I was staying with my parents because my hubby was in Central America.  (This is before I started going along.)  Since I was there, my brother and his family came for the afternoon.  That almost bald guy is my twin brother.  Okay, he just shaves his head.  ;)  You can click on the photo to see it larger.

This layout is an example of one of the perks to using Studio J.  The paper kit I used is called Zipidee.  I don't own any of the classic Level 2 kit, never have.  But now I have a layout made with it.  I think the colours on this page work perfectly with my photos.  I didn't add much to the page, other than colourize the suggested embellishments.  This one was a pretty quick layout.  

I love scrapbooking the unique relationship my kids have with their Uncle Tony.  He's a pretty crazy guy and did just about anything to get a grin from Nathaniel here, or at least to keep him riveted to his face.

So, what special relationship do you love to celebrate in your layouts?  I'd love to hear about it.

Happy Creating!  (And stay tuned for some blog candy!  I promise it is coming.)

CTMH: Any-Purpose Club Layout

I've been meaning to post this layout for a couple weeks.  I decided to do a fairly generic theme so my club members could use it for just about anything.  And since paper flowers are so much fun to make, we did that as well. (Just click on the photo to see it larger.)

This is one of the layouts from our new How-To book, Magic, although I chose to leave the interactive portion out of this one.  I am really trying hard to use up older paper, so we created this layout with Grace.  I love the earthy tones in it.  We also used Picture Perfect for the stamped titles and Comments for the journaling lines.  The following photos are close-ups of the embellishment clusters and you can see where we inked and scored the Cocoa cardstock at every 1/2 inch.  You'll also notice that we edged everything, except the darker patterned paper, with a Direct-to-Paper technique in Cocoa ink.  Just brush your ink pad along the edges of the paper.

You may notice that my paper flowers don't look like the ones you're used to seeing.  I chose to only use 3 or 4 layers (cut with my NEW Nestibilities!).  I didn't want them to be too bulky since these pages will be going into albums.

For my club members who are using this post to help them create this layout, here is a photo of what each flower needs from your little embellishment package.

I just realized that the little gold brad sitting on top of the larger blue/yellow scallops is supposed to go with the smaller set!  Sorry about that.

Here are a couple links to YouTube videos so you'll know how to create the flowers. 

This one is for the larger blue/yellow one with the button on top.  You can skip the cutting part, just jump to the section where she starts scrunching them all up.  This one is for the other two flowers.  Again, just skip to where they are scrunched.  We sprayed them with a tiny bit of water to make them harder when they're dry.

As for the Bitty Sparkles, tiny Pearl Opaques, and brads I included in your package, it's up to you where you'd like to put them.  The photos above show you how I used them.

Have fun and email or phone me if you have any questions.
Happy Creating!

Guatemala: Stunning!

This country was just gorgeous!  I don't know what your thoughts are on how our world came to be, but I believe that God created it with his words.  Driving through this country made me think that God really had some fun in Guatemala.  He took His great fingers and pulled up the earth here, molded it there, and pushed down deep with the heel of His hand in that place.  And all the while, He was thinking about how we humans would work with what He'd done.
Here are a couple photos I took:

This one was taken from our hotel window.

This is Antigua.

The next couple photos I found online.  I tried so hard to get a photo of the mountains and valleys as we drove up the volcano on two of our days, but I always missed the view or the photos were blurry.  The buses never stopped for photo-ops.

This photo is exactly what we saw on our drives.  Imagine that the road is just leveling out after a steep descent.

I also took some fun photos in Antigua, along with a few more of that amazing cross.  Antigua is a historical site, so the people who live there are not allowed to build anything over the ruins there.  They're beautiful!

Yes, that is the peak of the volcano above the cloud.

Guatemala is truly a beautiful country and I feel so blessed to have been able to work there, helping their people.  God is giving me His eyes and heart for the people of Central America.  My thoughts and feelings stayed in Guatemala for a number of days after we got back home.  It was hard to get back into the swing of daily life here, when all I could think about was their stories and faces.  My heart breaks for the pain and loss they experience and the hardships they deal with on a daily basis.  I pray, as we prepare to go back to El Salvador in March, that God will continue to show me His people through His eyes and with His heart.  I know it breaks, too, when He sees what His beloved creations go through, in Central America, in North America and all over the globe.  May Jesus' love heal wounds, restore relationships, and bring peace all around the world.
Okay, I'd better stop.  I'm tearing up again!
Blessings to you, my blog readers and Happy Creating!