Have you checked out Blitsy yet?

Blitsy is a new site that offers weekly sales where the items are available up to 7 days, unless they run out, or Blitsy, prior to the 7 days.  Their goal is to offer the latest trands in crafting. 

To start, Blitsy will have a strong emphasis on scrapbooking and paper crafts supplies.  Eventually, they will offer a wide array of general crafting items.  New offers are posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 

Membership is free - just join with your email.  If you make a purchase, help me out by doing so from the link here in my blog, which acts as a referral.  When you "join", you will have the opportunity to refer friends via a blog, email, or Facebook also.  We can all help each other out by references to the website, and supporting our shopping habits with extra savings!

Check out Blitsy today!  It's Monday so that means new products are offered.  If you don't need anything that is offered today, look again on Wednesday and Friday! 

Quick Thank You cards

I haven't been able to spend any time in my scrap room this summer, and I really miss it!  Last week, I was finally able to grab a few hours to come up with a thank you card design and mass produce.  It felt great!  I'm not sure if it felt so great just because I got to play with paper for a few hours, or due to the guilt I had because I hadn't been able to make the thank you cards for my daughter to write and send to friends and family for their generosity following her 8th grade graduation!

My inspiration for this simple Thank You card came from this card on LeeAnn Greff's blog.  Never would I have thought to use a circle punch backwards to make the "circle drops", but I think it's just cute!  I used solid cardstock, Stampin' Up Pixie Pink, embossed and sponged, DSP with graduation caps and diplomas, and DSP made with our Junior High name and mascot from http://www.laserlinecuts.com/.  The school DSP is raised with adhesive squares to give it a bit more pop.  I sponged both DSPs with gray.  The blue cardstock is from Archivers (I can't remember the name).  It matches our school colors the best!  Finished the thank you's with Doodle Twine, and self stick gems, and a little more Pixie Pink on the inside.  Finished off Junior High now too . . . can't believe both of our kids are now in high school!  It's bittersweet ;)

Hoping your summer is great!                                                                      
Kim

All About Disney with K. Andrews

On the heels of the Disney Pixar Blog Hop, I can't help but post my layouts on the Getting Cricky Super Sunday Challenge, All About Disney.

If you're not already a following of K Andrews, check out her blog, and I'm sure you'll decide to.  So much inspiration, so much fun, and lots of helpful tips constantly! 

And thanks to all of you who left me kind words during the hop.  I love hearing from you.  It makes it worth posting the layouts, for sure :)

Have a great week everyone,
Kim

Disney Pixar Time Again!

Welcome to Day 2 of the best hop on the web for Disney Pixar projects! I'm very thankful to have been invited again! 

If you arrived here from Ellen, you're on the right path.  If not, visit Shawn to start at the beginning of today's hop.  If you had a chance to browse Day 1 projects, you saw a great variety.  If you missed Day 1, no worries.  After browsing today's line-up, just go back to Shawn's blog and you can still link to the Day 1 crafters. 

As you hop, make sure to watch for the details on the blog candy.  Marlo from ContainYa Crafts has donated a GRAND PRIZE of  a Scrap'N Easel-Ette! 

If you know me, you know I love to scrap our Disney vacations! Come back another time to check out the many Disney layouts I've posted, a lot of them for previous hops!  I hope you enjoy today's new layouts . . .   

Is it clear that this page is a recreation of Donald's beach wear? Love the bow tie!  All of my layouts are 12x12, and all cardstock is from Stampin' Up!

The waves are from Life's a Beach but all other cuts are from Mickey and Friends.

My "Full of Character" page is simply a frame made of DSP by cutting a square out of the center.  We were having fun with the many character hats for sale at World of Disney.  This makes for a quick and simple page, even with a layered and welded title (from Mickey Font). 

This paper showing Spaceship Earth is just too pretty to cover up.  I did trim it up and attach it to cardstock.  "Worlds of fun" is  covered in Glossy Accents but it's hard to see the dimension from the picture.

Another Epcot page covers a dinner at Le Cellier from the Canada pavillion.  If you haven't tried Le Cellier, we give it thumbs up!  The leaf was cut using SCAL, the journal and EPCOT boxes from Storybook, and O Canada is the Winter Woodlands font.  Red and yellow stickles galore . . .

Who doesn't totally love Mater?  He is just too cute!  All of the cuts are from the Disney Cars cart.  I feel like this page needs something in the lower right corner.  If you have a suggetion, let me know!  Can't stop with the red stickles :)

Last layout for today's hop is a one-pager with Captain Jack Sparrow!  This DSP came with the screen printed black ship, so it didn't need much.  The skull and swords is a die cut I purchased from Paper Wizard, which was fairly simple to assemble. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Next in the hop is Bobbi Jo! Here's the complete line up too.

Shawn http://craftychicsblog.blogspot.com/
Ellen  http://cardmonkey-business.blogspot.com/
Kim http://uscrap2.blogspot.com/
Bobbi Jo http://sweetsassydiva-gspot.blogspot.com/
Jenny http://jennyplace26.blogspot.com/
Jessica http://thecreativestamperspot.blogspot.com/
Jenny http://www.crazyaboutcricut.blogspot.com/
Tami http://www.scrappinrabbitdesigns.blogspot.com/
Kathy http://kathyand3kids.blogspot.com/
Kristal http://www.gettingcricky.com/

It's Almost Blog Hop Time Again!

None other than the Original Disney Pixar Blog Hop, of course!  Be sure to join us for two days next Saturday and Sunday.  You can expect to get some great ideas for your Disney projects, in addition to lots of great blog candy offers. 

The hop will begin next Saturday morning with one of my all-time favorite Disney scrappers, Shawn from http://craftychicsblog.blogspot.com/.  My projects will be in the hop on Sunday, so spread the word and please stop in!

Masquerade Invitations

I've been working on these invitations for weeks now, and I'm excited they are finished.  You're seeing only a portion of the invitations - I made 100 in total.  The invitations are for my DD's 8th grade graduation dinner & dance.  I'm so thankful for the 11 very helpful moms/volunteers helping me organize everything!  

I used the Chic and Scary cartridge and Cricut Craft Room.  A few quick steps in CCR to copy the mask image, flip it, hide contour (eyes), and weld the two masks to make the folded invitations. I played with the size several times to make sure I could get 4 complete invitations on every 12x12 sheet of card stock, which is textured black Bazzill. I used black stickles around the eyes, and a glue gun for all of the feathers.

I then reduced the size of a single mask, hid the eyes again, and cut 100 masks on white, which are the RSVPs.  They are stuck inside with a single glue dot, because I'm not using envelopes.  Dinner and dance details are printed on self-adhesive vellum, under the RSVP cards.

One more strip of self adhesive vellum on the back of the invitation reads "Choose a mask and wear it well, your true identity no one can tell". 

The dinner and dance is at the end of May, so I'm still working on decorations, the dessert buffet, centerpieces, etc.  If you have any ideas or Masquerade party tips, please let me know!

Basketball Means Cheerleading Season

Just starting on scrapbooking our daughter's 8th grade cheer squad season, which came to an end last weekend.  Our cheer-io enjoyed the season, even as busy as it was being on both the cheer and dance teams at school, as well as her competitive dance team outside of school, and school volleyball, which is still going on.  Crazy busy, but she seems to handle it much better than we do! 

This is the first of several cheer and dance layouts yet to come.  I'm hoping soon too, because I have soooo much scrapping to do. 

This a 12x12 layout with mostly Stampin' Up! products (my favorite).  Go, Fight, Win is from All Sports cartridge, the words sweet and feisty are from Forever Young.     

Love Stickles, and really have to force myself not to over use them! 

As a cheerleader would do, shout it out if you have a comment! 

Thanks for stopping by, Kim 

More high school football layouts, 12 x 12

Play hard or go home . . .

Another  layout from a Sept. 2011 game. The big "W", as well as the orange stripe on the helmet, is flocked.  I'm thrilled with the way the helmet turned out.  I especially love the air vents/eyelets.  Although I admit I spent way too much time on the silly thing! It's hard to tell by the photo of the dark green DSP, but you may notice I stickled the words Sophomore, play, and or go home.  Sometimes the urge to bling it up is just impossible to resist, even  for a football scrapbook!

I'm trying to mix in more colors, so every layout I create of our DS during his four years of high school football and baseball isn't just orange and black!

Are You Ready for Some Football? 

And one more football layout that I was able to complete at January 2012 Winter Craft Camp.  The cardstock is from DCWV Shimmer stack, and SU white.  Obviously, I love Varsity Letter, and use it a lot!  I cut the goal post from Paper Dolls. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope you can come back soon! 

Football Layouts, 12 x 12

What a fantastic WCC (Winter Craft Camp) weekend with a great group of ladies, packed full of laughs and scrapping!  I created only about 1/2 of the layouts I had hoped to, because I must be the world's slowest scrapper.  I'd like to give the excuse that I do too much talking and laughing, but when I'm by myself scrapping at home, I'm still slow! 

Football was the primary focus this time . . . layouts from our son's past 2 seasons as a high school freshman and sophomore. As always, I love to hear from you so share your comments or suggestions! 

Layout 1

"Freshman" die cut is a  purchase from Paper Wizard.  The 4" football is from Sports Mania.  I used a heavily textured paper, then Karen Foster floss to stitch.

The "Determination/Grit" page is a little hard to see because the DSP is fairly dark.   



Layout 2

I think this layout may be my favorite football layout ever!  I used the same style of football as in Layout 1, same textured paper, and stitched it in the center. Numbers 2011 are Thickers. 

The name is the narrow font cut from Cricut Lite Varsity Letter, which (I think) is a must have cartridge if you scrap sports!

The lineman is cut from Sports Mania, but I made of few of my own changes to the helmet, to make it look like ours, and also added numbers to the shoulders of his jersey.  You may notice the different texture with his uniform -- I intentionally used both textured and smooth paper to differentiate the black colors. 

"Beware" is cut from Happy Hauntings, then I used orange Stickles in the center.  

The black word "Panthers" is also from Varsity Letter cartridge, the standard font.  The paw is from Cricut Lite Zoo Day (which I HAD to have s I could cut Panther paws!).  



Baby Boy card

I'm loving this baby card I made tonight.  My inspiration came from Pat's Scraps, and her cute card from a few weeks ago.  The card is 5 x 6.  The base is  Stampin Up! crumb cake, with layers of whisper white, certainly celery, and apricot appeal.  The DSP on the stork is also from SU but the other two DSPs are from Archiver's (polka dots and bundle of joy background).  Next time I'm close to an Archiver's, I'm hoping to get more.  Love this DSP, especially the tan/white polka dot --The texture on it is amazing.  I'm using twine whenever possible right now, and I really like using it as an alternative to ribbon (although I love ribbon, too).  The bottom of the card is punched with a MS border punch. 

For the inside, I used more light blue and white twine and just had to use more of the polka dot DSP :)  Both stamps are from Stampin' Up!

Hope you enjoy this card.  Thanks for stopping in again.  I'm so looking forward to the upcoming weekend as it's our annual Winter Craft Camp weekend.  About 20 of us will be at a hotel from 10 AM Friday morning until Sunday afternoon.  Lots of scrapping, and even more laughing -- it's such a great thing!

16 and Driving

Wow!  Our babies do grow up so fast.  DS got his driver's license in December, but it just doesn't seem possible.  I'm a bag of nerves every time he leaves home, so looking forward to the day when I don't worry quite as much.

It was fun creating a new driver's license layout, although the pictures taken at the driver's facility are "gone".  They were on my sons's phone.  He emailed them to me, then deleted them from his phone, and I must have accidentally deleted them from my email.  Ugh.  Not happy with myself over this, so I focused on his new truck for the layout instead.

The road and street signs are from the Disney Cars cartridge.  The key and 'clicker' are from Locker Talk.  The license plate frame is from Mickey and Friends, the state cut is from 50 States, and
'Illinois' is welded from Lyrical Letters. DSP and cardstock are Stampin' Up!. 

This layout was also my entry for the next round on the Practical Scrapper challenge, but I didn't make the last cut from 80 layouts down to 25 :(.   Oh well, no free prizes for me this time, but it motivated me to get to work in my scrap room, which is good!  Thanks to everyone who voted for me! 

Have a great weekend!  I'm excited for next Friday as Winter Craft Camp starts at 10:00 AM through noon on Sunday!  Girls' weekend away is always fun!

I could use your vote, please!

Hi all. This is a shout out asking for your vote!  I just need 3 minutes, promise.

I entered a layout contest offered by PracticalScrappers.com. The only requirement was the layout had to be from the last 2 months. There were 120 entries originally, now down to70. This week, they are posting 70 remaining layouts, in groups of 10 per day.

I entered my 2-page layout on Disney "transportation". My layout will be posted either tomorrow or Thursday, along with 9 others, but we are in competition with all 70. Please take just a couple of minutes to vote for me! You can only vote 1 time, and have until midnight to vote.

You do not have to log in to anything or "join" to vote. Just go to the site, scroll down to the title "Layout Contest: Group 6" (or Group 7), depending on the day. A box with scrappers' names will be below the pictures of the 10 layouts -- all you have to do is click in the box next to my name (Kim Brownfield), and any others you want to vote for, then click vote.

This Saturday, 25 scrappers with the highest votes will move to the next round, and have to submit a new layout to stay in the contest.

Click here for the website: Practical Scrappers  

Thanks, in advance, to everyone, and especially to all of the fantastic designers at Practical Scrappers for the fantastic opportunity!

Kim

Finally posting Christmas projects

Let's call it a combination of things being crazy around here, and me being a bit lazy. I know we've all moved on from Christmas, which now seems like it was months ago, and I'm finally posting my projects.  I firmly believe "better late than never".  Ha

I finished composition notebooks and cards for my daughter's 8th grade teachers just in time.  It was late into the night (morning) on the last day of school before break, but they were done!  Bundled each set of cards to match the composition notebook made for each particular teacher and got them all wrapped in tissue and bagged when I remembered I completely forgot to take pictures.  Ugh, it was so late.  I let it go, and now, of course, I'm regretting it.  *sigh*

This is a notebook I made a few days earlier.  I do really like this one, made for the owner of the dance studio my DD does competitive dance for.  She loves purple, and the name of the studio is Water Street.  

Do you recognize the new Stampin' Up! in color?  It's Wisteria Wonder.  Not a color I expected to really like, but I LOVE it!

The welded shadow and ribbon is SU certainly celery.  Here's a closer look at the letters where I used Diamond Stickles.  

Stocking Gift Card Holders

No way to resist the new stocking die from the Stampin' Up! Holiday Mini catalog. 

The size is perfect for a gift card inside. It's a tight fit, so I used sticky strip on the sides.  Everything is from Stampin' Up!  - the button, twine, vintage lace, cardstock, stamp, ink, jingle bells - except for the DSP.  The mini jingle bells are so cute, but it was an exercise in patience to tie them to the ends of the twine! 

There are several blogs showing a baby bootie and witch's boot made from the stocking die also.  They are incredibly cute.  I'll be making some baby bootie cards soon!  

Gift Tags

Instead of baking for our church's annual  Cookie Walk, I made gift tags this time.  I packaged 12 tags, 6 each of two different designs, in a bag with a topper, and made the topper so it could be used as a gift card holder.  I did 4 different tag designs, as I didn't want to go too crazy since I was in "mass production" mode.    

Once I finished the packaging, I think I liked my toppers better than the tags!  All cardstock and stamps used for the tags are from SU.  The holly leaf punch shown on the always artichoke cardstock to the left is from Martha Stewart.  I can't resist anything with a holly theme.  Always Artichoke and Bravo Burgundy are so festive together.  The tags to the left are my favorite!

The ornament tags to the right are in Always Artichoke and Riding Hood Red.  Sorry the photo isn't better - the glare from the bag is bad. 

And I couldn't resist making traditional snowman tags. Night of Navy and Bashful Blue cardstock (although it looks like white in the picture), watercolors for his scarf and nose, finished with ribbon or twine.