Challenges Challenges Challenges

The new Gutter Girlz challenge is up! Below is my take on it. The prompts this time are  
THE PROMPT:
I'm Still Sugar and Spice
THE SONG:
One of the Boys by Katy Perry
PRODUCT/TECHNIQUE:
Ribbon/Bows AND Dirty Socks

On my lo you might notice those cool flowers. Well I made them. Fellow DT member Carole Stirrat over at Scraptivity showed us this fantastic tutorial which you can see right HERE. I made a couple of minor changes to mine like using Glimmer Mist instead of dye to color them and Tim Holtz Alcohol Inks to color the pearls. I'd been wanting to make these for a while and Carole's tutorial pushed me to try.

 

I really love how they turned out! So girlie and perfect for my Sugar & Spice lo.

I've done a couple of lo's for Tally Idol. The first challenge was to use stars, chipboard, 2 different pp's & the word Climb in the title as the challenge was based on Miley Cyrus's song The Climb.

 

Last weeks challenge was about Idols! Scrap someone who's your idol. I immediately thought of my girl crushes on Gwen Stefani and Kat Von D. Kat's show starts back up this week too!!! Hope Aubrey is G-O-N-E!!! Ok anyway. We were also suppose to use paint and journaling and I think that's it. I've been holding on to these Marah Johnson Tattoo & Rock Star papers and I think they made the perfect lo

 

I've been participating in Happy Mail and since I got sick last month I was a little behind in my mailing but finally got a couple of things sent. First I made this box for one girl

 

And then I painted on this record for the Happy Mail Queen herself. Hope she likes it. It's a little quirky but I think she likes quirky.

 

I finally finished my rainbow lo for my BPS class. It ended at the end of January and I'm on week 3 still. 

Story of my life!

 

Then at Scrapperie I'm the team leader for the Book of Me group and we scrapped about our favorite beverage. I noticed all these Starbucks cups on my floorboard after a weekend spent in Tulsa and knew the pic would be good for an upcoming lo and I was right. Good thing there isn't a Starbucks in Smallville here.

 

I went to a fun weekend crop at my lss a couple of weekends ago and that was a great time. A cold one but still fun. I got 4 lo's done which was amazing. The Starbucks and Rainbow lo's were 2 of them. You'll have to wait to see the others.  I've been doing some art journaling as well. Finally caught up on posting my 52 Self Portraits on my  tumblog and am working on catching up on P365. The pics are taken but I forget to upload sometimes. Loving my P365 app because it helps keep me on track. That's it for today. Just trying to keep being creative every day. I'm lucky that I have a life that allows for such things. If only it also allowed for a cleaner house. You know, one with a maid that's name isn't Susan!

Playing Catch Up

Do you always feel like you are trying to 'catch up' with your to do list? I do. And the fact that I'm lazy doesn't help nor does the medicine coma I'm in today. I think I'll have to have a little nap before anything REALLY gets accomplished today. Anyone cooking Thanksgiving dinner? I am for Nana and a friend and I. So since I've got lots to do and a nap to attend to I'll just show you a few lo's that I've done this month.

Here is last months and the current Gutter Girlz challenge. Pop over there and check out the challenge and what the other girls did. Do the challenge and post your lo to the thread and you could win a $10 Tallyscrapper Gift Certificate.




These next 3 I did with this months Tallyscrapper kit. It's seriously gorgeous! I've got another lo from this kit that I'll post later and I still have tons of stuff left to do some more lo's! These pics are all from my trip to California too.






These next 2 are from a couple of challenges over at Tally's.

Vacation Scrapping

Yes I am on vacation in sunny California! Sacramento to be exact. Came out for scrapbook expo to see these girls:


Every year we meet up at Kary's house for Scrapbook Expo for shopping and scrapping and fun times are had by all. I've managed to do a few lo's while here, mostly with this months Tallyscrappers Kit. Add a few papers and you can do tons of stuff with the kit. I also used the kit to do my assignments for A Scrappy Design. She makes adorable journaling tags and buttons and diecuts so go check her out.








Yesterday Kary and I had some adult fun times at the pumpkin patch that is right around the corner from her house:





So today Kary, her boys and I are off to see our friend Leeann up by Calistoga and Napa so I should have some fun pics on Sunday or Monday. And hopefully some more lo's as well. In the meantime here is a lo I did last night of a pic of Kary and I from my trip in February.



Have a great weekend!

Scrappiness Ahead

I'm a bad blogger. I THINK about blogging but then I go and do something else. This computer is so freeeeeaaaaakkkkkking slow that it takes forever just to get thru my emails and message boards and then the last thing I want to do is blog. But alas, the situation will be taken care of in the next month or so because a new computer is in my near future! Aja always says that I hide my lo's from her and since she is all the way in Kentucky now I thought I'd just post all the ones I've done in the past couple of weeks.

I found these pics of when my sister and I went up to KC to World's of Fun with my KC friends about a year after I had moved away. Makes me want to go ride a roller coaster BAD!

Here is my friend Kary & I in Old Sac Town last February. Can't wait to see her again in October! This was for the last Design Experiment Challenge Blog.

I love this picture of my sister. We were in Chicago on vacation during spring break in March 1997. This was almost a year before she passed away. This is also my lo for lo tag over @ Scrapperie that is still going on. Shhhh....

This is for the LO tag that is still going on over at Tallyscrappers. It's a lift off one of Michelle Clements fabulous lo's. Oh how I love her style. A good memory to scrap as well.

My Kitty Autumn that passed in April. Oh how I miss her. Leftovers from my July Scrapperie kit.

My friend Christy and I at her house on Christmas night. We are all about the crazy hat pics. Wait until you see 4th of July!

This was for a challenge where I had to use a circle for my lo and friendship was the topic. Love me some Tally girls!

I've been leading the journaling challenges this past month over at Scrapperie and I wanted to do some art journaling about my fears. Putting them down on paper and getting them out of my head can really be helpful to me. It also helps me see how unwarranted they are. I know I'll always do what I need to do to survive now. I also know I won't have to just survive because now I'm in recovery.

Brandy at Tally's challenged me to do an 8 1/2 x 11 lo. NOT my usual size but I do have a few. Also to use black and no flowers. I accidentally got some flowers in there anyway. I wasn't thinking that pattern was flowers until I was all done. lol Hambly LOVES to lay at my feet when I scrap and always has to be touching one of them. He also gets stepped on a lot because I forget he is there.

This is the current Gutter Girlz challenge. And where was I with this large purple penis on my head you say? Well, I was at the Texas Tally Rally playing Dick Head Hoopla of course! Go see the other girls lo's at Gutter Girlz Challenge Blog


So that's it for now. I've got a couple of others from this weekend but they need to be edited still. I'm off to clean the scrap table and get to work. Hope you all have a great Sunday!

Inspiring Stories

Recently I spent some time in Austin, Texas for a little scrappy retreat with some fellow Tallyscrappers. I met 28 other fabulous women. I got to know some better than others and am still learning lots about most! When I clicked on today's Gutter Girlz post I was excited to learn more about Staci Compher. She sat at the table behind me & was a total doll but I had NO IDEA what an amazing journey she has been thru. I knew she was well published & that her lo's rawked (so it's only natural that she did too!) but when I read today's interview I was even more amazed. It also just gave me a totally different glimpse into my own mother for Staci's story & my mom's had some similiar situations happen. But you won't read about it here. You can, however, read about it HERE @ the Gutter Girlz Blog.

I've got pics to edit from my trip today & hope to be back with some for you all to see tomorrow.
Ciao!

Rosette Tutorial

So I did this lo a few months ago and have had a lot of people ask how I made my flowers so I've created a tutorial. It's also up at Tallyscrappers on the blog as well.



First you'll need some kind of circle cutter, glue, scissors, and some type of tool to wrap the paper around like a quilling tool or I used my round BG file.


First you'll cut a circle out of your desired paper


Next you'll take your scissors and cut the circle into a spiral


You'll cut the center out so that you have a base to glue the flower onto later.


Now taking your quilling tool and start from the center and roll the paper onto the tool. It's not going to be flat. The top is going to flare out a bit. Also if you want the edges to be rough you'll need to distress before you wrap.


Once wrapped and you determine the size of the flower (tighter wrap means smaller flower. Loser wrap means bigger flower) you'll want to add a dot of glue to the end so the size stays.


Next you'll want to add a generous amount of glue to the center circle you cut out and then add the bottom of the flower to the glue.


And now your flower is finished. You can make any size flower and you can make your base any size as well as in the examples below.



Another way to mix it up is to use a deckle edge scissors or cutter (I used a Martha Stewart deckle edge cutter) or you can even tear your circle into the spiral.


Please excuse my bad photos. No good light in this house at night when I took these. If you decide to try these then I'd love to see them so leave me a link to your finished lo so I can give you some love! Hope to see your creations soon and feel free to ask if you have any questions!