Christmas Ella List It!

Just in time for your holiday scrapbooking, Ella Publishing's Christmas Edition of List It! is available now.

I had so much fun working on this one (and so grateful to Ella for being patient with me through my photo woes)!

How cool would it be to incorporate these List It! journaling cards into a December daily album? I know I always have those days where not much happens, I forget to take a picture, or I have no idea what to write. One of these list prompts could easily fill in the gaps. For example, the one I used ("My Must See Holiday Movie List") would make a great addition to a DD. Here's a full shot of the page I made - which gets to share the cover with a page by the awesome Wendy Smedley:

and here's a close up:

materials: patterned paper, felt stickers, buttons, dimensional sticker, envelope, tinsel ribbon, sticky note: Pebbles, Inc.; number strips: Creative Imaginations; 'makes me happy' flag: K & Co.

So, by now I'm sure you've seen that Ella Publishing is searching for a new team of friends. Working along with Angie, Wendy and my Ella Friends has been an amazing experience. I'm so sad to leave but have enjoyed my extended term immensely. Here's a link with all the details - if you are interested in being an Ella Friend, don't hesitate. This is a great opportunity!

Sunday At The Studio

For this week's challenge at The Studio, Tessa asked us to make a page about something we are thankful for, but not something big, like family, friends, health, etc. Rather, something small, maybe even superficial. I have a big list of those but here is what a chose to highlight:

ahh, Laura Mercier - my small indulgence. You are not inexpensive, but you are worth it!

Here is my page, which is mostly made from items from the Studio Calico Glee Club kit:

 here's the close up:

materials: patterned paper: Sassafras Lass; letters, stickers: American Crafts; border stickers, Polaroid stamp: Studio Calico; small letters: MME; flowers: Basic Grey

So I hope you will stop by The Studio and play along. As always, the design team has a lovely collection of projects to share for you inspiration - and there is a great prize up for grabs!

Still working on Thanksgiving prep, also the start of  my scrapbook album organization project (more on that later this week) but taking a break now for the Homestead race.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Giveaway Winner!

Thanks everyone for sharing your comments here on my blog. Looks like lots of people are going to do some form of a December Daily this year. Making those projects for the Pebbles, Inc. blog definitley put me in the holiday mood!  The winner of my little Pebbles, Inc. giveaway is:

That's Ryann Salamon! Congrats Ryann - contact me with your address and I'll mail out your goodies!

I'll leave you with a little peek of a project I worked on this week for Ella, using some more of that awesome Pebbles, Inc. 'Welcome Christmas' line. Love those Silhouette shapes, (and Patrick Stewart) too!

Have a lovely day everyone - lot's of Thankgiving prep to start around here. 18 people coming for dinner - that's a record for us but I'm really looking forward to it!

Pebbles + Silhouette II

So, do you have a Silhouette? They seem to be on everyone's must-have list right now. So many cool ways to get the shapes than there were when I first got mine back in 08'. I have the original and have always been very happy with it. Still works like a charm. I don't use it everyday but enough to justify it's place on my desk.

I've got one more Pebbles, Inc. + Silhouette page to share today. For someone who is dreading the approach of Christmas and the holiday season, I sure have been busting out the holiday themed projects! On this page, I used the Welcome Christmas line:

Here are the details - which give a better look at the Silhouette shapes I used. Here's the 'home' sentiment - I used the negative shape and backed it, along with a poinsettia shape:

Here are those cute little trees - with white button 'snow'

There's still time to win the Pebbles, Inc. goodies from yesterday. Leave a comment on that post for your chance to win.

It's Wednesday - thank goodness we are going over the hump! Hope you have a great day!

Pebbles + Silhouette + Giveaway

Got to play with some Silhouette shapes for Pebbles, Inc. for my November DT projects. Pebbles, Inc. has a brand new batch of downloadable shapes for the Silhouette and they coordinate with the current paper lines: Fresh Goods, Welcome Christmas, Floral Lane and the 2 New Addition lines. Here's one of the projects I put together with some Welcome Christmas gift tags. I cut the tags to about 3 x 5 and made them into this mini which I'm hoping will serve as my 'abridged' December Daily this year:

I backed each of the die cut tags with a patterned paper from the line..Also cut the little trees and the kraft labels (those are a Fresh Goods shape)...each of the tag pages & backs are big enough to hold a small photo and some brief journaling:

I added in some Smash journaling sheets and altered them with some Girls Paperie word stickers...

I used some Pebbles masking tape stickers along with some little heart shaped paper clips from the new soon-to-be released With Love line...

I made some of the tag-sized pages into envelopes to hold small pieces of ephemera like tickets, receipts, etc...and threw in a little tinsel ribbon too...

So that's my tag mini. I know it's only about 10 pages - hardly a December Daily, but I know me and my history with the December Daily. I've been lucky to complete 10 out of the 25 so I feel like I've got a good chance of completion with this little album. Are you doing a DD this year? Did you buy a kit or are you winging it with your stash? Leave me a comment and I'll draw a random winner for these cool Pebbles products on Friday:

These are 2 of my current faves - the Welcome Christmas ribbon assortment and the Fresh Goods sticky notes...both used on the album above.
All week is Silhouette week on the Pebbles, Inc. Blog - stop by and check out those cool shapes in action!

A Sunday Layout

Hello - thanks so much for sticking with me! I'm so glad it's the weekend!

Happy to say that I finally cracked open the box with my Studio Calico kit from last month (Field Guide). I have seriously got to start using these kits - they are piling up like crazy and I'm losing track of their contents with my current storage system. Behold, the storage system:

I really need to print out the contents lists and attach them to the bags. This box (that I got at Home Goods) only fits about 11 bags. When I get to 11- I take apart the oldest one (or the one that I've used up the most) and add it to the 'stash'. On the positive side, I've hardly purchased any scrapbooking supplies since July. Simply because I haven't had time. So at least the kits bring fresh goods into the house each month.

Ok, so here's my page - which features a photo of me at the Dover 500 last month with my fave driver Mark Martin :)

How sad is it that it's not the real Mark Martin, but a giant image of him on the side of a truck? When I saw this large tractor trailer I wondered what it would be like to be driving along the turnpike and seeing this thing roll by. I'm sure I'd be scrambling for my camera at 80 mph. Anywho...I was going for a whole circular wheel/race track thing here - I broke out my CM circle cutter to remove a curved strip of the gray paper:

On a side note, Mark Martin has a fan appreciation day at his car dealership every April. I keep threatening telling my husband that we are going to go. Then I could get a photo of me with the actual M.M. before he retires. I'm not a die hard NASCAR fan, but definitely a Martin fan and the idea of a road trip from NJ to Arkansas sounds kind of fun, no? Looks like Batesville, AK is close to Memphis, so we could swing by Elvis' place while we are there.

The weather is gorgeous here today but I'm committed to staying in and catching up on some projects so I'm not scrambling at the end of the week. Also have 2 large elm-tree's worth of leaves on my front yard that need to be dealt with.  Busy day ahead - hope yours is a good one!

Sunday At The Studio

Good to be back making pages for The Studio Challenges! I missed the last challenge because I was away so I was happy to get back in the game. The super talented Tessa is setting the challenges this month and for this week she asked us to give up the die cutting machines and add some hand-cut shapes to our pages. shudder - you know how I love my machines....here's what I made:

I used last month's Studio Calico kit (untouched until yesterday) to make this page. My hand-cut shapes are the title and the little banner that I made from a strip of scrap. Here's the close up:

Tessa is also supplying the prize for this month's winner, which is an assortment of her gorgeous handmade embellishments from her shop Precocious Paper. Simply link up your projects in the comment section of this Studio post and you are in the running. As always, The Studio team put together an amazing gallery for your inspiration! So I hope you'll stop by.

Working on some Pebbles projects today and hopefully a few others as well. Hope you have a great day on tap - these last few weekends before the holiday turmoil sets in are so precious to me. I'm seriously dreading the holiday pressure this year. How about you - ready, not ready?

31 Thank You Cards

not here....here:

Got my copy of this last week - 31 Thank You Cards, the newest Ella Publishing eBook - and have been thoroughly enjoying it.

I'm taking lots of inspiration from Kimber, Heather & Krstina, the authors of this book. Each of the 31 entries focus on a different approach or technique to making the card. Here's a tag I made inspired  by several of the prompts:

materials: tag: Jillibean Soup; tape, transparency: Hambly; stickers: SRM, Girls Paperie; string: Pink Paislee; pin: Maya Road; ribbon: American Crafts

I made those circles by sticking strips of washi tape onto a piece of clear transparency then stitching the bands. Then I ran the little sheets through the Big Shot with some circle dies. You can read more about how I made this tag over at the Ella Publishing Blog. 

Oh, and have you seen this? The official call is up for the 2012 Ella Friends. It's been so great working alongside the Ella Publishing team and getting to know my Ella Friends - you will love this - apply!!!