Sunday, December 30, 2012

CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS ARE SUGARY SWEET

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was the inspiration behind this RCS challenge.  I'm one of those seasonal scrapbookers....I don't scrapbook chronologically; I go with what motivates me at the time.  And with my gazillion Christmas pictures right now, that's what motivates me!  And I knew just the pictures I wanted to use for this challenge; our structurally sound gingerbread house!  It's been a tradition for my girls to build a gingerbread house every year.  Now, this isn't your normal, edible gingerbread house....this house can withstand all sorts of natural disasters ranging from an accidental dropping to an attack by the dog.....Why you ask?  Because Daddy uses the caulking gun instead of icing.....So while it looks deliciously good, it would really do a number on your teeth and intestinal tract.  Once I decided on the pictures, I searched through my growing stash of paper and found the cutest Doodlebug design Christmas paper with gingerbread men & peppermint sticks on it; perfect for this challenge!  So that is the story behind this layout!
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Sunday, December 16, 2012

THE SANTA CLAUS CHALLENGE

As I look at this picture for the latest RCS challenge, I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude that my children are alive.  I was trying to finish up this page when the horrific news hit the TV yesterday about the tragedy in Newtown, CT. These girls are my life.  I remember their first day of kindergarten.....they were so excited to ride the big girl bus.  They came home with little tags attached to their clothes that said, "I live at.....I ride bus..." in case they got lost.  As the weeks progressed, they came home singing silly songs, showing me beautiful pieces of artwork they created....My younger daughter even started reading on her own very early into her Kindergarten experience.  It was magical to watch them grow.  At Christmas time, they were so excited to visit Santa in their lunchroom (a tradition being featured in this layout).  As they progressed through the grades, my overwhelming sense of worry began to subside.  Nothing bad could happen to them at elementary school, right?....That all changed yesterday.  In summary, this was an extremely bittersweet page to make for this challenge.  I am so thankful that this morning I got to wake up with my two beautiful little girls alive and excited for Christmas.  I am so heartbroken for the innocence lost in this country.  And mostly, I am so incredibly saddened for the families who are facing the unimaginable in the upcoming days, weeks, months, years ahead......I guess in the words of the sticker found at the bottom of my page, we have to believe......Believe that something good will come from this sickening act of violence.  A colleague of mine posted this on her facebook page yesterday, and I think it's a good way to end this blog entry:
"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers - so many caring people in this world.”
— Mister Rogers

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Sunday, December 2, 2012

SEASIDE ESCAPE

For this challenge for Red Carpet Studios, we were asked to make a movie based on "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation."  I remember the first time I watched this movie.....I was in High School, I was at a basketball game on a Saturday night, my Dad picked me up early for some reason....I came home, plopped down on the couch, was flipping through the channels, and found this movie on HBO.  Little did I realize that a Christmas tradition began for me and my family.  It's not Christmas in the Thompson house (my parents) until this movie is watched at least once.  (And it already has been watched at least once this year and it's only November!)  I think we all can relate to Clark Griswold wanting his family to have the best Christmas ever, and it turns into a disaster.  While we have had some Griwoldesque Christmas' in my family (the worst was when my Dad went into the hospital on Christmas Eve with a kidney stone, my husband backed his truck out of our driveway to hit our neighbor's relative visiting from Washington, and our Christmas Eve dinner that we spent the entire day cooking being ate in another location because of all the mishaps....), I chose to focus on the "vacation" portion.  I took this picture of my daughter this past summer during our family vacation to Panama City, Florida.  We had a terrific time and fortunately, no Clark Griswold moments.  Before my old scrapbook store Simply Scrapbooks closed, I stocked up on this Fancy Pants beach paper.  I loved the swirly ocean water on the paper and decided it would look great with the picture of my daughter hanging out in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Wednesday, November 14, 2012

LILA

This is the latest challenge I did for the Red Carpet Studio blog.  Our challenge was to create a layout based on famous movie animals.  Well, the most famous animal in our household is our chihuahua Lila.  She is a Diva with a capital "D".  She pretty much thinks everything revolves around her.  If you are sitting still, she will snuggle right up to your face making it impossible to type on the computer, play with the iPad, watch TV....Cesar Milan would have a field day with my Lila....So for this layout, I used Basic Gray's "Max and Whiskers" line of dog theme paper & found some of my favorite pictures of Lila doing what she does best; posing for her Mommy paparazzi!
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Friday, November 9, 2012

THE TURKEY TOE BLOG HOP

Welcome to the Turkey Toe Blog Hop, brought to you by the design teams of Made Especially For You and Red Carpet Studio!

Today the design teams of Made Especially For You and Red Carpet Studio have teamed up to share with you all sorts of turkey-themed projects to help you get ready for Thanksgiving!

 If you've come from Tara's blog, you're in the right place.
 
 
For today's hop, I made...
 


For my turkey project, I decided to make a scrapbook layout of my favorite turkeys.....my two daughters.  I found this wonderful fall theme paper from Bella Boulevard at my local scrapbook store The Paper Cottage in Beavercreek, Ohio.  If you are a local, go check out this wonderful new piece of scrapbooking heaven in the Dayton area!  I hope you enjoy this blog hop, and wishing you all a safe, happy Thanksgiving!

We also have some wonderful sponsors giving away prizes to those who comment on every stop of the hop!
$15 Gift Certificate


$15 Gift Certificate

$10 Gift Certificate

Prize Package from Scrappin' Fab Pam

Participants have through Sunday evening to hop. The winners of the blog candy will be announced on Made Especially For You on Tuesday November 13th. Please make sure to leave your contact information when commenting to be eligible to win!

Your next stop is Candice's blog.  Here's the complete lineup in case you get lost along the way:


Happy Hopping!
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Sunday, November 4, 2012

1ST DAY LAYOUT

This is my latest Red Carpet Studio layout.  The theme was "Independent movies" or movies not made by a big studio.  So in the spirit of independent films which are typically low budget and not filled with special effects, we were to create a clean and simple layout.  No frills; just the scrapbooking essentials.  So for this layout, I used We R Memory Keepers "Hall Pass" double sided paper, a 5x7 picture of my girls on the first day of school, my Chestnut Roan cat's eye ink pad, letter stickers, adhesive, and that was it.  If you haven't tried one of our challenges yet, I encourage you to try this one.  I know that I sometimes get bogged down in trying to make grandiose layouts for every event I scrapbook. And when I get all frustrated when I feel like my page is lacking something, I stop and try to remind myself that I'm documenting the life of my children.  In 30 years, they aren't going to care if they had sparkly beads and 3-D embellishments on their pages.  I'm not saying never go all out on a page.....that's one of the most fun things about this hobby.  But sometimes, it's okay to be clean and simple. And this challenge really brought this home to me.
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Sunday, October 28, 2012

Welcome to the ABC Ransom Blog Hop, 
hosted by Red Carpet Studio!

If you've come from Candice's blog, you're in the right place.

The Red Carpet Studio designers thought it would be fun to host a mystery blog hop while showcasing projects that can be made using all those leftover letters in your stash - hence where the "ransom" comes in. Ransom notes play a huge role in mystery/suspense films, and are often created out of random letters cut from magazines, newspapers, etc. in order to disguise handwriting. 


While we won't be doing any kidnapping or holding anybody ransom today - we do have some creative projects to share with you!

For my project using leftover letters in my stash, I created...
 
When I learned about our "ABC Ransom" challenge, the first thing I thought of was text messaging.  Since words are abbreviated in texting, you don't need a whole lot of letters.  And luckily, many texting words/symbols use letters that are left over in my stash of alphabet stickers....
 
So, after I thought of text messaging, I remembered a picture of my daughter I took on my birthday two years ago.  She was sitting at my kitchen table with my cell phone, sunglasses perched on top of her head, acting like a big girl sending a text message to some random person in my contact list.  She thought she was hot stuff.....
 
This page actually came together very fast.  Since texting is so symbolic, I decided to pick papers for the project that are symbolic of my daughter.  Her favorite color is hot pink and almost everything she picks out for her room has a peace sign on it. That is how I initially started to build this page.  I had wonderful black chevron paper from Jillibean soup that is double sided with black dots, and I love black and hot pink together.  This paper then got added to the mix.  And to make my "text message" pop, I decided to use left over white American Craft thickers from my stash. 
 
When I showed this page to my husband, he said, "This may be my favorite page you ever made."  I asked him why.  He said, "Everything you did here is so Abbey....You couldn't have captured her better."  This made me feel pretty darn good since most of this project was made from leftovers in my scrapbooking stash.  It is possible!
 
Enjoy our Blog Hop!  We have some great prizes, and you may be shocked at what you can make from what's left over in your stash!
 
 
We're also holding some blog candy ransom! However, the blog candy is hidden, and only certain stops of the hop are hiding it. The only way you can win is if you comment on those blogs! Now, we're not going to tell you whose blogs those are (that would be too easy) but we will tell you what the prizes are!
$20 Gift Certificate

$10 Gift Certificate
$10 Gift Certificate

There will be three winners. Please make sure to leave your contact information when commenting so we can contact you if you win. You have until next Saturday, November 3rd, to hop and comment. Winners will be announced with the start of our next layout challenge on Sunday November 4th at Red Carpet Studio.

And don't forget to check out this week's challenge at Red Carpet Studio! Our challenge this week is inspired by "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and the challenge is to create any fall or Halloween card.


Your next stop is Anneliese's blog.

P.S. My letters are...P

If you can put all the letters together from each stop of the hop (they're in order), you have a chance to win a mystery prize! Once you've figured out our hidden message, email it to redcarpetstudiochallenge@gmail.com. The mystery prize winner will be announced with the other winners on Sunday November 4th. HINT: The message is a clue as to what our next layout challenge will be. :)
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