LOVE THAT STACHE

Happy New Year from Child's Play Challenge!  Our Team's inspiration for this challenge was the board game Monopoly.  I'm not a fan of that game....I know...I'm weird.  Most people love it.  I'm not one of them.  I get bored way too easily and seem to get sent to jail every time it's my turn...Anyway, what I do love about the game are the cute silver game pieces and the little guy with the handlebar mustache on the game cards.  So for this challenge, I focused on facial hair.  I found adorable Doodlebug design paper with mustaches that I thought were perfect for this layout!  Along with pictures of my girls sporting the facial hair....Please feel free to follow my blog, and please check us out at Child's Play Challenge!

CHRISTMAS LOVE

Happy New Year RCS fans!  Bet you guessed what the challenge was this time around....the movie New Year's Eve!  In other words, use something new on your layout.  I have a slight addiction to Two Peas in a Bucket (which I'm guessing many of you out there in the scrap world do), and I found this extremely cute Christmas paper from Bella Boulevard.  Since I tend to be a seasonal scrapper, I wanted to use this new Christmas paper before the Christmas season officially comes to a close (in my mind that is after New Year's Day).  My daughter got a new iPhone for Christmas and was extremely excited for new stuffed animals from her favorite youtube star's website.  So I figured that would be a perfect picture for my New Year's Eve inspired layout!

MERRY TRADITIONS

This is my first layout for my new design team "Stick it Down."  We were asked to use the layout featured below as our guide.  Well.....my Mom likes for me to take pictures of her grandchildren for her annual Christmas card.  Trying to get the perfect shot of three strong willed girls and one wiggly baby is a daunting task.  But I was really happy with several of the pictures I took, and thought this layout would be a great way to feature the pictures.  If you haven't done so yet, go check out Stick it Down's blog.  There are some great sketches on the horizon for those of you who like to work with sketches!

IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR

This week's RCS challenge was inspired by two things; The Grinch that Stole Christmas and the sketch located below. I fell in love with the Jillibean Soup "Christmas Chowder" paper line that was released this holiday season.  And I loved the cut out tree that was featured in the kit.  So, I decided as a Christmas gift for myself, I would purchase myself some "Christmas Chowder."  As you can see in this picture, the Grinch went nowhere near my daughter's stack of presents at her Grandma's house.  And as much as she likes presents, she loves giving them more.  It definitely is the most wonderful time of the year for her!

STICK IT DOWN SKETCHES

I got some good news over the weekend!  I found out I'm part of a brand new design team called "Stick it Down."  I love sketch design teams; they are so helpful in getting pages done quickly.  And this sketch team not only makes designs for one page scrapbook layouts, but also cards and double page layouts!  I'm actually part of the double page layout team.  If you are following my blog, please go check out Stick It Down; it's going to be awesome!

CHILD'S PLAY BLOG HOP! A GIRL AND HER DOLL

Hello everyone!  This is Stephanie from Child's Play.  If you just left Colleen's page, you're in the right place!  As you know, Child's Play is doing a shout out to our favorite toys for this blog hop.  I was a Barbieaholic growing up.  You name it, I owned it....all except the Dream House.  So I desperately wanted girls when I grew up to continue my love of all things Barbie.  Well....I got something better.  Not only did I get 2 little girls to play with, but also a new toy that fulfilled my love of dress up and hair to brush; the American Girl Doll. I hate to admit it, but I'm pretty sure my husband and I could have bought a used car for the amount of money we've spent on American Girl dolls, clothes, accessories, trips to the store.....This picture is of my daughter getting her doll Kaya for Christmas a few years back.  I wish she didn't take out Kaya's braids, but she has had a blast playing beauty shop with her brushing her long black hair.  They may be pricey, but American Girl has truly been a joy for my children! Once again, thank you for visiting my blog.  As a thank you, I have a little "Christmas Cheer" to spread.  If you leave a message on my blog, a random winner wil be selected.  Your next stop on this blog hop is Adele at dleebug.wordpress.com/ so make sure to check out her wonderful design!  Thanks for checking out my blog, and I sure would love it if you started following me!  Have a wonderful holiday season and thanks for playing along with Child's Play Challenge!

THE NUTCRACKER

This week's RCS challenge was based on the Christmas classic "The Nutcracker."  We were asked to include ribbon and lace on the layout in some way.  Well....I took the challenge literally.  About five years ago, my husband & I took our girls to Chicago a few days before Christmas to visit the American Girl store.  Santa had come early and given my oldest daughter the American Girl Doll Felicity.  She had a blast picking out clothes for her doll and exploring the store.  And at our hotel, there were giant nutcrackers all over the place.  Me being the shutterbug I am, had to take a picture of her with her doll in front of one of the giant nutcrackers.  I used doodlebug paper, embellishments, and a fun doodlebug ribbon kit I found at Archiver's.

PARTY TIME

For this RCS challenge, rather than being inspired by a movie, we were inspired by the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving television special.  In other words, use food in some way on the layout.  I have to be honest....I'm so busy cooking and planning my Black Friday game plan on Thanksgiving Day, I very rarely take pictures.  Although I try very hard to remember to....So for this layout, I used pics of a Halloween Party I had for my neighbors after Trick or Treat.  I used a combo of papers from Doodlebug and Imaginisce to create this layout.  I hope all of you who are following my blog have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families!

TRICK OR TREAT

This week's RCS inspiration was the Disney movie "Hocus Pocus."  I love this movie....One of the places on my bucket list to visit is Salem, Massachusetts.  I find the Salem Witch Trials so incredibly fascinating yet saddening....(That's the history teacher in me coming out).  Two years ago, my daughter went as a witch for Halloween.  I adored her costume.  Everything about it was what I envision a good witch wearing.  So when I saw the theme was "Hocus Pocus," I knew exactly what picture I was going to use for this project!  The paper is from Doodlebug's "Halloween Parade" line. Everything about this paper line screamed this picture of my daughter.

SOCCER STAR

This is my latest layout for Child's Play Challenge. Our inspiration this week was wood stringing beads. I know beads come in different shapes, but to me, beads are circles.  And right now, when I think of circles, I think of soccer balls.  My daughter just played her last soccer game of the season last week, and I wanted to do a layout with her kicking the ball down the field.  So I felt that this paper, these embellishments, and my pictures fit the bill for a wood stringing bead challenge!

PANAMA CITY

This is my latest design for 2 Broke Girls Scrap.  I can't tell you enough how awesome this blog is!  If you haven't checked out their webpage, I highly recommend heading over there!  The sketches are so beautiful and easy to recreate.  This is my interpretation of Sketch 24.  My husband took this picture of my daughter and I at our favorite restaurant in Panama City, Florida on the last day of our trip.  You can't see it in this picture, but we are sitting right on the Gulf of Mexico watching the surf roll in eating dinner.  I think it captured the moment perfectly...We are happy.  And sketch 24's design allowed for this picture to be displayed exactly as I envisioned it!

HARRY POTTER PARTY

This is my latest layout for RCS.  The inspiration was the movie "Bicentennial Man" so we were asked to include metal on our layout in some way.  I have to admit, one of my favorite things to do is to look through the $1 bin at Michael's.  A few months back, I found these adorable metal owl charms.  I love owls, so I had to buy them.  I figured one day they would have a use....And I was right!  My daughters & I went to a Harry Potter Party at Barnes and Noble the year the last book was released.  And part of the party was an owl show, so my charms worked perfectly for this layout.  The other picture is my daughter getting "sorted" into her house.  Fortunately, no Slytherin for her!  Shew!

PUMPKIN PATCH

Here is my latest layout for 2 Broke Girls.  Being the seasonal scrapbooker that I am who has a slight addiction to Doodlebug paper, this layout fit exactly what I had in mind with this picture.  These are my girls five years ago when they were not only willing to have their picture taken, but also willing to play around at our favorite pumpkin patch.  Doodlebug always has the cutest papers, and I want to include them all on my layouts so I felt this sketch definitely allowed me to use a variety of papers.

MY GIRLS

This week's RCS challenge is about the 80's movie "Pretty in Pink."  Not only are we doing a shout out to this John Hughes 80's classic, but also for all those families who have been effected by breast cancer.  Since October is the Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we decided "Pretty in Pink" would be the perfect theme for the start of this month.  I have to thank my lucky stars that breast cancer has not impacted a member of my immediate family.  So I decided to focus on the most important woman in my life; my Mom.  This picture was taken Christmas 2011.  And even though it was a Christmas picture, I decided to use a Bo Bunny Valentine paper to highlight the picture.  Although I built the page on brown paper, I think the pink makes this special picture pop.

10 TOES

For this Child's Play Challenge, the toy inspiration was the game Yahtzee.  Since this game is all about numbers, I instantly thought of this picture of my daughter flexing her toes on her Dad's backpack. He's a member of Ohio Task Force One, a FEMA Search and Rescue team, and had just gotten back from an overnight training.  He had thrown his backpack on our couch, and the next thing we knew, we saw 10 toes perched on top of the backpack and one chillaxed little girl glad her Daddy was home.

THE WALKING DEAD TOUR

This is my latest design for 2 Broke Girls Scraps.  I love the Walking Dead, and my daughter and I took a wonderful tour of all the places Season 1 was filmed with the Atlanta Movie Tours Company.  (If you are in the Atlanta area and love The Walking Dead, you have to check out this tour!).  Anyway, I took a variety of pictures, and thought that layout 20 would be a perfect way to highlight a few of my favorites from the trip.  (Walking Dead fans, do you recognize these places?)  I used creepy paper from Carta Bella for this layout along with a few found objects from Hobby Lobby and my trusty Cat's Eye Chestnut Roan stamp to "age" my layout.

KINDERGARTEN DAY 1

Here is my latest layout for RCS challenge.  The theme was the movie "Kindergarten Cop," & I decided to take this challenge very literally.  I used Echo Park's Paper and Glue collection to highlight these pictures of my girls on their first day of Kindergarten.  I used a layout sketch from my other blog family Two Broke Girl's Scrap to design this layout.  And voila! Day 1 of Kindergarten has been immortalized!

CHILD'S PLAY GEARS CHALLENGE

This was the latest layout I did for Child's Play challenge.  The inspiration this week was gears.  When I think of gears, I think of a car.  And when I think of a child's toy that's a car, I think of my girls' purple Disney Princess mobile.  They were cruising around my neighborhood having a blast.  My older daughter was doing donuts in our cul-de-sac when she looked at me and said, "Mom, I drive like a Cullen...."  I was cracking up laughing!  She sure did perform some "Edward saving Bella moves in his Volvo" maneuvers.  Anyway, despite being girls, I used Pebbles Inc "Love you more boy" paper to create this layout.  In addition, a few stars cut out from my cricut, some found objects that look like car parts from Tim Holtz, and this layout came together fast!

2 BROKE GIRLS BLOG HOP!

Welcome to the Spice & Sugar Sketch A Thon!

If you watch 2 Broke Girls you know the Spice & Sugar theme came from the

"It's Not Pretty Enough" episode!

Here is the clip

so you will notice that our sketches are all black and white and fairly simple, so your mission is to add embellies and make them pretty!

You will have the entire month of September to complete the sketch a thon, each dt will be offering an RAK for completing their sketch, and we will offer a grand prize at the end of the month! Every sketch you complete will give you an entry for the grand prize.

Make sure to become a follower of each dt members blog while you are there!

Here is where you can find all the sketches!

2 Broke Girls Blog Sketch 1 You Are Here

Tabitha Sketch 2

Tammy Sketch 3

Brandi Sketch 4

Janet Sketch 5

Michelle Sketch 6

Miwa Sketch 7

Karen Sketch 8

Cyndy Sketch 9

Tabby Sketch 10

Michelle M Sketch 11

Darcy Sketch 12

Pat Sketch 13

Stephanie Sketch 14

Here is where you will link ALL your entries!

Don't forget we will also have our regular sketches during the month of September as well!

Here is my sketch

 

And here is my take on the sketch...

 

 

 

This is my daughter and my furry child Aro Volturri.  He was supposed to be our ferocious guard dog....Which is why he's named after the Volturri from Twilight....Instead, he's a big oaf and the best friend in the world to my 2 girls!  Please feel free to follow my blog and maybe just maybe...you can win a little swag from Steph... :0) 

 

 

 

MOVIE FAVES

Happy Anniversary Red Carpet Studios!  I have so enjoyed being a member of their design team.  I've met some great crafty people and have significantly added to my scrapbooks thanks to this blog.  It's amazing how inspiring a movie theme can be!  This layout was made for the "Anything Goes" challenge for the anniversary weekend festivities.  For my anything goes, I decided to do a "this moment in time" scrapbook layout by recording my girls' and husband's favorite movies right now.  I used red (because we are "Red" Carpet Studios) and lots of 3D movie embellishments.  For all of you following RCS, thank you for your support this year!

2 BROKE GIRLS: DESIGN 18 PUP ART

 This is my first layout for 2 Broke Girls!  I must say, I have been looking forward to creating this page; and sketch #18 was perfect for what I had in mind!  My daughter thought it would be lots of fun to introduce our chihuahua to the art of paw painting. No animals were harmed in the creation of this art, although I'm pretty sure Lila suffered immensely for her masterpiece.....I just bought this Doodlebug paper, and each one I loved but worried the patterns would overtake the pictures.  However, the layout below helped to break up the busy, bright patterns and allowed a wonderful "frame" for my pictures.  If you ever have a great piece of paper, but aren't sure how to anchor it on your page, go check out 2 Broke Girls.  Lots of inspiration, lots of sketch ideas.  I'm so excited to be part of this group!

RCS 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY BLOG HOP

Welcome to Red Carpet Studio's One Year Anniversary Celebration!! We're starting the party off right with a blog hop, but don't forget we also have games and prizes going on in our Facebook event group!

This weekend our design team is sharing with you inspiring projects for movie nights! Invitations, decorations, and more, you'll leave the hop wanting to have a movie night of your very own.

If you've come from Melina's blog, add her link you're in the right place! If you'd like to start at the beginning of the hop, please visit Red Carpet Studio.

I made...MOVIE NIGHT TABLE DECORATIONS!

For this project, I decided to make decorations one could use as a centerpiece or party favors for a movie themed party. And let me just say, these are not only super easy to make but also super easy on the wallet!  I used items I already had in my scrap room stash & my kitchen.... The red goodie bag is simply a standard gift bag from Target that I jazzed up with some paper and 3 dimensional movie stickers from Michael's.  I used a clear ornament left over from a baby shower and filled it with popcorn kernels as a souvenir guest could take home from my movie theme party. A tag with movie stickers and a cute ribbon finished off this project.   Finally, my jar is filled with the remainder of the popcorn kernels that perfectly hold up lollipop sticks displaying movie theme embellishments; a great centerpiece for a buffet table.

Once again, thank you so much for joining us on our blog hog and supporting Red Carpet Studios this past year!  Make sure to hop on over to the other designer's blogs.  We have some amazing projects to share!

This weekend (and our challenges) wouldn't be anything without our fabulous sponsors! Those who comment on every stop of the hop are eligible to win these wonderful prizes:

Craft Direct

Disney Classics Cricut Cartridge

The Paper Parade

12x12 Disney Specialty Paper

Scrappy Moms

"That's Entertainment" Stamp Set

Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbons

$20 Gift Certificate

Sherri Baldy Stamps

Besties of Oz Collection - 7 Digital Stamps

Unity Stamp Co.

Insta-Live, Love, Dream Stamp Set

And now for the part you've been waiting for... everyone who hops receives a FREE digital goodie bag! Yup, you heard that right! The contents of our goodie bag can be viewed HERE on our Facebook page. Just be sure to leave your email address when you hop and we'll have it emailed to you by the end of the weekend. :)

Winners of the sponsored prizes will be announced at Red Carpet Studio on Tuesday September 3rd.

Your next stop is Connie's blog.

Here's the entire lineup:

Red Carpet Studio

Ashley

Tonya

Anneliese

Erica

Robin

Melina

Stephanie

Connie

Deanne

Chas

Happy Hopping and thanks so much for joining us!

2 BROKE GIRLS DESIGN TEAM!

Boy, this month has been full of good news for me!  I found out this afternoon that I was accepted as a member of the 2 Broke Girls Design Team!  Their site has become one of my favorite go to sites when I need some sketchy inspiration, so I'm beyond thrilled that they selected me to be part of their design team!

SUMMER AT LAKE ERIE

This week's RCS challenge was inspired by the movie "Mystic River."  In other words, use spray ink on our layouts in some way.  I LOVE spray ink!  It's so messy, but SO MUCH FUN! For this layout, I finally used a picture I took of my daughter at Lake Erie over eight years ago.  She was get her toes wet, and I loved the water and sand in the picture.  Then I found the net paper in my stash of scrap paper, used it as a mask for my spray ink.  When I was done using it as a mask, I added it as a texture layer to frame my picture.  To add a nautical look to this, I made the tag using Little Yellow Bicycle Splash collection, jute ribbon, and baker's twine.  I had so much fun making this layout, even if my scrapbooking desk has a permanent blue tint to it!

NATIONAL ZOO

In January, my student Tyler passed away from complications from the flu.  It was one of the most awful experiences of my life and my career having to navigate my students through the death of a classmate.  When my colleagues and I went to pay our respects to my student's family, his parents, who are the most amazingly strong and selfless people I've encountered, asked us to bring this bear with us to Washington DC in honor of Tyler.  We told the students of our plans, and they had a blast posing the bear all over monuments and places we visited in Washington.  This picture is from our first stop in Washington DC at the National Zoo.  We placed Tyler's bear on a statue of a panda bear.  When I saw that this week's challenge for Child's Play was the children's book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See..." I immediately thought of this picture.  I plan to give the layout to Tyler's parents along with other layouts I'm making commemorating the bear's trip to Washington.  If you would like to look at other layouts based on this challenge, please follow this link back to Child's Play Challenge. http://childsplaychallenges.blogspot.com/ Thanks for browsing!

I LOVE TO KNIT

For this week's RCS challenge, the movie theme was Lilo and Stitch; in other words, add stitching to your layout.  Sewing is the one skill I wish I had.  I own a sewing machine; I just have no clue how to operate it.  So, turned to the faux stitching on this one.  And the knit stitch!  My other hobby is knitting.  I'm a novice.  It's a joke among my co-workers when they ask me what knitting project I'm working on.  I make washcloths and scarves like nobody's business!  I learned how to knit from my oldest daughter who took a knitting class at our local Senior Citizen center.  She taught me, and I taught my younger daughter.  She loves to sit with me watching TV working on her knit stitch.  For this project, I included yarn on my tag and wrapping it around my chipboard letters.  I found some paper scraps in my stash that reminded me of vintage fabric and go the rest of the papers from Hobby Lobby.  A little baker's twine and buttons, and the layout was finished!

CHILD'S PLAY CHALLENGES DESIGN TEAM!

Earlier this week I learned that I was selected to be a member of Child's Play Challenges' Design Team!  I am so excited to be a member of another group of people who love scrapbooking as much as I do. This blog asks participants to make a layout inspired by a classic childhood toy, book, movie, etc.  I've played along with them in the past, and am so honored that they selected me to get people's creative juices flowing!  I can't wait to post my first design for them; STAY TUNED!

123 GET SCRAPPY DT CALL!

Hello everyone!  If you are visiting my blog, this is a shout out to a brand new design team that is entering the cyber world.  If you are a teacher, you are going to LOVE this one!  Why?  Because if your district differentiate's curriculum, this challenge blog does EXACTLY THAT!  Participants will get a list of items on a tic tac toe board, and you get to pick the combo of 3 items you want to include on your layout. Talk about an awesome concept!  The teacher in me thinks this would be an exciting blog to become a part of and follow in the scrapbooking world.  Check it out!

MOUSTACHE LOVE

This is a layout I did for the Simple Sketches design team call.  We were to create a layout based on the sketch found below, and this is how I interpreted it. First, I found these pictures of my girls sporting "moustaches" at our local amusement park, and the sizes of the pictures fit the sizes needed on the sketch.  In addition,  I love chevron's, and the Valentine paper from Bella Blvd not only had chevron paper that fit this sketch to a "T", but also was double sided and had moustaches on the back of it!  I tweaked the sketch slightly by using an actual moustache sticker rather than letters as the title at the top.  I thoroughly enjoyed working with this sketch, and I really hope that Simple Sketches selects me to be one of their layout designers.  Crossing my fingers!

CHILD'S PLAY CHALLENGE DT CALL

I thoroughly enjoy being a member of scrapbooking design teams.  I love conversing with people who share my love of paper art.  And I definitely enjoy a challenge of making a project with a theme in mind. So, I'm putting myself out there again and submitting this layout to Child's Play Challenge.  The first challenge for the month of July asked participants to make a layout based on the toy "the tire swing."  I decided to submit this layout because I love the circle created by Little Yellow Bicycle to anchor the title of my layout.  In addition, tire swings are fun because of the motion.  I love this picture of my daughter waving down a taxi (tires on the taxi...get it?)  Heehee!  Anyway, in the words of Dory on Finding Nemo, you have to just keep swimming.  In other words, if you want to accomplish a goal, you have to continue to put yourself out there despite the outcome.  My goal is to become a member of another design team, so I truly hope this does the trick!

TRES CHIC

My mother is a fantastic interior designer.  She finds the most beautiful fabrics, furniture, accessories, etc. to finish her rooms with throughout her house.  We call her front bedroom the "Paris room" because it looks like a she recreated a Parisian boudoir in that room!  My daughter, being the ham that she is, grabbed a hat from the room and began wearing it around the house like she was a fashion model.  So of course, I had to snap a pic of it!  A few weeks back, I found black and white flowers in a $1 bin at Michael's and thought, hmmm....these could be cool for something in the future. Well, once I got this picture developed, I knew I had the perfect flowers to accent this picture!  That, and a few black and white papers that look like they came straight from my mother's bedroom!

CHRISTMAS IN JULY BLOG HOP

Just because there's not snow on the ground, doesn't mean Christmas can't be celebrated a few months early! Happy Christmas in July, everyone, and welcome to Red Carpet Studio's Christmas in July blog hop!

If you're unfamiliar with Red Carpet Studio, we're a challenge blog that challenges crafters to create projects inspired by movies! Right now we offer alternating weekly card and layout challenges, but starting in September we'll be opening up our challenges to any types of projects that fit our theme, as well as extending the duration of the challenges to biweekly to give you awesome crafters more time to create and play along! We're also having a design team call!

Now onto my project..

This is Stephanie J of RCS.  I love Christmas!  I love the stations that play Christmas music all day long.  I even start investigating in October when my local radio station is going to start the 24 hour Christmas music marathon.  Some of my favorite movies of all time are Christmas related.  For example, I love A Christmas Story so much with Ralphie and the Red Rider BB gun that my family and I took a trip to Cleveland, OH just to see the house where it was filmed! I'm always looking for a chance to scrap all the Christmas pictures I take, so I was pretty excited about this Blog Hop.  I used Doodlebug design Christmas paper and cardstock stickers along with pointsettia stickers from Hobby Lobby to showcase my daughter getting her American Girl doll Kaya for Christmas.  (And then deciding she should be an American Girl doll....)  Being in the middle of a heat wave where I live, it was nice thinking about Christmas, snow, and cool weather for a few hours!  Enjoy our blog hop, and don't forget to check out the blog on Sunday to see this week's new challenge!


 

 

And of course we have some wonderful sponsors giving away gifts to those who are a follower of Red Carpet Studio (either through Google Reader or Blog Lovin') and comment on EVERY stop of the hop!

Miriam's Crafting Supplies

$5 Gift Certificate

Designs on Cloud 9

$10 Gift Certificate

Eureka Stamps

5 Digis of Winner's Choice

Winners will be randomly chosen and announced on Tuesday July 23rd along with the winners of our Action Wobble challenge!

Your next stop is Anneliese's blog

Red Carpet Studio

Tonya

Robin

Kim

Dawn

Rochelle

Darcy

Chas

Stephanie

Anneliese

 

Happy Hopping!