LOVE YOU FURREVER

This is my latest creation for Stick it Down Challenge Blog using the December sketch found below as a guide.  We adopted a puppy in mid December we named "Penny" after "Penny" on The Big Bang Theory.  It was truly a spur of the moment decision...Penny came from a sad situation, and my girls fell madly in love with her, especially when they learned that she and her litter mates had been abandoned by their Mama.  My mother who loves dogs but won't have one of her own, decided to pay a "pretty Penny" for her girls to adopt Penny.  I used Carolee's Creations "Hound Dog" collection to accent these pictures I took of Penny's adoption and her first days at my house.

HOLLY THE ELF

This is my latest creation for RCS.  Our inspiration for this final challenge of 2014 was the movie "Elf."  Several lines from the Elf movie have become part of my family's every day language such as, "Look at these toilets, they're ginormous,"  or "Us elves eat from the four main food groups; candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup," and what we like to say to our dog in our best Mr. Narwhal voice, "By buddy, I hope you find your dad."  Needless to say, the possibilities for this project were endless...however I decided to go literal and create a layout featuring our Elf on the Shelf, "Holly Jolly."  We've caught her online shopping, she's taken the Barbie VW bug for spin, and once we caught her canoodling with the Jacob Black Barbie.  However, for this challenge, she is cuddled up to the structurally sound gingerbread house made out of bathtub caulking and not icing.  And sitting on the air mattress my youngest daughter got for Christmas.  To all of you reading my blog, I wish you the best holiday season, and make sure to check back with RCS at the start of the year for some exciting changes and challenges!

CHRISTMAS TRAIN RIDE

This is my latest creation for Child's Play Challenge. The inspiration this time around was the movie "The Polar Express."  I instantly thought of pictures I took of my daughter on her version of the "Polar Express."  It involved taking the Amtrak train to Chicago & the American Girl Store.  Prior to the trip, she fell in love with Felicity while thumbing through the American Girl Doll magazine.  A few days before Christmas, we booked a trip for her to go shopping at the actual American Girl store.  However, Santa surprised her with an early gift about half way to Chicago; her very own Felicity doll!  She's on the phone in this picture telling her Grandma about the awesome surprise she got while riding on the train!

MY ATHLETES

This is my latest layout for Stick it Down Sketches.  My daughters just finished a very busy fall sports season.  Now that I have some time to breathe,  I wanted to highlight both of their activities using this Graphic 45 "Good 'Ole Sport" paper line.  I loved the vintage feel of this paper, but also threw in some modern dimensional stickers to keep the layout feeling young.

KITCHEN AID

This is my latest layout for RCS where the inspiration this time around was the movie "Julie & Julia."  In other words...food!  I loved this line of kitchen theme paper called "Homemade with Love" by Carta Bella and thought it would be perfect to use not only for this challenge, but also for these pictures of my daughter making herself a batch of chocolate chip cookies!

LET'S TAKE A TRIP

This is my latest creation for Child's Play Challenge.  The inspiration for this half of the month was Hot Wheels.  I love this picture I took of my daughter with her chihuahua puppy!  I came home from work and found her cruising the neighborhood with the dog.  People were coming out of the houses to look at my silly girl!  She definitely thought she was hot stuff on her hot big wheel!

CHILLAXIN

This is my latest creation for Red Carpet Studio.  The inspiration this time around was the movie Marley and Me; in other words make a project featuring an animal.  I take pictures of my dogs as much as I take pictures of my actual children.  This one was a personal favorite I could not wait to scrap!  My oldest daughter had come home from school, curled up on my bed with me, & started to play with her phone.  My chihuahua Lila Lucille can't stand it if someone is on the bed with me, (I'm her human), and splayed herself out like this hoping for a belly rub but enjoying the company..  I'm thinking she was in doggy heaven chillaxin with her big human sister!  I fell in love with the colors & chevrons in this new line of paper from Ella and Viv and decided it would be perfect to showcase this picture of two of my three favorite girls.  (The other girl wasn't home from school yet, otherwise I'm sure she would've been in he mix of this cuteness as well!)

A CHRISTMAS STORY HOUSE

This is my latest creation for Child's Play Challenge. For this challenge, we teamed up with Pixels and Paper, & were asked to use the following picture found below as our guide.  (Basically, we needed to include the following items on our layout; 3 patterned papers, gold, an animal, bling, & something at least 1 year old or older).  Well...with Christmas on the horizon, I had the perfect "animal" picture I wanted to use....the pink nightmare!  My family LOVES A Christmas Story.  We are one of those families that leaves the TBS A Christmas Story marathon on all day Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  A few years back (pics are my 1 year or older part of the challenge) on our way home from my brother in law's in Erie, PA, we stopped in Cleveland, OH to visit the actual house where the movie was filmed.  My husband was horsing around and decided to pose in the cut out of Ralphie's rabbit outfit his aunt made him for Christmas.  (The animal).  I hit up my stash of Christmas patterned paper, and picked these three from October Afternoon along with gold ribbon and holly bling (the berries are red sequins).  Overall, I was quite please at how quickly this layout came together, although I'm not sure how thrilled my husband will be in his pink rabbit outfit on my blog....Oh well.... ;0)

SUCH A PERFECT DAY AT THE LAKE

This is my latest double page spread for Stick it Down Challenge.  I love fall patterned paper....It's my downfall in my local scrapbook store, online scrapbook stores, etc.....So I try to take as many fall theme pictures as I can so I can use the inordinate amount of patterned fall papers that I have!  My children, their dad, and my inlaws went to Lake Cumberland last week for our school's Fall Break.  (I had a staycation at my house with the cleaning supplies and laundry...) Anyway, my husband took these pictures of my daughter skipping rocks in the lake, playing with her sister, dressing her dog up in his Halloween costume....She had a blast!  And my brand new Carta Bella "A Perfect Autumn" collection was perfect for highlighting these pictures!

NOT SO SCARY TRICK OR TREAT

This is my latest project for RCS where the theme this week was the Disney movie "The Haunted Mansion."  I decided to be very true to the challenge this week and feature a picture of my daughter goofing around at the real Haunted Mansion at Disney World Florida during the Not So Scary Halloween Party.  I must say, this may have been one of the greatest experiences of my life seeing the "Boo to You" parade, trick or treating all over the park.....The design of the layout was inspired from a sketch from my former design team "2 Broke Girls."  Overall, I was happy with how quickly this page came together and decided that a trip back to Disney in October is a must!

BAD HAIR

This is my latest creation for Child's Play Challenge.  The inspiration for this challenge was the Disney classic "Alice in Wonderland."  When I think of this movie, I think of the Mad Hatter....And when I think of the Mad Hatter, I think of my crazy girls who love to put on the hats in the Halloween department of Target.  It's the only time they will voluntarily allow me to take pictures of them!

SUPER GIRL

This is my latest creation for Red Carpet Studio.  In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, we are doing a shout out to the super heroes in our life.  The super hero I chose to feature is my daughter.  When she was five months old, she was diagnosed with severe milk and egg allergies.  We found out the hard way that she was allergic...with a terrible reaction.  We have hoped that as she grew up, the allergies would subside.  While they have some, they are still present, and she handles them with such grace.  Since the time she could talk, she's asked if her food, "Is Abbey safe?"  She has never been upset that she can't have what other children have.  It bothers us adults more than it does her.  And the cool thing is, when she does have something she can eat, she absolutely relishes it.  For example, I took this picture after she left the Icee stand at our local amusement park.  To her, this is the greatest store ever invented!  And she drinks it to the very last drop.  Her maturity towards her condition is inspiring, and I thought she would be a perfect person to feature in my life for this challenge.

PUMPKIN KING

This is my latest creation for Child's Play Challenge.  The toy inspiration for this challenge was the "Jack in the Box."  For some reason, my brain bypassed the toy part and focused on the word "Jack."  Why?  Because my daughter absolutely LOVED anything that had to do with The Nightmare Before Christmas.  One Halloween she was "Sally" complete with the yarn hair and white face.  She has pillows, shirts, cups with Jack Skellington on them....Being the seasonal scrapper that I am, I decided to focus in on the pumpkin she painted a few years back of Jack's "portrait" and a cookie she got at the Disney World "Not So Scary Halloween Party" & accent them with papers in my Halloween stash that reminded me of the Pumpkin King and Halloweentown.

MY FAVES

This is my latest creation for Stick it Down's Tuesday Anything Goes layout.  While the layout called for 3x3 pictures, I decided to use 4x6 pictures I took of my daughters hanging with their favorite princesses at Disney World.  Despite having two daughters, I've never really been one to use pink and girly stuff on their pages.  However, it was a must for a page about their favorite Disney princesses!  I went full on pink glitter polka dot paper, hot pink glitter paper for the matting.  And as for the embellishments, I tried to use a little Ariel bling along with things Belle would love too, like roses...

NIAGARA FALLS

This is my latest layout for Stick it Down based on the sketch below.  When I saw this layout using a tree with the title, I instantly thought of pictures I took of my family & I at Niagara Falls four years ago.  It was a beautiful fall day, so I took several pictures of my girls not only standing by the breathtaking falls, but also in amazing autumn colors.  I also found adorable Cosmo Cricket fall paper in my stash, so the layout came together very easily.  The only adaptations I made were using two pictures instead of three on the first page and moving the bird to the left side of the right page.  Overall it was a great sketch to showcase these pictures I've been waiting to scrap.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

This is my latest creation for RCS.  Being a movie inspired blog, we wanted to pay our respects to the late Robin Williams for this bi-weekly challenge.  I was absolutely devastated to hear of his passing....I grew up with him.  I have pictures of myself dancing with my pregnant mother in 1980 wearing my Mork and Mindy suspenders....Mrs. Doubtfire made me laugh to the point of hysterics at one of the darkest times of my  life....So for this tribute, I decided to metaphorically stand on my desk like the students in Dead Poet's Society and shout "O Captain! My Captain! to the man who brought so much joy to my life.  This is a picture a kind stranger took of my family at the Lincoln Memorial; the inspiration of the poem "O Captain! My Captain!"  I thought it was the perfect picture to spotlight my favorite quote from this Robin Williams classic.

FOR THE RECORD ONE MESSY GIRL

This is my latest creation for Child's Play Challenge.  This bi-weekly challenge was inspired by the Dr. Seuss classic, The Cat in the Hat. When I think of this story, I think of the giant mess The Cat in the Hat,Thing 1, and Thing 2 made.  My Thing 2, my youngest daughter, used to make some monster messes! Whoever created Polly Pockets either a)  never had children or b) have never been pregnant & had to pick up millions of tiny objects while pregnant!  Well thankfully, when I took this picture, only situation a was running through my head; "Who the heck had the great idea to make microscopic mini dolls?"  However, when I was pregnant with my Thing 2, I spent many of hours on the floor picking up tiny shoes and dresses my Thing 1 had littered across the house!  The other pic on this layout was when my Thing 2 decided powder would be a perfect cleaning agent to mop the bathroom floor with while Mommy was out getting her hair colored and cut....In each of these situation, I just had to laugh, take a picture, and remember this too shall pass!

THE OHIO STATE BUCKEYES

This is my latest creation for RCS.  The theme this week; Any Given Sunday.  In other words, create a sports themed project.  I decided to go full football for this challenge!  My husband is a graduate of THE Ohio State University.  In my house, my girls were taught from birth to bleed scarlet and gray and to NEVER under any circumstance wear navy blue and yellow together. I won't share about the other things they were taught about the team up north! ;0)  Anyway, we were on campus a few years back, and we found Brutus the Buckeye sporting a ROTC outfit.  It was a mandatory photo op for my husband.  Two years ago, we went to the OSU vs. Miami University (my Alma mater) game, and I love this picture I took of the "best damn band in the land," the football team, & the flags.

CAITY BUG

This is my latest creation for Child's Play Challenge.  Sequins were the inspiration this time around.  When I saw this challenge, I thought of the dance costumes my daughter wore during her short stint as a ballet and tap student. This particular costume was a green bug complete with a sparkly sequined tuxedo jacket. I was instantly inspired when I came across this picture.  I also used a string of green sequins from my stash and glued them onto the random white dots of the background paper.  I wish they would've shown up more clearly in this picture, but alas....it's always better in real life!

SUMMER

This is my latest double page layout for Stick it Down.  The inspiration was the sketch below. I took these pictures on a trip my school friends & I took to Port Huron, Michigan.  I'm one of those people who literally stops everything I'm doing when the "Pure Michigan" commercials
come on the radio.  I'm hypnotized by Tim Allen's descriptions of Michigan.  I can't wait for him to do one for Port Huron!  It reminds me of a colder Gulf of Mexico without all the tourists.  My friends & I have gone their the past three years on the last day of school to celebrate the end of the year.  I thought this sketch was perfect for highlighting my pictures of "Pure Michigan."

PLAYTIME

This is my latest creation for RCS.  This bi-weekly challenge was inspired by the Adam Sandler classic "Billy Madison."  This may be my favorite Adam Sandler movie....I LOOOOVE Miss Lippy.  I sing  the song, "Back to school, back to school...." all the time to my girls.  It is THE BEST school movie as far as I'm concerned!  For this challenge, rather than use the traditional "first day" pictures I take zillions of (actually I have my husband take them because I'm a teacher in real life and am not home to see them off to school), I used pictures of my daughter on one of her favorite days of preschool; shopping day! Her preschool teachers turned one of the classrooms into a grocery store, and the children took turns shopping & scanning each others groceries.  My daughter is extremely serious by nature, so I love the look on her face as she is trying to figure out the cash register.  These school pics are truly some of the favorites that I have of her, so I decided to put them to good use for this project!

GETTYSBURG

This is my latest project for Child's Play Challenge.  This challenge was inspired by "The Flintstones;" one of my all time favorite cartoons!  I have been to Gettysburg National Park on several occasions, and every time I go there & see "The Devi's Den" portion of the battlefield, I can't help but hum the theme song of The Flintstones.  These prehistoric rocks are piled on top of each other.  You have to be very careful climbing in this area of the battlefield or you may lose your shoe in a crevice.  I took this picture of my husband standing next to one of the big rocks a few years back.  It's amazing how big these rocks are and how they appear to be randomly thrown on top of each other. I used a sketch assigned to me for a bloghop from my former design team "Two Broke Girls" as inspiration as well for this layout.

NOW & THEN

This is my latest layout for RCS where the inspiration was the 80's classic, "Sixteen Candles."  It's the blog's 2nd birthday this month, and I'm proud to say I've been a part of this wonderful DT since it was born.  For this challenge, I decided to use a collage print I made of my daughter for her 13th birthday.  The top left pic is of her the first day of 7th grade.  The other pics are her the first days she was home from the hospital.  It is absolutely amazing to see how she has changed in the past 13 years.  And even though she is maturing into a lovely young woman, I still see that adorable baby face when she sleeps at night.  She will always be my spiky haired baby girl, no matter how old she gets.

GARDEN GIRL

This is my latest layout for Child's Play Challenge.  The inspiration this time around was the Fisher Price toy "Weebles." When I saw this challenge, I actually kept humming the theme song for the Disney TV show "Higglytown Heroes" because the characters in the cartoon looked like weebles.  I loved how the Higgly Town heroes waddled around the TV screen like a weeble.  So for this challenge, I decided to use pictures I took of my daughter trying to lug a watermelon out of the garden.  It probably was about 1/3 of her body weight, and somehow she carried that thing around the yard and looked like a weeble the entire time!

INDIAN SUMMER

This layout is for Stick it Down's July 29th pick your sketch layout of our choice,  I decided to use the same sketch I used for my iCloud layout last week because I loved its use of multiple patterned papers and the embellishments on the 2nd page.  These pics are of my girls on a rare 90 degree day in October.  We left the pumpkin patch and had our final swim of the season.  It was weirdly wonderful!  I just got this paper that reminded me of "Indian Summer" since it's name was "Indian Summer," and decided it would be the perfect paper to accent my pictures of the girls playing at the pumpkin patch, feeding animals, and enjoying the last warm day until Old Man Winter arrived.

CUPS

For this RCS challenge, the inspiration was the movie "Pitch Perfect."  In other words, create a project inspired by music.  Well, no one in my household has the music gene....We love to sing, but it ain't pretty.....BUT what my daughter does love more than anything is Starbucks...And you may be thinking, Starbucks/Pitch Perfect; what is the correlation?  CUPS!  My children have made musical instruments out of all types of cups since watching Pitch Perfect.  And my daughter's favorite cup of them all is one filled with Starbucks!  So that is the story of how this layout was born!

PLAYING IN THE ICLOUD

This is my latest double page layout for Stick it Down based on the sketch below.  When I saw the design, I was instantly inspired by the clouds on the right side of the page.  But rather than think rainbows, kites, etc, your traditional cloud themes, I thought of the icloud that houses the thousands of pictures, videos, etc. that my daughters watch on their various devices.  And I've caught them on a few occasions doing some pretty cute things with their phones, iPads, etc.  They are definitely more tech savvy than I could ever dream of being!

CAITY BUG

This is my latest layout for Child's Play Challenge.  Our inspiration for this week's challenge was the game "Cooties."  When I first tried to plan for this challenge, I thought, "I don't have a picture of a bug..."  Then I realized I did!  My Caity Bug!  For my daughter's second Halloween (and the first one she could officially walk during and trick or treat), she was a lady bug.  And my husband has called her "Caity Bug" since the day she was born.  Voila!  Inspiration!  I love this picture so much; she is sitting next to my Grandmother whose house she walked to from our house for trick or treat.  She had so much fun this Halloween.  The following year when she hit the terrible twos...not so much....

BEST FRIENDS

This is the latest layout that I did for RCS.  Our inspiration this month was the Adam Sandler movie "Grown Ups."  I love that movie....it's one my daughter and I can watch over and over.  I especially love Rob Schneider's character.  "Maize..."  If you have seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about....So I was inspired by this picture I took of my daughters a few years back during the summer.  Their Uncle is a professional baseball player and got them this snow cone machine from the ball park.  So the girls have turned the traditional lemonade stand into the snow cone stand.  And they have brought in quite a bit of cash selling snow cones on hot days!  And it always seems for those few hours of selling snow cones, they actually are best friends.

YIKES!

This is my latest layout for Child's Play Challenge.  The inspiration for this challenge was the childhood toy, "Colorforms."  I loved playing with Colorforms when I was little; the last set I remember getting were Smurfs.  But what I really remember about this toy was the smell.  The plastic scent was part of the fun of getting a new colorform set because you knew they were fresh and would cling onto the board.  The smell was as wonderful as a new can of Play-doh or pack of crayons....I'm weird.....Anyway, I found this picture of my daughter on the slip and slide and instantly thought of colorforms.  Why? Because when you get a slip in slide out of a package, it reminds me of the smell of a package of Colorforms!  On a sidenote, my daughter is slip in sliding two weeks after a winter storm hit....The weather in the Midwest is something else!

MY MISS USA

This is my latest layout for RCS.  The challenge for this bi-weekly theme is the Tom Cruise movie "Born on the Fourth of July."  In other words, create a project featuring the Fourth of July.  I loved this picture of my daughter when she was two sporting her patriotic dress.  I thought it fit the bill perfectly, especially when I found this paper in my stash!

POOL TIME

This is my latest creation for SID.  I realized as I made this double page layout, it's a good thing I'm not a chronological scrapbooker....I am definitely inspired by the season at hand.  I have had this fish paper in my summer stash of paper since my local scrap store closed two years ago.  I've been waiting for the perfect layout to use it.  Then I took these pictures of my daughters, niece, nephew, and my parents the other night when they came over to swim when it was hotter than Hades.  And I thought, "Fish paper!"  The sketch, although calling for a slightly different arrangement of pictures, I adapted to fit my needs. Otherwise, the paper placement follows the sketch to a "T."  I really liked the sketch because it allows for the use of a variety of papers, and being the paper addict that I am, I thoroughly enjoyed working with it!

HEAT WAVE

This layout of my little girl running through the sprinkler with a football is my latest creation for Child's Play Challenge.  We are doing a crossover event for this bi-weekly challenge with Scrap our Stash which this layout is based on as well.  The "child" inspiration for this challenge was tie-dye.  I was rummaging through my stack of pictures, and though the tie-dye bathing suit my daughter was wearing fit the bill!

GIRLFRIENDS

This is my latest creation for RCS.  This bi-weekly theme was based on the movie "Hairspray."  In some way, we were to use ribbon on our project.  My older daughter is hitting the teen years hard, and loves to play with hair.  Curling, straightening, braiding....she loves it all!  So on Mother's Day, I walked into her bedroom to find her curling her sister's hair.  That was the best Mother's Day gift of them all; the girls getting along!  For my "ribbon" requirement, I decided to use red rick rack because it reminded me of the bouncy curls in my daughter's hair. For the layout, I was inspired by my other design team, Child's Play Challenge, & our crossover challenge with Scrap our Stash this week.  We used the sketch found below for that challenge, and I loved it so much, I decided to use it again for this one!

HOOK

This is my latest creation for "Child's Play Challenge." where the inspiration was the childhood classic "Peter Pan."  I instantly thought of my husband's promotion to Captain of the fire department last year.  We love to watch The Big Bang Theory, and after we learned of his promotion, we started quoting our favorite character Sheldon... Sheldon decided that he needed to be the "captain" of his paint ball team because if it was good enough for Kirk, Crunch, and Kangaroo, it was good enough for him.  So for a while we rotated between calling my husband those three names, until he said, "Call me Hook....He's the coolest Captain of them all!"  And it stuck!  So much in fact that we bought him a plastic hook hand to put on his desk!

MAGIC MEMORIES

This is the latest creation I have posted for Red Carpet Studio Challenge.  This bi-weekly challenge was inspired by the 80's classic "National Lampoon's Vacation."  That movie is one of my favorites of all time!  I think we all have had a Clark Griswold moment on a vacation....And in honor of his trip to Walley World, I decided to use a picture of my trip to Disney World!  My girls were huge Toy Story fans.  Who am I kidding, so was (and still am) I!  So we definitely had to take advantage of this photo-op of Buzz & Woody!  And other than a freak cold snap in Florida when we went, it was the only "Griswold" like event that we had while we were visiting Disney World.  (That and the landing gear going out on the plane....)  Never a dull moment when vacationing!

THANK YOU

This is my latest creation for Red Carpet Studio.  The challenge this time was the movie Saving Private Ryan in honor of Memorial Day.  We were fortunate to have Bugaboo Digi Stamps donate an image of our choice to create our project.  When I saw this image, I instantly thought of a picture I took of my daughter in Washington DC six years ago.  We were standing at the Vietnam Wall.  She was reading all the names, asking questions about the war....She would bend down and read the letters along the bottom of the wall....It was heart wrenching reading what loved ones wrote to their family members who made the ultimate sacrifice.  I stood back for a moment and took this picture of her studying the names so intently.  I loved how her image was reflected in the black marble.  Even though Saving Private Ryan was a story about World War II, I was so moved by this picture, I felt it perfectly commemorated the movie & Memorial Day

BEAUTIFUL

This is my latest layout for Child's Play Challenge.  The inspiration behind this challenge was the cartoon classic Scooby Doo.  When I saw this was the challenge, I instantly thought of my daughter's Halloween costume last Fall.  She decided she wanted to be a Hippie girl.  She got this adorable dress (which I thought looked like something Daphne on Scooby Doo wore), go-go boots, big sunglasses....and it rained like crazy all night on trick or treat.....There were some brave kids out on Halloween night; my child was not one of them....So she dressed up to pass out candy.  Just glad I got one good shot of her outfit.  Gotta love Mother Nature!