CUTE AS A BUTTON

This RCS challenge was based on the movie, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."  In other words, we had to use buttons in some way on this layout.  In December, my nephew Noah was born.  This is a new one for me....While I did have nephews prior to Noah being born, they live in Hawaii, so I've never really been around  baby boys.  My house is a bit estrogen dominated, so this is a new one for me   What I've found is there is not much difference between a baby boy and baby girl......Well, I know I'm biased, but I think my Noah is cute as a button.  And I hardly ever get to do a boyish layout, so I decided he would be the perfect subject for this challenge.  That and I came across this adorable baby boy Doodlebug paper at Archiver's, and I just had to buy it.  In summary, this is the curious case of how my button layout came to be....ENJOY!

LUCKY LEPRECHAUN BLOG HOP!

Welcome to Day 1 of the Lucky Leprechaun Blog Hop, brought to you by the layout design team of Red Carpet Studio!

If you've come from Rochelle's blog, you're in the right place. If you've just come across the hop and would like to start at the beginning, please visit Red Carpet Studio.

This hop was put together to share with you fun and creative ideas for St. Patrick's Day projects along with introduce you to our new design team members AND officially announce our March Lucky Link-Up contest!

Before we get to all that fun information, I'd like to share my project with you. I created...

 

 

It's no secret in my household...we hate winter!  We like snow at Christmas time and a snow day here and there to get the day off school.  And that's it!  So we look for any reason we can to do fun things at the tail end of winter.  As a result, we like to celebrate St. Patty's Day!  My husband has Irish blood pumping through his veins; my family does not.  But that doesn't stop me from dressing my girls up in green and taking fun pictures of them.  This particular St. Patrick's Day was one of those Spring teaser days.  We live in Ohio so you can have all four seasons in one day; this one was an all around warm mid March day.  So the girls went outside, and I had lots of fun snapping pictures of them.  Speaking of snapping pictures, we would love to see what you all have created!  Be sure to check out Red Carpet Studios Challenge blog to see what fun ideas are coming up!  Remember, lots of awesome prizes could be had!  And no lephrechaun will come snatch them from you; we promise!


And of course we have some wonderful sponsors giving away prizes to those who comment both days on every stop of the hop. :)

Dilly Beans Digi Stamps

3 digis of winner's choice

Paper Pretties

6 digital image sets

QKR Stampede

5 digital stamps

The Robin's Nest

$10 gift certificate

Winners will be announced at Red Carpet Studio on Tuesday March 5th along with the winners of our wedding/anniversary card challenge.

And now for our March Lucky Link-Up announcement! Each challenge entry in March will enter you to win over $200 in gift certificates to all sorts of online scrapbooking stores, from stamp companies, to paper piecing, to digital scrapbooking sites, and more. Check out the Lucky Link-Up page on the blog for a complete list of sponsors and details about the contest. We're also listing ALL of our March challenges in advance so you can get a head start on all your projects. :) 

We'd also like to give a warm welcome to our new layout design team members, Olga, Rochelle, and Darcy! These very talented ladies are sharing their first projects as DT members in this hop with you. :) 

Your next stop is Darcy's blog
 

Red Carpet Studio

Robin

Chas

Rochelle

Stephanie

Darcy

Bev

Olga

Thanks for hopping with us! :)

THE NOTEBOOK

This week's challenge for RCS was to design a page based on the movie "The Notebook" where journaling would play a key design element in the layout.  My immediate thought was Alzheimer's.  Strange I realize....I read the book right after my Grandmother's death which was Alzheimer's related.  It touched my heart how the husband told his wife their "story" over and over.  Alzheimer's is an cruel disease....It's so unfair to watch someone you love forget who they are. My Grandmother passed away 18 years ago.  Before her death, my Mom and her sisters and brother sold my Grandma's house.  I was in college and didn't get a chance to go through it one last time.  I have so many wonderful memories of the house.  It backed up to a hilly golf course, and my cousins and I would go sledding in the winter.  I had my first vegetable garden in her yard.  Speaking of gardens, she had a rock garden that was her pride and joy.  I would go outside and weed the garden with her while she would tell me stories about growing up during the Great Depression.  It was my Grandmother who turned me on to history intriguing me with tales of her childhood.  Last year, my cousin, who was looking to rent a house, discovered Grandma's house was for rent.  So we all went over there to go through it one last time.  I've told my daughters so many stories about Grandma's house; I can not express how amazing it was for me to take my children through her home.  It was my home away from home....And that's how my Mom's house is for my girls.  They are as comfortable staying at their Mimi's as I was at my Grandma's house.  So that is how the movie The Notebook inspired this layout.  And I pray that someday, a cure is found to stop this horrible disease.

OUR BIG DATE

Our latest RCS studio challenge asked us to make a layout based on the movie "Valentine's Day."  Well, my husband and I aren't ones that take many pictures of ourselves...So I had to get a little creative for this one.  Since a big part of Valentine's Day is the "date" part, I decided to focus on our biggest date of the year; the Ohio State vs Miami University football game at the Horseshoe in Columbus, OH.  Why was that such an important date?  Because our Alma maters were facing off for the first time in ten years!  I told him a long time ago that going to a Buckeyes football game was on my bucket list. Being married to a Buckeye Alumni, his school has grown on me over the years. So when he learned that Miami was the opening game of the OSU football season, somehow or another he scored us two tickets on the 10 yard line.  And it was a blast!  Although Miami lost, they sure did give the Buckeyes a run for their money during the first quarter.  It truly was an experience and a great date!  I would happily go to another game, and this time, I won't be rooting for the other team.

LOVE IS IN THE AIR BLOG HOP!

Welcome to Day 2 of the Love is in the Air Blog Hop, brought to you by the layout design team from Red Carpet Studio!

If you haven't hopped through Day 1 yet, make sure to do so!

This weekend the Red Carpet Studio design team would like to share with you love-themed projects to inspire you during this Valentine's Day season. Throughout the hop you'll see a variety of projects and we hope one or more of these wonderful creations inspire you to create. :)

If you've come from Chas' blog, you're in the right place. If you'd like to start at the beginning of the hop, please visit Red Carpet Studio.

For today's hop I made... "WE LOVE MOUSTACHES"

I have the goofiest girls ever!  They both thought it would be hysterical to wear fake moustaches around the house and rock the Groucho Marx look.  This moment marked the beginning of collecting all things facial hair in our house.  We now have moustace headbands, moustache necklaces, moustache earrings....we accessorize with facial hair.  So perhaps the title of my page shouldn't be "We love moustaches" but instead "We are obsessed with moustaches!" And I love it!
 

We also have some fabulous sponsors giving away prizes to those who comment on every stop of both days the hop!

The Cutting Cafe

3 digital stamp sets of the winner's choice

SK Digis

$6 gift certificate

"Whooo's Your Valentine?" Kit from Close to My Heart

Sponsored by CTMH Consultant Janet Royer

LoveBug Creations

12 yard ribbon set - Winner's choice of Red Hot Lover or The Yummy Collection

Please make sure to comment both days on every stop of the hop AND leave your contact information to be eligible to win. Winners will be announced on Tuesday January 29th at Red Carpet Studio along with the winners of our "Sparkle" layout challenge.

Your next stop is Robin's blog.

And here's the entire lineup:

Red Carpet Studio - http://redcarpetstudiochallenge.blogspot.com

Chas - http://ittybittyladybugs.blogspot.com/

Stephanie J - http://sthom97093.blogspot.com/

Robin - http://www.thecricutscrapper.blogspot.com/

Monique - http://living-in-the-positive.blogspot.com/

Sandra - http://crea-sandra.blogspot.com/

Tonya G - http://scrappingfunwithtonya.blogspot.com

Tonya M - http://ittybittyladybugs.blogspot.com/

Happy Hopping! 

SNOWFLAKES ARE KISSES FROM HEAVEN

For this week's challenge for RCS, we were asked to make a sparkly layout.  I love sparkles.....Sparkly vampires, sparkly clothes, sparkly paper.  So when I learned of this challenge, the first sparkly inspiration that came to my mind was snow.  And sadly, we haven't seen a lot of it in our neck of the woods in the last year....And being a teacher, that's a sad thing.  We love snow days, I think more than our students.....When the weather report came in for this past December 25, we were once again disappointed; no White Christmas.  Then suddenly in true Ohio weather fashion, no snow went to blizzard warning the day after Christmas!  And not only did we have a mini blizzard, we had thundersnow!  It's the weirdest thing to experience; snow falling, lightening bolts, & big thunder booms!  So anyway, I took these pics of my snow baby a couple of days after our first snow in over a year.  I used glitter paper to matte my main pictures, sparkly brads from Doodlebug Design to secure my pictures on the sparkly paper (it is a bit hard to get card stock to stick to glitter paper), and sparkly snowflakes from Jolee's Boutique.  Hopefully at some point this winter I can make a few more sparkly layouts.  Namely any day Monday through Friday; weekends are OFF LIMITS!

SAY SOMETHING; SAY ANYTHING!

For this RCS layout, the inspiration was the 80's movie "Say Anything."  I do love me some John Cusack.....my personal fave movie of his is "Better Off Dead," but I do enjoy this one.  Although no one has held up a radio to my window professing their love to me, my husband did go on a wild goose chase once to find me the pens that I used to love to write with when we first started dating.....I guess that's my real life version of this movie.  And also how I knew he was the one....

However, for this layout, I decided to use a picture of my daughter opening up her favorite Christmas present; the iPad.  When she opened up this gift, she literally went speechless.  And that's pretty rare for her.  I snapped a picture of her complete shock, and thought it would be perfect for this project.  She didn't say anything for quite some time after opening this gift; she just sat there with her hand over her mouth giggling with delight.  When she did finally say something, it was, "I can't believe I got an iPad!"  Once I got my pictures ready for this project, I hit up my stash of Doodlebug Design Christmas paper. I have a thing for Doodlebug too right now....

To sum it all up, my daughter has started speaking again since opening the iPad.  She has become a Pinterestaholic with her iPad constantly saying, "Mom, lets make this!" or "Mom, check this out...."  Not to mention, I have to be careful not to go around the house singing or dancing because she's facetiming all her buddies.  So, yes, she's saying something now!  Mostly, "Thank you for the iPad!"