Scramping is Addictive!!!

Guess what!?! One of my VSBN pages from the preview won...and 1st place too! I am so excited and happy, I'm beside myself!!! Thank you to all of you that left me sweet comments in my gallery! It feels good to get a little pat on the back now and then, and winning...WOW!!!

Saturday was the kick off for the week-end of scrapping, and my challenge was at 12:00 PM! There were a total of 13 challenges posted over the week-end, and Friday there were 3 surprise challenges. I've only scrapped 3 pages and a double page spread so far, but the upload deadline has been extended until 5:00 PM Wednesday May 2, 2007!!! There are 2 more challenges I REALLY want to do, but hopefully I can squeeze in a few more before the deadline!

Click HERE to see all 20 challenges - judging is over for the first 4, but who knows you might get inspired!
Click HERE to see all the entries for my challenge - where's yours?
Click HERE to see all the APR07VSBN entries!

Virtual Scrapbooking

Last Saturday was a preview of our Virtual Scrapbooking event on Splitcoaststampers, or more affectionately known as VSBN. Next week-end there will be so much more!!! You don't have to scrap along to play. There's a deadline for all uploads and everyone is on the "honor system" for obeying the 2 hour time limit. Sometimes it's easier to scrap first and upload later. ;)

I did all 4 challenges from the preview, have a look:

APRIL 2007 VSBN
A Nature Spa Weekend

Saturday 4/28 & Sunday 4/29
Challenges will be posted every two hours beginning at 10:00 AM both days!

Here's a link to the Challenge Thread where you'll see the requirements of each preview challenge, and this is also where the new challenges will be, starting at 10:00 AM Saturday!!!

Confetti Eggs ~ Cascarones

Easter is quickly approaching and I'm always worried we won't have enough eggs for the hunt. I've only been saving shells for a few weeks so far, and we are 2 eggs shy of 36. That would give each of my three girls a dozen, but I was hoping for MORE!

If you've never made these, they are a ton of fun. We got kinda burned out on hardboiled eggs, so the last few years we've been making nothing but cascarones (confetti eggs). They are easy to do, we just carefully remove the egg whites and yolk when we cook eggs. The best way I've found is to tap the end with a butter knife, and then break away the shell bit by bit with your nail, until the hole is about the size of a nickel. I usually insert the knife too which breaks the yolk and helps guide the egg out of its shell.

If you are really impatient like me you can dump your eggs into a container for cooking later! I just put the last 5 in this container so I can put together a quiche for Good Friday. Make sure you rinse your shells out, and then you can color them like you would the hardboiled version...that's the FUN part! After they're colored and dry just fill with confetti and seal the ends by gluing a piece of tissue paper over the hole. WAY easy!

We'll probably do them on Saturday, which gives me a few more days to save shells, and we got one of those new kits that does tye die eggs this year. The girls are totally anxious to get started!!!

Wasabi Hobby

One of my favorite snacks, at the moment, are wasabi peas. They are spicy, crunchy, and YUMMY! After recycling a few cans I thought to myself, these could be useful...and I started saving them. This past week-end, I dug out some pretty paper, slathered it's backside with ModPodge, added a little this and that, and voila - something "purty" for my personal use.

I decided to use it for storing different ideas and notes for future layouts and cards. I've read about others who tear things from magazines and keep them in a jar. Well I am WAY too obsessive compulsive to destroy a magazine, but I do have lots of little notes jotted on scraps as well as some freebie ideas from mailings and that I've picked up in stores. It's so nice to get them out of my drawer and tucked away in my wasabi tin...hmmm what should I call it now?

• Inspiration Station?
• Tip Tin?
• Idea Vault?
  
• Concept Container?
  

Ok, ok, maybe I'm overthinking this a little. hee hee

Smelly Jelly

This was my attempt at an Easter card with out owning any Easter stamp sets! One thing that makes this little card special is the scratch-n-sniff technique....

Mix equal portions of embossing powder with any unsweetened powder, such as Koolaid. You can also use cocoa powder, Cinnamon, or any other strong smelling spice.
In this instance we stamped with Craft Green Galore ink and coated the image with our "smelly mixture" of Koolaid and EP, and heat set - just like you would any embossed image. You can really scratch the image and smell the Koolaid!!! Pretty neat huh!?! Tell me what you think!

A Little Something...

When I was in Walmart last week (buying kitty litter and PullUps) I bought this picture frame! It's almost impossible for me to just get what I need and get out! It was incredibly cheap, under $5 I believe.
My original intention was to put a picture of each of my three daughters and scrap the extra framed area with "Our Girls" or "The Chickens 2007." ;)
Wednesday night, I was looking at the frame and thinking about what patterned paper scraps I could use...well this paper with the flowers was left over from a single page layout I did last year, and it seemed to be a good choice! I decided to cut out a few flowers the same way I had on the scrapbook page and using ModPodge, I adhered them to the outside of the frame. Then I began searching through recent pictures and could not find what I wanted...
SOLUTION: After work yesterday I sat them down one by one and snapped their pictures. Why not??? It took several takes to get one for each girl, but by golly we did it! ;)
I converted the images to black and white to print on my printer, but I guess it was too much for my pitiful printer. The last pic printed in a sepia tone, not because I planned it that way, but because I am now OUT of black ink - OOPS! I think I like the sepia tone though, and I will probably reprint all three pictures in sepia once I get a new toner cartridge. The photos are layered on cardstock, direct to paper craft ink and more paper incorporated. I even did a little stamping. Ended up with {LIVE} big instead of "My Chickens," LOL!!! but anything works!!!

Bleachy Business

I'm so in love with this little skunk!!! She was begging me to let her out of the box Saturday...and I couldn't say no. It is such a beautiful day today, I took her outside for a picture!

The bleaching technique is still new to me and I love the way different colored cardstock reacts to the bleach. Click on the title of this post for a closer look, you can also get the recipe for recreating this card.

Something Old Meets Something New

I've had these extra strips of Very Vanilla lying around for quite a while and these eyelets were in a grab bag of retired accessories last year. I REALLY like the oval shape, but have been hoarding them...so silly!
I needed to create a few 6x6's, so I decided to play with my Polka Dots & Paisley set again. I'm so happy Spring is coming and thought these colors were just right!!!
Do you have an overwhelming pile of scraps? Are you hoarding some cool accessories that you'll be sad to run out of? I'm glad I used mine - I've been liberated! ;)

The Birth of Another Blog

Here we are! A new home to post ideas and thoughts, it's going to be great!!!