Template Challenge

My amazingly talented friend, Yari of Jady Day Studio, has been hosting a template challenge over the weekend in honor of {inter}National Scrapbooking Day. I love iNSD because of all the wonderful freebies and deals all over the internet that the digital scrapbooking world has to offer. And it gets me in the scrapping spirit, because I don't scrap much these days. I was hoping the template would make things faster, but each LO still took me at least three hours. And the last one, in honor of my mom, for Mother's Day, took me about 6 hours to do. Mainly because I almost had it done mostly using one kit (and not really feeling it), and then stumbling across the kit (A Mother's Story, which is a retired Jady Day Studio goody) seen in the last LO. I feel in love with this kit, and loved the flowers and botany spin, which was perfect for my mom, who loves to garden. The green leaves and such are actually from a new Jady Day Studio kit (in collaboration with Kay Miller), Park Play, which I am also in love with. It's the kit I used in the first LO. The second LO is made using Spring and Winter in Hooville.

Rainbow Bright

Yes, I am aware that Rainbow Brite the person spells her name differently than I did. That was intentional, since this wasn't an attempt to replicate Rainbow Brite's look, but when Abigail wears this outfit it reminds me of her. Hence "Rainbow Bright". This all comes from a kit I got from the "So You Think You Can Design" contest way back when, from a designer called Abish Allen. The kit is called "Every Day Moments". I'm as shocked as you are that I'm not using a kit by Jady Day Studio. But I've got all these other kits, I might as well use them.

Family Picture 2010

Everything but the rick rack are from Springdipity by Jady Day Studio. The rick rack is from another Jady Day Studio kit. I think Winter in Hooville.

Some Snow Memories

So, on the sledding page I tried a new (for me) technique. I really wanted to use four pictures, but thought that would crowd the page quite a bit. But I realized the picture of Carl and the kids climbing the hill had a lot of dead space in it, so I used that picture for my background by changing the opacity. I really like the way this page turned out, though I wish Carl's head didn't look like it was missing because it blended in with the dark background. And the snowman picture convinced me that I need a dSLR camera, so I can focus on certain things, and leave the background blurry so I don't have to do creative scrapping and cropping to block out the busy-ness of the background. BTW, everything is from Jady Day Studio, Winter in Hooville Kit.

First Day of School Sept. 2010

Everything from Jady Day Studio, "Little Scholar" kit.

Halloween, 3 of 3

Not my favorite page, but I wasn't sure how else to do it. I guess maybe using a B&W photo instead. Oh well.

Shutterfly Blog Offer

I've never ordered Christmas Cards from Shutterfly, seeing that I'm usually pretty keen on making my own cards, an/or writing my own Christmas Letter, but this year Shutterfly has an awesome offer for bloggers, in which you get to review their products and in return, they will send you 50 free Christmas Cards! And since I'm all for helping others (and getting things for free in return), I figured I would take them up on their offer. And although I've never ordered cards or photo gifts from them, I usually do order my photo prints from them that I put in the Christmas cards, and I've always been pleased with the timely service and quality from them. The two photo cards that I found that I love (because I still get to do my letter, although it will be somewhat abbreviated) are shown below. I love the Top Ten one, because then I really have to think about our most favorite memories from this year. And I love the simplicity of both of them. I just wish they came in blue and green too, without the red.


I love this card (below) for the simple Christmas message on it. That every good gift comes from Christ. And that's the true meaning of Christmas. We celebrate the birth of Christ and the importance of His life, and the opportunity to live with Him again, because of all He has done for us.
And this card (below) for the simplicity of it. If I had a great picture of the kids, I would be tempted to get this one. But this year we only took a family picture, and it wasn't a very joyous occasion, trying to get Abigail to smile, so maybe another year I'll get this one.
Go to the following places to view their cards:

Christmas Photo Cards

Christmas Stationary Cards

Or, if you need a gift idea, and know someone that still uses a wall calendar, check out these awesome calendars. I think I might do this some year for my mom, so she can see her grandkids everyday.

Wall Calendars