About Me

My photo
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
I am a stay at home mom..now that is! February 19th, 2007 I was involved in a car accident while on vacation in Florida. I awoke in ICU to find out that my only two children Annemarie age 3 and Michael age 5 did not make it. Scrapbooking became such a big part of my life. It helped fill a void that I desperately needed to fill. Our therapist suggested that I take up scrapbooking as a way to memorialize my children, little did she know! So I took that and ran with it.I became obsessed with scrapping and took over the second largest room in my house. Because of my injuries I couldn't go out and get a job, I just scrapped!I printed out 2,000 photos and my journey began. I have made albums for family members and layouts to decorate my craft room. We thought we were done having kids but who expected this tragedy??? I just gave birth in June 2009 to two beautiful baby girls Mia Anne and Gianna Marie named after their brother and sister.I swore that I would keep up with their albums so I won't become overwhelmed so we will see how that works out! My profile picture is the last family picture that was taken of all of us.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

New Challenge & Guest Design Team Call !!!!

Hello from my snowed in craft room! Actually the snow isn't that bad yet but it is our first significant snow fall this year and since I live in Pennsylvania I consider that pretty darn good. School is canceled but I can still see some grass in places. So I have declared it a Pajama wearing day. I am making some homemade soup and some homemade bread to set the mood of just chilling'!

This week over at The Sisterhood of Crafters we have an easy peasy challenge for you all. The theme is "ANYTHING GOES" so it is pretty much everything and anything your crafty little brain can dream up. AND the exciting part is that we are having an open Guest Designer call. We are looking for a few Crafty women who want to have some fun. It would be for a one month term which is 2 projects. All you have to do is put GDT next to your name on your challenge entry. I will be picking a few out and contacting the winners directly. I will let you know the two challenges you will be responsible for once you get picked so you will have plenty of time to create. Right now it is purely for fun and to get your creations out into blog world. We had a great response to our last challenge and hope that is the case on this one to. If you would love to be a Guest Designer and join us for some fun please submit your requests to us over at The Sisterhood of Crafters. Our challenges run for two weeks so you have some time!

I needed a card for a friend that is going through some tough times with her Mom being sick so I wanted to keep it simple. This is what I came up with.

I stamped the flowers in Versamarker then embossed with with clear embossing powder for a clean and simple look. Very dainty and delicate I think.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Blog Hop Winner & New PKS Challenge

Hello Everyone! Sorry I am late in posting the winner but I have been busy going from Dr. to Dr. Today was my last one so I hope that is it for awhile!.

First the winner of the adorable PKS stamp set from the Valentine's Blog Hop is.....


Trisha said...
Fabulous. I love the mice. I love all the coloring also. Feels like when I was a kid (many millions of years ago.) Thanks for sharing and the chance to win. I am a follower. patnbobcuddy at gmail dot com

Trisha please contact me within 3 days to collect your prize. Congratulations!!

This week we have a challenge with a twist over at Peachy Keen Stamps Challenge blog. The challenge was to follow a sketch but the twist was to do a monochromatic card. I started doing an adorable card and halfway through forgot about the monochromatic thing so I had to start over. No biggie but I did decide that I am not very good at monochromatic cards..chuckle!

Here is my card:



Because I had to start over I didn't have that much time to perfect my card. I am not crazy how I colored it but hey it's handmade right??? For this card I did lots of sewing, used Stampin Up! double sided Love paper and used my PKS-280 Valentine Sweets set. I colored it in with Copics and Spica Glitter pens. I know it is hard to see that because the pictures were taken late at night and the picture stinks but trust me..the glitter is there! I then sprayed it with Glimmer Mist which almost gave it a fuzzy look. I popped up another heart to cover up something I wasn't happy with. To cut it out I used my Nesties for the mat.

I hope you hop on over and play along with our challenge this week. I would love to see some more examples of monochromatic so I can learn a lesson or two!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Doing the Valentine's Day Hippity Hop!


Hello EVERYONE!!! By now you have seen all the adorable stamps that have been released. Are they not the cutest things ever?? Kathy surely does make it easy to come up with some adorable cards by just using her stamps!! Now if only I could have a ounce of her talent so I can color them in like a pro! I know I'm not perfect but I have a blast coloring them in. Reminds me when I was little coloring with crayons.


The stamp set I was given to work with was PK-281 Valentine Cupids. This is also the set I will be giving away (see information at the end of this post).



I used the smaller of the adorable mouse cupids so I could use it as a cupcake topper. I made some homemade chocolate cupcakes with double chocolate, sour cream, pudding..etc etc and made a yummy Chocolate ganache out of chopped chocolate and heavy cream. I then drizzled it with melted white chocolate to finish it off. I was going to make a card to go with this but with all of my doctor appointments this week I didn't have the time.


Other supplies I used for this cupcake topper were:
PaperTrey Ink Die
Copics
Stickles
White Gel Pen
Stampin Up Pastels
Stampin Up Ink
Now hop on over to Angelica's blog to finish the hop.

In case you got lost along with way or just arrived here below is the complete blog hop order. Don't forget to leave a comment on each post because every DT member is giving a
way the stamp set they designed with.
*** In order to win this stamp set all you have to do is leave a comment on this post. I will announce the winner and you will have 3 days to get in touch with me. If I don't hear from you, I will pick another winner. **

Lisa - You are here
Angelica

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Wanna take a sneaky peaky of some fabulous fun??


OHHHHHH MYYYYY GOOODNEESSSSS! Wait to you see what is in store for you. Peachy Keen has released some over the top adorable stamp sets. We are celebrating with a blog hop on Friday 1/20. The sneak peaks started yesterday on the PKS Challenge blog. Today is another wave of sneak peaks to dazzle your retinas!! Both Design teams have come together in another celebration of these wonderful stamps. Here is my sneak peak of the stamp set I will be using. Make sure to tune in tomorrow at 7pm CST for the blog hop lift off!! As usual each design team was given a stamp set to use and an extra one to give away on their blog. So there will be oodles of chances to win one of the many new stamp sets. I already have my favorite!


Thursday, January 13, 2011

My Forever Snow Angel




I am on a scrapbook layout binge. Once I start, it is hard to stop. Good thing I don't do drugs or gamble because I go overboard. I think I do a lot of layouts of my children when I start to miss them so much it hurts. It is my way of visiting them and remembering the good times we had. It is nearing the anniversary of their deaths so I guess there will be lots of layouts coming your way! I love doing them but then I feel bad that I haven't really done any for the twins. Once February passes maybe I will be able to squeeze some in. I just gotta get them printed out!!!

Once I saw the sketch over at Simon Says Stamps and the theme of snow over at Creative Belli Challenge for some reason I thought instantly of these pictures. These were some of the last pictures taken on my children. They were playing in only maybe 2 inches of snow but they thought it was the best thing in the world. I am gonna do another page with the other photos but for now I just wanted to keep this as a main picture.

The challenge over at Fantabulous Cricut is to use winter warmies..something related to clothing you would wear in the snow. I cut out my mittens from Simply Charmed I believe. I didn't like the way the layer for the bottom cut out so I hand cut it then flocked it with white flocking. I used my PKS-460 Happy Lash Assortment for the faces. I used the biggest one that comes in the set which I believe is the 1 3/8" size. I covered it in liquid glass from CTMH and added a metal token to the mittens also from CTMH.
And of course the picture of my daughter for the Cutie Patootie challenge over at
Paperplay. The papers are from October Afternoon. I added oodles of Stickles to the snowflakes on the paper to make them stand out more. One of my resolutions is to use up old stuff so I grabbed these chipboard letters that I bought years ago and added some stickles to that. Boy it felt good to use up some of my ol' stash I tell ya!I had some rhinestones leftover from the Shopping page so I stuck whatever I had on this page to complete it. Hope you like it!! Stay tuned for the page that will go with this one!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Challenges, Challenges & more challenges

Oh boy, I can't even remember the last challenge I entered a project into. I had some free time and rather than clean I decided to make a project or two :) I mean who wants to clean anyway????

First this week over at The Sisterhood of Crafters we are back from a much needed break with a great challenge. We have switched it to having challenges bi-weekly on our blog so you will have 2 weeks to complete a project. The challenge this week is to make a Happy Birthday project and since you can never have to many of those cards in your stash I hope you stop on in and play along!.





I bought these stamps from Scrappy Moms Stamps awhile back and I have been dying to use the Lettuce Wish you a Happy Birthday sentiment. I am also trying to use items that I have had for awhile but never used so I took out my Freshly Picked Cricut cartridge to cut out the lettuce. I do not own (..sniff..) the cartridge they are using this week for their challenge so I had to come up with something different. For the face I used one of my favorite stamp sets PK-490 Everyday Character Faces from Peachy Keen.

I haven't done a challenge in ions and even though my craft room is in total disarray I managed to find a spot big enough to put my layout paper down. It felt good to do a challenge again and amazing enough I actually had the time to do it. Again, dust unfortunately will be there tomorrow so there is no rush..LOL


I decided to start with some of my fellow DT members challenges. Angelica & Erin are on my Peachy Keen design team and they have started up a new challenge called Music Mondays. Each week they take turns hosting the challenge and this week is Erin's turn over at Erin Lee Creative
This week the song is by Ray LaMontagne..You are the best thing. I of course automatically thought of my children since they are and always will be the most important thing in my life. Having Mommy & Me days with my daughter Annemarie will be memories I will cherish for ever and ever. Instantly I thought of doing a scrapbook layout showcasing the only pictures I have of our trips. My other fellow DT member Kim always has the best sketches for layouts so I stopped on by her blog
Sketches In Thyme to see what awesome sketch she had for me to get my creative juices flowing. I am in lllloooooooovvvveee with the paper from October Afternoon and I just got some for Christmas along with an ATG gun and other goodies so I had to use them. I brought out some chipboard pieces that I got a long time ago and decided to use those. I gotta tell you I wish I would of used them right away because I would have returned them..they are JUNK!!! Never saw anything so flimsy and junky but I am trying to use up my old stuff so I made them work. I covered them in Tim Holtz Frayed Burlap.

I entered this into the following challenges as well:

Top Tip Tuesday - Anything Goes
Cupcake Craft Challenge - Something New
Pile It On Children
Creative Cottage Something New
Crafty Catz - Food & Drink
Craft Your Days Away Anything Goes

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

I'm back...with a Peachy New challenge!

I can't believe it has almost been a month since I have last posted. But the holidays are usually pretty hard for me to deal with. I do not take on to much of anything so I don't overwhelm myself. I actually just spent it around the house and hanging out with my family. I am trying to get my craft room in order. I did get halfway there and I just stopped. My intentions was to get it going before I started up again but that didn't happen. We are expecting our first snowfall of the winter today so maybe I will have the time to do it!!

I did manage to squeeze into a little space to make room for the new challenge this week over at Peachy Keen Stamps. Here is the sketch we had to follow:



And this is what I came up with:



One of my resolutions to myself is to use stuff that I haven't used in awhile. For this challenge I pulled out PK-275 Faceless Flowers Petal Pointed set. This is such a great set to have in your collection of stamps because you can use it for almost any occasion...Sympathy cards, Thinking of you, Happy Birthday, Congrats..etc etc. There are several different sizes on this size. I used the smallest size to fit my 5x5 inch card. I stamped the image of each flower twice then stamped the outline image of the flower in a darker color. next I cut each flower out and popped up each layer with a mounting dot. For the center I added a small button for a little pizazz. I used my Nesties to cut out the scalloped circle mats. For the sentiment I used PK-414 Bite Me Ginger.."Sorry to Hear you are not feeling well". This was a great card to add to my collection because I always need these. I am actually happy to be in the crafting saddle again. I got some goodies from Santa that I can't wait to use. I look forward to sharing them with you all!

Make sure you stop by and check out all the wonderful eye candy that my fellow DT members came up with.!!

I wish you all a very happy, healthy, prosperous but most of all SAFE 2011! And of course Lots and Lots of crafting time!!!