Reach 4 the Stars

Sooo happy I actually had time to enter the sketch contest at A Peek Into Yesterday this month! It's due today...nothing like waiting till the last minute, huh? I've been wanting to use this Rusty Pickle paper for ages. I love the way it turned out! See for yourself!

THURSDAY THOUGHTS - Wake me up when it's over

It's been a rough week. No matter what I do I always feel like I haven't done enough. My creativity is in a major slump but I haven't let it stop me, it's just been much harder to create. I had taken the day off Thursday to get caught up with myself, both physically and mentally. Days like that where it's just me, my tunes and my scrap room are super precious to me. I just can't duplicate the type of renewal that I feel from that.

My son ended up with a horrible croup-like cough Wednesday night so we kept him home on Thursday. He doesn't need a lot of my supervision anymore but it still entirely changed the way I spent my day. I am hopeful that he doesn't get worse as we are supposed to be getting together with my family to celebrate Easter this Sunday. We had to postpone it a week because my niece has shingles. I've been feeling under the weather too and have felt very tired. I am looking forward to late tonight and tomorrow morning where I will be locking myself in my scrap room. Lots of pretties coming up in April!! I'll be reviewing Tinkering Ink, Prima and American Crafts and Somerset's new Digital Studio book....which prompted me to create my own blog banner...how do you like it?

I promise to share as soon as I can...and hopefully this weekend some "just for fun" work.

Check out these new pages!

These pages were done for a ScrapFriends review on Pabric - a fabric that performs much like paper. You can read my review here. It's some amazing stuff!!
I printed this picture out on one sheet of Pabric Soft. Can you believe how bright and crisp it is? I ran it right through my ink jet printer and adhered it to my page with tape adhesive. The swirls and bird collage were pulled from an AMAZING digital freebie by Krystal Hartley, printed on another sheet of Pabric Soft and hand cut. I adhered these with a glue stick.

For this layout I wanted to try stamping. I used my new Stampin' Up stamp for the Sweet crown, colored it with markers and stamped it on Pabric Soft, cut it out and adhered it with foam dots.

THURSDAY THOUGHTS - Procrastination is an Art Form

This entire week has been a struggle for me. It seems no matter how much I do in a day I don't do enough. I can't keep up with laundry right now. Doesn't help that the kids are outgrowing their winter clothes at a frightening rate and it's not warm enough for shorts & t-shirts. The house is disorganized, the dog has muddy feet and I haven't scrapped this entire week.

It seems I have developed procrastination to an art form - at least it feels that way. Monday night I just had this overwhelming need to make some doughnuts. Have never made them before, but all of a sudden I needed to. Tuesday night I skipped scrapping/laundry/dishes in favor of a massage and cleaning out my email inbox. Wednesday night was a little slice of anti-joy with a 6-year-old naughty boy on my hands, plus laundry, dishes and getting my tax paperwork together -- finally. I also had to bake a cake for work and then I spent about an hour in Adobe PS learning about clipping masks and playing around with a digi LO that just isn't looking right to me yet.

As far as writing goes this week has been more off than on for me. It's not that I don't want to do it, it's just that all these wonderful scrapping websites come my way and, oh yeah, work's been busy too. ;-)

Tonight I am going to do more laundry, more dishes and hopefully actually do some scrapping. I have some ATC's (artist trading cards) that I have to get done. The ScrapFriends' April review schedule will be up soon and then I'll be itching to get creating again. We've got some AWESOME product coming up next month!!

I will share some more work with you in the next day or two. Stay tuned!

1...2...3...4.... It's time to get funky!

Here's a really funky page using Tinkering Ink's Blur Collection - one of my all time favorites! You just can't help but be creative with it! :D
The arrows to the right of the photo are attached to a hidden journaling tag.

I've been tagged!

My super talented friend, Bethany tagged me!

Here's the skinny:
You must list one fact about yourself for each letter of your middle name. Each fact must begin with that letter. If you don't have a middle name, just use your maiden name. After you've been tagged, you need to update your blog with your middle name and answers. At the end of your post, you need to tag one person for each letter of your middle name. (Be sure to leave them a comment telling them they've been tagged and need to read your blog for details).

My middle name is Joy. Here are a few facts about me.

J - OK...who came up with these letters anyway??? What starts with a J? Ummmm....jelly beans? How about this - (Justin) as in Timberlake - I like him! Never thought I'd say that!!

O (order) - I like things neat. Clean is optional, neat is not. I used to stress if I left work on my desk at the end of the day. My scraproom is an entirely different story.

Y (young) - I look young for my age but have always felt more mature than what my age would suggest. Most of my friends are older than me--that's where I feel like I "fit."

I'm going to tag Jadadog, Elsie and Artish.

A little layout about a big fish

It's been awhile since I've posted....but I've still been busy creating!! One of my recent favorites is this one:
I created this for ScrapFriends' March ad inspiration contest. I post the ad and my interpretation on the first of each month. You can check out the details for March here.

My days have been flying by but somehow it seems like my "to do" list doesn't get any shorter. I've been creating and dabbling in the digital realm and have created some of my favorite layouts lately. It sure feels good!

A new digi layout

This photo totally cracks me up! HAD to scrap it!
Digi elements compliments of Agnes Lahur and Scrapbook MAX software. I discovered that Scrapbook MAX wants a square page orientation so I had trouble getting it for a 10x12" page. Photoshop has a lot more options but SM software makes creating a digi layout very easy!

THURSDAY THOUGHTS - Take Me to the Fount of Creativity!

Happy Thursday!!

After a couple of sluggish weeks - and I completely blame the weather - I am feeling more energetic and productive. I am feeling caught up with everything and have been able to take the time to do some much desired projects.

It was a long process to put them together but I finally posted several scrapbook kits for sale and I have several more that I need to take pictures of and list. I am really hoping to clean out my scrap room a bit - spring is always a great time for me to purge.

I also worked toward my scrapping goals the past few weeks. I was able to submit several pages to calls and had one of my pages picked up for the April issue of ScrapStreet. I think they like me there. :)

It has been a goal of mine to join a manufacturer's design team. It took me awhile to come up with a strategy and narrow down the companies that I thought were the best fit for me. I have two in particular that I am very, very much hoping that we can work together in the future. I have had some unexpected support in achieving those goals and that was a true blessing. I also gathered up the courage to send some of my work to my #1 design team choice. I can't even tell you how much excitement I felt by just emailing them and if I am fortunate enough to hear back from them I'll probably freak!! But I am a positive thinker so I know it's just a matter of time and no matter what they are still my favorite manufacturer whether I'm on their team or not. There are four total I've chosen but two of them in particular have me super excited and feeling wonderfully creative. Please say a little prayer for me.

I am also super excited to say that I've continued to write my novel. Having a small group of readers has been extremely helpful in keeping me motivated and they offer some invaluable comments and advice. I feel like I'm at a crossroads right now with the story and have spent a few days away from writing. It is incredibly hard (or maybe just intimidating?) to come up with a multi-character story that has some form of suspense but believable all at the same time and how to sneak in background information for the characters as well.

I have spent the past few days thinking about where I want to go with the story and how I can best accomplish that. I don't have a clear-cut answer but I do have ideas and that's a great start. I am going to devote a large amount of time to writing today and hope to jump over the hurdles that I am having.

I have some more fun stuff to share but it will have to be either later tonight or tomorrow.