oh and here's what I created...

LOL just about forgot to post what I made. D'oh.

Can you say FILTHY?? Wyatt playing away in the leftover topsoil.

Here's Holden swimming at the cottage on the May long weekend.

This layout is the result of a little challenge that Joanne presented to Carolyn and I while we were cleaning cupboards getting ready for the garage sale. She put together a little kit of odds and ends and we had to come up with something. Thanks Jenny for giving me this photo to use. I distressed the photo which is something I have wanted to try out for a while.

Kick off to Summer at TSF

Yesterday I spent 12(!) hours at Two Scrapbook Friends for the Kick off to Summer crop. What a great way to spend a not so great day. It took me awhile to get going and there were some definite delays in my mojo but I ended up with 3 layouts and two cards and a headache from laughing too hard. Thank you to Carolyn for a great dinner that included bbqing in the rain. Thank you to Lori for bringing me a little slice of Heaven in the form of strawberry-rhubarb pie. Thank you to my table mates for many many giggles throughout the day. All in all a terrific day...oh and I only spent 74 cents!! It was my personal challenge to use what I have in my stash for once. Mission accomplished.

A little later in the evening there was a contest to see who could keep their flower turning the longest.

Lori and Sam blowing away. Lori thought she was going to pass out but managed to win!

Donna with her card kit for participating

Melissa and Jenny taking it all in.

The party animals: Andrea, Lori, Sam and Veronica, burning the midnight oil.

So much FUN! Thanks ladies for a great day.

layout challenge on the TSF forum

There are all kinds of challenges posted on the Two Scrapbook Friends forum. There is loads of inspiration to get your mojo flowing. As my term as a design team member comes to an end I have one more challenge to share with you: use animals in your layout. Whether it's the paper, the photo or embellishments add something furry to your creation. I sat at my desk last night and played with some Basic Grey Max & Whiskers I picked up weeks ago. I love this line! The colours and prints are so cool and work for way more than just your pet layouts. One thing I really love working with that BG brings out with every line now are the paper ribbon doilies. They are self -adhesive patterned paper tapes that add so much impact to your projects. On my layout the yellow strip and piece above the jounalling block are both doilies. LOVE THEM!

I cut the design at the top left out of the patterned paper using a kraft knife and the little dogs were hand cut and pop dotted. If you look closely you can see the leaves on the flower are cut from dog bone paper (thanks for the idea Kelly Goree!)

Jounalling reads: whenever we go to the beach Josie is the first one into the water. You didn't really understand why she was in the water at all and kept pointing at her as if to say 'What is she doing here?'

It has been a wonderful year being part of the TSF design team. I'll still be involved doing lots of layouts around the store and I can't wait to see what the new team comes up with!

new collections at TSF...

I spent today playing with some new collections from We R Memory Keepers and My Little Yellow Bicycle. Seriously cute papers and embellishments made for a fun day of creating.

We R released a great school line with all kinds of fun, classic cartoon images. These papers would be perfect for end of year photos or to scrap your kids professional school pics.

I don't have pics yet for this one but I'm going to try to remember to bring my camera to school and snap some!

We R also has a great retro feeling summer line. The fonts and sayings totally remind me of my childhood. SO much to work with here, glitter, diecuts, stickers, tags etc.

MLYB had a great baby line last year and have come out with another adorable collection called 'Snuggle Bug'. There are boy and girl lines that have everything you need to create all your baby layouts. The bugs are SUPER cute!!!

There's always something new to play with at the store :)

best 'job' ever...seriously

For about 6 months now I've been working at Two Scrapbook Friends designing kits and store samples. I use the word 'working' loosely as it never feels like work at all! It is a dream come true to be able to play around with all the new products and try out all the cool tools in the store. I love interacting with all the wonderful, creative ladies who come in the store and it is great to be doing something I enjoy SO much. I spent today creating some samples of three new collections and I was almost giddy playing with them.

Echo Park is a new company and I love their first release. The sticker sheet has so many fun things I was trying to figure out a way to pile them all on one page ( I did leave a few off! )

Kaisercraft's new 'Jungle Bug' line is ideal for all your summer bug hunting and mud puddle photos. I used a lot of rub ons to embellish this layout and they go on super smooth.

Here is a sample from October Afternoon's Farm Fresh line. There are all kinds of cute animals and fruit to combine with fun prints and awesome mini letter stickers (a big fave of mine). I decided to design this layout around what Wyatt's favourite foods were when he was a baby. The words were cut out on the Cricut.

*something really neat that they have done with the journalling cards is to make them double-sided so the backside has little rectangles of patterned paper to use on your layouts like I did with the cards around the top and under 'yum'.

Thanks for taking a peek.

It's tough work but someone's got to do it!! LOL