ScrapBox - HUGE WorkBox Giveaway!

Are you dying for some organization in your life? Need to get your scrapping supplies off of the dining room table? If you're looking for some great Scrapbook storage, there's nothing sweeter than the Workbox from the Original ScrapBox!


How would you like to win this sweet setup? Take a visit over to the Midnight Madness blog, and get hooked up! Make sure you tell them I sent you.

Here are the other blogs where you can win:
Make It and Love It
Vanilla Joy
Auntie Thesis
The Mommy Files
My Organized Chaos
Life As Lou
Cricut Christmas
Capadia Designs
Rachelle’s Writing Spot

While you're waiting to find out if you're a winner, cruise on over to The Original ScrapBox and check out my favorite product, the super sweet MiniBox. There's room for this in any home, and they have enough colors/styles to choose from to match any decorating style! It only 37" wide, but stores a boat-load of crafting goodness - here's a photo:

And now, a great discount too! Enter this code when you place your order to get $100 off your shipping: 100Writes

Even More Disney with the Cricut

I'm pretty obsessed about completely scrapping this Disney trip before I get back to "normal" layouts. So, here's yet another series of shots from Epcot. My husband's favorite Disney movie is Aladdin, and he drives me crazy imitating the Genie a lot. So we HAD to find the Genie and get his picture and autograph. Here are the results:

Supplies used on this layout include the following:

Cricut - Dreams Come True cartridge, Opposites Attract cartridge
Close To My Heart - Stardust level 2 paper pack and MyStickease; Honey and Dutch Blue CS; Stardust Flexi Labels; White Daisy My Accents (discontinued); Fresh Shapes chipboard Dimensional Elements; Dimensional Foam Adhesive squares; Stamp Pads in Honey, Dutch Blue, and Moonstruck; layout page pattern from Jeanette Lynton

Stop by on October 1st for my first Blog Hop entry. Lots of stamping with a great Christmas set from CTMH. I'm sure there will be a TON of great ideas for Christmas cards!

Disney with the Cricut

I'm finally getting around to posting some more Disney layouts. I completed these a couple of weeks ago during a crop. This Snow White LO was based on a pattern from one of Jeanette Lynton's pattern books.


I cut the gorgeous title and the apples from the Happily Ever After Cricut cartridge. I just LOVED the font they used for "Snow White", but I had to make a few manual cuts to use it this way as it was part of a larger design.









Supplies used for this LO are as follows:

MME - all papers except white, flower die cuts
Creative Cafe - puffy felt flowers
Clear Scraps - clear flower shapes
American Crafts - pearl center brads
Close To My Heart - white flower rub-on used on clear flower shape, dimensional foam adhesive

Silhouette Card

I love the look of silhouettes, but I find I don't make them often because I don't seem to have the right stamp images. Thanks to the new Childhood Portrait stamps from Close To My Heart, I've got images I want to use for this technique over and over! Here's what I made first:

I used my Kaleidacolor ink pad in Cappuccino Delight for the background. Using glossy paper and a rubber brayer, just roll the ink on. Don't have a Kaleidacolor pad? Just layer your colors with the brayer, starting with the lightest color first.

An archival black ink seems to give the best color for stamping over this technique, as opposed to regular dye ink.

I layered my image on black cardstock with a 1/16th inch border all around, then onto Barn Red CS for the card base.

And the Winner Is...

Using the random number generator at random.org, I've selected a winner for the It's Your Day stamp set. And the winner is Tricia!

Tricia please send me your mailing address and I'll get your prize out to you. You can email me at thebrowns@earthlink.net

I hope to get another post up tomorrow or Thursday with some fun layouts I finished last weekend. Since preschool started last week, I've been busy trying to clear out some things that need to be removed when no one is home, lol! Tomorrow includes a trip to the consignment store & hopefully a few eBay listings.

Birthday Blog Candy

To celebrate my birthday, I'm going to give away a fun acrylic stamp set called "It's Your Day". This stamp set was last month's stamp of the month from Close To My Heart, and includes images & phrases perfect for birthdays & other celebrations.

Here's a sampling of artwork made using this fun stamp set:
Artwork is a sampling from various CTMH consultants.

I will choose a random winner from my followers on September 15th. So, if you don't currently follow my blog, I'd be happy to have you join my little group. I'll announce the winner sometime after noon (Central), so get signed up before then!

Want more birthday goodies? Sign up to receive my newsletter to get the scoop on a special birthday promo this week. I can't post it on my blog, so you have to get the newsletter to get the special. I use Constant Contact, so you can easily unsubscribe at any time.

Challenge Card

I'm posting one card for two challenges today. First is the September sketch from Starving Artistamps over at Rubber Stamp Chat. Second is Color Chef Challenge #20 (I can't believe how many of these I've missed over the summer!).

My big inspiration for this card was the fun vintage image stamp I picked up on clearance over at Hobby Lobby last week. It's a Thanksgiving image from Paper Inspirations, and was a lot of fun to play with. So, here's what I came up with:


Kelly Jo's challenge was to use orange, gold, and cream. I chose Autumn Terracotta, Goldrush, and Colonial White, and added some Barn Red to darken things up a bit. I stamped my image 4 times w/ brown Staz-on ink. On one, I sponged my background. The next, I cut out the entire image, and colored the turkey platter and "back" arm. The third, I removed Jewel brads are from 7 Gypsies. Heart clip is source unknown, and stitching is by machine.

Christmas Cards All Year 'Round monthly challenge

One of the funnest blogs I follow is Christmas Cards All Year 'Round. Each month, you need to make 5 Christmas cards that follow the theme/challenge for that month. Now normally I'm not very quick with these, but this month was especially easy: make any 5 Christmas cards, no restrictions. I was in a crafty mood, so over the last couple of days I've actually managed to finish my 5 cards for September ALREADY!

To make it more fun, I made all 5 cards with different supplies and played around with things a bit. Here's what I came up with:

The first card has a vintage, Victorian feel. The card base is from Hobby Lobby, and all other products are from Close To My Heart.

I stamped my image with Timber Brown Staz-on on white CS, and colored in using both markers and a water brush with ink pads. Image is popped up on adhesive squares.



Supplies used for the card to the right include a card base from Hobby Lobby; CS, ribbon, ink pads & gold EP from Close To My Heart, and stamps from Club Scrap.

I went with a simple design on this one, highlighting my main image by running my pigment ink pad along the edges and heat embossing with gold EP.



To the left is another vintage style card, this one uses large chipboard corners from Daisy D's, along with CS, hemp, stamp, & ink from CTMH. Eyelets are source unknown.







To the right is a fun little card, using Bazzil CS and Making Memories pattern paper. Stamps, ink, and ribbon are CTMH, and deckle edge square punch is from McGill.








I made this final card just so I could play with certain items! Other than the star button and the Stickles on said button, all supplies are from CTMH.

The presents along the bottom are actually from a border stamp, which I stamped in the three different colors and cut apart.

On the felt tree, I embossed with white EP to make it look snowy. (Not exactly how I wanted it too turn out, but EP sticks to felt like crazy!) I also used round clear Sparkles on my tree, and sponged around the edge of the entire card for definition.

Want in on the fun? Go visit "Christmas Cards..." and challenge yourself this month!

September Stamp of the Month artwork

For anyone who didn't get a chance to make it to my recent crop & open house, here's a little sampling of Stamp of the Month artwork for September. Close To My Heart's stamp set for this month is the beautiful "Treasures". Take a look at what I did with this stamp set, leftovers from the Twitterpated Workshop on the Go "Best" kit (contact me for info on the kit, as it's not available on our websites), and a few extra items:

First is a single page scrapbook layout (12x12).
A closeup on the glitter, EP, and ink shading.
A circle card from the Wishes card design book.
A standard sized note card.
This one contained some glitter as well - I use Liquid Glass to just dot on the glitter.
I showed this one before, using the recessed image technique from SCS.

If you want to see some more great ideas using the SOTM, there's a great CTMH consultant blog hop going on right now. I missed the signup deadline this month, so I'm not on their list, but there's a TON of great artwork on the hop, so check it out! You can start the hop over at Jena's blog.

Double Single Layout Share

Those of you who crop with me know that I almost never scrap single page layouts (I take far too many pictures). Usually only my title page and ending page get the single treatment. But, as luck would have it, we had a couple of Disney character shots that were definitely not enough (or exciting enough) to rate their own LO. I might not have scrapped them at all, but DH had a bit of a "thing" for Belle, and the creepy Baloo was worth writing about. So, here's what I did:

I chose a pattern from one of Jeanette Lynton's sketch books, and cut the papers for each page separately so the papers would fit the theme of each page. It took a little playing with the paper choices for the right page, or every piece would have been from different paper, but I managed to make it work.

"Belle" is from the Dreams Come True cartridge for the Cricut, and "Baloo" is from the Cuttin' Up cartridge. Photo corners were punched with the Stampin' Up! corner punch. All other products are from Close To My Heart. Some key page elements are popped off the page using dimensional adhesive squares and strips. (I used baby powder on the backs of the MyStickease designs AFTER adhering the dimensional adhesive so the rest would no longer be sticky.)