Forget if you have seen me lately......

The real question is: Have you seen this?!!!!!! Holy Wow!!! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am about this reveal! This is 100% without a doubt my fav collection yet!! :D To say that I am just a wee bit excited is a severe understatement! The colors are beautiful and perfect and the animals are just soooo adorable! Love it!

Well I can guarantee that as soon as this hits my door I will be in scrappy heaven! :D I will share as soon as I can!

As for my recent absence, :P Life has been crazy. Non stop and crazy. Been sick a million times, had no mojo, had Cree's 2nd birthday, family in town, and a weekend trip that is never as much of a vacation as we would wish it to be. Now I have a possible impending move and I am not looking forward to it. :P Needless to say I have not been able to sit at my scrap table for a very very very long time. This makes me very sad. This also means I have nada to be able to show you on here (except the awesomeness above!! :D) Anyway, I will soon have some things to share though. Maybe not all scrappy, but a share none the less. :D Hope everyone is well! Be back soon..... :D

~Amy

Category Stories and Cosmo Cricket

Back so soon?!! I know I am crazy sometimes! :P Anyway I wanted to share with you some fun and exciting news before it gets too far into the month! The new prompt is up at Category Stories and wanted to make sure you saw it! There are a couple of totally awesome things going on this month at CS!! Firstly, the sponsor for this month is the absolutely and totally amazing Studio Calico Kit Club!! And April and Scarlet (the fantastic owners of SC!) have provided us with (not only their amazing LOs for the Saturday Morning Cartoons prompt!) the gorgeous September kit Cotillion!!! *See Picture Below!* In the picture you will also see that they have three add ons for this month! Now Foxtrot is actually no longer available for purchase (it sold out fast), but Tango and Waltz are still there! And the second awesome thing going on this month is that the Category Stories blog is being featured in this month's ScrapStreet online magazine!!! The article was written by our very own Stacey Michaud, who is also a regular writer for the mag! Very cool! Thanks Stacey! And Thirdly, we are having a Guest Designer contest!!!! Totally aweseom right?! :D All you have to do is play along with us on both prompts this month and then email them to us along with a short bio, and then we are going to choose three ladies to be our guesties!!! :D So exciting! Really hope you all play along!

Here is my LO for this month's first prompt Saturday Morning Cartoons. I wasn't sure what to do with mine. We don't get any cable/channels/TV in our house, we only watch movies. We made this decision because we really didn't want to be spending all our time in front of the TV just watching for hours and hours, which we know we would end up doing!!! We have no control like that! So to save us the trouble of getting nothing done, we decided to not give ourselves that option. But this makes me sad, because when I was a kid watching cartoons and all my fav shows was such a magical thing for me! It helped inspire so much in my imagination! And I am realizing that I am really wanting this for my daughter. But at the same time I don't want her exposed to all the commercials and messages that TV sends! So you see, either way there is a down side to this. It's a Catch 22.

Hence the title of this LO.

Supples:
Paper-Studio Calico exclusives, Making Memories, Collage Press (Die Cut sheet), Cosmo Cricket, Bazzill cardstock
Stickers-Sassafras Lass, Pink Paislee, Basic Grey, Heidi Swapp, K and Company
Brads-American Crafts, Pink Paislee
Pearls-Basic Grey
White Pen-Sakura
Frame-Making Memories
Punch-Martha Stewart

This next LO is one I did for an older prompt at Category Stories. Well not super old or anything, it was the second prompt for August and went live on the 15th of last month. It was Pampering Me. I made it using Cosmo Cricket's Early Bird line! The little cups were perfect for this! My LO was about what I do to pamper myself. And to be honest, it is really quite easy. I just have a simple cup of tea. Black tea with a little sugar and milk, and I'm good. :D I gotta share, I used two stamps on here that are exclusive Studio Calico stamps that I am just absolutely in love with! First, which you can barely see it because I used Distress Ink, is the Coffee Stain stamp (which I used as a tea stain stamp!! LOL!). Unfortunately this is sold out right now, but hopefully they will be getting more in. :D And the Story Time alpha stamp, which is still very much available! This alpha is so amazing, and the DT have used it in so many awesome ways that there is inspiration to last a life time! :D

Supplies:
Paper-Cosmo Cricket, Sassafras Lass, Bazzill cardstock
Die Cuts-K and Company (yellow tag and ruler measurement), Collage Press
Stickers-Cosmo Cricket
Chipboard-Cosmo Cricket
Stamps-Studio Calico exclusives
Ink-Stazon, Distress Ink
Pens-Sakura
Punch-Fiskars

Ok so that is all that I have at the moment. I am working right now on some Kitschy Digitals stuff and some Cosmo Cricket things! Hopefully I will have them done soon to share! Hope everyone is having a fabulous Labor Day weekend!!! And remember, be sure to play along with us at Category Stories!!! :D Take care!

~Amy

Sharing my Prima CHA booth LOs......

(And one more LO for Prima!!) But first I can believe I didn't realize I hadn't shared my CHA LOs for Prima! :P Yeah I have been that busy!! And I feel right now like I am in the middle of CHA all over again! I working nonstop trying to get stuff done, while life around me is being just as demanding!! Can't reveal anything that I am working on right now, but soon enough! :D (No clue when that will be but trust me when I know, you'll know!) Anyway, my desk looks almost exactly like the desk I posted in this post, but trust me it is a ton more organized!!! Now all I have to do is just package things back up when I am done with a LO and then Voila! it is clean again!!! :D Goodness that makes things so much easier. Now I just wish the house could be like that too. :P Well, moving on to my LOs. I had dreamed of getting so many more done for CHA but it just didn't happen. But I make myself feel better about this by repeating the saying 'Quality over Quantity'. LOL!

This first LO is a pretty artsy one. I had just got my Charcoal Maya Mist and was itching to use it! Also I had just got some Prima stamps (these ones) that I wanted to try too! Now the title/journaling on this LO hardly shows up in the picture (you have no idea how bummed I was about that, but just for the life of me could not make the letters show up!). So I included a close up picture below, so you can see what it looks like. :D I just used my Sakura White Gel pen and outlined the inside of some letters, let that dry and then did the same thing lightly with a thin black pen. Really liked the effect!! :D And there is a lot more texture to them than you can see in the picture. Anyway, the LO says: If I only could I'd be running up that hill, with no problem. That is part of the chorus to Kate Bush's song Running Up That Hill. I'd link you up but I can't find anything that has it for free. :P Anyway I love this song so much, I had to do a LO with it! :D Used lots of new and old on this LO.

Supplies: Everything on this LO is Prima (except for the vintage book paper and Maya Road Charcoal mist)

This LO is one of the small additions I have made to Creedence's book. :P I still have what seems like a million to do! This is her 21 month page. Only a few things on this page are new. (The pink background paper, a pearl center and the main Trellis Rose). I love how this page turned out. :D

Supplies: Everything on this page is Prima (except for the blue flower cut outs which are Making Memories and the Tattered Angels chipboard)

This LO is only the second LO I have ever done about my mom. It has been 6 years since her passing and still it is so hard to do LOs about her. But they seem to help as well. This picture is my mom's graduation picture. She always told me that she wished she had known me then. The journaling reads: I wish I had known you then, and that you knew me now.

Supplies: Everything on here is Prima (except for the book paper in the background)

Now this LO was super fun to do! You might not believe me but the pink 21 month LO above is not 12x12 so I had to cut the pink paper down to size and could not for the life of me get it right! So I ended up with a million 1/4 cut offs of that paper, which on the backside is this lovely purple, pink and orange pattern!! :D It worked out wonderfully! Also I received a huge handful of the new painterly hydrangeas (which I didn't much know what to do with) and amazingly enough the colors matched perfectly with the paper! So instead of using the flowers for what they were intended I punched butterflies out of them!!! :D Love how this looks!

Supplies: Everything here is Prima (new and old), except for the paint, kraft cardstock, and book text.

Now I am going to share my September BAP LO! I didn't have it done in time for the blog but it made the newsletter. :P I have just been super busy (with things that I unfortunately can not show! :P) But be sure to play along with us this month because this sketch is awesome and I can guaratee that the prize is even more awesome!! :D Here is the link!

I had so much fun with this sketch!! But I decided early on that I wanted to try to follow it exactly! Which is not something I normally do with a sketch! :P I chose a cream background, but still wanted white to be a part of the LO. So I outlined everything paper in white with my gel pen! Love how this turned out!!!! (close ups are below) And then of course I had to use my sewing machine and stitch it all down! The sketch looked like a quilt to me so I wanted to put that into my LO. :D

Supplies: Everything is Prima, except for the cream cardstock and Tattered Angels chipboard frame.

Well that is all I got right now! I am going to be doing a post this weekend about some exciting news at Category Stories and a new Cosmo LO! :D And I promise I will come out of my hole now and be here! :D I feel like I have constantly been under a huge pile of paper and flowers, but I will be coming out now! :D Thanks for stayin with me! Hope everyone is well! See you this weekend! :D

~Amy

And she's gone again....

Hey Everyone!! How's it going?! Well it will come as no surprise to you that I have had this post in the works for a good while. You would think it wouldn't be so stinkin hard to update my own blog, instead of wasting hours looking at everyone else's!!! :P I guess I have just kinda been in veg mode for the last couple weeks. (which makes sense as to why I have no new scrappy goodness to show, and my house is a freakin mess!) LOL! And I also (this is for you Janine!) have no new pics of my space because it seems I just can not get it clean!!! I don't know what my deal is, but I keep trying to find the perfect spot for everything, then I take a look again at it all from a distance and say once more 'Do I really need all this stuff?!!', so then I start going through it again and chucking more things into a box and then realize I have more room so yay I need to redo things again. So hopefully this cycle will stop soon because my husband is going nuts with not being able to navigate the kitchen.

Anyway, enough of that. Let's get to some Cosmo shares! This below is everything that I made for the Cosmo CHA booth (although the little gift tag holder I spaced it and forgot to send!) :P

When I first opened The Boyfriend line I took a look at the stickers. I saw this one below (Got Tunes?) and totally thought of an iTunes Gift Card we got a while back! I thought this would be perfect for holding one of those gift cards! Only problem is I didn't make the slits right, so now I can't get a card in. :P Never made one of these before so hopefully next time will be easier.



Supplies:
Paper-Cosmo Cricket, Kraft cardstock
Stickers-Cosmo Cricket
Brads-stash (I am not sure where these came from?)
Ink-Color Box Cat's Eye Chalk ink
Ribbon(?)-This is actually the old drawstring to a pair of my sweat pants. (Don't worry, I remove the string before I even wear them the first time!)

This LO was also made with The Boyfriend line, but it is not boy themed at all! We wanted to show the versatility of the lines, so I did a LO about my sister and I when we were little. No journaling, just us. I don't know or remember anything from this time, we lived in Flagstaff, AZ for a year and I don't remember a bit of it, so I really wouldn't know what to say in journaling anyway. I just thought we looked cute and happy. Good times. :D (BTW doesn't that carseat look ancient??!!!!)


Supplies: Everything on here is Cosmo Cricket (Except for the dark teal cardstock, also I used an EK Success border punch)

This next LO I made using the Jolly by Golly line, and it totally looked different in my mind. I spent hours upon hours on this LO, only for it to not turn out at all like I wanted it to! Urgh! Don't you just hate that?! Well, I couldn't just abandon it, or even start a different one, I was so crunched for time and so spent on trying to make this vision come to life in this LO that I just needed to get this one done. I am ashamed to say that I let that happen, but sometimes you just gotta give and let it go, knowing full well that you will come back again another day and give it another try. I read a quote a long while ago and I can't remember who said it, but it goes-If you throw enough things at the wall, something is bound to stick. So You can full well expect to see me give this another try real soon!

Supplies:

Paper-Cosmo Cricket, Bazzill cardstock

Chipboard-Cosmo Cricket, American Crafts (thickers)

Rubons-Cosmo Cricket
Ribbon-Cosmo Cricket
Ink-Color Box Cat's Eye, Stazon

Pearls-Kaiser, K and Co
Stamps-Studio G
Button-Vintage

And here on this LO, is my most favorite picture of my sister. She was 23 months old here (before I was born), and just as cute as can be! Kept this LO very simple. Wanted most of the focus on the picture. But it is hard to take your eyes off the Earth Love line!!! :D

Supplies: Except for the Bazzill cardstock and the EK Success border punch I used on it, everything on here is Cosmo Cricket.

Now this LO is another that I sooo invisioned differently!!! I am not so good at being rushed and getting an idea just right as well. It takes a lot of moving things around and really looking at the LO before I glue anything down or make any decisions, but this LO I did in one day! That is crazy fast for me!

Supplies:

Paper-Cosmo Cricket, Bazzill cardstock

Chipboard-Cosmo Cricket

Stickers-Cosmo Cricket

Punch-EK Success

Ink-Stazon, Color Box Cat's Eye Chalk ink

Stamp-Studio G

And it is no surprise that Cosmo had some of their older, yet still popular, lines featured at this last CHA. For things that their new lines did not cover (end of summer, halloween, traditional Christmas colors and so on), their older lines make up for that in abundance!!!

I created here a LO for the Girl Friday line. It is about myself. Where I am now, emotionally and mentally. What it is that I want and any goals I may still have for myself. And the fact that I have no clue on any of those. I was on a path before I met Jed (that was more than 3 years ago now), and then when I met him I started a new path. I was going to school and had ambitions of getting a job as a Clinical Technician! But then another path started, and I became a mother. My world changed in an instant. I am loving the changes that have happened in me, but they are a hard adjustment because now I am having to look at things differently. My goals before are not accessible anymore, but I know, I feel, that I still have goals that I would like to achieve. I just have to figure out what they are. It may seem strange to some of you that I wouldn't be able to figure these things out in an instant, but reading myself is the hardest thing I have to do everyday. But enough about that, this LO is pretty much me telling myself that I am not getting any younger, so if I am going to do anything with myself, I need to get on the ball and figure that out! I know I know you say I am only 25, but time has gone by real fast lately, so I have a sure feeling that I will be 35 before I even know it. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem getting older, it's just some things get a lot harder to do when you are older. So here you have it: my LO. I can't actually tell you what I wrote around the edges, because these LOs are still at the Cosmo warehouse and I didn't write my journaling down before I sent it off. :P And as you can tell it started to rain when I was taking the pic so there are a few rain drops here and there. :D

Supplies: Everything above is from the Girl Friday line by Cosmo Cricket (except the blue velvet scallop trim, that is from Get Happy by Cosmo Cricket).

This last LO was actually the first one that I made (I was waiting for the new realeases embies to arrive). I used the Haunted line for this LO. Cut my own shape and stitched the circle with my machine. The pictures of Creedence here are when she is about 2 months old. Man I miss her being that small! Where did the time go?!!! *tear!*

Supplies: Everything above is from the Haunted line by Cosmo Cricket (except for the pumpkin brad (Making Memories), the orange flower (Michael's) and the pearl pin (Maya Road).

Ok well I have all lined up a Prima post for next time, so stay tuned!! Also I just received the September Build-A-Page sketch and OMGOSH is it stunning!!! Can't wait to get started on that! Hope you are all well! Take care!

~Amy