my pair-a-dice

I am so happy to be celebrating the 12 days of Christmas with the Counterfeit Kit Challenge DT. I opened my day 12 package and found this great set of glitter. 12 colors for day 12. I just know I will be making a mess with this as soon as the new year rolls around and I have a little time to myself. I keep looking at all of my packages and it is all I can do not to open them all. I am not good at surprises and the waiting is driving me crazy. I am going to try to hold out... I have been shopping like crazy this week. I have a lot of people to buy for and there just doesn't seem to be an end to my to-do list these days. I haven't wrapped a single gift. This year Fred and Cassie work on Christmas. That means we will be getting up to do gifts around 4:30, which means all of my wrapping needs to be done BEFORE Christmas Eve. Wish me luck! Poor Ben woke up sick Tuesday night and is still not feeling well. He went to the doctor today and they gave him a flu shot. Hopefully he w...

Welcome to the November Blog Hop. If you came here from Jemma's blog you are in the right place. If you came from anyplace else and would like to hop along with us, you can start at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog.  This month our sponsor is Scraptastic Club . Our challenge was to use our kit to make a home decor item. I used my kit (and one additional patterned paper and ribbon) to make this fun wall hanging for my grandson's playroom. I was inspired by this fall wall hanging on Pinterest. My chipboard alpha blocks are eight inch squares. I bought the whole set last week at Ross for $3.99. Thanks for looking. The next stop on the hop is Julie Ann , I am sure she has something beautiful to show you. If you get lost along the way the hop list is below. Counterfeit Kit Challenge http://counterfeitkitchallenge.blogspot.com/ Scraptastic  http://scraptasticclub.blogspot.com/ Heather Landry http://miraclesmommadesigns.blogspot.com/ Juliann Marchant http://scrappylife.blogsp...

This month at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog we were challenged to Craft it Forward . Their suggested project for this month was placemats. I decided to make cards instead. Partly because I have my kits broken down into page kits and there wasn't a lot of paper left, and partly because I like to make cards :)  I used the scraps from the layouts that I made last weekend  at my crop. I haven't made cards in a few months and I was surprised how much I enjoyed making them. They came together quickly and they turned out pretty cute. I actually think that I am going to make a few more before I donate them.

This month when I made my Counterfeit Kit I also made a sports add on kit. Here is my sports kit. I had a lot of shades of green and some white and off white. The pennants, patch and stickers have been in my stash for years. It is about time I get to using them. I found this great sketch on the Sketch Support website . They have a lot of free sketches that make it easy to use a lot of photos on your layout. For a sports layout I knew I was going to have a lot of pictures. This sketch just jumped out at me. I didn't actually use the sketch exactly as shown, but I stuck pretty closely to what they did. I had a few more vertical pictures, so I adjusted my layout to fit my pictures. Here is my finished layout. The layout is about my nephew, so the grey squares are covering the journaling to protect any personal information. The coloring on the second page is off, but I couldn't get it right no matter how many pictures I took. I changed the color of the pennant and patch because th...

I went to a crop on Saturday and I was able to get a few pages done. I am a really slow scrapper.  This was one of my favorite pages. We were at the kids play part of the Philadelphia Zoo. They were just regular pictures, but when I looked at the way the girls were posed I just came up with this idea. I had these two gold charms in my stash from a very old QVC kit.  It says Mr Frog if you eat my sister I will love you forever. This picture of the Hershey Kiss was taken when we were in Niagara Falls, Canada. We stopped at the Hershey store and I snapped the pictures with the statue. The next day when my daughter was walking down the sidewalk she wasn't paying attention and walked into the back side of the statue.  While we were in Canada we went to the Butterfly Conservatory and my older daughter stopped to play on this tree for a few minutes. She loved being in Canada and waited a few years for this trip. I am glad she had so much fun when we finally ended up on vacat...

This month at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog the kit to counterfeit is from Scraptastic Club . They have two kits and two add ons to choose from this month. I decided to counterfeit both of their kits. The kits had a lot of similar colors which made me think that I could mix them up into one huge kit for the month. I have them divided into two kits now, but they will be mixed together soon. Here is my first counterfeit kit-It goes along with their Home Sweet Home kit. I added a little bit of fall, some home, and just some general outdoor embellishments to this kit. This is my second counterfeit kit-It goes along with their Autumn Splendor kit. In this kit I added some butterflies, some elephants, and a set of large numbers. I don't have a real theme, I mostly just went with the colors. I have an all day crop on Saturday, so I am hoping that I will get a lot done with my kits. My plan is to break my kit up into smaller page kits for the crop so that I will be able to wor...

This year Ben was a skunk for trick or treating. This costume was perfect for him and he was so stinkin' cute.  And a side view so you can see his little skunk stripes. He did great walking to the neighbors and saying trick or treat (in his own words) and thank you. Later Cassie took him out in the stroller.  Alexx was a fox. She loves animals and this was a cute little dress costume that she picked up at Spirit. She added the tights and leggings.  Cassie's bright Mickey was a last minute costume that she threw together with old dance costumes because she knows how Ben loves Mickey.  And finally, Ben with his haul of candy. There is no way he will be eating all of this. Haha. He was just happy because he was finally able to have a "pop". Thanks for looking. Hopefully I will be back in the next couple of days with a few layouts.

Welcome to this stop of the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog's October blog hop. This month our blog hop challenge was to alter stickers and use them in a different way. Here is my layout. This picture is just a silly shot of my 20 year old daughter sitting in my grandson's stroller. She asked me to push her around when we were out. I love that she is not embarrassed to act silly. I only pushed her across the parking lot, but it was a fun minute.  I didn't have stickers in my kit this month so I added the puffy heart stickers and the cardstock hearts and circles. I used the cardstock circles and backed them with patterned paper. I then tore around the circles and layered the circles to make a basic flower. I punched holes into the puffy heart and used it as a button for the center of the flower.  I use more of the hearts in the same way. I punched them and used them on buttons and threaded them with twine. I then layered them as a border under the pho...

I made this layout for the Counterfeit Kit layering challenge . The pictures were taken last month in Niagara Falls. We read about Nightmares online and it was supposed to be really scary. I don't like scary things so while some of us were hanging around the hotel Fred and Alexx walked over and went to Nightmares. They said it was great and scary.  Alexx didn't want Fred to buy the pictures because she said she looked bad in them. We stopped back the next day and they let us buy them. I think they are great. You can see the funny difference between the picture where they are scared and the picture where they are REALLY scared. I wasn't able to get a very good picture of the two pages together. I think it is because the colors are all so dark. I used layers of green and red paper, ribbon, a black rose border, gray fabric roses, the ticket, the pieces from the Stampin' Up Halloween paper, and a tab. I added bling to some of the spider webs and a bling spider. Tha...

I used my Counterfeit Kit to make this layout of my daughters and nephew in their clown costumes. This picture is from seventeen years ago. I made the girls costumes and my mom made my nephews costume. The pictures aren't the greatest, but that is the same for most of my older pictures. I am happy that I always took a lot of pictures even if they aren't the best. I had the large circle trick or treat card in my kit. I wasn't sure if I would use it since it was so big and bright. I decided to cut it in half and wrinkled it up and sanded it to make it look a little less bright and new. I cut the Mad Hatter from the Graphic 45 paper and added the bling flourish as the "stink" coming from his feet. My daughter didn't get it, but I thought it was a cute idea. I added the green cardstock because everything ran together in the layout and I needed something to separate my elements from the background pattern. Thanks for looking.

This is my first month as a Master of Forgery at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog . This month the inspiration kit is from Little Red Scrapbook . It is the September/October kit from 2010. I liked the main kit and the theme kit so I decided to counterfeit both. This is their main kit: And here is my main kit: Here is their theme kit: And here is my theme kit: I think both of these kits are great. I can't wait to get started using my kits to make layouts and embellishments. We have a lot of fun Halloween things planned for this month, pumpkin patch, parade, trick-or-treating, and my grandson's first Halloween dance performance just to name a few. This month Momenta will be the sponsor at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog. To win their prize package you can check out this post on the CKC blog. I hope you will come over to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge and play along.

I found a tutorial for a fun and easy envelope mini album and I have been wanting to make one for a few weeks. I decided to use my Sept. Counterfeit Kit to make the mini. I didn't have enough papers in my kit so I added quite a few more. It was a great way to use up some of my supplies. Here are a few pictures of what it looks like before I add my pictures, journaling and embellishments. I have all of my pictures cut and separated by event and I hope to have the album done tonight. I need to finish the cover and I hope to have the pictures posted by tomorrow. Link to the tutorial I used to make the album: Envelope Album : Kathy Orta This link takes you to an overview of the album. There is a four part in depth tutorial that takes you step by step also on her youtube channel. It was very easy to make. Thanks for looking. 

I used this sketch from Sassy 'Lil Sketches to make this layout. The layout was made with my counterfeit kit. I actually made the layout twice thanks to my grandson, Ben. I liked the sketch but I changed it a little. The original sketch had a banner across the top. I used a journal block instead. I also used two vertical photos instead of horizontal and I added the flower cluster at the top instead of the bottom. They were small changes, but I like how they worked out on my page.  This was what my layout looked like when I started it. I wasn't happy with the rub-ons above the photos so I walked away and decided to think about what I wanted to do.  Later I heard Fred say that Ben ruined my scrapbook page. I didn't think I had any more of the BG paper that was my background, but I am happy to say that I had another sheet. I took everything apart and started over. I am happier with the new layout than I was with the original.  This is a close up of where Ben helped m...

I used this weeks sketch from Sketchy Thursdays and my Counterfeit Kit to make this layout of my daughter and grandson on the Dumbo ride at Walt Disney World. He was six months old and it was his first time on Dumbo. I will try to add a better picture later, but it is late and in the poor lighting this was the best I could do. Thanks for looking.

This month at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog they are counterfeiting a kit from Sweet Peach Crop Shop . This was the first time I had heard of their kits. They are nice (and cheap). I love their Sweet kit this month. It is full of Sassafras goodness. I was so excited that I had a lot of the original kit contents to build from. I only had one sheet of each paper so I added in six sheets from my stash. I also added some of the Sassafras alphas and label stickers that I had here to match the kit. Their kit had rub on stitches so I added a pack of rub-ons. Their Juicy kit was full of black, green, red, and yellow. I didn't have a single paper from their kit so I got to do a lot of shopping in my stash to fill up my kit. I tried to stick to the colors and prints as much as possible. It was a little struggle to find exactly what I was looking for but I am happy with the kit. I think I may make a mini about a weekend trip I took with one of my daughters with this kit.  And he...

This morning when I was on the computer I went onto the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog to see if they had anything new up. I saw the title "Congratulations to the newest Master Forgers" and said ok, I didn't get an email so it wasn't me. As I was reading the post I saw that it said that nobody was notified. I made it! I am so excited to be a part of this blog. It was a great thing to see this morning and I can't wait to get started. Oh Happy Day :)

Today we went to the waterparks. We were there for about six hours and by the time I came home I was too tired to do anything. This is my favorite picture from today. Tomorrow we are going to Sesame Place.

I didn't do much scrapbooking in the last two months, but I have been able to get my scrapbook room cleaned, read some books, and spend a lot of time with my family. Last week we were evacuated because of hurricane Irene. Since all is well and my house is still in good shape I am happy to say that there is nothing standing in my way now. I have a lot of pictures from the summer that I am excited to get scrapping. A road trip with Alexx, the circus, boardwalk, waterparks, and Hurricane Irene. I think I will start printing today and the layouts will be showing up here starting tomorrow.

I love the counterfeit kit I put together this month. I had big hopes of getting a lot of layouts done with my great summer kit. As it turns out I have just been too busy to have much scrapping time. I have done five layouts this month. I have about six more layouts set up to make and I hope I can get them all done before the new kit reveal on the fifth. Here are three layouts that I made with my June kit and didn't post yet. The first layout is from Disney. We go every year with my daughters dance school. This is the first year in the last six years that we aren't going with them. We are going on our own later in the year. I am using the time before we go to get some of the previous years layouts done. This was the group picture from our dinner at the Hoop-Dee-Doo-Revue. The second layout is of my niece Katie. She is the only person on our side of the family with freckles and I have always wanted to take her to one of the freckle contests (you win by having the most freckles ...