my pair-a-dice

I finally got some scrapbooking time. I went to a two day crop near my house this weekend and I actually got something done. Pictures coming soon.

We are spending the day getting ready for Sandy.   This is supposed to be a bad storm for a lot of people and right now they are predicting a mess in South Jersey. So far we are not planning to evacuate. Currently the mandatory evacuation line has been drawn one block from our house. I imagine this could change at any point and we do have a place to go if needed.   We have food and water. Our neighbors have a generator so we can recharge in case the power is out for an extended time. We have games and toys aplenty. If the power stays on I may be able to get some scrapbooking done. That would be a nice change.   Cassie has to work. The hospital will of course remain open and the patients will want to eat. So hopefully if the weather is too bad they will have a bed to offer her and she can sleep without coming home. Last time we had a bad storm there were a lot of people sleeping at the hospital and working extra shifts to make up for the people who could not make it into wo

Here is my finished quilt top. It is Jen's Living Room Quilt. If anyone is interested in seeing all of the entries and voting you can do that HERE!  Just scroll past the prizes to see pictures of all of the entries. Thank you. Jen

I am glad to see that September has brought some cooler temperatures. It was a very hot and yucky Summer here. Between the weather and some family issues I haven't been enjoying much crafting time. I did make a few scrapbook layouts and I joined a quilt along that was one block a week, but other than that I haven't done anything crafty.   Here is the quilt I have been working on. I have the last block made and now I just have to work on the borders.  And because I have to wait for the border fabric to arrive I decided to start a new project. These fabrics have been hanging around for years. They have spools of thread, scissors, dress forms, and buttons in shades of blue and pink (think early 90's).   I am going to make a quilt for my Nanny. She is going to be 80 this year and she loves to sew. I am sure the quilt will be well loved.   It feels good to be working on some projects again. The cooler days are cheering me up. Cassie decided that she wants to

Our second challenge this month at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog is to make a layout and then a card inspired by our layout. Our kit this month was all primary colors that would normally lead to a childrens layout for me. For some reason I was drawn to these pictures of Cassie the morning we went to the hospital for her to have Ben. Her shirt was black and pink so it really didn't match my kit at all. When I looked through my kit I found that the blue flowered paper had small pink dots in the centers of some of the flowers. I originally chose this paper for my kit because some of the centers are red. I am going to add a little story about her delivery on the white tag. I am so happy that I added the chipboard letters to my kit. I never use chipboard letters anymore even though I have dozens of sets here. I am going to make more effort to use them. My card is simple. I used a popsicle stick because I had them out from making the layout. The pink frame matches the br

Welcome to my stop on the Hop. This month at the CKC blog we are counterfeiting a digi-kit. Here is the link to the original kit. I like the primary colors of the kit and the summery feel of the embellishments. I started with the same colors but switched up the patterns. Some of these papers have been in my stash for about 10 years! I added a lot of primary colored embellishments. I am sure I won't use many, but these are the ones that jumped out at me. I added four sets of alphas and I found these two sets of chipboard pieces that each had a few pieces that looked good with my papers. Your next stop will be Julie Ann If you decide to make a kit be sure to link up so we can see it. Thank you for Hopping by..

This month at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog our first challenge is to make a travel inspired layout. I decided to do a layout about my favorite vacation place. Disney. We haven't been there in two years and I am hoping that we will be able to go back later this year. In my kit I had a pack of fairy tale die cuts from Stampin' Up. They have been in my stash for years so this was a perfect chance to use them. The aqua colors in the die cut pieces were great with the colors of the castle. I used a blue cardstock to match the sky. I used the Magical Memories ribbon and some Elle's Studio tags to include the date, place and people. Since all of the Disney layouts go into albums by visit I don't really need to add too much information. The whole album ends up telling the story without a lot of repetition. This layout was made in minutes. It isn't fancy, but it is a good feeling to use an old supply and have a layout finished. I think I will be able to

June is Build-Your-Own-Kit month at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog. You should have arrived here from Jemma's blog. If you did not and would like to start at the beginning you can go here . When I first saw that we were making our own kits I was a little worried. I like having an example kit. I like knowing what colors and patterns to start with. I like direction. Then I started looking through my stash and found some things that have never fit well into any kit. I decided that building my own kit was a great idea. Here is what I came up with. 10 patterned papers and four journal spots. My main colors are purple and green. I also have black, aqua, pink and white. Eight cardstock and two alphabets.  Three types of misc. embellishments: I chose ribbon, die cuts and little tags.  Something messy:stickles/perfect pearls. Something old: brads. And a roll of old MM tape in place of the Washi. Two stamp sets and one surprise item: I can't find the second

Our challenge at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog was to use fabric on our layout. My daughter Cassie and I are currently decorating a new room for her son Ben. He is going to have a robot theme. The fabric tag and square were made with the fabrics that will be his blanket and valance. The little striped scrap is going to be the print for his curtains. You can't really tell from the picture but his room is a bright lime green. I call it alien-slime green. When Cassie asked Ben what color he wanted his big-boy room to be he said orange green. There wasn't much chance of painting his room orange, so green it was. We took our fabrics and went off to Home Depot to pick a paint color. When we started painting Ben wanted to help. He only did a little bit but it was nice for him to feel like he was helping.

I was looking back at my blog and realized that I never posted a winner for my NSD challenge. My challenge was to show me a layout using stickers or die cuts. It did not have to be a new layout. I had a few people enter and I loved the layouts that they showed me. I had my grandson choose the winner. He is only two so he just pointed on a paper with all of your names. The winner of my challenge is: jjabauer who entered this cute layout. The prize is an assortment of stickers. Please send me a message with your address so that I can mail you your prize. Thank you for playing along. mytwoandras@yahoo.com

This month at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog we are counterfeiting this kit from Studio Calico. It was their April kit and sold out quickly. I did not have any of the original papers from their kit. I tried to match as closely as I could either the color and pattern size or the pattern in a different color. Here are my papers from their main kit. I also added a few alphabets. And then I decided to make a paper add on since I liked their paper add on kit so much. I love my kit! I decided that since my NSD challenge was to use stickers and die cuts that I am going to try to use some of my stickers and die cuts this month. I have a huge stash and I didn't choose them ahead of time because I want to try to use a lot of them. Your next stop on our HOP is Julie Ann . I am sure you will be inspired by her kit. I will try to get better pictures tomorrow. This camera is not the best in artificial lighting.

Happy National Scrapbook Day! Welcome to my stop on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge National Scrapbook Day Blog Hop. If you arrived here from Jemma's blog you are in the right spot. If you would like to start at the beginning of the hop please go HERE . I have been scrapbooking for about 16 years and over that time have collected many supplies. I remember the days of stickers and die cuts well. They were the only supplies available at my local scrapbook store. I still buy stickers and I have a lot of Cricut cartridges that rarely get used. My Challenge for You I would like you link me to your layout using stickers or die cuts. It doesn't matter if it is a layout made today or a layout made in the past. Just inspire me with your use of these oldies but goodies. Here are some of my sticker and die cut layouts.  This layout has layered paper stickers and epoxy stickers. I didn't need to do much because the paper was printed with the little boxes and words.

Washi tape was our challenge at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog . I used SMASH tape. I had these pictures from last Thanksgiving when my grandson was wearing my nephews hat, hoodie and car keys. I used a pre printed paper from Sassafras. Since the paper had a vintage feel and my pictures are for a toddler layout I added a few strips of more juvenile patterned paper. One plaid strip for color and the giraffe because Ben will have to be pretty tall before these things will fit him. I wasn't sure that I liked this paper too much to start with, but I love the end product. Thanks for looking.

The CKC blog has challenged us to use mini prints on our project. I have a ton of mini prints from Cassie's Senior photo proof sheets. They took over 40 pictures. I made this layout with the casual shots. I wish that I had placed the title and photos a little higher on the layout so there wasn't so much open space at the top, but I am happy overall with the way it turned out. Very simple and quick layout and a great way to show all of the pictures.

Welcome to my stop on the April Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Hop. You should have arrived here from Jemma's blog. If you would like to start at the beginning you can follow the blog link. This month at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog we are counterfeiting THIS great kit.   Most of the papers that I chose have a kid feel to them this month. I have some stars, plaid, dots and a few other fun prints. I didn't stick to the brown, pink, yellow and aqua of the original kit. There were a lot of stickers, borders and labels in the kit so I made sure to add them to my kit. I had the alpha kit that matched the one in the original kit so I threw that in also.  Last month I won a grab bag from Elle's Studio that was filled with great tags, journal spots, labels and other great things so I added those to my kit. I hope you decide to join us and make a counterfeit kit with your supplies.  The next stop on our hop is Julie Ann . I am sure her kit will inspire you.

The Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog challenged us to use rainbows on our project. The colors, the shape, a photo or any way you can think of to include a rainbow. I used a photo from Sesame Place. We were there for a Very Furry Christmas. I got this picture of Cassie and Ben in front of the painting of the Sesame Street buildings. My papers came from my Counterfeit kit. The back paper is BG. I shapes of the blue in the pattern reminded me of clouds. My rainbow border and the little piece of rainbow and sun paper are from Sassafras. I think they are Nerdy Birdy. Around the yellow paper I wrote Snowy Days...Snowy Days... around the border. I thought it was a fun alternative to the Sunny Days Sesame Street song. I am leaving tomorrow for a three day crop that starts Friday. I am hoping to come home with 24-30 pages scrapped. My bag is packed and my pictures are printed. I am putting the last of my page kits together tomorrow and I can't wait to get started.

Our first challenge this month at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog is 4 . I thought about four embellishments, four photos, four papers and I thought about skipping this challenge. Nothing seemed to come to me. Nobody has had a fourth birthday in a lot of years and I felt stuck. Then as I was flipping through photos I found this picture of us with our friends. Hello...there are four of us. Problem solved.  Everything on my layout came from my counterfeit kit, except the red cardstock and orange dotted paper. They came from my scrap bin. I needed to add those colors because the color blocking on the title square was so bright against the blues and yellow. I used the clock to represent the time we spend with our friends, and I liked how it looked when I put the word four over the number four. The lace trim was cut from the bottom of a patterned paper that had an odd girl with butterfly wings. I would never use that paper, but it was a gift from my husband. Unfortunately there are a

Welcome to the Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop for March. If you came here from Helen's blog you are in the right place. If you would like to start at the beginning you can go here . This month we are counterfeiting a kit from Birds of a Feather. Their March kit was full of blue, aqua and yellow. I added in a lot of brown and a little touch of green and pink. My papers: Some BG, Graphic 45, Oriental Trading, OA, SEI, Making Memories, Scrap-Ease, My Minds Eye, Daisy D's, DCWV and Cosmo Cricket. My embellishments: Journal cards, film strips, bling, paper lace, two sheets of wood paper, frames and flowers. My alphabets and ribbons: I added some very old ribbons and new twine, buttons, alphabet cards, a sheet of printed words, a clock and a few charms.  I got this book of tickets for my birthday last month so I threw them in also.  I am getting together with my mom to scrapbook once a week and I have a three day crop the last weekend of the month so I have big dreams of what I will get

The Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog challenged us to use a doily on our project. I used a photo from Halloween at Sesame Place. Ben wore his monkey costume from last year. This was the first time we met Prairie Dawn. I used my doily to make a lace border. I had a large circle doily in my stash. I cut out the solid center of the doily leaving about 1/4 inch where the lace part starts. I put a straight line of atg and attached the doily lace. It had large waves that I smoothed out into a nice ruffled lace. You can't really tell from the picture, but the cream paper has white in the patterns so the white really does match. It looks off in the picture. Thank you for looking. I hope you will join us at the blog. We always have a challenge going on.

Challenge #1 at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog was to use a love letter on your layout. I didn't have any pictures on hand that inspired me to write a love letter. I compromised a little on what constitutes a letter. Here is my layout. This is one of the pictures that the photographer took when my daughter went for her Senior Portraits. They took over 40 pictures and couldn't understand why we said we didn't want more. Cap and gown, drape, casual and casual with the baby. Yup, we had plenty of choices. This was the best picture of her and the baby. We didn't know ahead of time that they would include him so he wasn't dressed to match her.  This journal tag/love letter was on the sheet of journal tags from Crate Paper that I included in my kit. I left it blank so that my daughter could fill in some of her feelings since the layout will go into her album.  This is a closer look at my embellishment cluster. I added the owl from my stash. It was from a clearance pac

Welcome to the February Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop. You should have arrived here from Jemma's blog. If not, you can go here to start at the beginning. This month at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog  we are counterfeiting kits from Scrapbook Circle. I love their kits this month. They are so full of stuff. I made a HUGE kit. I didn't have any of the papers in the original kit. I matched some by pattern, some by color, and some by pattern size. I tried to stick to the original color scheme.  I added Thickers, some sets of mini alphas, some journal spots and some cards that I thought might work with the papers. That little clock with the heart center came from our DT 12 Days of Christmas swap.  I have some pp that is printed with images and cards to cut out, Tim Holtz metal embellishments,  flowers, buttons, twine, ribbon and ribbon roses. I loved both of the kits, but since each one was so large I decided to only counterfeit one. I am going to start using my kit on Tuesday. I

Challenge #3 at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog is to use confetti on your project. The only confetti in my stash is shamrocks, so I decided to use sequins instead. For some reason I have a lot of sequins.  I used pictures from Christmas Eve. Ben and Cassie had put out a plate of cookies for Santa and Ben took a bite of one. I was sure Santa wouldn't mind because he knows how good Aunt Becki's cookies are. I used sequins (confetti) to border my main photo. I also used a few sequins to accent the felt border sticker. I have had this border in my stash for a few years now so I am happy that It is about half gone now. I rarely scrap Christmas layouts so I am happy to be getting a few done this month. Thanks for looking and I hope you join us for some of our challenges this month.

I made this mini album for a friend. I used mostly BG Olivia for the pages. These folded paper albums go together really quickly and hold a ton of pictures. Each page has a tag on the front, back and top. Each tag can have a picture on the front and back so that is a lot of photos. I made six pages. It would have probably laid flat if I had used only five, but I couldn't decide which print to skip so I used them all. Haha.  The album is able to stand so you can leave it on a table. I tried not to make it too bulky because I wanted mom to be able to put it in her purse. I saw a great tutorial on youtube for this album a few months ago. I searched for the same video and can't find it now. There are a lot of tutorials for a similar album if you look.