Come On Over & HOP ON this NSD!

Good day everyone! Hop is always fun isn't it? Thanks for stopping by my blog today, if you happen to just stopped by my blog, we are doing a blog hop today over at Scrapbook Challenges and you have to start at Pamela's Blog.

So what do we have in store for you this National Scrapbooking Day? Well, huge huge prizes are up for grabs of course, lots of challenges and games over at the forum and fun fun chats with some of us SC girls and our awesome group of members.  This hop is especially for National Scrapbooking Day but we'd also like to welcome the new gals joining us and at the same time say thanks to the ladies who have graced SC the last few months.

If you don't know yet, I'm a returning DT at SC and I am just lovin' Pamela's sketches!.  I've been scrapping actively for close to a year now and I am from Manila, Philippines. This addiction started when I joined a local contest here we called "Scappin Idol".  I didn't win that but I'm thankful I took the plunge though I barely just started scrapping then because it kicked off this need to scrap often. Before that, I only really just shop scrapbook stuff and don't really use 'em.  Literally just SHOP PERIOD. But after seeing what I "can" actually do, it flicked this fire in me. What drama huh? LOL.

I've been married for a year and about 4 months now, no kids yet and just enjoying our life together at the moment. We're big on travels and really put a priority on that so most of my pages are really about our adventures. I try to scrap as often as I can despite what my corporate world demands, if you know what I mean. I work full time and also do consultancy work from time to time.

I've always loved vintage style and looks on my layouts but lately I have been really trying out clean and simple layouts and I am really lovin' it. so I guess I'm still on the discovery phase and I love it. I really don't want to stick to just one style too and I always like to try out new things whether it's tools, techniques, etc.

For this hop, Pamela has created a sketch - one pager and a two pager. Why not try your hands on it? What if I tell you, you could win a the latest My Family Fancy Pants Collection? Motivated now? I bet you are! Go grab your stuff now and get started!

Here's my take on the one pager. Materials I used are all from My Minds Eye Quite Contrary collection.

Some close ups....

And here is what's up for grab!!! I especially love the colors of this collection don't you? So HOP ON girls and do your takes on the sketch!

Now for simply leaving comments on all the blogs on this hop you could win this LOVELY April Scarlet Lime Kit! Gorgeous isn't it?

And for a special treat, for simply becoming a member at SC and for inviting your friends over (through the invite tab in the ning site), you could win this PRIMA goodies!!! Yummy enough?

BUT WAIT! Hold your horses becaus THERE's MORE! Now I didn't mean to sound like the TV Shopping network here but for becoming a follower of my blog and leaving a comment here that you've followed, I'm giving away this small treat from my stash. I'm giving away one locally and one more for international followers. Let me know also where you're from so I can easily filter for the drawings. :)  Forgive me though because I have not asked our post office yet how much it is to ship international but if the shipping costs more than the actual stash, I will just give out a GC for two peas. I hope that's okay. :)

Here's the local pack. MM Journaling notepads, Maya Road journaling and flower sheers, Tim Holtz tickets, 7 Gypsies ATC transparecy, Chipboards, K&CO tags, local ribbons, Imaginisce stickers, misc. stickers, rob and bob studio small clipboard.

International is this one. But it could also be a GC for Two Peas. MM Journaling notepads, My Little yellow Bicycle Calendar Journal Tablet, Maya Road Jounaling and flower sheers and arrow felts, Tim holtz tickets, Mis stickers, Local trims.

Thanks for hopping on, now head on over to KAREN's BLOG for more inspiration!!!

Cheers!!!

Cathy

She luvs life...

Yes I do! I am lovin' my life right now, it's like everything is in it's right place and I am so happy.  Heard over the radio the other day - if you keep asking yourself if you're happy then you probably aren't happy because if you are, you just feel it no questions asked.  And that made me think and I realized how happy I was because I don't really ask and I'm always looking forward to tomorrow with open arms. :)

So I decided to journal about that on this layout and I used the recent photos that I have of myself. This is actually for the Pagemaps sketch challenge. I finally used my new Prima goodies which I haven't touched after 2-3 layouts and I have the whole pp line! I gotta start using them again and consume it all. 

Here's the layout.

 

This title block is cut out from one of the papers, I added a Prima stamp on it (in pink) and then covered the big flower print with a real flower. I also added sparkle on the flower bu adding shimmerz blingz on it.

The pop up flower punch was covered with more flowers and a stem.

The felt is originally white in color - I stamped it with text and then sprayed Patina glimmer mist on it then added flowers and bling.

The photos were partly framed by the stamps scattered on the photos.

This is a Websters' journaling card. I drew lines on it and wrote my journaling notes. I love that it looks stamped and embossed.  

PP:  Prima Strawberry Kisses, Raspberry Tea, Shabby Chic
Embellishment: Prima flowers, Prima Felt, Prima Bling, Prima chipboard sticker, Websters journaling cards, Trim,
Alpha: Websters Alpha sticker
Inks: Distress Inks, Shimmerz Blingz, Glimmer mist
Tools: Martha border punch and flower punch, Hero arts stamp, Prima stamps

I hope you too are enjoying your life at the moment, love it and live it.  Happy weekend!

Cheers!

Cathy

American Craft Letterbox Part 2

Yes, I'm back for more. I actually finished this along with the LO I posted yesterday. That's what I'm lovin about clean simple layouts too! It's quick and simple yet pretty too. I'm really stickin to this... maybe use all of my old stash and scrap old photos too! And I think I really would. :)

This is also inspired by the sketch over at The Scrappiest (Sketch 60). I always love Liz' sketch!  This is a photo of me and my family during my Mom's bday celebration last January 4. I love my mom and she's really special to me and this is for her.

The flower is a newly bought Martha punch and I'm telling you it is amazing and super super cute! I SO like that effect and I hope they create more of these!

I used the frames from the paper and used them all here.

The title at the bottom is actually a Silhouette cut out which is originally in white but I decided to put glitter on it and seal it with Judikins glaze. I loved how it turned out and I'm loving my Silhouette more and more.

The parenthesis border is a Inque chipboard which I covered with AC papers too.

Materials Used:

AC Letterbox, Cardstock

Pink Paislee alpha sticker, Websters alpha sticker

Glitter, distress ink, Inque chipboard

Martha Stewart border punch, Judikins Glaze

Thanks for looking and Happy Friday to all!!!

Cheers!

Cathy

American Crafts Letterbox!

Everybody was on the Color Room last week and I had to jump in too because the color pallete is just so pretty. And like my OA layout the other day, the colors are totally out of my comfort zone but I really liked how it turned out! And i'm loving pastels more and more!

Here's my take and I also used the sketch over at Pencil Lines (Sketch 182) and their sketches are just perfect for anything!

These frames are too cute! They are also from the same paper line and I just cut them out. The felt flowers are also AC had them for a while now and it's perfect for the color palette so I just stitched 2 hearts together.

Got a chance to use my Inkadinkado lamp post stamp again. I heat embossed it in black too. The prima trim at the bottom of the photo is also cream in color so I sprayed Glimmert Mist Patina on it to match the pallete.

These are flowers from the pp which i cut. The bottons created a center push so i sort of crunched the flower a bit and used pop dots.

This is a new stamp from Hero Arts which i just got. Inked it with Staz On and I painted the flowers and basket with Glimmer Mist too. The center of the wheels were buttons and I just covered the wholes with liquid pearls in matching light blue color.

Materials Used:

American Crafts Letterbox papers, OA journaling cards

Martha and Fiskars border punches

Inkadinkado and HA stamps

AC Thickers, MM buttons, AC felts, Prima Trim,

I think that for now, I will actually switch to pastels! I know how shocking that is and it's surprising me too!This is so not me but I am truly enjoying it. Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

Cathy

MME Challenge

MME is giving away another huge prize for their current sketch challenge. And while my MME pps are still fresh, I got excited for this challenge and I used all the new MME products I got.

Here's the sketch

And here is my take. I went for a clean look which is common recently I still am not sure why I'm loving all clean and paste LOs. But you gotta do what you love and I'm lovin it now. :)

 

Close ups...

added those three ribbons which I folded on the side of both photos.

I quilled a few pieces of pp and attached it at the back of the photos too.

Materials Used:

MME Papers, AC Cardstock

MME Stickers, MME Journaling card, Misc ribbons

Distress Ink, Fiskars border punches

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Cathy

April Big Event with Master Iris Babao Uy

Yes, that's right! We're lucky to have invited Iris to teach us a few techniques on mediums over at Scrapbook Challenges! Go check it out, do your takes and win some prizes!!!

Here's what Iris created for the tutorial...

And below is my take...visit Scrapbook Challenges to check out the details on what I did for this page.

Close ups below...

I'm also giving away a small prize for those who'd be joining and doing their own takes of the tutorial. Winners will be chosen randomly and you can double your chances by posting a comment here on this post.

Cheers everyone!

Cathy

I cannot believe I'm into Pastels..

This is my first time to use October Afternoon products. I don't know why but lately I've been into pastel colored pps which I normally wouldn't go for but something changed and i am actually enjoying it. I cannot believe myself when I chose to buy My Little Shoebox and American Crafts Letterbox papers (which were all light colored papers) last week instead of Graphic 45! I guess some things really do change.

Here's a page about our yearly basketball game appointments - we don't miss any game where DLSU (De La Salle University) is playing. It's college basketball I know but Gio used to be the Sports Editor of the official school newsletter so you can kinda understand his fanaticism in addition to the fact that he loves this game so much. And so I decided to do this page because I never want to forget such a special memory.

This is also a layout based on this week's sketch over at Sketch Inspiration.

Here are the close ups...

The yellow strip of paper was stamped with Hampton Arts word strip - one of the new stamps I purchased and I love it!

Thiis the photo mat which I embossed using my cuttlebug. I heat embossed the word "YOU" with clear powder and then inked the entire area with shabby shutters and then painted the center square with Shimmerz Blingz. I'm lovin all my Shimmerz. And underneath the mat is a Tim Holtz ticket stamp.

And the title... So glad I found these brown alpha's that go well with the page.

Materials used:

Papers - OA Farmhouse

Embellishment: OA Farmhouse die cuts

Alpha: AC Thickers, Pink Paislee

Inks: Distress Ink, Blingz, Staz On, Colorbox

Stamps: Tim Holtz, Hampton Arts

 Thanks for looking and Have a Great Day!

Cheers!

Cathy

March is a lucky month so it's high time I share the love....

Yes it is! I won several challenges and random drawings and I am a happy gal.

First, I was a featured member over at Your Scrapbook Stash plus my Friday Sketch take won! For this I got a price pack from Erica and a $10 GC and what's good is I already got the pack!!!! It arrived real fast for some reason.

2nd Prize Pack - my LO was picked as the winner over at Papierhouse's Friendship Challenge.

3rd Prize Pack - I won Challenge #3 at weScrap's next designer call. And this is a bit huge for me because I am applying for a DT post there - crossing my fingers. If you don't know them, weScrap is a Kit Club I recently joined and you can find lots of inspiration from the gals there. So check it out!

4th Prize Pack - I won the random drawing for Iris's class held last February.

I'm so thrilled and happy for all these so I will have a little giveaway this coming weekend along with our BIG event over at Scrapbook Challenges.

Hope to see you back here and on SC this weekend!

Cheers,
Cathy

SPRING Love

It's my turn this week to post a new DT challenge over at Scrapbook Challenges. This is supposed to be my last DT month but Pamela decided to keep those who want to stay and add more folks to the team and much much more activities in store! Isn't that awesome? Well, I love her sketches so why wouldn't I stay? And I forgot to mention that she's adding a 2-page version of the sketch now and they are just lovely. I'm just not a 2-pager lady but definitely hope to try them out soon.


Now back to my challenge, I called it "Spring Love" and what better way to show Spring than through pastel colored papers and embellies and add to that some flowers and butterflies! :) So yes, that is my challenge this week plus a bit more - create a page containing pastel colored papers, butterlfy, flower and 2 or more rubons. Yes, get those rub-ons out. They are so expensive and yet we tend to always forget them.

This is my layout. It's made of My Little Shoebox papers and embellies that came with my DT pack care of SC Creator - Pamela. Thanks again for these! :)

The flower is made of circles I punched from one of the border designs. Added some leaves from the same paper and Voila! The butterfly is punched using my newly bought Martha Stewart Punch and I misted it using Glimmer Mist Patina and Red Velvet.

This is one of the rubons I used which I hid part of using one of the photo corner die cuts. At the base is also a heart flourish that I used as a mask and misted the area with Shimmerz Spritz.

The title is also an MLS chipboard which I inked and i also overlapped a few letters using fam tapes. The heart and the title background were also die cuts.

Materials Used:
PP, Die cuts and Alpha - My Little Shoebox
Punchers - Martha Stewart, Fiskars
Mists: Shimmerz, Glimmer Mist
Misc - Rubons, Buttons, Heart Flourish Mask
Sketch: Creative Scrappers Sketch 98


Thanks for looking and I hope you join us over at Scrapbook Challenges!

Cheers!


Cathy

The Dress

So it's the 3rd challenge of their DT call over at weScrap and this week it's called The Dress. I just love how they named the challenges. I am also very happy to share that I won the 2nd Challenge which was called The Makeover and I get a prize too! :)

So for this week, we had to choose 2 dresses from the different runway models and use those as inspiration. The dresses that I chose were the top 2 from this photo.

And this is the finished LO. I used different papers here and I actually had a hard time looking for papers that would fit the color scheme. I used the dress color on the first photo (top left) as the foreground and cut out the papers and used different border punches to mimic the wave-like desing of the dress. And I used the diagonal flower design on the dress as the main design on the LO hence I used 2 chipboards which I placed diagonally.

Here is the close up of the different cuts and border punches used.

Here's a close look on the chipboard which I painted using MM glaze to also mimic the satin like feel of the dress and splattered it with purple paint to mirror the vines on the dress too.

More close up...

Materials used:
PP: MME Quite Contrary, K&Co, DVWC, Sassafrass
Alpha: MME, Scrapworks
Embellies: Inque board, MME journal die cuts
Tools: Martha Butterfly punch, Martha border punch, Fiskars Embossing border punch, Stickles, MM paints (glaze, purple).
I had super fun with this challenge! I initially don't know where to start because it was hard to find the right papers but when I found them the ideas just started flowing. I actually didn't know I'd finish it tonight.

Happy day for me! :)

Cheers!
Cathy