Perpetual calendar

One of my fellow consultants showed me a pic of a perpetual calendar at our last training session in January, she was going to send us the instructions, but I couldn't wait to create it.  So I set down with my girly Roxie paper pack, the collage cubes, and my Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge, and this is what I came up with!  It was originally only going to be given as a door prize for the New catalog BINGO game, but I had requests for a workshop with it...so ask, and you shall receive!

February 24th, 6:30pm here at my house, for $25 you too can create this calendar that will last for years to come!  You need to reserve your spot no later than Sunday, February 5th, so that I can order the supplies and get everything cut and ready for you!  Respond to this post, or send me an email at rhonda@jcrackington.com if you are interested!

ZUMBA

I have a zumba friend, that is making a zumba album for another friend, so I volunteered to make one layout to help with this.  What better way to combine two of my true loves...scrapbooking and zumba!  I gave her the layout the other night, and then decided it was a good thing I took a picture of it, because I NEEDed one of those for myself as well!  Came home from zumba and made another one for me!
Enjoy! 
PS... I used my zumba bracelet to help me freehand that funky little symbol on the pink circle...an artist I am not, but it will do for now! : )

Dinosaur Valentines

In sticking with my theory of using what I have instead of buying more scrapping stuff....I decided to use the super cute new Roar! dinosaur stamp set to create 'manly' valentines for the boys for school.  The card will have a dinosaur toy attached to it, rather than the traditional candy...the parents will love me for not sending candy, I'm sure the kids will think I'm an old fuddy duddy, but such is life! ; )  For once, these were super easy to make and reproduce 33 times!  I random stamped a sheet of white daisy cardstock with the dinosaurs in pacifica, sunset, pear and desert sand.  Cut the heart using the Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge, and ink distressed the edges with desert sand (Jeny will be so proud of me)...and VOILA...33 cards are finished, except for the boys to write their names and their friend's names on them!  One more thing of one million off the to do list!!

Valentine you're DINO-MITE!  How cute is that!  The boys like them, so that's all that really matters! : )  Happy scrapping!!

New stamp set card swap

For training with my CTMH upline in January, the team decided to pick a stamp set, design a card and do a swap at the February training meeting.  I picked the Just a Number stamp set because it has smarty pants birthday sayings, that sound as though I could've written them myself.  I found a design in one of my card recipe books, thought it looked simple enough, and set out to make 1 for me and 12 for the swap.  You would think that I'd know by now that simple enough in the book, means painstaking to reproduce more than once...but I'm a slow learner.  It is sort of what I had in mind, but since I have way too much to do, and not even close to enough time, it has to do for now! : )

You know you're getting older when...the candles cost more than the cake!

The flames on the candles are actually super small hearts cut from my Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge, flipped them upside down!!  They are the only thing that made this card any easier to reproduce 13 times! : )

Family album for Mother in law

About a year ago I was given several pictures of my mother in law's, mother's side of the family--The Anderson family.  Between my love of scrapbooking, and interest in getting to know that side of the family better (even from such a distance), I came up with an album for her.  Here are a few of the pics of the pages, that I forgot to take good pictures of before I gave it to her (because I procrastinated up to xmas eve to get it done for her on xmas)!!  It's the first album I've ever made and given away, so it was difficult to create for someone else.  And it was incredibly challenging trying to put some kind of order and semblance to pictures of people from generations ago that I've never met, and not heard a lot about.  It was a good experience for me, and has gotten me interested in researching both my mom and dad's side of the family.  I have very few pictures of either side, but making a detailed family tree that I could pass along to my kids someday would be fun, and quite an adventure nevertheless!

PS  My website will be updated and fully functional in the very near future!  www.scrappinmama.jcrackington.com

Even I can create my own 'designer' paper!!

In my latest efforts to design stuff for workshops in January I was coming up empty in my paper selection.  I know that CTMH has created 8 paper packs per idea book, that last 6 months, and that should be enough, but with the very holiday stuff in this latest one, I've exhausted my options.  So I decided to try the whole random stamping technique to come up with my own 'designer' stuff.  After a few miserable attempts, I actually came up with something that I liked!  I like damask, and I like chocolate, so this is what came together after rummaging through several stamp sets.  I coupled that with the Celebrate the Everyday card guide from way back when, and VOILA!!  For my first attempt at something completely from 'scratch', I'm pleased with myself for stretching beyond my comfort zone...may even have to try this again!

Now if only I could come up with an argyle print like they did in this guide, I'd be tickled pink!

One option for 20 page workshop

Awhile back I found a template for a 20 page workshop on the consultant bulletin boards.  I used it and made 20 fabulous pages with the fanfare paper pack.  You crank out 20 pages and then embellish as you put pics on them.  It's sort of like the retired base pages, only much cooler!  I decided to give it a try with the new paper packs, a huge challenge considering that you only get 6 b&t pages per pack, and 6 sheets of cardstock.  I bought 2 packs of Believe, gathered a bunch of cardstock, and went to town.  I'd like to thank Myra Grodziuk (sp?) for the original template using the old paper pack, it saved me much time and misery trying to figure it out on my own!  I also had about a half a pack  of stickease leftover from another project, so I pre-embellished some of the pages.  And I cannot wait to use my Paper Doll Dress Up Cricut cartridge for some more cute reindeer, Santas, elves, sleighs, etc...  This will be one option for the 20 page workshop I'll be doing in January, the other option will actually be 10 pages of Elemental and 10 pages of Dreamin...if I can figure it out! ; )

Here's a sample of the 20 pages of Believe: