May We have a Challenge?

Ladies....I have come to you now with a challenge! You know what I'm talking about....I want to see your scrapbook pages, BUT, there are guidelines....I want to see scrapbook pages based mainly on journaling. It's a strange request, yes I know, but journaling is such an important part of a scrapbook page. This idea was sparked by a page I did a year ago that was for my husband. The main focus was the journaling.

So use these as inspiration, and here is what you do next...after you complete your page, click on Mr. Linky below to add a link to your image, then leave a comment on this post {even if you don't have an account with this blogger, you can still leave an anonymous comment, just put your name under it}. Then what will happen, I will host your image and display it on my page here as well as facebook {giving you all the credit of course!} so that others can see your beautiful work as well. I am most likely going to start implementing challenges into this blog, so this is a good run through to see who really wants to challenge themselves. So, lets get this started, pull out your scrapbooking supplies {or you can make a card, altered item etc.} and get going, link it up and lets see what we get! I will leave the challenge open until May 15th. Have fun and happy scrapping!!

**also remember to swing by Scrap A Moment's fan page in facebook to enter the giveaway! It ends on the 13th**

My Very First GIVEAWAY!

Hey there everyone! I have decided that I am going to do a giveaway. I've seen them done before on other sites, and I want to do one here. Actually, from the Scrap A moment facebook page. In order to enter the giveaway and see all the details, press the little thumbs up sign in the side bar of this site to become a fan of Scrap A Moment. Then head on over to the page to see what's being given away and all the details! Have a super night guys!

Sore Feet and an Admirable Applause, Please!

Happy, Happy Monday friends! I tried very hard to get on last night, but I only had energy to sort through the party pictures. Sorry! But I am here now, and Nonno and Nona's 63rd wedding anniversary party went beautifully. I know this is not your typical "Scrapbook Blog" post like I usually do, but for the amount of creativity, planning and projects that went into this party between my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, cousin-in-law and myself, it deserves a spot on this site! And of course, just for the fact that they have been married for 63 years is reason enough!
  The party planning had been going on for weeks, there were talks of color schemes and what pattern for the plates and napkins. Getting just the right shade of red for the roses, the perfect dish...all of that. The last couple days were a frenzy of activity. Samantha {my sis-in-law} came home from school for the weekend, and her, myself and Alida {my mom-in-law} did last minute errands and then Alida and I did the all important arranging of the table preview. Yesterday I went over early to help, and was in charge of setting the tables as we had previously determined, lighting candles and cooking pasta. It was definantly an Italian kitchen with all of us running around tasting dishes and reaching over eachother to stir sauces and pasta, toss salads and chop tomatoes. But we had so much fun. I'm just going to roll the pictures now!

 

Alida and me putting Italian bread sticks in paper cones

  

  

The Main Table

 

 The Small Table {notice the shadow box in the background? ;)}

 

Menu for the evening {Sooooo gooood!}

 

My place setting, we each had a rose tucked in the napkins on our plates

{I did the folding and the tucking under the direction of Alida}

 

Alida had collected these classic jug jars and turned them into candle holders

They looked authentic once the candle wax began melting down the sides!

 

My framed scrapbook page for them was on display at the buffet table accented 

with this beautiful spray of red roses and the two little vases with the "L" and the "M" 

on them.  {Loredana and Mario}

 

I was told that it wasn't an Italian table unless there was a bowl of nuts

in front of Nonno's plate. 

 

The girls {Laura, myself, and Samantha} taking time from cooking

and decorating. We each gave a gift, I gave the scrapbook page, Laura

drew a beautiful portrait and Samantha sang an Italian opera piece. 

 

Samantha also conjured up her Italian cooking genes and

made {from scratch} this bowl of pasta with red sauce. MMMM!

 

Dessert was fabulous! Nonno and Nona in front of their lemon cake or Dolce Torte al Limone

  

So sweet! Nonno fed Nona one of the white chocolate hearts. 

 

Three layers of delicious goodness! 

 

 Presenting Nona with the scrapbook page. 

 

Nona and her gift. 

That's all the pictures folks! Thanks for coming in and remember to check back regularly, I may be doing something new with this blog after I do some brainstorming! Until then, keep on scrapping!!

A small hiatus

Welcome back my fellow scrappers and loyal blog readers! I am dropping in to say that for the next couple days {though I really can't say for certain} I won't be posting as much. However, that is not saying that I'm not working on projects, because quite frankly, I found a BUNCH of projects I will be doing. I just can't post them up here due to them being gifts of people who may come in and read. Darn it all, huh? I have one large project for a certain mother of mine that I am trying to make and it is giving me some problems, but I am sure I can regain control. I will be posting up some pictures for sure either Sunday evening or Monday morning of the anniversary dinner that I made the "A Taste of the Old Country" layout for. My mother-in-law puts together beautiful parties and my sister-in-law is coming home for the weekend and we are going to decorate and do some cooking. I'm excited to see everything put together! So, until either a random layout get completed in between projects here, plan on seeing me Sunday or Monday! Thanks much!

It's All About Me

I took on another challenge yesterday that I found at Scrapbooks Etc. . The challenge was to do a layout about "YOU". How funny that that should be a challenge, oh but it was! I don't scrapbook myself {I mean about myself}, unless I happen to be at the event, with the birthday person, on that vacation...you get the drift. But to actually sit down and come up with a layout about ME was difficult. When it came to me, it took about an hour to finally decide on what paper to use...that was just the beginning! I will say, that after I did a small sketch of what I thought would be nice, the page did come together a lot easier.

 

This is the finished layout...I love the pale greens.

 

There was no way that I could make a layout about me and not include the lyrics to the song I am named after.

 

I added subtle detail around the border of the picture listing all the things that I am.

 

{Sorry about the flash here} At the bottom of the page, I put in random pictures of me, and squeezed in a couple different lists about me...My Likes, My Dreams, and My Hobbies.

I'm really happy that I took this challenge. I didn't realize that making a layout about me would be this difficult. It's hard to sit there and try to think of all things that you are, all things that you want to be and all the great and wonderful things about you. Funny thing is, there is usually way more good things than we give ourselves credit for! Take this challenge everyone!! Go to the link at the beginning of this post and submit your own "Me" layouts!

thanks for popping in!

Done Already...

Well, what can I say? I finished my challenge layout already. I was up late last night sketching it out, and then  this morning {more against my own will than anything} woke up super early. The dogs wanted to get up, so after letting them play outside, I brought my bowl of cereal upstairs to my scrapbook room and got to work.  I wanted the page to be fun but at the same time look like it has some organization to it. I chose some brighter colors and this is the end result...

 

I found another picture of my brother in me changing ranks with eachother and thought that would be funny to put on the page as well. I wrote my captions around the edge of the circles "It wasn't just a card game anymore...It was a battle for the crown!"  and "Changing Ranks". I cut out a big crown from my "Paper Pups" Cricut cartridge and then cut out my letters with my "Designer Calendar" cartridge. I've submitted it in to the challenge forum, so we will see how it did!

A " Great Dalmuti" of a Challenge

Evening everyone! I have been thinking a lot today about what I wanted to do next for a project. I ended up deciding to join a scrapbook challenge forum and try one of their ideas. I found one that immediately sparked up memories of a HILARIOUS photo from a few years ago of myself, my brother, my sister in law and a couple of cousins. We played a card game called The Great Dalmuti that we took rather seriously.

 

L to R: my little brother Ricky, Me, sister-in-law Emily, cousin Susan, and cousin Bill.

 As you can see, we even took it to the level of wearing costumes. {And yes, that IS me with a soda bottle strapped to my head and wearing my little brother's pants} There are different players in the game ranging from a Peon, to a Merchant to the coveted role of Great Dalmuti {my cousin here in the purple and the crown seemed to always be The Great Dalmuti}. Anyway, we made hats to go along with the different roles and we had to trade them up if we should advance or get booted down a level. 

  The scrapbook challenge is to make a layout of something that you do for fun with friends or family. It seems fairly simple enough, but I can assure you, this picture may just steal any limelight away from my actual scrapbooking techniques...I think there in lies MY challenge! I will keep you all posted and of course unveil the finished product! Wish me luck and have a great night....

And now I know my ABC's!

Here it is everyone! I managed to pull together my 2nd project this week! The ABC book is now completed and ready to give to my niece. I finished the final pages today, and then worked on mounting the cover onto chipboard, put two ring fasteners on and then embellished with some pretty ribbons. I didn't expect to get both my major projects done so quickly {let alone back to back}, and now my "Scrapping To Do" list is kind of empty. I do have some lovely little flower shaped chipboard hanging around my scrap closet...just enough to make a Number Book to go along with the ABC's....hmmmm.....{perhaps my list has a box that still needs to be checked off after all}

 

The finished product {yay!} 

 

Some of the pages {these one's make me kind of sleepy}

 

I love ribbons and they ended up really pulling the whole book together.

Thanks for having a peek every one!

A bit of the Old Country

I've been listening to Italian music all day. I have finished my project for my husband's grandparent's anniversary dinner. I had to listen to the Italian music to keep me inspired and to keep the mood of the page going. I have a few moments when I scrapbook where I feel like I've put so much of myself into the page that it's sad to know that I'm giving it away, and not just that, but I always worry that I will think it looks good, and someone else will think it looks terrible. All I can say is I am happy with how it turned out, and I hope that Nona and Nonno like it!

 

Framed in the shadow box.

arrivederci e grazie i miei amici,

This one's for you Ari

Yesterday I was talking to my husband about this blog and how much fun I was having making new things for it and getting comments. But there has been one thing that I haven't quite figured out how to do and that has been creating my own digital scrapped background. I have never really done much digi-scrapping {who am I kidding, I've have NEVER done any}but I have learned bits and pieces since creating this blog and have designed some of my own little logos and stuff. Anyway, I digress, as I was telling my husband this, he gave me the idea to just piece together a layout from my own scrapbook paper and scan it in to the computer. I actually thought that that was a decent idea, I even kind of knew what measurements needed to be where on the page. So, last night I sat down at my desk after finding some paper that I thought would make a cute background. As I was piecing it together, I thought that it was actually turning into a really cute scrapbook page. I ended up totally forgetting about creating a blog background and started scrapping a page for my sister's album. I'm not entirely sure if I have completed it or not {there's a bit of space at the top that I don't if I want filled or not, I think the pattern itself might be enough to fill the negative space}. But all in all, I feel that it turned out pretty decent. Strange what things can turn out when you are trying to accomplish something entirely different!

 

I love this picture of my sister and me and I call her AriBug, so I thought the butterflies were a nice touch! Let me know what you think...

This post is brought to you by the letter "O" no!

{A small blurb just for your amusement}
Things have been going steady enough with both of my current projects. I have trying to work both the ABC album and the anniversary page back to back. I'm at a spot on the anniversary page that involves more supplies {yay! Another trip to Michael's!} so I went back to the ABC album. As I was cutting out letters on my cricut, I noticed my cutting mat was starting to wear down and become less sticky. I of course kept thinking, "Just a few more letters, just a few more letters!". I got to the letter "O" and the whole piece of paper started sliding around and the "O" turned into a squiggly hole! I guess the only reason I post this up here is for the lesson in it. Don't assume that when your mat is not as tacky as it should be that what your cutting out will turn out nicely.Time to put another item on the shopping list!

Anyone for a Spot of Tea Dye?

 Project "Nona and Nonno's Anniversary" has officially started. I made my run yesterday to Michael's to pick up supplies. They were having a sale on shadow boxes, so I got a nice one for nothing! I spent last night piecing together flowers and papers and brads, but still have not actually glued anything yet. I had a paper drama that left me reeling last night. I purchased a pack of neutral colored cardstock. On the cover it showed creams, taupes, whites and blacks. I thought "Perfect!"  because those were all the colors that I needed. When I got home and started layering and matting the photo, it turned out that the black didn't exist, only a gross brown. So, I tried to see if it could be usable, but it was not. The piece of paper that my mother-in-law gave me had black in it, as well as the shadow box. Needless to say the brown clashed horribly. Luckily my mother-in-law came to my rescue and she will be giving me black cardstock!
 The other part of the drama actually happened at Michael's. Usually they have these beautiful vintage style embellishments all over the place. They've been there every other time I've gone in. But yesterday, the day that I actually needed them, there wasn't any! Not even cream colored flowers or any distressed tags! So, I had to get creative. I ended up buying some of their silk flowers that matched the color that I needed,

and also, some tea dye so that I could make and distress my own tags. I did manage to find some fantastic little antique square brads that I absolutely DIED for. They make wonderful little accents...

 

So, when I arrived home with my bounty, and after solving the paper fiasco, I began tea dying. I wanted to make a small tag with Nona and Nonno's wedding anniversary. I created the text box and print in Microsoft Word, and then printed it off on a cream colored cardstock. I made it look older by using a typewriter font and also wrote it in Italian. After it was cut out I took a water bottle and lightly misted the tag, then I took a small paintbrush and dabbed that onto the ink pad and then put small dots of the dye directly onto the paper. I brushed over them to blend and then during the drying process would go back over to add slightly darker splotches. 

  

I also very lightly bent it in different places to give it a that tattered look. I am thinking that tea dye may be one of my new favorite tools! I used chalking techniques so often before, and still love the results, but I really think that the tea dye effect is perfect for this project. Let me know what you think!