Chirp Chirp Chirp for Cosmo Cricket

My first introduction to Cosmo Cricket was actually via the Comstock Line of WRMM. Yes, the Comstock line, does that name sound familiar? :) I grabbed every sheet my LSS had to offer!

Then the lacing chipboard came into my life. I made a little house with it.

Now my love for Cosmo Cricket is full blown.

• Black board album is totally genius! I don't have to paint the edges of my album beforehand! It saves me time. It looks elegant. Best of all, it makes making a mini-album easier!


• Stickers... I *heart* stickers, and Cosmo Cricket offer such a full range of them. I am all about indulging my childhood fancy.


• Rubons... again, full range of them. Again, indulging my childhood self.


• Ready-Set-Chip, what a brilliant idea and wonderful product. The only problem for me is that it is sold out everywhere!


• Versatility is the name of the game. While the collections are themed with ample themed products to go with it, Cosmo makes it easy to think outside of the themed-box, or stay in it if you so wish.

All that is to say, I'm giving it a try, after all, nothing has ever been accomplished by not trying.

Early Bird
Some use this line for their inner or actual domestic goddesses, I use it to sing praise of my glorious man :)


Lil' Man
There is nothing little about this wonderful man who is now Home with the Lord. This photo is circa 1960. My FIL knows how much I love family heritage photos, he sent me a digital scan of this photo. This layout talks about him telling me the "Pete and Repeat in the car" joke at Thanksgiving dinner 1999.


Jack's World
It may be Jack's World, but it's N&A's universe!! Here you see what I mean by blackboard album make it easy to put a mini together. Jack's World's colors are nothing short of AMAZING. They are so incredibly rich and deep. They define the word "childhood" in my opinion.

Snorkel

I do have a water layout using the Snorkel line, and you can see it here.

I also have a Halloween layout using this line, but you will have to wait for the last issue of Memory Makers Magazine to see it.

Mr. Campy

When this line first came out, I wished that I hadn't scrapped my Canadian Rocky's trip already! I do have a few more pictures from that trip that need scrapping yet, and here is one:

Girl Friday

Need I say more? Girl, TGIF!!

By the time I made this card, I had run out of all the GF ribbons!

I do have the pleasure of using this Jasmine Tea tin every day.

With Scrapbook Obsessions April kit, I made this little Maya Road mini. See my excessive ribbon use here? lol.

The good ol' days are gone, now there is more fighting than hand-holding...

Cogsmo

Look how easy it is to use the Cosmo's Journaling cards to create a quick mini-album. This whole thing took less than an hour, and it is a mini-album, birthday card in one for DH.

So thank you for staying with me. I hope I've shown you what I can do with the Cosmo products. No matter what happens, I will always remain a huge Cosmo Cricket fan and loyal consumer!

Good Times...

I'm getting my pictures from my fall trip to Shanghai printed, very very slowly... I am always on the lookout for products that strike me as an Asian. It doesn't have to be designed specifically as an Asian line. Pebbles Inc's Linnie Bell collection is one collection that have the colors and temperament of Asian flair. This past weekend, I created this layout.

Yu Yuan Garden and Bazaar is a must-see for anyone visiting Shanghai. People from Shanghai avoid it like crazy. As if 18 million people isn't enough, half of them show up at this place on any given day of the week, and twice as many show up on weekends! But we took the Padgetts and the girls there. We had 小笼包子 at the most famous restaurant in Shanghai that serve them. It is my favorite thing to eat in the world, so I can't talk about it any more, salivating too much...

Anyway, check out that line for Asian inspiration, I definitely found it there!

Why I Scrapbook

In this layout, you see several major reasons why I scrapbook. Shall I go over it? Let's do it top-down then, Collage Press, Sassafras Lass, Cosmo Cricket!!! Be still my beating heart! Oh oh, let's not forget, Becky Fleck's sketches! Oh, the people in the pictures? Must it be about them too? Everything else in life is all about them already! LOL!! So happy and So pretty together...

Graphic 45 Releases Three New Lines

Domestic Goddess (words that describe me, LOL! not!)

Renaissance Faire (wow, time to dig out my stash of museum photos!)

Christmas Past

Two Color Combos at Once

I did these two layouts back to back when scrapping with Lexus at Archiver's a few weeks ago, so why not post them at the same time as well, eh?
Ah, the good ol' days when people didn't walk and would just be at the spot where I left people for photographing...

Finally cut into the stash of MME papers I purchased several months ago! Sometimes I'm only good at adding to the stash! sigh...

Prism Class Kit Giveaway!

I'm having a blast being a guest designer for Prism Papers in June and July. I've received stacks of incredibly beautiful cardstocks, and goodies galore. A few weeks ago, I snatched up an opportunity to develop a class kit for Prism that also used a few delicious Sassafras goodies. Now Jamie is doing a class kit giveaway here. Here is the 2-page layout you can do with this kit.

Here are two cards I made as well. So hurry over and leave a comment and you'll be entered for a free kit!!

I'm Her Card Dealer

Monday morning, and a little card I made for Prism as their guest Blogger is posted today. That little bird is so cute, like I said, I want to stir fry him for dinner, LOL...

Well, yesterday we spent the day at my in-laws. Emboldened by a couple of "crops" I went on recently, I brought scrapbooking supplies. I made the two cards below with Scrapbook Obsessions July kit. The green circles are stamped and embossed with the American Crafts embossing powder in "leaf." Right before I left, I couldn't find my embossing ink pad, I haven't used it for at least 6 years! I brought a bottle of embossing fluid with me and inked up a piece of paper towel! I need to get me a new embossing ink pad!

These two cards stayed behind with MIL. I am her card dealer. It is my mission to make sure that she never spends money buying cards! I'm already spending thousands of dollars a year making cards, that's plenty! She must not spend a single dime more, or nickel for that matter. *laugh*


MIL showed me her stash of cards I gave her since I wanted to know what she might be needing soon. Among them, I found this little gem! It was done before I started this blog and taking pictures of my "stuff." How fun to discover old treasures!!

That's it for Monday, don't forget to head over to Prism's Blog for my birday card :)

My Favorite Thing to Do in the World: Snorkel

Over 2.5 years ago, as I was floating in the Pacific Ocean very near the coast off the Big Island, wearing a life jacket, looking at the colorful fishes swimming beneath me, I asked myself what did I love more? Scrapbooking or Snorkeling? I decided at that time that snorkeling would win out. Fast forward to present, I'm scrapbooking with Snorkel! Talk about a win-win situation!

This month at Scrapbook Obsessions, we get to work with the Snorkel line by Cosmo Cricket. Besides being a great line for Halloween photos, (hint hint, cough cough, MM's last issue will feature one such layout using the Snorkel line :) ) I also find the line useful for ...

swimming at the pool (on the Big Island):

Patriotic pride on 4th of July:

and glorious spring flowers:

I have many other ideas in my head yet, but that's what I've worked out so far.

While we are on the subject of Cosmo Cricket and my love for it, Archiver's is having a sale on all Cosmo Cricket's stickers at 99 cents each. I went and bought one sheet of each that was available!

Now that we are on the subject of Archivers and buying, I also picked up lots of new 7Gypsies goodies: ephemera, chipboards, pages... I will bust them out and use them on my next mini-album, planned for this weekend...

Serendipity

The Webster dictionary defines "serendipity" as "the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for." That's how this layout came together.

Both Robin and Angela encouraged me to enter a Reminisce Blog contest. When the Freedom papers were for sale at Archiver's the day Lexus and I went scrapping there, after complaining that I don't know where in the Cities to find these paper, I had no more excuse.

Also, this layout perhaps will serve as a replacement to the original layout I sent to Memory Makers Master 2009 contest. That original layout is never published, in other words, it will never be returned to me. So this is my second take on the subject matter and a replacement for the Masters contest layout.

I am pleased that I placed 4th. As always, I am humbled by my little success. Lexus has asked me many times before, when will I stop being surprised, I think the answer is truly, "never!"

And lastly, come meet me on the new Graphic 45 blog!

Did My Mojo Leave for Vacation?

I'm not entirely sure why I am posting this layout, it is one of those layouts I did to drive up my number, only it took me a few days to finally finish it. Toward the end, I had chalked it up to a disaster. The concept I started was relatively good, forbidden city, so squares and postage edges to make it look like walls, boundaries blah blah blah, so I'm going to blame it on the pictures, lol.

Okay, the challenge is 100 layouts between Memorial Day and Labor day, so about 3.5 months ish. Have I said that I couldn't do it? Seriously, I can't, so what is my problem, still trying? Every time I talk about this, Aubree tells me to quit whining and get to work! Nope, I will have some cheese with that whine please!!!

Using a Becky Fleck's Sketch

In our efforts to get to 100 layouts by Labor Day (seriously don't think I will make it!), Aubree and I are doing various challenges at various places to spur us on. I certainly need some spurring! So we both entered the July GDT challenge at BPM, which is to create a layout based on an exclusive Becky Fleck's sketch. Now that the contest period is over, I can post my layout. Oh the girl does love her citrus fruits!

I think/hope it's okay to post Becky's sketch, if not, someone please let me know and I'll be happy to remove it.

Cards, just a few...

Believe me, I've been scrapping. I will post them as soon as I can. Meanwhile, Fishy and I went to an all-day craft event. I made about 18 cards. Then the very next week, Lexus and I both took a day off work to scrap at Archiver's!! Here are some that are relatively worthy. All of them will go to my and DH's companies' annual United Way auction. A set of 8 cards fetch about $25 for United Way, talk about a win-win situation!! This year, I will be particularly stocked for cards!

In case you are wondering what those prints on Kraft papers are from, they are K&Co packaging materials, intentionally created for re-purposing!!

Square cards that are uber simple and easy to make!!

The materials for these cards are from Michelle's giant box of goodies! I thought I would share to make sure she knows that her scraps are being put to good use!

That's it for now, I hope you have a great day!

Sweet Shoppe My Girls

So, I'm gaga over the two new collections by Collage Press. By all accounts, I was gaga over all of their collections so far, so nothing particular new there. What has changed is my approach to new stash :) There was a time that the brand new stuff sat on their hallowed shelves, glistening with my daily admiration... until, it's not so new any more and they are not as exciting as the day I got them. Pretty soon, I had to wonder why I had to have them when I had them now that they are on sale everywhere... hmm...

NO MORE!!! I dig in, I cut up, I consume, shortly after their arrival!!!! So this I did last night. It isn't the greatest photo, so I will have to re-take them tomorrow. Now that I look at this, there are a few other things I could have done with this, but I was doing the Scrapbook Trends minimalism challenge, one cardstock and one sheet of patterned paper, and no other embellishments. It was fun, and if nothing else, one more layout done!

China Wedge

If I have ever created a masterpiece, this is it. If I have ever loved a layout, this one is it. If someone asks me what is my scrapping style, I will point to this layout.


A couple of weeks ago, I got my hands on the two latest collections by Collage Press. I didn't go cheap, I got everything. Rolling in the incredible papers, I found this sheet. It may not to you, but it screams Chinese to me. The red and the patterns seem to "fit" but it's the side with the numbers and grids that remind me of Chinese writing practice books. School children learn to pen Chinese characters in a grid format, so one knows, approximately where the strokes fall.

And of course, I would have in my stash, these letters that fit perfectly, size-wise, onto these Collage Press 田字格 :) How exciting it is, when I find paper that represents the subject matter so well, in such an unlikely collection. And the representation is so subtle, if it weren't for me explaining it to death here, who would really know?