Scrapbook Obsessions January Kit

I admit it, I had never heard of Best Creation till the January Kit at Scrapbook Obsessions was revealed. Check them out! I was amazed at the full range of paper lines, anywhere from uber cutesy to demurely nostalgic! J.R. chose this really Chinese line for a black, white, and red January kit. Here are two layouts I created with this kit.

Several sheets in this collection are variations (fonts if you will) on the character "福." Google translates it to "good fortune" or "happiness." Google omits the best translation: "blessing." After all, the Beatitudes in Chinese uses this character 福.

Whoa, when did I become a linguist and an expert in Chinese-to-English translation? I don't think so! Moving on... Blessings are indeed all mine... I broke out the Pagoda cartridge to cut the flowers and traced the edges with stickles.


A'ight, with a dragon yay-big on the paper, can I really not use it on a layout about the ultimate place for which the dragon is a symbol? The picture is of Tai He Palace in the Forbidden City. Behind us on the marble reliefs are dragons galore :) Does this layout hurt your eyes? LOL. Does the word 俗气 come to mind?? LOL.

Dotted stickles for a border: I used a Bazzill bling template to do this. It was quite convenient.

There will be more with this kit, I'm thinking Chinese New Year cards and some wedding cards, we shall see...

I Believe in Santa Claus!

It's time for another Rusty Pickle challenge. I am glad for these challenges as I continue to make dents into my enormous RP stash. If you weren't scrapping six some years ago, you wouldn't recognize these RP papers. I used paper from Girly Girl and RP Holiday line from 2005 (or is it older?) These papers still make my heart go jumping wildly crazy. Can that Santa BE cuter? RP trim, rubons and stickers. And of course, a layout is no longer complete without some spritz spritz spritz, lol.

When DH was five years of age, he figured out by scientific deduction that since there is no physically possible way that Santa visits every house in the world delivering presents, he must not be real! We are hoping that she will figure it out on her own one of these days.


Merry Christmas everyone! May Santa bring you lots of goodies tonight :)

I Wish You Joy

I remember my first Christmas 22 years ago... I entered Dakar Academy just in time for the home stretch to the Christmas season and winter break. With no English, no understanding of anything American (or non-Chinese for that matter), I was caught up in the middle of the "Season's preparations." And what exactly was "season?" All that a dictionary reveals pertains to spring, summer, autumn, and winter...

So there I was, in the middle of the season, hearing for the first time all the Christmas songs, learning to sing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." I had to look up "hark", "herald", and "angels," and that's just the title of the song, let alone the rest.

It would be a few more years before this babe in the manger and the man on the cross would capture and enrapture my heart. So in this season of celebration and contemplation, I wish you and yours immense joy as well as profound peace.

This is a really easy to make banner I created for Purple Cows, for detailed project instruction, find it here. Merry Season to you! :)

CPS 147 and 146

I've been a scrapping fool this weekend! Who would have thought a hobby could have so many deadlines and goals associated with it? One of the many goals in the upcoming year is to be more consistent in participating in card making challenges. So as soon as the CPS 147 challenge went up, I did it! I even used my Paisley cartridge to make the blue flower! LOL. When will I ever be good at using my Cricut and its cartridges? Oh what a hobby this is, so much accumulation and so little time... I misted again. Some of my blogger friends are masters at misting, you know who you are, and thanks to their consistent inspiration, I keep at it, at least the liquid stash is getting liquidated almost daily. Hmm... that is a bad bad pun, isn't it? :)

This is a card made with the CPS 146 sketch. I'm too late to enter this one into their weekly drawing, but that's okay. I now have one more card to give to the neighbors!

Purple Cows Holidy Ideas Blog Hop

Welcome to the Purple Cows Holiday Ideas blog hop! You can start at the beginning here. As you hop, you'll be seeing some fabulous ideas by the PCI designers! When you get to the last stop of the blog hop, you can then leave a comment to be eligible for a wonderful Purple Cows Prize. How fun is that?!

I am sharing with you a winter wonderland layout using the Purple Cows Click Blade 2803 and partner products by Imaginisce. I love this scallop click blade as it creates just the perfect and subtle edge on the green cardstock serving as a mat for the rest of the layout.

The temperature here has been hovering over zero degree Fahrenheit recently, and there's nothing wonderful about that! Today's highs will reach the 20's, heat wave! Maybe this weekend we shall finally be able to do something fun outside. I typically just take a few pictures and go back inside. Have I mentioned how cold it is around here? ugh!
I'm keeping this short and simple for you, so you can now hop on to Kryssi's blog to continue the fun.

Adornit Mini

This little mini is created with Adornit's Family Heritage collection, one of the two brand new lines! It was fun and easy to put together with the cardstock and clear stickers. I used some miscellaneous photos for this little guy. I really do love making minis.

This Thursday, Purple Cows' DT will be doing a blog hop!! I'll be posting something then!

Friday Friday Friday

Yesterday, First Born's school was in lock-down mode for two hours. There was a man with a sawed-off shotgun in the office building across the street from her school. Thankfully, no shots were fired, no one was hurt and the man was arrested. Authorities said that the school was never in any danger, but still... At least by the time I found out, the kids were already home bouncing off the walls, but still...

I misted again and that's why I'm posting an otherwise boring layout, lol. I flipped over the Cosmo Cricket Nutmeg chipboard elements and "sprayed out" these little clouds. I also sprayed some Tim Holtz color wash on the curly bracket. Let me also gush over the fun fun fun Crate Paper chipboard embellishments.

Close up of my fun little clouds and the white outline is done using souffle pens.

That's it for now, I hope you have a great weekend and I hope to get a lot of scrappy things done!

CPS 145 and More St. Nick

This is almost too hard to believe but I managed to get a CPS card done in the same week that the sketch is posted!! I am motivated by the fact that I "need" a few cards to give away for Christmas and that I want to use up the St. Nick BoBunny kit! That will be a first for me too: to use up a kit of any kind, lol. I also think I will stash away some of these cards for next year's United Way auction!

So with my new camera, I took this picture with flash and all! It's either that or wait until Saturday when sunlight and I are home at the same time. If you think I'm being dramatic, here are the actual statistics for Dec 10, 2009: sunrise 7:41 AM; sunset 4:31 PM. Oh, it's depressing!

And speaking of glittery snow, I think we got 8 inches overnight. This Shanghai girl does not like it here in Minnesota!

Adornit, Things I Love

Adornit by Carolee's Creations introduces two new collections with their Things I Love catalog: Family Heritage and Lapreal. I am so delighted that Georgana thought of me to try out these new papers and embellishments! So my weekend crafting included these two layouts using Adornit's brand new lines.

Lapreal is such a wonderfully soft line with a touch of whimsy. I think it would be perfect for heritage photos. And it is also perfect for scrapping little girls in cute winter hat :) I created a sticker border on the left hand side and some of them are popped up using 3-d adhesives.

I'll sneak this in here: if you think my close-ups are looking better, let's just say Santa came early and dropped off a new camera for me :) More on that later though...

I used the Family Heritage collection for this quick layout with a Becky Fleck sketch.
I permanently popped up the wings of this butterfly by placing a small 3-d adhesive close to the center where it is "brad'ed" to the layout. The butterfly is a sticker from this collection and I layered a Heidi Swapp ghost butterfly over it.

Check out Adornit's blog for other creations with these new lines! I'll post my mini and card another day here!

Hello St Nick and Willows

The willows are having a blog hop and I'm not missing out this time! How appropriate that I have a couple of projects to show from Scrapbook Obsessions' December 09 kit! It's Willow Traders after all, the place where all things kit-related are discussed! Oh my goodness how fabulous is the St. Nick line by BoBunny? I am particularly in love with the vibrant colors and that avocado lime green in this line! Here's my DD wearing a Christmas dress in July. I let her. I mean look at the dress, as if she could wear it here in Minnesota when it is actually Christmas time!

Have I mentioned that I love that avocado lime green color? I believe so. For this card, I misted the TA frame with similar colored glimmer mist. Then I glittered it with some clear glitter. Put the Martha Stewart border and corner punches in use here and lightly brown misted it the paper. I am really unhappy with how the stamped sentiment looks, oh well, I can't have it all.

Well, thank you for stopping by and I hope a fantastic weekend awaits you!

The Season Has Begun...

December... in less than 20 some days, it'll be winter solstice!!! The darkest days of the winter are still ahead, but hope is just beyond that, brighter days will come again, lol...

I do not send out Christmas letters or cards via mail, but I do enjoy making them. The neighbors will do some gift exchanging so I have made a couple of cards for them. I love this adorable line by Imaginisce! It is so so so cute!

Of course, time to fully put in use the Christmas Past collection of Graphic 45. Instead of finding ways to use this line for other occasions, it's time to use it for Christmas stuff! I even used Maya Mist on the paper, it looks pretty fantabulous!!

That's about it for now, I hope to take some pictures of layouts this weekend when it's light outside. See, that's why I obsess about winter solstice and its timing, lol.