My First Blog Award

I received a very nice blog award, my first one, from Heather (chevygirl). Thank you, Heather. First you should check out her blog by clicking on her name. She is going through a hard time right now so check out her blog and give her some encouragement. I would now like to pass this on to 7 of the blogs that I visit regularly. Check them out; I'm sure you'll love them as much as I do!!

1. Lorrie (thanks for helping me!!)
2. Karel (thanks for your help, too!!)
3. Ashlee
4. Mary
5. Bridget
6. Missy
7. Melissa

Have a great weekend, everyone :)

Check Out This Wonderful Blog Candy

I came across this blog candy. Check it out, it's pretty generous!!

http://keepsakesbymelissa.blogspot.com/2009/07/my-blogaversary-giveaway.html

Softball Keepsake Book

Here are pictures of the book I made for my daughter's softball team. 7 of the 9 girls on her team have played together since Kindergaren-first grade. They couldn't start playing in the tournament and keeping score of their games until 3rd grade, so that is where I started with my pictures. I had to keep the book simple because I didn't think of doing this until about a week before their end of the season/ever-playing-together again party! They are starting junior high next year and most of the girls won't play summer slow-pitch softball anymore. I wanted to give them something fun to remember their team. They were awesome -- in the 4 years in the tournament they took First Place twice and 2nd place twice and they were either 1st or 2nd in the the division for the season for 3 of their 4 years! Anyway, so I made 7 of these and one that had 2 years worth of pics and one that only had this year's pics. For those two, I also included a few blank pages in case their parents had other softball pictures of their own to include. OK, enough blabbering.... here are the pics. First I cut out the pages for the books from posterboard and then covered them with the colored paper. For the title page, I used the Sports Mania cricut cart. For the second page I made a big template of the softball and then held it over the yellow page and inked it in red. The tag on the orange page was from my Label One nestabilities. I printed the journaling out on a piece of paper and then cut it out with my Cuttlebug. For the word Angels on page 3 I stamped it with my CTMH alphabet stamps and then embossed it with white embossing powder. On the opposite page, I stamped the background with a dotted circle stamp from one of my SU stamp sets, even though it's hard to see in this picture. Then I used my Bind It All to put them all together. The girls (and parents) loved them!!

Distressing

A couple of weeks ago, I took my first ever technique class. I was so excited. It was being held at my LSS. I had previously purchased a pack of Tim Holtz distressing inks from QVC (my first purchase from there as well!) Well, I have had these inks for about at least 6 months and never used them. When I saw my LSS was having this class, I decided that I had to go. I actually met a fellow Cricut MB member at a new dollar store in town first to check out their scrapbooking isle, and then we headed off to class. I did learn that the teacher learned everything online so I guess I could have done this at home myself, too, but I really enjoyed going there and trying things out with the group as she was teaching. Here are some of the tags that we made during that class. I learned some really cool techniques. I tried using this on my Scrap Sketch LO, but the colors just didn't fit with the page, so I will have to try that on another LO or card soon. Keep your eye out for it.

Trying to be better....

I have challenged myself to be better about updating my blog. I am going to try to post at least every three days, whether I have done something to share or not. I am hoping that by that, it will get me into a 'routine' of posting more often. I'm not always able to get something done every three days, but I usually will have something to blog about, even if it's not craft related. I hope no one minds if I put other things on my blog.

I did make a little book for each of the girls on my daughter's softball team for their end of the season. My next post will feature pictures of the 9 books that I made. I promise it will be posted within the next 3 days!!

Scrapsketch Challenge

Have you heard of Scrap Sketch?? If not, you should check it out. Each week they have a challenge open to anyone, plus sketches that the design team does. And there are some talented ladies on their design team. Here is the link to their site. http://www.scrapsketch.com/ You won't be disappointed. I have wanted to try their challenges for weeks now. I print out the sketch every week, and the poor thing sits on my scrap desk, all lonely. I had good intentions, but just never had a chance to actually do the layout. Well, this week I challenged myself to actually do the layout and post it to their website. I'm so proud of myself. Not only did I do the challenge layout, I also did one of the other sketches that were posted. I haven't done two layouts in a week (not counting when at the last SWARM) for a long time! Hopefully I can keep this as part of my weekly routine. I have A LOT of pictures to get scrapped!

The 'United we Stand' picture is the one for the 'real' challenge. You had to use the sketch and then a cut from your most recent Cricut cart. My most recent cart is Stand and Salute. It was kind of hard to find a cut, besides the star, to use in a dance layout, but I think I did OK.

Knit Dishcloth

A couple of years ago, I decided that I wanted to learn how to knit. So I went to a local knitting shop in the fall and took several classes. I first learned how to knit a scarf, then a hat, then mittens. I also, on my own, knit a baby blanket for a friend. That year for Christmas, several people got scarves and my kids got some new hats! Then, when summer came and it thawed out, I put knitting to the side. The next fall/winter, I didn't do anything as far as knitting was concerned. Then, this spring, someone asked me about knitting, and I decided that I would try to do some again. To my surprise, I forgot how to cast on!! I had to look at several You Tube videos to find one that 'taught' it the way that I learned. Once I got the hang of it again, it all came back to me! So I decided to make this simple dishcloth to get myself back in the swing of things. It didn't turn out too bad, if I do say so myself :)

More Grad Cards

Here are a couple more graduation cards that I made. They are pretty simple, but I procrastinated with each of them and finished them very shortly before leaving for the parties!!