Cleaning up my Scrap pile! And while I was at at, I put together two cards with some of the left over pieces of Core'Cardstock and some supplies I had out still from this Online Crop. I used the mini challenges I missed out on for the timed challenges on Saturday, which I missed as I was away from home.

One Card using the Outline technique, lay chipboard under the cardstock and sand the top of the cardstock to reveal the outline of the chipboard.

One Card using a tag, stamping, stitching, button, and sanding/tearing. The button was "stitched" onto the card by hand with needle and gold thread and also tried to hand stitch a zig zag in top corner by hand.

So, if I add everything up, I did all 13 main challenges and all 4 mini challenges (but two not submitted within the time limit)! Yeah! That's 5 cards, seven 12x12 layouts, and seven 8.5x11 layouts! Oh and Marilee's bonus tag of course with is still proudly displayed on our fridge! Now if only I can keep this up and keep scrapping each day, then maybe, just maybe, one day I will get "caught up"!

13 Main Challenges for the Hard Core Online Crop are DONE! Whew! I managed to do them all!

Here is the last one, it is a scoring challenge. We were to score our cardstock with three different designs and also score an embellishment.

I wanted to make 3-d stars but didn't have a star punch or diecut on my cricut, so I punched a couple of burgandy 5 petal flowers. Then I scored them across the middle of each petal to the inner point between the petals straight across the flower, repeated for each petal, and then gently folded and tada! IT worked, they looked like stars BUT would not stay down in the folded form once I tried added a pop dot adhesive foam. I still like them.

I also traced a punched circle to score the inner circle of my scalloped circle punches. Scoring the rectangles was fun, even if I was just using a stylus and my paper trimmer track. This technique almost makes me want to run out and buy a scoring tool/board.

All my colored cardstock was from the Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Collection. Chipboard Title and accents are from Soft Spoken, MAMBI. Miscellaneous buttons and floss.

I've had a great week scrapbooking. Thank You Core'dinations and designers again for hosting this crop!

Now, looking at my table and the pile of cardstock scraps, perhaps I will go quickly try to make a couple more cards that would fit the extra quick timed challenges I missed on Saturday, just for fun! I have an hour or so left in the crop, even if they won't count for anything. Might as well now that I have this pile of scraps! :o)

I awoke this morning with visions of Christmas in my head! Had to get it out and onto paper!

The color challenge of the Core Crop made me think of some Christmas papers I had scraps of and that brought these photos of my daughter exploring the Christmas tree and the bright packages underneath for her First Christmas. (told you I was behind in her books, she is two now). So I grabbed that scrap patterned paper, and the photos, some Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Collection Cardstock, a left over piece of blue Fancy Pants Refreshed Collection Cardstock, a border punch, my Fancy Pants Tradition Collection Rub Ons and Glitter cuts, and a Making Memories Note-worthy journal page ... threw it all together and ...

It's Christmas in July!

Ok. One more layout challenge done before going to bed to rest my tired body. This was another sketch challenge given to us in the Core'dinations Hard Core Online Crop. I loved this sketch, looked easy and found three photos to use and had some colors of the Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Collection Cardstock left that I thought went with the photos well, even used up some of the cardstock scraps and a diecut I made that I had left over from previous Core Crop projects.  I found a piece of patterned paper to accent the cardstock and photos with, and put it all together and this is what I came up with! The lighting isn't great on the photo so colors look a little off, but what can you expect for taking photos at 11 pm at night!

So, that leaves me with two more challenges and one more day to do them in. Not sure if I will make it as my Sunday is busier than normal. But I am happy and pleased to have this many pages done in these past 5 days. Good Night for Now!

Earlier this morning ...

As I was beginning my Saturday, I couldn't get this idea for the sketch challenge of the Core'dinations Core Crop out of my head. I had the idea and knew which photo I wanted to use, and knew which core cardstock papers from the Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Collection I had that would work, so as my mind kept wandering about all I had to accomplish today and what I really WISH I could just sit and do all day (scrap of course) ... I put this layout together quickly. Photo mat was in my paper scraps so I don't know where the patterned paper came from. The Ribbon is from Forever in Time Scrapbook Collection. The rub-ons are from Fancy Pants "Tradition" collection.

Simple and "flat", but I like it! The photo lighting does not help, this looks much better in person! And wow, look how "small" Marilee was. I can't believe how fast time is flying by! This was her first Christmas, at 9 months old, a year and half ago, and yes, I am behind by that much in her scrapbooks! Good thing I joined an online crop to get me motivated!

Taking a Break on a Busy Saturday Afternoon.

I took a few minutes out of my afternoon to create a quick card. This was inspired by another core cropper named Megan, I used her card as a guide, inspiration for the layout of my card. This was for a quick challenge, we were given an hour to complete the project. Here is my card.

Thanks for looking and letting me share!

Cardstock Only Challenge! So with the pile of scraps of the Fancy Pants Refreshed Collection Core'dination Cardstock, I thought of making baby cards as a few friends are expecting soon. So the "use cardstock only" challenge was the pick for a project to use up those scraps. I used my cricut to cut out the die cuts (DoodleCharms and New Arrival). Thanks for stopping in and having a look!

Time for another Core Crop Challenge  Posting! This Challenge was to be inspired by Pinterest, the Core'dinations Core Creations Board Pins to be specific. So I searched the boards and came to this layout to use as inspiration for a layout for my son's book.

http://pinterest.com/pin/163044448979134473/

And here is my layout:

My son's scrapbooks are 8.5x11 size.  I used Color Core Cardstock from the Tim Holt's & Ranger Distress Pack (the dark brown letters MMM and light brown behind photos which I ran through my crimper and sanded). The paisley and checked papers are from the Fancy Pants Refreshed Collection Core Cardstock Pack. I hand made the marshmallows from scraps. Thanks for looking!

Beach Babe part Two:

After taking care of errands this morning, I sat down to create another scrapbook page. I happen to have a lot of photos of Marilee's first beach/lake experience from last summer. I started those with my Beach Babe page and knew I would need a second page to add more photos of that day. So, I picked another Core Crop Challenge and picked up my left over scraps from the Core Cardstock Fancy Pants Refreshed collection and went to work. This challenge was about tags, using them and journaling on them. So here is page two of Beach Babe ...

I added a couple of big tags, upside down there and a smaller tag for some journaling points.

Scrapbooking with Marilee running around and wanting to help me has been ... well... fun! At two she is learning new words all the time and she comes to the photos and points and names herself and her cousins and also likes saying "pretty" so that makes me smile and happy to have her with me. This Tag Challenge had a second bonus challenge involved. We were encouraged to include our children with the creative process. So I used an extra tag I made, and an extra photo of little Marilee at the beach, and put Marilee to work with her own creation. She was water color painting the other day while I was trying to scrapbook, so we added a bit of her picture torn up as the background mat under her photo on the core cardstock tag. Here she is at work, and she LOVES butterflies, it's her "thing"!

Marilee also LOVES playing with Magnets, so I added a square of magnetic sheet onto the back and Marilee took her creation to the fridge!

Tickles me Pink to see her budding creative side!

It's time to take a step back into my scrapbooks. I really miss creating pages. These past few years have been busy and busy and I really need to make the time for me to have some creative time, for myself. So I joined the Core'dinations Hard Core Online Crop Challenge.  The master list of challenges is here: Master List

The one requirement was that we had to use Core'dinations Color Core Cardstock on each project. This is awesome cardstock that has a color core in it so if you like sanding and tearing and distressing techniques, this is the cardstock to have. I didn't have any of this cardstock until the end of April when I just happened to win a Core'dinations and Spellbinders prize pack from Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine online (facebook) contest.

The Cardstock paper packs I have used here from Core'dinations are  Tim Holtz&Ranger Distress Collection and  Core Impressions Fancy Pants Refresh Collection. Thanks again Core'dinations for these great cardstock papers!

So you see, this crop came about and I had the perfect reason to get creative and share my Thanks to Core'dinations by joining their online Crop!  (If I happen to win some more Core Paper for participating in this online crop, then I will get to keep on having fun with these wonderful cardstock lines! It's a bonus!)

I got so excited as the challenges were posted. I pulled out some photos and got busy!

1. Ad Inspiration Challenge- The ad had lots of hexagon shapes with icons inside relating to the theme of the ad. I wanted to add some images and words about my son's High School, but as I was trying to cut them out of his handbook, I could not get them into hexagon images. So I changed it to rectangles!



















2. Trendy Things (banners, arrows, chevron -used ric rac, a poor womans chevron pattern) - My first attempt at a banner (handmade one too). I used my cricut to cut out the letters.




















3. Antiquing (crumple and sand) - I misted the cardstock with a bit of water first, it really helps when crumpling such a large piece of cardstock. It also helps to flatten it back out again, I rolled it with my rolling pin between a couple of paper towels while still damp to help dry and flatten for scrapping with without loosing all those lovely distressed crumpling lines for sanding. Wait until dry to sand though or you really take of the top layer of the cardstock!  I hand cut and embossed the sun too.

close up of hand cut and embossed sun

 4. Cardstock Only - Used my Cricut and Live Simply for these diecuts and title.

 5. Strip It- add paper strips to project

6. Handmade Embellishment - Hand cut Suckers

Close up of the suckers,
Stickles added for that glossy shine!

7. Die Cut Challenge with pop, dimensional adhesives - Again used my cricut for the easter basket and eggs and the title. Rabbit is a sticker I coated the back with baby powder so I could use it like a diecut and add the dimensional adhesive squares to make it pop off the page too.

Easter Basket cut with cricut, embossed, sanded, chalked and pop dots for dimension.

Yes, that is 8 pages, 7 challenges done! There are 6 more challenges listed for this online crop and I have two more days to fit them in. I challenged myself to TRY to get at least one entry for each challenge done, if I have the supplies I need on hand. So far, so good! Half way through the crop event and half way done the challenges. Yeah for Me!