Artistic U Recap

Just got home from our latest Artistic U adventure. As always it was SOOO MUCH FUN! I am absolutely exhausted but it was well worth every minute.

We stayed at the beautiful Silver Springs Lodge in Heber. We saw a lot of Bambi and his friends.

As always, the food was plentiful and fabulous!

See that sombrero? You got ownership if you were the most recent to finish a project. This scrapper was determined to end the weekend with the hat (and she did).

This group rarely slept. It's amazing how silly things can get around 4:00 am.

This was one of the group projects--a fun canvas.

I love Shanna's twist on it.

And a Janel Brinkerhoff inspired layout was absolutely perfect for both baby pictures and vacation pictures.

As our theme was a Mexican fiesta, we had a little pinata decorating contest. We had some very creative entries.

Allyson's "Carmen Miranda" was the fan favorite.

But Monica's pinata won the "most fun" prize. Can you name that movie?

We loved our new friends from Wyoming! They promised to come back again.

And these three truly got into the theme.

Overall, it was a blast. And we'll be doing it again in October. Watch Artisticu.net and this blog for upcoming dates.

Springtime?

Remember the saying about March, "In like a lion, out like a lamb"?  And then "April Showers Bring May Flowers"? Well, after a pretty phenomenal thunder and lightning storm in the middle of the night last night and a very rainy, with a bit of snow, and windy day today, I'm wondering if the lion scared the lamb away.

But never fear, spring will be here in some shape or form. Trees are beginning to burst into bloom, my daffodils are up and the days are getting warmer. To celebrate the spring, my scrapbook groups did the bright and colorful Lollydoodle paper packet this month.

Inspired by Amber Fillingim

Inspired by Autumn Gittins

 For some hidden photos or journaling, check out the little book!

Not everyone loves interactive elements. Sometimes they are hard to get to when you have your pages in sheet protectors. The page is cute without the hidden book. But if you want to keep the interactive element, I very lightly draw a line around the outside of the book on the sheet protector. Then I remove the page from the sheet protector, place a cutting mat inside the sheet protector and use a craft knife to cut away the square. Easy peasy.

I have a couple of leftover kits if interested. Contact me for more info. Or if you are interested in future scrapbook groups, just let me know.

Take care all and here's to hoping spring is here in full soon.

Simply Inspired Blog Hop--Skylark

It's time for another blog hop. And this time we are playing with Skylark. You should have arrived here from the talented and beautiful Karen Pedersen's blog. Should you get lost along the way, you can go to this link to see the full list of bloggers.

My life has been more than a little crazy these last few weeks so I chose to keep it simple this time around, very simple. I used the Skylark Picture My Life Scrapbooking program to create an easy, quick memory decor project.

 

I mix and matched some of my favorite 3x4 cards and chose one 4x6 card. I cut the cards down just a little to fit the spaces in the 5x7 Hinged Display Tray. Then I chose some of my favorite photos from our trip to Europe in 2008 (thank you Close to My Heart for the fabulous trip) and added a few embellishments.

  

It didn't take much bling. A few pieces from the Skylark Assortment and a few Epoxy Bubbles. I added a quick title with the Keyboard Kraft Alphabet. I truly spent more time mixing and matching cards and choosing photos than I did actually creating. This is the perfect project when life is busy but you need a little creative downtime to keep you sane.

One last close up. Love this man! Our 25th anniversary is coming up this year!

 

Thanks for stopping by. And now on to the lovely, inspiring Pamela O'Connor's blog.  Happy Blog Hopping!