HUGE April Blog Giveaway!!

Ok, so I'm currently sitting on a beach in Maui, Hawaii. Yes, this IS the life!! I just realized that I MISSED my March giveaway!! I was just so CRAZY busy with DT assignments that I honestly did not have a second to even think! To make it up to you all - I'm giving away an extra fantastic giveaway this month!! All you need to do is leave a comment on this post, become a follower if you aren't already, and I'll draw a winner when I return from my trip on April 16th. Good luck my sweet friends!

March Zva Blog Hop Winners Announced

We'd like to congratulate the FIVE March Zva Blog Hop winners! Their names will be found on the following blogs: Lou Collins Camilla Ekman Angelica Franssen Windy Robinson Gail Lindner One winner from each of the 5 blogs will receive a Zva prize package worth $30.00. Congrats winners!

Zva Creative March DT Blog Hop!

Zva Creative and the Design Team welcomes you to join us this month for a blog hop that we feel is always extra special!

There is now an added twist to our blog hops, YAY! As you know, Zva offers so many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals. We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was asked to share a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project.

The Blog Hop begins at Kim Hughes' blog. She will have the complete list of all blogs that are participating in case there is a glitch along the way. If you would like to play along, just follow along the blog path. I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way. Hidden on FIVE of the blogs is a Zva Creative prize package ...YAY! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts today, March 28th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, March 29th and the 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, March 30th on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Kim Hughes‘s blog as well (linked above). We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday... plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there. All you need to do is leave a comment on this Zva Blog Hop post...you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. The more times you leave a comment along the blog hop path though, the more chances you will have to be one of the lucky winners.

The colour I had the opportunity to feature this month was green/lime green. I used some of Websters Pages Hollywood Vogue papers for my project which I thought showcased the bling and blooms perfectly!


The Rose blossoms and icy blossoms as well as the bling are from ZVA Creative!


The blog hop begins here: Kim Hughes

Your next stop is here: Nancy Doren

Thank you SO MUCH for joining us.

ZVA Products Used:
Icy Blossoms
3D Bulk Flowers (purple, green)
Self Adhesive Pearls: PEB03CB112
Self Adhesive Crystals: CR03CA110
Self Adhesive Crystals: CR03CA115

Vintage Elegance Found in Darjeeling

One of Petaloo's newest releases from their Premiere collection is the Darjeeling Line. I totally fell in love with the muted, tea-stained colours in these unique and gorgeous flowers, not to mention the amazing packaging (I actually included as part of my layout)! The flowers have a very vintage flair to them, perfectly complimenting papers such as Graphic 45 (another one of my faves!) which I used for my layout. The tones are subtle and worn and suited wonderfully to the antique look of these blooms. In addition, the Darjeeling collection is made from 100% recycled cotton paper which means they will hold their colour beautifully should you wish to further colour them with inks or sprays. Petaloo Products Used:
Flora Doodles Holiday Foliage Leaves, 50 pc - Mixed Fabrics
Darjeeling Collection Poppy mix, 4 pcs
Darjeeling Collection Zinnia mix, 5 pcs
Darjeeling Collection Anemone mix, 5 pcs
Darjeeling Collection Burgundy Assorted, 4 pcs

Scrap That! Blog Hop

Welcome to the Scrap That! Blog Hop Adventure!

We will have NINE AMAZING blogs for you to visit. Each blog will have some beautiful eye candy, in the form of some AMAZING projects from our design team using the newly released "Madame Butterfly" Kit.

We are also thrilled to have PageMaps joining in on our hop with an awesome sketch that has been especially designed for Scrap That! to go with the kit!

We also have some fabulous prizes to give away!

First of all, you will need to visit ALL the blogs on the hop as there will be a randomly drawn comment winner from each blog. That means NINE winners will receive a package of Prima goodness just for leaving some love and becoming a follower of each of the blogs!

Next, while you are hopping you will want to be looking for the “special” word on each blog. Once you have visited all the blogs and collected all the special words, they will create a sentence.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to swing by our facebook page, become a friend and then head over to our social community and become a member. Once you’ve completed these tasks, email the sentence to Scrap That!

All correct entries received will be entered into a draw for the GRAND PRIZE, an autographed PageMaps hardcover book generously donated by Beck Fleck!

The hop will take place from 10am March 25th until midnight March 27th (MST)

Are you ready to get your hop on!?

If you have just arrived here from Lisa’s blog then you are in the correct place! If not, head back to the Scrap That! blog and join us.

Today I’m going to share with you my projects using one of the new CHA collections released at Winter CHA from Bo Bunny - Gabrielle!

First up is a layout I created using a very soft palette - lots of distressing. This collection is filled with peaches, creams, turquoises and browns - very earthy and easy to work with - especially when paired with colour photos - really brings out the skin tone hues.

You'll find an endless supply of embellishments in this kit - I opted for the soft cream tones in Petaloo's FloraDoodles.

A little fussy cutting of flower stems and beautiful butterflies which are bountiful in this amazing kit!


I wanted to showcase the versatility of this collection so my next project features a much darker palette with more paper embellishments and less floral accents. Again, you can create boy pages with pretty much any paper line - just make them work for you!



Have to toot here - I am SO proud of myself!! I have long been admiring the whole 'paint-splatter' technique but have been too afraid to try this for fear of wrecking an almost completed project (they honestly take me DAYS - yes I am a VERY slow scrapper!) Anyhooooo, this layout was simply 'missing' something so I thought - WHY NOT?! Do you like it?! I TOTALLY think it makes the page - fills in the 'white' space perfectly!

Lastly I would like to share this card and tag set to which I am not addicted. LOVE making this particular style of card with the coordinating tag - a little more intricate than your regular card or tag alone so gives a bit more of an impact when you show both together.

Here is the card and tag as a set.

Just the card....

Partially open with the tag tucked into a pocket within the card.

Front of tag.

Back of the tag (note, the text was digitally added).

One last tag I created with the leftover paper from this amazing kit - quick and simple!

Before you go, you'll need my Secret word....

...which is FOR

Now head over to Tina's blog for some more amazing creations using the Scrap That! "Madame Butterfly" Kit.

We hope you all had good fun hopping with us today, thank you so much for playing along! Watch the Scrap That! blog next week to see if you are one of the lucky winners!

Rules?

I was going to wait and save this layout for a rainy day... and it seems as though this would be the perfect time to share. It started off as a DT project but kind of took a turn in the opposite direction half way through and ended up being a 'me' project instead. Its been so long since I've created a project - just because and just for me - feels good!

I used Bo Bunny's new Ad Lib Collection - TOTALLY FUN! Its one of those feel good, funky, have to have happy photos kind of collections. No shabby chic gonna take place here so it was a bit of a stretch for me - but I had an absolute ball scrapping this photo of my daughter.

The look. The 'you wanna piece of me?' look. The 'you talkin' to me?' look. The 'i hear what you've just asked me to do but am not in this lifetime going to do it' look. *sigh* Looking forward to the 'teenage' years. LOL!

LOVE the new metal charms that Bo Bunny has introduced!

Be back starting this weekend with a BUNCH of scrappy goodness!!

Scrap That! April Kit Reveal, Scrap That! Blog Hop, ZVA Creative Blog hop, Guest Design reveal at an amazing company that I can't tell you about just yet - and the 'final' design team announcement for Graphic 45!!

AND

I'm leaving for a vacation to Maui with my mom!!!

All this is happening on or before APRIL 1st!!

Are you as excited as I am!?

See you soon !

Scrap That! April Sneak!

Its that time again! The beautiful April Kit from Scrap That! is only days away from being released. To tide you over, here is a sneak of what you can expect in this gorgeous kit.

Check back for the full reveal on March 25th and don’t miss out on our next BLOG hop kicking off the same day. The hop will run from March 25th (10AM MST) until March 27th (12:00am MST) and will include a fabulous prize pack for anyone who decides to join in on the fun! Mark your calendars!!

Lucky Me

Yesterday the Bo Bunny blog featured layouts that incorporated anything green or lucky for St. Patrick's Day. I wanted to do a project to remind myself how lucky I am to be blessed with three amazing, healthy children. They challenge me, they make me smile, they make me proud, they make me laugh so hard that I cry. They also teach me to slow down when life gets too hectic and to take the time to enjoy the little things - the day to day moments - that are often so fleeting.

Lots of layers (of course) and lots of distressing in this layout. The 'clouds' were added from Bo Bunny's Noteworthy paper pad - just thought they fit perfectly with the photo.

I layered some chipboard pieces here and added some of the new Jewels from Bo Bunny to the centres of the Combo Sticker flower trim.

Thanks for stopping by today! We had a great little celebration last night with my little man. His 'party' is going to be this weekend so we kept it pretty low key.




Supplies:
Vicky B. Combo Stickers
Vicky B. Chipboard
Vicky B. Noteworthy
Vicky B. Jewels
Vicky B. Layered Chipboard Stickers
Double Dot Passion Fruit Journal
Vicky B. Patterned Paper: Vicky B, Loverly, Buh Bye, Perky

CHA Projects

Hello beautiful blog readers! I just finished icing 24 cupcakes and 2 cakes and am now covered in green icing - yummy!! My little man is turning 5 and I'm bringing some birthday treats to school tomorrow so he can share with his classmates.

Just wanted to share with you some of my ZVA Creative projects that I had featured at CHA. I only received my layouts back (I had 17 displayed!) yesterday and hadn't been able to snap photos of my newest ones which included the new flowers, stems, leaves and bling from ZVA!

The first features some of their beautiful new flowers - larger than life aren't they? So beautiful I have to say and unquestionably the focal point of the project.

Some of the new gorgeous bling and their classic bulk 3D roses - all sizes and all colours you can imagine. Love working with these!

For this layout, I used papers from Bo Bunny's Crush line - just loved the striking pinks against the black - a great contrast.

The next layout features papers from Graphic 45's Steampunk Collection. I decided to keep the palatte quite monochromatic so that the purples would just pop!

More gorgeous flowers and leaves from ZVA!!

Just loved the leafy vine and these new "graceful" flowers - which are actually replacing their previous "icy blossoms" that we all loved so much. These flowers are wonderful and work perfectly with their current 3D rose blossoms! Again, they come in any colour you can imagine!


Thanks for the visit!! Be back on Thursday with some birthday photos and a "Lucky" layout!

SWAK
ZVA Supplies:
FL-04CA-136
FL-04CA-130
FL-04CA-124
FL-04CA-115
FL-04CA-109
FL-04CA-111
bulk 3D roses in purple and white
CRB-04CA-112
CR-04CA-145

Learn to Love
ZVA Supplies:
CR-04CA-106
CR-04CA-133
bulk 3D roses in white and soft pink
FL-04CA-103
FL-04CA-111
FL-04CA-128
FL-04CA-132

Random Pics, Ramblings and Updates

Wow, almost an entire week has passed without a blog post!! SORRY!

Truthfully, I'm frantically working on my regular DT duties for Bo Bunny, Petaloo, ZVA Creative and Scrap That! kit club but I've also taken on a wonderful Guest DT spot for the month of April and I am sooooo in love with these 'beautiful' papers (wink)! I'll be able to show all my creations with you on April 1st so please stay tuned. I'll also have some projects that I can reveal to you beginning next week so please be patient :D

In addition, I made the top 25 for Graphic 45's Design Team call (WHOOHOO!) so I was finishing up my final round submissions for them which kept me quite busy. (I've since sent off to them and have received confirmation that they have already received so all I can do now is wait!). We had to create a layout, a card and an altered project and ship off to their head office in Portland, OR. I'm not going to share the projects entirely just yet, but here are a few sneak peeks until I hear one way or another on their final DT Announcement - April 1st, 2011.

Non scrappy related news: My mom and I are headed to Maui at the end of the month and I am soooo excited! I had booked Kauai, HI for a one week stay but after much review of the beach and facility, I ended up cancelling our trip and getting a full refund as I booked and cancelled w/i 24hrs. I then booked a one week stay at a 5 Star, all inclusive resort in Dominican Republic, Punta Cana and although the resort was over the top amazing, I wasn't aware that Haiti, its bordering country, is currently experiencing a cholera outbreak. In addition, there's the whole malaria thing for which I'd need to get vaccinated for, etc. etc.

SO

After much stressing and deliberating, I ended up cancelling this trip as well - only to get 50% of my money back :<

My parents felt so bad after all the time I put forth planning, researching, booking, etc. this trip that they decided to pick up the difference and send me on a trip (with my mom) of their choice. Needless to say - we're on our way to Maui at the end of the month for a 9 night stint in paradise!! I am sooo very grateful to them for doing this and I also feel super guilty!! It was my mistake and to have them pay for me to stay somewhere else is really amazing!! My parents rock! I'm not normally so scatter-brained but I think I may possibly have a little too much on my plate as of late (hence the need of a vacation...)

I promise I will not wait so long to update you all in my life happenings - even if they are not scrappy related :D

On that note - we received a beautiful snowfall last week!! I was soooo excited - we all went out and had a blast on our little snow hill - making snowmen, snow forts, sledding (in the mud/snow) and having some snow fights. This is my fave pic from the day. Needless to say, the snow was totally melted by dinner that same day - but fun while it lasted.

Here's my sweet boy 'studying' for his spelling test last week. I honestly cannot remember doing any type of homework or studying for anything when I was in Grade 1!?! How times have changed...

My little Q-Ball. He's been a little more clingy as of late - needing Mommy a little more than normal so we decided to go on a date this weekend - just him and I. Its so rare that I get to spend time with each of my kids - one on one and clearly this little guy needed some time. We had such a great time - picked up a few 'treats' (aka - kinder surprise) then headed to the arcade for a play and finished off with dinner at his fave restaurant.

Enjoy the last few hours of your weekend. Off to scrap with my glass of Chardonnay in hand (just discovered my new fave - Cupcake Vineyards Chardonnay - sooo smooth and buttery - I hear their Red Velvet wine is to die for!!)

Cheers! Tara