Challenge Accepted

Happy Monday ... I'm so excited that I was able to make a layout that fulfills TWO challenge blogs. The two sites are Color My Heart and The Memory Nest. I used the color combo and sketch to create this page. It makes me happy on so many levels.

Color Dare

Sketch

As you might expect ... I didn't let that one page stand alone. It's hard to scrap just one picture of almost anything for me. I only had three photos of my son's birthday so I easily could've fit them on one page. I made a companion page though because that's how I roll right now.

BUT WAIT ... There's more because I asked my friends to join me in the Color Dare. Here are three amazing cards made with the colors shown by some very talented ladies that I have the fortune of creating with on a regular basis. So. Much. To. Love.

Created by Bonnie Seeman

Created by Kerri Lorig

Created by Anne Rukke

Aren't these fantastic? I love that they all let me share them with you. I think they showed this color challenge who the boss is!!

Thank you for stopping in today. Please leave some love for my friends and I'll pass it along.

Color Dare #195

Join me in this HAPPY moment. I am posting to this creative blog a day after the last time I posted!!! I have goals this month and they involve creating. In order to create more I'm tuning into a whole lot of challenge blogs. Today is the last day over at Color My Heart. Since I had my SOTM out on the desk from yesterday I'm jumping in with this cute little matchbox card. 

I slid the mini bus (so adorable) across the ink pad in order to show a little motion.

This vehicle is definitely going places.

Here are the colors and I used them all. 

Thank You for taking a look today.

Share the Love - Rose Blossoms Blog Hop

Share the Love ... its' the name of a CTMH stamp set but it's also amazing advice for life!! This adorable stamp set supports Operation Smile. It's ONLY available in February for $17.95.  $7 of that purchase goes to those who need medical assistance with their smiles. How awesome is that? I love knowing I can create AND help someone I don't even know.

Maybe you came here from I Didn't Have Potatoes where you saw a colorful creation by Marg. OR maybe you're just getting started. No matter which, please take the time to hop all the way through to see what all of the amazing Rose Blossom artists have created. It's sure to be a great selection of ideas. I've seen a couple of sneak peeks so I know what I'm talking about!


Sometimes there are products that give you so many ideas you don't know where to start. This stamp set is one of those, so I turned to one of my favorite ways to get focused ... challenge blogs.  Here's what my friends in cyberspace helped me come up with.

Once I put this whole thing together I didn't want to put journaling on it. OK, let's be honest, there's really no room for journaling here! I love to tell the story though and my scrapbook readers know to look further just in case. Here's a close up of the spot where it's hidden ...

Products used ... Share the Love Stamp Set, La Vie En Rose Paper Pack, La Vie En Rose Assortment, Pomegranate Ink, Pomegranate Fundamental Assortment, and Beautiful You Picture My Life.

Thank you so much for coming to my blog today. You can hop on to Morgan's Blog, TweetScraps, where you're sure to see something wonderful. She has been inspired by this set since she first laid eyes on it. I can't want to see what she made. 

Here are the blogs that inspired me ...

The sketch comes from Sketches in Thyme.

The color palette comes from Color My Heart.

AND 

Heart 2 Heart Challenges is highlighting the Share the Love theme.

Color Dare #91

Ariana ... that's the name of this paper pack and she's being featured over at the Color Dare. Of course I'm playing along because I LOVE her. This is the first paper pack that I cut into from the current Idea Book. I love all of the different colors of paper and today I get to use them all. What a beauty?

Do you like the design of this card? I really think it shows off the paper. AND it's the cover design on the Originals pattern book by Jeanett Lynton. These books are inspiring beyond description. I'm constantly going there for all kinds of great ideas. 

This book comes in the new consultant kit from Close To My Heart. THIS MONTH ONLY you get the consultant kit AND a FREE Cricut cartridge of your choice for $99. That's over $400 in product. WOW!!!

I would love to have take advantage of this fantastic offer and join my team of Pretty Pieces. To get your free cartridge and the kit you can just click right --> HERE. Once you see everything in the kit you can go to the next screen by clicking "let's get started". If you have any questions at all please email me at shellynemitz@gmail.com

YES ... this card is going to be available Al A Carte in the Pretty Pieces Cafe. Do you wonder what that is?? Pop over to my Pretty Pieces Cafe blog to find out.

Color Dare #57

Sometimes there are just ideas floating around in a girls head that are begging to be let out. Once an opportunity presents itself ..... stand back.

The opportunity? Color Dare #57 over at Color My Heart (Sky & Pacifica)

The idea? Those adorable little embellishment packs that go with the Close To My Heart Crush Books have my wheels spinning. 

Of course I have a Crush Book (ok, 2 ... one of each). AND I can't wait to fill them up with amazingness. BUT in the meantime I love those packages of 26 possibilities. There must be a bajillion things you can do with those things. One thing I know for sure is that you can create cards!! FAST!! That little window of time opened up and I made the two cards below at record speed.

Look at this adorable little uncaged bird. That's just a cute little journalling spot trimmed up a bit and adhered to glitter paper. Stamp a sentiment and DONE. 

I can't wait to encourage someone with this card.

 

And do you see that little smily face below? It's the one with the arrow pointing at it! That whole square was just begging for a stamped sentiment ... all cut out, colored and ready to go. 

I could do this all day if my life would let me. There are 26 pieces in each My Crush package for $4.95.     They have fun names two like "Favorites", "Memories", "Besties", and "Best Day Ever". 

You will want them all. I sure do!!

P - Pieces

Welcome to the Everything ABC's Blog Hop! For this hop we will be featuring the letter P. This may be the name of a paper, a stamp set or an embellishment. Whatever the crafter has chosen as her P element will be featured in their post.

 

If you came from Scrappin' with Shalana  then you're on the right track!

On this blog you'll find P stands for Pieces. Technically the pieces being referred to are called scraps ... but since it doesn't start with P... well, I found a great substitute word. The good news is that letter S is just around the corner!!

Thank you to Atlantic Hearts for the sketch and Color My Heart for the color selection. You may not believe it when I say this little card came together quickly, but challenges really can make all of the difference!!

FIRST let's look at what made me call this post "pieces". It all started with a scrap pile, a scissors and a cup of coffee.

Do you notice how there's a pile of lagoon paper? These are scraps pieces from a variety of different Close To My Heart paper packs. They ALL go together because any CTMH color stays the same in every pack it shows up in. It give me a lot of confidence to mix and match papers.

It put the scissors to good use and cut up some of my "pieces" into even smaller pieces because I wanted squares!! When you hand cut it's less than perfect, which is my favorite kind of thing to work with because ...  no one is perfect. You can see the actually scraps created in the process to the right ... these things actually go in the garbage.

A piece of white cardstock is covered in adhesive and then the squares are just stuck on. There's not method to that sort of madness. Just pick one up and stick it on. Then put the next one you pick up by the first one and so on. Pretty soon you have something like this ...

SO ... with a little trimming that piece winds up on a card looking like this. If you're checking this out from the Color Dare ... well today my neutral is pink! As if there wasn't enough going on here it just seemed to be asking for a tiny bit of pink! So, yes I broke the Color Dare rules. The good news is that when you're being creative there really aren't any rules!!

Thank you for looking. Now hop on to Janna Gray - The Creative Princess

Start Collecting Cardstock

This is my first opportunity to cut an Artbooking overlay. In case you've been on an island vacation, Artbooking is the most amazing Cricut cartridge that Close To My Heart has come out with yet!! It's truly a whole new way to scrapbook. This page is done with ONLY paper. It was tempting to add a whole bunch of other embellishments, but look how wonderful it is just by cutting out a few different Artbooking items. AND it's NOT fussy, even though it looks that way.

Thank you to Atlantic Heart Sketches for giving me the design. AND thank you to Color My Heart for picking the "colors".  Hopefully gold glitter is a color because the challenge is to use Champagne and Cashmere with an added color. You have both made me very happy!!

The items are 1-overlay (the big conglomeration of circles ... I'm so happy to use the word conglomeration on my blog!!) 2-white scalloped piece (this is actually an album page for one of the mini albums you can make) 3-Glitter letters (this is what the new alpabet looks like) 4-circle with a star in the center (I cut several sizes and used them all to "decorate") THAT'S IT!! The only other ingredient is adhesive!

The latest CTMH Cricut alphabet .. pretty.

  I used the  glittered circles AND the inside stars. Not a bit of waste!

Color Dare #50

This blog is about my love for paper and one of my favorite kinds of paper has pictures of my life printed on it!! If you aren't getting your pictures printed ... why not??? They really do you no good trapped in a computer or on a memory card somewhere. PRINT YOUR PICTURES!! (yes, I'm yelling at you)

One of my favorite ways to get my pictures printed is Studio J. I love that not only am I getting my pictures printed on paper, but the whole entire scrapbook layout is done. I just slip it right into my album for everyone to see.

Today I was organizing photos and what do you suppose I discovered ... this week's Color Dare. OK you caught me. It's not that fun to organize pictures so every now and then I get off task and look at people's blogs. I was excited to find the Surf's Up colors, which I already have Studio J layouts of.

So here you go Color My Heart!!

One of my favorite Studio J "toys" is titles. Digital titles leave handmade titles in the dust as far as I'm concerned!!! There are so many layering possibilities. I love this page just for the title. AND the memory is one of my favorites ... a bike ride along the beach in December with my family.

I took this panoramic photo while I was riding my bike ... it looks a little weird, but that's part of the fun of this memory. I took 40 some pictures while riding a bike!! 

Do you want to make Studio J layouts of your summer pictures with this great paper pack ... Surf's Up?

Click right here to set up an account and get started --> STUDIO J

H - Houndstooth

Welcome to the Everything ABC's Blog Hop!

For this hop we will be featuring the letter H. This may be the name of a paper, a stamp set or an embellishment. Whatever the crafter has chosen as their H element will be featured in their post. If you have just hopped onto my blog, please start at the beginning at Amber's blog ~ Scrapper's Therapy.

If you came from Lucy's Blog ... you're on track!

I chose "houndstooth" to represent H this time around. Since I only had enough time to make one card I exploded that pattern all over the place!!!  I'm not sure what to think myself, but I really do want you all to have a "doggone good day".

I also used this week's Color Dare colors ... twilight, pear and buttercup.

Just to make this blog post a little more interesting I looked up "houndstooth" on Wikipedia. I thought it would add a little pizazz. NOPE ... there's no really cool reason why they call it houndstooth. It's just a style of fabric that originated in Scotland. Here's your definition anyway ... Houndstooth, hounds tooth check or hound's tooth (and similar spellings), also known as dogstooth, dogtooth or dog's tooth, is a duotone textile pattern characterized by broken checks or abstract four-pointed shapes, often in black and white, although other colours are used.

Thanks for hopping by ...

Your next stop is Theodora at Celebrate Crafts

Here's the entire list in case you get lost along the way ...

1. Amber La Mons ~  Scrapper's Therapy
2. Lucy ~ Love 2 Create
You are HERE ... 3. Shelly ~  Just One Piece
4. Theo ~ Celebrate Crafts
5. Shalana ~ Scrappin with Shalana
6. Linda ~ Scrappy Therapy
7. Alicia ~  Serene Scrapping
8. Kathy Johnson ~  Kathy's Creative Corner

Color Dare #37

JUNIPER ... yep that's it, just one color this week at the Color Dare ... What? I literally scrolled to the bottom of the post to see if it was an April Fools joke. How daring can that be? You have no idea until you try it yourself. Neutrals are allowed on the Color Dare, but that's it for other other colors.

It's simple and hard all at once.

When I went to my "go to" paper (scraps) I had a stack of juniper pieces all the same size so I went with it. The less cutting the better in my opinion. I was able to make six backgrounds. Then I dug through my pre-cut pieces and miscellaneous doo-dads to come up with these creations. You'll see that I slowly allowed more colors to creep in!!

These are 6 of the 25 cards I made using Juniper. YES ... 25!!! I went through quite a scrappy process to create them. In a few weeks you'll see even more Juniper in the ABC Blog Hop I take part in.

Operation Color Dare Garden

This is no April Fool's Joke!!! This card is connected to three different challenges today. That's where the silly title for this blog comes from.

The only way to make a successful project on a Monday is to have a lot of help. This card involved very little thinking. (Thinking always slows you down!!!) I just followed the rules of each of the blog challenges. The layout was designed by Operation Write Home. The Colors were chosen by Color My Heart. AND the elements were narrowed down by the BRAND NEW Rose Blossom Cricut challenge blog. I'm soooooo excited about this new addition.

I'm not usually the pushy sort, but I really wanted to be the first ever in all of history to post to the Rose Blossom Garden Challenge blog. Between every load of laundry I checked in today to see if I was going to be able to do it. When it was past lunch time I started getting nervous BUT ... yippee skippy ... I'm the first. It's totally ok if I'm not the best. That might have required some thinking. Instead of fussing over all of the possibilities I just jumped in and started cutting Cricut Artiste shapes using just one button. 

I hope you love the results as much as I do.

Here are all of my helpers ... Click on the name underneath each photo to see what other people are creating with the same elements. 

Cricut Challenge

Color Dare

Operation Write Home

Color Dare #34

It might sound wrong ... but I don't always trust the Color Dare. Sometimes I look at the combinations and think, "Why would that look good?". This week was one of those dares. My favorite color in the whole world (green of any sort) matched with one of my least favorites (orange of any sort). 

Why would I want to take the time to make something like that?

WELL ... because Sarah Stone, who comes up with the challenges, knows something I don't claim to understand. Every dare is an opportunity to learn something new and step outside of my box. We all need to get stirred up a little here and there. When I try I'm always pleased. Even when I don't try that hard.

This week I barely tried. (sorry Sarah) BUT there was some feisty thing inside of me that moved me to my scraps.  I basically just pulled out whatever popped up in Olive, Sweet Leaf and Goldrush. I did one of those things I do and made a whole bunch of pieces approximately the same length. 

Here's what I wound up with ...

Now what? I just adhered them at random more or less to some cards.

Once I had these finished I was stuck because green and orange aren't about anything!!  I went searching for a sentiment and discovered that I'd NEVER stamped this adorable little lamp. So it just seemed like the right thing to do. I just kept on stamping lamps in a variety of color combinations until I had the same number of lamps as I had cards. Some combos are better than others!! 

Overall, I'm happy with my results. It turns out that Sarah Stone has nailed it once again!! I can't choose a favorite. I love it when the random scrappy process works out. AND truthfully it almost always does.