How Much is Too Much?

Challenge #187 - Frosty the Snowman (Dec 19 - Jan 1)

2011-12-19T08:14:00.001-05:00

Happy Monday, HMITM players! It is with deep sadness that I am about to make this announcement. Due to the dwindling participation over the last year or so, we have decided to put HMITM to bed. (I'm not yet prepared to say that we are completely retiring this long-time, inspiring challenge because I am hoping that some day in the future, we might be able to revive it.) I played in this challenge for a long time before being invited to join the design team, and it's been a part of my scrappy routine for many years. I will miss the HMITM challenges and seeing all the wonderful and diverse interpretations from my teammates and our players.

Debbi

And now, onto our last challenge...

Anna-Karin here with the last challenge. At first I wrote, 'the last challenge of the year', but then I realised I had to change it to 'the last challenge. SO sad!

Since it is December and winter in the Northern Hemisphere, I thought we would do a frosty and wintery challenge. Here it is:

- Do a winter or Christmas themed layout
- Depict snow on your layout (here are a few examples: snowflakes, torn white paper hills, dry embossing, organza, paint, vellum etc.)
- Use glitter
- At least three shades of blue (but you can use other colors too)
- Something shiny or transparent

I hope you like it and we hope you have a bit of time over in this busy time of the year to play along.

Our guest designer for this challenge is Katerina Laiopoulou.

Thank you for joining us Katerina! Here's some info about her,in her own words:

'My name is Katerina Laiopoulou, I am 35 years old and I live in Athens, Greece.
Scrapbooking is a way to express myself! I started making layouts in 2008, but guest books monopolised my interest the last 3 years.

I don't limit myself to one style, but I love colours, flowers and butterflies! I love to experiment with new techniques and I am fond of fussy cutting, it relaxes me.

I love blogging too. You can see my work here. It would be all greek to you (LOL, sorry for that), but you can use the google translator. I have a passion for the greek language :-)

I ‘ve been a guest designer for Get Creative and Scrapbookers in Greece. I am so happy to be sharing these LO’s with you and be among all these talented ladies!

Thank you all!!!'

And Katerina wrote this about her layout: Snow is everywhere on this LO and that’s because I love snow! I tried to create a landscape, a small village lost in the mountains on a winter snowy day. I torn white and shades of blue paper to create the mountain hills, cut those little houses, add glitter on the roofs and snowflakes everywhere! I used a photo of me, which was taken on the way to Kalvryta ski center, where you can find lots of fresh snow, enjoy yourself and see the fabulous mountain view!

Anna-Karin: I am so sad that this is the last HMITM challenge (at least for now). I am going to miss it so much, both doing the challenges and seeing what everyone else comes up with. I knew I wanted to use these winter photos of the two cousins. Quite many shades of blue were used on the layout. I love clear elements and cut off a third of the patterned paper and replaced it with a transparency (I placed the layout on white cardstock when I photographed it, the right hand part is transparent IRL). The transparency was stamped and ghost letters were used for the title. Rub-ons were also used. Snowflakes were white embossed all over the patterned paper, then it was misted with Perfect Pearls and water and finally a flourish was stamped with Chipped Sapphire. Snowflakes were die cut from watercolour paper, canvas, vellum and aluminium tape. They were coloured with Distress Stains and misted with Perfect Pearls. Some were coated with Stickles for glitter. Extra snow was added in the form of dry embossed torn strips of vellum, Stickles was added to the top. The journaling is on a tag behind the top photo and is about how much fun they had together on this cold day.

Elizabeth: I am so sad that this is our last challenge. I have had so much fun designing with this fun team of ladies. Will definitely miss it. This was a fun challenge to end on, Anna-Karin. Love working with blues, and shimmer and glitter just add to the fun. I must admit, I am not a 'dirty' scrapbooker, so the thought of actually sprinkling glitter onto the layout in some form or fashion just about gives me hives, so I stuck with the great letter stickers and embellishments to make it shine. (I did do glitter on a layout once, and the whole scrapbook has been sprinkled with the pixie dust over the years. :P)

Debbi T: This was such a fun and inspiring challenge, Anna-Karin! I love all the elements of the challenge--they all worked so beautifully together. I combined this challenge with the current challenge over at The Color Room (the blues in their palette worked perfectly with the HMITM challenge). I was being a bit lazy and used glittery letters and stickers and paper, but at the last minute, I felt like that was cheating, so I broke out the Stickles and added some glitter to my punched border. For my transparent element, I was delighted to use some old vellum that's been in my stash for about a decade!

Janet M - Loved this challenge and it was a perfect one to get another page done for a book I'm working on for pictures of our old house for my husband. These were a couple of our horses which always posed for pictures much better than the kids or the dog would.

For my snow I embossed a piece of velum that I tore and I punched out a piece of mulberry paper from a really old stash. For the something shiny or transparent - I used one over the picture and then stitched it with the sewing machine and the letters for the word day. Adding glitter, sparkles and etc is pretty easy when you have a snow picture.

I'm very sad that this is the last layout for HMITM- it's been the most inspiring place I've designed for, it's made me reach outside my normal ideas, giving me some fantastic challenges and inspired me when I have seen what everyone else creates with the same challenge. Moving on to other things will keep us all busy and I may just have to go back and re inspire and challenge myself with doing some of the old challenges again.

To play, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! We can't wait to see what you create!

Challenge 186 - Celebrate Wacky December

2011-12-04T21:34:00.008-05:00

I have a source for wacky holidays that I share with my students, and I consulted my wacky holiday calendar for December and found out:

December is Bingo's Birthday Month.
It's also Rising Star Month.
And it's National Tie Month.
The first week of December is Cookie Cutter Week.
December 5 is Bathtub Party Day!

So...I challenge you to use:
* A bingo card (if you don't have these in your stash, just google "bingo card" under Google Images, and you'll find a gazillion).
* Use something that you can tie--ribbons, twine, raffia, etc.
* Use at least 5 stars.
* Use punches or cutters or a shape templates.
* Use your imagination and whatever product you want to create "bubbles" on your page.

Aren't you glad I didn't choose National Gazpacho Day? :)

Debbi Tehrani:

I haven't been around for a while because we sold our house and moved to a new one. It's good to be back and scrapping again! I just recently started playing over at The Color Room, and I thought it would be fun to use this week's palette and sketch for my HMITM page. My husband loves the cheesy touristy photo ops, and I'm doing a whole album about that called Poser. This page is going into that book.

(Unfortunately I'd had my camera battery charger packed and my battery died just in time to take a picture of my layout. I therefore had to use my iPad to take a photo--not the best picture, but you'll get the idea of my layout):

Anna-Karin: Such a fun combination of items to use for this challenge!! Instead of using a bingo card, I stamped a bingo card repeatedly on the background. I tied twine to the tags and used a whole bunch of stars die cut from the same paper as the tags. For the tags I pulled out my very old Accu-Cut EZ2Cut templates and I used a punch for the reinforcer circles. Finally, I used bubble wrap and red paint to stamp bubbles on the page. Thank you so much for this fun challenge Debbi!

Janet M- What a fun and creative challenge this one is- I finally got my sewing machine unpacked and got to use it on my layout.
My five stars are on the bingo card and the ornaments, the bubbles are the clear buttons and they are tied into the layout. I also added a few snowflake stars with my stamp and embossing powder. I used a border punch for that part of the challenge.
Cute combination of stash to use this time and it really did have me searching for the elements - I loved it.

To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! We can't wait to see what you create!

Challenge #184 winner

2011-11-22T13:45:00.005-05:00

A big thank you to those who played in our Mix It Up challenge! We hope you had fun using all those different patterned papers.

The winner is Kelly with her layout Happy Holidays with the Storeys. Kelly used the different papers in such a great way and the black and white plus red colour combo brought all the papers together so nicely. Fabulous Christmas tree. Here's her layout:

Congrats Kelly!!

Our current challenge is just below this post. It is a great challenge, hope you can play along.

#185 Thankful (November 21 - December 4)

2011-11-21T08:44:00.004-05:00

Canadian Thanksgiving has come and gone, but American Thanksgiving is celebrated this week.

I would like you to do a layout about thankfulness. (any aspect)

plus...
3 foam embellishments
4 colors of cardstock
5 buttons
6 stickers (non-alphabet)

I hope you will take some time over the next two weeks and reflect on the things you are thankful for and make a layout about it :) We would love to see what you create. There is a link at the end of the post. Thanks for stopping by the blog!

First, here's the layout from our guest designer this month, Shaunery Wharton:

Shaunery: This was a fun challenge!! As with all of my HMITM attempts/entries, I always challenge my self to dive into my scrap box first. So here's the breakdown for everyone!

3 foam embellishments ~ oh did I even OWN foam?? After much digging and rooting around my stash, my cupboards and garage, I found a stack of foam "mats" meant for some kids craft project. I took two and ran them thru my die machine and created the flourishes. Those I embellished with Liquid Pearls. The third piece I painted over in white gesso (nothing STICKS to foam!) Then I stamped a favorite image once the paint was dry with my Chalk Ink in Lime Pastel. I then fussy cut and adhered.

4 colours of cardstock ~ into the scrapbox and found these four scraps of Bazzil. I took three strips in each colour and ran thru three different border punches. Then I layered and built up a faux "embossed" background paper with them.

5 buttons ~ actually forgot them in my original layout and caught just before uploading. Went thru the stash and found 'em! Re-photographed and uploaded properly!

6 stickers ~ (non alpha's) so my non-alpha submissive stickers are two border stickers, layered on each other. Two mini hot-air balloons, and two altered vellum sticker hearts. My "Thankful For" are made from labeling tape. I wasn't sure so...

I tucked a little tag in and listed a few things I'm thankful for.. my husband, my children, my fabulous circle of crafty scrappy friends (who won't say a single word about me spelling "Thankful" completely WRONG, TWICE) and for the "release" scrapping and crafting provides me. It was very nice working on this layout after a total crap evening after some volunteer time. Focusing on WHAT I am thankful for, setting the ickiness aside and forgetting about those who made me feel rotten that evening. I'm very thankful for the opportunity to do this challenge and for a place to set "life" aside and focus on what's important.

Janet M - What a great challenge and what a hard one to tell about being thankful for, I have too many choices , which is a good thing. I choose a picture of my four youngest grandchildren to scrap which I realized I had scrapped before but since I do books for the families, I often use the same picture.

My foam pieces are the & signs, brackets and the ice cream cone. The stickers are the banners, critters and the cupcake.

Thanks for the great challenge - I always like to write down the things that I am thankful for.

Anna-Karin: I always enjoy doing layouts about things to be thankful about. I used photos of the little one and me and a bunch of stickers about gratitude. At first I didn’t know what stickers to use, since I hardly have any stickers. I love the 7Gypsies word and quote stickers, so I decided to use those. The big title sticker was adhered to cardstock, die cut with an On the Edge die and inked a bit with Distress Inks. The remaining 5 stickers came from the same and another set of stickers. For the cardstock, I used four colours Kraft core. The four pieces were die cut into 8 hearts and I used different embossing folders for each one. The only foam embellishments I have did not at all fit with the colours of the layout, so instead I die cut three birds from brown craft foam. Buttons are always an easy thing to add (and I have a whole drawer full). Thank you for this wonderful challenge Elizabeth!

Elizabeth: So I did kindof cheat on my own challenge. :P When I was making the challenge I think I was thinking of felt instead of foam, so my butterflies are sortof felt-like but they are stuffed a little so I think there must be some foam inside. :) I had fun using cardstock instead of my usual patterned papers. I never tire of using browns and blues together, and yellow rounded it out nicely. I used a bunch of random stickers from my stash, which is always a good thing.

Fi - Again a little late with this one, things have been hectic this year as school wraps up not too mention as weekend away for me. I miss read foam embellishments for felt and for some reason I left my buttons at home so I had to make do with what I did have on hand.

3 foam embellishments - I didn't have any of these with me so I used foam dots and covered them with glitter
4 colors of cardstock - pink, orange, raspberry and white
5 buttons - I only had one of these in my stash so I used stickers and stitched them so that they resembled buttons.
6 stickers (non-alphabet)- at least I did have these with me.

To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! We can't wait to see what you create!

Challenge #183 winner

2011-11-08T11:05:00.006-05:00

A big thank you for playing along with us in our guest Amy's 'Gifts' challenge!

The winner is Tory with her layout Kitten Love. We love the kitten paw prints, the glitter doodling and the sweet bouquet of flowers tied with baker's twine. Here's her layout:

Congrats Tory!

(Kelly, I tried to comment on your layout, but Blogger wouldn't allow me. Your layout is stunning! I looked for your email, because I always feel bad about not being able to comment, but couldn't find it.)

Our current challenge is below this post. We hope you will join us!

Challenge #184 - Mix it Up (Nov 7 - Nov 20)

2011-11-07T06:03:00.000-05:00

Janet here with challenge #184. Remember the rule in fashion - don't wear stripes and plaids together. Well we're breaking that rule in this challenge. Stripes , plaids, dots and flowers. Squares, circles, stars and prints. Mix it up anyway you want to but you need to use at least eight different patterns in this layout and because we want to keep it even more fun, a holiday photo from any holiday. Because this is going to be a happy mixture, the word 'happy' should feature someplace in the layout or title.
We don't want the papers to match the holiday though, that's a no-no!

So here's the challenge:
- Eight different patterns, none to match the holiday
- The word 'happy'
- Any holiday picture and embellishments. ( Embellishments can match the holiday)

We are so happy to have Shaunery Wharton join us as guest designer this month! She does such fabulous work, always with lots of wonderful details. The layout she created for this challenge is absolutely gorgeous. Have a look at her blog to see more of her work. Thank you so much Shaunery!

Here she is:

Bio: I am a stay at home mom to three crazy children. When my oldest was born, I discovered scrap booking only a month later. It was like, this craft was created just for me! I save and keep everything. I've evolved quite a bit since 1994 (yep, nearly 18 years of scrapping) and love the constant change and growth of the industry. I especially enjoy incorporating challenges in my layouts. Sketch's, color, recipes...you name it. These sites continually help me stretch and grow. They have also provided a source of friendships, I've met so many wonderful people via the net over the last two years.

Shaunery: I was so honored to be asked to play at HMITM as a guest designer. I rearranged my whole schedule to get the layout challenge finished but I still was a tad late. But I HAD to play! I do not normally scrap a lot of holiday pages, with the exception of Halloween. So this was intriguing and inspirational. I chose my eight patterns from my scrap box. Orange and brown seemed to be the predominate colors..taking my cue I starting building and layering. The "garland" at the top of my page is inspired by the bead garland my MIL hangs on her mantel each year, I knew I wanted to recreate it. The "matting" of pattern on white, was inspired by my df Jenny who likes to mat w/ black. To bring attention to the Christmas Holiday theme, I used metal Christmas embellishments and my favorite Tim Holtz Santa stamp. If you'd like to see close ups and see my product list, please visit my blog, http://www.shaunerysblog.blogspot.com/.

Many thanks to the crew at HMITM, I'm so tickled that you invited me to play along! Thanks so much!

Janet - I'll probably look at this layout years from now and wonder why I have sailboats and Halloween eyes on a Christmas layout and I can't imagine what someone else may wonder. I had fun creating my own challenge and even though this isn't the best picture it sure captures the search of looking for Santa after he leaves our house Christmas morning.

I based my layout of a Page Maps sketch, I didn't want the different patterned papers to take over the layout so I did keep the areas on them smaller. Talk about using up some old stash I think the Jolee's stickers on this were about the first time they made the embellished ones - and true to the challenges here to use things up the whole package went on the layout.

I had a little fun with this challenge and got two more done, one is of my granddaughter and her first snowman, I used all summer and spring papers on it. The second one is my other daughter's dog Stella dressed up for Halloween using different patterned papers with flowers, plaids and birds.

Anna-Karin: I enjoyed mixing different patterns and used lots of different ones on my layout. I used grey, black, blue and red papers and cut them into tags of two sizes. The tags were distressed a bit and then stitched to the page to form borders at the top and the bottom. They were also embellished with a bit of subtle stamping (so subtle, it is hard to see on the photo). I used a fun photo of me and my sister and the tip of the tail of the dog fleeing the scene of a Christmas photo shoot which didn't go as planned. The title translates ‘Happy?’ Thank you for this awesome challenge Janet!

Fi - I decided to Challenge myself by doing a card. I used eight prints from Basic Grey and Webster Scraps and included a the following prints: music notes, woodgrain, spots, stripes, flowers, swirls, geometric and a general print. I used the title happy for my card and although the papers are quite Chrismasy I have used it as Birthday card. Anyway I hope you like my card, its not easy using 8 prints on one card. Check out my blog for more details. Great challenge Janet!!!

Challenge #180, #181 and #182 winners

2011-10-26T13:48:00.012-04:00

We are so very sorry that we totally missed to post the winner for challenge #180 (Home Sweet Home) and challenge #181 (Johnny Appleseed).

The winner for challenge #180 is Amy, with her fabulous layout 'Priceless':

Congrats Amy!! The little house is so cute and your French doors being covered in the kids' art.

The winner for challenge #181 is Shaunery with this fabulous layout:

Congrats Shaunery! So many fun details and the chalkboard background is so cool.

The winner for challenge #182 (Beautiful Autumn) is Katerina with her wonderful autumn layout:

Congrats Katerina! The dry embossed cardstock looks wonderful and so do all those leaves.

Thanks for playing everyone! The currect challenge is just below this post, we hope you will join us.

(A little note on comments, at the moment Blogger is not allowing me (not sure about everyone else) to comment on blogs where the comment section is not a pop-up. As a result, I haven't been able to comment on several layouts. I am sorry about that. Hopefully it will be sorted out soon.)

Challenge #183 Gifts (October 24 - November 6)

2011-10-24T08:41:00.002-04:00

For this week's challenge we invited AmyC, our awesome guest Designer, to challenge us with a challenge. This is what she came up with...

Today is the day before my daughter's birthday and we just celebrated her sister's birthday nine days ago. Having their birthdays so close together always gets me thinking about... gifts! I would like you to scrap about your best/greatest gift(s). These gifts can be actual gifts you were given for an occasion or they can be the blessings in your life. You can scrap about one gift or multiple gifts. You can make a top 5 or top ten list if you want! The requirements are based on my kids ages and the date.

Frame your page with an edge of background paper, a doodled/stitched border or a frame!
Use at least one stamp/digital brush/rub-on
3 ribbons/strings
6 circles
8 brads or buttons
10 flowers
2 elements that bleed off the page
4 crocheted or felt accents

Thank you AmyC for the awesome challenge!

AmyC: After I started formulating the challenge, I realized I wanted to scrap about being involved in Operation Christmas Child last year. My children learned the very valuable lesson that the greatest gift is actually the blessing of giving to others.Now, let's get to the nuts and bolts. I framed my paper with a thin peek of background paper. I used 3 different digital brushes/stamps behind my clusters. I have 2 strings and one ribbon. My six circles are 3 paper circles and 3 rub-on circles. All my brads/buttons are in the center of my flowers. I chose to bleed two of my paper circles off the page and my crocheted/felt elements are some of my flowers! I think that got it all!

Elizabeth: I love a fresh challenge and this one fit the bill! I liked the different techniques, like having elements bleed off the page and framing the whole layout.

I consider my marriage of 15 years to my amazing husband to be a 'gift', so I decided to do a layout with a picture of us together at a wedding this summer (not sure why we look so jaundiced in this picture :P poor lighting conditions i suppose, we didn't use any fake tanning lotion or anything.)

I pulled out an ancient ghost frame to put around the picture and then cascaded lots of different flowers in a diagonal line across the page (with several flowers cut off at the frames edge). I usually have a tough time with ribbon, but this awesome ribbon from My Mind's Eye with the birds on it was a pleasure to work with! For the circles, I emphasized the circles in the background patterned paper by punching six different holes in the middle of the designs.

Thanks for the awesome challenge Amy!

Janet M - What a challenge this was and it stretched me in some good way to use some things I don't usually. I had fun creating it. When I think of blessing it always comes to my family being first on my list. This photo was one from a couple of Christmases ago. We're not even complete a few people had already left that day. My crochet/felt items are the flowers and the little camera in the corner. The elements that bleed off are some rub-ons and the banner string. The circles , flowers, brads and the frame are all pretty easy to see.

It's a great challenge - I hope to see some more creations from some of the players this week.

Anna-Karin: When I looked through a pile of photos, I came across these two photos of two handmade gifts from my sisters. These are some of my most special gifts and I am happy to have done a layout about them. The layout was framed with machine stitching and I used a whole bunch of stamps. Six different circle stamps were used to stamp a tone-on-tone background. I ended up using more than six circles, because it looked a bit empty with just six. Two of the circles bleed off the page. Eight green buttons were stitched randomly on the background. The three strings were braided and stapled to the page. I didn’t want to include big flowers, so instead I took a small flower stamp and stamped it ten times on the patterned paper. I used two felt arrows and die cut a heart and a swirl from felt. The title translates 'Best Gifts'. Thank you so much for this fun challenge Amy!! I enjoyed picking out the different items to use.

To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! We can't wait to see what you create!

Challenge #182 - Beautiful Autumn (Oct 10 - Oct 23)

2011-10-10T05:11:00.003-04:00

Hi everyone!

Anna-Karin here with challenge #182. October is such a beautiful autumn month. One of the things I love about autumn is all the textures you find in nature during this time of the year: all the leaves and the different colours, everything being made more apparent by the clear air. Few things are more beautiful than the reflection of autumn trees in a calm lake.

For this challenge, I would like you to use:

- Leaves in some form (embellishments, patterned paper etc.)
- Paint, ink or mist to add a bit of texture to your page
- Distressed edges
- Something orange
- 10 jewels, pearls or beads (for the date)
- 10 ribbons (also for the date)

We are thrilled to have AmyC join us this month as our guest designer! She has been a faithful contributor to the past HMITM challenges and we love seeing her awesome digi designs that incorporate our wacky list of criteria :)
Here she is:

Bio: My name is Amy and I live in a very small town in western North Carolina. I have been married to a great guy for 14 years and we have three wonderful children (Will-8, Anna-turning 6 and Katie-turning 3). I am a Physical Therapist and, although I love my work, I have a longing to be a SAHM. My children are, of course, the main focus of my scrapbooking. I think it is so important to perserve our memories! I began scrapbooking 7 years ago just before my son turned one. Three years ago I discovered digital scrapping and I am almost exclusively digital now. I do try to occassionally go back and scrap my old pictures, and I love it when I remember a traditional element that I can use on a digital page!

I am excited to be the guest designer at HMITM because I love the challenges here! I know "stash" is a little different in the digi world, but, believe me, I still have an enormous stash and it makes me feel good to use something I haven't used in a while or at all!

Amy: I knew as soon as I read the challenge that I wanted to use it to scrap about our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. I used several "somethings orange," because it is one of my favorite colors. I have 10 ribbon pieces peeping out from opposite sides of the large green mat. I have 2 jewels in the orange flowers and 8 scattered jewels on the lower left portion of the layout. The distressed edges show up several times and I used a "scatter" with glitter paint and mist along the middle of the layout under the pictures.

Anna-Karin: I had fun creating texture and playing around with leaves on this page. The title translates ‘Autumn Leaves’. The background is watercolour paper, which was first sponged with paint through a tree stencil. I used a really old leaf stencil and applied gesso with an old plastic card, resulting in dimensional leaves. Then the background was coloured with Distress Stains, water and a bit of Perfect Pearls. I also used leaves stamped on alcohol inked glossy cardstock. At first I had no idea of what to do with 10 ribbons, but then I got the idea of cutting 10 green scraps of ribbon into small scraps and using them as grass. The 10 jewels were used in the title and on the trees.

Elizabeth: This was a great challenge. I loved all the distressing elements that were added to the challenge. I used ink on the title block and distressed the edges of the journaling block. I have a tough time with ribbon usually, but i managed to stick some behind my journaling block and under my title paper. Thanks for the challenge Anna-Karin!

Janet M- This challenge was a great one for me , I love taking pictures of the trees in the fall. I've been doing a book of our house before we leave it so this was a good one to add to it. I loved that one of the colors in it was orange which had me go outside the normal color I would use, but as always when I do that I'm the happiest with the results.

I got all the elements in except the paint or mist I'm creating in Florida and I just don't have those supplies with me so I substituted ink for that part. I sure do have a ribbon supply though so it's always good to use some of those up.

Journaling is: Every year I feel so blessed to live where I do and get to experience the wonder of autumn, this year taking the pictures has so much more meaning.It's the walks in the yard, the colors in the trees. I'm going to miss living here next year . I know I can come back anytime I want to with the college horticulture program here but I sure can't come out at 6 AM in my pj's and enjoy the quiet..

Thanks for the great challenge Anna-Karin, it's a really creative and fun one.

Fi - I joined this Challenge with the Pencilines Sketch. The pictures I have used are a series I am doing of my trip to Sydney a few years ago, I just loved watching how fast everything and everyone seems to move along in this fast paced city. I was able to get all the elements requested in, I have inked my envelope, distressed the paper edges, ribbon in 10 pieces and the bling is 8 gems on my balloon and two pieces of border bling to make the total. Oh and leaves are in the paper and the transparency. Thanks Anna-Karin for this fun challenge. Hope to see more play along this week.

Sept 26 Johnny Appleseed Challenge

2011-09-26T07:55:00.003-04:00

It's Johnny Appleseed day and while nobody else may be excited about it I am. My children are descendants of Johnny Appleseed so we have books, counted cross stitch pictures, etc. about him.

Our challenge this time is going to do a layout using apples in it. So it can be a recipe page, layout about fall or anything that uses apples. Since apples come in three colors I want the colors of the layout to have red, yellow and green in them.
3 apples
3 red,
3 yellow, and
3 green embellishments - ( buttons, brads, twine)

Have fun creating.

Here's what Susan, our guest designer, did for her second project this month.

I made a shadow box by three gypsies. Used Bo Bunny and My Minds Eye and Basic Grey. Apple brads and various embellishments that I had in my stash. I also inked all the paper edges with chestnut roan chalk ink.

Janet M - I enjoyed this challenge and choose a picture to do a page that I'll put in my recipe book of pages of family recipes, fun times together and pictures of things we have made.

I used three apples cut from my Cricut cartridge , three different ribbons, three colors of Thickers and pp. I used brads and bling in multiples of the three colors also. I enjoyed the fun I had with the colors in this.

Anna-Karin: Since I had never heard about Johnny Appleseed, I had to look him up. Interesting character and how fun that he is family of yours Janet. Loved the challenge! I did my layout about Anton’s love of fruit (the title translates ‘Fruit-o-maniac’), apples being the number one favourite (although he is eating papaya on the photos). I found some journaling cards that worked well for the challenge and the layout came together quickly. I used three stamped apples, one in each colour, and the same with the three buttons, brads and twine. Thanks for the fun challenge and history lesson Janet!

Debbi T: I'm a teacher, so I get a school portrait taken every year, and I never know what to do with them. I decided this challenge was the perfect opportunity to document my apple-a-day ritual, which I plan to add to my weight-loss album. It just so happened that the October Work in Progress kit that I needed to work with had a paper with an apple pattern from the Crate Paper Farmhouse collection, so I used the WIP to make my page. This was such a fun and clever challenge, Janet!

My hidden journaling reads: During the school year, I eat an apple a day. Every day, I bring an apple in my lunch. My favorite is apple is the honeycrisp. My apple-a-day habit started when I began Weight Watchers. I bring a knife and cut my apple into small slices so I can take a long time eating it. I usually bring a frozen Weight Watchers Smart One or a Lean Cuisine, which gets eaten pretty fast, and then I cut my apple and enjoy it for the rest of my lunch time. (School portrait - Fall 2011)

Elizabeth: Fun challenge Janet! I decided to do it about Brock's first time eating, and our oldest child helping to feed him. Had to dig around for some apple embellishments, but I eventually found some in the lace cardstock and I cut some out of some patterned paper. Do circles count as embellishments? Well, I think I have lots of yellow, green and red on here anyhow ;). Thanks for the challenge!

Fi: Okay a bit of a tricky one, how to use apples...hmmmmm Anyway I went with another school class shot as I really couldn't associate apples with anything else and didn't have time to whip up an Apple Pie...lol I used some Simple Stories paper and thought this challenge can me the perfect opportunity to use my Quickutz Die's for some reason I needed these dies but had never had the opportunity to use them. lol

So I used the red, green and yellow papers, I die cut 3 apples and also 3 apples cores since we were working in lots of 3s, my embellishments are 3 paper clips 3 brads in each of the 3 colours, 3 butterflies and 3 acetate school themed pieces. I have hidden journalling paper clipped up the top which just reads who some of the kids are that I was friends with.

School's In Winner ... Shaunery!

2011-09-12T16:14:00.004-04:00

Congrats Shaunery, for being chosen as this week's winner with your school choir layout.

Loved the ruffled ribbon and the great shades of primary colours. They go beautifully together. The paperclip stickers are great here, super job!

Thanks for playing along everyone, your layouts were awesome!

(For some reason, Blogger does not always let me comment on people's blogs, but I do try to leave comments on everyone's layout.)

Challenge 180 - Home Sweet Home {September 12 - September 25}

2011-09-12T06:22:00.002-04:00

Happy Monday! Debbi here. We're in the process of buying a new house (our street address will be 4936), so for this challenge, let's make a layout using...

topic: your home (could be your whole house, a specific room, your yard, etc.)
a house embellishment (could be prefabricated or handmade)
choose a room in your house and use the colors as the basis for your layout
4 rub-ons
9 buttons and/or brads
3 labels or tags
6 patterned papers

Our guest designer this month is Susan, and we are so happy to have her wonderful layouts to share with you!

Here is a little about Susan, in her own words... My name is Susan Thormahlen and I am from Northwest Indiana. I am married to a wonderful man and have 2 children and 1 grandchild. I am also a CDA dental assistant and am the office manager of a dental office here in my hometown. I have been scrapbooking for 3 years and have truly fell in love with all aspects of it. I like traditional, digital and hybrid but traditional is my favorite. Because I am fairly new to the craft of scrapbooking, I have not been on any design teams or have been published yet. I will have my first scrapbook page published this November in GingerScrapStreetMagazines in the article It's Not Easy Being Green. This is also my first invitation to be a guest designer.

I based the colors of this challenge on our bedroom which is a buttery cream/yellow with dark blue accents. The nine buttons that I used, I broke up and used them like a mosaic. I used Sure Cuts Alot svg graphics for the house and the window frame. I also used the Socket font for my lettering. For my 6 patterned papers I used Chatterbox. I made my three tags and used them as smoke clouds coming from the chimney. The rub-on "home is where the heart is" is from K&Company.

Debbi Tehrani - I chose my dining room for the color scheme of my page (here's a picture of my dining room):

As I said above, we're in the process of having a new house built. By now it's already built and they're working on the inside, but we've been driving up every week and photographing the progress. This was the first set of pictures I took--when it was just a hole in the ground. It was so surprising because for the longest time we'd drive up there and nothing was going on, and on this particular Sunday, when we saw it, the first thing that came out of my mouth was "We have a hole!" I used birdhouse images, which are houses, right? I'm on a mission to use some old stash. Those daisies were cut out of a REALLY old K&Co paper. They're pretty and glittery. And those birdhouses are from some ancient paper from back when I started scrapbooking over a decade ago--hoarding comes in handy sometimes!

Janet M.

This challenge was so much fun and since we are in the process of building our new house I had a hard time deciding which photo to use then one of the landscapers dropped off a new set of aerial pictures and it was an easy decision. The colors are based on some of my room colors which I have used greens and blues quite a bit. The birds also tie in with the theme of my art glass in the doors and one of the bathrooms. I used the Cricut cartridge Songbird for the word and the tag and I actually used a pagemaps sketch for the design.

I've been traveling a lot so my layouts are suffering on getting done but the card collection I have is growing - I used this challenge to make a card for my daughter that is doing some work on the inside and outside of her house.

Every single thing in the challenge got into the card- there's a rub-on sun under the button, some of the brads are on the car wheels, the trees are cut from different lines and the tags are under the flower. Fun way to challenge myself.

Anna-Karin: I loved this challenge Debbi! Instead of scrapping about our present home, I made the layout about my first home and wrote 5 pages of journaling (tucked behind the layout). I am so happy to have documented my memories. I also used the colour scheme of the house for the layout – seventyish green, orange, brown and yellow. The patterns and embellishments were also chosen to fit with the theme (felt, raffia, woodgrain, owls, flower brads, chipboard accents etc.). The dry embossed cardstock looks very similar to the wallpaper in one of the bedrooms. The house was cut from a piece of patterned paper and embellished further with ribbon, mica windows, and rub-ons. I was happy to use some rub-ons and an old pack of flower brads. The gate, key and key hole were painted with silver paint.

To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! We can't wait to see what you create

#178 winner is Belinda Achatz

2011-08-29T16:17:00.003-04:00

Congrats Belinda! I loved your layout that you submitted for the 'Just Relax' challenge last week. Here is her layout...

I love the bright butterflies and how you layered elements behind your cool title.
Awesome work! You may be chosen to be a future guest designer!

Thanks for playing along with the last challenge, I really loved everyone's layout and it is always very difficult to pick just one winner. There is a new challenge posted, so be sure to check it out!

Challenge #179 - School's Back in Session (August 29 - September 11)

2011-08-29T13:09:00.003-04:00

I know everyone starts school at a different time of year, but the end of August seems like a fitting time to do a School layout.

For this challenge I would like you to use

1 - lined paper

7 - paper clips

9- staples

use primary colours (red, blue, yellow)

This is the last week for our Guest Designer Tracee, a big thank you goes out to her for playing along and joining in on the past 3 challenges, her layouts were amazing and this weeks is no exception. You have put such a great spin on this weeks challenge especially the way you have used the paper clips and turning the staples into a star. Awesome!!!!

Tracee: I haven't had the chance to scrap any of my Grandaughter Star's school pictures yet so this was the perfect opportunity.

I found some large yellow paper clips and wanted to use them in a different way and came up with idea of fanning them out into a flower shape behind the pic. So then that got me thinking of the staples and how I could mix those up a bit, I actually ended up using 10 red ones and formed a star shape in the title. I enjoyed adding lots of little elements to this layout to make it schoolish(if that's a word!)

Elizabeth: This was a fun challenge. I do not use primary colours too often when creating a layout, so it was neat to have a different starting point. As the layout came along, I found it more and more difficult to put the paper clips on, first they were on the pictures (which you might even still be able to see the outline that was left there when I took them off, except I did end up stapling the pictures instead, in the same spot to hide the markings). But eventually the clips made their way around the title and I like how the red and white ones mimic the look of the ring embellishment. Sweet and simple.

Anna-Karin: I loved your great layout-recipe Elizabeth! Lined paper is one of my favourites and I had fun embellishing it with stamps. I used round paper clips which I got very long ago, and glued them to the page randomly. Yellow staples were attached as borders. The title translates ‘Fun on wheels’, but sounds better in Swedish since it rhymes. The photo was taken by Cheryl van Lingen. Thank you for the challenge!

Fi - This one was a little daunting for me as I don't have any back to school photos, then I remembered I should take the opportunity to scrap some of my old class photos when I was a kid. Now these photos take up quite a bit of space on your page so it didn't really allow me to scrap in my usual style, however I was happy with the result in the end and its another photo scrapped. The recipe was a little challenging with those paper clips but I found some tiny Tim Holtz red ones and used the bakers twine along with staples to make the zig zag pattern so that I could pop the apples on sort of like a notice board...hope that has made some sense...lol I will post more details over at my blog.

To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! We can't wait to see what you create!

Challenge 177- Clowning around Winner!

2011-08-15T10:23:00.003-04:00

is...... Amy C!

it was a tough choice because I really loved all your layouts this week, what a great take on the challenge everyone!

I really loved Amy's use of colour, her photo placements, and the awesome digital elements that she used to tie the layout together. Thanks so much for playing along!

Amy you are in the running to be October's guest designer.

Check in again after the next challenge to see if you could be in the running for a guest designer spot.

Challenge #178 - Just Relax (Aug 15 - Aug 28)

2011-08-15T07:03:00.007-04:00

Anna-Karin here with this week’s HMITM challenge. I had a look for funny holidays, and 15 August is ‘Relaxation Day’, which is a fun theme for challenge. We all need to relax now and then and summer time is a particularly great time for relaxation. This week’s challenge is also to take a relaxed approach to scrapbooking and using some of your scraps.

The challenge is to do a layout:

- About something that you find relaxing.
- Close your eyes and dig into your stash of scrap patterned papers and randomly pick out at 6 or more pieces of papers and use those on your layout. No peeking!
- Do the same thing and pick 10 or more random buttons, ribbons or pearls.
- Use 3 bits and pieces lying around on your desk (not patterned papers). If you have a clean desk, use 3 left-overs from your last project.
- 1 recycled item

Have lots of fun! I am looking forward to seeing what you create!

We are delighted to have another beautiful layout from our August guest designer, Tracee Provis.

Tracee: About something that you find relaxing - Writing notes & planning layouts in my notepad

Close your eyes and dig into your stash of scrap patterned papers and randomly pick out at 6 or more pieces of paper and use those on your layout. No peeking! - This proved a tad more difficult to not cheat! so I waited until Fi & Debbi were online and I labelled random scraps with numbers 1 - 25 and got the girls to pick a number for me, to show there was no cheating I took a pic to prove I didnt just swap numbers lol All this was done under their watchful eyes on webcam! Let me tell you they didn't pick the pieces I wanted lol but on 3 of the scraps I used the backside and all in all my random was pretty co-coordinating!

Do the same thing and pick 10 or more random buttons, ribbons or pearls - I dont have anything organised(bad I know) so I just picked 10 random things that were in my "bits" box on the window sill it contains anything from die cuts to buttons to fabric scraps. I dipped my hand into my ribbon bag and pulled out a couple of things too!

Use 3 bits and pieces lying around on your desk (not patterned papers). If you have a clean desk, use 3 left-overs from your last project. - Lucky I do have a very messy desk so I tucked my hand under the top layer and picked lol

1 recycled item - I accidentally picked 2 so I rolled with that

This is what I finally ended up with:

Here's our DT inspirational layouts:

Anna-Karin: I often find that using my scraps speeds up my scrapbooking quite a bit since I spend less time choosing products to use. This layout is about taking walks in nature as one of my favourite forms of relaxation. My scrap papers are sorted according to colour in a file folder, so I closed my eyes and randomly pulled out 7 papers from different folders. I used 10 random buttons from one of my ziplock bags of buttons. I have a box of little leftover bits and pieces at my desk and try to use things from it as often as possible. For this layout, I pulled out the stamped bird, the metallic heart and the arrow (which was painted and stamped). The recycled item comes from a clothing tag (both the vellum strip and the printed ribbon). The title is a negative chipboard piece which has been in my leftover box for a long time, it was painted to fit better with this layout.

Elizabeth: Well, I do have to admit that blindly pulling out paper from my scrap pile is hardly a relaxing way to start my layout process, but my saving grace was the fact that so many papers are double sided, so I was able to make the combination of papers fit :P The embellishments I used from my last project were the felt flowers, and the recycled item is the circle outline stickers near the bottom of the layout. I used the outside of a sticker that I cut from the backing. And of course, going to the beach with five kids is always relaxing, right?!?!? It was a fantastic time together.

Janet M- This was a great challenge and quite interesting , since my scrapbook room is in a state of everything and anything is not were it should be with it getting moved. I reached into a pile of assorted papers and found some that were right on the top. I did the same thing with the embellishments from a basket of assorted items. The recycled item on here is a bookmark I pulled out of the desk. This is a picture of my two favorite men my brother and husband after a nice day when he had been visiting and we were just having a good time.

Fi - Relaxation for me is to have some time with my husband and one of our favourite days is the Melbourne Cup Race day. Its the race that stops the nation, its so great to see all the awesome fashions and lets not forget the hats.... Its really not about the horses at all.

I well and truly dug through my scraps for this one, with the help of Debbi and Tracee via video skype, their was definitely no cheating going on...lol Hop on over to my blog and check out the process we went through.

Debbi T: This would've been a very stressful challenge for me because I have this need to be in control, LOL, but I kept telling myself, "It's okay...it's for Relaxation Day." Plus, I was selecting my elements and scrapping with Tracee and Fi via Skype, and that made it more fun. I randomly chose an odd selection of stuff and I kept having printer issues with my photo, so I wasn't entirely happy with the way my page turned out, but I just said "Go with the flow, Debbi; it's Relaxation Day." I had a lot of fun trying to make the best of what I randomly chose. I also used a Creative Scrappers sketch. Thanks for the fun challenge, Anna-Karin!

Winner - Christmas In July Challenge

2011-08-03T03:15:00.003-04:00

Okay, its never easy having to pick a winner in these situations, and for me it will always about who met the criteria of the challenge and of course everyone did that. All layouts were beautifully done and after having another good look at all the submissions I have decided to go with Jenny Evan. I love how Jenny used the papers and the sketch and how each square was embellished.

Congratulations Jenny you are my winner, however everyone is a winner simply because you all have another page to add to your albums which is ultimately why we scrap.

Challenge # 177 Clowning Around!

2011-08-01T16:15:00.004-04:00

Did you know that today is the first day of International Clown Week?

Using this picture as inspiration,

my challenge for you is to create a layout using:
* 8 buttons
* 1 flower
* 11 different patterned papers
* one red circle (for the clown's nose)
* Mist or paint

Hope you have fun with this challenge!

We are thrilled to have Tracee Provis as our August guest designer!

Here's a little about Tracee, in her own words: My Name is Tracee and I live in Bristol UK with my DH my 2 youngest children & our very spoiled Doodle doggies. I am also a Grandmum to a beautiful 7 year old (perfect for scrapping) little girl called Star.

I have always crafted in one form or another since I was a small child from stuffed toys to knitted scarves. I was introduced to scrapping in 2004 & I have never looked back with each layout bringing more love for this hobby along with a whole group of friends who share the same love.

My family & dogs are the main focus of my work, I just love how you can turn a memory, that might otherwise be forgotten in time, into something very special indeed.

With an ever changing world scrapping remains my Safe Haven & most days you will find me at some point in my craft room.

And here is what Tracee created for this challenge:

Tracee: I always scrap when we go away in the Uk and I created the background in stripes,to represent the clowns top, using all strips from the papers I had used on my layouts on one of our holidays, plus a picture of us in our favourite spot on that holiday.I just dotted the buttons around in a random fashion like juggling balls in the air. The big bold black title reminded me of the great big shoes the clown in the picture is wearing.I added the flower and the red circle down at the bottom in a cluster with some of the buttons. I whitewashed over the strips and although you cant see it clearly in this picture i did splash some white paint onto the white background and also added some liquid pearls dotted about. Although this layout hasnt got a clowning around theme I always remember the fun we had in our time spent at Challabourough Bay in the UK. While at first this seemed like a daunting challenge once I started it all started to come together quite nicely.

Here's our DT inspirational layouts:

Debbie F - Well, this proved to be a fun challenge for me! The clown inspired my color choices, the youthful theme, as well as a variety of patterns and shapes like dots, stripes, and circles. I chose to make a 2 page layout to incorporate all the challenge requirements. The hardest one for me to meet was the flower. I used a Details dimensional American Crafts sticker. (It had a pink flower layer on it too, which I pulled off.) The layout is of my son a few years ago at a Cub Scout Rocket Launch event. I punched circles of several patterned papers to make my "planets" and fussy cut the stars from another piece. My paint was a Jenni Bowlin dauber on some old Fancy Pants plain chipboard letters. I used a mix of sheer and sparkly buttons. It's a busy layout, but I think it's so fun!

Janet M- Loved this fun challege with all the great colors and ideas for it. I decided to do a picture of my husband . We have a saying in the family about never letting your head get to big. If you think it is put a bucket over it and make sure your heads not to big for it. I thought it was the perfect gift to give Bob after the college honored him all week with him getting his Doctor of Laws degree, honoris causa. He loved the gift and even took it with him when they had the reception for him and used it in his speech.
The jounaling is: So it's really true the bucket does fit. We have a saying in the family about never letting your head get to big. If you think it is put a bucket over it and make sure your heads not to big for it. I thought it was the perfect gift to give Bob after the college honored him all week with getting his Doctor of Laws degree, honoris causa. He loved the gift and even took it with him when they had the reception for him and used it in his speech.
Fi - This was a little daunting when I first read the requirements, especially when I saw the picture of the clown. It got me thinking about fun and I remembered that I had a picture of my Nephew and Brother. They had spent a fun day at the fair which I am sure their would have been a clown lurking around some where. Now I say lurking because there is quite a few people that are quite frightened of them, however I'm not.

I represented the red circle by stitching one around the doily and I have machine stitched lines down my page and stitched the buttons in between, representing the clown heads at the fair that you drop the balls down. I also stitched some scrappy muslin to the side to represent the clowns fluffy hair poking out from his hat. I cut 8 patterned papers into strips then punched decorative edges on each before I layered them together. My background, doily and die cut piece make up the remaining 11. I have 1 flower and I used gesso over muslin, flower and buttons.

Hope this has inspired you this week and if you would like to read please pop over to my blog and check out more details:

Debbi Tehrani - When I saw this challenge, I knew I wanted to make a page for my Book of Silly (an aptly named album that contains silly family photos). As I was going through pictures to scrap, I came across this photo of my nephew with his hair dyed red for school spirit week.

I was having a very time-crunched week, so I combined my HMITM page with my page for CCG, and as it turned out, the colors were perfect to go with this picture. If look close, you can see all the buttons and the 11 papers. The flower was a stretch because I didn't want my page looking girly at all, so I dug through my stash and came up with a flower-shaped brad. This was such a fun challenge, Debbie!

Elizabeth: This was such a fun challenge Debbie! I was certainly inspired by the red colour and also the stripes and polka dots. I finally tried masking with the letters in my title and I LOVE how it turned out! Don't know why it took me so long to try a new technique, maybe because I am scared of using things that make my work space 'messy', like paint and mist. I added stars to my mix of embellishments to emphasis the subject matter of my layout. I like how it looks a little 'chaotic', like a wipe out. Hope you will play along with this challenge!

To play and have a chance at being chosen for our How Awesome is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and becoming a HMITM guest designer, please share your layout via Mr.Linky below. We can't wait to see what you create!

Challenge #176 - Christmas in July {July 18 - July 31 }

2011-08-01T16:08:00.003-04:00

Hi, it's Fi here and I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas!!!!

I know it's not really Christmas, but don't blink--it will be here before we know it. I thought it would be great to get into the spirit of Christmas without all the added stress that comes with it. I am sure you all know what I mean...lol

And now on to this week's challenge... and because its my first challege post here, I thought I would give a prize. I have kept it small so postage won't cost a fortune giving everyone the opportunity to win, it's Christmas....OK it's not but who doesn't love to receive a present?

Christmas in July refers to Christmas-themed celebrations held in July. It's a fun time and because the weather is so much cooler, we can celebrate with those traditional foods that we cannot have here in summer. Well, we can have them here in Australia but it's generally way too hot that most of us celebrate with BBQ's, prawns and salad. So let's pull out our Christmas paper and embellishment stashes and put them to use.

Requirements:

2 + photos [at least 2]
1 x Christmas tree image, any size
5 x patterned papers, i.e., Christmas patterns,
5 x metal embellishments, and any other embellishment in increments of 5

And here is mine take on the Challenge:

Have fun! Now for the inspiration from the Design Team....

Here's the layout created by our July guest designer Belinda Achatz, and some words from her about her layout:

For "Christmas in July" I decided to scrap 2 photos of my (now) husband & I back in 1995. Whilst we are having wintry weather right now, our Christmases are usually hot!! Well to quote my 8 year old daughter when she saw this layout, I "looked young then"....lol!! & Daddy had 'funny hair'.....yes, he did!!

I met the challenge criteria as follows: I used mainly Crate Paper Christmas Paper for my layout - the 5 different ones include the base cardstock, trees, stockings, christmas lights, the photo matts & green background paper. I did have more than 1 Christmas tree - the main one being the one on the background paper, but they are also featured in the photos...lol. The 5 metal embellishments include old stash of metal letter charms ('st' & 'xo' ) & the charm on which I mounted the number 1. I also used 5 felt stars & 5 brads in the middle of the stars. I had a lot of fun with this & it brought back some funny memories - which is such a great part of this fabulous hobby! I hope you have fun having a go at this challenge - before we know it, Christmas will be upon us!!!! (eeek)

I loved being guest designer for July - thank you so much to the team at HMITM for having me & thankyou to all who joined me in this month's challenges!

Anna-Karin: I had so much fun when I did my layout. I don’t think I have ever done a Christmas layout outside the holiday season since I normally do all my Christmas scrapping around Christmas. I used three photos, stamped a pine tree on one of the photos, 5 patterned papers, 5 metal embellishments (two bookplates, two embossed and painted tags, 1 swirl clip), 5 tags, 5 pieces of twine, 5 buttons, and 5 snowflakes. The layout is about some of my favourite Santa decorations. I let them pose in snow some years ago. I wanted the tags to remain neutral, so I inked and stamped them only very lightly. The metallic tags were dry embossed, painted black and then sanded to reveal the original metal on the embossed parts. Thank you for this awesome challenge Fi!

Debbi Tehrani: It was great fun scrapping Christmas pictures in July! I'd had these pictures of my mom and Gram with their loot piles from two Christmases ago and never got around to scrapping them, so I was happy for this challenge! I used a sketch from Once Upon a Sketch as inspiration for my page. The challenge was trickier thatn I originally thought. Keeping the papers to five was hard, but I used the back and fronts of one of the papers, so that allowed me to sneak an extra pattern in! And the five embellishments part was also tricky, but I managed. I used five brads, five big pearls, five small pearls, five rub-ons, five words on stickers, and five banner die cuts. My Christmas tree element is in the Santa image on the bottom right. Thanks for the fun challenge, Fi!

Elizabeth: Definitely fun idea to do Christmas in July. I still have so many pictures from Christmas that I could put into albums, so thanks for the challenge Fi! I kept it simple and used 5 papers, 5 metal (haven't used ribbon slides in years!!!), 5 stars and a few extra trees. Simple and sweet.

To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! We can't wait to see what you create!

How Awesome Is Too Awesome? No. 175 - Tracee Provis

2011-07-23T17:43:00.000-04:00

We chose Tracee's layout for our HAITA Gallery for Challenge 175. We think Tracee's design is brilliant with the great big star as a backdrop to her photo. The topic of her layout was perfect for the challenge. The repetition of stars, the pennants beneath the title, the use of labels scattered about but not looking scattered, the terrific use of color all make for a truly fantastic layout and worthy of our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Gallery!

How Awesome Is Too Awesome? No. 174 - Amy C

2011-07-12T20:21:00.006-04:00

It's always so hard to choose a winner for the challenge! All of the submissions were wonderful, but we chose Amy C's adorable page. We loved her overall design, the darling photos, and the "sunny" feel of her page that was perfect for the Sunny Flowers challenge.

Congratulations, Amy! You have been added to our HAITA Hall of Fame (located in the tab below the banner), and you might be picked to be our September guest designer!

Challenge 175 - Stars & Stripes Forever {July 4 - July 17

2011-07-04T05:38:00.008-04:00

Happy 4th of July! Debbi here with this week's challenge.

First, I'd like to introduce our guest designer for this month, Belinda Achatz.

Here's a bit about Belinda, in her own words:

'Hello everyone - I absolutely love challenges that use up my stash & I am honored to be a guest designer at HMITM for July! My name is Belinda (aka busybel around the forums) and I am married & have 3 children – 7,6 & 10 months. I live in Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. I have been scrapbooking since 2006 & have an eclectic style - influenced by new product, photos, time available, the story I want to tell. I enjoy scrapping all sizes of layouts. I love distressing things, inking, paint, collage chipboard,& have a new-found love of Tim Holtz techniques/products, a long-time love of vintage, having something 'real' to say rather than just 'sentiment' and mixing new (products) with old. I also love art journalling, mixed media, ATC's and card-making.
I currently design for: Scrapmatts: an Australian chipboard manufacturer, Paper Inklings, an Australian paper/chipboard/rubon wholesaler and Mystical Scrapbooks, an Australian online store.'

You can see more of Belinda's work on her blog: Blaacraft

And now on to this week's challenge...

Here in the U.S.A., we're celebrating our Independence Day. In honor of that, I'd like you to use
** elements that include STARS (embellishments, patterned paper, etc.) and STRIPES (ribbon, patterned paper, etc.)
** a flag or banner accent
** and to play off the date we're celebrating, July 4, 1776, use:

7 - brads
4 - four-word title
1 - photo
7 - labels
7 - seven-sentence journaling
6 - patterned papers

Note: Your page can be of any topic or theme--it doesn't have to be about 4th of July. Have fun! Now for insiration from the team and guest designer...

Guest designer Belinda Achatz: Living in Australia we do not celebrate Independence Day - but I focused my layout on my eldest daughter overcoming her challenges & being a star and the layout came together easily. I incorporated the challenge criteria as follows: "You Are My Star"
I covered chipboard stars in glittery patterned paper, and added strips of striped patterned paper at the bottom - a mix of Crate Paper, We R Memory Keepers, Scenic Route. My banner accent was hand stamped in a rainbow palette of distress inks using a great stamp I found in my stash (I can't remember where it came from:( ) - but it was a ticket/journalling tag with a star flourish - I have used it whole in black as part of my title. I cut triangles from it for the banner. The brads include glittery ones as part of the banner, and a cluster of Crate Paper ones near the journalling.
I clustered a mix of 6 red-based labels mounted on a black chalkboard label from Pink Paislee to make a whole journal block. upon which I told my story in 7 sentences.. My patterned papers are as described above plus rainbows to back the title (from Sassafrass). Additional elements included the black glitter chipboard alphas from Pink Paislee - plus some of the swirly brackets from the same pack, and some black pearls.

Debbi Tehrani: I had this cheesy picture of my husband from last year's Fourth of July celebration that I never scrapped, so I decided now was a good time to scrap it. I used a lot of old papers on this page--I'm talking really old--combined with some newer stuff. I brushed the starry patterned paper with gesso to lighten it up because I was using a Color Combos Galore palette to make my page. My brads and labels are scattered about my page. I almost forgot to use a 4-word title, until I double checked the list, but fortunately I was able to think of one. And yes, I realize I don't have complete sentences, but I do have 7 sentence fragments!

Janet M- I'm coming in with two layouts this challenge because I couldn't decide which one to post after I got them done. Loved using all the patriotic elements in this and boy did I get into my stash for some of these items.
The first one is with my grandson Jonathon, somehow I forgot to do my journaling in these but I got all my other elements in.

This one is with my aunt Virginia and I'm so glad to have the moments with both of them captured.

Thanks for this fantastic challenge.

We always have the 4th of July picnic at our house and these are some pictures from a couple of years ago,Have fun with the challenge! Can't wait to see what you create!

Anna-Karin: Fabulous idea for a challenge Debbi! I stamped the background with stars, used a star patterned paper and a striped paper. The 6 patterned papers were arranged in a stripe fashion. The 7 labels are stamped (six for the journaling and one date label) and I used the brads to make a circle around the number 8 (for 8 months). For the flag, I used a quote sticker. The title translates ‘Up and (almost) away’, and the layout is about Anton’s efforts to learn how to crawl. The photo was taken the day before he managed to get the coordination right and off he went (to never ever sit stilll again). Thanks for this great challenge!!

Debbie F: Great challenge, Debbi! I decided to scrap this picture from our vacation this week. I always ask the kids to make a silly face when I'm trying to get them cooperate for a posed picture. This one cracked me up! I used Echo Park's Summer Days papers and embellishments. I decided to meet the six patterned paper requirement by making another banner. I continued the banner theme with twine and Jillibean journal sprouts. The labels challenged me, but I think I met it between the Jillibean stickers and sprouts. My journaling has seven fragments, if you include the title, and my stars are part of the sticker banner.

Elizabeth: I am from Canada, so I did a little different layout, but still incorporated all the items. The stars are in the yellow paper, the banner I made to hang from my title, and all the labels hold my seven lines of journaling. The cup in the picture has some kind of squirmy bugs inside. True father son camping style. Thanks for the great challenge Debbi!

To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! We can't wait to see what you create!

How awesome winner #173 - this is adorable.

2011-06-27T05:57:00.002-04:00

Our chosen winner for challenge #173 Going around in circles is Tracee with this cute and fresh looking layout, I really like the colors in this and the little details in each of the circles. Her 6 butterflies add a perfect touch to the layout. Great job on this Tracee.

Challenge #174 - Sunny Flowers (June 20 - July 3)

2011-06-20T06:06:00.005-04:00

Happy Summer!!

Midsummer is celebrated in a traditional way in Sweden in June, and includes dancing around a maypole and eating traditional food, and always strawberries. A lot of people wear flower wreaths/crowns on their heads. There is also a myth that if young people pick 7 different kinds of wildflowers, jump over 7 fences, and place the flowers under their pillow on this night, they will dream of the man/woman they will marry. This year Midsummer’s Eve falls on Friday 24 June.

My challenge is to do a layout:

- Using mainly light colours, and it must include at least a bit of yellow (for the summer solstice)
- 1 circle (for the sun)
- 7 different types of flowers (if you want to, try making one or more handmade flowers)
- 7 rub-ons or stamped images
- 24 other items

Anna-Karin: I made a difficult challenge for myself! I wanted to include a bit too many things on this layout: an enlarged photo, a woven piece of fabric depicting a Midsummer celebration, a rather big stamp and then of course the flowers. I struggled a bit to pull it all together. The seven flowers are all different: cut from paper, die cut daisy, layers of watercoloured canvas, die cut from patterned papers, made of twisted and inked sticky-backed canvas, stamped, embossed and coloured vellum, die cut and embossed Core’dinations cardstock. The stamps are: music, script, strawberry, silhouette children, date, month, and a flower stamp. The photo is from a midsummer celebration when we were children. Journaling is behind the layout.

Janet M - I just loved this challenge , anytime I can pull out a picture of my granddaughter and get it scrapped it good. The yellow, the sun and all the fun embellishments were just the right mixture for this picture from 10 years ago of Cynthia. Bumblee bees, heart, flowers , bling and everything worked perfect for me in capturing the sunny mood of her.

Debbi T: This was the perfect challenge to get me to scrap this Easter photo of my nephews that I've had sitting on my desk forever. I was happy for the rub-on part of the challenge because I always forget to use them. It was tricky getting 7 on my page, but I snuck them in here and there. Thanks for the fun challenge, Anna-Karin!

Elizabeth: Fun challenge this week. I used a bunch of different flowers, in the patterned paper, lace cardstock, Prima flowers and some sticker flowers. I used lots of little butterfly rubons and plenty of sparkle. The pictures scanned a little yellowish, but i guess that matches part of the challenge too :P

Fi - Loved the Challenge this week, its great how these challenges push you that little further, either by using products you haven't used or to reach in and use that stash that has just been sitting there. If you would like to read more about my page I would love you to pop on over to my blog. Can't wait to see what everyone does.

To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! Have fun! We can't wait to see what you create!

#172 The Inner Geek Winner

2011-06-19T17:11:00.003-04:00

We had such a fun group of layouts to choose from on this challenge it was hard to pick one. I loved all the different "Geek" confessions from everyone . This was a fun challenge.

The winner of this post is : Susan Stringfellow
Her fun layout is titled Sweeter on the Inside. It gives us a little bit of fun things to know about her.

Challenge #173 - 6/6 - All about 6 {June 6 - June 19}

2011-06-11T10:18:00.001-04:00

Going around in Circles

Did you know that 6 circles of any size when put together will make a complete circle with no gap in it? So you can guess where this is leading - the date for the challenge is 6/6 so we're going to use six punched out circles, buttons or brads and use it on the page in a circle.
Easy almost too easy so lets add something else in six, flowers, butterflies, bugs or anything that works for your page and 6 patterned papers.
So that's :
6 circles made into a circle
6 similar embellishments
6 patterned papers.

Janet M - I think doing your own challenge is a challenge in it's self, I really had fun with this one though. I'm sure my daughter will be impressed to see the picture of her up dressed in her Halloween costume as a geek.
I used 6 pattern papers in the frame on the picture.
6 circles into a circle
6 brads
6 modes of transporation
6 in the title and on the speed sign.

Elizabeth: I love working with circles. This was a good one! I don't know if I cheated by using the brads in the shape of a circle, but I thought it did qualify the instructions. :) Plus I used 6 pictures shaped as circles, so that counts for a bonus!

Anna-Karin: Thank you for this clever challenge Janet! I cut six circles from six different patterned papers, arranged them into a circle and stitched around each one. The big white circle was scratched into the Core’dinations cardstock to reveal the inner core. For the six embellishments, I used stars and gave each one a different texture (UTEE embossing, flocking, crackle paint, ink, glitter and Flower Soft). The title of the layout translates ‘Eyelashes’ and the journaling is about all the attention Anton get for his blue eyes and long eyelashes.

Fi - This was definitely a challenge for me this week, I felt I was going around in circles trying to get my punched circles to look remotely like circles. I punched the polka dots from Kaiser Seaside Collection and adhered these onto a circle that I punched from acetate. I made 6 of these and raised and 3D'd them on my page. I have used 6 patterned papers, 6 birds and 6 flowers to complete my lots of 6. I cut the photo into a circle and overlayed with a LYB printed circle overlay. I will post more details on my blog. Looking forward to see what other come up with.

Debbi T: This was a serious challenge for me! For some reason, the even number 6 really stumped me. I managed to use the required six of everything--six brads, six rub-ons, six chipboard numbers, six pearls, even a six-word title (if you read 1,000 as "one thousand"), except that I used 3 pieces of burlap--but I did use 6 staples to adhere them. I love a challenge, though, so I definitely had fun!

Debbie F: I don't use circles as design elements all that often, so this was a challenge for me. I dug into my first Studio Calico kit that I'd been hoarding for a few years. I created the splatters with black acrylic paint by running my fingers along the paint dipped brush. I even used a stamp that was still in the package! I added 6 star stickers, six bling circles, and 12 other stickers (title letters and star strip). Fun challenge!

To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below!

We can't wait to see what you create!

A Fond Farewell to Amanda Torres

2011-06-05T21:33:00.000-04:00

We are so sad to say goodbye to Amanda. She has delighted us with some of the most creative challenges since she has been on the team and has provided so much wonderful inspiration with her whimsical, vibrant style. We are happy to say that she has a blog where we can keep tabs on what she's creating: Just Dalovely and Delicious. Thank you, Amanda, for serving as such an inspirational, creative member of our team this past year! We will miss your sweet smile and bright sense of humor!

Introducing Fi!

2011-06-02T07:07:00.000-04:00

You might have noticed a new member of our team when we posted the past challenge. We are excited to announce that Fi Kenward has joined the How Much Is Too Much design team!

Here is a bit about Fi, in her own words: Married for over 15yrs with a wonderful husband who is as passionate about watching sport as I am with my scrapbooking, its a compromise... We have two teens a 17yr old DD and 16yrs old DS, whilst at times like all teens they can be trying at most they are considerate and kind. I have been scrapbooking since 2002 but I also like to quilt. For a few years I did Folk Art but gave this one away, although I do apply some to my scrapbooking pages. I am lucky enough to have my shed decked out as a craft room although it would be nice to have some heating, gets a little cold in winter and I hate tracking my stuff to and fro from the house. My favourite thing about scrapping is getting to see the story unfold on your page. I love photos that have been captured from a moment that occurred rather than a moment that has been created, I suppose you would say most of my photos are candid. My kids are perfect in my eyes already and I would hate them to think I need to photo shop them making them feel less about themselves. I want them to look back through their album and see their changes as they have aged and grown, not flawless images. Whilst it is nice to occassionally have some fun with photoshop I want to remember the reason why I started this craft in the first place. I always like to start a page and then come back to later with fresh eyes, I find this is generally my deciding factor whether or not I need to add more or take some off.

Check out Fi's blog, All Things Creative, for a peek at more of her amazing work.

How Awesome Is Too Awesome? - Challenge #171

2011-05-24T16:48:00.004-04:00

It was fun seeing layouts on the bike theme! Lots of different types of bicycles. Thanks so much for playing! The HAITA winner for challenge #171 is Tracee with her layout 'Carefree'. Tracee created such a sweet layout and we love the bubblewrap stamped background, all the borders, cute owls, the little key, bicycle badge and the cute photos.

Congrats Tracee! You have been added to our How Awesome Is Too Awesome? Hall of Fame!

Challenge #172 - Inner Geek {May 23 - June 5}

2011-05-23T06:54:00.001-04:00

This week celebrates National Geek Pride Day. Now, I know we all have a little geek inside of us. Let's scrap about it! Show us in a layout something that's a little geeky about you (or a loved one)! We'll be using prime numbers on our layout.

Use:
2 photos
a 3 word title
5 different patterned papers
7 stickers
11 metal items
13 buttons

Have fun and enjoy your inner geek this week!

Here is the layout created by our May guest designer, Sharon Bessinger, and some thoughts from her: "This was great fun!! Loved the Inner Geek Inspiration! I qualify on so many levels! Thank you for the challenge, and for the invite to be a guest designer!!"

Amanda - Ok, so don't laugh too hard at my geeky photos! I admit I had a hard time with all of the buttons...sorry if I went overboard with the challenge! But I had fun with the geeky photos! I got to play with the new Echo Park Summer Days collections...so fun!

Janet M - These picture would have never been scrapped if you hadn't come up with this fun challenge. They were on the CPU because they were taken a couple of years ago I had to search my files for them. Thanks for the great challenge showing off my Geek side.
The elements for all this were fun to incorporate into the layout.
Perfect place to use the phone dial stickers also.

My journaling is: Just because I was born when we still had rotary dials on our phones and color TV wasn't even available doesn't mean I can't keep up with all the times.
Moving along with all the changes is difficult at times but I'm pretty good with my computer, a wizz on the cell phones and repairing my hard drive - a piece of cake.
Really I was completely amazed when I did the repair myself from the directions at the store.
I just don't want to have to do it again! Considering Chris and Linda were here at the time , it was perfect to get my picture of this accomplishment. I really think that if I hadn't had a couple of glasses of wine to help the repair would have been more difficult.

Great challenge.

Elizabeth: This was a cool challenge. I didn't really plan on scrapbooking these pictures, because I do not love them, but I saw them in my album and knew they would work perfect for this 'geeky' challenge. The funny thing is that I do love how the layout turned out and am glad I worked with these pictures. The other tricky part was getting all the metal on there, but I had fun with my stapler and they were on in no time :)

Debbi T: This was such a fun and clever challenge, Amanda! I proudly proclaim that I am a geek. I decided to document my passion for words, and I immediately thought of the Noel Mignon Office Party kit. I'd say the trickiest parts of the challenge for me were the 7 stickers (I used a bunch of labels and word stickers) and the 11 metal items--I used a bunch of brads (inside some of the buttons and on the striped strip at the top) and a clip as well as four staples on the title. Oh, and the 13 buttons were tricky for me, too--8 x 8 is a small canvas to work on--but fortuntely, I found these itty-bitty buttons in my stash. The photo shows me playing Bananagrams (I always win!).

Anna-Karin: It took me quite a while, and a bit of help, to think of a topic for my layout, but I think it qualifies as geeky (I am not so used to the term, have only really seen it in movies). The title translates ‘The Book Book’, and I am so happy to have done a layout about my 20 years of recording and reviewing books. I love books and since I was about 8, I kept a record of all the books I read, numbering each one, writing the title, author, number of pages, date I read it, and giving it a grade from 1-5. I also wrote a little summary/review and one or two quotes from the book. The last entry is from 2003, and I now regret having neglected my Book Book, because it is fun to read. Instead of using two photos, I scanned a page from my most recent Book Book. I tore out some blank pages from the actual book, printed the scanned page on the first one and wrote the journaling on the others and assembled them on the page like a book. I read the list wrong and used 7 patterned papers instead of 5. For the stickers, I used number stickers and the metal consists of brads, staples, and a bookplate. Thank you for this great challenge Amanda!

Fiona - Okay I was a little worried about the Geek side of things for this Challenge when I remembered that I had a friend take some photos for a frame that I wanted for my husbands work desk. She took 6 different shots of me pulling faces, well not really pulling faces more like expressions that he see's on my face from time to time, you know what I mean ladies...lol.

So I suppose scrapping has in some ways turned me into a scrapping nerd. Anyway I had printed these photos awhile ago and thought why not use them. I will post full details over on my blog. I also used the Colors from Color Combos Galore Palette.

To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! We can't wait to see what you create!

How Awesome Is Too Awesome? - Challenge #170

2011-05-10T15:33:00.003-04:00

The layouts made for this challenge were all fabulous and it was really hard to pick a winner. The HAITA winner for challenge #170 is Belinda with her wonderful layout ‘The very thought of you makes me smile’. We love the dragonflies, the mixed lettering title, the sweet photo, fun embellishments and design.

Congrats Belinda! You have been added to our How Awesome Is Too Awesome? Hall of Fame! Thank you so much for playing everyone!

Challenge 171: Build a Bike {May 9 - May 22}

2011-05-09T17:25:00.001-04:00

Happy Monday! Debbie Fitz here, with Challenge 171.

First, I'd like to introduce our guest designer for this month, Sharon Bessinger.

Here is a little about Sharon, in her own words: I am called “Mom”-- by three wonderful kids. I have a pretty cool husband too. I am a wee bit obsessed with paper, and have been playing with it for over 12 years. I am a stay at home Mom & silversmith, so when I am not running with scissors, I am lighting a torch.

You can see more of Sharon's work on her blog Sharon Scraps.

Now on to this week's challenge!

May is American Bike Month. Biking is good for you and the environment. Not only is it green, it gets you off the couch, into the lovely spring weather. You burn calories and save money. Many towns and cities around the country are having events to particpate in this celebration. This was the inspiration for my challenge.

Please create a layout that has:
-Your favorite color(s)
-2 circles for wheels
-2 pictures
-3 or more metal embellishments
-ribbon for handlebar streamers
-a flag or pennant
-something shiny for the reflectors
-And an image of a bike somewhere on your page.

The theme of the layout is up to you. Hope you have fun with it!

Guest Designer, Sharon Bessinger: Many thanks for letting me share as a guest designer... What fun I had coming up with the different challenges in this theme. My daughter and her friend, are so much fun to be around, and such colorful little characters, that it seemed natural to do this page about them.

Debbie Fitzgerald: My favorite colors are blues, pinks, and yellow. I used a variety of patterned papers from Fancy Pants and Crate Paper. I created my "flag" with a label sticker from My Minds Eye. My buttons are my circles, and also my metallic embellishment (along with the pink flower). I used some older Dear Lizzy Thickers items for my bike, the ribbon, and the sparkly chipboard photo corners. My layout is about how my daughter just seems to be growing up so fast. Sigh.

Anna-Karin: I love my bike, so I had lots of fun making a bike-themed layout. I don’t really have favorite colours, so instead I used some of the colours I like (kraft, green, yellow and bits of red). For the circles I used really old Scrapwork Hugz and placed a patterned paper circle looking like a wheel in the middle. I used a bike charm, three screw eyelets and a dog tag for the metals, a ribbon looking like a bike road with a mid-line and made a banner. The title letters were made with a faux-metal technique, using UTEE and silver embossing powder and stamping into the hot UTEE for texture. I also silver embossed a line as a road at the bottom of the layout. The background was stamped with two different bicycle stamps. Thank you for this fun challenge Debbie!

Journaling: Bicycles are the best means of transportation: fun and wonderful, gives you a feeling of freedom, exercise, you see much more than from a car, environmentally friendly, you get to be out in nature, cheap, no waiting for busses or trams, no queues, easy to park, quick, but more than anything – nothing beats a bike ride.

Debbi Tehrani: This was such a fun and clever challenge, Debbie! Pink has been my favorite color ever since I was a little girl, so I used almost all pink on my layout. My layout is called "Home Spun--The Sequel" because I made a layout last year called Home Spun when my friend rented a cotton candy machine, and it's now becoming something of a tradition .I used an old Noel Mignon kit to make my page, which had all the elements I needed to meet the details of the challenge, except for the bicycle, and I was wondering how I was going to add that--silly me, leaving it for the last minute--and lo and behold, I found a BasicGrey brad in my stash that had a little bicycle on it. I used a Creative Scrappers sketch as the inspiration for my page design.

Janet M. This was really a fun challenge and gave me a chance to get a page done about my new bike that my husband got me for my birthday last year. Finding my paper with the bicycles on it really determined my color of the layout but lately I have loved using the greens, oranges and yellows so I'm happy I found the base paper.
Everything else on al the elements came together so easily - loved this challenge Debbie- thanks for it, what a perfect thing to get this picture done.

My journaling is: It's the perfect birthday gift, I needed a new bike to have up here. I miss my riding time in Florida even if I'm not out breaking records it's some exercise and such a great time to just relax and enjoy seeing everything around. Bob did a perfect job picking it out so perfect I had to give it a photo session to show off all the fun details on it.

Three Ring Circus Chosen layout

2011-04-26T22:29:00.002-04:00

It was a hard pick this week with all the fun layouts posted but this picture has to make you smile when you see it. The chosen layout belongs to Judy Villareal Papa and not only is the photo adorable but I really like the tickets and the bullet points on this.
Great layout and you are now in our HAITA Hall of Fame (see tab at the top).
I'm sure hoping to see more of her work.

Belated HAITA Winners

2011-04-25T16:19:00.000-04:00

Somehow, our February How Awesome Is Too Awesome winners were never posted. Here are our choices.

Challenge 164 - Hot or Cold: We love Karen Williams's interpretation of this challenge! Such a fun, quirky mix of patterns and elements on a wonderfully designed page:

Challenge 165 - Love Is in the Air: We chose Sharon's adorable layout. She did a fantastic job including all the required elements, and we just love the whimsy of her well-designed page.

Congratulations, ladies! You are now in our HAITA Hall of Fame (see tab at the top). We apologize for the delay.

Challenge 170 - 'Behind the 8 ball' {April 25 - May 8, 2011}

2011-04-25T06:22:00.003-04:00

Despite all the 'negative talk' about scrapbookers trying not to feel like they are 'behind the 8 ball' when it comes to their albums, I think we have all felt that way at one time or another. The challenge this time is to use...

8 patterned papers
8 rubons
8 brads
8 stickers
8 word title

Have fun with the number 8!

Here are the pages from this month's guest designers...

Krissie Sweetman - I started this layout three times!! I eventually settled with a websters mini-pad (6x6) and some matching cardstock. The photo is very old (he is now almost TEN!) but this photo somehow missed out on being scrapped. How is that for 'being behind the 8 ball'- eight and a half years behind!! I wanted to record this as it was great when I would have company on the sink while I washed up at night. Bubbles and mess followed, but so did lots of giggles and happy memories. I used 8 papers, 8 stickers ('Remember'- is it cheating to use alpha stickers???), 8 word title (after comming up with 800 7-word ones!!), 8 rubons (including the year beside the photo) and 8 brads (including the big bracket ones- aren't they fun??) Thanks for another fun challenge girls xoxo

Emily Pearce - More photos by my 6 year old - self portraits this time. i struggled trying to squeeze 8 of everything onto my page!! but i love how it turned out. thanks for the challenge

And now for our design team's layouts...

Janet M - Loved this challenge although when I first read it I was thinking WoW this is going to be interesting to fit on one layout but I didn't have any trouble getting them all in and I'm really happy with my results.

Anna-Karin: This was fun Elizabeth! I was happy to use some really old rub-ons. The 8 word title took some thinking, I usually have rather short titles. By mistake I used 9 stickers, oops. The title translates ‘This must be the world’s cutest little Easter man’ and I used some photos from Easter last year. Thank you for this great challenge!

Elizabeth: I would agree with you all, this challenge got me thinking! Some of my layouts come together easily, but this one took some work. :P Not that it is a bad thing. I think I had the added pressure because I LOVE these pictures of our youngest, so I wanted to do it well. My title got cut off a little in the scan, it reads 'We love your two little teeth, baby Brock'. I have 8 stickers, plus lots of letters stickers, the rubons are the green circles and the inside of one of the flower stickers.

Debbi T: This was a tricky challenge for me--but very definitely fun since I love a challenge! That's my mom, and this page is going into my book of silly family photos. The eight word title was tricky. This quote I wanted to use actually read "humor is staying in touch with your inner clown," but that had nine words, so I just substituted the word is with a colon. I was playing with the May Work in Progress kit, which didn't have any stickers or rub-ons, so I dug into my stash, and I was very happy to use some really old rub-ons--I have a ton of them and always forget to use them. I used rub-on letters and letter stickers, but didn't count those for my eight items. Thanks for the awesome challenge, E!

How Awesome Is Too Awesome? #168

2011-04-14T19:43:00.000-04:00

We are pleased to announce Fi as our HAITA winner for Challenge #168 (What's in a Name?). We adore her gorgeous design and amazing attention to detail. The colors, the beautiful photo, the journaling all enhance the story Fi told on her exquisite page!

Congratulations, Fi! You have been added to our How Awesome Is Too Awesome? Hall of Fame!

Challenge #169 - Three Ring Circus {April 11 - April 24}

2011-04-11T07:03:00.002-04:00

Janet here with this week's challenge: Three Ring Circus. It feels like a Three Ring Circus sometimes and I'm sure that's true with most of you.

This week I want you to use a picture that is humorous with:

3 circles or rings on it

3 bullet points and

3 patterned papers

Anything you use keep it in the number 3 ( photos can be any amount).

Have fun with this one.

We are delighted to have two guest designers this week! First up is Emily Pearce. Here is a little about Emily, in her own words:

Hey everyone My name is Emily, I'm a self confessed scrapaholic, paper addict, friendly family paparazzi & challenge stalker! I love every minute of it, and especially the friends i have made from this awesome craft! I've been hooked on scrapping for about 8 years, ever since i made an album as an 80th b'day pressie for my Nana. I live in country NSW with my Hubby Jason, and My 2 children Jaxon 10, and Jayda 6, who are more often than not, the stars of my layouts! Thanks so much for asking me to be guest designer this month! ...xox you can check out my blog here.

Emily's layout: Its always like a circus at my house, infact the name of my blog is "welcome to the circus!" these are pics taken by my 6 year old daughter! I have used 3 of everything on the page, 3 word title, 3 diff alphas, stickers in lots of 3 as well as the rings, bullet points and pp's!

And our second guest designer is Krissie Sweetman, and a little about her, in her own words: Hi, my name is Krissie. I am happily married to my soul mate and together we have three beautiful babies- two boys and a little princess who definately rules the roost at the ripe old age of 21 months! I am a proud addict of all things paper, and scrap time is 'my' time. It's the perfect hobby with little ones at home, and sometimes they join in with me which- although messy, is all the more fun. I am a 'clean' scrapper I'd say. I like neat lines and pretty and co-ordinating products. I am constantly trying to push myself to try new things- and accept new challenges. That's why I came onto this site, and why I am so excited to be invited to Guest Design!! Here is a link to Krissie's blog.

Krissies's page: The hardest part of this challenge for me was what I thought would be the easiest- the circles. I had SO many ideas, but after I picked my photo and papers I just couldn't tie in the circles! So I used small circle stickers in the corners and behind things... sneaky :) I used three papers, Sassafrass (front and back) and a Kaisercraft teal one that suited. My bullet points are in the (3) tags up the top, and then I added 3 diecuts (one I scrap-gutted to use in two places), three different apha stickers, three Border strips, three hand-written spots, and used doodling three times as well. What a great challenge- thanks for having me!!

And now for the HMITM design team's layouts... Janet M I did have fun with my own challenge , the hardest part is picking a picture because I have so many to choose from. This is a picture of my youngest grandson, the best way to tell which one of the grandson's it is would be to find the one avoiding the camera.

Debbi T: This certainly was a fun challenge. I saw the Graphic 45 Le Cirque paper at my LSS and immediately thought of this challenge. I had no idea what I'd do with it, but with a crazy family like mine, I had plenty of pictures to choose from! In addition to Janet's list of threes, I used 3 pictures, 3 buttons, 3 bits of baker's twine, 3 labels, 3 colors of puffy paint, 3 kraft word stickers, a 3-line phrase sticker, and 3 paper elements (the words and border strip). I have several volumes of scrapbooks that I call "The Book of Silly," and I intend to use this page as a title page for one of the albums.

Anna-Karin: I really like the idea of using three of everything. Apart from the three patterned papers, three circles and three bullet points, I also used three chipboard pieces, three question marks, three felt arrows, three journaling blocks, three cut out owls, and three small and three big circles stamped on the main journaling block. The circles were stamped on the three circles and on the main journaling block, masked and then the text and notebook stamps were stamped on top. The title of the layout translates, ‘The thinker’, and the journaling is about this photo and different developmental milestones and likes at 3 months. Thank you for this awesome challenge Janet!!

Elizabeth: What a great challenge, Janet! I loved the elements in threes. I did end up using 3 photos, 3 papers, plus 3 papers for the circles, 3 stars, 3 different letter stickers, 3 buttons, 3 diecut journaling blocks, 3 brads.

Challenge #168 - What's in a Name? {March 28 - April 10}

2011-03-28T16:57:00.001-04:00

Debbi here with what I think will be a fun, fun, fun challenge!
This week, I want you to scrap about YOURSELF, specifically, journal about your name--do you like it, hate it, have nicknames, etc.? Anything about your name is fair game!

Write down the letters in your name, and use items on your page that begin with each of those letters (could be the generic name of the thing or a brand). For the date, use: 3 - three-word title 28 - items (at least)

We are pleased to have another layout by our March guest designer, Marianne Jensen, who was selected as one of our January How Awesome Is Too Awesome winners. To read a little about Marianne, please visit Challenge 167.

And here is Marianne's layout and some insight into her layout, in her words:

When I read this challenge I wished for a short time that I was named with a short name insted of a name with 8 letters! The letters that really made me think was the two N's. My letters used:

M=Maya Road mist
A=Acrylic paint
R=Rhinestone
I=Indie Girl (Sassafras Lass) Paper
A=Adhedsive chipboard
N=Numbers
N=New stuff
E=Echo Park Paper

I think this challenge was fantastic - and I'm so glad I did another BOM-layout :)

And here are the layouts created by the HMITM design team...

Debbi T: I've scrapped about my name before, so I decided to take a different angle for my page. I challenged myself to use the letters in both my first and last name, and here's what I came up with:

D - doily

E - Echo Park (which was perfect since I was working with the April Work in Progress kit, which featured Echo Park's new Playground collection)

B - brads

B - banner

I - ink

T - ticket

E - embossing powder

H - heart sticker

R - rhinestones

A - anchor and arrows (I couldn't decide, so I used both)

N - numbers

I - insects (I was scratching my head trying to think of a second thing for the i, and it came to me that I could use insects, for this thing that bugs me--get it?)

Janet M- This is a great challenge and I enjoyed doing it so much , the only thing I had trouble with is finding any manufacture or embellishment that begins with an N so I went with the Nature look. J- Joliee's and Jenni Bowlin studio- butterflies. A- American crafts Thickers N- Nature E- EK success border punch and embellishments T- Tags and some Tim Holtz ink. Thanks for the fun challenge - it was great. I got my 28 things plus a few more on, I have a lot of rub-ons scattered in the layout.

Journaling is: Janet- like it, love it, hate it? It's a name that I didn't like when I was younger I always thought my middle name would have been better spelled a different way though. I've grown to like it, for one thing nobody usually mispronounces it, they usually can spell it right and not that many people have it. While Janet may be the legal name my favorite names are mom, grandma and granjan. Well worn, well used and always sounds good to my ears.Nicknames I've had though the years, some have lasted longer than others. Probably the most unusual one is the one my father gave me when I was little and he called me wigeon, which is a type of duck. I have no idea where, why or for what reason he gave me that nickname but I did love it when he called me that, maybe it was because I used to follow him around all the time when I was little like a duck does to a mother duck. I'm even comfortable enough to have people call me Jan now. I figure as long as your not calling me late to dinner you can call me anything.

Elizabeth: I totally loved this challenge! At first, I was a bit apprehensive, but once I came up with all the elements, putting the layout together was fun. It was liberating to have the elements spread out on my desk and find a way to put it all together. These were my items... E - Echo park journaling spot (framing my photo) L - label sticker from Jenni Bowlin I - ink around the journaling tag Z - zig zag rubon A - alpha stickers from Basic Grey B - Bo Bunny paper E - eyelets T - thread in the butterfly trail H - heart cardstock Thanks Debbi for the unique challenge!

Anna-Karin: This was so much fun Debbi! I scrapped about various nicknames I have and wrote journaling about them underneath every flap. I also used things related to the names on top of the flaps. My newest nickname is ‘Anka’, which means ‘duck’. I was practicing words with my little nephew on the way back from having fed some ducks, and he thought that ‘Anka’ was a very good abbreviation of my name. He uses it all the time now. Pretty funny. For the letters of my name, I used the following items: Alphabet stamps, Nature Elements, Numbers, Animals, Key, Arrow, Ruler, Ink and Newsprint. Sorry about the crocked photo of the layout.

Amanda - This challenge was fun and...challenging! haha I had THREE As in my name so that got tough, and like Janet, I could not think of any N products. So here's what I used: A - Alphabets, M - Melody Ross Soul Food papers, A - Apple Glimmer Mist, N - Numbers (on sticker), D - Diamond Stickles and A - Adhesive. And I have way more then 28 items (if you count them all individually). So fun...thanks, Debbi!

We hope you'll join us for this fun challenge! To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below. We can't wait to see what you create!

HAITA for #167 green challenge

2011-03-28T08:50:00.005-04:00

Thank you to all our participants last challenge! I loved seeing your layouts, lots of lovely green! This week's winner of HAITA 'How Awesome is Too Awesome' is Emily Pearce! Congrats Emily! Here is Emily's awesome page:

Challenge #166 How Awesome is Too Awesome?

2011-03-16T05:00:00.000-04:00

Thanks for all who played along with us on Challenge #166! We loved ALL of the entries! The layout that was chosen for the HAITA gallery is from Krissie:

We LOVE all of Krissie's flowers and her layering effect! Thanks for playing along and we hope to see more great layouts from you for our future challenges. :)

HMITM #167 All things lovely and GREEN... {March 14 - March 27}

2011-03-14T05:00:00.002-04:00

Having St. Patrick's Day during my scheduled post period, I couldn't help but focus on my favourite colour GREEN! For the next two weeks you are challenged to use...

. at least 10 green things on your layout
. 3 sheer embellishments
. 5 label stickers or journaling spots
. 3 different stamps

I can't wait to see what you create!

We are excited to bring you our first Guest Designer of 2011, Marianne Jensen.

Here's a bit about Marianne, in her own words:

Hi - I'm Marianne from Denmark, Europe. I'm 30 years old and live in a small village with my husbond-to-be, his son and my little daughter. I work as a teacher - and when I come home from work, I like to spend my time playing with the kids and be outside in my garden.

I try to scrapbook every day and now I have been scrapping for about 10 years. I started scrapping after a vacation with my brother in June 2000, where we took a lot of pictures - and I didn't wanted to just put all of them in an album with out telling the storys behind them.

And here is the page Marianne created for this challenge:

Marianne: When I first read this challenge I wasen't sure that I would be able to find 10 green things in my scrap-stash. But I started out with the picture of our two children - and the little deer-stamp. I'm not very good at using stamps - and it was a challenge to find two more stamps.

For all the green things I used some mist and some paillettes like a banner.

I think this was a great challenge that really made me think.

Janet M : Loved this challenge and what a fun one to do. Mine is a little different as I went with a summer theme with my dd and her dog Stella. I did miss the three different stamp - I used the same one three times but I did use different colors of ink. My 10 green things were more than easy and I got carried away with them. My sheer things are the wave, bubbles and the little bird.

Debbi T: A fun challenge indeed, E! Gave me a chance to dust off some oldies from my stash and gave me the excuse to scrap this fun picture of Farzad in Las Vegas with the guy with the garish green face. Once I got started, I think I went over the number of green things and exceeded the three stamps, but that's what HMITM is all about, right? I was thrilled to use up some of these ancient Maya Road Sheers.

Anna-Karin: This was lots of fun! I love green (and my stamps) and scrapped some photos from two walks in my favourite forest. I used more than 10 green things (all the stamped images and the jewels), 3 clear buttons which were coloured with alcohol ink, 5 labels cut using Spellbinders dies, and went totally overboard with the stamps and ended up using more than 20, oops. I stamped trees, grass and animals using green and brown ink on the kraft cardstock. Thank you for this great challenge Elizabeth!

Elizabeth: I LOVE scrapping with the colour green, so that was a breeze for me. Stamps, on the other hand, are not so easy breezy beautiful for me. :) but I did manage to put 3 stamps on the layout. I used some really old transparencies to frame a few of the pictures in my collage.

To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through our cool Mr. Linky below! Or share your layout on http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/mb.asp?cmd=display&thread_id=3076080&org_post_to_fb=&post_to_fb== the 2Peas thread. We can't wait to see what you create!

love, Elizabeth

Challenge #166 - Case of the Mondays (Feb 28 - Mar 13)

2011-02-28T05:00:00.001-05:00

"Let me ask you something. When you come to work on Monday and you're not feeling real well, does anyone ever say to you, 'Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays?'"

That's a quote from a favorite movie of mine. If you've seen the movie Office Space, then you know what I'm talking about. In any case, I'm sure you hate Mondays as much as I do. I always feel so blah about the whole day. So let's turn it around and make this Monday FUN!

Let's make a layout featuring:
-BRIGHT cheerful colors!
-a photo that makes you happy
-at least 5 lovely flowers
-something sparkly
-a fun/happy phrase, saying, or quote that you love

Amanda - I decided to go with a favorite silly photo of my mom, sister and friend showing off their hilarious fake teeth. I decided the pair the funny photo with beautiful flowers that I hand made. I used the Sassafras Paper Crush collection.

Janet M - This was sure a fun layout to put together and such a hard one though to decide on what picture to use. I'm doing an ABC book for a couple of my grandson's and I had this picture set aside for the letter H for Jonathon's book so it was a perfect choice for a happy picture.
I wasn't quite sure on the lovely flowers in the list but I found some fun ones that fit good with the picture and the boy layout. Great challenge.

Anna-Karin: Thank you for this fun and happy challenge Amanda!! I used a quote from an old Swedish children’s song (literary translating: ‘The mouth should laugh and be happy. The mouth should sing tra la la’). I also used some new stamps that I thought fit well with the theme, as well as a definition of ‘sparkle’ and one of my favourite stamps ‘Be happy every day’. Lots of bright colours and the background patterned paper is sparkly and so are some of the letters and the jewels. Five bright felt flowers. The punched 'birds on a wire' stick out on top of the layout, there is no white behind them (that is just the base of my scanner).

Debbi T: Such a fun, happy challenge, Amanda! I love this picture my sister snapped of Farzad and me last Thanksgiving--such a happy picture! I was in the midst of working on my pages for Work in Progress when it dawned on me that this month's kit would be perfect for this challenge with the bright, happy colors in the new Echo Park For the Record papers. When I read Amanda's challenge, I knew I'd want to use a Brian Andreas quote because I just adore all of his work, so I chose my picture and searched for the perfect quote, and he didn't disappoint.

Elizabeth: I am not usually one to use 'bright' colours, but I went for it. I used the colours of Becky's logo as my colour scheme for the layout. The quote is on the sticker in the flower. Fun challenge!

Challenge #165 Love is in the Air

2011-02-14T10:00:00.002-05:00

Debbie here, with my first challenge of 2011.
Today is February 14th, which is Valentine's Day here in the U.S. and a handful of other countries. Since it is a holiday that celebrates romance, I thought it would be fun to build a layout using symbols of love.

So... your challenge is to create a layout about someone (or something) you love.

Use 2 photos and 14 hearts.

The twists?

-The colors of the layouts should be predominantly red and brown. (think about those boxes of chocolate!)

-Use an arrow somewhere on your page (think Cupid!)

-Incorporate a flower or two on your page (like those expensive rose bouquets)

- Use ribbon or frills (Did you know that ribbons were given to knights by their beloveds before they went off to battle?)

Above all, have fun with it!

Debbie F:

I decided to focus on my family for the subject of my layout. I used lots of inks, Glimmer Mists and vintage looking goodies. The patterned paper has been in my stash for a while, as had the canvas word sticker. The heart is a Heidi Swapp Invisible that I swiped with Ranger Color Wash and distress inks.

Janet M - Great challenge Debbie and it was the perfect one to have for today. It did a double purpose because now I have something to add to my gift for my husband today.
It might not be that major an accomplishment to get time with your husband but when we got married together we had 6 children and added two more through the years so after 38 years of being married I'm really enjoying our time together.

Journaling is : After a house full of children, grandchildren, pets and other assorted people it's just the two of us - most of the time. We go to Disney to explore, the cherry blossom's in DC, travel, go to movies and do more things we want to do. I have to say it's nice.

Debbi T: This was a fun challenge, Debbie! The most challenging part for me was the 14 hearts, but I finally figured out how to incorporate all of them into my design. And when I first read that we had to use red and brown as our main colors, I didn't think I'd like it, but I really love the way the colors look with the black and white photos. I added private journaling on the back of my layout. Farzad and I have been together for 30 Valentine's Days. We'll be celebrating our 30th anniversary this July!

Elizabeth: Love an excuse to do a layout about my hubby of 14 years. This My Mind's Eye paper was so pretty, I almost did not want to cut it up. I used some chipboard hearts and heart rubons and a variety of stickers. Thanks for the challenge Debbie!

How Awesome Is Too Awesome? - Challenge #163

2011-02-02T15:11:00.004-05:00

Thank you so much for playing in the challenge everyone! Gorgeous layouts! Kylie's stunning layout is chosen for our HAITA gallery. I love the fabulous clouds with the text, the big title letters, the butterflies and the sweet photo.

#164 Jan. 31- Hot or Cold

2011-01-31T17:04:00.002-05:00

Janet here starting off my first challenge of 2011.

Hot or Cold take your pick.

It's winter here but I know it's not the same season for everyone. It's can also be a really long season if your in the snow and cold.

For this challenge I want you to create a layout that showcases your favorite drink--hot or cold is fine.

Then a countdown about it-

5 -embellishments

4- patterned papers

3- word title
2- circles ( can be buttons or brads)
1- photo

Have fun and I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.

Janet- We have a tradition along with all the Christmas baking of every year coming up with something fun to do for a hot chocolate recipe. A couple of years ago this was our choice and it was a big hit. I included the second page of the layout - it's going in my recipe book.

Anna-Karin: Such a fun idea for a challenge and I am happy to have scrapped the story about how I started to drink coffee. I didn’t have a coffee related photo developed so instead I used a photo from the month before I started to drink coffee, where I still have a cup of tea next to me. The chipboard letters and brackets were painted brown and then embossed with distress embossing powder, which makes them look almost like coffee powder. I used patterned papers and text stamps relating to the reason for why I started to drink coffee in 2007. I also used a piece of a coffee sleeve, on top of the tag. Thank you for this great challenge Janet!!

Journaling summary: I never particularly liked hot drinks. I could drink a hot chocolate now and then, but not tea or coffee. I started drinking tea while studying, but had the rule of ‘no tea after three’, since I cannot sleep if I drink caffeine too late. One day in early 2007, I was standing in the kitchen, planning to make myself a cup of tea and then continue editing the thesis, when I looked at the coffee and knew that if I made myself coffee I would be less tired. I was thinking that if I drink coffee now, I am going to be stuck, which was indeed the case. Since that day, I have drank coffee. Although I drink much less now, I want that cup of coffee in the morning. With milk, but no sugar (I really don’t like the taste of sugar in coffee), but in fact I still don’t think it tastes particularly good. I was so sure that I would never be a coffee drinker, as a child I could absolutely not understand why anyone would drink the vile stuff voluntarily.

Debbi T - This was a really fun challenge because I love scrapping about my tea obsession! I just recently made a layout documenting my very favorite tea, so I thought I'd put a little twist on this challenge and scrap about my tea cupboard. I had just received my February Work in Progress kit, and the October Afternoon Modern Homemaker was the perfect thing to use for my page!

I always have a hard time with the challenges that limit the number of things to include, so I counted my five embellishments as: 1) the chipboard lady, 2) the tags, 3)the cluster at the bottom, 4) the vintage tea ad, 5) the hidden journaling card, which reads:

Every afternoon, I come home and open my tea cupboard and decide which tea I'm going to enjoy that night. Right now, I have exactly 64 different teas. Sometimes I'll drink one flavor all evening, cup after cup; other days, if I'm in the mood for variety, I'll select a bunch of different ones. Opening my tea cabinet every afternoon makes me happy. {Journaled January 27, 2011}

Amanda - Ok, so I hate coffee and most hot beverages. I used to adore Dr. Pepper but I gave up all sodas. Iced tea is great. But what's really my favorite...COCKTAILS! (haha I swear, I'm really not a lush!) I love Margaritas, and Long Island Iced Teas, and Pomegrante Martinis...you name it. So if it's with lots of ice and a straw, then it's for me!
Elizabeth: Love to do a challenge about my love for coffee. I am known for my particular coffee desires, so I thought 'a coffee Snob' layout would be in order :P. I combined this challenge with the Color Combos Galore to help pick out a colour palette. I have a few more than 5 embellishments, but I think that is okay :).
To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! We can't wait to see what you create!

Challenge #163 - One of a kind (Jan. 17 - Jan. 30)

2011-01-29T13:02:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year from me!! I hope 2011 will be a year filled with happiness and lots of scrapbooking for everyone.

There are many 1’s in today’s date, so I thought I would use that as a theme for the challenge, and also since this is the first month of the year.

My challenge is to create a layout using:

1 color (you can use a neutral color in addition to the one color if you want to)
1 die cut shape
1 bird, butterfly or wild animal accent
1 sheet of patterned paper (or less)
0 letter stickers
7 other items

I hope you think it is a fun challenge! Looking forward to seeing what everyone creates!

Anna-Karin: I used shades of yellow with just a few touches of white. The layout is done on canvas which was painted and then dipped in water to make the paint look like watercolour. The die cut received the same treatment. Then I stamped and stitched on top of the canvas. I also used a chipboard bird painted with crackle paint and sponged with a bit of pearl paint for shine. I used a small piece of yellow patterned paper and white embossed tickets, sentiments and a journaling block on top of it. The title letters were stamped and then I stitched along the outline.

Debbi T: Well, you sure know how to challenge a girl, Anna-Karin! I'm a color junkie, and this was HARD for me, LOL! Thankfully, you let us add some neutrals! I also found it hard limiting myself to the "7 other things," so I used 7 types of things, thus I have more than 7 things. Is that cheating? (Sorry for the awful photo of my layout--I had to take it indoors.)

Debbie F: Thanks Anna-Karin for a great challenge. I chose pink for my color, and decided to use cream/tan for my accent color. My die cut is a K & Co flower, and I used a sheet of Crate Paper for my patterned paper. The beige and white sheet behind my picture is the packaging from the lace frames. Not using letter stickers was tough. I dug out these OLD (we're talking ancient) Chatterbox stencils, which I backed with pink cardstock. For my other things... chipboard, flowers, brads, a journal spot, inks & Glimmer Mist, stickers, cardstock and borders. (Hmm, that's more than 7, isn't it?)

Elizabeth: Fun challenge! loved using monochromatic colour scheme and challenging myself to not use letter stickers! tough one there! I pulled out a rubon for the title and used kraft cardstock as my accent colour. Simple layout...

Janet- This was a challenge to create with only one color but once I got satrted it was fun to come up with - I cut pieces of cardstock and my pp into pieces and then distressed the edges and sewed some of the edges down. My birds are fabric pieces and the little fox is chipboard.

We hope you can play along and look forward to seeing what you create! Please post a link to your layout in the HMITM thread at Two Peas, so that we can all see what you create. Remember that we will pick a player at the end of each month to join us as guest designer for the following month. Have fun!!

How Awesome Is Too Awesome? - Challenge 162

2011-01-27T08:50:00.001-05:00

I chose Marianne's layout for our HAITA Gallery. I love that sweet photo and all the pretty bits she included on her page. The touches of pink with the cool snowy hues add a perfect touch of warmth to this sweet page!

Challenge #162 - Out With the Old, In With the New {January 3 - January 16}

2011-01-03T06:55:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year! We're back with the first challenge of 2011! We have a few changes for the coming year. First, we are going to be posting our challenges every other Monday. The weeks just fly by, and this will give our players a chance to have more time to participate in the challenges. Second, we will select a player each month to join us as a guest designer for the following month. This should be a fun addition to our challenge!

Now on to this week's challenge: Let's dig into our new stash and also use some of our old--or get rid of it.

Use on your layout:

products from your newest batch of stuff

products that are your oldest, like from when you started scrapping--come on, you know you still have some of that old stuff hanging around-- and if you don't use it for this challenge, get rid of it!

and for the date 1/3/2011

one-word title

3 patterned papers

20 round things (buttons, brads, sequins, etc.)

11 additional embellishments

Debbi T: I had so much fun incorporating old stuff with my new goodies that I just bought on Tuesday when I went on a "field trip" with my sister to a scrapbook store a couple of hours away. New stuff I used: The red polka dot MME paper, the Pink Paislee clear card, those ornaments, the Santa in the ballon, the sparkly silver letters, Mister Huey spray ink, and the journaling spots. Old stuff: I used FIBER and EYELETS! I thought for sure those would be doomed to languish in my stash forever. I also rescued some old patterned paper from way back when, Making Memories definition stickers from many, many years ago, and the vintage holiday images.

Anna-Karin: Happy New Year!! Such a great idea for the first challenge of the year. I used some my newest patterned paper (Basic Grey and Webster's Pages) and a new glitter ribbon and a whole bunch of old stuff. When I started scapping I got a ton of eyelets. I have no idea why I thought I needed so many eyelets. I used eyelets for the 20 round things and squashed them a bit to give them a different look. The crazy foam frogs are very old, I had totally forgotten about them. I also used some really old silver outline stickers, that I got when I started to make cards (which was quite some time before I started to scrap). The title is wordplay and a bit hard to translate, it means both ‘grassy’ and ‘terrible’. I used flower soft on the chipboard elements to imitate grass. Thank you for this fun challenge Debbi!

Journaling: You are not that used to grass yet and the grass where we took these photos was particularly sharp. You started to crawl away happily to discover exciting things, but soon realised that the grass was scary. You crawled like a cat and tried to touch the grass as little as possible. And then you got really sad. After a while it went better, but you didn’t want to crawl and you touch the grass suspiciously on many of the photos. The second time we went to the grass to take photos it went better and you crawled around a lot.

Elizabeth: This was fun, fun, fun! I have had these pictures sitting around all year and I finally tackled them! I had so many little pictures, that I decided to make them into circles and include as many as I could. I added extra stickers from Basic Grey to make 20 circles. I also used really old letter stickers and new journaling spots. The purple paper is very old Chatterbox and some 'older' Basic Grey green paper. Thanks for the great challenge Debbi!

We hope you will play along. Please post a link to your layout on the HMITM thread at the Two Peas Pub so we can see what you create!

#161 December 27 - Let's wrap it up

2010-12-27T16:06:00.001-05:00

It's our last HMITM challenge for the year.

Now I know that we don't all have all of our pictures from 2010 scrapped but we can pick some special ones.

Let's wrap it up with a special challenge.

Pick one of your favorite pictures or multiple ones from anytime in 2010 -

Tell a little bit about it and from your stash pull out some of those favorite things we have been saving for something special and use them.

Let's see the year of 2010 used on the layout and 12 items one for each month that can include pp also.

Janet M - This was really hard to choose a favorite picture of the year and with a large family it makes it impossible to pick one that has some of them in it and not others. I went for a neutral picture and it actually is I think my favorite photograph that I took this year. I was so happy when we had all these bird nests built into the reeds around our pond at the lodge. My camera was going into overload with the amount of them I took.

My journaling is: Impossible to pick a favorite picture of the year but this one is right at the top. I love the look on the faces of the birds and pass up the fact that almost all of my pictures involve the family so I can record the special events, the happy days and the memories. Just for a few hours though I can pretend that I'm a professional photographer.

Anna-Karin: Such a great idea for the last challenge of the year! I had fun going through my stash looking for favourite items and I scrapped one of my absolute favourite photos from the year. I used a bunch of favourite items: stamps, a patterned paper that I’ve been saving for something special, dictionary and ledger paper, a happy bingo card and a gold bird that I’ve been saving, among other things. Thank you for this fun challenge Janet!!

Journaling: This was the very first time that Anton sat on his own without support and it was the very first photo that I took of him sitting up. I love how it turned out. He looks so happy and proud and is so cute in the clothing that we bought for him to wear after his Christening. He has used the grandfather’s hat a lot and it has been a great hit. Such a freedom to be able to sit on your own and see the world from a different perspective. He is sitting on top of my baby duvet.

Elizabeth: A little late than never... here is my layout. I used a condensed version of the journaling from our Christmas card this year. The circle title was one option for the Christmas card title, but we went with a different design so I decided to use it on a layout instead ;).

Thanks to all of you that have joined us this year and we have a lot of fun challenges coming up in the new year.

Challenge # 160 - "Quote It"

2010-12-20T01:13:00.001-05:00

Kathleen here! Quotation marks are something that always seems to be left on my old Thicker sheets, soooo for this challenge you need to...

- use up some of your quotation marks by making a quote into a title (or part of one),
- use at least 4 journal spots/cards (doesn't have to be the whole thing ) AND
- I want to see you "quote" a scrapper you admire by lifting a page of theirs (seek permission of course!!)

Here's mine...I've lifted a page by Stacey Michaud...

Janet M : I choose to scraplift my good friend Jules and the cute layout she did of her new twin grandson's - I had taken a similar picture at Christmas a couple of years ago. These are my three youngest grandson's . Here's is the layout. Jules did. http://http//www.acherryontop.com/gallery_viewer/,37387936,cid,,2,,137282

Here's mine:

Debbi T: I guess I'm the cheater in the crowd. I couldn't decide on who to scraplift--I went back and forth and back and forth and was taking too long and decided I wouldn't have time to get their permission, since I was working on this the day before it was due, so I decided to go with a sketch from one of my favorite sketch sites, Pencil Lines (Sketch 217), which is sort of like scraplifting, right? I did manage to meet the other criteria, though! Thanks for the fun challenge, Kat!

Anna-Karin: This was so much fun Kat! I think it is the first time that I touch my Thickers quotation marks. I used a quote that I really like, ‘Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience’. The journaling spots were stamped and I didn’t lift another layout as such, but used a bunch of the techniques Tim Holtz showed in his 12 tags of Christmas. For the tree panel, I first stamped the embossing folder and then embossed the trees, transferring the stamped image to the paper looking like it is behind the trees. A piece of acetate was dry embossed and placed on top of the title letters, to give the impression of ice. The blue bird was made by adding pieces of tissue tape to grungepaper, after which it was die cut and coloured with alcohol inks. I stamped a frame around the page, first swirls and snowflakes with blue ink and then many snowflakes which were embossed with white glittery powder.

Challenge # 159: Roll the dice...

2010-12-13T11:00:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone, it's Debbie F, bringing you this week's challenge.

Go to this site: http://www.random.org/dice/?num=3

and virtually "roll" 3 dice.

* The value of the first die is the number of pictures you are to use.

* The value of the second die is the number of patterned papers you'll use.

* Now add all three dice together. This is how many embellishments you'll use on your layout.

* A final twist... use black and white somewhere on your page.

As I was looking for photos to work with these papers, I came across my last pictures of Mike's grandmother, who was a dear lady who always made me smile whenever I saw or spoke to her.She passed away this year, and I truly miss her. The pictures are from her 90th surprise birthday.

So I rolled 2-5-3. Two pictures, five patterned papers and a total of 10 embellishments. My embellishments were the banner, the wooden chip, the doilie, the resin rose, title Thickers, one element cut out, 3 tiny type stickers, and one circle sticker. I used plenty of black accents and cream as my shade of white. Love how it turned out! I hope you have fun with this challenge.

Elizabeth: This was so fun! I have never heard of this site before, but it was cool! My numbers were 2, 4, 1. I loved the addition of black/white to the challenge.

Janet M: What a fun and creative challenge this one was. My numbers were 4 -5 -1 .I didn't see the addition of black and white on the page post though so mine just has to count as the journaling strips.Amanda: How fun, Debbie! I rolled 1-3-4. I loved working with the new BG Marjolaine line! SO PRETTY!Debbi T: Such a fun and clever challenge, Debbie! I was surprised when I rolled a 2-2-2. This was very challenging limiting myself to two patterned papers and only 6 embellishments, but I was very thankful that I didn't roll a 6 for the picture part! I realized I'm running out of space in my paper cart that holds my kit papers, so I decided to dig into an old Studio Calico kit from a couple of years ago and managed to use up a bit of that--hence the green cardstock, which I'm not sure goes with the rest of the layout, but I was very happy to finally open up the package rub-ons that came in that kit! This is for my book of all the little reasons I love my husband.

Georgia: I really loved this challenge, i rolled 3-4-6 so 3 photos, 4 patterned papers and 13 total embellishments. I just picked up the new campfire range by October Afternoon so I was dying to use it and these photos were perfect... and i have to confess I ended up with more than 13 embellishments, I was on track and then I had a slight accident with a glimmer mist bottle and had to try and salvage it lol...

How Awesome is Too Awesome? {Our Weekly Wow for Challenge #157}

2010-12-08T14:39:00.004-05:00

Many fun submissions for challenge #157! Thank you so much for playing everyone! This week's Weekly Wow is Debi with this gorgeous Christmas layout called 'Christmas Joy'

We love the big Christmas tree photo, the dangling hearts and the sweet photo tags.

Congrats Debi! Your layout will go into our HAITA Hall of Fame.

Challenge #158 - It's About Time {December 6 - December 12}

2010-12-06T06:00:00.069-05:00

Happy Monday! Debbi here, in charge of this week's challenge.

Before I reveal the challenge, I have an exciting announcement for the new year! At the end of each month, our How Awesome Is Too Awesome winner of the month will be invited to be our Guest Designer for the following month!

Now, on to this week's challenge! Here's what I came up with--I used the concept of time to create my challenge. Use the following elements on your layout:

60 minutes/seconds - total number of elements on your page (at least.)
24 hours - 24 words in your journaling
365 days - 3 word title; 6 stickers; 5 rub-ons
12 numbers on a clock - 12 brads, buttons, and/or eyelets
7 days a week - 7 patterned papers
plus: include a clock/watch accent (can be handmade if you don't have this in your stash)

And I'll even do a little math for you--If you add up the journaling as one element, plus the clock, plus the other required elements, that's already 32--now just add 28 more things--you can include your letter stickers, photos, and cardstock in the count. See! That's not so hard!

Debbi T:

I think I have more than 60 elements here. I lost count! I guess this was a real, true challenge--especially trying to fit it all onto an 8 x 8 page! I had the hardest time with the patterned paper. I had six different Webster's Pages papers on here, and I just couldn't figure out how to fit another into the design, but I finally cut out that one little cream and brown flower from a paper and tucked it in there. I actually managed to fit 3 clocks on my page, and for the stickers, I have more than the six required, but I counted the letter stickers as one.

Janet M : That's quite a challenge but it was an awesome one to work on- I loved fitting it all in. You can count everything if you want to but I got it all in there, my rub-ons are actually on the clock.

I counted the pictures as some of the elements also- these are ones of my youngest daughter with my granddaughter. I love the relationship the aunt and niece have together.

Elizabeth: Okay Debbi, crazy challenge here :P but I made it work! Here is my cutie patootie at 5 months age. I added extra butterfly rubons to make it 60 elements.

Anna-Karin: Such a fun challenge Debbi! It sounded hard at first, but it all came together easily. I love the time theme, so I also used it as the theme of my layout. The photos are from a visit to an old gold mining village. I used several clock patterned papers and made two clock accents with chipboard, paint and a stamp. The clocks and the gold painted letters were textured with a hammer to create the impression of gold. I also used pieces of mica (fool’s gold) and gold mica flakes. I wanted to imitate the corrugated metal of the houses and dry embossed grungepaper with a ledger folder to create lines. It was painted rust, sanded and inked with blue and orange distress ink. I also used corrugated letter stickers for the title. I even managed to write a 24 words journaling piece (although I cheated a bit and added a hidden tag with two more photos and some journaling). Thank you so much for this fun challenge Debbi!

Please post a link to your layout in the HMITM thread at the 2Peas Pub. We can't wait to see what you make!

Challenge #157 - Counting down to Christmas

2010-11-29T07:15:00.002-05:00

Yesterday (28 November), was the first of Advent, which to me is the beginning of the Christmas season. In Sweden, many families have an Advent candle holder with four candles, symbolising the four Advent Sundays before Christmas. On each of the Sundays an additional candle is lit until all four are burning. This tradition always created a great sense of anticipation for us when we were kids.

I would like you to do a layout with a Christmas or winter theme, and using:

1 heart
4 tags
12 buttons (for December being the 12th month of the year)

Have fun! I am looking forward to seeing what you create!

Anna-Karin: I love this time of the year with preparations for Christmas, candles, decorations and the whole feeling and spirit around Christmas. I was planning to have done a layout about our Advent tradition, but didn’t have any good photos that were developed regarding that theme, so instead I used a childhood photo. I used four shipping tags which were coloured with an acrylic block technique that Jennifer McGuire taught in Holiday Thinking Inking. The tags were stamped with black, brown and green ink, as well as gold embossed a bit. The chipboard heart was embossed with several layers of UTEE, with a layer of gold embossing powder on the top.

Journaling: This Santa has been around for a long time. I am not sure if he was new here on my first Christmas or if he is even older. He has posed on many Christmas photos and has stood faithfully under the Christmas tree together with the Christmas goat for many years. Now he looks quite worn and has lost his shirt. The beard is no longer as white and fluffy, but he is still my favourite Santa.

Janet M- Fun challenge and I have so many pictures that work for this but I went back and used one from my childhood, when we really had some rough winters. I enjoyed them more then than I do now.

Thanks for the great challenge.

Elizabeth:
I had fun going through some older Christmas pictures for this one. I used some tags from one of the My Mind's Eye collections and my buttons are actually brads shaped like buttons that I used on the note paper. Thanks for the fun challenge Anna-Karin!

Debbi T: What a fun challenge, Anna-Karin, and so neat to learn about a new tradition! I used a Christmas picture from my childhood, and it was fun figuring out what to do with the buttons and tags and heart. I promise I have 12 buttons (topped with pearls)--one's peeking behind the tags. I always have a hard time using tags on my layouts, for some reason. I was trying to figure out how to use four larger tags, and it just wasn't working, and then I thought of using three tiny tags to document our ages. I actually cheated and added an extra heart on my page to add some color to the heart-shaped brad, which I embossed with silver powder.

Have fun and thanks for playing! Remember that at the end of the week one participant will be featured as our "How Awesome is Too Awesome - Weekly Wow" and will be in the running to win a RAK at the end of the month! Post a link to your layout in the thread at Two Peas.

Challenge #156- November 22nd Let's Be Thankful

2010-11-22T08:00:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone! Francine back at ya with a challenge this week!

We don't celebrate Thanksgiving over here but I love the idea of being thankful. I've also always liked the idea of doing a gratitude journal or list, so this week I challenge you to do a layout that lists 5 things you are grateful for today.

On your layout include:
5 patterned papers
5 stamped images
5 pieces of ephemera/vintage items

Francine
I almost gave up on my own challenge when it came to the five stamped images and the vintage ephemera! The patterned paper part was easy since I have been into garlands and buntings lately. And then I decided to group the other elements into a collage and voila!

My journaling talks about some big things I am very thankful for right now: like watching Kieran grow every day and doing what I love for a living.

Janet M :

Great challenge and I did have to leave off one thing because my stamps are either packed or not here as a friend has them, so I just did my best. I did some rub-ons in place of them under my flower.

5 patterned papers was easy, the empemera/vinatge items were a fun thing to use.

I did an approach about the things I was thankful for from growing up.

Journaling is: When I stop and think about the things that I'm thankful for of course I have the ones that everyone has but then I think back about the things that got me where I am today.
I'm thankful for having parents that cared and guided me.
I was surrounded with good relatives and friends that gave me balance and a sense of the things important in life.
That I was raised with a belief in God.
I had fun childhood mixed with time to play and time to work.
My community was a caring and good place to grow up in.
You can't go forward into the future without balance and direction in life and I'm so thankful that I had them.

Thanks for the great challenge.

Debbi T: I'm in the midst of working on my projects for Work in Progress, and this month's kit, which features the new Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934 collection, was perfect for this challenge, so that's what I used. I was watching Glenn Beck last night, and he was talking about Thanksgiving and how it's the people that we need to be most thankful for, so that's the angle I took with my page.

Anna-Karin: I loved doing this layout. I’ve wanted to do something on the topic of gratitude lately and my layout is about treasuring each day and being grateful, because it can all change in an instant. The layout is done on a piece of canvas and the hearts were die cut from canvas. The canvas and the hearts were soaked in water and then painted with watered down acrylic paint. I sprayed the hearts with a mix of Perfect Pearls and water which gave them a nice shine. Thank you for this great challenge Francine!

Challenge #155 - November 15, Route 66

2010-11-15T19:31:00.000-05:00

We just bought a new travel trailer...we plan on doing lots of traveling.

Create a layout about a vacation or trip you have taken.
Use at least 6 pattern papers.
Use at least 6 circles.

Anna-Karin: This was an awesome challenge! I love circles. I used 8 patterned papers and 6 circles on my layout and also used the circle theme in the title and the topic (circle of life). I needed some leaves for the tree, to symbolise spring and new life, but didn’t have any which were small enough, so I cut off the petals of a green flower to use as leaves. Thank you for this fun challenge Michelle!

Journaling: A view over the Amphitheatre on the path to the Thukela Gorge. The Amphitheatre is 5 km across and 1 km high. On this hike, I almost made it through the tunnel to see the Thukela drop down the mountain, but the weather was starting to look bad so we had to turn around. Some day we might make it to the top, but for now we are happy to see the gorgeous view from below. This time we visited at the end of winter and it was dry. Fires are a part of the circle of life in the Drakensberg and we could see many traces of them.

Debbi T: I made my first-ever digital layout yesterday, and I decided to make one for this challenge. We haven't been able to travel ever since my husband opened his business two years ago, so I decided to document that.

Janet M: 6 circles and travel paper was a great challenge this time. I was actually the one that stayed home and everyone came to my house to vacation. It was a cousin reunion in Florida and we had a wonderful 5 days together, this picture was taken with two many camera going and everyone saying look at me now.

Elizabeth: Love using circles and patterned paper, so this was nice and easy ;) (sorry for the wonky scan)

Weekly Wow #153

2010-11-10T12:08:00.004-05:00

Thanks for all that played along for last week's challenge. We loved all of the entries! The winner for Challenge #153 is Ging, from Queensland, Australia! I love all the little details on your page.

Your entry will go into our voting for the {How Awesome Is Too Awesome} drawing for the $15 gift certificate at Two Peas at the end of the month. Congrats!

Remember This... HMITM 154 (November 8-15)

2010-11-08T18:16:00.002-05:00

Here in Canada we will be celebrating Remembrance Day this week, so I thought it would be a good idea to create a layout 'remembering someone'. You can interpret that however you like, plus add...

1 felt embellishment
5 rubons
4 flowers

You can link your layout to the comments here or also at The Pub on 2peas. Looking forward to seeing your creations!

Elizabeth: For this challenge I scrapbooked the photos from the tradition of our daughter's birthday. 4 years ago we lost our baby girl at 7 months gestation and every year we visit her grave and think of her. The butterfly rubons and flower embellishments were perfect for this topic.

Janet : This is really a wonderful challenge to do and even though it was a difficult one I'm so glad to have done it. My niece's and nephew's came up with Florida one weekend about 6 years ago and came to our lodge to spend some time in the outdoors. It was always a struggle to get my mother to want to come there but she enjoyed it every time she came. We all went down and had a wonderful weekend together.

This is the last and only picture I have of my niece Courtney and her together from that weekend and she had this one made into a card and mailed to my mother. Since then our family has lost both of them so it's a memory to treasure.

Journaling is: We always say we should value people and time together and when I see this picture I know that I did this weekend. Mom enjoyed having her grandchildren up from Florida for a visit, it was the first time all four of them had been here as adults. We had campfires, sat and visited and just had a nice weekend. Of the whole weekend I think this is the only picture that I have with just mom and Courtney in it. With both of them being gone it's a picture and a moment in time to treasure.

Debbi T: It's been about ten years since my GrandPaul died, and I can't believe it's been that long. I call him GrandPaul because his name was Paul. He wasn't my "real" grandpa. I never really had a grandpa growing up. My Gram married Paul when I was in my late 20's, I think, and he so easily became a part of the family. He was loving and had a generous spirit and an awesome sense of humor that made him fit right into our clan.

I used Pencil Lines Sketch 211 and a Studio Calico kit to make this page. I wanted to go for a quiet color scheme, with a few bits of color. I thought the owl was a perfect embellishment because it looked a little sad and has a childlike feel that goes with the journaling--me sort of wishing I'd had him as my grandpa growing up. I added gold embossing powder to the border to go with the gold sequin flower centers.

Anna-Karin: I really enjoyed doing this layout about my grandfather who passed away 12 years ago almost to the day. It was so nice to sit a think about him and I wrote a long piece of journaling about my memories of him (which is tucked in behind the layout). I used a photo of him which was taken before I was born. He was very enthusiastic about photography and developed his photos at home. But, since he was often behind the camera, there are quite few photos of him. I used a felt car, 5 rub-ons to embellish the chipboard house and four die cut flowers. The papers, stamps and embellishment all have a meaning relating to my memories of my grandfather. Thank you so much for this challenge Elizabeth!

I know this challenge will not be an easy one, but it is so important. I hope you accept the challenge! Love, Elizabeth

Challenge #153 - The Office

2010-11-01T05:00:00.011-04:00

Amanda: I love the TV show The Office! Plus I work at one everyday. Looking around my desk, I realized how much fun office supplies could be used on a layout. Use the following on a layout:

- 10 staples (plain or colored)
- 3 paperclips (plain or decorative)
- ruled/graph paper
- some kind of tape (or decorative tape)
- some kind of office stickers/labels/flags/post-it notes
- pen or markers/highlighters
- hole punch (or decorative punch)
- use numbers somewhere on your layout
- and finally, some kind of typing (in your title, or journaling)

So for my layout, I decided to scrap about what inspired this challenge theme in the first place...all of the stuff on my desk that's from the TV show The Office. (I see I wasn't the only one who loves the TV show! haha) On my desk I have The Office bobbleheads, stress ball heads, pens, pencils, notebooks, monthly wall calendars, daily quote desk calendars, magnets, dry erase boards, signs, mugs...just little reminders of how much I love the show to help me get through the work day!

Elizabeth: Love the Office, love the challenge. Worked out perfectly with the school layout of my ds. I used a tape measure sticker instead of actual tape :P and the typing part is actually a date stamp, but I thought it looked like it was typed, so that counts right?! Here's my layout...

Janet M - What a fun challenge to do and create, I used bits and pieces of the files from building our new house. It's perfect because I'm just starting a album on the construction of it so having some of the other parts in the book is fun.

Journaling is: Files, reports, phone calls, appointments, expense projections, redoing the expense projections and paper work. Planning a house is exciting and making decisions a little stressful at times but overall the excitement is worth all of it. The kitchen designer said that you make over 2,000 or 12, 000 decisions when you built a new house , I'm not sure which one she said that day I was to busy deciding on something at the time. I do know that the whole thing is made so much better by the contractor that we have used for over 30 years in the business and personally, Shel at the office taking care of the billing and a good partnership with the two of us. We've been down the remolding road a few times, built from scratch and we know that this is the final project for us at this time in our lives, the house where we want it, back to enjoy our sunsets every night, handicapped accessability if we ever need it. I can't wait to finally see the dream place come true.

I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else creates.

Debbi T: What a FUN challenge, Amanda! The Office is my favorite show, so I thought this challenge was a good opportunity to profess my love for The Office. I used a kit called Office Party by Noel Mignon to make my page, plus a few odds & ends from my stash. I had bought these The Office magnets from the Target Dollar Spot eons ago--before I even knew about the show--and I finally got to use them! I used my staples to attach the ruler trim. (You can click on my layout for a larger view to read the journaling, if you're interested.)

Kathleen: Thanks for the challange Amanda! Most of the items on your list feature in my pages on a regular basis, so was right up my alley, but the office sticker/label/flags/post-it notes one was alot of fun! I chose the post it notes, and teamed it up with Bo Bunny's Learning Curve range which features the ruled/graph paper, numbers and typing :)

Georgia: Thanks Amanda, I had so much fun with this challenge! The first thing which came to mind when I read the criteria was a really grungy, boyish look - which is why I somehow ended up with a pretty, girly page lol. Most of the elements I use fairly often anyway but I did have to go on a hunt to find some paper clips! They were great for winding the thread from my bumble bee around though so I will have to use them again.

Anna-Karin: I loved this challenge, especially since I love office supplies. When I was around nine years old I used to wish for office supplies for birthdays and Christmas and was so happy to get a stapler, hole puncher, pens, erasers etc. On this layout I used 10 mini staples, 3 heart paper clips (which have been in my stash forever), graph paper, Dymo tape, office type label stickers, a marker to draw a simple frame, notebook border punch, numbers and a # character, and typed journaling strips with a type writer font printed on plain white paper. Thank you so much for this fun challenge Amanda!

Journaling: You smiled for the first time when you were 5 weeks. After having practiced for a while and mainly smiling at us, you really got going with the smiling and since then you have smiled at everyone. Family, friends and strangers in the shop, the post office queue, at the bank, on the street. Everybody gets a shining smile. It is very appreciated. People often exclaim ‘oh, he smiled at me’, and you spread lots of happiness with your smiles. You fill my and other people’s days with joy. It is impossible to be in a bad mode when you get such a smile. I hope you will keep your friendliness and happiness. These are some of my favourite photos of you smiling and laughing, taken from you were 8 weeks old until you were 8 months old. You are wonderful.

We hope you will play along. Post a link to your layout in the HMITM thread at the Two Peas Pub, and you could be chosen as our Weekly Wow and be eligible for our monthly prize of a Two Peas gift certificate!

Weekly Wow #151

2010-10-31T09:07:00.003-04:00

I enjoyed looking at the layouts that were done this week and picking a Weekly Wow is always fun.

Our choice for the is week is: Jane and I really enjoyed her fun looking page with the cute banner on it.

Congraluations Jane - your entry will go into our voting for the How awesome is to awesome drawing for the $15 gift certificate at Two Peas at the end of the month.

A Fond Farewell to Cindy

2010-10-30T20:04:00.000-04:00

We are so sad to say goodbye to our friend Cindy. She's been a part of How Much Is Too Much forever! We're gonna miss her wonderful creations here, but we know she will continue sharing lots of fabulous inspiration through her design work with Jillibean Soup, Lilly Bee Design, Work in Progress, and other endeavors on her horizon.

Cindy, we'll miss you big time! We hope you won't forget us and that you will visit us and play every once in a while. Smooches!

Challenge #152 - Dog Years - Featuring Guest Challenger Alyssa Maldonado {October 25 - October 31}

2010-10-25T06:30:00.000-04:00

We are pleased to have Alyssa Maldonado as our Guest Challenger this week.

Here's what Alyssa had to say: Hello, Alyssa here. I've been scrapbooking for about 8 years now. I started when I found myself unemployed with plenty of time on my hands. Borrowing stash from a few friends that also scrapbooked, I created my first book about the life my boyfriend and I were creating together. And I have been hooked ever since! Now, I have my own stash, and I can definitely say that I have too much. With all this stuff to use, I also began card making, and love all the different techniques and designs I can incorporate into both crafts. I like to partake in scrapbook challenges online, and have taught several classes at my local scrapbook store. Within the last year I have started to dabble in digital scrapbooking, and have found a new love. This is now how I do most of my layouts, but I still like to get my hand inked and dirty. I hope you enjoy the challenge this week, and I can't wait to see everyone creations. Thanks for playing along with me, and the ever creative and original HMITM team.

Alyssa's clever challenge is based on her dogs' ages. Use the following elements on your layout:

I have 3 dogs = 3 photos

Bella is 5 human years - 5 rub-ons or stamps

Thor is 11 human years - 11 elements (anything goes as long as it's not paper)

Spirit is 10 months old - a total of 10 letters for the title, any number of words is fine.

Since 1 human year is equal to 7 dog years, that means combined, the 3 dogs are 118 dog years old. - #'s of words in journaling, this can include the title.

And here is Alyssa's layout:

Janet M - This challenge really had me counting and yes I did get my 118 words in not including the title but including the discover word beside the photo. I got my rub-ons and everything on here. It's a picture of our lodge and the story about it- another page for my husbands lodge book I'm giving him for his birthday this year.

The journaling is : It had to have been in both of our subconscious minds when we built the family lodge and it came out looking like this picture. We bought this picture when we first got married and thought how wonderful that it would be to build a house that looked like this. Years later, a few more children, a move, another house. This picture was stored away and forgotten. Twenty years later we built the "cabin".One day we were talking about how much it resembled a picture that we used to have many years ago. It was found,reframed and now is hanging there to remind us how sometimes things just stay planted in the back of your mind.

I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with for this.

Elizabeth: I think I might have cheated a little on the title, I am not counting the '%' sign as a letter ;) Another great challenge, Thanks Alyssa!

Debbi: This was a fun and interesting challenge. I did cheat a little on the title, but the chipboard part of my title does have ten words, and I went over the rub-on letters by one. But my journaling DOES contain exactly 118 words (thank goodness for the word count feature on MS Word!). I counted the misting as one of my elements--wanted to make it look like splattered blood. (I made my image a little big so you can read the journaling if you click on my page.) Thanks, Alyssa, for a fun challenge!

Anna-Karin: This was a hard, but fun challenge! Three photos was easy for me, as well as five stamps (alphabet stamps, whale stamp, word stamp, star stamp and circle stamp). I found a ten character title fairly easily (and by counting ':' as one letter), but I wrote more than 118 words when I did the journaling. I didn't want to remove any journaling, so I left it as it was. The title translates 'Your 1st bath'. Thank you for a fun challenge Alyssa!

How Awesome is Too Awesome Winner of #150

2010-10-24T21:28:00.003-04:00

Our challenge of ten things I don't like and I have to say though that we really like this layout!

Great job and design on this.

It's by

jloubier

Congraluations to you and your Layout will be eligible for our monthy gift certificate to Two Peas.

Challenge # 151 October 18, National Chocolate Cupcake day

2010-10-18T05:00:00.000-04:00

Janet M - It's a perfect holiday for me today it's National Chocolate Cupcake Day. I use any excuse to celebrate with cupcakes and chocolate so I picked a great day to do the HMITM challenge.

You may not all have a picture of chocolate cupcakes but I know everyone has pictures of food or having a family dinner.

Lets use on this layout:

picture or pictures of food, having a family dinner or a birthday,
something that has a picture of food on it- embellishment , pp or sticker
multiple colors of brown
circles
flowers
There's no specific number of any item on this just use everything on the list and have fun.

Here's mine with some of my family members.

Journaling is: This was the perfect way to spend the evening. The family all had dinner together and then some of them headed home. The rest of the family all went to a dessert bar and bakery to top off the evening. It was wonderful to try all the different selections on the menu. I even broke down and bought a birthday cake for my mother which in this family doesn't happen very often because the more challenging the recipe and more complex a dessert is, it's a challenge we like to do.

Amanda - What a fun & yummy challenge, Janet! I found some fun cupcake photos to use. Mixing them with the flowers really makes it pretty! I used different shades of brown buttons as my circles. And I dug out that cupcake felti I've been saving for the perfect occasion!

Debbi: I have to admit, when I first read this challenge, I wasn't too thrilled because brown isn't my thing. I like bright, happy colors, but once I got working on my page, I realized brown was the perfect color for my page! Plus, the challenge gave me the perfect excuse to use some of this old Heidi Grace cupcake paper that's been in my stash forever and to scrap these photos that I've had sitting on my scrap desk for over a year. Thanks, Janet, for a terrific, creative, yummy challenge!

Anna-Karin: I really enjoyed this challenge! I used photos from two different occasions and scrapped about our tradition of having taco-evenings. Our tacos are probably nothing like the real stuff, but we love them. The title letters were embossed with two colours of embossing powder, and I used the same powders to emboss the flowers. They were sponged with brown shades of Distress Ink after embossing. Lots of stamped circles and different shades of brown (cardstock, punched border, stitching, ricrac, kraft paper). Thanks for this great challenge Janet!

Journaling: ‘Tacos started to become popular in Sweden around 1991. We started to have taco-evenings, both with the family and with friends. Now, almost 20 years later, I still love our taco-evenings. We often eat it when we have sister-evenings, like here below. Or when we are travelling, like on the second page in Norway. Our taco-evenings usually involve: spicy mince, tortillas, hard tacos, salad, tomatoes, cucumber, guacamole (my speciality), onion, cheese, corn, taco sauce, salsa. Yummy!

Have fun playing along this week and don't forget to give us a link to your post or connect it to the post in the Pub at Two Peas In A bucket so we can maybe showcase your layout in our weekly wow section and have you eligible for our monthly $15 gift certificate to there.

September How Awesome Is Too Awesome Winner

2010-10-17T12:05:00.000-04:00

Our winner for the September prize is debikins! All of the layouts were wonderful, and we thank everyone for playing! Check out this fun and fabulous layout Debi made for Challenge 145. We loved her clever design and how she framed the PacMan screen with photos and then added all those fun, kooky ghosties.

Debi, I will be contacting you so I can send your your 2Peas gift certificate.

Challenge #150 - 10 Things I Hate - Featuring Guest Challenger Liz Kordek {October 11 - October 17}

2010-10-11T08:13:00.001-04:00

We are happy to have Liz Kordek as our Guest Challenger this week!

Here is what Liz has to say: Hi, my name is Liz and live in Adelaide, Australia with my husband of 9 years and my two children - Kajetan who is 6 and Kalia who is 18months old. I have been scrapbooking for 2 years and am completely addicted. My style is clean and simple and I love using embellishments. I am so honoured to be a Guest Designer this week at How Much Is Too Much?

Here is Liz's fun challenge for us:

Ten things I hate - generally we do things we love or like. Create a layout documenting ten things you hate or dislike (maybe pet peeves), and include on your page ten things from your stash that you don't "love" anymore--we all have those things we bought and now wonder why--now's a good time to use them!

And here is a bit about Liz's layout:

For my layout Ihave chosen 10 things that I don't necessarily dislike but also find quite difficult to work with. Hope you have fun with this week's challenge. I chose:

1. Patterned Paper with pictures - I usually cut these out rather than use the whole page.
2. stickers

3. felt

4. printed pictures - I used butterflies on my layout

5. artisan tape - you can see a tiny amount used in the top right hand corner

6. chalk

7. buttons - the 'normal' ones not the cute decorative ones

8. brads

9. paper string

10. glitter - I generally find this very messy

Janet - This was a fun and interesting challenge to do. I tried to not get off on anything serious so I just went with some of my little Pet Peeves. It sure was easy finding 10 things in my stash that I don't love anymore or wonder what they are doing in there.

Elizabeth: This was such an interesting and fun challenge! Didn't have too much trouble coming up with my list of 10 things :P Picking products I do not love anymore was more difficult. I tried to go through my stash and pick things that I have had forever and keep passing over, for whatever reason. And the funny thing is, in the end I really liked how the layout turned out (6x12 layout). Thanks for the push, Liz!

Debbi: I wasn't going to scrap this weekend because I was feeling miserable. My eye was all swollen and red and sore. I've been in a bad mood all weekend. Then, my husband pointed out that the date was 10-10-10, and that gave me the idea to scrap my bad mood! For my ten products I dislike, I started with smooth cardstock (I prefer textured). I used letter stickers (I prefer chipboard ones). I remember seeing all these layouts using Rouge de Garance paper a few years ago and I ordered a whole bunch--and it was expensive because it was coming from France. When I got it, I immediately regretted it. The stuff is hard to work with and looked much prettier online. So there it has sat in my stash until today. I used two sheets. I used these white brads for the date that I hate. I bought them at the office supply store when brads started being popular. I had these Scrapworks rub-on flowers that I didn't really like. I have packages in a bunch of diferent colors. I knew I wanted to use eyelets and fiber because I still have a ton of those things (the centers of the flowers are decorative eyelets). I also used a stupid Karen Foster strip brad (why on earth did I buy those?), and a Narratives sticker from a sheet that look sort of like fortunes, and for some reason, I don't really like them. So there you have it. Ten things I hate about today using ten products I hate. It turns out I like the layout okay, though. (Well, except for the hideous picture of me.) And an update--I went to the doctor, and it turns out I have blepharitis and not pink eye. Which really doesn't sound all that much better, does it?

Debbie F:
This challenge was the most fun I've had in a while. I decided to embrace this as a chance to dig into my old supplies that I don't really want anymore. Almost everything on this layout has been sitting in my stash for years, so it really felt good to use it. I started with a Heidi Swapp mask and some acrylic paint. Then I found these OLD Rusty Pickle papers. Remember when skulls were all the rage? (Smile.) They worked with the layout theme too. Then I pulled out more old school embellies and layered. I love how this turned out!

Challenge #149 - The Sixth Sense {October 4 - October 10}

2010-10-04T07:05:00.000-04:00

Debbi here, hoping you'll find this a fun and interesting challenge! This week, let your page be inspired by the five senses--plus, your sixth sense.

touch - use textured paper

sight - use your favorite patterned paper in your stash

smell - use something on your page that, if real, would have a smell (e.g, flowers, cupcake accents, etc.)

taste - use food-related embellishments or paper

sound - use song-title or song lyrics somewhere on your page

the sixth sense - take this quiz and let it inspire your journaling

Debbi: According to the quiz, my sixth sense makes me clair-audio (clear hearing), i.e., "someone very in-tune with sounds." For my favorite paper, I knew right away I would use the Webster's Pages balloon paper--I love that paper and bought about eight sheets of it! I also love polka dots and ledger paper, so I included them. My page title comes from the song by the O'Jays (which happens to be on my iPod). I thought I'd journal about my love for music using a picture my husband took of me holding my iPhone. I cut out an apple from an old October Afternoon paper and punched out a little notch to make it look like the Apple logo and pop-dotted it on my title. The scan doesn't show it very well, but I added gold brads to my hot-air balloon and adhered it with pop dots.

Elizabeth: Now this was a unique challenge! Love a good challenge. My sixth sense was Clair- voyant (clear seeing) and I interpreted that by using a transparent embellishment (the flower). It is tough for me to pick a favourite patterned paper, but I love almost anything by Basic Grey, so the paper fit the bill. The popsicles went perfectly with this summery page and the white cardstock is embossed for a 'touchable' look.

Janet - fun and interesting challenge to do.

Fun and interesting challenge. I'm in touch with my feelings, must be why I write so much.

touch - I used the textured paper and the glitter dress

sight - the pp on the left is one of my favorites and I like all the other ones I used

smell - the chocolate embellishment

taste - the strawberries

sound - song title is on the top of the page and one on the metal circle

the sixth sense - clairessence so I did the journaling.

Thanks Debbi for the great challenge

Anna-Karin: This was such a fun idea for a challenge Debbi! I really enjoyed planning and doing my layout and using elements of all the senses. I dry embossed some cardstock, used some of my favourite papers (I love the Making Memories ledger papers and the 7Gypies text papers), flowers (which would smell if real), cutlery patterned paper (which I had in my stash forever) and a stamp of an old fashioned milk jug. I also printed the lyrics of a childhood song on a tag. My sixth sense was sound, according to the quiz, but instead I was more inspired by one of the quiz questions, namely the one regarding the school cafeteria. So I decided to do a layout about the school dining hall experience in the different schools I was in. Thank you for this fabulous challenge Debbi!

Kathleen: This challenge is so fun! Love the questionaire, it told me Im sentimental, which I am, my pages predominantly feature titles or journalling about how the photos make me feel rather than the events themselves. I crumpled up paper to create the "textured paper". Ive been wanting to use this paper since I got it, the little poem on the strip is adorable, it reads "If clouds were made of cotton candy, and grass blades licorice, sweet and dandy, we'd sleep beneath a sugar sky and dream sweet dreams, you and I". When I took these shots of Clay and hubby having fun with churros I knew it was perfect for this page :)

Also on the page there are flowers for the "smell" sense, taste I took from the photos, sound is the title, with words from Uncle Krackers "Smile" song (also my ring tone, love it!), and finally the sixth sense is just me being true to form, using a title which explains how I feel about the photos...

We hope you'll play along--you might just be chosen as our Weekly Wow and have your name entered for an awesome RAK--a Two Peas gift certificate! Be sure to link your page to the thread at the Two Peas Pub.

How Awesome Is Too Awesome? - Weekly Wow #145

2010-10-02T18:50:00.000-04:00

We accidentally skipped a week publishing our Weekly Wow. For Challenge #145, we chose PacMan Charisma by debikins! We loved her clever design and how she framed the PacMan screen with photos and then added all those fun, kooky ghosties. A big thank you to everyone who played along in Challenge 145!

Congratulations, Debi! Your layout will go into our HAITA Hall of Fame and you will have a chance to win our September RAK.

Challenge #148 - Chicago's song "25 or 6 to 4" - Featuring Guest Challenger Faye Perata {September 27 - October 3}

2010-09-27T07:04:00.007-04:00

We are pleased to have a Guest Challenger this week, Faye Perata!

Here is what Faye had to say: Hi Hi!! I am Faye and I am really excited to be a guest designer at HMITM this week!!!! I live in northern California which is definitely not the "daisy dukes, bikini's on top" part of California. I also consider myself a Montana girl cause that is where I grew up!! Go Griz!!!! I heart scrapbooking, my cat Rory, thrift store shopping, reality tv, exclamation points!!!, ice cream, funny youtube videos, and facebook! I have a etsy shop of handmade and vintage goodies and a my blog A Little Dash of... please check 'em out if you have a few.

For my challenge I thought of two things... I love music and I love the number challenges at HMITM. So for this challenge we are going to use Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4" song. Your challenge should you accept it is to...

use 25 items

use 6 rub-ons, 2 (to) pattern papers, and 4 buttons.

If you want to get crazy you could do both like I did. Can't wait to see how everyone's layouts turn out!!!!!!!

Elizabeth: Loved this challenge! I put my little fish & bubble rubons onto epoxy stickers (it's hard to see in the scan) and used them along with clear buttons to imitate bubbles in a bath. I have well over 25 things on this page when you include all the pictures and letter stickers!

Janet: Great challenge to create this week. I did both of the challenge parts on this - the 25 items total with the rest of the list. I 'm really happy with the way it turned out because I thought that with that many items it was going to seem crowded but it didn't. This is a picture of my son Jeff for another page in my lodge book.

The journaling is: It's nice to see Jeff relaxing for a few minutes. We have to remind him always of the time that dad was telling him when he built his business that he used to work 18 hours a day. His comment at the time was "Dad no man can work 18 hours a day." Now it's Jeff getting up at 4 am. to spray his grapes or getting 4 hours of sleep a night at harvest time. We always say to him "Jeff no man can work that many hours. " Take a break Jeff - you need it.

Amanda: What a fun challenge! I did both parts also (if I counted correctly) using 25 items including 6 rubons, 2 patterned papers and 4 buttons. And to make it fun, I included a Top 25 list from my youngest daughter! Loving the new Crate Paper Restoration line and used mostly that on this layout as well as Glimmer Misted flowers and lace.

Anna-Karin: Awesome challenge! I used 6 rub-on letters (tiny ones, on the ticket), 4 green buttons and two patterned papers. If you count the individual letters, I used 25 items too. The title of the layout translates: ‘The fun mobile’ and it is about Anton’s fascination with his mobile when he was a small baby. Thanks for a great challenge Faye!

Thank you, Faye, for this awesome, creative challenge! Be sure to link your layouts to the HMITM thread at the Two Peas Pub to be considered for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and a chance to win a Two Peas gift certificate!

How Awesome is Too Awesome {Challege #146's Weekly Wow}

2010-09-24T23:10:00.005-04:00

Thanks everyone for playing along with us on Challenge #146! Congrats to mytwoandras and her layout I Knew I loved you!

We just loved her big title, the borders of paper and buttons down the left side of the page, and of course, the sweet photos.

Congrats mytwoandras! Your layout will go into our HAITA Hall of Fame and you will have a chance to win a RAK at the end of the month.

August's How Awesome is Too Awesome winner

2010-09-23T13:59:00.009-04:00

We apologize for posting the winner of the August RAK this late. We loved all the How Awesome is Too Awesome (Weekly Wows) for August. Stunning work! The lucky winner of the RAK (a Two Peas gift certificate) is Sinead with this fabulous layout called Paradise Beach, which she made for challenge #143. We love the design and colours of the layout and those cool painted circles.

Congratulations Sinead! I will contact you to get your email so that I can send you the gift certificate.

Thanks so much for playing everyone!!

Challenge #147 - Something Old Is New Again! - Featuring Guest Challenger Joyce Casaldi {September 20 - September 26}

2010-09-20T06:58:00.001-04:00

We are pleased to have another Guest Challenger this week--Joyce Casaldi.

Here is Joyce's fun challenge:

Something old is new again! It’s time to go dumpster diving….(well at least in your scrap room) and pull out some of those old papers and embellishments and see what you can do with them. I don’t want to see them in raw form, I want you to add to them or change them to make them new. You can use paints, glues and glitters, inks or whatever other creative idea you come up with.

This is what Joyce had to say about her layout: I've attached my lo, not sure what kind of information you want but this is what I did to meet the challenge. I used scraps from a sheet of Webster's pages to fussy cut the lanter. I coated the lantern with glass beeds. I used the last flower from a Prima flower pack and used the packaging to make the butterflies. I added some PTI stamps to add dimension to the background paper. To color the chipboard frame I used distress ink and clear embossing flowers. I finsihed the project with some bling and stickles on the flowers.

And here is Joyce's layout:

Janet M - This challenge really had me thinking even though it sounds easy I hardly do anything with paint and glitter. I was at our lodge for the weekend and pulled out some really old papers and decided to see what I could come up with. I love sewing and of course I had my traveling machine there with me.

I used 20 squares of different paper and sewed them together. I punched out dragonflys and covered it with a piece of velum and sewed it over the top.

These are some pictures from around 16 years ago when my mother in law was there one weekend with us trying to get some pictures with her and the great-grandchildren.

Elizabeth: So I wasn't sure how to go about this challenge when I first read it, but when I was looking for papers to match these pictures of my son, I came across some really old Chatterbox papers (sigh...I had such a love affair with Chatterbox year ago... sigh again). I revived the older papers by cutting out flowers and layering them over the background paper and also adding some sequins and gems. Another technique I have been doing a lot lately is using foam embellishments that I do not care for anymore as popdots. I just put adhesive on both sides and it makes a nice, uniform pop on the page (works great for titles or accents).

Anna-Karin: This was such a great idea for a challenge and I had a ton of fun altering some really old stash. Most of the stuff on my page is at least 5 years old. I posted a before photo on Two Peas, as well as some close-ups, and more info about how everything was altered. The patterned paper was altered with masking, misting, stamps, paint, inks and Stickles. The chipboard letters were painted with gesso and then covered with a bunch of scrap text and ledger papers, a postage stamp and a vellum quote that I found deep down in a box. Some of the papers were first dry embossed, to add texture. Then the letters were covered with a wash of cream paint, as well as some copper glaze. Distress Stickles was added here and there. Thanks for this fun challenge Joyce!

Debbi T: I had fun with this challenge, too. I used a lot of old stuff on this, and made it up-to-date by combining it with some newer stuff and using some current techniques, like using border punches and layering. That lavendar paper is been in my stash for years and years, but I think it looks updated with the punches. I also added some bling to make it look current. I used the back side of an old chatterbox paper to cover a very old chipboard arrow that holds my title--those BasicGrey letters are also very old. I think I have every color of BasicGrey letters ever made! Doilies are trendy today, so I used one to hold my old letter stickers. And remember when metal charms were all the rage? I have a TON of those, too, and I made it updated by using it as part of my title.

The story on the back of my layout reads: It happened like this. Michele had to run out for a bit to somewhere for some reason I now don't recall and asked me to watch Monica. I think she was about five at the time. She was always an independent little thing. I was in the den watching TV and Monica was in her room playing. Or so I thought. Every once in a while I'd call out, "Monica, what are you doing?" and she'd reply that she was playing. This went on for the duration Michele was out.

Well, when Michele came home, Monica came running out to show off what she had done. And what she had done was chop off a bunch of her hair. Her bangs were gone and there were big chunks of hair cut out that left virtual bald patches. My reaction? I was mortified. And embarrassed. And filled with shame that let my best friend down. Michele's reaction? She cracked up. And told me it was okay. Because that's just the kind of person my best friend is.

We hope you'll play along! This week's winner will go into our "How Awesome Is Too Awesome?" gallery and be eligible for our monthly RAK of a gift certificate to Two Peas! Just link your layout on this thread at the Two Peas Pub.

Challenge # 146: America's Top 40

2010-09-12T09:30:00.024-04:00

I'm so excited to be posting my first challenge here at How Much is Too Much?!
Every Sunday, my local radio station plays old broadcasts of Casey Kasem's American Top 40 radio program. In case you're not familiar, the program would count down the 40 most popular songs in America in any given week. Those 80's songs are a blast from the past for me. (Guess I'm dating myself, huh? LOL)

So for my challenge... I'd like to see you use music note type patterned paper somewhere on your page. Use a song title or lyrics in your title or journaling. Use a number or numbers somewhere on your page. And for the kicker - embellish your page with at least 40 items. (you can include your titlework into this count.. ;0) I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Debbie F: My youngest child started Kindergarten this past week. He was really looking forward to it. I had mixed feelings, since I've had a child home during the day for 13 years! He went the first day very willingly, but after school, he cried because and said, " it's really hard for me - I miss you so much." Of course, I cried too. We talked about how we can spend time together after school, and we're both adjusting. So I used some lyrics from a song by Richard Marx: "I will be right here waiting for you." The envelope is tucked behind the patterned paper and holds hidden journaling from me to my little guy.

Debbi T: This was such a fun challenge! I got lucky and found some paper that had both numbers and musical notes. These photos are from the birthday party my best friend threw me. The guy in the boxers is her son-in-law. (No, he's not a real stripper.) My ribs are still hurting from laughing so hard! I couldn't get any really good pictures because I was cracking up and he kept skipping around. If you're my facebook friend, you can see the video of this--it's hilarious! The photo on the right with me laughing is a screen shot from the video. Thanks, Debbie for the great challenge!

Janet- Thanks for the great challenge- it was a challenge to get everything in but I did it. This is a picture from quite a few years ago of dh and I at the lodge one darn cold evening when we just got there- so layers and layers of clothes to keep us warm and some dancing to make the grandchildren laugh.
PS. It's one of our favorite song also.

Elizabeth: The only music paper I had in my stash was Christmas paper, so I found some pictures that I had not scrapped yet and went to work. Thankfully the title was nice and long and made the 40 items come together quickly ;)

Anna-Karin: This was a lot of fun! I used a bunch of different music papers, music stamps and music chipboard. The title of the layout is a song from an Astrid Lindgren story and the top 10 list is a list of some of the songs I’ve been singing a lot to Anton. The chipboard brackets were flocked and the chipboard notes were painted and covered with Glossy Accents. The house is a Maya Road sheer glued to music paper. The red gear and the title letters were first stamped with a music stamp and then sponged with Distress inks.

Have fun and thanks for playing! Remember that at the end of the week one participant will be featured as our "How Awesome is Too Awesome - Weekly Wow" and will be in the running to win a RAK at the end of the month! Post a link to your layout in the HMITM thread at Two Peas.

How awesome is to awesome - #144

2010-09-09T07:13:00.004-04:00

The weekly wow for this week is sineadk and she's from Ireland. We just love her choice of colors and the pictures she has on her layout titled Family Holiday. She did a great job on the colors and the layering of all the embellishments.

Congratulations and we hope to see more of your work joining us in the challenges in the future.

Challenge #145 - Get in Shape! - Featuring Guest Challenger Jane Howden {September 6 - September 12}

2010-09-06T07:57:00.002-04:00

Here is what Jane has to say:

Hello everyone. I’m Jane Howden. I live an hour north of Sydney, Australia with my husband and two children. Scrapbooking is my form of creative therapy and I love producing both paper and digital layouts based around the everyday lives of myself and my family. I feel it is important to document our lives, not only for ourselves but also for future generations and to also try to preserve memorabilia from those of the past. Please visit me on my blog - Scrap Pieces of Me

One of the things I enjoy most is a good challenge so I feel very honoured to be guest designer on HMITM this week. I’m sure you will agree that we all have way too much “stuff” in our stashes and a HMITM challenge is the perfect opportunity to use some of them up – I dug deep into my own stash when putting together my layout and managed to use items I'm sure I have had in there for years.

My challenge is all about shapes - circles, squares, hearts, etc. These can be punched, chipboard, stickers, whatever you have. Choose your shape and use it at least 10 times on your layout. I’d then like to see you use the name of your shape in your title - for example “You are in my heart” or “Singing star”.

Looking forward to seeing all your wonderful layouts.

Jane's layout:

Janet M - Great idea for a challenge and I did this one while I was at our lodge so everything on it is really from my stash, I had been wondering where these heart embellishments had gone to. We work really hard to plant crops for all the wildlife down there and seeing some of the new ones every year is really exciting.

Elizabeth: This was such a fun challenge! Thanks Jane! Once I had a title worked out and an idea for the layout, it came together quite easily.

Debbi T: I agree with everyone else--what a fun idea for a challenge, Jane! I chose an unconventional shape--a tag. That's a shape, right? I used one of my Noel Mignon kits to make this page, pluse a few odds and ends from my stash. I was glad to use up some of my plain white tags since I have a gazillion of those! I was a little pressed for time last week, so I combined this challenge with the current palette over at Color Combos Galore. My hidden journaling reads:

An afternoon junque-ing with Dawn at a cool place called Chartreuse, which is only open every third weekend. We bought a beautiful shabby chic cabinet and just had a ball browsing all the nifty vintage stuff. Leave it to Farzad to find the booby door. Yes, a door plastered with pictures of naked ladies.

Georgia: Great challenge Jane - thank you!

I struggled a bit coming up with a title for my layout so instead I used a quote with the word in it, hope that isn't cheating too much! My shape is the butterfly and the quote reads...

Just living is not enough, said the butterfly... One must have freedom, sunshine and a little flower... to which I have added my title in her hair

Kathleen: This is such a kewl challenge Jane!! Really got me thinking about an appropriate title, lol, I used arrows as my shapes, I couldnt work "arrow" into the title so I put a twist on it and used "point" instead, figured they could be called "pointers", hope thats ok...!

Amanda: What a great challenge! I tried to think of a non-traditional shape and found this picture and thought "well, rain drops are a shape, right??" :) I didn't use the word "drop" in my title, but did highlight the word rainy. This was lots of fun! Thanks, Jane!

Debbie F: This layout was different for me in that I used 8 pictures on a single page layout. That posed a challenge for me in how to work in 10 of my shape - hearts. I decided to use patterned paper with hearts so as not to overcrowd my page. I suppose I cheated a bit in using the word "Love" in my title instead of heart- but that's what a heart means, right? ;0) Thanks Jane for a fab challenge!

Have fun and thanks for playing! Remember that at the end of the week one participant will be featured as our "How Awesome is Too Awesome - Weekly Wow" and will be in the running to win a RAK at the end of the month! Post a link to your layout in the HMITM thread at Two Peas.

How Awesome is Too Awesome? {Our Weekly Wow for Challenge #143}

2010-08-31T04:11:00.009-04:00

All the submissions for challenge #143 (Blueberry Blues) were fantastic! Thanks so much for playing everyone! We loved everyone's layouts and had a really hard time selecting a winner. Our favourite is.... Paradise Beach by Sineadk.

The colours and design of her layout are stunning and the painted circles look awesome. The collections of embellishments and the title placed on top of the photo also look fabulous. Wonderful beach layout!

Congrats Sineadk! Your layout will go into our HAITA Hall of Fame and you will have a chance to win a RAK at the end of the month.

Challenge #144 - August 29 Sparkly Holidays

2010-08-29T11:59:00.006-04:00

You know you have lots holiday photos just waiting to be scrapped.

Scrap a holiday layout
Use at least 2 holiday photos.
Use at least 4 die cuts.
Use at least 6 brads.
Use at least 8 words in your journaling.
Use at least 10 pieces of chipboard (You can always count each letter of your title)
And to make it extra festive, make it sparkle. Incorporate glitter on your layout.......stickers, brads, chipboard, die cuts, etc.

Michelle: I struggle scrapping Easter photos...so this was my push to get these scrapped. And yes, I admit that I am happy that Andrew owns one pink shirt now....it makes the Easter layouts much prettier. Ha! I used up quite a bit of my Making Memories Garden Party stash (chipboard alphas, glitter die cuts, brads, epoxy shpaes). I paired it with some Coredinations Gemstorne cardstock for a little extra sparkle.

Elizabeth: I did a layout using pictures taken on the Civic holiday in Canada (first weekend in August). I stretched the 2 photos criteria into 2 photo collages :P And the die-cuts that I used are words cut out of patterned paper. I'm glad we are so versatile here and can stretch the challenge a little :) Thanks for the fun challenge, Michelle!

Janet - It's great that everyone has picked a different holiday I think we all tend to think of Christmas when we think of sparkles. I picked Thanksgiving because I wanted to do a page for our lodge book and it's a holiday that we always celebrate there.

My chipboard is the title - my brads are glittered and the die cuts in the corner I did with my Cricut cartridge.

This was a special Thanksgiving for all of us.

Journaling is: It was the most thankful Thanksgiving the family has ever had. We have had new babies to celebrate some years, we had the engagement Thanksgiving at the lodge and that was wonderful. Thanksgiving 2007 has to be the top one though - the road to recovery it was so good to have you on it.

How Awesome is Too Awesome? {Our Weekly Wow for Challenge #142}

2010-08-25T09:35:00.004-04:00

Thanks everyone for playing along with us on Challenge #142! We loved seeing all the different takes on the challenge. Only one could be picked, so please, let's all give give warm congrats to.........LISA!

I really loved how you showcased stages of your daughters graduations over the years and framing the large photo with strips of rulers. :D

your layout will go into our "Hall of Fame" and you will be entered into our drawing for a RAK at the end of the month! CONGRATS!

Cheers, Cindy :)

Challenge #143 - Blueberry Blues

2010-08-23T08:54:00.002-04:00

I love berries of all kinds and during August the blueberries are ripe in Sweden. They take a pretty long time to pick, but it is definitely worth the effort. These blueberries are different from the American ones and I learnt something new today when I read that they are called ‘bilberries’ in English. Blueberries are one of the most common plants in Sweden and cover about 17% of the surface area. Yesterday afternoon my sister was out in the forest picking blueberries for 45 minutes in pouring rain.

Create a layout using:

1 photo
7 blue things (can be anything, as long as it is blue)
4 circles
5 pieces of chipboard or grungeboard

I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

Anna-Karin: I am so happy to be presenting my first challenge! I wanted to do a blueberry themed layout with some cute photos I took of my nephew while we were picking blueberries, but we were travelling this week and I didn’t get a chance to develop any photos. Blue is one of my favourite colours, so it was fun using blue stuff on this layout. The circles under the title letters were stamped and I used the same inkpad to colour the chipboard heart. The stamped butterfly was a leftover from another project and was coloured with Liquid Pearls and Stickles. The blue pearly dots were also made with liquid pearls.

Journaling: This is one of the photos of Anton that I emailed to the family and it is now widely displayed. Framed on my parent’s living room table, and in both my sisters' houses. On the wall of mom’s office and an enlargement in their bedroom. Otto quickly learned that the baby on the photo is Anton and has kissed the photo many times and placed baby toys in front of it.

Elizabeth: I love using blue, especially when it is paired with green :) This is one of the first layouts I have done of our new addition to the family. Thanks for the fun challenge Anna-Karin!

Janet: This was a great challenge to do and this picture of three of my grandson's was a great one to get scrapped. Combining the circles, blue items and the picture together worked out great for me.

Journling is: Papa Bear's little cabin, it was the boys favorite place to go on the weekend. The little cabin not the comforts of the lodge. No running water, pump it yourself , a real
outhouse, heating with a little stove and kerosine lanterns. They probably learned more in these weekends than a book could ever teach them.

Kathleen: Thanks for the challenge Anna-Karin!! I think I've gotten it right, lol, I've got 1 photo, 7 blue things (clouds, cloud button, papar, chippy circle, sticker arrow, sticker letters and the blue in the photo), 4 circles (3 chippy ones plus the sewn one), and 5 pieces of chipboard (3 flowers plue the two pieces either side of the photo).

Georgia: This was such a fun challenge Anna-Karin, thank you (and those blueberries sound delicious!). I always struggle to use only one photo so I compromised and used one photo - twice lol... for the blue I used my lettering as well as the cloud paper and some embellishments, the circles are around the heart and the sun sticker and the chipboard is the blue circle (cut into two pieces) and the three clouds..

Michelle: Fun challenge! 1 photo...check. 7 blue things...snowflake, pattern paper, hanging mittens, and blue bling. 4 circles....I cute 4 black circles and made a scallop border with them. 5 pieces of chipboard....title letters and snowflake.

Amanda: Mmmmm, blueberries! Thinking about doing this layout made me hungry (even though I scrapped about my feet! haha) This was lots of fun! I'm actually not a huge fan of just the color blue...so I mixed it with some red, white and aqua. I think I ended up using more then 7 blue things, in fact...oops! Thanks for such a fun challenge, Anna-Karin!

Debbi T: I went a little crazy with the blue and I think I exceeded the numbers of things Anna asked us to use, so I guess the answer to "How Much Is Too Much?" is my layout. I always love the way monochromatic layouts look, and I rarely do them, so I decided to use all blue, plus neutrals. Blue paper, blue letters, blue flowers, blue embossing powder, blue ink, blue paint , blue cardstock, blue ribbon, and a blue butterfly. Yep, that's more than 7. By the way, I realize I used more than 5 pieces of chipboard, but I was counting the letters for my title as one. I used the same blue embossing powder on the telephone that I used on the doily flowers, so I don't know why it came out so dark in the photo. Thanks, Anna-Karin, for a really fun challenge. (And I love blueberries, too!)

How Awesome is Too Awesome? {Our Weekly Wow for Challenge #141}

2010-08-19T21:59:00.002-04:00

Challenge #141, Mix & Match, featured our first Guest Challenger, Krista Morris. She brought a great challenge, and with it, some GREAT ENTRIES! Thanks to all who played along. We loved everyone's takes on Challenge #141, and it was so hard to choose just one favorite, but the layout that got the most votes from our team is Memory Thief by Dawnypea. We loved her layout with it's soft colors and beautiful memory of her friend. Dawn, your layout will go into our HAITA Hall of Fame, and you will be entered into our drawing for a RAK at the end of the month. Congrats!