PHENOMINAL PHOTOS - Day 5

Good morning all - Our BFF Dawn is featured in today's blog. She is showing us different ways to use Photo Elf. That's right ladies and gents, Dawn is a PhotoElf lady too! If you don't know this, Dawn, Kelly and I live within a 1/2 mile of each other. Actually Dawn and I live accross the street from each other. Dawn got me into scrapbooking (best day eva) and I in turn got Kelly into it(I am sure the best day eva for her)! So much fun to have the ladies so close by!!

This is a mask that Dawn applied to the photo of her and so very cute daughter (who is now 10). I love this soft look.

This is the layout she did for her hubby with the masked photo. Awesome layout right! I love, the soft look of it, the masked photo fits so perfectly!

This is a Christmas card she did of her two kids on PhotoElf! Can you imagine? Kel and I going to work on tutorial (hopefully tonight) on how easy it is to whip up these cards.

These two cuties in this picture are Dawn's niece and her son. The bubble effect, you guessed it is done in PhotoElf! Great job!

Thanks so much Dawn for showing us ALL the different things that we can do with PhotoElf!!

PHENOMINAL PHOTO WEEK, Day 4

Here is a page I had fun with. Something different. I did one picture normal and the other I did in an "outline" effect. I thought it was fun to put them together with this giant paperclip die cut. I didn't really get fancy on this page..The pic is my two kids out on a dock that was in front of our campsite in Plymouth, Ma. I just thought it told the whole story of being there. We did soooo much fishing, and had a lot of fun! The paper is from my stash. I tore the light blue and used a paper tearer on the striped. I added a few stickers and some brads and called it a day.

PHENOMINAL PHOTO WEEK, Day 3

Here's a 2pg. layout I did of my son's graduation. I just snapped away when I took pics. It's really hard to get up close and take the time to get the shots you really need because at events like this, it moves fast and it's sooo packed! So, I just kind of pointed and clicked.. LOL I knew I would be doing a lot of cropping and playing around with them in PhotoElf so I wasn't too worried. If I had to sit in Walgreens or CVS and manipulate these photos, I woulda been there all night. Further, these pics are at crazy measurements, not standard
which I love! This is pretty much a "stash" page.. LOL. I stamped.
I did some rub ons..I cornered some tags..I even stitched..stapled..lol Lil bit of it all folks..lol

PHENOMINAL PHOTO WEEK - Day 2

Good morning all! It is a rainy day here in New England, but we are not going to let that takes us down! Kel and I are trying to show different things you can do with Photo Elf. This is a page I did of my brother-in-law and my niece. This picture is one piece. I did a collage in Photo Elf. When you choose the pictures you want to print it puts the pictures on grid paper and then you can line them up anyway you want and crop to any size. I cropped the bigger one to 4.5 x 8 and

the smallers ones are 2.5 x 2.5. I lined then up on the grid paper and printed them out. I left then as one cut and soo easy adhere it down and it is done! All from the comfort of my scrapcave!! Have I mentioned that I love PhotoElf? The Winter title is cut from Stretch your Imagination and shadowed, cut at 7". The paper is from a winter stack that I have had for ever. The bigger snowflakes are chipboard covered with paper. The white snowflakes are rub ons. The little snow lady and the words are stickers from a winter kit that Kel bought a while ago. Don't forget the 70th follwer gets a cool prize, we are 2 away!! So close!!! And our orginal 1-69 followers are also entered to win a prize (we can't forget our loyal followers).

PHENOMINAL PHOTO WEEK - Day 1

Good morning all! I hope you had a great weekend. I do have to say I did spend quite a bit of time down in the scrap cave creating! So it was a good weekend for me. I did this karate page over the weekend. Kel and I wanted to you show you how AWESOME Photo Elf is.

Both of these pictures are printed using photo elf. The bigger picture of the entire greeen/red belt class was cropped to 5 x 7. We wanted to show you how close you can crop a picture. My son is in the front row of the class, I used the same picture and zoomed into my son's face and was able to crop only his face at 4x4. You can crop photo's to any size you want. It is so easy!!!







Here is the close up of the 4x4 photo.

I used the Sports Mania cart to cut the title at 1 3/4 then shadowed, page 58. I cut the karate dude at 1 3/4 on page 58 as well. The red paper is StampinUP. The green is from my stash. The patterned paper is from DCWV and K&Company both are from PhotoMat packs, so they are already 4x6. And the little buttons are StampinUP! as well.

THE MOMENT WE ALL HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR....

Drum roll please...........................................................................................
Kel and are absolutely beside ourselves that we received our very first sponsor. This is a product that Kel, Dawn, Pa and I can't live without (yes I made Pa buy it and he LOVES it). We use this all the time. Without further ado, we would like to give a big thanks to Rick over at PhotoElf! We contacted Rick to see if he would be willing to give us a copy of his awesome software program and within 10 minutes emailed us back with a big YES! We have had the software for about a week now!! Thanks again Rick! !! Ladies please go on over to Rick's website and check it out for yourselves, www.photoelf.com. This software is amazing, it allows you to edit your pictures, add special affects, crop your pictures and the BEST feature ever is the printing. It allows you to arrange your pictures on the paper so you don't waste any paper!! We love it!!



This program is worth $40.00!! So we thought we should make this a true challenge! So Kel and I have come up with the following challenge:

1) This is going to be a 12 x 12 layout and you have to use 3 photos on the layout. We thought it would be easier if we gave you a few themes to work from so we chose the following: Sights of Summer, Fall Frolic and Winter Wonders. This way if you have any pics from the summer, fall or winter you want to get done here is your chance.

2) You have to be a follower

3) You have to post our awesome blog candy on your blog (of course if you have one, if you don't no worries).

4) Deadline for the project is November 27th by 9:00 est.


5) Of course HAVE FUN!!!


Kel and I will pick the winner out of our very famous hat and thought this is such a huge prize we would video tape it and have some fun with it (can you tell we are excited about our sponsor??)

CONGRATS TO OUR VERY OWN DAWN!!

Very busy night here at Serenity Scrappers. We just found out that our BFF Dawn has won a huge challenge over at http://scrapourstash.blogspot.com . Please go on over and check out the layout that Dawn did to win this challenge, awesome! And she gets to pick the next layout for the next challenge!! Woohoo! We are soo proud! Congrats Dawn!!!

Thank you Kate

Good evening ladies,

I was just over checking out the ever talented blog of Kate over at http://smallbitsofpaper.blogspot.com/ and saw that she gave Kel and I an award. Thank you so much Kate, we are honored you thought of us! We love, love your blog and your talent is amazing! Ladies and Pa, please go and check out Kate.

I have to admit, I am NOT as blog savy as Kel, and since she is away, I can't post a picture of the award. I did manage to get it over on the sidebar (I was impressed I did that)! Not easy being me. Kate gave us the "I got the attitude blog". We are suppose to post three things about us that people don't know and pass the blog award on to 5 people. So I will post my three things. Kel will post hers when she returns and then we will come up with 5 people we want to pass it along to.

Thanks again Kate!!

1) I have a dog that I think is my son! I am not sure who has more layouts my children or my dog.

2) I love anything pumpkin, pumpkin spice coffee, whoopie pies, you name it I love it!

3) I am a HUGE football fan (this makes my husband very happy). Go Patriots!!!

NEW FOLLOWER

Ladies and Gents, please welcome Lalkygirl to our blog family. I am SO excited she has become a follower. I ABSOLUTELY adore her blog. If you want some inspiration, please go by and visit. Her talent is AMAZING! Hope to see you around Lalky!" My-Creative -Place" BTW, One of my favority fave posts is her November 7th. Come heck or high water, I'm going to scraplift that card.. LOL

Please scroll down to see Laurie's awesome tip and Exciting PRIZE info!

ROLLING WITH THE PUNCHES WEEK - Tip and some BIG news

Here is a quick tip on storing punches. I had them all in a draw and would have to take them all out to find the one I needed. This is a easy fun little tip. This is a shoe rack that hangs over a door. I did have it hanging over a door until my husband decided to take the door down (to put up some gym equipment). But he just nailed it to the wall. Very clever man I have!! Dawn calls him McGyver, I do have to agree, he can fix anything!!

Now on to Scrap business. First a big HUGE Serenity Scrappers welcome to our three new followers:

Ballingal105
The Crafty Den
Stacy Harper Watson

THANK YOU ladies for following us. We hope you like what you see and we will see you around. If you have a blog, please let us know so we can share with the others. Also we are soo close to 70! Remember the 70th follower gets a prize!!


BIG NEWS!!!!!
We have a challenge coming up, we will announce details on Sunday. We are sooo excited because we have our very first Sponsor for this challenge and let us tell you it is a GOODY!! It is worth $40.00!! This is something that Kel and I can NOT scrap without!! We are so excited we can't even stand ourselves!! Woohoo, so please tune in on Sunday!!

ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES, Day 5

Here are some adorable lil "punch" Turkeys to dress up your Thanksgiving Table sent over from Tara at Stampin' Up! Tara says: " Here are some punch turkeys from the scrappin weekend, they are made with circle punches, the scallop circle punch and the boho blossoms punch. All materials are on my blog"

ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES, Day 4

Here is a GREAT card sent from Maureen. THANKS MAUREEN! We love getting her cards..so much talent! Here's what she had to say: MS Punch is Around the Page called Deco Fan. I cut a 5" card from ivory cardstock. Then I cut a 5" olive green cardstock. . The patterned paper was cut a bit smaller then I rounded the corners. Next is the green scallop circle from Nestabilities which I also embossed. Final piece of ivory is punched and embossed one size smaller. The sentiment "you're never more than a thought away" is from Stampin' Up....just love that saying for a card...so versatile! The ink color is Mellow Moss also from Stampin' Up. I edged the ivory circle in the same color and added 2 heart brads. To add dimension I always use foam dots which I did on the center punch.

Here is a simple card by me! I just HAD to get a hold of this Martha PAP punch called "crackle" Thanks you CropStop for the inspiration. I walked in, and it was on clearance at Michaels. I think I heard angels sing.. LOL The lil snowman was done by Dawn and was in my die cuts swap stash, the sentiment a rub on from stash, papers in stash. Boy I really "stashed" it on this one.. LOL Using up m'stuff.. woo hoo! This punch makes a great creepy background for a halloween card and I also saw it used to make it look like a fringed blanket around a lil dog die cut. So many uses! I have the brrrrr sort of cracked ice look for my card! I bet you gals could think of many more!

ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES, Day 3

Yep, the new year is right around the corner.. hard to believe ! This is a fun layout done by Susan, Laurie and me. Susan is a Stampin' Up punch Pro.. LOL. We have the border punch a lil more than 1/2 a way down on the blue paper, we have the corner punches layered on the photo mat and then along the bottom using the same patterned paper we punched the triangular shapes creating a border. The use of these three different punches didn't take long at all to add to page, but it does give much more to the page than to having added a plain strip of paper through middle or across the bottom. The cricut cut is from celebrations with Flourish cartridge. This really is a goodie. Laurie had all this great paper in her stash, the glittery ribbon from my stash. We inked the edges with white chalk ink and there ya have it :)

ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES - Day 2

We are on to day 2 of roll with the punches (I just love that title). Kel and I were super busy making the projects for this week. On this card we used a square punch (thanks to our ever crafty friend Susan) to make the Christmas tree. We used the Marvy 1" square punch. This punch is soo easy to use. We then cut the squares down into triangles. The green paper is punched with Martha Stewart's punch around the page punch.

Here is a close up of the Martha Stewart Lace punch around the page punch, as you know it comes with two punches, one for the corners and the for the sides. We thought we would show you how we lined it up.

Here are the two punches and the instructions. Once you get the hang of these punches they really do work well.

We wanted to put a sentiment on the card, but we couldn't come up with one. Any ideas???? Thanks, ladies for your help and we LOVE the comments.

ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES - Day 1

Good morning everyone! Kel came up with the very clever theme of "Roll with the punches". We can't take credit for the design of this card, all the credit goes to Donna at http://splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/tag_punches_star We fell in love with this star, we had to to give it a go and thought we would Scrap it forward.

This is the close up of the two stars.

Our punches are from our favority fave, StampinUP! One large tag and a small tag punch.










Here is how we put it together. The red polka dot paper is from My Minds Eye, called I Believe. I am in love with this stack!!

Kel and I have a bunch of fun projects for the week. Feel free to pass along any projects you have with punches on them or any cool techniques you may know. We cut the word Peace on the Cricut, I believe from Christmas Cheer. The paper on the card was also from My Minds Eye, the I believe stack. As always make it a great day!!

CLOSING OUT CUTTLEBUG WEEK

I was just visiting A Busy Bee's blog and you've got to check out her embossing work on a xmas card she did.. too cute! DoubleClick Connections - AKA Abusybee Well, we've had fun with the cuttlebug over the last two weeks and we thank you gals for all your comments, and now we're moving on ... On Monday we will start our "ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES" week. Laurie and I have scrapped up some fun stuff using punches ! So I hope too see you all next week. Have a great Sunday!

A FEW CHALLENGES - and some information

Well Kel and I had another scrap night therapy session and what fun we had. This is a page, that we are entering in two challenges and it is a prelude to next week's theme. Can you figure it out what the theme will be?

Family is cut from the Heritage Cart and the punch on the bottom of the mat is a ribbon punch and we weaved the ribbon through. The punch at the bottom is a Martha Stewart punch and another punch that Kel has, she was going to look that up, she will let u know.

This is a close up of the punches.

Remember our 70th follower will get a prize and we wanted to include the followers we have now, so those names will go in hat as well. Win/win!!

The two challenges we entered are:

http://cookingwiththecricut.blogspot.com/

http://www.craftingwithchristina.com/

CUTTLEBUG WEEK 2, Day 5

Here is a LO I did of my son and his orchestra teacher and friends the last concert at high school. The papers are from my stash, Paisley stickers are Heidi Grace, The lil banner papers are MS. I'm going to journal on them. I used Devine swirls for tag. I first inked them with Tahiti Chalking Inks from Quick Quotes, Me and Laurie can't LIVE without these Powder Puff challking inks. they are the best. I chalked the inside TOP of folder and ran through CB. I edged the entire page in Marachino Cherry QQ inks. The brown strip is cuttlebugged with a diamond folder from CB. I added some buttons and twine from stash and there ya have it. I used a Becky Higgins Page Map for the idea for the layout.

CUTTLEBUG Week 2, Day 4

Sorry bout the late post.. I had an appointment that kept me longer than it should. Anyway, here goes. I loved this pic of my daughter and her friend. I was supprised I got such a good action shot, I'm not a very good picture taker person.. LOL. Anyhow, onto the good stuff. I used DCWV for all papers cept yellow is from stash. I used the Vacation Cartridge for tickets and roller coaster. Stickers are from stash. I used the forest branches cb folder for roller coaster and the sizzix diamond for the yellow strip down the left. I glittered up a few spots and there ya have it! I used PhotoElf to crop my photos. I love this program. It is extremely user friendly and me and Laurie have used it for quite some time and wouldn't scrap without it. I am going to see if I can find some lil riding cart stickers or something on a cricut cart somethwere to put on my lil roller coaster I think to bring it more to life.. Any other suggestions for my coaster??

INTERUPTION AGAIN - I entered another challenge.

Hello ladies. I have entered a challenge on the http://magchallengebythepage.blogspot.com/ The challenge was to use a cut from page 45 of the Create a Critter cartidge. I chose the little bird. I am happy with the way it came out.

CUTTLEBLUG WEEK - Week 2 - Day 3

We are back to Cuttlebug week. I wanted to share a card I made with new paper that I had to have and have been dying to use. I bought two kits from My Minds Eye - Holly Jolly and I Believe. The kits had paper, cut outs, ribbon and brads (all matching of course). I also wanted to use the cuttlebug on the card. My thought was to use the cuttlebug on patterned paper, because I NEVER do that. So here is the finished product. The stamp is from StampinUP! Sparkling Season. I added some bling for the top of the tree and glitter pen throughout.

























These adorable tickets came in the Holly Jolly kit. The paper is from the I Believe kit.













Snowflake folder was used on the blue patterned paper. The Christmas tree was cut from Christmas Cheer cartidge at 3 1/4" layered and shadowed and a few pop dots to make it pop.

INTERUPTION TO THE INTERUPTION

I had to interupt Kelly's post to let you all know that Dawn won second place for her tattoo's!!

Woohoo, congrats Dawn. Check it out:
http://silhouettemachine.blogspot.com/2010/11/free-download-of-week-contest-winners.html

We are so proud!

I INTERUPT Cuttlebug Week to bring you total Halloween cuteness!

DO YOU NOT LOVE these tattoos? Omgoshness,, how adorable. Dawn did these on her SILHOUETTE. They are printed on tattoo paper! I just love this idea! These photos GORGEOUS, by the way! have actually been submitted to Silhouette for a contest. We've got Spider Mom, her lil Shark Boy and a fantab Hippie! HOW FUN! Tfs Dawn!

What is the Silhouette?The Silhouette is a digital cutting tool for personal use. It connects to your computer just like a printer, but instead of printing designs it cuts them with a small blade. With the machine connected to your computer, you'll get access to all of the fonts on your PC plus the thousands of cuttable designs found on the Silhouette Online Store.

WINNER!!!

OMGoshness.. Me and Laurie got so tied up with Halloween and stealing our kids candy lol that we forgot to post our comment winner from last week.... It is Rhonda at bumblebee creations I belive it was 44 names in the hat.. Rhonda had 5 entries! Way to GO!! I will get those cuts out to you. I'm a bit behind on some mail.. But I will get it to ya!! Thanks for coming by to comment! Poor JD is still waiting for her prize.. so sorry! I picked up some great ribbon yesterday and I'm going to include for Rhonda and JD for their patience! SCROLL DOWN FOR LAURIE'S POST FOR TODAY sorry for the interuption.. lol

CRAZY CUTTLEBUG WEEK 2 - Day 1

Goood morning! I hope everyone had a great weekend!! Kel and I had so much fun using our cutttlebugs we thought we could continue the theme. We did this layout strictly from A Child's Year, page 62. Everything on this page is cuttlebugged (is that word?). The letters, the bubbles, the mat, the ducks and the bathtub. On the bathtub we used one of the really small folders (it looks like a wave) and then used a q-tip to ink it.

We cuttlebugged the bubbles, inked the edges and then glitter them with a glitter pen. So cute!

Swiss dots on the ducks add some great texture.

We figured everyone has a picture of some little baby in a tub, what a perfect layout.

I am counting on Ms. Jen to let us know what the folders are!! LOL