Ladystamper

This card was just that. Too easy! Chocolate chip base, DSO striped paper, one LOVE stamp and a button! I added the mini library clip, but other than that...oober easy! You can do this one! I was inspired by a card on Tami Waddells facebook. I liked the easy but cute look of it. Gotta love those big buttons!

I have been in the mood for Valentine's day lately. It seems so fresh and new after the long holiday season. It means spring is just around the corner! I am loving the Love DSO from Stampin' Up! I used the xo paper and thought my big XO dies from the Big Shot would work great! I used going grey paper and then glittered them using the 2way glue pen and dazzling diamonds glitter. Gotta love the bling! Quick and easy card!

I love this designer scrap page from Stampin' Up! It is the perfect colors and theme for these pictures from our family trip to Sedona in 09. The great thing about these pages is that you can modify them to fit. On the original page there was a bicycle image. I removed it and added the flourish under Sarah and balanced that with making the clock by Ethan a darker brown. I also added the brown brads on the two sides. It is nice to have such a great jump start on making your own design. You can also change the colors of the paper and use the layout over and over again! gotta love it!

Stampin' Up! has been adding loads of awesome downloads for My Digital Studio. I love how quick and easy it is to get more stuff! I just click, pay, and download and I can use it instantly!! Talk about instant gratification! Gotta love it! This page is one that was designed by Stampin' Up! I just added the silver accents. (gotta make it my own!) I decided to go with a black and white photo of the family to fit the vintage feel of the page. Yet another thing you can instantly do. Change a color photo to black and white. Very cool..... I have some cute Valentine projects to share....stay tuned!!

Today is my dear friend Kimber's birthday. She is my 'stampin' mama'. She is the one I signed up to be a Stampin' Up! demonstrator under.....15 years ago! She has been super supportive and a great friend for all those many years. We have gone to lots of Stampin' Up! events together. In honor of her birthday, I made this digital scrap page for her. These are pictures from leadership in Nashville just a few weeks ago. I used a designer template from the Always Elegant collection. I love the soft colors. I added the bermuda ribbon and changed the other blues to match. I was trying to match my awesome sweat suit I was wearing to the Make and takes. Yes, I did wear my cowboy boots with that. Hey, make and takes is all about US! No need to dress up for that one...I had to be comfortable! Besides, by this point, I was just about worn out from all the fun! Do I look punchy in this picture? Yeah....I was......and I even went out on the town after this! Gotta love Nashvil...

Today is my mom's birthday. I thought it would be nice to do a scrapbook page for her in honor of her special day. My mom is a wonderful person. Really. She is just one of the best people I know. I am honored to be her daughter. I hope I can be half as wonderful as she is when I grow up. My mom has been scrapbooking longer than I have....well, let's say...she has been buying scrapbooking supplies longer than I have. She is a real perfectionist when it comes to...well...everything. Scrapbooking has been hard for her. I introduced her to My Digital Studio last fall and she is doing awesome with it! She has probably scrapped more in the last few months than she has in 10 years! So, if YOU are wondering if MDS is for you....if you are like my mom, it IS! Happy Birthday mom! I love you!!

Here is a Love card in a less traditional color scheme. I love how the artist used a button for the O and cut the V out of blue paper. Very cute. The striped ribbon is toooo yummy!! yes, I do have a huge drawer overflowing with ribbon. My Name is Beckie and I hoard ribbon......lol

I know this is a big jump away from the red cards I've been featuring lately, but I really love the texture on here. The artist used embossing folders on the bottom half, as well as on the flower. It is super cute in person. Bright and sunny.....I'm in no hurry for summer!

If you are a touchy feely person, you would love this card! It features the cute new pompom trim along the edge. It is so soft and fun! This is a card you could make a lot of to send out to all your Valentines this year!

I love the simple sweetness of this card. The little envelope as a tea bag is so cute! The heart punch makes perfect little tea leaves...or whatever they are. wouldn't it be nice if we could actually make a pot of love? When we are feeling down?

Since I am on a Valentime theme, I will share Diane's card next. Diane Killeen was one of my roommates at leadership. She has been a demonstrator for almost as long as I have. We had a lot of fun together this last week. I love her card! She used crystal effects over the water in the LOVE to make it really pop. The heart is with Glitter paper....great minds! It also has a cute fold that could work for any number of occasions. Great idea Diane!

Yes, I did actually make swaps for leadership. I decided to make Valentine cards since I am working on a Valentine themed Stamp Bowl in February. I wanted to use this awesome tree, cuz I LOVE it, and thought hearts would make perfect little leaves. I got out my glitter but discovered, gasp, that I was almost out! Horrors!!! Fortunately, I had a new package of our new Red Glitter paper handy. It worked perfectly! I LOVE this paper! In fact, I made a second swap using the same paper. I made 80 swaps and only used 1-1/4 sheets of the glitter paper. I thought they turned out pretty cute. I LOVE our new Valentine DSP (designer series paper) and used every last inch of every sheet!

Leadership was wonderful! Such great ideas for both business and stamping. I am home and ready to share! I have lots of swaps to share with you! I am starting with my all time favorite swap that I received. This cupcake stamp set and matching punch were a big hit at leadership! Lots and lots of awesome samples! I love the soft colors on this one as well as the glitter. It looks good enough to eat! If you are wondering how the edges were done, stay tuned! I will be posting a short tutorial this week showing you how! Until then,.....enjoy!

I am in Nashville for Stampin' Up!'s leadership conference. It is beautiful here. Snow on the ground, stampers everywhere and music in the air. Nashville boasts itself as the music capital of the world. There is live music at the airport and everywhere you go there is an obvious focus on the great music that is born here. I am in heaven! What more do I need? Well, maybe my family here with me. I do miss them! Thank goodness for my awesome mom and mother in law home taking care of my babies. My mind is at rest knowing they are well taken care of. Last night we partied hard at the Wild Horse Saloon in downtown Nashville. It was awesome! David Robbins, the famous songwriter/singer entertained us first. He was amazing! Not only incredibly talented, but also a super nice guy. I got to spend some time with him after he performed. He looks 40, acts 25, and is actually older than me! I won't tell his age....he likes to surprise people with it. After Dave we had a line dancing class...

When I use My Digital Studio, I almost always make my own page instead of using the designer ones that have been premade. For this month, since it was the last one of the year, I decided to just do a group of pictures so I used a premade layout. It was super easy to just drag and drop pictures into the slots. I picked pictures that made me laugh or smile about the previous year. You have the option of using a premade layout for every month. If you did that, it would be amazingly fast! I like to do my own thing so, I'm really glad for the options. Now it's your turn! Get your MDS out and get scrappin! It was totally easy, fun and fast to do this calendar! I'd love to see what YOU come up with!

This is our 'official' family picture for 2010. At first, I was really irritate that Sarah was looking so goofy. But the more I look at it the more I see her personality just shining through. I love it. It was a bit of a windy coldish day and we had about 30 people running around trying to do a photoshoot, so .....it is amazing we got any good ones! I think my family is just beautiful! I love them so much!

Sarah has always been an adorable girl. As a baby, people would stop me in stores or wherever I was and tell me how beautiful she was. They would tell me to get her on TV or modeling. We lived in California at the time so, it was possible, but I knew that would make her life something we really didn't want it to be. As she has grown older she has just gotten cuter both in looks and in personality. She is a hoot! Always fun fun fun! I just adore her!

Here is my other August birthday boy. I don't mean to brag, but I think this is an amazing picture of Ethan! He looks like a model. He even likes this one. I took this when we were out riding quads with my friend Val. Ethan was having a good time and it just shows! Ethan is a sweetheart....he is my hug boy. He always knows when I am sad or needed a hug and he is right there! He has also developed a real soft spot for my grandmother. If we are going somewhere, he wants to be the one holding her arm and helping her walk. It makes me so proud of him!

We actually have two birthdays in August, Thorin and Ethan. Ethan's comes first in the month, but I let Thorin have this page due to Seniority. Thorin is all boy and rough and tough and as hard headed as a bull! We do have our rough times but all in all he is an amazing kid. He can make friends anywhere and he is really smart. No matter now he denies it. He can do anything he sets his mind to. Unfortunately, that is usually just video games.

Another month with no birthdays but a month full of action around here. I usually have my Stampin' Up! convention in Salt Lake and we are doing as much fun summer activity as we possibly can handle. Lots of pool time and any other activity that is 'cool'...as in, not hot! My mother in law took some of the kids to the Grand Canyon last year and did some hiking. She is awesome about doing fun, non expensive stuff. I want to be more like that! I went with some deserty, summer colors on this page. Can you feel the heat of Arizona?

June belongs to my American Girl. Maegan was born on Flag day, which is kind of fun! We always fly a flag on her birthday. She is becoming a real adult and that is scary and very cool all at the same time. We can share clothes and stories about boy friends and it is just really cool. She has no idea how amazing she is. I wish she had a little bit of that knowledge....just to prod her along a bit more. She is capable of so much more that she thinks.

My Benny boy was born in May. I honestly had doubts that he would ever be born when I was pregnant with him. The boy cooked about 10 months in there. He was nice and comfy and saw to reason to come out. We had to cut him out, the little turkey. He is a joy to me now tho. He is full of imagination and incredibly smart. He is always saying the cutest things and acting out skits. He keeps me humble and reminds me that I need to be a better mom, all the time. He is incredibly photo-genic so, I have loads of pictures of him, but this is one of my all time favorites. He is so happy and 'boyish' in this one. It just makes me smile!

April is a good and bad month for me. Yes, my birthday is in April, but I also lost my sweetheart in April so....a bit bitter sweet. I do love the spring time and the not yet hot time of the year so, I am able to cope. These pictures were taken at Thanksgiving and I just cropped myself out of group shots. lol Gotta love how we can customize photos these days. My mother was just telling me the other day how she can cut and paste faces onto bodies in our family picture so we all look good....I guess that is kind of cool, but I kind of want to remember the events as they are. Even the family pictures where Sarah and Macey are being silly and look ridiculous...I will always remember how much fun they had together when they were 13. They may be mortal enemies (heaven forbid) when they older so, it is fun to have these good times now. Of course, if I have a huge zit in my picture, photoshop that baby!!!

I was a dorky child. It's true, I don't care what my mom says. She is biased. I was a skinny, tall, bespecled, buck toothed child that was extremely shy. Dorky. I got better....I grew up and gained confidence, fixed my teeth, found contacts, and decided I did have things to say. It was a long hard road at times, but it made me who I am today. When I look back at pictures from my awkward years, decades, I hardly recognize that girl. Who is she? I have vague memories of her but, not many. Maybe I have covered up those memories with new, better memories....or maybe I just wasn't paying attention. Who knows....All I know is I am happy with who I am today. I am so glad I've always had a family that has stood by me through all my phases. I found this picture on my computer....probably due to my brothers efforts at some point in time. This is actually a 'non-dorky' picture of me. We all look pretty good. I used some of my newest MDS designer paper. Something that doesn...

Moving right along through my calendar, we are up to March. March is actually really full of extended family birthdays but none in my own little family so I decided to spot light Fantine, our puppy. Okay, not technically a puppy, but dog sounds so impersonal to me. She was Brad's dog and I think she really misses him a lot. Whenever a man comes over whether it is a family member or a complete stranger, she is instantly by his side looking for some affection. It's kind of sweet, and annoying at the same time. She is a good sport, as you can see from these pictures with Ethan. There is also a picture of her backside with the glasses....using the tail as a 'nose' but..I didn't really want to look at that for a whole month!

No, don't panic, you didn't miss a month. lol I just wanted to share my calendar page for February. I figured it would be better to share the whole calendar quick instead of taking the entire year! I want you all to make your own calendars! This page features my oldest son Jared since his birthday is in February. He is the best sort of person. Always true and honest and smart....he is my rock a lot of the times these days. He amazes me! This page is a bit bright for his reserved personality, but....oh well! I like it!

I have my 2011 calendar all finished and ready for the new year. Yes, I am patting myself on the back just a little. It is even printed and ready for the wall! Here is the first page, January. I did a 'design your own' layout on My Digital Studio. I used pictures of my son Ethan doing TaeKwonDo because we don't have any January birthdays in my family. My mom's is on Jan 24th, but I only used pictures of me and my kids on this calendar. I have to say, I did my entire calendar in two hours! Can't beat that! I spent a few more hours doing a black and white album this week. I'll be sharing that soon. I love black and white! Happy New Year!! Bec