5 on Friday

WooHoo it's Friday! My kids have a half day, it's supposed to be 90+ degrees and even with the hot temps and my kids home early, life is good. This weekend will prove to be chaos, but even that should be fun. As much as life feels like it revolves around soccer at times, I do enjoy watching my boys play. And I'll have plenty of opportunity this weekend, with seven games in two days. Sort of sounds like one of those mad-paced European vacations - "See 12 countries in 3 days!" Those are just the scheduled games, if they do well, we could have as many as three more. PLUS, the super bonus - this means Spring soccer is over! :) I'm sure you're just chompin' at the bit to get your final challenge for this week. I know I am. I was IM'n with Melanie and she wondered if I was going to do a red, white & blue thing. I hadn't thought about it, but it is Memorial Weekend - the official non-calendar start to Summer. So here is your 5 on Friday:

• 1 sheet cardstock in navy or red
• 1 sheet patterned paper
• 1 set metallic embellishments
• 1 set of stars
• 1 set of buttons

Now, remember, nothing but the above listed ingredients, except journaling and a title. The layout DOES NOT have to be patriotic themed (I'll save that for another time), but does need to have the listed items. Have this challenge and the other two from this week uploaded by Saturday evening.

One last thing - Jennifer H. has the most adorable Pink Poodle invites for her daughter's birthday party posted on her blog. She traced the outline of the dog, but all the pen work is free-hand! They are the cutest things. So if you have a little girl and are looking for an idea, check these out. Even if you downloaded the clipart and just added the glitter - totally cute!

Okie doke, ya'll have a great holiday weekend!

Sketches on Wednesday

An ode to "The Magic Treehouse" books it's Sketches on Wednesday.

Drawing a blank on your year-end teacher gifts and feeling the pressure? Check out (our very own) Jennifer H.s' blog. While you might not have the time to put together the album (make a mental note for next year), the picture and frames are super easy and make a meaningful gift.

After you grab and idea or two from Jennifer, wander over to Melanie's blog to take part in her blog hop (where AS is a sponsor) and maybe you could win a little goodie.

Okay, so remember to link up your layouts to the individual challenges by Saturday evening to be eligible for the treat.

After a coffe with Jennifer (yep, same one) it looks to be a fairly quiet day - just one soccer practice and that's it. Maybe I'll get some cleaning done. Or laundry. Or AS work. Or scrapbooking? Only the day unfolding will tell.

Winners

Nice and quick so you can enjoy your Tuesday. Winner from the challenges during the week of May 10th: Deanna! Winner from the challenges during the week of May 17th: Melissa! I'll be sending goodies with the June shipping, you know in case you win again. ;)

Monday's Challenge

It was an odd weekend here - DH was in Kansas City for our nephew's graduation, or rather his graduation party. With the actual graduation on Sunday night he couldn't stay for that, but he went and celebrated. Then there were no sports - none whatsoever. A very odd thing for me, because since mid-February we've been dealing with soccer, and a little later, volleyball. But, as predicted, this weekend's tournaments are all conflicts, all the time! We'll have to divide and conquer so that DH and I can both enjoy the boys' separate games, separately. Today, more wind. Ick. Of all the weather, it's wind I hate the most. But there's also this week's first challenge (I will try to get the winners of the last two weeks challenges posted later today), so at least there's something to do inside, if your weather is less than perfect. Today, using the sketch below from 52 Sketches 52 Weeks, create a layout that incorporates a nice apple green and alter the sketch to include more than the one photo shown, or make your layout a 2-pager.

Back to chores and work and maybe time to get some lunch. Have a wonderful Monday.

5 on Friday

I didn't forget, well I kinda did, but I remembered today that I needed to post a challenge. That of course is when I realized I totally missed Wednesday's. In my defense, I was up to my elbows in catalogs searching out July goodies! So, to make up for the missing challenge, today's will be two fold; 1 layout and 1 card from the scraps. :) Here are your ingredients:

• 1 sheet cardstock
• 1 sheet patterned paper
• 1 set chipboard accents
• 1 set blossoms
• 1 length of ribbon

Remember, besides a title and journaling no extra items can be used. If you need more cardstock to create your card, that is the exception. This and Monday's challenge are due up Saturday evening.

It'll be a quiet weekend here - temps in the 80's, which after our cool temps might be a bit too hot, but at least it isn't snow. We have a birthday party and a cooking show and that's it! I don't know what to do with myself if I'm not running like a mad woman to one sporting event or another. DH is out of town until late Sunday, so it's me, the kids and a puppy we are puppy-sitting.

Hope your weekend is super! Just not super crazy.

Kick-off the week Monday Challenge

Happy Monday! How was your weekend? Here, we had gorgeous weather, well on Sunday anyway. Saturday we enjoyed clouds and cool weather and rain that held off until after the soccer game. My 9 y.o.'s last regular season game was a 3-0 win! Hurray! Now we continue to have practices until the Memorial Day tournaments begin. We only have one bracket set, so it should be fun to see how the other schedule fits in and what kind of chaos will be created.

My daughter's volleyball team had their championship game up in Longmont (45 minutes north of us) where they fought hard, but ultimately took 2nd place in the City, with the closest games they played all season, loosing by only a couple points on both their matches. The photo below shows smiling faces and red, watery eyes.

I also enjoyed a Saturday night of scrapbooking where I completed seven, yes SEVEN, pages! They didn't photo graph well, and then they didn't edit well, but you'll get the idea. I must have had my camera settings off from taking photos at the volleyball game. I also tried to get the Slide function to work, but no go on that too - it must be Monday!

So, on to the first challenge of the week. Bessie's gonna take a break while she deals with the icky effects of early pregnancy and an upcoming move to Florida. She's had great Monday challenges (which I will miss) and I'm sure mine will pale in comparison, but I'll give it a shot anyway. Today, create a layout using your most recent photos with your most recent kit/purchase. Your sketch of the day is from Nuts About Sketches and when I saved it I already had one by this name, but not sure if I actually used it - if I did, well, you're getting it again. :)

Challenges for this week are due, linked up, by Saturday evening.

Hope your day and week is off to a great start!

Just a couple shout outs. . .

One is for Gloria, the card kit designer for May. She's got her examples up on her blog, you can see them HERE. Make sure you wander around her blog - she's has amazing cards. Teacher-gift season is in full swing, and if you need some cute ideas for teachers or PTO thank you's check out what Melanie has going on HERE. Plus be sure to check out her blog starting on the 19th. If you forget, I'll remind you. :)

Return of the Fave - 5 on Friday

So our girl is headed to the city championships on Saturday, with a win last night. After loosing their first match, they came out fighting to win the next two. Their last two games have been tough, so I expect Saturday's to be even more so. We'll also finish up with our last regular season soccer game later on Saturday - woohoo. But there are big soccer tourneys for both the boys over Memorial Day weekend.

So on to today's challenge:

• 1 sheet of cardstock
• 1 sheet patterned paper
• 1 something shiny
• 1 something sparkly
• 1 something woven

Remember, other than a title and journaling only the above items can be on your layout. Link up this layout, along with the others from this week, by Saturday evening, to be eligible for the weekly prize.

Off to try to get something done, as yesterday was a nothing-done day. Seriously, nothing. I hate those days.

Hope your weekend is relaxing, fun and filled with a completed page or two.

Really? Snow?

Yes. And it's freezing the blossoms on my May Day tree, and drooping my tulips. Hopefully the lilacs will come away unscathed. You know, I love the snow, but when I have new flowers and green grass - well, I'm done. It can rain all it wants, but NO MORE SNOW. They've been saying if it were cold enough, it would have dumped about two feet on us by now; and it's still coming down. Just finished up the regular craziness of trying to do shipping within the confines of mom-hood, though, actually it was going swimmingly until the older kids came home. Who'd have thought it would be the 1 y.o. that would let me get work done. I just have six little boxes waiting for prizes so they can go out with the rest of them. Which brings me to today's challenge: Create a layout that plenty of white space on it (in honor of all the stinkin' white space being created outside my windows right now.) To help, I've got a sketch for you from Sketchy Thursdays, where white space is done right!

Hope your Thursday is a good one. I am helping with hot lunch in the afternoon (always a fan favorite) and game three in a volleyball tourney right after school. My daughter's team is doing great and are in the semi-finals. Since it looks like snow will keep us out of soccer practices again, that's one less thing to worry about as we head into the final lap with soccer too. Just a tournament away from done for the season. Dang, what will I do?

Have a great day.

Hodge-Podge

First, fair warning - this post could be long and all over the place, but hang in there (or here) 'cause there's some good stuff! ;) With that out of the way, onward I go. The final weekly winners in the Hop To It Challenge and Hometown Assignment are:

• Hop To It Week 5 - Perez
• Assignment #5 - Briel

Next a little Sketch Challenge for this week; due by Saturday evening. Let's start back slowly, create a card with this sketch. The sketch is by our Gloria, and you can see the great things Gloria did with this sketch if you are a member of the Apron Strings Card Kits - if not watch her blog.

So you HAVE to check out Jennifer H.'s blog. You know her for her talented work for Apron Strings with her many multi-photo, 2-pager designs (love that don't we), but check out the simply adorable cupcakes she made for Teacher Appreciation Week - sort of goes along with the whole Teacher thing I've had going on. Keep your eye on her blog for her Apron Strings work later. Hope all the Moms out there had a simply fantastic day. Mine was very nice. I hosted breakfast for both sides of the family and enjoyed simply delish food: upside-down pineapple french toast, ham, eggs Lorraine, homemade cinnamon muffins, this cherry/cream cheese certainly-not-good-for-the-hips danish thing, fresh fruit salad, iced cafe mocha that was more like chocolate milk than coffee (and I couldn't get enough of it) and an assortment of juices - with or without champagne (something else I couldn't get enough of.) After cleaning up and seeing everyone off, Matthew went down for a four hour nap; his present to mommy, the older boys and DH went off to the shooting range, which just left my daughter and I. We watched a little TV and enjoyed our own versions of quiet; though deadlines drew me to work, unfortunately. I was the recipient of two new hanging flower baskets for the front porch (which I hear will need to come inside because we could get up to two FEET of snow) and, best of all, my husband tracked down our wedding proofs. An odyssey that started years ago, with sporadic phone calls to the photographer who could never locate the negatives (yes, I've been married that long.) Well, after my last failed attempt, DH took it upon himself to put the pressure on the photographer to find them. His monthly calls and emails finally paid off and they were unearthed, filed in the wrong year. He spent a lot of time numbering and scanning all the negatives and then having them printed so that I had a catalog and could have an easier time finding the photos I needed to create our album (no, it's not done either) and get the prints we always wanted, but couldn't afford at the time. SO SWEET! And truly touching. Thanks, babe. If you've hung in here this far, and you participated in the April Challenges, you'll want to read this: GRAND PRIZE WINNERS! Grand Prize eligibility was for those who completed all challenges (and for the Hometown challenge, also created a layout using the photos they took.) CONGRATULATIONS TO:

• Grand Prize Winner for the Hop To It Challenge: Perez!!
• Grand Prize Winner for the Hometown Assignment: Briel!!

Congrats to all of you who participated and provided great inspiration and photos from around your town. While I love looking at everyone's layouts, I loved even more seeing where you all are from. I'll be sending out prizes from the weekly drawings and the Grand Prize stuff over the course of the week. Stay tuned for the return of the weekly challenges and National Scrapbook Day Done the Apron Strings way - meaning I'm picking a weekend and we'll have a crop. :) I need to look over my calendar, with end of school and several sports tournaments, I need to find a good weekend.

Thanks for reading all this way with me. Hope your week is starting out great and snow free!

Quick Correction

Got a notice that Melanie's blog link didn't work. I checked and nope, it wasn't though I can't tell why. So I corrected it on the original post and I have it here. She made some delish looking muffins today - and forget the teachers, I need a batch of those! Okay, so maybe not forget them, but I get first dibs. :)

Blog Shout Outs

I'll hold off on the weekly challenges this week as people work to get the Hop To It/Hometown challenges done. But I want to give a shout out to a couple ladies and their blogs. First, Vicky Kelly, one of our lovely Designers, has some tasty blog candy to give away. Wander on over there, leave a link or recipe and get your chance to win. Second, end-of-school is coming quickly and for some of us that mean the age old "what do we do for the teachers" question. You want something fun, yet usable but not something they have 12 dozen of (unless it's cookies), Melanie will be posting some teacher gift ideas on her blog this week, along with a couple tutorials on creating them. If you're working on catching up to win a tasty prize here, I'll let you go now. Go. Crop.

Reminders and Prizes

First Reminders: The last Hometown Assignment photo is due by Wednesday evening - for a weekly prize. To be eligible to win the Hip-Hop-Top Prize all layouts, linked to the correct posts, need to be in by the evening of May 5th. To be eligible to win the Big Fat Treat for the Assignment: Hometown project you'll need to have your photos linked to the correct posts by the evening of May 5th. Next Prizes! There's still two weeklies left to select from - the last of the Hop To It's, which is due by tonight (Sunday) and the last of the weeklies for the Hometown Assignment, due Wednesday night. But I do have the following:

• From Week #4 of the Hop To It: Perez!
• From Hometown Assignment #4: Briel!

I'll be shipping all winners their goodies at the close of the Challenges, even those who receive kits.

Hope your weekend was great! If you're playing catch-up, well, don't let me keep you! Go back to work. ;)

Hometown: Assignment #5 (Updated)

I totally forgot about this last one. The Week in the Life threw me - I was taking pictures everyday, all over town. I guess I figured I was covered. ;) First there's today's Assignment: Your choice. It could be a scenic overlook in town, the road your drive EVERY day, a shot down mainstreet, the town sign with population and all, a local hangout, old buildings, historic homes, whatever it is that when you look at it or drive by it you know you're home. Since I had totally forgotten about this last challenge, I'll have to update with a photo later. I might be able to shoot one tomorrow morning on the way to church and if the weather cooperates, it should turn out well. UPDATE: This isn't the photo I was hoping to use, but it is one that works. This water tower is in Olde Town and, oddly, can be seen from a lot of places in Arvada.

Second: Using the photos you took this month of the Hometown, create a layout. Both are due May 5th, in the evening.