200 Entries!!!

Click Here for July's Anything Goes Challenge

Yeah I've reached my goal of 200 entries...that calls for a great big Texas YAHooooo! So to celebrate I said I would announce another winner and so that is just what I'mma gonna do.  So using my handy dandy random generator I have entered the entry numbers 1 - 200 and Random Generator has chosen

the number: 62

 So congratulations Alyce 

you are the winner! 

(contact me at lesia.cook@gmail.com before 07/29)

Now that we've taken care of the important stuff lets move on to other things like the fact that I never did find the challenge to enter my card but I did get some lovely comments from my crafting friends so that makes me a winner already.

So I did what any other normal red-blooded crafter would do and that is create another card, so not to appear abnormal that is exactly what I did.  It turned out okay I guess but my focus was mainly on the digi image which I thought was gorgeous and I so badly wanted to color her.  Can't quite remember where I got it though...told you my memory is fading by the day.

Well guess I should share it with you before I forget how to do that.

I created this card in such a hurry that I can't remember what I used.  So I'll just be quiet and share the card with you.  Sorry about that...I'll do better next time.

Well that's it folks for this post.  Again congratulations to our winner...there's still two more chances to go so don't give up just yet.

Thanks for stopping by and joining in my challenges.  Your comments, and participation means so very much to me.

I am hoping to enter this card in the following challenges:

Stamp N Plus Challenge #2 - July Anything Goes

Lia Stampz Challenge #21 - Anything Goes

Make it Monday Challenge #99

July's Challenge is "Anything Goes"

!This post will stay pinned until the challenge closes!

Can you believe 2012 is half-way over and summer is upon us and depending on where you are that can be a welcomed thing or not. We have a lot to get excited about because the time to celebrate America is here as well as the Olympics being held in England. Celebrations all around the world so lets celebrate by doing things differently.  We will have a drawing on the 15th (we will select the winner on the morning of the 16th from eligible entries) and then again at the end of the challenge on the 30th of July. That automatically gives you 2 chances to win if you enter early, but there's more ways to win!

July's Challenge is to celebrate the Olympics and the Fourth of July, therefore this is going to be the one everyone loves....that's right you guessed it....ANYTHING GOES!  And for the first time (drum roll please)....... Mema's Crafts has a sponsor!

This month we have the honor of being sponsored by KennyK!!!!!!

Digi and rubber stamps from KennyK are a fun and edgy way to add the perfect dose of attitude and style to all of your creations! 
The creator, the artist, the man: KennyK is a NYC-born professional illustrator who has brought his funky-but-slick, urban-influenced look to the cardmaking and papercrafts world.

His signature style can be seen throughout his various collections of sexy pinup babes, sweet'n sassy girls, cool rockin'dudes, kid’s stuff, retro characters and more at KennyKDownloads.com.  

But before we start July's challenge I guess I should announce the winners for June's "Just Words" challenge. I hope you all had a chance to look at the entries because they were gorgeous.As promised we are announcing two winners and they are as follows:

• First Place Winner By Random Draw is #18 Lisa W. Congratulations you have won a gift cerificate to your choice of either Saturated Canary, Mo Manning or Kenny K. (make your choice and let me know at memascrafts@gmail.com)
• Second Place Winner By Vote is #15 Marsha D. Your entry was selected by my grand-daughters and you have won a certificate for Kenny K digital images.
  
  (winners must claim their prize no later than July 8th).  Ladies please use the email button to contact Mema or send an email to memascrafts@gmail.com.  Also don't forget to grab my winners badge (left sidebar) and add it to your blog.

Now back to July's "Anything Goes" Challenge. The standard rules are located in the left sidebar and the only other rules are as follows:

1.  Please make sure that you link to the URL of your project, not your blog; this will make it easier to locate your entry!
2.  You may Enter THREE Project and you can combine your entry with as many other challenges as you please. 
3.  Don't forget to add a link back to our challenge on your blog.
4.  No backlinking! New Entries Only. We consider new entries to be any project made after June 30th 2012. 

6.  If you haven't already, join my group of lovely followers

You do not need a blog to participate. Read the directions in the left sidebar to see how you can join the fun without a blog.  You can use any image but.... if you use a Kenny K image, then that entry will be counted twice which means you can double your chances of winning up to 15 times.  
Visit Kenny K downloads to download your freebie.  Kenny provides a freebie every month.  So what exactly do you win in this challenge.
Two winners (one drawn on the 15th and one drawn on the 30th) will receive digital images from Kenny K (shown below). These fabulous images are just in time to celebrate the Olympics or Fourth of July.

My girls and I have created a couple of cards that we hope will help you get your creative mojo juices flowing. 

Fourth of July

Fourth of July Inside

Card Recipe:
Image: Kenny K "Fourth of July"
DP:  Authentique "Glory"
CS:  Bazzill Navy Blue
Embellishements:  Jolee's Dimensional and Recollections
Spellbinders:  Fancy Tags
Sentiment was computer generated

Olympic Runner

Olympic Runner Inside

Card Recipe:
Image: Kenny K "Olympic Runner"
DP: Authentique "Glory"
CS: Bazzill Navy Blue
Embellishements: Jolee's Dimensional and Recollections

Both cards were colored with copic markers:
E57, 55, 53, 50 
Skin:  E11, 25, 21, 13
B28, 26
R39, 35, 37

Hope you're ready to have some fun.  I can't wait to see what you create.

I plan to enter these cards in the following challenges:

Bearly Mine - Anything Goes (ends 07/01)

Paper Makeup Stamps - Anything Goes Digi Challenge #42 (ends 07/01)

Crafty Creations Challenges - Embellish It #176 (tags, chipboard, bling) (ends 07/01)

Tammy's Scrappin Corner - Weekly Challenge #16 Anything Goes (ends 07/01)

As always thanks for stopping by, and remember to.....

 "find beauty in all thingss and then create your own."

New Gadget - Top Follower

Wow! This month's challenge continues to grow with entries and I am personally finding this very encouraging and exciting. I am so grateful to everyone that is supporting my challenges and following my blog. I've decided to add another opportunity to win on my blog and I am calling it my "Top Follower." 

In the right sidebar I have added a gadget that will calculate how many times you visit my blog. The only catch is that you must sign in, in order for your visit to count.  The gadget will calculate and show me my top ten followers.  Then at random times through the year I will award a "top follower" prize in addition to any other prize I may be hosting at the time.

So don't forget to sign in when you visit my blog and get counted....just another way to encourage you to visit me more often.  Go ahead and ignore my name; it was necessary to make sure this gadget thingy was working correctly.  

The card I am sharing today, I created to enter in three challenges but for the life of me I can't find my list of challenges.  I guess it was the excitement of my own challenge being such a success that I have failed to remember what I did with my list. I sure hope I can find that list because starting over is just not going to happen.  I do remember that one challenge was to use more than one die and one had to do with using the color white.

Oh well this is what happens when your brain decides to engage in direct competition with its body in seeing which one can go in the wrong direction the fastest. I'm tired of trying to redirect them...to much work...I would much rather craft, so here's my card.


















I created this card using some gold cardstock by Recollections and basic white cardstock by ColorBok (I think thats how you spell it). Then it was using a corner die by Marianne.  I think this particular die is in the Anja collection. Its best to have two of the corner dies so that when you cut one side the other side is not flatten by your machine.  If you can get the whole collection I would say go ahead and do, its well worth it.

I also used Spellbinders Metal Tags dies which were released last year I think right before Christmas.  I love the motifs, dollies and accents that were released and it is my intent to one day have them all...notice I said one day...future not determined. I used a doily to cut a solid white doily and then layered that with a gold motif and then I cut in gold a tag from the metal tags collection.

I then decided to decorate my inside using the same gold and white theme. The border is from the motif collection that I cut and used both the negative and positive ends from each cut. Next I used the Metal Tags collection to add the sentiment "....just because" from Hampton Art clear stamps.  Then I printed my verse on my computer and layered it on a piece of leftover gold cardstock.

That's pretty much the recipe for my card and the end of this post.  The last thing I have to do is figure out what challenges I intended to enter this card before I run out of time.  Based on my past the odds definitely aren't in my favor, nope things are not looking good from my end. 

Oh here is an afterthought for you.  There are 3 days left over at My Enchanted Paper Creations to win a Saturated Canary digi image.  Currently I am winning...yipee because I don't think anyone is aware of the challenge, so if you enter, your chances of winning are pretty good at the moment.  Just thought I would share with my friends.

Okay lets see is there anything else........yep...actually there is....I may be adding another winner to the list of winners.  If my entries reach 200 I will add another winner and when I reach 300 followers I will have some blog candy up for grabs.  Now I think I am finished with all the gabbing.  Good bye ladies...have a great day or evening where-ever you are.

Dog Days of Summer

Talk about the "dog days of summer!"  Well we are going through a heat wave and I can tell you that the AC is cranked up, the ceiling fans are running and the ice maker is working more overtime than I am.  The only thing I seem to be doing is drinking water as if there will be none tomorrow.  Well although today is Thursday, it is Friday for me!!! yeah no work tomorrow so I can stay up a little late and do a little blogging.

I am amazed at the number of entries my July challenge has gotten, but it is rather exciting and the one thing that has happened is we past my goal of 150 entries therefore there will be an additional entry prize given away based on a vote by my grand-daughters (they think they are my design team).  So for July we will have three winners. Kim was our first winner and received her winnings on July 15th.  Our second winner will be announced on July 30th and we will vote on July 31st for our 3rd winner.

Well let me go ahead and share my "Dog Days" card with everyone.

The image on this card is actually a sketch that I scanned and manipulated it using Adobe Photoshop.  I then matted it and inked the edges with tea dye distress ink.  The DP is from Basic Grey "Little Black Dress" collection and Recollections Black cardstock. I used Tim Holtz die "Hardware Findings" to add the hinge across the top for no apparent reason.  It just seemed to look cute and added a bit of alpha male look.

On the inside as usual I pick up the scraps and try to find ways to use them (I can't seem to waste anything). I may go back later and add a hinge on each side just to add the something that is missing (smiles)

Now before I close this post let me mention that my BFF (Joyce) over at www.scrapbookstampinista.blogspot.com is hosting her very first challenge in honor of the upcoming Olympics, so get your creative juices flowing and hop on over there.  Who knows you could be the GOLD, SILVER or BRONZE prize winner.  Check it out...the challenge countdown starts tomorrow.

Another site you might want to visit is www.jacksonsdigitalexpressions.blogspot.com and take advantage of their "anything goes" challenge.  If you enter the challenge there, mention you found them at Mema's Crafts.

I plan to enter my card in the following challenges.

The Outlawz - Monday Greetings Challenge "Dog Days Summer"

Well this has been one heck of a fun weekend and I am sadden that it is coming to an end and being replaced with the old alarm clock and that event often referred to as work. I couldn't call it a night before announcing my first winner, and I have a card I want to share with everyone.  But first let's identify the winner of  a fabulous KennyK digi image.  

CONGRATULATIONS TO: 

to Kim card entry #84

chosen by Mr Linky random draw. 

Kim please ensure you have followed all the rules

and contact Mema via email 

Now that we've announced the first winner we can continue with the challenge.  Another winner will be randomly selected and announced at the end of the month. If I reach 150 entries by the end of the month a third winner will be selected by vote.

In the meantime here is a card that I hope will inspire you.

Thanks for stopping by and remember to come back soon.





Time for a Scrapbook Page Layout

Hi Everyone, hope you've been having a lovely week. It has been rather warm here in Texas, so indoors under the ceiling fan in the midst of my paper is where you would find me. I had a few non-crafting days while I played grandma to my little ones and I tell you those boys wore me out. They had more energy than the Energizer Bunny Rabbit, and I gave up all hope of keeping up with them. It was a lot of fun to see the little ones because I don't see them often and of course when I do I have to spoil them and give them things that will frustrate their parents. Being "Mema" has its advantages and I am using them up every chance I get.

I decided not to do a card this time but rather a page layout.  On one of the forums, where I am a member the owner reminded us that page layouts were forms of crafting as well and it made me feel a bit guilty.  I do scrapbook at times but I hardly ever post my layouts so I think I will start doing that although card-making will continue to be my preference, I will never give up scrapbooking.  This weekend Heirloom's Rubber Stamp and Paper Arts Festival was in town but compared to previous years this was not a very large one.  My BFF "Joyce" went but I opted to stay home and play with my paper and now I'd like to share with you my creations.

This layout uses Webster Pages that I fuzzy cut and added to Bazzil Cardstock. Hobby Lobby had Spare Parts on sale 50% off so I picked up a couple of packs of flowers to add to this page. The lace is Websters that I got during the Webster warehouse sale. 

The photo is my nephew whom just graduated from High School and my niece whom although a Junior in High School, is currently attending college because of her academic intellect.

For my second layout I took two photos and cut them into 1/2 inch pieces to create a mosaic look.  I used scraps to break up the look and added a few flowers from Recollections.  The pearls are Recollections brand as well.

In the photos are friends and family that just happened to show up at the same time so we decided to play a few indoor games and fix a pot of spaghetti with garlic bread (quick and easy meal).  Yep it turned into a real fun party.

Well thats it for this post.  Check back tomorrow to see who has won my mid-month draw for my July's Anything Goes challenge.  If you haven't entered its not to late because there will be another winner at the end of the month.  So until the next time

"find beauty in all things and then go create your own"

All About Me

Click Here for August Anything Goes With A Twist of Red Challenge

(or scroll down a bit)



Isn't life just grand?? Just when the weather cooled down to be bearable outside, I am stuck in the house fighting bronchitis...I tell you life does have a sense of humor.  But I took it like the strong determined crafter that I am and did not let this dampen my spirits, (I fixed me one instead).  I figured after all the running around I did to confiscate all this paper I better use it. So with things being as they are I entered my safe-haven with great resolve to create and decided to share "ME" with everyone.

I usually don't do layouts but I am working on this project that was given as a challenge on "Scraps of Color" where I am a member.  The challenge was to create a scrapbook about yourself by creating layouts throughout the year that represented you. We were provided inspirational and challenging topics/themes such as create a page about your skin tone "Your Color", (I created a page about my Red Hazelnut skin) and other themes such as "My Lips" and "My Eyes".  So today I share these with you. I am going to separate these post later and add them to a tab at the top of my blog. There are more than 24 themes (2 per month) and eventually I will share those as well (soon as I get caught up).  The one I created today is "My Profession." 

Well, let us get to it.  "All About Me" here are the layouts.  

**********************************************



My Hair

The journaling "The African American hair is the most versatile hair one will ever see.
It can be worn braided, platted, twisted or curled without damaging the hair. Black hair is strong and can withstand being pressed, permed, weaved and even waved. I can be a brunette one week and a blonde the next and still maintain a soft silky look. I love my hair and it loves me back. My BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL."



My Lips
Journaling: These lips of mine have kissed away the hurt from little knees and elbows. They have relaxed the shoulders of my man. These lips have trembled with fear and smiled with joy. I love my lips with their fullness and perfect form. I love my thick, big beautiful lips.

My Job
Just another day on the job. As a Training Consultant I have to keep my skills up-to-date so I attend conferences, seminars and whatever else I can find to enhance my knowledge. After all knowledge is power and in order for us to encourage our young women we must first have the knowledge to transfer.

My Skin Color
My skin is a blend of the Cherokee Indians from the Mtn of North Carolina, across the water to Haitia and back around to the strong African woman and I call this blend Red Hazelnut. I'm loving the skin I'm in.

My Eyes
Journaling: Become a mother, travel across the world, learn the piano, become a teacher. These are the dreams I had hoped to do as a child. I was always the dreamer always looking to learn. I've been told that my eyes reflect my soul. When I was old enough to read, I read Little Women and the phrase "I could've been a great many things" has played a role in my life. These eyes have seen cruelty in the world and these same eyes have witnessed the kindness of a stranger. I still dream but these eyes have enlightened me to see that not only could I have been a great many things...I have become a great many things. My eyes see things differently now and although I've accepted that things will change, one thing remains, I will always dream and see through these eyes that MY BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL. (this was a shorten version of the actual journaling)

******************************************************

Well now you have a glimpse into my world and who I am.  I thought this was a cool idea offered up by Tiare Smith founder of SOC.  It allows you to tell a story about yourself, how you live and your values in life.  It also has the element of  being a creative challenge with out-of-the-box topics/themes.  Talking about yourself is difficult as it is (at least for me it is) but describing yourself in a fun and yet revealing way is.... very much a mind-blowing thought.

Don't forget, if you are a follower sign in so your visit gets counted toward my "Top Follower Giveaway," and if you are not a follower become one and get in the running. You can view the top 10 contenders in my right sidebar.

I hope you got a kick out of this and I would love to hear your thoughts and comments.

Card Box With Mini Album

Scroll Down for July Anything Goes Challenge

Well the celebration of America's Freedom has come and gone but the knowledge of the price paid for this freedom will always be with us.  I celebrated by watching fireworks and then doing my favorite past-time, crafting.  This time I want to share a project with you that isn't quite finished but is turning out to be a neat project so far. It is a box with a mini album in it. I saw the template at a boutique and bought because it seemed to be interesting, and then I took it home and started to decorate it.  I've been at it for 3 days now (off and on) and this is what I have so far.  There is more to be done and I will post the completed project later.  Should I have waited until I was finished, maybe so, but I'm tired and felt the need to share with my lovely cyber crafting friends.  There's several pictures so you it can see the different pieces of the template. The post isn't long, there's just a lot of photos. 

Before I let you see the photos let me remind you of the weekly challenge happening over at Jackson's Digital Expressions as well as a special mini-blog-hop to celebrate the release of 6 new digital images.  And of course if you haven't already, join in with my July Challenge where anything goes.

Now for my project:

First is the front of the box. I covered the entire box with papers from the Graphic 45 ABC Primer collection.
I sanded the edges and then inked all of them with walnut stain distress ink. Let me just say that this was a long process so I have a new found respect for all crafters that take time to create mini albums and other non-card crafting projects.

The second photo shows the box half-way open and the inside box top showing. To keep these two lids closed I added a magnet under a strip ruler that I fuzzy-cut from a piece of scrap paper, but I wish I had thought of doing that earlier, but oh well this is a first project so my next one will be better planned and completed. Moving on to the third photo.

In this photo the box is completely open and you can see the mini-albume tucked down inside the mini box that is hidden when the box is closed.  I thought this was the coolest part of this template.

Here we can see that the mini-album is an accordian style and it comes out of the mini-box providing a lot of decorating potential.  So far I have only covered the pieces and now for the decoration which I will share on a later post.

Now we see the open box with the mini-album totally removed.  This means you could make this a box to hold little trinkets or even chocolate and the mini-album could be a stand alone gift if you wanted it to be.  There is so many things you can do with this template to make it one of kind with all your special touches.

In the final photo we see the mini-album removed from the box and as you can see it is double-sided allowing for lots of pockets, tags, photos and journaling.  Remember I've only covered my box so ideas for decorating are forthcoming.
The box with mini-album template is by Graphic 45 and if you need a project to spend some time on and to relax your mind this is a great little project.  My box is a 5.5 x 5.5 but you can purchase the template in different sizes to fit your desire. Well thats it so I hope you enjoyed viewing my progress and if you decide to do one please share. I would love to see your creativity.

"find beauty in all things and then go create your own"