Blog Hop!!!

Welcome to the SFTIO Design Team blog hop! We're celebrating a few things here. First, I have a layout to share with you using our July kit COMMUNICATION. Second, we've got some wonderful new additions to our design team and we want you to get to know them even better. Finally, we've got a little peek of the August kit for you. Woohoo!

 Use Your Words

My youngest didn't put sentences together for the longest time. I was getting worried that he might never talk more than one or two words.  Don't get me wrong, he was able to get his needs across just fine but his older brother started talking at 9 months! 

 I used a letter stencil to spray through (as well as use the positive of it) and create more interest in the background. Don't you love that ledger paper? 

 Using the Distress marker I traced the letters too! 

  I loved the letters from this kit so I used them as a design element.  The circle letters were perfect for this!  That pointer sticker was perfect with this picture because he was pointing to the blueberries on his tray to show us how much he loved them.

 My journaling to remind me how worried we were about Christopher's speech but really didn't need to be because his brother said everything for him!  Now he's talking up a storm!

Look what you can win!!!  Nikki Sivils "Messages" line!  Such an awesome collection of colors, images and text!  This is a must have collection!

Just leave a comment below and answer this question:  What form of communication do you prefer?

Want to see a sneak peek of the August Escape kit? Here are a couple from layouts that I've done for August!  This is my favorite kit to date!!!  Seriously AWESOME!

Okay... you have until 5:00 p.m. PACIFIC TIME on Sunday, July 29th to post comments here and then we'll announce the winner on the SFTIO blog and Facebook sometime the following week.  Don't forget to check out our Community Forum, Facebook and Inspiration Page. There is so much inspiration there to scrap yourself and your world!  Meet some of our newest DT members there too! They are truly a talented group of girls!

Hop on over to Kate's blog now!

BLOG HOP ORDER
Melissa
Mary Jo
Nicole
Diana
Jen <----- You are HERE!
Kate
SFTIO Blog

Happy Birthday America!

It's the Good Ol' USA's birthday today!  In celebration of this great day, I thought I'd share a card that I made with WOW Embossing powders.  It's on the WOW blog today with a bit more info about how I made it.

I'm being lazy this morning and getting some much needed computer work done (hence the blog posting).  I already made Red, White, and Blue pancakes for the family (well, they were kind of mixed a bit too much to make swirls of purple, blue and a tiny bit of red... sigh.  The kids loved them anyways) and plan to get a few pieces of art done that I started since hubby has the day off.  He's golfing later so I thought I'd take the kids to one of our most American traditions... Baseball!  There's  a minor league game tonight here with fireworks afterwards so I think we'll head out there and enjoy some American pastime.  Hope they take good naps today because it will be a late night!  I LOVE fireworks.  We went to Lakeshore Country Club's annual fireworks display last Sunday and I have to say that I was really disappointed.  They were short, spread out and right on top of us!  We sat way too close and ash was raining down on us.  The kids were over tired and I was cranky due to that!  Not as fun as in the past.  I hope tonight is better and the kids behave for me.  I'm going to be a single parent out tonight so unless I can convince a friend or my parents to come along, I will be running back and forth to the bathrooms with both kids in tow... I dread that!  BUT I want them to go to a game and what better night than on the 4th of July?!

By the way, if you haven't seen the new kit from Scrapbooking From the Inside Out yet, what are you waiting for?  It's all about Communication this month!  I love that it conjures up many visuals.  This kit is FULL of those and much more!  Here is my favorite page that I created using this kit:

 Another Red, White, and Blue page.... see a trend here?  LOL!  "Rebel Yell" is a page all about my son when he was 2 or younger.  he would yell all the time!  We couldn't wait until he could tell us in a complete sentence what he wanted or what was wrong.  I love this photo of him.  He looks like a little rebel. 

 I used a straw to blow some watered down Gelato around my page.  It created these fireworks of deep blue.  I loved the movement I saw in that simple technique.  I added stamped paper airplanes (using the Lawn Fawn stamp set and Distress marker in the kit!) all around them.

 Yep, I folded paper airplanes from one of the kit papers (October Afternoon).  I made three dart planes from various sized pieces.

 I never know what to do with those corner stickers.  I love them but they never look right on my photos so I created a chevron of sorts here with them alternating.

 My journaling tells of my frustration with my son's yelling and lack of quiet telling of his needs.  He  has long since been yacking up a storm and telling me a bit more than I need to know!  LOL!

I'll be back this week with some sneak peeks of brand new Prima products for CHA!! I'm creating lots of fun things with flowers, papers, and embellies that will make you drool!  They are awesome!!!
With that, I'll leave you with a little peek...

Have a happy 4th everyone!!!