My grand-daughter loves to play with my craft supplies. She took some of my punches and made me this picture. Clearly for an 8 year old she is much more creative than I am.

She used a leaf punch, star punch and bunny punch to make this and drew a large tree around the leaves. She even colored the leaves to look as if they are turning for fall.

Looks like I have a lot to learn from her.
This layout is for grand daughter #5!  She has just turned 7. I loved the papers used in this layout. I love bright colors and had a lot of fun putting this together.

I used K & Companys Citronella paper pack. The hibiscus flowers were cut on my cricut mini from the Life's a Beach cartridge.
Below is another layout I worked on during my scrap retreat in Waynesville, NC last weekend.
I found a sketch I liked at www.inspiredblueprints.blogspot.com.  It was simple but had lots of room for photos.  I think that this layout is very versitile and can be used for so many themes.  The sky is the limit.

I used papers from 2 Halloween stacks.  Martha Stewart Holidays and K&Co Halloween by TIm Coffee.  The solid cardstock I used is CTMH and I also used the CTMH Glitz Startdust Glitter Gel.  I really like the Gillter Gel, and what I like most is that the bottle is easy to squeeze and it allowed me to squeeze the gel out in a steady stream.  I also used the CTMH adhesive springs and I like them better than the Action Wobbles becuase they are smaller.  They fit on some of my little bats perfectly.  I also used one on my title!






This is a copy of the layout sketch I used.  It is from Inspired Blueprints.
Hello Blogland!  It's been a while since I've posted.  I hope everyone is doing well.  My family and I are doing well.  My middle child crushed her heel Memorial Day weekend and had surgery in June so I was a little pre-occupied with her and her two little ones for a couple of months.  She's able to put some pressure on her foot now with her crutches and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

I am at one of my favorite places this weekend.....Waynesville, NC.  I am swarming with my friends and a new found friend Carolyn aka MamaC!  I've been stalking her for a while and finally convinced her to come and spend the weekend.  She has taught us so much stuff this morning that I couldn't wait to try my hand at the rossettes that she showed us using Tim Holtz dies.  They are absolutely awesome!  I will have to find the dies and order them for myself.

My layout below is a layout that I had pinned a few days ago and when I pulled it up to scraplift it I realized it was from one of my favorite places...."Out On A Limb".  If you haven't visited the site, you must go there.  They have some fabulous layout kits and fabulous prices too.

I used a Martha Stewart paper pad I had gotten on sale at Walmart for $4 along with some CTMH cardstock.  My sentiment is from Home Accents cut at 7.32 inches and the branches are from Zoobaloo cut at 5.50 inches.




This is one of the layouts I purchased from Monique Griffith when she had her close out sale. I love her designs and hope she will be back to designing again soon.

Her layouts are very detailed and usually have a lot of cuts but they are so worth the time and effort in the end.

I love the paper used in this layout. It was a lot of fun to put together.
I spent another wonderful weekend at our swarm in Western North Carolina.  Not everyone was here this weekend, but I found this layout on Out On a Limb Scrapbooking and used it as my inspiration to scrap some photos from last year. 

We are so fortunate to have a sponsor that provides us her vacation home at a reasonable price so that we can get together and share our hobby with one another! 

I am fortunate to have met these wonderful ladies through this avenue and I consider all of them close friends.  We have lost a couple of folks in the group becuase they have moved away but we have made new friends in the past year that will last a lifetime.

Thank you Brenda for finding us this wonderful home to share and Laura we miss you and thank you for starting this swarm a couple of years ago that brought us all together.

I used Dotty For You paper from CTMH and made the Title and Shadow using SCAL2.  The flowers and flourishes are from Art Philosophy and the paper buttons are from a Martha Stewart Punch.





I am at a scrapbook retreat in North Carilina this weekend and I came extremely un-prepared.  I found this layout online and scrpalifted it (as usual for me).  I used paper from K & Co called Citronella and some solid glitter papers I had from DCWV called The Mango Frost. 

This layout is of my oldest Granddaughter, Claudia.  She has grown into a beautiful young woman and I am so proud of the you lady she has become.  She is truly one of a kind!


This layout was a lot of fun.  I used a lot of scrap papers that I had in my bag and found a layout that I liked at Out on a Limb Scrapbook.

The lighting of these photos is not the best.....sorry.  I used part of the title "I Heart U" and the elephants from Birthday Bash.  And I used Sure Cuts A Lot to cut out "TONS".  I also cut the flourishes from Art Philosophy.

I am crazy about the CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge.  This is the most versitile Cricut cartridge I have.  It has everything on it.  The $99 price tag seems excessive, but this cartridge is worth every penny.




I made this beach layout using CTMH Footloose paper. I found the inspiration for my layout online and changed it just a little bit. The only problem is that I was unable to cut out my title for the layout because my gypsy (just updated) was not compatible with either of the 2 expressions at this retreat I am at this weekend so I will have to wait until I get home to cut out my title. It will say Life's a Beach on it.

UPDATE:  I was able to find a title for my layout and used Sure Cuts A Lot to modify the design to fit my layout.  The title had a sun on the left side of it and I didn't need a sun so after I put all the other layers on I cut off what I didn't need.  It's a little bit catty wampus, but I'm happy with the overall outcome.

I used Doodlecharms, for the Sun.  Create A Critter for the Palm Trees and Clouds and I used Life's a Beach for the pail and Sandcastle. .

I really love this paper.  I will definitely be ordering more of it.

The photo at the bottom of the post is the layout I used for inspiration.


I went to a scrapbook retreat recently and took my CTMH goodies. I used the Florentein pack along with a Scrapbook Generations layout to make the pages below.

We recently went to San Antonio, TX to visit my husbands brother, sister and nephew. We had an absolutely wonderful time. We stayed with my husbands nephew and his wife and it was like being at a spa.

We all went to dinner one night and had a waiter take photos for us which I have used in the layout below.

I used only CTMH papers and embellishments. I love the charm and the medals that came with the florentine paper. I also used Art Philosophy and a stamp to embellish the layout. I'm not a great stamper but I was pleased with the result of my first try. I'm very pleased with how it turned out and hope you are too.
I successfully updated my Gypsy today for the first time in over a year. I had tried to update it last year to add the Imagine icon but it would not update. It took me over 3 hours to update but was worth it. I did get the bridge error once near the end but tried it again and it worked.

After I completed the update I linked my new AP cartridge and pulled out my Cricut Mini to try my hand at making a base card for my grand-daughters to decorate for their Mom for Mothers Day. You can find my inspiration here:

I used CTMH Colonial White card stock to cut out the base of the card and I designed the card based on the tutorials that Sheila from She's a Sassy Lady to flip and weld the word card base in Cricut Craft Room. I've only used it twice so I'm very pleased with how it turned out. One of my grands will be here tomorrow night so she can decorate it and I will take another photo for the after picture. I have some CTMH bling and embellishments for her to use.

The first photo is the un-embellished card standing up. The second photo is the card opened up and it says WOW MOM.
Happy Easter everyone. I hope you are all spending time with your family and friends

Here is another layout from Lotts to scrap about that I put together earlier the year.

I just got back from our vacation to San Antonio last night so I still haven't had a chance to play with my goodies from Close To My Heart. I did spend several hours of quiet time reviewing the Idea Book,today and boy there is a ton of stuff that I want to order myself. I hope to have time to make something with the Art Philosophy cart and CTMH product this weekend. I will be back to work tomorrow so it is going to be long days to get caught up but my vacation was worth it.

The layout below has adorable Popsicles on it and my grand kids love Popsicles of any kind. I can't wait to take photos of them eating them this summer!
This is a layout that I bought from Lots To Scrap About. They have great kits and are so reasonably priced. I bought several to take to a crop earlier this year and I used some new techniques on them to embellish them even further and make them my own.

I used embossing powder on the nail polish bottles and the lipstick to make them shiny and allow them to stand out a little more.

I received my CTMH kit before I left for vacation and as soon as I am back home I will be making something with all of the wonderful things I received in my kit. I'm so excited!
I've stepped outside of my shell (no pun intended) and taken the plunge! I've signed up to be a Close To My Heart consultant. I am so looking forward to this opportunity and especially for the goodies to arrive. If any of you have recently joined the CTMH family let me know and hopefully we can learn something together. If anyone is interested in placing an order, here is my website. www.coggiecrafts.ctmh.com
This is a layout that I purchased from http://www.lottstoscrapabout.com/.  These layouts are simple but have the potentioal for a lot of dressing up,. I bought a few of them and will be adding them to my blog over the next few weeks.  I took them to a scrapbook retreat that I went to and had a blast putting them together and adding some embellishments to some of them.

This layout is called "Busy Bee" and I just love everything about it.  Especially the Bees.  I am going to put photos of the grand kids playing outside on them



The Bees have little googlie eyes and vellum wings.


Hello blog land. It has been a while since my last post and boy has my life been a whirl wind.

My eldest daughter had a mild stroke about 3 weeks ago and it took 3 trips to the ER and an MRI for the doctors to finally find it because she didn't present classic stroke symptoms. She is doing well but what a scare for a healthy 28 year old.

My husbands oldest daughter has also been in the hospital and very close to death a couple of times. To make a long story short she had surgery at the end of January and unknown to everyone they surgeon completely cut the tube from her kidney to her bladder and fortunately for our daughter the urine that was leaking out formed a cyst. After a week at home and getting very I'll she went back into the hospital but it took another week and a half for the doctors to discover what happened. After 2 more surgeries and3 more weeks in the hospital she is finally home today!

Hopefully our life is returning to normal now and I can blog more regularly. The photos below are a scrapbook layout that I made for my youngest grand-daughter, Britton. She is 4 years old Her birthday was a blast and as you can see from the photos everyone enjoyed themselves.

I scrap lifted this layout from Lauren at Lauren's Creative. She is one of my favorite bloggers/designers. I didn't have the cake that she used but I like the one that I used. I also used Perfect Pearls on the balloons to dress them up since I was at a scrapbook retreat and did not have my cuttlebug.

I hope you enjoy. It's nice to be back! I've missed my blog friends.