Welcome to our FIRST Memories Always - Forever Blog Hop!

Welcome to our FIRST Memories Always - Forever Blog Hop! I am so excited to be a Design Team Member for this wonderful site.

(If you have arrived here any other way than through the blog hop, please click here to be taken to the MAF homepage and start at the beginning of the hop.)

Memories Always - Forever (MAF) has been created as a place where members can rally together as a crafting community, showcase their crafting talents, share their ideas, learn, and participate in exciting challenges.

Not a member of MAF yet? Why not??? We are new and ready to go! All we need is you to help make the site rock!!

As a Scrapbooking Design Team Member, I hope to encourage you to have a bit of fun with your pages and will be hosting Funday Monday this month - I encourage you to join in! My motto is 'there is no wrong way to scrap' because it's all really about preserving your family's memories in a way that is attractive to you, right? My style changes and evolves with each picture I take or each memory that I savor; I love every page that I do and never redo something once it's in my book. I recently made this LO of myself and my daughter wearing the colorful native costume of Okinawa. We took these same photos 10 years ago, and think we will do it again in another 10! The style of the LO is a bit bright for me, but the memory is documented and cherished, just the same. In the other LO, I took a photo of my husband by the river during a sunset. The colors are muted, the design more lavish than the other LO, but I love this page too. I really couldn't pick a favorite as they both document wonderful memories for me.






Anyone who knows me knows that I love to give gifts, prizes or RAKs and I will be doing just that throughout my time as a Design Team Member with Memories Always - Forever. To win a special RAK from me, comment on this blog post about one of your favorite memories.

Then hop on over to here to visit Monica's blog and see what this talented girlie is up to! The contests end Sunday at midnight EST, but the fun at Memories Always - Forever is sure to be never ending!

Be sure to complete the entire MAF Hop to be entered to win the great MAF blog candy shown above!

(If at any point on the hop you happen to get lost or off track just check back on the Memories Always - Forever home page for the hop list.)

I can't wait to meet you and get to know you through our scrappin' ventures at Memories Always - Forever in the coming months! I'll see you in the challenges, talk to you on the forums and meanwhile - thanks for joining me on the Memories Always - Forever Blog Hop!

Zacca Life

My blog is featured today on Zakka Life's Facebook page!
For those of you not in Asia, the term Zakka refers to the idea of taking ordinary objects and using them in an unusual way to improve your home or life. Jessica does just that on her blog and on her Facebook site, both called Zakka Life. Recently she has shown us how to make beautiful tissue flowers, turn beach balls into lanterns and shared recipes for great Asian dishes as well as given us tips on beautiful and simple table settings. Please stop by her place and say hello! I know you are going to love it!

Sneek Peek!

You know how excited I am to be on the design team for Memories Always - Forever, but things are about to really get hopping over there - Blog Hopping that is!
Don't know what that is? Well it goes like this: beginning on Aug 1st you start over at Memories Always - Forever (click on my Blinkie on the right to take you there) and start hopping along from one Design Team Member's Blog to the next.
There will be more details to come, but I want to tell you now that it is going to be one hoppy good time! There's the chance to win some prizes along the way and a chance to get to meet the Design Team Members and learn some new tricks.
Here is a sneek peek at what I'm going to teach you - and yes, you have the opportunity to win a prize from my blog when you play along!



Help us celebrate at MAF as we introduce our scrapbook community to the world in the month of August. There will be so much going on, there won't be much time to rest!

Easy-to-do Mosaic Scrapbooking!

My daughter-in-law takes the most awesome nature shots and she made the most of her abilities while visiting the Tropical Dream Center in Okinawa. I wanted to get as many of these gorgeous photos on the page as I could, so I turned to Wish In The Wind products to help me make this mosaic. There are nine 3 1/2 x5 photos on this one page and the whole layout only took me about one hour to complete.



Want to know how to get started? You'll need some tools: a self-healing cutting mat with one-inch grids; a craft knife with a fresh blade; some repositional glue (tape runner, xyron machine, glue stick - any type of repositional will do); a cork-backed ruler; and some grid paper. http://www.wishinthewind.com/ has all the tools you need to get started, plus they sell the pre-printed grid paper in tons of colors. The grid paper makes laying out your mosaic super easy as the spacing is all figured out for you.


You'll also need to choose nine or ten photos and some cardstock in case you want to mat a photo or leave room for a title. It's best to choose some photos that are close-ups as well as some with a bit of background scenery for visual interest.Once you have chosen your photos, coat the back with the repositional glue and choose the photos that you would like to be your main focus. For Paradise Found, I chose three photos and a journaling block to start my page.




First, line your photo up on the mat so that one side and either the top or bottom edge are lined up along the dark guidelines on the mat.


Lay your ruller along the dark guidelines and cut your photo into squares using the craft knife.

Tips: If you are going to cut your photo into 1-inch pieces, be sure
your
subject's face falls between the dark gridlines. You don't want to cut into
their face or cut them off at the neck.

Also, if you are going to cut a
photo to fill more than one grid, you must
add 1/4 inch to each photo.

Once you have cut your photo into squares, it will look like this. I used 3 1/2 x5 inch photos. There will be a bit of extra on one short side and one long side of your photo. You can see in this photo that the squares on the bottom are definitely too small. And the squares on the right are just a tad too small. You don't want to use these. Just discard these bits. If you use 4x6 inch photos, you may not have extra bits.

Lay your main photos and journaling block on the grid, then begin filling in the grid with your one-inch squares. Don't be concerned if you cannot fit the entire picture in the empty spaces. This will give interest to your page, but don't throw out those extra squares just yet! You may be able to use them to fill in an empty spot. In 'Paradise Found' I used bits of green from the top center picture to fill in a space above the bottom yellow flower. I'll bet you did not notice until I told you so!

Have fun with this technique. It is quite easy once you get the hang of it and the final result can be stunning!

Win these gorgeous dimensional butterflies!

I'm so excited to be chosen as a Design Team Member for Memories Always Forever that I have decided to host a giveaway in celebration!

While I was visiting my daughter in Okinawa last week, I came across these beautiful butterflies. The good news for you is that I bought extra packs! Look at how beautiful these are! They seem to fly right off the page. They come in yellow or orange and there are 3 large, 4 medium and 10 small in each set.

It's easy to win - just complete 3 short steps:
1. Sign up on Memories Always - Forever. Click on the link at right to take you there. Be sure to say I sent you.
2. Complete a LO from my sketch below and post it to MAF.
3. Comment back here by July 30 with a link to your LO. I'll chose a winner at random.

Good luck and have fun! I can't wait to hear from you!

4th of July Hanabi

I had a lot of fun doing this layout of my grandson Gavin watching the fireworks last year in Okinawa, Japan. The holiday is important to our family - not just for it's patriotic aspect - but because we have 4 people within our family that celebrate their birthdays on July 4 and 5th.

I chose the colors for Monica's July Summer Challenge at Memories, Always Forever. Click the link on my sidebar to take you to this great new site. This layout, though based on a digital layout by KellyCali at SB.com, uses so many of the supplies I had on hand. The circles are cut with my Wishblade, but any circle cutter would do the trick. I used lots of buttons as per the Pile It On Challenge blogspot. Here is list of my supplies.

Bazzill cardstock in Red, White, Blue and Black
Karen Foster Sparkle Burst Brads
Bo Bunny Brads in blue and red
K & company Brenda Walters Rhinestones
Dress it Up Color Me White buttons
Junkitz Alphabet Buttons
Smartz Geo Shapes Paper Clips
ColorBok metal dots
Liquid Pearls in Ruby Red and White Opal
Stickles Waterfall
Red, white and blue glitter glues from the 100 yen store
Making Memories Dot letters in black and white
Blue Gel Writer
Fiskars Border Punch
plus assorted left over brads and eyelets from my stash.