It's Someone's Birthday! :)

Before we get to this week's challenge.. 

have you heard that next week, Sept 7th, 

The Paper Variety turns ONE?? 

YAY TPV!

We're having a huge celebration next Wednesday.

HUGE!

Be there or be a  
banana!

(dumb I know, but I say that to my son rather than being square lol)

Anyway, if you help us promote our celebration you could win..

Have you displayed our celebration blinky on your blog?

See here for all the super simple details and to learn about
what we have in store for YOU next week :)

And now, our challenge..

TPV's birthday is next week.. 

Guess who's having a birthday this week!?

She's super sweet and really pretty!

Give up?

It's ME!

Abby! *sweet smile*

Bwahahahahaha! :P

Friday is my birthday :) I haven't hit the big 4-0 yet, but almost!

We're celebrating by bringing you a challenge fit for the occasion!

 

I can't wait to see all your birthday inspired projects!

A festive challenge deserves a festive prize! 

If you're the randomly chosen winner, you'll win these 

TWO My Mind's Eye boy and girl "Hip Hooray" collections! :)

Need some inspiration to get you started?

Let's begin with this week's 

Guest Designer,

Crystal Beshear!

I am now a SAHM, after spending nearly 15 years in print media, who lives in Oklahoma and is happily married to the love of my life! We have an awesome 15 year old son (who's going on 30...lol!) and a 6 year old fur baby, a Boxer we rescued from a local shelter. I started scrapping about 5 years ago when my mother-in-law bought me a kit for Christmas. Two years later she also got me a Cricut for Christmas and that was it for me, I was totally hooked! Less than a year later I was on my first design team and had a blog. I've not slowed down since and absolutely love the creative outlet it offers me, plus it allows me to preserve so many memories to hand down to our son or look back on when my husband and I are old and gray! When I'm not crafting or spending time with my family, I'm usually reading, cooking or playing taxi driver to our son & his friends. I also have a huge love of music, as does our entire family, and our son is a multi-instrumentalist playing primarily drums in a band.

 Such a fun and colorful page! I especially love the banner! Thanks for joining us this week, Crystal! :)

Here are more projects from our 

fabulous Team A!

Sue

I received a Michael's gift card last week for my birthday. So I went out preparing to be stormed in by getting adhesive. I cruised by the aisle with the Cricut stuff and felt I "needed" the Birthday Bash cartridge. So many fun images on that cartridge. I also used the fun Echo Park Splash paper for the background of this card. I had so much fun making this card.

Jackie

I love to use punches to make banners!  I also added lots of dimention to this layout.  Instead of adding my sons age, I circled it on the ruler.

Kylie

Nicole

I always love to make Birthday layouts since obviously they scream out FUN! And it just happens that banners are my favorite element to add to any Birthday layout so this challenge was perfect for me! I mixed up two of my fave paper collections of the year, Simple Stories' Happy Day and 100 Days of Summer. I'm so sorry that the picture is not any clearer, but i'm still in search of the best spot in my new home to take pictures of my projects! Please visit my blog for more detailed close-ups! Now I'm ready to be blown away by YOUR birthday banners this week :)

Abby

I created this shaped card using my new Live Simply cricut cart.

I love this lite-cart, all the images are soo cute!

Now it's your turn! :)

Enter your paper project following this week's birthday banner challenge before Tuesday noon EST for your chance at winning 2 MME collections!
 If you enter before Sunday evening, we might choose your project to be featured in our Sunday Spotlight!  

Want to become an upcoming guest designer?
Share your project on our Facebook wall (with GD in your comment) before Sunday 6pm EST and we may choose you to be our guest! :)

Just ONE entry per person, please! See our rules page here.

Dont forget to mark your calenders for
our celebration next week!
Sept 7th!
You don't want to miss it and be a banana, do you??
LOL

Have a great week!

Abby

Winner!

Wow! You guys blew me away.. far away.. lol with your travel themed projects! Great stuff!

Thanks again to Karen from The Paper Trail for sponsoring us this week! One lucky lady will receive an assortment of Graphic 45's "ABC Primer" paper and emellies.

And the winner is..

Wow! I think that's a first ;)

The lucky "one" was Natasha with her altered journal:

Super cute!

Please email us at thepapervariety@gmail.com and we will set you up with The Paper Trail to get your prize!

Here's a blinky for your blog, too:

(code on sidebar)

Have a great night everyone!

Abby will be back in the morning with a very celebratory challenge ;)

-Suzanne

Sunday Night Spotlights :)

Wow! Lots of fantastic travel themed projects shared already for this week's challenge:

I choose a couple to feature this evening:

Sherri's adorable airplane card::

Anna's funny layout:

and Alison's cute and clever card:

Congratulations Sherri, Anna, and Alison!!

Here's a blinky to display on your blogs:

(code on the sidebar)

There's still time to enter this week's challenge! You have until noon on Tuesday for a chance to win:

sponsored by The Paper Trail :)

All of the details are on this post.

Have a great week!

-Suzanne

The Paper Trail

We welcome back a fabulous sponsor this week, The Paper Trail!

The Paper Trail has changed a bit though, since their last sponsorship at TPV. Karen has stopped selling monthly kits, while she opens up a brick and mortar scrapbook store! We wish her all the best :) You can find all of The Paper Trail's great products here.

Karen says:

"I have been crafting for over 13 years now and really feel that it is invaluable service to my family and generations to come. I love the creative outlet it provides me and seeing the pages come to life gives me great satisfaction.  You may ask "Why the name The Paper Trail?"

Well, for me, scrapbooking is all about leaving a trail of you for your family and future generations to come.  Webster's diction defines paper trail as "documents from which a person's actions may be traced."  Doesn't that just um up exactly what we do when we create a page?

We leave a trail of us - what we have done, who we are, etc. I have created this store so that you have options available to help you create the best trail that you can.

I would love to hear your comments, special product requests, and suggestions!

Email me at customerservice@leaveapapertrail.com

Thanks to all and Happy Trail Makin'

-Karen

Thank YOU Karen!!!

You can win one some of the Paper Trail's most current product right here at TPV this week!

One random winner will receive this assortment of Graphic 45's "ABC Primer", buttons, and twine.

Just join in this week's challenge:

One entry per person.

Link up Sunday evening for a chance to be featured.

By Tuesday at noon EST for a chance to win!

Have a great weekend!

To all those on the East Coast, stay safe :)

-Suzanne

Challenge #48

We're getting close to the big 5-2! Our blogaversary, blog hop, daily challenges and prizes extravaganza is only a few weeks away! Do you have our blinky on your blog?? 

Let's get right to it this week!

~Challenge 48~

~The Sponsor / Prize ~

The Paper Trail is offering an assortment of Graphic 45's "ABC Primer" to one random winner! Perfect for back to school season.

~ The Inspiration from Team B ~

Cassie

The challenge was great timing - I just got back from a week vacation with my hubby and son in Washington! The trip was lots of fun, but bringing an energetic, wiggly, and loud 1 yr old boy on a plane isn't something I want to do again anytime soon :P

Rachel

For this layout, I decided to scrapbook an absolute travel must for me - STARBUCKS!

Sandi

My wonderful husband is my favorite traveling companion and I made this card just for him.  In just a couple of weeks we will be heading north on a road trip to see my newest grandbaby - Isabelle Grace.  I love road trips and will be taking lots of photos to document the journey... that's what travel is all about isn't it?  Making memories and then I love to preserve those memories in my scrapbook pages.

Jamilie

I had a lot of fun with this week's Travel Theme! I still have about 7 destinations to scrap of our Babymoon last year, so this was perfect! On day 5 & 6 we stopped in Las Vegas while I was about 5 months pregnant. I toned down my background paper by painting beige over it.. I also wanted to add a touch of Vegas by adding some real play cards and also a dice. Wish I had some real chips to add as well, but we were no big gamblers!

Hannah

I knew exactly what I would do when I found this week's challenge.  As the journaling on this page explains, I have grown up surrounded by steam trains as my Granddad really loves them.  We have so many photos of them, that I had to create a layout to display them, and it fit perfectly with the "travel" theme. :)

Suzanne

I've been waiting for the perfect time to use this sentiment from Scrappy Mom Stamps and this challenge was just what I needed. 

Guest Designer: Suzie McFloozy!

Hello! I'm Suzanne aka Suzie McFloozy. I am a SAHM to two very energetic (and super noisy!) boys aged 3 and 6 and wife to Kevin, my lovely hubby of eleven years and counting. I started crafting when I had Issac, my eldest son, and I decided to make the birth announcements.


Soon after I discovered scrapbooking and it was a perfect showcase for all the photo's that I was snapping of my new baby! As my children grew, and spend less time sleeping, cardmaking has become my fav pastime as I can still play with all my craft stash but actually get a project finished in an evening !


My favorite techniques are stamping and using the huge array of digis out there. And I love trying out new ways to color in my images. I also love to make handmade flowers for my cards and try out lots of different styles - I am loving the CAS style at the moment as you can see! Well that's enough about me - let's get crafting :)

Lovely card, Suzie! Thanks for joining us this week! :)

We will not be selecting a guest designer from Facebook this week due to our upcoming blog hop, but you're welcome to share your creations with us on Facebook anyway. We love seeing your projects on our wall! :)

Threads Winner! :)

Such lovely threads projects and great participation!

Thanks everyone for joining us! :)

The prize for last week's threads challenge is this collection of Cosmo Cricket goodies! :)

Our randomly generated winner is...

Congratulations,

Holly!

What a darling little gift box!!

Holly, please email us at thepapervariety@gmail.com 

with your full name and mailing address and 

we'll get this sent out to you very soon! :)

Also, here's a special blinkie for your blog :)

 *Locate code on our sidebar*

Join us tomorrow morning when Suzanne brings you another fun challenge and we welcome back a fabulous sponsor!!

Don't forget 

to mark your calenders! 

Our 1 year anniversary week-long 

celebration starts Sept 7th!

We're giving away a $20 gift card!

See here for all the deets!

Have a great night!

-Abby

Sunday Night Spotlights!

This week, our challenge is..

 We've seen some fabulous threads projects!

Here are just a few..

Barb

So cute and clever! Great idea using threads!

Erin

Love these bold colors, the bow and weaved strips!!

Cheryl

Lots of threads here.. sewing, ribbon, string.. so pretty!

Tina

Just the most adorable little spooky mini album ever!

Mindy

Beautiful! Love all the buttons and thread!!


Tracy

Gorgeous card! I love the criss-cross stitching!

Congratulations
Barb, Erin, Cheryl,
Tina, Mindy & Tracy! 

 We welcome you to add our "featured blinky" to your blog,
just locate the code on our sidebar :)

We had several Guest Designer entries shared on our Facebook wall- Awesome! Thank to all of you for sharing! This talented gal will join our team on August 31st for that challenge week! Yay! :)

Congratulations Crystal Beshear!

Great layout, Crystal! I love all the dimension, the slant, fun photos and your 

mixed alpha title! :)

Crystal, please mail us promptly so we can reply with your Guest Designer assignment. :)

There's still time to enter this
week's challenge!

Create your threads project and load it HERE before Tuesday noon est for your chance at winning a
bunch of Cosmo Cricket goodies!

Don't forget 

to mark your calenders! 

Our 1 year anniversary week-long 
celebration starts Sept 7th!

We're giving away a $20 gift card!
See here for all the deets!

Have a great week!!

Abby