Mama Elephant March Stampede

Welcome to the Mama Elephant March Stampede! Our March release is now live and available for purchase in the store HERE.

To celebrate the new release, Mama Elephant is giving away 3 gift certificates worth $20.00 each to 3 lucky people! Winners will be chosen at random from the collective blogs in the Stampede. Winners will be announced on the blog on Monday, March 18th. Winners have 48 hours to claim their prize.

Here's how to qualify to win (leave a separate comment for each):

1. Leave a comment on this blog post

2. Become a follower of our blog

3. Like/share us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/mamaelephant

4. Tweet about us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/heymamaelephant

Ready to stampede? Here's the list of designer blogs you'll be visiting:

Mama Elephant Blog
Emily Leiphart (Guest Designer - me!)

Savannah O'Gwynn

Lea Lawson

Mariana Grigsby

Geralyn Sy

JJ Bolton

Cheiron Brandon

Jenn Biederman

Pearl Lui

Alice Wertz

I'm absolutely thrilled to be the guest designer for Mama Elephant's March release! I was so inspired by these stamps that I decided to make a layout of my son. I know, a layout! These stamps are amazing and so versatile. I knew exactly which photos I wanted to feature with them. All of the patterned papers are from BasicGrey's Hey You and Hey Boy collections. You can click on the photos if you want to see more of the details.

I remember this day clearly like it was yesterday. My son had just started smiling a couple of weeks prior and I wanted to capture it on camera. I got his attention and then made him smile. The smile turned into a big cheesy grin! It was so exciting and you can be sure there were lots of hugs and kisses afterwards. Heehee.

I used stamps from three of the March releases on this layout. Starting from the left side of the layout, the phrase over the top of the first photo was created by combining 'You Are' and 'My Favorite Guy' from Papa Love. The title and frame for the journalling are from Today Was. The stitched heart flourish is from one of last month's releases, So Breezy.

At the top of the right side of the layout, I used one of the speech bubbles from Hello. On the second line, I created another custom phrase 'Happy Boy' by using happy from 'And Be Happy', the b from 'Beyond Measure', the o from 'Oh Yes You Are!' and the y from 'And Be Happy'. All of this was easily done using washi tape to mask off portions of the stamps just like I demonstrated in one of my video tutorials. I used the same technique to create the layout title of 'So Happy', again using the words 'Happiness, Sunshine, Joy' from So Breezy. Finally, the 'Oh. Em. Gee' acronym, which I absolutely had to use, is from Good Times.

Thanks so much for stopping by and be sure to check the Mama Elephant Blog on Monday to see if you're one of the lucky winners. I'll be back tomorrow with another special post. :)

Next, you're off to Savannah O'Gwynn's blog! 

Sources:

InLinkz.com

My Memories Suite + 400 Followers Giveaway: Part 2

Hello friends, followers and inspirational crafty people! :) I mentioned on Tuesday that I was having another exciting giveaway to celebrate the milestone of reaching 400 Followers on my blog. Well, here it is! At the beginning of October, I was contacted by Liz Gardner of My Memories asking if I'd be interested in doing a review of the best scrapbooking software in the industry which would, in exchange, allow me to give away a free copy of it. My first thought was, "Me? Scrapbooking?" Yes, I've wanted to get into it more seriously for some time now and this was the perfect opportunity to give me that push. Then I realized, "I'm designing for eight companies this month. How will I ever find the time?" I thought I could do manage to do this quickly. That is, until I my whole family got sick one after the other. Here it is, the end of October and I finally got a chance to try out this fabulous software. Yes, I said fabulous. Why? Because it's easy as 1-2-3. Literally. Take a look!

In three easy steps, I made this layout of my son at three-months-old doing one of the things bouncy-chair munchkins do best. Be silly! I downloaded the free Comic Hero Quick Page, added it to my album as a background, inserted the bib-pulling photo of my son and typed in a little journaling. It was a simple as that! I love that the background appears to have so much dimension even though it's flat.

This next layout of my son's first birthday was done in four easy steps. I downloaded the free Boy's Birthday Frame, added two photos (learned to tilt them) and a bit of journaling to explain the seriousness of the situation. ;) As you can see, I kept both layouts clean and simple just like my cards.

You could easily avoid downloads and use the hundreds of backgrounds (including colours and textures) and embellishments included with the My Memories Suite program! Avoiding downloads is not likely to happen with all the fabulous freebies My Memories offers. Plus their Digital Scrapbooking Kits are priced so affordably, I have a feeling I'll be purchasing quite a few of them to play with. With more time and experience, I will figure out how to manipulate my photos to work with the shapes of the layouts. There's still so much to learn. So two quick layouts later, I think I'm full addicted to digital scrapbooking! I even have the bug to put together a physical scrapbook page. :O Thank you, Liz, and thank you My Memories Suite! Now if only someone would give me the gift of time. LOL

Here's the clincher! I am giving away one free copy of the My Memories Suite Digital Scrapbooking Software!! There are a few things you need to do:

1. Follow my blog. You already do, right? ;)
2. Visit My Memories and leave a comment here, in this post, to let me know which Digital Scrapbooking Kit you love best.
3. If you share this giveaway on your blog or Facebook, just come back here and leave another comment for an extra chance to win.

This giveaway will run until Saturday, November 12th 11:59 p.m. EST and the winner will be announced on Monday, November 14th. If you like what you've seen and read, but can't wait to find out if you win, you can purchase My Memories Suite now for $10 off the regular price by using code STMMMS28 at checkout! This code will be valid indefinitely so please feel free to use it at any time.

Thank you so much for stopping by! Please feel free to spread the word about My Memories Suite and this wonderful giveaway!!

The Very First

This title is very appropriate since this is my first ever scrapbook layout and it features a portrait of my niece on her first birthday. The Embellish Scrapbook Color Challenge urged me to create something because I've always wanted to try scrapbooking but didn't know where to begin. I'm a huge admirer of those who can scrap their memories consistently and it's something I would love to do. Maybe there will be no turning back after this. ;)

I wasn't sure how to photograph this because it's so big compared to a card. LOL I wasn't sure how much to add and there seems to be so much open space but in the end I decided to keep it simple but with interesting little details, much like my cards. I recently acquired Unity's November 2009 Store Kit - Believe in Fairytales from Eclectic Paperie and thought the sentiment and journaling box were perfect for this layout. I can't even tell you how long I'd been eyeing this beautiful kit so I finally decided to buy it. I can't wait to use it more!

I love the Unity set Bella Fiori and wanted to use it again so I stamped just the tops of the round flowers, punched them out and added them to the scalloped flowers I punched out of American Crafts Love Bug paper. Yup, I used patterned paper, too! I bet you're ready to fall over right now. LOL I made the button and twine flowers embellishments last and decided I wanted a curvy pattern before adhering everything in place.

I left the journaling box empty because I want my sister to be able to fill it in after I make her an entire album of pages for her daughter. Did I just say an entire album? LOL I guess I have to do it now! You'll hold me to that, right? :D

Sources: SU textured Very Vanilla cardstock; Bazzill Basics textured cardstock in two shades of pink; SU Early Espresso cardstock; AC Romance Collection - Love Bug; Unity Bella Fiori; Unity November 2009 Store Kit - Believe in Fairytales; Memento Rich Cocoa ink; SU Pink Pirouette, Pink Passion & Rose Red inks; SU 1/2" circle, 3/4 circle, 1-3/8" circle & 1-3/4" scallop circle punches; Forever in Time buttons; The Twinery baker's twine in Cappuccino; Stampin' Dimensionals