As you know, UR2 Cre8ive: 68 ways to unleash your creativity went on sale yesterday! But perhaps you didn't know that this eBook is based on the very first class Stacy Julian ever taught at bigpicturescrapbooking.com! And the messages inside are even more relevant today than they ever were.

Well, we'd like to reveal a few MORE fun facts that you may not have known before, so we interrogated....er, interviewed...Stacy herself to find out a bit more about this incredibly creative soul. And since the title of this eBook contains numbers in a very "cre8ive" way, today's "getting to know you" questionnaire is all about NUMBERS!

1. How old were you when you first started scrapbooking?
Well, I started my first scrapbook the summer I was 14. I had a really easy babysitting job, so my mom bought me a scrapbook at our local Hallmark store and handed me a box of childhood photos. More recently, I started when I was expecting Chase. I was 29.

2. How old were you when you finally felt like a "grown-up"?
I don't feel like a grown up.  I hope I never do. I mean this most sincerely.

3. How many times a day do you feel overwhelmed?
I'm overwhelmed at the thought of counting how many times a day I feel overwhelmed. Can I skip this question?

4. How many times a day do you stop, look around you, and realize how lucky/blessed you are?
Ok, now there's a question I want to answer. At least 53 times a day!

You don't have to be a kid to paint your toenails lots of fun colors! Visit Stacy's blog to read about the "oddly creative things" she does to brighten her day.

5. With five adorable kids at home now, how many grandchildren do you hope to have one day?
SO many!

6. How many gallons of milk does your family of seven go through in a week?
Six. I've got teenage boys and we ALL love cold cereal.

7. How many hours of sleep do you need per night (on average) to feel restful and energized?
I need more sleep the older I get. I would say 8, and I make this happen several times a week.

8. As an avid runner, what's the farthest distance you've run in a single day?
Too funny. I recently recalled this CRAZY experiment that I conducted when I was 15, where I ran one mile, at the top of the hour for 7 hours straight! Who does stuff like that? The longest I've run since then (other than the day I ran my marathon) is 18!

9. How many different brownie recipes do you have in your baking rotation (estimate)?
Oh goodness. I have LOTS. My friend Terri Musser in OK organized a brownie scrapbook for me with at least 30 recipes in it. I'm always cutting out recipes to try and the vast majority of the time I either use the Ghirardelli mix from Costco or my trusty low-fat recipe that I got back in 1997.

10. How many books have you written?
Five, if you count the special issue I wrote for Creating Keepsakes magazine before they really recognized authors.

11. How many classes have you personally taught at Big Picture Scrapbooking?
I think about 11 or 12.

12. How many different countries have you visited in order to teach scrapbooking classes?
Seriously, how many things are you going to make me count today? I'm going to guess seven.

13. What are the top 5 obstacles that women tell you get in the way of their creativity?
No time. No money. No where to start. No end in sight. No fun anymore. Please note: I do not except any of these as valid excuses.

14. How many of those 5 obstacles are addressed in UR2 Cre8ive?
In an effort to sell this book, let's say ALL of them! No really, you don't need to address obstacles. You need to teach yourself to see opportunities instead of obstacles. This is possible.

15. If there's another "UR2" message you'd want to tell women everywhere, besides "UR2 Cre8ive," what would it be?
UR2 Hard On Yourself. Seriously, stop and think about everything you do to contribute goodness to this world. Women are amazing.

Thank you for spending this time with us, Stacy! Thanks especially for encouraging us to see "opportunities" instead of "obstacles." Truly inspiring words. And thanks to those of you who shared your creative moments with us yesterday! The random winner of UR2 Cre8ive is commenter #16: tape.

Let's have another contest, shall we? To enter today's drawing for a free copy of UR2 Cre8ive, leave a comment answering question #15 for yourself. If there was a "UR2" message YOU'D like to impart to women everywhere, what would it be???

I am knee deep in layouts and albums, from the past 14 years, oh my! I have thoroughly enjoyed reminiscing about the memories attached to making these layouts as well as the actual memories captured.
I found one layout that I want to share (it was featured in Simple Scrapbooks magazine)  because the journaling is so real. The layout was based on a book called 52 Projects and one of the projects was to write a one-minute autobiography. I highly recommend giving this a try.

Project #45

Write a one-minute autobiography.

Don’t necessarily start at the beginning, and don’t worry about the
ending. Indeed, do not let any kind of chronological order hinder your
effort. A good place to start is the first thing that comes to mind.
Once you start writing, other memories will pop into your head. Go with
them. The interruptions enhance the flow.

Once the minute is up, read over what you have written, and then
immediately repeat the exercise. Keep going for as long as you can.

Can you believe that it is the final week of our challenge?  I have had so much fun working on new sketches for you all during the past six weeks.  I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the great participation and the wonderful comments left by you all.  It makes me so happy that you have enjoyed these sketches!  And I love seeing how one sketch can be the inspiration for so many layouts each with their own style and personality.

Here is the final sketch of our Six Weeks of Sketches challenge:

The 12x12 version features one 4x6 photo with three smaller photos on the upper left-had side of the page.  The smaller photos are sized 2x3, very small indeed but perfect for detail shots.  Also, there have been some requests for single-photo sketches so if you’d like you can always replace those small photos with patterned paper squares or create little mini-collages in that area.

The 8.5x11 sketch is below:

 
Now admittedly, it’s a little squished.  It doesn’t have exactly the same feel as the original, but I think it is a great sketch on its own.
 
As a bonus for our last week together I’ve drawn two more sketches based off of the original design.  Each is a two-page version of the original sketch - one 12x12 version and one 8.5x11 version.  I think that the 8.5x11 two-page spread is a little closer to re-creating the feel of the 12x12 since it has a lot more white space.
 

 
Finally, in my take on this week’s sketch I took the three photos on the left-hand side of the page and put two photos there instead:
 

I recently decided to take up running again.  I haven’t run since before my two boys were born.  As I took out my new running shoes and prepared to throw away the old ones I couldn’t help but notice the difference in the two pairs.  The old shoes show proof of what almost seems like another life.  I ran a lot of miles in those shoes.  But, I’m not hanging on to the past.  I’ve set some goals for myself this year and even if I can’t run as fast as I used to or train as often as I’d like, I’m going to get moving.  I’m actually excited about getting back into shape.  It’s definitely going to be hard work, but I think its’ also going to be lots of fun.  Wish me luck!!

So, let’s see what you do with this final sketch.
Post a link to your layout in the comments of this post by Thursday, February 25 to enter this week's contest! Three winners will each receive a free eBook. And everyone who participates this week will get another entry into our grand-prize drawing for a Cricut Expression (a $349 value)!

Hello everyone and thanks for stopping by. Today we have some cool digital layouts and a free digi kit for you to download!
Sweet Shoppe is celebrating a big anniversary, giving tons of goodies away, and introducing lots of new projects, so you may want to pop on over to their blog.

Now for some layouts from two talented Ella Friends:

From Noel
Scrapbooking is one of those fabulous hobbies that helps you celebrate the thousands of little blessings that fill your life. How could that possibly be a bad thing? Well, I suppose, if you asked my very neat husband, he may come up with some reason like the piles of housework I manage to put off while recording our blessings. So today, if you're looking for a good excuse to leave that load of laundry in the basket just one more day (or two), check out the digital the goodies over at Sweet Shoppe Designs. Since I'm always looking for an excuse to put off laundry, and household chores in general, I quite enjoyed spending the better portion of an afternoon perusing their shop. As an added bonus for a chore-avoiding girl like myself, they add new goodies every Saturday.

Enough about my not-so-domestic-goddess like self, lets get to the fun! Sweet Shoppe has a great variety of digital styles, from cute and sweet to classic to manly and everything in between. But one of the greatest offerings for scrappers with time restrictions, are the great template kits by Janet Phillips. She even has a whole line of templates for that person with "2 Many Photos"

As a girl with a camera that can snap 8 frames a second, I find this a VERY handy line! Even as a straight paper scrapper, digital templates can be used just like sketches for layout inspiration.

I worked with three of the wonderful kits from Sweet Shoppe:
Absolute Cherry Crush
U and I
Close to the Edge

With so much variety available at Sweet Shoppe, I foresee many more chore-avoiding days in my future!

From Jodie

credits: alpha (blackjack by fee jardine) + stitches (bad sewing machine by traci reed) + papers, buttons, ribbons, flowers (a love to last by julie billingsley) + font (djb how cute am i by darcy baldwin) + photos and layout by jodie mcnally (www.jodiemcnally.com)

Ready to get some treats? Well, they made a kit just for our readers, yeah!

A few layouts from the gallery that caught my eye.

The color scheme and scalloped border work so well together, from Marnel

Once again the colors caught my eye on this layout by Keely B and the vertical design.

Week 4 had the most layout entries yet. Great job everyone, and thanks so much for being willing to share your talent and inspire others with your layouts!

The layout winners this week are:

Agata who lives in Switzerland. We love the colors, photos, and the little accents on this layout.

The use of product and simple layering caught my eye on this layout by Ella user thehodgees. Great job!

Young college student Jess showcases her scrapbooking talent with this layout.

These three winners will receive a coupon code for a free eBook. And after all the entries from every week of the contest have been gathered, we'll draw one random winner who will receive a Cricut Expression (a value of $349)! Important note: grand prize winner will pay shipping, whether domestic or international. If grand prize winner chooses to decline the prize, we'll pick another random winner to win the Cricut Expression. And we hope the winner will agree to create a project or two with the Cricut to be featured on our blog!

We are sharing the love that Ella received at CHA. This week's giveaway is an assortment of new product from Nikki Sivils.
The second giveaway includes:
 

• assortment of new release products from Nikki Sivils
• tote and apron from Making Memories
• class kit from Quick and Easy Quizzes class that Angie and I taught at CHA

To enter, leave a comment below and answer the following question
What is your favorite season?

Contest ends @ Midnight Friday February 12 MST
(winner announced on next week's CHA giveaway)

Week 1 CHA goody giveaway winner is
Javajennie

Thanks giving the Ella Friends some blog love and thanks for playing!

For this week I’ve simplified the design a bit.  The sketch features three photos:  one 4x6 and two 4x4’s.  Ideally the 4x4’s would be crops of 4x6 prints.  I wanted to share a sketch that didn’t require any photo editing.

In the 11x8.5 version, I’ve kept the main photo a 4x6 and I reduced the smaller photos to 3.5x3.5.  You can either crop your 4x6’s to this size, or you can crop a 3.5x5 to a square.  I realize that this may require some photo editing, but it is a fairly standard size print and I know it is one that a lot of 8.5x11 scrapbookers use often.  I really was trying to make this easier this week, but I think when you convert a 12x12 sketch to a smaller size something has to give (which gives me an idea for next week.  Hmmm, stay tuned). 

Here is my take on the sketch:

I wanted to share the journaling on this page since it’s the only way that the title will make sense.

Journaling reads:  We were at the doctor’s office because I had a suspicion that you might have a UTI.  We needed to collect a urine sample but you were absolutely terrified of the collection cup (who knows why).  I didn’t really know what to do… We were going to give you this crane anyway so I promised you this toy as a reward.  Truth is, I was so proud of you for peeing in that cup.  You were really and truly scared but you did it anyway.  I think you were proud of yourself too.

My dad made fun of me when I told him this story.  But you know, you can’t make a child use the restroom.  I was truly proud of Gabe for confronting his fear and doing what I was asking of him even though he didn’t want to do it (and he did it without crying).  Was it a bribe?  I don’t like to think of it that way.  Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures… I certainly wouldn’t offer him a special toy for eating his vegetables - thank goodness he does that anyway!

Remember that we are half-way through our challenge; just three more weeks to go. 

What do you all think so far? 

Do you like the sketches? 

Do you have any requests?

Post a link to your layout in the comments of this post by Thursday, February 11 to enter this week's contest! Three winners will each receive a free eBook. And everyone who participates this week will get another entry into our grand-prize drawing for a Cricut Expression (a $349 value)!

Yes, you read that correctly. We have some goodies to give away for the next three weeks. The first giveaway includes:

• new release from Studio Calico
• tote and apron from Making Memories
• class kit from Quick and Easy Quizzes class that Angie and I taught at CHA

Sound fun?
To enter, visit one of our Ella friends blogs (listed below) and leave a comment, then come back and leave a comment with a link and you are entered automatically.

Noel
Moon
Barb
Katie
Tami
Katrina
Monica
Jodie

Contest ends @ midnight MST Feb 5.

(Oh, don't hate us but we have to limit this to U.S. and Canada residents only.)

Thanks for playing!