Balloon Glow scrapbook layout, plus a very lucky weekend (CQC136)

Well, hello hello! Hope you had a great week! Sorry for my absence, but I was away cropping with some gal pals! I'm sure that you understand that girl time and especially girl time+scrapbooking has got to come first! ;) Especially since I had SO MANY photos to scrapbook! I was tickled to get 41 pages done, and I'll snap some pics to show you soon. :) 

What a weekend it was, too! I actually WON both of the big prizes in the raffle!! I bought several raffle tickets, because I really REALLY wanted the Grand Prize, which was a Cricut Expression. I had seen at the crop, that several folks had personalized their Cricuts with stickers. I thought it might be fun to do the same thing with vinyl, so I put my new toy to use right away! Whoooooohoooooooo!!! :)

  

I have the Cricut Create, which is smaller, and have been wanting to upgrade to the bigger machine, so I figured it was a good gamble to buy several tickets, since there were only about 15 people at the crop. The other REALLY cool thing is that now I get to "pay it forward" by giving my old machine to my cousin, who has really been wanting to get one. I couldn't resist "personalizing" hers, too, I can't WAIT to get it to her! Hope I get to see her soon:) I think hers turned out really cute! She likes blue, like me :) We are really more like sisters that cousins, I only wish we lived closer! 

You could have knocked me over with a feather, when I DID win the Expression AND also won this beautiful C Gull Cricut Expression rolling tote, AND the coordinating Cartridge Bag. Truly, I felt like I won the lottery. I really really did. Give this girl a fancy die cut machine, and some chi chi bags to tote it & the cartridges around in, and well, you had me at hello, that's all I can say. ;) 

And, a really sweet thing that my dear friends (The 3 standing to the left of me in this layout) did for me.... I noticed in the basket of tickets that were entered for the machine, that my friends had also put in several tickets. Which confused me since all 3 of them already have the Expression. When I asked them about it, they said they were trying to improve my odds! They bought those tickets so that if they got picked, they were going to give it to me..... where's a puffy heart emoticon when you need one, I ask you? I did buy the most tickets though (of anyone there), and my name was the one pulled both times, and everyone there was really gracious about it. In the future, when I crop with these ladies, I won't even enter the raffle. I'd just feel too bad if I ever won anything from there again!

 Well, I did these pages before I left town, but I'll snap some shots of some of the weekend ones for you to see soon. :) THIS layout is for this week's ColourQ challenge! Here is the happy palette:

Great palette for a Mother's Day card, huh? I still have a few to make! 

But, I was scrappin' for this week's challenge, so through the massive boxes of pics I trolled, until I came across these pics from a couple years back. Ev looks so little! :( These are from the balloon glow, a fun event. :)

I actually used a sketch from Sketch Support, that I found on Pinterest. Now see, there's a site I may never have discovered, and I SO love those sketches! Pinterest is a beautiful thing! :)

I thought the 3 flower element on the RH page would be a good spot for some hot air balloons of my own.....

Like their paper pierced "trails?" :) I like sketches, especially ones that make me think outside the box. I would have NEVER put all my photos in one block in the middle of the spread like that, but it sure looks cool! 

I hope you like my pages! Please come play at ColourQ this week! I'd love to see what you'll come up with. :)

hugs, Noelle

supply list: solid card stock: Stampin' Up and recollections; balloon stamp: Unity; font: Marker Felt (Word for Mac); green chipboard sticker letters: unsure of manufacturer; star punches: SU!; patterned paper: SU!; iridescent sticker dots: Sticko; paper piercer