A Layout & Card to share...

I have a couple projects to share today using the My Mind's Eye "Miss Caroline" Collection!  After National Scrapbook Day at Craft Warehouse, they had several kits left from their make-n-take that day in which the customers made mini albums.  It looked time consuming and I don't usually gravitate towards actually using my mini albums that I've made in the past so I had passed it up on NSD.  However, when they offered for us to make the album or take the kit to use at Scrapbook club last month, I was intrigued by the idea of taking those supplies to make a layout that I could actually enjoy in my full-sized albums!  As it turns out I had enough to make a layout and a card and it was SO MUCH fun!  :)

To start with I had the following supplies to work with:
(2) 6x6 double sided papers from My Mind's Eye's Miss Caroline collection
(3) 3x6 double sided papers from My Mind's Eye's Miss Caroline collection
(1) Sizzix Tim Holtz Rosette Diecut
(1) unfinished title "adore" from American Crafts new DIY Thickers
(1) piece of My Mind's Eye baker's twine
(4) Misc. Buttons

And here is the layout I came up with...

(I ended up altering my DIY Thickers with a yellow Copic Marker)

And this is a birthday card I made my Great Grandma with the leftover scraps...

Additional Supplies Used:
Kraft cardstock- Bazzill
Aqua Cardstock- DCWAV
Border Dies- Sizzix
Flourish Diecut- Silhouette
Oval Dies- Spellbinders
Butterfly Punches- Martha Stewart
Stamps- Technique Tuesday (you), Papertrey Ink Beautiful Butterflies (Birthday Sentiment)
Rhinestones- Heidi Swapp
Pearls- Queen and Company
Flower- Prima
Font- Scriptina (We)
Versafine Onyx Black ink
Colorbox Fluid Chalk ink
Copic Sketch Markers (to alter alphas)

Thanks so much for stopping by!  :)

Echo Park "Take Note" Projects

Hi there!

I thought I would pop in today to share some projects I did using one of Echo Park's newest lines "Take Note" that we did for the Craft Warehouse design team this month.

For my first project we had the choice of decorating a journal or a little box so I chose the journal. 










I created my chevron pattern by cutting each of the patterned papers into 5/8" strips and then adhering them to a piece of 8-1/2" x 8-1/2" printer paper on the diagonal. I did two pieces--one with the stripes facing one way and a second with the stripes facing the opposite way. After they were all adhered, I cut my finished sheets into 1-1/2" strips and set to work finding the strips that best related to each other. I think in a couple of the instances I had to cheat towards the end and cut a couple of my chevron stripe sections out of the remaining leftover pieces, looking for pieces that didn't have snips out of the peaks of the V's.

We were also challenged to create a layout using the viewmaster patterned paper as a focal point, as well as using the number stencil and vinyl rub-on in some way.

For my stencil I had the idea that I wanted to try some old fashioned dry embossing with it, but as I pulled out my lightbox, I quickly realized the clear stencil could not be seen through the dark patterned paper.  At this point I tried using my die cutting machine to see if I could emboss it quickly this way, but I discovered as I originally suspected that the stencil (which is designed mostly for spritzing and masking) was too thin for this application.  Finally, I remembered something I had done in the early days before home die cutting machines even existed--I colored in my stencil with a black sharpie and it worked like a charm.  This made it dark enough to see through when using the lightbox and I was able to set to work with my stylist.  Afterwards I swiped it with an ink pad to make the embossing pop.  :)

I lucked out and my vinyl clock just happened to fit into my title right where there was a red polka-dot in the patterned paper below. Tried to tie in the number 5 in the patterned paper to my journaling. Love when it all works out. ;)

For my second layout, I used the spellbinder Pennants die to create the banner.  It was a little too big to fit the number of banners I wanted going across so I made them smaller by cutting off the tops.

I was able to cut out the tickets and postage stamp from two different patterned papers in the set. I then took small 1/8" and 1/4" hole punches to give them a more realistic look...

Well that wraps up my assignments for this month.  Make sure to head over to the Craft Warehouse gallery here to see all the other gorgeous creations my fellow designers created this month (you can see their individual galleries by clicking on their names) or hop over at the Craft Warehouse blog here for a peek at other inspiring projects going on.

Thanks for stopping by. :)

Supplies Used:
Echo Park's "Take Note" Papers and Cardstock Stickers
Studio Calico Wood Veneer Embellishments
Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher
American Crafts Thickers
American Crafts Ribbon
American Crafts Ivory Twine
American Crafts Silver Glitter Brads
Queen & Co. Red Dot Washi Tape
Queen & Co. Red Rhinestone
Spellbinders Pennant Dies
EK Success 3/4" Circle Punch
Colorbox Chalk Inks
Black Pen

Got Sketch? 5-year Anniversary Sketch Challenge

I am a sketch girl to the core.  I love them and Valerie Salmon's sketches are always so inspiring so I decided to play along with her 5-year annivesary sketch contest.  This one has a bit of a twist which is fun.  In honor of the 5th anniversary, the challenge was to use 5 photos, 5 different patterned papers and 5 embellishments using this sketch...

Please excuse my poor photos.  I don't know if it was the kraft paper or what, but my camera was having the hardest time capturing a clear image that wasn't too grainy for these. 

I had so much fun with this sketch and cutting and layering those circles out of the different sweet patterned papers from this beautiful Girls Paperie line. 

For my five accent/embellishment requirement I used a Papertrey Ink Label from their Happy Day Stamp and die set, 2 buttons, pearls, ribbon, bitty flowers, a Spellbinders Pennants and a butterfly die (Papertrey Ink) and a butterfly punch (by Martha Stewart).

Once in a blue moon (for me) a layout just falls together so quickly and this sketch deserves all the credit!  Thanks Valerie for letting me play along and for inspiring the layout!  :)

Make sure to hop over and see more GORGEOUS takes on this sketch over at Valerie's Got Sketch? blog here.  :)

Thanks for stopping by!  :)

Papertrey Ink's April Blog Hop

I so am happy to have found the time to join in with Papertrey Ink's blog hop this month!  This month they challenged us to make a card using this very inspiring photo as a jumping off point.

And here is the card I created...

I was inspired by the roses and the aqua blues in the inspiration photo (I was also inspired by the pinks, but I needed to use the K&C epoxy element for another card challenge I'm doing for Craft Warehouse's stamp club so I went with coral colors for my accent color).  ;)

Supply List
Papertrey Ink Pretty Peonies Stamp Set
Fillable Frames #5 Mini Stamp Set
Papertrey Ink Mat Stack 5 Die
Papertrey Ink Layerz Mat Stack 5 Die
K&Company Bloomscape Button Grand Adhesions
Girls Paperie Jubilee Papers
Copic Markers
Seam Binding Tape
Colorbox Chalk Ink
Versafine Vintage Sepia Ink
Ranger Adirondack Dye ink
Ranger Worn Lipstick Distress Stickels
Other: Thread & ivory cardstock

Make sure to check out more gorgeous and inspiring creations over at Nichole Heady's Blog here!  :)

A "Carefree" Authentique Layout...

I had the pleasure of getting to play with Authentique's latest "Carefree" line a bit early!  Earlier in the month I had so much fun attending a crop to meet all the Craft Warehouse design team members from present and past.  During that time Elizabeth Wiederspohn brought us all some goodies that Authentique had generously shared with us!

Here is what I created...

The butterflies were handcut from a piece of patterned paper and then dressed up with Ranger's black enamel at the antenna and some diamond stickels on the wings.  I also used some glossy accents on my diecut "34" to tie it in with the glossy thickers in the title.  :)

Make sure to check over at Authentique's blog to see more of this collection here and thanks for stopping by!  :)

Supply List
Patterned Paper- Authentique "Carefree"
Cardstock Stickers (photo corner)- Authentique "Carefree"
Lined Paper (for journaling)- Basic Grey's Basics
Script Alphas- American Crafts Thickers
Date Stamps- Making Memories
Circle & Border Punches- EK Success
Rhinestones- Doodlebug
Rhinestone Brad- Making Memories
Number dies- Papertrey Ink
Ink- Colorbox chalk ink, Versafine
Flower- Prima
Ranger Black Enamel Accents
Ranger Glossy Accents
Ranger "Diamond" Stickels
Other: Thread for stitching

Papertrey Ink's Make It Monday Challenge #61

I was really inspired this morning by Dawn McVey's Make It Monday video and challenge over at Nichole Heady's blog here.  She challenged anyone who wanted to play along to create flowers out of papertrey ink products that aren't normally intended to be flowers.  I started going through my dies and stamps and these bunny ear stamps and dies immediately caught my eye as the perfect flower petals.

Papertrey Ink Scrambled Eggs Stamp Set:

Here is the flower and card I created with the bunny ears...

Additional supplies used:
Papertrey Ink Patterned Paper
Papertrey Ink Mat Stack 1 Die
Papertrey Ink Mat Stack Layers 1 Die
Papertrey Ink Wonderful Words Additions Stamp Set
Papertrey Ink Fancy Flourishes Stamp Set
Papertrey Ink Mat Stack 1 Collection Stamp Set
Papertrey Ink Aqua Mist Button
Memento Tuxedo Black Ink
Versafine Onyx Black Ink
Copic Markers

Thanks for taking a peek and thanks to Papertrey Ink and Dawn for the inspiration!  :)

Mendi

A Fab{u}lous layout by Simple Stories

Hey there! 

This week I had the pleasure of playing with one of Simple Stories newest collections appropriately named Fabulous!  As soon as I saw this set it was love at first sight.  They combined some of my favorite colors and girly motifs for this adorable line and it's so fun to mix and match with endless combinations.

For the title, the lovely bracket shape that this cardstock piece was printed on didn't squeeze well onto my layout so using one of my favorite Papertrey Ink Mat Stack dies as a template, I traced it on and lengthened it to frame to sentiment and reduce it's size.  I then inked and stitched around to give it a finished look and topped it off with one of the Tim Holtz butterflies layered with a simple stories sticker and a little glossy accents on the antenna for added depth...

Supply List

Patterned Paper, Cardstock Stickers- Simple Stories Fabulous

Cardstock- DCWAV

Butterfly Dies- Sizzix Stampin' Up Exclusive (large) and Sizzix Tim Holtz Mover and Shaper (small)

Twine- Twinery
Chalk Ink- Colorbox
Zig-zag Heart Border- EK Success
Other: Machine Stitching, Glossy Accents

Be sure to check out my new projects I made for Craft Warehouse using this wonderful line at my gallery found HERE plus more of my fellow designer's wonderful creations found HERE

Thanks for stopping by!  :)

A Simple Stories & Papertrey Ink Card

I decided to squeeze in some time to play along with Papertrey ink's anniversary festivities! Today Nichole challenged fans to find an inspiration photo on Pinterest and then to make a card based on that photo using our Papertrey Ink goodies.

I found this photo here pinned by Jamie Beckloff

And here is my card using the photo as inspiration...

I tried to keep with the set of 3 in teal, red and orange by mimicking that trio with my banner. I decided to combine this challenge with another one I have for Craft Warehouse's March Stamp Club in which we are challenged to use the ornamental diecut shown, paired with some of the Simple Stories papers.  Since Craft Warehouse keeps our cards on display for a month or two I planned way ahead on the theme for this one.  ;)

Papertrey ink supplies used:
Eyelet Lace border
Banner Builder stamp Set
Banner Builder dies
Fillable Frames Stamp Set (sentiment)

Thanks for stopping by and peeking!  :)

How's the winter season been treating you? My life has been a flurry of repainting our house, deep cleaning 9-1/2 years of dirt in the places I never think to clean and packing up clutter and moving it to a storage unit so that we can list our house for sale TODAY! In celebration of that acheivement I thought I would post a layout I did a couple weeks ago.

Unfortunately I have only really done one layout in the past month or two (so sad), but I sure had fun making it. It uses Echo Park's Holly Jolly collection found at Craft Warehouse this year. My only disappointment is that my printer didn't feed the paper through correctly and it printed some of my journaling on the border, but I was in too deep with all the borders and papers at that point to redo it... Oh well.

The snowman and title were diecut on my Silhouette using matching shapes by Echo Park (snowman) and Lettering Delights (title). The little trees in the distance were cut from the patterned paper. This was for a Craft Warehouse Scrapbook Club challenge where we were given a half sheet of the red scalloped stripe paper, the tree print paper, red cardstock and one chipboard pennant/banner (which I used as my tree by the snowman)--The challenge is to use a little bit of everything we received on a layout.





Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek! :)

A Pebbles Inc. Fresh Goods Layout

Today I have a new layout that I just added the finishing touches on using papers by Pebbles's new "Fresh Goods" collection. As soon as I saw a sneak peek of these papers I knew I had to get my hands on them. These colors just scream my name and it's so rare to find true blue colored papers these days to match the blues in my photos so I had to stock up big time!

I had these three little photos of my daughter Sydney from our trip to Tokyo Disneyland a couple years ago and I remembered this design by Tracie based on Sketch #112 over at Pencillines.com that I was head-over-heals in love with here. Anyway, I decided rather than re-invent the wheel I would basically scraplift her idea with a couple small tweaks. :)

Here's my take:

I used my chalk inks to alter the chipboard color for the branch and bird's body and then freehand cut a piece of matching blue cardstock for his wing and added some stitching to tie into the two other hearts (my small attempt to work in threes and create sort of a visual triangle)...

I cut the scalloped background shape from Bazzil cardstock with my Silhouette. This was my first time using my new Silhouette Cameo in all of it's wide format 12x12 glory and I have to say it was WONDERFUL!!! So worth the small price to upgrade. For those of you on the fence I sold mine on Ebay for a fair price and then bought the Cameo at Oh My Crafts found here using a 20% off + free shipping coupon code I found on google (It doesn't look like they have one active right now, but they are always coming up with new specials so sign up for their mailing list and I'm sure they will have one in the coming weeks with Thanksgiving sales). It also looks like they are on backorder until December, but it is so worth the wait and would make the perfect Christmas present to yourself! ;)

Thanks for stopping by! :)

My Supply List:
Patterned Paper- Pebbles, Inc. Fresh Goods
Cardstock- Bazzil Basics
Cardstock Sticker Labels- Basic Grey
Chipboard Branch and Bird- Maya Road
Felt & Corduroy Flowers/Hearts- American Crafts
Denim Flowers- Making Memories
Alpha Stickers- My Little Shoebox (MLS)
Alpha Rub-ons- American Crafts
"June" Stamp- Papertrey Ink
Leaf Diecuts- Papertrey Ink
Buttons- Doodlebug
Scalloped Background- Silhouette
Ink- Colorbox Chalk Ink

A Ground Breaking Week! :)

After over a year of daydreaming, scheming and planning the designs for our new house, it was seriously exciting to take a big step towards it becoming a reality this week with breaking ground! Yipee! My daughter said as we pulled up and saw them digging a bit earlier than planned on Monday afternoon I had the biggest smile plastered across my face. I'll take her word for it...

We were blessed with particularly nice weather all week long and what was supposed to be a one-day excavation (although I never thought that would be possible) has turned into a 5-day excavation. These photos were taken around lunchtime on day 3. Now he has one more day of digging and then they will be ready to pour foundation (insert another happy dance by me). :)

Due to the intense slope from left to right on our lot in the backyard we have decided to bring in a couple rock walls in an effort to level it out and make the backyard more useable so they are building the wall now while they can still get their big machinery in before the foundation gets in the way...

Here is a lovely picture showing the sad reality of our new driveway. It may stink for rollerblading and riding a bike without flipping over the handlebars, but it will be awesome for winter sledding (Maybe Yoshi will finally be forced to give up and stay home on icy snow days--Yeah!)

This last picture is just an amazing cross-section of our soil. It sort of looks wet, but it's clay soil that has proven to be difficult to dig through. Sort of like a beautiful sculpture actually, but the culprit for our "one-day excavation" turning into 5 days. :)

So exciting!
God is good! :)

Craft Warehouse Design Team Assignment #3

I was so excited to learn that the design team would be working with Crate Paper's new "Farmhouse" collection this month. The colors completely were calling my name--So yummy!

For this assignment we were asked to make a layout using the collection along with American Crafts Thickers and Tim Holtz Resist Kraft Paper (see on the typewriter print leaves paired with distress inks and again using one of the backsides for the layout base)...

For our second assignment we were asked to create a sign using this wood plaque and the vinyl phrase. Unfortunately this sign is a bit busy in print and sort of an oxymoron given what it says, but I wanted to try and achieve the look of a random homemade quilt with blocks of space to house the adorable cutouts.

To create the pattern I taped two pieces of printer paper together and then traced around the oval shape of the plaque and then got my ruler out and began to trace rectangles onto the shape like a puzzle. I used the ruler so I could plan everything to the nearest 1/8" or 1/4" to make my life easier. After that I just set to work laying out the patterns so that they felt balanced. I did my best to keep the busiest patterns on the outside so that it didn't interfere with the vinyl phrase's readability.

For more detailed photos make sure to visit my gallery at Craft Warehouse's website HERE and check out the rest of the team's fabulous work HERE

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Two Peas September's Stretch Your Sketch

I'm just now getting around to sharing my take on this month's Stretch Your Sketch Challenge by Jennifer Gallacher over at 2Peas.

Here's the sketch she challenged us with...


And here's my take on it...




I searched through my photos looking for anything that might work and I came across these photos of my nephew from years ago. Then I found the doodlebug paper in the perfect shade of blue and the rest just fell into place. So happy to finally have these sweet photos finally in an album (and I actually kind of enjoyed doing a boyish page for a change). :)

Supplies:
Doodlebug Patterned Paper
Bazzill Basics Cardstock
Papertrey Ink Stamps (car)
Technique Tuesday Stamps ("sweet")
Versafine Ink
Basic Grey Label Stickers
American Crafts Thickers
Making Memories Alpha Type Stickers
Making Memories Buttons
Die-Namics Bracket Label Die
Other: Thread, Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by! :)

My 2nd Craft Warehouse Design Team Assignment

I'm finally getting around to sharing my second assignment for the Craft Warehouse Design Team. You can see more of my past projects I've made for them here and more descriptions here

This month we had the pleasure of working with some of Jillibean Soup's new lines!

We were asked to create a layout and card with Apple Cheddar Soup

... And Christmas Cards with Christmas Eve Chowder

Make sure to visit the other design team members gallery pages to see other great ideas using these fun products found at your local Craft Warehouse!

Thanks for peeking. :)

A Successful End to our Owl Birthday! :)

A couple weeks ago I had posted photos of my daughter's birthday invites along with some cookies I was going to try and make. Well, mine weren't nearly as perfect (these of course are my best ones), but here are the owl cookies I made for her birthday. I'm not much of a cook or a baker so they took me forever to make, but I was pleased with the results. The plate they are on is one that I made at her 9th birthday party a couple years ago where I took them all to a Ceramics place to paint something special. I wasn't going to make anything, but I after about 20 minutes of watching them I wanted to play too (note to self: remember to go back with girlfriends as it was so much fun).

Anyway, for her birthday activity this year (my daughter has grown to expect some sort of entertainment) I took mega inspiration from Nichol Magouirk's Owl Canvas project that she posted on her blog last year. If memory serves me correctly she made this as a guest designer for My Little Shoebox. Isn't it adorable? Love her work!

I couldn't find a 6x12 canvas, but I wanted to make use of this 12x12 paper I found on clearance so we used 9x12 canvases and painted the edges with pale aqua blue paint to match the letters. I ended up using the same Silhouette Owl that Nichol had used so that I could cut out 10 at a time from each paper making the process a little quicker. I made a sample for them to copy, but I learned from a few of my mistakes like skipping the idea of Mod Podge since I got several wrinkles that never came out of mine. I thought it would be fun to make them personalized artwork for their bedroom walls so I cut each of their names out and put all their pieces in little ziploc bags as individual kits.

One of the girls that we invited couldn't make it at the last minute so I ended up assembling hers so my daughter could it bring it to school to give her...

My daughter had a slumber party birthday and some didn't stay the night, but here are a few of the girls posing with their finished pieces the next morning. :)

It was stressful at times trying to help them all at once, but I think they had fun doing it and were proud of the finish piece. :)

Thanks for stopping by. :)

Supplies Used:
Patterned paper:
Making Memories (floral & embossed dot)
American Crafts (pink woodgrain)
Cosmo Cricket (Green Dot)
Cardstock: American Crafts
Tree Branch and Owl Shape: Silhouette America
Ribbon: Fancy Pants
Buttons: Craft Supply