A "White Out" Layout Challenge

I have a final challenge today for Craft Warehouse's Weekend Blog Party. If you are interested in joining in the fun it's not over yet--You have until midnight PST on Tuesday to still enter for a chance to win some awesome prize packages. Make sure to check it out HERE.

For this last layout I was challenged by Rayette HERE to create a white layout with only the use of one additional color (sparingly). This was definitely scary as I'm all about mixing things up with bright colors and never just one, but I gave it my best shot. I'm guessing I used a bit more of my one color than I probably should have, but I realized this was also one of my first tries at a monochromatic layout so it was all around a good and difficult exercise for me.

For my background I used 9 different scalloped border punches from every brand on the market. I've always wanted to do this so I was excited to find the perfect pictures of my daughter in her white scalloped dress when we went to see the cherry blossoms last year.


Patterned papers are by Jillibean Soup. Layered butterfly diecuts are a combination of Sizzix (Large), Papertrey Ink (Medium) and Martha Stewart Punch (Small). After using the silk flower, regular cardstock butterflies looked too stark and unbalanced so after fidgeting with a dozen different combinations I settled on adding vellum to the top to give them the same soft look.


Thanks for stopping by and THANK YOU Craft Warehouse for such a fun event! I never would have completed 3 layouts and a card this weekend without your inspiration and motivation! :)

Two More Completed Challenges

Welcome to another day of fun and inspiration with Craft Warehouse's Weekend Blog Party! You can read more and join in the fun by hopping over HERE

I have had so much fun spending my weekend papercrafting as my hubby has is sleeping off his jet lag from a recent business trip.

For this first project I was challenged by Rebecca Grinder HERE to use this sketch for either a layout or a card:

And here is my take on it...

Papers by My Mind's Eye "Lime Twist" Life of the party 6x6 paper pad and stamps by Papertrey Ink.

For my second challenge found HERE we were inspired by Laura Cook to create a layout all about ourselves, more specifically about our favorites. I love this concept, but unfortunately I have done several layouts on this already and am out of new favorite things to scrapbook about so I decided to do an anti-favorites layout and scrapbook about some of my biggest pet peeves in life. It's something I've wanted to do for years so I was excited to have a reason to finally do it.

I felt really silly about taking these photos, but thought the happy, smiling pictures I had on hand didn't fit the bill so I staged a photo shoot in my bedroom with the help of a piece of black fleece, a tripod and my camera's self timer. I felt so silly about it that I locked my husband in the bathroom who kept trying to walk by while I did it. Anyway, luckily we have a new Costco just 2 miles from our house so I was able to run there real quick to finish this one. Yeah for Costco! :) Anyway, here it is...

Papers by Girls Paperie, Pebbles and Jillibean Soup. I custom made the number border on my Silhouette which had been inspired by some Girls Paperie paper, but sadly was just too busy to tie into my layout in the end...

Just in case this layout doesn't fully qualify me for the favorite's challenge, here are a couple of older layouts I created on the subject too...

Thanks for stopping by and make sure to hop over to Craft Warehouse's Blog HERE to join in on the fun and prizes. :)

A Scraplift Challenge

Back again today for another creative day playing along with Craft Warehouse's Blog Party! You can join in the fun HERE

For this post I am sharing a layout I scraplifted from Elizabeth Widerspohn. You can see more about the challenge at the link HERE. I had so much fun lifting the layout design of Elizabeth's page! After finally finding a trio of small photos, the page fell together really quick and I had a blast working on it!

This was Elizabeth's inspiration layout:

And here is my take on her fun challenge:


Papers are from various Fancy Pants collections: Mostly "About A Girl" with a bit borrowed from "About A Boy" (sunrays) and "Celebration" (pale blue). I also made use of a stamp set from their "Summer Soiree" collection for the waves.

Thanks for peeking! I can't wait to see what inspiring challenge pops up next! :)

Handmade Flower Challenge

Craft Warehouse is throwing a very fun and festive blog party this weekend with lots of great challenges and prizes. Make sure to hop over and try to make some time to play along. I thought I would join in the fun and share a couple of handmade flowers I've made... To see more inspiring Handmade flowers click on the link HERE

I made the handmade flowers on this project last year just by layering and crumpling several scalloped circles which were secured in the center with a brad and then hidden with a more decorative button on top.  Most of the papers on this project were made from various My Mind's Eye collections.

This is probably a stretch, but for this project I diecut my "handmade" flowers on my Silhoutte machine and then crinkled and distressed the leaves which were cut from a patterned paper. This layout was created for a past Craft Warehouse Scrapbook Club in which we were challenged to use the leaf button and a leaf print paper (which turned out to not really be my taste, but after some alterations I was pleased with how well they blended in with my other Basic Grey papers used).

Thanks for peeking! I'll be back tomorrow to share a layout I created for Elizabeth's scraplift challenge. :)

I'm so excited!

I'm so excited! I have been invited to join this year's design team at Craft Warehouse! Last Thursday they posted on facebook that they started making calls at 4pm. Of course my phone never rings, but it rang about a half dozen times that day and of course it was never Craft Warehouse.... :( By the time 7pm rolled around I was feeling pretty down that I hadn't made the cut. I was so sure they had already called everyone for their 11-person search. Anyway, when the phone rang at 7:30 I thought it was one of my sister's calling me back and I was completely speechless when it was Jeanean on the other end. I stammered over my words and made a complete idiot of myself, but I've been secretly floating on a cloud ever since. I'm not sure why, but I've been sort of savoring the invite and have only shared the news with like 3 people so far (two of which include my husband and oldest daughter). :)

Anyway, I thought I would share my winning enteries...

We were asked to submit 1 altered project...

Used mostly different My Mind's Eye paper lines on this one. Tried to mix it up a bit because I knew I wanted to use the bird from the Quite Contrary line, but I also wanted to tie in the blue color from another home decor pieces I had made for my room. The yellow floral paper is by Echo Park. I couldn't find the right blue flower for the top that I had in mind so I ended up buying a white one and adding chalk ink to achieve the color I wanted (Stamped Home phrase by Papertrey Ink Boards & Beams). :)

Two Cards...

A cupcake Card using Echo Park's Little Girl line. Embossed the folds in the wrapper using Martha Stewart's Scoreboard tool and inked with chalk inks for added definition. Applied glossy accents to pink polka-dot paper to give the "sprinkles" extra shine.

Made this card using My Mind's Eye Alphabet Soup Collection, Martha Stewart border punch, Basic Grey Buttons.

And Two Layouts...

For this one I used Echo Park's Be Mine collection and wove the paper and glued between each weave. I then used my spellbinders to diecut the woven paper into heart shapes. :)

For this one I started by trying to sew a running stitch on the outside of the paper circle to gather it into a flower (like you would with fabric), but I quickly realized this technique was for the birds so I had the bright idea to wrap my paper around a quarter for a perfect circular flower everytime. Just remove the quarter template, glue down with my favorite Beacon's 3-in-1 glue and top with a brad. Would also work with a spellbinders template for different sizes. It was a major Woo-hoo moment! :)

(Papers by Basic Grey's Hello Lucious)



(All paper and most supplies can be found at your local Craft Warehouse store). Thanks so much for stopping by and peeking. :)