A Technique Tuesday Hugs & Smooches Valentine's Day Card

For today's project I have a Valentine's day card using papers from American Crafts XOXO collection and a combination of cute sentiment stamps by Technique Tuesday (Puffy Hearts and Hash Tags & More).

For my card base, I used the Heart Card Silhouette cutting file by Studio Ilustrado and just omitted the interior heart cutouts, instead using those hearts to cut out from different patterned papers.  I had tried something similar by hand on this card HERE (fussy cutting my own edge around the hearts), but this one went together so much quicker.  If you like the look of the other card with larger hearts, I imagine it would be pretty easy to adjust the size accordingly.  ;)

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you have an awesome weekend!  :)

A Lawn Fawn Bee Mine Valentine's Day Card

For today's Love inspired project I have a card I made using Lawn Fawn's adorable Bee Mine mini stamp set, along with American Craft's XOXO collection from last year.

I made this card for a past magazine call asking for card ideas using every single stamp in a stamp set.  With that in mind I picked a small set, and heat embossed the scene onto chalkboard paper from Echo Park's Here & Now collection.  It was such a fun little challenge!  :)

Thanks for hanging with my today!  :)

Day 29- A Technique Tuesday Trendy Trees Layout

Hello and Merry Christmas!  Phew!  We made it!  I hope you are having a grand time stuffing yourselves with all sorts of yummy foods and getting lost in the wrapping paper with those you love.  ;)

Today I have another Technique Tuesday layout documenting my daughters opening our Wii a few years back, along with games and accessories I had been secretly collecting for months.  They were convinced I would never buy one so it was an extra special present that we opened early to enjoy before travelling to several different homes for the holidays.  Their reaction and excitement was priceless!

I struggled for a long time to scrapbook these photos because the colors always seemed a little off with every Christmas collection I paired it with.  Then I realized by using some basic papers from American Crafts with these awesome stamps I could create my own look that matched the random brown and pale pinks my daughter was wearing that day.

For this layout I primarily used Teri Anderson's awesome Trendy Trees stamp set.  Those adorable trees were so much fun to paper-piece using two complimentary shades of green cardstock and I thought they really matched the feel of my other American Craft papers.

I used the Noted Digital Cut File with my Silhouette for my three tabs, one of which helps pull out my hidden journaling.

I finished my layout by adding a few presents under the tree and stamping the word joy for my title.  As an added detail I thought it would be fun stamp the word "joy" on the pink paper and cut them out to fill in the loops of the word.

Merry Christmas and May God Bless you and your family!  :)

Lori Whitlock's Back To School Blog Hop

Welcome to Lori's Back-to-School Blog Hop!  You should be arriving here from Corri's blog.

Today I thought I would share a layout using the Project Life "Honey" cards that Lori designed for Becky Higgins and American Crafts.  I'm not personally drawn to the pocket page scrapbooking trend, but I LOVE this line and I had to find a way to incorporate some of them into a traditional style layout.

I used Lori's Happy Font to create my "before" and "after" subtitles and the super cute chunky arrow found HERE.

I love how these adorable cards are double sided so the design options are plentiful.  You can use them as a photo frame/mat, use them as a journaling card, as a way to ground your title or as just to add a splash of color and pattern to your layout.

As a last minute addition, I decided to also make a digital layout using Lori's latest School Days digital Papers which can be purchased at a discounted price as a SET or individually with the Paper or Embellishments.  I am in love with this collection!!!  It was seriously so much fun to play with!

I have enjoyed making Shutterfly albums off and on over the years as gifts for extended family, but was always unhappy with the limited choices available for their "custom" books.  However, I was super excited to discover they now allow you to upload your digital layouts to create a truly custom book.  Needless to say I am scrambling to catch up on some pages in time for Christmas gifts this year.  ;)

(Sketch designed by Valerie Salmon at Got Sketch?)

In addition to all the inspiration to be found at my fellow teammates blogs, Lori has a couple
giveaways on her blog today!  She has a Silhouette Portrait to give to one lucky winner...

As well as a free cutting file with purchase...

Your next stop on the hop is Traci!  (or if you are just joining the festivities, I have included a full list of all the blogs).

Lori Whitlock
Brigit Mann
Christine Ousley
Corri Garza
Lisa Bell
Mendi Yoshikawa (You Are Here)
Traci Penrod
Chrissy Guido
Haley Ney
Kim Lund

Thanks so much for stopping by.  :)

Lori Whitlock Winner & A Quick Holiday Project

Hi there!

 

Just popping in real quick to announce the lucky winner of the $10 gift certificate from Lori Whitlock's Christmas Countdown blog hop last week!

 

Using www.random.org to help me select, the winner is...

 

Kristine in WA  November 20, 2012 9:03 AM

"I love the inclusion of the mittens!!! Such a cute project."

 

Yay!  Kristine, drop me a quick email so I can get you your gift certificate.  ;)

 

I also have a little project to share that I made a couple months back using a Silhouette pillow box shape found here and some very old American Crafts Christmas papers, Poinsettia flowers by Making Memories, a little tag by Sizzix and a sentiment stamp by Papertrey Ink.

 

I thought it would make the perfect packaging for a last minute holiday gift card.  :)

 

Thanks for stopping by and for all your sweet comments left.  They truly brighten my day!    Check back Friday for some fun Christmas cards that I made for Lori Whitlock. 

 

An American Crafts BOO Halloween Layout

Hi there!

I'm back today to share a Halloween layout using American Crafts "Boo" collection (another line from two years ago).  I love how this Halloween line has pink in it which I've realized is actually very rare.  Once again it was the perfect shade to match my youngest daughter's darling cowgirl costume and that made me sooo happy.

I wanted to die cut my own embellishments to match the darling paper, but since the spider web was extra delicate I turned to my vinyl which does so well with extra detailed images and small words.  The scalloped borders were rows on a piece of embossed patterned paper which I cut apart and cut around the curves.  This is one of my favorite ways to add more patterns to a layout without making it feel too busy.

For the cute spider I added a little extra dimension by attaching wiggly eyes and then adding a layer of glossy accents.  The circles framing each accent were punched out and I then used my favorite Uniball white gel pen and traced around them with a smaller circle to mimic the look of the white doodled scallops in the patterned paper.

Supplies Used:
Patterned Paper- American Crafts Boo Collection
Cardstock- Bazzill Basics
Spider & Web by Silhouette 
Bat by Ginni Nilson for Silhouette
Halloween Labels by Lori Whitlock for Silhouette
Circle Punches- EK Success
Uniball Signo white gel pen
Ranger Glossy Accents
Craft Supply- Wiggle eyes

So what's your favorite way to dress up diecuts?   ;)

Creating Keepsakes Published My Layout!!! :)

This month I had the pleasure of having one of my layouts featured in Creating Keepsake's October issue!!! This was my first time being published in this particular magazine so I was pretty excited when they contacted me. It actually completely took me by surprise as I had submitted this layout to them back in May 2010--I must have just missed the deadline for Halloween submissions so they held onto my layout for 11 months and contacted me this April to see if they could still publish my layout. I honestly couldn't remember what layout it was anymore. Anyway, very exciting all around (I only wish they had spelled my name correctly... They're sadly not even close... Oh well).

Thanks for peeking! :)

Knee Deep in Valentine's Day Cards

Well, right around Christmas I was officially overcome with a cardmaking obsession. Honestly I've never really had a passion for making cards, but at the last minute our Church decided to have a craft bazar and I thought it might be fun to make cards to sell. Well, it didn't take long for me to realize I wouldn't have enough made in time so I sat this year out. BUT, for next year I thought if I could make about a dozen each month I would be ready without too much panic come next December. Apparently it turns out I'm not capable of doing anything half way so I have been in a word OBSESSED (so much so that I was overtaken with an idea for Christmas cards so now I have finished my cards for next year--Woo-Hoo!) Anyway, I recently came to the conclusion that I will have way too many cards to sell in a 1-day Bazar so yesterday I sat down and opened a "store" at Etsy and I sold my first card this morning. :D

You can view my store front at http://www.etsy.com/shop/snippetsbymendi

Here are a few of my favorites that I produced assembly line style this week:

Supplies: Hero Arts Stamps (Cupcake/Polka-dots), CK Puppy Love Font, Copic Markers, Stickles & Diamond Glaze.

Supplies: Hero Arts Stamp, Copic Markers, American Crafts Paper, Fiskars Border Punch, Stickles, Diamond Glaze.

Supplies: Hero Arts Stamps (Hugs & Kisses, Birds & Stripes), Versafine Ink, Stickles, BoBunny Paper.

I am completely in love with Hero Arts new stamps! I have a mile long wish list. I bought these birdies on an impulse buy yesterday. They weren't even on my list, but when I saw them this card idea popped into my head. I also treated myself to this striped background which I saw in their catalog can be turned into checks just by stamping it in two directions. So clever!

The Copic Markers were one of my Christmas presents to myself. They're a bit on the expensive side, but I'm head over heals in love (and I'm actually using them vs. collecting them). If you haven't heard of Copic Markers I would highly recommend checking them out. Here are a few of my favorite websites I found on them:

This is just a good general question and answer website: http://debbiedesigns.typepad.com/muse_and_amuse/FAQs_on_Copic_Markers.html

Here's the cheapest place to buy them and they offer free shipping on Sketch Marker purchases over $100: http://www.carpediemstore.com/listCategoriesAndProducts.asp?idCategory=24

Here's a great website who also sells them and her color recommendations are awesome: http://www.ellenhutson.com/servlet/the-971/COPIC-Sketch-Marker-Sets/Detail

I like this site's color recommendations too: http://www.papertreyink.com/acc_copics_sketchmarkers.html

Here's a cool website that did a test using the markers with different inks and papers: http://ilikemarkers.blogspot.com/search/label/paper

Happy Crafting! :)