Lori Whitlock Blog Hop: Echo Park We Are Family Layout

Hello & Welcome to Lori Whitlock's January blog hop!  You should be arriving here from Corri's blog or if you're just joining us you can start from the beginning at Lori's blog.  :)

Today I am sharing a layout I created using Lori's We Are Family collection she designed for Echo Park.  To create this layout I started with a sketch by Becky Fleck as my inspiration (see below).

For my title I was able to take the word "sweet" from one of Lori's other titles and customize it to fit my needs by typing out the second half of my title using Lori's "Friendly" font.

My layout is about my friend flying to Ethiopia for a year so I cut out an airplane and suitcase to layer on my tag and reinforce my theme.  When my page was completely done I added glossy accents to the hearts to make them look like epoxy shapes.

My page was inspired by this PageMaps sketch from May 2014.

I love that I was able to find many of the exact elements in the sketch using shapes designed by Lori.  I took a screen shot of my layout as I played with different sizes and colors for my shapes. 

When I had everything the way I liked it, I set it to the side of my mat and duplicated it so I could sort the shapes by color and cut them out one by one.  I kept the original intact so when it came to assembling my layout I had something to refer to.

I used a lot of the double sided solid papers from this collection in my page so I was able to mirror my green shapes and cut them at the same time as my aqua shapes, etc.  I'm always stoked when I can do that!

To create my layout I used the following cut files available in Lori's shop:

• Banner Borders
• 6 Tags
• Travel Icons
• Travel Icons 2
• Loved By You Word Art 2
• Friendly Font

This week you can get 30% off all her and Kolette Hall's amazing cutting files and fonts using the code "JANUARY" through January 19, 2015.  :)

She also is giving everyone a free cutting file.  Head over to her blog to check it out.  :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Make sure to check out all the inspiring projects at my fellow teammates blogs & leave comments for more chances to win.  Your next stop in the hop is Kathy's Blog.  :)

Paper Team:

• Lori Whitlock
• Corri Garza 
• Mendi Yoshikawa (you are here)
• Kathy Skou
• Cathy Harper
• Tya Smith

Digital Team:

• Chrissy Guido
• Ashley Cook 
• Stephanie Chavers 
• Rachael Sheedy 

Thanks so much for stopping by.  :)

Supplies Used (available at Scrapbook.com)

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Day 27- Carta Bella Merry & Bright Treat Containers

Today is my girls first official day of Christmas break and I'm so happy to say that the last 4 days of my holiday inspiration series will not feature any cards!  Yay!  As much as I love making them I must admit I was getting burnt out on sharing them.  ;)

With my girls home it's that fun time of year where we do some last minute holiday baking to share with our neighbors.  With that tradition in mind I have some treat container ideas to share with you that would be perfect for co-workers, neighbors, friends, you name it!

This first one is one I made using a mayonnaise jar and patterned papers from Carta Bella's Merry & Bright collection from last year.  We love to use these for sharing homemade caramel corn, but they would also be perfect for filling with nuts or candies (you can see similar ones I shared last year HERE).

For the top of my jar I punched the scalloped circle with owl from the Merry Tags paper and then covered the edge of the lid with a satin ribbon from American Crafts.  My tag came from that same Merry Tags paper which I dressed up with a scalloped border punch, an eyelet for the hole punch, a little diecut holly and a stamped "to" and "from".

When I was nearly done, I thought it would be fun to glue buttons to the polka-dot border paper.

I also have a quick little kraft gift box to share which I dressed up using snowflake stamps from two different Hero Arts sets and some red satin snowflake ribbon by American Crafts.

I stamped my box while it was completely flat, alternating which side it was folded on to get my snowflakes to wrap around the edges.  When I was done, I added little dots of white enamel by Ranger.

My Treat Jar Supply List

• Patterned Paper- Carta Bella Merry & Bright (Merry Borders, Merry Tags, Garland, Christmas Countdown, Green Glow/Cotton Candy)
• Stamps- Hero Arts Joy To All, Papertrey Ink Fillable Frames #9
• Ink- Versafine Satin Red
• Bakers Twine- The Twinery
• Ribbon- American Crafts
• Buttons- American Crafts
• Eyelets- Making Memories
• Holly Die- Papertrey Ink Holly Jolly
• Rhinestones- Kaisercraft
• Other- Mayonnaise Jar

My Kraft Gift Box Supply List

• 3" Kraft Box- Craft Supply
• Stamps- Hero Arts (Clear Christmas Reindeer, Cling Holiday Cheer)
• Ink- Colorbox (cranberry)
• Ribbon- American Crafts
• Snowflake Punch- Martha Stewart
• Button- Basic Grey
• Ranger White Enamel

Thanks for hanging with me during this crazy time.  I hope things are merry in your neck of the woods! :)

Day 14- A Carta Bella Merry & Bright Christmas Card

Welcome to Day 14 of my holiday inspiration series.  We're nearly halfway there.  It's hard to believe Christmas Eve is in two weeks!  OK, enough stressing...

Today I have a card to share using Carta Bella's Merry & Bright collection.  I had so much fun mixing things up a bit by pairing different brands together to create one cohesive look.  I paired a Hero Arts Sentiment stamp with dies by Papertrey Ink and My Favorite Things.

I must say that I am getting a ton of mileage from my Hero Arts Joy To All stamp set this year.  For this card I masked off the rest of the surrounding sentiment by covering the unwanted words with scotch tape, then inked it up and removed the tape before stamping.  What you're left with is just the one word inked up which is awesome and so easy (I have Betsy Veldman to thank for this tip).

My Supply List

• Patterned Paper- Carta Bella Merry & Bright (Christmas Countdown, Green Glow/Cotton Candy, Winter Berry/Berry Red, Merry Borders)
• Stamps- Hero Arts Joy To All
• Ink- Colorbox Chalk Ink (assorted colors), Tsukineko (onyx black)
• Dies- My Favorite Things By the Letters Uppercase Alphabet, Papertrey Ink holly Jolly & Loop de Loop border
• Twine- Martha Stewart
• Rhinestones- Kaisercraft

Thanks for stopping by.  I appreciate all your sweet feedback.  :)

A Carta Bella Paris Girl Digital Scrapbook Layout

I've been busy working on several layouts for my Shutterfly albums trying to get caught up in time for Christmas gifts so I thought I would share one of them with you today!   :)

A couple week's ago Jessica Spague had part of Carta Bella's Paris Girl Collection included in their One Buck Wednesday deals and when I saw it I just knew it would be perfect for my daughter's recent birthday (shared HERE).  I also used some faux stitching from the Shabby Princess Splendid kit and faux sequins, pearls and rhinestone brads from Sweetly Scrapped which are all available to download for FREE!  :)

I must confess... Digital layouts take me almost as long as traditional layouts, but I love the fact that with this format I can make unlimited copies.   In spite of this I know I will never be able to go 100% digital.  I just love playing with paper way to much.  In fact I think I will most likely scrapbook these pictures again for my traditional scrapbook albums so hopefully it won't feel too much like deja vu when I share those layouts in the future.  ;)

For my layout today I used a wonderful sketch by Scrapbook Generation.  I'm a huge fan of Allison Davis and her amazing sketches!  :)

Thanks for hanging with me today.  Hope you have an awesome weekend!