Page Maps July 2011 Blog Challenge

I just had the pleasure of scrapbooking with my friend Pamela this weekend and once again I turned to my favorite Page Maps blog for inspiration and they came through with a fun challenge.  Nothing like submitting at the last minute, but this was just what I needed to jump start my creativity. 

I ended up using a couple of my favorite photos of Yoshi and I from several years ago that we took at his sister's wedding rehersal in Wyoming.  I was happy to finally add them to my scrapbook after so many years of passing them by in my photo box.  As I was making this page, my hubby had come home from working a 60 hour week at work and was sitting outside my window laboring on yet more yard work so it wasn't hard to come up with some very heartfelt journaling.

I did some major fussy cutting on the flower lace paper.  It had more of a border than I wanted so while we sat and talked I cut and cut for over an hour.  It took longer than I planned, but at that point I felt commited.  LOL!

Thanks for peeking and thanks to Page Maps for letting me play along!  :)

Supplies:
Basic Grey "Lemonade" Papers
Basic Grey Paper Lace
American Crafts Glitter Thickers
American Crafts Alpha Rub-ons
American Crafts Glitter Buttons
Prima Flowers
EK Success Border Punch
Queen & Co. Rhinestones
Quickutz Label Die
Ranger Glossy Accents
DMC Embroidery Floss

Papertrey Ink's July 2011 Blog Hop

I've been wanting to play along with papertrey ink's monthly blog challenge for over a year now and I finally did.  Yeah!  This month's challege was to create a card taking inspiration from this photo:

I was drawn to the clean lines and texture of the white bench, the green cushion and the aqua pillow with the butterflies so with that in mind here is the card I created...

Supplies:
Papertrey Ink Butterfly Die
Papertrey Ink Edgers #1 Die
Papertrey Ink "Butterfly Dreams" stamp set (butterflies)
Papertrey Ink "Everyday Button Bits" stamps (sentiment)
Papertrey Ink Felt (ocean tides & simply chartreuse)
Basic Grey "Kioshi" 6x6 pad
Bazzill Basics White Cardstock
Cuttlebug 5x7 Embossing Folder
Spellbinders Circle Dies
Versafine Ink (sentiment)
Ranger Adirondack Dye Ink (butterflies)
Misc. Pearls/ ric-rac


Thanks for taking a peek! Make sure to check out the rest of the blog hop by visiting Nichole Heady's blog here

July's Craft Warehouse Design Team Projects

This month for the Craft Warehouse Design Team assignment we had the pleasure of working with the brand new company's Authentique debut paper lines.  Only 4 of us received the yellow Blissful line and I was escatic to be one of them as it is definitely my favorite!  So fun to play with.  :)

Our assignment was to create one layout with an altered paper technique so I made my focal point flower using only various scalloped circle dies by Spellbinders and the wonderful paper.

...One layout featuring Bazzill's awesome new resist chipboard (so in love) and glimmer mist,

From Craftwarehouse Scrapbook Design Team

...And one card featuring a Unity stamp we were given to work with.

Make sure to check out more detailed photos and all of the other team member's beautiful work using these papers at Craft Warehouse's website here and here.

A Fourth of July Layout! :)

I thought I would share a layout I just put the finishing touches on late last week.  I made this one as a display for one of my favorite local scrapbook stores "A Joy Forever" in Milwaukie, Oregon.  She wanted me to use My Mind's American Made collection.  I wasn't sure how I felt about this line at first glance, but after I found some old photos that still needed scrapbooking and started playing with it I found it really fun and easy to work with.  I also used a new banner border die by Quickutz (although there are so many other great options in that department too).

My original plan was to put my title on the banner, but after I got it made I realized it was just too busy that way so I was left scrambling trying to find a new spot to squeeze in my title.  I used the light blue banner paper as a guide to create a scalloped edge out of the red checked paper.  I also cut out some extra pin wheels and popped them up on foam tape for some added movement.  :)

Thanks for peeking.

A Sympathy Card...

I'm finally getting around to sharing a card I made for my dear friend who lost her mother to a brain tumor a few months ago.  I can't imagine the pain she is going through...

I started by stamping the flowers with Memento ink and then colored the stripes using a Copic marker just a shade darker than the cardstock.  I then topped off the stripes with the Stardust Stickles glitter and for the center layered glossy accents over the stickles for a shiny center.  I don't know if these two flowers were really supposed to go together (they were released at separate times), but they were just screaming out to me to be layered so I popped them up with a little foam tape between them for some added dimension. 

Complete Supply list:
Basic Grey Cappella 6x6 Paper Pad (CAP-2411)
Bazzil Cardstock
Hero Arts Large Flower Cling Stamp (CG134)
Hero Arts Small Striped Flower Cling Stamp (CG256)
Hero Arts With Sympathy Clear Stamps (CL476)
Spellbinders Fleur de Lis Doily Accents (S5-042)
Copic Marker (to shade flower stripes)
Ranger Stickles Stardust Clear Glitter Glue
Ranger Glossy Accents
Colorbox Chalk Ink
Memento Rich Cocoa Ink
Scotch Foam Tape

Thanks for stopping by!  :)

Some Teacher's Gifts and Cards

I have some teacher's cards and gifts to share tonight that I made over National Scrapbook weekend. For these I challenged myself to use SUPER DUPER old school themed products that I came across when I was cleaning out my stash. I don't know why, but for some reason I had trouble parting with this particular stuff even though it's older than dirt so I decided it was time to finally put it to good use.

Each of my daughter's have two teachers so I decided to save time and energy by recreating the same card 4 times. For the paper, pencil and ruler border, I used Hero Arts "Just A Note" clear stamp set.

One on of the crop days at the Vancouver Craft Warehouse they gave us these $1 chipboard cover notepads in our goodie bags as a challenge to decorate. Many of use took a screw driver to them to remove the post they came with and put them on a binder ring instead. They turned out to be so quick and easy to personalize and a great way use up some of those ancient supplies.

On our other crop day, Craft Warehouse presented us with the challenge to decorate these $1 wood plaques. These turned out to be my favorite surface to alter. I had fun personalizing them so they could be used as a decoration in their classrooms or even as a hall pass.

And that Red bow motif you see on all 4 projects... They were all re-purposed red ribbons from Gymboree's Holiday gift boxes! Love that! Another clever ribbon re-use idea is cutting the ribbon handles off of store bags before recycling (I do this often with Ann Taylor loft bags) or the ribbons at the shoulders of your sweaters (ya know the ones that are supposed to hold your sweaters on the hangers, but instead pop out when you're wearing them). I love taking these and turning this trash into treasures on my cards and projects! :)

An Altered Recipe Box (and a funny video)

I thought I would share a recipe box I made for my sister-in-law for Christmas. I had originally planned on submitting it for my Craft Warehouse design team entry, but when that time rolled around I completely forgot all about it.

When I made it, Craft Warehouse was all out of their traditional, smaller recipe boxes so I substituted a larger box that will only fit the smaller recipe cards. If I had to do it again, I think I might hold out for the correct box, but as it is, she will be able to fit a lifetime worth of recipes in there. LOL! :)

Papers, Rub-ons and buttons by Basic Grey's Nook and Pantry, Large Label by Spellbinders, Fruit Stamps by Hero Arts "Simply the Best", Glossy accents, etc.

Now for a silly video. Please excuse the poor lighting (my daughter forgot to change the setting), but I came across this video that my girls had filmed without my knowledge of my youngest lip syncing to Taylor Swift's song "Mine". Totally cracked me up! Looks like I have a drama queen on my hands...



This post goes out to my husband who I celebrated 15 years of marriage with yesterday--Too bad neither of us realized the special day until about 7pm at night and we already had separate plans for the night. LOL! Thanks for stopping by!

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! :)