Sunday, May 30, 2010

When Old is New

Yesterday, I was showing someone this book I made almost a year ago. I realized it's never been posted on my blog, so I thought I'd quickly share it with you. People were always comparing my boys and trying to remember if the older one looked like the younger one when he was that age, so I made this fun side by side comparison book of their first year:The book is from Kaisercraft, most of the patterned paper is from Basic Grey, the brads and ribbon, and card stock are from Stampin' Up!, the cuts were done with my Silhouette, and the title was sketched with my Silhouette as well.
This upcoming week is going to be a busy one on my blog. Starting Tuesday I'll have the new June Scraptiv!ty kit featured here. It's a great kit, and you're not going to want to miss it!

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Scrapin' Away the Blues

It's been a little sad around our household the past few days. Our much loved Basset, BoDean, slipped a disc sometime Sunday night and no treatment worked. He was paralyzed and in pain, so yesterday he was put to sleep. He was only 6, so it was quite unexpected. He was an awesome dog, and will be missed.
Truthfully, I'm not quite ready to scrap a bunch of Bo pages yet, but when I'm sad I like to channel that into something creative. I've had the photo and some papers sitting out for a while, so I finally sat down and made this layout.
I used papers from Pink Paislee's Queen Bee Collection. The soft muted colors compliment this canoeing picture so well. I also thought this pop of purple added something extra. I achieved that pop of color with another one of my new favorite products, Pink Paislee Artisan Tape. It's all of my favorite things: pretty, versatile, and inexpensive! The brads are from My Mind's Eye Lush and the letters are from Basic Grey. One more product I'd like to mention are these Artisan Elements from Pink Paislee:
These are so fun and different, that you just have to see them in person. You can ink them, paint them, or use them plain.
Thanks for letting me share as I scrap away the blues.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

So Much Inspiration, So Little Time

I wish I had unlimited time to spend in my craft room when inspiration like this comes across my path:
I saw the above sketch on Crate Paper's Blog, and I had a bout 20 ideas run through my brain. Since I don't have unlimited time I'll have to settle for 2 projects based on the sketch... for now at least. The sketch is meant to be a card sketch, but I just had to make a layout from it.
Jessica is one of the best people I know, and this is one of my favorite photos of us together. We live about 8 hrs apart, but scrapping photos like this reminds me that she's always close, and isn't that why we scrap? Enough of the sappy stuff and on to the scrappy stuff! The paper and chipboard accessories here are all Crate Paper Season. This is the first time I've used Crate Paper's Chipboard pieces, and let me tell you, they don't skimp on the adhesive. They stuck on nice and tight without me having to add extra adhesive. I also got to use my American Craft Glitter Thickers: Since most of my layouts are about my boys, I don't get the chance to use these often enough!

The second brainstorm I had for this sketch, was to turn it into a notepad. I LOVE how this turned out.
To give you an idea of the size of this, the notepad measures about 5" x 8". To keep the flaps closed I used these ultra thin magnets that Basic Gray makes. I put one in the center of this chipboard flower:and I hid the other one underneath this chipboard flower:The magnets are strong enough to work through a few layers of paper. Again, all of the paper and chipboard accents here are from Crate Paper's Season Collection.
If the above sketch inspires you too, and you want to play along with Crate Paper, you can find more info here on their blog. Hoping you're all feeling a bit inspired!

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

So Much Vacation Goodness

I have a big post today with lots and lots of photos. I almost split it up into 2 posts, but it all goes together, so 1 post it is. First, I have to start with a big, big thank you to Imaginisce. A while back I did this post on making a flower with the I-top punch. Imaginisce picked up the post (which was cool enough in and of itself), and then sent me a box full of Scooter's Vacation goodies. I'm pretty sure they sent me 1 of everything in the Collection. What a generous company! So, everything you see today (unless otherwise noted) is from Imaginisce's Scooter's Vacation Collection. I made 2 - 2 page layouts, and I still have a ton left over. I haven't even touched the stamps yet. I'm also hording a few of the stickers and am planning on using them on my Italy scrapbook that I'm hoping to get a start on some time this summer.
Okay, so I can't resist a sketch challenge. Imaginisce is holding one right now, so I started with that. You can find the challenge details here. Here's the sketch:I turned it into a 2 page layout:
I know you all know I like to challenge myself to step outside my comfort zone, and boy was this one of those challenges. I usually like to combine lots of patterned papers, but I didn't want to overload the page with bright papers and a zillion stickers and accessories, so I toned down the papers. The only non-Imaginisce products here are the white card stock and the silver glimmer mist that was sprayed on at the end (also a product I haven't used yet). The words on some of the photos are rub-ons. I cut words from one of the patterned papers to incorporate into the journaling around the photos.
Here a few detailed pictures. Check out these great card stock and chipboard stickers:
If you look closely in this picture, you can tell that the suitcase is what they call a mirror sticker, it's reflective. So cool!Now onto my 2nd Scooter's Vacation layout:
It's hard to tell from the picture, but that background paper has a bit of shine and texture to it. It's so lovely and perfect for this ocean picture.

Here's a close up of some of the stitching...I just can't resist stitching. This was done with a Bazzillstitchz in- template. You can also see a bit of the Scooter's Vacation ribbon peaking out at the bottom of the photo.
These flowers are too cool. They come layered up like that already, all you have to do is peal the backing off the adhesive, and stick. I cut the leaves for the flower from the cardboard backing of some of the stickers.
The "paradise found" sticker is another great product. It's a puffy sticker (remember those from when you were a kid). They add a great touch of whimsy to the layout.
Here's another one of those mirror stickers:And finally a close up of the journaling in case you wanted to read it:Thanks for stopping by, I hope this post got you thinking about how you're going to scrap all those photos that you're going to take this summer on vacation!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

My Boys and My Mind's Eye

I've been having fun playing around with my My Mind's Eye papers again. The first layout is for MME's latest sketch challenge. You can find all the details here on the MME blog. Here's the sketch:and here's my take:Instead of doing a solid shape in the background, I cut brackets and a bracketed saying (This Boy) with my Silhouette. This layout also showcases one of my favorite features of the Silhouette, you can create mats for every single image. If you own a Silhouette and can't remember how to cut a mat for your images, click here for a tutorial I did a while back. The paper is from My Mind's Eye's Ooh La La collection. I've only used this collection in the past for heritage scrapbooking (old photos), so it was fun to so something different and use it on a "modern" photo.

Moving on to my second layout for today. This one also uses MME papers:
I've been meaning to get this photo scrapped with these MME Penny Lane Free Bird papers ever since I found this tag:It's absolutely perfect, don't you think? I think part of the reason I love MME so much is because they create some of the best lines for scrapping boys.
I also wanted to share a close up of the detail at the bottom of this layout. I cut along the lines on one of the papers to create a large scalloped edge and then layered a piece of Free Bird that I punched with my Fiskars Upper Crest Punch over the scalloped piece. The brad in the picture is from MME's Lush collection, I can't help but use those great brads every chance I get!

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Relax...

Moxie Fab World is having a 3 Cheers for Chairs contest, click here to learn more about it. I thought I'd combine it with a Mother's Day card this year.
The paper is all from Pink Paislee's Queen Bee line. The lamp is from Unity Co. Comfy Cozy set and was stamped in gray ink on Queen Bee paper and then cut out. I cut the chair with my Silhouette SD.

The second project I have today is a fast board book. It took me about 1 1/2 hrs to put this together from start to finish, including finding quotes on the internet for the book. The trick is using pages that are the same size as your photos (for me that means 4x6):The paper is from Pink Paislee's 365 Degrees Collection. Various Fiskars Border punches were used to make the edge detail. Sweet and simple, and a perfect Mother's Day gift for my mom!

Friday, May 7, 2010

Fun with Crate Paper

Back in December I was introduced to Crate Paper when I picked it out at my Local Scrap Store to make this project. I fell in love with the texture of this paper. It's thicker than a lot of the paper out there, and has a sturdy feel, but still cuts easily with my Silhouette. A month or 2 ago I stumbled across Crate Paper's Brook collection. These papers are just perfect for a mom who has 2 boys to scrap. They are beautiful, versatile, and not theme-y. I grabbed every paper in the line and a set of matching journaling stickers. Here's where I blush with embarrassment...I brought them home and got side tracked and I didn't uses them. Well, Crate Paper just published their first ever sketch challenge on their blog. This was just the motivation I needed to dig into my Crate Paper papers! In fact, I made 2 layouts based on the sketch.
Here's the sketch:
And here's a layout of my youngest (who just happens to turn 2 today):
As you can see, for this layout, I followed the sketch pretty closely. I love layers, so I couldn't help but add a few extra to the sketch. What I love about playing with sketches, is that you can flip and change them a bit and you'll feel like it's a whole new page. Here's what I mean:

I rotated the sketch 180 degrees...looks like a totally different sketch than the page above, but it isn't . Instead of a small photo, I added the business card from the place we went skydiving. Also, instead of flowers, I added journaling spots all the way down the page. The papers on both layouts are from CP's Brook Collection, as are the Journaling Stickers.
If this sketch has your mind running wild, you can check out all the details on the contest here on CP's blog.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Moxie Mother's Day

This is Moxie Fab World's Tuesday Trigger this week:I think I need that bag!

I decided to use the color inspiration here to make a Mother's Day card, since we all know what Sunday is!I'm sighing a little because this picture just doesn't do this card justice. I've been having a blast playing with these beautiful butterflies from Jenni Bowlin. All Jeni Bowlin stuff is on sale 25% off at A Walk Down Memory Lane this month (woo hoo!). The paper (isn't it gorgeous???) is October Afternoon Fly a Kite and Thrift Shop. The stamp is from Stampin' Up! and the border is done with Fiskar's Apron Lace punch.
If you want to play along in the Moxie Fab world details be found here.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Happy National Scrapbooking Day

Hello! I hope you've all found a great way to celebrate National Scrapbooking Day, whether it's cropping in person or with an on-line community. My fellow Design Team members and I over at Scraptiv!ty area having a great time with an on-line crop. Just for visiting my blog today, you get a sneak peak of a challenge I will be posting tonight at 8 pm on the S! board. Now, I'm not going to tell you what the challenge is, but here's the page I created for the challenge:

This page is also part of an album being given to a friend for a thank you gift. The pocket on the bottom right hand side holds clouds (cut with my Silhouette) that have thank you notes written on them:
The paper is from Cosmo Cricket's Earth Love line.
Now, if you looking for something to do this fine day, click here to head on over to all of the fun at Scraptiv!ty.