Wander

Wow, where has the week gone? I woke up this morning and realized I haven't posted anything here since last week! Here are 2 layouts I made a while back for A Walk Down Memory Lane. They both feature one of my favorite releases from Summer CHA; Basic Grey's Wander.

Happy Halloween!

Truly a Challenge

My Mind's Eye is having another great sketch challenge, but for the first time since I found MME's challenges, I almost didn't play along. For the 1st time the sketch and challenge (to use black) really felt like a challenge. In fact, the layout I finally ended up with is version #2. The first version had a totally different picture, large circles that were covered in offset scallops, and was as my husband so nicely put "interesting." So, I scrapped that layout and headed back to the drawing board. I picked a new photo (which I should have thought of in the 1st place because the colors are perfect) and started from scratch. I tell you all of this not so you'll feel sorry for me, but so you know, sometimes we all get stuck.
Here's the sketch:

Here's my take:

I know I'm not going to be winning any awards for this layout, but I am happy to have something to show for all my time. I am also happy to have this photo scrapped. That baby in the ultrasound is now 4 years old, and he truly is wonderful (well...at least most days :-) Oh, and in case you have a 4-D ultrasound photo that needs scrapping, and you're thinking, wow those colors are perfect for that, the paper is all from My Mind's Eye's Andrea Victoria Collection.

My Funny Family

I had some pictures of my family just being funny together. They've been sitting, in a pile, waiting to be scrapped since this summer. When I saw Crate Paper's October Sketch Challenge I knew this group of photos would be perfect. Here's the sketch:
Here's my take:
Everything (paper, brads, rub-ons, chipboard, stickers) is from Crate Paper's Brook Collection. The hardest part for me with this layout was purposely not lining up the squares perfectly. I'm usually a clean and straight lines kind of gal. However, this layout just seemed to need a bit of wonkyness (yeah its a word:-) Here are a few close ups of the details on this layout.
Thanks for stopping by!

A Grandmother's Love

This month Glue Dots® challenged its Dottesses to create a gift. The timing of this could not be more perfect, as I have been planing to make a gift for a friend who recently found out she is going to be a grandma. She's so excited and I just can't help wanting to share in her joy. Here's what I came up with:

One of my favorite uses for Glue Dots® is adhering buttons to projects. Since there's no drying time involved, I could adhered all of these buttons to the picture in about 5 minutes with no mess.
Making this picture was pretty easy, it just took a bit of time since I did all the stitching by hand. If you stitch with a machine or skip the zig zag stitching all together, it would go much faster. Here are the step by step instructions for making one of your own.
1. Find a frame that suits your decor. This is an 8" x 10" Better Homes and Gardens frame.
2. Choose a number of sheets of patterned paper to create your background. This is a great way to use up smaller pieces of patterned paper. I used Crate Paper Restoration paper.
3. Cut a piece of scrap paper to fit your frame (i.e. because my frame is 8"x 10", I cut an 8" x 10" piece of scrap paper). Use this piece of paper as a base on which to arrange your patterned paper. Use Glue Dots® Removable adhesive to temporarily hold your paper in place while you are arranging your background.
4. When you have decided where all of your background pieces are to go, adhere them permanently with Glue Dots® Dot 'n Go.
5. Stitch around the edges of your background papers.
6. Stitch the shape of a heart onto your background paper.
7. Arrange buttons inside the heart. Use Mini Glue Dots® to adhere buttons to background.
8. Print "Always and forever is a Grandmother's love" on card stock. Cut out and adhere to background with Mini Glue Dots®.
I wrote this blog post while participating on the Glue Dots® design team.

More Flowers!

It seems I am on a bit of a paper flower kick lately. My mother-in-law has spent this week in the hospital. She's also a new paper crafter (I converted her a little under a year ago). I wanted to do a little something for her, so I decided to make a paper bouquet to brighten her room.
The papers are My Mind's Eye's Ohh La La. There are 2 different types of flowers. Both were cut with my Silhouette and have copper wire stems. Since my mother-in-law really enjoys stamping (and is currently trying to build up her stamp collection) I filled the vase with pretty wood mounted stamps instead of filling the vase with rocks or paper. I really love the look of it.
I layered 2 different ribbons on top of each other and then wrapped them around the neck of the vase to give a little extra color pop. I have been looking for the perfect ribbon adhesive FOREVER, and I've finally found it! I have now used Glue Dots® Continuous Glue Line to adhere ribbon to ribbon, ribbon to glass, ribbon to paper, and ribbon to wood. They all stuck like...well, glue!

I wrote this blog post while participating on the Glue Dots® design team.

Featured Manufacturers

Just a quick post today to remind you that this months Featured Manufacturers over at A Walk Down Memory Lane are Woodware USA and Studio Calico. That means you get 25% off of anything made by those companies. Here are a few things I've created with Woodware and Studio Calico:

Paper: Studio Calico Anthology (Aperture), Studio Calico Home front (Dollhouse, Conversation Piece)
Stamp: Woodware Jane’s Script
Accessories: Studio Calico Anthology Fabrips
Tools: Fiskars Scallop Edge Punch, WR Memory Keepers Corner Chomper

Paper: Crate Paper School Spirit (Ruler, Pep Rally, Chalk Board)
Stamp: Woodware School Tots
Accessories: Pleated Ribbon By the Yard (Brown), Crate Paper School Spirit Phrases Stickers
Tools: Fiskars Apron Lace Punch, Fiskars Scallop Edge Punch,
Markers: Copic (YG03, R29, E29)

Paper: Studio Calico Anthology, Studio Calico Home Front
Accessories: Studio Calico Anthology Fabrips, Pebbles Candy Dots (Green)
Tools: Fiskars Apron Lace Punch, Fiskars Upper Crest Edge Punch,

Proof That I Exist

Two weekends ago we went to the local pumpkin patch/corn maze/petting zoo. I, of course, took my camera along to capture all of the scrappable moments. I took lots of photos of my boys and my husband picking out pumpkins, pulling the wagon full of pumpkins, sitting with the pumpkins (etc., etc, etc.). When we were done we headed over to the corn maze. I started snapping photos again, and then it hit me, I needed proof that I was there too! I promptly handed my camera to my husband, grabbed my boys and captured the proof that I exist. It's hard to see, but I'm wearing a plum colored jacket. Since I rarely get to scrap in colors like pink and purple, I decided my plum jacket is as good as an excuse as any to scrap a layout in purple. This is one of my favorite "purple" lines, Peacock Lane by Bo Bunny. The little silver embellishments are I-rock gems. The twine is from The Twinery.
Just a reminder to make sure you end up in your family photos once in a while!

Pink and Orange Go Together

Two bits of info you need to know:
1. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
2. I'm a proud Fiskateer.

Now let me put those 2 things together. A number of Fiskateers (23 to be exact) volunteered to take part in a challenge. After volunteering we were told that the challenge was to create a project using just 2 colors as our focus: Pink and Orange. The pink is in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the orange is because we are Fiskateers (you know Fiskars, those great orange handled scissors). This is how I'm celebrating the fact that pink and orange go together: As I said there are 23 projects that will be featured on the Fiskateer blog this week. Fiskalead Tami put together a really beautiful video giving a sneak peak of all 23 projects. You can see it by clicking here. These projects are amazing!
A few notes about the project:
First - If you love Fiskars and you're not already a Fiskateer head here to pick a Fiskalead to e-mail. Tell them that you love Fiskars and want to join the amazing Fiskateer community (and that Samantha T. #6363 sent you). They'll give you all the details and set you up with your very own Fiskateer number too! It's free, it's fun, and its full of Fiska-goodness.
Second - I lucked out to have the beautiful pink and orange paper that I used for my project just lying around in my stash at home. It's from 2 different My Mind's Eye collections; Ooh La La and Pretty Please.
Third - To make the cone you need 1/4 of a circle shape cut from patterned paper(a pie shaped wedge). Use a strong adhesive (I used Glue Dots® Continuous Line) along 1 edge and roll into a cone shape. The larger your 1/4 circle, the larger the cone will be. I embellished the top of the cone with strips of paper that had been punched with my Fiskars Upper Crest Punch and my Fiskars Apron Lace Punch. The pink metallic jewels on the cone were added with my I-rock.
Fourth - The flowers were cut with my Silhouette. I used my paper piercer to punch 2 holes through the center of the flowers. I ran thin copper wire up through the first hole in the flowers and then through a button. I looped the wire at the top and ran it back down through the second hole and twisted it off just underneath the flower. The copper wire makes it so the flowers can stand on their own (i.e. you could stand them up in a vase).
Fifth - I set 2 large eyelets along the top edge of the cone and looped ribbon through the cone. Now you can hang the cone over something (like a doorknob, chair, hook, etc.).

Thanks for stopping by!

I Believe

I've been meaning to post this card for a while now. I made it all the way back in August for A Walk Down Memory Lane's CHA preview event. Now Moxie Fab World is having a Jolly Holiday Greetings contest, so I figured why not post it finally. The patterned paper, stamps, and ribbon are all from My Mind's Eye's really beautiful and fun new Christmas line called I Believe. That's it for me today, short and sweet!

You and Me

My boys are pretty much always together. I often refer to them as Trouble 1 and Trouble 2 (Dr. Seuss fans out there catch the reference?). Some pictures just speak for themselves, and I think this is one of those photos. So today, the layout I give you simply says: You and Me. All of the paper is My Mind's Eye Alphabet Soup Boy. I've really fallen in love with the colors and patterns in this line. They're so perfect for scrapping boy pages. Believe it or not, I didn't think this was a line I needed until I saw it at A Walk Down Memory Lane. I can admit when I'm wrong...I love this line. Each of the squares on this layout are stitched with X stitches. I love the feel they give to the layout. They really make the individual squares of paper come together. The brackets behind the photo were cut with my Silhouette. The "you and me" sticker is from Cosmo Cricket. The off white button is from Jenni Bowlin, while the other buttons are from Bo Bunny.

4 Years

I think I've been feeling a bit sentimental lately. I can believe how quickly my kids are growing up, and I want to capture all of it. When it comes to journaling on layouts, I'm not the best. However, this recent sentimentality has led me to write quite a bit more on my layouts. Here's one I just finished about my oldest. I seriously can't believe he's 4 already!
For whatever reason, this layout went together really easily for me. I love mixing and matching patterned papers. The paper here is all from My Mind's Eye Alphabet Soup Boy except for the background "notebook" sheet of paper, which is Basic Grey.I used a mix of embellishments. The word stickers (smile, dimples, lovable) are Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type. The 4 yrs stickers are Bella Blvd One Fall Day. The tag that the 4 yrs is on is from Chatterbox. The blue circle is a washer that I covered in MME paper and stuck a MME Lush Brad through. That top left circle is a piece of cork. I, of course, couldn't call this layout complete with out a bit of hand stitching.Finally, those little pearls above the journaling are I-Rock pearls. If you don't have an I-Rock yet, all I have to say is, what are you waiting for? This is the coolest little tool! I've had mine for a week, and I already don't know what I did without it.
Thanks for stopping by!

Faux Flocked Brads

This month, the Glue Dots® Design Team Dottesses were given Sparkly Fluff to play around with from the generous people over at Our Craft Lounge. If you've never played Our Craft Lounge's Sparkly Fluff or their Craft Fluff, you're missing out, this stuff is fun, versatile and so easy to work with.
Today I'm going to share a super simple technique that pairs Glue Dots® with Sparkly Fluff to create a fun accent for a layout or card. For lack of a better name, I'm calling them Faux Flocked Brads.
What you'll need: Glue Dots® (I used Mini and Memory Book), and Sparkly Fluff or Craft Fluff (I used Brown Sugar Sparkly Fluff)
First you'll need to put your Glue Dots® where you want them on your layout, card, or project.
Second, cover the Glue Dots® with Sparkly Fluff. You will want to use a small bit of pressure to push the Sparkly Fluff onto the Glue Dots®. Shake off the excess Sparkly Fluff. You'll end up with something that looks like this:

I used a number of these faux flocked brads on this layout:I know I've mentioned before that you can find inspiration anywhere, and for this layout, I really did. I drew my inspiration from the Glue Dots catalog cover:


Supply List:
Papers: My Mind's Eye Alphabet Soup, Basic Grey Basics
Adhesives: Glue Dots® Mini, Memory Book, Dot 'n Go
Accessories: Imaginisce I-rocks Glam Rocks (pearl), My Craft Lounge Sparkly Fluff (Brown Sugar), Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type Alphas (red), Prima Flocked Alphas
Tools: Silhouette SD

I wrote this blog post while participating on the Glue Dots® design team.

Believe

One of the best things about being on the in store design team at A Walk Down Memory Lane is that when Lisa (the owner) came back from CHA this summer, I got to play with a whole bunch of the goodies she brought back. When I saw this sheet of paper from Fancy Pants' Tradition: I just knew what I had to do with it. That tree was screaming to be cut out and adorned with jewels, pearls, Stickles, candy dots, and even drops of Diamond Glaze.
I actually built my layout around the tree, once I had it finished.This layout is makes me excited for Christmas already!

Supplies
Paper: Fancy Pants Tradition (Shimmer, Christmas Morning, Tradition Strips, Tradition Cards)
Accessories: Prima Flower Centers, Basic Grey Pearls, Kaisercraft Rhinestones (Red, Green, Blue), Stickles (Waterfall), Pebbles Candy Dots (Brown)
Tools: Bazzill in Stitch’z Template