Adventures in Canvas Part 2, Little Yellow Bicycle, and a Give Away

 I'm super excited to be bringing you what I created for Little Yellow Bicycle's Cycling Team (sort of like a guest designer light spot). It's been an awesome opportunity being able to create with all this LYB goodness. The above framed art is a trio that I created from Little Yellow Bicycle's Get Your Game On and three 8 x 10 shadow box style frames. You can check out a little more about what I learned about working with LYB Colorable Canvas In My Adventures in Canvas Part 1. 

I used Copic Markers to color the canvases, and then sponged on a very light shade of alcohol ink to add a bit of age to the canvases. I especially concentrated on the edges of the canvas and the figures of the players. If you're not terribly artistic when it comes to things like coloring and shading (and I'm one of those people who's not), have no fear: there is a pre-printed shading on the canvases already. I just followed where the players were already shaded and enhanced it a bit.

It's really easy to attach things to the canvases, and it's a fun way to add depth, interest, and a change of texture to the piece. Here, the baseball is a Game On chipboard piece that I attached with a Glue Dot® right on top of a baseball that was printed on the canvas.

I matted the 5" x 7" Canvas Colorables on an 8" x 10" piece of matching Game On patterned paper. 

I added stickers and chipboard pieces not only to the canvas and patterned paper, but also to the frame and glass.

These have been hanging on my son's bedroom wall for about 3 weeks now, and he absolutely loves them, and I love that I was able to make something for him.

If you've made it to the end of this really long post, you deserve a prize! If you'd like the chance to play around with some Game On paper, Canvas Colorables, and accessories just leave me a comment on this post and you'll be entered to win. I'll draw a random winner and post it on my blog next Friday.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:
Frame - 3 - 8 x 10 shadowbox style frames
Canvases - Little Yellow Bicycle Get Your Game On (Football, Baseball, Basketball)
Paper - LYB Game On (Football Collage, Baseball Collage, Basketball Collage)
Accessories - LYB Game On (Stickers Favorite Pieces (Basketball, Baseball, Football), Chipboard Shapes, Mini Banners (football)), Copic Markers
Tools - Sponge Daubers

October AWDML Layout of the Month

I just wanted to let you all know that I am up this month for A Walk Down Memory Lane's Layout of the Month. If your interested, here's how it works:

1. Come into the store and grab a layout recipe card.

2. Grab the card stock and patterned paper needed to create the layout.

3. Grab any optional embellishments you may need (i.e. rhinestones,    

    journaling markers). 

4. When you check out, get free step-by-step instructions (with a color  

    photo) for the layout.  

** If you're an on-line customer just shoot AWDML an email by clicking here or give them a call at (712)476-3443 and ask them to pull the papers for you for the October Layout of the Month. When they ship your order, they'll include the instructions. All you need to buy to get the instructions is the cardstock and patterned paper, but let them know if you want any of the optionals like Glossy Accents, alpha stickers, or foam tape.

It's a bit hard to tell from the photo, but the background is a Core'dinations technique that's great for Halloween layouts. There's a tutorial video here that I made if you'd like to learn how to do it.

Fruit Stand

 I actually had a chance to play around with the Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge on time this time around. Okay, a word of caution here...this card is way outside my "normal" style. I've seen a few awning style cards around and when I saw the inspiration for this week

my mind went right to the thought that I should try making a fruit stand by creating an awning style card and using Paper Smooches Fruitastic stamp set.

I also drew my color inspiration from the photo...I got a bit off track, but the pinks, reds, and greens were my starting point. I wasn't sure if this card would be a pain if I decided to mail it. Good news is the awning lays down pretty flat and bounces back up when it's pulled out of the envelope.

This is also the first Copic coloring I've done since taking a class on it. In the past I've sort of just winged it, so it was fun to try my hand at doing it the "right way". I've got a lot of work to do, but it was fun!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Halloween Envelope Album

 I'm getting a jump start on my Halloween photos this year. Every year, when the costumes come, my boys put them on to make sure they fit and to check that we have all the accessories needed. I usually take this opportunity to take photos. That way on the actual day of trick-or-treating, I only have to snap a few photos of them in the act. Since I already have some of the photos, I decided to get a mini album started and half decorated.

This year, I'm making an envelope album, but instead of using pre-made envelopes, I made them myself from My Little Shoebox's Trick-or-Treat collection. It's bright, fun, and has spiders and bats in it, which is perfect for highlighting my little Spiderman and Batman.

To make the album, first you'll need to decide what size envelopes you'll want. I chose A7 which is the size that fits a 5" x 7" photo (so the finished envelope is slightly bigger than  5" x 7").  No need to re-invent the wheel here, if you have the Martha Stewart Scoring Board it gives you all the measurements you'll need if you stick with a standard size. Otherwise, Google the size you want to make. No need to try to figure it out for yourself.

For an A7 envelope, cut your paper to 10" x 10". Place your paper so it's shaped like a diamond. Score at 3 1/4". Turn 90 degrees, sore at 4 1/4". Turn 90 degrees, score at 3 1/4". Turn 90 degrees, sore at 4 1/4".

Cut the notches out where the score lines overlap.

Now you're ready to fold and assemble your envelope. I like Glue Dots® Glue Lines the best for this task. They're thin and come pre-cut in just the right size sections.

 I used 4 lines per envelope, 1 at the middle and one at the bottom of each side. Fold the bottom  flap up over the side flaps. Leave the top open (just like a regular envelope). 

Make as many of these envelopes as you want for your album. I made 7.

To assemble your album place a few glue lines along the flap of the envelope where the adhesive would normally be on an envelope. I also placed one in the middle just above the flap fold line. Take the envelope with the adhesive flap open, face down. Take another envelope, face up (if this is the first page fold the flap backwards, otherwise the flap will already be folded into another page). Insert the flap of the face down envelope into the pocket of the face up envelope. Move into place until both edges match up. Press down to seal adhesive in place. Repeat until all of your envelopes are gone.

Now the fun really begins: you can decorate your album. By creating an album from envelopes, you'll have pockets on every other page so you can:

...hide journaling

...stash a photo

...or seal right over it an use it like a normal page.

Happy haunting!

I wrote this post while participating on the Glue Dots® Design Team.

Honey Pop Holiday Card Class

Saturday I'll be teaching class at A Walk Down Memory Lane on how to make the cards pictured above using Inky Antics Honey Pop Stamps. The class cost $20 and is from 10:30 am - 12:30 pm this Saturday, October 15. You can call AWDML at (712)476-3443 to reserve your spot. You can also click here to check out AWDML's full calendar of store events and classes.

2 Layouts

Okay, so these 2 layouts don't have much in common, except that they're made with Little Yellow Bicycle papers and I made them this past weekend. Up first is a layout about my garden.

 I really, really love having a garden. It's not pretty and it's usually full of a good crop of weeds, too, but I love it. I love that my kids "help" by digging in the dirt. I love that my youngest eats raspberries straight off the bush, and most of all I love eating and canning fresh goodies from the garden. The paper and all the embellishments are from LYB's Elizabeth Park Collection.

Long before my oldest was ever in school, he had to have a backpack. For some reason, he thinks backpacks are one of the coolest things in the world. He's passed that love on to his younger brother (who isn't in school yet,  but proudly puts on his backpack every day when we take his older brother to school). I started wondering if that love of backpacks would be something I'd forget over time. Since I don't want to forget about it, I decided to take a few backpack pictures and scrap about it. I figured LYB's Head of the Class collection would be a good choice for the photos. The colors and themes seemed just right.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Little Bit of Fun

Today's post is a little random. I have 2 projects that I made as part of challenges.

This is an old Paper Smooches Sparks challenge. I'm a bit behind on posting, so the challenge is done, but you should really head over to the challenge blog and check out the current inspiration piece. It's so cool!
Anyways, here's the inspiration piece for the old challenge:

And here's my take:

This card uses Paper Smooches Perpetual Bliss for the stamped lightbulb image and Fruitastic for the "you" sentiment. The paper and ribbon are from Crate Paper's Neighborhood Collection.

Up next is a card/tea bag holder I made for a challenge for May Arts. Basically, they sent people up for the challenge 4 different ribbons and you had to use them in a project. I decided to make this:

 The finished card is 3 1/2" x 6". There is a 1/4" spine, so the card has space to add a 1/8" deep pocket on the inside. I slipped a bag of tea inside. It's an easy way to jazz up a card. This one is a "feel better soon" card, since tea seems to go well with that theme.

Thanks for stopping by!

In Love With Letterpress

 Saturday I bought the Lifestyle Crafts Letterpress. I love it. Seriously, love it. I kind of feel like I'm cheating on my stamps, but it's just so darn fun.

If you're not familiar with letterpress, basically it's a technique where you add ink to paper while simultaneously debossing the paper (I tried really hard to take a close up where you can see the debossing in the photo above). Lifestyle Crafts has a letterpress tool and line of inks, plates, papers, etc. that work with your manual die cutting machine (Big Shot, Cuttlebug, Epic). I picked my letterpress up at A Walk Down Memory Lane, and used it with my Big Shot. I really just wanted to get a feel for what the letterpress can do, so I did a lot of playing around. When I was done playing, I took those images and turned them into cards. I would like to note that it's really hard to photograph the debossing...these cards are a notch prettier in person because you can see the impression in the card stock.

I think what I love so much about letterpress is how well it lends itself to simple beauty and elegance. I didn't need to do much to create a card from this letterpress holly and Merry Christmas sentiment. I just added a little bit of patterned paper is from Echo Park's Dots & Stripes Christmas Collection.

The far left card has a leterpress background (green). Then I cut a letterpress ornament out and added it to the card with Pop Dots®. The sentiment was done with letterpress and put on the inside. The center card has letterpress ornaments, ornament hangers (in green) and Merry Christmas sentiment. On the card on the right, the ornaments and merry Christmas are letterpress. I created the ornaments using 2 colors of ink at the same time. The patterned paper is from Echo Park's Dots & Stripes and Echo Park's Season's Greetings.

I think these cards just might be my favorite of the bunch. The letterpress reindeer and Merry Christmas pair beautifully with Echo Park's Season's Greetings paper. Another bonus to letterpress is that it lends itself well to making multiples of an image. It's a fast and fun way to do invitations, multiple thank you's (say for a baby shower or wedding), or lots of Christmas cards.

Letterpress works the best on a cotton based paper (it's thick and squishy and debosses nicely), but as you can see by these cards, you can also use it on regular card stock.

...and just in case you thought I was only doing Christmas cards, here's a pretty thank you. This also shows that I can use stamps and leterpress together. The background words were stamped first. Then, I used my letterpress to add the green accents and the for you sentiment. The patterned paper used for the card base is Little Yellow Bicycle's Twig.

Thanks for stopping by! If you have any questions about letterpress or how it works feel free to ask. I'm by no means an expert, but I have been having lots of fun with it.