Plaid Alcohol Ink Background

A little while back I heard about a technique that used alcohol inks to create a plaid background. It sounded so cool to me, and I had to try it out for myself. You know what? The technique is super fun and really, really easy. Check out the card I mad using this technique:

 ...and the possibilities are endless, since you can chose just about any color combo you want! Want to see more about how I created this card? I'm blogging over at A Walk Down Memory Lane today, and I have a video tutorial over there showing how to make a plaid background with alcohol inks. Click here to head on over to AWDML's blog  tocheck out the video and to check out more about the card below. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

2 Page Layout: The Big Raft Lake Fun

School may have started, but I'm still working on my summer photos. 

I love the bright colors and pops of navy in Fancy Pants' Down By the Shore collection. I couldn't resist those colorful little fish for scrapping some sunny photos from the lake.  I layered Down By the Shore up with a few stickers, some enamel dots, a little washi tape and some wood accents.    

Have you scrapped anything with Down by the Shore? I'd love to see it!

Thanks for stopping by.

Gelato Birthday Card

I'm sorry for being away from blogging for almost a week! The kids went back to school today, and we were busy fitting in lots of last minute summer fun.  It's been a while since I've shared a card, so how about a fun birthday one.

First of all, I love Gelatos. They're such a fun and different medium to work with, and there are so many ways to use them.  For this one, I simply colored with my Gelatos directly onto my Hero Arts/Studio Calico Starburst stamp.  I misted the stamp with water, and then stamped directly onto my card stock. So simple, and such a great watercolor effect.  I added the center birthday words last, from the W Plus 9 Written on Ribbon stamp set.

Thanks for stopping by! 

Creativity is...

The start of school is just around the corner. I'm always looking for ways to organize, simplify, and, of course, display the fun projects my kids bring home.  My refrigerator doesn't have much room, and often doesn't do their projects justice.  Hopefully this will:

My husband builds things, and makes things, and repairs things, so there's always scrap wood lying around.  I had him cut a board that was about 3 1/2" tall to a little over 2' long (I actually held my hands apart and said, "I want it about this ____ long." Which makes him roll his eyes!).  I painted it with some leftover whitewash from my bulletin board project. 

 I used my Silhouette to cut the words from Basic Grey's Bowties paper and attached them with Ultra Thin Glue Dots®. 

 I used mini clothespins from Little Yellow Bicycle. I especially loved these for this project because they have words on them like, "love" and "wonderful".  I decided to stain them a blueish color (not shown in the picture above, but you can see it in the picture below) with Lindy's Stamp Gang T-bird Turquoise Flat Fabio Mist. I attached them with Glue Lines from Glue Dots®.

Now all I have to do is get my husband to hang it on the wall, and I've got a great place for my kids to display their work!

Thanks for stopping by.

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

DIY Chalkboard

I'm a list person.  Lists make me happy, they help me keep my sanity, remember things, and I kind of love that feeling when you get to cross things off your list.  You know what's even better than a list? A list kept in a pretty place. That's why I made this fun and very functional chalkboard for my craft room. The best part is that I can change out the little corner embellishment easily when the season changes, or when I just want something new to look at.

Supplies:

Craft Glue Dots®

Picture frame (any size will work as long as you can find vinyl wide and tall enough to fit it)

Chalkboard Vinyl

Miscellaneous Embellishments.

Putting this together is pretty simple.  Just cut your chalkboard vinyl to the same size as the glass in your picture frame. Remove the glass from your frame, and cover the glass in chalkboard vinyl.  Return the glass to your frame.

Now here's the fun part. Gather some extra embellishments. That time you make 4 paper flowers, but only needed 1? Grab the extra one. Have some cute felt leaves you didn't know what to do with? Grab those.  If you don't have anything laying around, you can try your hand at making a simple ribbon flower like this one (just don't add the pin back), or a paper pumpkin like this one.  You can even get your kids in on the action and have them make you something fun. 

Once you know what embellishment you want to add, use a Craft Glue Dot (usually just 1 or 2 will hold the embellishment securely) to the bottom corner of the frame. When the season changes, or you just want something new to look at, gently peel the embellishment (with the Craft Glue Dot still attached) away from the frame.  Add a new embellishment. It's that easy! 
 

 If you decide to try this out, I'd love to see what you make! Just link it up in the comments.

Need some Glue Dots® for this project? Check out Glue Dots' Blog post here for a Back to School Glue Dots® giveaway.  

Thanks for stopping by today!

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

Dirt Bike Fun

Today I have a layout of my oldest riding his dirt bike. He's gotten really good at it this summer, so I thought it would make a fun layout. 

I had one piece of paper I knew I wanted to use for this layout. That piece with the dirt bikes on it (it's from Imaginisce's Outdoor Adventure) called out to me from the shelves at AWDML.  From there I just started pulling random papers and embellishments from my shelves that seemed to work.  Washi tape? Yes, please! Simple Stories 24/7? Perfect!  Even a bit of adhesive backed cork worked its way into the layout as a photo mat.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a beautiful weekend!

The Post I've Been So Excited to Share

Last week I received a little news that I've been so excited to share...

I am honored to be a part of the 2013 - 2014 Pebbles Inc. Design Team.  I can't wait to share everything I love about Pebbles Inc. here with you and with fans of Pebbles on their blog. There are some seriously talented ladies in this group, so if you're looking for some great crafty inspiration, I encourage you to check out all of their blogs.

Pebbles 2013-2014 Design Team

Amanda Coleman

Becky Williams

Candace Pelfrey

Emily Spahn

Eva Pizarro

Holly Gagnon

Juliana Michaels

Kathy Martin

Kim Jeffress

Kim Kesti

Laura Craigie

Laurel Seabrook

Marjan Pel

Nina Yang

Patricia Kumfer

Renee Zwirek

Samantha Taylor

Suzanna Lee

Tauni Evertt

TiffanyHood

Wendy Antenucci

Wendy Sue Anderson

In the mean time, while I'm waiting for my official first assignment (!!!), here's a layout I created this weekend using Pebbles Lakeside.

 Having spent some time at the lake recently, this collection was a perfect fit for me!

Have a great week!

Happy Campers and Outdoor Adventures

It's definitely the time of year for scrapping lots of outdoor/woodsy/camping photos.  Okay, I don't actually camp, but we go to my parent's lake house, which has a nice woodsy feel, and we make s'mores and do woodsy things.  Close enough, right? Imaginisce has a collection called Outdoor Adventure. I love it's s'mores paper (and the dirt bike/ATV paper, but that's a post for another day).

 I layered up a few of the other outdoor adventure papers on top of the s'mores one. I sneaked in a chipboard sticker from We R Memory Keepers, and some washi tape from them as well (because, can you ever really have enough washi tape?).  It still needed a little something so I added these fun stick pins from Little Yellow Bicycle.

Being wood, you can stain these pins any color you want, but the natural color fit my layout perfectly. 

Now I have one less vacation memory to scrap, and one more to enjoy when I'm paging through my albums. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Boys at Play

I have a mini album to share today that was hanging out at A Walk Down Memory Lane  for some time. It came home with me the other week, so I'm finally getting around to posting it here. 

I used Pebbles Inc. Love You More 4 x 6 Journaling cards to make a 4 x 6 mini album.

I cut a 4" strip of patterned paper (from Pebbles Basics) and folded it every 1/4" until I had enough folds to act as my book binding.  From there it was easy, I just inserted the journaling cards into the binding in the order I wanted them. Finally, I added photos and embellishments.

So next time you see a cute collection of journaling cards...think mini album!

Thanks for stopping by.