First Stitiches

Well, mid way through December it finally happened; one of my kids needed stitches. My oldest fell and got a cut deep enough to warrant at trip to the ER. Since I'm one of those moms who scrapbooks, my poor son not only had to get stitches,  but also had to put up with me taking photos of it to scrap. He was quite the trooper though!

I ended up using Christmas paper for this layout. I love that, unless you're familiar with the line, you really can't tell it's Christmas paper. I chose it because it goes really well with the PJ shirt my son is wearing in the photo...and really who doesn't want to get more mileage out of the awesome Christmas collections that were released this year? This line was Christmas Cheer from Lily Bee.  Oh, and in case you're wondering, the stitches have been out for a while now, and his scar is healing nicely.

Thanks for stopping by!

Using Girlier Papers to Scrap Boy Photos

I wanted to take a moment today to show you all what I do when I see a line that I love, that happens to be a bit too girly for scrappy my 2 little boys.  For example, I fell in love with Pink Paislee’s Indigo Bleu:

The main, front sides, have lots and lots of floral….but….. if you flip them over, the back sides are full of great geometric patterns in blues, creams, and sand. Using all back sides from Indigo Bleu, I came up with this boy layout:

Since the Indigo Bleu accessories are also girlie, I pulled stickers from Echo Park’s Boys collection, journaling cards from Lily Bee’s Double Dutch line, and a Smash Tiny Flag Clip.

So for those of you who scrap boys and men much more often than girls, don’t write off those pretty, girlie collections all together. Mix, match, and don’t forget to check the back sides!

Thanks for stopping by!

Hidaling...?

This month's kit technique over at Scraptiv!ty is called hidaling. Now, I'm pretty sure they made that word up, but it's a great word for the technique of hiding journaling on a scrapbook page. I thought this was a pretty cool idea, and even though it's my month off from designing with the kit, I still wanted to play along. My twist? I did a card with hidaling. Here it is with my "journaling" hidden:
And here it is with the "journaling" revealed:
What do you think? Did I nail it? I think I'm going to have to send this birthday card to a crafty friend who will know to pull the tag out of the envelope! Besides the hidaling, there are a few other techniques used on this card. The stitching was done by hand. The flowers and butterfly were stamped on patterned paper and then cut out. The butterfly was also covered in versamark ink, then sprinkled with heat and stick powder, heated up and sprinkled with glitter (okay, I know that sounds like a lot of work, but from start to finish all of that only took about 60 seconds). If you try your hand at hidaling I'd love to see it! Feel free to link it up in the comments.

Supplies:
Cardstock: Stampin' Up!
Patterned Paper: K & Company Amy Butler Lotus Mat Pad
Envelope and Tag: K & Company Studio K Meadow Pockets & Tags
Stamps: Cornish Heritage Farms Collage Elements I
Fiskars Happy Birthday
Glitter: Stampin' Up! Dazzling Diamonds
Punch: Fiskars Apron Lace Punch
Ribbon: Stampin' Up! Old Olive Grosgrain
Rhinestones: Kaisercraft

Wedding Scrapbook

I think I mentioned that a few weekends ago I was in my cousin's wedding. We had a great time, and I was able to get some really beautiful pictures. Including this one of My sister, her husband, my husband, and me (my husband and I are on the left).


I have so many great pictures, that I decided I would do a scrapbook for the bride as a surprise. I just completed the first page of the book. This page is very simple. I wanted the picture to be the focal point, not my amazing ability to embellish (I'll showcase that later on throughout the book :-) The paper doesn't photograph well, but it is a lovely pearlized paper from DCWV.
The words were cut from SU! silver card stock with my Silhouette SD.

I stamped on the bottom right hand corner with Versamark ink using a stamp from Baroque Motifs (SU!). I sprinkled a little silver embossing powder on, heated, and added a few dimensional wedding stickers from K & Company. Now a little note about embossing on photos. Photos don't like heat, so this must be done VERY carefully. I also wouldn't recommend doing this on a treasured heirloom photo, heating the photo may ruin it. Heat just until the powder starts melting. If your photo bubbles from the heat, let it cool. Don't touch or try to smooth the bubble out. Many times it will deflate on its own. That being said, if you have success with this technique it really is a beautiful, unexpected touch.

I have one more picture for you. It's a little closer so you can see more of the beautiful detail of this paper and some of the dimension of the embellishments.