Monday, March 28, 2016

Derry at Night Layout

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.
Sometimes there is a city that you just have to photograph during the day and at night. We arrived in Londonderry durning the day, but I knew I'd just have to go out again after it got dark to capture some of the views of this beautiful city. Today I'm sharing my Derry at Night layout.


Thanks to the location of our hotel, the City Hotel, all we had to do was walk out the front door to be able to capture places like the Peace Bridge  and the Guild Hall at night. We could actually see these views right from our hotel window, but I wanted to get a little more up close and personal.


I used a bit of a strange mix of papers for this layout. I started with the night sky/stars paper. I actually had it for scrapping camping photos as it's from Bella Blvd's Camp Out collection, but I knew it could be really fun for this layout.


I love how navy and kraft look together, so I pulled a piece of kraft and gold paper from American Crafts. For the border I thought I might be able to get away with a black chevron from Pebbles Inc. It helps pull in the black from the star paper without being too dark.


I needed to bring all of these papers together with some cohesive embellishments. Simple Stories Gold Snap Pack has kraft, black, gold, and white all in the mix of journaling cards and embellishments, so I used those. Little clusters of these kraft, gold, black, and white embellishments really help pull everything together.


We really loved our quick stay in Derry. Photographing Derry at night was just the thing to end a fabulous day there. Is there a city you love even more at night than during the day time?

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Disney Cruise Album

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.
I'm almost done getting all my photos from vacation uploaded and edited. and now it's time to get an album decorated and start scrapping some of those photos. Today I'm sharing how I decorated my Disney cruise album.


We have lots and lots of photos from this fun trip, and I want a way to quickly scrap them, so I decided on a Simple Stories 6 x 8 Snap Album. I've found that Snap albums are a great way to scrap photos from a trip or holiday quickly without sacrificing style. 


I decided on My Mind's Eye new nautical collection, By the Sea for the cover. For a Disney cruise the red and blue just seemed perfect. I couldn't neglect the Disney part, thought, so I hid a little Mickey shape inside the 0 of my title. By the sea has pops of silver metallic paper in it, so I mirrored that in the title by cutting it with my Silhouette Cameo from silver foil cardstock.


Now that I've got the cover done, I can start scrapping some pages for the inside!

Friday, March 18, 2016

Grandparent's Day

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.
There are so many great guy themed collections out there right now. I'm having no problem finding uses for all of them. Today I'm using Simple Stories So Rad collection for my Grandparent's Day layout.


At my kids' school, when you're in 2nd grade you get to have a Grandparents' Day. The kiddos put on a special program and get to have lunch with their grandparent(s). This year was my younger son's turn. My dad drove 8 hours out to where we live, just to spend half a day with my son at his school, then turn around to head back 8 hours home.


These two love making faces. This was the silly picture we got from them at lunch. Scrapping this layout, though, was less about the photo and more about the story. Lest my kids ever doubt how much they're loved, they have scrapbooks full of memories like this!


Simple Stories So Rad is a super fun boy collection. It's geared a little more for older boys and teenagers. It's a nice fit for my kids, since they're starting to outgrow the little boy collections. I especially love all the cork touches to this collection...oh! and the plaid paper in this collection is perfection!


I am having so much fun with all these great boy collections. So Rad is definitely on my favorites list! Have you used this collection for anything yet?

Monday, March 14, 2016

Barbershop Layout

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.
Echo Park's new Jack & Jill Boy collection has made an appearance at A Walk Down Memory Lane. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had the perfect photos for this collection. I grabbed a bunch of the paper and the matching card stock stickers to create a barbershop layout.


When we were in Ireland, my husband talked all week about wanting to get his hair cut. He needed one, and he's never had his hair cut at a proper barber shop. They were everywhere in Ireland. As luck would have it, our hotel for our very last night in Ireland just happened to be across the street from one. While I repacked my suitcase for the trip home, he walked over to the barber and got his hair cut. We giggled a bit when he got back about their styling of his haircut. Very European...but not the way he'd normally style it.


The stickers for Jack & Jill Boy have a barbershop pole and a hair cutting scissors on them! How could I not uses this collection for these photos?


On top of that, the papers in this collection are rich and masculine without being dark and heavy. There's plenty of cream, a pretty wood grain, and a burgundy toned red that really make this collection fun and easy to use.


Even if you don't have a barbershop layout that needs creating, you're going to love Jack & Jill for your next masculine layout.

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Watercolor St. Patty's Day Card

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.
We've been back from vacation for almost 2 weeks now, and I'm finally getting back into my craft room. Up first: a St. Patty's Day card, because every year I send my grandparents one (they're the reason I'm Irish after all!). I decided to create a watercolor St. Patty's Day card this year.


Besides green, rainbow colors always seem to be a good choice for St. Patrick's Day. I recently got my hands on a new set of Gansai Tambi watercolor paints, so I used those to paint a rainbow watercolor background. These watercolors are worth every penny! The colors are so vibrant, they travel beautifully with water, and are so smooth.


I used a cutting file from the Silhouette Cameo for my text. First I printed the text in black ink directy on the watercolor paper. Then, I cut a few of the words from shiny gold card stock and adhered them to the card.


I thought it would be fun to mail off this card in a custom made green envelope, so I grabbed a piece of Pebbles Basics Leaf Dot patterned paper and the We R Memory Keepers 1-2-3 Punch Board to create my green envelope.
 

I just dropped this rainbow watercolor St. Patty's Day card in the mail today...and now I've got to get going on some birthday cards! Do you make any cards for St. Patrick's Day? What's your go to color combo for them? 

Thursday, March 3, 2016

St. Patty’s Day Wall Art – How to edit a Silhouette design to add color for printing

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.

Today I'm sharing some St. Patty’s Day Wall Art. Part of this wall art is cut with the Cameo and part is printed with my Canon Pixma printer, so I’m going to give you a step by step tutorial on how to edit a design to add color for printing. This is a super versatile technique that works with shape or word designs. 


On my finished piece, the gold words have been cut with the Silhouette but everything in green was printed out from a cutting file that I downloaded from the Silhouette on-line store. 


Above, you see what the file looks like when opened. There are 2 parts to this particular file. For the printable portion of my wall art, I’m using the words on the left hand side (that are lined up on the paper). I will be cutting some of the words from the right hand grouping later, so I’ve left them there, but  moved them off of the cutting area. 


Make sure everything that you want to change the color of is selected by drawing a box around the whole thing. Now, click on the button in the upper right hand corner that lets you “Open the Line Color Window”.


On the far right hand side you will choose your line color by simply clicking on the color you want. As you can see, I’ve selected one of the greens. 


Next, next you will click on the button in the top right hand corner that lets you “Open the Fill Color Window”.


Then, choose the color you want from the menu on the right. If you click on the advanced options button in the menu, you will get even more colors to choose from.  Now you’re all set to print out your design


For this project I chose a smooth white card stock, but remember, you can print on colored card stock and even patterned paper for a whole world of possibilities.


I finished up my project by grabbing a few of the individual words (from the part of the cutting file that I moved to the right hand side in the very first tutorial picture in this post) and cutting them out in gold paper.


Since these words came from the exact same file that I used for the printed portion of my wall art, they will be the exact shape and size to fit my printable. 


All I needed to do to finish up my wall art was to use some Glue Dots to attach the gold words directly over the green words I wanted to highlight. So simple! 


After popping my finished paper into a frame, I have a fun and customized piece of St. Patty’s Day wall art. Have you ever edited a design to add color for printing? I’d love to hear how you use this technique in your crafty adventures!