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.

A Little Book

I feel like I'm making a lot of mini albums these days, but there are so many fun things to be done with them! I wanted to share a quick little mini album I put together for my son last night. A back story on this: last year when my son got the pictures of his friends at school (you know those little mini ones the kids give their classmates), he saved them in an envelope. He loved to pull them out and tell me all about his friends. This year, instead of a envelope, he's going to get to put his pictures in this:

I chose to use those plastic name badges to build the album for 2 reasons: they provide great protection from grimy kid fingers and they're cheap. I layered paper and embellishments from Little Yellow Bicycle's Head of the Class Collection to build the album. Here's a close up of one of the pages to show you what I mean:

I layered the flashcard stickers on top of the patterned paper, slipped the paper into the badge holder, and then layered a canvas star on top of the plastic. Layering embellishments under and over the badges gives the pages extra interest and dimension. I love the look of this album so much that I'm thinking about making one for me to keep, too. Instead of putting my son's friends pictures in there, maybe I'll put pictures of highlights from school this year, or maybe I'll go long term and put a school picture in there every year from now until he graduates...oh the fun possibilities!

Supplies:

Album: Vertical Badge Holders

Paper: Little Yellow Bicycle Head of the Class (Practice Your ABC's/Dot to Dot, Pencil it in/Bus Stop Chalk Board/Red Numbers, Dot to Dot/Blue Study Hall, Geometry/Teal Test, Ruler/Yellow Study Hall)

Accessories: Little Yellow Bicycle Head of the Class (Clear Cut Shapes, Dimensional Pop-Up Stickers, Chipboard Shapes, Fresh Verse Stickers, Favorite Pieces, Journaling Cards, Fabric Favorites)

Adhesives: Mini Glue Dots®, Ultra Thin Glue Dots®

My Adventures in Canvas - part 1

When Little Yellow Bicycle sent me some Game On Canvas Colorables I knew they were going to be fun. However, I'm not the queen of altering canvas, so I used a lot of trial and error and took lots of notes so I can pass a few of the things I learned along to you. I'll share some of those tips today in this post, and some in Part 2.
First, a little info on the Canvas Colorables: They're 5" x 7" with an extra 1" edge all the way around. It comes wrapped around a piece of thin cardboard that you can leave in or take out depending on your project.
Since I decided to use one of the  Canvases as a mini album cover, I left the cardboard in. I did add some Glue Dots® to make sure it would all stay attached through a lot of handling.  I colored the cover using a variety of techniques, just to see what would happen. My biggest tip here: if you're not sure something will work well for coloring, flip the canvas over and test it out on the 1" extra overlap on the back side. Anything permanent (Paint, paint pens, alcohol inks, mists, alcohol base markers (think Copics)) seem to work really well. Anything not so permanent (water based inks and markers) tend not to work, as they don't dry completely or smear when touched. 

Anything colored in blue was done with Copic Markers. All the letters filled in with light green were also done with a Copic. The plus side to using Copics is that the cover very well, give nice bright colors, and allow the original print work on the canvas to show through. If you're looking to do the same thing with a more antiqued look, I would suggest trying to sponge or brush on alcohol inks. The gold was applied with a paint pen. Works great, but does not allow the printing on the canvas underneath to show through. The dark green was applied with a Sharpie. The up side is I just happened to have a few Sharpies lying around in colors that I didn't  have Copics in. The down side is they don't go on as smoothly as Copics and they tend to cover up the printed lines as well. The green spray up in the corner was done with Tattered Angels Olive Vine Glimmer Mist.
One more note about the canvas and then I'll move on to the insides of the mini album. It held up very well to me punching holes in it for the binder rings.

Here are the inside pages and back cover of the mini. Note that the big blank spaces will be filled in with photos when my son starts playing soccer next season.

Here are a few of my favorite details from each page:

I added Glossy Accents to the stars on the paper to make them pop.

 I created a pocket to stash journaling and memorabilia.

I LOVE these pockets from LYB. It comes as "10 things I love about Sports" but can be customized to soccer, football, baseball, or basketball as well.

Another thing I love from LYB: spinners. They're such a fun way to add to the theme of a layout or mini album.

There are so many great accessories in Game On (chipboard, stickers, banners...). The possibilities are endless for layering and creating your own custom embellishments.

Thanks for stopping by today. Please feel free to ask any question you may have about the Canvas Colorables. I'm by no means an expert with them, but I did try lots of different things out just to see what would work.

Supplies:
Album Cover - Little Yellow Bicycle Game On Canvas Colorables (Soccer)
Paper - LYB Game On (Game Day Words, Game Day Words Blue, Baseball Field, All Stars, Game On Pennants, Baseball Collage, Soccer Collage, Playing Field Green, Grey Bleachers, All Star Red)
Accessories - LYB Game On (Stickers Favorite Pieces (Baseball, Soccer), Chipboard Shapes, Mini Banners (Baseball, Soccer), Tearout Ticket Book), Ranger Glossy Accents
Tools - Fiskar's Upper Crest Punch, Fiskar's Diamond Border Punch

Get Your Game On - and giveaway winner

I'm really loving Get Your Game On by Little Yellow Bicycle. There's so much great stuff in this line. The papers are bold and easy to work with (read: they're sports themed, without being cartoonishly so), there are canvas colorables (I can't wait to show you what I've been doing with these), TONS of stickers, a tear-out ticket book (kind of like journaling cards), chipboard shapes, banners....well you get the idea. I made some really fun frames for my youngest's room (you'll have to wait to see those), and this past week I made this:
I'm not exactly sure what to call it, but basically I'll be using it to hold sport schedules and ticket stubs from games that I don't want to throw out just yet (like when my husband and I go to a Packer game this winter). The best part is, the metal holders are spring mounted, so it's really easy to switch out and move things around.

The base is a 7 Gypsies Receipt Holder. I added paper and embellishments from Game On to create a multi-sport theme so I can use it for football, hockey, baseball, and any other sport we find ourselves going to. I added black alphabet stickers to the metal holders to spell out "game time".

You can even add chipboard pieces to the top of the metal holders like I did with the blue/black star. Just make sure to use a nice strong liquid glue (I used E6000). Because this isn't a traditional frame with glass covering it, you're not limited by the size of the frame. You can mix, match, and layer without limitation. If you would like to see the full supply list for this project, just scroll down to the bottom of this post.

Now on to the giveaway winner:
Random.org chose commenter #1 who happened to be Cindy deRosier! Congrats, Cindy! If you could please e-mail me at potaylor@hotmail.com with your address I'll get your prize out to you soon. Thanks everyone for playing along and taking the time to read my blog.

Happy crafting!

Ticket Tray Supplies:
Paper: Little Yellow Bicycle Get Your Game On (Football Collage, Football Field, Dug Out, All Stars, Game On Pennants, Words Blue, Basketball Court, All Star Red, Field Dirt, Game Day Words, Football Collage)
Accessories: Little Yellow Bicycle Get Your Game On (Favorite Pieces Stickers Baseball, Favorite Pieces Stickers Football, Mini Banners Basketball, Chip Pieces, Tear Out Ticket Book), Glitz Designs Black Alphas
Adhesives: Ultra Thin Glue Dots®, E6000