Wednesday, May 30, 2012

(Belated) Mother's Day Card

Hello Bloglandians! I just realized that I never posted the card I made this year for Mother's Day. I intended to post it the day after Mom's Day (so that my blog post didn't spoil the surprise...) and apparently never got around to it. So here it is....finally. =) I wanted to play with the new Spring Seasonal Distress Inks and make a shaded background. This is probably my favorite technique to use with Distress Inks, because I really feel like I'm not doing any work at all, and the inks just blend so beautifully together. It's like magic. For this card I used the new Squeezed Lemonade and Shaded Lilac inks, along with Dusty Concord and Seedless Preserves. I then stamped the background stamp from Tim's Papillon set using Seedless Preserves. Here's what the background looked like before I attached it to the card:


I had originally intended to build up some kind of embellishment in the center of the card and have quite a bit of decoration on the front. But when the background was done I couldn't bear to cover it up! So I decided to just add a simple flower to the front, along with a little twine from the Twinery. I'm not sure who makes the flower...it came in a Jenni Bowlin kit. Here it is all finished:


I think I will also put this in as a last minute entry to the Inspiration Emporium monthly challenge, where the theme is flowers. Thanks so much for looking!

*~M~*


Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Using Up Those @ Symbols

Hello Blog Readers! I managed to make another layout today. As far as my LOAD challenge goes, I've made 13 paper layouts...and one digital layout. I'm so new to this digital thing that it feels like cheating to count that layout. =P But I have two more days to get creative before the end of the month so hopefully I can get my total up to 15 and then I will have completed 50% of LOAD! Much better than the last time I tried it, when I only managed to make 8 layouts. (Doh!) I'm looking forward to doing this challenge again in the future. I've also noticed that it's really improved my scrapping - I feel much more motivated, and I'm more comfortable with my process now. So I think, overall, this month has been a success!

Anywho, here's the layout I made today:


I got the sketch for this layout from Shimelle's blog. It's an older Sketch of the Week that can be found here. While at first glance this appears to be just another layout about a cat in a bag, the story on this layout is actually about how I tweeted this silly photo of my cat, and then got some pretty fun responses. I used Instagram to edit the photo, but then I had screen shots of the responses that I also wanted to include. Unfortunately the colors in the photo and the colors in the screen shots were not a match at all and so I wasn't sure how I was going to get them on one layout. Luckily, these Heidi Swapp Memory Files came to the rescue. I got these with my Studio Calico kit this month, and I have to say I had no idea what I would ever do with them.  I figured I would maybe take them apart and use them for photo mats or embellishments or something. Well I did take them apart, but I kept this piece intact so that it could still flip open and closed, so I could hide the screen shots inside! I have to say I felt like a bit of a genius. =P I also reinforced the edge with some tissue tape so it wouldn't fall apart.



Almost everything I used on this layout was from my Studio Calico kit from this month, except for the letter stickers and the wood veneer asterisks (I'm going to be sad when I run out of those. I don't think they're available anymore). The hexagons are this really cool "Mistables" product that SC just came out with. (I think the hexagons are exclusive to the kit, but Two Peas has another cool shape here. You get a LOT in a package - I can't wait to try the other shapes.) The light colored ones were misted with Mr. Huey's, but I wanted a darker one for more contrast. Lo and behold, I had the perfect color sitting on my desk: the new Peacock Feathers Distress Ink! I just tapped the ink pad directly on the hexagon until it was mostly colored. The surface is textured though, so it doesn't get all the way into the fabric, and the edges needed more color. So I sprayed it with some water to get the ink to wick out through the fabric and it worked like a charm. I love Distress Ink. =)



I got the idea for using the @ symbols in my embellishment clusters when I was looking for letters for my title and saw them on a couple of the sheets. After all, where else are you going to use those things except on a page about Twitter?? =P

I hope everyone has a great last week of May, and hopefully wherever you are you're starting to see some more summery weather. Thanks for looking!


*~M~*






My First Ever Project Life!

Hello Bloglandians! I have a quick layout share today. After attending Lain Ehmann's True Scrap in April (a fantastic twice-yearly event which I highly recommend), I was inspired to dabble in both digital scrapping and Project Life. I had a lightbulb moment where I realized I could do both together, so I've been learning digi scrapping in order to be able to do my Project Life digitally. I started taking a digi scrapping class at JessicaSprague.com, and it is amazing. Her teaching style is so great, I never feel overwhelmed at all and I learned so much in just the first two lessons of class! I already feel so much more comfortable with Photoshop Elements. You can also buy the digital Project Life supplies at Jessica's website. I went ahead and got the set of PL templates plus the Amber Edition full kit, and I used them today to make my first PL layout! I've been trying to take more photos all month in anticipation of starting this project. So here's what I have to start:


I have to say I'm kind of proud of this. I went from not even understanding what a 'layer' was to doing this whole layout! Of course I had a lot of help from the template, but I didn't even know how to use one of those a couple weeks ago either. =P Seriously, the classes from Jessica Sprague are so awesome, I can't wait to finish the first one so I can take some more! =) The page is centered around my cat, (pretty obvious from the photos =P ) because he turned 5 at the beginning of the month. He will always be my little kitten - I can't believe he's 5 already! Also I saw The Avengers right after it came out this month, so I documented that using some images I found on Google and some journaling. I'm planning on seeing it again, it was that good. =)

Here's to more fun Project Life pages!

Thanks for looking! =)

*~M~*

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge #6

Hello all! I've been absent lately, I kind of fell off the crafting/blogging wagon for a bit there. Today I came home from work and decided to try and do something for the latest Compendium of Cusiosities Challenge at the Studio L3 blog. This challenge features the techniques of the ever-amazing Tim Holtz, and this week the challenge was to do the technique on page 38 of his awesome book, Compendium of Curiosities 2. So, I made a pretty nice tag (if I do say so myself =P) but it turns out....I was two hours too late to enter the challenge! Oh dear.... =P But I had everything ready so I decided to blog my tag anyway. Here's some photos:





I went a little purple/butterfly crazy. =P I'm really excited about the coloring on the background because I got that awesome purple color by mixing two colors of Claudine Hellmuth's Studio paints: Sky Blue and Dash of Red. I just put a big ol' blob of the blue on my craft sheet and then added the tiniest amount of red and it came out way better than I could have hoped! The flowers are from Prima, and the butterflies are punched from the Distress Core'dinations paper using my Martha Stewart butterfly punches. The lacy edge is cut from the Vintage Lace die and then colored with the Pearl paint dabber. I really just can't get enough of that dabber. =) Oh, I almost forgot! I also covered my butterflies with Rock Candy Distress Stickles, which you can see a little bit of in the close up.

I really had fun making this tag. I got to try a couple new techniques and just had fun with it! Thanks for looking! =)

*~M~* 



Tuesday, May 8, 2012

LOAD, Day 8

Hello Bloglandians! Another LOAD layout to share with you today. For some reason this one had me stumped for a while. I basically just really wanted to scrap a pretty photo today, but then had a heck of a time figuring out which papers and embellishments to use. I really like how it turned out, it just took sooooooo long to get there. Oh well, we all have those days. =) Here's the pics:








The stamping in the corners was done with Vintage Photo ink and two sets from the My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart collection. The letters are the new DIY Thickers. I covered them with some Core'dinations cardstock from the Distress collection. This was pretty time consuming because I had to hand cut them, sand the edges, and then add some Stickles for sparkle. Totally worth it, although I wouldn't recommend it for every page! =P

A note about the photo: I took this photo of my fuchsia with my iPhone and then edited it using the Camera + app. I applied the nostalgia filter to it, then just e-mailed it to myself so I could print it from my computer. I didn't have to do any other editing before printing, it was all done in the app. I'm loving working with this app and if you take a lot of pictures with your phone I would highly recommend it!

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*



Monday, May 7, 2012

LOAD, Day 7

Well I'm feelin pretty good today, Blogfriends. I made myself get up early and get my scrapping and blogging done before work so that I didn't fall behind today. One obstacle to keeping up conquered! =) Today I did a quick layout about a funny little story involving one of my cat's toys, which now has it's own theme song. It makes me laugh when I think about it, so I decided I should get this story down in my scrapbook! Here's the layout:




I got the sketch for this layout from Kelly Purkey's Sketchbook class over at Studio Calico. I highly recommend these classes if you like to work from a sketch. It was fun to just grab a bunch of bits and pieces from my embellishment basket and kind of collage them on there. I especially liked sneaking in bits of the spider web tissue tape (Tim's Hobgoblin tape collection). I get so cheesy in my scrapping sometimes.... =P

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*

Sunday, May 6, 2012

LOAD, Day 6

Hello, Blog Readers! Another layout for today. I'm feeling pretty good that I've kept up for the first 6 days of LOAD. Tomorrow will be tough because I work late so I won't really have any scrapping time but we'll see what happens. I'm currently working on scanning/editing/preserving the family photos from my childhood so I'm also scrapping them as inspiration strikes. This is the reason for all the childhood photos so far. =) Here's one with my brother's first grade photo:




When I was scanning in photos I discovered that my brother had written on the back of some of his school pictures and I thought his handwriting and the way he had preserved his "statistics" was so sweet I had to scan that in too to preserve it. Almost everything on this layout is Jenni Bowlin except for the wooden letters which are Studio Calico. I love those things and should probably buy a couple more packs before they stop making them! I'm not sure if the wooden rulers are actually made by Jenni Bowlin but I got them in one of her kits. Using up more kit stash and breaking into my huge stash of paper...not to mention getting adorable photos and stories scrapped....all reasons I love LOAD right now! =)

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*

Saturday, May 5, 2012

LOAD, Day 5

A very lovely Saturday to you all out in Blogland! I'm got in some early scrapping today because I'm about to head out to see the new Avengers movie. I'm so excited! I've been waiting on pins and needles for this movie ever since the Captain America movie was out, which I believe was almost a year ago. Yay for fun action movies! (Especially ones with Robert Downey Jr. =P ) I went away from the LOAD prompt today just because I didn't have an immediate idea for it and I didn't have a lot of time for thinking today. I found this amazing layout on the Two Peas site today amongst their NSD festivities and decided I needed to scraplift it NOW. =) So here is the result:





I used a bunch of goodies from my Studio Calico kits, some Crate Paper patterned paper, brads from Basic Grey's Picadilly collection, and the big 3D butterflies are from the new PB&J collection. Then I sprinkled in some rhinestones and some stamping and it was done!

I hope you're all having a very crafty weekend, and thanks for looking! =)

*~M~*

Friday, May 4, 2012

LOAD, Day 4

Still keeping up with LOAD and feeling pretty good about it. =) For today, I scrapped a funny quote of my brother's from our last game night. I am really enjoying the LOAD prompts because they are getting me to scrap things I wouldn't otherwise have thought of, and this layout is a good example. We will be laughing about this for years in my family but I never would have scrapped it if it weren't for this challenge. Anyway, here's the pics:





I went 8.5x11 today just because I felt the layout would fit better on that size. I used the Sizzix 1&1/2 inch hexagon die for my hexes. They were cut from the Tim Holtz Lost and Found stack as well as some Core'dinations cardstock that had been embossed with the Bingo and Patchwork embossing folders. After everything was done I added a few Idea-ology game spinners and bingo pieces, and one of those little hanger clips just for the heck of it. The twine is Lawn Fawn's new twine. I used this on yesterday's layout too....it's so versatile! Before I know it I'll have to buy another roll. =P Oh, and this fantastic sketch is on the Studio Calico blog this weekend, as part of their National Scrapbooking Day challenges.

Speaking of NSD, I hope everyone has a great one, and gets some time to craft! I will be going to see the new Avengers movie in the afternoon (so excited!!) but hopefully I will get some scrapping done in the morning. Happy National Scrapbooking Day, and thanks for looking! =)

*~M~*



Thursday, May 3, 2012

LOAD, Day 3


I very gloomy, rainy day to you all! We're supposed to be getting nice weather this weekend, and I can't WAIT. =) Here's my third layout for the month:



Once again I was taking photos without daylight so they're terrible, but I think you can get the gist. =P This is just an adorable photo I have of my brother as a toddler that was too cute not to scrap. I got the inspiration for the design of the layout from this sketch on the Twisted Sketches blog. I also knew I wanted to use those fun yellow Thickers for the title, which was the whole basis for adding the rest of the yellow embellishments. It was fun to add those little pops for color.

Thanks for looking!

*~M~* ....crossing my fingers for sun..... 

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

LOAD, Day 2

Hello all, it's day 2 of LOAD, and -hurrah!- I'm still keeping up. =P Today's prompt involved not using a photo, which ended up being a great prompt for me because it pushed me to finally scrapbook my weight loss/diet journey that I've been on since the end of March. I've hit a lot of awesome milestones and not scrapped ANY of them, so I decided that today I would just get a screen shot from my phone of my progress (I've been using the My Fitness Pal app, and it's AWESOME) and scrap where I was today. It actually worked out great because it turns out I'm at the halfway mark! So enough about that, here's the layout and some close-ups: (the photos aren't that great because I was out of daylight and I had to have my Ottlite on)





I used this awesome template and some Jenni Bowlin paint to do the masking in the corners. Since this layout is essentially about numbers, I immediately thought about this template. I'm not super happy with how it turned out, but it was fun to do. =) The rest of the supplies came from my Studio Calico kits (I LOVE that I'm being pushed to finally use my kit stuff!). Super fun and relatively quick. =)

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*


Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Layout a Day, Day 1

Hello all! I just have a quick layout to share today. I'm participating in Lain Ehmann's LOAD challenge and today is day 1, and -surprise!- I haven't fallen behind yet. =P Here's some pics of the whole layout as well as a couple close-ups:





 This layout is mostly My Mind's Eye loveliness (Miss Caroline paper and Follow Your Heart embellies) and I got to use up some bits from my Studio Calico kits. I'm so excited that I got to use up some of my stash and finally get this photo out of a pile and into my album!

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*


Followers