Sketchin' it out with Halloween

More Halloween goodness up tonight....or this morning.  I picked out the sketch from today on the I heart 2 Stamp blog for this card.  Whenever you run low on mojo, go for the sketches.  There are so many wonderful sketch artists out there.  I picked up the Honey Bear from my Inkadinkado stamps.  Isn't he a cutie?  I worked on more shading techniques for the Copic Challenge #35 going through September 30th .

For the background squares, I used Fiskar embossing folders to dry emboss spider webs.  The spider web at the bottom is a Tim Holtz mask rubbed over with Tea Dye Distress Ink.

I wanted to create a white border around my stamped image and am usually unsuccessful at keeping the embossed edge of my nestabilites clean when I try to free hand it with my Copic markers.  So tonight, I decided to keep the image nested inside my die and color my shaded background.   After completing all the shading work, I popped out the image and had my white border.

Copic Sketch Markers 
Bear: E11, E21,E33, E53, E25, E29, R20
Bear Clothes/Hat: C1, C3, C7, C9, V04, V06, V09, YR21, YR24 white highlights, colorless blender 
Honey/Pot: YR21, YR23,YR24, R22, R24, E09, white highlights, colorless blender
Label Edge: E00, E21, YR21, Walnut Stain Distress Ink
Card Paper: Basic Grey Fusion Line
Spellbinders Nestabilities: Large Scalloped/Large Standard Circles, Large Labels
Distress Ink by Ranger: Walnut Stain, Black Soot, Tea Dye Stamps: Inkadinkadoo
Mask: Advantus Tim Holtz
Embossing Plates: Fiskars


One more fun Halloween image coming up soon.  Stay tuned!

Monochrome Mania

  

Ever since I found the My Cardz blog, that I mentioned in last week's Treasure Find, I've been dreaming of trying a monochromatic card.  So here it is...my first attempt.  I definitely need practice but I'm not completely appalled with my first try. It wasn't easy but it was fun.  I will mention I did a practice run first before doing the card.  The Pixie Cottage challenge for this past week was to create a card using a sketch by Jay Jay, with a twist of stamping twice...which I managed to get in.

I will try this again.  If you have done any monochromatic work, please leave me a link so I can check it out.  This is one of the cards going into a batch for Operation Write Home.  If you are a cardmaker and have some time and too many supplies like me, then this a great organization to work with.

Copic Sketch Markers: C1, C3, C5, C7, colorless blender
Stamp: Sandra Hammer
Paper: Basic Grey Ambrosia
Dies: Spellbinders Nestabilities
Punches: McGill Flower Punch
Ranger: Inkssential's White Opaque Marker, Distress Inks (Black Soot), Clear Embossing Powder
Sentiment: Maker Unknown  

Now what page was I on?

If you're a reader like me, then you typically have 3-5 books going at one time, around the house.  I usually have a devotional, a non-fiction, a drama and one of my kids school books going all at once.  So bookmarks are needed a plenty here.  Even the girls usually have a chapter book or two going at the same time. 

So guess how delighted I was to see that the new Copic Creations challenge involved my favorite thing...reading.  Yes, I think I even like reading better than scrapping...but only by a smidge.  If you have children, may I encourage to pick up a book with them daily.  Not only does it make great snuggle time, but increases their vocabulary and love for learning.  Copic Creations is featurning Elizabeth O. Dulemba, children's author and illustrator.  So what could their theme be this month?  Why anything related to reading of course: bookmarks, book gift card holders, book charts, etc...  Elizabeth even has a page full of free downloads for coloring and boy are they cute.  When I was looking through all the images, I saw the one below and instantly knew this one was the one for my bookmark.  I can just see this happening at our house somedays. 

Since it was one of the few non-cutsey illustrations, I wanted to dress up the bookmark by using a clear background.  I grabbed some Basic Grey Cappella Scraps, did some fussy cutting and adhered the flower design to the clear tag.   I added the journal tag and backed it with a border.  Finally, I dotted the edges with Liquid Pearls.

This one will promptly go into my current read: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle.


Copic Sketch Markers 
Couples' skin: E000, E00, E11, E21, E33, R20
Lady hair: E09, E11, E33, YR24, white highlights
Lady dress: G21, G40, G82, G99, C7, colorless blender
Man Hair/Hat/Shoes: C1, C3, C5, C7, C9, colorless blender, white highlights
Man Suit: E09, E25, E59, C9
Paper: Basic Grey Cappella
Ranger: Inkssential's White Opaque Marker, Liquid Pearls (Petal Pink)
Illustration by Elizabeth O Dulemba
Punches: Fiskars (Threading Water)

Wedded Bliss

Tonight, or this morning, whichever it may be wherever you are, I bring you a card of wedded bliss.  So remember, way back when, earlier this summer when I posted a wedding album for my friend?  Well, I finally finished the card for it.  Hah...am I slow this summer or what?  Must be the intense heat of summer.  I managed to weave back through my leftovers and found some scraps from the Cappella Album Kit.  Since I had the Loving Thoughts JustRite stamp set handy, I married the two together for quite a nice coupling, I think.


The photo on the card is a picture of their rings and I had wanted to use this in the album but ran out of pages.  Who here has ever run into that problem?  Well wouldn't you know, the lovely team over at the JustRite blog challenged everyone to make a card with a photo on it (Challenge #28).  Perfect timing, I say.

To create this shape card, you need cardstock (folded in half) and a set of the large scalloped Nestabilities.  First, place the largest nestability die over the folded cardstock, leaving the top edge off the folded seam, as seen in the photo below.  After running it through your die cut machine, you now have a folded scalloped card for your base.  Next, cut out a full scalloped circle, embellish it and then glue it down to the base. 

Paper: Patterned Paper (Capella Album Kit)
Stamp: JustRite Stamps - Loving Thoughts Set
Flowers:  Prima
Ink: Distress Inks by Ranger (Dried Marigold, Spiced Marmalade, Walnut Stain)
Dies: Spellbinder Nestabilities (Large Scallop Circle, Large Label), Quickutz Flourish

Some people are just made for each other

I received the Basic Grey Cappella Mini Album Kit from Lil' Lambs Boutique and I went in search of photos to go with it.  Unfortunately, I had just finished a wedding album as a gift and my wedding photos were long done...so what to do...what to do.   I just happened to remember seeing a friend's wedding photos that she posted to Facebook and thought how fun it would be to use her photos for the album and then give them the finished product as a wedding gift...albeit a touch late.  Their photos struck me because you can literally tell how in love they are with each other...not to mention they're so cute when they post on Facebook too.  Anyway, let's head off to the races because this turned out not to be so mini an album afterall.


The Cappella line is a rather subdued line with cream, light yellows, pale pinks and greys.  This makes it perfect to accent with any color cardstock that picks up the colors used in the wedding. 

I created my only real big 3D embellishment, making the cardstock rose, using Tim Holtz's tutorial here.

 The flourish at the bottom is created using liquid pearls.  You can see my tutorial here.

All edges of the mini album were punched using Martha Stewart border punches. I used the same border punch for the front and back of each individual page and then glued the punched edges together. I opted for only 2 sides because of the unusal size of the tag album, which didn't fit the standard around the page measurements for the border punches.

The kit comes with a tremendous amount of tags that can be cut up to use as embellishments.

It also came with complete instructions for finishing each page.  You can opt to follow them or throw caution to the wind along with the directions and do your own thing.  Their version put mini tags in between the bigger pages and I didn't care for the look of the mini tag covering part of the photo, so I opted to pop up some of the photographs and create a tag insert instead.

Don't be afraid to run over the edges a bit when you add embellishments.  That's half the fun with mini albums is chocking them full of embellishments.  If you do have one hang over the edge, such as a tag, ink the back of it with a neutral/dark color and it will be less obvious than stark white (see photo above for back of tag sticking out).

These flowers are from the new Tim Holtz Alteration dies...oh my, I love his stuff! I stamped the background, of the big flower, with a stamp from his Stamper's Anonymous collection.

What's a project without butterlies?  Here, I transfered a rub-on buttefly onto transparency paper.  After cutting out around the edges of the butterfly, I heated it with a heat gun.  This curls up the wings and lifts it off the paper, when glued down.

For the tag at the bottom, I cut out an additional heart shape and the internal wings, inked the edges and then popped them up with pop dots for a dimensional tag.

This is absolutely my favorite photo of all of them.  All the wedding photos used in the album are courtesy of the very talented Julie Dreelin, from Beach Productions.

Here are the tags I inserted throughout the album for the Bride to complete of her treasured day.

And finally....the end.  Understated...but hey, something should be.

And there you have it!  Congratulations Beth & George.  May you have many incredible years of happiness, blessed by the Lord!

Finishing up with some Basic Grey

I wanted to post my other Basic Grey project before the weekend was over because next week...Websters Pages....woo hoo! I finished up working with the Origins line I got from Lil Lambs Boutique. Here I used one of their Laser Cut doilies. They are very nice and heavy weight Laser Cuts. And beautiful too.

Because I had used the similar cut paper on my last project, I opted to cut my Doily into 4 pieces. The curved edges suited my purposes for turning this into a giant flower.

I used of the leftovers of the big flower patterned paper to make my flower grouping below. I left the darker flowers on bottom and popped up the lighter ones on top.

The itty bitty flowers came in handy to use around my stem flourish.

For the center ring on the flower below, I used the checked green paper in the collection. I grabbed a journal stamp from Stampers Anonymous and used Ranger Embossing ink to stamp over the entire ring. I covered with embossing powder and finished it with my heat gun. After embossing I inked the ring with Shabby Shutters Distress ink and then Tea Dye Distress ink. See how the embossed area resisted the Distress ink and created a different pattern atop of the checked pattern. I love doing this Emboss Resist technique.

I finished up the layout with journaling my title and the stitched edges with my White Inksessentials pen.

Fast, easy and fun.

Multi-tasking is my life

Basic Grey does it again with their Origins paper line. This line is a wonderful collection of springy patterns with fall colors. Lil' Lambs Boutique is carrying the 11 piece Origins paper kit which I used below (this includes one of their laser cut doilies), or if you prefer to have design ideas created for you, they are also carrying the 4 page Origins Scrapbook kit.

The title of the layout says it all. This is my life wrapped up in 11 journaling strips. The time of day depends on which hat I'm wearing at the moment and sometimes I have 4-5 hats thrown my way at one time. I just know there is someone else out there that can relate.

To create this layout, I cut out the middle section of the background paper and backloaded it with a different pattern. I brushed up on my hand sewing skills and sewed a zig zag stitch all around to separate the patterns. To complete the layout, I added the photo, all the journaling strips and cut flowers from one of the papers.

Basic Grey always offers papers in their collections that are perfect for die cuts. I grabbed the big floral patterned paper and cut many of the flowers out to put around the edge of the photo. Remember to pop a few of the flowers up on top of others to give your layout some dimension.

I inked around the edges of the journaling strips with Distress Ink from Ranger (Shabby Shutters and Tea Dye used here). The blend of these goes very well with the flower colors in the papers, no? Strip journaling is one of my favorite ways to journal. I'm not a big journaler to begin with, so bullet points seem to work very well for my style.

Don't forget to do a page about you every once in a while. Your kids and grandkids will appreciate a peek into your own self-reflection.

My take on Basic Grey's Page of the Month

Did you know that Basic Grey creates a Page of the Month kit, which Lil' Lambs Boutique offers to their customers. Below is the December Page of the Month kit, available here. Kellie Goree creates a sample layout that you can follow using current Basic Grey papers and embellies. While her creations are quite beautiful, we on the design team for LLB thought it would be neat to offer up some additional alternatives for the customers using the exact same kit.

Below, I have created 2 different layouts using only materials from the kit except for Distress Ink and Stickles.

First up are my two cuties enjoying everything there is in life...and there's usually nothing better than our adventure walks. They always have a great time collecting items together. This time...pinecones! We used them for a table centerpiece over the Christmas season. They look like they don't have a care in the world, don't they?

I used my Double Loop Martha Stewart border combo punch to create an inner workspace and mat for my photo. I love it!

Did you know you could make Tim Holtz's grunge flowers with regular pattern paper as well? Yes, you can!! I love how these roses came out with the 2 different papers.

Scrapping TIP/TRICK: Here's a scrapping tip for those of you purchasing the Around the Page border punch combos (ie. Corner punch and Border punch like the double loop below). In the package they provide measurements for paper sizes that work well with the Around the Page punches. For any size you pick, here is what I found typically works best for punching the actual paper.

Instructions for one side (just repeat on all four)

1. Punch the corners first.
2. Use the innermost punch marker on your tool for punching the first side border punch. Do this to both sides first.
3. Continue on either side to punch, now using the outermost punch marker, until you are ready to punch your last side punch (ie. your 2 sides have now almost met together). I have found that the measurements, whether slightly off or just my punching skills, are not quite exact. So for the last side punch, I use the outermost marker on BOTH sides of the tool and attempt to get as close as I can to an exact punch. When you divide the minute overage to both sides of the tool, it really comes out as if you have perfectly punched the whole border.

(Let me know if you'd like to see this with pictures, in the comment section below. I didn't think about taking pictures as I was punching.)

Since I was working with the letters provided in the kit, I outlined them in black so I could set them against a similar color background and still read the title.

I think I might have gone a touch punch crazy on my second layout! This is my youngest in all her dress up finery working it for the camera. The left hand edge is the Deep Edge Daisy shell punch. On the right side are the Deco Fan Edge punch and the Doily Lace Trim punch.

There are plenty of chipboard designs available in this kit. I made a virtual garden of flowers in the upper part of my layout. Small tip: Even though they have a sticky back, I would strongly advise gluing them down anyway.

Here's a closer picture of some of the punch work. I think I might be as addicted to these as Tim Holtz products...oh dear.

Happy Scrapping everyone!!

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday

Happy New Year everyone. My wish for you is that your 2010 is Blessed beyond measure. I also want to put a shout out to my best friend, Tina who is celebrating the big 4-0 today. Happy, Happy Birthday. And since we're talking birthdays, I decided to do a layout of my oldest's 5th birthday. Sort of fitting, I think.

I used Basic Grey's Nook & Pantry line from Lil' Lambs Boutique. Not only are these great papers for recipe cards, they do a great job for a birthday page too. The cupcakes look mighty yummy.

You'll never believe what I fished out of the bottom of one of my scrap drawers. Shape scissors!! Yes, I know...those ancient tools but hopefully you all didn't throw them out with the last yard sale. With the mania of new punch tools coming out, some of those dandy little scissors can come in quite handy. I used the tiny scallop scissors to create the mats for all the photos and then used my punch tool to create the little holes. I was looking at some layouts from a friend's gallery and I noticed that she popped up her photos and I loved the look so I tried it here.

I wanted a stark color to separate the top half and bottom half of my layout but didn't want to use any more patterned paper, so I found this maroon ribbon that accents the paper.

I also used Worn Lipstick and Aged Mahogany Distress Ink around the edges to soften the look of the darker ribbon along the middle. The big 5 is grunge board by Tim Holtz that I colored with Broken China distress ink and then spritzed with my Blue Mister (has Denim glimmer mist, Stream Alcohol Ink and Blue Patina Perfect pearls mixed together). Alas the shimmer is indeed hard to photograph but it's there.

Coming up this month is LOTS of goodies. I do hope I have time to complete them all. I have some more Basic Grey, lots of Bo Bunny and possibly some Webster's Pages projects. So stay tuned....

Snowed In Scrappy Weekend

Howdy from our blizzardous region fellow scrappers. This is what our neighborhood looked like at 11:30 this morning. Yes, that's almost a foot of snow. And while you Buffalo, New Yorkers and North Dakotans laugh at us pathetic Southern folk, this is a HUGE deal here. We haven't had a snow like this in over 10 years and it's supposed to continue all day. Woo hoo, looks like a scrapping weekend to me.

Those poor little bumps in my front yard are my penguin family and I think they are destined for igloo life for the rest of this weekend. We won't be seeing them for a few days.



So on to scrappy goodness. I enjoyed the Mojo Monday sketch so much this week that I used it to make a bunch of more Christmas cards....of which I mailed before this white stuff above came in last night. All papers are from the Figgy Pudding collection by Basic Grey and stamps by Inkadinkadoo. The border edge punches are from Fiskars and Martha Stewart.

Keep watching this weekend because I should be getting 2 more Tim tags done and a new project for Lil' Lambs Boutique.

I just had to edit this post to add a couple more pictures. The snow is finally slowing down. I don't think I remember a snow this big since I was a kid. This is my oldest standing next to the drifted snow. My husband has added a several shovel fulls on top but it wasn't too many.

There are my cute little penguin bumps who have gone into hibernation.