Scrap Your Story - cork

For a good two days all I could think about was what I was going to make out of cork for this week's Scrap Your Story challenge - very intimidating since I didn't have any. I also kept thinking about all the cork projects I'd seen. All. Over. Pinterest. 

Common theme there? Wine Corks. That's a whole-lotta dimension on the page until I realized that I could just cut them. 

Let's start with how I did that - using my bread knife I shaved off the curved sides to make the whole cork flat. Then I halved the cork pieces length-wise. Easy enough, right? In theory it is but it does take a little bit of sawing effort to get through the material. If you have access to a saw it might be better to use one. ;)

I really like how they turned out sort of brick like - it complements the background of the photo. 

Then I added brads to them, hoping to give them just a bit more of that brick effect. The cork is so thick still that the brads barely poke through the back. I was fresh out of my Scotch Quick Dry adhesive but had decent success with my Zig pen, we'll see how it holds up in the end and if I have to touch it up. 

I decided to go with flowers because I felt that they contrasted nicely with the roughness of the cork. I know, I know they're pink but I'm okay with that. My Sew Stamper just sort of finished off the page.

Krafty snow

Remember those snow storms that hit the midwest the end of February? Well, I managed to take some pics in the early morning light to document our back to back snowyness this winter after spring type weather. The journaling is on the snowflake border card tucked between the photos and the snowflake. 

I used MME Kraft Funday as the backgrounds and for the snowflakes so that I can enter the Scrap Your Stash challenge. Included in the Kraft challenge was to use 3 metal pieces, I have 4 if you don't include the brads holding them on! 

The sketch inspiration for this one came from Kerys over at Scrapbooksteals. The Amber 6 MWM will be her last one, but I can't wait to see what she'll be up to around the interwebs.

In addition to Kraft Funday I used:

Studio G glitter glue, Ranger Enamel Accents, MME Washi, Girl's Paperie and Recollections ribbon, Jenni Bowlin alphas, the metal is from Paper Studios, American Crafts Christmas Knock out punch, Ranger Distress Ink Broken China, and Silhouette Cameo.

Spring altered projects

With the snow outside, days after the official first day of spring, I felt a need to make a very spring colored craft. 

I started with this little birdhouse that I'd picked up at Joann's for $1. I covered it with a bunch of washi, I can't tell you individual lines but I know that most of my stash is My Mind's Eye and that the black dot and blue houndstooth are We R Memory Keepers.

Then, feeling in a more festive mood I took up the Use It Tuesday challenge to make something springy with hoarded products.

I had these canvas covered chipboard pieces dying to be used, but there were only four so that presented a word play challenge. I chose "grow" because in spring that obviously happens, but it's sort of been an unofficial "one word" for me this year. Grow my craft, as a parent/spouse/employee, as a runner, just grow. 

Realizing that it held a little more meaning than just "spring" I decided to use bright papers that would match the color scheme around my craft area. That meant pulling out some oldie but goodies - American Crafts Classics Collection. 

The doilies and letters were cut from Silhouette store files on my Cameo. Each letter has some form of accordion folded paper to give it extra depth. 

The brown behind the letters got a quick swipe with watered down gesso. The letters were stamped with a swirly background stamp from Stampabilities using clear ink and heat embossed with Zing! Aqua embossing powder.

Some of the edges were inked with Ranger Distress Walnut Stain.

Two letters have flower clusters.

All letters have some pink grosgrain ribbon (American Crafts, I think) and ribbon edging with various interesting ribbons that have all been in my stash for at least a year. There's ribbon from MME Lush, Crate Paper Random, Girl's Paperie Toil and Trouble, and MME Laundry Line (misted with two colors to get it to almost match the Crate Paper).

Now to hang the first banner I've ever made. YAY!

Amber 5a and announcement!

Okay, I'm pretty excited so I'm gonna start off with the announcement. For my birthday The Paper Girls Challenge Blog has asked me to be one of their Guest Designers in April. Sqquuuuueeee!!! Well, it had nothing to do with my birthday per se, but I'm gonna take it as a sweet gift anyway!

For those of you you haven't played along with the Paper Girls before they are a twice monthly challenge blog that has offered up everything from sketches to inspiration pictures to techniques to types of products for the past year. I've been playing along with them since the beginning and let me tell you there's some fun challenges in store so check back April 1 for my first post with them.

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As for the Scrapbooksteals Amber 5a, I posted it to their blog in time to be entered for the challenge but didn't have time until now to get it posted over here.

I used a whole bunch of MME scraps that I'd had hanging around. The red and grey backgrounds are pieces of Lost and Found spliced back together! I whitewashed both layers to help cover up the edges. There's also a Lush 2 Orange journaling tag that I used Fired Brick Distress Ink on and turned it pink!

As for the other bits, there's more Lost and Found (paper and glittered cardstock), Kraft Funday, Pretty Please, Andrea Victoria, Good Day Sunshine, and Abbey Road.

Accented using Ranger Enamel dots in white and black, a WRMK eyelet, MME Kraft Funday twine, foam dots, Studio G white glitter glue, and Jenni Bowlin alphas.

Two Little Monkeys Hangin Around

Wow! After that (albeit inspiring) card class last week I am ready to get back to my normal page challenges. Though if you followed my posts last week and "learned" along with me you'll probably notice some of those techniques hanging around in the next couple of posts!

So without further delay I bring you Two Little Monkeys.

The title is very important because over at Scrapbooksteals the Monday Craft Madness challenge was to use the theme "Tea for Two" which could be interpreted literally as something regarding tea/picnics or with "two" in the sentiment/title as I have done.

The layout is based on a two page sketch by Gail Owens for Kiwi Lane's DT Doodles. I used Tags 6, Aspen Court 2A/2B mini, and Clara Lane 3B.

I'm also entering this in the S.W.A.T. Drill #4  which was based on this color scheme which I completed with the help of Echo Park's For the Record, Ranger Distress Fired Brick Ink, and a bunch of fussy cutting, foam dots, October Afternoon Black Keys and Mini Market alphas, AC Thickers, Ranger black Enamel Accents, and some Studio G glitter glue. I sort of skipped adding the cream as a paper since it was almost the same color as my boys' skin! 

Magic Carpet Ride layout and a card

This week over at the Paper Girls Challenge Blog we're supposed to use this image as an inspiration for a project:

I kept looking at it and thinking it had a very bohemian vibe. So I pulled out all of my MME Indie Chic and started rifling through. 

At first I was going to do a tag too, but then I remembered these un-scrapped photos of the Magic Carpet ride at Disney World and set to work. 

The large black shape was cut from a Silhouette online file, then I misted it with October Afternoon Wheat Field and Studio Calico Dark Calico to darken it, leaving it a little uneven. Under it is a lot of WRMK washi. The chevrons were cut from the tails of a Kiwi Lane tag template. The blue and purple flowers were misted with Wheat Field. There's also machine stitching, American Crafts Thickers, and an old earring.

Because of all that washi I'm also entering the layout into the Scrapbooksteals Monday Craft Madness this week. 

 Then because I was having so much fun with the bohemian look, I moved the color scheme to this friendly little card. It also features the Silhouette cut file, though this time I sketched it on and then colored it with Smooch in Grape Soda, Taffy, Siren, and Sugarberry. Again, papers are MME Indie Chic. The ribbon is from Crate Paper Random. I used some iRock gems and a couple more earring pieces. The hello sentiment was from a $1 bin somewhere. 

Pattern Play - day 5

I'm bummed that my class is over - I just learned so much. I love that a lot of the tips and techniques can carry over into my layouts too.

For my final card for the class I used Kristina's faux quilt technique and CASE'd her card.

The quilt papers are scraps of 12x12 MME Lost and Found. The whitewashed background is MME Follow Your Heart. The tag is MME Indie Chic Nutmeg. The butterfly and sentiment are from Unity Stamp Co and are stamped in Colorbox Ocean on MME Lost and Found and Miss Caroline Howdy Doody respectively. I distressed the still damp whitewash with a WRMK Heart Attack. The dots are Ranger Enamel Accents.

I apologize for the weird lighting/size, but it's already dark outside but I wanted to get it posted ASAP so I used my phone.

Cards and more cards

I spent last weekend at my mom's, which means we made lots of cards. I guess I should say I finished lots of cards and she made a couple!

Remember a few days ago when I was talking about my scrappy card backgrounds? Well, while there I used them all. AND I did it using misfit products leftover from various kits.

One really good shot of a card because it uses my current favorite stamp which happens to be from Unity Stamp Company: 

Aside, my mom was really embarrassed that I had an underwear stamp! ;)

I didn't want to overwhelm with a huge post so here's a round up of the rest of the lovelies. But you get the idea.

I wonder if that box for Operation Write Home is finally full? It seems I've been working on it forever.

Scrap Your Story - embossing

Heat embossing, dry embossing either way you see them a lot on cards and at Scrap Your Story we wanted to see how well we could implement those techniques in our layouts.

I ended up using both processes. The dry embossing was done using two different Lifestyle Crafts embossing folders. A doily folder that I inked blue before running through my Big Shot, which gave just a bit of depth and texture and sort of cooled off the white white of the paper. Then the other was a small flower pattern that I ran the paper through in two positions to fill up the banner, I was going for a snowfall look there and a different folder may have done better but I still like the texture it gave.

My heat embossing comes in on the top of the page and then on the photos. I used white Martha Stewart pigment ink and white Zing! embossing powder for both the Martha Stewart snowflakes and the Unity Stamp Co. lace border.


I'm also linking this up with a couple of challenges:
S.W.A.T. - use 4+ pictures on a single page layout
About a Boy - use hoarded (1 year or more) product. My hoarded items are the brads, white ink and embossing powder, and the Echo Park for the Record paper

Pattern Play day 4 - altering

I can't believe that this class is almost over, I'll definitely be looking for a sequel to Pattern Play!

Today was all about altering papers - sewing, enamel, glitter were all familiar to me to some degree. The thing that really stood out was whitewashing. I've of course read that someone had done it to a page or a card but never seen the process and what a dramatic effect it can have on a project.

Or in the case of mine, a slight dramatic effect. I think I watered down my gesso to much (50/50) because it looked awesome and dramatic while wet but now that it dried it's not as dramatic. It worked out for this card though so it's A-OKAY. I might have to buy some of the Distress Stains that Jennifer used in the video, but this is what I had available during naptime. ;)

Those visiting who also took the class will notice that I not only whitewashed, but also created a vignette, used glitter glue in spots, and sewed on lines. Each of which added just a little something extra. 

For comparison's sake, here's the original paper and the altered side by side. It's cloudy out so I had problems capturing it, but the altered is muted even in this poor picture.

And, for kicks, a close up of the card.

All the paper is My Mind's Eye - Follow Your Heart, Lost and Found, Good Day Sunshine, Miss Caroline Howdy Doody 6x6,  Lost and Found 2 Sunshine 6x6. 

Twine is MME All Is Bright

Stamp and clear and blue glitter glue are Studio G 

Color Box Chalk Ink Ocean

Ranger Distress Ink Broken China

Grey Cardstock

Helmar Foam Dots, ATG

Sewing Machine

Thanks layout

Knocking out a couple of challenges here really quick because all this card making left me feeling a need to create a layout too. 

This one is being submitted to About A Boy - use scraps. And guess what? Every piece of paper on this one came from the scrap bin (most of them leftover from a mini book using WRMK Hall Pass)! I did add in some Authentique Thankful stickers and a couple of buttons and twine. 

It is also being submitted to Paper Secrets - sketch and chipboard challenge. The alphas were originally MME Dear Santa red chipboard letters, but I misted and distressed them. 

See ya tomorrow with another card from the class I'm taking and then on Friday for the new Scrap Your Story challenge!

Patterned Play Class Day 3 - using hard to use prints

I confess to being a "B" side scrapper. Love me some small detail prints! But the "A" sides intimidate me, so I either fussy cut them or ignore them. 

Thankfully, today's class at Patterned Play was all about pulling me out of my comfort zone. Okay, maybe not just me, but you get the idea. 

As soon as I saw the direction of the very first card in the class I knew it was the one I wanted to CASE today. Talk about a low effort bold statement! 

I made mine using a scrap from WRMK Hall Pass. The sentiment is stamped on a scrap from EP For The Record 2. The stamp is Tim Holtz, ink is Colorbox Chestnut Roan. The clear die cut is from FancyPants. Brads are stash.

Patterned Play Day 2

So normally when I read about a new (to me) technique I sort of file it away and may never pull it out again, but today's class at Online Card Creations had two things that I just loved! 

1. Jennifer had a whole segment on making your own resist papers with clear embossing powder. During which I called her a genius and myself a fool. It's so brilliantly simple. 

2. To take away the shine after heat embossing, put it between pieces of paper and with a medium warm iron, iron that sucker. 

This was a life craft changing sort of day! 

MME Lost and Found stamped with Unity Stamp Co. Misplaced Chevron

Heat embossed with clear Zing! powder, resisted with Ranger Distress Ink Walnut Stain

Imaginesce Dino Roar stamped with Jillibean soup sentiment stamp

MME jute

Grey cardstock

DIY enamel dots 

Pattern Play Card Class

When my bloggy friend Andie, at Contagiously Crafty, posted that she was taking this class I almost dismissed it. Then I looked at my piles of scraps and thought about how much I hate trying to use them. I'm not always confident about making mismatched pieces "work." And that revelation caused me to sign up, and after one class I'm glad I did!

You see, I like patterns so much that I rarely use solid cardstock but I want to get out of the habit of only using paper from the same lines.

This card was made using the same sketch that one of the online instructors used for an example card. Love the sketch!

Papers are from Echo Park For The Record and BasicGrey Origins. The stamp is Amy Tangerine Sketchbook. Inked using Ranger Distress Peeled Paint. Heat embossed with American Crafts Metallic Zing! Twine is from WRMK.

Scrappy Backgrounds on Cards

I spent the better part of one day this week working on these card backgrounds. I made 20 card backgrounds according to directions I found via a pin that happened to lead me back to Operation Write Home's blog. 

I'll let you read the detailed instructions, but it comes down to cutting the scraps into 1/4 inch strips and gluing them down with a triangle shape in one corner, butting the rest of the background up against it. Then you run the background through an embossing machine because it creates texture and helps hold the background together a little better. 

This card I decorated keeping in mind the Use It Tuesday challenge to use a die cut, punch or cut out. This gets two of those. The heart had been die cut on my Cameo a few months back and I'd used the negative and thrown this into the scrap pile. The red frame was cut out from Echo Park's For the Record. While not all the teeny scraps are hoarded (aka been in my stash a long time!) this card was made entirely of leftover bits and pieces.

While I was playing around with scraps I pulled out some other older stickers and made these boy cards too. Still have lots of backgrounds so you'll be seeing more from where these came from soon enough.

Sadly, I still have lots of scraps...

Scrap Your Story - sketch challenge

I love a good sketch challenge and boy did Christy cook up a good one for us this week at Scrap Your Story. 

Here's our sketch:

And my interpretation:

I used My Mind's Eye Kraft Funday - I like how the muted colors really make Rylan's shirt pop! There's also some Kiwi Lane Design templates, a bunch of WRMK wide sparkle eyelets, hand stitching with embroidery floss and some machine stitching, Ranger Distress paint, and Target and Love My Tapes Washi. 

I'm still working out the journaling for this, but I left the top of the chevron paper open so that I can tuck in a tabbed journaling card when I'm ready.

Thanks for stopping by, now don't forget to link up those challenges!

You Keep Running In Circles

It's MWM time at Scrapbooksteals.com again. This week's sketch was provided by Design Team member, Bev Code, and was a lot of fun. It featured a large circle, something I've been seeing a lot of lately! 

This is my interpretation of Amber 4. Photos of Rylan playing at a local playground with my nephews when they came for a visit in 2012 - one of those places where running in circles is kind of the point! 

I painted the circle on a piece of AC Chap cardstock, then sketched around it again with purple pen and then hand-stitched in segments around one half of it. The triangles were made with green Bazzill and a couple of coffee cup sleeves. 

The papers in the center of the circle are from WRMK Hall Pass, Bazzill, and Jillibean Christmas Soup.  Alphas are from Echo Park. The stickers from WRMK Hall Pass and EP This and That and For The Record. Brads are stash. 

Keep Calm and Take Photos

I'm such a meanie sometimes! I love to take photos of the boys while they're crying. I don't do it when they are actually in danger and I rarely do anything with them, but I can tell you the context of every single one that I have ever printed. 

For the Scrappy Friends Challenge, Brenda wanted us to use the phrase "Keep calm and ___" with us filling in the blanks. And I just thought it was funny to use photos that weren't so calming. Especially given that Rylan is normally my over the top smiles and giggles child, this represents the other part of his life. 

I apologize for the over sharpening, the dreary weather outside wasn't cooperating. Over sharp looked better, promise. 

For the rest of the Scrappy Friends Challenge I used Kerys' sketch, Kristi B's technique (misting/stenciling), and Rochelle's color combo. 

I'm also entering this page into two other challenges:

S.W.A.T. - Basic Training - use mists

Scrapbooksteals.com MCM - two shades of green

My products list:

MME Dilly Dally ledger paper and Lime Twist scrap

BG 12x12 doily

Echo Park This and That cardstock

AC Amy Tan blue cardstock

Glitz Designs stickers

MME Miss Caroline rub-on

Girls Paperie alphas

Jenni Bowlin alphas

AC Christmas Knock-outs punch

WRMK eyelets

Washi/Fabric Tape from Love My Tapes, MME

Jute from MME All is Bright

Lifestyle Crafts embossing folder

October Afternoon Sprinklers Treehouse and Frequent Flyer

Colorbox Charcoal

Kiwi Lane Designs Sweatheart 4T

You are the Ticket to my Heart

Let me just start by bouncing off the walls! I won last week's Scrapbooksteals Mid Week Mojo, it's a random drawing, I know, but so exciting since it's been over a year since the last time I won. Woohoo!

That being said, I did Amber 3 so that it's done in for the 10 week challenge but I'm not going to put my name in the hat because that just feels greedy. 

So I've been *really* trying to break out of the habit of just opening a line of paper and using the same thing for an entire layout. This was born of that effort, and took a bit longer, but wasn't so bad since I know my stash very well!

The blue paper is Fancy Pants Lilac House.

Doily is Basic Grey.

Buttons, dimensional sticker, and a couple of the washi used are a variety of My Mind's Eye collections.

Alphas and "best day" sticker are from Echo Park For the Record and For the Record 2.

Chipboard frame from Echo Park This and That.

"I hope" sticker from 3Bugs Blast Off

Other washi and fabric tape are Love my Tapes.

And I have to say that these photos are from my good friend Regan. She's in college and among her other pursuits she's trying to get experience as a children's photog so she enjoys extra playtime with my guys. Between the two of us I have lots of pictures of my kids. ;)

Joy & Cheer

This one's for the Let's Get Sketchy March Week 2 sketch + Color combo challenge. When I saw the colors I wanted to rebel and not do a Christmas themed page, then my spidey sense kicked in and reminded me that naptime is only so long and going with the obvious would get the job done faster! 

These photos were taken Christmas Eve while we played Mario Kart Wii with my in-laws. Vance has a fascination for the game, but kind of stinks at it still (which is mostly because we don't let him play much!) so the grandparents had to figure it out on the fly. It made for an interesting evening anyway.

The papers and stickers are from Simple Stories. I finished off the page with some inking, DIY enamel dots, and some glitter glue. 

I'm also linking this up with the Paper Girls Challenge to use Snowflakes. 

Watch me skate

Kiwi Lane templates have become a go-to product for me. Not because I can't put together a page, but because sometimes it is just faster to trace and cut rather than pull out the Silhouette. Can you say under an hour to do this page, even with a little hand stitching and text messaging?

I used one of their sketches for this, DT Doodles 9 by Jenn Nicholes. Please note that this is a rare picture of me! Normally I'm the one manning the camera but my mom decided that the moment was so funny that it needed to be preserved and took action. All I want to do is yell at myself to stop slouching, gah!

Here's what went into it: the two biggest pieces of paper are from American Crafts Chap line, as is that strip of blue/green and white across the bottom of the page and the red frame at the top. 

The yellow chevron paper was in my scrap pile and I don't remember what it's from, but I punched it with the Christmas American Crafts Knock Out punch. 

The brown tag (Kiwi template) is from WRMK Hall Pass, and the twine and eyelet are WRMK as well. 

The green car and the journaling block, both cut from Kiwi Lane templates, are Amy Tangerine. 

The red car and lightning bolt (also both cut from templates) and alpha stickers are from Echo Park's For the Record and For the Record 2. 

The white half circle is a Jillibean Sprout. There's washi from MME and Love My Tapes. And the paper clips are from Paper Studio.

And after I'd gotten all that laid out I realized it needed something else, so I carefully relocated the pieces and splattered some AC Mister Huey's and OA Sprinkers around the open area and then put it all back together.

Moment Like This - DT post

Our challenge at Scrap Your Story this week is to include an animal somehow in our layouts. Well, we don't have pets, and the boys are into rockets and cars with a superhero or two thrown in by the bigger kid. That means, no favorite animals currently in the picture... current. picture. Duh! All I had to do was dig back to less than current pictures, WTG me! 

At two, Vance adored the Mouse, he still even likes Mickey Mouse Clubhouse when we put it on for them. Pretty much every kid goes through a period of thinking Mickey is pretty much the coolest, and Vance was not one to disappoint so when my brother invited us to visit him at Disney World we knew that this moment was a must. 

I'm not a Kelly Clarkson fan, but for some reason this song popped into my head while I was looking at the pictures of our time with Mickey and I knew it was meant to be. I dug out some sheet music paper, some scraps and set to work using a sketch from Scrapbooksteals.com to put this together in a snap. 

I was working on it while talking to my mom, who went on the trip with us, and I about cried explaining how I was going to use that song as a title. So perfect "for a moment like this."

Operation Write Home Sketch Interpretation

I'm really getting into the weekly Operation Write Home card sketches. A great way to use my scraps!  So far, all the cards are just card faces and need to be adhered to the folded part and readied for the mail. But here's my interpretation of Sketch 162.

This one was the first I did in the batch, and is my favorite! The background I stamped with a Market Street Stamp. The pigment ink I used got a little splotchy and smeary so I heat dried it and then used the WRMK Sweetheart Distressing Tool to disguise it a bit. All the layers got inked and sanded to "blend" in my mistake on the base. 

The papers are an assortment of MME scraps. The sentiment is a Studio G $1 bin stamp. I'm linking it up to the Scrapbooksteals.com MCM - Stamp it! Challenge.

For the other cards, I again focused on my huge pile of MME scraps. The hello sentiment was a wooden block $1 bin stamp, can't remember where I picked that one up and it doesn't say.

Dapper Dudes

I was so excited to get My Mind's Eye's newest collection in the mail that I just had to bust into Collectable "Memorable" for this page based on a Paper Secrets sketch. The twist this week was to use Thickers. 

The Thickers I used are from an older line, so old that I have to reapply glue to each letter when I use them! For this project I also misted them with OA Sprinklers because those babies were white, white, white. I love the way the "Wheat field" transformed them, a perfect color match!

I also did a little altering on the flowers, which were to pink for me. I rubbed white paint on most of each flower and then misted with more Wheat Field. 

The doily stamp is from Unity Stamp Co. "Grandma's Closet," I stamped it with black ink and then the one at the top I heat embossed with Gold Zing! embossing powder. 

You'll notice I busted out one of my homemade enamel dots again, such a nice little touch in that cluster.

Hello Card- Kiwi Lane DT Doodles

If you're here for the Scrapbooksteals.com Blog Hop, head this way. But feel free to come back and stay awhile.

I was elated to discover that this week's DT Doodles at Kiwi Lane included both card and page sketches. I've been trying to fill that box for Operation Write Home so getting a little inspiration for my cards was super handy. 

This card was inspired in two ways. I used one of the card sketches that Gail had provided and I decided to try out the glue down spiraled twine into a shape like she had done for the flower center. 

To bad I didn't have time to get to those page sketches, I'll just have to file them away for someday when I'm lacking mojo.

You're Sweet

If you're here for the Scrapbooksteals.com Blog Hop, head this way. But feel free to come back and stay awhile.

I don't know how you who live in wintery climates do it. We've had two "big" snow storms within a week and the mountains of snow have left me wishing myself into summer. The cold and dreary, ugh.  

At least I can take solace in my paper! I pulled out some oldies from my scrap stash to make these bright and cheery cards. I also inked up a recent dollar bin purchase for the "you're sweet" sentiment and the candy so that I could link up to the Use it Tuesday challenge.

On this one, the stamp got a little uneven so I attempted to color it a bit/add some shadows just to see how it turned out. While I am no where near ready to buy a bajillion Copics I have to say that I *like* how it turned out. Maybe someday I'll be a real stamper...

These are all of the cards I made during the second snow storm, all of them with scrappy goodness. Most of these scraps have been part of my stash for over a year. Now that's sweet. ;)

March Scrapbooksteals.com Blog Hop - Love My Tapes Washi

If you're here from Scrap Your Story, check out my design team post below. 

If you didn't come here from Michele's blog, then head back to Scrapbooksteals.com and start from the beginning of the hop. 

I'm very excited about today's Scrapbooksteals.com blog hop - it has been so much fun seeing what everyone has done! There are so many fabulous ideas for how to use Washi Tape that it was hard to narrow down one project for one of the trendiest scrapbook supplies on the market. 

I was given two Love My Tapes washi. Now I know that I said washi is one of my favorite supplies, but I tend to just hoard them so this was a fun little challenge because I "had" to play with them. 

That striped washi was a bit of a challenge for me, it wasn't something I would normally buy. Every time I put it on something I had this feeling that it really should be used on a nautical themed project. But what, we're not lighthouse and seascape people?! And then we introduced our boys to Peter Pan. The next morning I woke up with a vague sense of this pirate card. 

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the bracket shape, banner, map, title, and pirate octopus. Then I pulled out some white cardstock and filled in the negative space from the bracket with rows of my striped washi. A Lifestyle Crafts embossing folder lent a sort of sea shell feel to the black background. 

And now I love that little roll! I'm going to be making a few more of that card for sure. 

While I'd been struggling with the stripes I was having a lot of fun altering items with the black and white squiggles. 

This vase was picked up at the thrift store. I wrapped four long strips of washi, keeping them at an angle so that they stayed flat all the way around.

I liked the vase filled with my scrappy "girl color" flowers so much that I decorated a second vase for the "boy colored" flowers with a similar Love My Tapes washi that I stole a while back. Both sit within easy reach in my workspace. Maybe I'll use flowers a bit more now?! 

Finally, I'd picked up this little wooden frame one day at Michael's. I needed a gift for a 50th Anniversary party I was attending and was inspired by the sentiment on the My Mind's Eye "Follow Your Heart" papers. After much fussy cutting and foam dots, the washi strips gave it a nice finishing touch. 

Now don't forget that there's a $20 Steals.com gift code up for grabs. All you have to do to enter is hop along to all the blogs, leaving comments at each stop. You only have until 11:59 p.m. MST on Sunday, March 3, to make those comments. Winners will be announced on the Scrapbooksteals blog on Tuesday, March 5.

I hope you had a great time hopping and thanks for stopping by! This should have been your last stop, but in case you missed the order somehow, here it is again:

ScrapbookSteals
Creating with Paper and more - Kelly Holifield
The ramblings of a crafty working Mom - Julie Cordero

Scrappin the little things - Deborah Johnson

Li'l Buck's Creations - Misty Buck
Becci's handmade collection - Becci Manies
It's about the paper - Michele Duffy
Errant scraps - Jessica Arrant 

A-Muse-ing

Today is a big day for me! My first post as a design team member. If you haven't been to Scrap Your Story yet, you should definitely go check them out.

Our challenge this week is to use one (1?!) photo on a layout.

Hmm, those of you who've been around a while know that that doesn't happen much around these parts. Luckily, I had this cute, though slightly out of focus pic of Rylan "helping" me get my craft on during the holidays. And let me tell you, that this child is nothing if not amusing.

 

To make the background, I lined up strips of Target washi and then misted and splattered over and removed them. I like the effect the strips gave and that it left a natural journaling place (because it's just not a page if I didn't journal on it!).

The papers and dimensional stickers are MME Andrea Victoria and Kraft Funday respectively. Mist is from October Afternoon. I used American Crafts Thickers and 7Gypsies brads. Banners are from Jenni Bowlin.