Paper Girls Challenge Blog - September Hop

Thanks so much for stopping by, if you are here for the Paper Girls Challenge Blog you should have come from Charissa's blog. If you didn't come from there when you're done looking around you should definitely head back to the beginning and see all the fantastic fall home decor projects we have for you today. Serious inspiration over load here!

I made this fall banner. Obviously something 7 feet long is hard to get into a single image so I also have some close-ups for you!

There's lots of goodies in here, twine, upcycled corrugated cardboard, thrifted doilies, ribbons, Prima and David Tutera flowers, and Authentique Thankful papers to name a few. Check it out:

I cut the letters out on my Silhouette and made a slightly larger one to act as the "shadow" since the machine doesn't have that function.

The spots were created by inking through joint tape (like you'd find at the hardware store). 

Had to hot glue on the flowers to the doilies. It nearly broke my heart since it means I may have ruined them, but it just looks so pretty that I had to commit.

Now, the Paper Girls Challenge Blog has a Scrapbook Pal gift card up for grabs, which means you're asking what do you have to do to participate? 

Would you like a chance to win? Get an entry for commenting on each of the blog posts, "Like" the Paper Girls Challenge on Facebook, and being a follower on our blog (all are required for an entry). You will see some fabulous projects and find some inspiration.

You have until October 6, 2013 at 11:59pm MST to comment. We will announce the winner on Wednesday, October 9, 2013 at 9:00 am MST. International readers are welcome to play along but currently we are only shipping prize packs to the US and Canada due to shipping costs.

Here's that blog hop order again, just in case you lost it:

Kristy

Amber

Erica

Charity 

Heather 

Charissa

Jessica -- you are here

Michele -- go here

Cathryn 

Becci

Misty

Deborah 

Beautiful wall hanging

Not one who deals with last minute, under the wire, pull it out of my tush sort of stress very well I will confess to having packed my crafty supplies for the Scrapbooksteals Retreat/crop four days early. Four. Now, what in the world was I thinking?  I found myself without the ability to simply adhere two pieces of paper for something as basic as a card. Oops. 

I quickly realized that I could still craft, as long as I was willing to get a bit messy. So I set my mixed media skills to work on this little wooden plaque that I'd picked up at the thrift store. 

It was a lot of fun to make, some of the products I used include gesso, Creative Inspirations paint pots, plastic packaging, scraps of paper, fine point PITT pens, Maya Road banners, Recollections flower, MME wood veneer butterfly and gems, cheap acrylic craft paint, TCW stencils, modeling paste, Unity Stamp Co. Donna Downey stamp. 

Practical Scrappers September Layout

*Yawn* After a day of traveling to the Scrapbooksteals Retreat I'm wiped, but wanted to make sure this posted. Psych! I actually pre-scheduled this one knowing I'd be away, sleeping in and without little darlings waking me up, crafting to my heart's content. I'm on a Mommy-Vacay!! Today is our main classes day so I guarantee you that I'm excited about all the goodies I get to play with and the people I get to meet. :)

Anyway, today is the layout sketch day at Practical Scrappers, and here's my interpretation. Head over to the blog to see the sketch and check out all the other inspiration the design team has ready for you!

While I was working on it I realized I could utilize this layout to meet the SWAT Drill 15: stamp, sew, spray/splatter so I'm linking it up over there too. 

Here's my stamping, in modeling paste:

If you didn't notice, there's a bit of misting/spraying/splattering that happened in that part of the layout. I love splatters, misting continues to allude me.

Above is the top of the layout, check out all the textures and layers from my bin o' scraps.YUM! And below you'll notice my little hand-stitched heart. I traced around a heart stamp and then poked holes to create the shape before even threading a needle. So quick and a perfect little touch.

Okay, question time. I often have photos of the boys that are slightly blurry (helllloo preschoolers!). Do you scrap your "lesser" quality images? It doesn't seem like many do it but sometimes I do if it meets a need! You'll see that the cat's eyes are burnt out in the left picture - that's because I had to use flash to take that one. I noticed she was sleeping on him when I was leaving for work (4:30 am!) and just *had* to have the photo so much that I risked flash! 

Pumpkin fun

I'm so over summer temps and ready for fall! Needless to say, when I was at the grocery store stocking up for the guys before leaving for my trip I found that pumpkins were at an amazing price. I nearly bought enough to gut and make my fall pumpkin treats but I decided that it would just be way to overwhelming to have them unused and taunting from the corner. Instead, I bought one little guy and my boys thought it was awesome! 

You know what they thought was even more awesome? Mommy taking the papers off the crayons and melting them over the top. They love to "help" with my messier projects and both sat watching the colors drip off the sides. 

Uh, super cool! And even David was impressed.

upcycled canvas

This week on 10 Things Tuesday at Practical Scrappers it is all about doilies. You'll find them used in so many really fun ways, but most of them are little crafted/paper doilies so I went a bit less conventional and used a doily I'd picked up at the thrift store to accent this canvas I was upcycling.

The base of the canvas was painted with a white wash, then I layered some paper scraps over it with a strip of washi covering the seam. Then I sewed the kraft paper to the doily and adhered them to the canvas. Finally, I wrote out the sentiment with assorted alphas and embellished it with some yummy flowers and jewels. 

I love having this hang where I can pass it several times a day!

Use that stash!

I'm talking to myself with this one. I have so many scraps and leftover stickers that it's a constant challenge to use them before digging into those shiny plastic wrappers that encase new goodies. 

But this card for Use It Tuesday is all that! It's old stickers, unused tools, and scrap madness with everything being 1-3 years old. This challenge we're asking you to bust into your stash and use at least 2 hoarded items (and don't forget to tell us what they are, we love drooling over old products). 

I had a bit of trouble capturing this card, the variation in color in the embroidery floss in particular. The reds are much more vibrant in person. 

But check this out, the flower sticker is from a BasicGrey kit that I discovered on clearance when I discovered designer papers, which means it's over 3 years old. And that WRMK sewing head has never been used in the year plus that I've owned it, and I bought the floss at the same time. Those scraps have been around for a while, most of the paper's a year or so old. I love that if you do it right "old" products can have a fresh feel. 

Ten Things Stickers

I do love Tuesdays, for one it's not Monday (can I get an amen?!) and then it is also 10 Things Tuesday at Practical Scrappers. Can I just say that the other ladies are so. stinkin'. talented. and that I am inspired every time!

Today we're bringing you 10 Things Stickers, and here's my card:

A cute, quick card to show my appreciation. 

The card is from Crate Paper Random, as is the doily.
The stickers are mostly MME Find Your Wings and Fly, as is the lone enamel dot.
The popped up sentiment and twine are from MME Miss Caroline.

More exciting fun in my life - I'm a Paper Girl!

I'm pleased to announce that I'm now a part of the Paper Girls Challenge Blog. I've had so much fun in the year plus that they've been running their challenges that when I got asked to be part of the team I hardly hesitated.

For my first challenge with blog we're asking you to make your own stamp and link it back up on the blog.

I made a couple of cards using the bottom of an Elmer's Glue bottle as a stamp. After the first impression I realized that the shape resembled an eye and when the sentiment exactly fit in the space I knew it was meant to be!

Here's the other one, I like that the bottle made a really cool background stamp but also works as a frame all on it's own. 

Practical Scrappers Card Sketch

I've never played along with the sketches before at Practical Scrappers and I really feel like I've been missing out. At first I struggled with the sketch but once I got going I L-O-V-E-D it, I'm totally doing another sketch soon. Head on over and check out the sketch! 

We have some friends getting married soon and I think that I'll be saving this one to hand deliver, all those popped hexagons are cool but I'd hate for them to get crushed in the mail.

Skething on layouts

When I found out that Practical Scrappers 10 Things Tuesday was going to be about white pens I had what I thought would be a "brilliant" idea to use my Silhouette Cameo to doodle a border around the outside. Ummm, my pen didn't actually fit in the pen holder so I had to adapt - I pulled the ink part of the pen (name? I dunno) and held it vertically in the holder as it made it's scribbles. Hence, a bit more doodlishness on one side where I troubleshooted the problem. ;)

While the sketch pens were out I went on to draw some arrows in black, and then colored them in with glitter gel pens. 

The papers are an assortment of scraps, the dimensional stickers are from BasicGrey's Oliver (thanks, Kristy!)

Now that you're done checking out my doodling, go see what the rest of the team has in store for you. 

Friends

Good morning! It's time for another fun challenge at Use It Tuesday, here's my design team project: 

This challenge is about friendship, and I documented my friendship with fellow blogger/scrapbooker Kristy MacKeen. We live about three hours away from each other, but as often as I visit my parents the distance isn't as great as it would seem. It took pretty much forever and a plane ride for our first meet-up, since then we've had two "local"meet-ups and at the most recent one we took this fun photo. I sort of poke fun at us in the journaling because it takes a serious amount of effort to align our schedules for these encounters, one of these days I'm still holding out hope for a local crop night. 

The papers are from Crate Paper Random and have been in my stash for a year. Most of the American Crafts flowers are about a year old too, but the greenery amongst the blossoms is three years old. 

Products: 

Crate Paper Random papers

American Crafts flowers and Thickers

Girls Paperie decorative pearl brad and blue ribbon

Bo Bunny trims (yellow and blue ric rac)

Authentique mini alphas

Family Game Night Mini Album

Hey there, I have another design team post for Soul Sentiments using Carta Bella's Well Played. Tuesday I really wanted to emphasize the fun aspects of this line while downplaying it's game theme, but today I'm reveling in it with a family game night mini album.

The mini album shape and the box are a set of files in the Silhouette Studio store. (file 1, file 2)

I just love that I'll be able to tuck the album away for safe keeping, I always get so worried about the decorative stuff falling off of my covers. I was also impressed at the amount of dimension I was still able to include, the box seemed slim so I played it safe, thinking at first that the pages were going to have to be f.l.a.t. flat.

I tried to make my dimensions logical, like having lots of room for photos. 

And pockets with more photos or journaling. 

I must have been getting tired, because this one is pretty basic again.

The last page has a little flap for a second small picture.

And the back cover.

Thanks for sticking through to the end, now I just need to keep kiddo two fully clothed so I can actually take some family game night photos. He makes life complicated sometimes. *shakes head*

Hot Summer Days

I'm so glad that my scrappy schedule has evened out enough to let me play along with challenges again, I'd really missed it. There's been some experimenting with new (to me products), a stash sale at my LSS, an organizational overhaul of my stash. Let me tell you, the scrap bin has gotten out of control. Time to really focus on that again!

Today's layout does just that:

This one is linking up at:
Scrappy Friends Challenge - Kristi (summer), Brenda (choose 3: washi, chevron paper, arrows, enamel dots), and Rochelle (sketch)

and the Paper Girls Challenge Blog (wire)

Products used:
Paper - Fancy Pants Park Bench, BasicGrey Oliver, MME Follow Your Heart and Indie Chic, Teresa Collins On The Edge
Embellishments: Fancy Pants Park Bench stickers and edges of stickers, MME Enamel Dots and yellow washi, Love My Tapes washi, Jenni Bowlin journaling card
Stencil - TCW
Art Supplies - Faber Castell Pitt Pen, Modeling Paste, Creative Inspirations Paints
Other: wire from spiral bound notebook

Practical Scrappers - 10 Things Stamping

Practical Scrappers 10 Things Tuesday brings you Stamping  - I modified the theme and tested a variety of kitchen utensils and ended up stamping with a potato masher and pie crust edger with some paints. 

Papers: BasicGrey Oliver

Alphas: American Crafts DIY Thickers, October Afternoon

Eyelets: WRMK

Embossing Powder/heat gun: American Crafts

Flair: UmWow!

Dimensional Stickers: BasicGrey

Burlap tag: Little Yellow Bicycle

S3N Memories

Every so often you meet a group of people around whom you can just be, it doesn't matter what follows after. My freshman year the girls on my floor were like that - we had a wide variety of majors represented which took up most of our time but there was much wandering the rooms and craziness to be had. 

Today's post for Soul Sentiments is about one of those moments, as a floor we decorated one of our bras. I don't know where that idea came from, I do know that I never wore mine again. 

This layout features Carta Bella's new collection Well Played and I really wanted to show just how awesome the papers could be without being "game" related even though the paper is decidedly themed. Each matted photo has another on the reverse and there's a group shot of most of the floormates tucked into the layout (see the red dice, slide that on out to see the floor). 

It's late for the challenge, but I used the MWM Aquamarine 6 sketch as a starting point for this layout.