Taking flight

Words cannot express how much Vance wanted to dress up at Dusty from the movie Planes. Once we got the costume home he was disappointed that there weren't wings with it. Crafty mommy to the rescue!

I just cut a piece of used foam board and then painted the base white again and the orange lines. He helped duplicate the racing number and dutifully watched as the Cameo cut them out. A couple of layers of mod podge and the kid was ready for Halloween.

I'm linking this to Scrapbooksteals MCM: kids . The challenge was to make something for and or with kids. 

Altered frames

If you're here for Paper Girls Challenge Blog Hop, head here but make sure to come back and stay awhile.

This weekend we had to run into Target for 1 (ONE) thing, and naturally came out with way more! Love that place, but that's really not important, what is cool are these little frames that I picked up in the dollar section of the store. 

All fine and dandy, but maybe a bit to bright AND I don't have any photos I really wanted to put into them. What I did need was something a bit more special to send to some friends - something more than a card. So I took some sentiment/title type cards from a couple of MME lines - Indie Chic and Miss Caroline and set to work altering the frames and decorating. 

Each frame was sanded and reinked, though the pink isn't quite as dramatic. I know I'd love to get one of these little babies in the mail, I sure hope they do too!

I'm linking this up to the Scrapbooksteals.com MCM - Alter it!  

Want to know what else I did this weekend? Finished up that baby book I've been working on, come back tomorrow for photos!!! So exciting!

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.

Dear Santa...

When I saw this week's Let's Get Sketchy sketch I knew that I had to pair it up with the Scrapbooksteals.com MCM challenge to use rosettes on a project.  

A few weeks ago I'd pulled some floral-type embellishments that I rarely use and put them in a basket on my desk as a reminder to use those suckers! So finding a project where I could use a bunch at once was perfection.

 The sketch lent itself well to these photos of some of the antics of our elf on the shelf and I thought the rosettes would lend a festive vibe without going over the top. Most of them were spring colors so I misted them. I also removed or covered the center pieces/buttons on most (Halloween!) and replaced with stickers from the MME Dear Santa line. 

Monkey Kid

It seems like so long since I scrapped! A whole week?! Riiiiight, I realize that's only a long time to, well, to me. But this week was an interesting one - Rylan decided that he was ready to ditch diapers and was literally doing so so we began the arduous process of potty learning. He's getting so big!

I still needed some "me" time so I combined a couple of challenges together in between potty runs.

The sketch is based off of Drill #2 at S.W.A.T by Jenessa. I loved how open to interpretation the sketch  is. So simple, yet full of possibility!

I'm also linking it up to Scrapbooksteals.com MCM - Citrus colors and Paper Girls Challenge Blog - use washi.

There's a couple of older MME lines - Wild Asparagus and Andrea Victoria, with the newer-ish Oooh La La and Lime Twist. The washi is also MME. The bright embellies are Amy Tangerine, though the ribbon is Imaginesce.

Love card, blue?!

I don't know what sparked the idea to use blue for this card, but I love the way it turned out. Because who said that all lovey-dovey cards need to be red anyway?

The Scrapbooksteals.com MCM this week was to use white and one other color. There was lots of blue in the scrap pile on my desk that needed to be put away, it just seemed natural to use it I guess. 

The stamps are from Unity Stamp Company. The doilies are an embossing folder for Lifestyle Crafts. Three of the blue papers are My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart and Lime Twist. The blue cardstock is American Crafts Amy Tangerine. The doilies and paper edges were inked with Ranger Distress Broken China. The stamping was done with Colorbox. The pearls were from Michael's dollar bin.

Brothers throw stones

Okay, in this case they were throwing pebbles. And into water. But the throw stones part was a witty thing I came up with as I was putting this post together, and will probably be added into the page in some manner at a later date. 

This layout was inspired by Let's Get Sketchy's January week 4 challenge. I also used the color blue for the Scrapbooksteals.com MCM Baby Blues challenge. 

And while this used mostly My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart, there's also touches of Indie Chic Nutmeg, and a Miss Caroline wooden embellishment that I colored on with American Crafts Metallic Markers. The splatters and mists are from October Afternoon and Mister Huey's. The doily embossing folder is Lifestyle Crafts. 

Snow - Kiwi Lane DT Doodles and Scrapbooksteals MCM

For this week's Kiwi Lane DT Doodles (week 3), I busted out more snow photos and Authentique Peaceful with some touches of Original. I love how these collections really worked with the photos - and the Kiwi Lane Templates remind me of snow drifts which was perfect for these snowy papers!

Templates used: Paisley Place mini 1A/B and 3A/B, Tags 1 and 7, Sweetheart 4T, Floral 3T

I'm also linking this one to Scrapbooksteals.com MCM - Sparkle and Shine. I used some Zing embossing powders (Copper Metallic) to add a touch of texture and shimmer to the page.

After lots of fussy cutting, some distressing and a bunch of sewing this page really just sort of came together.

You are my sunshine card

I made this little card based on the Authentique January Sketch challenge. I'm also linking it up to the Scrapbooksteals.com Use Bling challenge.

Authentique products: Glowing paper 8, Uncommon Original, Festive Merry, Festive Yuletide, and Carefree Details

Other products: MME Lush Orange gems, WRMK twine, Momento Potter's Clay ink

Joy-flake

Joy-flake. Sometimes my own humor kills me. *sigh*

I made this card for three purposes.
1. To include a fun greeting in my sister's Christmas package.
2. For the Cameo Creations Challenge Blog - using the theme "White Christmas"with my Silhouette.
3. For Scrapbooksteals.com's MCM challenge of creating any sort of project as long as you mix two or more collections.

Look at me getting all my multi-tasking going on.

Needless to say, the snowflake is from the Silhouette Studio store. I cut it out of a 6x6 MME Signature Christmas pad. The base of the card is American Crafts Kraft cardstock. I traced the word part of the snowflake with Studio G glitter glue and inked the card base with Alabaster ColorBox ink to make it a little lighter.

Now I just need to mail that package to my sister!

And don't forget to checkout the Christmas present (aka giveaway) I have for one of my followers.

Christmas tags

I've never made my own tags before, but when this week's Scrapbooksteals.com Monday Craft Madness was to use embossing powder I knew that I really wanted to make tags for one particular set of gifts. These gifts are getting packaged into fabric bags that held the boys' twin sheet sets. So they'll look like little blue and grey Santa bags with tags. I'm fairly excited about the prospect!

Here's the tags. I simply "inked" the tags with the embossing powder. It is quite possibly my favorite way to use the powders.

The family has a couple of duplicated first initials so I just wrote their full name in my scribbly scrawl on the backs.

scrappy scrap scra-person

I just love to use up some of my scrap stash, don't you?

After spending two days this week modge podging scraps to old boxes (which still need a final seal so I can use them as Christmas gift packaging) I was super inspired to use up even more scraps so I set to work on some cards. And proceeded to spend two days making cards.

In all I made 20 cards in this batch, actually I just made card fronts and will adhere them to white cardstock before shipping them off to Operation Write Home.  Only a few are pictured but it is a fairly representative sample.

The first card also uses the MCM 103 card sketch.

Sadly, I still have a lot of scraps left over. Guess I need to bust out another round of cards soon. Maybe for World Cardmaking Day next week?

MCM 94

Sometimes crafting with a sketch "clicks" sometimes it doesn't. Know the feeling? Well, this week's sketch never clicked. Maybe because I was trying to make masculine/not frilly cards. Boo, because her cards were super cute! Anyway, I tried a couple of different variations of Kristy's MCM 94 and this was the best of the bunch. 

American Crafts Campy Trails -paper and dimensional sticker
Black ink
Button brads, stash

Project Goal 100

To Date: 30

MCM 90

Here it is the day before vacation and I have to sit down and scrap. Scientist thinks I'm a tad obsessive. He's probably right. I wonder what he'll think when he realizes I'm packing a small scrap stash into my suitcase. HA! That my dear isn't obsession, but dedication!

Basically I know we have a lot going on but sometimes I'll need to take a break as much as the kiddos will and as I'm not a napper pursuing my hobby definitely seems to be the best bet!

Anyway, so packing's going on which means my camera cord is in the bottom of a suitcase (I hope! eek) so I took this pic with the computer = lousy but at least you can all see it, right? I'm really happy with it.

There's a little Paper Studio Affinity (I'm really trying to use all that stuff up! It was my last big pack purchase before I fell in love with Scrapbooksteals), some Authentique Gathering and a little MME Follow Your Heart Be Amazing, a touch of blue and green Distress Stickles and some Color Box Bronze as bling and inking, a generic button, and a MME Lush 2 Orange sticker gem.

Trust me the photo doesn't do it justice.

MCM 89

I am becoming a card making fiend in an effort to stop filling up so many albums and still get my craft on. Side bonus, that box of cards for OWH is filling up! If only I could convince myself to make cards in multiples of the same it would be super full - no repeats yet. Can't seem to do it.

This week's MCM was inspired by the fabulous Kerys Sharrock. Every time she posts something on the Scrapbooksteals.com Facebook page I love it! Seriously. And I loved the sketch. Her task was to use a border punch and I substituted a strip of paper since I don't have any, but I think that the scrolling on it sort of makes the card have the same feel.

So really cool here for me are two new "toys"slash techniques. First, that blue strip on the top that was distressed? It also has Crackle Accents applied. And I thought Glossy Accents were cool! Eeek!!!!! So exciting. No words.

Okay, so second up, I bought a whole bunch of the dollar bin Studio G acid-free glitter glue (aka cheap Stickles) and then colored in the flower's center with them. The colors sort of blended together as they dried and look awesome. Then I applied the glue again to the "stripes" on the petals, let it sit for a bit and then scraped it off. The glues left nice coloring but not the glittery texture and dark color.

In addition to the previously mentioned products: card, flower, and paper strips are Paper Studios Affinity, word stickers are Authentique Gathering.

MCM 88

Some of you may remember that I posted a couple of weeks ago about creating cards for Operation Write Home. Well, nothing made my heart happier on Monday than reading the SS blog to discover they'd teamed with We Are Memory Keepers for the steal and participation in the WRMK card drive to support OWH. Aha! Now I have a deadline for all those cards I was gonna make anyway. So totally need one of those to keep me in line. And a chance to win stuff?! Bonus! 

Kristy Lee created another fabulous card sketch to follow using a star and americana theme. I don't really have much for that particular theme, but I did have a pretty fun starburst file in my Silhouette library. I created a text path and sketched the design on, cut the outer shape out, colored in the lines (some with Stickles, yes!) and had a grand ol' time.

While the Stickles dried I layered out the strips of paper behind - some of a MME Good Day Sunshine die cut, a little MME Indie Chic Nutmeg Washi, and MME Orange Lush 2 papers. Once good and dry (aka the next day) I glued it all together and inked the edges with Color Box Dark Peony.

Now time to stamp the backs of some of these cards that are done and get them ready to ship at the end of the month.

MCM 85, 86 plus one

Father's Day is next weekend so in honor of our dads I made some masculine cards. So hard. Every time there's a guy card to make I struggle. But these ones sort of make me happy, and I even managed to make an extra to have in my stash for a birthday, thank you, whatever. Excellent.

For MCM 85 (a sketch by Cyndee Kawa) I used a Paper Studio card base and papers with MME Abbey Road die cuts and a Fancy Pants Kraft Kuts sticker with Jenni Bowlin mini alphas.

For MCM 86 I used another Paper Studio card, ribbons, and cardstock, MME Good Day Sunshine papers and die cuts, some MME Indie Chic Nutmeg Washi, and inked all the edges with Color Box Chestnut Roan or Pumpkin Spice

The other card I made used Paper Studio card base and cardstock, a MME Abbey Road journaling card and chipboard tag, Jenni Bowlin mini alphas, a little bit of cord, some paper ribbon that I bought ages ago (so probably Paper Studio) and the Sew Easy Stamper.

Scrapbooksteals Turquoise 5

 It's crazy to think that we're already on Turquoise 5! Wow!

For this MWM I took my scrapping outside of the "book" and designed it on an all wood but canvas-styled plaque. Last weekend I found the plaque at Goodwill for $3 and knew it'd be perfect for scrapbooking on, went home and proceeded to glue this paper down for no other reason than that I really liked that paper. It sat on my desk naked for four days. And then Wednesday I was flipping through pics to match the sketch and didn't like any of the boys and decided that I'd just do something with some of my extra wedding pics (I did my scrapbooked album nearly 3 year ago, eek! my style sure has changed, good thing I wasn't a scrap every picture taken sort of bride). Anyway, I came up with this and now it's hanging in the "red bathroom" and looks quite nice.

Basic Grey Origins
American Crafts Thickers, Lullaby
Prima Flower
MME Miss Caroline "Lucky" sticker, brads and stick pin
MME Follow Your Heart Happy Day Tag/Brad and twine
Glitz Designs "Follow" sticker
Girl's Paperie Toil and Trouble 3D embellishment
Paper Studios Affinity Blue and Cream papers
Color Box Chestnut Roan
Vellum and gemstones, stash

In between family moments with my in-laws Memorial Day weekend I snuck time to make the card last week too (#85). I made several of them like this as reminder cards about a girls night I was hosting at my house. The inside reads "Breakfast at Tiffany's and Dinner at Jessica's" plus the date and time. Catchy, huh!?! I'm such a dork.  

MME card
Authentique Gathering 6x6 paper, alphas and "gather"
WRMK twine
Colorbox Chestnut Roan
Brads, stash

More about Memorial Day weekend to come. Next time, darling, next time.

Rainy Monday Crafting

It's a drizzly, stay inside sort of day so I decided that I'll work on some more of those National Scrapbooking Day projects that aren't due for a couple of days.

But first up are some regularily scheduled challenges.

Up first we have Authentique's May Sketch. LOVE it!  And I love the way that my interpretation turned out. I used Blissful for all the papers, alphas and die cut pieces, ribbons were stash, ink was ColorBox Chestnut Roan, flowers were hand made from vellum and their brads are American Crafts Chap.

This page is doing double duty for me, I'm also entering it into the Paper Variety's challenge: use a handmade flower in a project. I had to learn how to make a flower to accomplish this, and let's just say there's a lot of options out there! I read so many great tutorials before throwing up my hands, grabbing scissors and paper and just having at it. 

This one is MME's first May Challlenge: use brads creatively.

Now, normally I don't scrap about myself and I definitely always use a picture. I don't know why I decided to do this diary sort of entry about what the month of April was like for me, but I did and I am really happy with how it turned out!

All that orange (paper and brads) is from Lush 2, the dark paper is from Lost & Found, the "celebrate" chipboard sticker and twine is Follow Your Heart. Ink is Colorbox Chestnut Roan.

And last, but not least scrapbooksteals.com MCM 83.

For this card I used Authentique Blissful papers, die cuts, and alphas again. Twine was from MME Lost and Found, gems and ivory cardstock were stash.

Scrappy weekend

Oh man did I get a lot done this weekend! I finished up my page for the Paper Girls Challenge Blog, worked on a couple of extra Mid Week Mojo's (still trying to get all the original ones done), and a card. I had lots of fun, can you tell?!!

So here we go: Paper Girls Challenge #6 was to use the following photo as inspiration.

from Martha Stewart. com via pinterest

 "You can take whatever you want from this photograph - colors, patterns, grid, squares, materials (glass, metal, fabric) and use that as your inspiration for your creation this week. I'm so excited to see what you make!"

"Don't Forget"

 Well, I pretty much only took the grid from this picture. I did a page that I'm not in love with but it was fun to do something so very different from anything I've ever seen! I used Cosmo Cricket papers, American Crafts Chap accordion flowers and both the stamp and blue ink are Martha Stewart.

Then, I opened up the Scrapbooksteals.com blog and pulled out some old MWMs.

MWM 3 - This page originally just had the one 4x6, but I really liked the idea of making those tags into pics too. Squirrel was doing these crazy smile faces for a few months around the holidays and I just wanted to capture that. Papers, stickers, stars and twine are Jillibean Christmas Soup. Brad is stash. Eyelets are We Are Memory Keepers.

"We're all a Little Flaky"

MWM 4 -This sketch was originally a 3 pic that I converted to get a few more pics of Christmas onto the page! They weren't the best pics so cropping them made the focus seem a little better. The papers, stars, stickers and twine are Jillibean Christmas Soup. American Crafts Delight Thickers, inked with Color Box Chestnut Roan.

"Our Christmas 2011"

MWM 5 - When I started scrapbooking (just over 3 years ago) I always did  2 pagers, but I haven't in a while and this 5 picture spread was a challenge! I cropped some of the pictures down and squeezed an extra two on this page about hanging out at the park during our very warm winter! Papers and stickers are Fancy Pants Rough and Tough. Brads are stash.

"Boys will be boys"

Then, I made the following card for The Paper Variety's current challenge - we were to scraplift an idea from somewhere on their blog to use as inspiration for a project. I chose to "lift" a tutorial about creating a title with twine by Kate.

Papers for this card are Authentique Blissful, brad is Paper Studios Affinity, ink is Prima Terra, and twine is WRMK Sew Easy Yellow.

And finally, this morning I made a card using the Scrapbooksteals.com MCM #81. Papers and embellishments are all Authentique Blissful. Ink is Terra by Prima. Glitter glue by Crayola.

50 Project Challenge
Done: 21
Confession, I "stole" today from Scrapbooksteals.com - just couldn't pass up on the MME Lost and Found 2 Sunshine. *sigh* Time to hop back on the wagon.