Counting Down to Christmas

As part of my ongoing efforts to create fun classes for the Christmas in July event at my local store I've made this little countdown wall hanging using BasicGrey's 25th and Pine. 

The base of the panels was made using upcycled chipboard. 

In addition to the papers I used some of the die cut and vellum pieces from the line. 

Everything was inked with gold Colorbox pigment ink.

And I used a variety of Studio G Christmas colored glitter glues - because Christmas decorations can always use more glitter. ;)

And then with a little help from some chalkboard paper the piece was complete. The countdown is on... 

mon ami cards

I think that this may finally be the last of my posts using Basic Grey's Mon Ami, though there's probably a sheet or two under the pile of paper's on my desk so you never know. 

The stickers on all three of these cards are from BG's PB&J and have been hanging around for quite a while. I was super excited when I realized how nicely they complemented the floral paper. 

The blue and yellow dots/wood grain is a piece of Crate Paper that's been in my scraps for a bit, I think it's from the Random collection.

Truly, they are super simple cards but they'll be nice to have around for one of those in a pinch moments. 

Rain on my parade

If there's one thing my youngest loves, it is his boots. He hardly goes anywhere without them! When this pair broke we chose to go buy a replacement right away, even though it was sort of the off season, because he loves rain boots so much. I'm just glad he doesn't think he has to tote toys around everywhere (what if we lost one!)

I've done other layouts about his obsession with the boots, so this one focused more on how we said good-bye to this particular pair and then went and bought another since they were important. And bonus! The new pair look like fire fighter boots. 

A couple of weeks ago I posted this layout where I'd used a Studio Calico pie chart file, the green here is the negative from that cut. 

The rest of the layout was also the scraps and leftover stickers from working with this collection (BG Mon Ami) so much. The larger title sticker is from BG's PB& J. 

ETA: I discovered that one of my favorite challenges is doing a "feet" challenge and I soooo had to link it up to SWAT. Hope that they don't mind that it went live before I made that connection. 

Here Comes Santa Claus!

Ah, I know it's only June but I've been busy getting ready for the Christmas in July events at Soul Sentiments. This fun Kaisercraft wall hanging will be one of the classes we'll offer - it uses a mix of BasicGrey 25th and Pine papers/stickers and Viva paints. 

Last week we hosted Jen Starr at the store and she taught several classes using the Viva line of products. I fell in love and bought so much stuff so I could incorporate them into a class ASAP.  

The stars were done with Viva Glitter Paste (uh, what's not to love about something as solid as modeling paste with all the fun of glitter?!). 

The accents on the tree and gifts were done with the Viva Glitter and Pearl Pens - the way they shimmer in real life is so pretty compared to regular glitter glues (probably because Viva uses glass glitter). I think they're a bit easier to control than some of the other brands too, just my two cents. 

I used two colors of Viva 3D Stamping Paint (don't ask, it goes on more like an acrylic but can dry with a bit of dimension) over the frame (which I'd prepped with a layer of green mist). The shimmer and shine in that stuff is so much fun, and then to top it off with two shades of Inka Gold! Fun!

I may have gotten a little excited about the Inka Gold and used it on the edges of everything. 

Leftover alphas

Remember a couple of days ago when I said that I'd gotten bitten by a need to use up my alpha stash? Well, here's the second installment. 

I managed to finish off all but the numbers from three alpha sets. Woot Woot! 

You'll notice that I again used my current favorite, BasicGrey Mon Ami. Thankfully, with all those alphas on the background I really didn't use much so I was able to stretch the line just a teeny bit further. Sweet. If I'm remembering correctly, there's another four pages and a couple of cards that I made using the line. 

Anyway, as I said on Monday, using up alphas like this isn't something new to me but I was really inspired to use them up because of a post on Becki Adams' blog last week.  

Vance Summer School

In our community, students entering kindergarten in the fall may attend the summer school session preceding, so we decided to enroll Vance as a way to help him adjust to a more structured life. Not that we don't have routines, but let's just say that nothing happens at.the.same.time.every.day. Ya know?! Well, summer school starts today so I'm probably having to help Rylan figure out how to entertain himself for hours on end without a big brother to play with - guess Vance isn't the only one who needs an adjustment period. 

As part of my mental preparation for this important week I created a layout using my current favorite line, BasicGrey's Mon Ami and all I still have to do is print off a photo and slap it onto this layout about his first day.

Good planning, no? 

This page is actually the leftover bits and pieces from a variety of layouts I've been working on, including one that'll be a class at Soul Sentiments this summer. 

How about using part of the alphas sheet as a background element? Totally cool for a "school" themed page! Not gonna lie, while I have done it before it wasn't mentally on my radar until I read Becki Adams' post about using some of her mismatched alphas. Oh, the things with alphas that I'm gonna be trying in the next several weeks. 

Take In the Sunshine

Have you been catching a theme since my month hiatus from blogging? I've pretty much been just creating for classes for my LSS, which is super great because I get to play with all the new pretty papers. 

This one features BasicGrey Fresh Cut. The store's had a rash of people asking for layout classes and since most prefer double pages I have been trying really.really.hard to give them what they want! The problem I faced with this BG pack, and another I'm working with right now is that they don't have two of the same anything in the packs so I'm adding some neutrals so that I can pull all the same colors across the page. 

Now, here's the start of some close ups. I'll start with the layouts not side by side. Is it just me or are white background pages really hard to photograph?!

Then the real details: 

I'm in love with the way I managed to splatter on this spread. Mists still scare me a bit but this time I think I got the flick down nicely!

I may be obsessed with my Amy Tangerine stitching templates lately. No surprise there given how much I like stitching on my layouts anyway! Hopefully some of my students will catch the bug and Dala will order even more templates than she has already. Bwahahaha. 

What do you do when a paper pack needs some bling but you don't want rhinestones? You heat emboss wood veneers, naturally. Seriously, that's the most time consuming element in the whole class because the heat gun kept blowing the shapes away so I had to hold them down with a paper piercer and do one at a time.

Supplies:

BasicGrey Fresh Cut

Studio Calico wood veneers

Pigment Ink

Gold Zing! embossing powder

Amy Tangerine stitching templates

Studio Calico mists

Stash embroidery floss

Reimagine the Possibilities

 This week's MWM sketch, Iolite 7, at ScrapbookSteals was created by one of their buyers and my friend, Brittany Perry. I just loved it! And I'm loving playing along again. 

The base of the layout is BasicGrey's Little Black Dress. I'd been eyeing it for ages and my LSS put it and another BG on clearance and I broke down and finally bought all that she had. As many times as I almost purchased it I think it would have hurt more to let someone else have it. 

Other than the lacy black and cream piece and the letters from the same line, this one is a stash buster. Three partial embellishment packs used up and lots of scraps! 

Meeting Buzz

I just want to give a bit shout out to all of my new friends from Kiwi Lane that have joined errantscraps! I hope you all had a good time with the hop and that you stick around for a while so we can all get to know each other better. 

One of the advantages of knowing people when you go on vacation is they show you the sights from a different perspective. My sons will never know Disneyworld the same way as most other kids because my brother works for the Mouse. We planned trips to parks based on where he was working and often he'd have little surprises for us. 

This particular day? Let's just say that we're 99.99% certain that we are genetically related to everyone in the picture (there are days I still swear my bro was adopted) and he made that little boy's day by spending so much time with him. Naturally there were lots of pictures, many which never got scrapped while I was working on our trip album. So.Many.Pictures. Now I'm trying to finish some of those up. 

This page is for the Scrapbooksteals.com Jade 8 Mid Week Mojo challenge. Only two more weeks in this series, have you been playing along? There's the weekly challenge and then a separate drawing for those who complete all 10 in a series. Better get your scrap on!

Clay - Jade 7

As much as I loooooove pulling out new papers, using up papers that have sat in my stash for a couple of years brings me serious joy. Maybe because it means that I'm that much closer to having to "replace" it. 

In this case, this is some old BasicGrey Origins. There's also touches of Echo Park This and That and For the Record embellishments. 

The sketch I used for inspiration is the Scrapbooksteals.com Jade 7 MWM. 

Cousins

I love that my scrap challenge repertoire is expanding - more to keep me busy, busy, busy! I found out this week about Use it Tuesday. Their premise is to encourage you to use up your stash by using hoarded items, and for obvious reasons they don't give away prizes! Prizes or not, giving me some sort of direction is tremendously helpful. That's part of why I've loved using sketches for a little over a year. Now I have someone telling me to use up the forgotten stuff creatively. Sweet.

This week is all about thankfulness, and you can use anything hoarded. That I can do! I may have only been scrapping for three years but there's some kit leftovers hanging around the room.

The oldest thing on the page are the chipboard letters. They vary in ages but have all been in my stash for plus or minus two years. Check out the BasicGrey Oliver letters, those are the oldest and among the last of their kit. (It was a very sad day for me when I used up all the papers and stickers from it!) The paper is a hold-over too. I bought that Imaginesce kit while pregnant with Rylan - and it was sitting in my stash at the point I planned his first birthday party and was the inspiration for the party decor.

So what's not old here? The letter "C," I got it at a crop a couple of weeks ago. 

Just for fun - What did I ever do before you?

It's not often that the mood to create strikes when I don't have a challenge to work on. No rules to follow is a bit intimidating. For me at least. Rules girl that I am. Ha! But I had this piece of doily left from doing Pearl 8 for Scrapbooksteals' MWM challenge and I had fallen asleep thinking about how to use it. When I got home today I started working on my idea.

I spray misted the doily on the BasicGrey paper, creating a square center as well as coloring the hot pink doily and using it as a mask (three tasks in one! Now that's using your scrap stash effectively.) Two colors later I liked the center's color and depth so I shook a little bit of ink out on the page to get some nice splatters. I inked up the edges of the page and the square with some Distress Inks.

Then I used gesso to adhere the Goodwill doily to the page and to the picture. Added the MME decorative tapes, the brads, and the buttons.

Not happy with how flat it still is, I continued adding depth via Thickers. Good, now add journaling. Add in the faux stitching.

Still flat and lacking, it needed something because that doily was really stealing the show. I crumbled the edges of the paper, letting it tear and smash while doing so.

Then I took that paper doily that I'd misted and layered it piece of solid Bazzill and under the rest of the project. And then it was just right.

Have a great weekend!

pearl 8 Break time

It doesn't seem possible that it's time for another Scrapbooksteals.com sketch, let alone that we've almost completed a "gemstone." The title of this page is appropriate because it's been crazy here with getting Squirrel onto a new schedule for our pre-preschool work. And that has left me with less time for craftiness. He loves it, I miss it. *sigh*

This week, Kristy's sketch featured a large doily in the background and layers of paper with tons of buttons. Not so bad. But I wasn't feeling it so I turned to another challenge to tell me what to do. 

I took my paper choices and some of my elements from the CSI:Color, Stories, Inspiration challenge this week. Not a palette I typically work with but I was able to assemble pieces from a variety of collections that work nicely together. 

Background paper: Cosmo Cricket Cosgmo Cogs

Doily: BasicGrey 12x12 cut to size

Fancy Pants Kraft Kuts and Lilac House

American Crafts Thickers

Stash buttons, bias tape, and floss

WRMK Sew Stamper fuchsia head

October Afternoon and Studio Calico Mists to create that green plaid paper

Ranger Distress Ink, walnut stain and broken china

Sewing machine

Guess-o it's gesso time

Before, during, and after completing my first "case" over at CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration (a scrapbooking recipe challenge site) I was in awe of some of the techniques the ladies used. I randomly clicked on a tutorial that had Prima paper in the title, and learned that some of what I was liking had been created with gesso. For any who don't know, gesso is traditionally used with canvas as a primer, but these ladies were using it to create awesome textures and mixing it for soft colors. Which took me on a Google Search.

My first completed "case."

I took the plunge. I bought gesso. Here's the first project I made on the day I bought it:

And here's how I cracked the case for Case 33:

You'll notice that this time the gesso is on thick, and has more texture. Much of the texture I created by swirling spray inks into it, one layer at a time, and then squishing it outward from the center. I really like the effect!

I'm still deciding if this is going to be a regular part of my style, or just a random artistic element I use sometimes. 

Scrapbooksteals MCM 97

For the Scrapbooksteals MCM 97 the primary goal of her sketch was to show off a border punch. Now I don't own any border punches. *GASP* I know. But I do own a Cameo so I opened up the software and found this card shape that I purchased a while back. Perfect. 

MME Lime Twist
MME Indie Chic 6x6
MME Lost and Found
BasicGrey Bloomers
Color Box Ocean
Pebbles rub-on sentiment

Adding a couple of scraps of paper and some flowers finished off the sketch. It took me longer to punch all the bits out of the flowers than to ink and glue the card together!

Renewed Challenge

Things have been crazy at work and the Scientist is really needing to finish up his PhD which led me to make a tough family choice - continuing being a huge stress ball and rarely see my hubby -or- make a change. Considering we couldn't afford for me to quit, I chose to demote myself within the company and work fewer hours so he can work more. While not common, this does happen at times (IMO, more people just quit but benefits are good). For the first time in over 6 years I am no longer a manager of any kind. I worked three shifts as just an employee last week and it was so weird, novel, refreshing. I'm sure at some point the joys of it will unnerve me, but for now I'll revel in it's glory.

I'm not already reveling in is the $$$ part. Demotion = pay cut = less money for scrappy fun.

The bonus of "less money for scrappy fun" = a new challenge. There just isn't money to buy a lot of gifts and things so I'm going to be making as many Christmas presents, home decor items, birthday party decorations (you get the idea), the big challenge being that I need to figure out how to customize it to the individual/event from my current stash.

I've known for a month that this was coming and sort of loaded up while I could! LOL. The only thing I didn't buy that I know I need is some black vinyl for redecorating the boys' room. Their Christmas and birthday from us (unless grandparents chip in!) is a bunk bed, bedding, and theme change. Right now it is mostly decorated with leftover decorations from Squirrel's Cars party last year, some of those will stay as I'm switching it to a Toy Themed room (sort of Toy Story-esque, but less focus on just those guys and more just on toys). Hence the vinyl, I want to do large silhouettes of some recognizable toys to hang on the wall. Hoping to see some on SS before November so I can whip them up in time for a birthday party with the same theme (and just relocate as I did last year).

For this challenge the rules are:

• Goal Completion Date of Dec. 31, 2012
• Spend no more than $15 per boy birthday party on decorations/flair (August and December birthdays), excluding vinyl
• Spend no more than $20 per month on other crafty fun, not including adhesive
• Spend no more than $40 while at Scrapbooksteals warehouse while there in October
• Create 100 projects: Pages = 1, Cards = 1, duplicated cards of 3 or more = 2 per set
• Continue creating cards for OWH

Notice I'm not trying to spend "no money until ## done." That didn't work so well, and this is really about correcting a spending habit as much as about using up hoarded materials. :)

To get the crafting party started off right, here's my first set of projects. These are the last of the cards I could make before needing to ship off a box for the We Are Memory Keepers card drive for Operation Write Home. All of these cards feature American Crafts Campy Trail papers and Ranger Ink Distress Inks - Walnut Stain and/or Broken China, additional products used are in captions.

Studio G Green Glitter Glue
Brilliance Black Ink
Stamp - stash

Paper Studios Square Eyelets
Jewelry Cord

Jewelry cord
Jenni Bowlin mini alphas

Crackle Accents (on "Christmas" shaped tree)
Machine stitching

Jewelry Cord
Glossy Accents on "Christmas" tree
Paper Studios White Eyelets

WRMK Sew Stamper
Machine stitching
Glossy Accents on patch

BasicGrey Blue Brads
WRMK Sew Stamper
Stamp - unknown

Project Goal 100
To date: 7

Authentique July Sketch - Magic Moments

We happened to be at my mom's house on Palm Sunday when I got a call from my sister saying they were coming for a visit the following weekend. They live 17 hours away (longer with kids!) and since the last time I'd seen her we'd both had babies so we quickly changed our Easter plans in order to make the trip again the following weekend. We were all so busy socializing that I forgot to take a lot of pictures of the four cousins playing together, there's a couple more but these are the best of the bunch, and two of them were taken at The Magic House (hence the title)! I'm thinking I'll do a couple more pages and then pick one to frame as a Christmas present for my sister and her hubs.


The sketch I used was from Authentique's July Sketch Challenge. I did flip the sketch to use horizontal pictures but tried to stay true to the feeling. ;)

Authentique Product List:
Gathering Tabloids
Gathering Grow 12x12
Gathering Together 12x12
Petite Type Circle Blue
Blissful Pleasant 12x12
Blissful 6x6 pad

Other Products:
Jenni Bowlin Dimensional Butterflies
Paper Studios Affinity Ribbon
Studio G Glitter Glue
American Crafts Amy Tangerine Thickers - Lovely
Distress Ink - broken china and walnut stain
October Afternoon Sprinklers - Set Sail
BasicGrey Paper Ribbon Doilies - Kioshi
Prima Say It in Pearls - Vintage Branch

Homemade Monday: Counting the days

Do you remember as a child, the looooooong wait until something special. You'd nag your mom about how many more days until it was supposed to happen? Yep, she'd get tired of it, then bust out the scissors and a stapler and make a countdown chain. As a kid, mom normally made mine out of construction paper in a color scheme appropriate for the event - Christmas, the team colors, etc.

Well, I'm pretty excited about the Scrapbooksteals.com Crop in October. Right. October. So very far away! I know. But I had a little free time between loads of vacation laundry and set to work using papers that while pretty in this picture I'd never use on a layout about my guys (Princess!).

I had the Scientist help me string it up using holes already in our bedroom. And then I attached this sign to it:

All of the paper in the chain is from MME Lost and Found (I bought one of those HUGE paper packs before discovering Scrapbooksteals). Most of the other pink papers are various other MME collections, I do think a Fancy Pants scrap slipped into the mix too. The alphas are an assortment of PiggyTales Twinkle Twinkle, BasicGrey Oliver and some Target $1 bin. I don't remember where the brads came from, but I do remember they were one of my first SS steals!

Turquoise 8 - I Da Man

I love when an experiment turns out even better than I'd hoped. Having never used a mask for mists before I wasn't certain what spraying through a 12x12 Doily would look like but the depth it added to otherwise boring cardstock is fabulous! I'm so gonna have to do that again. 

I'd actually misted this pink for another project and had done to many pages so this piece was scrap and hanging out on the desk when Scrapbooksteals posted their Turquoise 8 sketch. Kristy had done an awesome job with the sketch and had even done a page about her recent adventure into the 40s. Given how much time I spend scrapping two adorable little guys I've tried to follow her lead and when she scraps about herself, I find something quirky about myself to share too. 

In this week's case we have "I Da Man" -- a page about my high school drama experience playing a dude. I'm not entirely sold on the title's appearance, but it did allow me to use several stashed letters! YES! I wanted to contrast my dude-ness with a very feminine page, so there's lots of pink and lots of flowers. 

Misted Doily was Basic Grey
Paper Studios cardstock and Affinity printed papers
Authentique die cuts
Prima Say it In Crystals - female silhouette and photo corners
Pedoodles flowers
buttons stash
MME ribbon
Target pink alphas
BasicGrey Oliver Alphas
ColorBox Chestnut Roan
Studio G Brown glitter glue