Valentine's Greeting Card

Happy Valentine's from Practical Scrappers. Today we're sharing the love with a lovely bunch of Valentine's Day inspired projects. Are you feeling the love yet?! I crack myself up sometimes. 

I doubled up and also created this card for a make and take at my LSS, Soul Sentiments. As a family we don't do much for the "Hallmark" holidays so it was really a struggle for me to embrace the pinks and reds but I'm really happy with how cute it turned out in the end. 

This card will be a featured Make and Take on Feb. 1. Contact the store for questions.

Cardstock: Coordinations/Tim Holtz Distressed

Washi: WRMK, Bo Bunny, and I forgot the other

Journal Card: Echo Park

Twine: WRMK

Stamp: Hero Arts

Inks: Ranger Distress Worn Lipstick and Black Soot

Flowers: Imaginesce and American Crafts

Lace: stash

Practical Scrappers Sketch - Latte Love

It's been that kind of week! I'm so glad that it's Friday, finally. I worked on this layout using the Practical Scrappers sketch while at the Scrapbooksteals Retreat, I just forgot to schedule the post and so this is going up a tad late. Ugh and sorry!

The majority of this page is done with Echo Park Reflections.

The other stuff:
Paper: Authentique Curiosity
Alphas: Authentique
Buttons: Crate Paper Random
Washi: MME Chalk Studio
Twine: MME Miss Caroline
Zipper: MME
Cork arrow: Fancy Pants

Toad's hot air balloon

At some point this past winter we decided to introduce Vance to Wii games, Mario Kart and Mario Party, and he fell in love with Toad and began calling him the Marshmallow. He always "had" to be him, referenced the games with Marshmallow in their titles (wouldn't Mario just die!), etc. It was such a thing for him that when David found a stuffed toy at the store he bought him the random toy on the spot, bonus points went to Daddy for that one.

In June I got all those points back though, I took him to a theme park without David or Rylan (they were sick and we were going with friends). We were at World's of Fun and in the kiddo area (Planet Snoopy) was a hot air balloon ride. Vance was insisting that he had to ride the Marshmallow and I was completely clueless for a bit, and then I saw it:

When looked at in context of Toad, it very much looked like Toad, on the other hand most people will recognize this hot air balloon to represent Japan in the context of "World's of Fun" where everything is country/continentally themed. Oh, Vance. 

This is another one of the layouts that I did for my design team position at Soul Sentiments using Echo Park's Paper & Glue. 

Other products:

WRMK eyelets, Sew Easy sewing head

Embroidery floss, stash

Silhouette cameo and Studio

Flair (oops, it's new and I don't remember)

Ranger Enamel Accents

Cardstock, stash

School mini book and another announcement

I really just can't believe that it's time to discuss back to school stuff already. Where'd the summer go? No idea! What I do know is that this is my last year home with both boys, next year Vance starts kindergarten. Wowzers, can't believe he's nearly there already. 

Anyway, back to that announcement that I promised in the title. Wait for it, you are waiting right? I'm on another design team, this time with my LSS, Soul Sentiments. I'm pretty excited because in addition to bringing creative inspiration with new yummy products I get to teach a class. That class is where it really starts getting good (Andie, you'll never guess what we've decided is my project theme. Did you make a guess? Yes!). Using up that stash in creative and trendy ways. Theme.of.my.creative.process. and I can't wait to share it with others. 

But today I'm sharing something new, this mini book uses Echo Park Paper & Glue which is admittedly a little more primary colored that I would have reached for on my own but was so much fun to make. I let the sticker sheet guide my design structure and used a couple sets of dollar bin chipboard mini albums.

Come back Friday for another project I made with this line, my third and final was the inspiration for my class sample so you'll have to wait to see that one revealed. I don't know when that'll go live. 

Cards for crafting's sake

This weekend I spent a considerable amount of free time working through a 6x6 pad of Echo Park's This & That. I just love how the colors are so universal, so with that in mind I set about making some cards that were unisex. You can never have to many cards that are okay to give to those guys in your life, am I right or am I right?!

Before I let you scan through them I need to apologize for the photo quality. I just plain didn't want to get all the stuff out to take photos like I normally do, lazy I know, but here's the cards anyway:

So not only did I use up all of a pack of rub-ons (some of the sentiments), but the stamped sentiments came from an old stamp that had never been inked and I used an entire pad. That's one productive weekend, guess I'll be spending all week cleaning house. Oops.

London Bridge

You know the nursery rhyme. You're probably already signing it because of the title. Now that I've put that little diddy into your ear too, here's my most recent interpretation of a Let's Get Sketchy sketch, February week 2. 

I used lots of scrap bits from Echo Park's For the Record and For the Record 2. The spray mist, didn't end up quite like I wanted but I really like the splatters - and in the end, the two big mists splots could almost be smoke coming up from a destroyed house. Would work better if we'd burned it. Maybe next year if it collapses I will.

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. 

Jade 3

Just because I like to show all of you what I've been up to, here's my interpretation of Kerys' Jade 3 sketch over at Scrapbooksteals.com. It was such a fun one to get me back into a crafty groove after the MADNESS that has been December. (Jury duty, kids and me down with a nasty cold, in-laws, two birthdays, Christmas, oh my!)

This one's all Echo Park - some For the Record and some of For The Record 2.

Hopefully now that I broke the creative ice I can get back to work on my December Daily project - needless to say, I took photos almost daily but this is gonna be a month in review highlight reel since I haven't done any work on it for three weeks. Ha!

Scrapbooksteals.com Jade 2

Kerys did a fabulous job with the sketch this week! I was very excited to play along with the Scrapbooksteals.com MWM - Jade 2.  Once again, I used a weekly sketch to knock out one more page of my December Daily album. 

December Daily 9

I'm also entering this page into the If It's Groovy challenge - create your own paper/background. I made the background by laying tree die cuts (from a mis-cut, yay for still finding a purpose!) onto a piece of American Crafts Kraft Cardstock. Then I used three shades of mist, from October Afternoon and Mister Huey, and sprayed and splattered away.

The other layers are an assortment of scraps from LilyBee Designs, Echo Park and My Mind's Eye. The twine is WRMK. Embossing powder is American Crafts Zing!. Green glitter glue is Studio G.

Building Words

I spend much of my day considering words. Not because I'm a blogger. Nope, because I'm a mom of an almost preschooler who has discovered spelling. We spell all day. I felt that that needed to be captured somehow so when Paper Secrets' newest sketch went up I knew it would be a good time to use the picture of our refrigerator. 

Clearly the most dominant element in the sketch was the starburst. Ohhh, how I hated trying to piece that together!!! But I think it turned out pretty good. Around the top of the page I did a little journaling border - those are all words he's made us spell most frequently. Frequency determined by number of responses to a text sent to family and friends asking them to tell me what they have to help Vance spell! These are clearly the impacting words in his life right now.

http://www.papersecrets.net/2012/11/november-15th-sketch-challenge.html

Two weeks worth of Mid Week Mojos

Mid Week Mojo at Scrapbooksteals.com is seriously one of my favorite moments in the week! I have enjoyed the variety of sketches that Kristy Lee and her team of guest sketchers, designers and the recently formed design team have created. I love the weekly challenges so much that I even took products with me on vacation so I could keep up! Interestingly enough, I joined them for their second annual scrapbooking retreat and came back and didn't touch my papers, other than to put them away, for nearly two weeks. 

Alas, change is on it's way. The first page you see is my interpretation of the last sketch that Kristy Lee did for the company before moving on to other scrappy digs. She has been a huge source of inspiration for me and her blog posts and sketches will be missed. 

Both the circle background and the wheel were cuts from the Silhouette Store. The papers and stickers are all Echo Park This and That (maybe some of the new For The Record Documented too). I added the eyelets to the tags and then threaded them with solid brown WRMK floss.

This second page was a sketch by one of the Steals.com staff members. At first I looked at her page and thought that it was so not me, but I plunged ahead and ended up really liking the way it turned out even if it was a deviation from my normal style.

The Echo Park papers were still out so I used them again on this one. I'm almost out of the This & That papers that I bought a while back, but like that I was able to use up lots of the stickers on these two pages. Why is it that I always forget to use those stickers sheets until the end?

pre-mini-vacay playtime

What a busy week ahead of me! I'm packing for my first real crop. So exciting!!! It's of course with my very favorite, Scrapbooksteals.com, so it was a steal of a deal even with the airfare and hotel. 

Before I pack away my tools I thought I'd whip up this week's Coral 3 MWM submissions so I don't miss out on the drawing. 

There was a guest sketcher this week which almost always means two sketches and this week I managed to do both of them.

I used up most of my Echo Park For The Record Documented on this one. Still maybe a full layout and a bunch of cards left though, that prize pack sure has packed a lasting punch! 

Coral 3a 

Coral 3b

Tough

The team over at CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration sure know how to make me dig into my stash rather than just using whatever happens to be my current fave! To meet the color profile this week I pulled out  a kit that had sat untouched, still in its Scrapbooksteals.com packaging. 

Can I just say that I love the way that Echo Park For The Record looks?! 

And I also love the juxtaposition of a temporary tattoo/the word "tough" with flowers. It made me giggle the whole time. But he so thought he was big stuff because of the sticker, he was so serious about it. And that's saying something because Squirrel is one serious little dude anyway.

The flowers are a 3D file from the Silhouette Store and the letters are some Pink Paislee wooden die cuts that I inked.

Babies

Scrap your baby. That's what they said over at the Paper Girls Challenge Blog. Now I don't know about you all, but I almost always am scrapping one of my babies. That's how I roll and why I scrap. It was sooooo hard to chose a photo for this challenge! I ended up digging into my preprinted stash of pics for a photo of when the "baby" was actually still a baby. You know, a little over a year ago. Ha! 

I still had Echo Park For the Record out from having used it in a color based challenge and noticed that it would be lovely with this picture of Squishy trying to stand in a wagon.

After sewing the busy background to the green I didn't do much else - layered some of the stickers onto the pocket I'd made to hold the journaling. 

I have to say I've had FTR in my stash for months and hadn't touched it. I love this paper and am sad that I let it sit for so long! 

For the record, I love it

I love that phrase, maybe it's because I studied journalism for so long, but "For the Record" is just awesome to me. And the new Echo Park For the Record Documented really knocked my socks off.

Partly because it was free. Yep, they so graciously let me chose a collection in a recent Facebook contest and with the fab colors in this kit, how could I not?! Plus, Lori Whitlock designed it and she's one of my favorite designers I've come across in the Silhouette Studio.

So I'd like to offer a huge thank you to EP for my prize!

Now on to what I created with it the day after it arrived - a page about Squishy getting hurt and not wanting to deal with the bandages. He just wanted to play! Crazy kid, blood everywhere, and he wanted me to let him on our cream colored couch. NOT. But I loved it at the same time, and of course took some pics of his little hands all bandaged up.

This page barely made dent in the kit they sent, so you'll be seeing more of it in the future!

card frenzy

Now that birthday party is over and I'm caught up on some of my challenges, I'm ready to get started on some more cards for Operation Write Home. 

The first card you'll see more or less again when I post for the Scrapbooksteals MCM 97. I cut the card shape on the Cameo (love that flower border!) and since I had it out for that card I cut a two at the same time. 

For this one I just put a piece of colored paper behind the flowers, added gems to half of the flower centers, applied glitter glue to the other half, and then layered on two strips of the same ribbon.  Easy cheesy, cute, and a good use of scraps.

MME Lime Twist card base
MME Andrea Victoria
Paper Studios ribbon
Studio G Glitter Glue
$1 bin gems

This next card features a couple of Glitz stickers that have been hanging out in my stash for a couple of months.

I applied Crackle Accents to the rose and then scribbled a little glitter glue under the sentiment.

Paper Studios Affinity pre-cut card
Echo Park This and That cardstock
Glitz stickers
American Crafts Amy Tangerine Thickers
Studio G Glitter Glue
Ranger Crackle Accents

 I still had some of the Hip Hooray elements on my desktop from making the Pearl 6 layout for Scrapbooksteals so I decided to make a birthday card. Another cute, low supply, fast little card and it could be used for just about any recipient. Bonus!

Stash Cardstock card base
MME Hip Hooray paper and die cuts
Imaginesce Dino Roar ribbon
Ranger Distress Walnut Stain

PGC - I love you

Pretty much all about the challenge these days, so when the Paper Girls Challenge Blog issued up using some of my rub-ons I was game. Instead of creating a page I decided to make a card that I can replicate easily using scraps and add to my pile of cards for Operation Write Home. And those cards need to get done, STAT, so I can get them into the mail.

I have a few other sentiments that are the same size so I should be able to make a bunch of these in no time to give the Heros a little variety.

Papers: Echo Park This and That Charming Cardstock

Paper Studios Affinity Cream print

MME Miss Caroline Fiddlesticks 6x6

Brad: MME Follow Your Heart Be Amazing

Rub-on: Pebbles

ColorBox Chestnut Roan 

National Scrapbooking Day = lots of hard work

Saturday was National Scrapbooking Day, which somehow translated into "weekend" for me. Wow! Did I do a lot?! I've decided that after this weekend I'm doing a little reset on the whole project challenge. I'm pretty certain that I've done about 50 projects and have cheated a couple of times on the thing anyway, but we're pretty much equal so it's whatever.

To start the weekend off I did the Scrapbooksteals.com online crop challenges.

Challenge 1/Turquoise 1 by guest sketcher Misty Buck

on the hunt

I used BasicGrey papers for this - an older kit called Origins. I bought it on clearance right after falling in love with their Oliver collection. This is the first time I used it and think I may have fallen in love with BG all over again! The buttons were stash, but some are covered with stickers from the kit. Thickers are Amy Tangerine. Mini Alphas are Jenni Bowlin.

Challenge 2: Turn back time. Pics had to be from before the individual was 25 or younger.

Start them young

This is almost all Amy Tangerine Sketchbook, including the fussy cut flowers. There's one piece of misted paper from me testing out the mists when they came in (I did say that I cheated on the challenge, right?!). The mini alphas are Jenni Bowlin. The Thickers are also Amy Tangerine. Notable for this page - the pink card in back swirls out to show more journaling. This pic was taken at my grandma's just after Papa died, the grown-ups were making arrangements and I was busily using one of my Christmas presents. Context is interesting for the future but isn't the point of the page so I wanted it hidden.

Challenge 3: Sassy Spring. Needed to have spring colors and a flower.

I think you're camera perfect

This one is all Echo Park This & That. I love this collection. It very much complements the colors I put on the boys. It was a fun challenge to work with - incorporating a flower (these are from Prima) into the page, especially with such masculine papers, but I felt that the flower just spoke spring and not girlie. 

Challenge 4: Stitching. The inspiration piece was a quilt block and the final project had to have some sort of stitching on it. 

Ties that bind

I literally cut up my oldest scraps into 2x2 in squares and stitched them (and the picture) together with my machine (a first using that for me!). Then, remembering some older quilts I've seen in this fashion I "joined" corners with purple string or with brads (stash). The journaling tag's brown border was scrap lefttover from this week's MCM and I think it's Fancy Pants. The inside is more misting practice. Mini alphas are Jenni Bowlin. Thickers are American Crafts.

Then I moved on to a couple that Echo Park had.

NSD Challenge 3: scrap lift from the design team. I lifted the idea of the quilt on a card from Kandis Smith's project.

remember 2012

This & That makes another appearance here in everything except the machine stitching and those mini alphas (Jenni Bowlin). Having already sewn something together this weekend I thought that her card design would be a good opportunity to practice my stitching abilities!

NSD Challenge 4: follow the sketch

my boy

More This & That here. Flowers are Prima Sprites, some have EP brads and others have stickers at their center.

Then some more one from BasicGrey. ETA: I had originally only done one challenge, but Scientist took the boys for a walk so I decided to squeeze out a couple more before bedtime!

Follow the sketch.

cheese

I combined two for this one: stitch on the page (I'm getting pretty good at that!) and use mixed fonts.

passionately driven

Again, more Origins. The stitching here is really subtle, and it needed to be with all the paper mixing I did! It's a border around the two smaller pics. Then the mixed fonts - the word "passionately" is from the Origins stickers and "driven" are foam Thickers. 

The regular Paper Girls Challenge Blog Challenge (#7) was to make an Artist Trading Card (aka ATC), taking inspiration from their blog hop.

springtime themed ATC

I'd never done an ATC before so this was a little weird for me. Apparently they get traded around by crafters, almost like baseball cards. Now to find a card swap I can join so I can get more practice with these guys! Everything from this card was from my scrap folder, but I'm fairly certain that the card itself was Fancy Pants Design.