Play is Serious Business

Hey! I'm back, sort of, it's a long personal story (involving hubby having surgery/recovery, extra hours at work, and chasing little people) but let's just say that while I was MIA from the blog world I was still creating, still teaching, and have several posts I'm working up to show off some of what I was doing. 

This one is actually a little bit older, I don't remember when I created it but it was definitely around February and I just realized that I'd never shared it. I probably never would have remembered except that I was looking for the layout's title so I could pull the photo for instructions for a class and realized I'd never shared. Shame on me. 

This class at my LSS will feature uses for paint daubers, this is a really basic idea but paired with these papers the rainbow palate packs a lot of punch!

Supplies used: Tim Holtz Distress Paint Daubers, MME Record It! Lost and Found brads and paper, Metal number and paper clip are stash. 

Today, tomorrow, forever

I was quite inspired by Melodee's sketch challenge for this week's ScrapbookSteals MWM - Rose 1. The sketch was simple and open ended, but I loved that she'd made a layout for her niece's wedding photos and decided to pull out some of my own.

I'm also linking this to the My Mind's Eye February Challenge - to use their products for a love themed project. 

I used a variety of MME papers - Lost and Found 2, All is Bright, and Follow Your Heart. There's also embellishments from Find Your Wings and Fly, Follow Your Heart, Chalk Studio, and All is Bright. 

The wood veneers are Studio Calico, and the lace is Graphic 45 Staples.

The rub-on hearts are from the Pink Paislee Luxe collection.

Valentine's Swing Card - PGCB Love Your Love

For the Paper Girls Challenge Blog's newest challenge, Becci is asking us to "Love Your Love" and create something love themed. I made this little swing card for my valentine. 

It is also the third installment of the Card Club at Soul Sentiments. Uh, sooooo cute and easy! I can't wait to play around with the technique now and do some shaped swings. 

We chose some Bella! Christmas papers (the whole pack was just red and white) and then set to work. The kraft paper is from MME Kraft Funday and was glued to both sides of the swing. I made a custom sentiment on the Cameo for all students, and then pasted it down with Glossy Accents because it was so fragile I was worried about it falling off!

Everything is inked with Stazon Black and I did some simple embellishing with my iRock.

This class will be on February 9 at 1:30 pm., call the store with questions or to sign up.

Washi wreath

Today I have another fun project I made for a Soul Sentiments class - this project didn't even start like this. It wasn't working the way we'd planned so I adapted it in a way that would use materials already prepped, cough, cough, 80 paper feathers. 

I wrapped a Styrofoam wreath with some MME washi, and then glued on these fun feathers and flowers that I cut on my Cameo. All the papers were from old MME 6x6 pads that have been hanging around in my stash for a long time. 

Super simple, right?! But oh so cute! I'm so over winter and ready for spring and this wreath makes me smile every time I see it.

This class will be on February 22 at 10:30 a.m., call the store for more details.

Chalk Studio cards

I know, I know. It has been a long time since I just crafted and blogged for the sake of it. Please forgive me, but know that I've been working on some fun projects and classes. These cards are a sort of "sneak peak" at one I made for New Year's that you'll in a little over a week. 

I was working on all three while at my LSS' monthly crop day (at the beginning of the month!) and we got to talking. While we got a lot of planning for classes in the next couple of months done, and I taught the owner a little about using her unused Silhouette Cameo, these cards were all I had to show for my day away from home. But they're so fun! It was nice to break into my own stash and wontonly create.

Paper: MME Chalk Studio

Feather trim: Recollections

Feathers: Paper Studio

Cork arrow: Fancy Pants
Enamel Dots: Teresa Collins

Paper flowers: Graphic 45 staples

Brad: Basic Grey

Ink: Ranger Distress Worn Lipstick

Practical Scrappers Card Sketch

Wowzers! I can't believe that November is here already which means it is time for the November card sketch at Practical Scrappers. I used a 6x6 My Mind's Eye paper pad, "All Spice." I just loved how the colors were very autumn-esque. 

I attempted to use the majority of the pad because it has been in my stash for a while, a few days ago I posted a couple of the cards I'd made with scraps. 

I love how the sketch worked for the floral and geometric prints - it's always nice to have some gender neutral cards hanging around. Am I right or am I right?!

And this last one is probably my favorite. The star is from a Little Yellow Bicycle pack that I bought this summer, and the last one. I may still be using my weird photo set up but I sure did use up some of the 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

So Much Fun

Every so often I just feel a need to break into an unused kit, today was one of those days. I pulled out MME Find Your Wings and Fly Sky's the Limit (love the balloons!) and set to work. 

As inspiration for this page I used the Aquamarine 4 sketch from Scrapbooksteals. Melodee had a great one photo sketch, but I loved these photos from my childhood and cropped them for better composition and used them instead. 

All the papers got a little bit of inking, I really liked the effect that folding the one corner gave to the layout.

The only thing not from Sky's the Limit was the washi, those were all from MME Miss Caroline packs.

Going Together

Yay! It's Friday people! That means many fabulous things, including a new challenge at Scrap Your Story. This week we're talking arrows - the cupid kind, the trendy circle ones, whatever it just needs to have an arrow somewhere.

This is my first try at what I consider to be the "SC look." I don't know that Studio Calico invented the look but it sure is as trendy as their kits are!

For my first attempt I used MME Follow Your Heart as the base and as most of the rectangles. The other paper is MME Quite Contrary. Brads are MME Indie Chic. Alphas are from Authentique and American Crafts.

Spell - SYS sketch week!

"How do you spell?" "What does that spell?" "What rhymes with ___" and any sort of similar variation on the theme fills our conversations with Vance. Which is totally cool and doesn't really phase us anymore, we guide him to sound it out himself typically and then go back to our own devices. But when he brought me a can of soup and the letters 'd' and 'y' and told me he'd spelled candy I knew that it had to be a page - that's a new level of word building right there kids! 

Needless to say, the two Instagram photos I had of him playing around with magnet letters fit perfectly into this week's sketch at Scrap Your Story.  We want to see your take on the sketch - feel free to flip it, rotate, use it as an inspiration point - just make sure if you deviate to far that you tell us!

For mine, I started by pulling out some old My Mind's Eye Quite Contrary, I don't even know when it was released but it was some of the swag I picked up at last year's Scrapbooksteals Retreat. I paired it up with some of the chipboard embellies from Kraft Funday and a journaling card from Lush 2 Orange. 

Now I pretty much stink at drawing so I pulled out my handy Silhouette Cameo and had it cut a series of tiny circles two form the two circles. I hand stitched them with WRMK embroidery floss. 

The title banner was designed to say "party" but I inked it up and then covered it with pieces of a used coffee sleeve and glued the Thickers onto them. 

After I got it all in place, I felt like the circle was really crowded for my journaling and that the opposite corner was to bare so I closed in the page by writing my journaling around the outside - honestly a favorite technique. I loved the white pen journaling so much that I did a little doodling with it to help tie the bright white into the rest of the layout. 

OWH Card template

Last week Operation Write Home posted a tutorial on their Facebook page on how to use several papers from a 6x6 pad at the same time with minimal waste/maximum cards produced. Sweet. So I pulled up Kathryn's blog, converted the dimensions of her templates into two Silhouette cut files (6- 6x6 sheets) and got to work. While setting it up as a file took a bit of time, it's all set up for next time!  

I used the template twice, and still need to embellish six of the cards, but here's most of what I got done using the template.

Kathryn had matted her shapes using solid cardstock, I used more sheets from my partially used 6x6 MME Lost and Found pad and managed to finish off the pack because I did. Woot. 

Some of my embellishments are from Glitz, like these word stickers. 

These brads are from my stash, probably Paper Studio.

There's also several die cuts from Authentique collections - Blissful and Gathering.

I'm soooo using this template idea again. Seriously, I got all that done in one naptime!

Scrap Your Story - Stitching

It's another Friday! You know what that means right?! Other than being hubby's birthday weekend, it means that it's a Scrap Your Story reveal day! YAY for a technique challenge that is sure to please. We're talking stitching this week - faux, hand, machine doesn't matter as long as it's got the "look."

Don't forget that our challenge schedule is:

 Week 1: Use it (you will be given an item you must incporporate).

Week 2: Theme (your layout and/or photos needs to show this theme).

Week 3: Sketch (flip it, rotate it, tweak it...as long as we can see the basics there).

Week 4: Technique (we will describe/show a technique you must include somewhere)

I do a lot of machine stitching so I switched up my routine by switching my thread colors. Why do I get in such a rut and always leave neutrals at the ready? The red is just so much fun!

This page had been started as a Let's Get Sketchy March entry and wasn't finished in time, but since I'd already planned to do machine stitching I switched it over for our reveal today. So here's the sketch that inspired the look:

Papers are MME Kraft Funday.
Other materials that I used include Ranger Enamel and Glossy Accents, Distress Stickles and Ink in Peeled Paint;  AC Knock Outs Christmas Punch, Jenni Bowlin mini alphas, AC Thickers, Kiwi Lane Templates Adventure 1 and 5, Washi by Love My Tapes, MME, and WRMK; and machine stitching.

And now to go celebrate with the hubby while you all cook up some fabulous pages!

Such A Goof

Vance absolutely adores playing with cameras - on our phones, my old point and shoot, on the computers, etc. That means we have quite a few goofy photos, and I just love them all! 

For this page, based on the Let's Get Sketchy April week 2 sketch, I busted out my MME Indie Chic Nutmeg. Yummy. There's so many things I love about this kit - the names (love the spicy theme!), the colors, and those fabulous brads. 

A lot of fussy cutting went into this, the rose on the far left, the blue chevron band, and the vertical rows. The rows were fussy cut and then glued on strips from the opposite side of their paper. 

For the title, I pulled together some Jenni Bowlin alphas, an October Afternoon Sticky Keys, and some Amy Tangerine Thickers (I inked them to match the other colors on the page).

And here's the sketch that inspired me:

Nothing Should Separate a Boy from the Dirt

You know, sometimes I am really good at things. Sometimes not so much. After years of editing in high school and college journalism there are some words that still trip me up after all these years, and as soon as I started writing this post I noticed I spelled the title wrong on my layout. EEK! Guess I'll have to go in and see if I can edit that sucker. 

This page is based on the Scrapbooksteals MWM Amber 7 sketch by Melodee. 

The base is cream cardstock misted with Mister Huey's over a Studio Calico mask and then splattered. 

The rest of the papers are from various My Mind's Eye lines. 

I used Kiwi Lane Templates for the tags and the scallopy borders. 

WRMK and Paper Studio brads.

The chevron title card was made from striped Kraft Funday glued into a chevron with Jenni Bowlin mini alphas and October Afternoon Sticky Keys. 

American Crafts blue and white twine and Thickers.

Colorbox black pigment ink and machine stitching.

The sketch.

I'm also linking this one up to About a Boy's April 1 challenge - use chevrons.

Scrap Your Story - Spring

At Scrap Your Story this week we're challenging you to embrace spring. We want to see your flowers, spring color, spring pics, Easter, whatever makes you think "spring."

I pulled out some photos from March 2012 - we went on a road trip with friends the weekend before Spring Break and their college-aged daughter took these photos while we were enjoying unseasonably warm weather.

When I started playing around with the page it sort of morphed from my original idea and I realized I'd scraplifted myself. But as much as I liked that layout, I LOVE the way this one turned out.  

I created a mask using a shape from the Silhouette Studio software.

I used October Afternoon Sprinklers and American Crafts Mister Huey's. 

Patterned papers are Pink Paislee's Prairie Hill, plus a few Glitz Designs and Echo ParkScraps.

Grey Cardstock is American Crafts.

Embossing folder from Lifestyle Crafts.

Embellishments include: Prima flowers, Girl's Paperie brads, Glitz Designs dimensional stickers, My Mind's Eye stickers and twine, WRMK eyelets and twine.

Machine stitching and lots of inking with Distress Ink in Walnut Stain.

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!