Non-Valentine's Love card

While this set screams "Valentine's Day" to me, I don't see any reason LOVE needs to stay one day a year.  So, I went with some non-traditional eggplant-purple to see if I could make an everyday-love card.  I think it works.  :)

Ingredients:
Stamps: (Loads of Love): Ippity
Ink: (Basic Black, Whisper White): Stampin Up
Paper: (Basic Black, Eggplant Envy- LONG out of production, Whisper White): Stampin' Up
Misc: (Eggplant Envy Marker- LONG out of production): Stampin' Up, (Red Le Plume II Marker): Marvy, Copics, Red grosgrain

Challenges:
Marathon Challenge: Miles 6 & 7: Eggplant
Apron Strings: #17: BINGO- All cardstock
Shopping our Stash: #41: Sentiments required
Unity Stamp Co. Challenge: Hearts other than red/pink.  Ok.  There are a few small red hearts here but the large and bulk of them are purple.  Again, the point was NOT a Valentine's style card.
Chick Challenges: #19 (I had used SU's Background Basics to "spatter" the 3 purple panels and assembled the card before I realized this is an Ippity ONLY challenge so I went back and sponged over the spatter.  I hope it meets criteria.)

 

This is the original version:

 

Musical Challenge Reminder- LOW ENTRIES

I posted a layout the other day as my DT inspiration piece for the Get Hippity with Ippity challenge.  The theme this time around is MUSIC.  While it's nice if you use an Ippity or Unity stamp and it WILL get you a second entry in the drawing, you can use anything!  Please- we'd love to have you join us!

Children's Museum LO

Gads I love the My Mind's Eye "Complete Boy" stack!  I generally have no desire to have 2 of something but I may have to see if I can lay hands on another one of this one!  I haven't used much of it yet but I'm starting to go to it more and more and I'm going to cry when one day, something I want is all used up.  I used 5 papers from it and 1 solid for this LO.

I actually want to go back and make a 2nd page to this one.  It'll be be picture heavy but NOT a full collage like the Festival of Lights 2nd page- ARGH!

Ingredients:
Papers: (All print paper- Complete Boy): My Mind's Eye, (Solid CS): Coredinations
Other: (Rub ons): October Afternoon

Challenges:
Apron Strings: #17?  3 patterened papers (Layer Cake)
Sketches in Thyme: Bonus Open Feb. Challenge- use any sketch
Scrapbook Steals: Amethyst #1/Winter Challenge #1

Festival of Lights

Last Nov, we had the chance to walk through an amazing Christmas lights display.  It's one of those things that AAA advertises as a "must-attend" and traffic backs up for miles every weekend for 2 months.  We drove through the previous year on a COLD week night so it was sane and very nice to see.  However, when I saw that Make-a-Wish was doing a fundraiser where you could walk part of the lights, I jumped on it.  During the 3mi walk, I snapped as many photos as I could while trying not to be trampled by the hundreds of other people and not fall off the road into ravines around it (it's pitch black except for all of the Christmas lights.)  A lot of the photos turned out well so I have a LOT of photos of lights and hadn't figured out how to scrap them.  THEN...

I loved the sketch I saw over on Club CK and it worked for the scads of photos... well, most of them.  In the end, I had enough to cover 2 pages but I couldn't cut them all down to 2x3" so I did a 2nd page with some different sizes.  The catch is that the 2nd page HURT to make.  I was a yearbook editor in college.  I beat into my staff that we would NOT collage pictures.  Everything HAD to be captioned.  Everything needed a way off of the page.  There were rules.  I STILL follow those rules.  There MUST be journalling.  Collages are BAD.  And I made a collage page.  My editorial soul is still screaming at the injustice of it all.  I feel for it but it can just scream because darn it, I got all of those pictures on the spread and my kid likes it.  Good 'nuf.

I did have to share one additional thing.  When I was trying to get pix of these (hard because of all of the insane reflections off of that many photos), I tried to lean the pages on the stairs.  Didn't work- someone else had to be in the photos and obviously wasn't concerned that I was trying to accomplish something.  *sigh*

Ingredients- This is an easy one!
Paper: (Green Galore, Very Vanilla, Basic Black): Stampin Up
Stamp: (Tag): Stampin' Up
Ink: (Basic Black): Stampin' Up
Rub ons: October Afternoon

Challenges:
Apron Strings: #16: Candles (Rub-ons)
Club CK: 1hr Challenge:

Harmonica Boy LO and DT announcement!

There's a challenge over at Get Hippity with Ippity (GHWI) to create a musical layout.  While I don't have any muscial stamps, what I do have is a Tim Holtz musical embossing folder, some really cool Ippity banner stamps, and some photos of a silly, musical boy.  This is the layout I did for that challenge:

You may, or more likely may not ;) remember that I was guest designer over at GHWI back in Oct.  I've submitted a few other projects and have really enjoyed working with the stamps.  If you're not familiar with them, Ippity is a division of Unity and the stamps are quality just like Unity- deep cut, red rubber and generally inexpensive.  (I'm not trying to spout, just to tell you my honest feelings... honest!)  Well, to my surprise, the other evening I received an email from Aletha Williams, GHWI owner and a {ippity} chick asking me to join her design team.  Needless to say I didn't take too long to think about THAT one!  So, as of this week, I've finally, happily joined several other very talented ladies on my first design team.

Anywho.  Enough about me! 

Layout details:
The white mats were dinged up with Antique Linen distress ink so they matched the background paper- straight white was too white, vanilla was too vanilla.  I did the same for the journalling paper.
I stamped the banners on some blue papers that matched the background.  I then embossed them and cut out only the inner section of the banner.  I adhered those on top of other banners I'd stamped.  I punched out small holes on the banners and ran bakers' twine through them.  I also added small chipboard banners, dinged like the other white papers, to the tops of the stamped/embossed banners for a bit more visual interest.  The one thing I may go back and do is cut some thicker layers for the title letters.  While I like them plain yellow on the background, they get a bit lost.  I think if I give them some more height, they may stand out just enough.

Ingredients:
Stamps: (The Best): Ippity
Inks: (Summer Sun, Basic Black): Stampin' Up, (Antique Linen): Tim Holtz
Papers: (Summer Sun, Brocade Blue, Whisper White cardstocks): Stampin' Up, (Saturdays: Easy Breezy) Little Yellow Bicycle
Stamps: (The Best): Ippity 
Misc: (Baker's Twine): Whisker Graphics, (Chipboard banners): Maya Road, (Die-cut letters): Tim Holtz Typeset die

Challenges:
I'm using this towards my Apron Strings #14: 3 pcs of chipboard

Channeling Elvis

It's gonna be a blue Christmas.

I picked this set up off of eBay several years ago and have never used it.  I loved it.  I had to have it.  I passed it up in the catalog and kicked myself until I got it.  Then I just couldn't make it work.  It's funny though.  I looked at it last night and suddenly saw all kinds of possibilities I never did before- guess I just had to grow into it.

You can see in the 2nd two photos that the white frame is both a pearlescent paper to match the pearls on the tree and it's a bit raised.  It had been flat against the blue but needed something else.  Pop dots would have shown too much, been a bit too high, and left sags between them so I made a 4 paper-layer shim for it to give it a bit of lift.

Ingredients:
Cardstock: (Whisper White, Night of Navy): Stampin' Up (Arctic Snow): The Paper Company
Stamps: (The Snowflake Spot, Trim the Tree): Stampin' Up
Ink: (Night of Navy): Stampin' Up
Misc: (Tag die): Cuttlebug, (Ribbon): May Arts, (Twine): Whisker Graphics, (Pearl Pen): Viva


Challenges:
Moxie Fab: The Cure for Winter Blues
Winter Wonderland: Christmas
Apron Strings: #15: Frosting (2 kinds of ribbon)

Scheduled test post

Please ignore- just testing scheduling posts.

REALLY CAS card!

I'm not sure if this is CAS or just a little not-enough.  I saw these really cute felt stickers at Michaels the other day for like $1.28.  There are going to be lots of little boy birthday cards in my future so I thought I'd start making a stock of them and these would be great for them.  I wanted to keep it simple so I did.  At first the white background was PLAIN and screamingly boring.  I found an embossing plate I have of small diamonds- looks astoundingly like snake scales actually.  YAY!

Ingredients:
Cardstock: SU
Stamps: Studio G
Sticker: Pebbles
Embossing Plate: Fiskars

Challenges:
Stamp, Scrap & Doodle Saturdays: More than 2 layers
Apron Strings #13: Stickers (Fruit filling from recipe challenge)
C.R.A.F.T.: #142: No designer papers
Scrappy Chick Sunday Sketch: SCSSC05

It's a bit early but...

Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez!

 

"Obsessed" Layout

So I went to a crop last night at my LSS and instead of trying to start and finish a few projects, I simply got several started.  I took a few sketches, the photos and paper for them and did the trimming, cropping, gluing, etc.  What I didn't do was take the journalling bits, embellishments, title letters, etc.  That's why I'm able to post multiple project pix today- because today was the "easy" part.

The challenge over at Better Living Through Scrapbooking is to scrap something we're obsessed with.  I started to try to figure out how I'd do a Facebook LO since I'm frequently on it keeping up with friends far away.  However, in the process of coming up with a FB photo, I came across an Angry Birds one and I immediately knew THAT was it.  I LOVE Angry Birds.  It's silly and a waste of time I know but it's just SO much fun and I HAVE to get 3 stars on every board so it can be a bit intense.  I found the picture of the birds reposted on line and HAD to work with it- someone did some really fantastic artwork there!  (Sorry whoever you are but your work is amazing!)  DCWV's sketch works BEAUTIFULLY with the theme and their "Latte" stack's colors are great with the picture.  Then, trying to figure out what I'd use for circles, I realized those would be a PERFECT was to incorporate the pigs.  What DIDN'T just fall together?!  I seriously considered titling it, "Gonna smash me some pigs" but 1. it didn't fit and 2. I thought I'd stick with the "love" theme.  So, voila.  The "pennants" are shimmery and the heart is reflective so I've taken a few pictures that show the light hitting the page at different angles.

Challenges:

• Better Living Through Scrapbooking: Feb #2: Obsession w/ 2 of the following: Lace, Solid Background (kraft paper), 3. typed/computered journalling.
• Apron Strings: #12: Something you don't normally do: 1. I infrequently scrap me, 2. I really don't scrap "funny", 3. I've never used shimmery or reflective papers and 4. though my DH would like me to type more journalling, I handwrite it 99.99% of the time.
• C.R.A.F.T Challenge: #142: No designer papers.  While there are papers from stacks, they're not print.
• DCWV: Feb Stack Challenge: (All pennants from Latte, heart from Citrus)
  

Egg Hunt pages

Well, since it's getting close to egg hunt time, I thought I'd scrap one... from 2009.  Hey!  At least I'm gettin' it done!  ;)

Ingredients:

All print paper: DCWV Lemon Flower Stack

White paper: Stampin' Up

Egg Stamps: Studio G?

Twine: Divine Twine

Misc: Gem brads, Thickers

Challenges:

• Craft Marathon: Miles 1&2: Apple Green AND Miles 3&4: Yellow.  I almost never use either Apple Green OR yellow but when I was thinking about scrapping these photos, it was after both of these challenges were posted.  I initially planned to do the first page but wanted to also incorporate the playground photos.  I decided to do the 2nd page and yellow was the perfect color for it. 
• Apron Strings: #9: Do a layout in an hour.  I was doing good until I decided that the banner should be little eggs.  If it weren't for those, I think an hour would have been good for one, a bit longer for the whole spread though doing the 2nd page was easy after I figured out the 1st.  Though bloody little eggs added at least another hour to the project.
• Desert Island Crafters: #25:  2 or more patterned papers, stars, green, sparkle/bling, kraft, polka dots, twine, stitching (faux or real), 2 or more die cuts, stickers
• Simon Says Stamp: Anything Goes
• Frosted Designs: Sketch Challenge #34

Birthday card for DH

Yep.  Mr. Man has a birthday tomorrow so I kinda needed to come up with a card.  Valentine's may come later but the cards have to be done first to hit the post office in time.  It occurred to me last night that I'd better cook up a card pretty quick.  I picked up a fun set of manly-man stamps from Stampin' Up last year and have been wanting to use them so here was my chance. 

I dinged up the Vanilla cardstock with True Thyme and Forest Foliage inks to match the patterned papers.


Ingredients:
Print paper: (Complete Boy stack) My Mind's Eye
Cardstock: (Very Vanilla, Crumbcake) Stampin' Up
Stamps: (To a Classic) Stampin' Up
Ink: (True Thyme, Forest Foliage) Stampin' Up
Misc (Pastels) Stampin' Up, (Gear) Tim Holtz, Watch parts

Challenges
My Mind's Eye #32: Theme: You.  While it doesn't say "Happy birthday to you," I think it's pretty well implied.  Also, 80% of the card content has to be MME.  I'm not sure if I have that but all print papers are from the Complete Boy stack (striped and dotted papers in the back and the punched circles) so I'm hoping this counts.

Valentine's card #2 for the day!

Yeah. Did I mention I went a bit crazy with the Valentine's cards today?  This one turned out SO much better than I could have hoped.  I don't usually use markers to color my stamps since I don't 1. stamp with "solid" stamps often and 2. stamp with solid ornate stamps at all.  Until now.  I stumbled on a Stampin' Up Valentine's stamp I got after the big day last year.  Needless to say, it's been languishing unused and pretty much forgotten on the shelf.  However, I found it again today and decided it needed a bit more than a single ink-pad treatment so I thought I'd try my markers, not truly expecting anything great.  I actually stamped off the hot pink once just to see how it was starting to look.  When it looked good, I thought I'd leave it that way and maybe get a lighter pink off of those areas.  And it worked.  SHOCKER!  :)  Here's the final result with an updated REAL light photo.

The "love" sentiment is a bit more blah than I'd like but the stamped image is definitely the focal point anyway.

Ingredients: All Stampin' Up except markers
Paper: Whisper White, Real Red, Pink Passion

Stamps: Be My Valentine, Wonderful Words

Ink: Basic Black

Punch: Heart-to-Heart
Markers: Le Plume II


Challenges:
Craft Your Passion #96: Anything goes with no patterned paper
Apron Strings Bingo Card: Paint or Ink.  I hope I'm not pushing this one too far but I'm saying ink/markers on the stamped image since it's its own type of beast and not just a plain stamped image.


Just to get EVERYTHING out there from today, I also banged out this simple little thing for my 4yr old.  He's an absolute olive JUNKIE and I bought this set just for this one stamp for him.  It's an SU set on SU paper and colored with SU pastels.  The 2nd sentiment is from a Katie & Co. stamp.

First sewn "layered" card... finally!

I LOVE all of these projects I've seen around with the multi-layered punched papers sewn down so the layers stack 3-dimensionally and I've wanted to try one.  For a while.  A long while.  Really.  Problem is that I just don't like sewing.  At all.  Really.  However, I had to hem some pants for DH earlier this week and the machine is still out and ready to run so today was the day.  As easy as it was, I really should have done this much sooner.

Ingredients: Hey look!  More of that SU patterned paper!  :)
Paper: (Patterned paper, Whisper White, Real Red) Stampin' Up
Stamp: (Picture This) Stampin' Up
Ink: (Real Red) Stampin' Up
Punches: (Full Heart, Heart to Heart) Stampin' Up, (Corner rounder) EK Success


Challenges:
CAS-ual Fridays #39: Love Ya To Pieces (Paper-piecing.  OK.  My little heart is SMALL but I think it really kinda finishes off the card.  It really wasn't the same without it.)
Tip Top Tuesday #69: Valentine's
Frosted Designs: LOVE (While it doesn't SAY "love," that's what the heart "says."
Apron Strings Bingo Card: New to you technique

"Wooden" Valentine Card

I say wooden because so much of this card has a woodgrain stamp or emboss to it.

It's maybe a bit plainer than I'd like but I didn't want to go crazy with it either so voila!  There it is!


Ingredients:
Paper: (Whisper White, Real Red, Kraft) Stampin' Up
Stamps: (Love Bandit, Woodgrain, I {Heart} Hearts) Stampin' Up
Ink: (Basic Brown, Basic Black) Stampin' Up, (Walnut Stain) Ranger
Misc: (Woodgrain embossing folder) Sizzix, (Top Note die, Heart punch) Stampin' Up


Challenges:
Craft Your Challenge #96: Anything Goes + No patterned papers
Whimsical Designs: Colors of Love (Red, White + 1 color (brown)) 
The Kraft Journal: La La Luv You

Love Potion Card

I have to admit, I really like this one.  I wanted to add some more layers of color to the base card itself but I wanted to keep it on vanilla so I decided to trim down the vanilla card itself and just put it on pink and brown backer cards.  You can see what I'm talking about better in the 2nd photo.

Ingredients: 
Paper: (Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Regal Rose, Whisper White, DSP) Stampin' Up
Stamps: (Love Potion #9) Unity
Ink: (Basic Black, Real Red) Stampin' Up
Misc: (Heart punch) Stampin' Up, (Icicle Stickles) Ranger, Copics


Challenges:

• Shopping Our Stash #38: Hearts, Valentines or Lace: I'm again using more of that SU Valentine's paper I bought 2 or 3 years ago that I've just been holding onto.
• iCopic #68: Hearts
• Stamp, Scrap & Doodle Saturdays: Die Cuts or Punches: The heart is punched- there would have been 2 but the one on the left was too much.
• Whimsical Designs: Bringing out the Old: Again, that paper!  I LOVED it!  I HAD to have it!  I haven't used it until this year because I just didn't want to use it up.  Go figure.  :)
• Unity: Valentine's
• Sweet Stop Sketches #144: I held fairly true though I moved the sentiment up and removed the embellishment on the left.  I tried to add something there but it just ended up very cluttered with the 3 potions pop-dotted right next to it.

• I'm also using this towards my "Bingo" card over at Apron Strings (3 patterned papers)

Valentine's/Wedding card

I made this card as a wedding card with a Valentine's look.  I need a card for my cousin and his wife for their wedding but since their reception is Feb. 17, I thought giving it a Valentine's slant would be both appropriate and nice.  The crowns are gold-inked which you can really see in the right light and I went back and added a bit of pearl pen to their "spikes" which you can see in the close-up.

Ingredients:
Cardstock: (Whisper White, Real Red, Regal Rose, Crumbcake (kraft), Chocolate Chip) Stampin' Up
Ink: (Regal Rose, Basic Brown) Stampin' Up, (Gold) Encore
Stamps: (Posh) Teresa Collins, (Happy Harmony) Stampin' Up
Misc: (Baker's Twine) Whisper Graphics, (Lace Punch) Martha Stewart, (Pearl Pen) Viva Decor

Challenges:
Frosted Designs: Sketch #11: I was a bit loose with the sketch but I think it's definitely still close enough to be recognizable. 

Moxie Fab: Tuesday Trigger: I definitely went with the color scheme from these and I couldn't help but use the little birds - those dots and Pearl Penned crowns match the non-pareils wonderfully! :) And man! I want a petit-four right now!!! 

Stamp, Scrap & Doodle Saturdays: Anything Goes
Create: Valentine's
Simon Says Stamp: Kings & Queens
Kraft Journal: Romantic
Tip Top Tuesday: Valentine's
Sarah Hurley: #59: Love is All Around

Valentine's Banner

Well, you knew it was coming, right?  We've made it through Halloween, Christmas, and Winter so here's the newest addition to my collection, Valentine's.

 

The long short of this is that the large hearts were traced off of a wooden heart and hand cut from SU designer papers.  The letters were glittered and pop-dotted onto the hearts (which were simply glued together.)  I used a jumpring to dangle small, embossed cardstock hearts from the larger ones.  As with my other banners, I put eyelets in where the ribbon attaches to the hearts to help strengthen them.  At both ends of the banner, I hung a small glass "bubble-heart" for accent.



Ingredients:
All paper: Stampin' Up
Cuts/Punches (Wow, that sounds violent!): Alpha: Cricut (George), Small Hearts (SU punch)
Other: Glitter: Martha Stewart, Jumprings, Brown satin ribbon, Eyelets, Glass hearts (Oriental Trading), Embossing folders (diamond, dot & "flower")

Challenges:
Better Living Through Scrapbooking #2: Pink & Brown (Ok, so there's more than P&B but they're definitely not in the background!)
Tip Top Tuesday: Valentine's
Die Cutin' Divas #50: Anything Goes

I'm also linking this up at link parties over at Tatertots & Jello and The Grant Life.