May Card Sketch With Practical Scrappers

A very happy Friday to you!  I am very excited that we are getting ready to head into a 3 day weekend with lots of celebrating, since my littlest turns 1 on Monday!  Today though, I want to share my take on this month's card sketch over at Practical Scrappers.

I had a lot of fun mixing and matching patterns from Allison Kreft for Webster's Pages Sweet Notes line.  I kept most of the squares single color patterns and then brought it all together with the multi-color heart print. I layered my squares atop a piece of white chevron transparency (also from Sweet Notes and pretty much one of my favorite scrapbooking products ever) and topped them with some Sweet Notes stickers and some Freckled Fawn wood veneer hearts.

It is a simple card, but I really love how it turned out.  Definitely has a bright and happy feel.

Head on over to Practical Scrappers to check out the sketch and more of my fellow designers' interpretations!

Kiwi Lane and Technique Tuesday with Project Life

Today I get to bring you a Tuesday Tip with Kiwi Lane Designs and Technique Tuesday.  I love stamping and Technique Tuesday makes some of the best stamps out there.  With lots of word and short snippet stamps, Technique Tuesday has a lot of stamps that were perfect to use with my designer templates and Project Life!

I am a weekly Project Lifer and the designer templates are a lot of fun to use to add just an added little touch without adding any bulk!  Bulk is not the friend of Project Life page protectors and the templates allow extra embellishment with just paper.

I had fun using the Technique Tuesday stamps to add emphasis to my cards - such as the hello under the picture of my little or the believe on my Playtime 4 dragonfly card.  I also had fun cutting apart the star from Adventure 1 to make banners and arrows.  Plus, Technique Tuesday's journaling cards fit perfectly in the 3x4 pockets of the Project Life page protectors and are great for extended writing and journaling.

To check out another Project Life spread (my week 18) and some close up photos and techniques I used, head on over to Kiwi Lane and check out my post over there!

Practical Scrappers - Ten Things: Titles

It's Tuesday and that means it is time for a new Ten Things from Practical Scrappers.  This week the team is tackling unique ways to make your titles stand out on your layout.

I've been making a conscious effort to use my Cameo a bit more, so I thought it would be fun to do a big title cut out of my background paper.  I love this saying and knew it was perfect for all of these photos of family that I had from a recent family weekend.

I backed the title with washi tape in a rainbow of color and then to emphasize the word amazing I backed it in black sequins.  I love how the title came together.

Then I sprinkled sequins, enamel dots, and ink splatters around around the title to give it a festive happy feel.

Because there was so much color in the title, I kept my photos in black and white.  Backing them with a very strips of colorful patterned paper and adding embellishments in a few different colors scattered among the photos.

The layout is a bit different from my normal, but I really like how it turned out and how pretty all of the colors are.  

Swing over to Practical Scrappers today to check out more inspiration for doing unique and special titles on your layouts!

Paper Girls Challenge Blog - Color Palette and Project Life

A very fine Monday morning to you!  Today I'm hosting the challenge over at the Paper Girls Challenge Blog and this week I decided to do a color palette challenge.

I was inspired by this piece of paper from the Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm line!

I really love all of the colors of the Lucky Charm collection and then happens to be my favorite.  I like the navy, coral, and cream with the pops of pink, yellow, and green.  The deeper navy really allows the other colors to pop and sparkle.

I decided to do a Project Life spread using the inspiration paper as my title card and then building the rest of the spread around that.  I actually used quite a bit of the Lucky Charm line, but I also added in some materials from Studio Calico, Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper, and Freckled Fawn.

Head on over the PCGB and join us in this week's challenge!!  I cannot wait to see what you create using navy, coral, and cream!

Practical Scrappers May Sketch

A very happy Friday everyone!  Today I'm here with the Practical Scrappers May layout sketch!  Once again the talented Liz Chidster gave us a very fun sketch to work with.  Head over to Practical Scrappers to check out the sketch and see my fellow designers interpretations.

It was a fun challenge to do a layered chevron background, since I often do a flat background with maybe some paint or mist.  I used my May Studio Calico kit for this layout.  I love the navy, pink, and yellow color scheme.  

I layered embellishments from Studio Calico, Fancy Pants Designs, and Freckled Fawn to create my clusters.

Letters from Little Yellow Bicycle and Glitz Designs came together for the title, along with some Studio Calico vellum arrows (love the Atlantic vellum die cut pack!)

Hope you enjoyed this peek at my layout for this month's sketch.  Again head over to Practical Scrappers to see the sketch and get more inspiration!

Practical Scrappers and Water Colors

Hello everyone!  Today I'm here to share a layout using watercoloring techniques on your scrapbook pages. Today over at Practical Scrappers we have a bunch of ideas for how to use watercolors on your projects.

I decided to do my watercoloring on a piece of fabric.  Studio Calico sends these adorable little fabric bags with our kits. They are some pretty awesome packing materials.  I have been trying to decide what to use them for (I have dozens of them) so after I saw the tutorial from Celine Navarro for how to use mists to watercolor on fabric I had an epiphany!

I first painted by fabric with a thin layer of gesso.  Then I traced the yarn heart cut with a grey sharpie.  Then I painted each yarn hard with masking fluid.  From there, I sprayed water and three different mists (Mister Huey's in Pretty Pink and Mint Julep and Color Shine in Gold).  Once dry I used a pencil eraser to remove the masking fluid (so much easier on my fingers) and had this fun background.

The colors of the background were perfect to go with Maggie Holmes' line for Crate Paper and I loved how they went with this airy and soft photos of our family vacation to the coast in August of 2011.  All of the little bits and pieces from Maggie's line worked together great to form these embellishment clusters.

Since Maggie's frames had stitching already built in, I decided to finally pull out my sewing machine and put it to work.  I love how the stitching adds such a fun little touch.

So head on over to Practical Scrappers today to get more inspiration for using watercolors on your layouts and projects!

Playing with Number Stickers

I really like it when NSD rolls around.  Even though I don't often have time to complete many of the challenges before the deadline has passed to be eligible for prizes, I always get lots of great ideas.  Though I say that and this one was completed on time.

One of Studio Calico's challenges was to use your number stickers.  I thought about it for awhile and had one of those moments of inspiration that just hits.  I had this photo of my daughter that I knew I wanted to scrapbook because it just is her, so very her (drool covered clothes and all) and I thought I could title the layout "11 months" and then use other number stickers to create a pattern of sorts.

With the weight of the darker photo and the black number stickers, I wanted to keep the rest of the layout light and airy.  So I grabbed what I had left of Elle's Studio's Serendipity and got to layering.  

My finishing touches were some Studio Calico cork embellishments from their new Atlantic line.  I think I found something I love about as much as wood veneer.  :)

Thanks for stopping by!!  Hope you enjoyed looking at my page!

Paper Girls Challenge - Doodling!

Happiest of Mondays everyone!  Today I'm here to share some ideas for doodling on your projects for the Paper Girls Challenge Blog!  I personally take a pen to my projects quite often for that finishing touch.  Whether I'm adding faux stitching (usually because I don't have my sewing machine handy) or I'm adding some swirls or hearts or stars, I love the look that some hand doodling adds to a page.

On this layout, I honestly went mixed media crazy with molding paste, water colors, hand stitching, and doodling.  I was inspired that day I guess.  :)

I tucked some doodling around the edges of my focal point, just to add a little touch.

I also hand drew the 3 orange arrows to draw the eye in.  Clearly the doodling isn't perfect, but I think that is the point of doodling!  It is fun and whimsical and a little messy.

A little bit more doodling inspiration.  You know all of those free printables out there for Project Life?  They are super cute all on their own, but you can personalize them and really make them pop with just a few markers and some time.  I did these 6 cards while watching TV in about an hour or so.  I love how they pop and are just so different with such simple touches!

So get out your markers, pencils, etc and join us at PGCB and share your doodling projects with us!

A Layout About Me!

I have a challenge group with friends where we give each other challenges to inspire and challenge us in our crafting.  This last week our challenge was to scrap a layout about ourselves.  We had to use our favorite color, an embellishment that represents something we love, and our journaling was to celebrate ourselves!

I really debated what papers to use and ultimately ended up with some Elle's Studio for my background and then a bunch of Glitz Designs Love You Madly papers, die cuts, and embellishments.  I loved the pink and blue color scheme (my two favorite colors) and I thought it was quite appropriate to use a love themed collection when doing a layout of myself.  :)

I used the die cut frame to represent my love of nature and flowers.  It is pretty abstract, but I prefer my embellishments to not be strongly themed.  My journaling is hidden away on the tag which pulls out.  :)

I love the multi faceted gems in the Glitz Collections and I had fun added three of them to my layout.

I did a layer of stamping in the upper corner of my layout.  I loved the heart (and exclusive from Studio Calico's Pop Off the Page 2 class).  I stamped it in Pumice Stone Distress ink for a soft and well, distressed look.

I love all of the transparencies in the Glitz collections and I layered several of them onto the layout - including  this little doily.  It actually has a much larger saying than just "smile" but I loved it and love how it peeks out with just the single word.

I know I've been behind on posting my Project Life spreads!  I'm not getting them done as quickly each week and then I just forget to post them!  They won't be up here on time this week, but keep an eye out on the Kiwi Lane blog for lots of Project Life inspiration this month from me and my fellow designers!

Practical Scrappers Folded Paper and an exciting announcement

Happiest of Tuesdays and the last day (!) of April to everyone!  I'm stopping by today with a new layout for the Ten Things team at Practical Scrappers and an exciting announcement!

Today over at Practical Scrappers we are featuring different technique and ways to use folded paper on your layouts.  I decided to tear the edges of some of my layers and fold parts of the papers over to create more interest, more dimension, and even more layers.

I used my Spencers (April) kit from Studio Calico for this layout.  A lot of the papers are from Glitz Designs Color Me Happy.  I loved this photo of my little one playing and grinning from ear to ear and I wanted to do a cheery happy layout with this picture.

The title actually is on one of the Glitz papers on a banner that looks like it was written on a chalkboard.  Unfortunately I could not make the actual cut out of the banner work on the page no matter what I did, so I decided to use the same phrase just make it out of Thickers.  I'll be honest, the title still kinda makes me crazy, since foam Thickers never seem to want to lay right, but it is cute and fun.

I had fun building lots of layers with washi, paper, die cuts and stickers.  Seriously, how awesome is that Basic Grey view finder die cut?!?

I also added some metal "paper clips" to add more layers.

Here is a close up of some of the torn and folded paper.  Such a fun look!

So head over to Practical Scrappers today to check out other ways to use folded paper on your projects!

And now for the big announcement!  I'm super excited to share that I am going to be on the Little Yellow Bicycle Cycling Team for their new release Poppy!  I cannot wait to work with them and their new line!