Page Maps sketch

Well, other than being pictures of Niagara Falls, there is a reason for this title. If you can't read the journaling, my husband got me with one of his corny jokes. As we were getting close to downtown Niagara Falls, my husband said, "Look, something is on fire!" I said, "Oh, wow. That must be a really big fire - and look - it seems to be right in the middle of downtown!" Can I just blame it on a blonde moment? It was simply the mist of Niagara Falls spraying that high into the air. Can we say massive waterfall?!
So, anyway, the specs on the layout for my last 8 X 8 page in this album...SU Rainbow Sherbert DSP, Gable Green, Tempting Turquoise ink, glitter, and grosgrain ribbon. White Hodgepodge Hardware in the center of the flowers. Stamps used were from the Enjoy Every Moment and On Your Birthday sets.

6 X 6 Album in 3 hours

Okay, so here is a post that shows the card and

6X6 album that I made the day my newest relative
was born. Since Brinklee was born on Memorial Day, it made a perfect day to do a power scrap project!

You'll notice almost everything in the card and the album use the SU Baby Girl Simply Scrappin' kit. Obviously, you could do this with any kit, I just went with the baby girl kit for pretty obvious reasons! I tried to keep the pictures small so it won't take forever and a day to download this, so feel free to click on the pictures for a more close up view.

Here is the cover page - nice and simple. All included in the kit other than some Old Olive grosgrain ribbon across the bottom there. Most of these layouts are good for just putting a picture down and being done with the page.

The next pages I made included an introducing baby page where you can list all the specifics of the baby's birth. She was a darling 7 pounds and 11 ounces and had a full head of dark hair, by the way!

Here is an inside page. The flowers are actually stickers and then I made the center of the top flower with a button. The bashful blue has a scalloped edge using the punch. The only other thing I added was a stamp from the Stitched Exotics which comes out from underneath the flowers.

Here is another inside page. I just tore a scrap of paper to make the edges. I punched a few scallop shapes as well as a few flowers with my big shot and made the side borders. All of the side stickers with words are related to each month of the babies first year or a milestone the baby will do during that first year.

Here is another page that added a few punches from the big shot. This time I used the stars #2 to create the accents. The only other thing I added was some ribbon across the bottom.

Another page made with a few punches,
stickers, ribbon and a hand-crocheted flower that my friend made for me. I thought the colors matched the album colors nicely.

Once again, I punched some circles and some hearts to make this page. I made a little bow with the ribbon to accent the sticker and attached a button in the center of it.

I know I had some other pages in there, but I think they got lost between my camera and the computer...you know how that goes! Anyway, this is the final page. As you can see, nothing special went into this album but the love and time it took to make it. Anyone can make this! And...I have enough left for another one!

Sketch 25

One more layout and I'm done with last year's vacation! I love working with sketches when I'm creating scrapbook layouts and I enjoy trying to do the sketch challenges on scrapbook blogs. Here is a layout I created using sketch #25 from My Scrap Shoppe.

For the base I used Kraft colored paper. Matting the picture is Ruby Red. My patterned paper is from the Sweet Slumber DSP from SU. The red heart is handmade by my friend Hannah. I also stamped in the cloud using the Great Friend set and on a canvas cut using the A little Somethin' set in Ruby Red as well as Seeing Spots in Baja Blue. Underneath that is a journaling mat from Heidi Grace.

CD scrapbook and album

Being the frugal environmentalist that I am, I decided to try and make one of these little CD albums. No - it's not an album to hold CDs! I used a bunch of those silly CDs that come in the mail or the ones that won't burn anything so they end up being useless...you know the ones I mean.
Anyway, I thought this would be the perfect little project to let everyone try out the circle cutter. The basic supplies used were Baja Breeze, Basic Grey, and Kiwi Kiss inks, ribbons, and papers and A Walk in the Park DSP.
On the front I created a monogram using Lovely Letters. Then, I used the square frame from the Frames with a Flourish set. Finally, I used some Stampin' Dimensionals and the square scallop to add the sentiment from the Punches Three set.
More sentiments and stamps come from the Great Friend stamp set and Warm Words set. I used a rub-on from the Hidden Garden set. All of the die-cuts above and below come from the Matchbox die cut and the Birds and Branches sizzlit. Finally, don't forget your Crop-a-dile to punch right throught those CDs!

Now, if you think this is too girly, then go make one for your son or husband using some soccer, baseball, or basketball pictures. Can't you just picture the cover page? Go for it - you can finish a project like this in a day or less!!

PDQ Page

Now here's a page done quickly! This pink flamingo paper is too cute not to use on a summer trip to the zoo. It's too cute to cover up, too! Therefore I used the top part of the page for the pictures and left the bottom just for show.
Tempting Turquoise was the accent paper, grosgrain ribbon and brad. Punches used were the scallop oval and the scallop edge. Rub-ons came from the Summer Love set in the mini-catalogue. You can't see it, but the turquoise oval punch has the other part of that oval rub-on. I put the oval texture on the bottom and popped up the title in Whisper White.

Which bear do you like?

For my club meeting this month my hostess, Angel let me borrow a few of her manly stamp sets to help create a Father's day card. I chose to use the bold images of the retired SU stamp set called Pines. I really like the solid images and thought they would make pretty brayered landscape scenes.
For the top card, I stamped the pine tree image in Always Artichoke and the bear in black and then embossed each with clear embossing powder. Then I brayered Old Olive on the bottom for the grass and then sponged Garden Green around the edge. Finally, I brayered Baja Breeze on the sky. I punched out a circle to mask a moon and then sponged over that with Not Quite Navy. One last stamped image of geese in Not Quite Navy and then I finished off the card with just a little white grommet and Artichoke ribbon and plain brown jute. This sample turned out to be my favorite card of the two.

My husband liked this card better for the colors. This one used the same basic beginning, although I embossed the geese in black and did not create a sun or moon. I used Baja Breeze and Not Quite Navy to create water at the bottom. Next, I brayered and sponged with Close to Cocoa to create the ground. Above that I layered So Saffron, More Mustard, Pumpkin Pie, and Really Rust. I personally thought it was too plain without any embellishments, but my darling hubby liked it the best. I guess we all know which card he's getting for Father's day! Tee hee!

Beautiful page

I must say that the color combo for this page was a little odd to me. I was inspired to create the page based on the colors of the hydrangea bush. I love hydrangeas (even though I believe I have successfully killed my once lovely bush) and I thought Pixie Pink, Lovely Lilac and Kiwi Kiss would make a striking color combo to set off the pristine colors of the hydrangeas.

I thought that until I laid all the papers out together....and they laid there...and they laid there....finally I started making some flowers with my Manhattan Flowers set (I know - they are not the same....). I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do.

Finally I decided I must put my mind to it and just do something with my ideas. Here's how it turned out. Much better than what I thought!

I used my friends Cricut to create the title and a few of those pearls from the pretties kit. The DSP is Urban Oasis and what's a pretty page without some eyelet border along the side? You can't see it, but in the top corner of the 1st page, it says Beauty is in God's handwriting - the sentiment from the God's Beauty set.

Flutter by page

I absolutely jam-packed this page with my pictures of butterflies! I can't believe I was able to get 7 pictures on an 8X8 spread! I guess it's a little busy, but I must admit that I DID tame down my picture choices to only the best ones! I can't help it...I just love butterflies!

Do you ever feel like you just love your patterned paper so much that you just end up hoarding it? I do! I finally decided to just start using it. It's not like I didn't just buy some since it was on sale!

Anyway, my favorite butterfly (that was impossible to photograph!) was the blue morpho butterfly, so I decided to use my new butterfly stamp to create one of my own. I stamped the butterfly onto Pacific Point in black and then I embossed it with clear embossing powder. The designer paper was the Good Morning Sunshine paper. The stamps all came from God's Beauty. My punched butterflies came from my Big Shot and my friend's darling little Martha Stewart punch. Thanks, Dolli!

Niagara Falls page

Well, I had such a fun time tonight scrapping with my friend Dolli. She was a LOT faster at scrapping than me! But, I was really proud of myself to get 3 double page layouts done in one night. Our husbands are out for the night for their annual campout (although they stay in cabins now...guess that's what happens after 22 years!)

Here are a FEW of our pictures from Niagara Falls - I know we took over 100 pictures! I somehow managed to scrap all night tonight without any sketches - it's amazing, I know!

I always feel like my layouts end up looking the same, so I decided to try something different with this one. I used a picture for the title and had a cascading effect with the Kiwi Kiss DSP on the 2nd page. Finally, I went with the bubble effect to add to the water idea. I thought the Seeing Spots stamp set would match the Good Morning Sunshine DSP effectively, also.

My colors are Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss, and Pacific Point. There are a few Pacific Point buttons and brads on there also.

Wedding shower card

One of the new teachers at our school is getting married this summer, so we had a shower for her just the other day. Since she is such a doll and a sweet club member, I decided to go all out and make her a wedding cake pop-up card.
I used Almost Amethyst and Pretty in Pink with a little Basic Grey ink. I flipped the Sweet Sunday sketch at http://kgiron.blogspot.com/ to help my idea for the design. The Lovey Dovey heart is actually stamped i grey on a piece fo white paper, but I watercolored it with Amethyst with my Aqua Painter. The other sentiment is from the 8 Great Greetings set. I added a white grommet and some white satin ribbon and it was a nice little cluster on the front.
The inside uses the pop-up cake. In addition to the white satin, I added just a little grey taffeta ribbon and a small white flower and pearl.

New big shot die cut

I looked on a great new website I just discovered thanks to Liz of my SCS blogger group: http://myscrapshoppe.blogspot.com/ I love to use sketches to help me create my pages. It's just one more step I can use that helps me save time, and since I'm a pretty linear and simple scrapper, they usually work well for my purposes.

So, anyway, the first page is based on the sketch and the second page of the layout is just an extension of that. If you're wondering about the title, my daughter used to say, "Sh, sisen" when she wanted us to listen to something and we just thought that was adorable. Even better, my husband caught a picture of her saying that when we were camping last summer - how sweet!

The layout uses Kiwi Kiss, Basic Grey, and A Walk in the Park DSP. I liked being able to add my new birds and branches die-cut for this page. It filled in a little white space that was just too empty and also contributed to the nature theme. I wanted just a touch of bling, so I added a little turqoise glitter to the bird and the pond that surrounds the journaling. The ribbon is basic grey taffeta and the stamp set is Defining Alphabet with Whisper White craft ink.

Gettin' my scrappin' mojo back....

I got some of the featured Canvas Cuts product in and wanted to try using them. I'm doing a product share this month with the Canvas Cuts and the Fashion District rub-ons if anyone is interested. You will get 2 sheets of Canvas Cuts and 1 sheet of the coordinating rub-ons.
Anyway, I used the Wanted stamp set and stamped pumpkin pie and real red on the canvas cuts. It kind of has a cool look. The only non-SU product is a Making Memories wilderness tag that used canvas. I thought that would go well not only with the page, but also with the canvas cuts. The DSP is Urban Oasis and the background color is kraft. I saw on another demo's website the idea of layering the buttons and brads, so I thought that would add my final touch of texture. Finally, I wanted to use the outside of the smallest piece of canvas to highlight the mosquito bites that were already surfacing before the end of our one hour hike! Those Canadian mosquitos are hard core!!! At least the scenery was beautiful!

Journey

I used a sketch I found on a fellow SCS blogger's post to create this layout. I saw the sketch here: http://lgoldhawk.blogspot.com/2009/04/sketch-52.html

I really liked the sketch, but if you've been following my blog, you know I haven't had time to sit down and scrapbook for about a month.
Anyway, it's probably a little overkill to put all three pictures here, but I liked the scan for it's details and the photo for the flow of the layout.

Sooooo.....if you think the color scheme looks familiar, I have found that choosing a color scheme that has already been created works really well to save time (and since I'm behind on my scrapbooks by about a year....). So, I wanted to go with Tangerine Tango to match the orange and found the only color scheme in the new catalogue DSP - it was the baby boy simply scrappin' color scheme. Add a few circles, scallop edges, rhinestone brads and a quick and simple layout that I could finish within an hour or so.

I used the Baroque Motifs stamp set, the Define your life stamp set, and Frames with a Flourish to add the finishing touches.

Giggle

I finally got to sit and just scrap tonight. 10 more days of school and then I'm planning some all-scrap days with my pals!

I got my inspiration for this layout from the back cover of the SU Catalogue Preview. I think they used So Saffron on a one-page layout. I liked the idea, though and thought I could stretch it out over 2 pages and here's what I came up with. Although, I did realize that trying to make swirly journaling based on the swirls in the corner was not as easy as I thought it would be...oh, well.

I used Pixie Pink, Pink Passion, and Gable Green. Hodgepodge Hardware, Exotic Blooms, and Warm Words and my white gel pen for the page. The only non-SU product was a little bit of ribbon I found for a quarter and just couldn't resist!
So...what can you find in the SU catalogue or mini-catalogue to inspire you? Get to scrappin' and stampin'!

Early Father's day projects

Well, if all turns out well tomorrow, I will finally get to do a party for a dear friend here in town who runs a terrific day care. She was looking for simple projects that her daycare children could create for their fathers. I first made a scallop envelope basket the Big Shot and the 8 Great Greetings stamp set. When I demonstrate this tomorrow, I think I will attach the handle with brads so that children could place a cupcake into the basket if necessary.

The final request for this party was a bookmark on which a scripture could be written. Since I didn't have a scripture, I just used this sentiment - I thought this would be nice for a Father's day bookmark. Simple, but sweet from a child.