Playing with chipboard

There is a bit of a glare on the top picture, but I tried using some of the chipboard I had purchased recently when it was on clearance on the SU! website. In this layout I just painted the chipboard with some acrylic paint. Earlier today, though, I made a layout and mixed some frost white shimmer paint with real red re-inker and then sprinkled dazzling diamonds all over the finished chipboard - that turned out really nicely, also.

Here I just used the picture of our empty plate of cookies to emphasize the sentiment and journaling as well as the point of the story. (Halleigh didn't think anyone had come to see her on Christmas morning this year...the plate finally gave it away to get her to go in to the living room and find all of her presents!)

Christmas Jingle SS kit, gold thread, Flirty Chocolate Chip ribbon, Ginormous Flowers chipboard.

Sweet little additions to our family

Here is a darling little layout I made of my brother and his son. The picture is not great, but I really like the way it turned out. I pleated my ribbon at the top and used a couple of rub-ons to look like I sewed on it.
I used the Merry Moments patterned paper and Christmas Jingle Simply Scrappin' kit among other supplies to create this page.

More simply scrappin'

Here is another set of pages created with the oh, so wonderful simply scrappin' kits! I love the fact that these kits are already put together, all you have to do is decide how to use it! I hardly added anything to the pages that didn't come in the kit!

For these pages I used the Jingle This Simply Scrappin' kit. I loved the sentiments about creating smiles at holiday time and family joy - I thought they went perfectly with the pictures of my daughter playing with her cousin. I added some gold brads, a scallop edge, a mini library clip, and some die cuts from the scribbles and swirls sizzlit. Finally, a touch of ribbon and glitter - and don't forget Rudolph's red brad for his nose! The pages came together quickly....too bad our dear Kentucky Wildcats didn't get their teamwork together more quickly! Oh, well, at least I got some scrapping done during the first loss of the season!

Shh...don't tell!

With Valentine's day coming soon, I'm trying to make a few things for my dear hubby in secret. I know that he certainly doesn't read my blog, so I think I'm safe! I loved this idea from Andrea Walford to make a little album with the glassine bags. They are beautiful like vellum, so I think I may finish off the bag outsides with some rub-ons before the big day arrives. I love the new embossing folders, too!

Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho, it's back to work I go!!!

Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho, it's back to work I go! Boo hoo....no more snow days for a while. And no more school days off until April (ah, the whines of a schoolteacher, huh?!) Oh, well....I'm still crafting away before I go to bed when I can. So, anyway, enough whining and on to the projects, eh?
Both of the projects on this post are inspired by Andrea Walford. The top card is made completely from scraps. I used some of the in colors from last year and the new bird punch to make this card. It's pretty straightforward - the bird wings all have dazzling diamonds glitter on them. I used my new scallop trim punch and the branches were cut out in both chocolate chip and kiwi kiss. I cut out the leaves and glued them on top of the chocolate chip branch so they looked more like a real branch.

As for the box...it got a little smooshed in the scanner....

Real Red, chocolate chip and very vanilla was the color scheme on this one. I used my I {heart} hearts stamp set for the hearts. The two larger hearts were sprayed with shimmer mist and the smallest heart was punched with a 1/2" circle punch and placed in a build-a-brad.

More sketch inspiration

Here is a final page I made for my Disney album. I used the sketch below to create it. I am ready to move on to more colors and choices, so whatever I do next is not going to stick to one patterned paper pack!!! I used the inside of the chipboard pieces from the calendar to create the glittery green flower in the bottom corner. Underneath the journaling spot are some leftover curly label punches and tags. I just layered them using different colored scraps that matched the colors in the layout.

I {heart} birthdays!

Here is a quick card I made for my sister in law's birthday. I mostly used scraps of Tempting Turquoise, Pixie Pink, Pink Passion and a kraft card base. I stamped the birthday cake using staz-on onto watercolor paper and watercolored with my blender pens. For the turquoise paper on the bottom layer, I made heart masks using my heart punches. Then I sponged pink passion over the masks. Finally, I stamped a few hearts over the mask using more pink passion. Quick and easy!

Sketches for You challenge

Here is the title page for my next to last layout in our Disney/SeaWorld album...I've been trucking right through this album between vacation, snow days, and some great sketches! Here is the sketch I used for this page. Can you believe I've only used one pack of Animal Stories paper to do this album? I must say, though, that I'm ready to move back into my scrapping with any color scheme I want. I like some albums to stick to a color scheme all the way through and others I just pick randomly what I want in there. One more page and then my own virtual color freedom! Silly, aren't I?!?!

Sketches for you

My blogging friend, Renee, showed me a sketch site that focuses on scrapbook pages, so I couldn't resist giving the sketches a few tries. I always do double page layouts, but I was able to get everything except the title on the first page.

I used a So Safron background with Chocolate Chip and Rose Red accents. For my corner accent, I cut out a little giraffe from a piece of patterned paper to look like it was going up and down on the merry go round with me. My journaling spots I made using the Write Stuff download for My Digital Studio. I printed them out on Whisper White paper and cut them out - the 2 part journaling spots worked really well with this page. Finally, for my chipboard letters/heart, I used a brayer to roll on Rose Red ink and then I sprayed them with homemade chocolate chip shimmer mist (I'm in love with that stuff!!!)

Check the Sketches for You website out at: http://sketchesforyou.ning.com/

I guess it's time for me to re-stock my paper....I've scrapped so many pages recently that I'm runnning out of some of my colors! That's a good and bad problem to have!
Our Sea World pictures were all good, but not great, so I decided to highlight the moments I savored from that trip. Since I was out of brilliant blue paper, I decided to just make my own background using whisper white and brayer over a mask to create a base landscape. I didn't want it to be too busy, so I just made water and sky. I started at the bottom with Tempting Turquoise and Brilliant Blue. At the top, I used Soft Sky and Baja Breeze.

Next, I made a few embellishments to add to my dolphin stickers. On the first page, I made some circles using the Circle Circus stamp set. I stamped the scalloped image in tempting turquoise and the top image in brilliant blue. I always think that the top image looks like water, so I added some turquoise glitter with crystal effects to some of the bubbles and then plain crystal effects to some of the empty bubbles. I ended by using stampin' dimensionals to place it on top of the scalloped circle.

On the second page, I used a stick pin and a scrap of ribbon from my ribbon jar and some seed beads to create a wavy little accent. I didn't want the pin to stick anything, though, so I stuck a stampin' dimensional to the bottom and put a Tempting Turquoise button on top of the dimensional. I added a tiny sliver of brilliant blue to the center of the button to make it look like it was threaded, too.

Michelle Zindorf cases

I am so thankful for amazing artists in the Stampin' Up world who are willing to share and teach beginners like me! Two of my favorite "teachers" are Andrea Walford and Michelle Zindorf. I have learned so very much from reading their blogs and tutorials!
I cased both of these card ideas from Michelle Zindorf's outstanding tutorials. I have a hostess of our club this weekend who has two boys, so I always try to create some more masculine looking items for her projects. I just couldn't decide which card to use? Which one do you like better?

Stencil + Shimmer Mist = great background!

Okay, if you are a blog surfer, you know who I'm talking about when I say I had a Jan Tink moment last night. It doesn't happen often and my husband thought I was crazy....I said, "Oh, yes....I love myself!!!" If you know me, you know that NEVER happens!
I was just so pleased at this thought...I've been loving the idea of the tattered angels plastic stencils that are used for the glimmer mist spray and since I don't have a store anywhere near here that sells things like that, I thought...hmmm. I could make one!
Enter the Tulipe die cut for the Big Shot...I made my own stencil using the die cut and made some fresh chocolate chip homemade shimmer mist. I sprayed the lovely shimmer mist over my stencil onto Old Olive and (blurry as it may be...) I had a lovely shimmery background for my page!
I used the Fresh Cuts stamp set and the Wings of Friendship hostess set for the images. Old Olive, Rose Red, So Saffron, Sahara Sand, Taken With Teal color scheme and a few pearls from the pretties kit. Finally, I stamped/framed the sentiment using the curly label movable die cut. I just cut around the edge of the perforated edges to create the frame and popped the inside up with stampin' dimensionals.
If you want to make this page and a few other projects, the club meeting is Sunday at 3:00 p.m. at my home!

Love the new Sweet Pea Stitched Felt!

Once again, here are some pictures that are necessary for our scrapbook, but they are the kind of pictures that just make me happy when I look at them. Those moments when everyone is just plain happy! Playing on a huge playground in Animal Kingdom after a long day was fun for everyone, so I was just wanted something sweet to remind me of that moment.

Enter Sweet Pea Stitched Felt...the name says it all...these felt pieces are just so darling! I LOVE them! Additional supplies used were rose red and chocolate chip cardstock, some stickers from an old Simply Scrappin' kit, old designer paper, and rose red stitched grosgrain ribbon.

Twinking stars

Upon first look at these pictures you might really not think much about them...even my husband didn't think anything about them. But they reminded me of that precious little 2 year old voice singing, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Halleigh was just so cute and I wanted to capture the movement of the water flowing through her hands just as star dust might flow through the sky. Thus, the idea for random swirls with stars. I simply hand cut lots of swirls and whimsical stars to match the stars on Ariel's grotto from some of my scraps (I seemed to run out of my endless supply of paper rather quickly on vacation!) and sprinkled lots of Dazzling Diamonds on them...I ran out of that, too...boo hoo! Finally, I added the whale and a swirly title and journaling to extend the movement across both pages.

Magical Memories

I have 5 layouts to share in the next few days - I did them all when we were away from home! That's the best part about sticking to one set of patterned paper and color scheme - it takes all the time spent choosing things out of creating a layout. I took about 3 sheets of each color in my color scheme and one pack of patterned paper and nearly ran out! Anyway, I am using the Animal Stories patterned paper and stamp set that matches. In the layout above, I just had to use the elephant since the kids were playing on the Dumbo ride! I doodled some swirls with my glue pen and sprinkled on Dazzling Diamonds to make it look like the elephant was spraying water everywhere. Since I only had a short amount of supplies, I just wrote my title over top of that with my Chocolate Chip pen.

For my Magical Memories page, I went with Brilliant Blue to match the top of the Magic Kingdom. I added some hand cut ears to my journaling spot and then just drew the title with my glue pen and poured some ultra fine glitter on top. Hey, it works - and the sparkle just adds to the magical feel! I made some extra flowers using my Cheep Talk stamp set and sprinkled more glitter to the center of those flowers and some flowers from a different sheet of patterned paper.

All right, enough of my jabbering for now...more tomorrow!

Happy New Year!

What better way to celebrate the New Year than with some new stamp sets and new cards? I must admit that my dear hubby was so wonderful this Christmas - he gave me a sizzix die cut, several scrapbook idea books, gift certificates to the Melting Pot (a fondue restaurant), and some scrapbook luggage to take on trips with me. Therefore, since I didn't want to hurt his feelings, I felt the urge to use it right away, of course!!!
The next few days I will try to share with you some of the cards and pages I made during my blogging break - a few days with family and friends. This first card uses the Very Vintage stamp set - Bermuda Bay, Rose Red, and Soft Sude. I just love how the flower edges curl up like a real flower when you wrap it gently around a pencil!

The next two cards I made in the car while riding through Alabama! They both used scraps that I had leftover from the scrapbook pages made while on vacation! I sponged the whisper white card base with Brilliant Blue, then used a scrap of chocolate chip and rose red to mat the Animal Stories patterned paper. Next, I matted a rose red and Brilliant Blue flower on Chocolate Chip paper. I just love that Vintage Vogue set!

I must say that the stark white cardstock base looks so plain next to all of my other cards! I used some more scraps of Animal Stories paper. I matted the patterned paper as well as some Whisper White cardstock on Old Olive. I used the Cheep Talk stamp set with so saffron, Old Olive, and Brilliant Blue. I finished the card off with a few so saffron and brilliant blue brads. While I don't think it is my best card, it's not too bad for making it in the car!