Encre, papier, ciseaux

Treats Takeout

After finishing my scrapbook page, I decided to use the leftover papers and stickers to make more treat boxes, which I plan to give to my office colleagues. This was really quick - I used the die from the set to create little insert to go in the front and back, and matted them using the Perfect Layers rulers (which are great when working with wonky angles). I used Black Foil paper and Dazzling Diamonds glimmer paper for a touch of shimmer. The candy jar sticker was too big, so I cut the bottom off, and after gluing it in place, I covered the jar with Glossy Accents. Those are probably the simplest takeout boxes I've done so far. (See Batch 1, Batch 2 and Batch 3.)

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers and Stickers: Bewitched (Echo Park)
Cardstock: Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper, Black Foil Paper (Stampin' Up!)
Dies: Takeout Framelits (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!); Glossy Accents (Ranger)

 

Halloween 2017

Inspiration: Lasting Memory Layout challenge #470 (Halloween) + July 2018 Page Maps sketch

When I saw that the theme of this week's scrapbook challenge was Halloween, I went digging through past pictures and printed out a few to scrap. The colors happened to match pretty well with the Bewitched papers from Echo Park I happened to have lying around, waiting to be used. I bought only a few sheets from the collection, along with the sticker sheets, which has some awesome images, so I went pretty sticker-happy on my page.

The Page Maps sketch reminded me of a big moon, so I die-cut a large circle out of glimmer paper and added the witch and bats (instead of butterflies) over it. I was working merrily on my page and I was all done when I realized that I hadn't added a title anywhere. Sadly, this is not the only time that's every happened. Luckily, the Alphanumeric Cutout Lower alphabet I was planning to use was small enough to squeeze the title in at the top. (I realized the title wouldn't fit on the moon when I saw how much space the witch was taking, so I knew I had to move it elsewhere and that's when I forgot about it when I started moving on to the other parts of the page.)

 

 

 

  

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Perfect Plum Core'dinations, Peach Passion, Tango Tangerine,
Myths & Magic 6" x 6" Glimmer Paper (Stampin' Up!)
Dies: Alphanumeric Cutout Lower Alphabet (Tim Holtz for Sizzix);
Stitched Rectangle Stackables (Lawn Fawn); Circle Layering (Tonic)
Patterned Papers and Stickers: Bewitched (Echo Park)
Accessories: Black Trim, Stampin' Dimensionals, Spiderweb Doilies, Halloween Night Enamel Dots (Stampin' Up!);
Black Rhinestones (Recollections); White Gel Pen (Gelly Roll);
Bayberry Cottage Flip notes (Pink Paislee); Circle Dies (Tonic)

 

Hocus Pocus Tote Bag

Inspiration: The Inspired By Challenge #95

I wanted to use my Hocus Pocus stamp set before Halloween rolled around and I got the idea to pair it with my Tote Bag die. The colours from the inspiration picture reminded me of Doodlebug Design patterns, so I picked paper from the Booville collection. I was inspired to create an opening and add some Pearlescent Vellum in it. I was looking at my Outside In dies to see what I had that would leave stitching on the bag and the star shape caught my eye. I initially started with the opening only and I realized I could use the Sttiched Star Frames to add a second colour around the star as well.

I coloured my images with Copic markers, die-cut them and arranged them on the front of the bag using black Stampin' Dimensionals. I added a few Crystal Stars and some Iridescent Mini Star Confetti (love adding those on my projects, they are tiny and subtle but they give the best shimmer). I tied Black/Melon Mambo twine around the handle.

For the back of the tote, I simply used the star shape leftover from the front of the bag (the green backside), I added a stitched frame around it using Lovely Lipstick foil paper (offered during Sale-A-Bration last Spring), glued a button in the center and realized I hadn't used my spider image on the front, so I was able to add it to the back and fill in the space with it. I'm already done with my treat bags for the office, but this one might go to my niece. It's cute and colorful, so I think it would be right up her alley. I could fit a Kinder egg in there or a couple mini boxes of Smarties.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Hocus Pocus (Waffle Flower)
Cardstock: Whisper White, Lovely Lipstick Foil Paper (Stampin' Up!); Pearlescent Vellum (Lawn Fawn)
Patterned Papers: Booville (Doodlebug Design)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Accessories: Hocus Pocus Dies (Waffle Flower); Tote Bag, Outside In Stitched Star Stackables Dies,
Stitched Star Frames Dies (Lawn Fawn); Crystal Stars (Buttons Galore & More);
Iridescent Mini Star Confetti (Pretty Pink Posh); Markers (Copic); Black Stampin' Dimensionals,
Black/Melon Mambo Baker's Twine (Stampin' Up!); Glitter Gloss Aqua Shimmer Brush (Nuvo)

 

Cocktails

Design inspired by Page Maps 20418 May Sketch + Lasting Memory Layout Challenge #469

I had this photo on my phone that I've always meant to scrapbook and somehow it got forgotten in the shuffle. When I pulled out of the tiki and cactus papers from Doodlebug, I went back to the picture and decided it deserved its own page. My niece, who was not even two at the time, absolutely wanted to look at the cocktail menu (probably because of all of the pretty, colorful pictures). That picture cracks me up, with her little finger in the air, as if she's about to point to what she wants. This is even funnier with her sippy cup showing in the forefront!

I used leftover papers from the Fun in the Sun collection from Doodlebug and when all out with drink stickers, sprinkles and doodle-pops. Doodlebug always comes out with the cutest embellishments, but I will admit I don't buy a ton of them because they can quickly get really expensive! I let myself get sucked into buying some last year because it was probably the best selection they had ever offered. I was a little less reluctant to use them on a page than I was on a card, so I went all out here. I also used their drink washi tape at the bottom.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: In Stitches Wheel (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Baked Brown Sugar (Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Bazzill
Patterned Papers: Fun in the Sun (Doodlebug Design)
Accessories: Fruit Punch Doodle-Pops, Tropical Punch Shape Sprinkles, Sunkissed Fancy Frills
Fun in the Sun Icons, Tropical Punch Washi Tape (Doodlebug Design); Glossy Accents (Ranger);
InkJoy Gel Pens (PaperMate); Bonjour Thickers (American Crafts); Tangerine Cord (Lawn Fawn);
Mini Silver Stars Adhesive-Backed Holographic Film (Funky Films); Decorative Scissors;
Everyday Label Punch (Stampin' Up!)

 

Two Final Halloween Takeout Boxes

Inspiration: Fusion Challenge

I needed two more takeout boxes to round out the number I needed for the office. I pulled out the Witches' Brew Designer Series Paper from a couple of years ago and put together those simple but adorable takeout boxes. The first was decorated with the Pumpkin Patch stamp set and the second with the Spooky Cat stamp set (both retired).

To play on the takeout theme, I wanted to tape an "order receipt" to the top of each boxes, with the name of my coworkers on it. I wasn't sure how to go about it, but I found a stamp that says "Special Delivery" in last year's hostess set In the City (probably meant for baby cards, but perfect here), so I stamped it repeatedly on a strip of Very Vanilla cardstock, tore the top and cut the sides with pinking scissors. Then, I handwrote the name of the person the box goes to and taped the receipt to the top of the box (or the back, in one case where the ribbon bow was in the way).

 

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies
Stamps: Pumpkin Patch, Mystérieux félin (Spooky Cat)
Cardstock: Thick Very Vanilla
Designer Series Paper: Witches' Brew
Ink: Tuxedo Black Memento, VersaMark, Pumpkin Pie, Smoky Slate, Basic Grey
Accessories: Takeout Framelits Dies, Pumpkin pie Satin Ribbon,
Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder, Mini Stampin' Dimensionals, Sponge Dauber
Non-Stampin' Up! Accessories: Candy Corn Twine (Lawn Fawn);
Black Glitter Washi Tape, Foil Paper Dots, Pinking Decorative Scissors (unknown sources)

 

A Pumpkin Amongst the Spiderwebs

Inspiration: Lawn Fawnatics #62 + Simon Says Stamp Wednesday (Halloween) + Inspired By #94 (Pumpkins)

You would never guess how this project started out based on the finished bag. I was playing around with the Spooky Spiderwebs stencil and Distress Oxide sprays, testing out a few ideas I had in my mind. While I was testing something with Black Soot spray, I had all of this ink sitting on top of the stencil that I didn't want to waste, so I grabbed a piece of cheap white cardstock and made a print. What's ironic is that what I was testing didn't pan out, but I loved the look of the print it had produced. The spiderwebs stamped very clearly on the cardstock, the outside of the stencil created a frame and there were a few spots of inks here and there that looked like intentional splatters, so I knew I had to make something with that piece of cardstock. The printed piece was 6" x 6" like the stencil and I was reluctant to cut it down because I liked the size, which is how the project ended up becoming a gift bag.

The second part of the inspiration was the Lawn Fawnatics challenge. I picked my background colours based on the inspiration picture: Granny Apple Green + Bermuda Bay + Daffodil Delight + Pumpkin Piel. I usually love using my Distress Oxide inks to blend, but because those contain pigment ink, I didn't want to lose the sharpness of the black spiderwebs, so I used my blender brushes with my Classic ink (dye ink). Once I was done, I decided to use the stencil again to cover up the black and I spritzed some shimmery spray over the blended ink to add a sheen.

Because I had a lot of room to fill, I decided to use the adorable pumpkin dies from Lawn Fawn to make a shaker Jack-O-Lantern. I filled it with orange, black and iridescent star sequins. Hindsight is 20/20 - I should have skipped the black sequins just because they sort of distort the pumpkin's face a bit when they peek from behind, but this is really me just being nit-picky.

I found some spiderweb doilies in my stash and thought they would look nice behind the pumpkin. The front side is black and it was getting last against the background, so I used the back, which is white, instead. Adding the black and white striped ribbon at the bottom also made the white tie into the design. Another item I found was some old Making Memories Halloween-themed die-cut. I picked the teal one and I added "Happy Halloween" written with good ol' Dymo tape. I added orange pearls  to the tag and a row of black gemstones at the top.

That black bag is actually a bag I upcycled. Shops are big on cardstock bags for customers' purchases nowadays, and  I keep the ones I think I can decorate and reuse with my gift-wrapping supplies. I was looking at my options and I found this black linen-textured bag which was the exact width I needed for the 6" x 6" panel. Because the store prints its name on both sides of the bag, that meant I also had to decorate the back. I could have done a piece of patterned paper and called it a day, but I was on a roll and I kept going with my designing. I used the same patterned paper as I had for the pumpkin and created a layered stripe. I then used a blender brush and Black Soot Distress Oxide ink to add eyes using the Spooky Eyes stencil from Carta Bella. I've purchased this one a couple of months ago, but I hadn't been able to successfully work the pattern into my designs so far. Here, I made sure to use a light hand with the inking as I wanted a soft look. I wanted to write "boo!" (it's the French spelling, in case you are wondering where I learned to spell...) so I pulled out the Typo Lowercase Bigz die from Tim Holtz and die-cut the letters out of a striped grey and black paper. I added the Spooky Fence Border over it and the Cute Cobweb images. The spiderweb was cut out of Silver glitter paper and the spider out of black foil paper. I found some teal glittery washi tape, so I added a piece to match the front of the bag. The bottom seemed bare, so I added a piece of green sequin trim, also to import another colour from the front, and I decided to stamp one of the ghosts from Booyah on Pearlescent Vellum.

Finally, a Jack-o-Lantern tag was created using the Fall Tiny Tags dies and I hung it from a little silver ball chain - another upcycled element, as those are sometimes used by companies to hand their tags from a garment, so those are really easy to incorporate in crafting projects. I used a bit of tape to get the chain to the height I wanted it to be.

The last touch was spritzing a piece of white tissue paper using Spiced Marmalade Distress Oxide spray. I've purchased about a dozen colours of sprays so far and now that I have them, I'm trying to think of different ways to get a good use out of them. I have to say I was really happy with the tissue paper idea. First, because it adds a fun texture to the paper, with the speckled effect (it might be more uniform if you spritz more ink, but because this is a Halloween bag, I wanted to keep the texture). Second, you can create your own colored tissue paper instead of going out and buying more.

My niece's birthday is coming up at the end of the month. She has not so subtly asked in the past if I had any extra punches to get rid of since she would love to have punches at home. I had a few to give to her, but my sister told me I should wait for her birthday, as she's trying to make sure she doesn't become too spoiled. My actual gift to her is going out and getting her ear pierced. This is something that has been discussed for years, as my niece kept wanting them, then not, then yes, but now, she's made up her mind and has been talking about it for months, so we will be going out together to get her ears pierced. That being said, I'll probably bring the punches to her on her birthday and the bag is just perfect since she picked Halloween as her birthday theme this year. She loves sparkly stuff and handmade stuff, so I think the bag will be going to someone who knows to appreciate it.

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Booyah (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: White; Silver Glimmer Paper (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers: Polka in the Dark, Perfectly Plaid Fall, Beachside, Knit-Picky Fall, Pearlescent Vellum (Lawn Fawn)
Ink: Granny Apple Green, Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie, Bermuda Bay Classic Ink (Stampin' Up!);
Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Stencils: Spooky Spiderwebs (Echo Park); Spooky Eyes (Carta Bella)
Dies: Spooky Fence Border, Cute Cobweb, Booyah, Stitched Pumpkin Frame, Outside In Stitched Pumpkin,
Fall Tiny Tags (Lawn Fawn); Typo Lowercase Alphabet Bigz Dies (Tim Holtz for Sizzix)
Accessories: Black Tape and Label Maker (Dymo); Black and Pumpkin Pie Sequins, Striped Ribbon,
Spritzer Bottle, Frost Shimmer Paint, Spiderweb Doilies, Window Sheet, Washi Tape (Stampin' Up);
Green Sequin Trim, Black Rhinestones (Recollections); Iridescent Mini Star Confetti (Pretty Pink Posh);
Spicy Marmalade Distress Oxide Spray (Ranger);  Ripe Persimmon Pearls (Studio Katia); Blending Tool (Ranger);
Blender Brushes (Picket Fence Studio); Silver Ball Chain, Black Bag, White Tissue Paper (upcycled items)

 

Nutty or Nice

Inspiration: Paper Craft Crew Card Sketch #355

This older Stampin' Up! set has been a long time favorite, and when I pulled out the Holiday Village papers from Bo Bunny, I decided they would look nice paired with the nutcracker. In recent years, Bo Bunny has taken a vintage turn with their papers and their new style does not really line up with mine, but I do have a lot of their older collections. This one has a beautiful soft feel to it and I love the non-traditional colours, with shades of soft yellow and pinks.

While looking for Christmas embellishments, I found some mica flakes and decided to glue some around the corners of my papers. I also added silver tinsel trim, wooden snowflakes and epoxy brads. I love the look of epoxy accents, but I hate the fact that they always end up yellowing. This is especially frustrating considering they are not inexpensive. You can see here that the polka dot background the snowflake have a definite yellow hue to them, but the fact that the papers are yellow helped me work around that and work them into my design.

I colored my nutcracker using my Faber-Castell watercolor pencils and for the first time, I tried regular paintbrushes with a little bucket of water, instead of waterbrushes. I wanted to see if that would produce better results. The answer is no, for now. If anything, I found it harder to control the brushstrokes, but since it was my first try, I probably shouldn't draw conclusions right away. I'll also give my brushes a try with different mediums as well to see what works better with each medium.

Finally, I used a sentiment from the same stamp set and embossed it in Melon Mambo powder on Smoky Slate cardstock. I used a cut-apart from the paper to decorate a matching metallic green envelope.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Santa Stache (Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Melon Mambo, Smoky Slate (Stampin' Up!); Watercolor Paper (Fabriano)
Patterned Papers: Christmas Village (Bo Bunny)
Ink: VersaMark; Jet Black (StazOn)
Accessories: Albrecht-Dürer Watercolor Pencils (Faber-Castell); A2 Fairway Metallic Envelope (envelopes.com);
Sentiment Labels Dies (Simon Says Stamp); Wonky Stitch Rectangle Dies,
Wonky Stitch Square Dies (My Favorite Things); Wooden Snowflakes (Studio Calico);
Iridescent Flakes (Arnold Grummer's); Make It Merry Designer Brads (October Afternoon);
Silver Tinsel Trim, Melon Mambo Stampin' Emboss Powder, Stampin' Dimensionals,
Ticket Corner Punch (Stampin' Up!)

 

Coffin Box

Inspiration: Simon Says Wednesday (Halloween) + Color Throwdown #565

I made a pit stop at Michaels this week and the Halloween items were at half price. They had their coffin dies set left and i decided to bring one home. I was curious to see if I could turn it into a coffin box. I've been mulling over the idea for a couple of days and the Color Throwdown combo finally pushed me to go for it. There was a lot of fidgeting and it's definitely not perfect from every angle, but it's cute. I forgot to take one measurement and the one that I estimated was wrong, so I had to play around to cover my mistake, but I consider that a learning experience for the next time I give this box another try. One of the elements I'm happy I added was a second layer to the die-cut to make the top wider. My die-cut layer is embossed with the Stylish Scroll folder and I added a second piece of black cardstock, which I cut 1/8" larger using the Perfect Layers ruler. I die-cut the spider from the same die set out of grey cardstock and hung it from a piece of silver metallic thread. The bottom of the coffin seemed a little bare, so it became the perfect place to add a sentiment. I found "Open if you dare" in a retired Halloween set, in the perfect size and font, and I was able to fit it into one of the Ornate Frames dies from Stampin' Up! I've been raving about those and as you can see, they're useful for various different projects.

The purple cardstock was stamped with an unmounted wheel design. I wanted to line the inside of the coffin with ribbon and most of my spools were not wide enough to fill in the space. I did find a striped vanilla satin ribbon that was just the right size: it was slightly larger than the box, which was perfect because it gave the satin a little bit of poof when I glued it in place. I also added striped satin ribbon around the coffin.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Large Wheel (name?), L'entrée du cimetière (Graveyard Gate - Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Basic Black, Highland Heather, Smoky Slate, Silver Glimmer Paper (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Highland Heather, Basic Black, VersaMark (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Ornate Frames Dies, Stylish Scroll Embossing Folder, Stampin' Dimensionals, Vanilla Striped Satin Ribbon,
Black Rhinestone Basic Jewels, Clear Stampin' Emboss Powder, Grey Striped Satin Ribbon (Stampin' Up!);
Coffin Dies (Recollections); Grape Crush Gumdrops (Your Next Stamp)

 

Critters & Cocoa

Inspiration: Try Stampin' on Tuesday #430

I had put my Tree Farm stamp set aside so that I could use it again this season and when I pulled out the For the Love of Winter papers from Photoplay, I decided it could work well with the stamp set. The images are quite big and I wanted to create a scene. Because I wasn't sure how much room it would take on the card, I stamped, colored and handcut the images first, selected a die to create the background (Hero Arts' Postage Stamps Infinity Dies) and from there, I decided I would mount the panel on a 4½" x 6" card. I had an idea of the patterned papers I wanted to use for my background, but midway through making my main panel, I got the idea to pull out the Hail Storm Specialty papers from Tonic and then I had to rearrange background papers for a better fit.

I had also put aside a roll of sparkly blue organza ribbon, purchased last year but unused up until now (not for lack of trying). It was working well on this card, but it was getting lost between the two papers, so I cut and punched a strip of Very Vanilla cardstock before adding the ribbon and it instantly looked better.

The border punch I used on the vanilla cardstock creates tiny snowflakes, which I made sure not to discard, and I was able to use them in the top left corner (topped with rhinestones), and inside the card as well to decorate.

I found a sentiment that reads "For a warm season," which was the perfect size and font and goes great with the cocoa-chugging critters. The sentiment was embossed in Platinum powder on navy patterned paper and punched out. I added four pearls to anchor the sentiment lock in place.

Since I was making an oversized card, I used my Envelope Punch Board to make a matching envelope. I added a piece of patterned paper die-cut with the Postage Stamps dies and a hot cocoa sticker from the paper pack.

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Tree Farm (Essentials by Ellen); Cousu avec joie (Stitched with Cheer - Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Tip Top Taupe, Very Vanilla (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers and Stickers: For the Love of Winter (Photoplay)
Ink: Rich Cocoa (Memento); VersaMark
Accessories: Stampin' Dimensionals, Christmas Traditions Punch, Envelope Punch Board,
Pearl and Rhinestone Basic Jewels (Stampin' Up!); Markers (Copic); 
Blue Sparkly Organza Ribbon (Celebrate It); Platinum Embossing Powder (Ranger);
Snowflake Edger Punch (EK Success)

 

In Miss Annie's Class

Inspiration: Lasting Memory Layout Challenge #468 (CRISP = Corner rounder - Rub-ons - Inserts - Stickers - Patterned Papers)

I was excited to scrapbook my niece's first day of first grade using the new school-themed Doodlebug line. I also bought the matching Icons stickers and went to town creating fun inserts for my pocket page. I realized this is only the second pocket page I've done this year - all of the other ones have been traditional scrapbooking. Pocket pages are what brought me back to scrapbooking after card-making took over and felt more simple and organic than scrapbooking did for me, so it's nice to see that I'm now getting back into it more. I think the Page Maps sketches have taken the guesswork out of designing and made a huge difference for me since magazine layouts used to be single-picture layout and not really helpful (and this is where pocket scrapbooking came in and solved that problem for me). In this instance, I didn't have a lot of pictures to include—only two—but I was working with 6" x 6" paper pads so doing inserts made more sense.

I've always loved Doodlebug's papers - they are beyond cute. My one beef with them was how busy the patterns are. I've noticed that the last few paper collections I've bought for them have more tone-on-tone papers included in the collection, which makes me really happy because it makes it easier to create a balanced project. The design rule is one small pattern + one medium pattern + one large. I hope that the company keeps leaning in that direction.

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers and Icons Stickers: School Days, Back to School (Doodlebug Design)
Cardstock: Woodgrain Neutrals (Lawn Fawn)
Alphabets: Metallic Silver Medium Rub-Ons (Doodlebug Design); School Letters Stickers (Karen Foster Design);
Happy Day Thickers (American Crafts)
Accessories: Spiral Border Punch, Washi Tape, Corner Rounder Punch, Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!);
White Gel Pen (Gelly Roll); You're a Star Shape Sprinkles (Doodlebug Design)

 

Christmas Sweater Vest

Inspiration: Simon Says Stamp Wednesday (Christmas) + Festive Friday 44 (ribbon + metallics + inspiration theme - boss' day)

I'm not usually into shaped cards all that much, but when I saw the Sweater Vest dies from Sunny Studio online a couple of months ago, there was something about it that struck my fancy. I was really excited to see the dies shown in my local store weekly new items video, along with the Cable Knit embossing folder, so I made sure to have the owner put one aside for me (with two of their new adorable Christmas paper stacks). When I came back from the store, it's the first thing I pulled out to play with. With Christmas coming up, I wanted to make an "ugly sweater vest" version, but it will also work for other occasions and more generic masculine projects as well. I love the argyle dies, along with the stitching.

There are a couple of things I discovered while working on this project.

1) The patterned paper cracked when I ran it though the Big Shot using the Cable Knit embossing folder. The paper became really fragile and the white core shows, affecting the clarity of the Christmas lightbulb pattern a bit. I didn't want to waste good paper so I ran with it, but next time, I'll lightly spritz the paper with water so that it has more give and I'll also add a layer of printing paper with the patterned paper inside the folder to help prevent the crackling.

2) Be mindful of the way you place the bottom strip die on your patterned paper if the pattern has a direction. I didn't know when I ran it through but the top of the band is straight and the bottom has rounded corner to follow the shape of the sweater, so I was not able to simply turn the band around. The design is tone on tone, so I doubt most people would have noticed, but having the gifts and ornaments upside down was distracting me, so I did a second die-cut to rectify (I recycled the other band inside the card, where I didn't mind it as much).

You can get a shaped card that opens up two ways: die-cut two pieces separately, score the top of the second sweater about a 1/2" down and add adhesive only above the scored line, to get a fold. I used the second method: I prepared a regular-sized A2 card base folded at the top and I placed the die over it, making sure the fold was going OVER the top of the die so that it wouldn't cut the two layers apart. The trick to keeping your full shape is to then add a third layer (in this instance, my patterned paper vest) over the top of the card base and this way, the fold is hidden.

I alternated two patterns of losanges for the argyle pattern and used the stitched X on the green losanges. During my shopping, I had also picked up some neat red confetti from Pretty Pink Posh, which looked really nice placed in the middle of the losanges. For the collar, I layered three of the dies included in the kit and added the bow tie on top. I really love this tie die, as it includes scored lines to mimick the folds and it has the little center as a separate die, which adds nice dimension.

I picked an Anthracite Metallic envelope and decorated it with losanges to match and a dotted rectangle for the address block and as I was about to call it done, the Real Red curly ribbon from Stampin' Up! caught my eye on the side of my desk. I placed it on the vest between the bottom strip and the sweater and really liked the way it added color and texture, so I used my glue strip to glue it down. (I used to use that adhesive all the time for ribbon and such and then I forgot all about it when the 1/8" double-sided tape came out. I remembered I still had some when I took inventory of my adhesive last week. I'll definitely use up the glue lines I have left - which will then free up a space in my rotating caddy for other tools or glue.)

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Thick Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers: Very Merry (Sunny Studio)
Accessories: Real Red 1/8" Curly Ribbon, Mini Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!);
A2 Anthracite Metallic Envelope (envelopes.com); Red Confetti (Pretty Pink Posh);
Cable Knit Embossing Folder, Sweater Vest Dies (Sunny Studio)

 

Retired Couple

Inspiration: Try Stampin' on Tuesday #429

I'm having fun coming back to the adorable On to Adventure stamp set. I figured the traveling couple would look great paired with the Mosaic Mood papers, since they have a bit of a tropical vibe to some of the patterns. I cut two rectangles using the Stitched Rectangle dies and I snipped the corners on the green leaf rectangle to add to the other one. I tied brown twine around each corner for a bit of texture.

On Very Vanilla cardstock, I stamped the couple in Tuxedo Black Memento ink and used Stampin' Blends markers to color them. The top of the panel was a little bit too empty, so I picked the cloud stencil from the Pattern Party set and sponged some Mint Macaron clouds using a sponge dauber.

I wanted my sentiment to be on a travel tag. I looked at options from other stamp set, as On to Adventure hasn't been translated to French, and I found one that says "Mariage is a Journey," which I stamped in Terracotta Tile on Crumb Cake cardstock. I added a hole reinforcer punched out of patterned paper and I inked the edges with Crumb Cake ink to give the tag more dimension. I also inked the edges of a So Saffron panel, embossed with the Hammered Metal embossing folder, which I slid under my main image for a bit of layering. At the last minute, I decided to embellish the tag with In Color Faceted Dots.

 

 

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies
Stamps: On to Adventure, Éclosion de pensées (Flourishing Phrases)
Cardstock: Terrracotta Tile, Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, So Saffron
Designer Series Paper: Mosaic Mood
Ink: uxedo Tuxedo Black Memento, Terracotta Tile, Crumb Cake
Accessories: Nature's Twine, Circle Punches, 2019-2021 In Color Faceted Dots,
Stampin' Dimensionals, Very Vanilla Medium Envelope, Stampin' Blends Mrkers,
Sponge Daubers, Pattern Party Decorative Masks, Hammered Metal 3D Embossing Folder

 

Frosty Flowers

Inspiration: Freshly Made Sketch #406

When I saw the three elements in the corner of the Freshly Made sketch, I thought I could stamp three vases from the Various Vases stamp set, a set I always love to revisit.I had the idea to pair it with the photorealistic paper from the Feels Like Frost Designer Series Paper pack for something different. (The finished card shows how that paper pack can be used for cards that are not winter-related.) I didn't want the card background to be empty so I reached out for the Mercury Glass Designer Acetate, which I purchased during the preorder but hadn't used yet. Those acetate are truly gorgeous!

To ground the vases, I die-cut three frames using the Ornate Frames dies and I sponged the edges. For the largest frame, I create a negative masks with one of the smaller frame and I inked the inside portion with a sponge dauber and Soft Sea Foam ink. I used the same ink to stamp a pattern, using the falling stars image from the Making Christmas Bright stamp set.

The floral images were all hand cut (no die for those, which is unfortunate) and I added the punched vases over them. I stamped a sentiment from the Various Vases set, which reads, "May you day be filled with a bouquet of happiness." I repeated some of the floral and vases images on the envelope to match. I'm surprised at how much I like those colours together, considering I'm not usually big on purple nor on pastels.There is something very elegant and soothing about that colour combo.

Have you been taking part in Stampin' Up!'s challenge from National Card-Making Day last Saturday? Stampin' Up! has encouraged their demonstrators and clients to send out as many cards as possible before October 16th. They're hoping to reach a goal of 50,000 cards. I've already sent out two and I'm planning to send out more this weekend (including the card I'm sharing in this post and a couple of October birthday cards). Have you been sending cards out? I extend the challenge to all of you. I usually send out around 100 cards a year myself - to downline members each month to congratulate them on sales and promotions and welcome new members aboard, birthday cards to friends and a big pile of Christmas cards every year. I always assumed all cardmakers do, but I've been surprised to realize that this is not necessarily the case, and that making cards and sending cards are two distinct hobbies, it seems. I think it's too bad because if card enthousiasts don't keep snail mail alive, who will?

 

 

Color Combo: Seaside Spray + Purple Posy + Highland Heather + Soft Sea Foam

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies
Stamps: Vases divers (Various Vases), Illuminez les Fêtes (Making Christmas Bright)
Cardstock: Seaside Spray, Whisper White, Highland Heather, Purple Posy, Soft Sea Foam
Designer Series Paper: Feels Like Frost, Mercury Glass Designer Acetate
Ink: Seaside Spray, Gorgeous Grape, Highland Heather, Purple Posy, Soft Sea Foam
Accessories: Gorgeous Grape 1/4" Mini Striped Ribbon, Pearl Basic Jewels, White Medium Envelope,
Mini Stampin' Dimensionals, Vases Builder Punch, Ornate Frames Dies, Stitched Rectangle Dies,
Sponge Daubers

 

Pair of Skates

Inspiration: Just Add Ink #478 (Just Add H) + Simon Says Stamp Wednesday (Christmas)

The inspiration letter from Just Add Ink is H, which kept bringing me back to the word "Hiver" (winter). I had the perfect papers in the Feels Like Frost paper stack. I love those papers - the soft colors and silver foil are gorgeous. For the layout, I pulled out my Cardmaps 5 publication and picked one of the bonus sketches at the end. I knew the skate image would be perfect, so I stamped the skate twice in Night of Navy cardstock on Thick Whisper White cardstock and die-cut them out. I then watercolored them using ink.

Since the Free Skate stamp set is only offered in English, I went looking for a French sentiment in my other sets. I found "Have a nice Holiday season" in the Christmas Traditions stamp set from the punch box kit offered last year. I got it on the sale at the end of the catalogue period, which was late in the season, so I hadn't had the chance to ink it up yet. I liked how the shape of the sentiment fit the curve of the skate nicely, so I stamped it on patterned paper from the same collection and die-cut with the Stitched Shapes dies.

I wanted to watercolor the holly and berry image amd to stamp the image in Night of Navy to match the rest of the card so to avoid ink bleeding, I pourred clear embossing powder on the ink before it dried to protect the ink and be able to watercolor. I used Rococo Rose and Soft Sea Foam. Those two colors look great with Purple Posy. Now that the ink is finally available, I'll have to revisit that soft color combo on other projects.

 

 

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies
Stamps: Free Skate
Cardstock: Purple Posy, Thick Whisper White, Soft Sea Foam, Highland Heather
Designer Series Paper: Feels Like Frost
Ink: Night of Navy, Seaside Spray, Rococo Rose, Soft Sea Foam, Highland Heather
Accessories: Clear Stampin' Emboss Powder,  Stitched Shapes Dies, Detailed Skate Dies,
White Medium Envelope, Stampin' Dimensionals, Aqua Painter Brush, Seaside Spray 1/4" Metallic Ribbon

 

Nurse Oddball

Inspiration: Mojo Monday #524 + Just Add Ink #478 (H for Health)

I spent National Card-Making Day with my favorite crafting pal in the world: my niece Megan. We put together invitations for her upcoming seventh birthday and we had a bit of free time afterwards, so she wanted to craft some more. She colored images and made drawings and I worked on some Stamping Bella images I had stamped before and left on my desk, ready to be colored when I had a minute. I used my Prismacolor pencils, which is what I pull out to share with her when she wants to color. I've already posted the card I made with the wizard, but this is the second image I had time to color with her, Oddball Nurse. I will say I'm pretty impressed with how much life I managed to give the image with mostly just grey shading. There's a few brown in her hair, red on the striped stockings and the two crosses, but really, the rest is just a mix of greys. And I love the result. I'm learning to mix shades and use pen strokes to my advantage, and the results keep improving, which is always encouraging.

It's always interesting to me to work backwards to try to find appropriate patterned papers for an already colored image since I usually work the other way around. This one was pretty neutral, so the only thing I was looking for while looking through my paper stash was red. The Lovestruck papers from Authentique caught my eye. They're love-themed, and for a split second, I thought I could maybe write something like "I'm just lovesick over you," but I would have needed to make an English card for the wording to work, so I came back to my "Get Better Soon" idea, but I decided I could still work with the papers nonetheless. I skipped the obvious Valentine one and picked the more generic patterns. I immediately loved how the nurse looked when put over the dictionary paper and the red plaid. (By the way, when I stamped the images on my cardstock, I placed them all in a row, assuming I would be die-cutting the images out. When came time to do that, I realized I never bought the die for the nurse, thinking I might not use this image often enough to justify the cost. Oops... The space left around the image was too restricted to use a geometric-shaped die, so I cut her out the old-fashioned way: with fussy cutting! I think it turned out just fine.)

Because the Mojo Monday sketch has two diagonal strips on it, I thought I would simply stamp "Prompt rétablissement" (the French version of "Get well soon") with one word on each strip. I searched my Excel sentiment spreadsheet - and was shocked to discover that after over 15 years of regularly buying stamps, I do not own that very straightforward sentiment. That threw me for a loop. So I filtered the stamps by theme and while the get well list is still very short, I changed my mind about using the strips for the sentiment when I found "Get Well Soon" in an adorable image with a matching die. I decided to place the die-cut sentiment in the place where the circle is on the sketch instead, (While pulling this older stamp set out, I knew the image fit with something, but for a second, I had trouble remembering if it was a punch or a die. I finally remembered, but it made me realize that I should start writing on stamp set which dies or punch coordinate with it. It's not so much an issue with the companies that make companion dies for a single set, but Stampin' Up! tends to do stand-along die sets that coordinate with a variety of their stamp sets. This means that I store both items separately and I think over time, I will get hazy on what was supposed to go with what. I pulled out my label maker and stuck the name of the dies on the front of the stamp box, and I think I will slowly do that with other sets as I pull them out to use them.)

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Oddball Nurse (Stamping Bella); Étiquetage (Tag It - Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Real Red, Very Vanilla (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers: Lovestruck (Authentique)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento); VersaMark; Old Linen Distress Ink (Ranger)
Accessories: Pencils (Prismacolor); Outside In Stitched Rectangle Stackables Dies (Lawn Fawn);
Black Stampin' Emboss Powder, Black Stampin' Dimensionals, Vanilla Medium Envelope, Washi Tape (Stampin' Up!);
Glossy Black Gems (Pretty Pink Posh); Sparkly Black Washi Tape (unknown source); Distress Tool (Ranger)

 

Have Yourselfie a Merry Little Christmas

Inspiration: MFT Sketch #458 + Simon Says Stamp Wednesday (Christmas)

I love everything Birdie Brown, and she hit a home run with her latest stamp set, Christmas sELFies. It includes adorable selfies from with different winter characters. Here, I went Christmas with my card, but the snowmen and polar bear could work really well for more generic cards. I can't wait to play with the other images some more, but for this card, I picked the North Pole trio: Rudolph, Santa and an elf. I used the sketch to layer three different patterned papers from the cute Holiday Cheer paper pack from Sunny Studio. I tied some green and white trim between the top and bottom panels and I also added white sequin trim between two of the lines on the pattern paper. I die-cut snowflakes out of Tropical Tide glitter cardstock, which matches the patterned papers very nicely.

I was kind of excited that this stamp set does not require the purchase of a die set (instant savings!). The image are just squares. I created my own Polaroid by cutting a white rectangle and stamping the image centered at the top. I used my Polychromos pencils to color the image. I blended some of the colors with mineral spirits. By the way, my store owner shared the best tip in one of her weekly videos: you can use the Alcohol Ink Blending Pen from Ranger and fill it with mineral spirits (Gamsol), whic allows you to blend your pencil coloring without the use of stumps. I was so excited when I heard that because I like the use of mineral spirits to get an even look, but I've always hated how finicky stumps are. Initially, I had a few and I used sanding paper to take the last color off, so it was taking forever to color an image. I later invested in doubles of a few sizes and I was using the same tip for the same colour family, but I still felt like stumps were a hurdle to work with. Enter the alcohol ink blending pen - it's a game changer! It works really well, especially the smaller tip, and you really just have to scribble on scrap paper to take off the last color, like you would with regular blending pens. It works great, in large or small areas. But learn from my mistake - add a very SMALL amount of mineral spirit inside the marker. I was too generous when I filled mine and it not only leaked everywhere when I was fililng it, but the pen kept leaking for weeks even after I took some of the liquid out. I took I had either ruined it or that the tip was not working, but after a while, it stabilized and now I've got the perfect flow. I also like that I don't have to keep the mineral spirit open on my desk and run the risk of knocking it over, so this one is a big win.

I wanted Rudolph's nose to stand out so I trying options - clear gem, red gem, I was thinking of doing red Stickles and then I realized that the red confetti from Pretty Pink Posh I bought this week are the exact size of his nose! The metallic shine is just perfect so I added it to my image with a dab of glue. I also added gems in a few spots on the card, including clear ones on the tuques at the bottom of the card.

For the envelope, I picked a green metallic one and I embossed my image with pink powder in the corner. I repeated the same embossed image inside the card as well.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Christmas sELFies (My Favorite Things)
Cardstock: Thick Whisper White
Patterned Papers: Holiday Cheer (Sunny Studio); Tropical Tide Glitter Cardstock (Tonic)
Ink: Tempting Turquoise Classic Ink (Stampin' Up!); VersaMark; Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Accessories: Melon Mambo Stampin' Emboss Powder, Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!);
A2 Fairway Metallic Envelope (envelopes.com); Wonkly Stitched Rectangle Dies (MFT);
Red Confetti (Pretty Pink Posh); July and August Crystals (Studio Katia);
Polychromos Pencils (Faber-Castell); Christmas Day Snow Dies (Echo Park);
White and Green Cord Trim, White Sequin Trim (Michaels)

 

A Bright Christmas

Inspiration: Global Design Project #210

I finally got the pretty Toile Tidings Designer Series Paper on my last Stampin' Up! order. I was itching to put something together with them, so I used the Global Design Project sketch as a starting point. I looked through my stamps and picked Making Christmas Bright because of the messy circle image in it, which matched the sketch.

I'm working on cards to send my downline members so I decided to make two cards at once. What is fun about this paper is that every sheet has the same pattern in red on the front and green on the back so by cutting two sheets of paper, I was able to make a red and a green version of the same design. (Do you have a favorite? I think I like the green version myself.)

I wanted to add ribbon and I had a few options from the Holidays catalogue - the red trim, the Garden Green ribbon from this suite, but it was the copper-printed vanilla ribbon that cut my eye. I liked that it was neutral and adding a metallic touch and copper became my third "color." The sketch has a border at the bottom of the main panel - I had pulled the Ornate Frames dies out thinking initially I might use one of the them as the circle from the sketch, but then I realized the largest frame was wide enough to create a border for my whole panel. I used Copper Foil Sheets to match the ribbon.

For the main panel, I stamped the ornate circle in Garden Green, the first part of my sentiment in red and then I embossed the second part in Copper powder. I also embossed the little star from the same set in copper around the sentiment. I added the curly Christmas light image around the edges, in the opposite colour to the papers I was using. I stamped and clear-embossed the Christmas light with the star image in it and punched it out to add inthe corner. That immediately made the whole panel more interesting. I stamped the inside of the cards and the vanilla envelopes to match and after I was finished with the cards, I realized we have the Star Designer Elements in copper so I pulled them out and when I went to add one to the Christmas light, I found out they're the exact same size and shape! That could not have worked out better.

I really like the new toile papers. I want to use them again and maybe pair them with older stamp sets, maybe some that have a vintage Christmas vibe to it. Maybe the Yuletide Christmas set? Canadian Thanksgiving is here this weekend, so a little bit more time to stamp.

 

 

 

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies
Stamps: Illuminez les Fêtes (Making Christmas Bright)
Cardstock: Thick Very Vanilla, Real Red, Garden Green, Copper Foil Sheets
Designer Series Paper: Toile Tidings
Ink: Real Red, Garden Green, VersaMark
Accessories: Ornate Frames Dies, Star Designer Elements, Very Vanilla Medium Envelopes,
Copper and Clear Stampin' Emboss Powder, Christmas Bulb Builder Punch, Stampin' Dimensionals,
1/2" Classic Weave Ribbon

 

The First Time We Met

Inspiration: Page Maps February 2019 sketch + Lasting Memory Layout #466 (hearts + washi + doily)

I am totally in love with the new Snow Much Fun! collection from Carta Bella. The soft colours, the designs, the patterns - love it all. I don't have a whole lot of winter outdoor pictures to scrapbook, but I realized that I still had the picture of the first time I met my second niece in the hospital to scrapbook and the soft colours totally work. Also, Arielle was born in January, on a night where snow was falling really heavily. I went to my sister's house during the night to babysit my older niece while she was in the hospital and the next day, when we were invited to go visit them, it took me a good half hour to take the heavy blanket of snow that had totally covered my car and to shovel a way out of the driveway. So the snow theme is definitely appropriate.

I have the chipboard accent from the same collection and I used a few, including the Warm Heart sentiment and the little polar bear. I think he's taking his blanket with him because of the cold, but to me, it looks like he's hugging his blankie! I used the Falling Snowflakes stencil from Carta Bella and Tattered Rose Distress Oxide ink to add a soft snowflake pattern in two opposing corners of the page. I used the same ink to blend around the cocoa cut-apart piece and I love the soft blend it produced. I'm really happy with the final resulting page.

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Tumbled Glass, Tattered Rose Distress Oxide (Ranger)
Patterned Papers and Chipboard Accents: Snow Much Fun! (Carta Bella)
Dies: File Folder Edges Die-namics (My Favorite Things); Marisa Snowflake (Simon Says Stamp);
Folk Hearts (Essentials by Ellen); Marisa Snowflake (Simon Says Stamp)
Alphabet Stickers: Cecily Glitter Thickers (American Crafts); White Cheeky Shimmer Stickers (Making Memories);
Mini Alpha Stickers (Pink Fresh)
Accessories: White Gel Pen (Gelly Roll); Moonshine Sequins (Simon Says Stamp);
Blender Brushes (Picket Fence Studios); Falling Snowflakes Stencil (Carta Bella); Glitter Gloss Aqua Shimmer Brush (Nuvo);
Washi Tape (Simple Stories); Soft Sky Cotton Twine, Corner Rounder Punch, Pearlized Doily (Stampin' Up!); Date Stamp (Staples)

 

Christmas Tree Tag

This project started with recycling leftovers from another project. A couple of weeks ago, I made a shaker card with the Stitched Tree Frames dies from Lawn Fawn. I used black foam to create the shaker edge, so I was left with the inside part of the tree both in foam and in patterned paper. I knew this would make a great tag so I put those die-cut elements aside to reuse later. Yesterday, I was looking at some Christmas washi tapes on my desk and thought they would make great ribbon for the tree, so I started decorating it. I also got the idea to add the fun red trim Stampin' Up! currently sells in its Holidays catalogue. I then stamped and watercolored cute images from the Snow Fun Avery Elle stamp set, using my Faber-Castell watercolor pencils and a waterbrush.

I die-cut a second piece of patterned paper from the Merry Little Christmas pack from Pebbles for the back, glue everything together and I used my Crop-a-Dile to punch a hole at the top. I looking in my box of ribbon scraps (once a spool is down to less than a meter, I take it off the spool to save on space and into that box it goes). I found some Certainly Celery grosgrain ribbon, threaded it through the hole and I tied a white baker's twine bow, threadng two gold jingle bells on it.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Snow Fun (Avery Elle)
Cardstock: Neenah Solar White
Patterned Papers: Merry Christmas (Carta Bella); Merry Little Christmas (Pebbles)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Accessories: Merry Little Christmas Washi Tape (Pebbles); Gold Jingle Bells, Black Foam (unknown);
Watercolor Pencils (Faber-Castell); White Baker's Twine, Certainly Celery Grosgrain Ribbon,
Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!)

 

Jingle Bells Tree

With my love of retro-inspired things with a modern kick, I tend to appreciate the lines Steven Duncan designs for Carta Bella. The Merry Christmas has that mix of vintage baubles, old-fashioned Christmas trees and nicely-dressed people getting ready for the Holidays. While the designs are absolutely gorgeous, they are not necessarily easy to design with because those papers are crowded! I was trying to decide where to get started with the paper stack and the Christmas Tree dies from Lawn Fawn caught my eye. Those dies are not new, they were released last year. They are new to me, though, because I was late to the parade getting them­. I scored the frame dies during a sale at my local store, but unfortunately, she didn't have the Ouside In dies that matched so I soon realized that this was creating a difficulty for making shakers since I didn't have the matching piece for the back. It goes without saying that there are many things that I could have create with that set of dies on their own, but because they were purchased after the Holidays, I have moved on to other seasonal projects and it got left behind - until this week.

I finally managed to purchased the other dies I wanted, and when I spotted the patterned paper with the tree branches and hanging ornaments, I thought it'd look great die-cut with the tree. It felt a little bare on its own, but I used the other green paper from the same stack to do the frame and that's when I got the idea of pulling out the newly released Mini String of Lights dies to decorate the front of my shaker. Those light bulbs take a while to put together because you need two die-cuts for each - the light with the little hole for the light reflection and the full piece to back it with (in this instance, white). You can thankfully die-cut four lights at at time, which I did in three colors of cardstock, then I did all my white, and the strings in an emerald green. I pulled out my glue pen and got working on it. It's easy but it takes a minute or twenty. I used a black foam sheet to create a raised frame. I keep trying that technique but the foam gets squished when going through the Big Shot and ends up being slightly larger than the die-cut paper so it shows. It's less obvious when using black foam instead of white, but still, the best option still remains stacking die-cut cardstock. Because the tree is so large, I decided the foam sheet would be a more economical option, though. I thought for sure I would have green sequins to fill the tree with, but it turns out I only have pale mint or olive green, which would have clashed, so I went with Moonstone sequins. It turned out great, I think the sparkle highlights the other elements so it was a good choice.

The top of the tree was decorated with a star. (I realized after I was done that I had the choice of two stars, since there's one in every die set, and I ended up picking the smaller one, where I think the bigger one would have fit better...) I covered the yellow cardstock with Liquid Stardust to make it shine, and it still felt a little bare, so I pulled out a gold faceted gem, which completed the look nicely.

For the envelope, I picked a Sapphire metallic envelope, added a die-cut from one of the patterned papers and finished it off with two light bulb puffy stickers. The inside of the card was decorated with the little pieces of light bulb strings I had left from trimming the tree. I rarely make cards with no stamping, so this is fun and different—yet still me because of all the cutesy thrown in there.

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Bordering Blue, Hello Honey, Poppy Parade, Whisper White
Patterned Papers and Puffy Stickers: Merry Christmas (Carta Bella)
Dies: Mini String of Lights, Stitched Christmas Tree Frames, Dotted Rectangle Stackables,
Outside In Stitched Christmas Tree Stackables (Lawn Fawn)
Accessories: Liquid Stardust (Lawn Fawn); Window Sheets, Gold Faceted Gems, Mini Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!);
A2 Sapphire Metallic Envelope (envelopes.com); Moonstone Sequins (Simon Says Stamp)

The Haunted Mansion

Inspiration: Page Maps August 2018 + Lasting Memory Layout #467 (Torn Edges)

A while ago, my sister, niece, mom and I did an escape room while my parents were visiting. Because my six-year-old niece was coming with, the Haunted Mansion wouldn't have been our first choice, but that was all that was left by the time we made the reservation. The guy asked us if she was afraid of the dark and we asked how long we would be in the dark and he answered, "not that long." Turns out the lights go out about 12 minutes into the game and they don't go back up until the very end, so my poor niece kept repeating that she was scared the whole time. (We were equipped with three flashlights, though, and made sure she kept one with her.) So my mom basically kept reassuring her while my sister and I were frantically searching the room for clues to solve the mystery. (We were women on a mission and determined to succeed.) We did have to ask for a few clues, but in the end, we managed to get the door open with less than a minute to spare. I have to admit, we were pretty darn proud of ourselves when we got out of there.

When I did my big paper reorg earlier this year, I stumbled unto the Haunted collection from Cosmo Cricket and decided it was the perfect papers to use to scrapbook about the Haunted Mansion escape. I really loved Cosmo Cricket back in the days, and this collection represents their style when they were at their best. I was really happy to revisit their papers. I was looking at sketch options on my Page Maps printouts and when I saw a sketch with the two corners cut at an angle, I immediately thought I could rip the paper and have it look like torn wallpaper. The patterns of the papers I picked certainly look just like vintage wallpaper! I love that detail on the page. I used a couple of Distress Crayons to add distressing to the rolled edges and a few other elements on the page.

I vaguely remembered I had the "Ghoul's Night Out" sentiment in a set somewhere so I used it on my little Rolodex card. The text was too long so I (wait for it...) cut the polymer stamp apart to have the text on two lines and have it fit in the rectangle. For my journaling, I wanted to use calligraphy for the first letter, so I pulled out an old calligraphy book and used it as a reference. (I've had this book for a good 25 years and it's still a personal favorite, as it contains a lot of alphabet and detailed descriptions with arrows that explain in which order to create the strokes on the letters.)

I squeezed so much stuff on my page that I realized at the end that I hadn't added a title or the date. Technically, "Ghoul's Night Out" can be the title, but I had initially planned on writing the Haunted Mansion with alphabet stickers at the top. My journaling ended up taking up more room than I thought and adding a title would have made the page too cramped. The date was easily solved by pulling out my good ol' Dymo and doing a black strip at the bottom of the page.

Fun page for a fun memory!

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Booyah (Lawn Fawn)
Patterned Papers: Haunted (Cosmo Cricket)
Ink: Blackberry Bliss Classic Ink (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Black Tape (Dymo); Lace Trim, Spiderweb Doily, Corner Rounder Punches, Black Journaling Pen,
Spiral Punch (Stampin' Up!); Distress Crayons (Ranger); Black Rhinestone Stickers (Recollections);
Brads (Making Memory); Oct 31 Chipboard Stickers (Fancy Pants Designs);
Beetle Black and Tangerine Sugar Coated Brads (Doodlebug Design)

 

Kindergarten Graduation

One of the elements that had caught my eye during the year at my local scrapbook store was the Planner Essentials dies collection from Elizabeth Craft Design. I loved the variety of designs available but I'm not into planners, so I had brushed it aside. I later started thinking that instead of doing planner pages, I could use the die collection and use them to make a mini scrapbooking album. That idea had more appeal to me and I kept that on the back of my mind, trying to figure out how that would work. When my birthday rolled around, I was able to go back to the store and benefit from a very generous 25% off my purchases that day, so I looked at the planner dies that were in stock and selected three kits plus a planner binder (champagne and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the inside is Tiffany blue). I got home and it was the first thing I was excited to try out. I quickly realized that the pages are very narrow and can't accomodate a standard picture. Hmm... That one is on me, I got excited and didn't do my research properly. So I put the binder aside and since I had my picture and papers selected, I reverted to making a full-size page.

Today, I revisited my planner album idea with a smaller picture. I was given a picture of my niece's kindergarten graduation, but since the parents get an assorted size pack, the parents and grandparents got the bigger size and I got a wallet-size picture. I don't mind, my sister knows I'm equipped to scan it and print myself a bigger size if I want to - which I would have needed to do if I had wanted to make a full 12" x 12" page as the wallet size would have looked ridiculously small on it. On the mini album, page, though, it works very nicely. The new School Days collection from Doodlebug Design was also perfect.

This page is very simple. I die-cut the page itself out of the Spelling Bee paper and I cut a ruler strip out of the Good Measure paper and ran it with the die again to make a border where the holes are. I die-cut the owl image from the Color Me Happy cut-apart page and added Glossy Accent over the glasses. At the top, I placed an Essentials wood accent and added an apple Icons sticker over it. The journaling block was die-cut out of Limeade Gingham-Linen Petite Prints paper. I've said before that one of my struggle with the Doodlebug Design is that they are very busy (über cute, but also über packed). A year or two ago, I invested in a couple packs of Petite Prints papers (Milk & Cookies and Booville). I realized that Doodlebug sticks to a specific colour palette for all of their collections, so it doesn't matter all that much which Petite Prints pack you select, as chances are, you'll be able to mix them with a lot of other paper collections. That's a good example here, since I picked a green paper from a Christmas Petite Prints collection and worked it into my school-theme page. It should also be noted that the die I used it part of the Ornate Frames collection from Stampin' Up! It's hidden in the Halloween section, which is too bad in the sense that I think it will be overlooked by a lot of crafters who don't do Halloween. The tag shapes are different and versatile. There's eleven in there and the variety of sizes and shapes is great. Worth a look... (p. 53 of the 2019 Holidays Catalogue)

The picture was matted with Blue Obsidian mirror cardstock from Tonic and added to the page, and I finished it off with a few more Icons stickers. I spaced out and purchased two of the same sticker sheets without meaning to, so I decided to make the best of it and this has given me the freedom to use the stickers liberally. Either way, I know my niece will be more than happy to get the second sheet if I don't use them all myself. Case in point, when she came over to craft last weekend, she spotted the Doodlebug Stickers in my supplies (the school ones and the travel ones) and mentioned how cute she thought they were. She's all over Doodlebug stuff. No surprise there, with the cutesy patterns and colorful designs.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Mirror Cardstock: Blue Obsidian (Tonic)
Patterned Papers: School Days, Milk & Cookies Petite Prints Paper Pack (Doodlebug Design)
Icons Stickers: School Days (Doodlebug Design)
Dies: Planner Essentials 12 (Elizabeth Craft Designs); Ornate Frames Dies (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Essential Wooden Shapes (Stampin' Up!); Glossy Accents (Ranger)

 

Pool Party

Inspiration: Just Us Girls #508 (Designer Paper) + Tuesday Morning Sketches #523

This was fun to make! I love the Peek-a-Boo stamps from Avery Elle, they are just so adorable. I snatched a set of the Summer Pals version when my local store got it in stock and this is my first creation with it. (The weather dropped way below pool weather but I guess we can reminisce about warmer weather with paper and stamps.)

I picked the Paradise Beach papers and prepared a frame based on the Tuesday Morning sketch (rotated 90 degrees). I then cut a wonky rectangle frame and I found a piece of patterned paper with waves on it that I picked to fill out the frame. I stamped all of the animals from the set, figuring I'd pick and choose what to fill the frame with and use the rest on the envelope and inside the card. The images were colored with markers in colored matching the papers and I die-cut all of the little pieces. Once I started placing the animals in the frame, I realized I should do two rows to fill the frame out better and I realized I could use the curve between the two colours to set up my top row. I cut the paper apart following the curve line and I added dimensional adhesive underneath the bottom part (the green wave). I was then able to glue the shark, frog and toucan underneath the wave and their paws over it.

For the bottom row, I glue the dolphin underneath the frame edge and added its fins. I placed the seahorse inside the floatie and decided I would add it on a a mini action wobble so it looks like it's bobbing on the eaves. I stamped the words "Just For You" and embossed them in Calypso Coral embossing powder on patterned paper and used the Ornate Frames dies from Stampin' Up! to die-cut the sentiment. (I have been raving about those. You get 11 in the set of all sizes and shapes and they're great for way more than Halloween - make sure to check them out!)

I used the smaller wonky frame twice, to add on the envelope and inside the card and I added the flamingo and the seagull in them. By the way, if you are wondering how I picked which animals to add to the card, it was quite easy: it was based on which way they were facing. The frog was the only one facing forward so it went in the middle and then I selected animals that faced towards the center of the card for each side. I really thought I would be using the flamingo since I found it really cute, but I have to say, she looks quite nice popping against the green and teal on the envelope, so it all worked out. I think I'll leave this card out on my desk for a little while. Looking at it instantly puts me in a good mood. Look at those cute, contented faces, how can you not smile when looking at them?

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Peek-a-Boo Summer Pals (Avery Elle); Coffret de souhaits (Tin of Cards - Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Lucky Limeade , Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Paper: Paradise Beach (Echo Park)
Ink: VersaMark; Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Dies: Peek-a-Boo Summer Pals, Wonky Scalloped Frames (Avery Elle);
Dotted Rectangle Stackables (Lawn Fawn); Ornate Frames Dies (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Calypso Coral Stampin' Emboss Powder, Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!);
Markers (Copic); White Gel Pen (Gelly Roll); Yellow Petite Posies (Queen & Co);
A2 Teal Envelope (envelopes.com); Glitter Gloss Aqua Shimmer Brush (Nuvo)

 

New Level

Inspiration: CAS on Friday #165 (Masculine Cards)

So if you have seen my projects before, you know I don't do CAS. It's just not where inspiration takes me. Today was the exception, and it all started with two leftovers on my desk. Earlier this week, I put together a cute Halloween tote bag and the two holes from the handles were left on my desk. Because the edge of the bag is pinked, the remaining shape looks like a little ghost. It suddenly dawned on me that I could use them to make a Pacman card. This idea has been floating around in my mind for years and for some reason, it never made it on a card, but now that I had the two "ghosts" and I knew there was the masculine CAS challenge going on, I decided to get going on the idea. I had played with googlie eyes on a project with my niece so I pulled them out again to give the ghosts eyes. I then rummaged through my yellow paper scraps (they are organized in fawers by colors) and I punched the polka dot paper I found with a 1-3/8" circle punch and snipped a slice off with my scissors.

PIcking a sentiment was simple, as I remembered I had "You leveled up! (It's your b-day)" in the Screen Time stamp set from Lawn Fawn, which is perfect with its old pixeled font. (My grade school best friend, who lived three houses away from me, had received an Atari with the Ms. Pacman game for Christmas. This game will forever bring back memories of playing that game with her and her little sister in her basement.) I also wanted to recreate the maze idea somehow. I have a striped stencil that I was planning on using, along with masks for the unwanted stripes, but the spacing wasn't right with my Pacman and ghosts, so I remembered I've purchased some removable full sheet labels at the office supplies store not long ago, so I pulled those out to create my own mask, which ended up working even better and protecting the whole card. I spritzed some Wilted Violet Distress Oxide spray and when I took the sheets off, I realized I could punch a circle and use it to put on the cap of my bottle to identify the colour, as I'm starting to grow my collection and pulling all of the bottles out to find the one I'm searching for is a bummer. The other pieces were also too pretty to throw away, so I used one piece on my envelope (also creating a place where to write the address since the envelope is a dark colour) and I'll see what I make with the other pieces. Maybe use one as a sample, but I haven't decided yet what the format of my swatches is going to be. Or I'll die-cut the paper and use as stickers on another project, we'll see.

I then added orange enamel dots to create the "Pacman food" and I added a star from Doodlebug underneath the sentiment, for balance and also because it fit the game theme. Doing a simple card like this one reminded me why CAS is not as easy as you would think.  Everything has to be perfectly straight or else it's glaringly obvious - and distracting. I spent five minutes lining up four enamel dots. I'm also noticing now that the green ghost is slightly lower than the other ghost. Not a big deal, but, you know. At least, I'm really happy with the resulting card and I've finally made my Pacman card.

 

 

 

My masking

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Screen Time (Lawn Fawn)
Patterned Papers: Booville (Doodlebug Design); Extreme 2Way Street (KI Company)
Dies: Tote Bag (Lawn Fawn)
Punches: 1-3/8" and 1" Circle (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Wilted Violet Distress Oxide Spray (Ranger); You're a Star Shape Sprinkles (Doodlebug Design);
Googlie Eyes, Stampin' Dimensionals, It's My Birthday Enamel Dots (Stampin' Up!);
A2 Anthracite Metallic Envelope (emvelopes.com); Removable White Full Sheet Labels (Avery)

 

Apple Cider at the Pumpkin Farm

Inspiration: Little Red Wagon #517 (Pumpkin Party)

I have some fall papers put aside to work into my project, and the Celebrate Autumn papers were some of them. They inspired the coloring of my little girl, using my Albrecht-Dürer watercolor pencils. Now that I look at the card, I should probably have given her a yellow coat instead of an orange one because there's a lot of orange on that card overall. I used the Postage Stamps dies for the background paper and for the sentiment, which reads "My dear friend." I used the Pretty Peacock Scalloped Linen Ribbon because the touch of linen went well with the fall papers.

I added Crystal Drops here and there to decorate the card a bit and I struggled with my bottles of products. I have read that the product can thicken over time, which is what happened to my drops and they create little "ice cream cone" shapes that won't flatten out. A YouTuber suggested adding a few drops of distilled water in your bottles to get them back to the desired consistency. I've tried that, we'll see if they work out better afterwards. The problem is that you have to do it ahead of time and let it sit. I tried shaking the bottle and using the red drops right away and the liquid was still sitting on top of the bottle despite my shaking so it make a splattery mess. I dabbed and wiped the product away but it left a stain around the new drops I remade. Live and learn...

I wasn't sure how I felt about this card when I finished it, I wasn't even sure I liked it enough to share. But when I came back to it the next day, it didn't seem as bad. It's still not my favorite, but not the worst I've ever made either.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Time for a Coffee Break (Little Darling Rubber Stamps); Joli paon (Beautiful Peacock - Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Marigold Morning (Stampin' Up!); Watercolor Paper (Fabriano)
Patterned Papers: Celebrate Autumn (Echo Park)
Ink: Jet Black StazOn, Early Espresso Classic Ink (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Crystal Drops (Nuvo); A2 Teal Envelope (envelopes.com);
Postage Stamps Infinity Dies (Hero Arts); Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Pencils (Faber-Castell);
Pretty Peacock 1/2" Scalloped Linen Ribbon, Early Espresso Stampin' Write Marker,
Stampin' Dimensionals, Home for Christmas Enamel Dots (Stampin' Up!)

 

Bye Bye Louise

Inspiration: Lasting Memory Challenge #465 (Buttons + Tags + Polka Dots + Alphabet Stickers) + Page Maps May 2019

I was in the mood to scrapbook today, so I pulled out some pretty papers from My Mind's Eye and a picture taken a few years ago when our colleague Louise left for another job. We had dinner together to mark the event and we all had a very nice evening.

To mimick the square frame on the sketch, I poked holes along the border of the patterned paper and used white baker's twine to add sttiching. For the floral border, I stamped flourishes from the Curly Q set from Bo Bunny and added a punched flower and Prima flowers, with buttons around it.

The first tag (Happy Days) is the name of the collection and it was created with the cut-away section of the patterned paper. The second tag (the title one) was die-cut out of Blue Obsidian Mirror Card  and I used some Cobalt Blue Glitter Card to die-cut my title, using the Deco Alphabet from Tim Holtz. (This is the second Tim Holtz alphabet Bigz I was able to score on sale and that I was happy to get my hands on since it had been on my wish list.) The cute little pink letters are from Pink Fresh.

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Curly Q (Bo Bunny)
Ink: Midnight Muse (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers: Happy Days (My Mind's Eye); Mittens Remix (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Blue Obsidian Mirror Card, Cobalt Blue Glitter Card (Tonic); Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper,
Granny Apple Green, Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Blue Ombre Sequins (Hero Arts); Buttons (Autumn Leaves); Pink Mini Alpha Stickers (Pink Fresh);
White Gel Pen, Circle Punches, White Organza Ribbon, Buttons, White Baker's Twine, Stampin' Dimensionals,
Scallop Edge Border Punch, Flower Punch (Stampin' Up!); Planner Essential Dies (Elizabeth Craft Design);
Deco Alphabet Bigz Die (Tim Holtz for Sizzix); Blue Journaling Pens

 

Make a Wish

Inspiration: Freshly Make Sketch #405

My niece will be celebrating her seventh birthday at the end of the month and her birthday theme is Halloween. My sister asked me if I could make some simple invitations that Megan could distribute to her friends at school. I was happy to oblige and I realized that Megan would probably be thrilled to spend time with me putting those together, so I prepared a sample and all of the supplies ahead of time and we spend a Saturday afternoon working on putting them together. Once we were done, Megan wanted to keep on crafting afterwards so we spent some time coloring. I had some stamped Stamping Bella images on my desk, so I grabbed those to work on while she was drawing away, using my Prismacolor pencils.

I wanted to turn the images into cards, so I started with the Oddball Wizard today and I figured I could interpret the Freshly Made Sketch with stars to go with him. I found this cool patterned paper with scattered lights in the Summer Dream paper pad from Craft Smith. I stamped and emboss "Make a Wish" in Platinum powder and I tied a bow with Elegant Eggplant baker's twine. The stars were die-cut out of Shimmer Sheets from Elizabeth Craft Designs, which I found while I was looking through my patterned papers. They have this funky shimmer on them - it reminds me of the blue-green sheen you see on oil. I also added Crystal Stars embellishments and Mini Star Confetti, but overall, I tried to make sure the card would work well for a guy.

 

Tip: When you purchase paper stacks, you might not always like every single pattern that's in there. In the pack I was using, I noticed that the back of the pages were vanilla-colored. Instead of using cardstock from my stash to die-cut the star on the envelope, I used the back of a patterned paper I knew I would have trouble working into a project. I used the second sheet of the same pattern to die-cut a rectangle piece for the inside of the card. (When I use dark cardstock for my card base, I like to use a rectangle piece inside in a lighter color to make it easier to handwrite a readable message. While I could use a white gel pen, I sell my card so I want to make life easy for whoever might purchase the card.)

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Oddball Wizard (Stamping Bella)
Cardstock: Fresh Fig, Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers: Summer Dream (Craft Smith)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento), VersaMark
Accessories: Oddball Wizard Die (Stamping Bella); A2 Sapphire Metallic Envelope (envelopes.com);
Outside In Stitched Rectangle Stackables Dies (Lawn Fawn); Shimmer Sheets (Elizabeth Craft Deskgns);
Elegant Eggplant Baker's Twine, Stars Framelits Dies, Black Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!);
Crystal Stars (Buttons Galore & More); Iridescent Mini Star Confetti (Pretty Pink Posh)

 

Christmas Carols

Inspiration: July 2019 Card Maps Sketch + Simon Says Stamp Monday (Let's Get Ready for Christmas)

As is the case every year, there is a lot of yummy patterned paper offered again this year, but I think the gold star might go to the Merry Little Christmas collection from Pebbles. Every single sheet of the 6" x 6" is absolutely scrumptious! Most of it as gold foil as well (and so do the stickers), which makes it extra special. I couldn't wait to play with those new papers. I don't know if this card highlights this beautiful collection as well as it should, but at least I dove in and created something to get started. I'll probably have more time in the upcoming days to do more with it.

The layout was inspired by a Card Maps sketch and the various pieces helped me showcase a mix of various patterns from the pack. I also liked that it had a sentiment banner, since one of the pages is a cut-apart that has "Merry Christmas" banners on it. I added the stitching detail with a white gel pen as it felt a little bare on the page. The carolers are a sticker from the Accent Sticker sheet.

What I want to rave about is the Albrecht Dürer watercolor pencils from Faber-Castell I managed to score on sale during Labour Day weekend. I had signed up for the local art store emails so that I could specifically get a set when it would be on sale. I have said in the past that despite my best efforts, I had trouble loving the watercolor pencils I had on hand. They're from Stampin' Up!, but it's nothing against that company specifically - I had also purchased watercolor pencils of a similar quality in the past and the results were the same. The tip of the pencils is hard, the colour achieved is not that saturated, the pigment is hard to move around on the paper. Because of those results, I had turned to watercoloring with inks, learned to master the technique and given up on the pencils. The Faber-Castell ones had me curious, since I was so happy with my coloring pencils from the same company. After watching online videos where people compared the Albrecht Dürer pencils with other brands, I could tell they were nothing like the watercolor pencils I have previously owed.

So the pencils were delivered while I was short on time to sit down and stamp. I was still curious about this new acquisition, so I stamped a holly image from the nearest stamp set and picked random colors to try the pencils out. It only took a few strokes to decide that I love them. What a difference! Granted, they are pricey, but at least the results are there. If I can get such a pretty result from a quick first try, imagine once I've got a few hours of practice under my belt! I handcut this image and tried to add it to my ornament card at the time, but it was distracting rather than pleasing to the eye, so I left the image aside and today, it caught my eye while I was putting together the card. The colors and scale was working much better on this card.

Now, I can't wait to color a bigger image with the pencils.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Fêtes étincelantes (Christmas Gleaming - Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Mint Macaron (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers and Accent Stickers: Merry Little Christmas (Pebbles)
Ink: Basic Black Archival Ink (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Wonky Square Frames Dies (Avery Elle); Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Pencils (Faber-Castell);
Just Stitching Double Rectangles Dies (Lawn Fawn); Button (Autumn Leaves);
Stampin' Dimensionals, Crumb Cake Medium Envelope (Stampin' Up!)