Encre, papier, ciseaux

Going on a Ride with Dad

Inspiration: July 2019 Page Maps Sketch + Simon Says Stamp Wednesday (something old = arrow die, Thickers, something new = Witches and Wizards collection)

My brother-in-law is not big on rides, but he decided to join us on Flight of the Hippogriff. My sister waited for us with her youngest daughter, who was not tall enough to ride herself, and when we came back, she decided she wanted to ride it, too, since the line was fairly short. We were watching for her to come near the fence at the end of the ride and when we pointed to Arielle, saying "Look, mom's on the ride right there", she burst into tears when she realized mom wasn't around with us anymore. I was waiting for my sis to roll by to snap a picture of her on the ride and I happened to snap right as she saw her daughter in tears, hence her concerned expression!

I kept going with the Witches and Wizards collection for this page since it was already out. I played with patterns until I found a pleasing combination for the background and then I cut my pictures to size. They were not standing out enough against the busy patterns, so I matted them all in Very Vanilla cardstock, using my Perfect Layers tool to create a 1/16" border (this was purchased years ago, but I still love to use it to help with precise matting).

For the sentiment, the postcard cut-apart caught my eye. I really loved the font and colour I had used on my previous layout, so I stuck with that (Garamouche font). I eyeballed the size I needed for the journaling, printed it on 8½ x 11 paper first, and layered the cut-apart over my paper to test the size and it looked pretty good, so I used temporary tape to place the cut-apart over the printed area on the paper and I ran it through the printer again. The centering turned out perfect!! I knew I wouldn't be able to fit the whole postacard, so I cut the sides with the deckle trimmer to add texture and then I cut the right side off following the edge of the page.

For the title, I followed the sketch and die-cut a circle out of patterned paper, and then I played with Thickers and dies (same ones as on my previous page) and fiddled with placement until I was happy. My initial idea was to do a big "1" at the beginning of the title. I tested out five different dies and didn't like the look of any of them. So I decided to go back to the letters instead and then I realized I had the letters I needed in my Thickers set - and it looked infinitely better. I like the mirroring it creates as well. I had to move every single row down to make room for it, though, and I lucked out as nothing ripped and the letters remained intact. I used Basic Black cardstock for the die-cut letter and I added a bit of sparkle to the cardstock using the Midas Touch Aqua Shimmer brush.

To embellish, I added a few stickers and ephemera pieces from the collection. The ephemera includes a lot of tags, so I had all of the leftover hole pieces, which I lined up in a row on the side, along with a little star sticker. I also had a cute little green bow wrapped in gold thread that I had made during a previous embellishment session, so I added it to one of the tags. I knew I wanted to include an arrow pointing to my sister's expression to emphasize it, so I found a really old die from Stampin' Up! and die-cut an arrow out of champagne glitter paper. I added a little letter and an owl medallion, and I covered the wax seal with Glossy Accents to make it shiny. At the top, I wrapped sparkly thread and I layered a few elements to mirror the sketch.

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers, Stickers, Ephemera: Witches and Wizards (Echo Park)
Dies: Layering Circles (Tonic); Curves Ahead (Sizzix for Stampin' Up!);
Lowercase and Uppercase Mini Alphabet (Recollections); Put a Bow on It (Lawn Fawn)
 Accessories: Good Vibes Thickers (American Crafts); Midas Touch Aqua Shimmer Brush (Tonic);
Deckle Trimmer (Tim Holtz for Tonic); D168 Diamant Floss (DMC);
Deco Scissors (Fiskars); Gold Thread (Altenew)

 

Matching Souvenir

Inspiration: September 2019 Page Maps Sketch + Festive Friday #89 (Stars + Red + Embossing Paste)

Amongst the collections I had put aside to work with was the Witches and Wizards collection from Echo Park. I decided to pull out my pictures from our trip to Universal Studios and make a page for our vacation album. I settled on the pictures of my niece and me in our matching Gryffindor scarves. The shops were chock-full of merchandise and yet, we both happened to gravitate towards this specific scarf, so I bought one for myself and one for her as a gift. We went on the first week of January, so posing with the scarves was not as unbearable as it would have been in the middle of summer. 

One of the cut-aparts had the words "You are my favorite wizard" on it, so I had put it aside to work into my page design. I wanted to find a way to cut it out somehow so I wouldn't have a full rectangle and I actually found the perfect solution because I had this polka dot scalloped circle frame lying on my desk, leftover from my S'more card. The vanilla colour was perfect with the collection and the circle was the perfect size to house the sentiment (and much easier to work into my design).

I also got the idea for my journaling from the S'more card. I had used my computer to print out my own sentiment for the card, and printed it twice to get the wording right. My leftover printout was lying on the desk and I realized the font, colour and Distress Oxide inking I had done on the vanilla cardstock would work really well on page, so I created my own printout using the same font. The little banner at the top is actually a leftover piece from the Favorite Wizard cut-apart. I loved the banner, so I fussy cut it and added it to the tag with dimensional adhesive. On the sticker sheet, I found a striped scarf, the perfect addition to my page. I added a narrow strip of patterned paper to ground it, and I stamped my date in gold ink using a date stamp.

I also used my gold ink on the green pinking borders. I have gotten into the habit of purchasing the monochromatic papers sold with collections. While buying plain paper felt like a waste of money when I could simply dig through my cardstock, I've come to realize that matching perfectly is challenging, so I've given in and I am much happier having the matching monochromatic pieces. I used the green paper to create the edges and the navy paper to mat one of the pictures.

One of the patterned papers has banners on it, so I fussy cut a row and added it to the top of my page. I topped each rounded part with a gold sparkle crystal. I added crystals to the circle sentiment and gold foil pearls to the hat banner.

I switched two items around on my page: I decided to place the title at the bottom to have more room and move the circle element to the side of the picture, since the scale worked better. I was afraid the bottom would feel a little empty, so I pulled out the Hocus Pocus stencil from Tim Holtz to do a nice swirl of stars underneath the title. I looked at my available pastes and chose Fire Ruby icing paste from Finnabair. I have three jars of icing paste and I truly love how they look. They are creamy, easy to use, the perfect consistency for stencils and the colours are outstanding. Knock on wood, they have also held up well over time and not dried out or turned like some of the other products I own.

For the last word of my title, I went for an old Thickers collection, in a nice champagne glitter that complement the golden tones of the paper well. For the first two words, I decided to grab dies instead of stickers, because I had too many repeating letters. E's are especially prevalent in French and I need to be smart about how fast I use them, otherwise my alphabet stickers quickly become useless. Since I needed three E's there, I reached for my Uppercase and Lowercase Mini Alphabet from Recollections, a nice classic font. I used the navy monochromatic paper again, since I already had a lot of shimmer and shine going on with the Thickers and icing paste.

To finish embellishing, I added a little circle from the ephemera pack, a nice owl in flight sticker, a few star sequins and I stamped "It's too cool!" from an old rotary stamp I found in my stash and have kept on my desk in the hope to put it to good use.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: 12-in-1 Rotary Stamp (Kesi'art); Date Stamp (Office Supplies Store)
Ink: Rustic Wilderness, Tea Dye, Walnut Stain Distress Oxide (Ranger);
Antique Gold (Altenew)
Patterned Papers, Frames & Tags Ephemera Pack: Witches and Wizards (Echo Park)
Dies: Stitched Scalloped Circle Frames (Lawn Fawn); 
Uppercase and Lowercase Mini Alphabet (Recollections) 
Font: Garamouche
Accessories: Good Vibes Thickers (American Crafts); Emerald Green Sequins,
Star Sequins (Cartwright's); Blue Lagoon and Glossy Black Gems (Pretty Pink Posh); 
Gold Sparkle Crystals, Gold Foil Pearls (Studio Katia); Pinking Edge Scissors (Fiskars);
Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!); Fire Ruby Icing Paste (Finnabair); 
Hocus Pocus Stencil (Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous) 

 

Summer Squares

Inspiration: Little Red Wagon #611 (Stay Cool - going to the pool!)

I had a lot of fun putting this card together. On a recent trip to my local scrapbook store, I found a die set from Sizzix called Mixed Media Motifs. It includes various shapes done in a sketch kind of look. I knew those could be useful and as you can see, they add a really fun, whimsical look. I die-cut the square out of Burnished Rose mirror cardstock from Tonic, as I thought the rose gold would match the pink tones of the patterned papers nicely.

I kept going with the Summer collection from Carta Bella and this time, I paired it with the Sunkissed stamps from Simple Stories. I don't often buy stamps from the scrapbooking companies as I find the small images with the thin lines hard to use, but this one was done with thicker lines and with more of a whimsical style so it appealed to me. The set doesn't come with dies, but the images were easy to fussy cut.

The squares that had the two small images felt a little too empty, so I layered additional bits from the cut-apart sheets. I stamped a sentiment from the long-retired Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set that reads, "Thinking of You" and added it with Dimensionals to the lower right square. The layout was mounted on a 5¼" x 5¼" square card that came from a very affordable card base and envelope set from DoCrafts. The envelope and card inside were embellished with papers and stickers, and I added rhinestones, gems and puffy stickers to the card front to finish it off.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Sunkissed (Simple Stories); Voeux mignons (Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Solar White (Neenah); Burnished Rose Mirror (Tonic)
Patterned Papers, Sticker Book, Puffy Stickers: Summer (Carta Bella)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento); Watermelon Wonder (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Square Card Blanks (DoCrafts); Mixed Media Motifs Dies (Sizzix);
Stampin' Dimensionals, Pink Rhinestones, Genial Gems, Eyelet,
White Baker's Twine (Stampin' Up!); Markers (Copic); Glossy Accents (Ranger)

 

Driving to the Beach

This card was born out of my leftover scraps from the Beach Bum collection from Fancy Pants Designs (2010). I've had the Truckin' Through the Seasons dies sitting in my stash for a while and thought I could fill the back of the truck with the beach ball and surf board.

This was my first time using this die set and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I loved the look of it when it was a kit of the month and it started popping up online a couple of years ago and I was really pleased for the company to bring it back outside of their kit subscription. I'm not keen on the fact that it has "holes" around the truck bed to create the shape. This makes for an extra step if you want to fill it in with another colour, and it's tricky to fill in if you want to pop up the truck (which I did on this card). I ended up using tape on the back of my image to keep the piece in place. I thought I was using cardstock in a slightly darker colour, but it turned out to be a perfect match, so I might as well have used the original piece... The little side mirrors also don't have much of an overlap to glue them on the truck. This is particularly tricky of you use metallic cardstock (which makes sense for the mirror), since it is more slippery and doesn't hold as well when you try to glue it down. Again, here, I ended up simple adding the mirrors with mini Stampin' Dimensionals, but it means that you need to assemble the truck on the card instead of putting this together as a stand-along embellishment that you can move around on the card to find a placement you like. 

The third thing I was annoyed with, and that was a rookie mistake on my part, is that I added foam adhesive on the back of the truck to pop it up and I totally spaced out on the fact that I would need to be able to slip in the stuff in the slit that's made for the truck bed. I tried to pop the paper up with my paper piercer tip but I couldn't do it, so I cut the bottom of the embellishments and glued them in place, but it doesn't work as well. That's the kind of details you figure out when you use dies for a first time. I'll know better next time.

Speaking of the embellishments, you need to create a frame and fill in the middle parts with the colours of your choice. More repetitive die-cutting... but what I don't like, is that you don't have a base piece to glue everything on. Lawn Fawn is so good with that - they always think to provide a base piece that's exactly the right shape and size that you can glue your stuff over. Here, the ball was pretty easy - I just used a circle punch, but the surfboard was trickier. I traced my main frame, fussy cut it a little narrower and glued my pieces in place, but I had to go back and trim some of the excess paper again. This is the type of things that will make me dislike a die set. It doesn't feel finished. If you want to be able to slip those two elements in the truck bed, you can't have 10 individual pieces, they need to be held together by something, and the fact that there's no base piece makes the set feel incomplete to me. We'll see if I feel better about it when I make trucks for other seasons. The gift was easier to handle, but I see that the pumpkin has the holes as well, and the Christmas tree is all one die, but the branches seem to all be separated, though. sigh My local store has gotten Spellbinders' Open House die collection this week and I was eyeing them, but this is making me rethink it. At least, I will have to go back and inspect the dies closer to see how the pieces go together. 

I had a bit of room on the card, so I wanted to use a larger stamps, and possibly a birthday sentiment that had a masculine vibe to it. I found "Happy birthday to a classy guy" in a Stampin' Up! set. I embossed it in Early Espresso embossing powder. The card still felt a little empty, so I decided to add two gift boxes in the bottom left corner. By the way, I used acetate in the truck window, but it is hard to tell now that the items have been added to the truck bed.

I had so many die-cut pieces, I was able to make an extra surfboard to add inside the card and a beach ball for the envelope. I used one of the leftover cut-aparts on the envelope, along with a border. I have officially used all of this collection up. Whatever is left will be put in my scrap drawers.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Bien cravaté (Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Wild Wasabi (Stampin' Up!); Blue Obsidian Mirror, Holo Wave Mirror (Tonic)
Dies: Just Stitching Double Rectangles (Lawn Fawn); Truckin' Through the Seasons (Spellbinders)
Accessories: Ticket Corner Punch, Stampin' Dimensionals, Window Sheet, 
Early Espresso Stampin' Emboss Powder (Stampin' Up!); A2 Fairway Metallic Envelope (envelopes.com)

 

Summer Heat Wave

Inspiration: Simon Says Stamp Wednesday (Old: papers; New: Embellishments) 

Some nights, you just go where inspiration can take you and it is not where you thought at all. It was already late and I thought I would pull out some paper scraps and test out a set of dies, so I reached for one of the summer paper pack I had put aside. The one I grabbed is the Beach Bum collection from Fancy Pants Designs (dating all of the way back to 2010). It was a weird set of leftover papers, as I had three fully untouched 12" x 12" papers and very small scraps from all of the other papers. As I was trying to decide what to die-cut, I found that the leftovers I did have were quite interesting and I was reluctant to cut into them as I realized they could all pair together quite nicely on a page. I had the wave borders, the title block with the sun, a couple of cloud, trees and fish die-cuts, a boat image... I got curious, picked one of the blue pages, tested out the pieces on it and the wheels were set in motion. I went back to the calendar I've been picking pictures from and the first one I found was my brother-in-law and two nieces on a boat. Perfect theme for that page.

This probably got put together in record time because it feels like all the leftovers pieces worked together so well. I can say I wasn't planning to go back to older supplies necessarily this weekend because I have more recent summer-themed collections that I want to revisit during the sunny season, but when inspiration comes, it should never be ignored. The orange block could have been my title, and initially, I planned to do my journaling inside the clouds, but I realized there was not much to say about the picture and that I had room to do a nice, longer title, so I went with lyrics of a French song about boats. Again, the alphabets I ended up picking to match my papers are all super old. You have a Making Memories navy rub-on set that was purchased in 2004 (!), burgundy stickers from Cosmo Cricket from 2010 and navy stickers from Bella Blvd. that were from their Winter Wonder collection. I pulled out my white gel pen and added details to the wave border (it looked too plain, it needed something along the edge), the top die-cut and handwrote my date on the picture directly. I added silver pearls on the dotted border, Doo Dadz on the boat and Gold Sparkle Crystals on the trees (I love that detail, I've had trouble using those crystals sucessfully, but they look fantastic on the trees, pairing well with the yellow flower detailing).

Oh, and I should mention that I was not liking the straight edges on the sun piece so I pulled out my deckle trimmer to fix that. I love that trimmer. I don't necessarily use it often, but I use it regularly and it is one of those purchases that will pay for itself in the long run. I seem to understand that there's been mixed reviews about this tool (as per comments from Tim addressing it during his Facebook Lives), but I like the soft deckle, I don't necessarily need it to be more than that. My only issue with it is that there is one spot at the top (near the hinge) that doesn't cut as sharply and tears the paper more than it neatly cut it, but I've gotten into the habit of cutting my pieces at the bottom of the cutter instead of the top (which is my usual habit, as this is how my larger guillotine cutter is set up and it makes more sense as you don't need to fully lower the arm if you are cutting a shorter piece). Small readjustment in the grand scheme of things and I still consider it a good purchase for me personally. 

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers, Die-Cuts: Beach Bum (Fancy Pants Designs)
Stickers: Winter Wonder Alphabet (Bella Blvd.); Tiny Type (Cosmo Cricket)
Acessories: White Gel Pen (Gellyroll); Navy Misunderstood Alphabet Rub-Ons (Making Memories);
Halloween Party and Seasonal Pine Doo Dadz (Buttons Galore & More);
Gold Sparkle Crystals, Silver Foil Pearls (Studio Katia); Deckle Trimmer (Tim Holtz for Tonic);
Midas Touch and Glitter Gloss Aqua Shimmer Brushes (Nuvo); 
Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!)

 

Winter Wonderland Quartet

I still had four card bases leftover from creating with Lawn Fawn's Simple Stripes: Diagonal die, so I kept using my Winter Wonderland cut-aparts and putting cards together. 

So on my previous cards, I used some of the cut-aparts images and didn't need the frame so rather than cutting through it, I used my paper cutter to take the center out and keep the frames. This allowed me to make shakers really quickly. The border was the perfect size to hide adhesive foam strips underneath and I had some Snowflake Sequins mix from a previous Stampin' Up! holidays catalogue that I filled my shakers with. 

I used Tim Holtz's deckle trimmer to mat the images that weren't turned into shakers. I was loving those two images too much to hide them, so I decorated around them instead. The snowman had a little text bubble with an English sentiment, so I got creative and hid it underneath a stitched oval die-cut, on which I created my own French sentiment.

I also stamped a French sentiment, embossed in white, at the top of the cut-apart with the animal pyramid. I remembered as I was looking for my French stamps that I have this cute fluffy chenille fiber, perfect to add a bit of texture to the card. I tied it with a bit of sparkly crochet thread. I used an oldie but goodie snowflake punch with holographic bling (which is outrageously expensive but so beautiful...) in the center on two of the cards.

I still need to make envelopes for those cards, are most are very bulky with the shakers and I don't think they will fit comfortably in A2 envelopes, and I have to write a little note for the kids who will receive the cards inside. Last year, I crafted for the seniors. This year, for the kids. It's extremely satisfying to use my time and supplies to make somebody's holidays a little brighter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Douceurs glacées, Coffre d'étiquettes, Cousu avec joie, Tempête de souhaits (Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Thick Whisper White, Highland Heather (Stampin' Up!);
Blue Cashmere Pearlescent, Cobalt Blue Glitter, Blue Obsidian Mirror (Tonic)
Ink: VersaMark; Polished Pink, Blueberry Bushel (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Icons Stickers, Winter Hugs Shape Sprinkles: Winter Wonderland (Doodlebug Design)
Dies: Simple Stripes Diagonal Backdrop, Stitched Oval Stackables (Lawn Fawn);
Joyeuses Fêtes (Lime Citron); Joyeux Noël (Les ateliers de Karine)
Accessories: Foam Adhesive Strips, Stampin' Dimensionals, Snowflake Sequins,
White Stampin' Emboss Powder, Window Sheets, Blueberry Bushel 1/8" Ribbon,
Highland Heather Mini Striped Ribbon (Stampin' Up!);
White Sparkly Crochet Thread, Turquoise Chenille Fiber (?);
Deckle Trimmer (Tim Holtz for Tonic); Snowflake Punch (EK Success);
Holographic Gems (Recollections)

 

Winter Wonderland Trio

Inspiration: Global Design Project #301 

So I mentioned in my Expedition Everest page post that I wanted to keep using Doodlebug's Winter Wonderland collection to make cards. Specifically, I was eager to test out the newly-released Simple Stripes: Diagonal background die from Lawn Fawn. I was really intrigued by it and very curious to see it done with patterned papers (so far, I've only seen colorful cardstock background in the samples posted). 

Here is the thing: be prepared to work on a card set as you will end up with a ton of pieces. If you simply alternate two patterns, you will get a minimum of two cards. Here, I did the same pattern twice on each card, and that gave me a total of five backgrounds. It is quite pleasant to assemble the pieces, it feels like putting a puzzle together and you get a very even result that would be quite challenging to get by assembling paper scraps on your own (especially with the diagonal pattern).

Once I was done with the backgrounds, I fiddled around for a little while before I found an idea that I liked to get going on a card, but once I did, I worked on all three cards in a row and it all went smoothly. I reused some leftovers pieces from my scrapbook page (the remaining bunting pieces) and the negative space from the sentiment on one card and the leftover letters on the other. As I previously mentioned, my local scrapbook store is organizing a drive for cards for a children's hospital and this was the inspiration behind those cards. I tried to keep them youthful and fun for that reason.

I turned one of the cards to the side so that I could use the ski lodge image and turn it into a shaker. It's a little unusual to have the fold on the side like that, but it still works. Some of the patterns from the stripes are sideways, but since it's just a backdrop, it is really not a big deal. I would remind you to think about the direction of your patterns when you are die-cutting your paper, though, if that sort of details matter to you.

The big yeti card was a really quick design since I used a 3" x 4" cut-apart piece. There was an English sentiment at the top, which I hid with a strip of cardstock and I die cut a new French sentiment out of the beautiful Blue Cashmere pearlescent cardstock from Tonic. Since I had gotten my Snowflake sequins out for the shaker, I used some of the sequins to embellish the two other cards, including by gluing the clear holographic cupped sequins over the tree "foliage."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Thick Whisper White, Blueberry Bushel, Smoky Slate (Stampin' Up!);
Blue Cashmere Pearlescent, Cobalt Blue Glitter (Tonic) 
Patterned Papers, Icons Stickers, Winter Hugs Shape Sprinkles: Winter Wonderland (Doodlebug Design)
Dies: Stitched Scalloped Rectangle Frames, Bunting Borders, Simple Stripes Diagonal Backdrop (Lawn Fawn);
Sentiment Labels (Simon Says Stamp); Joyeuses Fêtes (Lime Citron);
Joyeux Noël (Les ateliers de Karine)
Accessories: Swimming Pool Mini Paper Doilies (Doodlebug Design);
Ticket Corner Punch, Foam Adhesive Strips, Stampin' Dimensionals,
Snowflake Sequins, Window Sheets (Stampin' Up!)

 

Seeing You S'More Soon

Inspiration: Simon Says Stamp Monday (Food or Drink)

This card was done in three different sittings. First, I put together the adorable Smiley S'more die while I was watching a Facebook Live. I used my old Stampin' Pastels from Stampin' Up! to do the shading on the pieces, which gave a nice smokey look.

Then, the next time I sat down to craft, I looked for background to make a card with it. I selected the pink Watercolor Wishes paper, die-cut it with the Zig Zag Rectangle dies and decided to use my Duo Gel with the Loops stencil to do foiling on it. I let it dry overnight and when I came back for a third sitting, I added Amber Watercolor foil from Deco Foil to the loops with my laminating machine. This is perfect as this foil goes from silver to gold to copper, which works well with the roasted look of the s'more. 

For the sentiment, I was juggling with a few ideas and I finally landed on "I'm really looking forward to seeing you s'more soon." I was planning to use the Oliver's Sttched ABCs dies to make the S'more word, but I didn't really have stamps for the rest, so I used my computer and printed it in brown, then I used my trusty Sentiment Labels dies to cut them into even strips. I inked the bottom of my die-cut letters with Tea Dye Distress Oxide ink and a blender brush.

To back the little die-cut image, I used the Cream paper from Let It Shine for the center and the dark brown Woodgrain cardstock for the frame, using the Stitched Scalloped Circle Frames dies. The s'more image was popped up on dimensional adhesive and so were the sentiment strips and letters.

To embellish the inside of the card and the envelope, I pulled the Sweet Friends stamp set to use the matching s'more image.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Sweet Friends (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip (Stampin' Up!); Cotton Candy (Bazzill);
Woodgrain Cardstock in Neutrals (Lawn Fawn)
Patterned Papers: Watercolor Wishes, Let It Shine (Lawn Fawn)
Ink: Tea Dye Distress Oxide (Ranger); Chocolate Chip (Stampin' Up!)
Dies: Smiley S'more, Stitched Scalloped Circle Frames, Zig Zag Rectangle Stackables,
Oliver's Stitched ABCs (Lawn Fawn); Sentiment Labels (Simon Says Stamp)
Accessories: Amber Watercolor Foil, Transfer Gel Duo (Deco Foil);
A2 Oak Woodgrain Envelope (envelopes.com); Stampin' Dimensionals, Stampin' Pastels (Stampin' Up!)
Font: Garamouche

 

First Day of School

I was happy to find this picture of my niece taking the school bus for the first time when she began kindergarten. I had purchased some of the elements from the School Life collection from Simple Stories when it came out a couple of months ago, so it was a good opportunity to pull it out. For the background, I looked through my Simple Basics kits and I found an aqua polka dot paper in the Simple Vintage My Valentine kit. I don't have that paper collection, but I thought those papers were great, so they made a good base for this page.

I didn't purchase much from the line, but I did get the chipboard frames, so I was eager to use them. I wasn't working with a standard size picture (since it was cut out from an older family picture calendar), so I just used the frame as an overlay. I did washi tape (from another Simple Stories collection) and patterned paper at the top, and added a "first day!" tab, on which I added a white messy stitches rub-on. I repeated the messy stitch rub-ons, this time in black, on the striped paper.

The backpack and school banner was die-cut from the cut-apart sheet. The pen, clip, thumbtack and yellow circle came from the element sticker sheet, and the little bus, apple and star came from the puffy stickers. I added a few sequins found on my desk here and there on the page.

For the title, I used navy stickers from an older Bella Blvd. sticker sheet and I stamped the first word in Old Olive ink using the Megan Alphabet stamps from Echo Park, and handcut the word to fit it over the clipboard. I drew a few lines and handwrote my journaling. I used a paper scrap at the bottom and stamped my date using an old Stampin' Up! date stamp. (I have two date stamps from the office supplies store and there's a gap in years between the two, so I was really happy to stumble onto this Stampin' Up! rotary stamp from quite a few years ago and to discover that it runs from 2012 to 2023, so between my three date stamps, I now cover from 2004 to 2030.)

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: This and That Rotary Stamp (Stampin' Up!); Megan Alphabet (Echo Park)
Patterned Papers: Simple Vintage My Valentine Basics Kit, School Life (Simple Stories)
Ink: Real Red, Old Olive (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Washi Tape, School Life Puffy Stickers, School LIfe Chipboard Frames (Simple Stories);
Stampin' Dimensionals, Distressing Tool, Black Journaling Pen (Stampin' Up!);
Black and White Roughly Sewn Rub-Ons (49 & Market);
Sequins (Cartwright's); Navy Alphabet Stickers (Bella Blvd.)

 

You Are the Sweetest

Because I purchased the Summer papers from Carta Bella in 6" x 6" format, I wanted to try doing a pocket page layout to use this collection for a page. I realized this is the first pocket page layout I've done all year. Pocket page had initially brought me back to scrapbooking when I fell more into cardmaking many years ago, but I finally found my way to traditional scrapbooking again and don't seem to find it as daunting as I once did. I also realized that pocket scrapbooking is only faster if you slip journaling cards in the pocket and don't embellish much. In my case, I ended up making personalized inserts for every pocket, so as you can imagine, it didn't end up being any quicker than traditional scrapbooking.

I found a 4" x 6" picture of my youngest niece wearing her cute pink sunglasses and I decided to use a protector with six 2" x 2" squares around the main picture. The Mega paper pad included cut-aparts in that size, but they were all word-heavy, so I used a few and I used patterned papers, other cut-apart images, stickers and twine to create other inserts.

Because the main picture comes from past year calendars that my sister has gifted us, there was a little hole on the side of the picture. I solved that problem with a puffy sticker, and I also added a die-cut border and washi tape to fill in the full length of the pocket. At the bottom, I added another sticker and I fussy cut a little watermelon slice to add to it.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers, Sticker Book, Puffy Stickers: Summer (Carta Bella)
Dies: Layering Squares (Stampin' Up!); Borders (Photoplay)
Accessories: Washi Tape (MAMBI); White Baker's Twine, Genial Gems (Stampin' Up!);
Pen (Fäber-Castell)

 

Tropical Hello

Inspiration: Just Add Ink #563

Last week, my local scrapbook store owner shared a technique during her Facebook Live where you dry-emboss a cardstock and then use wax or polish to add to the raised surface. She did this on both white and black cardstock, and I was inspired to pull out all of the wax and polishes I have on hand, emboss four pieces of white cardstock and four pieces of black and test my products out with this technique. The results were very varied and it was nice to get a better idea of which I liked better for what. (In summary, for this technique, I definitely preferred the Finnabair waxes over the other polishes I tried, which stayed in place on the cardstock and were hard to move around.)

On the leaf-embossed cardstock, I used Mint Sparkle wax and it was catching the light nicely when you moved the cardstock around, but was otherwise pretty drab, so I decided to pull out a few colors of Distress Oxide inks and my blender brushes to add color to the background. I liked the new look so much better!! On the Coastal Weave cardstock, I had used White Gold wax (my favorite!) and again, decided to ink blend a couple of colours of brown Distress Oxide inks.

Those test papers stayed on my desk for a little while and during today's crafting session, I was inspired to pair the foliage and basket weave papers together along with the Tropical Squidgies stamps to create a card. I also grabbed a gold-foil frame from my desk, as I still have a bunch leftover from using the Fine Frames Plate Die from Altenew. I needed something where the two cardstock met, so I added jute ribbon and the cute cocktail washi tape from Doodlebug (which I made sure to place down on white cardstock first so that the design showed up properly). 

I colored my image with Polychromos pencils and die-cut it with the matching die. (Too bad Stamping Bella decided to discontinue their die offering - I found I was using their images more when I started buying the matching dies.) I also found a sentiment die from the Label Love French set, stamped it on a leftover scrap that had previously been cut using Tim Holtz's deckle trimmer. I moved my image and sentiment around on the card and found that it looked quite lost in the large frame. So I decided to pull out the Botanical Builder die set I had recently used to make a few 3D flowers to fill in the space. I have to say, the flowers came out better than I had anticipated. I've seen a few videos here and there on shaping flowers and while I don't have the specific tools to do it, I do have a few old styluses, including the EK Success Empressor, that I bought back when we were using metal stencils to do dry-embossing and that has been gathering dust since. I gave it a try to mold flowers and it works really well!! I dipped the tips of the petals directly in matching ink pads and I used Generous Grapefruit holographic foil paper to create my center, along with holographic bling. It filled out the space nicely and stayed with the tropical theme.

This card is sort of a nice surprise, as it is a mix of different experimentations. In the past year and a half, I have really discovered the value of "play time" when it comes to crafting. Before then, I always sat down at my desk with the goal to create a project from beginning to end. Testing out things, creating stand-along elements or embellishments and putting those aside for later is definitely a new process for me, but it's working out quite well, yielding surprising and unique results. I don't think I would have created two different backgrounds, plus colored an intricate image and prepared 3D flowers all in one evening. By dividing the work in more than one sitting, I ended up with an intricate card and a mix of varied elements without the process feeling daunting. I hope I can encourage you to try those "testing sessions" out for yourself!

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Label Love French (Altenew); Tropical Squidgies (Stamping Bella)
Cardstock: Thick Whisper White, Mango Melody, Green Galore, Evening Evergreen, Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie,
Gold and Holographic Generous Grapefruit Foil Sheets (Stampin' Up!); Cotton Candy (Bazzill)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento); Lucky Clover, Twisted Citron, Frayed Burlap,
Antique Linen, Gathered Twigs Distress Oxide (Ranger);
Strawberry Slush, Mango Melody, Pumpkin Pie, Blushing Bride (Stampin' Up!)
3D Embossing Folders: Layered Leaves, Coastal Weave (Stampin' Up!)
Dies: Tropical Squidgies (Stamping Bella); Botanical Builder, Label Collection (Stampin' Up!);
Fine Frame Rectangles (Altenew)
Accessories: Polychromos Pencils (Fäber-Castell); A2 Bronze Metallic Envelope (envelopes.com);
Stampin' Dimensionals, Jute Ribbon (Stampin' Up!); Frayed Burlap Distress Oxide Spray, Glossy Accents (Ranger);
White Gold and Mint Sparkle Wax (Finnabair); Tropical Punch Washi Tape (Doodlebug Design);
Bling Stickers (Recollections); Deckle Trimmer (Tim Holtz for Tonic)

 

Tropical Nap

The starting point of this card was the Tropical Leaves Background stencils from Lawn Fawn. I decided to ink blend the patterns on Crumb Cake cardstock using blender brushes and Distress Oxide inks. I picked Abandoned Coral, Salvaged Patina, Bundled Sage and Shabby Shutters. 

I then layered the Tropical Leaves Backdrop frame die-cut out of a sheet of the Delicate Pastel Glitter Pad from Memory Box. I also cut the Tropical Vine Borders out of Soft Succulent cardstock and added those on the Crumb Cake cardstock before layering the glitter frame with adhesive foam strips. I colored a few images from the Toucan Do It stamp set and the image from the I Like Naps stamp set and added those to the card. The sentiment from the I Like Naps stamp set was stamped on Flirty Flamingo cardstock and added to the bottom of the frame, and I added the little flowers from the die set in glittery pink cardstock, topped with gems.

Because the resulting card was thick, I made an oversized envelope to go with it, out of pink cardstock, and I stenciled a leaf from the Tropical Leaves stencil in glitter paste.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: I Like Naps, Toucan Do It (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Flirty Flamingo, Crumb Cake, Whisper White (Stampin' Up!); 
Delicate Pastel Glitter Pad (Memory Box)
Ink: Abandoned Coral, Salvaged Patina, Bundled Sage, Shabby Shutters Distress Oxide (Ranger);
Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Dies: Tropical Vine Borders, Tropical Leaves Backdrop, I Like Naps, Toucan Do It (Lawn Fawn)
Accessories: Genial Gems, Adhesive Foam Strips, Envelope Punch Board,
Banners Pick a Punch (Stampin' Up!); Markers (Copic); Blender Brushes (Taylored Expressions);
Glitter Paste (Gina K Designs)

 

Adorable Duo

I am thoroughly enjoying using the Summer collection from Carta Bella and made one more album page using it. (And to think this was a collection where I went back and forth many times on whether to buy or not...) This is the fourth project in a row I am making with this collection! I usually get bored and switch collection before that!

I started using some pictures from past year's calendar my sister has gifted the family for Christmas and when I cut out the page for my previous page, I was left with this summer picture. I couldn't help but notice that the clothes my nieces are wearing match the Summer papers perfectly, so this time, I decided to make a new page for my Elizabeth Craft Designs planner album. The pages are only 3¾" wide so you can't do full-size pictures on them, but you do have a bit of leeway on having the pictures hang off the edge if you want since they are not put in a page protector.  This picture was already cropped pretty tight, so this is what I did, adding patterned paper to the back to hide the calendar grid.

I played with papers scraps and a few dies from the Planner Essentials sets. It was my first time using the flower hole reinforcers. It fit the theme well here. The row of three little flowers at the top is actually the leftover part of the border I had done on my memorydex card. I hadn't thrown it away as I figured I might be able to sneak it somewhere else and it worked out great here.

Because I was doing a short title with no repeating letters, I knew that opened up a lot of options. I used the Lucy Uppercase die from Echo Park with Burnished Rose mirror cardstock from Tonic for the second word, and I did the first in coral alphabet stickers from Elle's Studio. (I placed an order a couple of months ago because I really wanted a tag set and I added stickers to my order and so far, I've really loved using them. The size and colours are easy to work into other collections.)

The little bow on the flower cart comes from the Garden Party sticker roll. This is my first time purchasing a sticker roll from American Crafts and the jury is out right now. The stickers are really cute, but when I unrolled the bow roll, I discovered that quite a few bows had bent ends and a couple were even already torn even before I had unrolled it (and I was very careful, as I could tell the bows were fragile). It doesn't seem to be the right packaging for this specific type of stickers, I'm afraid.) I added pearls and stamped the date in the bottom, and I stapled a tab on the picture edge.

I didn't really have any journaling and the back of the page felt quite plain, so I added three strips of patterned paper and decorated each one with bling and some kind of embellishment. I punched the sentiment with an oval out of patterned paper and fussy cut two tags from a patterned paper as well. I added a Bella Blvd epoxy star at the bottom. On the second strip, I used a sparkly enamel dot and two word strips cut from patterned paper. The teeny tiny enamel dots are from Violet Studio and they were purchased online, so how small they are was a surprise. On the third strip, I used a rhinestone sticker from Recollections and a stamp from the sticker book.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: This and That Rotary Date Stamp (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Paper, Sticker Book: Summer (Carta Bella)
Ink: Misty Moonlight (Stampin' Up!)
Dies: Straight Flower Border (Lawn Fawn); Planner Essentials 4 and 11.
Reinforcement Variety Pack (Elizabeth Craft Designs); Lucy Uppercase Alphabet (Echo Park)
Accessories: Bluebell, Rose Pink and Moss Green Pearls (Studio Katia);
Mini Stapler, Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!); Coral Puffy Alphabet Stickers (Elle's Studio);
Midas Gold and Blush Rosette Glitter Gloss Brushes (Nuvo);
Garden Party Sticker Rolls (Maggie Holmes for American Crafts);
Button (Foof-a-La); Epoxy Stars Christmas Mix (Bella Blvd.); Enamel Dots (Violet Studio)

 

June Memorydex Card

I wanted to use the Summer collection from Carta Bella (2021) and decided to make my June Memorydex tab with it. I fussy cut some of the cut-apart images and added a sentiment from the Sticker Book. The cute flowers were created with the Straight Flower Border dies from Lawn Fawn and I dotted the centers with the Genial Gems from Stampin' Up! I used the sky baker's twine from Lawn Fawn to decorate as well. This is a cute collection. I got the 6" x 6" Mega Pad, which is great because it includes the matching monochromatic colours.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Mois de l'année Courrier (Lime Citron)
Patterned Papers, Sticker Book: Summer (Carta Bella)
Ink: Misty Moonlight (Stampin' Up!)
Dies: Memorydex - Tabs (Heidi Swapp); Straight Flower Border (Lawn Fawn);
Planner Essentials 21 (Elizabeth Craft Designs)
Accessories: Sky Baker's Twine (Lawn Fawn); Deckle Trimmer (Tim Holtz for Tonic);
Stampin' Dimensionals, Eyelets, Genial Gems (Stampin' Up!);
Midas Touch Aqua Shimmer Brush (Nuvo)

 

10 Things I Love About Summer Mini-Album

Inspiration: Flip Book Tutoriel from Pinkstrawberryz

After finishing a scrapbook layout with the Beach Bum line, I left my scraps out, fully intending on making another project with the scraps. I ended up going through Michelle's YouTube list and randomly picking one I hadn't tried. The base of this album measures 10" x 12", which worked out well since I had a few full pages left in the package and matching cut-aparts. I had a lot of fun putting this one together and decorating it, using border and tag dies and ribbon scraps. As with most of Michelle's tutorials, it's easy and the result is just lovely. I also ended up using all of the remaining bits from the matching die set, so that felt very satisfying. I think I can probably squeeze one last card out of the remaining scraps, and then whatever is left will get divided into my scrap drawers by colour. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers, Die-Cuts: Beach Bum (Fancy Pants Designs)
Dies: Happy Day Tags (Carta Bella); Slimline Edgers (PinkFresh);
Wave CutUp (The Cat's Pajamas); Pocket, Frame and Flip-Up (Elle's Studio)
Accessories: Big Designer Buttons, White and Soft Sky Cotton Twine, Stampin' Dimensionals,
Circle Punch, Eyelets, Ticket Corner Punch, 1/8" Lucky Limeade Organza Ribbon,
1/8" Daffodil Delight Grosgrain Ribbon (Stampin' Up!); White Ric Rac, Sparkly Button (Unknown);
Halloween Party Doo Dadz (Buttons Galore & More); Sparkly Enamel Dots (Pink & Main);
Deckle Trimmer (Tim Holtz for Tonic); Corner Chomper, Green Jumbo Eyelet (We R Memory Keepers);
Gold Sparkle Crystals (Studio Katia)