Encre, papier, ciseaux

Happy Together

Inspiration: Simon Says Stamp Monday (Embossing Folder)

I purchased the Christmastime dies from Tim Holtz when they came out last year and even though I pulled them out quite a few times, I never managed to put something together that made it on a project using the dies. Last weekend, after watching Tim's Valentine Live, I got inspired to pull out my craft supplies and simply play with supplies and testing some of the techniques he was showing, with no specific plan for a particular project in mind.

The first thing I tried was pulling out my metallic kraftstock, embossing a silver sheet with the Dotty Hearts embossing folder, sanding the surface and inking it with pink ink. I was really pleased with the result. I also tested out sanding a piece of Core'dinations cardstock and inking it to see if I would get a result similar to what he did with the kraftstock, but the result was not the same. Tim does mention that his technique worked well because the core of his cardstock is kraft, which is very porous and takes ink well. Seems the Core'dinations cardstock is not quite the same, but that being said, I still liked how the texture of the cardstock was showing up better with the sanding.

So both of those pieces became the starting point of today's card. I die-cut a scalloped rectangle out of the Cherry Cobbler sanded cardstock, and I layered my embossed and inked silver paper over it, adding white borders with scalloped borders dies. Then out of the blue, I remembered my Christmastime dies and thought that if I skipped the tree, I was left with a cute couple taking a walk together. And I also remembered I had some older sentiment dies from Stampin' Up! with the word "together" on it. The wheels were in motion, so I pulled the supplies I needed and started working on the card. I also found in my French sentiment dies the word "happiness", which helped me put together a full sentiment.

I picked my colours based on an old ColourQ combo of three shades of pink and Early Espresso. That being said, I was not liking how using solely pink would have looked with the paper piecing, so I incorporated a tad of navy in there. I'm really happy because I decided to test out the In the Navy cardstock from Gina K Designs and it is that rich and deep navy that I was hoping for. I have been using Night of Navy from Stampin' Up! for many years and I only recently noticed that it was not as deep as a true navy should be when I tried pairing it with patterned papers and the difference in shading became more obvious. I'm happy I found this alternative. Ordering online is so hard when you try to judge colours, but this was a pretty safe gamble as navy is a neutral shade. Not like the ever elusive shade of pink I'm trying to add to my collection and cannot seem to find anywhere.

To tie in the navy from the paper piecing, I added a stitched banner from the same Foundation dies set I was using, also filling in the empty space a bit. I added a Say It in Crystals gem on the pennant and two little epoxy hearts at the top, over my first word. I should add that I sponged some Cherry Cobbler ink on my Petite Pirouette cardstock before die-cutting the word "together", which gave a nice ombre look to it.

I used my silver paper scrap on the envelope, with another navy tab and a pink wax seal that was sitting on my desk. I added another epoxy heart to the seal because the heart size was a perfect match.

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Cherry Cobbler Core'dinations, Crumb Cake, Petite Pirouette, Primrose Petals,
Early Espresso (Stampin' Up!); Metallic Kraftstock (Tim Holtz for idea-ology); In the Navy (Gina K Designs)
Ink: Worn Lipstick Distress Oxide (Ranger)
Dies: Foundation Dies #4, Scalloped Borders (Queen & Co); Christmastime (Tim Holtz for Sizzix);
Tu es formidable (Stampin' Up!); Bonheur (DIY)
Accessories: Sanding Block, Stampin' Dimensionals, Dotted Hearts Embossing Folder,
Kraft Medium Envelopes (Stampin' Up!); Heart-fetti Shape Sprinkles (Doodlebug Design);
Pink Wax (Honey Bee); Wax Seal (Altenew); Sparkly Red Brad (Making Memories); 
Blender Brushes (Taylored Expressions)

 

Happy Birthday to a Perfect Gentleman

Inspiration: ColourQ #223 + In[k]spire Me #470

This project was born from my experimentation pieces. I had cut up a woodgrain texture cardstock in quadrants and on this one, I had stenciled some glitter paste and then spritzed the cardstock with Candied Apple Distress Oxide spray. I had also used the Mini Foundry embossing folder on Silver Kraftstock and used black acrylic paint to distress the metal and highlight the details.

I had wanted to create something with the Inquisitive stamp set for a while and I decided the pieces I was working with might be perfect for it. I drew inspiration from the In[k]spire Me sketch and set my pieces following the same design. I stamped the row of numbers from the stamp set on the metal piece and embossed it in Crushed Curry powder. I also used the plus signs image on the striped patterned paper, which I distressed the edge of and added to the card using mini staples.

I stamped the target in Merry Merlot ink and cut it out with a circle die. I stamped one of the gentlemen in Tuxedo Black ink, colored him with Copic markers and cut him out. I was trying to figure out how to add a sentiment to my card and I decided to test the round happy birthday die I have, which happened to be the perfect size. I initially did it in Summer Starfruit, but it was really clashing against the Crushed Curry embossing powder, so I covered it with a second circle die-cut out of Basic Grey cardstock instead.

I was looking for something to finish the card with, so I stamped the doodled border from the Dotted and Stitched set on the left and I added a screw embellishment to the metal part. The panel was mounted on a Basic Grey card base.

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Inquisitive, Dotted and Stitched (Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous)
Cardstock: Basic Grey, Whisper White (Stampin' Up!); White Woodgrain (Memory Box);
Metallic Kraftstock (Tim Holtz for idea-ology)
Designer Series Paper: 2014-2016 In Color (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento); VersaMark; Merry Merlot, Basic Grey (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Layering Circle Dies (Tonic); Stampin' Dimensionals, Mini Stapler,
Crushed Curry Stampin' Emboss Powder, Urban Underground Ornements,
Glimmer Texture Paste (Stampin' Up!); Dotted Line Stencil (Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous);
Black Acrylic Paint (Unknown); Markers (Copic); Candied Apple Distress Oxide Spray (Ranger);
A2 Dandelion Envelope (Simon Says Stamp)

 

Magic Love Postcard

Inspiration: Simon Says Stamp Wednesday (With Love)

I can't even say specifically how this card came about. Its creation was very organic and I just bouncing from one idea to the next and grabbing stuff that was nearby on the desk and this is wat I ended up with. I'm really happy with the end result. I have put aside some Valentine collection and the Magic Love papers had been put aside, but even though I enjoy putting together a Valentine or love card once in a while, those are the ones that tend to pile up in my stash and never get used. Even when I was selling cards at the office, those were not the best sellers. So here, I tried to be more generic and go for something that could be used for anyone you love. My mom's birthday is coming up in a week, so this might actually be her birthday card.

It started with me wanting to ink the Snail Mail postcard stamp from my Coco & Reno order. I stamped it in Rose Red ink on pink patterned paper and I handcut the image with my deckle trimmer. Interestingly enough, the image has not been sized to fit on a standard A2 card with an even border around. The width fits, but not the height. For that reason, I added patterned paper underneath to make it look more intentional. I fussy cut one of the cassette tapes from the patterned paper and layered a postcard cut-apart underneath. I have been playing with my Queen & Co shaker kits lately as well, so I grabbed the viewfinder circle from the Say Cheese kit and die-cut it out of Stampin' Up!'s pearlized paper. Using the same shaker kit, I made a film strip shaker, filled with beads, pearls, gems, clay hearts and sequins in matching colours. 

I had cut postage stamps from the patterned paper using some old decorative scissors to have the deckled edge, so I picked the heart stamp tp layer over the shaker box. It felt a little bare, so I stamped the postage stamp image from the Letters to Santa stamp set and I fussy cut a second heart from another stamp from the same paper and added it at an angle using dimensional adhesive. I added a gem on the heart and vanilla lace trim underneath the film strip. As I was looking for French sentiment stamps, the tassels I had put together a while ago caught my eye and I grabbed a pink one to add to the card.

For the sentiment, I stamped "from the bottom of my heart" in Mint Macaron ink on patterned paper, punched it out with the washi tape punch and layered a Vanilla Hodgepodge Hardware frame over it. I've had those for well over a decade, so I was happy to have it fit so well on my card and get it used up.

For the envelope, I had previously used my pearlized paper to make an envelope for another card and the size was not working, so I had left it in my paper pocket. When I pulled the paper out for my die cutting, I thought it would be a good occasion to reuse the envelope that was already made, so I just added a few cut images on it and I now have a matching envelope that's big enough to accommodate the various layers of the card.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Messages d'amitié (Florilège Design); Snail Mail, Letters from Santa (Coco & Reno)
Cardstock: Thick Very Vanilla, Pearlized Paper (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers: Magic Love (Prima Marketing)
Ink: Rose Red, Mint Macaron (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Very Vanilla Hodgepodge Hardware, Stampin' Dimensionals, Sequins,
Vanilla Trim, Envelope Punch Board, Washi Tape Punch (Stampin' Up!);
Decorative Scissors (Fiskars); Say Cheese Shaper Shaker Kit (Queen & Co);
Sweet & Tart Heart Sprinkles (Trinity Stamps); Sequins (Cartwright's);
Sequins (Simon Says Stamp); Gems (Studio Katia); Beads (Mill Hill);
Deckle Trimmer (Tim Holtz for Tonic); My Sweet Say It In Crystals (Prima Marketing);
Light Chipboard Embellishments (P13); Heart Puffy Stickers (Stickah)

 

Cupid Mailbox

I have been seeing some really cute projects done with Coco & Reno dies over the years and I finally caved and placed my first order with them. I was eager to try my new purchases, particularly the Mail Box dies since Valentine's Day is coming up. I picked the Cupid & Co papers released last year by Echo Park.

I used white woodgrain cardstock to make the flag on the side of the mailbox and I used a black brad to make a hinge. I added a die cut with the word Always, from the Frames & Tags ephemera pack that I got on clearance for a dollar recently. I punched a small heart and added it to the flag to decorate it.

On the front flap, I added a pink foil bow that was die-cut using the Bows dies, also from Coco & Reno. To decorate the left side, I used a rosette (another die from my order), topped with a circle die-cut and a little banner that was fussy cut from the patterned paper. I added a touch of red Stickles on the little heart from the banner.

I love that this mailbox was incredible easy to put together but also a little bigger than most I've seen in the past. (Approximately 3½" long by 2¼" high.) Hopefully, I have time to make a second mailbox so that I have one for each of my nieces.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: White Woodgrain (Memory Box); Foil Sheets (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Frames & Tags Ephemera: Cupid & Co (Echo Park)
Dies: Bows, Mail Box, Rosettes (Coco & Reno)
Accessories: Black Brad (Unknown); Mini Heart Punch, Mini Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!);
Christmas Red Stickles (Ranger)

 

Sweet Snowman

Inspiration: Try Stampin' on Tuesday #539 + Just Add Ink #587 (Circle + Twine) + Tic Tac Toe #145 + Just Us Girls #616

I went through the supplies I have put aside hoping to use soon and I spotted the Snowman dies from Spellbinders, which I scored in one of their clearance sales last year. I remembered seeing snowman-themed challenges this week, so I pulled it out. I went looking for patterned papers before I started using the dies so I would know which color scheme I was working with. I pulled out the Navy Mustard papers from Scrapbook Customs, as I was drawn to the colours. 

I die-cut the top hat out of Misty Moonlight cardstock, the leaves out of Pool Party, the scarf and berries out of Petite Pirouette, the eyes out of Basic Grey, the nose out of Summer Starfruit and the face out of Whisper White. I used a grey pen to draw the mouth following the debossed shape, and I used a navy marker to color the hat's ribbon, following the debossed lines as well. I used a white marker to add a few highlights. I'm not really fond of this marker as it seeps into the cardstock and does not produce an opaque result. In this case, I wanted the highlights to be subtle, so I worked this "flaw" to my advantage.

The background was die-cut with the Wonky Stitched Rectangle die-namics and I used the Mini Slimline Stackables for the two panels. I layered a Misty Moonlight and Pool Party ribbons to tie in a knot and I added a bow of linen thread over it. I punched a mini banner out of patterned paper to add at the top of the right panel, topping it with a pink rhinestone and I added a few white glossy confetti around the card. 

The snowman was added to a punched circle in the center of the card and I stamped my sentiment ("Best Wishes") on a strip of Pool Party cardstock using Misty Moonlight ink, cut the edge at an angle and added it to the card with dimensional adhesive, before adding an Opal Rounds to the end. I used Petite Pirouette cardstock for the card base.

I made a matching envelope out of patterned paper and I added an address block die-cut out of Pool Party cardstock with the Labels collection dies. I remembered those dies had matching piercing templates, which I dug out to pierce a border before gluing to the envelope.

 

 

 

     

Supplies
Stamps: Joyeux moments (Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Pool Party, Summer Starfruit, Basic Grey, Whisper White,
Petite Pirouette, Misty Moonlight (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers: Navy Mustard (Scrapbook Customs)
Ink: Misty Moonlight (Stampin' Up!)
Dies: Labels Collection (Stampin' Up!); Wonky Stitch Rectangle Stax (My Favorite Things);
Mini Slimline Stackables (Lawn Fawn); Snowman (Spellbinders)
Accessories: Petal Pink Rhinestone Jewels, Opal Rounds, Envelope Punch Board, Paper Piercer,
Stampin' Dimensionals, Basic Grey Stampin' Write Markers, Linen Thread, Piercing Template,
Pool Party and Misty Moonlight Ribbons, Mini Banner Punch (Stampin' Up!);
White Glossy Opaque Confetti (Cartwright's); White Marker (Unknown)

 

Delivery on Pumpkin Drive

Inspiration: ColourQ #239 + Lawn Fawnatics #117 (Lots of Heart)

I had no specific plans when I started working on this project. I had received an order from my local store this week and wanted to play with it, so I picked a scrap of Bristol cardstock, covered it in Spun Sugar Distress Oxide ink, then I added the dotted stencil over it and added Abandoned Coral Distress Oxide ink. I pulled another stencil from the same set and did the numbers using Martha Stewart's Rose Quartz glitter paste. 

One of the items that I was most excited about from the Valentine release from Lawn Fawn were the Mini Slimline Stackables dies. I haven't been all that excited about the slimline trend that has hit the market a few years previous because the finished cards are way too large for my liking. That being said, I have been doing 3¼" x 6½" cards for about a decade as many years ago, Stampin' Up! used to carry envelopes in that size. I never stopped making that card size even after the envelopes were discontinued, but I never had any stitched rectangle dies in the proper size to create layers. The largest of the rectangles measure 3" x 6", so I have to shorten the finished card by a quarter of an inch, but it doesn't matter - I became extremely giddy once I found out that the mini slimline dies were being released.

So because those were my most recent acquisition, I looked to make a card in that size and when I pulled the largest die to see if my scrap of paper would fit, I discovered that the scrap I had pulled measured exactly 3" x 6"!! I ran it through the Big Shot to get the stitching, and then I ran a piece of pastel orange glitter paper in the machine using the Valentine Heart Borders dies, also from the new Lawn Fawn release. I cut the second piece out of Pumpkin Pie cardstock and layered it over the glitter paper. Rather than throw away the leftover hearts, I used another border cut out of glitter paper and added the hearts on it, keeping this to embellish my envelope.

While the stamp sets from the Lawn Fawn release were really cute, I restrained myself and passed on purchasing them. I've seen myself fall being on using my new Lawn Fawn purchases and I don't like the feeling of collecting rather than using, so I've been pushing myself to shop my stash. Because I had based the colours of my card on an older ColourQ challenge that incorporate orange and green, I was trying to decide what to use on my card and kept reverting back to the Pumpkin House dies. A little random, but I thought it could look really pretty done in those colours so I just went for it. I think that little house is really adorable. I didn't want to make it out of solid cardstock since I had already used orange for the bottom border, so I die-cut the pumpkin out of more Bristol and inked it in two shades of Distress Oxide ink instead.  I used the same trick for the top: I die-cut the stem out of Old Olive cardstock, but did the vines and leaf in Bristol, inked in two shades of green Distress Oxide ink. The door was done in Calypso Coral, the window and light holder in Old Olive and the light in Pretty in Pink. I backed the windows and light using the same colour of glitter paper as the border. I did the doorknob in Copper foil sheets.

I then looked through stamps to see if I could maybe add a critter to the scene. I thought about maybe the mice blowing bubbles or the owls delivering mail, but the owl looked really big against the pumpkin house. I realized that I could just do the package, though, as though it had been delivered at the door. I used the open package and added the floating hearts. I added a little envelope as well to add next to it (both from the Special Delivery and Special Delivery Box Add-On sets). The images were colored with Stampin' Blends markers and I added Cotton Candy Stickles to the hearts. I added the flower pot done with the dies from the Pumpkin House set, and placed a glittery flower from a Prima set in the other corner. 

Because the flower if so bulky, I used patterned paper to make an oversize envelope for the card. I used my leftover border and added a tag for the address block. This card is a little wacky but I do love it.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Special Delivery, Special Delivery Box Add-On (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Old Olive, Pretty in Pink, Calypso Coral, Pumpkin Pie, Crumb Cake, Copper Foil Sheets (Stampin' Up!);
Bristol (Canson); Delicate Pastel Glitter Pad (Memory Box)
Patterned Paper: Unknown (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Forest Moss, Peeled Paint, Frayed Burlap, Abandoned Coral, Spun Sugar, 
Carved Pumpkin, Dried Marigold Distress Oxide (Ranger); Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Dies: Special Delivery, Special Delivery Box Add-On, Mini Slimline Stackables,
Pumpkin House, Valentine Hearts Border (Lawn Fawn); Tailor Made Tags (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Capri Flowers (Prima Marketing); Envelope Punch Board (Stampin' Up!);
Rose Quartz Glitter Paste (Martha Stewart); Mini Stencil Set 48 (Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous);
Blender Brushes (Taylored Expressions); Glossy Accents, Cotton Candy Stickles (Ranger)

 

Sweet Talk Card and Tag

Inspiration: In[k]spire Me #469 (sketch) + Simon Says Stamp Wednesday (Four-Legged Friends)

I wanted to make something else with the Sweet Talk collection before putting it away, so I ended up working on a layered tag and a card using some of the leftover pieces from my last layout.

I was particularly drawn to the two folk hearts pieces I had. Initially, I had inlayed the polka dot heart in the larger one, but as pieces were moving around on my desk, I decided staggering them might make my project more interesting. I also had this panda bear that was fussy cut from a cut-apart paper, so that was the start of the card. I picked papers that were not too busy for the background and added Cherry Cobbler scalloped polka dot ribbon between the two papers. I used the backside and hid the polka dot because the collection's base neutral is vanilla and the white polka dots were clashing with the papers. I did the banner at the top using a paper scrap and added a decorative brad on it.

The bottom of the card felt bare and I remembered I have tic tac toes from My Favorite Things purchased many years ago. I used the black set to fill the corner and on a whim, I added a piece of clear view film I had in the same embellishment box. This allowed me to add a puffy sticker and have it grounded on the design. I was really excited when the puffy sticker trend started, as those remind me of my precious sticker collection from back when I was a kid. That being said, most puffy stickers packs include very small images, and I've found it harder to work them into my design while making the scale work. The film strip made for a nice workaround. I also found black sugar coated brads from Doodlebug in the same ornament box and added one to the left side of the ribbon. To finish off the card, I added black doodling to the aqua heart and the top paper and gold doodling to the polka dot heart, plus a couple of enamel dots. I deliberated on whether to add a sentiment to the card or not, but I felt I would have more uses for this card if I didn't add a specific sentiment to it. (Or I could always add one to it later depending on the kind of card I need.)

As for the tag, inspiration came from spotting a cute tag set in the Scrapbook.com gallery.  My tag is a little different, but definitely very highly inspired by the ones shown there. I added leftover tulle to the bottom and dotted hearts embossing on the back tag. This will go into my tag box for now, but might get turned into a card or added to packaging at some point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Thick Very Vanilla, Soft Sky (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Puffy Stickers, Decorative Brads, Chipboard Elements, Enamel Dots: Sweet Talk (Simple Stories)
Dies: Folk Hearts (Essentials by Ellen); Nested Tags (Scrapbook.com)
Accessories: Sparkly Tulle (Recollections); 
Stampin' Dimensionals, Riding Hood Red Ribbon, Cherry Cobbler Scalloped Polka Dot Ribbon,
Black Journaling Pen, 1-3/4" Circle Punch (Stampin' Up!); Tic Tac Toe - Black (My Favorite Things);
Clear View Film (Fun Stampers Journey); Beetle Black Sugar Coated Brads (Doodlebug Design);
Gold Pen (Pica); Vanilla Square Envelope (Envelopes.com)

 

Behind Door 11

It took me way too long to get this page done. I spent all afternoon plus a bit more time in the evening to finish it, and it's not even a very involved design. At two point, I considered putting it away and revising later, but I kept going and I'm actually pleased with the end result, which I was originally dubious would be the case.

Those pictures were taken at Universal Studios. They are the London street you see when you exit King Cross' station after your ride on the Hogwarts Express. This is supposed to be Grimmauld Place. My two-year-old niece kept playing with the doorknob and trying to open the door and we gently explained to her that those doors were just decorative and didn't open. Or so we thought, as not even two minutes later, one of the door opened and someone from the Universal Studios staff came out, to our biggest surprise. Made us look like a bunch of liars in front of my niece!

I knew I wanted to use the Open House dies from Spellbinders to mirror the door from the pictures. Those dies have been sitting in my stash for a few months now, waiting to be used, and they were perfect for this page. When I sat down to start the page, I put Tim Holtz's Live in the background, which focused on alcohol inks. I have never worked with those, but the video reminded me that I did purchase some beautiful papers from Craft Consortium with full backgrounds printed to look like alcohol ink creations. I wondered if they would work for my page background... They totally did, and I was liking how the blueish grey page I picked was meshing well with the color of the staircase.

I also pulled out some Harry Potter-themed papers from Paper House and played with a few pieces and cut-aparts to see what my design could look like. I wrote down my journaling to see how much space I'd need to keep with it and then I tried to think of my title as well. I probably changed my mind three or four times on which title to use and finally settled on "Behind door 11". I've mentioned in the past that French uses a boatload of the letter E and I'm always trying to be mindful not to deplete my E's too quickly when using sticker collections or else they quickly become unusable. This was the case with the word "derrière", which uses 3 E's and 3 R's. Ouch!  So I started with the number 11 and used the Big Letters dies from Stampin' Up! with gold foil sheets. I then proceeded to add the word door with stickers but found that most of my stickers were too short and didn't balance the size of the number well, so I pulled the Society Bigz alphabet die from Tim Holtz and cut the letters I needed out of black glossy paper. The next word was created out of Midnight Thickers. And then I was left to add that word with way too much repeat letters. I tried a sticker pack I had many multiples off, but I quickly realized it was not going to fit. So I dug through my alphabet stamps and tried to see if I could stamp on the grey background only and not get to the darker circle, but before I did, I spotted a really, really old sticker set (says 2003 on the packaging) that was the right size and had enough letters, so I gave this a try and it solves my problem very nicely.

The top of the page was pretty bare, though, so I looked through my Harry Potter stickers and cut-aparts and layered a few elements to fill the space. I added the little feet and feather at the bottom over the cut-apart and I stamped the date on the bottom step.

To tie in with the title and the pictures, I looked through my dies to see if I had any numbers that would be small enough to add the number 11 to my die-cut door and the Alphanumeric Label dies from Tim Holtz were just the perfect size. I used the gold foil sheets again and added the number at the top of the door, where I had more space to glue the numbers flat.

Then I used my T-ruler to add lines at the bottom of the page and handwrite my journaling. This is such a relief to be finally done with this page and have one more ready to add to my Orlando trip album.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Project Life Une date (Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Basic Black, Basic Grey, Vellum, Gold and Black Foil Sheets (Stampin' Up!);
Fog (Lawn Fawn)
Patterned Papers: Wizarding World (Paper House);
Ink Drops - Dusk (Paper Consortium)
Ink: Night of Navy (Stampin' Up!)
Dies: Alphanumeric Label, Society Alphabet Bigz (Tim Holtz for Sizzix); Circle Layering (Tonic)
Open House Door Base, Open House Sentiment Steps, Open House Door Side Panel (Spellbinders);
Large Numbers (Stampin' Up!)
Stickers: Alphabitties (Provocraft); Midnight Thickers (American Crafts);
Wizarding World (Paper House)

 

Wild Asparagus Envelope Accordion Album

Inspiration: Tutorial from Pinkstrawberryz

I had so much fun putting together this mini-album based on Michelle's latest YouTube tutorial! I'm trying to shop my stash and pull out collections that I didn't have much time to play with. The beautiful Wild Asparagus collection from My Mind's Eye was one of them. I almost changed my mind as I was about to create the mini-album as I thought I could make something more kid-friendly that could be gifted to my nieces, but I decided to stick to initial idea and use the papers I had pulled. I'm so glad that I did, as I'm really happy with the final result!

I followed Michelle's instructions for the envelopes and binding but when she started embellishing her album, I had a look to hear her advice, but then I started going where inspiration led me. I liked her tag idea for the second envelope and I created my own using a sticker from the sticker sheets, backed with cardstock. I added an eyelet and ribbon, plus an acrylic embellishment and a charm. I picked from the chipboard embellishments for the third envelope, to place something that would peak out over the edge. While I liked the striped paper, the result was a little loud, so I decided to break it up by creating an additional pocket out of blue polka dot paper. I simple rounded the bottom corners and punched a half circle at the top. I decorated it with a few stickers and I added a gold-rimmed tag (purchased ages ago). I punched a piece of patterned paper and then added a bit of ribbon. I used a gold clip to keep the envelope closed (more for looks than necessity). On the left side, I added stickers and leftover paper pieces to create interest.

On the first envelope, I added a vellum envelope like Michelle was showing. I wasn't too keen on keeping the sides open, so I used a scalloped border die at an angle on the front part and I used sparkly washi tape to close the sides. (On a side note, I added adhesive strip so that it would stay put as sparkly washi tape has a tendency to not stick well.) I added a few stickers to the pocket and then I looked through the journal cards to see what I could fit in there. I needed one that I could trim down to fit the envelope. I initially cut down the blue card with the flower and it looked nice, but when I trimmed the quote and added it to the pocket, it looked much better, so I left the first card aside to use later. As I did, I realized that I could make a pocket for the front cover with it, though. I only added tape to the right side and the bottom edge, so that you can slip things in that are larger, as the left side remains open. I added two additional journal cards, one of which I decorated with stickers and a mini antique tag. I added the bunny sticker on the pocket (with a gem for the tail) and another acrylic piece as well.

I liked the idea of putting the front flap over the album cover, but didn't like how it was not staying flat, so I decided to use a velcro dot. The front cover felt very bare, so I started thinking about what I would add to it. I liked Michelle's idea of simply clipping a tag there, but I quickly realized that my journal tag were too large and getting in the way of the velcro. So I picked my favorite image, trimmed it down to size using a scalloped rectangle die, but the white background was not contrasting against the polka dot paper, so I decided to mat it. The scalloped rectangle comes from a die kit that it made to use with pocket journaling. It includes a panel with a fold in the middle, so you have a piece you fold in half and if you slide the back part inside the pocket, you get a flap. For a minute there, I decided I'd do a flap that would wrap around the album, that I would glue on the backside and use as a flip-up part on the front. Again, after cutting the paper, I soon realized that the velcro was still getting in the way. I did like the flip-up idea, so I improvised: I punched a half-circle on both layers of the flip base, glued it to the front of the album, and I added my image to the top using dimensional adhesive. Now, the velcro was closing properly. I added a pink journal card inside the flip, punching a half-circle again to accommodate the velcro. I could have trimmed the card down, but I was liking the little bit of pink showing at the bottom for added interest, so I left it.

I started looking at embellishments to do the finishing on the album. In my box of really old embellishments, I found this wooden-looking flower that I've had for over a decade. Not sure where this came from, I think it might be upcycled from packaging or jewelry. I was liking the look and size added to the front flap, so I decided to go for it. I added a sparkly gem to the center. I scored one of the tab stickers and folded it in two in the center of the front flap. I added a little sentiment sticker at the bottom, with two pink pearls on each side. I added a Frosted Finishes embellishment to the top of the flip. I added a few gems and opals here and there and was done.

I have a feeling I might want to revisit this mini-album concept again in the future and make a new version using a different paper collection.

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers, Chipboard Elements, Journal Cards, Stickers: Wild Asparagus (My Mind's Eye)
Cardstock: Tranquil Tide (Stampin' Up!) 
Dies: Pocket, Frame and Flip-Up - Extra Frames (Elle's Studio); 
Stitched Scalloped Borders (Lawn Fawn)
Accessories: Velcro Dots, Wooden Flower, Twill Ribbon, Gingham Ribbon, Gold-Rimmed Tag (Unknown); 
Clever Clasps, Frosted Finishes Embellishments, Mini Vintage Tags, Trinket Crowns,
Elegant Faceted Gems, Opal Rounds, Petal Pink Rhinestone Gems, Genial Gems,
Share What You Love Artisan Pearls, 1" and 1-1/4" Circle Punches, Stampin' Dimensionals,
Maxi Heart Eyelets (Stampin' Up!); Sweet Caroline Baker's Twine (My Mind's Eye);
Sparkly Gems (Recollections); Décos mots doux Céladon et Rose thé (Florilèges Design)

 

Sweet Talk Tea Holder Minialbum

Inspiration: Tea Holder Valentines Flat mail Mini Album - Tutorial from Pinkstrawberryz

Michelle shared a new Valentine tutorial this week on YouTube and I grabbed the Sweet Talk collection from Simple Stories (released last year) that I had put aside for Valentine crafting to give it a try. This collection is super adorable, but it is also filled with puns and English text (especially the Bits & Pieces), which makes it a little trickier to use in my French crafting. I also somehow ended up with doubles for a few of the packs (the puffy stickers and enamel dots) so I want to make sure this actually ends up getting used. I don't have a specific use in mind for this mini-album right now, but I'm thinking I could slip a few crafting supplies in it to give my nieces for Valentine.

I followed Michelle's directions fairly closely, but I did make a few adjustments based on the papers I was using. I love when a tutorial includes vellum pockets because it is a lovely look, but I am not fond of gluing the flaps on the front of the project. I saw an opportunity to wrap the vellum pocket flaps around the album and glue them on the back, which in turn made it that I had to add patterned paper to hide the vellum flaps and also the fact that the backside of the patterned paper was a cut-apart sheet and looked a bit weird. I added the red heart pattern, then an additional striped pocket. This addition came from my own mistake - I cut the pocket too short to hide the vellum flaps, so I decided to run with it, cut another piece of paper and add the pocket to it. I didn't mind the addition, but you just have to remember when making a mini-album that folds over itself than the more layers and dimension you add, the harder it will be to shut the album flat.

I added ephemera to the small pockets, and a fussy cut journaling block to the large pocket. I slipped two of the cut-apart tags inside the large pocket. I added a third cut-apart tag to the striped pocket on the right, plus flower trim that was the perfect shade of pink to go with the papers.

On the left flap, I added gold chevron washi tape and layered a few pieces of chipboard over it, topped with a little puffy sticker heart. I added a heart with wings puffy sticker to the third panel as well. I added decorative brads and enamel dots on my pockets and images.

On the vellum pocket, I added a piece of patterned paper (from the company info strip), punched a circle out of the smaller cut-apart sheet and added the two birds puffy sticker over it. As a side note, the right edge of the vellum was die-cut with the Stitched Scalloped Borders dies from Lawn Fawn for a softer look. The left panel was a 4" x 6" cut-apart cut to size.

For the front of the album, I used an old black and vanilla wide ribbon to keep the album shut, and I added the Love chipboard piece, plus a heart puffy sticker and the decorative brad that says "Love is in the air" at the bottom. I added Glossy Accents to the Love chipboard to add dimension.

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers, Puffy Stickers, Bits & Pieces, Enamel Dots,
Decorative Brads, Chipboard Elements: Sweet Talk (Simple Stories)
Dies: Stitched Scalloped Borders (Lawn Fawn)
Accessories: Baker's Twine, Black Striped Ribbon, Mini Stampin' Dimensionals, Gold Star Washi Tape (Stampin' Up!);
Black Twine (Recollections); Ribbon (Unknown); Gold Chevron Washi Tape (Bo Bunny)

 

It's a Wonderful Life

After I was done with my previous layout, I kept going using the leftover papers. The starting point of the design was my Simple Stories template. It made it really easy to create a grid with my four pictures and once that mat was created, I started tucking leftover papers underneath to create a layout. Again, I did a lot of fussy cutting of elements from the cut-apart pages. I added a bit of stamping and a few rub-ons to fill up the page. Those are additional pictures from our outing at the Botanical Garden, but I wanted to show how my niece kept pulling faces on all of the pictures.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Dates From the Past (Creative Expressions); Ticket Express (49 and Market)
Ink: Old Paper Distress (Ranger)
Patterned Papers: Simple Vintage Garden District (Simple Stories)
Accessories: Sugar Cookie Say It In Crystals (Prima Marketing);
Mini Stampin' Dimensionals, Mini Stapler, Square Stamp Punch (Stampin' Up!); 
Scripted Dates Mixed Media Transfers (Creative Expressions);
Heat Wave Thickers (American Crafts); Grey and Pink Pens (LePen);
Sky and Navy Rub-On Transfers (49 and Market); Gold Paint Pen (Krylon)

 

Butterflies Go Free

Inspiration: Page Maps January 2022 Sketch + Lasting Memory Layout challenge #580 (Add a pocket)

Now that I'm out of the Christmas crafting, I want to catch up on scrapbooking so I dug through my printed pictures to decide what to work on next. I spotted the pictures from our outing at the Botanical Garden in Montreal from five years ago and I realized they would pair very nicely with the Simple Vintage Garden District papers from Simple Stories. I have to say that considering that Simple Stories was mostly doing cutesy papers initially, they have really hit a home run with with the collections they released when they decided to add vintage style to their lines. That being said, experience has taught me that I don't have the easiest time using vintage paper lines, so when this one came out, I carefully picked a few of my favorite sheets from it instead of the whole pack. What appealed to me the most from this collection was the beautiful colour scheme - the pink, peach, buttery yellow and teal combo is right up my alley.

For this page, I pulled out the flower and butterfly page. I cut half an inch off in both direction and matted the paper on the teal paper from the Basics Kit. Because I wanted the paper to remain visible, I did two things: I rearrange the elements of the sketch so that I would still keep the long envelope idea, but I superposed my main picture over it. I also used a craft knife to cut out of the butterfly wings and flowers so that I could tuck my pictures under those elements. The sketch has a paper block, which I got inspired to use a gold Design acetate for. I was still losing one of the butterflies under it, so I cut it out of the paper with the craft knife and layered it over the whole it created using dimensional adhesive. I fussy cut a few elements from the cut-apart sheet and the floral patterned paper and created embellishments this way.

The title and date were created with tile alphabet stickers and Thickers. The pink on pink alphabet tiles from Elle's Studio look really good paired with this collection and the pack has enough vowels that I wasn't hesitant to sacrifice 3 E's on a single title. I created an insert for the envelope by cutting a long 2-inch-wide strip of pale yellow paper from the Basics Kit and I punched the top with a Label Topper punch from Stampin' Up! I added peach seam binding at the top, tied with pink thick baker's twine. I added gold to the edges with a Krylon gold paint pen. I added a few gems and an orange bead that was lying on my desk to embellish the layout.

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers: Simple Vintage Garden District (Simple Stories)
Stickers: Pink Jane Tile Alphabet (Elle's Studio); Banners and Cecily Thickers (American Crafts)
Accessories: Midas Touch Aqua Shimmer Brush (Nuvo); Perfect Layers Tool, 
Peekaboo Peach Seam Binding, Thick Baker's Twine, Elegant Label Topper Punch,
Stampin' Dimensionals, Golden Garden Designer Specialty Acetate (Stampin' Up!);
Sugar Cookie and Pretty Pale Say It In Crystals (Prima Marketing); Craft Knife;
Gold Paint Pen (Krylon)

 

Aye, Aye, Captain!

Inspiration: February 2021 Page Maps Sketches

When the Set Sail collection from Photoplay came out, I really loved the colours and design and I decided to get the paper pack in spite of the fact that I wasn't sure how I would use them since I've never been on a cruise. Then, I remembered that I had pictures of my niece sitting at the wheel of the pontoon when we rented a cabin a few years ago. At that time, I had not printed the pictures yet so I put a Post-It note on the paper pack to remember that idea, and when I dug through my pictures during the holidays to get scrapping again, I found the boat pictures and then I went digging for the paper pack. Now that I finally had both on hand, I made sure that this page would be my next project.

This came together fairly easily. It took a little while mostly because I was also watching videos while crafting, but the ideas came pretty easily since I had the sketch plus a full pack of paper and stickers to work with. It's always easier when a collection has not already been picked at... 

I lucked out for the title: I've had the red alphabet from Doodlebug for a while and it's starting to be slim pickin' in the letter department, but I found all of the letters I needed, including a capital letter for the name. I found smaller alphas in the right shade of blue in my PinkFresh stickers. 

One of the cut-apart had a ship's wheel, so I handcut it and bubble cut the sentiment, then I mounted both on dimensional adhesive and adhered the images to a die-cut vellum circle. This helped make the images stand out more and give that element more visual weight on the page. The cut-apart wheel also had an image of the front of a both that I liked. I handcut it but the sides were reaching the cut-apart block and had really sharp edge, so I made sure to place it in the corner of my center patterned paper and I used a sentiment sticker to hide the left edge. Now, it looks like it was meant to fit that way on the page.

I used the green patterned paper to make the strip at the left. On the sketch, both sides are scalloped, but I didn't think scallops would fit the look and feel of this layout. Having the two straight edges made the page feel a little blocky, though, so I looked at my longer edge dies (my favorite part of the slimline card craze) and I found the Slimline Stitched Hillside Borders. Those are meant to make hills, but it can also look like a wave, which worked perfectly on this page and improved the overall look greatly.

I added the rope sticker at the bottom of the page. It always annoys me when a border sticker is not a full 12" size, so I centered it and used the pennant stickers to add to each side to make it full width. The banners had two holes at the top and despite me leaving the holes in (the negative part of the sticker), it was bothering me that we could see it, so I added red rhinestones to hide that detail. The sticker sheet had a buoy, which I was inspired to slip my baker's twine bow in the center of. I also added the "Cruisin'" sticker at the top and the bunting sticker going from it to the vellum circle. 

Because I had played around with the ship image, I didn't have space to handwrite the journaling in the space shown on the sketch, so I used another cut-apart and slipped it under the green paper instead. I added am anchor sticker at the bottom, and it created a link between the journaling block and the title, with the side of the anchor pointing directly to the beginning of the first word (which helps since I did blue letters on blue paper and it can get a little bit lost). All that was left to do was adding a few embellishments and the page was done.

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Navy (Bazzill); Night of Navy (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Stickers: Set Sail (Photoplay)
Dies: Circle Layering Set (Tonic); Slimline Stitched Hillside Borders (Lawn Fawn)
Accessories: All the Trimmings Embellishments, 2020-2022 In Color Square Gems,
Red Rhinestone Basic Jewels, Resin Hearts Embellishments, Mini Stampin'
Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!); Ladybug Just My Type Alphabet Stickers (Doodlebug Design);
Office Hours Mini Alpha Stickers (PinkFresh)

 

Love-Filled Look

This is an older picture, but I love it because it captures the loving way my niece was looking at me when she was a toddler. I was trying to find pictures that I could pair with the Sweet Talk collection with, so I pulled this one out.

I should note that I've started seeing the value of the Basics Kit sold by Simple Stories, as they are monochromatic pages that have subtle patterns or designs to them and that pair with various collections very nicely. So I have started buying those packs, even the ones for the collections I don't own, and this worked out well for this layout as I was able to pull a coral paper from the Simple Vintage Farmhouse Garden Basics Kit to use as my layout base.

I never thought this one would get finished tonight, let alone that I might actually like the end result. I struggled so much to put something together. I started from a sketch, but quickly had to stop relying on it and just start moving elements around and try to find a pleasing arrangement. 

I made the first part of my title using the Letterboard Alphabet Bigz die from Tim Holtz. I've noticed that Thickers will sometimes use colored foam peeking from underneath the letters and I've been loving the look, so I decided I would paint the chipboard letters I had die-cut before adding the patterned paper on top. I didn't have any pinks in my paint colors and I could have mixed my own, but I went the lazy way and simply pulled black paint. I have to say, even though this adds time with the painting and drying, this is a worthy step as it really changes the achieved result and I think I'm going to revisit that technique in the future.

I was liking the heart cluster from a cut-apart image, so I fussy cut the hearts and decided to stitch a larger heart underneath to make this detail stand out. I created a stencil with the Folk Hearts dies and backstitched the heart with matching needlepoint floss. I also used red floss to add cross stitches in two corners of my picture mat.

I was curious how it would look if I filled the center of the stitched heart with a smaller colored heart, so I die-cut the smaller size in Soft Sky cardstock, embossed it with the Tufted embossing folder and added my hearts with Stampin' Dimensionals. I added a few puffy heart stickers and enamel dots.

The envelope with flowers is also a cut-apart that was fussy cut, with enamel dots added to the flower centers and a decorative brad added to the envelope. I finished my sentiment with a script word die and sparkly red letter stickers. 

I really struggled with the top part of the page the whole time I worked on it. I tried with one tag, two tags and three tags, moving them up and down and changing the order. I tried adding patterned paper underneath, I tried creating a little tab on the right edge using flower trim and patterned paper. In the end, I streamlined and only kept two tags, plus a smaller chipboard one from the decorative brads pack. It filled the space enough without overwhelming the layout. I added ribbon and twine to the tags, plus a few buttons here and there and decided this was the best this was going to get and called this page done.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Mois de l'année Script (Lime Citron)
Patterned Papers, Enamel Dots, Decorative Brads, Puffy Stickers: Sweet Talk (Simple Stories)
Ink: Pool Party (Stampin' Up!)
Paper: Simple Vintage Farmhouse Garden Basics Kit (Simple Stories)
Dies: Folk Hearts (Essentials from Ellen); Letterboard Alphabet (Tim Holtz for Sizzix);
Tasteful Trims (Stampin' Up!); Ref. Articles (Kesi'Art); Je t'aime Avec amour (Simple à souhait)
Accessories: Chipboard (Upcycled Packaging); Black Paint (Delta); 1/4" Circle Punch,
Tufted 3D Embossing Folder, Stampin' Dimensionals, Ribbons, Cotton Twine, Buttons (Stampin' Up!);
Needlework Floss (DMC); Buttons (Foof-a-La); Winter Hugs Shape Sprinkles (Doodlebug Design) 

 

Love You

I have been loving a lot of releases from Simple Stories in the past few years and I was happy to put my hands on the latest release, Happy Hearts, at my local store. They only had the collection kit and foam stickers, so those were the starting point of my page. I have been scrapping pictures that were taken almost six years ago when we went to the botanical garden for a butterflies in freedom exhibit. The pictures that I selected for this page are really sweet, showing a tender moment between my sister and her daughter that I wanted to highlight separately.

I had ordered from Elle's Studio last year after finding a very specific tags stamp and die set, but while browsing their website, I also found this neat die set that is meant to put together frames or flip-ups that I was really intrigued by. I have been getting back to scrapbooking on a more regular basis in the last couple of years, but I found myself gravitating more towards traditional scrapbooking, so I hadn't done pocket scrapbooking in a while. For those pictures, I thought pocket scrapbooking could work well so I got excited about making a flip. I picked a paper that had directional patterns only on one side and die-cut the flip accordingly. I did a rounded tab, and I added a cut-apart inside for my journaling. I handcut some cassette tapes from a patterned paper and arranged them on the front of the flip, added a foam heart on the tab, a sentiment sticker at the bottom. Inside, I handwrote my journaling on the cut-apart square and stamped the date in two ink colours. I die-cut a cross stitched circle to place inside the flip-up (top part) and added the bouquet sticker.

I used the scalloped rectangle die from the same die set to cut one of my pictures. I glued it on one of the 4" x 6" cut-aparts and added a sentiment sticker at the top. I slid it in my top left pocket and I added a camera sticker with dimensional adhesive on the outside of the pocket.

At the bottom, I matted my main picture with patterned paper, fussy cut a ticket from a patterned paper and glued it on the picture. I slipped it inside the pocket and added the "love you" foam sticker outside. This collection is adorable, I can't wait to make more projects with it.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Mois Script (Lime Citron)
Patterned Papers, Foam Stickers: Happy Hearts (Simple Stories)
Ink: Calypso Coral, Night of Navy (Stampin' Up!)
Dies: Cross Stitched Circle Stackables (Lawn Fawn);
Pocket, Frame and Flip-Up - Extra Frames (Elle's Studio)
Accessories: Diamond Art Pebbles (Prima Marketing); Glossy Accents (Ranger);
Mini Stampin' Dimensionals, 6" x 8" Page Protector (Stampin' Up!) 

 

First Grade

Inspiration: Allison Davis Video

The starting point of this page was watching Allison Davis' video showing how to use 6" x 6" paper on a large scrapbook page. I loved what she showed and thought the design would be really easy to adapt to any theme or paper pad, so I went looking through my 6" x 6" paper pads to see what would spark an idea. When I saw the Back to School pad from Echo Park, I remembered I had received a school picture of my friend's kid in her Christmas card. I also remembered that when I organized my scrapbook albums recently, I noticed that I still had two unused page protectors in my 8" x 8" album and wanted to make a couple of page to fill it up. Since school pictures are wallet sized, shrinking the page down to a smaller format was convenient, so I kept the same idea from Allison's page, but sized the scale down. Basically, you use the center mat to your advantage and snip your banner pieces in two to stretch them over the page. 

I started by pairing the Numeric stencil from Tim Holtz with silver embossing paste on grey cardstock. I put aside to dry and worked on my pieces in the meantime. I went through scraps and used my pennant punches from Stampin' Up! to prepare the banner pieces and picked the yellow ruler pattern for the center block. I wanted the pieces to pop more, so I ran my Basic Grey Classic ink pad alongside the edges of all of my papers. One of the papers from the pad was a cut-apart for borders, so I used the little bus on the road to add to the bottom of the center mat. I matted the picture with diagonal stripes paper, added a piece of torn paper and a scrap of apple paper to give more visual weight to my picture. I added hand stitching using green needlework floss over some of the strips.

For the title, I wanted a big 1, so I paired the Au fil des ans stamp set and the matching Large Numbers dies, then I created the other words using Tim's Alphanumeric Label dies and an alphabet set from Recollections, alternating colours for a more playful look. I punched a few stars from the same grey cardstock, inked the edges with a black Stampin' Write marker and popped them on the page using Mini Stampin' Dimensionals. The centers were too bare, so I went looking through my embellishments and added rhinestones, stars and enamel dots to the centers.

I found my School Days Icons stickers from Doodlebug and added the cute school to the page corner. I added a yellow enamel dot to the door for the doorknob. I also pulled out the Life In Color stickers from Simple Stories. I used a black label to add a bit of information, and I handcut the three stars from a square sticker and spread them around the page. I also used the Captured word sticker on the edge of my picture mat. I reused the leftover piece from using my banner punch and glued it on the page as a tab, adding a green gingham embellishment to it.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Au fil des ans (Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Smoky Slate, Cork Specialty Paper (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers: Back to School (Echo Park)
Ink: Basic Grey (Stampin' Up!)
Dies: Large Numbers (Stampin' Up!); Uppercase and Lowercase Mini Alphabet (Recollections);
Alphanumeric Label (Tim Holtz for Sizzix)
Accessories: Numeric Stencil (Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous);
Life In Color Stickers (Simple Stories); School Days Icons Stickers (Doodlebug Design);
Green Checkers, Red Twinkle Stars, Yellow Petite Posies (Queen & Co);
Faceted Dots, Black Mini Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!);
Spooky Cute Gumdrops (Your Next Stamp)

 

Dinner With Princesses

Inspiration: March 2019 Page Maps Sketch

When I organized my patterned paper collections earlier this year, I had put aside the Little Princess collection (2019) from Simple Stories  to use with the pictures taken in Disney when we dined at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall, where we were treated to a princess meet 'n greet. When the princesses started coming to the tables, my older niece wasn't keen on getting up to go and see them. We had to prod her a bit, her parents arguing that we had come all this way and me adding that we would need pictures for the scrapbook... This trip was the first time my sister and I had opted for the meal plan when going to Disney. When doing the booking, my sister and her friend had selected all of the restaurants with characters meet and greets, hoping the kids would enjoy that, but at the end of our week, we drew the conclusion that doing sit-down meals eats up a lot of time in a day. My sister and I are all about the rides when we go to an amusement park and we were shocked at the sheer amount of food you have to consume to break even when getting the meal plan, so if and when we visit Disney again, I think our meal strategy would be different.

I used the Teal/Lavendar paper from the Basic Kit for the page base. In opposing corners and along the edges, I inked Highland Heather ink with a blender brush and the Magical Night stencil to create little sparkles. I didn't have enough patterned paper to do a single block going over the two pages like on the sketch, so I had to add stripes at the top to make the block larger. I used a piece of patterned paper with the borders and fussy cut the edge following the yellow band. I added yellow gems to each scallop. 

I used one of the cut-aparts at the top (the tower image), punched a corner and I added a cute cloud fussy cut from the patterned paper to go over the edge of the image so that it didn't look as blocky. I also fussy cut the label from another cut-apart block to make my journaling block. I used three different alphabet sticker set to create my title. I really wanted to use the yellow foam alphabet, but it is now down to very limited letters and so I ad to be creative and cut leftover letters to create the ones I needed. The teal and blue alphabets were newer so I had all of the letters I needed. I like how the last letters go over the pictures, which help to tie the elements of the layout together. I also love that little birdie plucked from the cardstock sticker sheet. I was moving him around the page, not sure where to put him, and I put him near the tower, where the pictures were meeting and it ended up that the last word of my title fit in between the bird and the edge perfectly. Sheer dumb luck, but that worked out well.

I have the Princess Bits & Pieces pack, which is all princess images (that are just so adorable). I placed three in a row over the doilies as per the sketch on the right page, and I added Belle on the left page, to tie in with the picture. I punched two words from the patterned paper using my Duo Ticket punch, and created two small banners, to layer in the left lower corner, as per the sketch.

The cut-apart sheet had a beautiful swan image, which I handcut and added to the corner of the right page, adding a paper scrap underneath to ground the image, and a few sequin stickers from the cardstock sticker sheet. I fussy cut a frog from the patterned paper and added it beside one of the princesses. Then, I finished embellishing with gems and sequins. I was afraid when I pulled out the collection that I might find the result a little bit too pastel-y, especially when I picked the lavendar paper as my base, but since the pictures are all pretty neutral, it works out. I hope I can get back into scrapbooking a bit more now than the Christmas crafting is done.

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers, Chipboard Stickers, Princess Bits and Pieces: Little Princess (Simple Stories)
Ink: Highland Heather (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Curvy Corner Trio Punch, Stampin' Dimensionals, Blender Brushes, Triple Banner Punch,
Duo Ticket Punch, Pearlized Doilies (Stampin' Up!); Silver, Sparkly Gel Pen (Gelly Roll);
Halloween Party and Princess Sparkle Doo Dadz (Buttons Galore & More);
Pale Ocean Blue Green, Hydrangea, Iris, Light Pink, Medium Cornflower Blue Sequins (Cartwright's);
PIneapple Delight Crystals (Studio Katia); Magical Night Stencil (Echo Park);
Teal Puffy Alphabet Stickers (Elle's Studio); Lullaby Foam Letter Thickers (American Crafts);
Super Cool Puffy Alpha Stickers (PinkFresh); Swimming Pool and Bumblebee
Mini Paper Doilies (Doodlebug Design)

 

Beautiful

Inspiration: Scrap Our Stash January 2022 challenge

That was a fun challenge to take on! Last summer, my local store owner offered a really good sale on all of her Simple Stories merchandise to make room for the upcoming holidays collection in the store, and I snagged a lot of interesting products, including part of the Simple Vintage Cottage Fields collection. Interestingly, Simple Stories just re-released this collection this January, so it was a good time to put my purchases to good use.

I've mentioned in a past post that I don't do a lot of vintage projects, but this one appealed to me because of the lovely mix of yellow, pink and aqua. I was lucky enough to get my hands on the chipboard frames, which make a great statement on a layout and speed up the creating process. I still had my pictures taken on the day of our visit to the Botanical Garden out from the Free Butterflies exhibit, which ties in very nicely with all of the butterflies included in that collection.

Here is how I followed the challenge recipe:

• 1 word title: I used the "Beautiful" from the Page Pieces kit.
• 2 pictures: I picked one of the chipboard frames with two openings and got very lucky because the pictures of my nieces were the perfect size for it.
• 3 embellishment clusters: I used the large butterfly from the Page Pieces kit at the top. I layered the banner, the Memories frame and the butterfly from the Page Pieces kit at the bottom right of the pictures, and I added a ticket sticker from the Cardstock Stickers sheet. I popped three hearts from the Page Pieces kit on dimensional adhesive and added those below the cluster as well. In the left lower corner, I handwrote my journaling on a ticket and added the border image from the Page Pieces kit, and added a sticker from the Cardstock Stickers. I stamped the date in pink using a date stamp.
• 4 patterned papers: I used the newsprint paper for the page base. I layered a piece of aqua butterfly print paper in the center and then I tore the side of the paper with a row of watercoloured butterflies and I layered a piece of torn black and vanilla polka dot paper underneath. I rolled the edges and inked them with Antique Linen Distress ink.
• 5 embellishments: I added three aqua enamel dots to the wing of the larger butterfly. I added a gem to the striped banner in my lower right cluster. I placed a metal photo turn at the top of the torn paper edge.

This was really simple to make, but the result looks quite intricate! 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamp: This and That Date Stamp (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Polished Pink (Stampin' Up!); Antique Linen Distress (Ranger)
Patterned Papers, Page Pieces, Chipboard Frames, Cardstock Stickers: Simple Vintage
Cottage Fields (Simple Stories)
Accessories: Hodgepodge Hardware, Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!);
Watercolour Floral Say It In Crystals (Prima Marketing);
Aqua Hero Hues Enamel Dots (Hero Arts); Blender Brush (Waffle Flower)

 

A Cute Souvenir

Inspiration: March 2019 Page Maps sketch

I went back to my Disney pictures. This mug was purchased online but it does have the year we took our trip to Disney on it, so I guess it counts as a souvenir (and it prevented me from having to bring something fragile back in my luggage). This beautiful mug has become an instant favorite.

I decided to pull out the Say Cheese Main Street collection from Simple Stories to match the pink of the cup. The collection also includes cup patterns so it was a nice match. Of all the Say Cheese collections, this one is definitely my favorite. It has obviously been designed by the Crate Paper designer Simple Stories managed to hire a couple of years ago (don't quote me on that, I haven't seen confirmation of it anywhere, but I've been thinking the designs are way too similar to be a coincidence and I have heard so many YouTubers say that the new Simple Stories releases remind them of Crate Paper for it not to be the case).

This page design is quite simple. I used one of the cut-aparts at the bottom and cut my pattern papers to the same width, then I added white sequin trim as per the sketch. I die-cut a folk heart out of red paper and added the speech bubble foam sticker over the picture. It was a happy coincidence that the foam stickers had a speech bubble just like the sketch did, and that Minnie's mouth was located just right on the cup in the picture to fit where the bubble is. While looking through the sticker book, I noticed that there are three alphabets in there, so I decided to use them to create my title, since it didn't have too many repeats. Those alphabets are a little useful because they have so little letters in there that it is hard to spell anything, but I decided to use them while I could. I've mentioned in the past that while I love the quality of most Simple Stories products, their sticker books are a little bit of a let down because the stickers are very thin paper. I used the stickers from a Carta Bella book a few days ago and those are made of cardstock and lay so much better on a project. This is particularly apparent here, since I did two mats on my pictures and therefore the stickers have a very lumpy look as the thin paper shows everything.

I like the half-Mickey head embellishment. I found a Say Cheese Halloween stencil on clearance at a very inexpensive price and thought I might be able to use it just to get the outline shape of the Mickey head, without the English Halloween text that's in there. Once the outside has been traced, the shape is pretty easy to fussy cut. On the plus side, you can also use either side of the stencil and therefore have the head facing whichever way you need. I had done one on pink paper when I received the stencil to see if my idea would work and I was very pleased with the result. Here, I turned it around to get the head facing left and I used the backside pattern to make the tone on tone embellishment stand out.

The cut-apart piece had the words "Can I have your autograph?" on it, which didn't match my page, so I hid the text under other sentiment stickers. I added foam flower stickers to my Mickey head, a few decorative brads and a couple of enamel dots. Easy-peasy and one more page ready to add to the Disney album.

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers, Foam Stickers, Sticker Book, Enamel Dots, Puffy Stickers,
Decorative Brads: Say Cheese Main Street (Simple Stories)
Accessories: Say Cheese Halloween Stencil (Simple Stories);
Foam Adhesive (Altenew); White Sequin Trim (Michaels);
Folk Hearts Dies (Essentials by Ellen); Pastel Pen Collection (Le Pen)