Drill #8 :: Sketchy Saturday

Happy Saturday friends. I'm here this morning bringing you the newest Drill from SWAT - A fantastic sketch from our very own Becci! Take a look:

How fun is that?! There's a great prize up for grabs too. So don't forget to link up your own creation on the SWAT blog by May 28th!

Here is my take on the sketch! I had already printed my photos for this layout. Therefore, I clustered the larger photos in a similar way as the sketch. That's the best part of sketches - They're only a starting point for your creativity!

I just loved the stars scattered all over the sketch. I tried sequins, wood veneers, and die cuts, but I liked the look of spray ink splatters best. I placed a combination of A Muse Studio Splash and Heidi Swapp Color Shine to create the look.

Rather than a large pennent on my page, I used an Amy Tangerine sticker to create a large circle and extended the title to the right of the page. I added a 6x6 piece of patterned paper in replace of the cluster of tags in the sketch and plan to add some journalling in its place. 

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great week - I can't wait to see your take on the sketch!

SUPPLIES
Spray Ink: A Muse Studio Splash (Winter Sky), Heidi Swapp Color Shine (Gold)
Patterned Paper: Pebbles (Content), Echo Park (Sunshine), Dear Lizzy (5th & Frolic 6x6 Paper Pad)
Stickers: Tim Holtz (Label Letters), Amy Tangerine (Goodness Thickers, Organize), Dear Lizzy (5th & Frolic Accent & Phrase Stickers)
Supplies: Tim Holtz (Distressing Tool)

Practical Scrappers :: May Layout Sketch

Good morning! I'm here with a new sketch from Liz Chidester for Practical Scrappers, and it's a fun one. Take a look at the great sketch below.

And here's my take on the sketch:

Let me start off by saying that crazy face in the middle picture is indeed crazy. haha My friend, Anna, recently moved to Minneapolis. I headed there with her twin sister to visit, as well as celebrate my birthday. She took me to this fantastic restaurant, The Local. There were semi-secluded rooms and booths to sit in. The picture I snapped of her was her I-don't-know-what-to-order-stressed-out-crazy face. Now, let's break down the page...

I was crazy about the chevron background; however, it just didn't fit with how I envisioned the rest of the layout. So I added some paint splatters in the same pattern across the background paper. I positioned the three photos to mimic the three smaller squares in the sketch. The two black squares of the sketch inspired the square layers behind the photos. I distressed the edges of the patterned papers, but left the awesome Hambly transparency in tact. Rather than the strip behind the photos as shown in the sketch, I adhered a strip of washi tape, as well as a fun sticker border.

I replaced the two arrows in the sketch with these cute triangle cut outs from Ormolu. The stars in the sketch were also replaced with hearts cut out by my Silhouette Cameo. In the picture below, you'll see that I added an additional Ormolu triangle and die cut heart to the top right corner.

I finished off the layout with some fun embellishments in the same color scheme. I love using two different alpha styles on layouts. Magazines and ads are the perfect place for inspiring typography.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Head over to Practical Scrappers to see more layouts using this single sketch. There are so many great designs! If you're playing along with us this month, make sure to post your layout to our Facebook page. We can't wait to see what you create.

 SUPPLIES
Patterned Paper: American Crafts (Dear Lizzy Bowtie Boulevard), Echo Park (Green Lace, Numbers),

Transparency: Hambly (Lattice-Antique Teal Blue)

Spray Ink: A Muse Studio Splash (Winter Sky), Heidi Swapp Color Shine (Gold Lame)
Stickers: Crate Paper (Pretty Party Border Stickers), Tim Holtz (Label Letters), American Crafts (Amy Tangerine Goodness Thickers, Amy Tangerine Organize, Dear Lizzy 5th & Frolic Small Accents & Phrases)
Cut Outs: Ormolu (Made Pennants)
Washi Tape: A Muse Studio (Valentine Collection)
Cardstock: A Muse Studio (Sugar)
Die Cuts: Silhouette America (Silhouette Cameo, Circle Hearts)

You Can't Touch This

Good afternoon, paper crafting friends. Today is the first Use It Tuesday challenge of May. Not only do we have a great challenge for you (we'll get to that soon), we also have a Design Team Call! Be sure to check it out! 

All challenges at Use It Tuesday call for you to use your hoarded supplies. In fact, a challenge requirement is that you tell us in your post what you used. This challenge goes beyond the hoarded items, asking you to use a beloved item that you love so gosh darn much you avoid using it at all costs. That's right - "You Can't Touch This!"

Now don't worry... I have faith in you. You can do it! Along with my fellow design team members,  I was able to dig into my own stash and find a collection of papers from BoBunny that I never wanted to use. The Country Garden collection is full of the most beautiful paper designs. How could I ever cut them to create a card... Or cover up its beauty with photos and embellishments?! Well I sucked it up, called myself ridiculous, and got over it to create this layout below.

The large background paper is from the Country Garden collection. I actually forced myself to create a few different layouts with the pieces that will be shared over the next few days. This layout documents the first time my mom and dad met my nephew. I wanted it to be soft, but to still have boyish elements. Therefore, I layered 6x6 patterned papers from the large collection of 6x6 paper pads I have laying around. Pulling together the oranges and light blue helped keep a masculine feel among the floral elements. 

I opened my May Studio Calico Project Life Kit right before starting this layout and found a few things to use right away, including this adorable paper clip with fabric flag. Included in the kit was a fun stamp set from Amy Tangerine. I used the ampersand stamp from the set and stamped it directly onto the page using Galaxy Gold Brilliance ink. I added some sticker alphas over the top. 

I stamped it a second time onto white cardstock and adhered it to the page. Using the cut out image allows me to layer the pieces and have added movement. A few additional embellishments from around my craft room complete the layout. I just love those bird shaped wood veneer's from Studio Calico! I had yet to open them, so I'm counting that as an additional hoarded item. I used two large birds and one small to stay within the theme of the page. I plan to make copies of all of my nephew-related layouts and print them off for my mom as a gift. Therefore, I haven't added any journaling yet. I'll let her add her own personal thoughts to each page. 

Thanks for stopping by to see my take on the challenge. We love looking through all of your fabulous entries, so please link up to the Use It Tuesday site by noon EST on Friday, May 24th. One lucky participant will be a guest designer on an upcoming challenge! 

Sketch It Saturday :: Ice Cream Love

Welcome to Sketch It Saturdays with Unscripted Sketches. Unscripted Sketches posts a new sketch each week for you to flip, rotate, or use as is. Make a card, scrapbook page, or other item. There's no right or wrong way, as long as you use the Unscripted Sketch as the inspiration and basis of your creation. Let's take a look a this week's sketch...

I rotated the sketch and made it all my own, creating the card below. 

I pieced together two fun patterns from Pink Paislee and used a Spellbinders die to create the shape shown. The images are from a Cosmo Cricket rubber cling set. The ice cream image was stamped on watercolor paper and colored with Tombow markers and a waterbrush. His arms and legs were first stamped onto the kraft oval before adhering the watercolor piece. Because I flipped the sketch, I felt the card design was not balanced. The kraft banner was added to fix this. After a little faux stitching with a black pen and the addition of the raised speech bubble, I have an adorable card to send off!

Thanks for stopping by today. I can't wait to see what you create. Don't forget to link up your creation by Thursday at Unscripted Sketches!

Cardstock: Paper Cut.

Patterned Paper: Pink Paislee

Stamps: Cosmo Cricket

Inks: StazOn (Jet Black), Tombow Markers, Waterbrush

Die: Spellbinders

Punch: Marvy Oval

New Workshop using BoBunny's Alora Collection

Hello friends. I'm so excited to announce the newest workshop I'm offering at Creations Galore. The monthly workshop, Scrapbook School, will be every third Thursday of the month, making May 16th the first one! Today on the Creations Galore blog, I shared the full picture of both layouts we'll be creating, and wanted to share it with you all. 

May's workshop will focus on distressing, embellishment clusters, and spray ink techniques. Each student will receive a large class kit, as well as page sketches and instruction sheets. Both layouts for the month of May were created with BoBunny's Alora collection. I've added in Doodlebug alpha stickers and Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist as well.

I'll be working with each student to change up the layouts to fit their own photos and journaling. I can't wait for these workshops to start! You can save $5 by signing up for May's workshop before May 13th! To reserve your spot, visit us online here. Additional class kits with downloadable PDF's will be available in our online store after each workshop.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Project Life :: January Pages

Good morning! You may remember a post where I used Project Life page protectors along with traditional 12x12 protectors to create a travel album. I loved working with the protectors so much that I've continued to use them to scrapbook older photos as well as the current year. I've been keeping up on the actual scrapbook; however, I haven't taken many photos or shared them here on the blog. Therefore, you can expect quite a few spreads per post until I catch up on sharing! I find it rather exciting!

If you're new to the idea of Project Life, I highly recommend you check out Becky Higgins' site. She's the creator of the Project Life brand and has a great video on the home page of her site explaining this form of documentation that has taken over the paper crafting industry.

For this album, I jumped right into the content sans title page. I guess you could say I created a title card instead! The 3x4 card was cut from patterned paper. I then added a piece of scrap cardstock, some journaling, and glitter Thickers. I used the smaller Design G protector.

I've chosen to include traditional 12x12 pages throughout the album; therefore, I'm not creating a 2 page spread for each week. As I collect photos, memorabilia, and memories, I have been adding it to the pages. Here's a look at the rest of the Project Life pages from January.

My mother brought over a vintage typewriter for me to try out. I used it a bit on the layout above. I found that some of my cards were too thick for this particular typewriter and went right back to writing my journaling by hand. I still need to sit down and play around with this new tool. I love the look it created, especially on the 3x4 month card from Studio Calico.

More Studio Calico cards were used in this page too! Before subscribing to their PL kit club, I picked up a grab bag of various cards. I love their style and the weight of the cards. This layout mostly focused on a few birthdays of dear friends. Food, crazy games, and some good lookin' ladies.

I've been adding chipboard elements, brads, and enamel dots to the outside of the page protectors. I've noticed the pages lay a little flatter than when I adhere the bling to the pictures.

This spread has a lot more jam-packed into the page-Breakfast at one of my favorite coffee spots, our annual craft rummage sale, a big snow storm, and the beginning plans of my sister-in-law's baby shower. I would have never created a full 12x12 page around that tile on the floor. But it was actually a special moment that I'm thankful this style of documentation allows me to record.

Thanks for checking out my 2013 album. Have you given Project Life a try?

On Trend :: Triangles

The Practical Scrappers' On Trend Team is exploring one of the hottest new trends showing up on scrapbook pages everywhere. To show the trend isn't just a part of scrapbooking, I created this card for the post. But silly, silly me forgot to upload the picture to the PS blog post in time. Make sure you head over to the PS blog to see the wonderful projects from the rest of the On Trend Team. They rocked this new trend.

I started with a piece of acetate cut to 5.5" x 8.5"and folded it in half. Next, I added a base to adhere all of my elements to the front and created a second piece for the inside, giving me something to write a special note on. To create the triangles, I cut 3.5" squares in half and layered them onto the card base. A simple sentiment was added, and it's ready to be mailed off!

SUPPLIES

Cardstock, Acetate: Paper Cut

Stamp: Peachy Keen Stamps (Smartie Owl)

Ink: Memento (Tuxedo Black)