Special blessings...

It seems that the entire world does the "I'm thankful for..." in the lead up to Thanksgiving but for me the time to reflect & count my blessings is Advent. This week, my husband is going to see some friends of ours & I wanted to make a card to tell them how special they are since I can't be there myself.

I love this stamp set, I was able to buy it during Simon Says Stamp Stamptember event this year & have already used it several times!  Our friends, my husband & myself are all band geeks so this set couldn't have been more perfect for them.  I blended Worn Lipstick, Spun Sugar & Antique Linen Distress Ink through a damask stencil (Hero Arts I think) on watercolor paper & then lightly sprayed Perfect Pearl for a soft look.  The marchers are stamped in Jet Black Archival Ink on specialty stamping paper, cut out with Cameo, then colored in with Copic & Distress Markers & embellished with Stickles on the instruments & hats.  The ribbon is Tim Holtz crinkle ribbon colored with Distress Markers (as shown by Tammy Tutterow here) & topped off with a gemstone colored with Butterscotch & Gold alcohol ink.

**Entered in Simon Says Stamp Wednesday "Anything Goes" Challenge

A quick album

I love my Silhouette because it makes creating quick gifts easy ;-).   My sister-in-law's birthday was today & I wanted to make sure she had something so she knew we were thinking about her today.  She recently returned from vacation & I had recently downloaded a Lori Whitlock cut file for a mini-album - a match made in heaven!

I cut the base album out of paper from  Teresa Collin's "Tell Your Story" line, made a few simple embellishments, inked the edges & viola! a gift ready to mail!

** Coming in under the wire, entered into Simon Says Stamp Wednesday "Make it Colorful" Challenge (wanted to make sure she received it before I posted about it ;-) )**

To plan or not to plan, that is the question...

Simon Says make a plan which for me is quite easy because by nature I am a planner, I not take comfort in methodical research & planning out of anything in my life.  I find it very difficult to just "let loose" and allow things to fall as they may - this applies as much to crafting as it does to other areas of life, I just can't throw paint/ ink/ paper down & "see what happens".  From the time I started scrapbooking up until my eldest was a young toddler I carefully sketched out every layout on graph paper.  I selected the pictures I wanted to use & printed them out on basic printer paper to refer to as I was designing.  I bought specific paper & embellishments for each layout and printed out pictures in the specific size I had drawn out on the sketch.

Sketch & photo selection circa 2008

Then only after I had everything planned out, I would create the actual layout. I say "create" but really it was more assembly since I never-ever deviated from my carefully constructed sketch.

Completed layout circa 2008 (title is only different because my mom found the pre-made die-cut somewhere)

By the time my son was born in 2010, this much planning had become very tedious and quite frankly boring.  I had such limited free time with a toddler & newborn (with health issues) that I just couldn't bring myself to spend so much time sketching every layout.  I tried to craft in a more free-form fashion allowing the pictures to dictate the layout & paper on the fly but the lack of a plan/ direction drove me crazy.  And so I hit a slump that lasted well over a year until I discovered pre-made sketches & the radical (to me) notion that you could alter said sketches for several different layouts. By using pre-made sketches I cut out the time-consuming part (for me) of scrapbooking and could focus on the actual creation of art & preserving of memories.

These days I order standard size 4 x 6 pictures in 100+ batches and cut them down as the layout and/ or story to be told dictates.  And I buy paper & embellishments just because I like them without a specific layout in mind.  After selecting pictures, I often start with Mid-Week Mojo sketches because they're convenient (& who doesn't love the chance to wing goodies? ;-) ) and then pull out paper & push it around until it looks right.  Since I very rarely stick to the provided sketch exactly, this is about as close to open-ended creative play as I get ;-).

Since I made a layout about Crystal Palace for my son's album, I of course had to make one for my his elder sister as well ;-).  The pictures are very similar but I wanted a more feminine look & to play up the classic architecture of the restaurant.  My first thought was Teresa Collins's 'Family Stories' line, but the black paper was way too dark for the colorful pictures & dominated the visual space.

After I switched it out for a cream-colored floral paper from Teresa Collin's 'Tell Your Story' line, the rest of the layout came together easily.  Taking cues from Mid-Week Mojo Lilac sketch #4, I inked & layered more paper & embellishments from 'Family Stories' and stamped the floral design in the upper right hand corner.

The journaling is hidden in the envelope down at the bottom.  The envelope came with a plain white card so I stamped it for interest & embossed the sides.

Dillon's 3rd Birthday

Back again to share a layout made for Dillon's 3rd birthday (ya know since he's almost 5 lol).  The lucky boy got to have his birthday meal a few days early @ The Crystal Palace in Walt Disney World with the entire 100 Hundred Acre Gang.  I documented the character greets in our (as yet unfinished) WDW 2013 album but saved these photos for his own album.  These beautiful topiaries of the gang were just begging to be photographed so of course I had to oblige ;-).

Unfortunately it's been storming most of the day so my usual natural light photo spot is dark so I had to settle for a desk shot :-/.

For me at least, The Crystal Palace - especially with these flowers - would usually call for soft, almost feminine paper & embellishments but because this layout is for his own album I decided to go for a bolder design.  My Mind's Eye Boy Crazy is one of my all-time favorite collections, especially for my robot-loving boy :-).  Since I horde every scrap of this collection, this sketch was perfect because I didn't have to use any full 12 x 12 sheets.  Instead I pieced together smaller pieces to make my 12 x 12 layout.  All the sides of each piece are lightly edged with Hickory Smoke  Distress Ink for that more rough-n-tumble boy look.  I also sanded the yellow "h" & colored the sides with Hickory Smoke Distress Marker to help it stand out better on the yellow background.

This layout uses ScrapbookSteal's Mid-Week Mojo Lilac #5 sketch & also entered to Simon Says Stamp Wednesday "Anything Goes" Challenge.

When is a stamp not a stamp?

I've been experimenting with using tools or other things lying around differently then how they were designed.  Most recently I've realized that the mini blending tool makes the perfect polka dot stamp!  So I utilized this to make (yet another) birthday card ready to send out this fall.

Super-saturated my blending foam(s) with distress ink (Abandoned Coral, Cracked Pistachio, Mermaid Lagoon & Squeezed Lemonade and stamped them on smooth watercolor paper & sprinkled with water for a softer effect.  Layered that on top of a piece of vellum & attached it to a cardstock card base.  For the cupcake, I stamped & die-cut it from specialty stamping paper and then embellished the icing with clear glitter & the candle with texture gems.  The sentiment is stamped on a scrap piece of watercolor paper cut into a banner.

Entered into Simon Says Stamp Monday "No Ordinary Paper" Challenge :-)

Sparkle and Shine

As a kid, I wasn't much of a glitter or sparkle kind of girl but I've come to enjoy using both in my crafts after having my glitter loving daughter ;-).   So I decided to embrace this week's Wednesday Challenge over on Simon Says Stamp to use "sparkle & shine" on what else - more cards for the autumn!

I was playing with watered-down Gelatos on watercolor paper and really liked the sploshy look, so built the rest of this card around it.  Die-cut the butterflies out of Tim Holtz's Melange tissue paper, sprayed them with Perfect Pearls & some leftover watery Gelato and then made the thoraxs with gold Faber-Castell Texture Gems.  Attached the butterflies with a spot of glossy accents on the thorax so it looks like they're flying off the card.  Finished it off with a stamped Hero Arts sentiment in Jet Black Archival Ink.

Making cards for all the autumn birthdays in our family made me realize that Halloween is just around the corner as well!  On the first card I started with the zig-zag paer from My Mind's Eye Halloween Basics collection, then distressed & inked the edges to make the card base.  Then inked up a piece of kraft paper from MME Haunted with multiple orange & purple distress inks.  With my Cameo cut out the pumpkin, made the faux-stitched borders and cut out the bat (then coated it with Distress Stickles).  Outlined the pumpkin with foam tape & filled it with American Crafts sequins.  Finished it off with a second generation stamping of Tim Holtz's Halloween stamp.

On the second card I wanted to play with texture & dimension, so I cut out several different pumpkins (on Cameo) from various MME orange patterned papers.  Some of the papers had pre-embossed designs so to help the other ones stand out I coated them Distress Stickles.  Stacked & layered them on a piece of green cardstock and adhered it to the card base.  The card base is the same kraft paper from the other card, inked with brown & green Distress inks.  To keep with the rustic feel, I cut down a piece of burlap & stamped it with the same Halloween stamp - but the ink barely showed up on the burlap.  So I coated the stamp with Distress Paint (Black Soot) and stamped it over the inked image which worked much better (except for the spiderweb for some reason).  Finished it off with a piece of twine.