My Creative Sketches December Challenge - Getting Ready

I made this layout for the My Creative Sketches December Sketch Challenge. I loved this sketch as soon as I saw it! I decided to use the monthly kit from my LSS since I hadn't done anything with that yet. The papers were very bright so lent themselves well to being cut up into smaller pieces as in the sketch. I'm very pleased with how this turned out, and I love this photo of my daughter getting her makeup done for her year 12 formal. Hopefully soon I'll get to scrapping the photos of her all done up as well. She looked beautiful, but then I am biased!!

The papers in the kit are from the Kaisercraft Hopscotch collection on a kraft cardstock base. I inked around the edges of all the papers with either Cotton Candy or Lagoon exclusive ink from Close to my Heart. I layered the ribbons to make the line under the main photograph. I painted the chipboard swirl (I'm not sure of the maker) with TwinklingH2Os and raised it off the page with some foam tape. There was also a zipper in the kit and I cut that up and used it as a frame around the smaller picture. I added some floss to the button and a small bit of folded ribbon underneath. In my stash I found some old Kaisercraft letter stickers that matched the colour perfectly, added the pearls and I was done!

I hope you like it too and leave me a comment or two.

Till next time, happy days.

More Catching Up

Here's some more catching up!

During National Scrapbooking Day in October my friends at The Crop Room, an online group that I belong to, and I made a number of cards for challenges set by the lovely Sue. I'm not a real card maker, but usually try to participate in these challenges and make a few. I don't ever buy anything special, but mostly use up scraps from my stash and stamps that I have purchased over the years. This year because I have started selling Close to my Heart (CTMH) products, I used some of that for many of my cards too.

Here's a look at what I finished.

Challenge: Use yellow, orange and teal.

Uses scraps from my stash.

Challenge: make a one layer card. For this card I put ink inside the embossing folder before embossing the butterflies. It was a bit plain, so I added the music background (Darkroom Door) and more ink around the embossed butterflies, the swirl and the sentiment. In the end I didn't like it at all and had another go at this challenge!

Challenge: make a one layer card - take 2. Ahh, much better! 

This card uses all Close to my Heart products:

White Daisy cardstock 

Love Life stamp set 

Tommy Workshop stamp set 

Enchantment pigment inks (smokey plum, goldrush, olive and indian corn blue)

Challenge: Make a Thanksgiving card
The card base is Close to my Heart Colonial White cardstock. I used TLC paper scraps and Stampin' Up's French Foliage stamp set with CTMH Goldrush, Olive and Barn Red pigment inks from the Enchantment Pigment ink set. 

Challenge: Quick sketch challenge. Uses all CTMH products-

White Daisy cardstock base

Chantilly papers

Heartfelt Birthday Wish stamp

Exclusive Inks stamp pad - Cotton Candy

Challenge: Make a card with a repeated stamp pattern. 

Made using CTMH Colonial White cardstock base with Whisper cardstock embossed with Stampin' Up's hexagon embossing folder. Indian corn blue pigment ink from the Enchantment Pigment ink set. Star stamps from the Love Life stamp set. Happy Birthday sentiment stamp unknown maker. 

Challenge: sketch

Laughing Lola Workshop on the Go - including papers, stamp set and black hemp twine. 

Exclusive inks stamp pad - Black and Lagoon. 

And finally, here are some things I made for the Close To My Heart open house/launch I had at my house demonstrating some of the products.

Card: i ♥ you 

White Daisy cardstock base

Whisper cardstock 

Exclusive inks stamp pads - Lagoon and Cotton Candy

Lagoon Houndstooth washi tape

ATC: Love lives here
Colonial White cardstock base
Love Life stamp set (words and hearts)
Frame Flair stamp set
Exclusive Inks stamp pad - Lagoon and Desert Sand 
Stitch Guide ruler (I love this tool!)
Corner rounder and DMC floss

Card: Follow your dreams
White Daisy cardstock
Black cardstock
Whisper cardstock
Tommy Workshop stamp set 
Exclusive Inks stamp pad - Black , Pear, Lagoon and Desert Sand
Round sponge

Stitch Sampler

I so love the Stitch Guide ruler - probably has to do with the fact that I was a cross stitcher before I was a scrapbooker, LOL! Anyway, I thought it would be good to show all the stitches available on the ruler so I just started punching holes with the ruler and then stitching them with DMC floss from my stash. I also added a few stamps to show that the two things can go together. 

Colonial White cardstock on top of a Black cardstock base

Stitch Guide ruler

Exclusive Inks stamp pad - Desert Sand and Pear

Love Life stamp set (cherish)

Sarita Workshop stamp set

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my projects - please leave me some comment love if you did ☺. Till next time, happy days!

Catching up

Oh my - it's been months since I've posted anything on my blog! I haven't completely given up scrapping, I just haven't been posting about it. Hopefully I'll be better now that things have kind of calmed down in our household.

Here are a few layouts that I've made in the past few months.

This one I made for an online challenge but then didn't have time to post it. I can't even remember any more which challenge it was for! I really like how it turned out though, with the large photograph and the line of smaller ones below it. These photos are fairly old, from our trip to the Amazon in 2007. The small pictures are of a giant river otter (we saw a group of nine of them), a hoatzin, my children in the boat, a caiman (you can just see its eyes) and a heron. All the papers (Kaisercraft) and embellishments are from my stash. 

 

3x (Fancy That) Wildflower Head #3 plus ribbon and rose

This second layout is of my daughter's 18th afternoon tea. I used one of the monthly paper kit from my LSS, Wrapped in Paper. I used a Page Maps sketch (although I don't remember which one now) and several die cuts. The dies I used were Woven Circle 98114 (now discontinued, from Memory Box), Doily Flower 3 and Wildflower Head 3 (from Fancy That Dies), By the Numbers (from MFT Die-namics)  DL112 Exotic Butterflies small, and DL112A Angel Wings (by Cheery Lynn Design).

Folded ribbon, paper banner, woven circle die,
wildflower head #3 die, butterfly die

  

  

Happy in Love is another layout that I made with the monthly paper kit from my LSS. While I like bright colours, these papers were a touch too bight for my liking, but they went well with the photos of my parents I thought. It's a fairly simple layout, with lots of layering of papers (including a doily), ribbon and pearls from the kit along with a bit of washi tape.

This last layout is also one made with a monthly paper kit from Wrapped in Paper. Again these photos are pretty old, dating from our trip to Kangaroo Island in January 2006. Making this layout brought back fond memories of that trip, and especially our visit to Paul's Place. If you ever find yourself on Kangaroo Island, you definitely should make an effort to go visit Paul's Place. Paul is such a character, and if you have young children they will enjoy the multitude of animals he and his family care for. Cutting dies used were the Textile rectangle and Wonky Scallop Border (both from MFT Die-namics) 

Till next time, happy days!