Colorblocking Fun

I realize that colorblocking is an old technique, however, it was/is new to me as I have never used the technique.  Recently, Scrapjazz hosted a challenge that involved colorblocking, and I wanted to share with you what I had come up with. So here it is:

Supplies:  Cardstock (Bazzill); Pattern Paper (My Mind's Eye, Hambly, Prima); Embellishments (Mon Ami Gabby, Echo Park, Pink Paislee); Other Supplies (Fiskars)
 
I spent a lot of time laying out the blocks, measuring, cutting, and stitching.  And as a result, I did not want to cover up all that hard work which lead to me using a single photo and acetate.  I love the way that this layout turned out, although I have to admit, I may not do this very often because it takes SO MUCH TIME.  However, I can say that I did finally trying colorblocking!

Friendship Page

Today's share is of a page that I did recently for a dear friend of mine.  Because of the nature of her husband's job, she moves often, moving is tough, but moving as a scrapper I think is even more difficult.  The most recent move she made was probably also the most difficult for her because of all the friends she had made and would be leaving behind.  So, being the great friends that we are to her, some of them decided it was time to create a MASSIVE friendship book with each friend contributing a page. Here is the page that I made:

 

Supplies:  My Minds Eye, Basic Grey, Die Cuts With a View (Pattern Papper); Stampin' Up! (Ribbon); Pink Paislee, My Mind's Eye (Embellies); Fiskars, Stampin' Up! (Punches); Cheery Lynn Doily Die (Doily)

Endless Beauty

          I love the sunsets that can be seen from my childhood home, they are a continual reminder to me of the glory and grace of my Lord.  For me, sunsets put a lot of life into perspective.  I have been holding onto this particular photo for ages, and I am unsure of why.  I have put it into numerous crop kits to get scrapbooked while away and I just never got around to it.  I immediately thought of this photo when I saw the January 2013 Scrapjazz Get Messy Challenge.  The challenge was to get inky and messy - use our mediums to create a layout - and that is what I did.  I pulled out the colors that are reflected in the photo and a set of swirl stamps which I had never used before despite having for 5 years.... This was a gorgeous and simply layout for me, but despite it's simplicity it turned out wonderfully.  As part of my self challenge, I added white rub-ons to a dark part of the photo and incorporated it into the design.  Another exciting part of this layout was that I got a chance to use some of my new Cheery Lynn dies and my handmade journaling cards.  

Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing in my crafty adventures.  Have a crafty inspired day!

Supplies: Basic Grey (Pattern Paper); Bazzill (Cardstock); Dear Lizzy American Crafts (Alphabet Letters); American Crafts (Rub-On); Tattered Angels (Ink, Butterfly Mask); Prima Build-a-Swirl (Stamps); Cheery Lynn (Die); Making Memories (Butterfly Brad)

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I know it has been ages since I have posted anything crafty and fun, please forgive me!  I have hoped and wished that I could be a regular poster but unfortunately with the chaos and business of my life, posting will be sporadic.  I know, sad days.  However, I have had some extra down time recently and thought it would be nice to use it to post some crafty inspiration and shares with you all.  So, I am starting the New Year off with the Old Year.  The layout I am sharing today was created in December and left on my desk while I left the country.  I finished it when I returned from my extended vacation.  And here it is:

I struggled with this layout a lot.  This was started for a challenge over at Scrapjazz, in which we were to use a Christmas Song as the title of a layout - Christmas themed or not.  I love Winter time, I love everything about the Winter season - the snow, the cold, the short days, the crisp clear days, wood fires.  All of it.  So when I saw the challenge, I immediately thought of all the photos I have of Winter.  The scalloped piece of paper was cut from a piece of 12x12 DCWV paper.  The snowman was originally part of the pattern paper, and I turned it into it's own embellishment - in the same spot that I cut it out from.  

Thanks for stopping by and have a beautiful day full of creativity!

Supplies: Die Cuts With a View (Pattern Paper); May Arts (Ribbon); American Crafts Thickers, Pink Paislee (Letter Stickers); Martha Stewart Skylands Punch (Border Punch); Spelbinders Scalloped Labels One, Spellbinders Labels One (Dies); Recollections (Embellishments)

Card Challenge and Share

This month at Scrapjazz.com, Nora is hosting a card sketch challenge.  This is what I came up with:

I really enjoyed making this little card, it was simple, but very beautiful.  I really wanted to showcase the background stamp on this card, which is why I think the sketch was so awesome - it's perfect to showcase your large stamps.  If you would like to play along - here is the link for the thread for this month's challenge:
http://www.scrapjazz.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/323154/

Thanks for stopping by and have a happy crafty inspired day!

Supplies: (Cardstock) Bazzill, Recollections, Stampin' Up! Garden Green; (Ink) Stampin' Up! Chocolate Chip, Stampin' Up! Marina Mist; (Stamps) Stampin' Up! Petite Pairs, Stampin' Up!  Sweet Floral; (Dies) Spellbinders Lacey Circles, Spellbinders Circle

9{11} 2009

Recently I participated in a challenge at one of my scrapbook forums Scrapjazz.com - this month's Use It Up Challenge included the following:

• Chipboard
• 3 Buttons
• a punched image
• Mist spray or paint
• Transparency 

I took this opportunity to begin working on an album that will contain all the letters, photos, and ephemera that was collected by myself and my husband while he was deployed - this is the first page of that album.  And this is what my finished product looks like:

 I cannot tell you how much fun I had making this layout.  This has been a project that I have been dreading to start for a while just because of a lack of direction in how to do it!  But this challenge and the new technique that I tried had really inspired me to get a leg up on this long awaiting project.

The background of this layout was done using clear glue, reinkers, and a transparency.  This is generally a technique that is done in cardmaking and is known as the Acetate and Tissue Paper technique.  You can find a tutorial for it here.  It was such a fun technique and definitely made using my transparencies more appealing and fun. The technique generally only uses one color of reinker, but I used two to create more of a mixed and distressed look.  Before I did the technique, I stamped the underlying cardstock using a glass to make watermarks. I did the same thing for my journaling card. 

Here are some closeups of some of the details:

Thanks for stopping in today and have a happy crafty creativity inspired day!

Supplies: (Inks) Walnut Stain Distress Reinker, Antique Linen Distress Reinker, Gathered Twigs Distress Ink, Ranger Acrylic Paint Black; (Paper) Stampin' Up! Vanilla Cardstock, Tim Holtz Paper Pack, K&Company, Bazzill, Teressa Collins World Traveler Transparency; (Stamps) Unity Stamp Co Postcard; (Embellishments) Tattered Angels, Buttons from Stash, Mon Ami Gabby Burlap, Mon Ami Gabby trim; (Letters) American Crafts, Pink Paislee

 

Use Up Your Stash Layout Challenge

Today, I thought I would share a layout I completed for another one of the September Challenges over at Scrapjazz.  This particular challenge was a Use up Your Stash Challenge, and can be seen Here.  The challenge required that we use:

• a Die Cut
• a Stamp
• a Sticker
• a Border of some kind
• Ribbon

 Following this, this is what I came up with:

 It is a terrible picture of me, just absolutely horrible.  And I have not scrapped this photo for a very long time because it was such a terrible photo.  However, while looking through photos recently, I noticed something about this photo, i'm looking at the camera and hubby is looking at me.  I thought this would be the perfect photo to scrap because of that.  I have not added the journaling yet as that is very personal and I don't like to share that as much, but you get the idea from the photo!

Supplies:  Pink Paislee Office Lingo, Pink Paislee Christy Tomlinson She Art, Basic Grey (Pattern Paper); Bazzill (Cardstock); Tim Holtz Visual Artistry (Stamps); Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powder; EK Success Water Lily Punch; Pink Paislee, Making Memories (Letter Stickers)

Honored Recipient of a Blog Award and a little Share

The other day, when checking comments (which I do not do every day to be honest), I saw a little comment by Emily Leiphart.  I stumbled across Emily as part of a Unity Stamp Company Friends with Flair blog hop.  I was inspired by her work, it is always so beautiful, clean, and just inspiring.  Truly a very talented and creative woman.  Well Emily, left a comment letting me know that I had won a Blog award.  (Emily, you taught me what Blog Awards are!)  She named me as a recipient of the Liebster Blog Award.

The purpose of this award?  To identify other bloggers in the blogging community who may not have very many followers, but have inspiring work.  In honor of that, I will pass this on.

1. Debbie Tehrani.  She designs for Color Combos Galore, and her work is just AMAZING, I love all her texture, layers, colors, everything.  Not to mention she is just wonderful!
2.  Fi.  I know her just as Fi, and her work is also gorgeous.  Lots of texture, color, flair, pizzaz! 
3.  Nora.  I have been internet scrap buddies with Nora for ages now.  And recently she sent me a beautiful card.  She makes beautiful cards and I love looking at her works of art!

Take a gander at these lovely ladies work, I promise you it will be well worth it and result in your going back again and again!

__________________________________________________________________________________

And my share for today....

I completed this layout for a challenge over at Scrapjazz.com.  The challenge was to create a layout in which you use stitching in part of your title.  I wasn't sure what to do, then one night while trying to fall asleep, the phrase "Let Them Eat Cake" popped into my head, and I knew EXACLTY what I was going to do.  I am very happy with the turn out! 
And for those that like a little bit of story picture background......
My husband had NO idea I was gonna shove the cake in his face.  We never talked about it before we got married (to be honest there was a week between proposal and marriage), so he was more than shocked when he opened his mouth to be fed some cake and got a face and nose full of it.  His only comment later was that his head hurt because of cake in his sinuses!  poor guy, he married........

Supplies: Cardstock (Bazzill), Patterned Paper (Unknown - left over bits from other layouts), Flower (Prima), Flourishes (Basic Grey, Me and My Big Ideas, American Crafts), Journaling block (Pink Paislee), Letters (American Crafts), Font (Bickham Script Pro), Paint (Delta), Spray (Tattered Angels)

Double Up: Scrapjazz and Pagemaps

For this lovely layout, I did a double challenge.  The color combination was inspired by the lovely and talented Nora over at Scrapjazz.  And that challenge can be found here.  The composition was inspired by this sketch over at pagemaps.blogspot.com.  And, this was my outcome!

I have to admit that I could not be happier with the way this layout turned out.  I am in total love with it!  Not to mention that I just love to play around with my supplies, it's F.U.N.

Supplies: Cardstock (Bazzill); Patterned Paper (Les Deux Amies); Inks (Tsuineko, Tattered Angels, Marvy Uchida); Paint (Americana); Rub on (Foofala, My Minds Eye); Stickers (Making Memories; Unknown); Chipboard letters (Prima, Pink Paislee); Paper Punch (Fiskars); Flowers (Prima); Brad (Recollections); Paper clip (Unknown)

Some Unity Love

I love love love Unity stamps... So much so that, Unity is what got me involved in cardmaking and stamping.  I HAD to have all their stamps, so many beautiful and lovely stamps.  So I bought them, and they just hung out and then I decided I should do more than horde them...  so much lovely rubber!  This card was inspired by this challenge over at Scrapjazz.com.  And to be honest, this was a tough challenge for me!!  I redid this card over and over until I came up with the above, and I am definately happy now!

Supplies: Stamps (Unity, Stampin Up!); Cardstock (Bazzill, Making Memories, Unknown); Patterned Paper (Unknown); Inks (Ranger, Tusineko, Tattered Angels); Embossing (Sizzix); Dies (Spellbinders)