Swirlydoos March 2014 Layout Round Robin

As usual the past month as flown by and all of a sudden I find it's April, almost a month since my last post. Amazing how once you become an adult the weeks and months just fly by....I'm not really sure I like this getting old thing! 

Swirlydoos, my fav online Kit Club has a round robin each month and now this is challenge is open to everyone, no need to be a "Kit Subscriber".  Anyway here is my layout for this challenge:

My layout is for team 4, week 2. I really enjoyed doing this layout of my son and my grandson, I've always told my son how much his son reminded me of him when he was young. Well he still reminds me of my son, and my son is 34 now and my Grandson is 11. If you would like to see the other layouts for this round robin you can check them out here:  Swirlydoos March 2014 Round Robin

Swirlydoos Card Round Robin!

Hello all! Thought I would post my card that I did for the card RR over at Swirlydoos. This is my entry for Team 2, week 2. Not totally pleased with it, for some reason my brain as gone on vacation without me again, lol. Anyway here it is....

We are taking sign ups for the April 2014 Round Robin right now, if you'd like to join in. You don't have to be a Swirlydoos member to play and it's a lot of fun. I'm hosting the April Card challenge and the winner will receive a RAK from me, so hope you'll all join in, the link can be found here: April Card RR

Longing for Summer...

So our weather has started to warm up finally, which makes me want summer to get here all that much more. So what better way to make me feel good than to scrap a summer layout, so here it is!

 So for my background paper I used the "Sandy Shore" paper from the Websters Yacht Club collection. I then took a duplicate piece of this paper and fussy cut the flower cluster from the bottom left corner of the paper and then added them to the other piece of background paper popped up with foam to the same left corner. I also did the same thing with the bottom right corner of the background paper. The top right corner of the paper was done using a corner piece of the 12x12 Designer Vellum paper from the Yacht Club collection. 

The  sailboat was cut from the "Celebration Bay" paper along with the small light house. I popped both of these with foam dots. All of the words that I've laid on the background were cut out from the "Boardwalk" paper. The netting on the bottom is actual fish net that I bought from a local supplier of fishing equipment. I bought a huge piece of this fish net for about $3.00 a few years ago and still have tons of it! In the netting I have a few tiny hermit crab shells. The small sand dollar is an actual real sand dollar and the small blue anchor is from my stash. The three photos I took of my grandchildren in the summer as they were walking out to one of the big rocks out on the beach that we go to when we want to look for sea treasures. The twine I've used around the photos is from my stash, I find it reminds me of fishing line so I thought it would look good around the photos. Thanks for stopping by and I would love to feel your comments on my layout. Have a great weekend everyone!

Snowing still..........

Okay so we had a huge dump of snow the other weekend, Feb 22-24, over the three days we got about 13 or 14 inches! That is crazy snow for us here in southern British Columbia. Then the weather warmed up a lot and the snow was all melting from the roads & sidewalks and then what happens...we wake up to snow again yesterday here in Campbell River. Okay seriously? It's March 2nd and we get snow, this  morning the same thing...very unusual for this time of the year. Luckily it was melting on the roads so that was okay but I'm sending a letter of compliant to Mother Nature, when is spring coming!!

So with all this snow I figured I may as well start scrapping some more Christmas photos. These are a couple of photos of my son carving his "turkey masterpiece" on Christmas Day. For my background paper I used the Kaisercraft "Bellsnickle" paper from their St Nicholas collection and distressed all the edges. I cut the matching Christmas balls from the "Noel Baba" sheet from the same collection and used foam pop dots and layered them over top of the ones on the background paper and used some pretty gold trim to "hang" them from. I then cut the "Christmas Memories" banner piece from the Kaisercraft "Twelve Days" paper and pop it up with foam pop dots.

I then cut out the "Family" tag from the Bo Bunny Silver & Gold collection "Christmas Red" paper and the "Sugar Plum Shoppe" piece from the Bo Bunny Silver & Gold "Gift Shops" paper and distressed these and laid them down as shown in the photo. I matted my two photos with some deep red cardstock and laid them down on the layout. To finish the layout off I used a holly sprig and small red flower and attached them as shown. I hope you like the finished project and I would love to hear your comments! TFL! 

Christmas layout

One of my last Design Team projects for Meg's Garden. Now if you’re like me you have lots of Christmas photo’s to scrap and this photo of my son and I is just one of many that I have to scrap. For this layout I used papers from the new ‘Tis Christmas Time" collection as my background paper.

For my background paper I used the “Christmas Roses” paper from the collection. I distressed all of my papers in this layout with my distress tool and some “Vintage Photo” distress ink. I also made a small tear in the paper along the bottom of the left side of the paper and rolled it back, glued a tiny piece of the Christmas Greetings paper behind that and popped a small latte paper rose between the rolled back paper. Using some of the lace from Meg’s Garden I cut two pieces approximately 4” each and laid them down the center of the background paper, one piece from the top end and one piece from the bottom of the paper, so you end up with a space between the two pieces. No sense wasting pretty lace that no one’s going to see behind the layers anyway, lol.

For my other layers I’ve used one of the Christmas Angels from the Angel paper, a clock from the “Old World Time” clocks paper, a 5” x 4” piece from the Christmas Greetings paper and a 5” x 4” piece of the French Bird Cage papers I had from a previous DT kit I had left over. I laid these all down as shown in the photo. For my photo I attached a couple of pieces of cardboard to the back of the photo to pop the photo up and then laid it down on top of these layers.

For my flower cluster I used two of the Idyllic Burgundy paper flowers and one of the paper Azaleas. I used a few leaves from my stash along with some Dusty Attic leaves from Meg’s Garden behind the flowers along with a few pearl sprays tucked in here and there. The pink pearl flourishes and the heart charm were from my stash. Thanks for stopping by and don’t forget to check out all of the awesome products at Meg’s Garden!

Meg’s Garden Products Used

Paper – P6364 Christmas Roses 
             P6361 Christmas Greetings
             P6366 Christmas Angels
             P6297 French Bird Cage               
             1037 Old World Time Clocks
L2976 Lace
Small Latte Paper Roses
Idyllice - Burgundy

White Azales

Other Products Used

Recollections Small Pink Flourishes
Small Heart & Chain Charm
Pearl Sprays, Dusty Attic Leaves

St Patrick's Day

I totally forgot to post this picture of a card I made for a friend who's having a St Patrick's Day for charity this year. I made him 21 of these cards. I used the Graphic 45 Bohemian Bazaar collections "Mystical Masterpiece" for the background paper. The leprechaun I drew myself in my Paint Shop Pro program from a tutorial a number of years ago and popped him up with pop dots on the card. I apologize for the bad photo but we had snow today so I wasn't able to get a good photo of the card.

Thanks for looking!

Round Robin at Swirlydoos

Thought I'd show you my card I made for Team 5, week 3's card round robin over at Swirlydoos. The twists for this months round robin are:
1. Must be 3 or more layers
2. Lace, twine or ribbon
3. Must be an easel card (you can find a tutorial for doing an easel card HERE)
This is my lift of the other two members on the team's cards. 

My background paper for the front of my card is Graphic 45's Bohemian Bazaar "Mystical Masterpiece" . I cut a navy blue piece of cardstock approximately 1½" wide x 5" long for the left side of the card and then added some white lace that I had in my stash over top of that strip. I used one of my dies to cut the leafy branches under the Prima flower. The small blue rosebuds I made myself and the "Love" I cut out on my cricut. 

For the inside of my card I used some light green card stock. For the part of the card that holds the easel up I used some of the same background paper from the front of the card which I punched on both edges and then used a piece of lighter green card stock which I cut a bit smaller than the bottom piece and punched it on both edges and laid that down on top of the other piece. I added a strip of blue bling from my stash down the center of the easel and called it done.I hope you stop by Swirlydoos and check out the rest of the great cards for the challenge and I'd love to hear your comments on my card.

Secret Garden

Well I think most people, especially all the people on the East coast are wishing spring & summer would hurry up and get here, because I sure know I am! Going along with this, one of the challenges this month over at Swirlydoos was to do a layout about something warm and I thought this photo of my daughter back in 1992 when she was 15 months old would be perfect to use. If you notice in the photo that in the background is this really nice kiddy pool that we bought for her and what did she play in all day was an old bucket, lol!

I decided to use my Graphic 45 "Secret Garden" papers that I have been hoarding for this layout. For my background I thought I'd use the back side of the "Leafy Treetops" paper which I distressed with my distress tool and some "vintage photo" distress ink. I then cut an 8" x 8" piece of the "Sun Kissed" paper which I cut the center out of (to save for future projects) and layered a 7½" x 7½" piece of the "Coming up Roses" paper on top of that, distressing all the papers. I matted my photo with some of the solid mauve colored paper from the 6"x6" collection. 

Before laying my photo down I cut three strips of some of the other papers from the collection which I matted and used as banners behind the photo. I fussy cut a couple of the flowers from the "Cutting up Roses" paper and added some pop dots to them and added one to the top right corner and the bottom left corner of the photo. I added more Prima flowers from my stash to make the two flower clusters as well as a couple of small rosebuds at the tears on the right side of the background paper. To finish the layout off I added a couple of Prima pearl & rosebud flourishes. Here's a closeup...

Valantine's Day soon...

Hi everyone, can you believe it's February all ready? I need to get started on some Valentine projects! I didn't realize it had been so long since I updated my blog. It seems my mojo went on vacation again without me, so I've been cruising around the internet looking for inspiration. Of course I landed on Pinterest and before you know it like 3 hours has gone buy and you hadn't even remotely looked for what you started looking for, lol. Anyway I came across this really pretty ATC card that Miranda Edney had done for Graphic 45 and I thought I'd give it a try. You can find the tutorial for this tag on Miranda's blog here: Graphic 45 ATC card. This is Miranda's ATC

 I didn't have any of the G45's "Sweet Sentiments" papers so I did mine with the G45's "Secret Garden" papers and I also left off the "Sweet Sentiment" piece on the top left corner making my quite basic but I still liked the way they turned out.

I apologize for the bad photo, it's been a pretty grey cloudy day here so I ended up taking this inside on my craft table. I hope you like it and I'd love to hear your comments!

Winter CHA around the corner....

Happy New Year everyone! Is everyone getting excited for CHA? Only a week away, I so wish I was able to go to this...one day hopefully! I'm very excited about all the new goodies from "Prima" there are so many awesome collections coming out, here are a few of them.

I can't wait for the new Julie Nutting collection and the Ingvild Bolme collection, they are so yummy looking! Well I'll be stalking my local scrapbook store until they come in! Have a great weekend everyone!

My Ten Favorite Projects Using Chipboard

Well I am trying out for Imaginarium Designs new Design Team and they have asked us to post on our blog 10 of our favorite projects using chipboard. I live in a small town on Vancouver Island here on the West Coast of Canada so our local scrapbook store doesn't carry a lot of chipboard so most of the chipboard I have and use on my projects I've bought online. How great would it be to actually make the Design Team and get to work with all those yummy chipboard pieces, I would be in "Chipboard Heaven". Anyway the following projects are some of my favs!

 

Well I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that my projects will be enough to earn me a spot on this great design team! Thanks for stopping by everyone!

Winner!

Well I was so excited the other day to find out I won for Day 10 of the "12 Days of Christmas" challenges at Swirlydoos! I won the Kaisercraft Christmas Carol paper collection so I will be stalking the mailman for this "Happy Mail", lol.

So Day 11's challenge was to make this cute little surprise Christmas box. If you want to check out Rae, from Swirlydoos, video for this you can find it here:  "Surprise Box"

I used one of Bo Bunny's pretty paper collections from last year "Snowy Serenade". Here are a couple of photos, on the one photo of the inside of the box the blank part I added a little paper envelope for a gift card to it. 

Swirlydoos Contest

Okay I have to apologize for being so late in posting this contest but hopefully you've heard about it from others. Swirlydoos is doing a "12 Days of Christmas" contest and each day the Design Team is giving you a quick Christmas project to do and then drawing names/winners. It is already Day 10 today (told you I was slow) so you could still enter for Day 11 & 12. Here's the link: Swirlydoos Blog

I've been so busy that I've  only been able to enter for the past two days but I did try out one of the other projects for Day 6. These are little triangle gift boxes which make great hostess gifts to give to people over the holiday. I filled mine up with Hershey Kisses, here's a few I've made so far, I think I'll be making a few more of these before Christmas. The link for the template from Paulien Van Den Bosch can be found here: Paulien's Template 

The first one I was actually able to enter was the Day 9 "Gift Card Holder" from Amy (Amarilys's), super easy project that is perfect to give those Christmas gift cars in! You can find Amy's tutorial here: Gift Card, Here's my gift card holder.

Today's (Dec 10/13) challenge from Angelica was to alter a matchbook box using some burlap, gesso and a chipboard or wood embellishment. You can find the challenge here: Altered Matchbox My first attempt at this project didn't quite look like what I had envisioned in my head but that's okay. I made the matchbox myself, added some burlap around the box, along with gold pearl stems, feathers, and some gold mesh ribbon. I printed off the Merry Christmas tag on my computer, then a chipboard piece from a past K&Co collection, then dabbed some gesso here & there. Here's my 1st attempt.

For my second attempt at this challenge I didn't make a matchbook as I find it a little hard to work with small things due to having numb hands so I decided to alter a small box that I got some earrings in. I used some green Christmas paper from my stash, wrapped with burlap, then die cut a piece of shiny white paper and added a red velvet leaf and berries which I believe is from Graphic 45. Printed out another "Merry Christmas" tag on my computer, then hand cut a small heart from Tim Holtz grunge paper, painted it a shiny green color and then before it dried added some tiny green beads to it. Added a bit of gesso here & there and I was done. Here it is.

Halloween layout

Ever since I watched the UStream video of Limor Webber's Halloween layout for Prima I have been wanting to try it out and I finally got a chance this past weekend. You can see this video here: Prima UStream Channel

This video is great way of showing that you don't have to have Halloween themed papers to do a Halloween layout. Although in my layout the background papers is a Halloween paper called "Chillingsworth Manor" from Echo Park Paper, it isn't an "in your face" Halloween paper if you know what I mean. Other than that the rest of the papers are all from Prima's "Engraver" collection. The spider webs I cut on my Cricut machine using the Halloween cartridge and the two small black scrolls between the flowers and on the side of the postcard are from Cricut's "Ornamental Iron" cartridge. The small orange rosebuds I made myself the rest of the flowers are Prima. I hope you'll check Limor's video out and thanks for stopping by, Cheers!

Getting into the Holiday Spirit!

Hello Bloggers, I have a few Design Team projects to share with you today using the new 'Tis Christmas Time paper collection from Meg's Garden. This first one is a layout I did of my granddaughter. 

For my background paper I used the “Christmas Plaid” paper which I distressed with my distress tool and some Vintage Photo Distress ink. I also used one of my punches and punched the bottom right corner and top left corner of the paper. I cut a piece of the Christmas Flowers paper 3” x 3¾” and a piece of the Christmas Angels paper (from the left side of the paper) 5½” x 3½” which I distressed and inked. I glued these two pieces on to the center of the background paper laying the longer piece beside the smaller piece but placing it so that the top left corner of the longer piece just over laps the bottom right corner of the shorter piece. I then took a piece of the 4.8cm lace which I colored with some Fired Brick distress ink and attached it down the middle of the paper.

For my photo I matted it with some burgundy colored cardstock that matched the flowers in these papers. Then I added some used cardboard from my stash to the back of the matted photo to pop it up on the page and placed it down over the lace as shown. I added a Prima resin heart and wings above the photo. I added a couple of fussy cut flowers from the Summer Bouquet papers from Meg’s Garden (I love this paper for fussy cutting) and placed them on either side of the photo using pop dots. I took a piece of cheese cloth from my stash and placed it along the bottom of the photo. For the rest of the flower cluster I used burgundy paper flowers, white Azaleas which I added Fired Brick distress ink here and there on the petals, and some small latte paper roses. I also added some green holly leaves, green stems and white velvet leaves from my stash. For my title I cut out one of the “NOEL” sayings from the Christmas Angels paper and popped it up using some cardboard and used some stickers from my stash for the year. Here are a couple of close ups.

Materials used from Meg’s Garden

Papers – P6362 Christmas Flowers

                P6361 Christmas Greetings

                P6365 Christmas Plaid

                P6366 Christmas Angels

                P6336 Summer Bouquet

L2976 4.8cm Lace

3098bur Burgundy paper flowers

White Azaleas

Small Latte paper roses

Other items used

Prima resin heart & wings

Cheese cloth

Green holly leaf & berries

Green bud stems

Number stickers

This next project is a 3D card using the ‘Tis Christmas Time paper collection. I used a green cardstock for my background paper cutting it 10” x 7” to make a 5” x 7” card when folded in half. I then cut a 4½” x 6½” piece from the “Christmas Flowers” paper which I distressed and inked with Vintage Photo distress ink. It’s kind of hard to see in this photo but the top right corner of the paper and bottom left corner I rolled the paper back a wee bit. For my tree I used the “Christmas Greetings” and “Christmas Plaid” papers. You can find the tutorial to make the tree on MsLiberty25’s you tube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wics8OwRaos

I fussy cut a couple of the small flowers from the “Christmas Flowers” paper and used foam dots to pop them up on either side of the tree and added a little red star jewel from my stash to the top of the tree. The little sentiment on the bottom of the card is also from my stash. To finish the card off I cut two small slits on the fold of the card and threaded some ribbon from the inside of the card to the outside and tied a bow. I think this little tree would be cute to add to the inside of the card also so that when the person opens the card the tree would pop open!

Materials used from Meg’s Garden

Paper – P6362 Christmas Flowers

               P6361 Christmas Greetings

               P6365 Christmas Plaid

Other items used

Vintage Photo distress ink

Foam pop dots

Star gem

Ribbon

For this next card I used white cardstock for my background cut to 10” x 7” to make a 5” x 7” card when folded in half. My next layer is a dark pink piece of cardstock cut a bit smaller than the background paper. I’ve used my distress tool and distress ink on all of my papers. I cut a piece of the “Christmas Flowers” paper for my next layer and then cut that into strips approximately 1” to 1¼” and spaced those evenly across the pink cardstock. I then cut out one of the Angels (I love these Angels)from the Christmas Angels paper and matted it with some dark burgundy cardstock and then wrapped some twine around the left side of the angel picture and tied a bow with it and glued that layer down. I took a small piece of cheese cloth and glued that down onto the bottom left corner of the card. I took one of the large burgundy flowers and two of the small Latte paper roses and glued them down as shown in the picture. I cut one of the NOEL sayings from the Christmas Angels paper and matted it with a light green cardstock and used some foam pop dots and added it to the top right corner.

Materials used from Meg’s Garden

Paper – P6362 Christmas Flowers

               P6366 Christmas Angels

Idyllic Burgundy Flowers

Small Latte Paper Roses

Other items used

Vintage Photo distress ink

Foam pop dots

Dark Burgundy cardstock

Dark Pink cardstock

Light Green cardstock

 

Well I hope these projects inspired you to get those Christmas cards done in time to mail out to your family & friends! Thanks for stopping by!
 

Time to start those Christmas cards!

Merry Christmas everyone! Okay so it’s a little early for saying this but it’s never too early to start making your Christmas cards. Hi all, I just wanted to show you a couple of quick cards I made with the beautiful new 'Tis Christmas Time paper collection by Denise Ann for Meg’s Garden. 

For my first card I made a center step card, you can find the tutorial for making the step card here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/centerstepcard/

I used the Christmas Flowers paper for my background paper and then cut out one of the 3” x 3½” prints from the Christmas Angels paper which I distressed and matted with a light green cardstock. I then cut out one of the “Noel” sayings from the 4” x 12” strip of the Christmas Angels paper for my sentiment.. On either side of the sentiment I used one of the small “Latte Paper Roses” on either side of the sentiment and then I used one of the deep burgundy “Idyllic” flowers on the right side of the center step part of the card.

For my second card I used the Christmas Greetings paper from Meg’s Garden and another image cut from the Christmas Angels paper which I cut down to fit into the smaller die cut white paper and the Christmas Greetings paper was cut down to fit into the larger white die cut paper. I used one of my stamps for the embossed greeting and a couple of bling flourishes to fit into each corner on the bottom part of the card.

Materials used from Meg’s Garden

Paper - P6362 - Christmas Flowers

            P6361- Christmas Greetings

            P6366 – Christmas Angels

Small Latte Paper Roses

Idyllic deep burgundy flowers

Other Items Used

Pale green cardstock

Deep burgundy cardstock

White cardstock

Distress tool

Vintage Photo distress ink

Almost forgot this one...

Well my brain must have decided to go on vacation and leave me behind as I totally forgot to post this layout of my grand kids from when they were visiting this past summer.I don't know if you've ever been here to Campbell River on Vancouver Island where I live but it's beautiful. The ocean is like 2 mins away, lakes about 20 mins away, Ski hills 45 mins away, so when my grand kids are up visiting we're always out doing something. One of the things they love to do is go to the beach at the ocean because there's something new to see everyday. As you can see from the photo my grandson loves to search for little crabs under the rocks.

I used the Websters "Yacht Club" collection for this layout. Along with a "Life's a Beach" chippie from Dusty Attic, fish net from my stash along with shells & starfish from our beaches here in Campbell River. The three seagulls I cut with my Cricut machine using an SVG file I made.

Thanks for stopping by and I'd love to hear your comments!

Vintage Trinket Box

Hi everyone, today I'd like to share a really cute vintage trinket box that I made using a small box I got at a local dollar store. Before doing any altering on the box I painted the inside and outside of the box with a layer of Gesso. I then gave the outside and lid of the box a pink crackle paint effect; it’s a little hard to see the crackle effect in these photos. 

I love fussy cutting the flowers from the “Summer Bouquet” papers which I did for this altered trinket box and glued them down to the outside of the box. I then took some of the off white lace and used some Tea Dye distress ink to give the lace an older vintage look to it and then glued it down on the side of the top of the box. I used two of the Burgundy roses and two of the Rose Pink roses and three of the Dusty Attic medium paper leaves glued them to the top of the box. I had a couple of the wire stems which I twisted up and then popped them into the flower cluster.

Materials Used from Meg’s Garden

Paper -  P6336 A Summer Bouquet

Burgundy/Cream open paper roses         

Rose pink open paper roses

Rose leaves medium

L2895 – 2cm off white lace

Other Items Used

Small round box from a local Dollar store

Tea Dye Distress ink

DT layout for Meg's Garden

Hi everyone, here's a quick layout I did using the “Ode to a Summer's Day Collection” designed by Denise Ann for Meg’s Garden. I used the “Buds of May” paper for my background which I distressed using my distress tool and distress ink in Vintage Photo. I also tore the top of the paper down a bit and added a small piece of light green cardstock behind the tear and placed one of my small handmade rosebuds between the tear. To start my layers off I caught off one of the lace corners of the Bond 25 square white doilies. I then cut a strip 8¾” x 1½” from the “Summers Day” paper. The other long strip is actually two small strips of paper cut from the “Summer Bouquet” paper and placed behind the 6¾” x 3” piece of the bottom left corner of the “Summer Beauty” paper to give the illusion of being one long strip. I distressed all of the layers (except the doily) using my distress tool and distress ink.

Here's a close up of the flowers.

I love fussy cutting the flowers from the “Summer Bouquet” papers which I did for this layout and popped them up with pop dots. I then added the white Azalea flower and the two pink roses between the fussy cut flowers. I used one of the butterflies from the “Elements” butterfly sheet and glued it to the layout only down the middle so I could bend the wings up. I cut the “Love” title using my Cricut machine and I was all done!

Materials Used from Meg’s Garden
Paper - P6333 A Summers Day
            P6336 A Summers Bouquet
            P6334 Summer Beauty
            P6335 Buds of May 
Bond 25 Square White Doily
Azaleas
Rose pink open paper roses
Butterflies TR015
 Other Items Used 
Light & dark green cardsrock
Small handmade green rosebud
Vintage Photo distress ink
Distress tool

Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend! 

September Bits & Pices Giveaway

C'est Magnifique s having a giveaway, check it out here:
http://cestmagnifiquekits.blogspot.ca/2013/09/september-bits-pieces-give-away.html?spref=fb