Yep, another sketch!

Hey there, y'all!

There's a new sketch challenge blog out there called Retro Sketches, brought to you by some of the same talented ladies from the ColourQ challenge blog. They're cardmakers, but I was inspired to use their first sketch in a slightly different way....

...It's probably no surprise that this magically turned into a layout :). I've really been on a scrapping kick lately! So, here you go:

Aside from the change in scale, the only real way I changed the sketch is by replacing the focal point with a series of three little photos (in this case, photos of Simon snacking on some cinnamon roll crumbs -- sneaky cat!). Technically, there's also one additional layer:

...tulle! It's a little easier to see here, but feel free to enlarge the photo. The tulle adds really subtle texture, and I have to remember to use it more often! This is another layout using my first Studio Calico kit, along with a few bits and bobs from the ol' stash.

You have until the end of the day to play along with this challenge -- it really does make for some cute cards, too, as you can see over on the Retro Sketches blog. Have fun!

A Sunday sketch (on Monday)

Happy Monday!
A quick post for today -- in a bit, I'm heading to Ohio to visit a friend for the day. Hooray for Spring Break! But for now, I've got a layout I made just yesterday up at Scrappy Chic. (Please pardon the nighttime photos.) I used the Sunday sketch from Studio Calico (and feel free to check out their post -- the sample layout from Kelly Purkey is so fun!):

This also marks one of the first layouts I've made with my new Studio Calico kit subscription -- last month's kit (Daydream Believer - oddly timely title!) was my first one, and I dig it. Here's my take:

Yeah, that's me (pretending to) smooch a portrait of a very serious-looking dude. I think the title explains most of what you need to know. Andrew snapped this one after the Collage Concert at the University of Michigan, which means we were surrounded by both college kids and older folks in furs and stuff. Silly, indeed.

I had some kit and stash items I wanted to use, so I embellished the sketch a bit. Here, you can see some fabric trim from the kit, which I misted in aqua and then stamped. The epoxy circles are from the kit, but the little badge is ancient American Crafts.

I'm happy to see that sequins are trendy right now, especially since I already own some. I used gold sequins to accent the gold washi tape under my title (I think the gold tones down the minty-ness of the alphas somehow...which is good for me since mint is good on this layout but isn't normally a color I like very much). Both alphas and  the minty twine are from Scrappy Chic, and everything I haven't mentioned yet is from the kit (including that awesome woodgrain chevron paper, which is from the latest Dear Lizzy collection...I might need to stockpile a few sheets of that one!).

Anywho, I gotta pack a bag and get a few things in order, so I'll leave it at that. Hope you have a lovely day!

Peek-a-Simon

Hi there -- hope you're having a great Saturday!

This past week, our little Simon cat had some minor surgery -- there's a pin in his leg from when he broke it last summer, and he's grown so dang fast that the pin had to be removed - it was growing right out of the bone! Sorry, that's a little icky to think about. Luckily, the surgery was truly minor and after a couple days in the Cone of Shame, he's back to his crazy orange self.

In his honor, here's a layout I made a few weeks ago (while cropping at Scrappy Chic) featuring Simon wearing a big envelope rather than a cone:

This layout is also another stash-buster, but with a twist -- not only are most of the papers fairly old (MME Lush from at least a year ago, Making Memories ledger from for.ev.er ago), but I'm also trying to use more of that stuff I hang onto thinking it'll be fun to scrap with...most of which I keep in a box somewhere, all lonely and unused.

Between the title and photo, you can see an old rolodex card (with an "s" for Simon), and a little paper bag -- I have a whole stack of both, and I'm not even sure where they're from anymore!

I was given a whole stack of little envelopes full of postage stamps that my late grandfather had collected -- they aren't worth money, really, but they do have some sentimental value, so I thought getting them onto layouts and other projects where they can be seen would be nice. I also think some of them are kinda hilariously propagandistic (yes, even blogger thinks that's a word, so I'm going with it) -- I mean, really, Atoms for Peace? Nice. The colors and designs play nicely together, though. There's a row of stitching over them, as well as over the title, and a few bits of it in other places, just for fun. Some tapes and a button finish the look.

I predict that I'll be using more non-traditional, office-y stuff on future layouts. If you've used fun supplies from somewhere other than the scrapbook store, I'd love to hear about it.

Have a lovely day!

PS: I'll be doing a guest post later this month over at the Scrap Our Stash blog (which I found through their former DT member, Sue). I'll be sure to let y'all know when it goes up. For now, you can see my little introduction post here.

{Here's another question though: does it bother anyone else to read an intro written in the third person? Is there some industry standard I don't know about? Anyway, I just wrote mine to sound more or less like me. Let me know what you think. Ok, I'm really done now!}

Where the rapids are grand.

Happy Monday, y'all!

We had a busy weekend (taxes - fun! cleaning - funner! grading - funnest!). I'm down to one pile of essays, so I'm feeling a bit less stressed on that front. Whew!

That's not what you're here for, though, so how about a mini? A month ago, Andrew and I went upstate to Grand Rapids for a few days -- he had a conference, and I usually go along. The rapids haven't been grand for something like a century (they wanted to use the river for commerce, after all), but the city itself is pretty nifty.

Before we left, I decided I'd like to document our trip, so I threw together this mini from, essentially, the scraps that were in reach! The cover is leftover Kraft Funday from MME, on which I embossed the title (love that Lawn Fawn alphabet!) and did a bit of mist splattering. The whole thing is about 5x6 or so.

Inside the cover, I adhered a section cut from a bag -- as you'll see, Vertigo Music is one spot we try to hit at least twice whenever we're in town.

{click any photo to enlarge}

Here's a few of the inside pages -- while we were on the trip, I adhered everything but the photos (I'm not that hardcore -- no travel-sized photo printer for me!), but I did put in little notes indicating which photos went where. I took a couple rolls of fun tape, little scissors, my Smash pen (which has a glue stick on one side), scraps of paper and cardstock, some small letter stickers, and a bunch of labels from Martha Stewart's collection at Staples. Everything, including the album, fit into about a quart-size ziploc. Simple! Clockwise from top left: my favorite photo (and the last one we took) at HopCat, some photos and ephemera from the Public Museum, a handful of photos from Vertigo (I had a lot to choose from), a couple random photos along with some ephemera from the conference.

Here, you can kinda see how I made the album itself -- basically, I cut some scraps down to vaguely-appropriate sizes and then scored and stitched them right down the middle. They aren't all the same size, which I think is kind of interesting. Additional flaps and smaller pages were stitched in afterwards (didn't want to kill the sewing machine, after all). I even stitched in a little glassine bag from a Thai takeout place once we got home, which you can see in the second photo.

I tied some of this twine around the spine to emphasize the travel-y-ness, and stamped the date here on the back. There's something about the variety of page shapes and patterns that makes this a lot of fun to look through -- and it came together so easily! I just spent a few minutes on it each morning in the hotel room, then printed and added the photos when we got home. I liked preserving the memories while they were still fresh, and this is something I'll definitely do again. Yay!

Ok then, time to get back to the real world. Have a great day!

Authentique x2

Me again, looking up briefly from my (larger-than-usual) mountain of essays to grade. Luckily, I made these layouts before the landslide :)

These two also feature the latest goodies from Scrappy Chic, namely the Celebrate collection from Authentique. Here, I'm celebrating a new Design Team year -- check it:

Aw, ain't we cute? I wanted to use a PageMaps sketch that's kinda been stuck in my head (it's one from January if you'd like to go hunting), and I also wanted to break out a bit of stash in addition to my new goodies. In this case, I went with some tiny clothespins from Canvas Corp. that had been sitting in a jar since I won them a year ago or more -- oops!

(other supplies: May Arts twine, AC Thickers, tiny attacher)

I think this picture is hilarious. From what I can tell from my first time meeting these ladies, this is a pretty good representation of their personalities :) Looking forward to checking out their creations all year long.

Since I had a good mess going already, I thought I'd whip up a second quick layout:

Different, no? Very manly. Aside from the background, I used mostly scraps to document my husband's favorite watch. An odd subject, maybe, but he really loves this watch, and I really love this picture. (I also love the potty people paper, by the way -- reminds me of a certain stamping pal of mine). Also, if I may get design-y for a minute, I like the way the strong diagonal line in the photo leads the eye to both the journaling in the top corner and the buttons in the bottom. Meant to do that. Yep.

(other supplies: AC Thickers)

I even used my twine scraps to thread those buttons. Not easy -- that May Arts twine is thick! Pretty, though.

Anyway, that's it for my DT creations this month -- next month we'll pick up speed, since CHA goodies are pouring into the store now. (Don't forget: you can keep tabs on what's coming in on the store blog here.) I grabbed some fun Dear Lizzy papers and stamps the other day, and I can't wait to break 'em out.

After the dang essays. Blergh.

Have a lovely evening!

Challenges all around

Howdy there -- hope you're having a lovely Sunday, wherever you may be.

February marks the start of a new year for the design team over at Scrappy Chic (you can see us all here...or in an upcoming blog post right here, if you're patient). One of the lines in my kit this month was Tiny Woods from KaiserCraft (yes, that's really the name. yes, I think it's funny. sometimes I have a seventh-grade sense of humor.)

This line has really lovely colors, but they're challenging -- fall-ish (makes more sense in their home country of Australia than here, I suppose), and it's borderline theme-y, design-wise. So, I challenged myself to make at least two layouts using it, and I turned to a couple of online challenges to get it all done. Whoa. Challenging, indeed.

Here's the first take:

Analog memories, indeed. Andrew has a lot of fond memories of this old tape recorder -- high technology back in the day! I thought the vaguely 70s colors of the paper were perfect for this particular topic.

I used Studio Calico's Sunday sketch from last week to help me out:

By making the shift from 12x12 to 8.5x11, I had to squish some elements, bumping the journalling below the title instead of next to it. Otherwise, I was (surprisingly) faithful to the original.

other supplies: ranger tag, pebbles alphas, cosmo cricket tiny type word, twine, bazzill cs, amy tangerine washi tape

The tag with my title on it is misted very lightly with Mister Huey's Clover, and I typed up my journalling on the B-side leftovers of my main paper. The buttons are chipboard from Bazzil, and I misted the heck out of those with the same Clover color. Did you know that Scrappy Chic will be carrying Mister Huey's any day now? That makes me very happy.

While I was at it, I tackled the challenge from The Creative Type to scrap your celebrity crush. How fun is that? The samples on their blog are great, too. I had no trouble at all choosing my crush -- the hardest part was choosing a photo from the interwebs. Here's what I came up with:

other supplies: authentique alphas, studio calico stickers, signo pen, kaisercraft really tiny alphas, doodlebug flock (under the stickles, dang it)

Oh, Paul Rudd, how is it that such a funny dude can smolder at the camera that way? Sigh. Anyway, you can see I used the same paper as above, plus a subtle woodgrain pattern. I'm less than pleased with my splatters -- the blue were supposed to be flocked, but the flock didn't stick well enough, so I had to do a second coat with Stickles. And then, when I was setting the thing up for photographing (almost 24 hours later, by the way), I smeared the white splatters (dang you, OA Sprinklers!). So, whatever. I still like the end result, warts and all. I'll just skip the close-up, ok?

In the end, my challenge-based layouts made the challenging paper line less of a challenge. Dig? Dig.

Feel free to go watch a Paul Rudd movie now. Enjoy!

12 on twelve: January

Happy Friday! It's sunny and warmish and boy, do I need a nap!
Instead, how about a layout?
How about one that features NOT my usual one or two or three photos, but one with TWELVE, count 'em, 12 photos instead?

Okay, then, here you go:

Ella Publishing is doing this Take Twelve challenge all year, and while I know there's an "official" challenge with a kit and contests and templates and stuff, I decided to just take the idea as inspiration to visually document a whole day every month. This here is January, and my first real experience using Instagram, and I liked it! (I'm a Hipstamatic fanatic, usually.)

The photo-strip look is a bit of a fake-out -- I just printed the photos as a collage, then sliced them up and reconfigured 'em. As you can see, my day was pretty random, so my design reflects that. I also pledged to myself to use mainly older products on these layouts (stash busting is craft resolution #1 this year) -- the floral paper and alphas are both newer Basic Grey (Picadilly - from Scrappy Chic, natch), but everything else is old(er).

I did, however, use a new technique with my old glitter -- it basically involves splattering watered-down glue all over the page and then glittering it up. I learned it through this video tutorial from Rahel Menig (whose style I admire quite a bit [and she has the cutest voice!]). Surprisingly, I didn't walk around coated in glitter afterwards, and so I decided that this is one technique I'd try again.

I have photos from 12 February ready to go, too -- this time, I think I'll try something really clean and geometric, just to see if I can :)

In the meantime, have a great weekend! (I get to go see Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert tonight -- what's not to love about that? Yay.)

Happy Valentimes!

No, that's not a misspelling. Well, it is, but an intentional one. More on that in a sec.

In the meantime, I thought that after what, three or four weeks of bloglessness, it was high time to get back on track. And since it is indeed Valentine's Day, how about a look at the card I whipped up for my sweet husband?

Aside from paper, there are very few things I love more than beer. Turns out, my hubby is one of them!

I figured it was high time I broke out my cute Lawn Fawn stamps -- love that polaroid frame (thanks, Em!), and the outline alpha set makes me happy. Paired with a bit of stickles, some Echo Park papers and a pint of beer, I think this is one cheery Valentine. (Gold star to the first person who can tell me where my "pint glass" is from!)

In other news, a new Design Team year has just begun over at Scrappy Chic, and I have a brand-new team of ladies to work with. Exciting! Keep your eyes peeled for projects made from great new CHA products soon.

Now, back to the "Valentimes" -- if you're a 30 Rock fan, you already know what I'm talking about, and if you're not...I'm not sure we can be friends. Kidding! But it's really, really funny.

If that image doesn't jog your memory (What, not everyone knows Vlem the prostitute?), feel free to watch an oddly-spliced 30 Rock clip here. Rachel Dratch's cameos are always memorable.

All right then, I hope you all have lovely plans with your sweeties today. If not, I hope you have plans with some paper!

Have a lovely Valentine's Day!

FWF and a layout.

Good (cold) morning!

If it's Friday, it must be time for some Flair. Be sure to check out the Unity blog to see what the big deal is today. In the meantime, how about a little stamp action on a layout?

Aww, ain't we at least a little cute? This photo was taken right after the one in this layout, so of course we look happy ;). I love simple designs like this one -- easy to use over and over again, changing the feel by changing the supplies used.

Speaking of supplies, check out the Unity goodness there near the bottom!

Before I adhered the block of heart-print paper, I sketched a quick line at the bottom, moved it out of the way, and then used the line as a guide to stamp the dashed scallop repeatedly, masking the side edges and offsetting the rows (did it freehand, even. imperfections are fine with me!). The sentiment makes perfect sense, seeing as this photo is from midnight on New Year's Eve.

A glittery button-twine star, stitching around the border and around the photo, and some various tapes and stickers and such, and all is well.

Hope you enjoy the rest of the Unity goodness out there. Have a lovely day!

other supplies: Crate Paper (Paper Heart, Random) papers and border sticker, AC Thickers and tape, Hambly and Tim Holtz tapes, Best Creations glitter paper, October Afternoon button, Twinery twine, Tim Holtz tiny attacher, Stampin' Up punch and ink, and Colorbox ink.

ooh, sparkly :)

Hey there!
I'm still working on the dang December album photos (all 80 of them...each of which is inexplicably rotated 90 degrees...blergh. Any insight on doing batch editing in Picnik?).

So, in the meantime, how about something new?

{Warning: slightly mushy photo ahead!}

Oh geez, are those people smooching? And is one of them me? Why yes, that's what you see here. It was midnight on New Year's Eve, one of very few times I condone brief PDA. So I scrapped it, using my latest goodies from Scrappy Chic, namely the Yours Truly line from Echo Park. I had to grunge it up a bit with ink to make it work with the background, which I made all by my lonesome, using some vintage pattern tissue (scrunchily adhered to cardstock with spray adhesive) that I stamped a bit (using these new Hero Arts stamps) and then topped with a coating of glitter spray. (If you use this stuff, put your project in a box and go outside -- it isn't too messy, but there's definitely overspray...you know, made of glitter, so it's gonna get everywhere otherwise).

You can see the glitteriness a bit better here -- even more if you click to enlarge. I adhered some twine behind the photo mat in messy loops just for kicks.

This might be the first time I've used something other than alpha stickers for a title, but this cut-apart element from the EP line said just the perfect thing :). You can see another Hero Arts stamped heart peeking out the side there, too.

So, I've been using scrapping as an escape from an otherwise so-far busy semester, which means you'll be seeing some more pages soon. And the dang album. One of these days.

Until then, have a lovely, hopefully-not-too-cold day!

FWF times three.

Hi there!
It's Friday, so it must be Friends with Flair over at Unity -- be sure to stop by and see what great deal they have in store today.

In the meantime, I have three whole cards to share! January is a busy birthday/anniversary month in our circle of family and friends, so I always try to get the whole month's worth of cards done right at the beginning so I don't panic later ;)

Three of this month's cards use fabulous Unity stamps. Here's #1:

A CAS anniversary card for some friends, using December's Kit of the Month, Filled with Love, paper-pieced simply with some love-y Sassafras papers. The oval shadow is from Amuse.

#2:

A birthday card for a college pal using the multi-butterfly stamp from Picture Perfect (which I finally picked up during one of the big Unity sales last month), as a background. The sentiment is an oldie from SU, ribbon from PTI, and a Martha butterfly punch.

#3:

Har. This one makes me chuckle. It's for my art-loving aunt, so I know she'll appreciate its quirkiness. I used the fabulous multi-frame stamp from Picture Perfect.  How handy that there are just enough frames to spell out "birthday"! The "happy" is from PTI, and the letters are from all over the place.

I've finally started to edit the photos of the Big Fun Christmas Project (aka my first December Daily). When I have enough stamina, I'll finish them up and post 'em soon.

A quick note for local folks: Don't forget that Scrappy Chic has its Grand Re-Opening party tomorrow (Saturday 1/7) from 2-4! Plans include a Smash-style photobooth (like the first photo here), so you know it'll be a good time! :)

Until then, have a great day! It's sunny and shockingly warm here -- I should be outside!

My top 10 of 2011 -- sort of.

Hello again, all!
Now that the new year is in full swing (or as full swing as it can be on day two!), I figured it was time to take a stroll through last year's projects and pick my favorites.

My original goal was to pick 10 cards and 10 layouts...but as I was scrolling through a year's worth of blog posts, I realized I made a boo boo -- I think I might have deleted a couple of older Picasa web albums...not a big deal, except a few month's worth of blog photos were in them. Oops!

So, I'll just go with ten total projects instead, with a big date gap in the middle. Without further ado, here we go!

From February:

A layout featuring my pal's sweet dog. Read more here.

Jump to June:

Baby predictions, the old-fashioned way. See original here.

 The first card I had published. Never gets old. Read more.

In July:

Simon is about 12x this size now. Still cute. See details here. 

From my Growing in Unity week. Original is here. 

in August:

More kitten, with banners this time. Close-ups here. 

My sweet man's birthday. One-layer happiness here.  

October:

Still love this mini. All the pages are here. 

Stepped into a new style and surprised myself. Spongeworthiness here. 

November:

Got a little lost in an 8-layout post, but man, I love this one. And yes, more kitten. See them all here. 

So, what can we conclude? I definitely like to scrap animal photos, especially of Simon. (Dex got attention too...I swear!) Also, scrappy projects just barely outnumber card projects, which I'm pretty sure reflects my creative output last year. I like patterns a lot, but no one color dominates. Nor does a single style, which either makes me versatile or mildly schizophrenic. I'd prefer versatile, though ;) And I definitely shouldn't delete web albums willy-nilly! 

I can also say with some confidence that my December album (aka the Big Fun Christmas Project) will be one of my favorites as well -- but as I finished it yesterday, it's technically a 2012 project. You'll see it soon...and again in the 2012 year in review!

Hope you're having a great day!

What the heck?

Where on earth have I been? I know I'm in good company in not blogging much during the holidays, but I haven't blogged AT ALL in weeks! I've missed my bloggy friends!

I've been inspired by some year-in-review project posts, so I think I'll do one of those soon. (See here and here for some inspiring cards from my craft pals!). I have also been keeping up with my Big Fun Christmas journal (see here and here for its humble beginnings), and I'll get some photos of that soon to share. 

For now, though, will you settle for a layout? Thanks!

This photo is from the wedding (duh) of a couple of sweet kids. I can say that they're "kids" because one of them is my husband's former student! We've become pals in the intervening years, and were honored to attend their wedding. Don't you love this photo of them? They're so cute.

I made excellent use of my ever-expanding washi tape collection here, creating a shiny/patterned/textured background for my title and caption. The paper collection is My Mind's Eye's very pretty Love Me, part of my long-neglected December kit from Scrappy Chic.

I fussy-cut some banner flags from my extra paper, popped them up on foam, highlighted the hearts with stickles, and then "strung" some twine all over the place (it's glued down, which was easier to do than I thought it would be). I think the swirly lines break up all the straight lines from the tape. In my head, anyway. Wanna see a secret?

More photos! I had a handful of not-great shots that still helped tell the story of the night, so instead of featuring them, I created a little accordion fold right in the middle of the layout. I'll definitely try this trick again!

I had some leftovers, so I combined them with that pretty plaid pattern from the same collection for a quick card. The stamped twill started out white, but I inked it up with some Distress Stain (spun sugar, from my stocking!) before stamping and adhering it. Stamps are from this Studio Calico/Hero Arts set, also sourced from Scrappy Chic.

Local folks, have you been up to the store since their big expansion/re-organization? I love it! So spacious-feeling and much better-lit. Can't wait to get up there for a crop!

Well, it's good to be back. I hope you all have a very happy and crafty 2012! Happy New Year!