Scrappy scraps and a sweet cat

Hello all!

Well, it's back-to-work time for me -- classes start tomorrow (I teach English at a community college). I can't believe summer's over, but I must say that it was a good one! Eventful enough to be memorable, but not so eventful that I felt busy all the time. Good stuff.

One thing I definitely got was plenty of quality cat time. One day, I was hanging out with Dex, and when I went to take a few self-portraits of the two of us, I ended up with this awesome lens flare...so I had to scrap it, of course!

I know you can edit photos to add an "artsy" lens flare, but it makes me happy that this one just occurred all on its own. I used some bits and bobs left over from another project here -- randomly-cut scraps of papers from Pretty Little Studio, a company that's new to Scrappy Chic. Their paper lines are 8x8, which is pretty unique, and they also make lots of cute tags and other paper accents -- like that train ticket on the layout.

To enhance the sunny photo, I used a canvas bloomer from Basic Grey, misted with the same yellow that's on the cardstock background, and enhanced with some little dewdrop/page pebble thingies. The nice long title is Amy Tangerine (sigh...love), and I stitched a bunch, both across the title stickers and around the photo.

Simple, easy, bright and fun. I sure hope my semester goes that way, too!  Have a lovely day.

Birthday Time!

Yes indeed, it was Mr. Cupboard's birthday this week! Now, normally I'd bake a cake for him (I do love to bake), but I happened to have a Groupon to a tasty local bakery...and this cake was tasty indeed! Cute, too -- cake decorating is a bit beyond me, mostly because my handwriting is so terrible! Anyway, birthdays mean cards, right? Here:

Yeah, that's a talking mixtape. Don't your mixtapes talk to you? ;)  Aside from the speech bubble, this is a one-layer card -- all those lovely straight lines made for some simple masking. The fabulous tape is a new addition to my collection -- I bought it locally here, but you can also order it directly from Yellow Owl Workshop (there's other cute stuff there!). The background stamps and sentiment are all PTI, and the bubble and the grosgrain embossing on it are fun My Favorite Things goodies. I also broke out a very old $1 Studio G alpha set for the names. Knew I was hanging on to it for something!

If you were wondering about the odd angle of the card in the first photo, well, let's just say Dex really wanted to be in the picture, so I let her hold the card open for me here ;)  I used some older We R Memory Keepers stamps on the inside, with another alpha and a heartfelt sentiment.

As for the birthday celebration, we spent some time with family, some time eating, some time shopping for music, and some time with a beer. Nice day!

Ah, well...school starts later this week, so that probably means I'll be a little cranky soon. I do love my job, but who doesn't love summers more, after all? Thank goodness for craftiness -- an excellent antidote to the back-to-school blues!

Enjoy your weekend! I have a roller derby bout to officiate tonight -- should be fun!

Who says summer is relaxing?

The past couple of weeks have been super-busy around here! Luckily, they've been fun-busy, not work-busy: a fun couple of days hanging out in my favorite city (that's Detroit, y'all) with my hubby to celebrate our anniversary earlier this month, followed by prepping my stuff for the yard sale at Scrappy Chic (where I did quite well, thank you very much), followed by canning a big batch of cherries (oh, the pitting!), followed by spending the past four days or so Up North with the fam, camping it up. Whew!

I have made some stuff in between, but I haven't taken the time to get photos up and ready for the ol' blog...so I guess it's time to catch up, eh? Today, I have a couple projects using my kit from Scrappy Chic.

Oh, look at that sweet little face! (And he's so much bigger than this now -- they grow so fast!) I think he deserves a layout, don't you? Ok!

Oh, Simon is just so cute. And photogenic. That husband of mine is pretty adorable, too, don't you think? ;)

This fabulous paper (reminds me of a modern version of an old quilt) and banner (which is self-adhesive, conveniently) are from possibly the cutest little-boy-but-also-good-for-lots-more line -- Paper Boy from Ruby Rock-it, a smallish Australian company. I love the colors, especially the bright pops of yellow, and I love that the line is just so versatile...of course, I went and made a little-boy-cat page anyway ;) (Just so you know, there's also a Paper Doll line that includes a fabulous lime green. Yum.)

Grounded my title with a little collage of October Afternoon label stickers (I will NOT hoard my stickers. I will NOT hoard my stickers...). I'd say that red "g" was an intentional design decision...but I was just out of orange. Looks jaunty, no?

This month, one of my crafting goals is to whip up a card whenever I make a layout -- I do always have leftovers, after all. So here's a super-quick one:

Same stickers, paper, border as above, with a bit of faux stitching for added flair. Done in five! Any other quick tips for stash-busting out there? I'd love to hear them!

Well then, there's probably plenty more news to share, but for now, I'll get back to being un-busy. Besides the laundry, of course...;P

Amy Tangerine: part two!

Like I said in my last post, I am finding this whole line pretty dang irresistible! Today I've got two projects made from the same piece of (really cool) paper. First, another simple layout: the second night of CHA there was this banquet dinner thing with a couple of bands (including a pretty dang good Abba cover band!), and in the corner was a photographer, a backdrop, and a table full of props. You'll get to see all three (!) of the photos we took together someday, but this one, the third, is definitely the best. Ain't we cute??

 Here's the thing about paper with premade stitching accents: usually, they suck for 8.5x11 scrappers...because they usually go around the border and I have to chop them off, making it awfully silly to pay extra for the stitching, don't you think? The cross-stitching here is cleverly placed in comparison :). I broke out my handy circle cutter for (surprise!) the circles, and added the black faux stitching with a pen. Take a closer look for a sec:

The bit between the rows of stitching is stamped with my new favorite camera stamp, and I colored in the hearts using quick 'n dirty gradient coloring -- I inked up a blender pen with some dye ink once, then colored my way down the line. The alphas are some older Basic Grey that happened to match perfectly. Sweet! So, if you're wondering why I scrap 8.5x11 rather than the more common 12x12, the answer is simple:

Leftovers! Trimming paper down for a layout always leaves me with a handy 3.5x12-inch strip, perfect for quick cards made with whatever supplies are already out. Here, it's the same stamp set, a bit of trim that was just sittin' there, givin' me the hairy eyeball, saying "use me already."I also used a fun little trick I learned in my Jen Starr ink class: if you just kinda pound the business end of a Distress Stain onto paper, it makes a near-perfect splat mark! To finish off the inside, I used more stamps from the same set:

(And another splat, too.) The paper on the inside is left over from my layout's journaling strips above. I'm so frugal!

You can see another layout made with the same stitched paper in this post -- you'll just have to scroll down a bit (below all the product pics). I think people sometimes balk at the stitching, but I'm really starting to dig having someone else do all that work for me ;)

Before I go, don't forget to go vote in the last round of Gallery Idol before Thursday at 2 Eastern -- I'd suggest you vote for Meg, of course!  (Congrats [again] on making top 5, lady!!) If you read this post, you'll appreciate just how much awesomeness went into her designs.

Thanks for stopping by -- have a lovely day!

Amy Tangerine: part one...

...of several, probably. I just can't keep my mitts off of this line! I was lucky enough to score just a little taste of what is sure to be a full-blown addiction at the American Crafts booth at CHA. You can see American Crafts' intro to the line on this blog post, and Amy's intro here, among other places.

I decided to start simply, and with the most logical photo possible: one from the Amy Tangerine booth. Here's what I came up with:

Psst: if you're reading, Amy, thanks for being so utterly gracious (and talented, too)! 

Aside from the alpha stickers (ok, and the staples and date stamp), the only materials I used were one sheet of paper, a photo mat and the tear strip from a second sheet of paper, and the Amy Tangerine stamp set (which I loooove...even though it's a bit squishy). No fancy embellishments, no paint/mist/ink (aside from the stamps, duh), nary a punch or die-cut to be found. The narrow blue strips were cut from my leftovers after trimming down to 8.5x11 -- the b-side is a lovely vibrant blue. I trimmed a few of the sun rays to weave the left-hand strip under. Easy!

Now, about that title...

It's a bit of a grad-school lit-nerd joke. I was in this class once where we were discussing a work of metafiction -- aka a work of fiction that is ABOUT a work of fiction. Someone's parting shot in that particular discussion was, "Well, I guess it's good, but it's a little too meta for me." For some reason, it just cracked us all up...because we were lit nerds, I guess. So: this page is about meeting Amy Tan, featuring a photo of the Amy Tangerine booth, made with Amy Tangerine product. Hope it isn't "too meta" for you!

Sidenote: That stamped camera there looks way better in real life, but I think I should've embossed it instead. The ink was way more vibrant white when I stamped it, but it looks like its faded. I may yet fix it!

I hear this line is shipping to stores now -- the minute it shows up at Scrappy Chic, I'll be sure to tell you! Well...I'll tell you right AFTER I go raid the shelves myself!! In the meantime, I have another layout and a card all ready to share, plus a bunch more ideas in the works :)

Have a delightful day -- and stay cool! Whew, it is crazy-hot out there (or out here, anyway)!