Getting a Little More organized

 For awhile now, I have been working on better ways to organize my scrap area. I work so much better when things are in their right places. I also have been wanting a better way to organize my sketches and notes for on-line challenges. So when I saw the June Challenge Sketch at Let's Scrap,I figured it was the perfect time to make one of those pretty notebooks. After all...if the notebook is all decked out the creativity will flow better, right? At least I hope so.
  I used Making memories 5th avenue collection. It contains some of my favorite colors. Making this notebook also afforded me the perfect opportunity to use some of those K and company transparency and die cut butterflies. They had called to me in the store. Ever since then,I've been trying to find homes for them on my LO's....which is hard when you have a boy.

Diary of a Tadpole

While I did not make it to round two of the last Scrapper Standing contest at Memorable Seasons, I decided to keep participating for a chance to win a gift certificate. Challenge two asked for us to use a black cardstock base and to make at least two handmade flowers. I immediately thought of water lilies. My son and I had found some tadpole eggs...which we promptly brought home in an empty water bottle. Currently, the little guys have hatched and are growing at a wonderfully steady rate. I have been taking photos along the way with the intent to document their stay in our home. This will be the title page for those layouts. I liked the idea of a black background. The photos seem striking against it.

I made the lily pads by cutting circles of various sizes. I cut out a little wedge, giving them the appearance of pac man. I then used my bone folder to crease them. I felt this gave the appearance of leaf veins. I folded the edges of the circle and inked them with colorbox olive ink. I then used various green chalks to add a little variable color to the leaf and to accent the veins. For the tadpole eggs, I used glossy accents and black pony beads. To make the flowers, I cut them on my cricut. They come in two pieces. I rolled up the edges of the top layer and inked them with colorbox ruby satin and royal silk ink. These were the closest colors to the actual flowers we saws and added more depth to the paper flowers. I rolled crate paper sweet branch trim for the centers.
  The title was cut on my cricut. I used CK's sloppy and beantree fonts. The tadpole egg "o" was made from a chipboard alpha. I flipped it over to the white back, added the button and used glossy accents. I am looking forward to making little tadpoles and frogs for the rest of the pages. Stay tuned for those.

I have also decided to post my first project for Last Scrapper standing round one here. The theme was "An American Child." We were asked to use star and stripes. I cut the stars on my cricut...some of which I creased and glued down to add dimension. To help the star hold it's crease, I glued cotton ball pieces inside. The striped ribbon was purchased from the dollar section of target. I chose to keep this LO very simple. I journaled inside a star on my word processor and added it to the border. I added a few small star brads and  buttons.

Have you Ever Had...

One of those projects. You know what I mean. The type which no matter how you play with the elements, you just aren't 100% happy with it. I just had one of those. In the end I am ok with the results...not 100% ok. I am just happy that it's done. I tried out The color room's #11 palette and sketch for an Easter Layout. I never realized what a challenge that orange and pink could present me. I just didn't have the papers in my stash to really rock the design the way I wanted it. I will say though, that there are parts of the Lo I like. I love the Easter egg. I cut an oval out of white Cardstock. Then I used green and pink water color crayons for the base. I decorated it with a Martha Stewart white opaque marker and some diamond stickles. It was a fun easy embellishment. I also liked the cottontails on the rabbits. I found the rabbits as a free dingbat font and used my cricut to cut them out. I thought they needed a little something else...so I used a cotton ball to make little tails for them. I love finding things around the house to make a lay out work.
 I am also pleased to say that I used up some old stash. I had some ek success green fibers that reminded me of Easter grass. they have been in my stash for a few years now. I also used up an old sticker...the title one that says "hopping down the Bunny Trail." The flowers are Sassafrass and the ribbons are Crate paper and MM.
  So while this is not my best ever LO...I will chalk it up to one more completed and will move on. Otherwise I think I'll pull my hair out.

Fun with Flowers

  WOW...today I have posted more than I ever have before. Who would have thought that someone like me would go from no blog to posting almost daily. Part of the reason this has happened is due to all of the great on-line challenges I have found. This current challenge is all about flowers and it's over at Practical scrappers. http://www.practicalscrappers.com/2010/06/this-weeks-challenge-is-flowers.html So I thought I would post a couple of recent flower favorites from my lay outs.

  Flowers are really a tough challenge for me. Having a boy means finding ways to get creative when using flowers. One would think I wouldn't have a lot of flowers in my stash...but well, let's just say those lovely little paper flowers sing a siren song when I am at my LSS. And when my friend offered me some scrap pieces of felt flower strips, how could I say no?Needless to say, it's not all rocket ships and robots in my stash. SO...just what does one do when they have a boy and flowers in their stash? Well, you can look for another subject to scrap about as I did here in Lil' Visitor.

This little bird flew into our utility room. I am sure he doesn't mind that I scrapped him with the purple and green of the The Color room's palette. Purple is also a color challenge for me as it's not always a boy's color.

For club CK's Challenge 16, I chose a flower as an accent for my favorite May moments. It worked well with scrapbook challenges sketch 202 and fit the theme of "May'.

When in doubt, add girls to the photo. "Seriously!" as my son likes to say. Two of DS' best friends are girls. So when they appear in the photos, I try to sneak in some girly color or flowers. Our female cat, Sweetpea, is also the subject of many an LO and the perfect excuse to use pink.

I hope you can find creative ways to use up the supplies that challenge you the most, be it a color or a type of item, like flowers.                                                                                                                         

Love my Box Babies

I am really excited to be a guest designer at Scrap Our Stash. Today, My take on their 2nd June sketch posted. it's a challenging sketch...but has wonderful results. I hope you'll stop by and check it out.
http://scrapourstash.blogspot.com/2010/06/scrap-our-stash-sketch-2.html

I used the sketch for the left page.

Sprinkles by Renee

I just found these very unusual flowers. they are absolutely gorgeous AND there is a giveaway fro them on her blog. check them out here:
http://sprinklesbyrenee.blogspot.com/2010/06/have-you-invited-your-friends-yet.html

She has quite a variety of colors and unusual mixes. very beautiful!!!

Summer kick off Blog hop at PPC

I love a blog hop(who doesn't) and I love a color challenge. So I decided to participate in Picture perfect creations summer blog hop. I used Sketch 204 from Scrapbook challenges.

I loved how the color palette from PPC complemented the photos of DH and DS playing at an outdoor restaurant. We often go to the Green parrot. It's a little hole in the wall place, but it has good food and the harbour views are amazing. Not to mention that the sea breezes are great on a warm summer day.

I added a green feather from an actual green parrot. Now in reality, there are no live green parrot's at this restaurant.However, there are green parrot's in the Bahamas...and that is where this feather came from. I figured it was the perfect touch. I did clean the feather before placing it in the layout by gently wiping it down with a baby wipe. One must be careful with bird feathers as they might harbour small bugs or other unpleasant germs. In cleaning the feather, you must also be quite gentle so you don't pull it apart.

I cut the title on my cricut with the CK Jolly elf font.

For My Husband

  My DS tends to dominate my lay outs. It's no secret that he is the center of the universe for DH and I. Add to that, the fact that DH is very rarely a willing subject for photos. DH will turn away or make silly faces. A few weeks ago, I issued a challenge on Club CK to take some must have summer photos. DH has a sunglasses fetish...so I figured I would do my best to capture him with them on and scrap the photos, silly or not. Well, I got those photos. Only they are not at all silly... and the more that I looked at them, The more that I realized this was not going to be an LO just about DH's love of sunglasses. So I waxed sentimental and the journaling became about my love of my wonderful husband. When I saw the 6-17 sketch on Sketchy Thursday, I felt these photos fit right onto it.
http://sketchythursdays.blogspot.com/2010/06/617-sketchy-thursdays-challenge.html

I wanted paper that made the lay out feel warm and special to me. I ended up choosing Basic grey's periphery because it was masculine, while capturing some of DH's favorite colors. I had the matching Basic grey ribbon and buttons. I cut the title on my cricut with the CK invitation font. The border is cut from a free svg file. A freind of mine made it. You can find it on her blog:
http://paperscrapsandpicturepassion.blogspot.com/2010/06/freebie-svg-file-day-5.html
I used some My Mind's Eye rub-ons on page 2.

Crawling with Bugs!

  I recently challenged myself to put my camera in Macro and to find as many bugs as I could. I actually found quite a few interesting critters. I did my best to identify them with some on-line field guides...and then of course, decided to make a page all about them. BUT....what kind of page do you make about a bunch of bugs?
  I decided that I wanted some grass on the pages. I know masking is not new to a lot of you. I have done a little masking and I wanted to try it here. I cut scraps of white cardstock into blades of grass and laid them on a sheet of solid white, textured CS.

 I used meadow green glimmer mist and was quite satisfied with the results. I created the paper with the writing on it. I used a scrap piece of vellum and wrote "bugs....creepy crawlies" over and over again. I think it's an expensive way to customize the page for your theme. I used to do this a long time ago and am challengin myself to try things like this again.

I chose  to use shades of green for the trim. The photos had plenty of color and I wanted those to be what caught the eye. On a tip from Scrap Our Stash blog spot, I painted my chipboard alphas a light green. ( for more idea on using paint to change your chipboard, see here: http://scrapourstash.blogspot.com/2010/06/frugal-friday-tip_10.html )To hide the paint stokes, I added Diamond Stickles. All of the bugs used on the pages are from a swap I did on Club CK. The flower buttons are Making memories. The page sketch is from Sketches for you:
http://sketchesforyou.ning.com/

For the second page, I used the blades from the mask and a sketch from studio calico:
http://studiocalico.blogspot.com/2010/06/sunday-sketch_13.html

I find that sitting down and writing a list of photos I want to try to take can be really inspiring. A lot of great LO's come from this. So, challenge yourself...try something different with your camera or list those must have photos for your album!

A Frugal Friday Tip

I submitted a tip to Scrap Our Stash Blogspot....and it just posted. To see how you can recycle to create some nice decorative storage tubs, pop on over:
http://scrapourstash.blogspot.com/2010/06/frugal-friday-tip_18.html

Glitter...In the Rain

  Playing in the rain is a joy that I think all kids should experience. I have fond memories of puddle jumping with my grandparents as a small child. I take every opportunity to let my son enjoy the rain. So, a few days ago, when the cooling rains came, I indulged my son in just that. It has been so hot lately. We are already near 100 degrees and so playing outside is just miserable right now. Playing in the rain really afforded my son the ability to stretch his legs and burn off some energy. As you can see, I snapped some photos of him while he danced in the rain...while sipping a cup of coffee and enjoying the sound of the drops on the roof top.
  Rainy day photos can really capture some great moments, but, despite photo editing, the pictures can still be a bit on the blue side. Color Room palette #10 really offered some great color choices to warm up the pictures. http://thecolorroom.ning.com/forum/topics/palette-reveal-10-his-room-due
The sketch also worked well with the photos I had chosen. I took the practical scrappers challenge to use something from my cabinet on a page...I used a bobby pin as the handle for my homemade umbrella. I cut the umbrella top from an older piece of fabric paper in my stash ( manufacture unknown). Then I slightly bent the bobby pin and adhered it to the back of the Umbrella top.

 I added some Making memories crocheted passport trim. I really am quite pleased with the results. I created the rain drops with waterfall stickles. I doodled a little with the stickles around the word rain in the title to create a puddle.

The title was cut on my cricut with CK's beantree font. The title itself is actually the June 7th quote on the club ck blog.I used my word processor to print part of it for the title.
 http://clubcreatingkeepsakes.com/blogs/quote_of_the_day/archive/2010/06/07/june-7-2010-rain-themed.aspx
I find a lot of inspiration on Club CK.

As usual, I love making two page lay outs. I used the same Sketch from The Color Room for the 2nd page.

I hope that next time it rains, you will let your child dance in it. Maybe you'll even dance a little yourself. Life is too short to miss moments like these.

Crazy About Stars

I recently read a tutorial about making folded paper stars...and now I am hooked. I just have to figure out what else I can fold or crease. I will admit, that on my last 3 layouts, I have found an excuse to add a paper star.
To learn how to make a folded star, go here:
http://scrapbookandcardstodaymag.typepad.com/scrapbook_cards_today_blo/2010/06/paper-stars-with-kimber-.html

For the current Studio calico blog challenge :
 http://studiocalico.blogspot.com/2010/06/be-bold-challenge.html  and for the challenge over on Frosted designs: http://frosteddesigns.blogspot.com/2010/06/tgif-and-you-know-what-that-means.html , I created this layout about my son and his obsession with me taking his photo while he's underwater. All of the photos were taken using a disposable underwater camera. While I wish I had a nice digital underwater camera or the adaptor for my digital one, I find these cameras work pretty well. I love the bold turquoise color of the photographs...and when I matched the red cardstock to my son's red shirt, I loved the boldness of the color combo. So I chose to stick with these two colors for the whole layout. I cut the star using my cricut, but you could use any die cut or star punch. You could also trace a star cookie cutter. Use your bone folder to crease and fold the star. I folded and refolded a few times to make the creases more pronounced. I chose to add diamond stickles to the star so they would match the chipboard alphas(manufacturer unknown).it doesn't show well in the photo, but the alphas have glitter on them. To help the star keep it's dimension and to help adhere it to the page, I glued part of a cotton ball inside. The ribbon is from Cosmo Cricket's Honey Pie. Since the colors and title were so bold, I chose to keep the layout more simple.

I hope you'll be seeing some stars on one of your next layouts.
Update: and thanks to a comment from craftygirl...I just submited this Lo to Pratical scrappers. Thank you for the tip!

Last Scapper Standing

This looks to be another fun event. So go check it out over at memorable Seasons:
http://memorableseasons.blogspot.com/search?q=last+scrapper+standing

I hope to participate and I hope some of you will too.

Ribbon Scraps and a sick kid

Recently, My son was feeling under the weather. I took the opportunity to snap some photos of him, even though he wasn't at his best. I saw a sketch challenge on the Studio Calico blog and thought of these photos...and my stash of ribbon scraps. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to use both.
http://studiocalico.blogspot.com/2010/06/sunday-sketch.html


I felt that I should use brown, green and yellow to convey the "sick" feeling that the layout needed. I also got to use up some old chipboard letters from  my stash ( alphadots). The title was made using Sassafrass Earthy chipboard letters and some diamond stickles.

June Sketch and Stitch challenge

   This month, There has been a lot of focus on making LO's for summer over on Club CK. So of course, I dragged out any photos I could find which had summer themes.  When I saw the June sketch on scrap our stash, I knew it was perfect for the photos of my son acting the part of a sundial. I combined it with the stitch challenge also going on at Scrap Our Stash. The layout  I  submitted posted recently. So go check it out:
http://scrapourstash.blogspot.com/2010/06/june-stitch-and-sketch-challenge.html

Let's Gloss over it!

   Because I love gloss. When I was younger, I preferred lipstick.Now...it's almost always lip gloss. My favorite splurge being a small tub of Christian Dior gloss that just makes my lips so soft and shiny. But wait...this blog isn't about beauty tips. It's about scrapbook pages. So what does gloss have to do with anything? Well, It's about a bottle of Glossy Accents to be exact. And I have discovered that I love it about as much as my lip gloss.

   Initially, I had wanted a bottle of Diamond Glaze. Unfortunately, the Little Scrapbook store closest to me does not carry it...but they do carry Glossy accents. Same difference, or so I am told. I still want to try Diamond Glaze, if only to compare. For now though, I am liking what I can create with the Glossy Accents.

   So, what did I make? Well, I wanted to do something special for DH's birthday photo. I decided to make a frame for the photo that said Happy Birthday...and then use the glossy accents to suspend some sequins into the letters. It was a lot of work, but I do like what I made. AND... I was able to submit it for the Sketchy Thursday's 6-03 challenge:

http://sketchythursdays.blogspot.com/2010/06/603-sketch-challenge.html

  So, Now you are asking yourself, how did I make this frame? Well, If life were easy, I'd have a Big Cricut. As it stands, I only have a baby bug. So, I couldn't just make the frame fit into the cutting mat. Honestly, you could make this type of frame even without a cricut or die cut machine. You will need to have the following:

-Patience

-an exacto knife or other craft knife

-letters( these can be chipboard letters, stencils, or print letters using your word processor and cut them out to make your own stencil)

-Glossy accents or Diamond Glaze

You can see in this photo the white CS letter I traced.

1. Trace around the edge of the photo that you want to frame onto a piece of Cardstock.

2.Take  your letters(or numbers or even shapes for that matter), trace them around the edge of the rectangle( in this case 4x6) as desired.

3. use your craft knife to fussycut the frame out.

4. apply the glossy accents or Diamond glaze to the letters. Before I did so, I put pieces of cut up sequins onto the letters. On some letters, I painted with smooch ink so it would have a slight shimmery effect under the clear glaze. You could also use confetti, glitter, small beads, sand...use your creativity to figure out what you want to add to your creation.

5. let dry and then adhere photo.

Here is a photo at an angle so that you can see the raised effect of the glaze. The Glossy Accents are also a great way to turn old flat stickers into epoxy style stickers.

Pinch me...cuz I might be dreaming

It's been a few days since I found out...but I still can't quite believe it. I was asked to be a guest designer for July over on Scrap Our Stash Challenge. http://scrapourstash.blogspot.com/
WOW...I am so excited!!! this is my first guest design spot ever!!! Here is the LO that started it all...

It's my son's hand on mine. I completed it for the "get out of your box" challenge over at Scap Our Stash and for the Color room's Palette#7 challenge. My box...well, I tend to only use color photos. so I decided to experiment with black and white. Fussy cutting is something I never did before, b/c it looked like so much work and time was involved. Boy was I wrong! Now I really love fussycutting. In this case, I fussycut some Sassafrass PP and then used 3-d foam at intervals to add dimension to the page. the fussycutting was just what the page needed.

So...now I am off to work on some more challenges. I'd love to get that sketch challenge and June stitch challenge done. I have had some ideas floating around in my head. And i just need to get them down on paper...

If you need some ideas, stop by Scrap Our Stash  http://scrapourstash.blogspot.com/
or one of my other favorite challenge sites:
The Color Room: http://thecolorroom.ning.com/
Let's Scrap: http://letsscrap.ning.com/rapbook
Scrapbook Challenges: http://scrapbookchallenges.ning.com/
Just to name a few.

Danger! Sharks!!!

A few years ago, we had the wonderful opportunity to go on a deep sea fishing excursion near Nassau,Bahamas. it also happened to be my son's first ever fishing trip. I ended up with a lot of great photos! So many, that I ended up with two 2-page Layouts!

  I created this first LO  using a sketch from Let's scrap.
http://letsscrap.ning.com/photo/ls128-november-25?context=album&albumId=2186252%3AAlbum%3A94293

I have been wanting to scrap these photos for a long time. I had even bought a specialty paper from Wubie papers for this LO. However, for the longest time, I never knew how I wanted to work with that paper. Now that I am doing more fussycutting, I felt a little more confident about cutting the paper. I cut a slit along the fishing rod which allowed me to slide in a photo of my son and, at the same time, hide someone's arm that had gotten into the shot. I had so many oddly sized photos that I wanted to use. So, on the right hand page, I tore a strip of DCWV white core cardstock. This allowed me to group like photos together while distracting from the various sizes.

The 2nd LO utilized a Sketchy Thursday's 5-27-10 sketch:
http://sketchythursdays.blogspot.com/2010/05/527-sketch-challenge.html

 I loved the way that the words wrapped around the borders on the sketch...but every time I tried to type a word border or write one, I was unhappy with the results. I have seen a lot of color on color punches used lately and have wanted to experiment with the look. So I used my cricut and cut arrows and "Danger Shark" with the Cry Kitty font in white cardstock. I then created a border around the edges. The red "danger" signs are fussy cut from a sheet of Creative imaginations transparency. I cut the sharks using an SVG file on my cricut and then sprayed them with Sapphire glimmer mist. For the background, I framed the white 12x12 cardstock so i would leave a white border...and then spritzed the center with Patina Glimmer mist. I journaled on leftover paper strips, then inked the edges with Colorbox Prussian blue. Overall I like the results...it's just hard to keep the page flat as the glimmer mist made it buckle a little.

On a side note...I have just found another great challenge site: http://www.practicalscrappers.com/

and I hope to submit this page there for the vellum and transparency challenge.