Card Patterns Sketch Challenge No: 134

Here is a another quick card I put together for this week's Card Patterns Challenge.  I did something I normally don't do - I turned the sketch vertically.  I used another great DCWV stack, the Dots, Stripes and Plaids paper stack.  The circle stamps are new stamps I just received from Waltzingmouse.  They come from the Large Doily set.  I added a little bling and then mounted them on circles cut out of foil paper included in the coordinating solid DCWV pack.  And for something a little different, I added a heart cut using Accent Essentials. The last elenent is a "Thank You" stamp from an old clear set from my stash stamped on a Spellbinders ribbon tag.  So this card looks a bit different than my usual, but I enjoyed the experiment. 

  Thanks for stopping by!

Nothing is Worth More Than This Moment Picture Frame

My husband's grandmother was recently remarried this past spring.  She met her hubby on a cruise for seniors a few years ago and they have been inseparable since then.  My Mother In Law drew this picture for them and asked me to decorate the frame with some vinyl.  Nothing Is Worth More Than This Moment has very special meaning for them.  The martinis are something I added because they both have a fondness for them.  I used MTC to cut out the title (the font is adore) and also the flourish (My Vinyl Designer's Flourishes I).  The martini glasses are from the Nifty Fifties cartridge.  It's been a while since I worked with vinyl and it was fun to put together this project this morning.  Very quick and easy and it turned out well.

Happy Birthday To You - A Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge Card

This card is for the latest Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge Blog.  I have a new love affair going on with Waltzingmouse stamps and their challenge blog.  Awesome, awesome work, so please check them out.  For this sketch, I pulled out a paper stack that I've had longer than I can remember, but until recently haven't done anything with.  I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who hoards paper.  You know who you are!  It's the DCWV Black Currant stack, and there are some really elegant papers in this stack.  Since this is a circular card, I decided the easiest way to cut the base shapes would be to use my Cricut.  I used the card feature on Art Philosophy for the card base. This cartridge is worth its weight in gold for the cards alone.  They are so many different options.  Not only is there a simple circle card shape but several different scallop shaped cards as well.  At first I went with just the basic circle, but after I had adhered the pattern paper I decided I needed something extra so I went back and cut out a scallop circle to use as a mat and then added a zigzag stitch to give it a bit more interest.  

The stamps are all Waltzingmouse, and the ribbon tag is from Spellbinders.  The bling on the center of the circle is from Prima.  I really, really like this card and since I rarely have any Birthday Cards on hand I'm sure this one will be used soon.

Here is the inside:

Thanks for stopping by! 

Then & Now

A while ago I started a page for my son featuring two of my favorite photographs of him.  One was taken when he was four and the other, just this past summer.  Both were taken in our back yard when he was playing in the water.  For some reason I got stuck and put it away for about a month.  I pulled it out yesterday and it finally came together.  I didn't use a sketch for this one, I just let the pictures guide me.

Recipe:

Paper:  Simple Stories - 100 Days of Summer

Cartridges:  Disney's Pooh & Friends (sun), Paper Lace (font), Going Places (clouds), ZooBalloo (grass)

Miscellaneous:  Thickers chipboard letters, Pebbles felt embellishments

Thanks for stopping by!!

Scrapbook Challenges Layout of the Week

I signed onto Scrapbook Challenges yesterday and was confused because I saw my Go Wes Go layout on the front page.  I thought it was weird, and then read further - my page is the Layout Of The Week!  I feel so honored and special I had to share with you all!  It was such a fun and easy page to make, I am thrilled someone really likes it.

Also, I want to thank Colleen for this Butterfly Award.  I really appreciate it!

It's the Last Day of School - Scrapbook Challenges Sketch No. 267

This is sketch No. 267 from Scrapbook Challenges.  This is my first time playing along and I have to tell you it pulled me way out of my comfort zone.  This sketch is very stripped down and given I tend to gravitate to full pages with a lot of elements, it was a bit uncomfortable for me (in a good way) to have to come up with something for this page.  The picture of my son and my sister that we took in his classroom on the last day of school.

Instead of using plain circles I did something new I really enjoyed - I pulled out quite a few of circle shaped Spellbinder dies and just started playing around.  I combined several different types together to cut out as many different shapes as I could come up with.  What you see is a combination of small pinking circles, Inverted scallops, scallop circles, and sprightly sprockets. There was a great freedom in that experimenting.  I wasn't sure it was going to work, or that I was going to like any of them and I was pleasantly surprised that I liked quite a few of them.  In addition to these elements, I matted the page on a image I generated using Elegant Edges's book feature.  I am beginning to see more and more possibilities using this feature.  Yet another reason to love Elegant Edges!  A little twine, a button, some sticker and chipboard letters from my stash, and I was done.  So, it was a quick layout and I really like my *new* creation.

Recipe:

Paper:  DCWV Black Currant (background stripe paper), K & Company's Life's Little Occasions, Martha Stewart's Designer Paper Pad, We R Memory Keeper's Tiffany's

Spellbinders:  Small Pinking Circles, Inverted Scallops, Scallop Circles, Sprightly Sprockets

Twine:  The Twinery

Thanks for stopping by!

Musing about my Kids

Good morning everyone!  It's been a good, good week.  Fall is upon us and we finally have open all of the windows weather!  The world is full of possibilities.  With that in mind, I am sharing a quote with you from Shel Silverstein.  It's included on my a layout that I created for my youngest son this past July.  While going through my almost completed book I came across it and it made me smile all over again.  

Listen to the mustn'ts, child. 

Listen to the don'ts. 

Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. 

Listen to the never haves, 

Then listen close to me... 

ANYTHING can happen, child. 

Anything can BE.

  

Thanks for stopping by!!

One Summer at Chess Camp

I am getting caught up.  I am getting caught up!  This is a page I put together this morning for my son who attended his first ever chess camp this past summer.  I used a simple sketch from Jana Eubank.   The papers are all from My Mind's Eye. The main collection is Lime Twist, but there are a few pieces of Stella & Rose intermixed here and there.  I stayed pretty true to the sketch, added a little stitching and cut out the circle and title using MTC.  I wanted a bit of a different spin on the circle outline so I used MTC's rhinestone feature to generate symmetrically spaced circles and then welded it to a few other circle images to come up with what you see here.  I used MTC for the chess pieces as well.  I have my good friend Pam from TheBugBytes to thank for those chess pieces.  I found some wonderful free vector art images online but couldn't get them downloaded and converted to SVG format.  Pam, the tech wizard she is, did it for me.  Tech genius that she is!  I love her!  Once I could load them into MTC it was so simple to stagger, rotate them a bit, and them weld them together.  One of the things I love the most about Make The Cut is the ability to generate a shadow from any image within seconds.  With just a few mouse clicks away  you can generate a shadow and adjust it to exactly the size you want!  Thank you Andy for listening to your customers!  Other than a bit of stitching, there's not much else to this page.  The papers are so busy that I didn't want to overwhelm it with more embellishments.  I like these both the way they are.

Now you may have noticed that the second page is missing a picture. That's because my dear friends at my local Wolf Camera shorted me a print.  Fabulous.  You all know how much I adore those folks.  Our longstanding love affair continues . . .  I went ahead and put together the page anyway and I will add the photo to it after I pick up the next batch.

Recipe:

Paper:  My Mind's Eye Lime Twist & Stella & Rose

Cartridges:  Elegant Edges

Make The Cut:  Circle, Chess pieces, Title

Ink:  Stampin' Up Basic Gray

Thanks for Stopping by!!