Monday, August 30, 2010

Bay To Breakers 12K

Happy Monday everyone! I have a two-pager about the 12K that I ran in May of this year to share today.



I finished this page over the weekend, having started it on Thursday conceptually. It uses 5x7's, a size I don't normally try to use in multiples on a page. These were the pro photos taken at the race. I also have some huge bib numbers to deal with. Taking those things into account this had to be a two page spread!



I enjoy the puzzle piece look of a stripe of photos/memorabilia on pages so I took that as my challenge to fit everything on. Adding in some photos we took ourselves, the course information from the race guide, DH's timing chip and some journaling the puzzle came together pretty nicely! Then...a title/embellishments....

As I'm just getting into using my little Silhouette machine again due to its easier accessibility, I searched for a SVG file of the Golden Gate. Turned out to be super easy to find and a few unsuccessful attempts at getting the cutting right had the third attempt being what you see here. I'm pretty proud of that title work! Overall, I'm really pleased with how this spread turned out. I hope you do too.

Now the next running spread will hopefully be a successful Half Marathon race. I'm doing the training now. My (targeted) race is in November.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Flower Challenge - Scrap Our Stash

The August challenge over at Scrap Our Stash is to use flowers in a layout or card, with preference to homemade. I took this challenge as a means to try out a new (to me) tutorial in making paper flowers. I used the tutorial found here.



I'm not one that does a lot of flowers on my layouts, but doing this challenge made me realize its potential. I did then do another one on the Grad Formal layout I already shared. So, try it out even if you're skeptical is my advice cause you never know, you might just start thinking about incorporating them more.

Oh, and this layout is from a visit to Muir Woods (think big redwoods) not too far away from San Francisco. We found this hollowed out trunk and we each had to take a picture in it. :)

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

WMSC11 & Color Throwdown 107 - Thanks for being my friend

Over at the Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge there's an interesting scalloped circle sketch this week. And my color inspiration was from the Color Throwdown challenge. I'm intimidated by circle cards, I'll admit it. But I was up for a challenge today (what's one more today...as today also starts graduate school! YIKES!). So here's the sketch:



And here's my take:



The scalloped circle edge made me think of flowers once I had my two scalloped circles, one red, one yellow cut out. I used my Silhouette....DH will be proud I put it to good use today! I offset the two circles and then I thought I had a pretty fun flower. I made the center with more red and a circle stitched stamp from the Waltzingmouse Stamps set Faux Fun Circles. And what's a flower without a butterfly? So I pulled out Waltzingmouse Stamps Earth Angel to create my own pink and green butterfly and sentiment. :) It's a little bit of a stretch on the sketch, I'll admit, but it got me to think outside my nice square-card box!

Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Grad Formal 2009

I'm catching up on a 2009 layout today. The event was the Stanford Grad Student Formal. As there were many of the gang that were attending Stanford at the time the girls convinced the guys that we all should go. I don't remember who it was that decided we should all dress up fancily, but it was fun to do so, although not required. Held at the Mountain View Computer History Museum, it was an evening of dancing, music and fun. Before the dance we all went to a little diner in downtown Palo Alto in our fanciness...a thing that caused a little confusion to the other patrons there as we show up in dresses and tuxes yet we were not of the high schooler age.



For this layout I decided to use more of the formal pictures. I didn't go to Homecoming or Prom so I guess that's why I wanted to finally be able to do one of those types of layouts. (The formal pic of DH and myself was a student group providing "prom pics" for a small donation.) The other two pictures are out on the dance floor and at the diner.

I just love the font of these American Crafts Thickers, don't you? I'm a Thicker fanatic, but these have to be one of my favorites and I'm so happy to have gotten to use them! I had the layout about complete yesterday but it was definitely missing something in the top left. I'm not one that puts big embellishments on my pages, but after doing the Scrap Our Stash August challenge earlier in the week (that page will be shown soon) I was all into the make-your-own flower mode and tried this one with my crepe paper. It's a modified version of a tissue paper flower tutorial I found in an old issue of Creating Keepsakes. I distressed the flower with my distress ink and pulled the layers apart, finishing it off with a few pearls.

As I didn't think journaling fit too well, I decided to journal on the back so to remember the fun of the evening. I also taped up some of the funnier pictures on the back cause they were already printed out anyway but not enough for another full page layout. It will just be a hidden surprise later! :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Friday, August 20, 2010

Polson Memories

It's become a tradition since I've met DH to take a trip to Polson, Montana, every year. It was the first place he took me during the July 4th holiday in 2005 and would be the eventual location of our wedding in 2009. This year we went back with nothing but relaxation in mind. I made this layout with many of the pictures from our time there...there were just too many not to include them all!

I took advantage of the Walgreens week of sales in their photo printing to get a bunch of collage prints done this week. I find this is a great way to get many different sizes of pictures and makes me think differently than just in 4x6. Cutting up all of these prints then let me group them in various ways until I came out with something I liked and simply started gluing them down.


The journaling for this page consists of words from some travel stickers I've had in my stash for quite some time. They originally make travel phrases but I just took out the words that worked with my journaling to highlight key words instead. To finish off the page I used some of my trusty Thickers from American Crafts and a Martha Stewart border punch with some patterned paper.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Lawn Fawn {Hearts} Cards For Kids Blog Hop



"Hello and welcome to the Lawn Fawn Hearts Cards for Kids Blog Hop! We have all come together today to make cards for a wonderful cause, Cards for Kids! We hope to encourage you to also make cards for this great cause and have fun along the way, too! So please hop along with us, and make sure to leave comments as there will be prizes for commenters and participants! So let's get going! Also, if you are lost in the hop, you can always start at the beginning at the Lawn Fawn blog. Thank you so much for hopping along with us today!"


You should have come from Hannah's Blog. Your next stop will be Terri.


When I saw this on the Lawn Fawn blog I knew that I wanted to participate. It was also a great way to get out my Lawn Fawn Stamps. For this card I chose Critters In the Burbs. The little animals in this set are just so, so cute. I kept the card simple and decided to use the little snail stamp.




Inside:

Thanks for visiting my little blog. Remember, your blog hop continues by heading over to Terri's Blog next!


Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Friends of Waltzingmouse Stamps August Waltz


Being that it is the 17th of the month it's time for another Waltzingmouse Stamps blog waltz! After missing last month's waltz due to vacations, I knew I wanted to jump right back in and make sure that I made it for August. Then, I hear about the theme: Shabby and Vintage....

Not exactly my go-to style but I thought I would give it a go. For one, Claire's stamps fit into so many themes, but vintage and shabby are definitely what they excel at. Second, I remembered Paper Crafts just came out with their Card Styles issue about all of the different crafting styles. So set with great stamps and a little research, I embarked on my quest to try something new. Here's my final result (a little on the simpler side, but I think it has the necessary elements):





If you can believe it I did have lace in my stash but this is the first time I've used it. I then figured going with Fancy Phrases and Say It With Style were good choices that wouldn't let me down. I went with a feminine approach in my color choices. Finally, I thought some distress inking and sewing was just what this card needed. I was pleasantly surprised to find I actually liked the result when it was complete and I hope you do too. :)

So thanks for stopping by on my shabby and vintage adventure. Be sure to check out the rest of the ladies participating in the blog hop by checking out the Waltzingmouse Stamps Forum.

DETAILS:
Paper - Solids (Martha Stewart, DCWV)
Stamps - Say It With Style Flower & Sentiment, Fancy Phrases Label (Waltzingmouse Stamps)
Embellishements - Lace (JoAnns), Ribbon (Stash), Ink (Colorbox), Distress Ink - Antique Linen (Tim Holtz), Sewing

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Wicked Inspired

So over on the Waltzingmouse Stamps blog there's this little competition going on to use one of Claire's cute (and free!) templates. I viewed all of the templates available in the store and couldn't think of which one I wanted to use for the longest time. Then I became inspired by the music playing while I was scrapbooking yesterday. This music was from the soundtrack of Wicked. Teaming that with the little witch head template and I had a project idea!

I present Glinda and Elphaba!





I did take a little liberty with the template and cut out the top square so that these could be little candy holders! (I had to go to the store specifically to get some candy to fill these up with even! Not that DH minded getting our candy bowl refilled in the process.) Together, I think these make a cute little pair. They were fun to make, especially the easy way to do fun "hair."



So now it's your turn! :) Thanks for stopping by!



DETAILS:
Paper - Solids (Martha Stewart), Shimmer Black (Stash), Swiss Dot Green (Bazzill)
Embellishments - Lips (Cut from a chipboard label by Making Memories), Chipboard Buckles (Stash), Circle Punch (EKSuccess)
Template - Witch Template (Waltzingmouse Stamps), Hat Directions (Waltzingmouse Stamps)

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Key West Revisited

I previously posted some pages on our trip to Key West and southern Florida. Here's yet another about visiting the shipwreck museum. This was actually one of the great highlights of the trip as it was interesting to just hear about Key West's fortune-laden past from collecting from the various shipwrecks along the islands. The museum is housed in the original lookout tower and is full of things that were salvaged. I highly recommend visiting it if you are ever in the area. Then, on the top is the bell to signal if you've seen a shipwreck. None on our watch though....


I tried a new technique on this page. Instead of just a solid paper or a patterned paper as my background I decided to cut up a patterned paper in triangles on my page. I glued the down but then did some sewing around each piece with my trusty sewing machine in a zig-zag stitch. For the first time attempting this, I'm pretty impressed with the result! I think it gives the page a little more personality, don't you think? Then I thought my color palate went perfectly with these fun cursive letters by Colorbok. I have been meaning to use them for a while. Some accents with some more Colorbok chipboard and the layout was deemed finished!

Thanks for stopping by!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

You're My Star

Following the latest Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge, I created this fun little card with the star stamp from the Sewing Box Christmas set. The sentiment then comes from the Seasons of Love Tags set.

Here's the sketch:



Here's my take:


Thanks for stopping by!

DETAILS:
Paper - Georgia Pacific
Stamps - Sewing Box Christmas Star, Seasons of Love Tags Sentiment (Waltzingmouse Stamps)
Ink - Colorbox

Santa Cruz Boardwalk

Here are two layouts I haven't shared yet but were finished before I went to Las Vegas. These pictures are about a year old and when we met up with DH's cousins for some fun on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. I took the liberty to use some more outlandish colors and these bold stripes to go along with the fun of the place.



The log ride photo is one of those that you buy after the ride. One of the cool things is that the photo comes in a fancy little photo holder and by cutting it up a bit, I had the "Santa Cruz Boardwalk" wording on my page! It was also some of the inspiration for the colors in the layout papers.



The second page is of a photo DH took of one of the rides. I just really like this picture and wanted it to be the focus yet still match with the other page to make a set. I included punched circles glued at different levels to add some interest and then some fun chipboard elements from my stash. I also tried out layering border punch borders and I'm really liking the look! Finally, I had a little fun with my white gel pen and added lots of dots to many of the red layers. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

DETAILS:
Paper - Blue Swiss Dot (Bazzill), Solid and Patterned (Crate Paper)
Embellishments - Border Punch (Fiskers), Circle Punch (EKSuccess), Chipboard circles (Colorbok), Chipboard butterfly (Making Memories), Enjoy Chipboard (Making Memories), Labels 1 Die-cuts (Spellbinders), White Gel Pen (Sakura)

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Vegas Weekend

No craft projects for this post and sorry for the sporadic posting of something crafty lately. This past weekend I actually had an excuse though since I was in Vegas with my two best friends. I hadn't seen either of them since my wedding last July so it was good to be able to catch up. Here's a few snapshots of our adventures.
















Susie sported her RunMonster support on her way to Vegas (she is head of Midwest marketing, you know). We did lots of exploring in the casinos and shops, including M&M World. Saturday marked our trip to the Hoover Dam. A pretty nice picture of the Vegas sign if I do say so myself! (that picture was taken from our bus) Then a night out that included a trip up the elevator of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Hotel and a great view of the strip. Finally, SF is never too far away as we checked out the Fremont Street Experience and the Golden Gate Casino. (I highly recommend the restaurant there!)

So that's what I've been up to. I hope to get back to posting some craft projects soon. Thanks for stopping by!

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Swapping Sistahs - Hello Card

I just have a simple little card for the blog today. The supplies that I used are those that I sent out to all of my Swapping Sistahs participants. They are The Paper Company solids and American Crafts patterned papers. I added some ribbon for embellishment and a jeweled leaf (although I didn't use it here in this card) as well. I can't wait to see what my friends came up with.



I decided to use a Fiskers border punch to add some fun to my propped up panel using the patterned paper. I also embossed the brown with the diamond folder. Finally, a Waltzingmouse Stamps sentiment stamp from the Fancy Phrases completes the deal.

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to check out my friends' blogs on the link to the right!