Monday, January 31, 2011

Color Inspiration Challenge

Just a quick little post tonight. I wanted to submit an entry for the Neutrals Color Challenge for Color Inspiration for Card Makers Weekin the Moxie Fab World. This is also another CASE of a Waltzingmouse Stamps DT member too! This time I was inspired by Lisa and her frame card. Following the great directions she provided, I was able to do something similar with my Grand Calibur for this little card with my Labels 1 dies. The little cupcake stamp used is from Waltzingmouse Stamps' Frame It set.




Here's the colors for the Color Inspiration Challenge: (there's still time to enter too...)

Sunday, January 30, 2011

WMS CASE Challenge, Take Two!

The girls of Waltzingmouse Stamps introduced WMS fans to the new Grand Calibur machine that is new from Spellbinders. There's still time for the challenge, so be sure to check it out! Here's my second entry...

This project is a case of Sandie's Birthday Heart Card. Elements that I kept in mine include use of Waltzingmouse Stamps' Seasons of Love Tags heart, the basic layout of the card, and the monochromatic color scheme. 

So here it is...see if you can find the cased elements...




The card mat is from Basic Grey's Sugar Rush 6x6. Other stamps are WMS Half Pint Heroes for the sentiment and one of the WMS Text It background stamps.

And be sure to enter yourself. There's a GRAND prize in the form of some grand nestabilities and a WMS stamp set for the winner! Here's the post with all the details: WMS Case Challenge.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Wedding Page & Last of 2009

So with this first wedding page (as there's an entire album left to do...yes, I got married in July 2009) I am not finished with my general 2009 portion of my scrapbook. I'm having this one wedding page go in the general book since it was kinda a big deal in 2009. It was also a great start to what I might do in my actual wedding album, or at least got to play with some of the elements I've been gathering for such a book.



I'm surprised to find that I used 4 different border punches on this page! I made that flower vine embellishment by painstakingly cutting each flower bud and gluing it on the green version and putting little pearls in the centers. I think it turned out pretty good, don't you think? And the little die cut embellishment people are from a very long ago eBay purchase before I owned things like a Silhouette. I probably would have bought it even if I did own it though because they were just too cute. They originally had blond hair, but I modified them to match DH and I. :)

DH approved of this page, for which I'm happy. He said the page turned out "in your usual scrapbook style with a wedding flair." I guess I can be happy with that assessment. So maybe there's hope yet that I can do my wedding album without all the worry of messing it up. (I'll admit, I've thought about what I want to go on these wedding pages for quite some time and am almost too intimidated to work on it!)

I hope you're not too tired of wedding photos...I bet more will be coming on this little blog...

Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

WMS Grand Calibur Event - Case a Project Challenge

Last weekend the girls of Waltzingmouse Stamps introduced WMS fans to the new Grand Calibur machine that is new from Spellbinders. I received this machine for Christmas from my mom (Thanks Mom!) and was particularly interested in learning what all could be done with it. After seeing the projects over the weekend, I now have some more ideas of just how to utilize the greater surface space for embossing and die-cutting! And Claire's great posts about embossing are something I just must try!

Now this week WMS asks us to case a project done by the design team. I was already working away on one Sunday. :)

This project is a case of Belinda's "Beach Stud" scrapbook layout. Elements that I kept in mine include use of Waltzingmouse Stamps' Free Spirit background stamp, an offset matting to the picture, a little Labels 1 tag on the side of the picture, and I would also count that the layout is about my husband as well. That counts right? This picture is of DH and his youngest brother at Christmas time in 2009 (see, more 2009 pages getting completed!) as they prepared to go out in the cold Montana weather to help their dad with some farm chores. DH hadn't dressed up head to toe in farm gear for quite some time and his mom and I took advantage and made sure to snap a picture of the two of them. Aw, good old brother bonding! (Ok, DH isn't going to like that this post got so mushy...lol!)

So here it is...see if you can find the cased elements...




And be sure to enter yourself. There's a GRAND prize in the form of some grand nestabilities and a WMS stamp set for the winner! Here's the post with all the details: WMS Case Challenge.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Half Moon Bay

Here's just a simple page for today. I am working my way to finishing 2009 (even though I've done bits of 2010 already since I decided that chronological just wasn't working for me anymore) right now. This was our trip to Half Moon Bay for the first time. It's only 30 minutes away from our house so that means so is the coast, but it took us until November of that year to finally go. We've since been there another time for a yummy seafood dinner when my mom came to visit.


Here's the sketch:




I followed a PageMaps sketch that I found in my great search of some challenges to do. This one wasn't attached to a challenge but I thought the photos fit too well not to try it out. Plus, it's just a fun little sketch! I have decided that I'm not one for big embellishments, but I did incorporate a little raffia ribbon along the bottom. And because I don't have the notebook paper border punch, I just used some paper that was around (ah, yes, being a student has helped in scrapbooking!). I distressed it with some Antique Linen distress ink as well.

Well, that's all for now. Thanks for stopping by!

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Las Vegas Girls' Weekend

Here's a fun two-page layout that I just finished. The subject of this particular layout is my Girls' Weekend with my besties last August. These girls were my bridesmaids in my wedding and this August weekend was our next time all together.



For this layout I just let things flow after deciding to loosely base it off a PageMaps sketch by Becky Fleck I had from the sketch book I got for Christmas. (Thanks Deb!) It is a loose interpretation of the sketch but basically has elements like the strip of photos along the bottom, the vertical element cutting into the strip and a bigger image cutting over the two pages. The sketch had a line of like 4 bigger photos along the bottom and just one bigger photo. Since there were just too many photos I liked from our trip, I changed it into more like a filmstrip. :)

I also used my new Grand Calibur for the cutting with my new nestabilities. (Guess this page just likes to incorporate new Christmas presents! These were from my mom.) And finally the fun swirly paper was from Alicia herself. I got the fun paper for my last birthday...lol! My good, old Silhouette was used the title. It needed some love.

Now to figure out where our next Girls' Weekend should be.... I guess it can be about anywhere, except Springfield, Illinois. We've already done that one! HAHA!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Hannah's First Bath

As promised (although I do admit, a little later than I had hoped), here's another post! And I'm also showing off one of my new layouts I finished this week. This one is about Hannah's first bath adventures. I've had the Walgreens collage print of these photos for quite some time so it was due that I finally get them scrapped. I like to get many Walgreens collage prints when they are on sale. It makes the prints all the more worthwhile to just let them do the printing than making them at home. Although I should make some sort of template sometime...I do have the 8x10 paper already.




But anyway, here's my layout. I even did not go off a sketch for this one. This one is just my own doing. I pulled out my sewing machine for around all the main rectangle and on the strip of solid. And while I wasn't trying to necessarily match to any particular embellishments in my stash, the page just needed the Splishin' and a Splashin' sticker for the final touch. :)

Hannah wasn't too bad a sport about this whole bath thing the first half of the procedure. It was more the drying off that she didn't like because she doesn't like hair dryers or towels and she was cold. The final picture on the bottom is of her huddled on the Apple TV for warmth. We occasionally found her on it even when she wasn't wet because she liked how it was a warm spot in the house. We've since upgraded to the new, smaller Apple TV and I think she misses her warm spot. Luckily for her, the old one is now in use again as my music streaming device for the new speakers DH got me for Christmas. And of course, Ms. Hannah found it the other day. I have a feeling we'll be finding her curled up on it when I'm in my room scrapping in the near future.



And just for a bit more fun to finish off this Hannah-themed post, here's the spoiled princess playing her iPad game. Yes, there's a Game for Cats game on the App Store! She loves it!


Later!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Catching up...

Yay! An update on this poor, neglected craft blog of mine! If you are finding this page, thank you for sticking with me even though my updates have been few and far between. Life got in the way mostly, as it usually does. Juggling master's classes and an internship during the semester took its toll on our house (we just finally got that cleaned up this weekend) and my time for craft projects.

The semester turned out well though, even with all of what was going on. But I'm enjoying my off days from my internship, that is still going, to be able to just have some "me" time. That will hopefully include some craft projects and catching up with what I've missed in the paper crafting world.

But if you're here, you probably want to see something crafty, so here's some late, but at least now shared craft projects I was up to in the meantime.





First was a birthday and anniversary calendar I made for my grandfather. I compiled pictures of everyone in my family and used the Michael's $1 spot cardboard mini-album sheets as my base. Distressed a little around the edges and used some fun Thickers on the different pages. It was a present that I got to present in front of my extended family at our usual Christmas Eve get-together. I think he enjoyed it and I hope he's getting some good use out of it. My plan next is to make one for DH and I with family and friends in it.

And I did get handmade Christmas cards out to everyone! Go me! They were quick and simple but I was happy to have found a way to still make homemade cards and get them out (almost) in time for Christmas. I think some were more on time than others. Of course, being quick and simple meant that they weren't using a lot of my supplies that I had gathered specifically for the occasion, but I guess there's always next year! Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of my cards though. Once they were made they instantly went into the mail. :)

And just cause....here are some Christmas pictures. (Guess this is my belated Christmas post)






I'll be back hopefully soon with a new project that I plan on working on today.

Thanks for stopping by!