Another Great Birthday

I mentioned in a previous post all the February birthdays we have in our family. The last birthday of the month was yesterday, my husband!  I decided to use a new stamp set from the 2014 Occasions catalog, Another Great Year.  And since the February Paper Pumpkin was gift bags, I had to use one for his gift.  In the end he received a coordinating card and gift bag, along with his gift ;0).

For his card I used Petal Parade stamp set (a sale-a-bration stamp set) and stamped the chevron pattern with Versamark and heat embossed with white embossing powder. Then I took basic gray Coredinations cardstock and embossed with the Arrows Textured Embossing Folder and sanded the top so the arrows had more definition.

The greeting was stamped in Midnight Muse onto Whisper White cardstock.  I also stamped the greeting onto Soft Sky cardstock and fussy cut the two banners out.

For the embellishment on the bottom, I folder a piece of chevron ribbon in half and trimmed the bottom to match the point.  I sewed a button onto the chevron ribbon using linen thread and adhered it to the arrow from the Label Card Thinlits Die set. The large stars are from the Circle Card Thinlits Die and the small star is from the Merry Minis Punch Pack, a carry-over item from the 2013 Holiday catalog.

As I mentioned, since the February Paper Pumpkin was gift bags, they turned out to be the perfect companion for this gift!  I decided to to use Crumb Cake as the base color for his card so I could coordinate with the gift bag!

I used the same general elements on the gift bag with just a few change-ups.

I sewed the button to the chevron ribbon but mounted it sideways instead.

For the top of the bag I sewed some stars to linen thread to make a banner. Then I clipped the banner to the  bag using the mini clothespins that came in the paper pumpkin kit this month.

So needless to say, my husband was appreciative of his card and bag.  He also liked the watch I bought him!  A pretty easy purchase since he had it on his wish list in Amazon ;0).  The hard part was hiding the purchase until the big day since the emails go to our shared email account.  I guess there has to be some sort of effort put into the purchasing part of the gift.

My next few cards will be designs for my Signs of Spring  Stamp Camp I am hosting on March 7th. Hopefully the temperature will begin to rise a little.  I am ready to be above the freezing point!  I will try to at least design cards that will put us in the spring spirit, even if the weather does not cooperate!

Stamp Sets: Another Great Year (Occasions), Petal Parade (SAB)

Big Shot: Arrows Textured Embossing Folder,  Label Card Thinlits Die,  Circle Card Thinlits Die

Colors: Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Midnight Muse, Soft Sky

Accessories: 5/8" Natural Chevron Ribbon (Occasions), Naturals Designer Buttons, Linen Thread, Merry Minis Punch Pack (carryover Holiday), white embossing powder, heat tool

Slide Rock Digital Double Layout

In my effort to get caught up with my 2013 scrapbooking, I played along with the Simply My Digital Studio challenge to create a double scrapbook layout.  I did learn something new by playing along with this challenge. 

I typically only work on one page at a time so it was great learning that if I did work on two pages at one time that I could span an image across two pages. What a cool thing to know!!  I may have to try making more pages in the double page view mode!  Maybe it will take less time working this way!!  Especially since I have over 400 photos to sort through just for this vacation!  Oh my!!

The other thing I liked about this challenge was that we couldn't use designer paper.  Although I just realized that I did use paper for one of the "washi tape" elements.  Oops!  I was so focused on not using DSP on the background I completely forgot this part of the challenge.  Oh well, I love the page regardless.

Embellishments: This and That Retro Fresh, This and That Retro Fresh Washi Tape, This and That Epic Day (recolored)

Stamp Brush Set: Back to School, Travel Log, Nifty Fifty

Punches: Alphabet Soup

Designer Series Paper: Retro Fresh

Make a Wish

I was so excited when the Perfect Pennants stamp set was released for My Digital Studio earlier this month!  I could't wait to play with the negative image.  February is a big Birthday month for our family so I definitely needed to stock up on birthday cards.

For this card I used my Cameo to cut out the Make a Wish sentiment using Razspberry Ripple cardstock and kept the negative image.  Then I mounted the image on designer series paper from the Birthday Basics set.  For the "a" I mounted it on Crisp Cantaloupe DSP so that it stood out better.  I cut out the flags using Summer Starfruit cardstock and popped the "'a" up using a dimensional.

The background on the Bermuda Bay is from Gorgeous Grunge.  I love the added flexibility of the e-cutter and the My Digital Studio downloads.  It really expands the options available.

I sent this card to my husband's Grandmother who just turned 89!  She definitely enjoyed receiving the card.

Stamp Set: Gorgeous Grunge

My Digital Studio: Perfect Pennants Stamp Brush Set

Colors: Bermuda Bay, Raspberry Ripple, Crisp Cantaloupe, Summer Starfruit, Gumball Green

Accessories: Crisp Cantaloupe 3/8" Ruffle Stretch Trim

Heartfelt Thoughts

I was perusing the latest design challenges and was excited about playing along with the Stampin' Celebration design sketch challenge #75.

I just received a shipment from Stampin' Up! which included some of the sale-a-bration (SAB) items.  One of the items I earned was the Heartfelt Banner Kit and was eager to use the elements from this kit in a card.

Once I started playing with the banners in the kit, the card just came together.  I am pleased with how it turned out.  The greeting is from the Best of Greetings stamp set, one of the 12 best of 25 years special edition stamp sets Stampin' Up! released last year to celebrate their 25th anniversary!  Such great sets and very versatile.  If you just bought these 12 sets you would have a stamp set to cover every major card-making need!

Hope you enjoyed the card.

Stamp Set: Best of Greetings 

Big Shot: Alphabet Press Embossing Folder

Colors: Coastal Cabana, Whisper White, Calypso Coral, Garden Green

Accessories: SAB Heartfelt banner kit,  Linen thread, brights designer buttons, bracket label punch

Vintage Form

It has been a while since I used my dress form framelit from the Dress Up Framelit set so I decided to use it to make a vintage-style card.

I knew I wanted to use the burlap and get the look of a real dress-form so I covered a 2" strip of Baked Brown Sugar cardstock with adhesive and adhered burlap to the strip.  Then I ran the strip through the big shot to cut out the dress form.  I wasn't sure the framelit would cut through the whole piece but it did amazingly well.  I had to trim the dress form a little with my snips, but the cut was pretty good.

The background is the Dictionary background stamp.  I lightly inked it with the baked brown sugar stamp pad being sure to leave a few places barely inked up. Then I stamped off and then stamped the image onto Very Vanilla cardstock.  The result was exactly the distressed look I was going for on this background!  I used a few images from the Best of Shelli stamp set, one of the Best of 25 years stamp sets.  

The greeting is from Fabulous Phrases.  I broke down the fibers of the paper with my bone folder and then rolled the ends of the paper on each greeting.  The greeting is tamped in Coastal Cabana and the edges are sponged with Baked Brown Sugar.

For the flower I rolled some Coastal Cabana ribbon into a flower and used a jumbo sticky round to keep the flower shape.

It has been a while since I made a vintage-style card.  It was definitely fun to pull out the stamps for this one.  And not as difficult as I thought it would be!!

Have a great evening!

Stamp sets: Best of Shelli, Dictionary, Fabulous Phrases
Big Shot: Dress Up Framelit Die
Colors: Very Vanilla, Baked Brown Sugar, Coastal Cabana
Accessories: Basic Pearls, Coastal Cabana 3/8" Ruffle Stretch Trim, Jumbo Sticky Round

Thirteen in MDS

Last week I posted that I wanted to catch-up with my 2013 scrapbooking (by the end of March).  An attempt to stay as current as possible.  I was working on my son's book this weekend and I am almost finished with his book through 2013.  I suppose the good news is that my 15 year old does not give me many photo ops!

Last week I played along with the Simply My Digital Studio Challenge hosted by Kimberly vanDiepen and Heather Summers so I decided to try again this week. When I saw the sketch Kimberly put together I knew I wanted to use a picture of my daughter that I took back in May!!  The sketch fit perfectly with what I wanted to accomplish with the picture, although I did have to turn the sketch to fit my needs.

I was excited to work on my middle daughters scrapbook, Hannah, until I opened her book in My Digital Studio and realized I only had 2 pages complete for her for 2013. Wow, lots to do with her book!!  Luckily I am fairly caught-up with the youngest child!  

Anyway, Hannah is big into instagram and snapchat, so I thought the hashtag would be perfect.  I also knew I wanted to describe her as I see her (partly as a reminder in case my attitude changes during the next 3 years).  She has grown so much this year and has really been a big help to us.  I love that she is sticking her tongue out at me!  So sassy of her.  She has a great sense of humor! I also tried to go without a DSP background.  I decided to use very vanilla for the background instead of white.  Otherwise, another sketch where I was able to keep the white space.

Here are the supplies from My Digital Studio that I used for this page:

Background:Textured Card Stock - Very Vanilla

Embellishments: This And That Retro Fresh; This And That Retro Fresh Washi Tape; Natural Designer Buttons; Mis-Stitched

Stamps: Back to School; Ink Splatter; Moments Ago; Noteworthy Alphabet

Punches: Do Your Best; Wonderland Party; Embark Graduate

Paper: Retro Fresh designer series paper

Transformed in My Digital Studio

When I started scrapbooking 15 years ago, way before digital options were available, I loved creating and designing my pages.  Of course, scrapbooking has become one of my love-hate things to do.  I love scrapbooking, remembering the events and trying to create a page that captures the moment.  I love seeing how my style has changed over time.  It's great to see growth and creativity over time!  The hate part comes from the overwhelming feeling of never being quite caught up.  Now with smart phones, there are even more pictures to capture!

Last year I finally made the decision to convert my scrapbooking projects to full digital books.  Before that I used My Digital Studio from Stampin' Up to create 12x12 pages which I printed and put into the big scrapbooks (confession, I bought a ton of these books because they fit my bookcase!  I had to fill them!).  Anyway, I finally decided that I would keep it simple and create digital books and print a book rather than print the pages to put into a book.  More space-saving and less time-consuming.

By making this decision I have been able to somewhat keep up with 2013.  Of course, I still have some work to do.  Each kid has their own book and then we have a family book.  My goal is to get them all through 2013 by the end of March.

Anyway, here is one of the pages I designed for my son!

Using my son's words, I "stalk" Heather Summers (well, I follow her blog) and decided to finally play along with her MDS challenge - free form tool.  

I pretty much stuck with the rules, used mainly one kit (Seriously Teen) and the free form tool.  I did add the ink splatter (have to have ink splatter).  For the free form tool, I converted a wavy line to an angled line and matched the angles of the photo.  For the washi tape I used photo boxes which I reshaped to strips and added DSP; then I ripped the top and bottom edges.

I never create a page with so much white space.  I always use designer paper or color as a background.  I really like the look with so much white space.  Great look for a teen!  Being I am new to this style, it will take me a while to perfect the look.  What I like is that I can keep it simple or keep adding elements until I am satisfied with the look.  For this page I ran out of elements to add.

So now that I publicly announced my goal, I will have to post some pages and try to play along with more challenges from Heather!

Have a great night!

Woo-Hoo!

I was able to spend some time stamping today so I decided to play along with the Freshly Made Sketches challenge 121.

I wanted to get caught up on some birthday cards.  February is a big month for us with several birthdays to celebrate!  I ended up making 2 different cards with this sketch.  Both cards use Gorgeous Grunge for the background and Just Sayin' stamp set for the greeting.  At my stamp camp on Friday, one of my regular stampers was talking about how she used Gorgeous Grunge on a card recently.  The conversation made me want to pull my set out and ink it up!

This first card uses several of the 2014-2016 In Colors the cupcake punch and the word bubble framelits.   

I fussy cut the Woo-Hoo greeting and used the framelit to cut a mat.  Colors are Smokey Slate, Basic Gray, So Saffron, Coastal Cabana, Pistachio Pudding and Strawberry Slush.  I used a smokey slate button and threaded some crisp cantaloupe bakers twine from the SAB catalog through the button.

The second card used the On Film framelits dies in addition to the other items.  The colors I used for this card are Bermuda Bay, Crushed Curry, Strawberry Slush, Basic Gray, Basic Black and Whisper White.  I added a few rhinestones to help liven up the card.  

I paused from making cards to watch the game.  Although, doesn't seem to be much of a game.  But, nice to sit with the family and watch really expensive commercials and Bruno Mars!