Stamping friends

Usually when I create a scrapbook, I put multiple pictures on a page; they might be different sizes or shapes, but there are several of them. (I suppose that's probably because most of my scrapbooks are vacation memories, so I always have a lot of pictures I want to include.) I don't think I've ever made a layout with just one picture. But that was my crafty challenge today: make a scrapbook page with only one 5" x 7" photo.

Supplies (all from Stampin' Up!^® unless otherwise noted):
Paper: Admiral card stock (Bazzill Basics Paper); Night of Navy, Brilliant Blue card stock; Ice Cream Parlor Designer Series Paper
Ink/paint: White gel pen; Wicker White, Hot Pink acrylic paint (Plaid)
Accessories: On Board Loads of Letters chipboard, 1-3/8" square punch, 1/2" circle punch, Dimensionals, Mono Multi liquid glue, pencil with eraser

This picture, which was taken at The Gateway in Salt Lake City last summer, makes me smile. For the past two years I've attended the Stampin' Up! convention, and one of my favorite things about the experience has been making new stamping friends. I just wish we weren't spread across the country!

For the title of this page I doodled the first few words freehand at the top of the page and then used chipboard letters for the last word at the bottom. I mixed three different fonts of letters, painted them white and added pink dots (with a pencil eraser dipped in paint) to three of the letters. I repeated the look of the dots on the page by punching out 1/2" Night of Navy circles and adhering them with Dimensionals in groups of three. For the three pennant strips, I used a square punch to create the pointed ends. I matted the photo with Brilliant Blue card stock, doodled a frame around the photo and added a little journaling.

The doodling (which I've done on cards but not scrapbook pages) wasn't as intimidating as I thought it would be. I guess one of the nice things about doodling is that it's inherently imperfect, so the little "mistakes" aren't so noticeable.

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with this scrapbook layout. Now if only I could see these stamping friends more often. Thanks for stopping by!

Scrapbooking Scrabble

There are a lot of things that make me happy; two of them are playing Scrabble and taking vacations in warm places. It's even better when I can combine those two things. And making a fun scrapbook page about it makes me happy, too.

Supplies:
Cardstock: Lilywhite (Bazzill Basics), Bluebelle (Paper Reflections), pink, red, turquoise, light tan, medium tan (unknown)
Accessories: 3/4" square punch (EK Success), wooden-tile letter stickers (Making Memories), black pen (ZIG Millennium), Dotto re-positionable adhesive (Herma)

This is definitely an example of a project getting a little bit out of hand: I punched out and glued down all those little colored squares. Yep, all 225 of them. (All I have to say is thank goodness for re-positionable adhesive!) When I started, I knew I wanted to use the wooden-tile letter stickers for the page title, and I was going to punch enough squares only for that. But then I wasn't sure how I would combine the title section with the pictures and make everything work together. Obviously it was a much better idea to just make an entire Scrabble "board." Right?

Fast forward several hours on my Sunday afternoon and I was still punching and gluing card stock while examining one of my many Scrabble boards to be sure I was getting the right arrangement of colors. Somewhere around a quarter of the way through I realized that I wasn't going to have enough of the light tan card stock to finish the page. Serious bummer. By that point I wasn't really interested in starting from scratch. My first thought was to remove the tan squares that were going to be hidden behind the pictures and use them elsewhere on the page. Still not enough. So I looked through my card stock, found the closest color I had and figured I'd have to make do. I knew I couldn't just switch colors in the middle of the page, so I went back over what I had already done and randomly pulled off some of the light tan squares and replaced them with the darker color. (Again, re-positionable adhesive to the rescue.) Then I was able to use squares of both tan colors as I finished creating the rest of the "board." Honestly, I think I like this better than I would have with just one color tan; it has a little more depth and character (or something like that).

The rest of the layout is pretty straightforward. I decided where I wanted to place the pictures and played around with the letters to figure out what words I could spell in a crossword style. Because the layout of this page didn't really lend itself to journaling (which is something I generally do a fair amount of in my scrapbooks), I used the letter stickers to spell out a few additional key words, including the place and our names.

I really like how this page turned out, and I think it might just need to be framed. Thanks for stopping by!

Petite Purse favors

In a couple of weeks I'm hosting a craft retreat/girls' weekend for some friends and family, and I'm really looking forward to it. I wanted to give little "party" favors, and I thought it would be appropriate to give something handmade. So this weekend I've been busy making these adorable little purses.

I used the new Petite Purse die from Stampin' Up!^® along with a variety of card stock colors, Designer Series Paper (DSP) patterns and embellishments. The purses were very easy and quick to assemble; the die cuts out the shape for the purse (with score lines) and the handle from one piece of card stock about 5" x 8-1/2". So I just had to fold, glue, decorate and attach the handle.

For some of the purses I glued the handle to the side of the purse and then added a pearl or rhinestone over it. For others I used brads to attach the handle. I liked using the brads because then the handle could be swiveled back so it was a bit easier to fill the purses. But then I also had the prongs of the brads inside the purse, and sometimes they caught on the goodies I was putting inside the purses.

Speaking of goodies, deciding what to put in the purses was fun, but also a bit challenging since they are small. I finally decided on a lip gloss, two Dove chocolates and a small pad of Post-It notes. (A note about the lip glosses: They are from a company called Crazy Rumors, and they are wonderful. They're vegan, cruelty-free (no animal testing), contain organic ingredients and come in wonderful flavors like Amaretto, French Vanilla, Raspberry Sorbet, Lemonade and many, many more. I highly recommend them!)

The design for the Post-It pad was not my original idea. I had received a small pad like this from another Stampin' Up! demonstrator at the 2010 convention. (Unfortunately I don't know the demonstrator's name, so I can't give more specific credit.)

The size of the Post-It pad is about 1-3/8" x 1-7/8". The cover for the pad is a piece of glossy white card stock 2-1/16" wide by 5" long. It is scored at 1-1/4", 1-11/16", 3-1/4" and 3-11/16". I removed the backing and stuck the pad on the non-glossy side of the card stock. I folded over the flaps and wrapped a 1" x 4-1/2" strip of DSP around the pad, gluing down the strip where the ends overlapped. Then I adhered the owl to the DSP.

It was tight, but I did manage to fit everything inside the purse. (The lip gloss is underneath the two chocolates.)

I do have one little confession: I worked really hard to coordinate the card stock, DSP, Post-It pad and lip gloss for each purse. It didn't always work out perfectly, and I'm sure no one will ever notice, but it was fun. I can't wait to give these out at the retreat; I hope everyone enjoys them!

Thanks for stopping by!

Clean and simple thank you

This afternoon I needed to make a quick thank-you card, so I decided to use a fairly clean and simple layout.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up!^® unless otherwise noted):
Card:
Stamps: Garden Variety (Unity Stamp Company), Thank You Kindly
Card stock: Really Rust, Whisper White
Ink: Jet Black StazOn, Really Rust, Almost Amethyst, Vintage Violet, Old Olive
Accessories: Blender Pen, Wisteria Wonder baker's twine, silver clip, Dimensionals, small paint brush (unknown)
Envelope:
Paper: Almost Amethyst Designer Series Paper (DSP) Prints
Accessories: Simply Scored tool, diagonal scoring plate, corner rounder, Scor-Tape (Scor-Pal)

I used a Blender Pen to color in the floral image, and I tried to focus on the shading. It's not perfect, but I think I'm getting better at it. I tied two strands of baker's twine in a bow around a clip and placed the clip on the Whisper White card stock with the focal image. Then I mounted that piece on a second piece of Whisper White card stock with Dimensionals.

Before adhering the focal image to the card, I wanted to add something to the Really Rust background. Nothing too busy, but a little visual interest. So I dipped a small paint brush in a few drops of Really Rust reinker (I placed the ink on the inside of the ink pad cover) and then tapped the handle of the paintbrush to create splatters, rotating the card every few taps. Be careful while splattering; I ended up with Really Rust ink spots all over my hands and even a few on my nose. (And I don't need any more freckles, thank you very much.)

To create the envelope I used a piece of DSP that coordinated with the flowers on the card. I made the envelope with the Simply Scored tool and diagonal scoring plate from Stampin' Up! It was very quick and easy, and the instructions are included with the diagonal scoring plate. To adhere the side and bottom flaps of the envelope, I used 1/4" Scor-Tape. To seal the envelope for mailing, I used 1/8" Scor-Tape.

Thanks for stopping by!

Blossoms and banner

I've made and shared a few cards using the Bright Blossoms stamp set during the past month or so. (See Bright blossoms and Button blossom trio.) But it dawned on me that so far I've only used that stamp set with bright colors. Of course, I can't say that really surprises me since the set is called Bright Blossoms. Power of suggestion and all. So I decided to give it a try with some more subtle colors.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up!^®):
Stamps: Bright Blossoms
Card stock: Whisper White, Blushing Bride, Peach Parfait
Ink: Blushing Bride, Peach Parfait, Pear Pizzazz
Accessories: Basic pearls, Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder, Blushing Bride stitched-poly ribbon, Scallop Trim Border punch, square punch

I did some basic collage, or random, stamping on the Whisper White background and mounted it on a Blushing Bride card base. To make the banner I cut a strip of Blushing Bride card stock and used a square punch on one of the ends to create the points. I punched two strips of Peach Parfait card stock with the Scallop Trim border punch and then adhered them behind the banner piece, trimming the edges to align with the points. Then I embossed the whole piece with the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder. (I actually meant to emboss just the Blushing Bride piece before I added the scallop edges, but I forgot. Oh, well. It worked fine; it's just hard to see the texture on the scallops because they're so skinny.) Finally I added three small pearls on the banner and a larger pearl in the lower right corner of the card.

I didn't add a greeting to this card so it can be used for any occasion. But for some reason it really reminds me of a wedding card. Too bad I don't know anyone getting married soon. But at least I discovered that the Bright Blossom stamps work very well with pastel colors.

Thanks for stopping by!