Guest Designer for Color my Heart!

I am so honored to say that I was asked to be a guest designer on the CTMH Color my Heart Color Dare blog. I was very excited when I was asked to do this! This week the colors are Twilight, Olive and Ruby. Great colors to work with!
So here is my card:

The background is a 4 x 5 1/4 piece of twilight cardstock. I faux stitched around the outside with a pen. The "tire" tracks are the arrow stamps from the "Sightseer" stamp set. They are stamped in black, olive and twilight, although it is hard to tell on the picture they are different colors. The sentiment is from the "New Arrival" stamp set, inked in Olive and colored with the Slate alcohol marker. These colors work so well for a boy or girl card! 

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend!

Life's good!

It. Is. So. Hot.  So I'm going to stay inside where it's cool and craft a bit. I made a card based off the 2 challenges that I have been trying to participate in on a regular basis. Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge and Color my Heart Color Dare.

The sketch looks like this:

And this is my card:

The colors from the Color Dare challenge are Surf's Up Gold, Surf's Up Teal, Crystal Blue, Sorbet and Ponderosa Pine. Since the Surf's Up Gold and Teal are specific to that paper pack and don't come in the CTMH inks, I used the 2 colors that I thought matched the closest; Goldrush and Twilight. The stitch stamp is from the CTMH  "Togetherness" stamp and the sentiment tag is from the stamp set that came in the "You and Me" kit that was a special a few years ago. 

And even though it is crazy hot here, Life's Good!!!

Sketch and Color challenge

Today's card is inspired by the Atlantic Hearts sketch challenge and the colors were picked for the Color my Heart color dare challenge. I'm not a big fan of topiary but I'm really loving this card!

All edges were inked with black ink to make them pop a bit more on the white background. I used my piercing tool and ruler to make the border around the card. So simple with that awesome ruler! The stamp is from the May stamp of the month and I inked it in smoothie and then rolled the edges in Slate. I then stamped it again in Topiary and cut out just the "celebrate" and placed it over top. Add a bit a Smoothie bakers twine, and of course a few sparkles and you get a nice simple card. 

Scrap Break

This is going to be a short post because I have loads of work to do and both kiddos are sleeping and I already "wasted" 1/2 of nap time by scrapbooking instead of doing my work. But you know what, after last week, I needed a scrap break! 2 sick kiddies, trips to the doctor, zero sleep and work= LONG week and no time for fun. So when I saw Atlantic Heart sketch challenge today I jumped right on it and made a fun card. I dug out some stamps I haven't used in a while and had some fun. Here is what I came up with:

The birds and colors were inspired by Heart 2 Heart challenge blog. Hope you like it....now back to work!

My goofball!

My oldest daughter, Natalie, is quite a character. She is so mischievous I have to constantly watch her to see what she is getting into. She also likes to do random things....like stand on her head (as well as a 1 1/2 year old can do anyway), use her Halloween candy bucket as a helmet and "text and drive" on her toy car. Most of the time when she is doing something silly, by the time I grab the camera, she is done doing what she was doing. But I did manage to capture a few of these silly moments on film! ( Can I say "on film" since there is no film anymore?) Oh well...here is my layout.....

I used the Surf's Up paper from CTMH and cut circles on my cricut at various sizes. I just randomly placed them and then used the stamp set, Dream Big, to fill in some of the spaces and to add some fun things to the layout. Unfortunately, the pictures are not the best, but you get the general idea. I also used my spray pens to spray the base pages in Sky but because it's a pretty light color you can hardly see it on the photo. I cut the title out at 1 1/2" from the Artiste cartridge and used the negative, since that is very "in" these days. And a couple of the Surf's up coordinating  embellishments to finish it off. The layout was inspired by the Atlantic Hearts sketch for the week, which you can find here.

Now, I suppose I should get some things ready since I have to go back to work tomorrow. My little Bethy is 3 months old already and work is calling....at least its not full time so I can still find time to play!

Babies.....Everywhere

No word of a lie, everybody I know is pregnant or just had a baby. Something really had people on the baby making train last year! So far there has been over 20 babies born in our small town and it's only MAY!! That is why when I saw this weeks Atlantic Hearts sketch I could see nothing besides a baby belly.

One of my best friends is due tomorrow, so I whipped up this card this morning to give to her because she is feeling very tired of being very pregnant!

I used the paper from the CTMH kit, Key to my Heart, that was a special a few years ago. (I am such a paper hoarder it's not even funny). I hand drew the baby bump and added a pink glitter gel belt. "Baby" is cut from the Artiste cartridge at 1 1/2". The card base is the clear acrylic cards Close to my Heart sold but are now no longer available.

I never actually wrote anything besides what you see, because at this point there is really nothing anyone can say to make things better. Believe me I know, I was in the same boat just 3 months ago! She loved it and it really did make her day. I'm so glad I could make her happy!

Bee Happy

Today's layout is based on a sketch I found on pinterest. I used the Dream Pop paper that you can only get for another 4 DAYS through CTMH May promotion. It is such great paper.
This layout is of my little Bee, Bethany!

Products used are:

Dream Pop paper

Bee Happy stamp set

A Little Buzz stamp set

Black shimmer trim

Trinkets Wooden shapes

Round studs

Dimensional elements, Hearts

Kraft borders

Paper flowers

alcohol markers in various colors

I"m linking this layout to the Heart 2 Heart challenge for the creature feature.

This next project also has a bit of a Bee theme with a honeycomb background. It is a simple sympathy card for a dear friend whose Mother in Law passed away recently. I really love the simplicity of this card!

I used a honeycomb embossing folder and then colored in a few spots to look like flowers. Placing a small wooden butterfly in the group of flowers and stamping the sentiment at the bottom. The color combination of Juniper and Creme Brulee were inspired by the Color My Heart Color dare challenge #44.

6x6 card

Today's card is a 6x6 Kraft card....I"m not a huge fan of 6x6 cards, but I'm doing a community fundraiser in October for our town's new SPLASH park and I need some cards to sell at my CTMH table. So I'm trying to branch out and get a variety as I build up my supply. So here is my card:

The base is cut from Kraft. I placed a 5x5 piece of Cranberry cardstock in the middle of the base ( I sanded the edges just a bit first). I then cut a 3.5x6 piece from the "For Always" patterned paper and cut out along the border so it wasn't just a straight across piece. Then, using my brayer, I inked the paper in Honey. ( You can do this technique without a brayer as well, just apply the ink to the paper directly from the ink pad.) I then took apart some of my burlap ribbon that matched nicely with the kraft base. I finished the card off with a chipboard star covered in Outdoor Denim cardstock and sanded around the edges for a distressed finish. Using the SOTM from December 2012, I stamped the image and used pop dots to raise the image up off the star. 

Voila, my father's day card is complete. Super simple but I really like it.

I'm linking this card to Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge for week#4! And to Color my Heart Color Dare #43.

I've found my new addiction!!! Challenges!!! 

You brighten my day!

Another week, another challenge! This weeks Atlantic Hearts sketch looks like this:

I kept looking and looking at this and thinking what I could do with it. I could just make 4 simple squares but I wanted to do something a bit more and then it came to me!! (at 3am, while I was awake feeding Bethany!) A window frame!! I had to refrain myself from getting up and getting a piece of paper and a pencil to sketch my idea out, because with mommy brain, you never know if it will be there in the next 10 min or not! But I went back to bed and the next day during nap time ( yes both girls napped at the same time! A rare thing in this house!) I came up with this:

As you can tell, I'm obsessed with the Dream Pop paper! That's all I've been working with since I got it a couple weeks ago! The base page is one of the patterns from the paper pack, the flowers were cut from the cricut artiste cartridge in a variety of sizes. And because I also LOVE vinyl, I added a couple of vinyl flowers I had on hand as well. A friend makes vinyl for scrapbooking and pretty much anything else you want to put vinyl on. Check out her blog, Cut your Way. 

I wanted the layout to look like the sun shining in on some flowers in the window. It kind of looks like that right? And of course I had to add some washi tape, because what layout is complete without washi tape? 

I'm also linking this page to the CTMH Heart 2 Heart challenge blog for the May flowers challenge. This is my first time submitting to that challenge, so I'm excited!

I hope you enjoy! 

Canvas Blog Hop

Welcome to our May Blog Hop featuring our Canvas Display project.  We have 2 sizes available to purchase, the larger one comes in a WOTG Kit and measures 12x12.   The kit is $39.95(G1062), it comes with directions, an exclusive stamp set and Embellishments to decorate your canvas, you can find this on page 23.  The second size available measures 6x6, it can be found on page 126, and is $4.95(Z1818).

We hope that you will take the time to leave comments on our posts, as we love to get feedback from our viewers....whether it was something that you really liked or some new technique that was used that you would like to learn how to do....by leaving us comments, we get to hear what you like, and what you want to see. Thank you… now on to our hop! 

If you have just hopped onto my blog, you can start here as this is a circular hop, but if you want to follow us across Canada then please start at the beginning and join Michelle at mycreationswithmichelle.blogspot.ca. If you came from Brandy of Canadian Scrappers then you are in the right place!

Here is my project. I have used the 6x6 canvas for my project. Here is a picture of what I've done:

Products used are:

Black and grey glitter paper (Z1829)

Later Sk8r Paper pack (X7167B)

Small Sparkle Clear Flourishes (Z1812)

Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge (Z1686)- to cut the flowers

Black assortment buttons (Z1821)

Alcohol markers in Creme Brulee, Smoothie and Lagoon

Smoothie and Creme Brulee cardstock

I adhered the black glitter paper to the canvas using Liquid Glass so it would not come off. I've done other canvas projects and have just used my tape runner to adhere the paper but it would peel off after a few months.

I will be hanging this canvas in our bedroom with pictures of our daughters above it. Something like this:

So I hope I inspired you to try something fun with a canvas. And the best part is, if you want you can start small with the 6x6 canvas from CTMH.  Your next stop on the Cross Canada Hop is Ashley of Scrappin' with Ashley.

 If you get lost along the way, you can head to Michelle S Blog, as she has the complete blog list. 

Thanks for hopping along with us - we hope we were able to inspire you to create your own Canvas projects using some of the designs, paper and techniques seen along the way. Join us again in June when we will be featuring party themed projects.

Mother's Day Card

I've had some "dusty attic" chipboard wagon wheels for a while now and I really wanted to use them. They are so cute but I wasn't sure just what to do with them. Well, I found a way to use them!! For my mother's day cards. Both my mom and my mother in law are farm ladies so this works especially well. 
Here is a picture of the card I made:

 I just love how this turned out! I think they will very much enjoy them as well. Now, the inside of the card is pretty fun too! My mom and dad live 13 hours from us, so we don't get to see them very often. So I wanted the card to be special from the girls. So I tried really hard with a 2 month old and a 18 month old to stamp their hand prints. I think for the challenge it was it turned out pretty well! And I think Gramma will love it!

The layout for this card was inspired by the Atlantic Hearts sketch challenge! As soon as I saw the sketch I knew I was going to use those wagon wheels! Here is a picture of the sketch:

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there!!!

Sketch Challenge

It's been a while since I posted....I've been busy, you know, having a baby and stuff! But as we get into a routine with 2 little ones I've been finding a few moments here and there to scrapbook a bit. 
I decided to try doing some challenges to think outside my box and my very first challenge was a sketch challenge created by Atlantic Hearts . Here is a picture of the sketch.

This is what I came up with:

The paper is the new Dream Pop pack from Close to my Heart, available only from May 1-31st with a minimum purchase of $35. The flower is made from the Chantilly fabrics and the hot air balloon is cut from the Artiste cartridge, exclusive to CTMH. The clouds and rainbow are stamped from "Over the Rainbow" which is now retired. Click here to visit my website and shop current CTMH product.

Click here to see what others have created using this sketch!

February Blog Hop: 2 page layout

Welcome to our February Blog Hop featuring a 2 page layout. This is the first Blog Hop for us where we have featured just scrapbook layouts. We hope that you will take the time to leave comments on our posts, as we love to get feedback from our viewers....whether it was something that you really liked or some new technique that was used that you would like to learn how to do....by leaving us comments, we get to hear what you like, and what you want to see. Thank you… now on to our hop! 
If you have just hopped onto my blog, you can start here as this is a circular hop, but if you want to follow us across Canada then please start at the beginning and join Michelle at mycreationswithmichelle.blogspot.ca. If you came from Heather of Creative Coconut then you are in the right place!

For my layout I used the new Later Sk8ter paper pack. I love this paper and we did a Sesame Street themed birthday party for my girl's first birthday and I thought the colors worked well... Cookie Monster blue and Oscar the Grouch green. Right? 

I used the Later Sk8ter workshop guide to do this layout. Using the Art Philosophy cricut cartridge, exclusive to CTMH, I cut out the pennants at 1 1/4", then stamped the title using the glamour lowercase alphabet in Outdoor Denim. I joined the pennants with the green/blue sparkle mix. I also added a few Lagoon colored flowers and a few more sparkles to make the page a little more girly! The base page is Sunny yellow (retired) and the photo mats are Holiday red (retired) to bring in all the sesame street colors. I saved the confetti from the decorations and added them to the pages as well. I just love how this turned out, and I'm so excited I got to use "boy" paper in my little girl's album!

 
Your next stop on the Cross Canada Hop is Cheryl of Scrapbooking with CTMH.
 If you get lost along the way, you can head to Michelle S Blog, as she has the complete blog list. 
Thanks for hopping along with us - we hope we were able to inspire you to create your own scrapbook layouts using some of the designs and paper seen along the way. Join us again in March when we will be featuring our new 5x7 Hinged Display Tray.

Flower girl headbands

So a friend of mine is getting married at the end of March and asked me to make some headbands for her flower girls. These came together quite quickly and I am very happy with how they turned out. I went to Micheals craft store and purchased some lace to layer the flower for some dimension. Taking some embroidery floss I "sewed" one end of the ribbon together. I pulled it as tight as I wanted and then formed the flower. Doing this with each layer of lace I then stacked the flowers and glued them onto one another.I hot glued a pearl into the center of the completed flower for the finishing touch. I then went to Claire's and bought a couple lace headbands and glued the flowers to the headbands.
Very simple and yet very pretty. My friend was so pleased with them and I'm just happy I could help make her wedding special for her!

Layouts

I want to share with you a few layouts that I have done recently of my daughter. The first is just a one page spread featuring some photos taken at her 1 year photo shoot.

This layout is from the new how to book, Make it from your Heart. The purple owls and the bright pink flowers are vinyl from a local lady who has made this her business. Her blog is called Cut Your Way, check it out and get some of your own vinyl to add to your pages. It is so fun to play with! The paper used for this is Flirty, and will only be available until the end of January! So shop now to get this awesome pack!

This 2 page spread is made with the retired Sophia paper pack. We were able to catch a ride to Alberta back in October to visit my folks. Natalie doesn't get to spend much time with my family, so this was a special time for us! She was helping Papa vaccuum and then the next few minutes were spent pulling all the plastic bags out of the box and making a supreme mess to clean up! Oh well, Gramma and Papa just enjoyed having her home. Again, the title and the flourish are from Cut Your Way vinyl. The butterflies are "dusty attic" that I had purchased at a local craft store.

This last layout is probably one of my favorites. One morning when I came into her room she was caught in her crib. So, like a good mom, I went and grabbed my camera before helping her out! The paper used for this layout is the retired pack, Roxy. The title is stamped using Poster board Alphabet and Cocktail Alphabet. The paw prints are actually a punch, I used the negative of the punch as a stencil and inked it with the pigment ink so it stood out more on the page.

These are just a few of the layouts I completed during a fabulous scrapbook retreat weekend.