Don't Retire Too Soon

I was asked to create three retirement cards for one of my associates on our Preschool board, and thank goodness I remembered to make them before getting carried away to vacation land at the end of the month! Working in a large card format is new for me, and I didn't realize that the ones they sell in the store are usually a bit smaller than the 8 1/2x 11 size paper folded in half sized cards that I made. Good news is, I got to practice making my own envelopes using my Martha Stewart Score Board! I still seem to be lacking a basic awareness of math when it comes to using that haha.
My Heidi Swapp die cut book and other bits and pieces of punched shapes, flowers, bling, and sentiment stickers give these cards a lot of dimension. I even repurposed the cover of the book to include a repeated image of my larger die cut within that wood grain frame. Oh, and that frame was made from a wood flooring advertisement! I hope there is plenty of room to write inside, and that the recipients enjoy their retirement wishes enclosed, each card is unique and hopefully the purchaser will be able to match them up to the personalities. I gave her a terrific price because I was so flattered that she ordered through me. Now, hopefully someone will deliver them at our next meeting, which I won't be attending due to my CRUISE (cue wicked laugh).
Don't forget, I plan to review each day in detail, as well as give tips and pointers about preparing for a cropping cruise, so be sure to click subscribe and my posts will arrive in your email as they appear. Thanks for stopping by- challenge yourself to use some garbage to make something pretty today!

More Quick layout inspiration

Last night while waiting for my favorite show, Survivor, to load between commercials on the computer, I ran into my craft room and grabbed two sheets of paper, based on a layout I had admired earlier in the day, at left in this picture, featured in Northridge Media's, Create: Quick and Easy Scrapbooking. Its a little magazine with big ideas for capturing memories in a flash. All very do-able ideas I might add!
So last night all I had selected was that burgundy flourished background and the green and cream music notes piece, the reverse of which has a delicate grid with scalloped border going round the edge. Grabbed this pic of my mom and I at one of our favorite hang out spots, the Wine Studio in Gig Harbor. I thought it was a good match for the two papers because we love music and singing together and the only thing better than drinking wine for us is a little Karaoke! Aside from that, there was a lot of wood in the photo background and I like how the faint striping in the background mimics the racks of wine shelved in this place.
To mimic my example's kraft border, I simply cut along the grid lines of the green and cream print, then turned over the cut out piece, and curled the edges up for added visual interest and texture. You can just see a little of the background color along the edges and this looks extra shadowy in real life. There is something about the shabby look of those curled edges that I don't ususally include in my layouts... but when I do, I always think, why don't I do this more often?!
Another look I love is sewing on paper, but despite moving my sewing machine to sit directly in front of me while crafting, it continues to collect dust instead of improve the look of my paper piecings. My latest excuse is that it's too hard to plug in... funny though, I can plug anything else in down below that location, no matter how much I need to move or crawl, so yeah, that's not a great reason!
My aunt recently garage sale-d a bunch of kid's stickers, including a set that looks like it came in a Carnation packet or something. I decided they would be a better addition to my stash, and used them right away by adding the little sentiment stickers directly on the photo- in part to hold it in place, because it was bedtime for me!

So this morning Rainie helped me select and lay out flowers and brads to finish off this gorgeous layout. My October product of the month challenge has been "flowers," but along with that I think the challenge for me has been "hot glue gun!" Not a tool I'm used to reaching for, but damn it does make adhering easy! It's all those strings at the end that don't make me so happy. It seems like they keep appearing no matter how vigilant I try to be about getting them off!I love the smiles my mom and I are sharing in this photo. She is my number one go-to hang out person; she has a different way of looking at and reacting to situations, we have a lot of fun and can find a reason to laugh about all of life's ups and downs. Part of the inspiration to add the flowers came from that quote by Emerson, "Earth laughs in flowers." Getting to preserve the memory of that fun night out with my own daughter completes my circle of happiness!

I love that in our house it is not uncommon for the three of us girls to be in the craft room at 7:30 in the morning making things together- while Rainie and I worked at getting everything in just the right place, Sunday was busy placing her own stickers on a little mini book she had crafted (by book, I mean a piece of paper, folded over)! After that it was on to painting, acrylics for Rainier and water for Sunday. We can't find our water colors, so just water works for us lol.

Thanks for stopping by to read today and keep watching for the next Card Magic: Part Three, which will have contest info and a whole lot of fun contained within :-) Catch up with Parts One and Two on my YouTube channel- subscribe and don't miss a thing! There is a purple button link to all my social media accounts at the top right of this post.

Late Nights Finish Early In the Morning

Those late nights can lead to some really fun mornings! Staying up late scrappin' the night away is one of my greatest pleasures. Well, to be honest, it doesn't matter what time of day it is, if I'm scrapping, I'm happy! When I can finally make myself go to bed the wheels on my creative mind are continuing to roll, and sometimes it seems like I've just kept on working til the dawn's early light :-0

Not a bad experience!

In my last post, I showed you  the starts to three pages I worked on late Sunday night. Here are a few photo collages to show you a few of the additional finishing touches I've added before tucking them into bed (sheet protectors haha).

I did end up going with the title, "Annie get your Gun" on this single page layout to the left. I used a mix of different alphabets, including but not pictured, some old, patterned chipboard letters which happened to match the colors in the Glitz Design sticker banner perfectly. See how I added brads in between the "Love is a Gamble" banner, and then hung some Close To My Heart metal I-don't-know-what-they're-calleds embellished with tiny brown sparkles, and some knotted baker's twine for extra texture and a bit of whimsy.

My journaling is not hidden, but it's not meant for easy reading, either. Writing on a patterned paper background is a fabulous way to write what you want with less fear of judgement lol. The story I wanted to tell was how Ray came home with a new gun, which I promptly declared to have been bought for my own enjoyment. Or Zombie killing. Whatever comes my way. It's just an air rifle! The funny story that I'm internally implying through my sticker phrasing, is that a woman with a gun can be hard to leave... as in, don't even think about it, Mr.! That might explain the somewhat maniacal expression on my face?

I loved the simplistic but balanced appearance of the two pages I created using the Storytellers "Delightful" set of die cuts. Not much was added to either page, but it's all the little things that made me feel that they are complete. Little touches like the ribbon and ribbon slide behind the "Good" die cut, the sprinkle of tiny gems directly on a photo, the brad berries I created, as well as some journaling to tell the story of the photos.  I added some hidden journaling behind the top title block, and dressed up a tab die with some hand drawn fancy numbers for the date.

See those brads under the numbers? I did not add them, they are printed on the tab! Pretty easy to use embellishments that are dressed up for you beforehand! Hmmm, now that I think of it, these die cuts are inspiring me to add some brads to my next project...

Thanks for taking a look at how my late night scrapping turned out the following day... Don't forget to come back throughout the month to see how I'm incorporating my large stash of die cuts into my creations.

The latest edition of DieCutCrazy is available today and includes loads of inspiration as well! On the 15th, my fellow contributors and I are having a Birthday inspired BlogHop! Sounds like a prize will be available too, hip hip hooray!

Another Holiday Scrapped to Completion

One of my dilemmas in scrapbooking has got to be the creative limbo of not being able to move forward until a section of life has been scrapped in its entirety.

Now trust me, its not something that holds me back, as Im perfectly content to scrap any photo for any reason at any time. Easter pics at Christmas time? Birthday photos of my youth mixed in with ski vacations! Sometimes it can even be a good challenge to use seasonal papers for something other than the season they were printed for. A lot of striking color combinations within that mix up.

Still, there are all those stacks of photos that want glory in 12x12 form. Dress me up! they seem to scream. Yes, my photos talk to me, dont yours?

I went on a tear around my craft room the last week, tidying up albums, rearranging loose pages into their chronologically held place amongst bursting d-rings -and the dreaded post holders!

Id love to finish up my Christmas section, but first I whizzed back in time on my broomstick again to Halloween of last year.

This was such a fun part of 2013. I went with my mom to some terrific friends Monster Mash, and my costume was entirely inappropriate.  Score one for mom on the loose lol. My friend Stephanie dressed up as Babe the blue ox and covered her face with blue eyeshadow. Now that's commitment to a costume lol! of course, my mom with a big bling Bindhi was pretty off the chart too.

Then Rainier, dressed as Fancy Nancy, went trick or treating with her dad (Momar Ghadafi). I was in the car dressed as one of his "bodyguards"- google that one-, watching over sleeping baby sister. We got out and met up with them down the! block just in time for a picture of them ringing the bell. You can see that process here:

Following the tricking we went to another friends party and of course more picture taking ensued. My favorite series is this of my youngest playing with a bag of candy as her dad watches on mildly. Good thing they dont yet know what poisen lurks within heheh.

My pages all have a very cohesive look because I made one kit and worked out of it for all the layouts. A cut apart sheet like this one by DieCutsWithAView takes all the guesswork out of titles and color scheming. Just arrange a few pieces here and there, add photos and a few other themed embellies like brad and ribbon, and youll be saying sayonara to another set of photos in no time.

Thanks for taking a look at what Ive been working on this week- still trying to incorporate washi tape on every project, but somehow I feel like I'm failing miserably. Perhaps this is because I made a sh*t ton of stuff outside of my normal output, mostly a lot of cards at the beginning of the month, and not much of that got washi-fied. Ah well, that's why it's called a challenge!