Monkey Business

This is the last layout I have for Atlanta Zoo last October! Monkeys are the most fun zoo animals aren't they? Always playing and having a good time :)

The inspiration for this layout came from Sketch 8 in the Sketchbook 4 online class I'm taking this month with Kelly Purkey!

At first I was skeptical how I'd use this sketch but after I found the rest of the JBS doily flowers to use to fill in some of the square space up, it turned out alright!

HOW-TO:

• Here's the hard part... I count 10 different "sides" of patterned paper and 2 types of black card stock used to create this layout - aka, I don't know the exact paper I used for every part, but I did use the City of Lights kit by Studio Calico!
• The stamp was also a Studio Calico product - from the Wonderful World stamp set, embossed in black and cut out
• The letter stickers are thickers from different collections by American Crafts
• The doily flowers are from Jenni Bowlin Studios
• The wood button is from BasicGrey

Birthday boy card!

Today we're going to our friend's son's 2nd birthday party! I just loved the pic from the invitation so used it for the main part of the card!

The polaroid photo stamp is from Studio Calico but the rest of the materials are from the Amy Tangerine Sketchbook collection by American Crafts :)

HOW-TO:

• I used the Fiskars finger tip craft knife to cut the paper out after I stamped with the Studio Calico photo stamp
• The little ribbon on the top right was punched with the Jenni Bowlin Studios blue ribbon punch
• The embellishment and the letter stickers are from American Crafts

My Favorite Time

This layout is for a pic we took at the zoo in Atlanta last October, feeding the birds - one of my favorite things to do, especially lately now that Chris let me put a bird feeder in the front yard and I have been attracting all sorts of wild birds (as well as squirrels and chipmunks and we know there's also a couple rabbits that aren't spotted too often, but we have photographic evidence!)

Anyway, the inspiration came from Sketch 6 in my Sketchbook 4 online class, specifically the layout done by Maggie Holmes for it! I loved using so many different pieces of paper, especially since I ordered a lot from the kit I used and it didn't feel so bad cutting into a sheet that I had 3 backup pieces of... in fact, it felt great!

The hardest part was trying to fill in the "space" in the page since I only had one photo, and it's not even a great photo. So I dusted off my Cricut and found some feathers from the "Straight from the nest" cartridge and cut them out in various sizes from Kraft paper. After I had them, they seemed a little bland, but luckily I had my Signo Uniball white pen and drew on them to finish the look! I liked this technique so much I ended up using it also for the word "Favorite" in the title, since the chipboard letters weren't standing out enough on their own. All in all, I am happy with my page!

HOW-TO:

• The main kit I used for this page was the City of Lights kit by Studio Calico
• I cut 2"x5" strips from those papers along the top then hand stitched around them
• Below I added a torn out piece of paper from the "Top 10" Smash pad from EK Sucess
• The tab on the right is also from EK Sucess while the Kraft label is from Maya Road
• The letter stickers are thickers are by American Crafts and the ones for "Favorite" are from the Abroad collection by Studio Calico
• The little birdie fabric brad is from the Pretty Party collection by Crate Paper - I just knew as soon as I got it, that I'd have to include it on this layout somehow!

Wedding card

This is a bit of an atypical wedding card for my friends, but when I went hunting for a stamp sentiment I could use, I came up short with a "Happy Wedding" stamp and decided to go with the "Enjoy the ride" theme! It was also high time I dug into the latest Studio Calico kit, City of Lights... perfect!

The inspiration came from the 5th sketch in the Sketchbook 4 online class with Kelly Purkey! I usually don't scrap diagonally, so I've gotta work up to doing a full 12x12 page layout for this one - the card was the perfect starting point though!

HOW-TO:

• I used the City of Lights kit from Studio Calico, with the main paper an SC exclusive called "Lady Bike"
• The paper has straight lines of bikes across one side, so I cut them along the lines and then placed them diagonally across the back of the same paper and cut off the ends along the edges
• I embossed the SC Enjoy the Ride stamp onto a scroll frame journal tag by Maya Road, and the 2 pins are Vintage Craft tag pins also by Maya Road - I was def glad the tag and the pins were from the same company because sometimes different colored kraft can look funky
• The only thing I didn't use from the City of Lights kit were the 2 heart stickers from the Amy Tangerine line for American Crafts
• Of course, the foam letter stickers are green Eric thickers by American Crafts as well
• I knew I needed one other thing to tie it together, and that Aqua Airmail Washi Tape by Freckled Fawn was just perfect - I just love how parts of it are semi-transparent!
• I corner punched the main piece of paper to soften the look and finish it off :)

Make Faces

Last October, Chris and I were at the zoo in Atlanta, and probably just feeling ready to leave ATL and move onto the next leg of the trip... we both grabbed the camera, gave up taking pics of animals and took some shots of each other instead haha! My dad used to call me the "girl of a thousand faces" and if he was still around today, he would enjoy this page of me and some of my faces, and my husband who also does faces!

Originally I was thinking these pictures should all stay as 4x6 photos and do a double layout with them, but as soon as I saw the latest sketch in my online class (Sketchbook 4 with Kelly Purkey), I immediately decided to scrap that and try this layout! I kept it simple, since there are so many pics on one page and therefore, already a lot to look at.

HOW-TO:

• The papers, stickers and stamp are all from the new Amy Tangerine line, Sketchbook by American Crafts
• The main sheet is called Saffron Study, while I stamped the "Oh how lovely" stamp onto the green paper from the 6x6 paper pad
• I cut all the circles using the circle templates and cutting system from Creative Memories
• The letter stickers are Journal thickers
• I hand wrote the "make" part of the title because I wanted a really small, black, cursive lettering (aka too specific to find any letter stickers that worked)
• I drew circles around each picture, hand pierced them and sewed them with different colors to get some subtle decoration and color in there!

Love is in the air!

OK, didn't take me too long to do this layout with the new Sketchbook collection by Amy Tangerine for American Crafts, especially since I stuck with the 3rd layout for my Sketchbook 4 class, and especially since I stuck pretty closely to Kelly Purkey's example layout! They (Kelly and Amy) make it so easy to scrap quickly and still love your page!

We just had to get another couple photos together before we took Chris's sister and mom back to the airport to leave Atlanta. We would be staying another week, driving down to Destin the following day, so this was our last day in ATL.

I loved those little fabric brads in the bottom right and just had to incorporate them, especially the "love" one that matches my shirt!

HOW-TO:

• I mostly used the new Sketchbook line by Amy Tangerine for American Crafts to complete this layout, except for the transparency of cameras from Hambly Screen Prints
• I created the heart embellishment myself by drawing a heart with pencil, hand cutting it out, and outlining it with marker
• The other two pieces - the camera and journal box are from the bits
• The fabric brads really filled in that space at the bottom
• I just LOVE this layout!

Card for Sammy

Well we've come full circle here at my blog - my very first post last June was a card for our cousin Sammmy's mother, for her baby shower (after Sammy was born)! And now here's the card for his 1st birthday tomorrow! I got the photo of him from the front of the invitation, that's prob the best part about people moving to photo cards for invitatinos - automatic material for the card for the event! And one thing I've learned about making cards for parents (especially recently-made parents), is whenever you include a picture of their kid on it, they just go nuts and LOVE it! :)

Yesterday a lovely box from TwoPeasInABucket.com arrived containing the much anticipated Sketchbook line from Amy Tan(gerine) with American Crafts! I just had to use it for the first thing I made today on my day off for Good Friday! Today's 3rd sketch for the Sketchbook 4 class with Kelly Purkey paired well with this card I needed to make. I'm excited to also get going on a layout now that the card is finished!

HOW-TO:

• After seeing the sketch I pulled 3 sheets of paper from the Sketchbook 6x6 paper pad by American Crafts
• I cut the outer 2 strips to 2"x4" and the middle piece I knew would have the picture, to 2.75"x4".
• The yellow strip of paper is card stock from Creative Memories, but it wasn't standing out much - except I didn't want a patterned paper there, so I just took a black marker and outlined it to make it match the sketchy feel of the rest of the line
• Originally I stamped a "Happy Birthday" sentiment in black in the upper left corner, but the font didn't really match and it looked a bit plain, until I covered it and with the "Spread the Love" bit from the Sketchbook bits, and popped it up
• The letter stickers are the black Journal foam thickers also from the Sketchbook line - I just love those, I will probably be getting more soon if I can!!

Star Wars

Last October, we went to our cousin Max's Bar Mitzvah in Atlanta, which was Star Wars themed and so much fun! The layout for the page is based of the 2nd sketch from the Sketchbook 4 class with Kelly Purkey! So far so good, I am keeping up like a good little student... which is sure to fall apart in a couple weeks when we're on vacation but oh well :)

This was the next set of pics I was scrapping, and the sketch ended up going along perfectly with them! I never would've tried this layout without it, especially since it required punching from some really awesome paper... but what the heck else am I gonna use it for! This is my 9th layout with the Story Hour kit from Studio Calico!

HOW-TO:

• I used the Story Hour kit by Studio Calico and am really loving this kit!
• The dark outline background paper, the reddish-orange paper and the non-card stock used for the stars, are all from the Storyteller collection by Crate Paper
• The stars were all punched using the Creative Memories mini star punch - I def had to dust this off a bit, but still worked great!
• I cut a piece of paper from the Chap collection by American Crafts to 11"x11" and built on top of that - first by adding the photo of me and my sister-in-law to the very bottom edge of the paper. Then I added some printed journaling on Kraft (2.5"x4") and another piece of paper also cut to 2.5"x4".
• I added the leftover strip from the bottom of the American Crafts paper as a border, and then the Kraft star border from My Mind's Eye on top of that! I trimmed these to fit within the 11" width, then corner punched that main piece of paper so the frame looked a bit like a photo frame (a la Instagram)!
• The glittery letter stickers are Sunrise Thickers by American Crafts
• Finally I matted the photo of the table center piece in a shiny gold card stock I had bought at JoAnn's

Family

This layout came together pretty quickly because I had new inspiration from the Sketchbook 4 online class I'm taking from Kelly Purkey with Studio Calico! So I decided just to continue with the next picture in my set of pictures I'm scrapping now - and decided this photo of my new cousins (from my husband's side of the family), my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law and me deserved it's own page!

I decided to finally put to use February's Daydream Believer kit from Studio Calico for this one, plus a few extra of the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan line by American Crafts! Hoping to keep up this momentum from the class this month!

HOW-TO:

• The "backest" background paper is Hazy Horizon from the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan collection by American Crafts, as is that greenish square behind the photo - that is the exact piece I cut out of the back after I decided I would be covering such a huge space in the middle anyway!
• The brown woodgrain paper with hearts is Love Letter from Studio Calico, as is the paper used to punch out the hearts - that is the other side! I really got full use out of the few papers I did use!
• The grayish paper with white polka dots is Sea Breeze, also from the Dear Lizzy collection - I cut that to about 3.5"x11"
• I punched out the hearts with the Sweetheart maker from Creative Memories
• Those foam thickers that I can't get enough of, the "cheerful day" rub-on, and the cut out images from paper are all also from the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan collection by American Crafts!
• The washi tape is from the Amy Tangerine collection by American Crafts

Side note: I owe a bit of thanks to my husband, for patiently answering my 500 questions for this layout - should I use these stickers? How should I arrange this? Does this look complete to you? and so on... I am just a terrible decision maker! Oh and it was during the NCAA basketball championship game that I completed this layout, so it was extra nice of him to answer my questions while I interrupted his game-watching :)

Explore

Definitely lifted the idea for this page from Geralyn Sy's page here! I had a couple extra pics from before we went into the Georgia Aquarium to put onto a page, but wasn't planning to use them since there aren't any people in them, till I saw Geralyn's layout!

Plus I've been wanting to use those sparkly gold thickers somewhere! I think they work well with this layout since your attention is drawn to them, but without people in the pics to look at anyway, I don't mind hehe :)

HOW-TO:

• Another layout using the Story Hour kit by Studio Calico
• That awesome map paper (it was actually of downtown Manhattan) is called "Archives" from the Storyteller collection by Crate Paper, which is becoming one of my most favorite collections so far this spring!
• The background striped looking paper and the stickers are also from the same collection by Crate Paper
• The borders are from My Mind's Eye
• The tag is from The American Tag Company
• The button is from Evalicious

Fish School

Here's a layout with some more pics from the Georgia Aquarium, when we went last October! I used more of the Story Hour kit from Studio Calico.

I sort of wanted to capture that fish tank feel, so I laminated the picture under the circles and popped up the paper a bit on top!

After I cut out the circles from that light blue patterned paper, I had had a different paper chosen for the background, but it was too monochromatic, so I switched to that green Kesi'Art paper - which dictated my title, to make it match more with the school-themed paper!

HOW-TO:

• I used the Story Hour kit from Studio Calico
• Paper by Kesi'Art and light blue paper by Crate Paper
• I used the circle templates by Creative Memories to cut the circles into the paper for the fish tank view
• The blue border was a Crate Paper sticker I cut in half (before peeling it off the sheet)
• The kraft border is from My Mind's Eye
• I don't know if I could ever get sick of those Dear Lizzy foam thickers (letter stickers) by American Crafts!
• For the upper right corner I grabbed that little bit from the packaging for the Evalicious Buttons, then stamped the camera from the Amy Tangerine collection stamps and embossed with Leaf Zing powder from American Crafts