#Challenge52Kits Daydream Believer - February 2012

Daydream Believer was one of the first kits I remember being sold out of stuff REALLY fast! This was a good one!

ABOUT DAYDREAM BELIEVER | Lots of girly, frilly, lovely products for this one! I didn't have a daughter back then, but sure wished I had! Since it was just me and my husband, I didn't do a lot of layouts with this one. It's actually hard for me to believe that I only got one add-on kit with this one, but maybe that's because I also bought the entire Dear Lizzy Neapolitan line on its own separately!

Main kit + Lady Lane leftover

A LAYOUT | I don't know why, but I really struggled with this layout, well I struggled once I had the pictures printed. I pushed paper for two days and really had trouble deciding what direction I wanted to go with this one. Finally I saw the layout, "Hello Fall" by Kat Benjamin and decided to do a scraplift!

SEWING | The best part about doing this layout was once I cut out the heart on my Silhouette Cameo and pierced my paper, I was able to take my sewing upstairs with me and get that whole part finished while Natalie played with her "manger people" in the living room and Daddy was able to sit through an entire Bills game without having to shut the tv off, grumbling about the whole season being done haha! It was quite relaxing, especially while I drank some warm apple cider!

BONUS PROJECT | Making a card based on my layout was easy for this one, I just kept it simple too and made a birthday card and left a little bit of space at the bottom for a name, maybe stamped or with some thickers.

NEXT UP | Story Hour from March 2012, I remember this one quite well because I just LOVED this kit, with a lot from the Crate Paper Storyteller line, first time seeing Kesi'Art papers, and the unique and versatile colors! I got 3 add-on kits and made 9 or 10 layouts. I found the different types of embellishments for this one as well as the papers made it easy to come up with a lot of layouts quickly, so it'll be interesting to see if I get stuck again with this one finally.

#Challenge52Kits Handmade - November 2011

Handmade, handmade, handmade. Here we go, November 2011.

ABOUT HANDMADE | This month definitely had a different vibe to it than the previous two kits, and included some of October Afternoon's Farm House collection as well as some Lost & Found Two collection from My Mind's Eye, AND that beautiful woodgrain paper in the main kit from the Peppermint collection by Crate Paper!

REALITY | Reality is, that full 12x12 diecut sheet really threw me for a loop I think - at least in my memory, when I think of this kit, I can only picture that diecut and the whole kit has kinda gone out the window for me. As noted last week, I felt like I would have trouble with this one, but in reality, now that I have the add-on kits all put back together, what a lovely kit this is! It wasn't even on my radar to start looking for Christmas themes, but when I noticed some beautiful greens mixed with a couple of reds, it got my wheels spinning… so my bonus project was to make a Christmas card with this kit!

Handmade leftover	Tatting leftover
Pin Cushion leftover	More Color

STORAGE TIP | Whenever I have a pile of wood veneer letters that I know I won't want to sort through later, I try to just sort once and make a "cheat sheet" to tell me how many of each letter are left. Then, when I use the letters in the future, I try to remember to cross them off as they get used (see the Tatting leftover image)!

A LAYOUT | I started the layout after I found this layout by SC user Izzie as inpsiration - I just loved the starburst look with these papers and that woodgrain paper as the background! Except I wanted to make mine come from the corner.

STARBURST | To make the starburst I cut a rectangle to the size I wanted it out of plain card stock. Then I drew random lines from one corner out across the paper with a ruler. I numbered the front with a pencil just in case I lost track of one of them, then cut with my paper cutter along the lines. After that I took each numbered piece one by one and lined it up on a piece of patterned paper and traced it. To reduce a bit of cutting, I lined up one long edge of each piece along the edge of the paper, then only had to trace and cut along the other two sides. Then I pieced them together to see how it would look. When I was ready to adhere them, I flipped them over and re-pieced it together and taped up the back with scotch tape. That made it easy to adhere the whole thing down exactly where I wanted it.

BONUS PROJECT | After seeing some of the colors of the papers laying together, I thought, I can definitely get a Christmas card from this! I went to think of a design, but then thought it would be cool to use my own layout as inspiration for the card, so that's exactly what I did! Super quick and easy to repeat the process and this time, I traced 2 of the pieces at a time from the same paper and then cut them out - which made it slightly faster and less tedious-seeming. I really enjoyed this kit and this process, and would love to try to do more cards this way!

NEXT UP | Next up is Brooklyn Flea, which I am REALLY looking forward to since I don't remember really digging into this one hardly at all! I love how it was a December kit that wasn't too Christmas-themed!

Digitizing my word art

So I've played with word art before but hadn't yet ever printed it out yet. I wanted to use this verse I read yesterday to make a card and figured it would be a good time to try this out! Also I figured it would look better if I shrank the art down and made it tighter. Here's my original verse, painted with goache paint in Jet Black onto drawing paper (this was not even close to my first attempt):

After I got it into digital form (I just used a photo I took of it and edited it in Photoshop Elements 12), I cropped it to 4.25x5.5 inches to fit a card and printed first on white paper (will prob hang this in my scrap space or use as a bookmark) then printed it on patterned paper for a card!

Finally, I made the background transparent with the magic eraser and laid it on top of one of a piece of digital paper from Studio Calico for next month's kit! I changed the color of the brush script and really love how that turned out!

In conclusion it was really fun to do and try! Also as a side note, I took the Life Scripted class with brush script expert Kal Barteski awhile back but ended up using a slightly different technique to come up with this, as I found I want to make it closer to my own handwriting and style!

Hybrid Birthday Card

ABOUT THE PHOTO:
This photo of Natalie paired perfectly with the card sentiment I wanted to give to her Grandma! Natalie had just eaten some pickled vegetable roots that Chris bought... and she loved them! She kept asking for more, but still kept making that face after each bite haha!

CARD DESIGN:
I used a layered template by Shanna Noel for Studio Calico that was offered a few months ago.

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I changed the color from blue to a lime green by changing the hue (Chris picked the color). Then I added some extra text using the font used in the template, which was called Permanent Marker and printed it on glossy photo paper. Finally, I just added some black stars from the Studio Calico Cuppa kit from last year.

Congrats Wedding card

ABOUT THIS CARD: I made this card for my cousin who lives in Indiana and got married in Florida!! We ended up missing out on the wedding because of our needy 10 month old baby, but it looked like they had a blast!

PRODUCTS/PROCESS: First and foremost, I bought this digital stamp brush USA map from Studio Calico and stamped at 2500px, printed it, and cut it out! I added some gold hearts to the two states and adhered to a piece of card stock from last year's Double Scoop kit. I kept it simple and just added the Kal Barteski letter thickers from the Amy Tangerine Plus One collection by American Crafts!

I love how this card turned out, and love that I got to use that digital brush stamp file right away!

Experiment in scrapbooking!

This is the first card my husband ever made!! My mom had given him a really nice birthday gift, so I wanted to send her a special thank you card and jokingly told Chris that I would pick out some basic supplies and have him make her a card... well somehow he agreed, so here's how it went!!

Here are the supplies I ended up picking out, sort of like a mini kit - I chose 4 sheets of paper, 2 types of wood veneer, 2 washi tapes, 1 glitter tape (black though), 2 sets of letter stickers, 1 set of puffy stickers, and some basic tools:

I set it up in the kitchen while he was at the store so when he came back he had his own workspace - he really liked that! Later he sat down, and it was so interesting to watch him, because his process was so unlike mine! He immediately grabbed a piece of paper and looked like he knew EXACTLY what he wanted to do! I was so intrigued! First thing he did was grab his patterned paper like a seasoned pro!

I didn't show him how to use anything or make any suggestions for ideas, and I tried not to hover too much! Then I heard him say he broke my tape gun.

Not to despair, it just takes a couple times using it to get used to it. So I got it working for him again.

The next part really surprised me, because one of the papers I picked out had these speech bubbles, and I was going to suggest he could cut some out to use but decided not to say anything, just to see what he would come up with on his own. So it was so cool when I saw him start to cut out a speech bubble without any prompting - such an advanced technique!!

After that, I didn't get any more pics of his process because I had to get the baby, but I saw him adding the letter stickers inside the speech bubble - what a funny guy, he didn't just write "thank you" but "I say thank you" hahaha!! In my head I just hear that phrase spoken with a British accent after someone gets handed their afternoon tea, hilarious!

Then I saw him select a washi tape and he tore one edge and cut the other, then did two strips that way! He says he knew to do it that way from seeing how I've done it, but I wouldn't have thought to do the two rows like that - really cool!

The only part I helped him with was how to use the mini glue dots to adhere the wood veneer arrow in place, and done!! So interesting!! Here it is again:

Afterwards, when he had finished the card in like 15 minutes I asked him how he made it so quickly, and he replied, "Decisiveness my friend" haha which is something I do not have! I am really indecisive, which is part of what makes my scrapping take really long if I'm not forcing myself to make decisions quickly. Then I asked him what his favorite embellishment was, and he said patterned paper, which is the perfect answer - because it seems to be the common bond amongst all us scrappers! In fact, I was just listening to this week's Paperclipping Roundtable earlier in the day and they had joked that paper is like the gateway drug for scrapbookers!!

Final thought: Chris said he could see why I like to scrap! So I would call this experiment/adventure in scrapbooking a big success!!

Baby Baptism Card

Let me start by saying I accidentally misspelled our cousin's name who was getting baptized - after I photographed the card, I went back and pulled up the banner with "Avery" and re-did it with "Averie" after I saw the correct spelling on the invitation again.

This card took me a few hours! Oh well, I just started by stamping with Martha Stewart doily stamps on watercolor paper and embossing them in white. Then I added some watercolors over/around them, knowing they would resist the water!

Finally I found the Jesus loves you stamp and embossed in gold, and added the gold triangle sequins around it that came in the Roundabout kit from Studio Calico. I wasn't sure how to add her name, so just stamped it and embossed in the same gold and added it as a banner! Quick idea, but the stamping/embossing and water-coloring took a bit!

Some birthday cards!

I had a couple birthday cards to make, so for this first one I played with some Tim Holtz inks mixed with water over an embossed map image:

I stamped the sentiment with stamps by Studio Calico and cut it out, then popped it up and added some neon sequins... simple, quick, and easy!

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This one was a fun ONE for my nephew's first birthday! I lined up a number 1 on my Silhouette to cut in the middle of one half of a 10"x7" piece of card stock that I could later fold into a 5"x7" card.

Once I had the card folded, I outlined the "1" lightly in pencil onto the inside of the card and just began pulling out all my brads, buttons, enamel dots etc. in blues, teals, and grays!

Basically I just filled it all in and attached all of them, then used separate "Happy" and "Birthday" stamps and bent them onto my acrylic block to fit neatly around the one!

I liked the clean look of the card, so called it done and wrote on the inside front of it!

Mothers Day cards and a Baby Shower card!

Yesterday was a near-perfect cardmaking day! The weather wasn't great, my friend was already planning to come over to scrap, and since it was the day before Mothers Day, we both had some cards to finish up! I made 2 Mothers Day cards and 1 baby shower card! For each of my cards, I used this month's kits by Studio Calico - I got the Scrapbook kit, Card kit, and Stamp kits this month!

For this first Mothers Day card, the idea just sort of came to me to use 3 tags and figure out the rest as I went along. I also decided to try one of the National Scrapbook Day challenges from Studio Calico to use 5 patterned papers - so keeping that in mind, I cut the tags from the Silhouette, and added the notebook paper to the left.

I was sort of stumped at that point for the 5th pattern, but punched some small hearts and sewed them down on each tag, added my sentiment and some twine and done!

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This next card is for my own Mom. I really loved the color combination and the knot used for this card!

For the middle part, I pulled out a sheet of Vintage paper, then stamped the frame in Hero Arts Neon Green and cut around it. I stamped the I Love You sentiment and embossed it with Silver Glitter Zing embossing powder and colored in the letters with Tim Holtz Blue Jeans ink mixed with water and a watercolor brush.

I cut 4 pieces of twine, three from the same pack of beige & gray hues and one piece from a coral color, then knotted them, after doing a Google search for Sailor's knot and looking at this idea.

The back of the stars were a little indented, so using my usual glue zots weren't working since I'd need to use about 3 or 4 each just to get them to stick out far enough to catch the paper. Pop dots were going to make them stick out too much. I asked my friend about my dilemma and she asked if I had a glue gun (which I don't) but that gave me the idea to use good old Glossy Accents! This was my favorite card I made out of the bunch, perfect for my Mom!

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Wow I actually had time to work on one more card - so I worked on a card for a baby shower for a friend at church that I am going to in a couple of weeks! She is having a girl and they are naming her Ezra!

I started by choosing some papers and embellishments I liked together - the gray card stock with the pink polka dots looked great, and I've been dying to use those candy striped buttons - they just look delicious! I had a leftover piece of vintage paper from the last card, so decided I could use that too!

I arranged how I wanted it and figure I'd use the middle space to add her name somewhere in big letters, so I grabbed those Heidi Swapp plastic letters from the Scrapbook kit - I loved how they still looked soft even though they were a different color. I added the extra lace trim, twine and cabochon and finished this last card very quickly! Out of all the cards I made, this one was Chris' favorite!

Baseball Birthday Card!

It's our nephew's 13th birthday! So what kind of card do you make for a 13-year-old boy who is really great at baseball? This kind I suppose! :)

I knew for the past week I wanted to make a card like this, specifically a square shaped with a big baseball. I also am taking the Pop Off the Page 2 class with Jen Jockisch at Studio Calico, who had a great layout with all these sewn on pieces of fabric. I also was trying to decide if I should throw away all these muslin fabric bags I have, that some of the Studio Calico products come in... So these 3 separate pieces of information in my head culminated to form this simple birthday card!

I cut a piece of muslin fabric to 5x5, then lined up a circle template at the edges to pencil and hand-cut a greater circumference circle at the edges than using a corner punch. I hand sewed around the edges to keep it attached to the card better, then drew in the wavy lines and sewed with white floss. Finally I added my red thread, using a thicker thread, and stamped the sentiment onto the fabric with Black Staz-On ink, but went over it a little further with a Sharpie!

A Wedding Card

Our friends at church are getting married soon, so I made this card for their wedding!!

I got the latest Planetarium kit from Studio Calico in the mail yesterday and got working on this right away - this month I also purchased the card kit and card add-on kit since I knew I had a lot of cards to make coming up! With all the supplies, this card came together very quickly!

I stamped "Today" using the new stamps from the stamp add-on kit, and cut the "Enjoy" portion from an older SC stamp that said "Enjoy the Ride" - both embossed in Gold Glitter Zing embossing powder! I painted the chipboard star in the upper right with Green Gable Mister Huey's mist mixed with water to add some more of that sea-foamy color to the card. Love the colors of this month's kits!!

Bridal Shower card!

Some friends of ours are getting married this spring and the bridal shower is tomorrow! So I made this simple card for it...

It came together really quickly after I found my inspiration from this card by Amber!! I added the sewing to my frame because I wanted it to pop up a little without using just pop dots.

I backed with some Silver POW paper from American Crafts and misted over the Heidi Swapp hearts with Mister Huey's Cameo before wiping off the excess. Quick and easy!!