Holiday Gifts for Teachers

My daughter has 6 teachers that she works with on a regular basis at school. When the holidays roll around, I can't afford to go out and purchase a decent gift for that many. 

Just like last year, I decided to make a set of cards for her teachers. This year, I stuck to making all thank you cards. They each get 5 different cards.

This was the first card I created. It uses a retired Stampin' Up! snowman stamp set, as well as the thank you sentiment from Ali Edwards. Found the ribbon in my stash. Water colored the image to match the ribbon colors. Heat embossed the sentiment and snowflake with white embossing powder.

After this card, I knew I was going to have to simplify the remaining cards if I wanted to complete them in time!

The next card I made used a Dear Lizzy stamp of a type writer. I stamped it and fussy cut it out.  I then found a thank you sentiment by Ali Edwards in a type writer font, but only inked the words "thank you".  Added a bit of washi tape to anchor the image and called this one done. 

For this card, after diving deep into my Stampin' Up! stamp stash, I found this thanks stamp and created a background with it. Using some ribbon in my stash, I layered this label that I die cut. I masked off the rest of the words on the stamp and used the "thanks" to finish of the label.

I love how this card turned out. I used Stayz on ink on the flowers, and water colored them with water color pencils. I then stamped the Ali Edwards "thank you" and heat embossed with gold embossing powder.

This was another card I made using some Stampin' Up! stamps. Used clear embossing powder on the heart in the center for these cards. The ink changed colors a bit on some of the cards when I did this, which I found interesting.

Don't know if there is enough contrast for the ink color and card base color that I chose, but going with it.

 And there you have it. My teacher gifts all done.

What do you think? If you were a teacher, would you appreciate these?

Now off to start my December Daily. Day 16 and I haven't done much in the way of making my album. I do know what photos and stories I plan to tell on each day, so I guess that is something!

Hope you are having a good holiday season! Hope to share more soon!

Baby Thank You Cards- for me

I realized I hadn't shared the thank you cards that I made to send out myself.

I made these shortly after Allison was born. Found a few pockets of time to create them. Felt good to make something!

Used some card bases I got in a card pack from Michaels. Used some black ribbon in my stash and stampled with the tiny attacher. I stamped the pig and sentiment from a Stampin' Up! set with Stayzon black ink and colored it with watercolor pencil.  I punched the pigs out with a Creative Memories square punch and the bigger square from black card stock. Layered together and adhered. 

Thanks for looking!

Baby Thank You Cards

So I haven't been as active on my blog as I would like. This new baby thing can really put a wrench in crafting time!

I haven't done much but a few assignments for my One Little Word class (up to date!) and I made some cards.

A friend of mine, just had a baby girl. Instead of bringing her a meal for her family, since I am no cook, I made her some Thank You cards to use.

I found some pink card bases and added some striped, American Crafts ribbon from my stash. Found this label thank you stamp, from Stampin' Up! and matching punch and used brown Distress ink. Found another Stampin' Up! stamp of the baby in the crib, stamped it also in brown and cut it out. Colored it in with Distress Markers. Popped the baby and crib with foam dots.

I also made her this card to go with the gift.

Another shade of pink for the base of this one, but the same ribbon. Used an Ali Edwards baby stamp for the sentiment and the Technique Tuesday die to cut the label out.

I recently received a gift for baby Ally that I didn't have a card for. I whipped this one up using more ribbon from my stash, also American Crafts. Used a stamp, also a Ali Edwards stamp. Cut the sentiment out using a Sizzix/Tim Holtz label die (a new favorite) and adhered it on one side with the tiny attacher and added a staple to the other side to balance it out. Added some sequins from my stash to finish it off.

Hoping to get some layouts done. Digital or otherwise. Have an all day crop coming up. Hoping to have stuff to share from that!

Thanks for looking!

Project Life - June 15-21, 2015

Here is my Project Life layout for June 15-21, 2015.

I have to admit that this is not my favorite layout in any way. Wasn't too crazy about the kit I wound up selecting, but just went with it to finish it up. It uses a free kit from Pixel Scrapper called Rustic Charm.

Glad to have this one finished. Trying to keep up my momentum, especially since baby doesn't seem to want to come yet. Not really motivated to create these days as, now that I am overdue, afraid to get in the middle of projects and not be able to finish. That and I am not sleeping, I am really uncomfortable, and just want this baby to come. 

Next weeks layout has already been started, with the photos at least. Depending on baby's arrival, may or not be ready to share soon.

Thanks for looking!

BG Sweet Threads Cards

After creating the two page layout from the Basic Grey Sweet Threads Page of the Month kit, and then creating my most recent one page layout, as well as some projects in my OLW album, I figured there wasn't enough in this kit to create any more layouts.

Instead, I gave myself the challenge to see how many cards I could create using what was left in this collection. 

I started with finding card bases from the box sets I got from Michaels a while back, super cheap. They come with envelopes which is awesome.

Here are the cards I created! All 20 of them!

I am pretty minimal with my cards. I don't feel the need to add a whole lot of layers and use a whole lot of supplies on my cards. Most of them get tossed right after opening, so I go for pretty simple designs. 

Now, these cards are not in the order that I created them, but they all only used a few supplies outside of the BG kit.

Most of the sentiments on these cards come from the Chit Chat rub-ons from Stampin' Up. Love these when quickly making cards!

This kit came with the layered stickers, the 12x12 sticker alphas, and 12x12 sticker elements plus a bunch of papers and the journaling cards with overlays. 

For this card I used this stamp set from Mama Elephant.

From my stash I found some felt flowers that I layered with the stickers to create this card.

The tag was also found in my stash.

I stamped this happy for my Happy layout and decided to cut it out and use it for this card, using an Ali Edwards birthday stamp layered with it.

This also uses the Mama Elephant stamp set. (Made 2 of these)

Here is half of an overlay transparency adhered with the tiny attacher. 

And another card using the other half. It didn't have flowers printed on this side, so I used more felt flowers and flower shaped brads from my stash.

This uses one of the journaling spots (minus the overlay) with some Ali Edward stamps.

And there you have it! What was left of my kit were 4 scraps of paper and some alpha stickers. What flowers and bits I didn't use from the sticker sheets, my daughter played with on her own card while I was crafting. 

Loved challenging myself in this way. I knew I was going to use up this kit or I was going to make myself purge the leftovers. What motivation, I guess! Now I have 20 cards ready to go when the events come up!

My Girl

I completed another challenge from the Art + Science of Scrapbooking class!

It was for Right Brain Challenge #3- Photos

The challenge was to take a recent favorite photo then pair it with another photo from a date created scrambling up the date of the first to create a new date. Taking those two photos, find the connection and create a page about it.

I had a bit of trouble finding a photo whose date could be scrambled into a date where I had taken a photo to use. After trying a handful I finally came up with something that worked.

So my original photo was from March 26, 2014. I scrambled the numbers a bit and came up with April, 26, 2013.

Both dates happened to have photos of my daughter so the connection wasn't too difficult. I did sit on the journaling for a few days and wrote it on my private blog to have ready when I was ready to create the layout (over a year later....)

So here is the layout I created.

In my stash I have a bunch of Basic Grey collection kits. They contain remnants of BG's Page of the Month kits that I used to get from my local scrapbook store in California. (You can also find more recent ones online here.) In these kits there are enough supplies to create a predesigned layout plus loads of extras to make other pages or projects, or just adapt the designed layout to your style. 

For this layout I pulled out the Sweet Threads collection and found the journaling spot that was big enough to hold the long journaling that I had and still allow room for the two 4x6 photos I had to include.

The only thing I used outside of my leftover kit was a piece of white card stock for the background.

The journaling block was really cool in the fact that it came with a patterned base and a coordinating transparency that had the black border and colored flowers to overlay.  Added the title stickers, date arrow, and flower sticker to the top after adhering with the tiny attacher.

I love how this layout turned out. Not only do I love these great photos of my daughter, I love the journaling that came from them as well. Definitely may try a similar challenge like this again!

Thanks for looking!

Sweeter Together

I have had some photos and products kitted together for a long time, just waiting for time and inspiration to put layouts together. I have been so focused on Project Life and catching up that I hadn't really allowed myself to create new layouts. Not too mention, that I still have a stack of pages in progress. 

After creating layouts the past few weeks, I allowed myself to enjoy the process in creating another new layout. As long as I completed it start to finish, and didn't add it to the stack of unfinished layouts, that is.

I had a collection of Dear Lizzy Neapolitan products. Stuff from Archivers sales from years ago to a more recent 6x6 paper pad purchase. Michaels also had "the best of Dear Lizzy" 8.5x11 paper stack that I had picked up as well. After seeing the "sweeter together" sticker, I had paired them with some photos of my kids playing together.

I struggled for a while on how to layout the photos. I had 5 4x6 photos and didn't really have much room to crop any of them. In the end, knowing I needed a large journaling block for my story, I found 6x6 papers to fill in the missing blocks that the photos didn't take up. It wound up having a bit of a Project Life layout feel.

Making one "card" for the title, another for journaling, and another for embellishment, I got to work picking out what products and supplies I wanted to use.

Originally I had selected white card stock for the base of my layout, but changed to a ombre green paper. That was decided before the over all photo placement had been decided and I am a bit disappointed that the color variation is lost on this, but I like the green at the top and subtle green on the bottom so I went with it.

At the top is a strip of patterned paper from the collection as well as the ice cream cone branding strip from a 12x12 piece at the bottom. From the Michaels 8.5x11 stack, I found the stripe paper.

I embellished with a number cut from patterned paper that has all kinds of numbers in different colors and fonts. Wrapped some twine around it and added a puffy heart sticker left from my December Daily kit.

Here is my title block. The sticker is what inspired this layout and paper choices. I found a neutral 6x6 patterned paper from the pad, added the strip of rainbow paper from the pad as well. There is a hole in the middle where the pad is hung at the store, but is covered by the sticker and the doily from my stash. Used a bit of yellow polka dot washi as well.

For my journaling block, I used a 6x6 pattern paper from the 6x6 pad of paper, ran it through my printer and then embellished with a sticker (popped up) from the collection's sticker book, another strip from the pad and a piece of washi from my stash. Added date stamp at the bottom. 

Here is page number two.

For the embellishment block, I used another 6x6 pattern cut to 4x6. I used another strip from the 6x6 pad and covered the hole with the cut outs from the polaroid sheet. 

I embellished one with another sticker from the sticker book and twine. Added a bit more of the yellow polka dot washi tape as well.

Since the stripe paper I used wasn't 12x12, I cover this up by piecing them together and covering up the seam with some pennants. 

And there you have it. Another layout done. This one I am in love with. Love the story, love the layout and products, love the photos. 

This layout has me inspired to make another! Hope to have another to share soon! (Unless baby wants to come.... any day now!)

Happy

Another class that I took last year through Big Picture Classes was Inspired Scrapbooking by Stacy Julian. Every month she had a challenges based on that month's theme. Loved the pace of this class, being a year long and challenges only once a month.

For August, the theme was FUN! One of the "assignments" was to scrapbook a "so fun" memory. I had set some photos in a folder for printing for this assignment and finally got them printed. They were printed on the same 12x12 canvas as one side of the Noah's Ark photo collage.

Since the theme was fun, I decided to have some fun with this layout. I had recently purchased a Heidi Swapp stamp set of words, one of which was Happy. Since that was the name of the song we were rockin' out to in the photos, I went through my stash looking for other "happy" stamps in my stash. Surprisingly I found quite a few, most that went with a Technique Tuesday Happy Birthday set.  

Another purchase that I had made, that I hadn't broken out to use was a stamp set: My Favorite Things- Abstract Art. 

Using my Distress Ink colors that matched the October Afternoon papers that I had in my stash (Again from a kit club from years ago.), I wanted to layer the words over the "painted" page. I realized that I had to stamp off once for each of the colors otherwise the color was too saturated for the words to be visible.

I used some red Thickers from my stash (converting some Rs into Ps). Used a Fiskars tab punch to create the tabs and cut down a journaling card that coordinated with the paper collection.

 I left some real estate on the page unstamped to give myself some room for journaling.

This layout is a bit busy for my normal style, but it was sure fun. Next time I think I may try misting the stamps with a bit of water to get more of a water color affect as well.

Felt good to use product sitting in my stash and just having FUN!

Thanks for looking!