CASBa Creations

Another Sketch Challenge

2011-12-13T08:04:00.000-08:00

I had such good luck with doing a sketch for my last page that I decided to go ahead and give it another try and headed over to Sketchy Thursday to check out their current sketch. I was once again not disappointed and got some much needed inspiration. I also saw that this layout is eligible for the current challenge at Frosted Designs to use Glitter on the project. I used Stickles on the Tattered Angels Mistables under the title. I am pretty happy with the result. I once again used Pink Paisley papers, Tim Holtz Distress inks, Glimmer Mist (with a glimmer screen) and some Thickers for the title.

This layout is of this past March when we celebrated Purim. We made Hamantaschen cookies and generally enjoyed ourselves.

I actually scrapbooked!

2011-12-10T11:03:00.000-08:00

For the first time in months I actually sat down this week and I scrapbooked! It was amazing. I have done quite a bit of paper crafting, but I hadn't made a scrapbook layout since probably September or October. I just didn't feel the motivation or inspiration to do it. I started to get some inkling of motivation so I decided for inspiration I would check out some sketches and hope to get going from there. I went to Frosted Designs and found their current sketch challenge to be just the inspiration I was looking for. I used mainly Pink Paisley products on this with a big helping of Tim Holtz Distress Ink and some Glimmer Mist. I don't think I ever make a project without using at least a little bit of distress ink.

This layout is about my husband's 32nd Birthday this year. I cooked him a surprise meal of a bunch of his favorites and for the celebration with my family I baked him a root beer bundt cake that I thought he would really like. All in all it was a great birthday for him.

Thank you

2011-12-04T14:21:00.000-08:00

Lately I have been really busy. What have I been busy with? Thank you cards! I tell you what...Having a baby sure does require a lot of Thank you cards to be made and written. I must say I am truly amazed at the amount of gifts we have received for our little guy. I feel so amazingly grateful for all our friends and family who have been more than generous. Unfortunately I have not been able to make a thank you card for every single person who got us something, but I have at least sent one to everyone. I saved the homemade ones for shower hostesses and special gifts.

I just wanted to stop by quickly to show off a few recent ones that I made. This first one is actually using the card sketch at Frosted Designs.

The rest were also using card sketches I just can't remember where I got them all. I need to pay better attention to that!

13th Birthday card

2011-11-29T05:17:00.000-08:00

It is pretty amazing how time just seems to fly the older you get. When you are really young a week seems like it lasts forever and a year is pretty much an eternity. As you get older though that time begins to start speeding up until you feel like it is flying by like the county-side on a high speed train. It is here and gone in a flash and no matter what you do to try and slow it down and savor it, it just keeps rushing past you. You may ask "Why this reflection on time?" Well, it seems that I blinked and something pretty incredible happened. My nephew grew up. This Wednesday he turns into a teenager and I honestly can't believe how quickly it has gone by.

I was only 17 when he was born and he was just the sweetest, cutest littlest guy I had ever laid eyes on. He was a darling little baby that I got to spend so much time with and really loved more than I could ever imagine. Over the years he has grown up into a handsome young man with all the attitude of a budding teenager, but still with a very caring side. It makes me proud to see the person he is growing into and I just know that he will turn into a great man one of these days. It is amazing and wonderful yet also sad because that sweet little boy is gone forever. The time just flew away. It makes me realize that my time with the little guy I am currently carrying and will soon bring into this world will be just as fleeting. In the blink of an eye he will grow up and become a young man. I need to cherish every moment as much as I can because he won't stay the same for long.

Every year when my nephew's birthday rolls around I make sure the spend an extra amount of time on his card. He likes the cards I make and always has a "This is so cool." for me when I give them to him. I even found out that he still has the card from last year that I made him still hanging up in his room. That sure was an ego boost for me so this year I made sure to have something just as awesome for him. I used the Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutant line for his card this year. I thought it was edgy and cool and masculine enough for a 13 year old young man.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-13T06:44:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is one of my absolute favorite holidays. To start with you have a day dedicated to eating a lot of rich and delicious food. It is like your day to have a free pass and just eat a little of everything that sounds delicious. Next, you have a day that, at least for me, is dedicated to spending time with family and appreciating what you have. It is always such a nice time to reflect on what I have and what I am thankful for. There is always love, laughter and warmth. I can't wait to spend this holiday with my son in future years and teach him about the true meaning of holidays, family.

So I know I am a little early, but I wanted to share this Thanksgiving card that I made for Crafting Jewish Style. I used their fabulous Rosh Hashanah line to create the card along with some spare ribbon scraps I had in my stash. The Rosh Hashanah line is so beautiful and the colors are just so rich. They are perfect for fall layouts, cards and other projects.

I hope you all have a safe, happy and delicious Thanksgiving this year.

Nursery Decoration

2011-11-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

I must admit I haven't done a whole lot of scrapping lately. Life has been pretty hectic and I have had other things on my mind. I also (apparently) haven't had blogging on my mind much either since I have been SO horrible about keeping this bad boy updated. Well I wanted to share some of the nursery decorations I made for our little one's room. Long before we found out that we were having a boy we decided that we were going to do an outer space/rocket ship theme in the nursery. I was so excited about it and when I first saw October Afternoon's Rocket Age line I knew that is what I was going to use for my altered canvases. Also I thought that their mini album kit was perfect for a name banner that later can be used as a mini album when the little guy outgrows his nursery and wants something different.

An 8x10 altered canvas

12x12 altered canvas

8x10 altered canvas

Name banner

Happy New Year!

2011-09-25T05:35:00.000-07:00

The Jewish New Year is quickly approaching and I wanted to share a fun craft project I made for the occasion for Crafting Jewish Style. It is a box for tzedakah or charitable giving. Ros HaShanah (the new year) marks the beginning of the high holy days and during this time the concept of tzedakah is very important. Since my husband and I are expecting our first child we wanted to make sure that we instilled this value in him as well. I made a cute little box to place tzedakah in during the high holy days to teach our son about charity and make it a little more fun.

Just some stuff to share

2011-07-18T07:15:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to share some new layouts that I have done recently. I hope you enjoy them.

An Announcement!

2011-07-14T04:13:00.000-07:00

First I wanted to share a new layout that I did. It should give you a bit of a hint of what my announcement will be.

Well if you haven't already guessed my announcement is that my husband and I are expecting our first child! We are over the moon excited and can't wait to meet our little nibblet in January.

Sketch Challenge

2011-07-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

Head on over to Crafting Jewish Style to see our newest sketch as well as to enter into the Hanukkah in July contest to win a great Hanukkah prize pack!

Mini Album part 2

2011-07-02T04:08:00.000-07:00

As I said before (in this post) for Mother's Day I made my mom and my grandma mini albums. I realize Mother's Day was forever ago, but I just got around to actually blogging about them....Yeah I am a bad blogger...I know. My grandma's album was shared in the previous post and her's was a "brag book" theme. For my mom's I decided to leave it photo less and give her the option of filling it with whatever photos she wanted. I did give her an extra trimmer and some adhesive and I have and matted out photo spots with specific sizes for her. Part of this was because I just didn't have the time to find enough photos because I only had 1 week to make both albums and part of it was because the album had the title "Life". Why this title? Well I got this kit from Archiver's one crop and it happened to have the title of "Life" already. Yup....I am super original. My mom's album was substantially bigger than my grandma's so I won't bore you with all the pages, but here is the cover and a few on the inside pages.

My first Mini Album!

2011-06-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

At 2 am the Sunday before Mother's Day I woke up with the most brilliant idea ever....I was going to make both my mom and my grandma mini albums for Mother's Day....Did I say brilliant or crazy? The crazy was compounded by the fact that I had never made a mini album before, but slightly alleviated by the fact that I had two mini albums sitting around the house. Today I will show you my grandma's album as it was the first of the two that I made. I will show my mom's in a later post.

I really had a ton of fun with this mini. The fact that it was a clear acrylic album and each page needed to mirror itself on the front and back side was a challenge, but also took some of the guess work out of doing the back. For a theme for the album I chose to do a Great Grandma's Brag Book and put photos of her four great grandchildren in the book. It was a lot of fun to make. Each kid also got their own page and I did my best to match the current personality of each kid with the design I did for the pages. I hope you enjoy.

Folded Flower Tutorial

2011-06-15T05:24:00.000-07:00

Want to learn to make these awesome folded flowers? Head on over to Crafting Jewish Style for a tutorial I put up today!

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T06:05:00.000-07:00

First I want to give a big shout out to all the mother's out there today! Especially my own mother and grandmothers. A woman could not ask for better role models of strong and intelligent women than what I had growing up! I love you ladies more than you can ever know! So tell me...What do you love and cherish most about your mother or any other female role model you may have had?

Next I want to direct your attention once again to Crafting Jewish Style's blog. This project I was tasked with creating a layout about an event. It didn't have to be a specific event, but it needed to be an event. I chose to create my layout about Simchat Torah. Simchat Torah is the time of year when we celebrate finishing our Torah readings for the year and beginning again. It is a celebration of the Torah and our story and history. This year we went to Temple Micah to celebrate and had a wonderful time. There was dancing and singing and clapping. It was so full of joy and celebration it was truly a wonderful experience. At the end of the celebration we unrolled the entire Torah to be able to see it in its entirety. The whole scrolls are so big, long and intricate that it truly is a breathtaking experience. The photo on this page is hard to see, but it is just a portion of the unrolled scroll. From end to end there were probably 4 or 5 times as much as this photo shows. I used Crafting Jewish Style's Rosh Hashannah line for this page. The colors just fit so well with the photo.

Crafting Jewish Style Sketch Challenge

2011-05-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

I have another wonderful sketch challenge to share with you guys and even more exciting is that it is an extra special sketch made just for Crafting Jewish Style and I got to make my project with their wonderful products and papers. It was so much fun. The awesome sketch was created just for us by the very talented Anam Stubbington.

I made the layout about my dog, Bruno. I found these adorable Hanukkah PJ's for dogs at Target this past year and I couldn't help, but get them for him. He looked so cute and they kept him nice and warm through the cold winter.

Sketch Challenge

2011-04-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

Wow....Once again I have been a serious slacker! In my defense we have had some computer issues and I have had a pretty giant mojo vacation. It just seemed to up and vanish. Yuck! Well it finally has returned and I am back in the groove of things. In one week I have made 4 cards and 4 layouts! I haven't been that hopping in a long time! I'm going to share one today from that is based off a sketch from Sketchy Thursday. I had a lot of fun working with this sketch and it all came together really quickly. These are photos of my husband and I this past summer at the Renaissance Festival. One of the main reasons we went was because he really wanted one of those turkey legs so I just had to scrap it. Check back next week for several projects for the Crafting Jewish Style design team! I am so excited to finally get to share these with you. I think they are a big part of refinding my mojo.

Epic Battle

2011-04-06T06:50:00.000-07:00

While we were in Texas this past summer our nephew couldn't wait to get my husband to have a light saber battle with him. As soon as we got back to the house he was raring to go. Both J and I took turns fighting him and it was a great time. I had a lot of fun making this page and even used a sketch from Sketchy Thursdays, but when I showed the layout to J he said "You made a layout about a light saber battle with flowers?" Apparently I broke a rule in the guy code or something when I did that. He also informed me that had he done it there would have been platforms, light saber beams and other masculine Star Wars things on the page. Well good for him, but I am the scrapbooker and I scrap how I want. If he wants a page with those things he can scrap it himself ;) If we ever have a son the poor kid will have flowers all over his pages too.

Trip to Maine

2011-03-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

I have slowly, but surely begun work on our vacation trip to Maine from this past August. Vacation might be the wrong word for the trip..we flew in Friday night for a friend's wedding party and we were supposed to fly out Sunday early in the morning and be back to Denver by noon. We ended up getting stuck in the Portland airport until nearly 3 in the afternoon and didn't get back to Denver till late. Oh well. The little jaunt was worth it as it was my first trip to Maine (it is beautiful by the way) and we got to see one of my husband's best friends at her wedding party. It was a fun trip even if it was extremely short.

Need for an Update!

2011-03-23T17:40:00.000-07:00

It has been WAY too long since I have updated my blog. See what happens when I am left to my own devices and have no design team work to show off? I get lazy. Geesh...At least I haven't been lazy on the scrapping front. Between the month of March LOADED with birthdays and two crops in two weeks I have been actually pretty productive. Just horrible about actually getting anything up online. Well that changes now! I would like to share a few projects and as long as the ladies at Frosted Designs don't mind I want to go ahead and enter one of their challenges too. What can I say? I just can't stay away from that blog.

First up for my Frosted Design challenge entry I made this card for a cousin's birthday. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Next on to a few layouts. The first is a layout about when my husband and I "camped" out on a friend's property after a BBQ. We had a great time and these photos are of us enjoying some wine when we went out to find a place to pitch our tent before it got too dark.

This next one is from our trip to Texas this past summer. We stayed with a friend for a few days and one day we spent the entire time lounging around their pool. It was wonderful. I would also like to brag that this is the first time I have had my photo taken in a swimsuit that I actually liked the photo. Losing 60 lbs. can do a world of good for your confidence.

Exciting News

2011-03-10T14:30:00.000-08:00

I have some really exciting news to announce. I have been accepted on as a new design team member for the wonderful product line Crafting Jewish Style. I admit that when I decided to leave Frosted Designs about a month ago the thought of joining another design team didn't really enter my mind. I mean sure it was a thought for the future, but for the time being I was hoping for a break and I really wanted to do some scrapping just for me. When I saw the design team call for Crafting Jewish Style I just couldn't resist. It was definitely something that caught my eye and I felt like it was a great way to really challenge myself to include my religion and my heritage in my scrapping. It is something I don't do enough. I really can't wait to get started crafting with their awesome products. They are SO pretty and I admit it is great to have some patterned paper that is geared to Jewish scrappers. Head on over in the coming months to see some wonderful layouts, great sketches and inspiration for both Jewish and non-Jewish scrappers alike.

A Tutorial and a Goodbye

2011-03-06T04:31:00.000-08:00

With great sadness I want to announce that this will be my final project as a Design Team Member for Frosted Designs. I have been on the design team at Frosted Designs since it began all the way back in Fall of 2009. It has was my first design team and I tell you it has been one heck of a time designing for them. It is a wonderful challenge blog and I have had the privilege to work with some other amazing paper crafters.

I made the decision to step down from the design team because I felt like it was time for a change and that I needed to branch out and try some new things. I must admit that a big part of me is sad and feels like I am leaving my home, but another part of me is excited for new opportunities in the future. I wish Barb, Diana and all the other wonderful ladies at Frosted Designs all the best and I certainly hope they don't mind if I stop by to play along with their challenges every now and then.

Now on to more exciting things. We have a tutorial that I created for you over at Frosted Designs this week!

This week at Frosted Design we are showing you how to make wet distressed flowers. These are incredibly easy and take no special punches or equipment to make. You can see the finished product in the layout above. To make these flowers you will need:

scissors
scraps of patterned paper or cardstock
distress ink
mini mister or other spray bottle of water (not pictured)
adhesive - I prefer Zip Dry Glue
Gem, brads or other flower center

Step 1) Take your patterned paper or cardstock and cut out a rough circle with a wavy edge a little bit bigger than you want your finished flower to be. It doesn't have to be a perfect circle, nor does the edge need to be perfect.

2) Cut out increasingly smaller circles just like you did with the first. Depending on the size of the flower you want depends on the number of layers you will want. I tend to stick with either 5 layers for larger flowers and 3 layers for smaller flowers.

3) Take your scissors and cut small triangles evenly spaced around the circles to create petals. I usually do 8 triangles on larger circles and 4-6 on the smaller ones.

4) Ink the edges of all your flowers with Distress inks. It is important to use Distress inks as they will run and look more like natural coloring when you get them wet.

5) Using a Mini Mister or other spray bottle filled with water spray your flowers fairly liberally till the paper is fairly wet, but not soaked. You want it to be pliable, but also able to retain its shape.

6) Using your fingers smoosh the petals so the stand up and are scrunched. You don' have to make all the petals do the same thing. Some can be turned more under while some may be turned up and others just smooshed. Let the flowers dry.

7) Put a small dab of glue in the center of each layer and glue the layers together with the largest on bottom and the smallest on top.

8) Affix a gen or a brad in the center and your flower is ready for your next project.

No Patterned Paper

2011-02-18T05:33:00.000-08:00

This week at Frosted Designs our challenge for you is to make a project using no patterned paper. I must say this was a huge challenge for me this week. I am a patterned paper fiend. I do very little without patterned paper. In fact I can much more easily get rid of cardstock than patterned paper. So what's a PPaholic to do? Try to make your own and alter regular cardstock so much that it starts to resmemble pattern paper. That is what I did this week. I started with cardstock and I inked, masked, spritzed, misted, and distressed to my heart's content and I must say that I am pretty happy with the outcome.

Crop time

2011-02-13T13:47:00.000-08:00

This Friday I went to a crop at Archiver's with a few friends and had a great time. As an added bonus I also got 3 layouts done! I haven't been doing a whole lot of scrapping lately so I was very happy with my three layout and I think they all turned out quite well.

My first layout is for this week's challenge at Frosted Designs. This week we are challenging you to use the word Love on your project. I created a layout with my husband and I from our trip this past August to Maine. I absolutely love the rub-on under the photo. It says "If pictures are worth a 100 words then why do yours leave me speechless". Talk about sappy, huh? Well I guess I better just admit it...I am a big sap.

My second layout that I did is from our trip this summer to Texas. It was my brother in law's high school graduation and I did a layout about the graduate himself.

Finally I did a layout that was a long time in coming. I finished the final layout of my trash the dress photos. I have been putting this one off for quite awhile because I didn't want to be done quite yet. I just loved working on this album so much. It was fun to just go all out with the pages just like I did in the photos. Such a great time.

Pink, Red & White

2011-02-04T04:50:00.000-08:00

It is now February and Valentines is looming large in the near future. This week at Frosted Designs your challenge is to get in that lovable spirit and use ONLY pink, white and red on your project this week. Now I will fully admit that I am not the biggest fan of Valentine's Day. It tends to feel a little to forced and there is just too much pressure to have a romantic day. So for my project I chose to be a little more practical than lovey, but still with a little whimsy thrown in. I have been needing a small file folder for some documents for work for awhile. I was wandering around the Stationary department at Target trying to think of what to do for this project when I saw these file boxes for $3. It came in white. Perfect! So I altered it to bring in to work for a little function and decoration.

Transparencies

2011-01-22T08:06:00.000-08:00

This week at Frosted Designs we have a great challenge for you. This week we want you to use a transparency somewhere on your project. I used a transparency frame over my photo in this layout. Unfortunately I couldn't get a good photo without REALLY being able to see the transparency. Oh well...It really does look great in real life...trust me....I swear.

On a totally unrelated note I just wanted to share this other layout that I finished over the week. It is based on a Pencil Lines Sketch and I had a lot of fun working on it.

3 or More Photos

2011-01-07T02:19:00.000-08:00

This week at Frosted Designs we have another great challenge for you. We want you to use 3 or more photos on your project this week. I had such a good time with this project this week because it got me to actually make a layout. I have been seriously slacking when it comes to creating actual layouts instead of cards and other projects. It felt great to pull out my photos and create a project around a great memory. This is a page about my trip with my husband and in-laws to the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens on my birthday this past year. It was so beautiful and also so hot and humid! This Colorado girl prefers the dry Colorado weather over the humidity any day!

Favorites of 2010

2011-01-04T09:51:00.000-08:00

I wanted to post my favorite project from each month of 2010 as a fun way to remember the year. It was a great year and I had so much fun crafting. So here it goes....My favorites of 2010.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August (was a tie)

September

October

November

December

Quotable

2011-01-03T14:19:00.000-08:00

This week at Frosted Designs we have a great challenge going on, but we also have an excellent sponsor for this challenge. This week if you enter the challenge at Frosted Designs you are eligible to win some Digital stamps from Lia Stampz. These are totally adorable and fun stamps too! I had a great time using one for this week's challenge.

So what is the challenge, then? Well this week we want you to use a quote on your project. I found the quote "Whoever says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain." -Author unknown. I thought this quote was absolutely perfect with this digital stamp.

Songs of the Season

2010-12-24T00:12:00.000-08:00

This is the time of Christmas music and even though I am Jewish I must admit that I still enjoy some Christmas music. This week at Frosted Designs our challenge is to be inspired by those songs of the season. It doesn't necessarily have to be a Christmas song, but use a holiday song somewhere on your project this week. For my song I used winter wonderland as inspiration for a Holiday card. I went with lots of blues and whites to look cold and added lots of Stickles to look like frost and icicles. Working on this was a lot of fun, but I have to admit that now I have the song "Winter Wonderland" stuck tight in my head.

Family

2010-12-19T13:12:00.000-08:00

This week at Frosted Designs we have a great word challenge going on. We challenge you to use the word "family" somewhere on your project. For my project I created a layout using an old photo of my grandmother, great grandmother and great aunt. The photo was taken sometime in the mid 1940's. I am currently working on a few heritage layouts so future generations don't have these photos sitting in a pile without a name to go with all the faces. I used mostly Graphic 45 papers on this layout and created the bling flourish with my irock.

Winner and Ribbons

2010-12-10T16:53:00.000-08:00

I want to thank everyone for participating in our blog hop and for sharing your favorite holiday traditions with me. First off let's announce our winner of the RAK on my blog. I am sorry it is a little late in the day, but I was home sick today so I kinda spaced it out. Better late than never right? OK so the winner is.....

Kim! Kim said - Hi Cassie, Let me see I love traditions and I think one of my favorites is Christmas Eve going to church and then back to the in-laws and when we get home we read "The Night Before Christmas" even when my kids got to be teenagers they still wanted to do that and they got there very own special ornament for the tree. That way when they move out they all ready have there own collection

Kim please contact me at cschissell@yahoo.com and I will mail you your prize.

Now on to this week's challenge. This week at Frosted Designs your challenge is to use ribbon on your project. This week I created an altered canvas as a Hanukkah gift for a friend of mine. I used two types of ribbon, both sprayed with glimmer mist, to give this project some depth and some extra color.

Holiday Blog Hop!

2010-12-02T23:01:00.000-08:00

Frosted Designs is Hosting it's very first Blog Hop today to celebrate the Holidays! You have got to check it out and play along to have a chance to win a great prize. Make sure you start the hop at Frosted Designs and follow along the correct path to get the right sentence to email to Diana and enter for a chance to win a prize! Also if you didn't get here from Angela's Blog then you skipped a step. After you leave here you should head over to Fern's Blog to get the next piece of the puzzle.

Now for the word! Here is the word that is part of the phrase you need to email to Diana at danica4us@yahoo.com for a chance to win the prize.

You also have a chance to win an additional prize this week from this blog. I have this great prize package to give away to one lucky winner. All you have to do is become a follower of this blog and leave me a comment telling me what your favorite Holiday tradition. If you are already a follower then great! You are ahead of the game. Just leave me a comment! The winner will be chosen on Friday 12/10/10 by random.org.

This week we also have a great challenge going on at Frosted Designs and it is a really easy challenge for all your holiday projects. Use glitter on project this week. If you finish the challenge this week and link it Frosted Designs then you will be entered again to win the grand prize pack for the Blog Hop! I chose to make an altered jar this week to fill with homemade Hanukkah goodies for my family's gift exchange.

Blog Hop Coming Soon!

2010-11-29T00:01:00.000-08:00

Head over to Frosted Designs this Friday December 3rd for our very first Holiday Blog Hop! Can't wait to see you there!

Gift Box Tutorial and Thankful

2010-11-28T07:28:00.000-08:00

This week at Frosted Designs we have a few exciting things going on. First thing is that I created my very first tutorial today. It is to show you how to this gift box.

Head over to Frosted Designs to check it out and learn how to create your own. If you are interested in the recipe for the cookies please check out my husband's and my food blog.

Second our challenge this week is to make a project about being Thankful. Being that the week of Thanksgiving is usually a very contemplative time for me I chose to create a layout about what I am thankful for. I have a photo of my husband and then there is some hidden journaling as well. Head over to Frosted Designs to see what the rest of the design team came up with and let us know what you are thankful for this year.

Distressing

2010-11-21T14:09:00.000-08:00

This week at Frosted Designs we have a great Challenge going on. You are challenged to use distressing on your project. Distressing is one of my favorite techniques and there are so many ways you can distress a project. I used inking, misting and I also used the edges of my scissors to rough up the edges of the grunge paper I used. On top of distressing I also used this week's sketch on as a guide for my page. It was a really fun sketch to work with and I am very happy with how my layout turned out overall.

Thanks

2010-11-12T08:48:00.000-08:00

This week to get us into the mood for Thanksgiving we are having a word challenge over at Frosted Designs. You are supposed to use the word "Thank" or "Thankful" on your project. Head over and see some the great stuff the design team has come up with.

For my project this week I made a thank you card using a Stampin' Up stamp and some scraps I had from and old Little Red Scrapbook Kit.

Hellraising Halloween Party

2010-11-01T05:22:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday my husband and I threw a big Halloween party for a few of our good friends. We don't often throw parties, but when we do we like to spend a lot of time planning and Halloween parties just really lend themselves to some crafting. Both of us spent quite a bit of time working on various crafts for the party. Our general theme of the party was Hellraiser as we were supposed to watch some Hellraiser movies, but we never quite got around to it the night of. Oops! We still had a great time and some great decorations came out of it that we will probably use for future parties. If you are interested in any of the food or menu at the party please feel free to check my husband and my food blog where recipes will be provided over the next week. I have already shared a few of the crafts, but I am going to re-post them all together.

This was the Halloween sign I made for our front door. I felt like it was a great way to welcome our guests to the party and just had to use that Graphic 45 paper even if it wasn't Hellraiser related.

This past Friday I posted these dish I.D. tags, cupcake flags and treat cups that I sent cupcakes home in. I used a Purple Panda digital stamp for these.

Here you can see them in use on the table with the food. They looked great and I got a lot of compliments on them.

This is a sign we hung on the bathroom mirror. It was by far the most fun decoration of the evening that I made. I distressed the background with glimmer mist, distress ink and then I used fired brick distress ink heavily at the top and then sprayed it with a mini mister and let it drip down the page to look like dripping blood. I am really happy with how it turned out. After that I covered the sign in Pinhead quotes. He sure had some good ones.

Just a close-up of Pinhead washing his hands because I find it extra funny.

We hung spider webs all over and I cut out some spiders using my Bosskut Gazelle to hang in the webs all over the house.

My husband actually made these panels to look like the puzzle box from Hellraiser. I was super impressed with his crafting abilities. They turned our really great!

Finally we printed out these small puzzle boxes from a jpeg we found on the internet and folded them and suspended them from the archway between our living room and dining room. There were 8 in all.

Trick or Treat!

2010-10-29T05:30:00.000-07:00

This week we are all about treats over at Frosted Designs. We want you to create a project involving some holiday treats. It doesn't have to be Halloween related (I am just on a roll with my Halloween stuff lately). You can use any holiday you want. It can be a project to hold treats, a card with a cute treat on the front or a layout about one of your favorite holiday treats.

For my project this week I used a digital stamp from our awesome sponsor this week Purple Panda. I have really started to fall for these digital stamps. They are so fun and are really convenient since you can print out multiples at once, re-size them and they are just so versatile. I when I was perusing the site I saw the R.I.P. stamp and knew that I had to have it. We are throwing a Halloween party this year and we have been going all out with it. I knew this stamp would be perfect for some of the treats we were making at the party. So I made cupcake flags, treat cups and dish I.D. tags with the stamp for our party. They are going to look great when everything is all set up together and I know our guests will get a total kick out of them.

Die Cuts

2010-10-22T06:45:00.000-07:00

This week at Frosted Designs we have another super fun challenge going on this week! This week it is all about using die cuts on your project. Die cuts are a great way to add fun shapes and texture to a project that would be almost impossible to do by hand (at least for me). I love to use my Cuttlebug and my Bosskut Gazelle and with the two the possibilities are nearly endless.

This week I am still on a Halloween kick. What can I say I just love Halloween. It is such a fun time of year. So this week I decided to go ahead and make some Halloween decoration for our house since it is seriously lacking at the moment. I made a Happy Halloween sign using Graphic 45 paper (I just can't get enough of that Mad Hatter and the whole line) and I used my Cuttlebug to cut out the alphas and the circles used to make the flowers.

Halloween

2010-10-19T09:35:00.000-07:00

I want to first apologize for taking so long to get this up. Things around here have been kinda rocky so I haven't been doing the best with keeping up with my blog. What's the matter? Well in the past 6 months I have gotten into running and lifting heavy weights and have been really enjoying doing both. I have worked really hard and made some really big gains in both my speed, stamina and strength. I have even been training for several races.

Recently I have been having some health problems that are starting to get in the way of that. Most aren't very serious, but just require a bit of patience and rest to get over, but this past week I somehow managed to injure my knee. The jury is still out on what I actually did to it and I won't know for another week as I have to have an MRI done and wait for the results, but it is looking more and more like I will have to drop out of my upcoming races. It has been very frustrating to be sidelined with an injury and have two of my major past times taken away from me. Honestly it has put me into one heck of a funk. I have been in pity party mode and I haven't really felt like doing a whole lot of anything other than emotional eating and feeling sorry for myself. Both are bad things and not very productive. So here I am today vowing to try to snap out of it and get back to blogging, commenting, and most importantly crafting.

Now all that is out of the way....On to this week's challenge at Frosted Designs. This week we are supposed to make a project that has to do with either Fall or Halloween. I love Halloween and it is by far one of my favorite holidays so I knew that I wanted to do a Halloween project this week. There was just one problem...I don't have kids and DH and I haven't done anything really picture worthy to celebrate Halloween much this year. What's a girl to do? I started to dig through a bunch of my old photos and thankfully found this photo of my adorable nephew from a few years ago all duded up as Spiderman for Halloween. Thank God for nieces and nephews. They always provide some adorable photos. I gave this a bit of a Steampunk twist to it (because I seem to be obsessed with steampunk lately) and I used the AMAZING Graphic 45 line of Halloween papers.

Doodling

2010-10-12T08:33:00.000-07:00

This week's project for Frosted Designs is a little late, but I say better late than never! This week at Frosted Designs you are challenged to use your own handwriting on a project. The handwriting can be in the form of doodling, journaling, etc. as long as you write it with your own hand the sky is the limit. I love doodling so much that I did 2 projects for this week. The first is another one of my trash the dress layouts. I used a ton of doodling on it.

The second is a layout about me cradling my dog. I used both doodling and handwriting on this layout.

Books

2010-10-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

This week on Frosted Designs I am host another challenge. When coming up with this challenge I wanted to really challenge our followers and step just a little outside the box. So I turned to my favorite pastime and that is reading books. I love to read and I have been an avid reader since I was a little kid. The books I read are very much interwoven into the fabric and story of my life. So this week everyone is supposed to use a book to inspire their project. Head on over and see all the great projects and learn about some great books. Plus check out the new prize for the month of October!

Anyway...On to my project. This week I chose the Dark Tower Series by Stephen King as my inspiration. This series of 7 books is are some of my favorites. I am currently re-reading them and will probably do so again countless times over my (hopefully long) life. They are full of suspense, excitement, love, determination, sadness, intrigue, etc. I just honestly can't say enough good things about these books. I will admit that they get off to a bit of a slow start with book 1 (gotta cut Mr. King a break as he was only 19 when he wrote it), but if you make it past that you won't regret it. So, my project...

First I will start with the title. "The world has moved on " is a phrase that is used repeatedly in the books. In the story the world has changed rapidly and time has gone a little funny. Things just aren't quite as they seem. I have used the title (and the hidden journaling) to express how much my "world" has moved on since the time of this picture. I was only 20 or so at that time and things sure have changed.

For the overall style of the page I used Steampunk. I felt it really fit well with the story as the story has a curious mix of old and new. It isn't Victorian, but rather more Western so I shifted the focus of the Steampunk a little to be more western. I once again used the new Graphic 45 paper, Steampunk Debutante, to make this page.

Next are the roses and the 1 3D red rose. Roses were a big part of the story, but there is a single, special rose in the book. It is almost a character in and of itself at times. It holds the world and it has a huge draw over many of the characters.

The train is also in the 3rd and 4th books. He is called "Charlie the Choo Choo" or "Blaine". He is a train with superior knowledge who likes riddles and is a serious obstacle of the 5 main characters.

The bear is to represent the character, Shardik. He is an guardian from the old ones and is a giant cyborg of sorts. He is part machine and part flesh. That is why I put the gears and cogs over the bear to show that.

Finally the number 19 is in the story a lot. It holds a special significance that I believe comes from the fact that Stephen King was only 19 when he started writing this story.

All in all I hope you enjoy the page and are inspired by the challenge. I have a great time working on this layout. Get busy crafting and reading!

Steampunk

2010-09-28T08:03:00.000-07:00

Steampunk has become a new fascination for me. It is a sub-genre of sci-fi (which I am a huge fan) and has recently made its way into the scrapping world. It frequently has lots of Victorian and old futuristic elements. It is very visually gritty at times and I tend to find it fairly appealing. Recently I got the new Graphic 45 line Steampunk Debutante. I have been having a lot of fun with this line and wanted to share a card I made for friend's 30th birthday. I will more than likely be sharing a few more Steampunk inspired projects in the future.

Cut a Rug

2010-09-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

OK so maybe don't cut a rug, but this week at Frosted Designs we are cutting up photos and pictures. I love the look of creating mosaics and blocks with photos but it often a technique I forget to use. I was excited to create a layout for this week's challenge and really had fun with this. Head on over to Frosted Designs to see the other projects created by the design team this week. Seriously the ladies outdid themselves this week and there is some great inspiration over there.

I cut my photo to look like a window pane so it emphasized the main portion of the photo. Other than cutting up the photo I did a lot of wet distressing. This may be one of my new favorite techniques! It is so fun and I love the dimensional effect that it gives. A lot of inspiration for this layout came from the Swirlydoos blog post demonstrating wet distressing.

Quotes

2010-09-10T05:17:00.000-07:00

This week at Frosted Designs we have another great challenge going on and another chance to win some Robyn's Fetishes digital stamps. These stamps are seriously so cute you just have to head over and check them out! On to the challenge though....This week we challenge you to use a quote on your project. I couldn't decide which quote to use so I made two projects. The first I made a card with the digital stamp "Book Worm" from Robyn's Fetishes. As a librarian I just couldn't Pass up the uber cute book worm stamp. The quote says "A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessities of life" -Henry Ward Beecher.

My second project was a Halloween layout of my nephew. The quote says "When witches go riding, and black cats are seen, the mood laughs and whispers, 'tis near Halloween'." -Unknown.

Photo Inspiration!

2010-09-03T09:24:00.000-07:00

This week at Frosted Designs we have a great challenge and an even better prize. Each week for the month of September we will be giving away either paper and digital stamps or just digital stamps from Robyn's Fetishes Digital Stamps. These are so fun. Seriously there are like so many stamps that range from adorable to beautiful to cool and fun. Head over and check it out. On to the challenge. Once again we have a photo inspiration challenge going on. We are using this photo

to influence our projects. It is such a pretty photo with so much going on in it. There are the textures colors, and tons of other elements. For my project I was inspired by the pinks purples and greens and by the flowers. This is what I created.

I used the August Little Red Scrapbook kit and Robyn's Fetishes "Poppy Fairy" stamp for this birthday card.

So much work so little time

2010-08-23T17:58:00.000-07:00

Once again things here have been pretty crazy. I haven't had much time to update my blog. Heck I have barely had enough time to even get any crafting done in the first place. So that means that I have quite a few projects that I need to post. We'll start with the most recent and work our way backwards. That is because this most recent one is a challenge that is still going on over at Frosted Designs. This week you are challenged to make a back to school project. For my project I created an altered lunch box for my niece. Her birthday is right around the beginning of the school year so I thought it would make a great birthday present.

The next project was for our celebrate life challenge at Frosted Designs a few weeks ago. You were basically supposed to somehow celebrate life in your project. I interpreted this challenge by scrapping a layout about one of my passions in life. I LOVE to food. I love to cook, eat and learn about food. It is something that I spend a lot of time reading about, thinking about and dreaming about.

And Finally This layout isn't for a challenge at Frosted Designs. It is just something that I thought was WAY too cute to not share. This is a layout about my sister's dog (the big one) and my dog (the little one). They are different in almost every way. Mine is old, hers is young. Mine is high strung, hers is mellow. Besides all their differences they have the best time playing together. My sister took this photo of the two of them after a long day of playing together. We like to call them the "twins"

This Way!

2010-08-02T05:11:00.000-07:00

This week at Frosted Designs the challenge is to use and arrow somewhere on your layout. Head over and check out all the great work by the design team. I didn't get mine done this week in time to have it up on Frosted Designs, but I did make sure to get it done so I can still participate in the fun challenge. Arrows are a great way to give direction to a project or highlight a certain aspect of the page or a photo. For my I used a photo of my nephew leading us down a path at the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens. He was our guide when we went off on a wooded path and it was just too cute. I thought the arrows would be a great addition to this page because he was pointing the way for us.

Capturing Mountains

2010-07-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

I recently did a swap on a non-crafting related message board that I belong to. The swap was to exchange local goodies to help someone learn about your area of the country. Most people were sending food related items in their swap, but I was having some difficulty coming up with anything for Colorado. We don't really have a local food unless you want to count Rocky Mountain Oysters and I wasn't too keen on sending those to my unsuspecting swap buddy. That would just be kind of cruel. I did end up sending some food from local all natural food companies here in Colorado, but I didn't think that was enough. One thing that Colorado is really know for is our gorgeous mountains. We are VERY proud of our mountains and pretty much think that they make Colorado on of the prettiest places on Earth. So I wanted to send something that represented the mountains, but not just a photo or a rock. What's a girl to do? I finally figured it out... Why not make a set of blank cards with a mountain theme and some natural hand made papers. So I set to work. I had some hand made paper that I have had sitting around for years that I broke out and I also broke out my Bosskut Gazelle to cut out some leaves and mountain shapes. I decided the best thing to do to make the mountains was to create a stencil with my Gazzelle and spray them on with Glimmer Mist. I am really happy with how they turned out and I hope my swap buddy enjoys the cards.

Bursting into Song

2010-07-23T09:31:00.000-07:00

This week at Frosted Designs the challenge is super awesome! Why is it so awesome you ask...well because I am hosting it and I came up with it. So this week I challenge you to use some song lyrics on your layout card or project. Let us know the artist too so we can get to know some great new music.

For my layout I used Sarah Mclachlan's song "Loving You is Easy". The lyrics say "loving you is easy, loving you is wonderous, shout it from the rooftops" I have really been enjoying this song on her new album so when I went to scrap this photo of my husband I felt it was a perfect fit.

Border Punches

2010-07-16T05:17:00.000-07:00

Border Punches are so much fun and add a really great element to a layout, card or project. I only have two right now, but I sure do use the heck out of them. This week at Frosted Designs we are challenging you to bust out those border punches for your project this week. Head on over and see what the rest of the design team has done.

For my layout I used the Fiskars Effervescence punch. This is a layout about my grandma's 80th birthday party. We threw her a surprise party and had a weekend full of celebration with family from out of state. Notice the banner in the picture on the left....I made that for her. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun.

Felt

2010-07-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

This week at Frosted Designs our challenge for you is to use felt on a layout, card or project. I have had tons of felt ribbon laying around and this gave me a great excuse to actually use some! Head over to Frosted Designs to check out the other projects from the design team.

I used the Little Red Scrapbook June Kit for this layout. I am loving this kit. It's colors are just beautiful and all the papers fit so well with my style.

Color Challenge

2010-06-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

This week at Frosted Designs we had another color challenge. So far I have been loving the color combos that they have given us and this week's is no exception. The colors are Turquoise, orange, yellow and green. All great colors that work so well together. Head over to Frosted Designs to check out all the great projects by the rest of the design team.

I had a lot of fun making this layout. Especially the "Springs" portion of the title. I wanted some more turquoise for the title, but didn't really have any turquoise alphas that I liked. Rather than using my cuttlebug or Gazelle I had an idea to use my New Grungepaper by Tim Holtz and Glimmer Mist. Two things that I totally love. I cut the Grungepaper into 1.5"x1" rectangles and then inked them with Broken China Distress Ink. Then I got out an old set of alpha stencils that I have and Sprayed the Graphite Glimmer Mist through the desired letter. I loved the kinda messy quality it gave the letters. I decided to help people actually be able to read it I would outline the letters with a black marker. Ta-Da! Fun and different alphas in the exact colors I wanted. I have to say I was really pleased with how they turned out.

This week I was also doing some scrapping for fun and I really liked how this layout turned out so I thought I would share. I gave my sister a half completed album of layouts of her kids for her birthday in March and told her that if she provided me the pictures I would happily make more layouts for her. I created this layout using the June Little Red Scrapbook Kit. I was so excited when I got the kit last week and I couldn't wait to bust it open. This layout is of my niece and nephew last September. We were in a park that has a stream running through it. They were told to stay out of the water because Colorado streams are no where near warm in September (or at anytime really). Well a few minutes later my niece came running up soaked. She said the dog pulled them in. A likely story. Anyway they ended up playing in the stream. I titled it "Didn't Fall Far" because it reminds me of something my siblings and I would have done when we were kids. The apples didn't fall far from the tree.

Unexpected items

2010-06-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

This week's challenge at Frosted Designs is to use an unexpected item on your project. Check out the really cool projects created by the rest of the design team. I didn't get this one done on time to have it up on the blog with all the other design teams layouts, but at least I can get it up on my site during the week the challenge is running and link it to Frosted Designs' blog, right?

So...What was my unexpected item? The green leaf shaped button on the bottom of the layout was actually a piece of one of my shoes that fell off awhile back. I had kept it forever because I thought it would look great on a scrapbook layout and this challenge finally gave me a great excuse to use it!

Also you should DEFINITELY participate in some of the challenges going on this month at Frosted Designs. There is an amazing prize pack being offered for one lucky participant at the end of June. Really fun stuff. You won't be sorry.

Finally back in the swing of things

2010-06-17T10:06:00.000-07:00

My wonderful husband and I got to go on our first vacation in over two years at the beginning of June. It was such a wonderful trip and we had a great time. I was VERY needed and really helped both of us get away and feel refreshed. We were gone for almost 2 weeks and between getting ready for vacation, being on vacation, and then catching up now that I am back it seems like I haven't had any time for crafting or blogging in a LONG time. I am finally feeling like things are settling down and I have time to devote back to my wonderful blog and blog followers. So how about some catching up! We have had two projects posted over at Frosted Designs these last few weeks that I haven't blogged about. I usually like to make layouts if possible, but May and June are chocked FULL of birthdays, anniversary, holidays, etc. for my family so I made some cards these weeks.

First we were supposed to use at least 5 buttons on a project. Some of my friends just had a new baby and I was sending them a gift so I figured that the "Cute as a Button" theme went well with our challenge for the week. I used the Little Red Scrapbook April kit for the majority of this card.

Second we had to make a project using glitter! I love using little accents of glitter on my projects, but I wanted to really showcase the glitter on this one. I covered the thickers I used on this anniversary card (for my husband) with Icicle Stickles. I love the look it gave them. I also used Waterfall Stickles to add the blue dots along the edges of the orange patterned paper.

Photo Inspiration

2010-05-29T12:18:00.000-07:00

This week at Frosted Designs we have a really cool challenge going on! We are taking this photo and we are using it to inspire a layout card or project.

You can be inspired by the colors, textures, design, etc. of the photo, but use it to make some sort of project. I used the flower design and texture of the flower to inspire my layout. I also made sure to use both green and purple. I had so much fun making this layout.

Shoes!

2010-05-21T09:46:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't love shoes! I know I do. This week at Frosted Design we are supposed to create a project that has a shoe on it in some way. Head over to Frosted Designs and see all the great projects created by the rest of the design team. Now I will be the first to admit that my project was a bit of a stretch, but hey...my Bombshell stamp IS wearing boots and boots are a kind of shoe. I really just wanted an excuse to use my stamp. Love those things.

I used the April Little Red Scrapbook kit for this card.

One of my favorite things and some catching up.

2010-05-17T10:42:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile since I have updated my blog. Bad of me, I know. Life just gets crazy sometimes. I wanted to take some time to update you all with some recent projects that I have created. The first one is a layout I did for scrapbook.com's National Scrapbooking Day All week challenge. For this challenge we were supposed to scrap a picture of a thing. No people or pets allowed. I knew the photo I wanted to use immediately! I realized this Hanukkah that I didn't have ANY photos of the gorgeous menorah that my grandmother gave to me. I made it a point to take a photo of the menorah on the 8th night of Hanukkah so it would be full of candles burning bright. This menorah is very special to me and definitely one of my prized possessions. My grandmother gave it to me when I moved out on my own and she picked one for me that so perfectly fits my style. I think it it beyond beautiful. I used the Basic Grey Ambrosia line for this layout because it is one of my favorite paper lines. I thought mixing favorites was fitting.

Next I wanted to share a layout that I did for Frosted Designs 2 weeks ago! This was for their sanding challenge. We were supposed to use sand paper on our project to distress it. Sanding is a great distressing technique, but I never seem to remember to use it. It was great to be given the excuse to do it. I sanded many of the printed papers and also the main photo's edges. This is a layout about my niece's 6th birthday.

Finally our project this week at Frosted Design is to make a project using the colors of the rainbow. I felt that Basic Grey's Lime Rickey line was perfect for this challenge. It has every color right there in the paper. Plus it is just so bright and fun!

Color Challenge

2010-04-30T08:16:00.000-07:00

We have another great color challenge going on at Frosted Designs. This week we are using another of my favorite color combos. Brown, lime green and aqua! I love those colors together. For this challenge I did another trash the dress layout. I kept a base of brown, pink and green (to go along with my other layouts in the album), but I added aqua accents.

Masking

2010-04-23T06:48:00.000-07:00

This week at Frosted Designs our challenge is to use masking. Head over and check out all the really great projects! For my project I did a layout about my dog, Bruno. One day it was particularly cold out and Bruno was shivering after coming inside. I wrapped him in his blanket and he looked SO pitiful. I used Graphite Glimmer Mist and a Glimmer Screen to mask on the background of this layout. For this layout most of the products are from the March Little Red Scrapbook Kit. It is such a fun and beautiful kit I was so glad to finally break into it.

Tree Project

2010-04-16T06:47:00.000-07:00

This week at Frosted Designs your challenge is to use a tree somewhere in your project. Check out the great examples by the design team! For my project this week I made a card. I used some Stampin' Up stamps for my tree. The trees are embossed with zing metallic embossing powder. I just love the look it gives it!

Also last week at Frosted Designs our challenge was to use the word Dream on your project. I did another layout for my client's Honeymoon album.

Color Challenge and some catch up.

2010-04-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

This week at Frosted Designs we are having a Color Challenge! Head over and see all the great DT work and share a project of your own. Our colors this week are to use hot pink, lime green and black on a project. I personally love this color combo. It is so bright and fun and can really be so sassy! This week I decided to alter a journal. My husband and I found this beautiful handmade journal at Barnes & Noble on clearance after the holidays. The cover is such a beautiful lime green print that I knew I had to use it for this challenge. I added some random Basic Grey scraps that I had and I used a stamp from Bombshell Stamps. The letters are Thickers with Black Diamond Stickles on them. I love how it turned out and can't wait to get writing in it.

Now for the catching up. I have been pretty busy lately working on my clients' album so I have done a lot, but not posted much. Here is one of the many layouts I have done. Last week at Frosted Designs our challenge was to use a transparency on our project. The glittery reeds on this LO are transparencies. I used Cosmo Cricket Paper, random buttons I had, Tuscan Sun Glimmer Mist, and lots of distress inks on this layout.

Finally March is also FULL to the brim with Birthdays in both my and my husband's sides of the family. I was a busy girl making tons of cards. Below are some of my favorite cards from the 10 or so that I made.

Can you tell I am just loving these Bombshell stamps I got! They are so fun and they satisfy my love of pin uppy stuff. Here is another one with Bombshell Stamps.

And finally this last card (along with the top one were made using items in the March Little Red Scrapbook Kit. The kit was so perfect for all the cards I needed to make this past month.

Anyway I hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday weekend. We will be busy celebrating both Passover (for me) and Easter (for my husband) this weekend.

Pesach Sameach and Happy Easter Everyone!

Think Spring!

2010-03-19T09:58:00.000-07:00

This week it was really easy to think about spring as the weather was gorgeous and the sin was shining. It got into the 60's and 70's all week. Today not so much! It is snowing here and so cold! Ahhhh....Gotta love Colorado weather. BUT on the bright side it is spring over at Frosted Designs. This week everyone made projects featuring flowers to get us all in the mood for spring. Head on over and check it out!

I did this layout for my first paying client (woo hoo). It is her from her tropical cruise honeymoon. I thought the bright flowers and colors would be perfect for a tropically themed album.

A sketch and some stamping!

2010-03-15T10:08:00.000-07:00

I am behind on blogging again. First I did my first sketch! OK so I am not too proud of it cause in all honestly it is pretty simple. I just didn't have the program/s or knowledge to create a better one. I plan on learning some more about sketching in the future. Anyway I did this sketch for the wonderful ladies at Frosted Designs.

And here is my take on my own sketch. I had a lot of fun with this lo. I loved this photo of my dad and my husband at the park, but there was a HUGE space between them without much of anything in the middle. I printed the photo in 5x7, trimmed it to 4 inches tall and then ripped about a 2 inch chunk out of the middle and laced up the two sides. I am really happy with the effect. On top of that there is lots of paint and glimmer mist on this lo.

Also this past week at Frosted Designs our challenge was to use stamps to create a background on a project. I used some Scenic Route Stamps to create a birthday card for my brother in law. I also used a Copic marker for all the coloring. I am really starting to fall hard for those markers which is a dangerous prospect since they aren't cheap!

Technique Week!

2010-03-05T08:21:00.000-08:00

This week at Frosted Designs it is all about Techniques. This week we want to see what everyone's favorite techniques are and see how you use them. Head over to Frosted Designs to see all the awesome techniques and projects from the rest of the design team. For my technique I chose to use one that I have been using a lot lately. I went with masking. Masking really is such a fun technique that really gives your projects a great look. I used 2 different types of masking. The first was on the background paper I masked with a Glimmer Screen and Tattered Leather Glimmer Mist. The second type was using a Tim Holtz Mini Mask and Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink to the left of the photo.

Of course this is another one of my trash the dress layout. I had so much fun taking them and I am having just as much fun scrapping them.

Catching Up!

2010-03-01T13:55:00.000-08:00

Yikes I am behind on my blogging. Life got a little hectic and I haven't been able to post in awhile. So enough with the excuses and on to the crafty goodness. My first project was for Frosted Designs 2 Fridays ago! I know that is like forever in blogging time! We were supposed to use plaid and polka dots on the same project. I made this birthday card for my father in law.

The second project I have is a layout I made with an old photo of my husband. He is a writer and this photo reminds me of a photo on the dust jacket of a book. This past Friday at Frosted Designs we were supposed to make a project using our own handwriting. I hand wrote part of the title and the journaling.

How we met

2010-02-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

In keeping with my Book of Me album I decided to do a layout about how I met my husband. I got the idea from a challenge at scrapbook.com. It was a fun layout to do as we have a fun story. Also it was a great excuse to scrap a few random photos of the two of us.

Stars

2010-02-12T09:58:00.000-08:00

This week at Frosted Designs our very fun challenge is to use stars. I LOVE the star shape and this was a great excuse for me to use them as I seem to have been neglecting them lately. What resulted was (in my opinion) a great final layout for my wedding album. Yup, that's right...I am finally DONE. I have even already gone back through and re-done quite a few pages. This time I think I am for real done. Here it is.

I used Basic Grey Black Tie and Crate Paper papers on this LO. As you have probably noticed Blue is a theme for my wedding album. I decided that I didn't want to create an album with a wholly unified look. I am far too random for that, but I did want to create an album that had something tying it all together so blue was the thing I chose. Blue is my favorite color, it was one of our wedding colors (along with brown and orange). and I tend to use it on almost all of my layouts anyway.

Pet Peeves

2010-02-10T10:42:00.000-08:00

Recently I decided I wanted to do a Book of Me album. I thought it would be fun to tell the story of me. For various reasons I decided a list of my pet peeves would be fun to scrap.

I used Crate Paper Die Cut paper, Scenic Route Patterned paper, Thickers, Tim Holtz masks, Peeled Paint Distress Ink, Faded Jeans Distress Ink, Fired Brick Distress Ink, Vintage Photo Distress Stickles, Broken China Distress Stickles, and Rock Candy Distress Stickles for this layout.

Valentine's Day

2010-02-05T09:44:00.000-08:00

This week at Frosted Designs we are making V-day projects with a twist. You can't use pink or red in your project. I decided to go with turquoise, black, purple, and blue on my project.

I sprayed a gray back ground with Chocolate Covered Cherry and Turquoise Glimmer Mist. I used my Signo pen to do all the doodling in white. The heart is Tim Holtz Grungeboard sprayed with Turquoise glimmer mist and then covered in Rock Candy Distress Stickles. The Wings are a Tim Holtz stamp with Zing Pewter embossing powder. The rubons are Glitz Designs. And Finally I added some detail work with Black Diamond and Turquoise Stickles.

Embossing

2010-01-29T08:56:00.000-08:00

This week at Frosted Designs the challenge is to use embossing on your project. It can be either heat or dry embossing it is your choice. Check out their site to see all the great projects from the rest of the design team. I chose to use heat embossing this week. I have been really loving the Zing metallic embossing powders lately. They add such a nice texture and touch to your projects. I used the copper color for this layout. It is a photo of my husband and our dog. I love the photo and those two so much.

I used Basic Grey Marrakech papers, Broken China Distress Ink, a Making Memories journaling block, Tim Holtz stamps, Thickers, Graphite Glimmer Mist, Turquoise Glimmer Mist, and Broken China Distress Stickles for this layout. The layout came together pretty quickly. I love the look of negative space layouts, but I seem to rarely do them. I really wanted to keep this one simple, but pretty and really show off the photo.

It's all about chipboard

2010-01-22T09:50:00.000-08:00

Chipboard is one of my favorite ways to add dimension to a project. I love how it give more texture to any card or layout you are working on. This week at Frosted Designs our challenge was to use chipboard on your project. I created this layout.

I used chipboard Thickers that are covered in glitter for the title. This layout is one of my last wedding layouts that I will be doing (it makes me sad to think that the album is almost done). I chose the colors to match our wedding colors which were brown, turquoise and orange. I used Bazzil Bling cardstock, Glitz Designs stamps, Basic Grey Black Tie paper, a Tim Holtz mask, Brushed Corduroy Distress ink, Broken China Distress Ink, Turquoise Glimmer Mist, Tattered Leather Glimmer Mist, Waterfall Stickles, Crystal Stickles and my Cuttlebug to make this layout. I hand folded the flowers using the dahlia fold method from circles I cut with my cuttlebug.

Eyelets

2010-01-19T10:18:00.000-08:00

So I am a little late again this week, but this week at Frosted Designs our challenge was to use eyelets on a project. I rarely use eyelets so this was a challenge for me. I like eyelets, but my dog is TERRIFIED of my eyelet setter. He won't stay in the house if I am using it and most of the time I just don't want to torture the poor little guy! This week I made him brave the noise and made the following two cards.

This first one I had so much fun making! I actually designed the white distressed paper. It started out as white cardstock. It was SUPER fun and check back later for a tutorial on how to do it. I used plain cardstock for all the layers and I just added lots of inking, stamping and misting. I used Stampin' up stamps, Prima stamps, Black Soot Distress Ink, Broken China Distress Ink, Tim Holtz Weathered Wood Distress Embossing Powder, Turquoise Glimmer Mist and Graphite Glimmer Mist. Of course don't forget the eyelets! They make a great anchor for the corners of the focal point on the card.

Next was this card I just had TONS of fun with. I have been wanting to really break out of my comfort zone and try some new styles and I think I did a little with this card.

I used a Tim Holtz stamp, woodless artist colored pencils, eyelets, a Basic Grey Chipboard frame, Black Soot Distress Ink, Smooch Pool Ink, a Tim Holtz Mask, Tim Holtz Black Soot Crackle paint, Black Diamond Stickles, and Turquoise Stickles.

A few Random Projects

2010-01-13T09:58:00.000-08:00

I just felt like blogging today so here are a few random projects that I have completed recently. Ever since the holiday season ended I have finally had some time to scrapbook again and I am SO glad for it.

This layout is from a camping trip I took with my husband this past August. It was a beautiful campground right on a huge lake.

I love the photo and wanted to really make a pretty page for it. I used a January 2010 pagemap sketch for this layout. I used Scenic Route paper, Thickers, Black Soot Distress ink, Faded Jeans Distress Ink, and a Tim Holtz Mask for this layout.

The past few months have been pretty big on goals for me. I have really been thinking about what I want to do with my life and how I want to live it. I have also been playing with the idea of doing a Book of Me album to tell future generations a little more about me. I though a great way to start this was to create something of a bucket list or a list of goals I would like to achieve.

I used Turquoise and Graphte Glimmer Mist, Making Memories papers, lots of random buttons, and Thickers on this layout.

Finally this layout is about the Great American Beer Fest that is held in Denver every year. There are over 2,000 beers to be tasted there. A friend of ours flew out from Texas and we went. It was a lot of fun and we tasted a lot of really good beers (and some not so good ones). We really had a blast and I wanted to make a layout that represented that.

For this layout I used Basic Grey's Mellow line, Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink, a Tim Holtz Mini Mask, and Thickers.

Using Ink

2010-01-08T10:01:00.000-08:00

This week on Frosted Design we challenge you all to use ink on your projects. Get creative! You can use any type of ink. You can stamp images, ink edges, distress with ink, whatever strikes your fancy! This week I made two projects because I LOVE inking. I use it on almost every project that I do. My first project is a thank you card.

With all the gifts we have gotten this season I figured I better get to work with some cards. I inked the black background with White Colorbok Ink, the two printed papers with Black Soot Distress Ink and I stamped the "thank you" and the bird cage in Black Soot Distress Ink as well. Then I added some Crystal Stickles and Ta-Da! Simple yet pretty thank you card.

My second project is a layout I did about my dog. One day my husband was in our driveway washing his car and Bruno kept watching him out the window. It was just too cute!

I used the Basic Grey Granola line for this layout. I did a lot of distressing to the papers and inked the edges using Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink and Faded Jean Distress Ink.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T17:44:00.000-08:00

This post is a few days late, but better late then never right? This week on Frosted Design we are celebrating the New Year with some New Year's Themed projects. My first project is a New Year's card that I made for my best friend.

I mostly used some paper scraps that I had for this LO. It isn't overtly New Year'sy on the outside, but on the inside it says "My wishes for you in the New Year". I used a lot of distressing and inking on this card. I also used my new cuttlebug embossing folder and then hand cut around it for the flourishy box.

My second project is about one of my goals for 2010. For the last three years I have been working on losing weight and getting healthy. I am finally down 55 pounds with only 35 to go. I would really like to finish my journey this year and I think it is doable if I can stay focused. Here is to layout I created about it.

All the papers used on this LO are Basic Grey Ambrosia. I also used a Tim Holtz mask, and plenty of distress inks Black Soot and Fired Brick.

Faves of 2009

2009-12-31T09:54:00.000-08:00

Now that 2009 is drawing to a close I wanted to share some of my favorite projects that I have done this year. Some have been on my blog before and others haven't. Here they are in no particular order.

This is a LO of me with my fur baby. I made a mini album on the lo and I just loved how the blocking turned out.

This was the first layout I did for my Grandma's gift album. I love how it turned out and it really set the tone for the rest of the album.

This is possibly my favorite wedding page I have done. I love the grungeboard flourish with the fabric covering it.

I am pretty sure this is my favorite layout ever (of mine at least). Something clicked when I was making it and it just turned out right.

My first altered box and I love it.

This is my favorite card I have ever made.

My best friend playing piano at my wedding. I really think this layout does him justice. I wanted to make it special because the gift he gave us by playing so beautifully was just so special to us.

I hope you all have a safe and happy new year.

Blog Giveaway at Wild West Scrap Divas Blog

2009-12-30T07:11:00.000-08:00

Go check out the awesome Wild West Scrap Divas Blog to enter for a chance to win some awesome Tim Holtz blog candy! Usually I don't post other blog giveaways on mine, but it is Tim Holtz stuff! Gotta spread the word of Holtz.

The end of the Hanukkah Album

2009-12-23T09:22:00.000-08:00

My grandmother's Hanukkah album is finally finished and in her hands. I gave it to about a week ago and she loved it. Her eyes got misty when she saw it. It was completely worth all the effort it took to make it. I told her that since I didn't have many photos that she could give me as many more as she wanted and I would be happy to scrap them for her and add them to her album. I even left some space in the album for more layouts. Anyway here are the final 2 layouts that I did.

This one is a photo of my great grand parents at one of their anniversaries. It must have been a special one since there was the beautiful cake. My granmother, all her siblings, and their spouses are in the photo as well. I used the Basic Grey Porcelain line for this layout. I have been saving this paper for something special for awhile now. It is so soft and pretty I thought it would be perfect for an anniversary layout.

This second layout is a photo of my grandmother's family when she was about 2 or 3 years old. I used the September Scarlet Lime kit for this page. I had been saving the beautiful rose, stamped tag, and different lace and ribbons for this layout. I really wanted to create a very layered effect. I am not sure I pulled it off 100% though. I still feel something is missing from it.

Holiday Projects

2009-12-11T09:31:00.000-08:00

I was really excited to come up with some projects this week at Frosted Designs. Our challenge this week is to come up with a Holiday project for the December Holidays. Since we have been in dire need of holiday decorations at our house this year I decided to make a Happy Holidays banner for my first project. I decided on Happy Holidays because we are a blended family and we celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas along with the New Years holiday. Keeping with that I kept the colors more wintery than holiday specific.

My Bosskut Gazelle was integral to this project. I used it to cut out the snowflake, alphas, bows, smaller snowflakes, and ornaments. Once I got everything cut out I set to work assembling each letter block. Each letter is mounted on a 4x4 piece of cardstock. Then the large snowflake sits on top of that and finally comes the letter. On the large snowflakes I used a decorative flourish stamp to create swirls all over the snowflake. After I used this technique on the altered box I made for the Hanukkah swap I was in I just can't stop. It looks so good! Each snowflake I tried to stamp in a little different pattern so that each one was individual like real snowflakes. Then I inked the edges of the letters lightly with black soot Distress ink and on the tops of the letters I used icicle Stickles to create an icicle effect on the letters (I got the idea from Tim Holtz's 12 tags of Christmas).Finally I added some little die cuts that I cut using my Bosskut, some more Stickles, and some bling. I attached the letters using two different white ribbon I had and some brads. I am really happy with how it turned out and it looks great in our living room. Here is a close up of some of the letters.

My second project this week is an altered canvas that I made. Homemade is a theme for our Christmas gifts this year. With the tough times and a recent budget that my husband and I put ourselves on we wanted to make every dollar we spent really count this year for the holidays. SO we went to Hobbly Lobby and bought a few canvases with 40% off coupons and voila! You have $5 gifts that are awesome! This canvas is for my step grandmother-in law. She loves vintage and handmade crafts.

Fist I took the canvas and used Tim Holtz red pepper and gold alcohol inks for the backgrounds. I used the December Swirlydoos kit for the papers, shaped template and the poinsettia design. I distressed and inked the paper using vintage photo Distress ink. Then I stamped and embossed the flourishes using a Tim Holtz stamp and a Zing embossing powders with a glitter and metallic finish. Then I used the bracket doodling template that was included in the kit to make the half bracket and the little sun ray design. I stenciled the words. For the poinsettia chipboard I used the red pepper alcohol ink for the flower portion and the covered the leaves in green Stickles. Finally I added some dimensional gift stickers and I mixed perfect pearls silver and gold powders with water and flicked them onto the canvas for a bit of a sparkly snow effect. Here is another view of the project.

Scalloped project

2009-12-10T14:31:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it, but it has taken me nearly a week to get this up! This past week our challenge for the week over at Frosted Designs is to create a project with scallops on it. Here is my take.

These are photos of my husband and I playing at the park. We went to an AWESOME new park for my niece's 6th birthday. I used some Scenic Route papers and Bazzill shaped cardstock for the papers. I also used a healthy dose of Black Soot Distress ink on this. Would a layout be mine without inking on it? Of course not. I used my Cuttlebug to cut out the alphas.

Visit Frosted Designs tomorrow to see our new weekly challenge and check me out here to see my take on it. I promise to get it posted and I am really excited about this one!

Trash the Dress (TTD)

2009-12-03T07:47:00.000-08:00

On thing that I was so excited to do (and most people thought I was crazy for) was to trash my wedding dress. It has become a new trend in for brides to trash their dresses after the wedding. You go out with a photographer to a location and take interesting and fun photos of you in your dress. They can be at the beach, in the woods, at a junk yard, in an urban setting. Pretty much anywhere.

This is where most people ask "Why in the world would you want to trash a dress you spent so much money on?" Well I will help allay some fears by saying that most people get their dress wet or a little dirty, but there is no permanent damage. It usually cleans up nicely. My dress got wet, muddy, and grass stained, but once I sprayed it down with a hose almost all of it came off. It still needs to be professionally cleaned but it looks pretty good still. So why did I do trash the dress photos? I think they are amazing photos. They are so fun and edgy and different. I am a sucker for cool photography. Plus I am never going to wear the dress again so why not!

After months of sitting on my photos I have slowly started working on the layouts. So far I have three done (one I already posted on here, but I will post it again) and I have about 14 more to go. I am doing a 8x8 album of just my TTD photos. I decided to keep a semi-cohesive look through the entire album (something I rarely do) and I am using the paper line Sultry by Basic Grey. It is feminine and pretty and also slightly edgy and fun too. Plus the name is PERFECT for TTD photos.

This is the first layout I did for the album. I handmade the flowers using a folding technique. I started with white circles inked one side orange and the other pink, then I embossed them in my cuttlebug and inked the raised areas with bronze metallic ink. Then came all the folding! These bugger take forever, but they are well worth it. The squares along the top are just 1 inch cut from different patterned papers and the distressed and inked. The final touch was stamping layered flourishes around the border of the photo. I am standing in the middle of a stream in Colorado in MAY which means it is COLD!!! Nothing like freezing your butt off for some great photos.

This was my second layout. I already posted it because I did it as design team work for Frosted Designs. It was our first challenge to have ink or chalk on every piece of paper on the layout. The design of this is fairly simple. I used multiple staggered mats and then added some cut out flowers from pattered paper on pop dots. Finally I finished it all off with a Prima Say it in Crystals Bling flourish that I cut into three pieces and stamped the corners using a Tim Holtz stamp. This is one of my favorite photos. It is actually a candid shot. I wasn't posing. I was just trying to figure out how the heck to get my dress over the branch without ripping it.

My final layout that I have complete so far was for a Scrap your Avatar Challenge on scrapbook.com. This photo happened to be my avatar so it gave me a good excuse to scrap it. It is hard to see, but I started out with the background by using a glimmer screen and tattered leather and graphite glimmer mist. It gave a nice graininess to the background. Then I just started layering papers and playing around. It is pretty typical of my scrapping style. It has staggered mats, bling and things hand cut from printed paper. After writing this I am starting to feel that maybe my style needs a little bit of a shakeup to get me out of my rut. What do you think?

Crazy life

2009-12-02T10:25:00.001-08:00

Life has been pretty crazy lately. I have been super busy at work and home lately. I have a few blog posts that I have been wanting to get up, but just haven't had the time. I will get a new one up some time later this week. Friday at the latest!

More from the gift album

2009-11-29T11:54:00.000-08:00

I have been plugging away at my grandma's Hanukkah gift album. I have a few more completed pages that I wanted to share. I still have three more pages to go, but I am well on my way to finishing them. The first is of a photo of my grandmother's family during a Seder dinner. My grandfather is at the dinner as well. This occurred while they were dating so when my grandma was 17 or 18 years old. I used the September Scarlet Lime kit for this layout. I used a lot of Tim Holtz Black Soot Distress ink for inking, stamping and distressing on this layout.

The second layout that I have to share is a photo of my grandma as a little girl with her siblings. The photo was taken when she was probably 2 or 3 years old. They are either at the beach or at a park on a summer day and they are posed with several puppies. This layout I did for the ABC (UVW) challenge on scrapbook.com. The letters were Uneven - you had to use an uneven number of photos, layers of paper, embellishments, etc. I used 9 layers of paper, 1 photo, I embossed in 3 places and I used Stickles in 5 places Vanilla - you had to use the color vanilla on the layout. I used Zing Vanilla embossing powder on the layout. Warm- the photo had to be of warm weather or sometime when it was warm.

Same Shape in Varying Sizes.

2009-11-27T12:33:00.000-08:00

Phew it has been awhile since I blogged. It has been kind of a crazy couple of weeks and I just didn't have the time or the motivation to do much crafting. Things thankfully are starting to settle down and I am and getting back into the groove.

This week at Frosted Designs we had a really fun challenge. You are supposed to use the same shape in varying sizes on a layout, card or other project. I decided to use to make a layout and I used a scalloped circle in three sizes as the background of my layout.

I used my Bosskut Gazelle to cut the circles. I just made a circle and then used the scissor edge tool in funtime to add the scallops. I started with the largest circle first and after each cut I made it a little smaller. For the papers I used a lot of Basic Grey. The background paper, the orange circle and all the paper matting the photo are Basic Grey papers. The brown paper is just cardstock that I inked with white and bronze inks and then added some bling . For the title I used two different types of Thickers. The word wedding was originally white. I used turquoise and tattered leather Glimmer Mist to add some color to it. Finally the butterflies are Tim Holtz Grungeboard from the Nature collection. I inked them with broken china distress ink and then I embossed them with pewter Zing Metallic embossing powder and then added some bling.

Paper Tearing

2009-11-20T08:54:00.000-08:00

This week at Frosted Design the challenge is paper tearing. This is one of my favorite techniques. It is so versatile and can be used on so many different styles of projects. Usually I use paper tearing on my more distressed projects, but there is plenty of room for it on brighter and cuter projects as well. I made two projects this week. The first is another layout for my grandmother's gift album for Halloween. This is a photo of her with her sister. I believe it was taken at my dad's cousin's wedding reception, but I am not 100% sure.

This layout I wanted a more vintage look so I went pretty heavy on the distressing. I also used a lot of rub-ons on this layout. They are layered almost everywhere! Most of the items on this layout were from the October Mosh Posh kit. A technique that I tried on this layout and I am really happy with is instead of only inking the background I took black diamond Stickles and put it on the layout in various places and then I rubbed it in with a paper towel. It gives it a gritty, but sparkly effect.

My second project was to make place cards for my nieces and nephews for Thanksgiving. My nieces and nephews absolutely love when I make things for them. They get so excited to have things with their own names on them.

I got the papers and the chipboard pumpkins from the November Mosh Posh kit. I stamped and hand cut out the leaves and acorns for the cluster at the top.

Brown Orange and Teal

2009-11-19T08:22:00.000-08:00

I am pretty behind with this post, but awhile back at Frosted Designs we were tasked with making a project in brown, orange and teal ONLY! I love that color combination so I was really excited to work on this challenge. Well at least I was until I realized that while I had tons of paper with those colors, I didn't have any with ONLY those colors. That was when I had a mini panic attack for like a minute. Once it was over I breathed deeply and realized "Hey I can make my own patterned paper out of cardstock!" My first project was a layout.

I found a few different sheets of card stock in my desired colors and got out my stamps and ink pads. I used stamps on several of the papers and on a few I broke out my Cuttlebug and the embossing folders and embossed a few and then inked the raised portions of the paper. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed getting to play around and create my own design. Once I was done I moved on to a card.

Once again I used plain cardstock for all of this and added stamping. The blue and brown swirly paper actually started as white cardstock. I saturated it in turquoise Glimmer Mist and then put down a glimmer screen and layered on tattered leather Glimmer Mist. I really love the effect it gave.

Sketchy fun!

2009-11-17T13:19:00.000-08:00

Over at Frosted Design we try to give you a little bit of inspiration every month in the form of a sketch. This month Meg, one of the site creators and moderators, came up with this awesome sketch.

She was going for a quilted look on the background which I totally love! I was really excited about this sketch and I had a lot of fun creating a layout to go with it.

As usual my layout tend to go in a slightly different direction then when I start them. I was planning on the blocking of the background, but I wanted to use lacing on this without actually lacing all the blocks together (that would just have taken WAY too much time). So I got the idea to make the background look like a quilt that was in need of a little repair and that had been haphazardly reconnected in places. The rest of the layout took on a life of its own after that. I used Basic Grey Marrakech and lots of Distress ink for this layout. The alpha stickers are Thickers as is the jouranling spot.

Altering madness

2009-11-16T12:20:00.000-08:00

Recently I have had the chance to participate in a really fun and huge Hanukkah swap at scrapbook.com
(Hopefully my swap buddy doesn't read my blog) It has been so fun and thinking of 8 gifts to make for my buddy has really pushed me outside of my comfort zone when it comes to scrapping. Altering has always been something I have wanted to try, but hadn't gotten around to yet. I had altered a few canvases before, but that was the extent of it. Plus I had never gotten the chance to use Mod Podge and I was dying to try it out.

My first use of it was on an altered canvas. I started out painting the background with Star of David Masks. Then I added a light layer of silver paint over that to give it a misty look. Then I used my cuttlebug to make a ton of die cuts. Archiver's has an awesome set of Hanukkah Quickutz dies. They are exclusively sold by Archiver's so I felt REALLY lucky that I have one near me to get it I adhered the die cuts using my ATG adhesive gun and then added several layers of Mod Podge. I think it turned out really fun and festive.

My next project I was super excited to try, but so afraid to start! I wanted to create an altered box, because my buddy said that she loves boxes and little storage containers. I went to Hobby Lobby and found this really pretty wooden box for only $4! Then I added a few pieces of glittery patterned paper that I found at Archiver's any yet again my Hanukkah die cuts. First I painted the box white using some house paint we had. Then I used silver Tim Holtz alcohol ink to add some silver stripes and I inked the metal hinges and hardware with silver to give them a bit of a distressed feel to them.

My first thought was to use a grid or blocks for the top of the box. For the stars I cut them out using silver cardstock. Then I look a pretty swirly decorative stamp (any will do) and stamped over the die cut so it was covered in bits of swirls. THEN I covered those in crystal and black diamond Stickles. I am really happy with the result. After all of that I went with an alternating blue and black design on the sides and on the front I added a few bling circles.

All in all I am very pleased with how this turned out. My husband even asked me to make one for him.

Gift Album

2009-11-13T03:48:00.000-08:00

For Hanukkah I am making a gift album for my grandmother. I received the scanned images of quite a few photos from the first half of my grandmother's life when her sister passed away. I have been wanting to make her an album so I though now would be the perfect time.

My goal for this album is to have a piece of art. I want the album to be very intricate and very vintage. I don't know most of the dates or the stories behind many of the photos so I am going to give my grandmother journaling cards to write about the photos and then I will adhere those to the backs of the layouts. I don't want to lose the stories behind all these photos.

When I got the September Scarlet Lime kit I immediately got the inspiration to make the album. The kit is full of rich colors, vintage papers and wonderful accents. I ordered the photos and I have started my work. So far I only have two of the nine layouts that I plan to make done.

This first page started with a photo of my grandmother (left), her mother (center), and her sister. I found the photo so striking and stylish that I really wanted to create a layout to match it. I started with the black and red papers and built on it from there. I used a lot of layering with my papers, embellishments and stamps. Finally I pulled out the Stickles to cover the title alphas and the add accents to the layout. I am very happy with how my first layout turned out and I think my grandmother will really like it.

The second page I completed has a photo of my grandmother with her immediate family. This photo was taken when she was around 12 or 13. My original intention for the album was to use the same colors through out the album, but for some reason when doing this page I kept gravitating to the pinks, grays and browns or the Basic Grey infuse line. I hand cut the flowers from on of the patterned papers from that line. For the background I used Tim Holtz masks, Black soot distress inks, and I layered a ton of older rub-ons that I had. Then came the bling. I did this layout for the bling challenge over at Frosted Designs. I added tons of Prima Say It In Crystals bling and a lot of Stickling over the details on the layout. It is hard to see all the glitter in the photo, but in real life this layout really shines.

Scrap Pack

2009-11-01T15:00:00.000-08:00

Whenever the challenge is held I like to join the Scrap Pack challenge on scrapbook.com. It is a really fun challenge that really pushes your creativity. You get a pack of items in the mail from the hostess and you have to use all of the items on a layout. The items in the pack are both traditional and non-traditional scrapbooking items. Once you get the pack you can use all the paper, ink, or paint that you want, but you can't add any additional embellishments that you don't make out of paper.

This layout was for the October 2009 Scrap Pack challenge. I am happy to say that this one actually one the challenge this month. I was very excited about that. In October our kit consisted of:

A square of brown felt.
A square of burlap.
A 12 inch piece of green ribbon.
A mini paper bag.
Twelve blue tickets.
A piece of twine.
Four wooden beads (two large and two small).
And three buttons in three sizes.

When I first got the kit I immediately knew that I would use the Periphery line from Basic Grey. They blues, browns and greens in the pack were perfect for that line. I had to put on my thinking cap for the rest.

Using Fabric

2009-10-09T06:06:00.000-07:00

This layout was for another Frosted Design challenge. It is our week three challenge. We were supposed to use fabric somewhere on a layout, card or other project. Since I didn't have any spare fabric laying around the house I headed out to Hobby Lobby to scope out their fabric remnants. I found this fabric and I knew it was perfect to go with some patterned paper that I bought for my wedding album. I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to use it yet, but I knew that was the fabric.

I finally decided to try to attach the fabric to a Tim Holtz Grunge Board flourish. I had just bough some Mod Podge and figured I would give it a whirl. First I painted the flourish white since the fabric is a little sheer. I just laid the fabric over the flourish and applied a layer of Mod Podge. Next time I would probably adhere the fabric in some way before putting on a layer of Mod Podge, but it still turned out ok. After the first layer dried I trimmed off some of the excess fabric and then added another coat of Mod Podge. Once that was dry used my craft knife to cut all the excess fabric from the edges. It was kind of a time consuming process, but in the end I think it was very worth it. I am definitely going to be using the technique again.

First Frosted Design Project

2009-10-09T05:57:00.000-07:00

Man has it been awhile since I blogged! Oops. I guess it is a good thing that I couldn't sleep this morning so now I have some time to catch up. Since I haven't posted anything new since starting my projects for Frosted Design I wanted to share some of the things I have made.

Our first week's challenge was to chalk or ink everything we did. I actually did two very different layouts for this challenge. I had a lot of fun with it. I normally don't have a problem inking. The first layout I did was one of Bruno
.

I inked most of the papers in black to really make them pop since the rest of the papers were so bright. I used Basic Grey Lemonade for this layout.

The second layout is for my trash the dress. I used Basic Grey Sultry for this layout. I am using that line for my whole Trash the Dress album that I am making.

Date Night

2009-09-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

I have been scrapping away this September. I joined so many challenges this month that I have been busy. Thankfully I have also been pretty inspired this month as well so it has been a lot of fun and hasn't felt like an obligation at all. This layout has probably been my favorite that I have scrapped this month and possibly ever. The photos are from a very recent date night that my husband and I went on. We went to one of our favorite restaurants and then to a movie. On the way to the movie we saw a photo booth and I insisted we stop to get our photos taken to capture the evening.

This was for the ABC challenge on scrapbook.com. This round's letters were KLM. K was for know how- What is something that you know feel is your know how is scrapping? What do you do often? For my know how I chose cutting elements out of patterned paper by hand. I am always cutting out certain design elements from paterned paper. I hand cut the butterflies out of paper from the Basic Grey Ambrosia line.

L was leaf. There had to be at least one leaf in the LO. There is a leaf sticking out the bottom of the flower. This posed a bit of a problem as I could only find leaves that were didn't match my layout in my stash. After a hefty dose of black ink I felt my brown leaf was acceptable for my layout.

M was for masking. I love masking so this was an easy step for me. The whole design of the layout actually started with the Tim Holtz Flourish mask. I wanted it to be a main part of the design and I wanted to layout to follow it and mimic it with a sense of whimsy that I felt it provided. Once I was almost done with the layout I had the idea to mask the title as well. It is kinda hard to read, but that was my intention. I wanted it to kinda fade into the layout and not be too blatant or obvious.

The rest of the patterned paper and the large flourish are also from the Basic Grey Ambrosia line. I finished it off with a hint of bling and plenty of Tim Holtz Black Soot Distress Ink.

More exciting news

2009-09-19T14:33:00.000-07:00

I subscribe to the Mosh Posh Monthly kit club and yesterday one of their wonderful design team members spotted my layout "Big DVD" in the scrapbook.com gallery and asked if they could post it on their blog. Of course I was very flattered and agreed. This has been a very exciting week for me. Check it out here.

Design Team

2009-09-18T12:42:00.001-07:00

I am super excited to announce that this week I found out I will be designing for an awesome new blog called Frosted Designs. There will be all sorts of fun activities and great inspiration. Be sure to check it out! This is my first design team position and I am really excited about it. I can't wait get to work on some projects. Thanks to Jamie and Meg for their confidence in me!

2009-08-20T17:47:00.000-07:00

For our wedding my best friend Tyler played the piano during the ceremony. It was so wonderful to have live music. He played so beautifully I wanted to create a LO that honored that. I used both Basic Grey June Bug and Basic Grey Marrakech for this layout. I cut out the border strip on the left side from some of the June Bug paper and then wrapped a piece of orange ribbon around the cutout. This gave it a little more dimension. I used more orange fiber around the photo and then as a bow on the top of the hidden journaling card.

I stamped under the matting for the photo to give a little more interest to the background cardstock. I triple matted the photo with each layer going in a different direction. I didn't want to hide to much of the papers so I felt this was a good way to show them off a little more

I added Basic Grey June Bug Glazed brads along the side of the middle matt for a little extra added dimension. Finally my favorite part of the lo is the title. I used Tim Holtz grunge board alphas from the nature pack. I inked them with a layer or Tim Holtz Broken China Distress Ink and then on the bottom half I inked another light layer of Tim Holtz Worn Lipstick Distress Ink. It gave the letters a very nice two tone look.

2009-07-30T12:46:00.000-07:00

I had a lot of photos of Bruno that I wanted to scrap, but I didn't want to do a ton of layouts that were similar so I got the idea to make a mini album on a layout. I chose six of my favorite photos of the two of us for the layout. I used my absolute favorite for the cover and then I created a mini album with the rest. To make the mini album I cut card stock to mat all the photos. I left an extra half an inch on the side of the mat to bind the mini album. I used the Martha Stewart Bone Folder to score along the spine so the mini album would open easily. Then I covered the spine in ribbon and used 4 brads to hold the mini album together. All in all I am happy with the effect.

The scalloped border on this layout was stitched using a Bazzill Stitching border template. I did my best to make a square and line up the template so that it met end to end. Then I poked the holes and stitched using blue thread so the color would stand out. It took awhile but it was very worth it. The "stitching" between the squares of the quilt are actually drawn on with black pen. Next time I do that I will draw them on before I adhere everything else over the squares. It made it a little tricky.

I cut the large flourish using my Bosskut Gazelle. Then I added dots of stickles all over it to make is glimmer.

All the supplies for this layout (except the flourish, brads, and stickles) were from the July Mosh Posh kit.

2009-07-21T06:04:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of my husband and during the first dance at our wedding. I got the title from the title of the song we danced to. We danced to "Rose of my Heart" by Johnny Cash. This has always been a special song for us so I wanted this page to be very special.

This layout was done for 2 different challenges on scrapbook.com . The first was a scraplift challenge. You have to scraplift a layout from the person who signs up in front of you. I drew the inspiration for this layout from 2 layouts by Just4myboys. The originals can be seen here and here. The originals were so beautiful that I really wanted to do them justice. I really though hard about what papers to use and what embellishments. I actually bought the roses just for this LO.

The second challenge was the weekly ABC challenge. This week's letters are NOP. N = Noun. There had to be a noun in the title. O = Opposite. The main colors had to be opposite colors on the color wheel. P = Punch. We had to use a punch somewhere on the layout. I had already planned to colors and the title of this when I saw the letters for this week. It just worked out that I was able to use the Fiskars effervesence border punch on one of the strips of paper.

Our wedding colors were bright blue, brown and bright orange. The colors of the Basic Grey Ambrosia line and the Marrakech line were the perfect shades to go with the colors of our wedding.

To cut out the flourishes and the title I used my Bosskut Gazelle. The chipboard flower in the corner are from the Basic Grey Marrakech line. The glazed brads are from the Basic Grey Ambrosia line. The roses are Prima. It is hard to tell in the photo,but I used Crystal Stickles on he tips of the flower petals and to accent the design of the orange and grey paper.

The Apartment

2009-06-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

Here is one of my new pages that I did this week. This came together really quickly too. It is a page about a horrible apartment that we lived in when we were first married. It was so therapuetic to get all those angry feeling out in the journaling. I wanted the page to be very messy and distressed to reflect the state of the apartment. I used Basic Grey's Granola collection for the pp. I cut the leafy things and the ripped circles from pp in that line. Ialso used a lot of Tim Holtz's distress inks to to ink the papers. The journaling was on white cardstock and I used Vintage Photo ink to make it look old and worn. I also inked and tore the backgound papers and did some lacing.

This was a really fun layout to do and I am please with the result. I think it conveys my feeling about the apartment VERY clearly.