Love these butterflies!

Amy, one of the beautiful and talented design team members over at Simply Scrapping Crafts, designs her own digital stamp images. She is soon going to have them available for sale, but in the meantime, she has so graciously allowed the other DT members to use them. Wellll, she has this butterfly that just SPOKE to me when I first saw it, and I just couldn't resist getting creative with it. I printed it in two sizes, and flipped the image on the smaller version. I colored them with colored pencils and blended the colors with gamsol. The papers on this card are all Basic Grey Kioshi.

I also made a card for the Simply Scrapping Paper Scraps May Week 3 challenge - the challenge was to use narrow strips of paper to make a card or layout inspired by a colorful photo of a maypole.



Thanks for stopping by!!!

Book of Me

Over at Simply Scrapping Crafts (see the blinky in my left margin) we just started a new Book of Me group, and our first assignment was to make a title page. This is what I came up with.



I used a sketch that was for the May Week 2 Sketchy Saturdays challenge, and just turned it on its side so that it would fit what I needed. All of the papers are Webster's Pages Life's Portrait collection. The trims, flowers, and other embellishments are a variety of things from my stash. The two paper roses are made from a tutorial that Brianna, another of the design team ladies over at Simply Scrapping, provided.

Thanks for coming by to look, and we would love to have you join us over at Simply Scrapping Crafts!

Miscellaneous Creations

I spent last weekend working on some random scrapping projects and just trying to get my scrapping mojo back in general.

This first layout is of my little nephew Michael, who is an absolute heart stealer! I used some BoBunny papers that I had in my stash, along with some various embellishments. I used a sketch from Simply Scrapping Crafts as the inspiration for the design.



This layout is inspired by Ingrid Gooyer, who does a lot of designs with a plain white background. She was the guest designer for My Creative Scrapbook kit club in April, and I fell in love with her style. The papers used in this layout are Basic Grey Kioshi and Webster's Pages Life's Portrait. The photo is of my two older sisters, taken some time within the last year - the original background of the photo is wood paneling (yes, my mom is still living back in the 70's), so it looks a ton better with the background cut out of it.



Thanks for coming by to look!

Simply Scrapping Crafts NSD Online Crop

In honor of National Scrapbooking Day, we had an online crop over at Simply Scrapping Crafts. We started on Friday, April 30th, and ended late on Sunday evening. There were loads of games and challenges and tutorials, with prizes and loads of fun and camaraderie!

The first challenge I tackled involved making a particular type of flower, and it was hosted by Bev. I made this card for my mom to send her for Mother's Day!



Then I tackled another of Bev's challenges, which was to use blocks of scrap papers to make a card of layout, so I made another card.



Then I was on a roll, so I decided to try Patricia's blind challenge. She gave us a "recipe" and some basic measurements and directions, and if you followed her directions, you came out with something like the following. This is my youngest nephew, Isaac - he's such a cutie pie!



Then there was a challenge to make a toilet paper roll brag book, hosted by Ginger, so since I happened to have some toilet paper rolls that I had been saving for just such a project, I made the following:



Then I decided to try the paper scraps challenge, hosted by my dear Amy. I used some of the scraps from the toilet paper roll brag book to make this:



And last but not least, I made a little tag album for Rona's challenge. Her example was really unique, but I just went for the easy route. I had all of these K&Co Blue Awning products, which are from my all time favorite line, so I decided to put something together with pictures of my cat, Boo Kitty, and my little dog Brandy who died almost two years ago, but who I still miss!



After all that I was too pooped to pop! I like to stand up when I scrap, because I move around a lot looking for particular things that I want to use, so after spending large portions of two days on my feet, I was ready to go back to work on Monday and recuperate (not really, but you know what I mean).

My daughter also joined me for the weekend. She was home from medical school for a few days, so she got into the scrapping groove also. She made the following as a Mother's Day gift for me:



It was a wonderful time for everyone, and we have a fabulous group of ladies over at Simply Scrapping who enjoy a good time, good friendship, and making beautiful things out of paper and "stuff". Please come over and join us anytime, and thanks for looking!

Webster's Pages Card and Layout

Simply Scrapping has a challenge going on in their Embellish It group. Brianna put together a nice "recipe" for what the layout needed to have, and I was intrigued, so I played along. I had these gorgeous Webster's Pages papers and some various trims and other embellishments, so I put this together.



The photo is of a garden angel on my mom's front porch - I thought it looked nice with these papers. I used some other odds and ends elements on this layout, including that piece of gold ribbon that came wrapped around a package I got for Christmas.

I also decided to make a card, and it ended up being a card for my sister. I am going to add it to her album I am still finishing, the one in the previous post with the 3D photos and ribbons. There are some elements from Prima, Cosmo Cricket, and miscellaneous stuff from my stash in here too.



I have an entire kit of the new Webster's Pages Life's Portrait collection that I got in my April kit from My Creative Scrapbook - they make some awesome kits. Those are next on my list to work with.

Altered Book

I needed to make an altered book of some sort for Simply Scrapping Crafts, something I had never attempted before, so I decided to make a gift for my sister to showcase photos of her flowers. I envisioned making the flowers 3D by using layered photos, and beyond that I wasn't sure what to make or how to make it - I usually design as I go, so I figured I could wing it okay.

I first went on a trip to a local second hand store and found a great book for $2 - it had gorgeous photos and instructions for making various crafts - it was actually a shame to cut on the book. Once I had the book, then I decided that I would make it into several sections that would each be somewhat of a shadow box and would showcase an individual photo.

Then I needed to make the 3D photos. For each photo, I needed 3 or 4 identical prints of the shot, depending on how many layers I could identify. The following is a shot of some of the finished photos in layers.



Then I went into actually making the project. The following are some photos of the project, which is semi-finished at this point. I got all of the individual sections done, and now I will go back and finish the cover, and add additional embellishments to the two-page spread where each section opens up. I especially like how the photos turned out with the 3D effect and the silk ribbons that I used to edge each section - I purchased those ribbons a couple of years ago because I was going to try silk ribbon embroidery (but of course I procrastinated and never did), and I thought they looked especially beautiful on this project.















Hopefully I will have photos of the completed project up pretty soon. If you have any questions about anything, just let me know! Thanks for stopping by!

Gift Card Holders

I spent last weekend making 17 gift card holders - I used every single one of them! That's a lot of gift cards ... and holders! I had a great time making these though, and they are extremely easy to make. I followed a tutorial by Diane Davies that she posted on Simply Scrapping Crafts, and then I dragged out my loads of Christmas papers and embellishments and tried to be creative without over-complicating things. The following photos are a few of what I made!







Thanks for stopping by to take a peek, and I hope that everyone has a glorious Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Year!